Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
By the time I am dressed and out the door with Kugel, it’s almost noon. On the way to Yumi’s, I pause in front of the house where I slipped in the mud, hoping something jogs my memory. The sun is out in full force, and the slippery patch I was lying in Sunday morning is now baked dry.
Behind me, a woman in her thirties passes by, pushing a stroller as a toddler dawdles behind her, distracted by every flower, every bug, every lawn ornament he sees.
“C’mon, Foster,” she sings in an irritated voice. “If we get to the pool while it’s still adult swim, I’ll buy you an Icee.”
Foster ignores her and bends down to blow on a fluffy dandelion.
I don’t know this young mother, but I recognize my old self in her.
I had a similar cooler bag hanging off the stroller, which probably holds carefully cut organic fruit.
I wore the same type of messy bun that’s on her head (no time to shower) and also hid behind large sunglasses to disguise sleep-deprived eyes.
Those years were hard. The walks to the pool in the midday heat seemed endless.
I want to tell her to enjoy it, that one day Foster will be spending his summer backpacking in the mountains or working in a faraway city, that she’ll long for just one hour of uninterrupted time alone with him.
But I keep my mouth shut. When I was her age, I hated when older women would offer up such pearls of wisdom. What do you know? I would think.
I turn back to the stark, modern house. What do I know about anything?
It feels like less and less these days. My mom used to say, “When I was twenty-five, I thought I knew it all. It wasn’t until I was fifty that I realized I didn’t know anything.
” I don’t know how I ended up in front of the Allards’ rental Sunday morning, that’s for sure.
I remember when Jo decided to buy the old 1950s rambler that was here and tear it down for funsies. That’s when I knew for sure that she had changed. The whole neighborhood was upset with the size of the project and ripping out the trees. But Jo didn’t care. She had the money and she felt like it.
I stare at the cold, gray facade, searching for clues about what happened to me Saturday night.
In a world of doorbell cameras and GPS tracking, it turns out there are still corners where no one is watching.
I know that Miguel wants me to move on—from this, whatever this is, from Rachel’s problems junior year, from anything awkward and uncomfortable.
But I can’t until my memory returns. I want it back.
I want to feel normal. I know I won’t until I can figure out what happened to me.
When I get to Yumi’s back porch, I am thrilled to see she has laid out sandwiches and iced tea and has the fan going at full speed. I let Kugel loose in the backyard and pour myself a tall glass.
“Thirsty, huh?” She is surrounded by tech—computer and cell in her lap, and beside her on the settee a camera sporting a long lens for photographing birds.
“It’s brutal out there.”
I make myself a plate and sit in my usual spot. I want to be settled in when I hear what she has to say. Once I have a napkin on my lap and a salmon-and-cream-cheese croissant in my hand, I give her the go-ahead. “So tell me. Is Rachel involved?”
Yumi doesn’t answer right away, she’s typing.
After a moment she shuts the laptop and places it next to the camera.
“Sorry. I have a new client. Hasn’t even started high school yet!
He’s going into ninth grade in the fall and the mother wants me to guarantee I’ll get him into Princeton.
” She rolls her eyes. “Oh, well. It pays the bills. So, anyway, do you remember that rash of break-ins about two years ago?”
“Yes,” I say, my whole body tensing a bit.
“I saw something one night. I had fallen asleep on the porch and when I woke up, it was late. Very late. I got up to go to bed, and I saw a couple of kids leaving the house two doors down.” She points through the screened windows, and I follow her gaze.
Yumi’s house is on a slightly higher elevation than her neighbors’, and beyond the canopy of tree branches I can see a stretch of green lawn backing up to several houses.
It’s a communal backyard, where the kids in the adjacent houses play hide-and-seek and capture the flag.
Now that this is Yumi’s de facto office, the view is perfect for bird-watching—and people-watching.
Yumi turns back to me, a thoughtful look on her face. “Actually, I heard them more than I saw them. They were acting very suspicious.”
