by Luanne Rice
“Happy Birthday, Michael,” Rumer said.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Maybe you and Quinn would like to be by yourselves for a while,” she said.
“I'm his mother.” Elizabeth smiled. “I'm not quite ready to break up the party….”
Michael hesitated, not sure what to do.
“Maybe we should try to get Grandpa on the radio—give him a chance to say happy birthday to you. Or, since Aunt Rumer is so worried about him, maybe we should give the Coast Guard a try. I know he wouldn't want to miss your birthday….”
“Maybe we should call them,” Quinn said, looking upset.
“He's safe,” Zeb said softly, looking at the kids. “You two run, okay? Have a good night. We'll see you later.”
“You're sure he's okay?” Michael asked.
Zeb nodded. “Yes, trust me. He's fine.”
Holding hands, the kids grabbed Quinn's brown diary and they slipped away. Rumer heard their voices fade as they hurried down the path to the boat basin. A few moments later, she saw them start up Quinn's boat, turn on the running lights, and head into the Sound for a ride—to get away from the adults and be alone.
“He's safe,” Zeb repeated.
“How can you know? Is it just because you've done this sort of thing—flown alone—that you know?”
“No, it's not that.”
“Then, what?” Rumer asked. “Sailing to Ireland is too big a thing for him to do… without saying goodbye. I'm worried, Zeb—he might be in danger, he might—” She broke off, everything too much to consider.
“He's on his way home,” Zeb said, putting his arms around Rumer.
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth asked. “I don't see how you can say that. I saw him last, and he was getting ready to sail to Galway—don't humor her, Zeb. Let her grow up, accept the fact her father has a life.”
“He's coming through Buzzards Bay right now,” Zeb said. “He'll be rounding Point Judith before midnight if he holds his course.”
“How do you know?” Rumer asked.
“I'm tracking him,” Zeb said.
“Tracking him—”
“Did you think I'd let him set off for Ireland without keeping track? Navigational aids work both ways; the signal he sends out to find his position can also be used to locate him from above. I sent his data to one of my satellites, and I've been looking over him from the sky”
“Zeb…”
Now, closing her eyes, Rumer remembered what he had said: that he had watched over her from above all these years.
“I wanted to let him surprise you,” Zeb said. “I figured that must be the reason he hasn't called to tell you he's coming home.”
The moment had left even Elizabeth speechless. She stood there just staring from Rumer to Zeb and back again.
“I'll run over to the cottage,” Zeb said. “And get the
430 ‘ Luanne Rice printout… to show you, so you don't have to worry anymore.”
“Thank you,” Rumer whispered. “For looking after him.”
“I did it for you,” he said. “Will you be okay? I'll be right back.”
“I'll be fine,” Rumer said evenly, turning toward Elizabeth. “My sister and I have something we have to say to each other.”
“YOU'RE NOT GOING to break them up,” Rumer said softly now, stepping toward her sister.
“Excuse me?”
“You did that to me and Zeb back when we were their age.”
“You know, I've had about enough of Hubbard's Point to last me the rest of my life,” Elizabeth said, snatching her shawl.
Rumer grabbed her wrist. Her pulse racing, she pulled her sister back.
“That summer,” she said, feeling as if she'd been punched in the gut. “Before you did Romeo and Juliet at the Lark Theater… before you lost your pin and Zeb found it…”
“What about it?”
“He and I were falling in love,” Rumer said.
“So much so, he married me!”
“You saw it,” Rumer said. “You read the notes we were leaving for each other at Foley's; I know, Elizabeth—don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about—I was sitting right there, and you mentioned them. You saw what he wrote to me, and you knew that everything was changing between us.”
“You've lost your mind.”
“Something clicked,” Rumer began, her head throbbing. She felt a tremendous whoosh inside, as if her body contained a tornado. She wanted to grab Elizabeth's hair and yank, just whirl her around like a small object in the funnel's path.
“What do you mean, something clicked?”
