Siren

by Tricia Rayburn

  The man, whoever he was, was dead. Done. Gone. Washed up like a fish.

  And when he turned over, his eyes were wide open and his mouth was stretched in a wide smile, like he was happy about it.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE you can just lie there like that.”

  I lifted my head to see Paige jogging toward me across the rocky shore. “It’s eighty-two degrees. Eighty-two. That’s ten degrees warmer than the last warmest day we had.”

  “Which is why you should be swimming.” She spread a towel next to mine and dropped to the ground. “You can actually dry off outside without freezing.”

  I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. “I don’t swim.”

  “What do you mean? Your family has a house in one of the East Coast’s most beautiful waterfront vacation destinations. How could you not take advantage of Winter Harbor’s greatest natural asset? The one thing—besides Betty’s Chowder House, of course—that has drawn visitors here for decades?” Paige managed to mock the Lighthouse sales pitches, and me, in one go.

  My right cheek grew warmer as I turned toward her. “Truthfully?”

  “Please,” she said, wringing out her hair. “On a day like today, the reason is going to be hard to believe no matter what.”

  I paused. Today, as in recent days, the truth included a lot of things I didn’t feel like talking about. And not that I would’ve anyway, but after my Camp Heroine discovery three days before, I definitely wasn’t jumping in the ocean anytime soon. It was probably better to tell her something than to let her come to her own conclusions.

  Plus, she was Paige. I trusted her.

  “I’m scared of the water,” I said finally. “I wasn’t always—up until a few years ago, the only thing I wasn’t afraid of was the water. It didn’t matter if I was in the ocean, Lake Kantaka, the school pool, wherever. I always felt comfortable … safe even.”

  She stretched out on her towel and turned her head toward me. “So what happened?”

  “On a cold June day two years ago, my family and I decided to have a picnic on Beacon Beach. There’d been a bad storm the day before, and the waves were huge.” I closed my eyes briefly, picturing the blue sky, the green water, Big Poppa’s hair growing frizzier in the salty spray. “And after lunch, my sister dared me to go in the water.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  I looked away. In my moment of partial honesty, I’d almost forgotten which things I wanted to keep private. “Later,” I continued, hoping Paige wouldn’t press, “she said she was kidding. But at the time, I thought she was serious. And there weren’t—aren’t—many things I hate more than disappointing her.”

  “I know what you mean,” Paige said with a sigh.

  “So since my parents would’ve flipped, I said I was going for a walk. I headed down about a half a mile—close enough that they could see me, but far enough that they could mistake me for someone else if they weren’t really looking.” I shot up and scooted back when the cool runoff reached my feet. “It was a bad idea. As soon as the water hit my ankles, I knew it was a bad idea. But I did it anyway.”

  “Sisters,” Paige groaned. “A blessing and a curse at the same time.”

  “Seriously,” I said after a pause. I trusted Paige, but she didn’t really need to know that pleasing Justine wasn’t the main reason I let the water pull me in.

  “There are no lifeguards at Beacon Beach,” she said a minute later. “Did you make it out on your own?”

  I focused on the water as my cheeks burned. “EMTs are pretty strong swimmers.”

  She shuddered. “Oh, Vanessa. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  I offered her a small smile. “Anyway, I haven’t been swimming since. I still love the ocean, but it’s just so big, you know? And it can change direction, gain momentum, and drag you toward the horizon without warning.”

  “Plus there’s the issue of all the scary creatures lurking below.” She tilted her face to the sun. “Before the accident, Grandma always said that she was more comfortable in the water than on land, and that if she didn’t go in for at least an hour a day she felt mentally and physically off. Raina and Z aren’t quite that dependent, but they swim at least a few times a week, and Z’s gotten even more into it since graduating. I like swimming—but I also like dancing. And going to the movies. And eating cereal for dinner. It’s a fun thing to do every now and then, but it’s not something I need to do.”

  “Does being in the ocean ever make you nervous?”

  “Not really … maybe because I’ve spent so much time around it if not in it? But I can see why it might make other people nervous. Especially here, especially now, with bodies washing onshore every other day.”

  My breath caught.

  “But on to happier topics,” she said after a moment, her voice brighter. “Like your sister. Where is she? When can I meet her? Can she give Zara any tips?”

  I opened my mouth, prepared to say that Justine was in a summer-school program in Switzerland, or working as a nanny in Paris, or some other harmless white lie that could explain her absence for the rest of the summer. Before I could pick one, I spotted Raina standing with one arm around a young, good-looking guy on the top of the stairs leading down to the beach.

  “Wow. Your mom is Maine’s very own Demi Moore.”

  Paige followed my gaze, then jumped up and waved. “That’s not Ashton—that’s Jonathan.”

  As she flew across the sand, up the steep staircase, and into Jonathan’s arms, I jogged after her and thought of Simon. He’d left the day after our trip to Camp Heroine to do more research, and I hadn’t heard from him since. I didn’t know when he’d be back so was doing my best to not think about him, but that just made me wonder why not thinking about him had become so hard. That, however, was better than thinking that I missed him. Which I did. A lot.

