Mom turned on the radio, and she and Bobby started singing to the songs. That helped. I leaned back and closed my eyes. There had to be a rational explanation.
This must be either death or a dream. If it was a dream, it was the most powerful dream I’d ever had. I kept pinching myself to see if I’d wake up, but all that did was give me red marks on my skin. And I never had a dream where everything happened exactly like before. Mom and Bobby were even wearing the same outfits from when we left for the club three months ago. And Mom did her little indecisive routine at the Burger King drive-thru. “I’ll take a chicken sandwich. No, scratch that. Make it a Whopper Junior. No, wait a minute…” To which I became exasperated just like before.
So then it had to be death. I shuddered at the thought. Could my life be over? I had only turned eighteen. It didn’t seem fair that God would take both my father and me within a couple of months of each other. But if this were death, where was the Big Guy? Where were the harps and angels and streets of gold? Then again, at least I wasn’t in a lake of fire. There was that.
It must be a dream. Or maybe falling into the water put me in a coma, and my brain was reliving this.
If we were going back to the yacht club, would I have to endure Heather’s bipolar routine? Or endure a bunch of hoity-toity people who would pretend to not stare at me, even though it was obvious that they were? No, thank you.
“Do you think I could just spend the summer at home?” I interrupted Mom singing. “The yacht club is the last place I want to be.”
Mom looked at me like horns had grown out of my head. “Are you joking? We made a deal. To live Dad’s dream.”
“We made the deal while Dad was alive. It shouldn’t count anymore. And what if something bad was about to happen, and I knew it. Would you believe me?”
“There’s no way of knowing the future, hon.”
“Yeah? Well, there’s no way I could go back to June thirteenth of the same year, yet here I am.”
We pulled into a gas station. She gave me an impatient glance. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as Mom left, I turned back to look at Bobby. “Give it to me straight. Were we at the yacht club yesterday?”
He looked at me strangely and shook his head. “Mom begged you to go to your graduation. She even started crying. Grandma and Grandpa McFadden twisted your arm by telling you it was what Dad would have wanted.”
The second time today where the words stung, but I knew they were true. I had made Mom cry on my graduation day. I refused pictures, I chose the restaurant, knowing Bobby hated it, and I ended up not eating anything. Basically, I acted like a complete jerk.
“You’ve been in a funk since Dad died.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know.”
“And you’re acting like a nutcase now.”
I reached back and tried to punch his arm. He dodged it.
“Why can’t you be normal again?” he asked. “Like before Dad died. I know you were his favorite, but you act like no one else exists.”
“I wasn’t his favorite.”
“Dad never bought me books. And he never sat with me talking about all of his characters in his novels.” Bobby’s sadness seeped through his words.
“Bobby, Dad loved you, too. You wouldn’t sit still long enough for him to talk to you about books. And Dad never got me an entire fishing set. He never took me fishing.” I stopped because he had wanted to take me fishing. The last day he was alive. I reached back and squeezed Bobby’s hand.
Bobby looked sideways at me and gave a small smile. “Yeah, I guess.”
We remained quiet for a moment. “Mom said that I need to give you space so that you don’t end up doing something crazy. Are you going to do something crazy?”
The tender moment evaporated into the air. “You and Mom need to stop talking about me. It’s annoying.” I flipped back around to face the front.
“You were talking crazy when we left the house,” Bobby muttered under his breath.
When Mom came back she clasped her hands. “All right. We’re almost there. Are we ready for the summer of our lives?”
“Yeah, baby!” Bobby yelled. “Dad would be so excited if he were here.”
“Yes, he would.” Mom looked at Bobby through the rearview mirror. “Just think of all the new friends you two will meet.”
“Don’t forget the bonfires,” Bobby added. “With the s’mores and the hot dogs.”
“And the beach,” Mom said.
“There are the jet skis and the boat rides. Can we rent one of those superfast boats, Mom?”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m not going on any boats, and I’m definitely not going near the water.” I wanted to add, especially since I just fell from a yacht last night.
“You have the entire summer to get over your fear of water. Your father would want you to.”
“Let’s stop talking about Dad.” I kept my eyes focused on the landscape outside the window.
We drove through the opened gates of the club, and Mom and Bobby “oohed” over the beautiful trees and forestry that surrounded us. Mom slowed as the drive forked into two roads.
“Take the left,” I told her.
“Are you sure? It says check-in is to the right.”
“Trust me. Our rental is on the left. The yellow house with the geranium pots on the deck. You can’t miss it because it’s the smallest out of the mammoth houses that stand beside it.”
Mom stared at me and raised her eyebrow.
“You’ve been here before?” Bobby asked.
“Just a wild guess.” They evidently remembered nothing about the previous summer.
Mom ignored me and turned to the right.
An apology sat on my tongue, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit out loud what a jerk I had become. Why was I being so antagonistic? Even though something weird was going on, did I have to upset Mom all the time? She obviously had no idea what was happening. I sat back and crossed my arms, not saying anything more.
We pulled up and turned off the car. I would have stayed in the car, but I was curious to see if I was right. Plus, my legs needed to stretch.
