Summer with My Sisters (25 page)

I
n the end, Evie hadn’t the nerve to back out of the road trip to Portland. Joel and Daisy were so excited about the excursion that Evie thought her pulling out at the last minute might ruin their fun. Besides, they would probably know she was lying about having a stomachache or whatever ailment it was she claimed to be suffering. Joel and Daisy knew she was a liar.

The ride north on 295 had been difficult for Evie, as she had known it would be. She sat in the back, behind Daisy in the passenger seat, her seat belt securely fastened, clutching the armrest, and hoping that neither Joel nor Daisy would notice her distress. Neither had. At least, neither had said anything.

When they reached the city, Joel put the car in a municipal lot and steered them in the direction of Deering Oaks Park, where there was a music festival happening. Evie had never been to Portland, but Daisy and Joel seemed to know the city well enough not to have to ask anyone for directions. That was good. The last thing Evie wanted was for someone to get a good enough look at her face to recognize her from a missing person poster. Assuming there had ever been any such posters in the city. After all, she had gone “missing” in Vermont.

They didn’t stay long at the festival. The band that was playing at the time of their arrival was, according to Joel, insanely bad and according to Daisy, insanely loud. Evie hadn’t found them all that bad or all that loud and she would have been happy to sit on the grass and listen for a while, but she tramped out of the park with her friends and on toward Longfellow Square. Beggars, she thought, can’t be choosers. It was something she had heard her uncle say a few times and she had always wondered if it wasn’t in reference to her.

“Let’s walk down Congress Street,” Joel suggested. “We can grab a slice of pizza at Otto’s on the way.”

They did grab a slice—Daisy had two—and sat at a small table outside the restaurant, watching people pass by. A fair amount of them had what looked like ID tags hanging around their necks. “Cruise-ship passengers,” Daisy told her. “I guess if they get lost or hurt the police know where they came from.” Evie did not find this idea entirely comforting. There were also a lot of people dressed like the men and women in her father’s office—his former office—dressed. Business casual, it was called. And then there were some people who looked pretty down-and-out. A skinny guy about Joel’s age was sitting against the building next to the pizza place with a cardboard sign on which was printed in spindly black letters these words: HOMELESS. NEED HELP.

“It’s too sad,” Joel said softly. “That guy can’t be older than me and he’s living on the street. We are so lucky.”

Am I lucky?
Evie wondered. How different was her situation from that guy’s? In a way, wasn’t
he
the lucky one? He had fallen as far as there was to go. There was no more doubt and uncertainty to contend with. While she . . . While she lived every day not knowing how and when she would lose what little security she had. Evie felt sick to her stomach and pushed the rest of her pizza away uneaten.

“Not hungry?” Joel asked.

Evie shrugged. “I had a big breakfast.” She would not let her friends see her distress. She would not.

A girl wearing a pair of short shorts and a torn tank top stopped to talk to the guy, whom she seemed to know. She held a matted-looking dog on a frayed piece of cord. After a moment, the girl sat down on the sidewalk next to the guy. The dog dropped and put his graying muzzle on her lap.

“That poor dog,” Daisy murmured. “I wonder when he last had a decent meal.”

Evie felt anger rise in her breast. Why did some people respond with more ready sympathy to animals than to humans in distress? Because there was this underlying assumption even in the best, most kindhearted people like Daisy that a human being in distress could have—should have—prevented it from happening, should have been smarter than to let bad things happen to them. It was entirely unfair!

Before her irritation could erupt into words, Evie took a deep breath. She shouldn’t assume that Daisy cared more about the dog than about the guy and the girl. Look how generous Daisy had been to her this summer. . . . Still, Evie so wished she hadn’t come along on this trip, but she was stuck now, with no way home—rather, back to Yorktide—unless with Joel and Daisy.

When they were finished with lunch—and after Joel and Daisy had given the homeless guy and his friend some money—they continued down Congress toward Monument Square. Evie tried to focus on the interesting storefronts, but nothing really held her attention. She just wanted to be—not there. When a police car went speeding by, siren blaring, she threw her hands over her ears and hunched her shoulders, as if these gestures would somehow render her invisible to watchful eyes.

“You really are sensitive to noise,” Joel commented when the police car had disappeared.

Evie managed a smile.

“Do you realize we’ve passed, like, three or four tattoo parlors in one block?” Joel said.

“We have?” Daisy asked. “I didn’t notice.”

“Some of them are on the second floor. See that one up there? Hey, why don’t we get a tattoo?”

Daisy laughed. “One giant one covering all three of us?”

“The Three Stooges? No, silly. One for each of us. But wait. I think you might have to be eighteen to get a tattoo on your own.”

Daisy turned to Evie. “Evie, you’re eighteen. You could get a tattoo!”

