Secrets so deep, p.12
Secrets So Deep, page 12
“I figured you knew.” Glory’s face turns bright red. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it, I guess. It’s not my place. But I think there was some kind of trouble there. Or at least, that was my impression.” She reaches for her water bottle. Takes a long drink. “That’s what Nicki was doing up here that summer, I think. She was trying to put some space between the two of them.”
Dad’s never mentioned anything about that, but then he barely mentions my mother at all. He told me she came up here because Willa practically begged her to take a role in one of Brody’s shows that summer. They were on the brink of going bankrupt, he told me, and they needed her because she’d work for almost nothing. A favor for an old college friend.
Glory looks down at her polka dot skirt. She smooths it with her hands and fiddles with the hem. “What do you remember?” she asks. “About that summer.”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember anything.”
She’s staring at me now. “Nothing?” I shake my head again. “Well,” she says, “you were so young. I just thought—”
“I don’t remember anything before that, either.”
She’s really staring at me now. “So you don’t have any memories of your mom?” I shake my head and Glory gasps. There are suddenly tears in her eyes.
And I come so close to spilling it all right then. How that lack of memory haunts me. How I’ve spent my whole life tiptoeing around that deep hole and trying not to fall in. How I lie awake at night trying to remember just one real, concrete thing. The sound of her voice. Her touch. The way she smelled. Anything at all.
Because I feel like until I know her, I’ll never really be able to know myself.
But I don’t say any of that. Because if I open up that crack, who knows what might come spilling out.
And it turns out I don’t have to say anything anyway, because Glory has plenty to say.
We work together all afternoon, and instead of offering me more peppermints, she feeds me little bites of information about my mother. Just tiny morsels. But they’re things I never knew. And I gobble them up because I’ve been hungry for so long.
Did I know she loved cats? “There was a little stray hanging around that summer. An orange tabby. Nicki named it Nacho and fed it every day. Scraps from her own meals.”
Don’t I remember what an ear she had for music? The way she was always singing. How she used to compose original melodies in her head and walk around humming them to herself under her breath. “Never whole songs,” Glory explains. “Just the most beautiful little snippets. It used to drive me kind of crazy, but God, I missed it so much. After . . .”
Did anyone ever tell me she was obsessed with mint chocolate chip ice cream? The bright green color. The taste of it. The cold on her tongue. “Every Sunday afternoon that summer, we took you to Mitchell’s Dairy, out on the highway. It was our little ritual. Just the three of us. They had these cows in a pen right beside the shop. So you could pet the cows who made your ice cream.” Glory laughs. “Nicki thought that was the coolest thing. She always made sure you told them thank you.”
And just for a second, I have a flash of actual memory. My hand reaching through a wooden fence to rub the soft head of a white cow.
These are the kinds of stories Dad never shares, but Glory talks about my mother almost like she’s still alive. Like she’s just in the next room, maybe, and she’s going to walk in any minute and catch us telling funny stories about her. And we’ll be in so much trouble.
“That whole summer was just incredible,” Glory says. “There’s never been another one like it. But . . . sometimes . . .” She freezes for a moment. Then she shakes her head. Takes a deep breath. She’s folding a stack of printed mailers with astonishing precision. The creases are impeccable.
“Sometimes what?” I ask.
Glory stops folding. She picks up a bent paper clip and fiddles with it for what seems like forever before she finally says, “I don’t know.” She puts down the paper clip and gathers up the folded mailers. “It was a long time ago.”
And that’s the first thing she’s said that doesn’t seem honest.
“Please,” I say. “Tell me.”
Glory sighs. “Memories are strange, you know? There are things about that summer that are so clear. But there are other things that I can’t quite call into focus. It’s like living in a house, and every time you come home, something’s just slightly different. Nothing major. Just tiny things. So it seems the same, until you realize the coffee cups are on the wrong shelf in the pantry. Or the bathroom door opens the wrong way.” She reaches out and touches my hair, just the way Willa did at auditions. She runs her fingers over a long strand. “It’s a lot like . . .”
