Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend (23 page)

We’re united, and it feels good.

As the sun starts to set, we sit together on the sand and admire

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our creation. Well, technically it’s Hallie’s creation, but she insists

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on giving me credit. “You provided the raw materials,” she says,

pushing her tangled curls behind one sunburned ear.

“But I never could have come up with this,” I said, staring at

her— our—sandcastle. It’s huge, with three stories and two turrets,

and something she tells me are called porticos.

“My dad was an architect,” she says quietly, and I look over at

her— she almost never mentions her father.

“I think he’d like it,” I say, and I mean it. She smiles at me, and

then knocks me with her shoulder before the moment can get too

serious.

“Is that the suit?” Hallie asked, shaking me out of this rev-

erie. She was gesturing to my purse, and I blinked at her, my brain

still taking a minute to update the Hallie I had in my mind— the

knotty- haired tomboy— to the girl sitting on the sand next to

me, her hair long and sleek, designer sunglasses perched on top

of her head.

“Right,” I said quickly, springing into action. The suit was, of

course, the whole reason that I was even there with her on the

beach, having this fl ashback in the fi rst place. Trying to appear

nonchalant, I pulled the bathing suit of my bag. I’d left the Sur la

Plage shopping bag in the car, but kept the tissue paper wrapped

around the bikini, feeling like it added a nice touch. “Here you

go!” I said, handing it to her.

“Wow,” she said, taking the tissue- wrapped package from

me, eyebrows raised. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“Well, thank you so much for lending it to me,” I said, hoping

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that I sounded genuine. After all, it wasn’t
Hallie’s
fault that the

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suit rebelled. She hadn’t gone in the water all night, so she

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probably didn’t know about the suit’s weird chlorine aversion.

“Um,” I said, trying for a casual tone, “when I was putting the tis-

sue paper around it, I noticed that there was a tag inside. It said

something about how these suits might be best in the ocean or a

lake, not a pool . . . just so you know.”

She just looked at me for a moment, head tilted slightly to the

side, like she was surprised, or trying to fi gure something out.

“Thanks,” she said after a small pause. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

I realized after a second that she probably thought I was con-

fessing to ruining her suit— which, technically, I had done, but

which she wasn’t going to know about, if I could help it. “But this

one’s fi ne,” I said hurriedly. “It’s as good as new! I just wanted you

to know for the future.”

“Thanks,” she said, still looking at me a little strangely. I held

my breath, hoping that I hadn’t raised her suspicions.

“Listen—” Hallie started, when her phone rang, loud, from

inside her bag. Her ringtone was the song that had been inescap-

able for weeks, the one about the
summer you’ll never forget
. “Sorry,”

she said as she picked it up, giving me an apologetic smile. “Hi,” I

heard her say softly, and I turned my head away and pulled out

my own phone so I wouldn’t be tempted to try and listen in.

I saw that Josh had texted me back a smiley face and a mes-

sage that he’d see me at seven. I also saw that I had two missed

calls from Sophie, and I decided to head back to the house and

call her immediately, now that I’d returned the suit.

“So,” I said, brushing off my hands and starting to push my-

self to my feet. “It was great to see you, but—”

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Hallie looked up at me, and it was no longer with an easy,

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relaxed expression. She held up one fi nger, the universal signal

for
can you hold on a moment?
I nodded, and she returned to her

call. “Okay,” she said, her voice tight and concerned. “All right.

I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up and just stared down

at her phone for a moment.

“Is everything all right?” I asked, even though it would really,

really seem that it was not.

“No,” she said, looking back to me and shaking her head. “Not

really. There’s a bit of a crisis brewing. And I really need to get

out of here . . .”

“Of course,” I said quickly, pushing myself to my feet and

stepping off her towel.

“But I can’t really bring the girls . . .” she said. She looked out

to the water, and then turned to me, biting her bottom lip. “So-

phie, I’m so sorry to have to ask this, and you can totally say no.

But would you be willing to watch them while I take care of this?

It would only be for an hour. Two, tops. It’d be doing me a huge

favor.”

I also glanced to the edge of the water where the twins were,

but only for a second, as I’d made my decision the second she asked

me. This would be my opportunity to help to balance the ledger

of wrongs between us. And she couldn’t have asked me for a better

favor. While these kids had seemed unimpressed when I’d fi rst

met them, I had no doubt I’d win them over. Kids loved me, and this

would be a piece of cake. The girls and I would have a great time

together, and Hallie would see that I could be trustworthy and

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responsible. And the very fact that she’d asked me at all seemed

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like a really huge step in our developing Sophie-

and-

Hallie

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friendship. You wouldn’t ask someone to watch your babysitting

charges unless you thought they were a good person, right?

“Sure,” I said, smiling at her. “I’d be happy to help.”

Relief washed over Hallie’s face. “Oh my gosh, thank you so

much. You’re saving my life. Girls!” she yelled in the direction of

the water, and the twins glanced up from their hole, which now

looked even deeper. You could only see the tops of their heads

peering out from it. “Come here!” she yelled. The tops of the heads

shook in unison, but Hallie yelled, “
Now,
” putting so much au-

thority in her tone that it never would have occurred to me to do

anything but what she said. The twins must have felt the same

way, because without protesting again, they clambered out of

the hole and started to make their way up the beach.

