Ty closed the back of Luci’s minivan. “I dunno. Lemme think about it. Did your mom make that awesome potato salad?”
Isabella shook her head in exasperation. “I don’t know! Ty…” she sighed. Boys! And does he ever think about anything other than food and fishing? “Mom, Ty wants to know if you made your—and I quote—’awesome’ potato salad.”
Luci laughed. “Yes, Ty. I did. An extra large batch. I know how much you like it. There’s potato salad, turkey and ham and cheese sandwiches, and that lemon cake you love so much for dessert. Plus lots of cherry Kool-Aid. Happy?” She grinned and their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
Ty grinned back at her. “Mrs. LaFelini, will you adopt me? Please?”
Oh, great, Isabella thought, he treats me like I’m his sister already, and now he wants to be my brother?!
Luci laughed again. “Tyson LaFelini…hmm. Interesting name. But wouldn’t your mother miss you terribly?”
“Nah. She’d probably be relieved. She’s always complaining that I eat too much…”
“Which you do,” Isabella interjected. “But she’d miss you helping around the house.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Ty agreed. “Who would mow the lawn? And take meat out of the freezer—although she hardly trusts me to do it the right way!”
Isabella and Ty cracked up, and Luci was lost by the private joke. When they stopped laughing, Ty tried to explain it, but by then, they had arrived waterside where Rick and his rented boat sat waiting.
“Oooh, there he is! Hi, Rick,” Luci giggled and waved. Isabella rolled her eyes in disgust and impatience.
“Mom, I’m sure he sees you. Let’s just park the car, huh?” And to Ty, she said softly, “See what I mean? She’s insane. Goo-goo over this guy. Ridiculous.”
“I think she looks happy,” Ty risked, speaking just as softly. “Look at her smile.”
Isabella scowled, which Ty interpreted as her telling him he was right, but she said, “Whatever.”
Ty grinned and changed the subject. “I hope we anchor someplace where we can get a lot of fish!”
Luci parked the car and said, “Isabella, you get the cooler, please. Ty, help me with all this fishing stuff, would you please?”
Ty flinched. Stuff! Clearly that’s where Isabella got her irreverence for fishing gear. To his amazement, Isabella spoke up.
“It’s gear, Mom, not stuff. And I’ll help Ty. You go see your boyfriend.”
“Are you sure?” Luci asked, although both and Isabella knew she was just being polite and really wanted to go see Rick.
“Yep. We can handle it. Go on.” To Ty, Isabella remarked, “See? I told you. She’s nuts.”
Ty laughed and gathered up his fishing rods and the tackle box. “I think we’re gonna need to make two trips. Do you mind?”
Isabella was grateful to give her mother the time she needed, and truth be told, she wanted to spend a little one-on-one time with Ty. “Nope, no problem at all.”
They walked together across the street to where Rick’s boat was tethered and handed him and Luci the cooler and fishing gear. “We’ll be right back,” Isabella told her mother. “We just need to grab the drink cooler and the cooler for the fish we catch.”
Rick’s cell phone rang before Isabella had finished her sentence. “Sorry, guys, it’s work. Excuse me a minute,” and he went to the other side of the boat.
Isabella strained to hear what he was saying. Although her hearing was much stronger now than before the transformations had begun, she still struggled to hear what he was saying from his spot on the other side of the boat. All she could make out was “She what? What did you do?” and “…gone all day. Check it out while you have the opportunity” and “…don’t make me regret bringing you…” He sounded angry and anxious, but when he returned to their side of the boat, he was all smiles.
Isabella scrutinized him. There was something dead in his eyes—of that she was certain. His face was all smiles, but his eyes…his eyes were cold and sinister. Sinister. Good word, she congratulated herself. “C’mon, Ty,” she plastered a big false smile on her face, “let’s go get the rest of our things. Be right back, Mom.”
Ty knew Isabella well enough to detect quickly her fake smile. “What’s going on?”
“His phone conversation. Did you hear any of it?”
Ty shook his head. “Nope, did you? Of course you did, Miss Kitty.”
