Tainted (13 page)

“Listen. I probably have more sympathy with you than anyone else in this drama does. I didn't know Holly had such a crush on you when we were going out—”

“She had a crush on me?”

“Yes, lamebrain. Super-size crush, apparently. Which is one of the reasons she went ahead and had Katy. Somewhere in that innocent deluded heart of hers, she thought you might come back. When Katy was born, you'd show up at the hospital and defy your parents. Cue music, cue sunset, cue happy family. And then, oops, it didn't happen.

“In any event, now she's finally really making a life for herself and you're back giving her shit. So here's the deal: if you want to have a decent relationship with Katy, give Holly and Jack some breathing space. Let them get married and have a little time together before you start in with the ‘I'm her father' business. Holly will respect you for that. She certainly isn't going to if you call her fiancé a ‘foreign gold-digging waiter.' ”

“It slipped out.”

“Yeah, right.”

“How long has she known him, Anna? That's what I'm worried about. Does she really know him? Who is this guy? He could be anybody . . . Anna? Hello, are you there?”

“I'm here. I was thinking. Look, I'm going to Holly's this weekend. I'll check him out and report back to you if he's a mass murderer, OK? But only if you keep away for a while. Don't hassle them. Is that a deal? . . . Billy?”

“Sorry—I was thinking too. I don't see what other options I have right now. I don't want to get lawyers involved. Not yet, anyway. I want to try to make this as painless as possible—for Holly and Katy. You promise you'll tell me the truth—exactly what you think of him? And you'll try to find out a little bit about him? Who his friends are, things like that?”

“Sure. I'd do that normally. I mean, I feel protective of Holl. You're not the only one who wants to make sure she's not making a mistake.”

“Excellent. But a heads-up, Anna. He's a handsome guy. Don't let that cloud your judgment, OK?”

“Shut up! How handsome?”

“Anna.”

“OK. I'll drop by your house on my way back on Sunday.”

“Good. Perfect.”

“It'll be nice to see me again, won't it? But a heads-up for you too, Billy. I'm even more attractive than I was when I was a teenager. But don't let that cloud your judgment. I'm still a bitch.”

Billy smiled for the first time in days.

It's all my fault Jack wasn't at breakfast. Jack's always at breakfast and breakfast is always at the same time. That's one of the good things about Jack. Jack believes in alwayses. But with some excepts. Like when he goes fishing with Henry. Then breakfast is after fishing. I think it's OK to have some excepts as long as you have alwayses too.

I'm bad because it's all my fault Jack wasn't at breakfast. I was coughing really loudly last night. He hated that. He hates noise. He especially hates it when I cry. Mommy came into my room and tried to get me to stop coughing. She got into bed with me and hugged me but it didn't work. I couldn't stop coughing. It was like when my ear wouldn't stop hurting. My room is next to Mommy's and Jack's. Jack came in and said, “You're keeping me up. I can't sleep with all this coughing. I'm surprised she hasn't woken up Anna too.” He stops calling me princess when he's mad at me. And Mommy said, “Anna can sleep through a hurricane.” Jack said, “Well, I can't. Get her to shut up.” He was mad and that made me cry so he got madder.

That made Mommy cry too. Especially when Jack left. Mommy got up to go find him but she couldn't find him anywhere. When she came back she said, “He's gone.” She was crying but the quiet kind of crying.

Mommy was happy before, when we had supper with Anna after Anna came to visit. Jack was working at his restaurant and Anna said, “I can't wait to meet him,” and Mommy and Anna were talking about the wedding and drinking wine and laughing. They'd let me stay up with them for a while. They talked about dresses and how nice it would be to have the wedding on Henry's porch. “Can we put a bow around Bones's neck?” I asked and Mommy and Anna laughed.

But that was all before I woke up and started coughing.

Then Jack didn't come to breakfast. Anna didn't either but that's because she sleeps late in the mornings. “This seven-thirty in the morning routine sounds crazy to me. Count me out,” Anna said last night. So me and Mommy had breakfast alone and Mommy kept looking to see if Jack was going to come into the kitchen but he didn't. She said, “He didn't take the car.” She said it to herself, not me, and I didn't dare ask her if not taking the car was good or bad.

When Anna woke up, she had a glass of orange juice and we went down to the beach because of how hot it is. Anna has this funny bathing suit. It has pink polka dots and it's in two pieces but it's almost like she's not wearing anything.

