Hey! Are you still at the gym? Did you hear anything about your house? Sorry I missed your msgs. Call me!!!! Let me know you’re okay!!!
Then I opened the text from Jesse.
He’d sent it at six in the morning.
I hope you made it home ADVERB. That was completely ADJECTIVE the way your dad stormed out of the PLACE like that. What a ADJECTIVE + BODY PART. So Julia is ADJECTIVE for Mad Libs. Meanwhile, I’m ADJECTIVE because I only VERB—PAST TENSE for PAINFULLY MINUSCULE AMOUNT OF TIME. Okay, I’m going to VERB some BREAKFAST FOOD ITEM. Thanks again.
I leaned backward and let my head sink into my pillow. Even though his text didn’t necessarily require a response, I wanted to send one anyway, to try and keep the ball rolling. I thought about asking him if he knew whether his house was okay, but that felt too serious. So I decided instead to send back some funny answers to his fake Mad Libs.
The strange reality is that just because your town is almost washed away doesn’t mean you stop being in love with a boy.
While I paused to consider which breakfast food item was funnier—either Belgian waffles or eggs Benedict, because I figured sausage would come across as too racy—my phone went to the lock screen and flashed the time.
1:13 p.m.
Jeez. I’d been sleeping forever. Definitely later than I would have on a crappy cot in the middle of the gymnasium.
I opened the draft back up, went with Belgian waffle for my breakfast food item, and hit Send. Then I closed my eyes and imagined the text soaring through the warm sky and hitting his phone, imagined him opening it up and laughing, and it blew the sadness and fear from the night before away, so my heart felt as clear as the bright blue sky outside my window.
I went to pee but only made it a few creaky steps across my room before I heard my parents in the living room below me. Talking about the night before, I assumed, though I only heard Dad speaking. He didn’t sound angry, exactly, but his voice was definitely raised and agitated.
I tiptoed down the stairs and leaned over a few steps, straining to hear what exactly Dad was saying. My phone buzzed in my hand. I hoped it was Morgan, but it was Jesse.
Nope, sorry, but thanks for playing. The correct answer is: stale ass Danish. BTW, where are you?
I typed, Just getting out of bed. Where are you?
I hit Send as another man’s voice drowned out whatever my father had been saying. I swear my heart stopped beating.
The cops.
The cops were here.
I hurried down the rest of the stairs and turned toward the living room, but I couldn’t enter it. It was too crowded. Only not with cops. There were about fifteen or maybe twenty families filling it up, crammed five deep on our couch, in each of our kitchen chairs, leaning against our walls. I recognized a woman perched on our radiator as one of the smoking ladies from the high school bathroom the night before. Her eyes were red and puffy.
Everyone faced my dad as he held court in a chair he’d pulled up in front of our fireplace. I couldn’t see my mom.
“Listen, Russell,” Dad said, gesturing to an older man in dirty coveralls who was seated on our coffee table, hunched forward, shaking his head sadly, eyes on the floor. I recognized him from the gas station. “I appreciate that you’ve come here. But—”
“You’re the only one who saw this coming, Jim. And you were brave enough to say so. So we’re hoping you’ll also know how we can stop this.”
Looking back, I can see how much that simple statement must have meant to my dad. To go from the town crier at those stupid meetings to someone respected. And, even more than that . . . needed.
Dad shyly lowered his head. “Well, there is plenty of precedent. In fact, about a month ago, there was a land grab on Block Island. The mayor there was trying to say certain beachfront homes were blighted, so they could condemn them, kick the people out, and build mansions to bring in more tax revenue.”
A shocked silence settled over the whole living room. They’d never heard the story. I had, but only because Dad had been railing about it for a whole week when it happened.
A female voice piped up from a part of the living room I couldn’t see. “That might be what they’re going to do to us! The first floor of my house was full of water last night, but it’s mostly gone down now. Only damage is a few broken windows, really. But they’re telling me not to bother repairing any damage. I’m just supposed to sleep in the gym until I can have it assessed. They said that’ll be my best chance at getting a good payday.”
