Leftovers (15 page)

“You know what they say about guys with big feet, don't you, Sarah?” Johanna giggles.

“You know what they say about girls with big mouths?” Victoria says sharply.

I clear my throat. “Uh...anyway, Sullivan. Your gift is in the storage shed.”

“Maybe you should go and get it, Sullivan,” Victoria suggests. “Sarah and I'll clean up the kitchen. Dr. Fred and the others can head to the barn.”

Sullivan sure looks like he could use some fresh air.

I wash the dishes while Victoria wipes crumbs off the table and arranges Sullivan's gifts—even the condoms—into a neat pile for him to take up to his room later.

Tension hangs in the air like the smell of boiled cabbage. “Victoria...,” I say, “about the...you don't need to worry...we're not...”

“Not yet,” she sighs.

Not ever. Not once Sullivan finds out I'm just using him to get into the city next weekend.

Come on, Sarah
. That annoying voice in my head asserts itself again.
You know you like him.

Doesn't matter, I argue. I have to find the photos and destroy them. Nothing else matters. Not even Sullivan's friendship.

Not just his friendship, Sarah. It's more than that
.

I don't care! I have to find the pictures. Sullivan's just a means to an end.

You don't believe that for a minute.

“You okay?” Victoria asks from across the room. She's been studying my face. Trying to discover my secrets in the set of my jaw and the way I wrinkle my nose and push loose strands of hair out of my eyes.

“Uh...sure.” I turn my attention back to the dishes.

Sullivan bursts through the screen door and wraps his arms around me, giving me a rib-cracking squeeze and swinging me around the kitchen. Soap bubbles fly everywhere as I fight him off with the yellow rubber gloves.

“You finished the puzzle!” He lets me go and turns to his mother. “Mom! Did you see it? I'm free!”

Victoria nods. “I have a bit of a surprise too, Sullivan. You can take the boat over to the mainland as soon as Sarah has exercised Judy and settled her down for the night. That new Bond movie you've been raving about opens tonight. I thought you two might like to see the early show.”

Sullivan does another little celebratory dance around the kitchen table.

“I checked the movie times,” Victoria continues. “So I expect you back by ten thirty. And remember your cell phone, Sullivan. And to test the boat lights before you go; it will be dark when you start back.”

“We're traveling half a mile over to Gananoque, not heading overseas on the
Titanic
,” Sullivan laughs.

“That reminds me,” Victoria adds. “Remember your life-jackets. And the oars in case the motor gives you trouble.
And
the bail bucket. And for heaven's sake, find a safe place to tie up, Sullivan.”

He nudges me. “Ain't freedom grand?”

“Don't be a smart-mouth,” Victoria says, pulling her son into a hug. “I can't believe my baby's seventeen.” She pulls away, muttering, “I can't believe my baby got condoms for his birthday.”

Sullivan grins. “What's that you always say, Mom? ‘Better safe than sorry.'”

“That's what I say to other kids, not my kid...” Victoria groans. “Who knew how soon those words would come back and bite me on the...”

Say it, Victoria. Say ASS. I dare you.
A-S-S
, I think.

“...you know where.”

Sullivan holds my hand through the movie. After one particularly ghastly explosion, he leans over. “I'm surprised Mom didn't force us to see the new Disney movie playing next door instead,” he whispers. His breath smells like lasagna and Skittles.

I wish Victoria had. I'm relieved when, minutes later, Sullivan's eyes stay riveted to the screen during a skanky topless scene. That way, he doesn't notice me clenching mine shut.

We arrive back at Moose Island at 10:32
PM
.

“Don't worry. Mom has a five-minute grace period.” Sullivan runs into the lodge to let Victoria know we are back. And to tell her he's walking me to my cabin.

“Did she check your pockets?” I ask when he returns.

“For what?”

“For the condoms. Do you have them with you?”

“Shit...I could go back...,” Sullivan whispers.

I laugh. “I'm joking. And that'll be five bucks for the cuss fund.” I hold out my hand.

Sullivan drapes an arm around my shoulder and steers me toward my cabin. “
Shit
's only a buck fifty.”

“Aren't you the bargain hunter.”

If this were a scene in one of my chick-lit novels, I'd focus on the moonlight reflecting off the spikes of Sullivan's hair. The huskiness in his voice. The warmth of his hand on my shoulder.

But this isn't a novel. This story won't end happily ever after. Sullivan and I are doomed.

If you insist,
the annoying voice inside me replies.

It's true, damn you.