  “Hi, Mrs. Marchand,” I said, feeling increasingly see-through as I neared the top of the stairs. Raina was wearing a short red sundress that showed off her long legs and golden skin, and her dark hair hung in a loose braid down her back. If Jonathan had been her boyfriend, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Vanessa,” she said coolly, “please call me Miss Marchand. ‘Mrs.’ is for the poor woman who believes marriage is a good idea.”

  “Like me,” Paige said, hanging from Jonathan’s neck. “Vanessa, please meet the best boyfriend ever.”

  I smiled and held out my hand to shake his but quickly retracted it when the happy couple kissed like they were alone in a darkened room. I glanced at Raina, expecting to see a disapproving frown—and then grabbed the railing with my other hand when she beamed with pride.

  “And Jonathan,” Paige said, coming up for air, “I’d like you to meet Vanessa, my new best friend and soul sister. She’s giving Zara a run for her money.”

  “It’s great to meet you.” He smiled at me as he put his arms around Paige’s waist and lifted her off the ground. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Given their current mutual obsession, I didn’t know how there was time left to talk about anything else, but the thought made me smile anyway. We didn’t know everything about each other, but Paige and I were still pretty close for having met not that long ago. And I was glad she seemed to feel the same way.

  “Jonathan,” Raina said, hooking her arm through his and gently pulling him away from Paige, “I hear you’re training for a marathon in the fall? Tell me more. It’s obvious that you’re quite the athlete….”

  “Isn’t he the best?” Paige sighed as they continued walking and we followed several feet behind. “And how cute is it that he and Raina are, like, BFFs?”

  “Very,” I said, watching Raina put one arm around his waist.

  “Speaking of boyfriends,” Paige said when we reached the porch and Raina and Jonathan disappeared inside, “Z’s got another one. Unlike me, who’s only dated one guy ever, she goes through guys like a tornado through a cornfield.”

/>   “Who’s the latest?” Given Zara’s temperaments, I wasn’t sure whether to imagine a clean-cut tourist type, or a tattooed, leather-clad biker.

  “I’ll show you, but we have to hurry. Z worked the lunch shift today.”

  I followed her inside. As we headed for the stairs, I caught a glimpse of Raina and Jonathan in the kitchen. She poured him a glass of orange juice, then leaned across the counter and tilted her head toward him like whatever he said was the most fascinating thing she’d ever heard. She laughed lightly, and my head pulsated in response. The feeling eased as I hurried after Paige upstairs.

  “She would totally kill us if she knew what we were doing right now.”

  I stopped short outside Zara’s open bedroom door. “Then maybe we shouldn’t do it.”

  But Paige was already inside the room and opening Zara’s desk drawers. “She’ll go for me first, so you’ll get a good head start.”

  “Um, Paige?” I watched her rifle through papers and pull out folders. “I don’t really want a head start. I do my best to avoid all potentially life-threatening situations.”

  She glanced at her watch. “If she left right away, we still have at least seven minutes.”

  Nessa …

  My head snapped to the left. Justine had sounded like she stood right next to me, but the hallway was empty.

  Dear, sweet Nessa …

  I hadn’t heard her in a few days and couldn’t tell if I was scared or relieved to hear her now.

  It’s okay …

  “Got it!”

  I forced myself to look away from the hallway and into Zara’s room. Paige sat on the bed, triumphantly holding up two books.

  You’ll be okay …

  I knew it was crazy to be reassured by her words, but I was anyway and walked slowly through the doorway, my heart beating faster with each step. I braced myself for the instant, excruciating headache that always seemed to hit whenever Zara was near, but it didn’t come. When my head remained clear, I looked around the room hesitantly, taking in the white comforter, the sheer white fabric cascading from the top of the four-poster bed, the dresser lined with crystal perfume bottles. A white table sat in front of the wall of windows facing the ocean and held a glass vase filled with roses.

  Paige patted the bed for me join her. “So Z likes to think of herself as this beautiful, sophisticated, mysterious person … but, really? Total dork. Exhibit A.”

  I sat down and took the smaller of the two books. “La vie en rose?” I rubbed my thumb over the script pressed into the white leather cover.

  “Life in pink,” Paige said. “Open it.”

  Something flashed suddenly in the dresser mirror across from us. “I don’t think so,” I said, handing it back.

  “You know we’re on dry land,” she said, taking the book. “There are no creatures of the deep to be afraid of here.”

  “You just said Zara would totally kill us.”

  “Fine.” She held the book out so I could see and flipped through the pages.

  “It looks like a diary.”

  “Exactly. Except …” She pointed to the top right corner of a page in the middle of the book.

  “Avril?”

  “April,” she said, her silver eyes glittering. “The whole thing’s written in French.”

  She seemed excited by this, but I didn’t get it. “And?”

  “And Z took Spanish in school. We both did.”

  I still didn’t get it, and we were running out of time. “So she picked up another language. Maybe she got some books on CD, or took an online course.”

  “Sure. But the point is, she writes all of her innermost thoughts in the most beautiful, sophisticated, romantic language in the world. Because that’s her, or who she wants to be—beautiful, sophisticated, desired by all.”

