The Unwanted (13 page)

Eric stared at her. He’d thought about cutting school, even talked about it with Jeff Maynard a few times. But he’d never actually done it, because he’d known what would happen if his father ever found out. And yet now, as Cassie challenged him with her eyes, he felt himself wavering. When she spoke again, it was as if she’d read his mind.

“If your father catches you, I’ll tell him it was my fault. We’ll say I was feeling really sick and you were walking me home, but then I felt better and wanted to go to the beach. And you couldn’t just leave me by myself. I mean, what if I got sick again?”

Eric knew his father wouldn’t buy a story like that, even if it were true. But as he opened his mouth to tell Cassie it wouldn’t work, he found himself agreeing to it.

“Okay,” he said. “But if we get caught, I’m gonna be in big trouble.”

“We won’t get caught,” Cassie replied. “Come on.”

They walked down Maple Street to Cape Drive, crossed to the beach side, then started walking west, toward the mouth of the harbor. Cassie carried her tote bag in one hand and said little, concentrating instead on the weathered shingled houses that bordered the beach. They were spaced wide apart, and between them were expanses of grassy sand, broken here and there by low picket fences whose paint had long since been worn away by the storms of winter. The houses, their shutters closed, had a lonely look to them. Finally, as they passed the fifth one, Cassie turned to Eric.

“Doesn’t anyone live in them?”

“Not this time of year. They won’t be opened up until school lets out.”

“You mean they’re empty all the time except during summer?”

Eric shrugged. “They’re just summer houses. Who wants to go to the beach during the winter?”

“I do,” Cassie replied. “At home that was one of my favorite times to go to the beach. There’d hardly be anybody there except me, and sometimes I’d go out on the bus all by myself and just walk for miles. The summer’s okay at the beach, but it gets too crowded. I mean, at the good beaches there’s so many people in the summer, you can hardly move. It gets really gross.”

Eric grinned. “It’s never that crowded here, even when all the summer people are around. Unless you go out to Provincetown. Out there it gets really jammed.”

They came to a path and turned right, then began climbing a series of low grass-covered dunes that separated the road from the beach itself. As they crested the last of the dunes, the soft roar of the surf grew louder. Suddenly the Atlantic lay spread before them. Cassie stopped abruptly, staring at the ocean.

“It looks different,” she said, cocking her head thoughtfully. Then she understood. “It’s the sun. The sun’s coming from a different direction.” She dropped down onto the sand, stretched out on her back and stared straight up into the sky. Gulls wheeled overhead, and she could hear them screeching to each other as they dove down every few seconds to snatch something out of the water or off the sandy expanse of beach. Finally she rolled over, jumped to her feet, and ran down the beach toward the water line. A flock of sandpipers skittered away from her, then spread their wings and fluttered into the air. Flying straight out to sea, they suddenly banked around to the right, then glided in to land again, fifty yards farther along. Cassie watched them, entranced, then kicked off her shoes, stuffed them into her tote bag, rolled her jeans up to her knees, and waded into the water. Immediately a shriek burst from her throat. “It’s cold!” she shouted to Eric, who had followed her down onto the hard-packed sand of the beach, but not into the water.

“What did you expect?” Eric shouted back. “It’s only April!”

“At home everybody’s swimming already,” Cassie gasped, splashing out of the water. She dashed back up the beach to her tote bag and put her shoes back on. Then something at the far end of the beach caught her eye. “What’s that?” she asked.

Eric squinted into the afternoon sun. “It’s the marker at Cranberry Point. It shows where the channel starts, so the boats don’t wind up in the marsh.”

Cassie gazed thoughtfully at the channel marker for a few moments, then turned to face Eric. “Is that where Miranda Sikes lives?” she asked abruptly. “Down that way?”

Eric blinked in surprise. “Why do you want to know that?” he asked.

Cassie regarded Eric carefully. Should she tell him about the dreams she’d had, and that she was almost sure Miranda was the woman she’d seen in the dream? But it would sound crazy to him, wouldn’t it? Besides, she didn’t even know if it was true or not. Except that she had this feeling, deep inside …

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I just saw her yesterday, and she … well, she looked kind of interesting.”

“She’s just a bag lady,” Eric replied, too quickly. “She’s nuts.”

Cassie felt a surge of anger. “How do you know?” she demanded. “Have you ever talked to her?”

