Chapter 9 #2
He tapped it against his hand. “It is going to find its way to Kit’s desk. We won’t tell him how it got there.”
Julian looked between us. “She went upstairs, and I couldn’t reach you. What the fuck did I miss?”
“Language.” Daniel squeezed Jeremy’s shoulder as he exited the apartment quickly.
Dina’s sigh drew my attention her way. “Kit is going to get himself disbarred. Telling teenagers to go steal paperwork..what was he thinking? He should have asked me to do it. I’m a dotty old woman, and I could claim I was senile.”
Everyone laughed, especially since Dina likely would be the least senile elder I could name.
Julian raised his voice to get their attention. “I’ll ask again. What happened?”
Relief at not getting caught finally hit me, taking the starch out of my legs, so I sank onto the floor. Jeremy sat next to me, tugging me onto his lap easily.
“The whole time, I kept thinking it was fine if she found me.” He cleared his throat, emotion clogging his voice. “But she couldn’t find you.”
“Same,” Phoenix agreed, and I noticed him stuff his shaking hands in his pockets. For Phoenix, it was a long stretch of not going down the k-hole, so I hoped he was okay.
It did beg a question, though. “What would you have said you were doing in her closet if you got caught? I mean…do you have a thing for expensive shoes?”
I meant to be funny, but they laughed like it was the best joke ever. Even Dina threw her head back, drawing a couple of startled snickers from me, too.
Then I breathed in deeply a couple of times before resting my head against my knee. The important part is we didn’t get caught. “I would never tell on Kit. If they asked, I would say it was my idea. I wouldn’t narc him out.”
“I know, dear.” Dina put her hand on my head. “I know you wouldn’t, but don’t be so fast to take the blame, either. Save it for things you’ve actually done. Then make sure you go through life doing enough interesting things that, when asked, you can proudly take the blame for them.”
Phoenix shook his head. “I would take the blame, so it doesn’t matter anyway. Everyone always thinks the worst of me, so it’s not like it would be a stretch.”
Julian sat down on the couch. “I kept the doorman busy…the whole time. She couldn’t talk to him because I kept him so busy, in fact.”
“Yeah, she noticed you.” Jeremy nodded then told everyone what she said to my aunt.
His twin grinned. “Brat? Been awhile since I heard that one. Okay. I’m a brat. But we have the folder, so Kit can get things done.”
I wished I’d had a chance to see more than my name on the outside of a folder, but that was on me. Why did I just hand it off? I closed my eyes. Panic. I acted out of panic.
“Will he tell me what was in there?” I asked, hating that my voice broke a little.
Dina touched my hair again, so I opened my eyes. “I’ll see to it that he does.”
An hour later, we were back in their apartment, so I sat down to work on my homework. Phoenix wandered into his room, and I worked hard to not wonder what he did in there. Hopefully not drugs. The twins pulled out their computers, also working on homework.
I glanced around, sighing at the normalcy of it all. As though we weren’t just playing at being thieves, breaking into a house and stealing documents.
We’re just doing our homework, no biggie.
Barrett got home about an hour later, just as I was closing my laptop. I retained nothing of my work, going through the motions but not concentrating. Hopefully it wouldn’t bite me in the ass at test time.
“Hey,” he said as he tossed his bag on the kitchen counter. “Well, this is going to get old. Twice a week with all day classes feels like a lot, but at least I was interested and…” His voice trailed off. “You all look a little strung out. What did I miss?”
Phoenix leaned against the door frame of his room, his glazed eyes proving my suspicions about how he’d spent his hour.
“Let’s just get to it. We knew you wouldn’t like it, so we did it before you got home.” He explained our exploits before Barrett even managed to sit down. By the time he finished, he had sunk into one of the chairs next to me.
Silence permeated the room, a gaping hole filled with our confessions. Maybe none of us really processed all of it, or maybe it was just me, but somehow telling Barrett about it made everything seem more stupid.
He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know what bothers me more, the fact that you got stuck in a closet and almost got caught or that you did it when you knew I couldn’t even try to talk you out of it.
” He shook his head. “Actually, what bothers me more is that Kit told you to do it. Let me tell you something, had I been here, you wouldn’t have gone, which he knew. ”
Barrett headed to the kitchen then came back with a beer, which he drained in one long pull from the bottle.
Then he added, “Not to mention I could have helped you. If I was there, we would’ve known she wasn’t coming back, because I would have confirmed her arrival at the event.
I could help you, too. I’m not just some stick in the mud. ”
He practically shouted the words, his temper clearly getting the best of him. Guilt hit me, as he likely intended, but I rose and put my arms around him. “I guess maybe we knew that your good sense would prevail. Despite that, we wanted to go get the folder.”
He hugged me back. “Don’t leave me out of your plans in the future.” He kissed my hair. “What did the birth certificate say, anyway? I’m honestly curious where you were born.”
I shook my head. “I handed the file to Daniel without looking at it in some kind of blind panic. It would have taken two seconds to look, so I’m feeling pretty stupid right now.”
“You got a file with your name on it then, right? We’ll at least know soon what was in it, but if we need to break in to get your birth certificate again because it’s not in that file, I’m going, too.” He released me, and gave me a final warning stare. “Got it?”