“Don’t call me that. Yes, I did. Something about a ‘she’ who did something and the fact that she—or someone is gone all day and that he didn’t want to ‘regret bringing’ whoever he was talking to. Ty, I know you think I’m just being stupid, but there’s something about this guy…”
For once, Ty agreed with her. “I don’t have super hearing, Isabella, but he did seem like he was trying really hard to make us think there was nothing wrong when he sure looked like there was. Maybe there is something going on. I’ll keep an eye on him with you.”
Isabella smiled at him. “Thanks, Ty. Appreciate it.” Her green eyes met his brown ones, and the tension between them was nearly palpable. HONNNNNKKK! Rick had the captain lay on the boat horn. HONNNNNKKK!
“Yeah, yeah!” Isabella called, “we’re coming!” And she gathered up the drink cooler and made her way toward the boat, Ty following behind with the smaller fish cooler.
Isabella had to admit that the boat Rick had rented was a nice one; it even had a lower area with a kitchen—or galley, as he told her—where they stopped fishing long enough to eat their lunch. The fishing hadn’t been too bad—Ty had caught three large fish that excited him immensely, but to Isabella, they were just ugly slippery things gasping for air before Ty put them out of their misery and put them on ice.
Lunch was delicious, and everyone had his or her fill of ham and turkey sandwiches, Luci’s ‘awesome’ potato salad and light spongy lemon cake. Rick hadn’t been too bad, except that he took two phone calls which didn’t seem to bother Luci at all but which totally annoyed Isabella.
“You think he could forget about business for a few hours, Mom?” Isabella asked Luci in a disgusted tone. “I mean really!”
Luci hushed her. “Isabella, it’s the fact that he works so hard that allows him to rent boats like this. It cost more than a thousand dollars just to rent for the day! So, if you would please be quiet…” She stopped talking as Rick came back into the galley.
“Sorry about that,” he said in his usual trying-too-hard-to-be-casual way. “Work emergency. I wish they could just do the job without me.”
“Work emergency?” Isabella couldn’t stop herself. “You’re a concert promoter. What the heck kind of emergencies can you possibly have?”
“Isabella Rose LaFelini!” her mother scolded. “Apologize this minute!”
Rick laughed. “Nah, it’s okay. Izzy, one of my performers wasn’t happy with her backstage accommodations. It happens.”
“Isabella.” She spat the word through clenched teeth.
“Huh?”
Luci intervened. Gently, she told him, “You called her ‘Izzy’. We don’t do that. Her…her father called her that. No one else does.”
Isabella looked away from the table. Rick reached over and touched her shoulder, and she flinched as if his fingers were on fire.
“Sorry, Isa-bella,” he said, emphasizing the last two syllables of her name. “I didn’t know. It won’t happen again. Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Isabella muttered under her breath. “I guess you didn’t know,” she added reluctantly and a little louder.
Rick’s cell phone rang again. Deliberately, but hoping it looked like an accident, Isabella knocked her cup of Kool-Aid over, spilling it onto his ringing phone. The phone stopped ringing immediately.
“Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry, Rick,” Isabella offered in what she hoped was a sincere voice. “I hope it’s all right. Here, let me help…” She grabbed a napkin and made sure to turn the phone face down in the Kool-Aid puddle before picking it up and wipi
ng it off.
She handed the phone back to Rick. “It’s a little sticky,” she told him, again feigning an apologetic voice. “Maybe you need a wet cloth to clean it…”
“I think it’s been wet enough,” Rick said, face reddened, through clenched teeth. He wanted to scream at Isabella to be more careful, but he was completely aware that Luci was watching him carefully.
“Oh, Rick, I am so sorry,” Luci told him. “I know Isabella didn’t mean it, but this is so terrible…does it still work?”
He scowled briefly, then forced a small smile. “Um, no. I’m afraid Kool-Aid and cell phones don’t mix.”
Isabella knew he was dying to yell at her, and she suppressed a giggle. “I’m really so sorry, Rick. I’ll…I’ll buy you a new one…I don’t have a job, so it’ll take a while, but…”
Luci spoke up, “I’ll buy you a new one, and Isabella, you can repay me.”
