Lie to Me (an OddRocket title)

by Brahm, Suzanne

  "And tell me, Cassandra the psychic, where there are sunken ships, are there ghosts?" RD laughed ghoulishly.

  "Why, yes," I said, playing along and using a melodramatic voice. "So, the legend is, if you sail around Jekyll before midnight, you have to start after sunset and you have to be alone. If you make it solo and manage to avoid all the rocks, the ghosts that haunt the waters will grant you a wish."

  "All the ghosts, even the old deck boys and cooks? Or is there one magic ghost like Jekyll with all the power?"

  "Supposedly, Jekyll the pirate is the one with the mojo. It’s stupid."

  "We should do it," RD said, standing up and rocking the boat. "I want to go around Jekyll. I want my wish!"

  "Well, today can't count."

  "What?" He sat back. "You think the ghosts will deny me. I get it. No big."

  "Nope." I pointed to the sky. "Daylight. It's no good. And you gotta be alone."

  "Stupid ghost rules.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. "'Cause you know what? If I could get a wish, I would use it and I'd use it today."

  "Me, too," I said, likewise closing my eyes in the sun. I'd forgotten sunscreen; the sun felt so good on my skin. I didn't care that I would have new freckles. What did it matter? I used to obsess about how I looked for Nick, maybe because he always made me think I didn't look good enough for him. Hanging out with RD, I hadn't worried once about being pretty, not that he cared about that stuff. It just felt good to hang out with someone who wasn't constantly looking over my shoulder and staring at my best friend.

  "So, what would you wish?" RD said. "A billion dollars? A magic plane ticket that would take you anywhere in the world whenever you wanted?"

  "Oh, that is good," I said. Behind him a salmon jumped high out of the water. "I think I would wish for a do-over."

  "A what?"

  "A do-over," I said. "I'd skip having a crush on Nick for basically my whole life and worry about spending more time on the water and making more friends, mainly the non-lying kind."

  "Still stings, huh?" RD cringed and took a sip of his beer. "I'm sorry, kid."

  Kid. Now that stung a little, too, but I smiled and took a sip of my bubble water. It was okay. RD still talked to me like a grown-up and I liked that. "How about you?" I asked.

  "Well," he sighed. "What wouldn't I do over? You know, I like that. I would like a do-over that goes back to my freshman year in college. You may not realize this, but I am a little old to be a senior. There were events, early in my career, that derailed me a bit."

  "Events."

  "Let’s just call the event, a girl."

  "Oh," I said, swallowing. A girl. So RD had a girl. Thinking about him with someone made my stomach tighten up a bit. "Was she your girlfriend?"

  "Yes. Yes, she was. When I first met her, she was pretty, smart, funny."

  "Oh," I said, trying to paint a picture of RD's perfect girl in my mind.

  He laughed. "But we made some mistakes. It got messy and, you know, if I could, I would go back in time and make different choices, but whatever." He finished his beer and stowed it in the trash before standing. "You're a sweet girl. It was really nice of you to sail with me, but I do not want your Mom flipping out about you being out here, so we should probably hit the motor."

  "She wouldn't flip out." I lied, trying to act nonchalant.

  "She lets you go sailing with guys in the harbor?"

  "No," I said. "But I'll tell her about you. She'll be cool."

  "Actually," RD said, "how about you don't. She might not like it and, honestly, I don't need trouble.”

  I didn't really get what kind of trouble he meant. We'd gone sailing, no big deal, but if he didn't want me to tell, I wouldn't. “Okay.” I shrugged.

  "Cool," he said, smiling at me. He leaned forward. I could see little flecks of brown in his blue eyes. He had pushed his sunglasses back on his head and unzipped his sweatshirt. I could see the top of the letters in “Washington” on his gray t-shirt. "It will take us about an hour to motor back anyway. Hopefully, I can still order from the breakfast menu."

  "An hour?" I sat straight, my pulse rocketing. It had taken us about an hour to sail out to the island. The wind had propelled us across the water. We’d been drifting for even longer. "I'm supposed to pick up my sister, Addie, at five o’clock."

  RD cringed. "It's close to four now," he said, looking at his watch.