“It’s a lot like what?” I ask.
“It’s a lot like being haunted.”
ACT II: SCENE 3
Rehearsal that night is strange. I have trouble focusing, which isn’t like me at all. Or at least it didn’t used to be. But I keep thinking about last night. The cold lap of the waves in the dark. And this morning. My mother’s name on the scene shop wall. I’m combing through every little bit of information I have about her now. Every tiny thing I’ve learned from Willa. And from Glory. I’m stringing all those bits together like making a popcorn chain for a Christmas tree.
And I’m working on really getting to know Eden, too. Attempting to work off-book, because I already know my lines. I knew most of them before I ever got here. After all, I’ve been carrying that script around in my backpack for years.
I’m also trying not to turn fire red when Cole touches me during a scene. Or when I feel him watching me from across the theatre. It’s a lot, especially when his hand lingers on my arm. The brush of his fingers feels like the striking of a match.
He catches me outside the barn after rehearsal, and he offers to walk me back to my cabin. The fog is already rolling in. It swirls around my feet. Alive and wet. Like a licking tongue. Or waves lapping over the sand.
Cole keeps his hand on my back as we move through the dark together. I feel the heat of him through my shirt. And by the time we reach the cabin steps, I think his palm print must be burned into my skin.
He’s leaning against the porch railing, looking at me, but neither one of us says anything for a few seconds. I already miss the warmth of his hand on my back. The press of his fingers. And without even realizing it, I pull Lex’s lighter out of my pocket and flick it with my thumb.
“You cold tonight?” Cole asks me, and I shrug.
“Maybe a little.”
He steps in closer, and his arms go around me. I gasp out loud as he pulls me against him. His heart is beating loud in my ear. It pounds against my chest. “Feel that?” he whispers, and I nod. “We’re still alive.” I close my eyes and relax against Cole. “We’re both alive. Right here. Right now.”
“Keep reminding me of that,” I say. And Cole laughs low. Under his breath.
“I will. I promise.”
Our hearts are still beating against each other. And for a few minutes, it feels like that’s all that matters. At least for right now.
We say goodbye, and Cole gives me one more piece of advice before he disappears. “Listen to music,” he tells me. “Wear headphones. It sounds silly, but it helps.”
I still don’t know if I believe him. But later—when the fog gets thick—I take his advice. And I don’t hear the whispers that night. Or the night after that. So maybe Cole’s trick works. Maybe all I need to get through this summer in one piece is a little elevator music in my ear when I go to sleep.
It’s Friday afternoon, almost the end of week one, when Glory sends me upstairs again. More files for Brody to look over. Only he’s in his office this time, sitting behind a big mahogany desk. He looks up when I clear my throat from the doorway.
“These are from Glory,” I say, and I show him the bright orange folders. He smiles at me and holds out his hand for the files.
“Avril,” he says as I hand them to him. “Nicole’s girl. Right?” I nod, and Brody puts the folders on his desk. He leans back in his chair to study me. “You know, when I saw you in here on Monday, it shook me for a second. Just looking at you standing there, from the back at least, I thought you were her.” He’s still smiling, but that same sad look is seeping through. The one Willa and Glory get when they talk about my mother. “I thought, here’s Nicole, standing right here in my office. At least until you turned around.” I remember his face. White. Like he’d seen a ghost. “And then Willa told me who you were, and it all made sense.”
Brody stands up and pushes his chair back. He crosses over to the wall of photos, and I follow him. We stand side by side and look at that picture. Third row. Second photograph from the left.
“Nicole was a beauty,” he tells me. “And so talented. Jesus. Not to mention, just brilliant. Willa had known her for years, but that summer was the first time I met her, and I knew right off. She just had it. She could have been a star. Broadway. Movies. Whatever she wanted.” He frowns. “I wondered what she was doing, wasting her time down there in Texas.” He leans in for a closer look at the photo. “I tried to talk her into sticking around. I wanted her here.” He shakes his head. “Willa and I wanted her here.”