After twenty minutes of waiting, I knew.
Mom would call Mr. Fairchild, and he would tell Mom to just go to the house. The yellow one with the red geraniums.
“I’m calling George.” Mom left us standing in the lobby of the guest services building.
“Where is everyone?” Bobby threw up his hands. “I’m supposed to meet Zach at the beach. We would have been here if you would have gotten up earlier.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “Mr. Fairchild will tell Mom to just go to the house.”
Mom walked in from outside. “Okay, I talked to George. He told us to go to the house, and he’ll meet us there. Come on, I got directions.”
She walked back outside, but Bobby watched me wide-eyed. “How’d you do that?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you two, but neither one of you is listening.”
“So, what else can you tell me?”
“Um, let’s see, Jayce gets hired to work here.” Saying his name reminded me of how much I wanted to kick his butt after the whole luring-me-to-the-party routine. I wouldn’t be in this mess if he would have never convinced me to go.
“We already know that. Jayce told us yesterday at graduation.”
“He’s going to work at the ice cream stand at the pool.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“You swear you’re telling the truth?”
“Yes, why?”
Bobby nodded, “You’re psychic.”
As we headed outside, Bobby kept sneaking curious glances at me.
“Stop it.”
Mom leaned against the car, soaking in the sun.
“I’m going to walk to the cabin,” I told her.
“How will you know which one it is?”
“I don’t know, Mom. I’ll walk until I find the yell
ow house with the geraniums.” I saw her worried expression and added, “I’ll walk until I see our car. You’ll probably get there before me.”
“I’m going with Brooke,” Bobby said and ran up to me. “How long of a walk is it?”
“Not too far.”
Bobby wanted to stop and point out every mansion. After I told him the names of most of the people who lived in them, he became quite impressed. “You are psychic. Are you going to get one of those crystal balls and live in a dark hut and tell people their futures?”
“Considering I only know stuff about this summer, probably not.”
“Dad would say it’d make a great story.”
“Yeah, he would.” Dad would say that about anything that happened that broke the norm. One time wasps built their nest into our dryer vent and somehow managed to get into our basement. Mom and I were doing the laundry and turned on the dryer. It must have upset the wasps because several stormed out of the vent. Mom shoved me out of the laundry room and shut the door. We were so freaked out that we started screaming and hitting ourselves to make sure no wasps were on us. Dad had to fumigate the laundry room and call the exterminator to get rid of the nest. He thought it was so ingenious that he wrote it into his third book. “Esmeralda’s afraid of wasps?” I had asked. “She’s a demon slayer, but she’s terrified of being stung?”
Dad had laughed. “Isn’t it great? It makes such a great story.”
“Brooke?”
I turned to Bobby. “Yeah?”
“Why are you staring at the water like that? Were you thinking about Dad?”
“Yes, I was.”
“I could tell.”
“How’s that?”
“You always get that sad look on your face when you’re thinking about Dad.”
I couldn’t respond because what Bobby said was true. It had never hit me how perceptive he could be.
“Do you think he’s in heaven?” Before I could respond, he said, “I think he is.”
When we saw Mom unpacking the car, Bobby ran to her and said, “I guess Brooke was right, Mom. Look…yellow house with red flowers.”
Mom studied the house for a second and nodded. “She sure is psychic. Not that every other house isn’t yellow. Or that the website has directions already on it.” Bobby and I looked down the stretch of club homes. There were quite a few yellow ones. We were the only ones with the red geraniums, but I decided not to press it. Not to mention, the last thing I wanted—on top of having to live over this summer—was her to force me to see a psychiatrist. “Now both of you can help finish unpacking.”
I opened the trunk and yanked out my luggage, unsure of what to do next. What I wanted to do was turn around and go home and never meet the Fairchilds, but I had to figure out how to do it without angering Mom. She thought this was the first go-round of the summer.
“You never told me how you’re psychic. What’s the secret?” Bobby whispered and grabbed his duffel bag.
“I told you. I’m not psychic.” I slammed the trunk shut and went inside the cabin. “Mom?”
“Brooke, come here!” Mom said from the deck. I walked through the cabin and stopped at the screen door. Mom turned around and a smile spread across her face. She held out her hands. “Look at this! Look at this view! Oh, come outside, hon. Let’s go walk on the beach.”
“I want to go, Mom!” Bobby said from right behind me. He pushed past me and opened the screen door to step outside. “This is awesome!” he exclaimed. “This cabin is super close to Lake Michigan!”
Mom and Bobby laughed and talked excitedly, but a heavy weight of despair settled in my heart.
None of it made sense. Why would my brain be reliving the beginning of summer? I rubbed my head and swallowed back the threat of tears. Whatever was going on, I would figure it out. I’d have to.
Until then, I would do everything I could to never be introduced to Heather, and I would make sure Mom didn’t form any attachments to Mr. Fairchild. Then I thought of their words last night. Bobby had wanted nothing to do with me, and Mom said I had suffocated her. Those words hurt. A lot. But a part of me knew they were true. But could I change their feelings? Could I do things differently?