“How?”
She considers this. “Whispering. Oh, and they had flashlights. Using their phones probably. The next day in the Facebook group, it said that a house had been burgled. Holly Stone’s house.”
“Whoa, you never told me that.”
“It was the weekend after I got my first infusion. I was totally wiped out.”
I nod, understanding. Two years ago, when Yumi was at her sickest, she needed regular immunosuppressant infusions that put her out of commission for a few days every few months.
Those were days when Kenya and I would alternate dropping off meals that she and Ryan could eat, as well as an endless supply of Graeter’s black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream.
“I would have answered any questions from the police if they asked,” she says. “But they never did. And I didn’t know for sure that those kids were involved. I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. They could have been playing manhunt or something.”
A chill goes through me. “So, who were these kids?” Yumi says nothing, her smile small and stiff. Dread grows in the pit of my stomach. “Tell me. Who did you see?” Was it Rachel? Tell me it wasn’t Rachel.
“I told you I didn’t get a good look, I heard them.” Yumi pulls her long black braid around to the side of her head and mindlessly tugs on it. “But I definitely saw Van Allard. And a girl.”
I lean back against the cushions and let this sink in. “A girl? What girl?”
She won’t meet my eye. “I can’t say for sure. It looked like it might have been Rachel.”
“Why would Rachel be with Van? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure. Not a hundred percent. You have to understand.”
But I don’t. I know that Rachel was hanging around Elo?se and her clique the beginning of junior year.
And that meant empty houses to party at, thanks to parents who always traveled, even access to alcohol, but stealing?
And why would Rachel be with Van alone? I think of Van, driving his Jeep too fast in the neighborhood, top down, wind blowing his brown hair, blasting music while some girl dances in the passenger seat next to him.
I was always grateful that Rachel was never that girl.
“Are you sure? Rachel and Van? It doesn’t really make sense. ”
“I mean, maybe someone else was there too? Maybe Elo?se? That would explain why Rachel was there.”
“I guess. If Elo?se was there. It would explain how Rachel got the bracelet.” I stare down at the ice cubes in my tall glass, feeling my brow furrow into those deepening frown lines I have come to loathe.
I have to manage this, fix this, spin this.
I can’t let past Rachel—young, reckless, foolish—destroy future Rachel’s life.
“What are you going to do?” Yumi asks.
“I don’t know.” The path forward is unclear. As Yumi knows, my usual impulse would be to confront everyone, clear the air, make sure all is set right. “Miguel thinks we should just let it all go. He returned the bracelet to Holly this morning. He says everything else is in the past.”
“He’s not wrong,” Yumi says. I look up to see concern in her face. “I know that if it were Ryan, I wouldn’t want him tangled up in a police investigation.”
“I don’t want that either. Anyway, that would never happen with Ryan.
” Her son, like my Zach, just finished his sophomore year in college, and he is the last kid who would break into neighbors’ houses.
But while Zach sailed through school getting As in AP classes, editing the school newspaper, and running cross-country, Ryan struggled.
He’d always been shy, but his anxiety had ballooned after his parents’ divorce and Yumi’s illness.
High school was tough for him. I know it was a big relief for Yumi that he even went out of state to school, and she was thrilled when he finally made friends.
“There’s something to be said for letting sleeping dogs lie,” Yumi says. “I mean, Rachel’s headed to Georgetown in a few months. I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to you.”
“What? No, I’m glad you did. We have to promise to tell each other the whole truth.” I look her in the eye. “Even if it’s brutal.”
She smiles. “Deal. Even if it’s brutal.”
In the close to twenty years I have lived in this neighborhood, I’ve had all kinds of friendships.
Ones that only lasted the length of the tennis season and ones that I thought would last forever but splintered apart after a few years.
I can count on one hand the people I could call at three in the morning, confessing I had just been arrested, who would empty their bank accounts to come bail me out.
Yumi is one of them. I helped her through her divorce several years ago, and she helped me move my parents from New York down to Florida.
