Chapter Seventeen Tula
Chapter Seventeen
Tula
At the Brooks house, I changed into an oversize T-shirt and sat on the double bed. I removed the partial manuscript from its folder and thumbed through the sheets. I reread the first few pages, reacquainting myself with the ship’s specifications, as told by Captain Stoddard and Chief Mate Riggs.
I could only guess that the author of this book had interviewed survivors, because many of the details were too personal to be secondhand.
Dr. Brooks had struck up a friendship with Gertrude Werner, a woman fleeing Austria.
I searched her name on my phone but couldn’t find a reference to her in Vienna or Innsbruck.
But she’d said she’d changed her name several times since her escape.
I did find a short biography of an Alfred Gruber.
There was no mention of him, but I wondered if the name was real.
When I searched “Dr. Atticus Brooks,” I found one picture taken forty years ago, but the image was in profile and grainy. I didn’t see any older pictures of him except the ones I’d found in his private collection.
As I turned through the fragile pages, memories eased out of the shadows.
I stared at a single picture of Dr. Brooks, and an old memory floated to the surface.
Shortly after Mom and I had returned to the Outer Banks, we’d driven to the town of Duck and parked on the ocean side in a one-story shopping center woven around a grove of live oak trees.
When we’d parked in the gravel lot, I was excited to shop.
But shopping centers weren’t Mom’s vibe, so I was suspicious.
As we got out of the car, Mom pulled two rumpled twenty-dollar bills from her jeans pocket. “Tula, go buy yourself something.”
A little surprised, I studied the money. “You never just give me money.”
“I am today.”
“Why?”
Her expression looked strained. “Just because, honey.”
Honey. She never called me honey. “What’re you going to do?”
“I’m meeting someone for coffee at the café.”
“Who?”
“Someone about the dive.”
“A diver?”
“He’s interested in what I’m doing. It won’t take long. Find me in the next hour.”
It wasn’t like her to give vague answers, so I assumed she might be meeting a guy she liked. Naturally inquisitive, I asked, “Is this person a sponsor or a diver?”
“No one you know. It’ll be boring, and I know how you hate the business side of what I do.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t like business either.”
A smile didn’t soften the intensity in her gaze. “Fair point. But sometimes, I must take care of it.” She laid her hand on my shoulder. “Just shop and have fun, okay?”
“Is this my birthday present?”
A blank look in her gaze came and went quickly. “It sure is.”
“My birthday is in June, Mom.”
“So, I’m a little early for once.” She’d never been great about remembering special days, but I was used to her wishing me a happy birthday a week late. She was doing something nice now, and that was what counted, right? “Okay, I’ll find you.”
“Take your time.”
I watched her vanish down the boardwalk toward the café.
I was tempted to follow and see who she was meeting, but the idea of shopping was too exciting.
I was rarely in a town large enough for malls or shops.
Most towns where we stayed were small, and the only shopping consisted of T-shirts, beads, or sarongs.
As I wandered past the shops with sandals, trinkets, and candy, I ducked into a dress shop. I realized quickly the forty bucks would only go so far.
I took time to try on dresses, but as much as I liked them, I couldn’t afford the new seasonal prices. I moved to a jewelry shop filled with necklaces made of glass beads, shells, and random bits of metal. These weren’t like the ones I’d seen on the islands.
I was drawn to the display case filled with the better necklaces, which contained silver, nicer crystals, and a little gold. In the center of the case was a necklace made with a silver chain and a small shard of sea glass.
“Can I look at that one?” I asked.
The older woman had gray hair that brushed the shoulders of her tie-dyed T-shirt. Bangles circled her neck and wrists. “Sure.”
She unlocked the case and lifted the sea-glass necklace off the velvet base. The rectangular white, smooth glass was less than a half inch long and arrowed into a point. I unhooked the silver clasp and secured it around my neck. The glass felt cool against my skin.
“It looks great on you,” the clerk said.
I fingered the price tag, almost afraid to look. When I flipped it over and leaned toward a mirror, I noticed the paper tag was empty. “How much is this necklace?”
She leaned forward, squinted, and searched for a price. When she saw none, she shrugged. “Thirty bucks.”
“Who made this?”
“We’ve got a local guy who scans the beaches with his metal detector for coins and anything that he thinks might look good on a necklace. He also collects a lot of sea glass. It must be one of his finds.”
I smoothed my finger over the silver chain.