Evie tried to laugh off the suggestion. “No thanks,” she said. It wasn’t that she was opposed to the idea of getting a tattoo (she thought that one day she probably would). But to try to get one now she would probably have to show her fake ID and risk being found out. Could she be arrested? Would Daisy and Joel also be in trouble? Sure, they knew she was using a false name, but they still thought she was really eighteen. They just didn’t understand the seriousness of her situation. Evie felt irritation rise in her again, in spite of the fact that she was the author of her friends’ ignorance.

“Come on,” Daisy urged. “Let’s see, what would you get? A heart? A rose? A skull?”

Joel laughed. “I don’t see Evie as the skull type!”

“No,” Evie said, with more force than she intended. “Stop it. I mean it. I hate tattoos.”

Joel shot a look at Daisy; Daisy looked down at her sneakers.

“Sorry,” Evie said, and she was. “It’s just that I’ve got this terrible fear of needles. Even the
thought
of a needle makes me freak out.”

Daisy looked up and smiled. “It’s a pretty common fear,” she said. “Hey, I think it’s time for the cupcakes Joel promised us. I’m starved.”

“And you just had two slices of pizza!” Joel turned to Evie. “The place is down on Fore Street, in the Old Port. There are some awesome shops on Exchange and Commercial. Se Vende is my favorite. We can browse if you want.”

Evie didn’t really see the point in browsing when there was absolutely no way she could afford anything other than the very basics (was a cupcake a basic?), but she agreed to the plan. These people were her friends. They were her only friends. And she would cherish them for as long as she had them. Nico would be back at the end of the month and after that . . . After that, unless some major miracle occurred, she would have to be moving on.

They passed a nicely landscaped square called Tommy’s Park where they saw two young mothers breastfeeding their babies, a man in a business suit sitting on one of the benches and talking into his iPhone, and a small group of cruise-ship passengers eating ice-cream cones. Passing through the square, muttering to himself, there was one very old man in a bulky army-style jacket, pushing a rusty shopping cart filled with plastic bags, some torn. Evie assumed they were stuffed with his possessions.

“Someone should be taking care of him,” Daisy said fiercely. “He should be in a place like Pine Hill, getting three meals a day and sleeping in a clean bed.”

Joel frowned. “Nursing homes and assisted living places cost a lot of money. The good ones, anyway. That’s the problem. If your family can’t take you in, then what?”

Evie said nothing because she couldn’t speak. The sight of the old man had made her think of her father, possibly alone, probably in need of help. Maybe homeless. How was her father eating? Was he able to get his meals at a shelter? Where did he keep his clothes if he didn’t have a place to live? Did he even have any more clothes than those on his body? Were his shoes worn through? Where did he sleep? Huddled under a dirty collection of newspapers in some doorway? Was he frightened?

By the time they reached the bakery on Fore Street Evie’s spirits had tumbled dangerously low and it was all she could do to keep from bursting out in tears. Joel asked her what kind of cupcake she wanted. She chose the chocolate mint chip though she wasn’t even a fan of mint. Joel insisted on paying for the girls. “My parents taught me how to be a gentleman,” he told them. “Daisy, you’ve got icing on your nose.”

Daisy laughed and wiped at her nose with a paper napkin. “I am such a goof!”

Evie managed a smile, as if she were really one of the group. But she wasn’t. She was essentially alone. Like the homeless boy. Like that old man with the shopping cart. Like Marion and Tommy from the television show. There was never any escape from the harsh reality that was her life, not here, not even back in Yorktide. No cupcake in the world, no matter how delicious, could change that.

She hoped they would be going home soon.

No, not home. She had no home.

I
t was going on eleven when Ian ambled into the kitchen, scratching his stomach through a flimsy T-shirt. “Any coffee?” he asked.

Daisy looked up from her crossword. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Is there?”

“There was,” she said. “Like, at breakfast time.” If he asked her to make him a pot she was going to have to smack him. The thought had its appeal.

Ian opened the door of the fridge and proceeded to stare at the contents.

“Don’t keep the door open so long,” Daisy snapped. “You know what’s in there.”
You’re in there often enough....

Ian shut the door and came over to the counter.

“What’s that you’re doing?”

Daisy sighed. “A crossword puzzle.”

Ian laughed and ran his hand through his long, bed-mussed hair. “I never could do those. My brain doesn’t work that way.”

Daisy wiped a nonexistent strand of hair from the page before her. “Hmm,” she said. And then, she couldn’t help herself. “In what way
does
your brain work?” she asked.

Ian shrugged. “Not that way.”

A brilliant riposte,
Daisy thought, barely able to hide a grin of satisfaction.

“I think I’ll go into town and get some breakfast,” Ian said, ambling out of the kitchen.

When he was gone, Daisy put the cap on her pen (she was good enough by now to have abandoned a pencil) and brooded. What had her sister ever seen in Ian? He was such a loser. At least she wasn’t dating him any longer. Now, in Daisy’s opinion, Poppy should be dating someone like Jon, who was most certainly not a loser and who wouldn’t abuse the hospitality of a so-called friend by leaving dirty towels on the floor of his bathroom (Daisy had checked) and not replacing the milk when he had drunk the last of it.