Rick’s normal color had almost returned, and he reached over and took Luci’s hand. “It’s all right, Luce. That’s why I have insurance on the thing. It’s okay. I just hope there aren’t any more work emergencies today. Maybe I can use your phone just to let my office know what happened?”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I left my cell in the car,” her mother told him, and with the news, Rick’s face reddened yet again.
Isabella was finding it hard not to laugh, so she bit her bottom lip. “Mom, let me kinda make it up to you and Rick. Ty and I’ll clean up. You guys go up on deck and get some sun.”
Luci was surprised as Isabella’s generosity. “Are you sure? And I don’t really think you should volunteer Ty, Isabella.”
Ty, who had watched the entire scene and although not surprised, was a little annoyed by Isabella’s behavior, reassured her it was all right. “I’m glad to help, Mrs. LaFelini. You guys go on and enjoy the fresh air. We’ll be up in a little while.”
Once Luci and Rick had climbed the stairs to the upper deck, Ty blasted Isabella. “What were you thinking? I know you soaked his phone on purpose! Just because he called you ‘Izzy’?”
“That isn’t why I did it,” Isabella was indignant at the accusation. “I did it because I’m sick of his phone ringing, and because I think he’s up to something bad, Ty.”
“Like what, Isabella?”
“I don’t know. Not exactly.” She sighed. “But the phone calls. Ty, he’s up to something bad. I just know it. You know, it’s like animal instinct or something. I just know it.” She was so vehement that she was shaking a little.
Ty swallowed hard. “Okay. If you say there’s something wrong, then there is. I’ll keep a closer eye.”
“Do something else for me, would ya?”
Ty had a feeling he was going to regret asking, but he did. “What?”
“Get sick.” Ty look at Isabella like she had lost her mind. “Seriously. Pretend you’re sick. Insist we go back to land. I don’t know why, but I think he wants us to be gone all day. So let’s not give him what he wants. Let’s go back home. I’d do it, but after the phone thing, he might get suspicious of anything I do. Do it for me, Ty. Please?”
Ty slowly exhaled. “Okay, Isabella. For you. Maybe you’re right. He did seem kinda weird with those phone calls. How sick do you want me to be?”
Isabella thought for a moment. “Can you do ‘seasick’? I mean, throwing up and all?”
Ty shook his head slowly from side to side. “How did I know you were gonna ask me that? Yeah, I can probably fake that…go up top and tell your mom I just threw up in the bathroom. I’ll go in and try to actually do it.”
“You’d do that for me? Seriously?” She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “You’re the best, Tyson Briggs!”
Their eyes met for a seemingly endless moment. “Okay,” he said, breaking the trance, “go on. I’m gonna go puke. Ugh…the things I get myself in to…”
“I’ll be back in a minute, Ty,” she told him and bounded up the stairs to give her mother the “bad” news.
“Mom,” Isabella had rehearsed it well, “you’ve gotta come downstairs. Ty is sick. I mean really sick. Praying-to-the-porcelain-gods sick. Recycling-his-lunch sick. Revisiting-old-friends sick. B-A-R-F-I-N-G. He’s throwing up, Mom.”
“Yeah, I got that, Isabella,” her mother said sarcastically. “Where is he?”
“Bathroom.”
“Okay. Rick, I’ll be right back.” She kissed him and went down to see Ty.
“Ty’s sick, huh?” Rick asked her. “Came down with that pretty quick, didn’t he?”
Crap! Isabella thought. He seems suspicious! “Um, yeah, I think it was lunch. He ate a lot.”
Rick had to agree. “Yeah, he did. Poor kid. Didn’t he take any seasickness medication?”
“I don’t think so. He’s kinda stubborn about things like that, you know?” Isabella relaxed as it seemed Rick was buying her story.
Luci came up behind them, with Ty trailing her, truly looking ill.
“Rick, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think we need to get back to shore.”
Isabella was surprised—Ty actually looked really and truly sick. She leaned over and whispered to him, “You are doing great. I can’t believe it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were really sick…”
“I am really sick,” Tyson groaned. “It must’ve been that third piece of lemon cake. I didn’t have to make myself sick—I threw up without any help. Right now, I feel like barfing again. Ugh…”
Rick looked critically at Ty and back at Luci. “Can’t you just give the kid some anti-seasick medication?”
