by CJ Lyons
Darrin leans back in his chair, assessing my story, while Helen beams and nods at me, and Joe reaches across the table for more spinach pie. “Guess that makes you some kind of genius,” he says. “Why Cambria City for college? Why not one of the big schools down south?”
I steel myself against the lie. The best lies always begin in the truth, so I answer, “If I’d known how cold it was here, I might have. But one of my heroes, Dr. Winston, is on the faculty. I couldn’t pass up the chance to study with him.”
Max interrupts the joke he’s telling Helen to turn to me. “So this project Ella will be working on is for Dr. Winston? That must be nice.”
Somehow Max doesn’t make it sound nice at all. Again, I try to figure out what his deal is.
“He did those stories on police corruption in Baltimore, right?” Nora—no, Ella, I need to remember to call her Ella—asks, trying to help out as the staring contest between Max and me grows uncomfortable.
“Won two Pulitzers. And he uncovered one of the largest cases of health insurance fraud in the country. Medical identity theft, fake procedures, even people receiving sugar water when they were being billed for chemotherapy. The FBI’s still prosecuting.”
“That’s what you want to do?” Ella says, and suddenly it feels as if only the two of us are in the room.
I nod. “I think nowadays, given the world we live in, we never know who to believe. That makes the truth more important than ever.”
Her smile banishes any doubts I had about leaving home and coming here. At least for the moment.
“And your family?” Darrin is still in inquisition mode. “What do they do?”
“My dad’s a detective for the sheriff’s department and my mom runs our family businesses. Shrimping, fishing tours, rental houses. Pretty much anything a tourist would want.”
He stares at me for a long moment, then nods his approval. The conversation continues to swirl around me. Joe turns out to be a chatterbox, taking the spotlight with jokes, riddles, and funny stories that border on risqué, his copper hair blazing beneath the chandelier as he gestures broadly with his hands. The kind of man my dad would have tried to frown into silence while Mom would have said, “Hush, now,” even as she laughed. Not that Dad isn’t funny—there are times when he’ll have everyone in tears with his stories—he’s just always overprotective when women and children are around. Comes with the job.
What would Mom and Dad say if they knew what I’ve done to get here, and to this table tonight? Shame forces my gaze away from the others. I focus on my food, but have lost my appetite.
Darrin and Helen are mostly silent, exchanging serious glances as if they’re holding a private, silent conversation. I have the feeling I’m the main topic of discussion.
Rory matches Joe in the chatterbox contest, filling any silence left behind when he pauses to take a bite of food. Ella smiles and laughs and shakes her head at her uncle’s antics, but whenever her gaze turns my way a shadow crosses her face—and her gaze seems to always fall my way, as if I’m a cosmic black hole stealing all her light and joy.
Could I have bungled this any worse? I thought I’d been so patient, so careful, waiting three long months before approaching her. How could I have been so stupid? Dad said to let it alone, told me to pick another college, to stay away, but I just couldn’t. I was determined to get the answers to the questions that have haunted me all my life, even if my journey led me far from home into this land of wind and mountains.
I miss home. The pull of the tides, the excitement of seeing what’s left behind in their wake, the ever-changing skies, the same stretch of beach and dunes that actually are never, ever the same. Here I’m more than a stranger, I’m an outsider—almost everywhere I go, I’m the only black guy; every class I take, I’m the youngest one there; as soon as I open my mouth, people stare at my accent.
I’d forsaken everything I love to find this girl. But now, sitting at her table, among her family and friends, watching her laugh and seeing the life she has, only now do I realize exactly how much my finding her will cost us both.
Her life will never be the same after tonight. And it’s all my fault.
CHAPTER 11
Ella
I still have no idea what Max’s problem with Alec is—we got swept into the dining room before he could tell me why Alec is a liar, and he obviously can’t say anything with everyone here at the dinner table—but it’s pretty clear that if not for the fact Max knows it would upset Gram Helen, he’d probably challenge Alec to a duel right there above the zeljanica.
Thankfully, Rory intervenes. “Cake, cake,” she chants, clapping her hands. And the air of impending doom clears.
