The House on Fripp Island

by Rebecca Kauffman

  After Poppy and John showered, they got an early jump on breakfast before Lisa was up, so that Lisa could relax and enjoy a meal without assuming all the work of preparing it. Poppy mixed up a sausage, egg, and cheese casserole with ingredients they already had around the house, and John went out to pick up a dozen donuts from Sweetie-Pies, the famed bakery across the island.

  Ryan was the first to wake. The casserole still had twenty minutes of baking time, and John had not yet returned with the donuts.

  Poppy said, “You got a better night’s sleep than our first night, I take it?”

  Ryan nodded. “Like a log.” He removed the rubber band from the newspaper that sat on the counter and started reading the front page. Poppy leaned over the counter to sniff him. “Are you wearing cologne?” she said.

  Ryan wriggled away. “It’s called deodorant.” He went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice. “I’m gonna be on the patio. Let me know when the casserole’s ready?”

  “Yeah, hon,” Poppy said.

  Several minutes later, Poppy was unloading the dishwasher when the phone rang behind her, and she was so startled that she dropped a steak knife on the floor.

  She put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  Silence. No voice, no dial tone.

  Poppy held her palm over the mouthpiece and rammed the speaker end to her ear. Who the . . . Several more seconds passed. Was that breathing at the other end of the line? A man. Was it heavy breathing? Could be.

  Poppy took her hand off the mouthpiece and said, “Hello?”

  A man’s voice, deep and soft, said, “Hello.”

  Poppy said briskly, “Are you calling for Scott? To play golf?”

  A few seconds of silence, then the man said, “No.”

  She sputtered, “Well then, who are you? . . . Huh? . . . Well?”

  The man didn’t speak, but he didn’t hang up either.

  “Nothin’?” Poppy barked.

  When the man didn’t answer, Poppy hung up the phone so hard it jangled against the wall mount. “Hell with that guy,” she muttered to herself. Some sicko getting his jollies calling random numbers on the island and breathing heavily into the phone if a woman answered.

  As she returned to the dishwasher, the name Keats Firestone flashed through Poppy’s head. She tried to ignore it. She put a few dishes away and fanned her face with a pamphlet on the counter. Well, shit on a stick. She wished she hadn’t had that thought. Keats Firestone. Poppy didn’t really believe the call had anything to do with Keats, but, well, she’d rather rule it out so she could forget about it altogether. If it weren’t for the kids here, if they hadn’t had that second encounter with the guy . . . It would be better for her just to trace the call so she could know and put it out of her mind.

  Poppy grabbed a pen and a takeout menu from the counter and returned to the phone. Alright, creep. Where ya calling from? Poppy dialed *69, and a woman’s automated voice came on and introduced the Caller ID service. When the woman recited the originating number of the call, Poppy was so surprised by the area code that she almost dropped the phone. The area code was not local, but belonged to Wheeling, West Virginia. The caller was somebody from home.

  14

  KEATS WATCHED THE morning news and ate a soft-boiled egg on a piece of toast while Roxie showered after her long run.

  She came out of the bathroom in her blue terrycloth robe, a towel wrapped around her hair, turban-like, and she carried a large bottle of moisturizer. She took a seat next to Keats on the couch.

  He said, “Need a rubdown?”

  “Not today. My foot’s the only part of me that’s cramping up, and it isn’t too bad.” She squeezed a dollop of moisturizer into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm it. “You know that lady I told you about yesterday who bummed a cigarette while she was out for a run?”

  Keats nodded absently, eyes on a commercial for mortgage refinancing.

  “We bumped into each other again this morning,” she said. “Isn’t that something? She’s staying in one of those green houses up by Millard’s Cove, and she’d just started out north when we ran into each other. I convinced her to turn back and go see the magnolias with me. We ran a few miles together.”

  “Imagine that helped the time go by.”

  Roxie nodded. She shook the towel around her head free, and wet hair fell to her shoulders. “We’re probably going to meet up and run together again tomorrow morning.” She cracked her big toe.

  Keats patted Roxie’s bare knee, which was peeping out from her robe.

  “She and her family are from West Virginia,” Roxie continued. “Sounds like they don’t have much money. They’re with another family who got an all-expenses-paid deal, so they’re just along for the ride.” Roxie propped her foot up and examined a callus. She rubbed the underside of her foot with both thumbs, working at a cramp. “It’s nice to meet down-to-earth people on the island every now and then. You know? Easy to forget they exist.”

  Keats scraped the prongs of his fork over a bit of sticky golden yolk that remained on his plate, to create a striped design.

  Roxie sniffed the air, then punched the couch cushion next to her, releasing a cloud of dust and dog hair that hung suspended and colorless in the morning sunlight. “Yuck,” she said.

  Keats said, “Talk to the dog, then. Tell him to quit sheddin’.”

  Roxie laughed. “When we leave the island,” she said, picking at a loose thread on the couch and patting the cushion, “this old thing’s staying behind.”

  “Fine by me,” Keats said.

  John entered the house whistling, a large, greasy white box full of donuts under his arm. Poppy took the donut box from him, set it on the kitchen counter, and held a finger at her lips.