Dad turned his chair so he was facing the woman. His fingers found the back of his neck and he rubbed the skin there so hard it left white streaks where the blood had been pushed away. I squeezed my way into the room. She had long white hair and clothes that looked dated, but were in good condition. She was trembling. Another neighbor had an arm around her.
“I can’t say one way or the other,” Dad said. “Block Island wasn’t dealing with the flooding we’ve got on our plates here. My guess is that they’ll try to use that against us. But, Bess, it’s still your home. You own it, they don’t. And you can do whatever the hell you want with it and no one should tell you any different.” His voice was rising. A few people nodded, but Bess started to cry. “I know how upsetting this is. Luckily, there’s no more rain in the forecast, at least not for the next few days. I’ve got some old plywood we can get up over those windows today so you can sleep at home tonight.”
A few men in the room offered to help too. They also had tools, and trucks, and materials. “Put us to work, Jim,” one man said. “We’ll do whatever you say.”
Dad stood up. He seemed to be drawing energy from everyone in the room. “You all found your way here because something about this doesn’t feel right. And believe me, I hear you. Until we get more information, we have to stick together and take care of each other.” He reached for one of my school notebooks that I’d left on the coffee table and opened it to the back pages. “Here, I want everyone to put their names and addresses down on this sheet and let me know what damage we need to take care of to get you back into your homes. And reach out to your neighbors, find out what they need. We can help them, too.”
My phone buzzed again.
Nice jammies.
I searched the room but didn’t have to look hard. There, on the arm of our couch, sat Jesse Ford. As soon as we locked eyes, a toothy grin spread across his face.
I immediately ducked into the hallway and pressed my back against the wall.
Jesse Ford was in my living room.
The first boy to ever be inside my house.
I glanced around, panicked, and saw every flaw.
There were fevered scratch marks dug into the wood of our back door from our old dog Donut begging to be let outside, even though he’d died years ago. Outlets that had no plastic covers. A big pile of old newspapers on the floor. An even bigger pile of dirty laundry waiting to be taken to the basement. A collection of embarrassing school pictures that Mom insisted on framing and displaying. Eyeglasses that were too big for my face in sixth grade, bucktoothed and banged in fifth, rocking a boy’s bowl haircut in fourth, and in third, one of those weird reflection things where it’s two of your faces, one looking straight on, one in profile, with a backdrop of the cosmos. That one, unfortunately, was my idea. I went through a huge NASA phase that year.
Jesse came through the doorway. I tugged down the hem of my nightshirt to make sure my underwear was covered. Underwear and the nightshirt were all I had on. I folded my arms across my chest because I wasn’t wearing a bra.
His eyes traveled up and down the length of me and it sent me on a woozy roller-coaster dip.
“What are you doing here? What are these people doing here?”
He leaned against the wall next to me. “It’s Monday.”
“I know it’s Monday.”
He grinned. “Then why does your underwear say Thursday?”
I felt like I was having a stroke. Or an aneurysm. Something medically e
pic and potentially debilitating. It took me a second to get ahold of myself. “I’m serious. What did the governor say?”
Jesse started laughing. Which confused me, because it was pretty clear that something terrible was going on. Finally, he composed himself enough to tell me, “I want to be the first one to welcome you to the future home of Lake Aberdeen.”
My face squinched up. “What are you talking about?”
“They’ve decided to dam the river and sink this place for good. It’s for a flood protection thing. Apparently, they never should have built up this land in the first place. Something about the elevation is screwed up. Oh, and the logging from back in the mill days likely made things unstable. Whatever. There was a very informative-slash-boring presentation given by a guy from the Army Corps of Engineers this morning, but I fell asleep. The point is that everyone in town will supposedly get a chunk of relocation money from the government. But we’ve all got to bounce.”
