by S. E. Hinton
He dug out a pair of jeans, a purple T-shirt.
Grenville smothered a gasp at the sight of Jamie's mutilated back.
Oh, good God, he had never dreamed it had been that bad ... though at the time no one thought he would live through it, not a doctor thought he could survive...
Yet Grenville had suspected he would, having realized very early that Jamie Sommers was a survivor.
"Jamie."
Jamie looked at him, apprehensive. He knew Grenville couldn't stand scenes, he'd probably had all he could tolerate for one day.
"You are mistaken. You have much to be proud of." Jamie blinked hard. "Thanks."
Jamie rolled the T-shirt down over his head, pulled on his jeans without bothering with underwear. He stuck his feet into flip-flops.
"See you around, Grenville," he said. "Yes, Jamie. See you around."
Sussex Airport, Delaware August 1968
Louisa Kahne was a little late. Jamie and Grenville had already left the plane as she reached the gate.
"I'll take it out of your wages for the next five years—no, ten—my God, Jamie you must have been drinking like the proverbial fish to run up a bill like that! Did you never draw a sober breath the whole time?"
"I don't think that's fair. You never told me drinks were separate. I thought they were included. You said it was my vacation, too.... Hey, Louisa."
Grenville stopped to give Louisa a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. She squeezed him back and turned to Jamie.
"Jamie Sommers, you must have put on ten pounds."
Jamie felt self-consciously at the small roll around his waist.
"Well, Louisa, there wasn't a whole lot to do on that ship besides eat and fu—lay around." He caught himself.
She didn't miss the unsaid word or the quick glance he and Grenville exchanged, but ignored both.
"Well, you do look relaxed." And she noted, not the least bit nervous.
"If he were any more relaxed, he'd be dead," Grenville commented dryly.
Grenville looked well, too. Not tan and pudgy like Jamie, but much less grim and tense. And something else ... she realized he was wearing a blazer over an open-necked polo shirt—it was the first time she'd seen him travel in anything other than a business suit.
It was only too becoming... but she frowned, suspecting the hand of a woman.
Louisa suddenly wondered suspiciously what exactly had gone on during the cruise.
Both men had an unmistakable, gleefully guilty look.
And as she joined them at the baggage claim from a trip to the ladies' room, she heard Grenville say, in a voice of awe: "Both? Actually?"
And Jamie chuckle wickedly. "Oh, yeah." This was the last time, she thought, that she'd send those two off together.
Entirely too much male bonding.
The three stood silently waiting for the luggage to appear.
Grenville was thinking how good it was to see Louisa again. Leslie had been very dear, but there were so many things she didn't know about him, could never know.
Louisa knew the worst and loved him in spite of it. He could share anything with her. He realized how lucky he was to have her in his life.
In one of his rare gestures of affection, he put his arm around her. She leaned against his side.
Jamie watched them absently. Those two together always seemed so right to him....
Jamie was thinking he needed a girlfriend. Sex was great, but what he was going to miss most was waking up to soft girl bodies snuggled on him, going to sleep in their arms. That was what he'd miss the most. That and the sex.
He had mooned around about Katie Roddendem long enough. Maybe he never would be over her completely, but he could be happy again.
But then, there was no rush.
The girls had promised to visit. He'd better rest up. "It's nice to be back," he said, at the same moment as Grenville.
Like they were somehow connected. Like there was some kind of bond.
Hawkes Harbor
Frederick Hawkes Elementary School Hawkes Harbor, Delaware November 1968
"I toldja, Louisa, you want me to work for you, you have to make an appointment, pay me. And I'm getting booked up."
"Jamie, this is an important project with a tight deadline—it is incredibly cold down here."
Louisa shivered, wrapping her coat tightly around her.
"That's why I'm fixing the furnace," Jamie said patiently. "It's an important project with a tight deadline, too. School's back in session Monday and it's twenty degrees out."
"I didn't think the school had a budget that could accommodate paying you by the hour," she said tartly.