I wasn’t a jewelry person. I’d never had luck with trinkets like these.
When I’d save up the bits of tip money I’d received from divers, I’d buy the cheapest ones I could find in beach huts.
Inevitability, I’d lose the necklace or bracelet on a dive or see the strand break and the beads scatter around me.
But I liked this necklace, even though the cost would eat up most of my newfound wealth.
“The color looks good against your skin,” she said.
I gently tugged the chain, testing it. It held and didn’t give. Still, thirty bucks. And I had several more shops to see. The sea glass caught the light. The rumpled bills had been in my pocket barely an hour before I was smoothing them out on the counter and sliding them across to the clerk.
She made change, and as I pocketed it, she found a small pair of scissors and clipped off the tag. “You down here for spring break?”
It was early May, and the beaches were full of college kids willing to lie out in cool weather to catch a few sunrays. “No, my mom is working here this spring.” Many seasonal workers were flooding into the barrier islands.
“What does she do?”
“She’s going to dive a shipwreck. The Oceanus.”
“We have so many shipwrecks around here. Where is it?”
“Close to here.” I studied the necklace in the mirror. The glass winked in the sunlight and reflected off the case. “Less than three miles offshore.”
“Sounds pretty fun.”
A wreck dive was now mundane to me. “It’s what she’s always done.”
“You going to dive the wreck?”
“I’m in school now. Maybe on the weekend.”
When I left the shop, I had enough money for a large ice cream, which I enjoyed licking as I walked along the shops. Finally, I reached the café in the mall’s interior, where I found a collection of tables and chairs nestled close.
At the center table sat Mom, talking to two men I didn’t recognize. One of them got up and left.
The man still at the table had thick gray hair and stooped shoulders.
When she shifted her attention to him, she bowed her head close, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear what they were saying.
Mom’s face was tight with tension and worry.
I’d seen her mad and sometimes happy, but rarely upset like this.
I was ready to call out when my ice cream tilted, and I was forced to lick it quickly before it fell to the ground.
By the time I’d triaged the cone and cleaned my hands, the second man was gone, and Mom was sitting alone. A frown creased her face, making her look twenty years older. She looked lost, angry, and sad all at once.
As if she felt my stare, she looked up and grinned. I came toward her. “Everything okay?”
She sat up straighter. “Never better. You going to give me a lick of that ice cream?”
I’d suddenly lost my appetite for the vanilla-and-chocolate swirl and handed it over. “All yours.”
“Great.”
I searched the boardwalks and exits. “Who were those guys?”
She took several bites before she pressed her fingers to her temple. “Ice cream headache.”
“Who were they?”
She finally said, “Locals. No one I’ll see again.”
I sat across from her. “You look upset.”
She laughed. “My blood sugar was low. Now I’m all fixed, courtesy of Dr. Vanilla Chocolate Swirl.”
I didn’t buy her explanation. She was always honest with me.
If we were low on money, a client had bailed, or her equipment broke, she told me.
When I had my first period, she was matter of fact and fed me necessary details.
When I had my first crush, she had a frank conversation about men and babies. “You don’t have low blood sugar.”
“Well, I did today. Pretty sure I skipped breakfast.”
“Was he asking about the Oceanus?”
“We talked about it. Everyone is a little curious.” She nodded toward the necklace but didn’t really study it. “That your newest purchase?”
I touched the sea glass, which now felt warm. “Yeah. Kind of different.”
“It suits you. Whenever you see it, you’ll remember it was my birthday gift to you.”
“Mom, you’re scaring me.”
She laughed. “How?”
“You never do sentimental. Are you dying or something?”
Mom cocked her brow. “That’s a bit dramatic, Tula.”
“You’re just acting weird.”
“When am I not a little odd?” She licked the ice cream down to the cone and took a bite.
The moment faded as my fingers skimmed coin and glass. The necklace had survived seven years, and I wore it because Mom had given them both to me.
Now I realized one of the men was Dr. Brooks.
I wondered why she had wanted to keep me busy while she’d met with Dr. Brooks and the other man.
Had their conversation been about the Oceanus, or was it something more important?
I’d watched her walk away from dozens of wrecks because they were too dangerous or the weather wasn’t right.
But she’d refused to leave the wreck that last day we’d dived.
“Why did you care so much about the Oceanus, Mom?”
It was almost midnight. I stacked the papers and put them back in the folder. “If the rest of this book is here, help me find it.” I shut off the light.