“What time is it?” Connor asks. “I need to be at work by eleven.”
I pull my phone out again. Todd’s text lights up, waiting for my reply. The minutes seem to tick by faster now. How long till he gets breakfast without me? “A little after ten.”
Connor groans and pushes himself off the bed. “Want to get some coffee before I go in?”
“I have plans,” I say vaguely. Connor cocks an eyebrow but doesn’t ask more. “I should go.”
He turns to face me. “Todd’s a good guy. I’m just being a dick.”
I’m not sure what he’s saying, if he’s giving me permission to see Todd or apologizing for being a jerk. I shouldn’t need his permission, but I can’t help but be disappointed that Connor’s given me up so easily.
“It’s okay.”
His arms encircle my shoulders, hugging me to him. I rest my head on his chest and smell the musky scent of his tee shirt. “I should have told you. About the girl. About Layla,” he says.
Once upon a time, Connor and I told each other everything. He knew the dark corners of my heart like a well-worn map, the seams soft from use. But now it seems we’re just smiling and nodding, telling each other what we want to hear.
Connor walks me to the door and I hurry down the steep stairs, grateful for the cold air that washes over me. I cross the street to where I’ve parked my mother’s car, since mine is in the shop. Before I get in, I reply to Todd’s text.
Where?
When I look up at Connor’s apartment, he’s standing at the window, watching me. I clutch the phone guiltily and give him a little wave, getting in the car to avoid his eyes. I’m suddenly in a rush to get away from his desperate gaze. As I drive down Main Street, my phone pings in response and my heart lifts a little higher.
18
Evvy
I’ve made stew for dinner, Ian’s favorite, but when his shift ends at five, he calls to tell me he’s going for a drink.
He still hasn’t told me about what really happened the night of the festival, and what’s been happening these past few months. Every time I’ve asked him about it, he’s been evasive. He hasn’t mentioned the evidence connecting him to Layla, and I haven’t had the courage to ask him, worried that if I ask too many questions, my whole life will come crashing down on me. I realize this is cowardly and eventually I’ll need to confront the truth—the cheating, I mean, because I still don’t believe Ian had anything to do with the murder. This is a man who once brought home a stray cat with a broken leg that he’d found mewling behind the ferry terminal. He left work early and drove her to the vet himself, then brought the cat home and named her Minny. She lived with us for two years, spending every night curled up in Ian’s lap. When Minny died last spring, he buried her in the backyard and put flowers by the stone he’d placed on her grave. He’s not a man who could kill someone. I realize that this image of Ian doesn’t align with the one the police have—the abuser—and maybe it doesn’t make sense, but I know that this version of Ian—the one that is good and kind and gentle—is at least as real as the one that occasionally loses his temper and lashes out.
If someone else is charged with the murder, I wonder if this is one of those things that we’ll just pretend never happened. It could sink like a pretty piece of jewelry at the bottom of the sea, slowly drifting to the ocean floor, never again to resurface.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Just had a lousy day,” he says. In the background I hear the long low bleat of the foghorn. He promises to be home in time for dinner.
He’s not home by seven or eight, either. At eight-fifteen, I spoon myself a bowl of stew and sit at the counter to eat alone. The beef is tender with soft potatoes and carrots in a rich dark sauce, but I barely taste it, too preoccupied by Ian’s whereabouts and what state he’ll be in when he returns. At nine I’m mad but by ten I’m anxious, and I know I should go to sleep, but I don’t. I sit on the couch instead, watching a dumb reality show about polygamy.
His car pulls in a little after eleven. He throws the front door open too hard and it knocks against the washing machine. I can tell he’s drunk the moment he walks into the living room. Something about the loose movement of his body, limbs akimbo, footsteps clumsy.
“You’re home late.” I keep my eyes on the TV.
“Sorry. Any dinner left?”
I clench my jaw so I don’t snap at him. “There’s a bowl for you in the kitchen.”
He bangs around in the fridge, and I hear the slam of the microwave door, and then he sinks down on the couch beside me. “It’s good,” he mumbles through a full mouth. “Oh. I brought you something.” He fumbles in the pocket of his vest, pulls out a greasy white bag, and hands it to me. Even before I open it, I smell fried food and sugar. Inside is an apple fritter from Flour and Sugar, the bakery in Osprey that sells pastries late at night while the bakers are prepping for the morning. I tear off a piece and feel myself softening, the sweetness of the dough and the thoughtfulness of the gesture smoothing out my anger.
“What the hell are you watching?” he asks, looking at the screen. There’s an argument happening between the husband and the three wives.
“I don’t even know,” I say, and turn the TV off. The quiet is a relief. I take another bite of fritter, enjoying the sharp rush of sugar, the way it makes my whole mouth ache with pleasure.
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“I went to the Blarney Stone. Had a few beers.”
“You said you’d be home by seven.”
“Evvy, just don’t, okay? I had a bad day. Don’t make it worse,” Ian says.
“What happened?” I ask, putting the rest of the apple fritter back in the bag. Already I can feel the start of a stomachache, all that flour and sugar sitting in my gut.
