The Tenderness of Thieves (26 page)

T
HA
T EVENING, I WAITED
for Handel to come in on his father’s boat. I watched Mr. Johansen and his sons dealing with their catch for the day. Mr. Lorry and Old Man Boyd. I watched one of the Sweeney boys, the oldest one, chain-smoking cigarettes and looking out over the ocean like he had a lot to think about, and for a while I wondered what. Then I watched a few of my father’s former colleagues doing their rounds along the wharf and to the docks and back, making sure they didn’t see me. I watched Mrs. Lorry, too, shuffling along the boardwalk toward her husband with a paper bag of something that made his eyes light up when it and she arrived, then he bent down and kissed her sweetly.

But no Handel.

I thought he was working today.

He told me he was.

Had his plans simply changed like plans do sometimes?

Or worse: Had he lied?

The image of all that worry on Joey McCallen’s face entered my mind without permission, and the judgment and scolding of everyone else tugged at the purity of all my happiness with Handel, tugged at it in this way that threatened to unravel it.

I took a deep breath, got ahold of myself, and shooed it away.

When the sun had drained entirely from the sky, I had to accept that Handel wasn’t coming, at least not on a boat. I gave up waiting and started through town, first along the wharf, and then down Chestnut, thinking I’d take the long way home. It was a nice night. Or maybe I was thinking that if I went this route it would take me past all the street corners where Handel stood around with his friends and right near his house, too, close enough that I’d be able to see it at the other end of the block.

It wasn’t long before my efforts were rewarded.

I heard voices and loud laughter a ways down the street. My head snapped in its direction and my heart leapt when I saw that familiar long dirty-blond hair, tangling like it always did in the summer breeze. Without hesitation I headed in Handel’s direction. Relief and excitement mingled with a dash of doubt, my confusion about finding him here and not where he said he’d be pressing in on the certainty I’d come to have about him. These feelings and others stormed through me as I got closer, and with my new proximity I realized I was wrong, that the person with the long blond hair was slightly shorter than Handel, that I’d mistaken his older brother Colin for him. Out of the shadows emerged Cutter and Mac.

I halted in the middle of the street, right while I was crossing it.

Then I saw another head of long blond hair, a second one. Handel was with them. There came the raised voices, but this time I understood that it hadn’t been laughter I was hearing, but fighting words and anger, shouting that those boys were trying to hold down. It was getting the best of them, though, and ringing through the streets.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I was witnessing, but it left me cold. I stood there frozen, unsure if I should go forward or turn and go the other way.

They hadn’t seen me. Not yet.

But then Cutter’s eyes shifted, just a little. They didn’t have to go far to land on me. His mouth moved, forming words I could not hear, and the rest of them turned around.

Handel, too.

And the scent, that scent of something rotten and sweet, wafted toward me in the breeze.

I thought I might collapse right there in front of all of them.

Could it be coming from Handel?

I was going to be sick.

“Jane,” he called to me, and came jogging over.

The smell—it disappeared.

It wasn’t Handel.

Of
course
it wasn’t him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked me.

Everyone was staring at us.

“I’m walking through town,” I said, not entirely friendly. Not entirely recovered. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Yeah. Of course.” His eyes darted all over the place, like he was worried someone was watching, even though of course he knew more than a few someones were already doing just that.

“I waited for you down at the docks for over an hour,” I told him.

“You did?” he asked, in this way that tried for nonchalance, like it was no big deal he’d told me he’d be one place and then I’d found him in another.

That’s when I knew he was lying. “You obviously weren’t there because you were here. I thought you were working today on the boat. I guess not?”

Handel sighed. Then he finally looked at me straight on. “My plans changed.”

“I see that.”

He glanced at his friends and his brother again. “Let’s get out of here. Do you want to get out of here?”

I shrugged.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me away.

The pull of him was too strong for me to resist.

The second his fingers laced through mine, I nearly melted.

Handel led me right past Cutter and Colin and Mac, who weren’t saying a single word, just eyeing us in that disbelieving way I’d seen from them on other days. I held my breath as long as I could. I didn’t want to collapse beneath that smell again.

It wasn’t long before Handel’s house came into view. Handel was two steps ahead of me the whole time, my arm stretched taut. Just before we reached the edge of his front yard, I stopped short, as though I was about to go over the edge of a cliff. Handel tugged me forward at first, but I didn’t budge, and then he came to a halt, too. Turned and looked at me. “What’s wrong, Jane?”