  "We should motor back."

  "I'm on it." He started the engine. "I'm really sorry. I had no idea the wind would die."

  "It's okay," I said, my heart hammering.

  We were on the other side of Jekyll and the motor wasn't that powerful. It felt like slow motion as we puttered along. It took longer than an hour. When the clock hit five, I checked my cell phone, expecting a call from my mother any minute. I'd have to answer, since ignoring a phone call from my mother was a major offense. Mom told me that if I didn't take her calls, she'd have to assume that I was either dead, injured or doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing.

  We reached the dock at five-twenty. By some miracle, Mom didn't call and neither did Addie. I jumped off the boat as soon as we docked. RD told me he could tie down the boat without my help.

  "I've been sailing this boat alone for so long, I wouldn't even know what to do with your help. I'll come see you later tonight at the restaurant. Go on." He pretended to shoo me off the boat. "Later, beautiful."

  I tried not to trip. "Okay." I ran up the dock as fast as I could, and grabbed my bike. It was only the beginning, but I already did exactly what RD said.

  Chapter 8

  Addie sat on the front steps of the Boys and Girls Club, her lips set in a thin line. Her lemon-lime jacket was folded up beside her feet. The parking lot was empty. I rode up on my bike, but Addie didn't move. She wasn't going to make this easy.

  "Addie. I'm so sorry," I said, leaning my bike against a rail. "I got distracted.”

  "You forgot me," she said, not moving. Her blue eyes gleamed. "Mom said you were supposed to pick me up at five o’clock. It's almost six. I was going to call her."

  "I know. I know," I pounded my hands on my bike seat like it was a drum. "Come on, come on. I'm sorry. You can sit on the handlebars."

  “Mom says that’s dangerous.”

  “Mom should have left me a car.”

  “Fine,” she sighed and picked up her bag, handing it to me so I could strap it to the rack on the back. I steadied the bike while she climbed onto the handlebars.

  I started toward the road. Pedaling with Addie felt like I was pushing the bike through drying cement, but not being in trouble was worth it.

  "Bunker Blue's mom was late, too. He talked to me for a whole ten minutes. It was horrible." Addie glanced back at me. "And Priya drove by the Boys and Girls Club. She saw me sitting all by myself and offered to drive me home."

  "Cool," I said, my whole body tensing at the mention of her name.

  "I think she feels bad."

  "I'm sure she does."

  "Do you hate her now?"

  "No. I don't know.”

  "Did she steal Nick?"

  "Addie, can we just talk about something else? Anything, please?" There was one sloping hill between my bicycle and rest. I really wished my sister would stop talking and let me focus on my burning legs.

  "Sorry."

  I didn’t want to think about Priya and Nick. I wanted to think about RD and that feeling of flying across the water. Mom would be furious if she knew, but I didn't care. All these years, I'd wondered what it would feel like to sail like Dad, to feel the wind rushing over my body. Today, I finally understood. Dad probably felt alive on the water, too. I didn't want to give that up.

  We made it to the gravel parking lot of the Hideaway. "I'm going to be a photographer this summer," Addie said, jumping off the bike. My legs felt like jello when I stood. "It's probably going to change my life. Mom gave me Dad's old camera. And I'm going to start by taking pictures of the island. You know, photo essay type stuf
f. Maybe I could hang out with you and take pictures instead of going to baby camp."

  "Mom pays for you to go to baby camp," I said, locking my bike to the chain link fence. "Besides, the dock is boring."

  "Nothing is as boring as baby camp," she said. "Nobody believes me. I bet whatever you did today was better than baby camp."

  "I sat home and watched TV and tried not to feel sorry for myself."

  "You did nothing?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing with who?"

  "Nothing by myself," I said, then remembered that my sister actually had something on me. "I'll take you down on the docks later this week. We can take pictures. Let’s just not tell Mom I was late today, okay?"

  Once inside the restaurant, Addie set up camp in the booth everyone hated by the kitchen door. She emptied her backpack across the whole table like it was her home office: A photography book, a camera and a copy of National Geographic. I couldn't believe Mom had given her Dad's old camera. Usually she didn’t like us touching his stuff. A body snatcher had stolen my Mother. She looked the same, more or less, but she seemed to fold like a house of cards at my sister's every whim. Addie paged through the National Geographic and took notes, sometimes pausing to put the ballpoint pen in the corner of her mouth like an anthropologist.