“Just a few minutes ago, when you were speaking about Quinn and Michael. It's what the young people around here do, isn't it, Zee? Leave each other love notes in the drawer.”
“So what?”
“You reminded me of that day when you and I were sitting there and you read what he had written.”
“I don't remember….”
“We were falling in love,” Rumer said. The words came spilling out. “I was with him, he was with me… everything was changing. We were about to lose our virginities to each other.”
“That's a detail I didn't need to hear.”
“Well, it didn't happen,” Rumer said, the feelings surging up—old, violent, unbearable grief for the love she had lost. “You knew it; you could feel it—and I think you decided to do something about it.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about!”
“Yes, you do,” Rumer said sharply. “Because I told you. We were so close back then. You knew all the boys I liked; I told you everything.”
“You were madly in love with Zeb your whole life,” Elizabeth said. “Like a little puppy dog—what was I supposed to do about it?”
“We were kids,” Rumer screeched. “ ‘Puppy dogs’ together. But we were growing up; everything was changing. We'd been best friends, but we loved each other! You hear me, Elizabeth?”
“Love?” Elizabeth asked, raising her eyes as if she thought it was laughable. “You and Zeb?”
Rumer stepped forward, the force inside taking her over, a band of pain constricting her heart, her head, and she raised her hand and slapped her sister. The sound was like a crack of thunder filling the room. Elizabeth cried out, palm against her cheek.
“How dare you?” she screamed, twisting her hands in Rumer's hair. “How dare you hit me?”
“You deserve it,” Rumer said, pushing her back with a hard shove. “For laughing about me and Zeb. And for everything you did.”
“What's wrong with you?” Elizabeth asked, tears pooling in her eyes as she sprawled onto the blue chair.
Rumer stood back. Her body was buzzing with energy, with everything she had held inside for so many years—the fury, hatred, grief, sorrow. It had all come to rest right here, where it had all started so long ago. Had she really done it—slapped her sister across the face? Her palm stung to prove she had.
Slowly, as if sleepwalking, she went into the kitchen. Removing a clean cloth from the dry sink, she ran it under cold water. Then, returning to the living room, she handed it to her sister. Without looking, Elizabeth accepted the cloth and pressed it against her bright red cheek.
“He was our next-door neighbor,” Elizabeth said, softening her tone as if she were spinning back in time. “Over the years, he had crushes on both of us. On you one summer, me the next. Remember how he fell off the roof trying to see me through the window? You were right there to watch him do it!”
“He fell off trying to save me,” Rumer said.
“I'm sure you loved him,” Elizabeth said, pressing on. “I don't doubt it. In fact, my heart has always ached for you. It really has, Rumer. Because I know how much it hurt to see us—Zeb and me—together.”
Rumer closed her eyes.
“My drinking didn't help. I was on a crash course, taking everything in my way. I'm sure I could have been more sensitive to you. Maybe, if I'd been sober back then, I wouldn't have gone after Zeb in
the first place. I would have recognized how you felt about him and just let him go.”
“Just like that,” Rumer said.
“Yes. Why not?”
Rumer tried to breathe steadily. No matter how her sister was trying to justify what had happened, Rumer knew it was real, and it had torn her apart.
“The drawer,” she said quietly.
“Oh, so we're back to Foley's again?” Elizabeth asked, bringing her hand down hard on the table.
“Because that's where it started.”
“Notes left in a drawer,” Elizabeth said derisively. “In a stupid drawer.”
“At first, when we were eighteen, nineteen, they were the best Zeb and I could do… we were both too shy to say those things face-to-face. But when you saw the way he wrote to me, you decided to go after him yourself. You read his words, and you set your cap for him. It took a while, but you saw your moment.”
“Don't be an idiot—even if I did, if your great love for each other was so great, don't you think it would have survived my flirting with him? Whether I did that or not, even if we did get together in New York that time, or whatever you're saying happened—couldn't you have talked about it and straightened everything out?”