Then maybe
, the voice persists,
you should just enjoy this night while it lasts.

Fifteen minutes later, Sullivan and I are making out in my loft bed, counting off the minutes until 11:00
PM
, when Dr. Fred bursts in.

“Sarah!” he gasps, completely ignoring Sullivan, or perhaps not even seeing him in the dark. “You have to get up! Your mother just arrived! The police and your lawyer are here too!”

Dr. Fred tries the light switch.

“It's burned out,” I say, my thoughts screaming SHITSHITSHITSHIT—at least fifty dollars worth.

The light's not burned out. When I wouldn't let him get his hand under my shirt because the light was shining on me like a spotlight, Sullivan, in a show-off move that would have horrified his mother, shimmied across the rafters from my bed and loosened the bulb.

“It never crossed your mind to just lean over me and pull the cord?” I asked him when he shimmied back
and wasted three minutes of good make-out time picking a splinter out of his palm.

“Nah. Too easy. It'll be better when we get back to Riverwood. The light in my bedroom at Dad's house has a clapper,” Sullivan said, like he really thinks we'll still be making a go of it in September.

Now Dr. Fred holds the cabin door open and frantically gestures for me to hurry. But I feel paralyzed. Trapped in a nightmare. I can't see Sullivan's face in the dark, but I can feel the confusion in his eyes. The curiosity. The caring. It's piercing my skin. Making me ache. Because there's only one reason why my mother and a cop and my lawyer would trek out to Moose Island in the middle of the night.

Only one.

Mom has found the Hush Puppies box. She's seen the Polaroids.

“Sarah!” Dr. Fred's voice is sharp now. “I don't know what this is about, but your mom seems very upset. She's with Victoria at the lodge.”

I can't breathe. I lumber down from the loft bed, stumbling when I reach the floor. My knees will barely support my weight. I grab the bedpost with one hand to keep from tumbling to the floor and somehow find the sense to use the other to straighten my twisted-up shirt.

Dr. Fred speaks more softly. “Sullivan, I know you're up there too. Come with me, son. Let's check on the dogs.”

When I slink up the porch stairs and through the screen door into the kitchen, Mom starts to stand up but then slides wordlessly back into her chair.

Slumped at the kitchen table, she sports a frozen grimace that I imagine is equal parts shock and horror about the situation and disgust and anger with me. Her skin, spotlit under the too-bright kitchen bulb, is a sickly pale green, like she's been throwing up all evening. Her eyes are red-rimmed and dry, like she's cried for hours even after her tears have run dry. She can't stop blinking, even though each rapid lash movement makes her wince. I haven't seen such a stunned and horrified expression on anyone—at least not since seeing the
TV
images of people in New York on 9/11.

The old cardboard Hush Puppies box has been duct-taped shut. It sits in the middle of the kitchen table like a cheesy centerpiece.

Does she want to hug me? Slap me? Disown me? Nothing would surprise me now. Mom didn't even look this bad when she found out Dad had choked to death.

My heart is a jackhammer. I'm sure the thumps are audible—maybe even visible—right through my thick sweatshirt. I haven't taken a full breath since Dr. Fred burst into my cabin, but oddly, I feel relieved.

Across the table, it seems as if the wheels in my mother's head have spun out, hit black ice. I imagine Mom struggling to understand how our little family suddenly turned into something so ugly, something that only happens
in sad novels or to other people's families. I imagine her asking herself if we haven't already suffered enough, what with a dead husband/father and this community service business? I imagine her thinking about all the times she's chastised me about not wanting to get my picture taken, and finally figuring out where I was going—and why—the night I stole Tanner's car.

“You know what's in that box, don't you, Sarah?” My mother speaks, finally, her voice a raw croak. I nod slowly, dropping into the chair across from her, my eyes scanning the scene around us, grateful that my mother is at least smart enough to know not to touch me right now, or ask me if I'm okay.

Victoria is trying to be inconspicuous. But I can tell by the too-quiet way she is shuffling around at the sink in a bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers, making coffee, that she is listening to every single word, every change of tone, between my mother and me. Her peripheral vision is taking in and analyzing every movement and posture.

And worse, she doesn't even seem shocked.

In a huddle across the room, the cop and my lawyer are grunting in low monosyllables, probably wishing they were home with their own less screwed-up families.

One bonus: Dr. Fred and Sullivan are taking an inordinately long time in the barn. Dr. Fred probably has an “all clear” signal worked out with Victoria. By the looks of things so far, it might be a long time coming. He and Sullivan might be better off bedding down with the dogs.