  Mom was still on the mainland. Nick wasn't working. I kept my phone turned off so I wouldn't have to read any more of Priya's texts. They just made me angry and a little sick. The only thing that made me feel good was thinking of RD laughing on the boat. The way he'd stood up and hollered at the wind as if he didn't care who heard him. I'd never seen anyone be so un-self-conscious. I'd certainly never felt that way.

  Mariah had me sweeping the floors, a thankless job, but one that is easy to do without thinking. The restaurant was slow, which meant Mariah doled out all the horrid clean up jobs. I swept, cleaned and re-filled the ketchup bottles leaving nothing but the worst job in the world, scrubbing down menus. The kid's menus are beyond gross, so I decided to wipe them down first.

  I kept having these daydreams about talking to Nick. He'd come into the restaurant, see me standing at the counter, my hair windswept from sailing, my cheeks pink from the sun. He'd be overcome with regret, beg me to take him back or, better yet, tell me what a mistake he'd made.

  "I'm going to quit, Cassie," he'd say. I imagined him running his hands through his dark hair, his eyes brimming with tears. "It hurts me too much to be near you."

  "If you think it's best," I'd say and squeeze his hand. In my imagination, I never lost my temper and I never cried because I wasn't that girl. I was the kind of girl who sailed across the ocean with the wind blowing through her hair. I laughed at trivial things like lying ex-boyfriends and disloyal friends.

  The chime on the front door rang and I looked up as RD walked in. He winked at me before smiling at Mariah. "You all open?" he said, pointing to the empty restaurant.

  "Sure are. Sit anywhere you'd like," Mariah answered over her shoulder.

  "Thanks." He took off his baseball hat and sat with his back toward me at the same table as before. I'd already started to think of the booth by the window as his. When he walked past me, he smiled. His eyes crinkled up and his whole face changed.

  "Can you bring him a menu, Cass?" Mariah said.

  "Sure," I said, trying to look totally unaffected. My eyes drifted back to RD. He looked kissed by the sun. He looked like gold to me.

  The sound of Addie screaming cut through the restaurant. She burst through the swinging red doors, running straight toward me. "Something's wrong with Mom!" She stood gasping in front of the counter, eyes darting from Mariah to me. "She fell asleep, but she's not asleep and now she won't wake up!"

  Chapter 9

  Mariah dropped a sugar container on the brick floor. It shattered, dusting the ground with sparkling sugar glass. She ran past Addie into the kitchen. I followed.

  Mom lay on the floor, her purse beside her spilling open: Keys, cellphone, chapstick and a small bottle that looked like a prescription. She didn't look like she was asleep. She looked empty. Her eyes closed, skin pale, it was as if all the life had escaped her.

  Mariah cradled Mom's head in her arms. The way Mom's arms hung limply by her sides with her toes pointing outwards made her look like a rag doll. She must have just gotten back from the mainland, walked in the back door and then what? Collapsed? Slipped on the floor? The refrigerator door wide open, it looked like she'd fallen down as she'd reached for something inside.

  "Naomi." Mariah knelt over Mom, lightly slapping her face. "Naomi, can you hear me?"

  "What's wrong with her?" I said, my voice shaking.

  "She'll be okay," Mariah said, turning back to Mom. "I think she fainted."

  "Why?" I gasped. I reached over and grabbed the prescription bottle from the floor. Mom didn't even like to take aspirin. "What is she taking?"

  "Put those down, Cassie." Mariah reached for the pills.

  "No," I said. The label was from a pharmacy in Seattle. "Something’s wrong. Mom doesn't take medicine. She doesn't faint."

  Mariah sighed and looked at the ceiling. "I can't do this."

  "Do what?" I said. I looked at Mom's pale blue sweat suit and her shoes, the comfortable ones she wore in the garden. She dressed up more going to the grocery store. "She didn't go to the mainland to meet with a supplier, did she?"