As if by magic, Joe and Darrin whisk away the plates while Max and Helen disappear into the kitchen, streams of happy birthday joy trailing behind them in bright shades of pink and gold.
“Sure I don’t need to grab the fire extinguisher?” I ask Rory, who’s grinning like a crazy person, practically bouncing in her seat.
“Nope. And no presents until you eat your cake, either.”
“Fire extinguisher?” Alec asks.
“Never substitute sparklers for birthday candles,” I tell him.
“Well, not if you’re lighting them beside a window with curtains,” Rory puts in.
Before Alec can ask anything more, Darrin and Joe return and dramatically close the drapes and dim the lights. Then Helen arrives, humming a song from Casablanca—the French song that almost gets everyone fighting in Rick’s cafe—followed by Max walking in from the kitchen, carefully balancing a large sheet cake with a chocolate miniature Eiffel Tower growing out of it. The icing has been lovingly sculpted to look just like the postcards of Paris Darrin sends whenever he goes. Around the base of the Tower is a circle of nineteen birthday candles: eighteen plus one to wish on. Now I know why they worked so hard to keep me out of the house all afternoon. It must have taken them hours to create this edible work of art.
“It’s beautiful.” I’m clapping and smiling and trying hard not to cry in front of Alec—and failing. The cake really is too lovely to even consider eating.
Helen finishes singing—we never do “Happy Birthday,” not at my house, Helen hates that song—and everyone calls for me to blow out the candles.
I hold my hair back to keep it from falling into the icing or the flames, and bend over the cake to get all the candles in one breath. What can I say? All that time underwater is put to good use; I always get my birthday wish. This year it’s the same wish as every year, that everyone stay safe and healthy. Yeah, not a big fan of change. I’ll take certain boredom over random chaos every time.
Everyone claps and we demolish the cake—banana chocolate chip, my favorite. As Joe and Helen clear the plates, Rory whips out a small parcel from below her chair. It’s a box wrapped in Eiffel Tower gold foil paper, and I realize this birthday is going to have a theme. Sure enough, once Joe and Helen return and I open the gift, I see that it’s a silk scarf with the label of a French designer. It’s gorgeous—much too pretty for me to ever wear and risk staining with paint, but that’s okay because I already know that Rory will end up borrowing it and forget to ever return it.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell her, rubbing the soft silk against my cheek. “I love it. Thank you.”
“Here’s mine.” Max plops a bag from our favorite bookstore in front of me. I reach in and pull out a set of French language MP3s along with a French-English dictionary. Definitely better than last year’s gift, a Howler personal alarm for my keychain, guaranteed to rupture any attacker’s eardrums.
“You want me to learn French?” I have a feeling where this might be going. My aura dances like candlelight, excited but also colored by a touch of trepidation.
“Never know when you might need to order pain au chocolat or café au lait,” he says with a fake French accent.
“Right,” I say, not sure how to reply. I give him a quick sideways hug. “Thanks, Max.”
“Wa
it, there’s more,” Helen says, clapping her hands as Joe beams and almost bounces out of his seat.
That’s when I realize Alec is gone. Before I can say anything, he returns, shyly offering me a small, old-fashioned 35mm film canister.
“I didn’t think I had a present, but then I remembered my mom just sent this.”
“Alec, you didn’t have to—”
“My mom would insist. Never show up at anyone’s home without a gift, she always told me. Especially if you’re an unexpected uninvited guest and it turns out to be their birthday.” He thrusts the canister into my hand.
I shake it. It’s not filled with film but instead feels like a saltshaker. I pop open the lid and spill a few grains into my hand. Not salt. Sand.
“I got homesick,” he explains with a shrug. “That’s from our beach.”
“Thanks.” I don’t meet his eyes, too entranced by the myriad of colors dancing through the grains of sand, sparked by his words.
I feel the warmth of a mother’s love, longing for a son far away, the magic of family picnics on the beach, of walking in the water scouring tidal pools for treasures . . . all conjured by his words. Alec might not have his own aura, but he can create them. A rare gift I’d only seen a few times before in certain artists, musicians, writers.
