Island Girl (40 page)

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Authors: Lynda Simmons

BOOK: Island Girl
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“Me too,” I said, wiping away another silly tear.
“Where is your mom anyway?” Mary Anne asked.
“I guess she went canoeing with Mark.”
Her smile faded. “Did you see him with her?”
“No, but Jocelyn saw her leave with her paddle and when we came back his bike was gone, so he must have been meeting her somewhere.”
“I hope so.” She looked back along the street. “I only slipped out for a moment ...”
“Mary Anne, is something wrong?”
She smiled again and patted my arm. “Not at all.”
“You’d tell me if my mother was sick again, wouldn’t you?”
Jocelyn punched a fist in the air. “This calls for a celebration!”
“With cake!” one of the girls said.
“What a marvelous idea,” Mary Anne said, avoiding my question and heading back to the hedge. “I have a white cake mix and a tub of chocolate frosting in the pantry. I’ll bring it over for you.”
I shrugged at Jocelyn and pointed to the kitchen. “You know where the pans are.”
“Great!” She smiled at the girls. “You guys want to help me bake a cake?”
And they all trooped up the stairs and into the house.
I didn’t know Jocelyn had left her phone on the arm of the chair until it started to buzz. She came back, watched the phone until it stopped, then switched it off and left it behind again when she headed back into the house.
“You have to love a girl with priorities,” Mary Anne said, handing me the cake mix and frosting over the hedge. “I’ll go make some of my world-famous lemonade.”
“Mary Anne, wait. You would tell me this time, wouldn’t you?”
“Grace, your mom is just fine,” she said, and hurried on before I could ask anything else.
I handed everything to Jocelyn at the door then wandered over to the empty cage. Ran a finger along the bells of Jocelyn’s cat-stopping contraption, hoping my mom was indeed
just fine
and listening to the clatter of pans, the whirr of the mixer, and the music of seven voices all talking and laughing in my kitchen. Thinking that maybe it was a good thing we had no clients today after all.
When the cake was frosted and ready, I brought the folding table out to the yard, spread a cloth on it, and set chairs all around. Jocelyn served, Mary Anne poured, and we toasted the happy couple who were too busy finishing their nest to pay us any attention.
I was helping myself to a second piece of cake when my cell phone buzzed. Liz had sent me a text.
Sry sry. Wrkng on case. Cmpltly frgot. Hp UR not md. Wll cll ltr.
I sent a message back.
Not md. Gd lck. Mkngbird flew!
I didn’t know she was working on anything, but if she had a case then she couldn’t be drinking, so how could I be mad? Especially when I’d purposely missed the picnic myself.
We were gathering up the last of the dishes when my mom and Mark came up the street on his bike, my mom riding on his handlebars. I smiled and handed my stack of plates to Kylie, who took them into the house where Jocelyn was washing, Mary Anne was drying, and the girls were sorting out what went where.
“Don’t you know that’s dangerous?” I said as they rolled up to the gate. But when my mom got off the bike, I could see she wasn’t riding the handlebars because she wanted to, she was riding them because she was having trouble walking. “What happened to your feet?” I asked, holding the gate open for her.
“Blisters,” she said, tiptoeing off the walkway and onto the grass. A burst of Mary Anne’s laughter drew her attention to the house. But it was the ripple of giggles after that held it. She looked from the house to the table and back to me. “What’s going on here?”
“The lady mockingbird flew,” I said. “How did you get blisters?”
“Walking. And that bird flying does not explain why my house is full of kids. What are they doing in there?”
“Dishes by the sound of it.” Mark drew up beside her. He had her paddle in his hand. “Are those Jocelyn’s friends I hear?”
“Not the ones you’re thinking about. Some of the local girls came by to watch the takeoff with us.”
“That’s great,” Mark said. “When did she fly?”
“A couple of hours ago.” I pointed to the lilac. “They’ve been working on the nest since.” I turned back to my mom. “Where were you walking?”
“Hanlan’s Point.” She tiptoed over to the table and sat down. “Can you get everyone who is in the house out of there? I have something to discuss with you.”
“Did you ride on the handlebars all the way from Hanlan’s?”
“No,” Mark said, pulling out the chair beside her. “We took the ferry across to the city and then hopped on the
Ongiara
back to Ward’s.”
“Can you get me a glass of water?” my mom asked.
“Daddy, did you hear?” Jocelyn called as she came down the stairs, the rest of the girls streaming through the door behind her. “The lady mockingbird flew.”
“I need a glass of water,” my mom repeated.
“I’ll get you one,” I said, but then the girls were all around us, the seven of them talking at once. “The male sang just like a cricket!” “
And
an alarm clock!” “I’ve never heard a bird like that, have you ever heard a bird like that?” “I swear it was the bravest thing I ever saw.” “She flew right up to the top of the lilac, no stops at all.” “No, she made one stop.” “I’m sure she made two.”
Then Brianne said, “I almost forgot. Did you know a bunch of people started a pool over at the tennis courts? It’s called Fly or Die, and they bet on what day the bird would either fly or die.” She put a hand on her chest. “I bet five dollars she would fly, of course.”
“We should go over and spread the good news,” Kylie said, leading the troops to the gate.
“And give the finger to anyone who bet against her,” Jocelyn added.
“You’re not going anywhere,” my mom said. All the girls froze and looked back. “Not everyone, just Jocelyn.” She turned to me. “Can you get me that water now?”
Jocelyn’s eyes narrowed at her dad. My mom’s narrowed at her. This was not going to end well. “Would you rather come inside for that water?” I asked. “Put your feet up. Relax—”
“Will you stop arguing and just get me a goddamn glass of water!”
