by Deb Caletti
It was old. Right away, I knew it was valuable. I don’t know why I thought that. I could just tell.
“Is this weird?” I asked Max. “This is kind of weird, right?”
I mean, there were a lot of them. And why were they there? They should’ve been hanging somewhere, maybe a museum, not stacked up and hidden in that room.
I went back downstairs. I felt strange, a little hollow, same as that house. The sense of dread returned and knocked around inside of me. Outside the enormous windows of the White Room, I could see the orange glow of the Golden Gate Bridge, stretched across the water like a dragon in a Chinese New Year parade. The homes on either side of 716 Sea Cliff Drive glittered along the stretch of the dark shoreline. It was quiet, except for a clock ticking and the sound of the waves and the jingle of Max’s collar tags. I went around turning on all the lights, but this made things worse. Now, I saw my own reflection in the black windows and nothing else. People had lived in that house since 1926, Lila told me, so I started doing all the wrong things, like wondering if anyone had died there.
I called Meredith.
“Eight more weeks!” I said when she picked up.
“Hey, Syd. I’m at Cinebarre with Cora and Hoodean and Sarah and Amy. We’re meeting Cora’s cousin Simon and some of his friends from baseball.” I could hear Hoodean shouting “Syd!” in the background. “We’re heading in.”
“Oh.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I was missing out, but even worse, it was just kind of creepy being there alone. That house was almost a hundred years old.
“I’ll call you tomorrow! Hey, your birthday!”
“Big sixteen,” I said.
* * *
After Meredith hung up, I opened the tall doors of the White Room, the ones that led outside to the patio. The night was cool, and I could feel a mist of sea spray on my face. It smelled great out there—salt brine and the deep, ancient ocean, plus something summer and celestial. Max thought so too—he lifted his nose and sniff-sniff-sniffed the dark night.
I gazed at the lights. Baker Beach and the Golden Gate Bridge were to the right. To the left—to the far left—Lands End, scene of shipwrecks and sheer, rocky bluffs, home of the Cliff House and the ruins of the Sutro Baths.
Down below, straight down, far down, was China Beach, the protected cove that faced north toward the Marin Headlands. It got its name from the Chinese fishermen who used to camp there in the 1800s, but on that night, it was just me, leaning over that orange stucco wall. I leaned far enough over that my feet lifted from the ground.
I decided to walk down to the shore. Enclosed in orange fortified walls, the steps turned and switched back like a maze, and ended up at that tide-pooled cove with waters that were too dangerous to swim in. Lila had warned me about this last time I was there. The sharks weren’t the problem. It was the rip currents you needed to fear. They were so strong that they could suck you out to sea.
I could feel the sand on the steps under my bare feet, and it got colder as I went down. Goose bumps trickled up my arms. My lips tasted salty already. I looked up and saw Max still on the patio, staying put and looking worried.
He was probably right. I changed my mind and turned around. It was so dark that it seemed reckless. I could disappear out there and no one would ever find me. I tried to count how many people would be sad, but that got depressing, so I stopped.
The ocean crashed and roared, and no wonder. There were those shipwrecks, and drownings, and the Chinese fishermen in that cove, and the fifty years they were banned from being there too, bashing with all that was coming. Because right then, at that moment, Nicco Ricci was serving halibut and Crab Louis to the diners of Sutro’s as they sat at their candlelit tables looking out over the Pacific. And on the terrace where I stood… well, you know what happened there.
I reclined in one of the stylish lounge chairs and petted Max with my foot. The waves thundered, but so did the thoughts in my head. Lila’s words ran in an unforgiving loop. You look much more like me in person than you do in your pictures.… If you eat like that, you’re going to lose that gorgeous figure you’ve gotten since Christmas.… Miss Sexy…
I wondered if I’d become someone different since I was here last. At least, she seemed to think so.
So innocent, in that tight shirt…
I thought about that boy at the baseball game, twining my hair around his finger. I thought about how I’d laughed too loudly at a joke he made, how I’d tilted my chin down and held his eyes, how I’d even shoved him teasingly, meaning Go away, but don’t go away. I did it on purpose. I knew I was doing it. I wanted to make him do more than play with my hair, but now this felt like a dirty little secret.