It was hard to make sense of what Jesse was saying, mainly because of how he was saying it. Bored. Unemotional.
“Can they do that?” I said, echoing Morgan’s text.
“Probably.” Jesse shrugged. “Look, we’re small, we’re poor, and a bunch of houses in town are completely wrecked. It’s kind of the best scenario for a fuck-over.”
Just then, my mom passed us on her way from the kitchen into the living room. She looked like she hadn’t slept a minute, and I felt guilty for being so rested. But she was still smiling. Not a happy smile, exactly, but more dazed shock. She had a pot of coffee in one hand and as many of our coffee cups as she could loop through her fingers in the other. Her head whipped around as she passed us, giving me a stern look that basically said, Clothes, now, before disappearing into the living room.
Jesse lifted his hand in this shy little boy way. And I swear his cheeks turned the littlest bit pink.
“I should—” I felt someone tug at the hem of my nightshirt. Julia, Jesse’s little sister, was still in her nightgown, one that had a pattern of horses with pink hair; a hooded sweatshirt; and a pair of jeans and rain boots that had ladybug spots on them.
“Can I have something to drink, please?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Umm, sure. But I don’t think we have juice or anything. Maybe milk?”
“Julia, this is Keeley. She’s the one who gave you the Mad Libs.” I was expecting a smile or a thank-you, considering how Jesse had implied with his text that she loved them so much, but Julia barely looked at me. Jesse lifted her into his arms and she immediately dropped her head on his shoulder, like a baby about to fall asleep. Except she was long, like him. “Sorry. She hardly slept last night. Anyway, she doesn’t drink milk, but could she have some water, if it’s not too much trouble?” He rubbed his sister’s back and then patted it a few times.
It made my heart break wide open.
I remembered that I had one of those plastic loop-di-loo straws in our junk drawer that Julia might like, and I was about to grab it, but then the meeting broke up and Jesse’s mom poked her head around the corner. I don’t know that I would have recognized her if not for her curly blond hair, because she looked way too young to have two kids. Her jeans pockets had rhinestones on them. “Let’s go,” she sighed, lifting Julia out of Jesse’s arms and walking out the back door. I was happy that she didn’t notice my near nakedness.
“Wait. So is your house okay?” I asked Jesse.
“Yeah. Piece of crap was barely touched, unfortunately. I bet they offer us five dollars for it.”
Another joke, obviously, because what else could we say?
I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to hug him. Because our town was apparently being condemned. Because I had no idea what tomorrow would bring. Because I loved him and I didn’t want him to leave, not yet.
Jesse nudged his chin at one of my photos across the hall. “I didn’t know you used to wear glasses.” Teasingly, he pushed an invisible pair up on my nose. Then he ran his hand slowly through my hair before he followed his family out our back door.
Every inch of me tingled.
Whatever I saw in the hallway at Spring Formal between Jesse and Victoria, it couldn’t have been anything. It must have been the dark, my eyes playing tricks on me. Or, even more believable, my own insecurities getting the best of me, casting shadows where there should only be sunshine. Because something was clearly still sparking between Jesse and me.
I was sure of it.
• • •
After the last person left, I expected Dad to flop on the couch. Instead, he zoomed around the house, digging for tools in the basement boxes we had carried up the night before. Stuff that hadn’t seen the light of day for two years.
Mom, too, sped around, though she was focused on cleaning and tidying up.
I was the one who couch-flopped.
“I still can’t believe it,” Dad said to me, bewildered, as he passed through the room. I thought he was talking about the plans to flood Aberdeen, but he wasn’t. “Some of these folks didn’t even stop home first. They came straight over and knocked on our front door.”
Finally he sat down. He lifted his leg onto the coffee table, stiff as a long wooden board, and, wincing slightly, rolled his foot in a circle. “It’s crazy. You read about these things happening to other places in the country. You just never imagine it coming to your doorstep.”