“Right away.” I was halfway to the house when I heard Jocelyn say, “She can’t tell me I can’t go to the tennis courts.”
“Then I’m telling you,” Mark said. “Because we need to go home. I have something I want to talk to you about.”
Mary Anne was still at the sink, rinsing the last traces of cake batter from the cloth.
I snatched a glass from the shelf and held it out to her. “I need a glass of water, quick.”
She held it under the cold-water tap. “What’s wrong?”
“My mom,” I said, heading back out with the glass, and Mary Anne right behind me.
“I don’t understand why it can’t wait an hour,” Jocelyn was saying as I handed the glass to my mom.
“We won’t even be that long, Mr. Bernier,” Kylie said.
Brianne nodded. “We just want to post a notice at the tennis court.”
“Somebody’s going to make a lot of money,” the youngest girl said.
“Not my dad,” another added. “He bet against the mockingbird.”
“Then you know what he’s getting,” Brianne said. They all laughed and started to slowly raise their middle fingers.
My mom banged her empty glass down. “Oh, for God’s sake, we’re getting married. There, it’s done. Go post your notice.”
I stared at her, Mary Anne stared at her, even the girls stared at her, their fingers still poised in midair. Only Mark spoke. “Ruby, what are you doing?”
“Making it easier for her to go and have some fun.” She turned to Jocelyn. “Any questions?”
“Just one. Are you fucking kidding me?”
Mark squeezed his eyes shut. “Jocelyn, that’s enough.”
She turned on him, face red, fists clenched. “Enough? You spring this shit on me and then expect me to be polite?”
Faces appeared in windows and doorways across the street. My mom waved. “Hi, Renata. Benny, you visiting her again? And, Carol, how have you been?”
The faces disappeared, but the houses are close and we all knew they weren’t the only ones listening to another installment of
Oh, Those Donaldsons—
an Island exclusive since 1943.
“We should take this inside,” Mary Anne said.
“You go inside. I’m staying right here.” My mom folded her arms and sat up straighter. “By the way, I want you to be my maid of honor.”
“I’m thrilled.” Mary Anne slumped into the seat beside her. “Does anyone besides me need a cup of tea?”
I started for the door. “I’ll make you one.”
My mom pointed a finger. “Grace, you stay right there. Jocelyn isn’t the only one affected by this.”
“We should go,” Kylie said, herding the rest of the girls toward the gate.
Jocelyn walked with them. “I’m coming with you.”
“No she’s not,” Mark said, standing in front of Jocelyn while the girls filed through the gate and picked up their bikes.
“We’ll wait for you over there,” Kylie called.
Mark sighed as they pedaled away. “Jocelyn, I swear this was not the way I wanted to tell you.”
“What difference would it have made? The news would still have been the same.”
“Why don’t we go home and continue this conversation in private?”
“Because there’s nothing more to talk about. You’re getting married. Congratulations.” She grabbed her bike and kicked back the stand. “But it would have been nice if you’d mentioned your plan
before
you asked someone to marry you.”
“Jocelyn, believe me,” my mom said. “We didn’t plan this. It just happened.”
She laughed. “It just happened? While you were out canoeing the thought just came to you? ‘Hey, let’s get married and screw up Jocelyn’s life forever.’”
“We won’t be screwing up your life,” Mark offered.
“Really? Okay, then answer me this. Where are we going to live?”
My mom laid her head on the table. “We haven’t worked out all the details.”
“They’re not details,” Jocelyn said. “They’re my fucking life.” She started walking her bike to the gate. “I just wish I could understand the rush. We’ve only been here a few weeks. There’s food in the fridge we’ve known longer, for God’s sake.”
“It hasn’t been just a few weeks for Ruby and me,” Mark said.
“Yeah, yeah, you used to be lovers.” She stopped and glanced back. “As gross as that is, why can’t you just do the same thing? Why do you have to get married?”
“Because we’re not getting any younger.” My mother raised her head and looked across the street. Twiddled her fingers at the crack between the curtains at Renata’s house. A crack that slowly, discreetly disappeared as my mom turned back to Jocelyn. “It was now or never.”
“
Never
would work just fine for me.” She glanced over at me. “And you, standing there like a lump, not saying a word. What do you think about all this?”
“I think it’s great,” I said softly. “It’s something I wanted for years.”
She shook her head. “Why would you want this?”
My mom sat back. “Because when Liz and Grace were little, your father lived with us here in this house. He was their dad too.”
Her eyes widened at Mark. “You’re their father?”
“Not biologically, no. But in every other way, yes.”
“So you used to live here in this house. With her. With them.”
“For thirteen years, yes.”
Jocelyn dropped her bike and walked back to the table. “Why didn’t you tell me this before we came?” She turned on me. “And why didn’t
you
tell me after we got here?”
“You never asked.” I felt kind of stupid saying it, but I wasn’t going to lie. There was enough of that going on around here already. “You knew your dad lived on the Island years ago, but you never even asked me what house. I figured you didn’t want to know anything about it.”
She screwed up her nose. “I didn’t ask because I didn’t care. It was ancient history, like asking who his third-grade teacher was. Honestly, who gives a crap?” She focused on her father again. “But living with them, being part of a
family,
is totally different from just being a guy who lived on the Island for a while. Why didn’t you tell me before we left the city?”
He ran a hand over his face and sank into a chair. “Because it would have meant a long, complicated discussion and I didn’t think it was going to matter. I didn’t think we’d be getting married.”
“You can still change your mind,” my mom said, as though expecting nothing less.
He covered her hand with his. “I’m not going to change my mind. You don’t get out of it that easily.”

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