I was make-believe looking at boats and flags. I wasn't really looking because I knew Mommy was sad and I was scared about that. Anna said something about the pictures Jack put up in the house. She said, “He's faintsomething.” That's what it sounded like. I didn't understand. Then she said, “He's super faintsomething. How the hell did you catch him,” and I wanted to say, “Mommy didn't catch Jack. That's stupid. Jack's not a tennis ball or a fish,” but I didn't say it cuz I was make-believe looking at boats. Mommy didn't say anything too and Anna asked her, “So where is he? When am I going to meet him? Where are you hiding him?”

Mommy looked like she was going to cry again and said, “I need to talk to you” to Anna and I was scared she was going to talk about how to stop me coughing even though I wasn't coughing any more. I don't want to get sent to a hospital.

I saw Jack first. He was coming from where the lighthouse is at the end of the dike. I wanted to run up to him but I didn't because he might still be mad. Mommy must have seen him too. She jumped up and waved at him and he waved back and kept walking to us. I think Mommy couldn't find him because he was out on the beach all the night. He told me how much he loves the beach. When we were playing catch, he said he loves the beach because he loves the ocean and the beach loves the ocean too and when the waves come to the beach, they come because the ocean is talking to the beach. It's a funny thing to say but I think he's right.

Jack came up and Mommy kissed him and he gave her a hug. He said hello to Anna and shook her hand. He shakes hands now with the wrong hand like Henry shakes hands. He asked Anna how her trip was and Anna started talking fast and laughing a lot and waving her hands in the air. Jack and Mommy and Anna sat back down on the sand and Jack said, “And how are you today, princess?” so I knew he wasn't mad at me any more.

Then Anna did this crazy thing. She jumped up and said, “Come on, let's go for a swim,” and ran into the water and jumped around in it and yelled, “Jack, come on. It's beautiful. Come in.” Jack smiled a make-believe smile and shook his head and put his arm around Mommy. Mommy smiled a real smile and I got so happy I started to look for boat flags for real.

Anna jumped around in the water some more and then came back and sat down and started putting sun cream all over herself. She kept looking at Jack like he was a flag she'd never seen before. Then she lay down on her tummy and untied the string things of her top so her whole back was showing and she said, “Jack, I've got a good idea. Why don't we go for a picnic lunch later? Holly doesn't like picnics, but you and I can walk down the beach and find a good place for one and I can find out all about my best friend's fiancé and decide if he's good enough for her.”

Mommy was bad then cuz she lied. She said she did like picnics.

Jack said, “Well, I don't like picnics. Let's have lunch all together at the house.”

Anna told Jack that she and Mommy had been talking about the wedding and that they had to go shop for their dresses together soon and asked him when did he think the wedding would be?

Jack said, “I was thinking next weekend, actually.” He kissed Mommy on the lips.

Anna sat up and she was holding the top part of her bathing suit to her chest so it didn't fall off into the sand. She looked really surprised. She said, “But you need more time to arrange things. You must have friends from England you want to come, Jack. They'll need some time to get their flights.” Mommy looked surprised too but she didn't say anything.

Jack got up and came to me and picked me up and went and sat back down with me on his lap. “It's going to be a family lonely wedding,” he said. I didn't understand so I asked him what family lonely means.

“Family
only
. It means just you and me and Mommy and Henry, princess.”

“And Bones.”

“Of course. And Bones,” he said. “But no one else.”

Anna didn't like that. She looked hard at him and then she looked hard at Mommy. Like now she was the one who was mad.

“No one from your family, no friends of yours?” she asked.

“Exactly. Holly and Katy and Henry are my family now. Oh, sorry, princess.” He tickled my sides. “And Bones.”

Jack says he's not ticklish. He says you can only be ticklish if you're afraid and he's not afraid of anything.

Anna said, “Holly. What do you think about this?” She sounded really mad.

And Mommy said, “I think it's perfect. I agree with Jack. Family only will be beautiful. And the sooner the better.”

She kissed Jack back on the mouth.

That's when I asked if I could come here and see you. I was afraid I'd forget some things and I wanted to tell you everything. I tried really hard to remember everything cuz I know you want to know. Mommy said I could come because she knew Henry would be here in the house too.

She's happy again and Jack's happy too but I'm afraid. Cuz what if I cough again or my ear hurts? You have to help me make sure I never cough again and I never cry. Ever ever. If I feel like I'm going to cry, I'm going to come here and see you and you have to help me not cry. I don't want it to be all my fault. I don't want Jack to get mad and go away again.