"I charge by the job," he said. "I know I'm slow."
Louisa bit her lip. She didn't mean to hurt him. Jamie could be so exasperating, but she was very fond of him, too.
"Grenville doesn't mind you taking outside jobs?" she asked, curious.
She and Grenville had both been surprised when Jamie had fliers printed advertising his services for hire, had rented a post-office box for messages. Grenville refused to question him about it, but Louisa was dying to know....
"Not as long as I've got everything taken care of at the Hall. I'm just working extra on my time off."
If he minds he can give me a goddamn raise, Jamie thought. He'd needed some extra money, figured out a way to make it; it wasn't their business.
Except for his motives.
"Jamie," she said—something in his quiet defiance, his strangely confident air, aroused her suspicions. "Just why exactly is it that you need more money?"
"Everybody can always use more money."
"Well, it's not like you pay room and board."
She sounded just like Grenville, he thought. Like the freezing dimly lit isolated Hawkes Hall was the fucking Ritz.
"Mr. Sommers!" Another voice spoke loudly from behind him. Jamie jumped, dropped his wrench on his foot, and hopped around, trying to keep from swearing and not doing a very good job.
He hadn't heard anyone come down the stairs. Louisa might have warned him....
"You are just the man I wanted to see."
Jamie turned, rubbing at his foot through his boot.
It was one of the schoolteachers, a short, dark, mushroom-shaped woman he'd seen that morning upstairs. She was busy going through desks, cleaning out trash—since Wilson, the regular janitor, was in the hospital, the teachers were having to do things like that.
Jamie had made it clear to the principal; he was a repairman, not a janitor. He hoped she wasn't expecting him to mop her room.
"Hello," Louisa said, extending her hand. "I'm Louisa Kahne."
"Oh yes yes yes, everyone knows who you are. I'm Lucinda Maples, I teach fourth- and fifth-grade English, and I am also in charge of all the plays, the drama department. And when I saw you this morning, Mr. Sommers, I thought, there is the man I wanted to see."
She fixed him with her bright dark eyes.
Jamie wrung his hands together, wiped the palms on his pants. Busy women like this made him nervous, gave him flashbacks to the nuns. He suddenly felt trapped down there with her and Louisa—I'd rather be locked up with a vampire, he thought.
"I want you to help us with the scenery. And the props."
"The scenery?"
"She means for the plays, Jamie," Louisa explained.
Jamie was irritated. She was always treating him like a moron. He would have figured it out.
"Yes, our props right now are pitiful, the children would love something more elaborate, like the sets they see on TV. I've toured the Hall, I know what you can do—you are quite marvelous at woodcraft."
"Well, thanks, but..."
"Of course it would be pro bono—there's barely any budget for materials."
"That means—"
"I know what it means, Louisa."
"But you would be giving to the community, practicing good citizenship, and the children would be so pleased. And, it wouldn't be so very time-consuming."
"I think there's a way you could use it as a tax write-off. Mr. Hawkes might know."
Yeah, if it's a write-off I bet he does, Jamie thought. "No, it's not the money either."
"Well what? Speak up!"
Jamie felt like he was back in a classroom, about to get whacked with a ruler.
"I-I-I d-d-don't think the parents would like it. Me bein' around their kids."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
Louisa was looking at him strangely, too.
"I mean, everybody knows I was a mental patient...."
"So? There are several people in this town who have been mental patients. Sometimes I think there is something in the water.... And, there are several more who should be. No one thinks anything of that."
"Well, and lot of people thought I was the person who kidnapped Katie Roddendem...."
"Mr. Sommers, you are deluded if you think people believe that. Katie Roddendem Morgan will tell anyone who listens that you are one of her dearest friends."
For a second, the sudden surge of love and gratitude he felt toward Katie overwhelmed his senses; he felt tears jump to his eyes.
"And the Hawkeses have trusted you with their little prince and heir for years."
