Two Sisters
Page 10
brush of a saturated breeze and the occasional slash of headlights crossing the far wall—and let her fictional world blur into an imagining of what Brooke was doing at that moment. And in those imaginings, Jennifer Garrison was nowhere present and not even Stuart Garrison but men—men, not boys—always properly dressed in Victorian wool suits and leaning over and whispering—yes, whispering in her mind, an imagining of what it was like to hear, of the sense of sound that somehow matched in texture and feel the wisp of salt-laden air, the brush of a feather, the crumple of a tissue—and following that whisper with a chaste kiss on the cheek, a solicitous smile, a fathomless stare that was nonetheless known. These were Brooke’s adventures out of sight that became her adventures, lying there in the dark bed.
Then Brooke would arrive back at the cottage—always faithfully at 11:29 on the dresser clock’s digital face, exactly twenty-nine minutes past her curfew, just short of raising Momma’s ire—and sneak in the never locked side door. Leah felt the vibration of Brooke’s footsteps on the side landing, across the kitchen, up the stairs and down the hall. With her head cushioned in the pillow and one eye open, she’d see her sister slip into the bedroom, carefully close the door, then slide out of her clothes and into her pajamas, sometimes holding onto the bedposts for support. Then Brooke would disappear from sight as the bunks rocked ever so slightly from side to side. And at that moment Leah’s imagining of Brooke’s experiences out of sight would transition from the idealized vision of Victorian courtship and heartbreak to the rough-edged reality of wine-tainted breath and the faint scent of someone not of this house. Her mind wouldn’t build outward from those stimuli—not that it couldn’t but it chose not to. Sleep proved a welcome refuge then. And the next morning, after swinging down from the upper bunk, she’d leave a stick of gum beside Brooke’s sleeping head before scurrying off to the bathroom then the sandbars unmarred by human or dog print.
The Garrisons left after the first week and Brooke seemed relieved. The only direct reference she made to her time away was on their first walk together along the incoming tide that hazy Saturday morning as the Garrisons were packing to leave and Brooke made a point of being as far away as the close confines of Bogue Beach would allow. When they were to the end of walkable beach, where a wide creek of inrushing seawater blocked their way, Brooke paused before turning and said simply, “He was more fun to look at than spend time with.” Leah had tilted her head and waited for further explanation on both points, as she didn’t think of Stuart as even sort of “fun” to look at—all gangly and with a shock of dark hair permanently across his right eye—and couldn’t imagine spending time with the dour, withdrawn soul. But Brooke met her question with a light-hearted giggle and a piece of seaweed pulled off the jetty and trailing out behind her like a pennant as she ran prancing through the shallow water shouting something that Leah finally recognized as “I’m free” during a return pass just before Brooke trailed the slimy seaweed across her head.
More explanation on what Brooke had done came later in the day when she gestured with a finger over her lips for Leah to follow after she glanced around to see that no one was watching then darted onto the rocks underneath the pier where it tied into the shore. From the beach those rocks looked like a solid wall underpinning the pier and the arcade and market that separated that pier from the street and parking lot, and controlled access to it. But once on the slippery, algae-coated rocks, Leah saw that there were gaps between the boulders. Most of these gaps were barely big enough to fit your hand into (and who would be brave or foolish enough to do that—risking the pinch of a crab or sting of a jellyfish, or worse). But Brooke led her up the rock wall to a boulder near the top, where the rough beams supporting the pier deck intersected this foundation, and on the right-hand side, then disappeared! Leah felt a brief gasp of panic. Had Brooke fallen into a hole? But then she felt equally sudden relief when Brooke reappeared in the shadowy dark beneath the pier deck and waved her on. She scurried across the rocks to where Brooke could reach her hand. Then her sister helped pull her up the last and steepest boulder to a narrow ledge so close to the pier deck that she could reach up and touch the bottom of the boards forming the walk and had to duck under the beams supporting the walk. Then Brooke, still holding her hand, shimmied along the narrow ledge with her body tight to the boulder and pulled Leah into a small cave behind the boulder and between two of the pier beams, barely big enough for them and entirely invisible until you were right upon it. In the thin light that sifted down through the cracks between the pier decking, Leah could see that the rocks up this high were clean and dry, and that someone had wedged a piece of driftwood into notches in the rock walls to form a rudimentary bench. Brooke sat on that driftwood now and pulled Leah onto the seat beside her.
