The Almost Truth (12 page)

The screen door screeched when I opened it, and I flinched. I paused in the door to see if my mom would come out, but the house stayed silent. My mom had left the light above the stove on so there was enough light to see by.

We didn’t have a library or office since one of the other problems with a trailer is a serious lack of square footage. On the upside, there are a limited number of places where things can be filed away. My mom had a Rubbermaid file container she kept behind my dad’s worn La-Z-Boy chair. Keeping all her important
papers in one place was as far as her organizational skills went. Papers of all sorts were shoved in with no particular order. I flipped through things, trying to find anything with the raised seal of the State of Washington on it. Finally I found a copy of my dad’s record. I yanked it out and carried it into the kitchen so I could read it in the light.

My finger ran down the list until the date jumped out at me. My dad had been released from jail just a few days before Ava’s abduction. I swallowed. I wasn’t sure what that meant. On one hand, it felt creepy, the timing too coincidental. On the other hand, I couldn’t fathom that my dad would have had time to plan a kidnapping right after getting out of jail, and for some reason I couldn’t imagine my mom doing it on her own.

I heard a footstep in the hall and shoved the paper in the closest drawer.

“Hey, sorry if I woke you up,” I said softly. “I wanted to get a drink of water before bed.”

Mom was wearing a giant sleep T-shirt with a grumpy-looking cartoon bear on the front and the saying “I’m a real bear until I get my coffee.” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “You didn’t wake me up. I planned to stay up until you got home from your date, but I must have drifted off.”

“You didn’t have to wait up. How much trouble could I get into? I’m on an island.”

She chucked me under the chin. “I know you; you could find plenty of trouble. I wanted to stay up because I have good
news.” She broke into a smile. She suddenly looked at least fifteen years younger.

I knew what she was going to say and braced myself for the news.

“Your dad is getting released!” She rose up on her tiptoes with excitement. “The paperwork will all be filed tomorrow. With luck, he’ll be out of that place by the end of the week at the latest. There’s a chance he could even be out tomorrow.”

“That’s great.” I tried to sound happy, because I knew it was important to her. It wasn’t that I didn’t want my dad around, but I knew the trailer was going to feel a lot smaller once he arrived.

Mom hugged me. She smelled like toothpaste and the lotion she smeared on her face before bed. “It’s better than great. I know you two butt heads sometimes, but that’s because you’re just like him. The two of you are two peas in a pod.”

I didn’t say anything. I hugged her back. I didn’t think I was anything like my dad, and now wasn’t the time to mention that I wasn’t sure I was even their daughter at all.

I
swapped shifts with another waitress so I could have my afternoon and evening free to go into Seattle with Chase. I usually hate working the breakfast shift. It isn’t that I have anything against bacon or waffles, but people rarely order booze at breakfast. Generally I support not drinking before nine a.m., but booze drives up the check, and my tip depends on the size of the bill. However, on the plus side, I had a far better chance of avoiding running into Chase working breakfast. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to order a giant cholesterol-laden feast first thing in the morning. He seemed more like a grab-a-muffin-and-coffee-in-the-lobby kind of guy. At least I hoped so. I had no idea how I would explain the fact I was working as a waitress if I ran into him.

The dining room was formal, with starched white napkins
and a soft loop of classical music playing in the background. Most people who came to the dining room for breakfast fell into two categories: couples who stared deeply into each other’s eyes, leaving no doubt that they were simply carb loading so they would have enough energy to go back upstairs to their room and resume earlier activities, and couples who seemed to have completely run out of things to say to each other. In those cases, the man typically hid between the pages of the business section of the paper, occasionally grunting when he wanted a refill of coffee. The woman typically stared vacantly out the window, as if wishing she were anywhere but there. Families rarely ate in the formal living room, unless it was Easter or Christmas. They kept their strawberry-throwing, jam-smearing kids in the coffee shop in the lobby, which was just fine with me.

Going through the swinging door into the kitchen was like entering a portal to another world. The dishwasher, Jorge, was singing along with a Spanish radio station, and the line cooks were yelling joking insults at each other over the sounds of crashing pans and rattling dishes.