And I thought about Cora. Just before school let out, some sophomores at Academy, Marcella Marconi and her friends, sent around a poll. Smartest guy, smartest girl. Funniest. Nicest. Cora was voted hottest girl. Marcella posted the results on a big sheet of paper outside the drama room and also online. Someone with the anonymous handle MizTaken wrote a comment: Her? You must be kidding. That day, I saw Cora sitting on the lawn, way out by the gym. Her eyes were filled with tears. Am I supposed to feel proud or awful? she cried.
Sexy was something you wanted to be. Sexy was something you should never be.
Right there outside, I took off my Bazooka Joe T-shirt, bra and bare skin out to the world. And when I got up and went back to my bedroom, I stuffed that T-shirt in the trash.
It seemed defiant, but what I really felt was ashamed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Exhibit 17: Sworn statement of Dirk Harley, FirstLine Security
Exhibit 18: FirstLine Security alert records, 716 Sea Cliff Drive
That night, I watched most of The Middle After. Lila and I had seen it maybe six or eight times together. It was our favorite. We’d hold on to each other and scream when the car takes the curves too fast. I stopped before I got to that scene, though. Lila could be dramatic and unpredictable and needy, but I also just missed her sometimes. Like, I wanted her to sit beside me and watch The Middle After. I wanted to brag to her about how well I’d done in Algebra II even though I hated it, or tell her about Meredith and me hiking all the way up Mount Si. Normal things. Missing something you never had should have its own word. It’s a bigger missing than regular missing.
I brushed my teeth before bed, using the same half-empty tube of toothpaste from my last visit, gross. Max left my side to guard the front door. Poor guy. Dogs never get a day off.
Around one o’clock in the morning, he started to bark. I crept out of bed and tiptoed, in case a ghost or an intruder was coming down the hall to get me. I peeked out my bathroom window, which faced the street. It was just Lila home, finally. I saw Jake get out of his car. He opened her door for her. She got out too, and her white skirt and her platinum hair glowed under the streetlight.
And then Jake shoved her up against the car, and in two seconds, his hands were up her gold shirt. I didn’t want to see that. I got back into bed and put my pillow over my head. I wished so hard that I were home. I’d have rather stayed alone in the residence hall for the entire summer than be where I was right then. I longed for home so bad, it felt like an actual ache in my chest.
After a while, I heard her come in. Max’s toenails scurried around on the floor in excitement. “Be quiet! Be quiet!” she said, being way louder than he was.
A few moments later, she pushed open my door. It was an old routine of ours—Lila would return, wake me up, and tell me about her date, all giggly and talkative, like we were slumber party girlfriends. I wanted her to notice me so bad that I never cared if it was at two a.m. I wanted to be just like her—glittery, beautiful, adored.
But right then, I didn’t feel like being the audience. I lay very, very still so she’d think I was asleep. Even with my nose tucked down in the covers, I could smell the alcohol-restaurant fumes on her clothes. “Baby?” she whispered.
I pretended to breathe in the
regular rhythm of sleep. Finally she went away.
I turned my pillow to the cool side. Probably, I’ll hate that booze-restaurant smell for the rest of my life.
* * *
In the morning, I woke up to the bam-bam-bam of hammering, and the neeyroom of an electric saw cutting through wood. I looked at the clock. Nine a.m. Outside, the fog lay along the sky in thick ribbons, but I could see the spots of blue that meant it would soon clear off. Good news, because it could be hours or even all day before the fog lifted.
Unless she was working, Lila always slept late. There were rules around this. Basically—don’t even touch her door before noon. When I was little, at Papa Chesterton’s and after, Edwina always made sure I never disturbed her.
I need my sleep, Lila would say. This is the kind of proclamation people make when they don’t intend to change, like I’m an emotional person and I’m just not organized and You know us Virgos—terrible with money. I wasn’t sure what I’d do for three whole hours, just waiting for her. But I hadn’t seen her since Christmas, so I knew she’d want me to be there when she woke up.
