Unraveling Isobel (2 page)

W
hen the minister asked if anyone knew any reason why these two shouldn't be married, I should have said something. I could think of at least five reasons off the top of my head why my mom shouldn't have married Richard Wickham.

 

1. His name is Richard, which is really just a fancy version of Dick. I don't think anyone should be in a relationship with a Dick.

2. My mom met Richard (Dick) three months ago on the internet. If I wanted to go to a movie with a guy I met on the computer, I would get a lecture about creeps who lurk online. Not to mention, when you can measure your dating history in weeks (twelve!), then you have no business getting married.

3. Dick has a son my age, Nathaniel, who happens to be unbelievably good-looking and is now officially off-limits because we're related.

4. Just because my mom wanted to be married, I have to go along for the ride. I'm being forced to move my senior year from Seattle to an island where there are more endangered birds than there are people.

5. Dick's first wife and daughter died seven months ago, and it seems to me he could have given it at least a year before bringing us in as the replacements. I may not be the queen of etiquette, but even I know some things are in bad taste.

As the ferry chugged closer to Nairne Island, suddenly I noticed reason number six looming over me.

“Well, there she is,” Dick said in a booming voice. He sounded like an actor on a stage waiting for those around him to burst into spontaneous applause at his mere presence. “What do you think of your new home, Isobel?” He gave my back a hearty slap that nearly knocked me to the deck.

I looked at my mom for confirmation. I hoped it was a joke, but instead of laughing, she was looking at Dick like a slice of chocolate cheesecake after an extended sugar-free diet. She'd said the house was big and that it had been in Dick's family since
the late 1800s when his family established a town on the island. However, she'd neglected to mention that it wasn't big; it was
huge
. Most hotels are smaller than this house. It sat on the top of the tip of the island like a fat brick lady squatting down to get a good look at what was coming in and out of the harbor. The center of the house had a row of large arched windows with a stone terrace in front. The wings on both sides were covered in ivy. Not in a nice Big Ten–campus sort of way, but more like a wild-jungle-vine-gone-rabid kind of way.

“What's that style called? Early Ostentatious?”

“Isobel!” my mom said, shooting me the look that meant
Boy, are you in for it when we're alone.

Dick gave one of his hearty “yo-ho-ho, I'm Lord of the Manor” laughs. “Now, don't be mad at her. Seeing Morrigan for the first time can be a bit overwhelming.”

My eyebrows went up. “Morrigan? You gave your house a name?” I bet Richard was the kind of guy who names everything, including his car, his favorite golf club, his dick. Dick's dick. I shuddered. That was the kind of image that could leave some serious emotional scars.

“Most estates have names,” Dick said, subtly pointing out that while normal people live in houses, this was an
estate
. Like I needed a reminder. Our old two-bedroom bungalow would most likely fit in the foyer of this place.

“I'm sure Morrigan will feel like home for us in no time,” my mom said.

Nathaniel snorted, and the three of us looked at him. My new stepbrother was good-looking, but his mood was a downer. The phrase “turn that frown upside down” didn't seem to be his personal motto. It wasn't clear to me if this was part of his personality, or if he was just unhappy with my mom and me as the recent additions to the family. He stood apart from us with his hands jammed into his pockets, and his expression looked like he smelled something nasty. It wasn't me. I'd had a long shower that morning, and knowing this day wasn't going to be an easy one, I'd applied enough deodorant to keep an Olympic swimmer dry. There was no reason for him to always try to stand a few steps away from me. At least no reason I could figure out.

“What did you mean by that?” his dad asked. Nathaniel shrugged. Dick opened his mouth to say something else, but Nathaniel was already turning away and heading back inside the ferry's main cabin. My mom put a hand on Dick's arm and they shared a look, which I could tell meant
Kids … what are you going to do? No one will adopt them at this age.
I would have snorted too and followed Nathaniel inside except for the fact that apparently he couldn't stand me.

“I should get our things together. We'll be docking in a few minutes,” Dick said, patting my mom's ass. I turned around and looked back at the island so I could miss their parting kiss. I knew they would kiss as if he were heading off to war instead of leaving for ten minutes to go get the car.

My mom stood next to me after Dick left. Her hands gripped
the metal railing as if she planned to vault up and over. Of course, with her wedding ring on she would sink to the bottom of the ocean in record time. The ring Dick gave her is so large it practically requires its own zip code.

“You could make this easier,” she said.

“So could you.”

“We're not talking about this again. You can't live with Anita.” My mom had dismissed the perfectly rational idea of me living with my best friend as if I had instead suggested that I live on the streets in an old washing-machine box.

“Why not?” I couldn't help pleading again. “Her mom's fine with it.” I twisted the ring on my finger and added in a softer voice, “It's my senior year.”

“All the more reason I want you to be with me. You'll be leaving for college after this.” She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Honestly, Isobel, you don't have to act like it's a prison term. As you keep pointing out, it's just one year.”

I knew it was a lost cause, but I couldn't help expressing my misery anyway. “If it's just one year, then maybe you could have waited to marry Sir Dick.”

“His name is Richard, and drop the ‘sir' stuff.”

“Are you telling me you don't notice that he does it? The whole fake British accent thing?” There was no way she could be that oblivious.

“Isobel, don't push it. I know you're not happy about this, but someday you'll understand.”

“I don't want to understand later. I want to understand now.” I knew I was pushing it, but I couldn't stop myself. “Why couldn't we all live in Seattle for the year?”