I’d seen enough movies and read enough books to know that if something weird was happening, there’s a reason for it. So, maybe I had to do something in this re-do. Something like a test.
“Okay, Brooke,” I said. “If this is a test, you have to pass it. But what’s the test?”
“Who you talking to?” Mom asked from outside.
“Just myself.”
“Dad always did that, too,” Bobby said to Mom.
I watched both of them through the screen door. I thought of their words to me the night before and knew what I had to do. If I had to relive this horrible summer, I vowed to myself I wouldn’t fall into the same routine. I wouldn’t hide. Well, maybe from Heather, but that was it. Maybe if I changed things up, then whatever this was would stop, and I could go back to normal. But what was normal?
Mom and Bobby came back inside, checked out the house, and picked out bedrooms. “Brooke, you can have this room!” Bobby said. “It’s got flowers on the blanket, and the walls are pink. It’s definitely for a girl.”
Without saying a word, I walked into the same bedroom as before. I set my duffel bag on the same bed I had cried myself to sleep on for the last three months.
Here we go again.
6
The minute I dropped my duffel bag in the room, I hightailed it out of the cabin. The goosebumps had yet to fully leave, but being in the cabin had them sprouting like daisies.
I told Mom I wanted to see if Jayce had arrived. She seemed genuinely pleased that I was attempting to be semi-social. Whatever. I didn’t have time to be annoyed with her motherly ways. Once at the pool, I headed to the ice cream stand. Relief swept through me when I spotted Jayce listening to some guy explaining how to scoop ice cream cones.
I waited impatiently for Jayce to be finished with his training. “Psst,” I whispered. He, along with his evident supervisor, looked over at me.
“Hi, I would like an ice cream.” The supervisor asked me what flavor. “Um, could I have that guy make it?” I pointed at Jayce, who was grinning like an idiot. “Mint chocolate chip, please.”
“Hey there,” he said while he bent to get the ice cream. His supervisor had already walked away. “I wondered when you guys would get here.”
“How’s the job?”
“I just started about an hour ago. So far, no complaints. Especially because the view is fantastic.”
“Jayce, I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”
He handed me a cone, already dripping in the heat, and said, “Go ahead. No one’s around. You okay?”
“No questions.” But I wondered if he knew. “Do you know what happened to me last night?”
“I thought we weren’t asking questions.”
“Jayce!”
“All right, all right,” he laughed. “You barely said two words to me the entire ceremony. You looked like you would crumble right there. I’m glad to be done with high school.”
He didn’t remember either. I tried another angle. “Have you ever served on any yachts before?”
Now he looked confused. “Served? Like as a waiter?”
“Never mind.” I continued licking the ice cream.
“What’s going on that you’re hanging out with the hired help and not flirting up some rich boy?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Hey, you got to ask a question, so I get to ask a question.”
“Fine. There won’t be any flirting this time. No, thank you.” The ice cream dripped quicker than I could lick it.
“This time?” He handed me a bowl and spoon. “I’ve yet to see you flirt with a guy. Any guy!”
“Guys are trouble.” I dumped the ice cream in the bowl and decided to change the subject. “Does today seem weird to you?”
“Every day seems weird to me. That�
�s why I’m just going to work the summer away.”
“But does it feel like we’ve been here before?”
“When could we afford to come here? Well, your family might have been able to, but not mine.” He went to help some customers.
Perfect. I ate the mushy ice cream if for no other reason than to keep the tears at bay. Crying wouldn’t help me figure anything out. Still, I felt alone. So far neither Mom, Bobby, nor Jayce had any idea about the previous summer. I glanced at the scene behind me. From the looks of it, no one else did either. There were carefree people scattered on the lounge chairs, lying out in the sun, playing beach volleyball, or swimming in the water. How was this happening? I couldn’t imagine going through this summer again. Eventually, I would run into Heather and possibly Lucas.
I swallowed the spoonful of ice cream and wondered what it would have been like to spend more time with Lucas. I probably wouldn’t have been embarrassed by a bunch of preteens, and I would have probably never discovered my mother’s transgressions. Oh, who was I kidding? Lucas was a nice enough guy, but I wasn’t exactly in his league.
“I see they hired some new help.”
I froze at the sound of her voice.
“Can I help you?” Jayce asked.
I peeked over and saw Heather with Paige and Sierra—at least I thought those were their names—smiling at Jayce. Heather leaned against the counter. “We only came over to say hello. I’m Heather.”
“Jayce.” He held out his hand and shook hers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I looked away, trying to remember the first day of the previous summer. Something didn’t fit. Heather should be on the other side of the beach because that’s where she was when I had first met her. Mom and I had walked the boardwalk, while Bobby went to find Zach. We ran across a group of kids who acted excited to meet me. Heather had immediately invited me to Jet Ski, and I had promptly refused. She had been successful in luring me to that evening’s bonfire though.
As I was replaying everything in my head, I caught the last of Heather and Jayce’s conversation.
“So, will you come? They can’t work you forever.”
“I’ll try. Brooke, want to go to a bonfire?”
Falling Too Deep Page 5