“You have my eggs benny and order of pancakes?” I yelled out.

“Coming up now,” Eric said. He flipped his spatula up in the air and caught it behind his back, showing off.

“Nice moves,” I said.

Chuck snorted. “It might be impressive if you did it with a knife. You don’t exactly get James Bond points for doing it with a spatula. My grandma can do it with a spatula.”

“That’s ’cause your grandma likes to get her freak on,” Eric called back. He slid two plates across the pass at me. “One stack of Vermont and two hens on a Brit.”

I grabbed the plates and left the two cooks to debate the morals of each other’s grandparents. I balanced the tray out into the dining room, and delivered to one of the non-talking couples. The man didn’t even look up when I slid his eggs Benedict in front of him. The woman looked down at the pancakes with distrust.

“Are these the same pancakes from the menu?”

What did she think, that they were pancakes from a diner in Seattle? “Yes, ma’am. Those are our lemon ricotta pancakes. You have your choice of the fresh blueberry compote or the warm maple syrup.”

“I thought they would come with fruit.” She poked the pancakes with her fork. I wondered if there was any way to politely inform her that blueberries are a fruit.

“Would you like a mixed fruit side plate?” I offered.

“I suppose there’s an extra charge for that,” she said. When she saw me nod, she sighed deeply, as if she had to cope with a tremendous hardship. The basic room in the Keppler costs at least $250 a night. You would think that having to spring a few extra bucks for some fruit wouldn’t be an issue.

I saw out of the corner of my eye that someone else had been seated in my section. That was good. I was starting to suspect that the blueberry-isn’t-a-fruit lady was going to be stingy with
the tip. The new couple was the exact opposite; they had pulled their chairs next to each other so they were touching. She was practically in his lap, and her hand kept running up and down his back, playing his spinal column like a keyboard.

I grabbed a fresh silver carafe of coffee and two of the menus. “Good morning. Welcome to the—” My voice froze shut in my throat when they turned to face me. It was Brendan and Blow Job Becky.

Brendan’s shirt was rumpled. No doubt he had picked it up off the floor just moments ago. Rebecca had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and managed to put on some lip gloss and mascara, but there was no mistaking that fresh-out-of-bed look.

Rebecca giggled and wound her hand into Brendan’s hair. “Well, this is awkward,” she said.

“No reason for things to be awkward. Sadie and I aren’t a couple. There’s not a thing between us, is there?” Brendan said with a pointed look.

I pressed my mouth into what I hoped passed for a smile. “Nope. Not a thing. You guys make a great couple.” I left off the part that I was well aware that since Rebecca had pretty much slept with everyone else, that it was merely a matter of time until she worked her way back around to Brendan for a second try. This time it looked like she was hoping to make it more than a one-night kind of thing. Not that I cared what either of them did.

“I think it’s sweet you guys have been friends for so long,” Rebecca said, trailing her hand along Brendan’s back.

I felt my nostrils flare out in annoyance. Brendan wasn’t saying anything more, but there was a hint of a smirk on his face. Why couldn’t they sleep together in a car like every other high school student? No doubt Brendan let Rebecca pay for a room here because he wanted me to either see them or hear about it from one of my coworkers. “Would you like some coffee?” I managed to get out.

“I don’t
want
coffee, I need it.” Rebecca pushed her coffee cup toward me. I filled the cup and then paused over Brendan’s.

“Do you need it too?” I asked.

“Nah, I just want it.”

I managed to avoid gagging, filled his cup, and dropped off the menus. I shoved the kitchen door open and went straight to the fridge. I acted like I needed to get butter or cream, but the truth was, I just wanted to be someplace cool and alone. I wondered if I could stay there until the end of my shift.

“You okay?” Libby asked, sticking her head in the walk-in. Libby had been a waitress at the hotel for fifteen years.

“Did you see the lovebirds?” I asked.

“You know the only reason he’s with her is to bug you. The boy is crazy about you. He’s doing this to get your attention. And no matter what they’re playing at, they weren’t here together last night.”

I snorted. “Are you kidding me? Did you see them out there?”