He mistakes my silence for disappointment. “Thought it might remind you of the ocean.” His words are rushed, as if embarrassed by his gesture. I’m not. I’m truly touched by his gift. It’s as if he’s given me part of his heart.
Despite his mistake about my mom, I like him all the more for it. “I’ve never been to the ocean. Maybe you should keep it—it’s from your home, after all.”
“Mom can always send more.” Then he does a double take. “You’ve never been to the ocean?”
“Ella’s never been anywhere,” Rory says with a laugh. “She’s such a homebody.”
“Hey,” Max puts in. “Who needs to go to the ocean? We built our own beach up at the lake house.”
“It’s just a cabin,” I explain. Alec looks even more puzzled. I wish I could read him better. “Up in the mountains. Near a lake.” I trail off, no idea what to say.
Thankfully, Darrin chimes in, his Texas drawl more accentuated than usual. “Don’t worry, son. I don’t understand it either. These mountain folk think they can throw a few bags of sand down near a spit of water and call it a beach. They got no idea what they’re missing out on.”
“You’ve never seen the ocean?” Alec says again.
Then I realize. The woman who was killed, the one who stole my mom’s identity—it must have happened near his home, maybe even on the beach. Another reason why he’d confused his Mia Cleary with my mom. He thought I’d been there when Mom died . . . which, of course I wasn’t. How could I have been?
Yet, somehow, a rushing noise fills my head—more real than any movie soundtrack I might have heard and remembered. Waves crashing in the dark, fog swirling, my feet cold, wet sand and water surging around my toes. Not my memory . . . but then where had it come from?
Joe stands up so fast he almost overturns the table. “And now for the pièce de résistance,” he says in a very Pennsylvanian, absolutely non-French French accent as he slides an envelope across to me.
My fingers shake as I unseal it and I’m not sure why. A travel brochure falls into my palm. I look up, stunned. Helen is clapping, Joe is beaming, and Darrin is sitting back in his chair looking like a CEO who just made the deal of a lifetime.
“It’s five weeks in France,” Helen explains.
“This summer,” Joe adds.
“With private art classes and studio instruction,” Darrin, ever practical, puts in.
Rory bounces with delight. “Paris! Think of it, Ella!”
Max is a bit more subdued. “We’ll be here, toiling away in the heat and humidity and you’ll be in France, seeing the world.”
I give a little shake of my head, quickly turn it into a nod and grin. “Wow. I’m—wow.”
Overwhelmed is more like it. A trip to Paris? To paint? It’s literally my dream come true.
And yet . . . I can’t go, surely they all know that. How can they think I could leave? I never even made it to our sixth-grade class field trip to the science museum in Pittsburgh—was halfway out the door when Helen collapsed with one of her spells.
I can’t do this—leave my home and my family—but how can I say no to such a thoughtful, wonderful, perfect present?
The cake that had been so yummy on the way down is now trying to scratch its way back up my throat like an animal escaping a cage. More than worry about leaving Helen and Joe, I’m overcome by this strange feeling of dread. A certain knowledge that if I leave the people I love behind, something awful will happen to them. My feet feel cold and wet, and the smell of salt water makes me dizzy. I clutch the edge of the table and try to fight my way back to my initial excitement and joy.
“Wow.” I’m repeating myself. “Thanks, guys. I just can’t believe it.”
Alec catches my gaze, and I suspect he’s the only one who senses my turmoil. The others are all grinning, congratulating themselves on keeping the secret and really surprising me.
Suddenly, I’m choking on smoke and ash, flames billowing around me, reaching for me. In the distance, a woman’s screams fill the air.
And I’m absolutely certain the woman shrieking in pain and terror is my mom.
CHAPTER 12
Alec
I can’t keep from staring at Nora—Ella. Ella. How could she sit there and say she’d never seen the ocean? Why would she lie about something like that?
Except . . . she really does act as if she doesn’t remember anything. It’s difficult to fathom; something that forever changed my life, she’s somehow erased from her memory. Maybe I should leave without telling her the truth?