I’m staring at my mother’s gold sandals again. Her hot pink toes. And that terrified feeling is rising up in me. I shove it back down and focus on Brody’s words. He’s staring at me now. And something in his eyes makes me uncomfortable. I’ve seen that look before.
“If you’ve got any of Nicole in you, you’ll have the world on a string, Avril.”
But that’s the thing. I don’t know if I have any of my mother in me, because I don’t know who she was.
At least not yet.
Brody gives me a pat on the shoulder. And I try to ignore the way his fingers play over my skin. The feeling of his hand lingering on my bare arm. I’m too busy adding that bit of information—the part about how my mother could have been a star—to my list of things to remember. It’s like I keep gathering these left-behind pieces of her, hoping to stitch them together into something that might resemble an actual living, breathing woman. Flesh and blood. A kind of hand-sewn quilt I can cover myself with when I get cold.
“Thanks for bringing the files up,” Brody says, and I nod.
“Sure.”
There’s that casual smile of his again. Just a little too broad and a little too relaxed to be real. I head toward the door. Down the hall to the stairs. But when I turn back to look over my shoulder, Brody is still standing there. Staring at the photo of my mother. He isn’t smiling now, though. His face has hardened. There’s something off about it.
When I get back to her desk, Glory gives me a nervous look. “Everything okay?” she asks. I nod and she asks me if I want to take a walk. “Fridays are pretty easy days around here,” she explains. “Half the New York people don’t bother showing up to their offices, so there aren’t many phone calls for Brody. And everything else can wait.”
I say sure, so Glory grabs her bag and her sunglasses, and we head out the back door onto the sea porch. I linger for a moment, hoping that flash will come to me again. That bit of memory. Me under the picnic table. Angry voices. My mother’s gold sandals and pink toes. But nothing comes, so I follow Glory down the steps and onto the sloping lawn.
“I thought we’d head down to the beach,” she says over her shoulder. And I’m grateful she can’t see my face. I haven’t been back to the beach since late Tuesday night, when Cole found me there in the fog, but I can’t tell Glory that. So I keep following her.
When we reach the boardwalk that stretches across the marsh, she stops to lean against the railing. “Nicki loved it down here,” she says. “I taught her how to fish for crabs. A little bit of raw chicken on the end of a string. She always tossed them back, though. Couldn’t bear to cook them.” Glory’s voice is soft and far away. Almost like she’s talking to the dune grass, and not to me. But then she smiles in my direction. “This is still where I feel closest to her.”
She leads me on down the boardwalk. Up and over the dunes and onto the beach. I’m trying not to look at the water, but it’s almost impossible to ignore a whole ocean when it’s spread out in front of you.
Glory pulls a little blanket out of her bag and lays it on the sand so we can both sit. It’s quiet for a minute, except for the waves. I keep hearing Cole’s words.
They believed, if the sea wanted to take you, there was nothing they could do to stop it.
I take deep breaths. Unball my fists. Tell myself I’m being silly. That the waves aren’t as loud as I think they are. Because I’m not the kind of person who believes in legends. Or ghosts. But I can’t stop staring at the way the water washes up just a little higher with each incoming swell. Like it’s reaching for us.
Reaching for me.
I’m staring at the floating swim dock. It’s bobbing up and down. Sunlight bouncing off the metal ladder attached to the side. But Glory is looking down the beach to where a rock jetty marks the end of the Whisper Cove property. I turn my head and follow her gaze.
“That’s where George found you,” she tells me. “Washed up down there by the jetty.”
My breath catches, and I turn back to stare at her.
“George found me?”
She nods. “He used to walk down here every morning before work to check on his crab traps. He loved to watch the sun come up over the sound.” She pulls her eyes away from the rocks at the end of the beach and stares out toward the lighthouse. “He doesn’t do that anymore. Not since that morning.”