Mom slid on her rain jacket. It still looked wet. “Jim, you sure you can’t rest for even an hour? You barely slept last night.” She glanced around the room and then spotted her laptop bag propped up on our fireplace mantel.
“Can’t,” Dad said, and switched to a different stretch, twisting his torso to the left and to the right. “Charlie and Sy are going to meet me at Bess’s house to get that plywood up.” He picked up the notebook. “We’ve got a list a mile long.”
Though it was great to see Dad so animated, I had the same worries Mom did. That it was too much too soon. “Dad, you should make those other guys your employees. Order them around.” It sounded like a good idea to me, but Dad just frowned.
Mom set a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you rest for an hour or two while I check on some of my patients and Annie. Then I can drop you off somewhere with your tools and—”
He looked at me. “Maybe Keeley—”
“I don’t want her driving in these conditions with just a learner’s permit. The roads sound like they’re awful.”
Dad shrugged. “Well, Charlie and Sy are already picking up some guys themselves, so . . . I guess I’ll have to drive myself.” I bet Mom and I looked equally stunned, because Dad started defending himself. “I mean, I do still have my license. I just don’t like to drive. It hurts my leg. But I can do it if I absolutely have to.” Dad reached out his hand. “Do you still have my key?”
I went to fish it out from my coat pocket, making eyes with Mom along the way, in case she was going to tell me not to. She didn’t.
Dad got up and kissed her on the cheek. “I promise I won’t go at it too hard. And I have my phone on me, if either of you need to get in touch.”
Mom and I watched him disappear out the back door.
“This is crazy,” I said.
“I know.”
“I mean the flooding stuff, but also Dad.”
“I know,” Mom said again, this time her face blooming into a big smile. “But this is who he’s always been, Keeley. He just forgot it for a while.”
“I still don’t get how he knew this was going to happen to Aberdeen.”
Mom was still watching him through the back window. “He didn’t. It was just a hunch.” Finally she turned to me. “Apparently, he’d read an article about how some developer was considering a new high-rise on the water down in Waterford City, but the environmental studies said it would be too unstable and Governor Ward was very disappointed.” She shook her head. “Maybe a month after that, one of the neighbors asked Dad if he knew anything about a group of engineers taking measurements down by the o
ld mill.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“So at the next town meeting, Dad asked about it. The mayor gave him some line about a company being interested in buying the building, which didn’t pass Dad’s sniff test, especially when Mayor Aversano refused to say which company. After that Block Island story came out, I think Dad started putting two and two together. Of course, I told him he sounded paranoid.”
I knew exactly what Mom was feeling because I felt it too. Like a jerk. Dad’s interest in local politics were eye-roll fodder. I would have teased him about it more, probably, if not for the fact that it gave my dad a purpose. He couldn’t take care of us, his family, but he could care for Aberdeen.
I ran outside. Dad was packing tools into the bed of his truck. He was breathing pretty hard. “I could kick my own ass for not taking that physical therapy more seriously.”
“Just please take care of yourself, okay? I don’t think Mom could survive being your nurse again.”
“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “I think you’re right.”
“And you’re sure you’re okay to drive? You want to flip through my driver’s ed manual as a refresher?”
“Just don’t make fun of me if I stall out. I’m rusty.”
“You know I can’t make that kind of promise.”
“Right. Of course.”
It took him a minute to figure out how to position his leg inside the truck cab. He stalled out twice in the driveway, and both times, I applauded and wolf-whistled. By the time he turned onto our road, he had it down. He pulled away extra fast, tires squealing, and gave me a thumbs-up.
12
* * *
Monday, May 16
Increasing clouds in the afternoon, light winds from the north, 50°F
* * *
I turned on the shower. While waiting for the water to get hot, I clicked on the TV in my parents’ bedroom, thinking I’d watch for a second or two, see if we made the news.
The Last Boy and Girl in the World Page 11