The conversation continues without me. Ella definitely isn’t as happy about her summer trip to Paris as she pretends to be. Another puzzle. I’d kill to go to France, to go anywhere. Imagine walking in Hemingway’s footsteps, maybe following them all the way to Spain and beyond? I had the opportunity—both Clemson and UNC offered me scholarships and both have semester abroad programs—but instead I blew my one chance to leave my small, suffocating town by the ocean to come here, to another small, suffocating town swallowed up by mountains.
And everything is going horribly wrong.
Finally, the party breaks up. Rory offers to give me a ride back to the parking lot where I’ve left my bike—I’ve been saving to buy a car, but college expenses keep eating away at that money—with Max, of course, tagging along as chaperone. I make my good-byes, being sure to thank Helen for the gracious way she allowed a stranger to crash their party as well as for the first home-cooked meal I’ve had in months.
She puts her hands on her hips, looks me over like my own grandmother does, and gives her head a little shake. “Growing boy like you, you need more meat on your bones. You come back anytime, Alec Ravenell. I like the way you talk. Maybe you could come over, record a sample for me?”
I’m not sure what to say. Behind her Joe is raising his eyebrows in surprise, but Darrin passes me, a dish towel over the sleeve of his designer suit, and nudges me. “Say yes, young man. It’s not many she invites.”
“It’d be an honor,” I stutter. Still, it feels weird. Something about this whole family feels weird. The way everyone caters and indulges Helen—I get that. Not only is she the matriarch, she has special needs because of her synesthesia. But Joe’s place as her oldest son seems to have been totally usurped by Darrin—despite not being blood, he’s clearly the man of the house, the one everyone turns to when there’s a decision to be made. Maybe it’s simply because he’s older than Joe? Or since Joe seems to live practically as a hermit in the house up near the lake, Darrin fills the void in the family dynamics?
And where does Ella fit into all this? The entire family hovers around her, watching, listening to her every word, but mostly, I noticed, watching
me, Rory, and Max. As if Ella needs protecting from us. I understand a bit of scrutiny for myself—the stranger suddenly invited home for no good reason. But Ella’s oldest—and from their conversation, only—friends?
I nod my good-bye and join the others on the front porch. Ella walks with us out to Rory’s car, a yellow VW Bug that suits her larger-than-life personality. Once we reach the driveway and are out of earshot of anyone inside the house, Max abruptly stops. “You want to tell them the truth, or should I?”
The challenge is meant for me, but since I have no idea which truth or lie Max is referring to, I say nothing and simply meet his gaze head on.
Rory fills the silence. “What are you talking about?”
“He said he wanted Ella’s help for a project he was working on with Dr. Winston.” Max leans forward. “But I checked. Dr. Winston isn’t teaching this semester. He’s on sabbatical, finishing his next book.”
I almost laugh with relief. Before I can explain, Rory steps in to defend me. “If he was lying, Ella would have seen it in his aura.”
She acts as if Ella’s enhanced visual perceptions are more reliable than a polygraph. I wonder about that—was that why she’d acted so strangely after I told her about her mother? Has she seen my lies? Have I already lost her trust?
I think back to our conversation and realize I hadn’t really lied. In fact, I’d mostly told her the truth, just not all of it. So how did this aura-reading work? As soon as I make it back to my dorm, I need to do some research on synesthesia.
“Cold Cases Gone Hot,” I answer Max’s accusation. “That’s the name of the book. I’m working as Dr. Winston’s research assistant and getting some independent study credits.” I pull out my phone. “I’ve got his home number. Want me to call him so you can ask for yourself?”
But it’s not Max who interests me right now. It’s Ella. She doesn’t seem to care about Dr. Winston’s book at all—isn’t even questioning how her mother’s case might fit into things or why I’d want to interview her.
Instead, she’s frowning in the direction of the house, making a shushing motion with her hands. “He’s telling the truth,” she says. “Alec told me about a case he’s researching. It involves a woman who stole my mother’s identity and was murdered.”