“What do you do every day?” I asked Max. “Do you have to hold it that long?”
I watched him trot around the front garden, lifting his leg on various bushes. I filled his bowl with clean water. I found his big bag of food in the pantry.
Then I changed my mind. I took that really nice chicken breast from the fridge, one most likely meant for Lila’s lunch. I removed a knife from that new set on the counter.
They were so sharp that I had to be extra careful. I chopped, tossed the chicken into Max’s bowl. “That’s for all your hard work being a guard last night. Also, because today is my birthday.”
My birthday. Spent hanging around the house until Lila woke up. Meanwhile, last night, back at home, IT was happening to everyone else.
No. No and no and no.
The world was supposed to be my oyster, even if I hated oysters. Let’s just say the world was my plate of fried shrimp, waiting for me and my fork. The world was all the stuff I was hungry for.
Max wolfed down the chicken, slopped water all over as he got a drink, looked up at me to see what we were going to do next.
“Hey, bud, I’m sorry.” I patted his head. “But unless you know how to ride a bike, I’m going to have to leave you behind. Because I’m out of here.”
* * *
I tucked a towel and a water bottle into my pack and went to the garage. The bike Lila got me last Christmas was still there, right where I left it. She thought I was crazy for wanting one. You can just hire a car if you want to go somewhere! she said. She couldn’t believe I’d want to pedal up those hills when I didn’t have to. But that’s what we did in Seattle, especially when you didn’t have a license. And on a bike, you could be right in the center of everything.
Lila had hidden it the garage. Every time I’d go by the door, she’d scream, Don’t go in there! She wheeled it back inside on Christmas morning, and she was so pleased with herself that it made me really happy too. She was busy and beautiful and famous, but she’d planned that surprise for me. My father gave me a check inside a card that he must have sent to all his employees. Happy Holidays, it said on the front. Inside was his signature: Jeff.
“Hey, I missed you,” I said. That bike was so pretty, with its metallic speckles. The tires were a little flat, though.
I hauled it to the front garden, along with the small repair kit that came with it. I leaned over and filled the tire using the air canister. When the tire was nice and fat, I stood straight again.
It was suddenly quiet. The hammering next door had stopped. I could hear a bird tweeting and a far-off lawn mower, but that was all. I looked over at the construction site. So far, the new house was only a poured foundation and the beginning bones of a structure. Last Christmas, an old mansion had stood there. It looked like a mini Roman temple, with enormous white columns and a huge entry, but it was gone now. The new one was going to be modern, you could tell. There were lots of right angles and huge spaces for windows, where the sea and the sky showed through the skeleton.
And then I spotted him. You know, for the first time. A guy in jeans and a T-shirt, with a leather tool belt around his waist, looking at me from where he stood, high up, in that outline of a house. When he saw me looking back, he grinned. And then he whistled his appreciation for my ass, which had been in the air.
He was, I don’t know, thirty? My first thought was, Ick. And then, A construction worker, what a cliché. And then, a whole bunch of thoughts that didn’t go together.
That morning, I’d turned sixteen.
It was a number that mattered to me. It didn’t matter so much to him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Exhibit 19: Photo of Baker Beach to China Beach, with red arrow marking location of south end cove
Exhibit 20: iPhone belonging to Sydney E. Reilly, found at south end cove of Baker Beach
Exhibit 21: Silver locket w/ broken chain belonging to Sydney E. Reilly, found at south end cove of Baker Beach
My favorite beach was Ocean Beach, next to the Cliff House and Lands End. But I decided to go to Baker, which was closer. On my last two visits, those beaches were cold enough to freeze your fingers into little fish sticks and make your eyes water. Now it was summer.
If you rode all the way down Twenty-Fifth, to the end of the big gated cul-de-sac, you could take a sneak set of stairs to the beach without going all the way to the parking lot another mile or so from there. I wheeled my bike out into the street, hooked a leg over, and got on. As I pedaled past the house next door, I swear I could still feel that guy staring, though I didn’t dare check to see if I was right.