“Because Richard's life is here.”

I felt my throat tighten. “What about
our
life?”

“In case you didn't notice, we didn't have much of a life.” My mom spun and stalked off.

I sighed, and it was lost in the wind. The ferry whistle blew as we pulled into the dock. The boat bounced off the giant wooden pylons as it came to rest, and I grabbed the railing to keep my balance. The tide was out in the harbor; the water had peeled back, leaving a graveyard of crushed oyster shells and slick seaweed. Two seagulls were fighting over a piece of some nasty dead bit they had pulled from an oyster shell. The sour smell of dead fish and rotting seaweed washed over me.

Home sweet home.

Chapter 2

W
e were setting new records for family dysfunction. It was only a few hours after the wedding and already Mom and Dick weren't talking. When he drove off the ferry, Dick asked my mom if there was enough room on her side of the car for him to clear the metal gate. I could have told him this was a bad plan, as my mom has zero skills in the spatial-relations area. Of course she said yes, and the next thing you know Dick had a four-inch scrape on the side of his Mercedes. He was pissed. My mom was pissed that he was pissed, because she felt like his car's paint finish shouldn't be more important than her feelings, blah blah blah. The honeymoon was over. I bet they were wishing they had done some time in Cancún instead of rushing back here so Nathaniel and I could start school.

Nathaniel and I didn't fight. That would have required us
to have an actual conversation. Since we met for the first time over an awkward dinner a month ago when our parents had announced their engagement, we had exchanged about ten words in total. I felt like pointing out to him that none of this was my idea either. While he might not have been that crazy about us moving in, at least
he
didn't have to leave all his friends and his life behind right before his senior year. While both of us felt screwed over by our respective parent, in my opinion, he was still less screwed than me. However, he didn't seem like a glass half full kind of guy, so I didn't bother to point this out.

Nathaniel sat as far away from me in the backseat as possible and stared out the window without saying anything. I sat as close as I could to my own window. The only sound in the car was Dick grinding a few layers of enamel off his teeth. One big, happy, blended family.

We turned off the main road and slipped through Morrigan's tall, black wrought-iron gates. The driveway was gravel and in real risk of disappearing under the encroaching trees and bushes. The tips of a few of the branches slid along the sides of the car as we drove past. This place was in desperate need of a serious weed whacking. The driveway went on forever. I hoped I wasn't going to be expected to walk down to the end of it every day and pick up the mail. I'd have to bring a compass to make sure I made it back.

“This used to be an orchard when my grandparents owned the estate,” Dick said, waving out the window at a section that
looked like an evil forest of twisted trees. I wouldn't have been shocked to see a troll lurking under a bush. “It's gone wild in the past few decades. I plan to bring it back to its former glory one of these days.”

It looked to me like the only plan that made any sense was to burn the whole thing down and start over. I kept that thought to myself. The sickly sweet stink of fruit rotting on the ground made my stomach turn.

“I see some apples,” my mom said, spinning around to look closer at the trees. “I'll have to come down here and pick them. We could make a pie.”

Dick patted my mom's knee. One mention of pie and their fight seemed to be over. I didn't break it to him that my mom couldn't bake anything that didn't come out of a box. Ever since she met Dick she had started to remake herself into the ultimate happy homemaker. She talked about taking up knitting and making her own jam. I could tell she was fantasizing about wandering down to the orchard with a floppy straw gardening hat and a basket over one arm. My mom is like a kid who never outgrew her imaginary world. Only instead of imaginary friends, my mom has an imaginary life.

As long as I can remember, my mom has talked about how things would have turned out if my dad hadn't ruined everything. She married my dad with the idea that they were going to be a part of Seattle's top society. They'd had a deal: she would be the pretty one, throw all the right kinds of parties, and keep the
ultimate house, and my dad would earn buckets of money in advertising.

Things were all going according to plan until my dad went crazy. Not just “oh, he's a crazy guy” kind of crazy. My dad went full-on hearing-voices, lock-him-up, heavy-meds-and-a-padded-room kind of crazy. “Psychotic break” is the term. I don't remember any of it. I was only four when it happened. Eventually my dad's mental state was stabilized with medication, but by then he was off the fast track and even farther off the family track. He decided he wanted to make real art instead of creating dancing toilet-paper characters to push tissue. He left us and moved to Portland. Now he lives in someone's converted garage, where he paints all day. My mom was left with a toddler, a pile of debt, a dead-end job as a secretary for a law firm, and a serious case of bitterness. We weren't poor, but we were a lot closer to food stamps than to trust funds. Dick was her second chance at her dream life. She wasn't letting go, even if it meant ruining my life—or if not my whole life, at the very least my senior year.

The car snaked around the final curve, and there was the house. We piled out and stared up at it. Dick stood there with his hands on his hips, looking as proud as if he had built the whole thing himself. I had to admit, the place was impressive. If the entire cast of a Jane Austen movie suddenly burst out the front door, it wouldn't have surprised me. The house looked like it had been transported directly out of the English countryside and plunked down on the island.

“Isn't it stunning?” my mom gushed, turning to me.

“I should warn you, this house is my mistress. She takes up a lot of time,” Richard said, pulling Mom close.

Nathaniel and I rolled our eyes in tandem. When we caught each other doing the same thing, we both looked away quickly.

“As long as this house is your
only
mistress, we'll be just fine.” Mom linked arms with Dick. I fought down my gag reflex.