Summerland: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

she should use it. Use it! She needed a drink, so she would get a drink. But where? And then, of course, she knew.
    That night she waited until her parents were asleep. She had thought her parents’ routines and rituals might change after the accident, but once her father came home from Boston, he and Lynne slid back into their usual ways. If they weren’t out (and they wouldn’t go out under the circumstances, no way, they might not go out once all summer), they turned the TV off at ten and climbed the stairs together to their bedroom. Lynne Castle always paused by Demeter’s door—to check if her light was on, to see if she could hear any noises coming from her room—then sighed and moved on, announcing their retirement for the night with the click of their door.
    Demeter had shut off her light intentionally. She sat in the dark, counting her breaths. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, thirty minutes. Her plan was so twisted, so truly evil, that she couldn’t believe she was really going to execute it.
    But, yes, she was. She had to.
    Out the window, down the sloping roof, and boom! onto the front lawn. The lawn had just been cut that day, Demeter hadheard her father out on the mower, and this reminded her that she had a job set up with Frog and Toad Landscaping for the summer. She had spent the previous two summers working at Island Day Care, looking after the infants. She had spooned pears and sweet potatoes into their mouths and changed their diapers; she had held and rocked the babies, sterilized their pacifiers and mixed up formula for them. Demeter had a way with babies, or so she liked to think. Babies didn’t threaten her; babies didn’t know she was fat. Babies just needed love, and believe it or not, Demeter had plenty of love in her heart to give. But the day care was an indoor job, the air at the day care center was stuffy and overly warm and redolent of souring milk.
    Her father had offered her an office job at the car dealership, but that held even less appeal. And so, during a moment of belief that self-improvement was possible, Demeter had decided to pursue an active summer job that would permit her to be outside in the sun, but not a job lifeguarding or camp counseling, for which she would have to wear a bathing suit. And certainly nothing in food service. Demeter eventually set her sights on landscaping. She would wear cargo shorts and work boots, she would push a mower in the sun all day, which required no actual athletic ability but would enable her to lose weight and get a tan. She would work with El Salvadoran men and improve her Spanish. The man who owned Frog and Toad, Kerry Trevor, was a friend of her father’s. Kerry bought and serviced his fleet of trucks at Al Castle’s dealership, so securing Demeter a spot on one of his crews had been a piece of cake.
    She was supposed to start on Monday, but that wouldn’t happen now. The gung-ho girl who had allowed herself to get excited about a possible personal transformation via a summer of yardwork had died in that Jeep along with Penny.
    Demeter inhaled the scent of fresh-cut grass under her feet and bemoaned the loss of her summer.
    Alcohol, she thought.
    She couldn’t risk driving. Her parents might hear the car start, and if they woke up and found that the car was gone with her in it, they would put out an all-points bulletin. So Demeter could ride her bike, or she could walk.
    It was eleven-fifteen and pitch black; there were a zillion stars but no moon. It was too dark to ride, she thought. She would walk. It was far, a mile and a half, maybe two. But the exercise would be good for her.
    She used her cell phone as a flashlight. She hadn’t turned on her phone since the police gave back her fake Louis Vuitton bag, minus the bottle of Jim Beam. Even having a cell phone was a sensitive issue for Demeter. So few people ever called her, what was the point? But now, when she turned it on, it started dinging and vibrating like a slot machine in