Chapter 17
I pace around the back porch, hands at my temples. “This is just some Mercy Island, island time bullshit. Or some awful prank.”
“You know how Mom loved to prank,” Sammie shoots back, tone sardonic.
“Okay, not a prank, some sort of lesson or … or…”
She cuts me off. “Did she magically heal your hand? Is that easier to believe?”
“Easier to believe than what?”
“I’m not— I don’t know!”
I don’t either. All I do know is that I am doing Cirque du Soleil–level acrobatics to explain it away. So far, the best I seem to be able to do is keep pushing it from my mind like I do all big, scary thoughts.
“I can feel it,” Sammie goes on, “Mom always said I had real instincts, and I never totally believed her, but I’m telling you, I know something is off.”
This trips me up. She’d told us both that.
“So I take it Gladys came yesterday?” Austin asks.
“And she brought an identical basket.”
“I had some fudge from it,” he says. “Noticed the whole thing was gone when I woke up this morning.”
My heart is pounding, and even though I know, I know there’s a reasonable explanation for this, my nervous system is electrified.
Matt takes a big swig of coffee and then sets it down. He claps his hands together once and then stands. “Okay, let me give Miranda a call. See what the plan is for the celebration later and … I don’t know, see if there’s some kind of … see if she knows anything.”
“We don’t have our phones,” I remind him.
“Landline.”
“She still has the landline?” Had. Had the landline.
Matt grabs Miranda’s business card off the kitchen counter where it was left.
He dials and we all stand there, waiting.
No one answers. He dials again.
Waits. No answer.
As he does this, I flex and clench my left hand, remembering the searing pain of last night. There is no question. I had gone to sleep with it throbbing.
Matt sets down the handset. “Okay, we can give her a call in a bit. In the meantime, why don’t we go into town and see what’s going on. Maybe it’s low blood sugar. I’m sure it’ll make sense after a square meal.”
We all pretend to believe him.
Half an hour later, we’re loaded into Austin’s truck, and Matt is saying, “Drive extra safe, Austin. We’ve got a kid without a booster seat back here.”
Austin does a little salute and then we leave.
Sammie had immediately jumped straight into the back, which has left me back up front with Austin.
I turn on the radio and an old Paul McCartney song comes on, one from Ram. An album we listened to over and over our second summer when Babe decided it was time to introduce us to the solo careers of every Beatle.
“Everything is fine, I’m sure you’re right about the blood sugar thing, Matt,” I say, even though no one asked. I’m trying to comfort myself.
“Gotta be it,” he agrees.
“It’s whatever they put in that Kraft mac ’n’ cheese,” I go on.
“Yeah, it’s surprising they haven’t caught more shit for lacing their cheese powder with mescaline,” deadpans Austin.
I slink back in the seat and let my head roll to the side. Outside the window, I see the old red truck. Back wheel jacked up. Two guys working on it. They both wave.
I sit forward and watch them retreat into the distance.
I catch eyes with Sammie. It almost feels like she knows, though of course I didn’t mention seeing them yesterday.
I sit back again. It’s nothing. They probably needed to wait for a tire that fit or something.
We park in one of the spots by JJ’s Diner and get out.
“Now what?” asks Austin. “We really gonna sit down and eat right now?”
Matt nods. “If Babe taught us all anything, it’s that a good meal could only ever help.”
A curl of affection, of likeness twists in me. It’s a lesson she taught us all that I very much took to heart.
“This is—” Sammie’s words fail, and she lifts her arms and drops them like a flightless bird.
“I could go for some fries from Dusty’s,” says Austin.
“For breakfast?” I challenge, for a reason even I cannot fathom besides wanting to remain contrary.
He gives that half smile. “I’ll have ’em toss an egg on it.”
I roll my eyes.
The hostess smiles big at us when we ask for a table for four and a half, and then she crouches down to talk directly to Nora.
“You know, there’s another couple of kiddos over there about your age? Maybe I can get you a table near them.”
I want to tell her the last thing my brain needs right now is to be sat near a flurry of toddlers, but resist.
Nora is thrilled. “Really?”
The hostess laughs and takes a stack of four plastic menus and one paper one with crayons. “Right this way, y’all.”