Luci shook her head. “I know. I’m disappointed, too, hon, but poor Ty is really sick. We need to get him on dry land.”
Rick scowled. “Maybe if he went and laid down for a while…”
Luci shook her head again. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, somehow. But we’ve got to get this kid home. I know you understand…” She smiled sweetly at him, and he finally gave in.
“Yeah, okay. We gotta go back,” he called to the captain. “Got a sick kid here.” And to Luci he said, “You sure you don’t have your cell phone with you?”
“No, but maybe Ty does?”
“Ye…um, no,” Ty said a little too sharply, responding to the kick Isabella had given his shin. “I left it home, Mrs. L. I’m sorry…”
“Look, Mom, another reason you should get me a cell phone,” Isabella chirped. She was pleased with herself. Everything was going according to plan—her plan, rather than Rick’s.
Twenty-Two: Back on Land
THE MINUTE THEY docked, Rick sprang off the boat and quickly walked Luci to her car. As quick as he was, though, he couldn’t beat Isabella, who had grabbed a cooler and set off for the car even faster.
“Isabella, get my cell phone for Rick, would you please?” her mother called.
Isabella had all intentions of getting her mother’s cell phone, but not to give to Rick. She pushed the little black phone deep into the crack of the driver’s seat. “Where is it, Mom?” Isabella called, appearing interested. “I don’t find it. Did you leave it at home?”
Luci was flustered. “Oh, no, I may have. Rick, there was so much going on on the street that I probably forgot to grab the phone. Did I tell you about the neighbors?” She went on to fill in Rick about that morning’s encounter with the man who called himself Frank Overman. She finished with, “And I don’t know…I just feel like something was wrong with that picture, you know what I mean?”
Isabella, who had cleared the back seat for Ty to lie down, had returned to her mother and Rick, and she watched him carefully. He reached over and stroked her mother’s cheek.
“Aw, Luce, it was probably nothing,” he told her in a way that made Isabella believe he didn’t believe it himself. “You probably told him your name yourself. After all, you were in a hurry, right? Trying to get around to come see me?”
Luci nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s probably all it was. Sheesh, I
don’t know why I’m so suspicious all of a sudden…”
Because of your instincts, Isabella wanted to scream. Trust your instincts, Mom. If you think something is wrong, it probably is! Instead, she said, “I just have to get Ty’s fishing gear off the boat. Ty’s laying down in our backseat. Mom, can you grab the fish cooler?”
Rick’s eyes narrowed a bit when they met Isabella’s eyes. Or did they? Was she just being suspicious? “Got any change, Luce? I’m gonna go use that phone booth.” Luci dug into her wallet and extracted a handful of change. “Be right back,” he told her.
“Boy, he’s addicted to that phone, isn’t he, Mom?” Isabella asked in what she hoped was a casual manner.
To her surprise, her mother agreed with her. “Yeah. I wonder why…”
The two women recovered all of their gear from the boat, and as they made their way back to the car, Luci asked, “How’s Ty feeling?”
“A little better, I think”.
“You want to see if he’s up to having dinner later? I thought I’d clean and cook his fish as a treat.”
“Yeah, I can do that. Mom, you want Rick to come, too?”
Luci was surprised. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind…”
“Nope, not at all. Let me go ask him.” Isabella darted across the parking lot to the pay telephone behind Joey’s Sea Breeze restaurant. As she got closer, she could hear Rick’s angry voice, “…coming home early, dammit. Yeah, one of the kids got sick. You gotta get outta there…” As soon as he saw Isabella, his voice and demeanor completely changed. “Yeah, Mary Alice, thank you for taking care of that. And you’ll order the replacement for my phone? K, thanks.” He hung up the phone and turned to face Isabella directly. “Hey, what’s up?”
Isabella regarded him carefully. “My mom wants to know if you want to come over for dinner to eat the fish we caught.”
“Um, yeah, that’d be good. But first, I need to go home and take care of a few things. How’s Ty? Miraculously healed?”
“Um, no.” Isabella glared at him. “Do you think he was faking?” she asked him outright.
The First Nine Lives of Isabella LaFelini Page 12