  "You need to talk to your Mom?" Mariah said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I'm not going to get into the middle of this."

  "Middle of what?"

  I heard crying. Addie stood behind me, her back against the counter. She leaned into it as if she wanted to push herself out of the room. I couldn't stop looking at Mom's face, the way her mouth opened, slack jawed. What was Mariah talking about? All of a sudden, my mother's puffy face and baggy eyes looked different to me; she no longer looked tired, she looked sick.

  The kitchen door swung open. It was RD.

  Before I had time to even say hello, RD walked right in and knelt beside Mom. "I can help," he said softly.

  Mariah nodded and slid away, making room for him. I don't know why she trusted him right away, but she did. There was something about his voice that just made him sound strong.

  "I think she fainted," she said. "I checked her pulse."

  RD nodded and then looked up at Addie and me. "Your mom is going to be okay." His eyes lingered on my face and I felt my shoulders lower.

  "You sure?" I whispered.

  "Yep," he smiled. "We're going to raise her legs up here.” He stood and lifted Mom's feet. "We just need to help her brain wake up, get the blood flow going where it should be."

  Addie wrinkled her nose, but the tears stopped. I wanted to run across the room and throw my arms around RD so I could disappear into his deep voice. His words sounded like promises. He could make mom okay. In the course of a few minutes, I no longer felt like I understood the rules in my life. Mom and Mariah were keeping secrets.

  "Trust me," RD said, his voice focused, his face so composed, so strong. I didn't want him to leave until Mom was back to normal. I wanted him to keep us all safe.

  I nodded and scooted along the kitchen floor, making sure to give him more room while Mariah cradled Mom's head in her lap.

  "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up," Addie whispered.

  RD lowered Mom's feet to the ground. And then, she opened her eyes. I felt like RD had performed a magic trick and somehow brought her back to life.

  Mom gasped and pulled herself into a sitting position. I wondered if she felt like someone who'd almost drowned in that moment they first taste the air.

  "You're okay, Naomi," Mariah said, giving Mom some room.

  "Mom." Addie ran to her as Mom stood up. "You were asleep."

  "Oh, Addie. Oh, God." Mom stroked Addie's hair and looked around the kitchen at Mariah, RD and me. "I'm so embarrassed."

  "You fainted," RD said, standing. He closed the refrigerator door and leaned against it. "I too
k first aid in college. Almost was pre-med. Almost, but I do remember a thing or two."

  "I fainted. I don't know why. It's okay, Adelaide." Mom pulled Addie to her chest. My little sister cried. She didn't like it when people threw up, so fainting was definitely going to be on her list of mentally scarring incidents. "Shh, Addie. Momma's fine." She hadn't called herself Momma in front of us for years. "I must have given you all quite a scare."

  Mariah leaned against the counter. "Naomi, maybe you want to talk to the girls?" She nodded toward me. I held the prescription bottle in my pocket.

  "I'm fine, Mariah." Mom's face flushed red. "I'm sorry. Thank you for helping me." Mom reached out to shake RD’s hand. She wouldn't look me in the eye. Why wasn't Mom looking at me?

  "I'm RD," he said. "I'm on the dock for the summer." Hearing him introduce himself reminded me of our secret. We weren't telling anyone about sailing together and now I felt like I owed him more than just loyalty. He'd saved Mom.

  "Thank you, RD. I'm Naomi." Mom shook his hand. "These are my girls. This is Addie." Addie didn't let go of Mom, but opened her eyes to get a good look at RD. "And this is Cassie." Mom nodded toward me.

  "I think you were my waitress yesterday," RD said, smiling when he looked at me.

  "Oh, yeah. I knew I'd seen you before." I felt so powerful in that moment. Lying about knowing him, having a secret, it almost made me forget about the pills in my pocket. I watched Mom as she smiled and tried to act like this was just a normal summer night at the Hideaway.

  "I apologize for causing such a scene," Mom said, flushing. "Come on, girls, let’s get RD back to his table so he can enjoy his meal. Cassie, can you stay? I'm going to take your sister home." I followed Mom and Addie back into the restaurant. Addie had fastened her arms around Mom's waist like a barnacle.