Jeremy nodded, but he also grinned. “I still can’t believe we hid in a closet.”
It really was the strangest day.
The guys all slept around me, Jeremy on one side, Phoenix on the other. Barrett sprawled over his mattress, one hand off to the side while Julian lay on his back, eyes closed, mouth open. Phoenix snored with the twins, the way he did when he was exhausted. Probably from staying at Joe’s last night.
The Lents could sleep through stress, but I couldn’t. I didn’t mind, since I would probably only find nightmares if I managed sleep in my current mood.
As quietly as I could, I snuck out of the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I could read Dina’s journals to pass the hours until dawn. I knew myself well enough to know that if I started working on the Poor Relation, I would never get to sleep.
Instead, I opened her journal, excited to venture back into the past with her again. When last I read, she had visited Louisiana and was convinced something was amiss with the other side of the lake. Or the second lake? Why did they refer to two lakes as one? It was confusing to me.
DECEMBER 6TH 1966
Hello to myself,
I am sure only I will ever read this, so I’m talking to myself again.
Maybe someday, I’ll be senile and not remember all of this, so it will be good that I recorded the events.
Or maybe I just need something to do while they all go fishing, since I really don’t want to spend any more time talking to their mother today.
It isn’t that she’s overtly hostile or anything, but I know she doesn’t like me. I think she thinks I’m the reason they’re planning to head back to Manhattan. They don’t see it, but that’s fine. I do.
The guys are different here. In some ways, they’re more relaxed. In other ways, I miss New York. Nathaniel doesn’t laugh as much here, I’ve noticed. Victor is always kicking the dirt in front of him, as if the soil itself offends him.
Ed is always quiet, but he is so much quieter here. Only Robert seems the same.
So…I asked Robert to take me back to the other side of the lake.
He ran his hand through my hair when I asked. “Why? Why do you even want to go?”
I took his hands in mine. “Because I can tell you all don’t want me to go, which means I need to see it.
You didn’t just leave here because you wanted to open a store, and I know it.
You left here because there is something you don’t like, which makes me nervous.
I’m ready to commit to our relationship, ready to say let’s give it a try, but I can’t do it if you’re hiding things from me. That’s unfair to me.”
He nodded, agreeing easily to my logic. Sweet Robert. “You’re right.”
We got into the car together and drove to the other side, and he stopped and parked.
It was foggy, so I needed a sweater, but that was actually kind of nice after the heat of the day.
We talked as we strolled, the night still around us, cricket song leading us as easily as the fireflies.
Eventually, we stopped in front of a boarded-up house, and his hand tightened around mine.
“We used to live there.”
I was shocked, reconsidering the structure I considered ramshackle at best. I thought they spent their whole lives in their beautiful white house, and had no clue they came from humbler roots. “When?”
“Back when I was born.” Robert stood right next to me, but his gaze never seemed so distant before.
“You’ve noticed there are two sides of this place—the wealthy and the not wealthy.
We lived on this wrong side of the lake.
Eventually, my fathers made a lot of money, becoming the wealthiest family here.
We moved across the lake when I was ten, but we weren’t so wonderfully accepted despite having the money to be among them.
Sure, everyone plays nice now, but we were too much of a reminder that things over here aren’t always so nice. ”
I took his hand again, his fingers icy in mine. “What kinds of things?”
“Women. . .aren’t always treated with the kind of respect they deserve, for starters. When we left, we thought we could leave two things behind. Firstly, the way we’re never quite good enough. Secondly, the memory of how bad things can be.”
I didn’t ask him for more details. I might’ve lived an incredibly sheltered life, but even I knew what he meant.
“It’ll never be like that with us, Dina. Never. I promise you. Not ever.”
I believe him.
He kissed me in the shadow of that other house. He is so steady, always the one to remind everyone else about how they should or shouldn’t behave.
Oh, their mother is calling me. She wants something.
My question really is. . .can we pull this off in New York? I guess we’re going to find out!
For now,
D
I put down her journal and stared at the wall for a few moments, processing her life.
He wanted her to see how the women on the other side of the lake weren’t living such genteel, pretty lives compared to hers.
Rosalind used that phrase on me—she said I wasn’t in the Life.
Is this what she worried about? That I would get involved with her sons without understanding the situation?
Dina didn’t even know I would like her grandsons when she gave me her journals, but she’d trusted me anyway.
I leaned against the couch, wondering what my guys knew about the lake, especially on the other side.
Why did their fathers think Phoenix’s kidnapping had something to do with the lake at all?
I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t have any answers, not even the location of my own birth.
The door swung open from the bedroom, so I glanced over quickly.
Barrett stared at me in the low light, his eyes still bleary. “Can’t sleep?”
I shut the diaries and set them aside. So far, none of them had asked me about the contents, nor had they peeked or even asked for a peek at her writing.
“No.” I rose, stretching. “Thank you for being you, Barrett. I’m sorry if we made you feel you weren’t perfect just the way you are. I admire how you know what to do in any situation. I love that you are always so sure of what is right and what is wrong, with no gray area.”
He shook his head. “I only know you’re right. Everything that isn’t you with us was wrong.”