“What do you think?” Brooke asked with evident pride and satisfaction.
Leah thought it both the most captivating and frightening hideaway she’d ever seen. She felt like she was on a different planet but simultaneously wondered about all the risks. What if the incoming tide rose higher than normal and drowned them? What if the boulders shifted and trapped them? What if some snake or giant crab emerged from the crevices and attacked them?
Brooke laughed. “Relax, Leah,” she mouthed with her lips and tongue and teeth moving with the exaggerated precision that told Leah she wasn’t making sounds. “It’s safe!”
Just then someone walked directly overhead, casting a shadow down through the cracks in the boards and sifting a little sand onto their knees. Leah jumped in surprise.
Brooke quickly threw one of her hands over Leah’s mouth and raised the other to put a finger over her lips.
Leah, wide-eyed in the dim light, slowly nodded understanding.
Brooke lowered her hands and mouthed, “No one knows we’re here. It’s our secret.”
Leah stared at her sister, her eyes framing the obvious question—you didn’t find this place on your own; someone else knows about it.
Brooke laughed and said, “But he’s gone!” Then she wrapped her arms around her own torso, closed her eyes, and puckered her lips in a mock kiss. She opened her eyes just enough to see Leah’s understanding and astonishment. She raised one finger, then leaned back into a half-reclining position against the rock walls, closed her eyes again, and made like more kissing, rumpling her hair with one hand, using her other arm to push an imaginary hand away, first from her breasts then from her waist. After many seconds of this miming that extended past demonstration and into the realm of fond and perhaps slightly sorrowful recollection, Brooke suddenly sat up, opened her eyes, and shrugged to her sister in a gesture that needed no words to say He’s gone; you’re here; I’m better off.
For the briefest of instants, Leah wondered about the lure in boys that would bring Brooke to such a place and such a state with someone as insubstantial as Stuart Garrison; or, for that matter, with anyone not your soul twin. But realizing she could not answer that question, could not understand—not now anyway—Leah dismissed the question and simply gazed at her sister with her mouth slightly open in an expression of thanks for that sister’s return, a conveyance of a week’s worth of stored love.
Brooke understood—she had a way of always understanding Leah even if Leah so rarely understood her—and reached out and cupped her chin and said in a whisper (spoken words, Leah knew) “I missed you, Leah. No matter what I do or how stupid I act, we’re always together.” She lowered her hand and held it out between them in the dim light, palm out, thumb and fingers pointed up.
Leah raised her hand and pressed it against her sister’s, her fingers long as Brooke’s and pushed tight, tip to tip.
Brooke smiled, parted her fingers, let Leah’s twine naturally between hers. Brooke pulled the paired hands to her lips in a kiss that might, or might not, have recalled Stuart. It hardly mattered to Leah the reason why.
For the rest of their vacation, they spent part of each day in this hidden grotto. They’d head out after lunch telling Momma they were going fo
r a walk on the beach or to arcade to play video games then quietly slip out of the hot midday sun and into the cool dimness of their cave. With so few people on the beach at that hour and none under the pier, Brooke and Leah were never challenged as they disappeared into the rock buttress.
And once there they never grew tired or bored despite the close and unadorned confines of the space. At first they played games together. They’d try to outdo each other making silly faces. They’d arrange each other’s hair in elaborate braids and twists and pleats. They turned a silent pattycake game (everything they did had to be silent, to avoid detection by people passing above) into an elaborate choreography of fingers and thumbs, fingernails and knuckles, wrists and forearms. This game in turn gave rise to wrist-tickling, where they’d take turns closing their eyes and having the other lightly brush their wrist turned pale side up until the light brush of fingertips became unbearable and they jerked their wrist away, leading to gales of silent laughter. This in turn led to dramatic narratives played out on their knees with finger actors—royal courtships and weddings, family fights