  In hushed tones, Poppy told John about the phone call, the heavy breather. She showed him the number of the originating call, which she had called back and gotten no answer after twenty-some rings. Then Poppy explained that she had called the directory service to find out where in Wheeling the call came from, gotten the address, and discovered it was a pay phone on Mercer Avenue. She had ruled out anything concerning her parents. She had ruled out anything concerning Carol, or anyone who might have been calling on Carol’s behalf. There was no reason such a person would have called from a pay phone, she thought, and no reason they would have declined to speak when given the chance.

  The two of them tried to picture the exact location of the address in Wheeling. As far as they could remember, Mercer ran for a few blocks downtown, near the university parking garage. Nothing of particular note in the area.

  John seemed more intrigued than concerned.

  Nothing scared John, a quality that Poppy found both reassuring and incredibly annoying. Years earlier, a serial killer had escaped from a maximum-security prison in Paden City, under an hour away from their home, and John didn’t even think to deadbolt the front door the night the news broke. Poppy stared at him flabbergasted the next morning. She pointed at their door. “John,” she said, “a granny could kick that thing in. You’re practically begging that serial killer to waltz in and slit our throats!” John found this terribly funny, but he also promised to deadbolt their front door until they received word that the killer had been apprehended.

  Poppy studied his face. “You’re not worried.”

  John shook his head. “I’m sure there’s a good explanation. Not worth making a fuss about.”

  “Do you think we should ask the kids?”

  John considered this. “I guess we could, long as it’s low-key and doesn’t get them wound up. I’ll ask Alex about it while we’re out fishing. See if she knows anybody who ever makes calls from a pay phone, or if she can think of anyone who’d be trying to get in touch with her.”

  “OK,” Poppy said. “I’ll run it by Ryan sometime this morning too.”

  She gazed outside. Ryan had finished his orange juice. His legs were crossed and propped up and the newspaper was spread over his
thighs, but he didn’t appear to be reading.

  John and Alex ate their breakfast and left for fishing before any of the Dalys had woken. Poppy served donuts and her sausage and egg casserole to everyone as they showed up. She had tried her best with Lisa’s special coffee and the French press, but it somehow came out both too thin and too gritty, so Lisa started a fresh pot.

  Kimmy was the last member of the household to surface. Rae was at the coffee table, still in her Victoria’s Secret pajamas and working on a jigsaw puzzle when Kimmy entered the room. Rae offered a bright and energetic “Morning, Kimmers!”

  When Kimmy didn’t acknowledge her sister, Rae threw a pen cap at her head. Kimmy swatted it away. She was not in a mood to be joked with. She hadn’t slept well, stewing all night about the fight with Rae and listening to Alex’s intermittent moaning and thrashing about with cramps, despite the Motrin that Poppy had given her.

  In the light of a fresh day, the world felt significantly less grim to Kimmy, but the fight with Rae still smarted, and she was determined not to accept any niceties.

  But Rae wasn’t giving up easily. “Kimmy,” she cooed from the sofa, “come sit next to me. I need your help with the puzzle.”

  Kimmy didn’t look in her sister’s direction.

  Rae patted the cushion next to her. “You look so pretty. Are you wearing one of your new Lip Smackers?” Rae had given Kimmy a set of Lip Smacker glosses in various flavors for her birthday several months ago—it was a special present, Kimmy treasured it very much, and Rae knew this.

  Kimmy glanced sideways at her sister, but offered nothing.

  “Are you?” Rae pressed forward. “Which one are you wearing?”

  Kimmy sighed through her nose.

  “What’s that?” Rae encouraged her gently.

  “Root beer,” Kimmy muttered, already feeling far too susceptible to Rae’s attempts at reconciliation.

  “It looks really cute.” Rae scooched down the couch so she was closer to Kimmy, and she sidled up to her. She took Kimmy’s hand and pulled it downward so that Kimmy’s face was near hers.

  Rae whispered, “I didn’t really mean what I said last night.” Her breath smelled like the maple donut she had just eaten. “Forgive me?”

  When Kimmy didn’t respond immediately, Rae tugged needily on her hand, then kissed Kimmy’s fingers like an overzealous admirer.

  “Forgive me?” Rae said again.

  Kimmy hated herself for so easily succumbing to this obvious manipulation, but attention from her older sister was so rare and felt so impossibly good that she couldn’t help herself. Rae had even called her pretty, and that meant so much coming from Rae.

  “Forgive me?” Rae asked a third time, and Kimmy nodded.

  “Cool,” Rae said, dropping Kimmy’s hand and returning to the puzzle.

  Kimmy said, “I’ll help you with the puzzle in a minute.” She went to the kitchen to select a donut.

  Kimmy felt so instantly restored by the interaction that it didn’t occur to her that Rae had somehow secured her forgiveness without saying “I’m sorry.” It didn’t occur to Kimmy that Rae had never once in their entire life together said “I’m sorry.”

  Ryan was still outside on the patio, finishing his second donut, shirt off now, soaking up the early-morning sun. He was bent over the newspaper with a pencil, tackling the crossword.