Eric said nothing.

“Then you shouldn’t talk about her,” Cassie plunged on. “You don’t know what she’s like any more than anyone knows what I’m like!” The memory of Lisa’s cutting words in the classroom came back to her. “Doesn’t anybody around here even want to get to know me? Or do you just not count unless you grew up here?”

“Hey, that’s not fair—” Eric began. But then he remembered Lisa gossiping in the cafeteria, and realized that what Cassie had said wasn’t very far from the truth. “I want to get to know you,” he said quietly.

But Cassie didn’t seem to hear him as she kicked moodily at the sand. “Maybe I never should have come here,” she said almost to herself.

Eric frowned. “But you had to, didn’t you? What were you going to do, stay in California all by yourself?”

Once more Cassie’s eyes met his. “Lots of kids my age live on their own. I could do it too.”

“Sure,” Eric agreed. “And you could wind up hooking in the Combat Zone in Boston, and doing drugs too. Or you could even end up like Miranda.”

Cassie’s eyes glistened with tears. “Well, maybe it would be better than this,” she said. “And what’s so awful about Miranda, anyway?”

Eric opened his mouth to say something, then abruptly closed it again and looked out to sea. Cassie said nothing, waiting for Eric to make up his mind. Finally, still not looking at her, he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. Then he grinned crookedly, and managed to meet her eyes. “I guess you’re right. Nobody knows anything about her, really. She never talks to anybody, and nobody even looks at her anymore.”

“Well, where does she live?” Cassie asked. “Does she work?”

Again Eric looked nervous. He shook his head. “She must be on welfare or something. She lives down there,” he went on, nodding toward the point. “Down in the marsh. I—I can show you where it is, I guess.”

“Then let’s go see,” Cassie said immediately. She got to her feet again and slung the bag over her shoulder. Without waiting for Eric to reply, she started toward the tall red channel marker barely visible in the distance. When Eric caught up with her a few moments later, her mood seemed to have changed. She glanced over at him, grinning happily. “Now, isn’t this better than school?” she asked. “Out here I can almost forget about everything and pretend everything’s perfect!”

“It’s fun,” Eric admitted. “But what if we get caught?”

“If you always worry about what will happen, how can you do anything?” Cassie asked. “Besides, what’s so great about school?”

“If you want to go to college, it helps if you go to high school,” Eric pointed out.

“I go,” Cassie replied. “Anyway, I go enough so I don’t get behind. Besides, all you’re supposed to do is learn the
stuff they teach, so if I learn
fast
, why should I waste my time sitting in classes all day? Especially with people like Lisa.”

Eric kicked self-consciously at the sand. “Lisa’s okay.”

Cassie looked at Eric out of the corner of her eye. “Is she your girlfriend?”

Eric felt himself flushing. “I—I don’t know. I guess she is. Anyway, she thinks she is, and my dad likes her.”

Cassie stopped short. “Your
dad
likes her? What’s that got to do with anything?”

Eric shrugged uncomfortably. “It—well, it just makes things easier if I go out with people my dad likes.” He could feel Cassie’s eyes on him then, and he tried not to look at her. At last he couldn’t help himself, and his eyes met hers. “That’s kind of stupid, isn’t it?” he asked.

Cassie said nothing, but nodded her head.

They continued walking along a few feet apart, and though neither of them said anything for a long time, there was nothing uncomfortable about the silence. When Cassie finally spoke again, Eric knew immediately what she was talking about.

“I bet she’s rich, isn’t she?”

“Uh-huh. Mr. Chambers married Kevin Smythe’s aunt, and the Smythes used to own most of False Harbor.”

“I bet your dad wishes
he’d
married Kevin Smythe’s aunt.”

Almost in spite of himself Eric snickered. “She wouldn’t have married him. She can’t stand my dad.”

Cassie’s eyes rolled. “So your dad likes Lisa because of who her parents are, and her parents don’t like your dad but let Lisa go out with you?”

Eric nodded.

“What a bunch of crap. Doesn’t it make you want to puke sometimes?”

Eric frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said, even though he thought he knew exactly what she meant.

