What the Waves Know (11 page)

Tillings Island was a crisscross of small crushed-shell pathways zigzagging off to the shoreline, and the White Whale lay just across one from Herman's. Beside the White Whale, two men pushed through the door of Merchant's Hardware with a sack of nails. A trio of kids a few years older than me lazed against the wall of Merchant's while two girls laughed hysterically and pitched stones into a corner. One of the girls was too fat for the polyester shirt she wore, making the buttons strain over the roll above her belt. She was a stark contrast to the pretty girl posed beside her, whose long golden hair had been swept to one side and fixed with a barrette in precisely the same fashion as a Barbie doll.

“Shit! I nicked the enamel. Now it looks like a fucking arrow instead of a star. Look.” She shoved her polished fingernail under the fat girl's nose.

“Jesus Christ, Lindsey”—she gave the polyester shirttail a tug, pulling the hemline over the bulge around her waistband—“It's a goddamn nail. Come on. See if you can finish him off.”

“Fuck you. It took me a whole hour coming up with that design.”

Taking a deep breath, I willed myself invisible and moved forward. I had not spent much time praying—okay,
any
time praying—during the last few years, but I sent up a small prayer now hoping they would be too busy focusing on Barbie's chipped nail to notice me walking by.

“Tell you what. That sucker drops with the next stone and I'll paint your stupid nail back on myself. Tell her to pitch the damn stone, will ya, Riley? Everyone knows she'll do whatever you say.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Lindsey growled, pitching the small stone in her hand at the fat girl instead, bouncing it off the deep panty bulge of her hip.

“Ouch!”

Lindsey smirked, glancing at a tall boy with mussed hair the precise brown of nutmeg. Dressed in raggedy painter's pants with oil stains spreading over his knees as big as Dr. Boni's inkblots, he gave her a weak smile before
turning eyes as pale and green as sea foam in my direction. Balancing the two grocery bags clumsily on my hips, I studied the crushed-shell path as I crossed.

This was the reason I missed the glance, the one that must have passed from Lindsey to the boy to me before she chirped, “Hey! You're new around here, aren't ya?”

I looked up in time to see the fat girl behind her laugh, nudging her softly on the shoulder. Lindsey stood with one hip jutted out at an exaggerated angle as she ran the pad of her thumb over the chip in her nail polish. Apparently, her mother did not share my mother's misgivings about makeup, because her hazel eyes peeped through dramatically lined charcoal lids and an unnatural tan lit her face.

Behind her, a watery squawk and a ghost-like shift of white drew my attention into the shadows. A seagull huddled in the corner: one wing bent unnaturally upward, a slew of pebbles circling its talons. For an instant, it looked at me before casting its yellow eyes downward. The girl in the too-tight polyester shirt bent over, plucked a stone from the alleyway, and pitched it at the bird.

“Damn bird's too stupid to fly away.” She shook her head in disgust. But I knew that was not the case. When a thing is that scared and hurt there is only one place to go that's safe: deep into a small crevasse inside yourself where nobody can follow. And if you died in the process—well, so be it.

“What ya got there?” Lindsey turned her attention fully back to me. “Mommy's groceries? Isn't that precious, guys?
She's got her mommy's groceries.” The group laughed, except for the boy with nutmeg hair, who was still staring at me intently. “Come on over here. Don't be scared. I'm Lindsey. This here's Carly, and that guy standing there droolin' is Riley. Come on.”

As it turned out, I didn't need to come anywhere, the two girls were already making their way toward me. I glanced at the seagull again, letting my eyes linger too long. Lindsey followed my gaze, laughed, and picked up a large stone.

“What's the matter? You shy or something? It's okay. You wanna play? Sure. Here. The one who finishes him off gets a free soda at Mrs. Barrett's courtesy of the rest of us.” She took the bag from my right arm and shoved the rock into my palm. It was heavy and surprisingly warm. The bird followed it from her hand to mine, hobbling back against the sideboards of Merchant's Hardware. “Go ahead, get it in the head. You can show them how it's done, can't ya?” she crooned, beginning to pick through the bag of groceries.