“Nothing happened.” He grabs my sticky hand and squeezes. “Everybody knows I was seen talking to that dead girl the other night. Everyone knows I was brought into the station to talk to the police. People think I killed her.”
“Who said that? Who thinks that?” His face is red, his eyes glazed. He’s had more than just a few beers.
“Everybody! I’ve got people I’ve known for years coming into the ticket office and getting in a different line, looking at me sideways when they’re talking to me. No one says anything, but I know. They think I did it.”
“No one really thinks that. No one that knows you,” I say, wondering if this is true.
“It’s over a week since they found her and the police haven’t said anything. They haven’t done a goddamn thing.” He puts the stew bowl down on the table, hard, and the spoon clatters against the ceramic.
“Just because they haven’t said anything to the public doesn’t mean they haven’t done anything,” I can’t help saying.
“You a police spokesperson now too?” His eyes are narrow slits when he turns to me. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected any sympathy from you. You were the one who sold me out in the first place.” He turns from me, eyes fixed on the blank television.
“Ian.” I don’t try to argue. “Honey, I’m sorry. What more can I say?” He’s more wounded than angry. I slide from my place beside him on the couch and climb into his lap. He doesn’t look at me, but I bury my face in his neck and inhale his warm familiar smell.
I met Ian while buying a ticket to get off Great Rock. For a small island, the ferry service is a bureaucratic organization. Trying to get my car off the island in July felt like trying to get tickets to the Super Bowl. But I needed to leave. It was the fourth anniversary of Serena’s death. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of her, but the anniversary brought it all back, and suddenly it was fresh, as if it had happened yesterday. Cyrus wanted to spend the day at her gravesite, looking through photo albums and talking about her, but I had no desire to mark the day in such a way. The watery walls of Great Rock were closing in on me, and I needed to get the hell away. I wanted to go shopping and rent a room in a hotel where no one knew me, take a swim in
a pool and drink alone at the bar, maybe even go home with someone.
Ian laughed when I asked if I could buy a ticket for the next boat. Not in a mean way, more in an incredulous way. He was a few years older than I was, close to forty, with graying sandy hair and an easy smile. He had the ruddy weathered complexion of someone who’d spent much of his life outside.
“Today?” he asked with a chuckle. “Honey, I don’t think I can get you off this week.” I nearly put my head down on the desk and burst into tears right there. It was brutally hot that day, and though the air conditioner was working overtime, I was still sweating through my thin tank top. The place was full of tourists, screaming children and tour groups of elderly people all wearing the same ridiculous orange tee shirt. There were three other lines going besides mine, about twenty people impatiently waiting for the end of their vacation.
“Please,” I said, and he must have heard something in my voice. Maybe he noticed how close to tears I was, that I was teetering on the brink of something, and close to falling in. He held my gaze for a moment and then turned back to his computer.
“Hang on.” His fingers tapped the keyboard. “Would the two-thirty work?”
“Really?” I looked at him in disbelief.
He nodded and then bent his head toward me to speak more quietly. “If anyone asks, you’re getting gall bladder surgery.” My face must have formed a question because he added, “It’s a medical emergency ticket.” He brought a finger to his lips. He printed out the ticket and handed it to me.
Relief rushed through me. “Thank you so much. You saved my life. You don’t know.”
“Sure I do. Got to take care of that gall bladder.” He winked as I stepped out of line, clutching the ticket.
He was working the next day when I returned to the island. It was a Monday night and the terminal was quiet. I went into the office and saw Ian in the same place as the day before, chatting with an elderly woman at the window. That was what I first noticed about him—how easygoing and friendly he was. Like Cyrus, though I tried to push this thought from my mind.
I already had a ticket, but I got in line anyway.
“Thank you,” I said when I arrived at his desk. He squinted his eyes in confusion, before his face opened into a smile.
“How’s your gall bladder?” he asked.
“Much better,” I said. “Thank you.”
I’d spent too much money shopping at the mall and then gotten drunk alone in my hotel room. No matter how much I spent or how much I drank, Serena was always there but not there, her absence sharp and bitter. I was relieved that the day was over for another year.
“No problem. I could tell you needed a break.” There was something private about his smile, like it was meant just for me. “Hell, I’d ask for your number, but then you’d think that was the only reason I got you on the boat.”
Cyrus had been gone for almost two years. He wasn’t coming back. Ian was the first man to show me kindness since, and maybe that was a bad reason to go out with him and later let him move in, but at the time it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you have a pen?” I asked.
I lean against him, kissing the length of his jawbone and neck. “You’re a good man, Ian. No one thinks you did this.” He grunts, but doesn’t answer, pulling my face roughly toward his and kissing me hard. I can tell he’s been drinking more than beer by the sharp taste of whiskey in his mouth. I want to move on from the argument, but there’s something that’s been worrying me since I saw Cyrus the other day. I hold a hand to his chest. “I think maybe we should call a lawyer.”
He pulls back and his face is clouded again.
“Why? You think I need a lawyer?”
I shift in his lap. “That woman is dead. I know it wasn’t you, but… I don’t think it’s just going to go away.”
He’s silent and I figure this is as good a time as any to ask. “Were you sleeping with her?” His whole face changes, though it’s not guilt I see but confusion.