Jamie realized she meant Ricky.
"Quite frankly, the town has had other things to talk about for some time now, Mr. Sommers."
Jamie remembered to shut his mouth. Grenville told him often enough it made him look like an imbecile to stand around slack-jawed. If what she said was true...
Then when Mr. Garvey said, "How's it going, Jamie? What you planting this year?" he was inquiring, not feeling sorry for the poor loser Jamie.
And when Mayor Wells sat next to him at the counter in the Coffee Shoppe, and said, "What ya think, Jamie, we ever going to get any rain?" he was asking for an opinion, not checking up on lowlife Sommers.
And Riley, at the gas station, who kept bugging him to join the bowling team—
The people who said, "Good morning, Jamie. What's Mr. Hawkes up to these days?" weren't secretly afraid of him, or despising him, or even thinking about him much.
He was just another citizen of Hawkes Harbor. He was awed by the thought.
"Well, uh, okay." He managed not to stammer.
"Good. Meet me upstairs in the gymnasium when you're finished here. We can start with the Christmas pageant. I have a wonderful idea for the manger...."
When she left, Jamie picked up his wrench and wondered what it was he'd been doing before she assailed him. The pipes?
"Well, that should be a treat for you. Much more fun than helping me."
He jumped and managed to dodge the wrench. He'd forgotten all about Louisa. "Well, it might be."
At least making scenery sounded like more fun than unpacking volumes, artifacts, filing documents. Otherwise, he couldn't see much difference really, in being bossed by one woman or the other.
"You never did tell me why you've needed extra money."
"Well, I don't have to. But I guess it is your business in a way. I got a lot of lawyer bills to pay."
Louisa was as astounded as he'd hoped.
"Legal bills? Why on earth would you need a lawyer?"
Jamie thought about saying, "To sue you, like Dr. McDevitt suggested."
But he didn't. Louisa could be exasperating, but he was very fond of her, too. He didn't want to hurt her feelings.
And he knew what he'd done would anger her.
"Last week me and Leonard Pagano went up to Terrace View to see Dr. McDevitt. He gave me every test he could think of, and he said I was probably the sanest person in Hawkes Harbor. Having a bad memory, being a little bit nervous don't make you crazy, he said.
"I ain't in your custody anymore, Louisa, and I got papers and legal witness. You want a forcible commitment, you'll have to go through the courts, and prove me a danger to myself or others, and Dr. McDevitt will show up at any hearing. And he's on my side. And my lawyer will be there, too.
"So don't tell me you're gonna send me back to Terrace View anymore, Louisa. You're not sending me anywhere. Not ever."
Louisa's jaw dropped. First at his audacity, then at the realization he'd taken her seriously all these years.
Grenville is right, Jamie thought absently. You do look stupid standing around with your mouth hanging open.
He wasn't going to tell her all of what Dr. McDevitt had told him—Louisa's days of running Terrace View were over.
"She's not a bad person, Doc."
"No, Jamie, and she is a very good anthropologist. But she has no business dealing with patients and you very well know it. And now her grandfather knows it, too."
Still, Jamie thought, let him tell her. This will be bad enough.
He braced himself, knowing nothing angered Louisa Kahne more than any loss of power; he watched her search her mind for the next plan of attack, knowing what she would come up with—
"What's Grenville going to think of all this? He's going to be furious."
Jamie swallowed, though he had prepared for that possibility. "Well, Louisa, Grenville may be mad at me, maybe he'll even fire me.
"I just don't think he's going to kill me anymore." Louisa Kahne was speechless.
Later that night at dinner, she recounted to Grenville the whole episode—with much heat, and a little exaggeration of Jamie's disrespectful attitude.
He listened in silence, nodding.
Finally she sputtered to a stop.
"Well?" she said.
"You don't suppose we'll have to attend school plays just to view his handiwork, do you?"
"No, I mean, what do you think about the other—"
"I think I'll give him a raise," Grenville said. "He shouldn't have to take extra jobs on his days off."