“She won't do it.” Carly smirked at Riley.

“Don't count on it. She's a Haywood,” the boy growled under his breath. “Killing's what they do best.”

Turning away from the alley, I stared at Riley, feeling small bubbles of rage pop against the sharp edges of what he'd just said. I had never killed anything in my life, unless you counted my mother, who swore I was killing her another inch each day that I refused to speak. He
didn't know me, even if he somehow knew my family's name. Still, he seemed to be wresting back an urge to spit in my face.

“What's the matter with her? She a retard or something?” Carly whispered. Riley ignored her, as though watching to see what I would do.

I wanted to speak. I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up. The words were there, I could feel them splashing around like water in a well. But every time I tried to scoop them up and reel them into the day, they sloshed back over the bucket's edge and washed into the shadows.

“What will happen
if you speak, Izabella?” It was my second session with Dr. Boni, and once again, it began with an impossibly simple question.

I knew exactly what would happen. Words would tumble into the wind like butterflies and I would not be able to catch them before they fluttered out of my grasp forever. Secrets would escape. The stars would stop falling. The moon would stop dancing. The magic would die.

Nothing
, I'd scrolled on the paper before sliding it over to Dr. Boni.

Retard
. I glanced
at the bird, letting the word roll around inside me until it crackled and burst to life and I was six years old again with Robert Goober Head calling me a
retard and leaving my ant squashed into the playground mud with its legs pedaling in the wind. In two seconds flat, the same anger and embarrassment of that day lifted itself upright inside of me.

Lindsey pulled free the small plastic bear filled with honey, holding it up with a tinny high-pitched laugh. Biting the inside of my cheek, I slid the other bag onto the crushed shells with a
crinkle
and drew my hand back softball style.

The bird shuffled again and I knew exactly how it felt. The idea crossed my mind to overthrow the rock, intentionally missing the bird, and be on my way, never looking back. I could do it; I had a damn good pitch and I was downright masterful at never looking back—not ever. The bird cowered back another inch, as though the shadow could harden in form and create a shield capable of saving its life.

Lindsey unscrewed the bear's red plastic head, peeled back the foil, and stuck her pinky into the honey before licking her finger with a grin. “Go, girl, you can do it! Put it out of its misery.”

I let the rock reel me into a half circle, pitching it into the wind with conviction. Lindsey squealed. There was an ugly
crack,
followed by a watery feeling in my stomach as Mr. Herman hollered from the other side of the hole the rock had left in his front window. His soap-scrawled ad now read: P
- - -
- -INS ¢.90 LB
O
NE
D
AY
O
NLY.

“Ha! I knew she didn't have the guts to do it!” Lindsey
twittered, giving the plastic bear a squeeze over my head so honey oozed through my hair and dripped in gooey little globs onto my eyebrow. Small blobs plopped to the collar of my new sweater while Lindsey and Carly darted down the path from sight. Still leaning into the corner, Riley studied me with interested eyes.

“You, there!” Mr. Herman barked at me. “I have Betsey calling the sheriff right now.”

Turning around, I pushed a gob of honey from my eyelid.

“Look what you did to my window! And if you think you're not paying for the damages, well, we will just see what the po-lice have to say a-bout that.” Mr. Herman looked up and down the pathway, red-faced and huffing like a steam engine. A thin film of sweat shone on his brow and he was brandishing his broom like a knotty old sword.

“
In!
” He thundered. “
Now!
” Mr. Herman took me by the sleeve and began tugging me back toward the store.

I tripped alongside him, stupid in my silence, wishing Riley would just go away.

“You're that girl staying up at the Booth House, aren't you?” Mr. Herman said.

I nodded weakly.

“Well, I don't know how they do things wherever you're from, but here we don't let hooligans tromp around town damaging people's property. Do you hear me?”

I nodded.

“I said, do you hear me!”

“I—I . . .” The sound was little more than a belch of air. Mr. Herman's face contorted into angry red pools of wrinkles.

“And we do
not
ignore adults when they're speaking.”