After that whistle, I felt eyes on me. No. The possibility of eyes on me. It was different from when the men looked at us over their laptops in Victrola. They were looking at girls, but this was me, one girl, my own self. I was suddenly aware of my body on the bike, my butt on the seat, my ass pointed toward any driver who might pull up alongside me at the stop signs. I wondered if my shorts were too short, or if my tank top, like my T-shirt the day before, was too tight.
But I also wondered if I looked good. Maybe I did. Maybe Lila was right, and I had gotten sexy or something since I saw her last. I was kind of pleased that the guy had noticed me, but creeped out. It was a compliment, but yuck. Sexy seemed sort of great but slightly dangerous. How were you supposed to tell if it was the good, exciting variety of danger, or the bad, frightening type? I thought for sure I’d somehow know, but an older guy seemed like both.
Either way, the whistle buried under my skin and became a permanent part of me. I had a radar for certain eyes afterward. It was a heightened awareness of the bad shit that could happen if I wasn’t careful, and I could adjust the degree of it, but I would never be able to turn it off. His eyes on me like that—it also told me some terrible, guilty truth about myself, even if I didn’t have exact words for it. Mostly, that my body would always be an invitation.
I braked at the end of the street before crossing.
“Whatever,” I said out loud, and pushed hard on the pedals. It all seemed pretty much out of my hands. Becoming sexy seemed to happen while you were minding your own business. Like, one day you weren’t in the world where grown men wanted you, and then you were.
* * *
I reached the end of Twenty-Fifth and veered into the small lot. I locked my bike and took the stairs down to the shore. This beach was so different from the showy ones in Southern California lined with palm trees. It was more like a beach at home in the Northwest, with big rocks and roaring waves and sudden, misty sprays of seawater lifted by wind. One day, it would be blue and sparkly, and the next, dark and dangerous, like the friendly but moody uncle who drinks too much on holidays and starts a fight. Baker was supposed to be haunted, too. After dark, a woman supposedly walked the shore, and her voice was so hypnotic that she could lure you into the currents to your death.
I slipped off my shoes
the second I reached sand. Happy birthday to me, I thought, because look. The bridge was scenic-postcard close, and the ocean smelled magnificent, and little kids were flying kites, and a cute couple was taking photos. A row of fishing poles stuck out from the sand, their owners lounging casually beside them.
That morning, the texts had rolled in, from Meredith and Hoodean and Cora, from Gia and Sarah and Ames, everyone wishing me a happy birthday. I decided to take some photos so that I could lie to them about what a great time I was having. I walked all the way down the other end of the beach to get a good shot of the bridge, and that’s when I almost ran smack into a naked old guy wearing a Dodgers cap, with an allover tan and, oh, wow, wrinkled nuts hanging down like rocks in a hammock. And then I spotted another naked old guy sunning himself on a colorful towel, his penis curled up like a little pet he’d brought for a day at the beach. And then, bam, an old woman walking by the shore, with deflated-balloon boobs and woggly legs, the ancient crevice of her butt pointing up toward the sky as she bent down to pick up shells.
I’d forgotten that the far end of Baker was also a nude beach, though by the look of it, one for senior-citizen nudists only. Childishly, I got the giggles, then tried to take a selfie with one in the background so that I could send it to my friends, but then I felt bad about it and stopped.
The thing was, they were kind of great. That woman—she was wrinkled as an apricot, the opposite of what any Victoria’s Secret ad would tell you beauty was, but she was fine with that. It seemed almost heroic, to be okay with who you were. To show the apricot to the world. She seemed to say, Fuck you, my body is mine, and once I got over the shock and my stupid, giggly nerves, I realized something else. There actually wasn’t much to see. So what, breasts. Big deal, bare ass. Penis, whatever. They really didn’t care about their bodies, so you didn’t really care either. It was like… the body was a fact. I mean, who didn’t have one?
