In Too Deep (3 page)

“You agreed. But I don't understand what the problem is. I want this job, Mom. And they want me. Mr. Griffith said I was the perfect candidate.”

Sensing a fight, Ted started to back out of the room.

“Oh no you don't.” My mom glowered at him. “I know you've been encouraging her.”

“I congratulated her,” Ted said. “It'll be a wonderful experience for her.”

“No, it won't,” my mom said. “She's not going.”

“Hey, have you two set the date yet?” my dad said, clearly enjoying himself. He wasn't at all fazed when my mother scowled at him. In fact, she and Ted hadn't set the wedding date yet. Ted was hoping that the vacation would relax my mom so that they could finally discuss concrete plans.

“Please, Mom,” I said. “I really want this job.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It's too far away.”

“It's in the town where Morgan's summerhouse is. I've been there a million times.” Okay, slight exaggeration. But I had spent a couple of weeks there several times.

“That's different. You were always with Morgan and her parents.”

“They're going to come up on weekends,” I said. Well, maybe on a few weekends. “And Morgan's dad knows the paper's publisher and the editor.”

“Didn't you say this job requires you to drive?”

“Yes, but—”

“You only just got your license.”

“She's a good driver, Patti,” my father said. “She drove over here.”

My mother stared at him in astonishment. “You let her drive your car?”

He nodded. “And she handled it like a pro.”

“She
is
a good driver,” Ted said. He had taken me practice driving almost every day before my second road test.

My mom shot him a furious look.

“Besides,” Ted said, “Robyn will be on side roads where the traffic is light, not on highways. All the kids up there drive at Robyn's age, Patricia. I was driving at that age. It's the only way to get around.”

My dad regarded Ted with what looked like grudging respect.

“She doesn't have a car,” my mom said.

“She does if she wants it,” Ted said, smiling at me. “A buddy of mine has an old clunker that he's trying to get rid of.” He caught the look in my mom's eyes. “It's road-ready and perfectly safe,” Ted assured her. “It's yours if you want it, Robyn. My contribution to the employment effort.”

“But she's only sixteen,” my mother said.

“She'll be seventeen in a couple of months, Patti,” my dad said.

“I'll be out of the country. What if something goes wrong?”

“I'm here,” my dad said. “And if she needs anyone closer, she can always contact Dean Lafayette. He's still up there. Still chief of police. Robbie can always go to him if anything happens.”

My dad and Dean Lafayette had gone through the academy together. Every time I went to Morgan's place up north, my dad made me promise to say hi, but I hardly ever did.

“I can call him and let him know she'll be up there,” he said.

In fact, he already had called. But, wisely, he didn't tell my mom that.

“Please, Mom? I already said yes. And Morgan and I have it all worked out.”

We had come up with what we thought was an excellent plan. We would live together at Morgan's summerhouse. Morgan would amuse herself during the day while I worked, and we would spend evenings and weekends hanging out together. Morgan's parents had agreed to it. My dad didn't have a problem with it. Ted liked the idea. Still, it took forever before my mom finally said, “I don't know ...” which, for her, was progress.

“Come on, Patti,” my dad said. “She's not a baby anymore. You want her to be independent, don't you?”

My mom's eyes misted over. She bit her lip.

“You have to promise that you'll call your father regularly while Ted and I are away,” she said.

“No problem.”

“And you have to promise that you and Morgan will lock up every night—doors and windows, Robyn.”

“Done.”

“And no boys in the house after dark.”

My dad and Ted looked at each other. They were probably thinking the same thing that I was—anything that Morgan and I could possibly do with boys in the dark, we could just as easily do when it was light.

“Sure, Mom. So is it okay? Can I go?”

“Well ...”

I held my breath. My mother glanced at my father, then at Ted, who nodded at her.

“Okay,” she said.

I hugged her.

“I was just about to start dinner, Mac,” Ted said. “Would you like to stay?”

My mom looked daggers at Ted.

“Thanks,” my dad said graciously. “But I thought I'd take Robbie out to celebrate. You two have a good trip, Patti.” He kissed my mom on the lips before she could protest. She scowled at him. Ted smiled benignly.

  .    .    .

“Something wrong with your food, Robbie?” my dad said. We were sitting in my dad's usual booth at La Folie. My dad was making good progress with his order of fish. I was picking at my vegetarian curry.

“No, it's fine,” I said.

“Are you worried about how you're going to do on the job?”

“Something like that,” I said. But I wasn't. Really, I was worried about Nick. I still hadn't heard from him. But I didn't tell my dad that. I didn't want him to know that Nick had lied to me and that he had disappeared again.

“You'll be fine,” my dad said. “There'll be a learning curve. There always is. But I know you, Robbie. You'll catch on. Before you know it you'll be bored to tears.”

Which, of course, wasn't at all what happened.

“Y

ou're not going to be like this all summer, are you?” Morgan said.

“Huh?” I said.

“You're sulking about Nick, aren't you?” she said.

“No, I'm not.” I was focusing one hundred percent on the road ahead of me. This was the first time that I had driven without an adult in the car with me. It took a lot of concentration.

“Yes, you are. You haven't said a word in almost an hour. I get it, Robyn. I really do. But you've got to let it go. Otherwise you're going to ruin the summer for both of us.” She nudged me gently. “You said things were going okay with you two.”

“They were,” I said without taking my eyes off the road. “At least, I thought they were.” Now I wasn't so sure.