  “Okay,” I said, even though I thought that maybe the real reason she wrote all of her innermost thoughts in the most beautiful, sophisticated, romantic language in the world was so that her little sister wouldn’t be able to read them when she went snooping for secrets.

  “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to hold on to this long enough to translate any of the entries, but when I found this, I didn’t need to.”

  The second book was bigger than the first, and its quilted pink cover was trimmed in delicate white lace. In the cover’s center was a small pocket with a window, and in the pocket was a photo of Zara standing on the cliff behind their house with the ocean in the background. She wore a long white sundress, and her dark hair floated around her in the wind.

  “She is beautiful,” I said. Even if she was mean and cranky and hated me for no reason, there was no denying that.

  “Look,” Paige said eagerly, turning the cover.

  “A scrapbook?”

  “Do you have one?”

  I shook my head. Mom had been trying to get me to start one for years, but I didn’t think I’d done or experienced anything worth remembering. Unlike Justine—her scrapbook was actually two thick albums, and they were filled with ski lift tickets, boarding passes, certificates, and blue ribbons.

  “They’re kind of lame, but also kind of fun,” Paige continued. “Mine has the usual stuff—movie tickets, birthday cards, notes from my friends. But Z’s got a totally different approach.”

  The first page of Zara’s scrapbook was a collage of photos of herself. Justine’s had something similar, though her photos also included other people. But the second page was where Zara’s approach to scrapbooking took a different turn.

  “That’s a lot of hair.”

  “Xavier Cooper,” Paige said. “And he didn’t really have that much hair in person. It just looks like a lot because the picture’s enormous.”

  “Why so big?” The head shot took up the whole page and almost made me uncomfortable, like Xavier was really there, his head in Paige’s lap.

  “Because, Vanessa … when you date Zara Marchand, when you get that close to greatness and maybe even call it your own for a little while, your mug deserves a full page.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yes. Xavier and Zara dated two years ago, for what I and everyone else thought was about three weeks. He started following her around between shifts at Betty’s, and just when it looked like they might actually be a couple, she cut him off. Totally ignored him. The poor guy would actually walk behind her, asking how she was and if she wanted to hang out after work, and she wouldn’t say a word. Thankfully, his family only came that summer. A quick, permanent exit is the best you can hope for when you get your heart smashed into a zillion pieces.”

  “And the guy still got a full page? Obviously she didn’t think whatever they had going on was a very big deal.”

  “That’s what we thought.” She turned the page. “But we were wrong.”

  “Eddie’s Ice Cream?” It was yellowing with age, but I recognized the wafer cone wrapper immediately.

  “‘Where it all began,’” Paige read from the handwritten note underneath. “‘May twentieth. Saw Xavier today. He was working. I ordered a chocolate milk shake and decided he was the one.’”

  “The one?”

  “Cheesy, right? But May twentieth was almost two months before anyone noticed something going on. And look—a blade of grass from when they walked in the park. A receipt from the café where they first held hands. The empty Tic Tac box from when she ate a mint before kissing him for the first time. There’s some weird artifact from almost every single day between May twentieth and when we first realized they were hanging out.” She flipped forward a few pages. “And look at this. A greeting card turned to the inside where he wrote—”

  “‘I love you always …’”

  “I love you. He loved her. Always. And then a week after he tells her so, she can’t bother to give him the time of day.”

  “Harsh.”

  “And topping off this amazing display of dorkdom …” She pointed to the small script under the card.

  “‘Start: May twentieth. End: August twel
fth. Total Time: eighty-four days.’”

  “She counted the number of days between the ice-cream-cone wrapper and the greeting card, and recorded it like some sort of tombstone inscription. Who does that?” She flipped forward a few pages. “And it’s the same kind of thing with every guy. Head shot, weird mementos, some declaration of love, and—bam. End date. Game over.”

  It really was like a game and seemed pretty mean, even for Zara.

  “The only things that change are the guy and relationship length. And her boyfriend choices don’t make any sense after a while. Xavier was a somewhat logical pick because he was older than her, very popular with the summer crowd, and adorable. But this guy?” She turned to Max Hawkins, toward the back of the book. He looked several years older than Xavier, had three hoops in his bottom lip, and his eyelids hung so low he looked half asleep. “Not only is he not Z’s type, but he’s the kind of guy who usually makes fun of girls like her. He eventually said he loved her in permanent marker on a CD case, but their relationship—or whatever you want to call it—started on August twenty-fifth and ended September twelfth. It lasted nineteen days.”

  I was thinking that that was nineteen days longer than any relationship I’d ever had when a dull pressure began to build near my left temple. “I think Zara might be home.”

  “Really?” She checked her watch.

  “I think I heard a car door slam.” Resisting the urge to press my fingers against the growing pressure, I was relieved when Paige closed the book and dashed to a hallway window.

  “Game over!” she squealed. She flew back into the room, her silver eyes shining at having come so close to being caught. She replaced the journal in the desk, and the quilted scrapbook on top of a tall white bookshelf. “She was just getting out of the car.”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me with her, toward the door. I couldn’t get out of the bedroom fast enough, but stopped abruptly when Paige ran into the hallway.