My heart was hammering and not in a good way. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

He let go of my hand, went searching around his pocket, hovering over his pack of cigarettes. He was dying to smoke. He was nervous. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“I think you’re lying. Don’t lie to me, Handel.”

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. So he didn’t have to look at me, I thought. He took a long drag. Blew out the smoke. “It’s just family stuff.”

“That wasn’t just your family back there. Your friends, too.”

“I was arguing with my brother.”

“What about?”

“I can’t say.”

“Why not?”

He looked at me finally. He had that darkness in his eyes again. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. “It’s complicated.”

“I can handle complicated. We’ve already gotten through complicated. Remember?”

“Jane, don’t press me. I can’t talk about this right now. It’s long past talking about,” he added. He was pleading.

“You can tell me anything,” I said, my heart hammering harder. I was a little afraid of what Handel might say next. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what you’re asking to hear.”

“There’s nothing you can say that would push me away. Not now.” I took a step forward, stepped right off the cliff. Forced myself to look into Handel’s eyes without fear or worry or doubt. “I love you.”

Handel opened his mouth. He opened it, and I thought he was going to tell me whatever was on his mind, whatever it was that weighed him down, made him feel desperate and maybe even afraid. But then he closed it, without a word.

That’s when I noticed his eyes were glassy.

There were tears pooling along their rims.

My heart just about broke.

Handel Davies, crying?

I couldn’t let it happen. Just couldn’t watch it happen.

So I went to him. I went to him and put my arms around his waist and pressed my cheek into his chest. I did this until he bent his chin low and it came to rest on the top of my head and his arms wrapped around my back. We stayed there a long time. When he finally released me, without a word, we went into his empty house, empty of his mother and father and brothers, climbing the stairs to his room and locking the door behind us.

I didn’t go home that night.

I
T WAS EIGHT A.M.
when I tiptoed through the porch door in the backyard.

I was hoping and praying my mother was sleeping in.

Luck was not on my side.

“Jane!”

My mother’s shout met me the second I entered the kitchen.

“Oh, Jane,” she said again and got up from where she was sitting at the counter, pulling me into a hug, her arms tight around me.

Her cheeks were wet.

I leaned away, panicked. “Mom? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“Because I didn’t know where you were!”

“Calm down,” I said. “I’m right here, and I’m fine.”

She took a step back from me. “Don’t tell me to calm down.” The relief that flooded her eyes when I walked through the door turned to anger. “I’ve been frantic! I’ve been up since three a.m. waiting for you to come home, telling myself you were probably fine, but honestly, Jane, you had me terrified. From now on you need to tell me where you go at all times!”

“I was at Handel’s,” I mumbled. Then I walked past her and went into the fridge. There was barely enough iced coffee to fill half a glass. “You drank it all? You could have left me some.”

“Keep me informed and maybe they’ll be some left,” she snapped.

I looked at her. “What has gotten into you?”

“Sit. Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

There was something about her tone that scared me. I did what I was told and took my usual place on one side of the counter.

She took her place on the other. “The police called. Officer Connolly.”

I swallowed. He’d finally gotten tired of trying me and went to my mother directly. “Yeah?”

My mother nodded. “That’s why I’ve been up, Jane. He called wanting to make sure you were all right.” She laid her hands flat on the counter and studied them a moment. Her nails were extra short, their polish chipped and worn away, casualties of her work. She looked up again. Took a deep breath to continue. “There was another break-in last night. The first once since . . .” She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.

I gasped. It came out of me like a shriek. “Where?”

“Just over the border in Smallton. No one we know. Rich family. Big summer house.”

I was nodding as she talked like this all made sense. “Was anybody . . .”

“There were no witnesses.”

Still nodding. “Okay, okay.”

“Officer Connolly wanted to make sure we found out from him before we saw it in the news.” She eyed me. “He said he’s been trying to reach you for weeks.”

I blinked. Ignored that last bit. “So they have no idea who . . . ?”

My mother shook her head. She reached over and put a hand over mine. “Sweetie, what is going on? What are you thinking about? Tell me.”

“That’s why you were so worried when I came in,” I stated.

“Yes.”

“I was with Handel. I was safe with Handel.”