Two police cruisers pulled into sight before we reached the door. I did not have to look back; I could feel Riley watching me from the corner. I did not want him to see me blushing, did not want him to know I was too dumb to speak up and defend myself. A youngish police officer with sun-streaked hair stepped out of the car. Dressed in jeans and clutching a flip pad and gold pen, he looked anything but rushed.

“Sheriff,” Mr. Herman greeted him with a scowl.

A second, older officer in uniform stepped out of his car, coming up behind the sheriff with a friendly slap on the back.

“What're you doing here, Dillon?” the sheriff said. “I thought we were meeting for lunch at the Anchor.”

“A-yup.” The uniformed officer was a head taller than the sheriff, with salt-and-pepper hair; his blue eyes lit up like lanterns even though his mouth did not follow suit. “But when I heard the call come over the radio, I knew you'd be late for lunch and I'm already hungry.” He gave a shallow nod in Mr. Herman's direction, sending the corners of both policemen's lips tilting skyward. “Thought maybe if I shot down to lend a hand we might make it in time for dinner.”

“Deputy,” Mr. Herman growled, still holding tight to my elbow. Biting my cheek, I fought back the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.

“Okay, Maynard, I suppose you can let that child loose now. I don't guess that she's going to jump into the Atlantic and swim away anytime soon.” The sheriff leaned against his cruiser, studying the hole in the window. Across the street, Riley stuffed his hands in his front pockets and slipped quietly down a small lane.

Grudgingly, Mr. Herman released my sleeve. “Do you see what she's done?”

“I see,” he said.

“Hell of a deal you've got going on, Maynard. Man, people will buy anything these days as long as it's on sale. What exactly is the
pee
in, a sauce or something? I guess you'll need to tell Sarah about that, Jim.” The deputy chuckled.

“There is nothing funny about the damage this hooligan caused to my shop, Dillon!” Mr. Herman glowered, turning to the sheriff. “Jim, do you know how expensive this window was? It is going to cost a small sack of gold to fix. And it's not coming outta my till; I'll tell you that plain as day right this minute!”

“Okay, okay. Settle down before you set off your arrhythmia. Let's go inside and figure this all out, shall we?”

“What's your name, darlin'?”

“Good luck getting an answer,” Mr. Herman grumbled, knitting his arms over his chest.

I felt my face flush, that same old embarrassment taking hold of my stomach. Digging my pad free I wrote,
Izabella Rae Haywood
. It was barely legible because of the way my hand was trembling and I was relieved that he didn't ask me to write it again.

The sheriff watched me, perplexed, reaching for the pad when I handed it to him.

Gazing over the sheriff's shoulder, the second officer read what I'd written with a bewildered expression. They exchanged a look I couldn't quite decipher. “Haywood?”

The sheriff blew air through a small opening in his lips. “Are you staying up at the old Booth place?”

I nodded, taking back the pad.

“I think you'd better write down what happened and your mother's number for us.”

The fact that he didn't ask me about my voice, or yell at me for not speaking the way Mr. Herman had, surprised me. It was a thing I had never grown used to, but it happened all the time. Usually, it took a person a few tries before he figured out something was wrong with me. And then he almost always decided I was either born deaf or mute. One of first words I learned to spell after my father left was
laryngitis.
I had scribbled it so many times I didn't have to look at the paper anymore to do it. That was for the times a person did not come to his own conclusion first. But, for some reason, the sheriff hadn't even asked.

I was just writing down my mother's name, wonder
ing why he'd chosen not to ask for my parents' number, or even my father's, when Remy pulled up in front of the shattered window, tilting her head to study the jagged edges. After giving it a good look, she stepped from the Purple Monster, kicking the door closed with her boot, and sidled up to where we were standing.

“What in God's green earth happened here?” She hugged the sheriff warmly before laying a hand on my shoulder. “Jesus Christ, you're shaking like a naked cat on a glacier.”

I looked at her, pleading for help.

“It seems your young friend here has a hell of a pitch.” He drew his fingers across his mouth as though trying to stop a chuckle from forming.

“And piss-poor aim.” Remy gazed at the hole.