“I heard them talking when they came in. They met up in the lobby to come for breakfast.”

I hated that my heart sped up a bit at the idea that they hadn’t been together. I shrugged nonchalantly. “It doesn’t matter to me. He can be with whoever he wants, but I would think he could do better than her.” I left off the part where anyone could do better than her; you could date a petri dish of the bubonic plague and still be ahead.

“You want me to take their table? It looks like all you have left is those two and the old couple in the corner. I can take them both if you want, and you can scoot out of here.”

I felt a million pounds lighter, as if I could take my first deep breath. “Are you sure?” I was already untying my apron.

“Sure. It’s summer. There must be something you’d rather be doing.”

“Thanks, Libby. You’ve earned yourself valuable karma points.”

She waved me off. “Yeah, yeah. Get out of here.”

I slid out through the back of the kitchen and quickly changed into the clothes I’d stuck in the staff break room. I shoved my uniform into my bag. I needed to pick up the boxes of flyers and programs for the fund-raiser. If I wanted to get it done before the afternoon ferry, I was going to have to get busy.

The hotel’s back passageway runs from the storage room to the ballrooms, and makes it easier to move furniture without disrupting guests. Along the walls are framed photos of the staff.
There was a giant staff party at the beginning of each summer. I think the idea is that free BBQ, lemonade, and three-legged races for the kids should make up for the low pay and long hours. And it seems to work; people love it. As I raced down the hall, one of the photos caught my eye.

I backed up a step and pulled the frame off the wall so I could see it more clearly. Brendan’s mom and dad were in the foreground. In her arms was a small toddler that had to be Brendan. I searched the crowd and spotted my mom. She didn’t have me with her. I walked back down the hall and searched each of the photos. I finally found one where I was in the shot. I had to be at least four.

“Hey there,” a voice said.

I jumped as if I’d been spotted doing something wrong. It was Thomas.

“Your mom caught me yesterday in the hall and said you might not be heading off in the fall and were looking to stay on staff,” Thomas said.

“My mom’s confused. There have been a few hiccups, but I’m still going to college. I’m not planning on staying,” I clarified. “You know how moms are. They never want you to leave home.”

Thomas laughed. “Could be worse. She could be pushing you out the door. If something changes, you let me know. You’re a good worker. You’re always welcome here, even if you just want to work during Christmas and summer holidays.”

I motioned to the frames. “Based on all the photos, this place is practically my second home.”

“All part of the Keppler happy family.”

I bit my lip. “Hey, Thomas, you know what’s weird? I don’t see any pictures of me when I was little. The other staff have their kids in the pictures. What was I, some kind of hellion? Maybe a vampire, no one could get me on film?”

“Course you’re in the pictures.” Thomas motioned to the photo of me when I was about five.

“I don’t see any where I’m younger, like really little.”

Thomas shifted his weight and his eyes slid away from mine. “Oh, I’m sure there are some shots around here.”

“I looked.”

“Well, they can’t hang up all the pictures. There are probably some stuck away in a cupboard somewhere.” Thomas held up his clipboard as if he was suddenly reminded that there was someplace he was supposed to be.

“Where would they be? I’d like to look through them.” It wasn’t all in my head; Thomas still wouldn’t meet my eyes. There was something he didn’t want me to know.

“Ah, heck, I don’t know. You don’t want to look through a bunch of dusty old pictures. There has to be something more fun you could be doing with your time.”

“See, the thing is, my mom just found out a while ago that all my baby pictures got ruined. I’d love to find a picture of me when I was little that I could give to my mom.”

Thomas looked up. He looked like a deer in the headlights. “Oh. I’ll look around when I get a chance. I might be able to dig up a photo.” He glanced down at his wrist. “I should get going.”

“Sure.” I watched Thomas as he walked away quickly in the other direction. It wasn’t my imagination. He was nervous. Now if I could only figure out what to do with my suspicions.

“I
want to see the place where they toss the fish,” Chase said. We rounded the corner at First Street, and Chase nearly bounced up and down when he caught sight of the red neon Pike Place Market sign.