Yacht rock blares as we make our way to the back patio, with its antique ceiling fans, wobbling threateningly on their well-worn brackets. All the wood is painted turquoise and definitely hasn’t been touched up since we were last here.
I find myself looking at the back right corner.
Austin catches me. “It’s still there.”
My cheeks burn, and I want to go see if he’s right. If there’s still a carving made by Austin with a pocketknife. A + D in a heart.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.
He doesn’t buy it, and also doesn’t play my game, earning my begrudging respect. We share a reluctant smile.
“Oh, my god.” A voice comes out of the crowd. “Samantha Marie?”
We all turn, and see the rosy cheeks and—it has to be said—even more enviably enormous breasts of Taylor Rae.
She brings Sammie in for a huge hug, and the two don’t let go for almost a full minute, until finally they break away, stare at each other happily, and then she turns to see the rest of us.
“Austin! Matthew! Ugh, and Didion, my goodness, I’ve heard you’re a famous chef up there in the Big Apple!”
“Hardly.” I laugh.
“Oh, please, your mother had that article on her for weeks after it came out, she was always pullin’ it out of her back pocket and saying, that’s my daughter. Oh, I’m just so proud of you.”
I want to self-efface more, but sense it would not only be annoying, but make this exchange go on. And I don’t want to keep picturing Babe with a fold-softened printout of that article. It makes me ache to imagine. “Thanks, Taylor Rae.”
She beams and then glances behind her, and we all see Nora standing with another little girl, sizing each other up like two dogs in a park.
“Oh, looks like the two rascals have met.”
“I’m Holly Jo,” says the other little girl, face snarling in a way that doesn’t seem nasty, and seems more like she’s just young and figuring out how her features work. “My dad is a comscupscon worker.”
“She just learned her dad does construction,” Taylor Rae explains.
“My one dad is in New York, and my other dad is right there,” Nora points at Matt. “He’s a lawyer.”
Holly Jo screws up her face again. “Why?”
Nora shrugs. “Don’t know, really.”
Austin laughs, and Matt says, “To be honest, I ask myself the same question every day.”
Austin looks serious. “Do you really?”
Matt thinks for a second, and then answers. “You know, I really do.”
“Sammie, you have to come say hello to Mabel and her little one, they’re right over there. I’ll send her right back!” Taylor Rae claps her hands in a goodbye wave and then leads my sister away.
This leaves me with Matt and Austin.
“So has Sammie lost her mind, finally, do you think?” I ask.
Matt shakes his head. “Grief. It makes people crazy.”
“Although…” Austin points a few tables away, where a server is drawing on a chalkboard A-frame.
Matt and I look.
SUMMER SOLSTICE SATURDAY SPECIALS:
* SUMMER TOAST W. WHIPPED RICOTTA
* SHRIMP & HEIRLOOM GRITS
* FRIED GREEN TOMATOES W. DUSTY AIOLI
“I love fried green tomatoes,” Matt groans. “We haven’t been doing gluten at home. Or dairy. Beau keeps threatening to go vegan. If he does that, I think I might actually have to divorce him.”
I’m hardly listening. Distracted, I stand up. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk through the restaurant and into the sunny center of town, feeling crazy even for checking. Look to busy Sunhouse, where I see the guys, their beer, their bar mix, Clio off-leash at their feet.
Not a huge surprise, right? No. They’re probably here every day. And no judgment, might I add. I would love to sit on the Sunhouse porch drinking beer, day in and day out.
Then I look to Fry & Tackle.
Soccer is definitely on, but I have no idea if it’s the same game as yesterday.
I don’t even know what time I came here yesterday, hadn’t had a clock at Birdsong, a phone in my pocket, or any interest to hunt down the hour when I was here.
I could ask someone if the goal got scored, and if the girl caught the jersey, but what would that even tell me?
One of the teams playing is wearing red jerseys, but … that means almost nothing to me.
I lean against a water fountain. What are we even suggesting here? What is the worry? That we all hallucinated? That there’s a conspiracy?
No. No, rationally speaking, those things are not enough to prove anything. Especially on Mercy. This is silly. These people are on island time and they don’t remember the day. That’s all. Who cares?