Rumer closed her eyes, thinking back. It had been the spring equinox… late March. While Zeb was at the Indian Grave, Rumer had been waiting to hear from him. She had come home from college—she would have done anything.
And Elizabeth was spending her last two days at home before starting previews of Romeo and Juliet. For years, Rumer had tormented herself with the question: If she and Zeb had met as planned, would he and Elizabeth have gotten together? Rumer had messed up—left Zeb waiting and feeling so humiliated, he couldn't look her in the eye.
“What I want to know is,” Rumer said, “did you really love him at all? Or was it just so I couldn't have him?”
“That's a terrible thing to say. I always loved you.”
“As long as I was less than you,” Rumer said clearly. “Not as pretty, not as successful, just a veterinarian—not an actress, taking care of animals instead of starringin Romeo and Juliet”
“Think what you want,” Elizabeth said, shrugging.
“Just tell me,” Rumer said. She felt frantic, the rage building again. It gathered force, like a wave. She felt it crashing toward shore, the crest curling, the edge silver and knife sharp.
And then, suddenly, the wave broke. She got it: She understood. This conversation was no longer about her and Zeb; it was about Rumer and Elizabeth. Rumer felt herself let go as stinging tears sprang to her eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she reached for her sister's hand. Trembling, her own fingers laced with Zee's. The sisters’ eyes met and held. Rumer's heart raced as she stared into Elizabeth's beautiful wide brown eyes—they flickered, looking away Up, down, out to sea.
“You and I were so close,” Elizabeth said. “You say that I was beautiful, I was the actress…”
“You were.”
“But you were the one, Rumer. Mom and Dad were so proud of you—all your achievements. Every day a new award. Remember how Miss Conway used to give out gold stars for excellence?”
Rumer nodded, recalling.
“Well, every day you'd come home with papers covered with gold stars. Mom would hang them on the refrigerator till there wasn't any more room. Dad would hang them on his bulletin board. Stars everywhere…”
Rumer blushed, picturing her gold stars. It had felt so good to make her parents proud; she had never known that it bothered her sister.
“I wanted stars too,” Elizabeth said.
“So you became one.”
“Who cared about being pretty? I'd stare in the mirror and wish I were smarter—then I'd be as good as you. Sometimes I felt like the stepmother in Snow White. You were natural—no makeup, never time to fix your hair… everyone loved you.”
“They loved you too.”
“I knew Zeb had a crush on me,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Over the years, I could see it coming up. I was the older girl next door; he thought it was sexy. I'd catch him watching me through the window… I'd take my time putting on my bra. Sometimes I wouldn't put it on at all. You were his little friend—you had the paper route together, you went crabbing, childish pastimes…”
“But our feelings were real,” Rumer said.
“You were inseparable—you left me out of everything. Maybe I was jealous—not of you, but of him. Zeb's hold over you.”
“I loved him.”
“I know you did.” Raising her eyes, Elizabeth tried to smile. “I thought—I could have this one thing Rumer doesn't.”
“Zeb?” Rumer asked, feeling her stomach drop out, hearing this admission.
Her sister nodded. “Not just him, but his adoration. You know? In a way you didn't have it. But then…”
“That last spring,” Rumer whispered.
Elizabeth shrugged, her face twisted. “I felt it changing. The things you told me, and—the way I saw him look at you. In a new way. The way I'd seen him look at me over the years. And his letters in the drawer…”
Rumer waited, holding her breath.
“I'd been in the theater for a couple of years by then. Living in New York… I knew about all the jerks in the world. There was this producer… he was married, and we had an affair.” She glanced up as if to gauge her sister's shock. “I know—you would never have done that.”
Rumer just listened, knowing that her sister was right, that she never would.
“I thought—he'll leave his wife to marry me. We'll have babies; we'll start a stage company; we'll live happily ever after. He didn't leave her… none of them did.”
“None of them?”