Many times we’ve sat with each other over the years as we took turns crying.
That’s why her keeping this from me feels so strange. She just wouldn’t do it. But the alternative makes no sense at all. Why in the world would she lie about seeing Rachel?
“Don’t do anything rash, Caren. Promise me.”
After walking Kugel home, I loop back through the neighborhood, the conversation I had with Yumi still echoing in my head.
It’s left me with a strange feeling, like she wasn’t being honest with me.
But maybe I just don’t like what she had to say because it resurrected the gnawing worries about Rachel that have been dormant this past year.
The questions curl at the edges of my thoughts like smoke: Do I bring it up when Rachel gets home from her trip?
Or do I just let it go? She’ll only be here for a couple days before heading off to sleepaway camp, the one she’s been going to since she was ten, this time as a counselor.
Do I want to waste what little time I have with her dredging up secrets and guilt?
I don’t relish revisiting my role as bad cop. God, I really don’t.
I crash hard once I get home—emotional fatigue mixed with exhaustion from the concussion—and wake up hours later, groggy and sprawled out on the living room sofa, the kind of nap that leaves your limbs heavy and your mind murky.
Still, I drag myself to Wagshal’s Market with a plan to pick up a few of Rachel’s favorites like chocolate Berger Cookies and a container of their chicken curry salad.
I park in front of the CVS next to Wagshal’s, still shaking off sleep, and I’m just swinging my legs out of the car when I see Holly Stone.
She’s coming out of the store with her little boy trailing behind, a wiry kid who looks like he might be in first grade.
Maybe second? Hard to tell. Ever since Zach and Rachel aged out of elementary school, I’ve lost my ability to guess kids’ ages.
I click the lock on my car and walk quickly over as she opens the back door of her SUV for her son.
“Hi,” I say cautiously. I know how young moms don’t like to be approached in public spaces. “I’m Caren Costa. You emailed me about the bracelet? I run the yard sale.”
She turns, eyes scanning my face before something clicks. “Oh yes, right. Hi.”
“My husband, Miguel, got the bracelet back to you okay?”
“He did. Thank you for responding.” Her smile is polite but forced. “Finally.”
“Finally?” I echo, confused.
She shuts the back door with a solid thunk and moves to open the driver-side door, clearly ready to end the conversation. But then she pauses and looks over her shoulder at me.
“You know you’re lucky we didn’t go to the police.
My husband was urging me to call them. But I don’t have the time or the bandwidth.
” She glances at her kid in the back seat in case I’m not getting it: She’s a busy mom with a young kid.
“I’m just glad to have my bracelet back.
But I was getting fed up with being blown off. ”
The barely concealed hostility in her voice stuns me.
“Blown off? Who blew you off?”
Holly lets out a dry laugh. “I mean, how many emails do I have to send?”
I blink. “I only remember getting the one email.”
She shrugs, already halfway into the driver’s seat. “Well, either your email is broken or your memory sucks.”
The door slams with finality. I jump, just a bit, heart rate ticking up. Her words sting. Did her emails fall into one of those memory gaps from Saturday night? No. If she’d emailed me last week, I would remember.
I tap on her window before I can stop myself. She rolls it down, eyebrows raised in annoyance.
“I’m sorry to keep bugging you, but are you sure it was me you contacted?” I ask. “Not the Facebook page?”
She sighs, all weary exasperation. “Look, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I DM’d the Facebook group, but who cares? The point is, I was patient. I reached out. More than once.”
She doesn’t wait for me to respond. Her engine revs, and I step back instinctively, the sidewalk catching the soles of my sandals as she peels out and drives off. Her SUV disappears down Massachusetts Avenue, leaving nothing behind but the faint smell of exhaust.
I stand there stunned. I never saw a Facebook message. But then again, I’m not the only person with moderator rights on the page. Several other people have them. Yumi runs the whole group, but she lends people moderator rights as needed.
Like Kenya and me, every spring, for the yard sale.