who lived in
this
world, anyway.
I didn’t want to think about it.
I couldn’t think about anything else.
Had I really seen him…spoken to him…touched him…been touched
by
him? I looked down at the skin on my bare arms where those killer fingers had been. Incredibly, they’d left no mark, though earlier I could have sworn they’d singed me to the bone.
I didn’t even have the necklace anymore to prove to myself that any of it had happened. Now it was lost —
forever this time,
just like he’d said — because I was certainly never setting foot in that cemetery again. Maybe some tourist would find it. It would probably end up for sale online or in a pawnshop somewhere.
Stepping from the shower and wrapping myself in one of the thick, white towels Mom’s interior decorator had picked out, I shook my head. It didn’t matter anymore. I knew what I’d seen, what I’d felt. I didn’t need a piece of jewelry to prove it. Not to myself or to anyone.
Seeing him tonight had only made things worse. My apology for what I’d done to him had obviously gone over like a big fat empty piñata at a five-year-old’s birthday party.
On the other hand, I hadn’t heard any apologies out of him. So why did I even care? Guys really could be jerks. At least from what I’d observed. Mom certainly thought so. Which was why she packed the two of us up and moved us to Isla Huesos. BecauseI wasn’t the only thing she loved that she felt Dad had allowed to die through neglect.
“Isla Huesos, Deb? Really?” I’d overheard Dad say to her after dropping me off from one of our last (court-mandated, of course, though I didn’t mind) lunches. Neither of them knew I was outside the door, listening. I knew eavesdropping was wrong. But how else was I supposed to figure out what was going on? “You think
that’s
what the counselor meant when she said a place better suited to her needs?”
“It can’t,” Mom said, “be any worse for her than Connecticut has turned out to be.”
“You can’t peg the teacher on me, Deb,” Dad said defensively. “That one was all you. I heard you pushing her to take him up on his tutoring offer —”
“Just drop it,” Mom said. Now
she
sounded defensive. “I’m taking her home. End of story.”
“Of course you are. Going to save the birds.”
“Someone has to,” she said tightly.
“It’s not going to make any difference, Deb,” Dad assured her. “It’s going to be a drop in the bucket. I think a more likely reason for your going is that
he’s
available again.”
Now Mom just sounded mad. “I would think you’d have better things to do right now than look up the marital status of my ex-boyfriends on the Internet.”
“I like to keep track of their mating habits,” Dad said, “the way you do the roseate spoonbills.”
“The spoonbills,” Mom snapped, “aren’t mating anymore. Most of them are dying. Thanks to
you
.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Deborah. You think I did
that
on purpose, too?”
“Like certain other things I could mention,” Mom said, “that oil leak wouldn’t have happened if you’d been paying attention.”
Ouch.
But Dad couldn’t deny it, much as I’m sure he would have liked to. It was one of the reasons he was always going on TV. Dad’s company was at least partly to blame for the decimation of the local economies of hundreds of communities on or around the Gulf, including Isla Huesos’s. Tourists didn’t want to vacation in a place where their rented Jet Skis might hit patches of oil. Brides didn’t want tar balls in their beachside wedding photos. Sportsmen would no longer charter boats to fish in areas where so much sea life had been deemed inedible owing to the dispersant Dad’s company had used with so much careless abandon.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Dad was always going on news shows to declare. “It’s been tested!”
But when one journalist served Dad a plate of shrimp cocktail he claimed had been caught in waters
this
world, anyway.
I didn’t want to think about it.
I couldn’t think about anything else.
Had I really seen him…spoken to him…touched him…been touched
by
him? I looked down at the skin on my bare arms where those killer fingers had been. Incredibly, they’d left no mark, though earlier I could have sworn they’d singed me to the bone.
I didn’t even have the necklace anymore to prove to myself that any of it had happened. Now it was lost —
forever this time,
just like he’d said — because I was certainly never setting foot in that cemetery again. Maybe some tourist would find it. It would probably end up for sale online or in a pawnshop somewhere.
Stepping from the shower and wrapping myself in one of the thick, white towels Mom’s interior decorator had picked out, I shook my head. It didn’t matter anymore. I knew what I’d seen, what I’d felt. I didn’t need a piece of jewelry to prove it. Not to myself or to anyone.
Seeing him tonight had only made things worse. My apology for what I’d done to him had obviously gone over like a big fat empty piñata at a five-year-old’s birthday party.
On the other hand, I hadn’t heard any apologies out of him. So why did I even care? Guys really could be jerks. At least from what I’d observed. Mom certainly thought so. Which was why she packed the two of us up and moved us to Isla Huesos. BecauseI wasn’t the only thing she loved that she felt Dad had allowed to die through neglect.
“Isla Huesos, Deb? Really?” I’d overheard Dad say to her after dropping me off from one of our last (court-mandated, of course, though I didn’t mind) lunches. Neither of them knew I was outside the door, listening. I knew eavesdropping was wrong. But how else was I supposed to figure out what was going on? “You think
that’s
what the counselor meant when she said a place better suited to her needs?”
“It can’t,” Mom said, “be any worse for her than Connecticut has turned out to be.”
“You can’t peg the teacher on me, Deb,” Dad said defensively. “That one was all you. I heard you pushing her to take him up on his tutoring offer —”
“Just drop it,” Mom said. Now
she
sounded defensive. “I’m taking her home. End of story.”
“Of course you are. Going to save the birds.”
“Someone has to,” she said tightly.
“It’s not going to make any difference, Deb,” Dad assured her. “It’s going to be a drop in the bucket. I think a more likely reason for your going is that
he’s
available again.”
Now Mom just sounded mad. “I would think you’d have better things to do right now than look up the marital status of my ex-boyfriends on the Internet.”
“I like to keep track of their mating habits,” Dad said, “the way you do the roseate spoonbills.”
“The spoonbills,” Mom snapped, “aren’t mating anymore. Most of them are dying. Thanks to
you
.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Deborah. You think I did
that
on purpose, too?”
“Like certain other things I could mention,” Mom said, “that oil leak wouldn’t have happened if you’d been paying attention.”
Ouch.
But Dad couldn’t deny it, much as I’m sure he would have liked to. It was one of the reasons he was always going on TV. Dad’s company was at least partly to blame for the decimation of the local economies of hundreds of communities on or around the Gulf, including Isla Huesos’s. Tourists didn’t want to vacation in a place where their rented Jet Skis might hit patches of oil. Brides didn’t want tar balls in their beachside wedding photos. Sportsmen would no longer charter boats to fish in areas where so much sea life had been deemed inedible owing to the dispersant Dad’s company had used with so much careless abandon.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Dad was always going on news shows to declare. “It’s been tested!”
But when one journalist served Dad a plate of shrimp cocktail he claimed had been caught in waters
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