I’ve never known any of this. Just that someone found me. It never occurred to me to wonder who.
“He said he caught sight of something white down there,” Glory goes on. “By the jetty.” She swallows hard. Her face has gone gray. “He thought it was a plastic bag, maybe. But it was the little nightgown you had on. He didn’t have a phone with him. And he couldn’t tell if you were—”
“Dead?”
“Breathing,” she says. “He couldn’t tell if you were breathing. But he couldn’t leave you there. To go get help. So he scooped you up and ran up to the farmhouse with you.” Glory closes her eyes, lost in remembering. “I froze. Couldn’t move. Didn’t know what to do. Willa’s the one who called 911. I’ve never seen her that shaken. I still remember the look on her face when she saw George running up the lawn. Screaming for help. With you in his arms.” Glory shudders. “She never really got over that. God, she loved Nicki. None of us ever got over it.” She pauses. Searches the sea like she’s looking for someone. “We loved her so much.”
I can’t believe I’m finding all of this out now, at seventeen, when I should have asked Dad ages ago. It’s weird the holes I didn’t even know I had. All the things I don’t remember forgetting.
Glory runs a hand over her hair. It’s frizzing up in the damp. She tugs her sweater around her shoulders. “Then the ambulance came and Willa rode with you to the hospital. We wanted someone to be there in case you woke up. So you wouldn’t be alone. Your dad couldn’t get here until that evening. And then a bunch of us—me, George, Brody, a lot of the other people who were here that summer—we came back down to the beach and stayed here, just standing around and looking out at the sound all day. We knew, if you were in the water, Nicki must be out there, too. Somewhere. We were hoping for a miracle, I guess. And then dark came and I couldn’t leave. The others all went home eventually, but I spent that whole night sitting right here. Waiting. Because I couldn’t give up. Not on Nicki.” She chokes a little. “I thought, if you were alive, maybe there was a chance she—” She stops again. Takes a deep breath. “The tide didn’t bring her body in until the next morning. She must’ve gotten hung up somewhere. On the rocks, maybe. Or a fishing line.”
“I’ve never known any of this,” I tell her.
Glory hesitates for a second before she pulls something out of her bag and hands it to me. A pink sweater. Soft and worn. It’s wrapped around a spiral notebook. The cover is a faded green. “I found these at my place when I finally went home that next day. The two of you had been there just a few nights earlier. I’d made spaghetti for the three of us, and we’d watched old Disney movies. Then everything happened, and I walked in the front door, and there Nicki’s things were on my couch. Like she’d just wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water.” Glory is staring at the pink sweater. “Nicki was always leaving things lying around.” She almost laughs. But then she stops. Takes a deep breath. “And I just scooped them into a box and put them in the closet. I couldn’t throw them out, but I never touched them again.” She hesitates. “I thought you might want them.”
The sweater is soft. I hold it close and try to breathe in my mother. I want it to smell like her, but I have no idea what she smelled like. I get the faintest whiff of lavender, though—like the ghost of a scent—or the scent of a ghost—and it makes the hair on my neck stand up.
I hesitate, but then I pull the sweater over my head. The morning air still carries a chill, but I feel instantly warmer. I pick up the notebook and thumb through it. A photo falls out and flutters into my lap. Me. At five years old. In the farmhouse library. I recognize the wood paneling and the leather sofas immediately, and I remember telling Lex and Val that I thought I used to play in there. Evidently, I’d been right.
I’m looking at the camera and laughing. My image is blurry. Like maybe I’m moving too fast to be captured on film. And behind me, just peeking out from behind the long drapes, I see a shock of dark hair. A flash of gray eye.
“That’s you and Cole,” Glory tells me, but I already knew it. “You two were inseparable that summer.” She smiles. “And I guess that made sense, being so close in age. But it was funny how the two of you just took to each other. Like you were made for one another.”