“Just parents,” Cassie said. She tipped her face up into the breeze, enjoying the feel of the crisp air on her face. “They always do things for dumb reasons. Like my mom hated my dad and was always telling me how rotten he was.” Her voice
took on a hard edge, but her eyes were glistening with tears. “She only kept me around so he couldn’t have me. Then she went out and got killed on the freeway, and how was that supposed to make me feel? I mean, Mom wanted me to hate Dad as much as she did, and now I have to live with him ’cause she’s dead.…” She hesitated, fighting the conflicting emotions that roiled inside her. “Well, it’s no big deal that she died—just because she was my mom didn’t give her the right to beat me up! And you know what? She was wrong about my dad. He’s not a bad guy. But what does he need me for? He’s got a whole other family.” She sniffled, then determinedly wiped her tears away and managed to smile weakly at Eric. “It makes you wonder why they bother to have kids in the first place.”

Eric looked at the sand at his feet, embarrassed by Cassie’s outburst. And yet almost everything she’d said were things he himself had thought about. “But what can you do about it?” he asked softly. “You can’t choose who your parents are.”

Cassie stopped walking and turned to face him. “Maybe I can,” she said quietly. “I mean, Dad and Rosemary don’t really want me. I’m just in their way. So …” She hesitated, wanting to tell Eric about the fantasy but not wanting him to laugh at her. If he laughed at her—But she had to take the risk. “Maybe … maybe I can find a mother who really wants me.” She hesitated, but Eric didn’t laugh. Instead he only looked at her intently.

She decided to tell Eric a little bit of what was in her mind. Not much. Just enough to see what his reaction would be. “I had a dream,” she said, a nervous laugh rippling around her words. “I—I dreamed that Miranda Sikes was really my mother. Isn’t that weird?”

Eric looked away from her, and when he replied, his voice was low. “I don’t know,” he said. “Lots of funny things happen in dreams. And—and sometimes they mean something, don’t they?”

Feeling suddenly encouraged by Eric’s response, Cassie bobbed her head eagerly. “In the dream, she called my name, and she was reaching out to me. I think she wanted me to come to her.”

Eric looked at her strangely. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

A stab of fear ran through Cassie. Did he think she was crazy? “I didn’t say she did,” she added quickly. “It was just a dream.”

Eric said nothing for a while. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible. “But if she were calling you,” he said, “that would mean you’d have to go out there.”

Cassie frowned. “Why shouldn’t I?”

Eric hesitated for a long time. “No reason,” he said at last. “I’ll show you where it is. And maybe I’ll even show you what happens if you get too close.”

Rosemary Winslow heard the tinkling of the bell above the shop door and glanced up from the chair she was working on to see Charlotte Ambler pausing just inside, examining a copy of a Tiffany lamp. It couldn’t be after three already, could it? Frowning, Rosemary glanced at her watch.

It wasn’t. In fact it was barely two o’clock. Then what was the high school principal doing here? Suddenly alarmed, she rose to her feet and threaded her way through the maze of furniture that cluttered the small store.

“Charlotte?” she asked. “Has something happened to Cassie?”

Charlotte Ambler shook her head. “I doubt it, but I don’t know, really,” she said. “In fact I was hoping you might know. Is she here, by any chance?”

“Here?” Rosemary repeated. “But … well, school isn’t even out yet, is it?”

The principal sighed. “No, it isn’t. But I’m afraid that Cassie didn’t go to any of her classes after lunch. I thought—well, I thought perhaps I might find her down here.”

Rosemary shook her head in confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean. Was she ill?”

“Not according to Lisa Chambers,” Charlotte said. “It seems that Lisa saw Cassie and Eric Cavanaugh leaving school after lunch. Neither of them have been seen since.”

Rosemary’s brows arched in surprise. “You’re telling me that Eric Cavanaugh cut school?” she asked. “Eric
Cavanaugh?”

“Well, it’s hardly as earth-shattering as the second coming,” Charlotte observed dryly, “but yes, that’s what I’m
telling you. More to the point, I’m also telling you that Cassie cut along with him. I’d hoped she’d at least last out the first day.”

Rosemary frowned. What was the woman talking about? “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Charlotte nodded. “That’s why I came,” she said. “Do you have a minute? I have some things here I think you ought to see.”

Her apprehension deepening, Rosemary led Charlotte to the back of the shop, where she had a tiny office. As Charlotte settled herself into a chair, she drew a file folder from her briefcase. “These are Cassie’s records from her former school. I thought perhaps you should look at them.”