Jack has a secret, Bones, but we know what the secret is, don't we? It's why you don't go to Jack ever. It's why you stay away from him. I didn't know why at first because you can't talk so you can't tell me, but you don't have to talk because I know why now.

Grown-ups lie. Mommy told a lie on the beach when she said she did like picnics and Jack told a lie when I first saw him. He said he wasn't the Explorer but he is. He's the Explorer. And you're afraid to go near Jack cuz you're afraid you'll get to like him too much. And then what happens if I cry again?

If I cry, he'll go away and explore again and he won't come back ever and you'll be sad. Everyone will be sad and it will be all my fault.

“Look. She's teaching him how to sail. It's ridiculously sweet.”

Anna was standing on the back porch of his house, holding binoculars and staring out into the bay. She hadn't changed much in five years. The sexy teenage girl he'd known and loved so much was now a sexy woman with the same long, thick black hair, the same mischievous eyes, the same ability to make him feel as if he was lagging behind somehow. Anna had always been ahead of him; she was so far ahead of him when she ditched him he hadn't even begun to see it coming.

“I can't believe they're getting married next weekend.”

“Believe it.” She continued watching the blue-and-white striped sail in the distance.

“So he has no family, no friends? What's with that?”

She shrugged. “Jack Dane's a mystery. I tried to find out something about his past, but he kept changing the subject. He did it in a funny way, though. It's hard to explain. I'm not sure if he was avoiding my questions or if he thought my questions were boring. I couldn't figure him out. At one point I asked him what he was like as a kid and he went on some riff about a TV show he used to watch—some Australian soap opera called
Neighbors
. One of the guys in it has been on
24
and
The OC
and
Ugly Betty
and
Lost
—the thing is, he was really funny about it. So funny in that sarcastic English way I totally forgot my original question.”

It's a game. You're ahead of me, Jack's ahead of you—but where's Holly?

“Anna—will you put those binoculars down?”

“Whatever.” She lay them on the glass table beside her. “Your parents must have bought all this stuff at the same place. It's generic Cape Cod rental, isn't it? Lots of wicker and glass and tasteful watercolor paintings of sea scenes.”

“It works for them.” It was his turn to shrug.

They'd never belonged here, his parents. And he hadn't either. Because the joke about it being Barrett Point had a painful truth to it. Everyone else on Birch Point was an outsider, really. They could swim on the beach and walk on the dike and go fishing and sailing, but they missed whatever it took to have this Point in their blood because they weren't Barretts. They didn't swim and walk and sail and fish in the same way.

Billy remembered the day, a few weeks after they'd moved in, when his father had asked Holly's father John over to play tennis on their court. “Might as well get in with the locals,” his father had said. When John Barrett arrived, tennis racquet in hand, he was wearing long khaki trousers stained with fish blood and an old blue T-shirt with a hole in the side. Billy's father had on crisp white shorts and a white Fred Perry tennis shirt.

But the strange thing was that Billy realized instantly John Barrett's clothing was clearly the right Birch Point choice.

John had brought Holly with him and Billy and Holly sat on the grass together watching their fathers play. With pride, Billy saw his father win the first five games in a row. Yet as John walked by Holly when he was changing sides, he said, “Now I've got him exactly where I want him, sweetheart,” and winked at her. Billy knew his father heard this, because he saw a big smirk on his dad's face.

What happened next was astounding. His father began to falter, making unforced errors, double-faulting, and finally losing 7–5. When his father then said it was too hot to play a second set, Billy blushed with embarrassment.

He remembered too bringing up the subject of that game with Holly, back when they were friends. They were sitting at the Mill Pond Diner and Billy felt he had to apologize for the fact that his father had never asked her father to play tennis again. “He couldn't stand the fact that he blew it like that. He cares a lot about winning and he just blew it after your father said that.”

“Your father was probably trying too hard,” she'd stated, as if, of course, trying too hard was bound to end in disaster. “My father once told me that there's no mastery without ease.”

“Is that why your family are the only ones on the Point who never get a poison-ivy rash? Because they have mastered the art of avoiding poison-ivy easily?” he'd asked, and she'd laughed her shy laugh.

His parents had tried to convince him that Holly was after their money when she insisted on having the baby. “Look at that house of theirs,” his mother had said. “It's shabby. Look at the clothes they wear. Thrift shop. They want you to marry her so they can get their hands on our money. She tricked you, Billy. You can't ruin your life in order to fund theirs. They know when we die we'll leave everything to you and their precious daughter will be secure.”