“No. Why the hell would you think that?”
“I just… I thought… There were phone records,” I manage to get out. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but flat-out denial wasn’t it.
He frowns at me, and his eyes narrow. “Is that what Cyrus told you?”
I feel my skin flush pink, the guilt written all over my face. “I saw him the other night when Caroline and I were out. He mentioned it.”
“Really?” There’s something sinister in his voice that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at alert. “You’re sure it wasn’t the other night when he came by?” I don’t answer, trying to figure out how he knew, and then I remember goddamn Mary Porter sitting at the window, watching Cyrus come inside. Mary’s at least ten years older than Ian with the wrinkled face of a raisin, but she flirts whenever she sees him. I should have known she’d rat me out.
I swallow, but don’t speak. I’m not sure if my voice would work properly even if I tried. I’m still straddled across Ian’s lap, his face just inches from mine, so close I can practically taste the Jack Daniel’s on his breath. The smell turns my stomach and I twist away slightly, hoping to extricate myself from such close proximity without making him angrier.
The force with which he pushes me to the floor takes me off guard, and my tailbone hits the hardwood with a dull thud. He stands over me, and I instinctively cross my arms over my chest, but he just pushes me with the toe of his boot. “Do you think I’m blind?”
I know from experience that the only thing to do when Ian is like this is wait him out. Within minutes he’ll come to his senses. Soon he’ll be on his hands and knees beside me, apologizing. I blink back the tears that prick my eyes, and Ian picks up his stew from the table and goes into the kitchen, leaving me cowering on the floor. I hear him drop the bowl in the sink. His stool scrapes the floor and then there is the sound of the football game on in the kitchen. He doesn’t come back.
Ian’s anger is like a fire, quietly smoldering until the coals are prodded with a stick. Then the flames leap, hot and dangerous. For the first time I wonder if maybe Layla Dresser somehow shifted the coals. It wouldn’t take much—an accidental slight, a careless word. Maybe the line between bruises and something far worse isn’t as wide as I’ve always thought.
Slowly I rise from the floor. My body is tender and my tailbone hurts where it hit the floor, a dull ache that will be with me all week, a painful reminder to keep my mouth shut.
19
Daisy
Todd and I have breakfast at the Ferry Diner and then we take a walk on Bassett Beach, one of the island’s many private beaches. In the off-season, it’s open to the public, but in the summer, you need a residential pass. These passes are precious, adding several hundred dollars extra to a vacation rental for the pleasure of daily trips to Bassett. The rest of us go to the few public beaches on the island, which are packed with tourists and townies, barely a foot between each stretch of towels, competing music blasting.
We park in the empty lot and hike down the thin snowy trail that leads to the ocean. Trees line the path and then clear as the faded sea grass comes into sight. We climb up and over the dunes and then the ocean is upon us, a vast expanse of gray. The beach is wide and white, no sign of the yellow and blue of summer. The air coming off the water is like ice, and I zip up my coat and readjust my scarf. Todd breathes in deeply. Despite the cold he looks content.
“Smells good,” he says. It’s freezing, but it still smells like summer, the unforgettable odor of fish and salt. The beach is empty, just the two of us, and our boots make soft swishing noises in the snowy sand. “This is my favorite place on the island. I come every day in the summer when I’m here.”
“I’ve only been a few times in the summer.”
“Really?” His breath comes out in puffs of white. “It’s the best beach on the island.”
“It’s private. I don’t have a pass,” I point out.
“Oh, right. I forgot.�
� He links his arm through mine. “You’ll have to come with me this summer then.”
I nod, but don’t answer. Summer’s a long way away. “When are you leaving?” I’ve only known him two days, but I’ll miss him.
“What’s today, Monday?” His eyebrows go up, disappearing under the edge of his wool hat. “Probably Wednesday. Thursday morning at the latest. I need to work Thursday night.”
“So what do you do at the restaurant?”
He turns to me, surprised. “I’m a cook,” he says, as if I already knew. “At Avenue X. Southern comfort meets California cuisine. Or something like that.”
I shake my head at him. “I don’t even know what that means.”
He laughs. “Fancy yuppy food. It’s not really my style, but it’s a good job. What I’d really like is to have my own place.” We’re just a few feet away from the shoreline, and I step sideways to avoid the foam of water as it washes close to our feet. “Molly’s fiancé, Benny, he’s cheffing at a bistro in Heron, but we’ve talked about opening our own restaurant in the next few years. A nice place that’s open year-round? Great food and a full bar, but reasonable enough that you could go on an ordinary weekday.” He shrugs sheepishly. “Someday, maybe. What about you? You’re dying to get off this island, what are you going to do when you leave?”
I kick a rock with my toe, embarrassed to have the conversation turn to me and my plans. “I’m studying to be a speech and language pathologist.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll work with people who have trouble with their speech. Like kids with communication disorders or adults who’ve had strokes. Help them learn to speak better.” My chest is tight from the cold, but something else too. No one ever asks me about what I’m studying in school. None of my friends, not Connor or my parents. I don’t think they even know I’ve declared a major.
Everybody Lies Page 13