“So is there anything I should know?” I asked. I was used to

being primed ahead of time with my charges back in Putnam—

personality quirks, allergies, weird phobias, what ever. And it was

generally easier to do this when the kids in question were out of

earshot, because if they heard you, they’d start to protest loudly

that it wasn’t true, they did
not
have a fear of mangos.

“Not anything big,” Hallie said, gathering up her own things

and dropping the bikini into her bag. “Just don’t let Isabella have

nuts— she’s allergic. And don’t let Olivia have any sugar. She’s not

allergic, she’ll just go crazy.”

“Okay,” I said, watching as the girls ran up from the sand,

both incredibly dirty. As far as these things went, it actually

sounded incredibly simple. I babysat one boy in Putnam who

refused to eat anything but orange food, cut into hexagons. I’d

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started bringing a protractor with me when I sat for him.

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“And anyway,” Hallie said, and though she smiled at me, I

could tell it was a little forced, and I knew she was worried about

her other crisis— whatever it was— that she needed to get to, “I

won’t be long.” I nodded, and I couldn’t help wondering what it

was that was taking her away. Something with her mom? Or

her boyfriend, the one who was out of town? I really wanted to

know, but didn’t feel like I had the right to ask, especially since

she’d been purposely vague about what this crisis was.

“What?” one of the twins asked. Now that they were both

covered in wet sand they looked even more alike.

“We were digging,” the other one said petulantly.

“And it looks great,” Hallie said. “But I’m going to have to go

away for a little bit, so I’m going to need you to be really, really

good for Sophie. Okay?”

The twins turned and looked at me, identical expressions let-

ting me know that they were still not impressed.

“Hi,” I said, bending down so I was more at their level and

smiling at them. “We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

The girls looked back to Hallie, skeptical, but if she noticed

this, she didn’t acknowledge it. “I expect good behavior like we’ve

talked about,” she said, looking at them both closely. “And if you

do behave, maybe we can get ice cream, okay?” Neither twin re-

sponded, but Hallie nodded as though they had. “Good,” she said.

“I’ll see you soon.” She leaned over to me and whispered, “Thank

you so much.” Then she hurried up the beach, her casual walk

soon turning to an almost- run.

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“So,” I said, turning to the girls, both of whom had their

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arms crossed and were scowling. “I love your moat. You two want

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to keep digging? Want me to help? I’m really good at hauling

sand.”

They looked at each other and seemed to be doing that secret

twin communication that I’d heard about, because even though

neither of them was saying a word, it was like they were having

a silent conversation. And sure enough, after a moment, they

looked back at me and both shook their heads. “No,” one of them

said fi rmly. “We’re bored with that.”

“Okay,” I said, looking between the two of them. “So what do

you want to do now?”

“I’m hungry,” one of them said in a voice that was coming

dangerously close to a whine.

“Are you Isabella?” I asked, trying to think of things we could

eat that contained no nuts.

“Yes,” both twins said in unison, then dissolved into a fi t of

giggles.

“Seriously,” I said, trying to inject the same kind of authority

into my voice that Hallie had used, since apparently that was

effective with these two. “Which one of you is Isabella?”

“Me,” they both said simultaneously, and started cracking up

again.

I let out a breath, not about to let them know they’d rattled

me. I’d learned early on that babysitting is basically a power strug-

gle, and the second you let a kid know they’ve rattled you, you’re

sunk. And after all, did I really need to know which was which? I

could just make sure that they both avoided nuts. And sugar.

“I’m hungry too,” the other twin said, and her sister nodded

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and started squirming in a way I recognized all too well.

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“I have to go to the bathroom,” she whispered to me. I looked

up the beach. There were dunes, fences, and beach grass, but it

didn’t look like there were any public facilities— or, for that mat-

ter, any place to get something to eat.

I looked around the beach as though it might hold the an-

swers for me. Which, when my eyes fell on Bruce’s house, I real-

ized it kind of did.

“Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Gather up your

things and follow me.”

O O O

I’d texted Hallie as we walked, giving out Bruce’s address for

the second time that day. It made me even more ner vous giving

it to Hallie than to Josh. Josh, after all, had never met Bruce. But

it was possible that Hallie might remember him. He’d mostly

been in Iceland that summer, dealing with unexpected elk stam-

pedes and trying to hold his movie together. But he had been

around occasionally, passing through his own house sometimes

when Hallie was over— though I couldn’t remember now if they’d

ever offi cially met. Even though I hadn’t wanted to, I knew I had

to tell Hallie where we were going. I didn’t want her to come back

to the beach and not know where we’d disappeared to.

But I didn’t think it would be necessary for her to stop by the

house at all. I had a feeling we’d be in and out of Bruce’s and back

to the beach in a matter of minutes, and I’d just send Hallie a