Billy made himself believe them. Because he wanted his life to go on as if Holly's pregnancy hadn't happened. But he had to keep pushing away the knowledge that they were wrong, that the Barretts had a different take on money than his parents. They never wore designer labels, they didn't buy expensive gadgets, they drove old cars. None of which meant they didn't have lots of money; it meant they wore their money easily.

Anna had sat down on one of the wicker chairs, sprawling, showing off her short denim skirt and long tanned legs. Her top was sleeveless, pink, hot. She was holding a glass of iced tea to her chest.

“I really blew it with that gold-digging waiter comment, didn't I?”

“Yup.”

“Is there any way back for me? I mean, can I make up for it somehow?”

“I don't know. But I would definitely steer clear for a while, if I were you. Let them get married, settle down a little. Maybe you could even congratulate them. Show you don't have any hard feelings.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What is it about Jack that bothers you so much, Billy? The fact that he's so gorgeously handsome?”

“I don't trust him.”

“Well, you wouldn't, would you?”

“Come on, he has no friends or family, he's rushing her into this marriage—what's to trust?”

“Let me see.” She fingered her lip. “How about trusting him because he loves Holly and Katy? They're a real little three-some, you know. He wouldn't even take a walk on the dike alone with me. It's all about Holly and Katy. He was polite to me, but that's it. I didn't count. Which kind of pissed me off, but hey. I have to admit I was pissed off because I was semi-flirting and he didn't take the bait. So I deserved it for being a shitty, selfish friend. Holly's a lucky girl. And God knows, she deserves some luck in her life.”

“But why get married so quickly?”

“Why not?” Anna put her iced tea down on the ground, stood up. “Look, I have to go. I don't want to get caught in Sunday rush-hour traffic. As far as I can see, Jack is a hunk, and a decent guy. He may not have friends or family, but so what? Less hassle for Holly. He doesn't like to talk about his childhood? I say, fanfuckingtastic. He's not some wimp who can't stop talking about his past.

“Holly loves him and I'm sorry but Katy loves him too and Henry even likes him—he took him fishing at some ridiculously early hour this morning. If you want any chance of getting to know Katy and all that father stuff, you'd better accept Jack and stop making waves. Otherwise you're screwed. Katy won't like you either if you give Jack a hard time. She adores the guy.”

“Great.”

“Suck it up, Billy.” Anna slapped him on the side of the head, then kissed him on the cheek. “And be nice to the girl whose heart you broke.” She walked out; he followed her to the front door.

“If you need to say something stupid again, call me and say it to me. My number's in the Boston phone book. But try and keep that mouth of yours shut, OK?”

“Right.” He nodded, trying not to feel abandoned. She wasn't really an ally; he'd just hoped she'd be one.

“
Holly loves him and I'm sorry but Katy loves him too and Henry even likes him—he took him fishing at some ridiculously early hour this morning.
”

Yes, I know he did. I went to the boatyard to take the
Whaler
out early this morning and I saw them. Billy and Henry getting into the
Sea Ox
together, setting off for a trip. Like they were already family.

I never dared ask Henry or John to take me fishing. I wanted to, but I didn't dare. I was worried I'd mess up somehow and they'd make fun of me in that Barrett dry way they had. I knew I'd try too hard.

But there was Jack, starting up the boat, backing it out of its berth. Jack who fits in easily. As if he'd been born here.

I turned around and came back home.

He threw himself on the large sofa in front of the flat-screen TV, picked up the remote control, switched it on, switched it off, put his elbow over his eyes. His dream of the night before hadn't left him; it lurked in his mind sickeningly, coloring his mood.

He'd seen Katy running through a dense forest, her hair flying behind her, barefoot and afraid and obviously in danger. He was calling to her from behind, but she wouldn't turn around. She kept running and the forest turned into a swamp and she was sinking down into the swamp and he couldn't help her. She wouldn't turn around and look for him, no matter how loud he yelled. Instead she struggled forward, into the arms of a faceless man who'd appeared out of nowhere.

Then he wasn't behind Katy any more. He was standing behind the faceless man. He had a knife in his hand. But then it wasn't in his hand. It was in the man's back, up to the hilt. Blood was leaking out of the man's back. And he was holding the handle as tightly as he could.