Suddenly, Daisy realized that she felt kind of bad for her sister. Poppy was a good person who didn’t deserve being saddled with a so-called friend like Ian. And it occurred to Daisy that maybe Poppy hadn’t had her act together in Boston as smartly as she had assumed her sister had. Maybe Poppy had been lonely away from home. Maybe in spite of her physical beauty she had suffered from low self-esteem. Maybe she still did. All sorts of scenarios might be possible. Sure, since Poppy had been home the sisters had grown a bit closer; proximity alone helped the process of getting to know a person either for the first time or all over again. But Daisy was aware that there was still a significant gap that needed to be filled.

She heard the front door slam. Ian. Why did he always have to let the door slam? It wasn’t a guy thing. Her father had never let a door slam. It was a rude thing, that’s what it was.

D
ay five and counting. Surely, Poppy thought, after the seventh day she could ask Ian to leave without appearing totally rude. Though why she was so concerned with his feelings she would never know.

They were in the garden. Poppy was trying to read a novel Julie had recommended, but the very presence of her unwanted houseguest stretched out on a lounge chair a few feet away prevented her from concentrating.

“Why don’t you come down to Boston for a few weeks?” Ian suggested suddenly. “You could probably stay at Allie’s. My place is a mess. Have some fun. Shake the cobwebs off you. You’re atrophying here, Poppy.”

Atrophying? “I thought you said Boston was miserable.”

Ian shrugged. “Not necessarily at night.”

“No thanks. You might have noticed that I have two minors to care for.”

“Well, wait until school starts. They’ll be busy all day. They won’t need you.”

Poppy laughed incredulously. “They won’t need me?” Her gut told her it would be a total waste of time to enumerate for Ian all the simple and the not-so-simple daily duties it was her responsibility to enact. Making sure Daisy and Violet ate a good breakfast. Packing their lunches. Planning and cooking dinner. Maintaining her sisters’ after-school schedules, everything from Violet’s music lessons to Daisy’s jazz band rehearsals to Violet’s soccer practice (something Violet tolerated as it was mandatory she participate in some sport), to Daisy’s volunteer job. And then there were doctors’ appointments to be met and the household to be run and the checkbook to be balanced. And, just maybe, there was being a shoulder for her sisters to lean on after a tough day.

“Yeah,” Ian said. “You can, like, have those old women you told me about, what’s their names, check in on them once in a while.”

“That won’t be possible,” Poppy said evenly. She had deliberately kept Ian from meeting Freddie and Sheila. She didn’t think she could survive their inevitable censure. And she wondered, Would Jon Gascoyne ever in a million years suggest she choose to be derelict in her duties to her sisters? Would any right-thinking person suggest such a thing? And suppose she was stupid and careless enough to run off to Boston for a lark, what would Freddie and Sheila and Jon and Joel and Allie and Julie think of her? The idea made her shudder. Besides, she realized, she had not one tiny bit of interest in leaving her home on Willow Way, not for all the enticements Boston or any place else might offer.

Ian stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “Suit yourself.”

I will,
Poppy thought.
Thanks
.

“Your sister is pretty weird, you know.”

“Which one?” Poppy asked warily.

“Violet. Daisy’s just your typical moody teenager.”

Poppy bristled. “They’ve been through a lot. And Daisy is certainly not typical.”

“Whatever. Anyway, your dad’s death might explain Daisy but not Violet.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t speak ill of my sisters.”

Ian laughed. “I’m not ‘speaking ill’—really, what an archaic expression. I’m just stating observable facts.”

Poppy closed her book with a snap. “Then shut up.”

“Dude, there’s no need to—”

“Yes, Ian, there is a need. And don’t call me ‘dude.’ I’m not a guy.”

“Whatever.” Ian got up from the lounge. “I think I’ll go into town for a few beers.”

“Will you be back for dinner?” Poppy asked.
Of course he will,
she thought.
Because I’m paying for the food
.

Ian laughed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Poppy watched him walk around to the front of the house with a feeling close to revulsion. Though the memory was unwelcome she recalled the first time she had met him. It was shortly after her mother had died and she had decided to take a walk through the Commons. Ian had been leaning against a tree, listening to three guys playing acoustic guitar. They were pretty good and Poppy had stopped to listen, too. Ian introduced himself and after some conversation they had gone for a drink. And that was that. Now, three years later, Poppy wondered if her grief, her anger at herself for failing her mother by not being with her at the end, and her guilt about moving back to Boston and leaving her sisters had all worked together to badly cloud her judgment. Could it be that she had been punishing herself in some way by choosing Ian as a lover and a friend?

Her cell phone rang, mercifully interrupting her train of thought. It was Julie. Good, she thought. Someone entirely nice and normal. Someone of substance. The perfect antidote to Ian.

“Julie?” she said. “Hi.”