Are all our lives really so monotonous that we need to look for divine intervention?
Ha. Well. Maybe.
But my hand. Could anything be more solid proof that something is happening here? Even if it’s just that I’m losing my entire mind?
I go back inside and stop by the girl working on the A-frame sign. She’s now doing an elaborate floral trim, and—if my restaurant experience tells me anything—avoiding any other worse side-work tasks. I tap her. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah?” She gives me a bright-eyed look.
“You wrote … Saturday specials here, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I recoil at ma’am. “But … it’s Sunday morning, right?”
“I sure hope not.” She pulls a phone out of her apron and clicks on the screen as Gladys had done. As we would all, probably, do.
Saturday, 11:47.
I blink at it a few times. “I’m sorry, are you sure?”
Her smile has faded. “If it were Sunday morning and I were here and instead of at church with my grammy, my mother would kill me.” She laughs, like maybe this is all a joke, then looks seriously at me. “Do you need me to bring y’all some … water or somethin’?”
She thinks I’m drunk. Great. I’m a drunk ma’am on Mercy Island losing her mind. Just as I always nightmared.
“No, no. I’m fine. Sorry. Love the flowers, by the way.”
“Oh … thanks?”
Back at the table, I sit down, then register the plate of fries in the center and take one. “Holy shit,” I say, mouth a little on fire, but also in heaven. “I forgot how good those are.”
Good enough to make you briefly forget you’re going insane, Dusty’s fries are tossed in a proprietary blend and served with an aioli even I can’t figure out. Babe knew, but she would never tell me. It was a secret.
“I need to get away from them already.” Matt stands, tossing his napkin on the table. “I’m going to go check on Sammie and Nora.”
Left alone, Austin and I don’t speak for a second, and then he says, “Double-fried. The best.” Just as I snap, “Can you stop acting normal?”
He raises his eyebrows and takes a sip of his iced tea. “You want me to stop acting normal?”
“Yeah. We’re not cool.”
“I’m clear on that. But it’s your mom’s funeral. I’m sure she wouldn’t want us being shitty to each other either.”
“Don’t say what she’d … I’m not saying be shitty, I’m saying you’re acting like … like…”
Like nothing happened. And if he acts like it’s nothing, then what I did was a huge overreaction. And if it was a huge overreaction, then … what even happened?
“Okay, I’ll stop being normal. I’ll be awkward instead.”
“Great. Thank you.” I drench another perfectly crispy fry in the perfectly seasoned aioli.
“It’s hard, though,” he adds. “I’ve missed you.”
My breathing seems to stop completely before picking up at double pace.
I have to quickly ground myself. He means like a friend. We’ve known each other for years and now it’s been years. It’s polite, if anything. Not an overture.
I change the subject. “You know, we have a potato dish at my restaurant. It’s potato mille-feuille with truffle and thyme and crème fraiche on the plate.”
“Sounds good.”
“Yeah, compared to this?” I stuff my mouth again. “It sucks.”
He gives one of his low, deep laughs just as Matt comes back over.
“It was like the wailing women in Midsommar over there. Sammie was crying, and that set the other two off. She says she’ll be over in a sec.”
I’m tempted to go over. It was my job for so long to make sure Sammie was okay. But in this case, I don’t think I’d make her feel any better.
“So what do you think is going on?” I ask him.
He shakes his head and blinks a few times. “I really can’t say. It’s pretty crazy being back here together. Losing Babe … I mean, it affected us all. Can that make four normally sane people think something happened that didn’t?”
Austin looks over at my hand. I’m tracing mindless patterns into the condensation on my pint glass of water. He’s looking at my palm.
For a brief second, our eyes meet and I wonder if we’re both thinking about us. I am, anyway. I’d spent weeks after seeing him last, wondering how I’d been so sure something was happening that apparently wasn’t. I had felt no less crazy then.
“I don’t think so,” Austin says. “If it seems like something, it usually is.”
I scan his irises for a thousand different unspoken meanings. Something Babe used to reductively call girling. Doing the heavy emotional lifting for a guy, figuring them out.
I silently take the advice she gave, and accept what he said at face value, choosing not to read any further into it.
“Then I guess it’s something,” I say, and pop another fry in my mouth.