“He wasn't the last producer… or the last married man. Eventually, I got the role as Juliet. I was empty inside—a big metal drum. I couldn't imagine what reserves I'd find for Juliet. To act such love and passion—when my heart was dead.”
“But you were brilliant,” Rumer said.
“I'm an actor,” Elizabeth said. “I pulled it out of somewhere…I conjured up a vision of Juliet—a modern-day real-life Juliet who stood on her balcony and waited for Romeo—and made her part of myself. You want to know who inspired that vision?”
“Who?”
“You,” Elizabeth said.
Rumer couldn't speak, staring at her sister.
“Standing on the screened porch, waiting for Zeb. Not just that year, but all our lives. You were this young girl just inhabited by love for the boy next door. You lived and breathed it…”
“I did,” Rumer whispered.
Elizabeth nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks. Remorse creased her forehead, and she reached for Rumer's hand. “I've carried this for a long time,” she said. “This particular secret.”
“You can tell me,” Rumer said. “I want you to.”
“That night in New York…1 never thought we'd get together. I knew he was in love with you. He sat through my performance, watched you leave. I swear, all he could think of was calling you. But then, that thing with the pin…”
“Mom's lighthouse?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “You're wrong about what you think—I didn't plant it there. It just fell off. Amazing, I know. The clasp was broken, and it slipped off on the corner of Great Jones and Lafayette… by the time we walked back, it was nearly hidden under a crumpled-up candy wrapper. I was so afraid, all through the performance, that I'd never see it again. You were gone, and Zeb was walking me home.”
“And it was still there,” Rumer said.
“Yes. So much luck,” Elizabeth said, her voice catching. “I tripped as I came off the curb: What are the odds? That I would happen to trip on that curb, at that moment… with Zeb right there? Typical actor's legend material… especially because I'd just given the performance of my life. Inspired by my little sister, Juliet to Zeb's Romeo.”
Rumer couldn't speak; she could see that Elizabeth was still enthralled by the enormity of coincid
ence.
“When Zeb picked up the pin, I threw my arms around him and let him think I owed him everything: my luck, my talent, my place in the theater… and I made him believe it, Rumer. I swear, I behaved as if the fates had thrown down thunderbolts. Perhaps they did—who knows? It was quite incredible. I convinced him it was a great miracle, a moment of truth that would go down in the history books of the American theater.”
“That was the night you…” Rumer whispered.
“We got started,” Elizabeth said bitterly.
“Started with a moment of truth…” Rumer trailed off. “Him finding your pin.”
“Yes, I suppose you're right,” Elizabeth said, staring into Rumer's eyes. “But before that truth there was something else. In a way, a bigger way, Zeb and I started with a lie…”
“What lie?”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and finally, slowly, let out a sigh so filled with pain that Rumer felt it in her own bones. Rumer's handprint still showed on her cheek, hot and red.
“Come with me,” Elizabeth said finally, rising and taking her sister by the hand. “There's something I want to show you.”
The sisters went into the garage and pulled out their bikes. Elizabeth hadn't ridden hers—or any bicycle at all—in many years. They pedaled off, down Cresthill Road, out of the Point's cul-de-sac. Fragrance filled the night air: jasmine, honeysuckle, roses, pine, and salt. Elizabeth, who owned a large house on the beach in Malibu, knew that she had the Atlantic Ocean in her blood, that she was herself tonight in a way she hadn't been in years.
When they hit the winding hill behind the tennis courts, Rumer put her head down to achieve maximum speed. Zee knew the moment this would happen—she and her sister had ridden this route perhaps a thousand times. They slowed at the stop sign, curved around Rainbow's End—the cottage with the most beautiful gardens—and through the sandy parking lot.
Pebbles crunched beneath their tires. Zee pedaled harder, pulling away from her sister. Although this was the long way to their destination, she wanted to smell the marsh—the rich, thick, decaying smell of low tide—and the sea—fresh, bright, salty, full of life.