He paused. "I wish he'd asked my advice about a lawyer. Pagano's fees are outrageous."
The money was welcome, but Jamie appreciated the gesture much more.
Day After Christmas
The Boardinghouse Hawkes Harbor, Delaware Christmas Day, 1978
"It always beats me why you two would rather eat Christmas dinner here than up at the Manor."
Mrs. Pivens handed Jamie the sweet potatoes.
"Food's better," Jamie said. He looked up at the late arrival, annoyed.
"I had to put in an appearance, sorry. The company's better, too." Rick Hawkes flung himself into a kitchen chair, yanking at his tie. He winked at Trisha. She tried to ignore him but couldn't help a smirk.
"I'd be in the kitchen with the rest of the staff," Jamie said. "They're snobbier than the Hawkeses themselves. Noses so up in the air they'd drown in a rain. And here nobody's going to count the silverware after I leave."
"And nobody's going to gasp and cry if I break a priceless antique whatever that we only use for Christmas." Rick went on with the list of why the boardinghouse Christmas dinner was better than the elegant affair at the Manor.
"In an hour Father will be drunk and quarreling with Aunt Lydia. Barbara has brought home some freak she's found at Berkeley. The Boston branch is sitting there horrified. At least I think that's it. They're so inbred that may be the only expression they can come up with. Louisa and Grenville are already snipping at each other—are they ever going to get married, Jamie?"
"I doubt it," Jamie said. "Grenville's pretty set in his ways. 'Sides, he's been married twice before. He does like to rile her up, though."
"Can't blame her for trying," Trisha said. "He's still the sexiest man in town."
Mrs. Pivens laughed, while Rick made a growl of protest.
"Oh sorry," Trisha corrected. "Jamie."
"Really, Jamie, how old is Grenville, anyway?"
"A little older than he looks," Jamie said blandly. "A little long in the tooth."
He fought a snort of laughter as Trisha's mouth fell open, as Rick stuttered for a change of subject. He'd always wondered how much those two knew ... when Rick was just a kid.
..
"Father says I can't go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break."
Rick found a new subject. "He wants me to go to London. For business! London! It won't even be spring there! Is there any ham left?
"Anyway," he resumed, sliding back in the chair with a plateful of ham and turkey and mashed potatoes, "Grenville was on my side. Said London would be cold and rainy."
"He's right," Jamie said. London had never been one of his favorite places. "You need to go somewhere warm. Too bad Havana—"
Jamie stopped abruptly. He had a vivid memory—not of Havana, where he'd never been, but of a hot dusty train car in the south of France. He could hear Kell's voice so clearly, over the rattle of the train. Kellen—describing Havana—the beaches, the palm trees, the soft hot nights, the nightclubs. He could almost smell the flowers, the women, the fancy cigars.... "It's too bad you missed Cuba in its heyday, Jamie. The women in Havana are just your type."
They'd gone to New Orleans, instead, he and Kell. Jamie hadn't been too much older than Rick, then.
Strange he'd think of Kellen Quinn all of a sudden. He hadn't thought of him in a while.
"New Orleans is a fun city."
"Good idea. I've always wanted to go there."
Jamie remembered, as from another life, his cocaine- and rum-fueled blast through New Orleans. He'd been blowing his share of the loot from that gun-smuggling deal... couldn't get rid of that money fast enough...
"You're better off in Fort Lauderdale, though, kid." Jamie suddenly didn't want Rick in New Orleans. Florida would be wild enough.
Geez, I'm turning into an old fart, Jamie thought. And I'm not even forty, yet.
Rick said, "That will be about time to fit up the boat."
"You won't be home till summer, and not much then," Trisha pointed out.
"I don't care—when I am home, I'll want the boat. And I expect Jamie and you to keep it seaworthy."
"I won't be home much either," Trisha said. "You're not the only college student in this town. Looks like Jamie's stuck with it."