“I know, honey. You said that. I just wish I’d known earlier so I didn’t have to be so scared.”

“Handel was with me,” I said under my breath, taking in this fact. This reality. “All night.”

“Jane?”

But I couldn’t answer. Not just yet. I was trying to figure out for myself what was going on inside me, why a sense of relief so total and complete was washing through me, washing away all the doubt and insecurity and the tiny sneaking suspicion that had been rooting around in my heart. At the same time, my brain was telling me I should feel angry and upset and maybe even a little scared that the break-ins had started up again. That I’d get pulled into this mess of having to talk to the police and having to relive what happened just when I felt like I’d been moving on. Moving forward. Leaving it behind, little by little. The relief was bigger, though. Big like the waves during a storm, the kind that come in and take everything with them. Sand, shells, seaweed, leaving the beach clean of debris.

My mother squeezed my hand. “Jane?” she repeated.

I smiled. I felt exhilarated. Airy. Like I could do anything I wanted. Anything at all was possible.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I don’t know,” I said, but the thing is, I did. “Just nerves, I guess. My body not knowing how to react.”

“You should give yourself some time to process this today, okay? We can talk more later. I’m just so relieved to see you. I’m so relieved you’re all right.”

“Hmmm,” was all I responded.

My mind was elsewhere.

My mind was on Handel.

Handel, who’d been with me during the break-in.

That’s when I knew. Somewhere deep and unspoken inside me, I’d been worried that maybe, just maybe, there was a connection between Handel and those break-ins, a connection between Handel and all the chaos and grief I’d been through. That the source of the darkness that would come into his eyes, that would wedge itself between us and hold us apart sometimes, was related to it. This tiny seed of suspicion had sprouted last night when I found out Handel had lied to me and when I saw him with his brother and those friends, arguing. Fighting. Sprouted and tangled itself around my insides, squeezing them until I almost couldn’t breathe.

But now I knew the truth.

It couldn’t have been him.

I laughed giddily. “I think I’m going to head to the beach,” I told my mother, ignoring her confusion at my cheery reaction. I got up from the place where I’d been sitting. Twirled a lock of hair around my finger, distracted, skipping off to my room.

“I don’t want you alone today,” she said while I was changing clothes and gathering my beach things into my bag. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and then headed back out, through our tiny kitchen–living room combo, well aware that my mother was watching me like I was acting stranger than ever. And maybe I was.

But I practically danced all the way down to the beach that morning.

I practically danced.

• • •

“I thought you’d be more upset, Jane,” Bridget said when she showed up, bag resting at her side. She was the first one to arrive for the day.

I smiled at her, relaxed and basking in the sun. Baking like some bikini-clad girl-cake. “Maybe I will be later. But right now I feel fine.”

“Well, that’s . . . great,” she said. “Weird but great. When I saw the news, my heart just fell through my body. I couldn’t stop thinking about what you must be feeling, but here you are, perfectly okay.”

“I am perfectly okay,” I echoed.

Bridget set out her towel and sat down next to me. Gave me a wry look. “Does your mood have anything to do with Handel?”

My smile got bigger. “Maybe.”

“You two are like rabbits.”

“What about you and James?”

Bridget laughed. “Right. Not going to happen. Not anytime soon at least.”

“No?”

“I’m not in love.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“But I’d like to be. Besides, right now I’m just enjoying all the makeout sessions.”

I rolled over onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow. “I think it’s about time you spilled some details on that front.”

Bridget lit up at this request. “I’d be more than happy to discuss James’s unexpected, yet surprisingly appealing kissing techniques,” she began, and we went on talking about this and a dozen other particulars, about all that had happened between her and James, analyzing it until we were satisfied to have looked at it from every possible angle.

Later on, when Michaela and Tammy arrived, at first they wanted to tiptoe around me, concerned I might be shattered from the events of last night. But all that relief from earlier was still buoying me, bobbing me around like I was floating on a little raft, allowing me to drift away from the darkness pressing in on me ever since February. I was more than willing to let it recede into the background.

Instead of break-ins and burglaries, we focused on boys.

Seamus and James and Hugh and Handel.

Just the way it should be when you’re four girls sitting on the beach in the middle of a perfectly beautiful summer day. Just the way we’d always imagined it would be in our future, after the boys finally discovered we were worthy of their attention.

A dream come true.