“Then relax,” Morgan said. “He said he would call. And he will. Then you can find out what's going on. In the meantime, try to focus on the positives. This is going to be great. Well, as great as anything can be on crutches. We're going to have the whole house to ourselves. We can tan naked on the dock if we want to.”

Why would I want to do that?
I wondered.

“You've got a job,” she went on. “And we've got
a car.”

We did indeed. Just before Ted and my mother had left for the airport, Ted had dropped a set of keys into my hand. “Are these what I think they are?” I'd asked.

Ted had touched a finger to his lips. “Your mother still doesn't approve. The less she hears about it, the better.” I couldn't help smiling. Ted is small and balding and kind of nerdy-looking; he's a wildly successful financial analyst too. He's also quiet, modest, and unassuming, and he loves jazz—in other words, he's the complete opposite of my tall, flashy, super confident ex-cop rock-and-roll-loving father. But when it comes to handling my mother, the two of them have a lot in common. I wondered if my mom had realized it yet. “It's just an old beater, but it will get you through the summer.” He handed me an envelope. “Registration and insurance,” he said. I had thrown my arms around him and hugged him.

“Of course, it's not much of a car,” Morgan said as we drove north. “It's kind of ... old.”

“I told you it was.” It was a ten-year-old Toyota.

“I know. But I didn't think it would be this old. I thought Ted was loaded.”

“It's just for the summer, Morgan.”

“I know. But it's not exactly a boy magnet ...”

“What about Billy?”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “It's going to be a long summer, Robyn. We have to have some fun.”

“I guess,” I said, staring out the windshield.

Morgan sighed. “A very long summer.”

  .    .    .

It was late afternoon by the time I pulled into the parking lot of the town's only grocery store. I hopped out, circled the Toyota, and opened Morgan's door for her.

“Come on,” I said. “We have to get groceries.”

“My ankle hurts. I'll wait for you here.”

“Oh no you don't. If I do the shopping, you'll spend the rest of the week complaining that I bought all the wrong things.”

“But it's late,” she complained.

“All the more reason to get moving. Come on. We'll shop, drive to the marina, load up the boat, and get out to the Point.” Morgan's summerhouse was surrounded by water on three sides and by forest on the fourth. There was no road directly to it. Morgan's family got to and from the house by boat. “We can eat on the deck and watch the sunset.”

Morgan grumbled, but she struggled out of the car and into the grocery store, where we shopped. Well, where I shopped. Morgan hobbled along behind me, alternately whining about her crutches and checking out every guy she saw between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, which consisted of one acne-suffering shelf stocker, one gangly guy trailing down the aisles with a woman who could only have been his mother, and—

“Wow,” Morgan gasped.

I turned to see what was wow-worthy and found her gaping at a tall, sandy-haired guy in jeans and a T-shirt that did nothing to hide what looked like some impressive biceps. He was pushing an overflowing cart up to the cashier.

“Billy, Billy, Billy,” I whispered in Morgan's ear. “Besides,” I added, “he looks like he's at least twenty.”

“I'm just looking,” she said. Actually, she was staring. And drooling. It was a good thing she was on crutches. They were all that kept her upright when, twenty minutes later, as I was struggling to hoist an enormous jug of water out of the bottom of the supermarket cart, the guy appeared out of nowhere and asked, “Need some help with that?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I stepped aside. He scooped up the jug as if it were no heavier than a single water bottle and slid it into the Toyota's backseat for me. “Thanks,” I said.

“No problem.”

He went back to where he had come from, a black pickup truck, and a moment later was pulling out onto the main street.

“Oh my god, he's amazing. And built. Did you see—”

“Get in the car, Morgan.”

We drove down to the marina where Morgan's parents keep a motorboat. I looked around as I unloaded our suitcases and the groceries from the car. The lake was a shimmering blue. The woods around it were a deep green, dotted here and there with summerhouses, each with a beachfront and a dock. The marina itself consisted of multiple docks for motorboats and sailboats. Directly across from the marina was the local police station.

“I should go over and say hi to Chief Lafayette,”
I said.

Morgan groaned. “Can't it wait until tomorrow? My ankle is killing me. I just want to get out to the Point and relax.”

We did what Morgan wanted. She sat on the dock while I carried our stuff from the car to the boat. After I loaded everything, I had to help Morgan into the boat, which was harder than it probably sounds. She was super protective of her broken ankle and not good at balancing on one foot. She put all her weight on me as she struggled into the boat. She was still clutching my arm when she dropped down onto a seat, throwing me off balance. I had to scramble to stop myself from ending up in the water.

We put on our life jackets, and I cast off. Morgan, who has been boating back and forth to the Point ever since she was a toddler, took us across the lake.

As soon as we had finished unpacking and I had put all the groceries away, Morgan declared that she was hungry. We decided what we wanted to eat, and then, of course, I had to make it. Turns out it's very difficult to cook when you're tottering around on crutches. It's also difficult to set the table, clear the table, and wash the dishes afterwards. Morgan was right—it was going to be a long summer.

After dinner we sat out on the veranda and watched the sun set.

“This is my favorite time of day,” Morgan said. “It gets so quiet when the sun goes down.” The only thing we could hear was the call of the loons somewhere out on the water. Morgan sighed with contentment. “So, when do you have to be at work?”

“Nine o'clock. You sure you're going to be okay here all alone, Morgan? What if you have an emergency?”

“I have a phone. So do you.”

“But I'll have the boat.”