  Scott announced that he was going to drive off the island to the nearby town of Beaufort for an hour or two, to check out a classic car show featuring Mustangs from the 1960s. Lisa showed no sign of surprise or objection to this, so Poppy figured they had already discussed it. Scott must have been right with what he’d said yesterday, Poppy thought, about giving Lisa space even if it was at the expense of family time together.

  “Bye, girls,” Scott called to Rae and Kimmy, who were working, heads down, on the jigsaw puzzle. He came over to do a special choreographed high five with Kimmy. She made him stop and start over several times until they got it just right.

  Then she sang, “Daddy, if you’re leaving us, you have to come back with presents for us.”

  Scott laughed. “If you say so.”

  Kimmy saluted and said, “Later, alligator.”

  Rae didn’t say anything, but looked up briefly once her father was halfway to the door, as though to confirm that he was actually leaving.

  Once he had gone, Lisa drew close to Poppy and spoke softly enough that the girls wouldn’t overhear. “We figured it’s better if we steer clear of each other as much as we can without being obvious,” she said.

  “Did you talk anything through last night? Resolve anything?”

  “No, except for a pact to keep it civil for the girls. I told him we need to talk when we get back home. Really talk. Get serious about making some decisions.”

  “How’d he respond?”

  “He agreed,” Lisa said.

  “At least you can agree on that.”

  Lisa reached behind her neck to tighten the knot on her bikini, a red one today. It seemed Lisa had a new bikini for every six hours. This one was particularly sexy, with a gold hoop at her sternum that connected the bra cups. She was beach-ready, sunglasses holding her hair out of her face, cheeks already gleaming with sunscreen, a white see-through cover-up skirt high on her waist. Bright red lipstick to match the bikini. Poppy felt like a schlub in the same navy one-piece they had all seen before, the only swimsuit she owned, her hair still wet from the shower but rapidly expanding with frizz as it dried.

  Lisa moved across the room to wipe down the kitchen table with Windex. “Can you believe tomorrow is our last full day?”

  From the living room, Kimmy wailed, “I never want to leave!” She turned to Rae. “This is the best place we’ve ever been. Don’t you think so?”

  Rae shrugged. “Every place I’ve ever been is pretty much the same.” What she meant by this was, I feel pretty much the same way every place I go. No matter where she was, the world always refused to give Rae what she felt she was owed.

  Poppy said, “Are you guys done with your breakfast? Let’s get our butts down to the beach.”

  Kimmy leapt to her feet, puzzle pieces scattering to the floor.

  Poppy finished loading the dishwasher while Lisa massaged sunscreen into Kimmy’s back. Then she stepped onto the patio, where Ryan was still hard at work on the crossword. “You ready to hit the surf?”

  “Let’s do it.” Ryan folded up the newspaper and squinted into the sky behind Poppy, his pupils instantly shrinking to specks, his dark brown irises red and green and gold in the direct sun.

  John and Alex were having much better luck today. After only an hour casting off the pier, they had gotten dozens of bites, and John had already pulled in two midsized speckled trout and a flounder, while Alex snagged a pinfish. John had come optimistically prepared once again with a cooler full of ice. He was pleased that he’d have a few fillets to take back for Poppy to fry up. The pinfish would be measly, but the trout would probably provide six ounces apiece. Enough for everyone in the house to have at least a little.

  As was John’s practice, once he had removed the hook from the ensnared fish, he bopped the fish on the head with a mallet, hard enough to kill it instantly, before throwing it on ice. Alex, as always, watched this process unflinchingly, but she did not ask to participate.

  A year or so earlier, while fishing out of John’s motorboat on Baker Lake, Alex had asked to kill the first bluegill they caught. She’d seen her father do it a hundred times before. And while it was trickier in a motorboat than on a cement pier, you simply held the thing on the floor of the boat with a foot and your left hand and bopped it with the mallet in your right, and John had no qualms about letting Alex do it. He had seen her hammer nails with great precision and whack baseballs into center field; he didn’t think she’d have any trouble offing a six-inch bluegill with a single swing.

  But she did. She let up with her foot a split second before the mallet struck, and the fish flipped in that moment,
moving enough that Alex made only partial contact with the head, not nearly enough to effectively stun it. Blood poured from the fish’s gills and it thrashed hard against the bottom of the boat, continuing to impressively catch a few inches of air. Alex gasped and squeaked as the fish thrashed and bounced, and instinctively she slapped at the thing with her hand while it was in the air. She ended up batting the fish clean over the side and into the water. She held the mallet in her right hand and stared up at John with surprise, and then shame.

  “It’s OK, hon,” he said gently. “You almost had him.”

  Alex peered over the side of the boat.

  John said, “Can you see him down there?”

  Alex nodded. “He’s bleeding really bad.” She sniffed and added softly, “He’s swimming really slow in a little circle.” She looked up at her father with tears in her eyes. “He’s going to die.”

  John said, “Well, he was gonna die either way.”

  “But . . .” Alex peered back over the side, looking like she might try to reach in with her hand and scoop the fish out but realizing she wouldn’t be able to reach it. “But since I messed up, he’s suffering,” she said. She looked up at the sky and then wiped her eyes on her forearm. “I’m sad,” she said.