An ornately gilt-framed oil painting hung above the fireplace. I stared at it as I had nearly every night before. A European city street at twilight. Narrow buildings hunkered over the cobblestone. Red flowers on the balcony splashed its only spot of color. I imagined Juliet standing there, delirious with longing and wishing that her beloved wasn’t
The word switched on like the click of a flashlight.
Moments later, swift on my toes, my mouth pressed tense every time the floorboards gave, I found my way into Miles McRae’s darkened den, where I turned on the computer and logged in as PQUINT.
PASSWORD?
MONTAGUE.
And then, like a key to the treasure room, Peter Quint’s home page opened.
He’d died almost a year ago, but here on his Facebook, he continued to exist in cyberheaven, still visited by loved ones who had plastered his wall with photographs of lilies and wreaths, and notes and passages from the Bible. I skimmed them all, and then clicked into his stash of private messages, over two hundred of them unread. Probably more tributes, so I didn’t bother to read them, but instead scrolled all the way back to the oldest messages, the read messages, from when Peter was alive.
Here was one from Sebastian, referring to an incident where Pete had let his temper get the best of him. Sebastian’s note was characteristically forgiving and teasing: u CANT be the guy in the bar with the gut throwing punches and busting walls cuz dude we all know that guy and he sux.
Another friend, Greg Doonan, had sent notes on fishing conditions off the Sound. Another guy sent photos of his dog pretending to drink beer. I didn’t know any of these kids. They were Pete’s school friends, his fishing buddies. I began to pick up the messages from Jessie, though there was never anything particularly revealing from her, either. She’d been as caught up as anybody in the day-to-day of life on Bly, though I did sense her daring in the messages, especially the fascination with flying in her father’s prop plane—which, in one message, Jessie had described to Peter as better than sex, am I rite? jk! kinda!
Of course it was wrong of me to read them. No matter that he had died, I was still intruding in on Peter’s private memories, and his most intimate relationship. My entire body was taut with the transgression, the strange dip-diving fear, absorbing all of this information that didn’t belong to me.
Staring at the albums, I could hear the stick in my own breath, feel the chalky swallow after I’d forgotten to swallow. Jessie loved the camera, she vamped and pouted for it. Her figure was curvier, her hair wilder, her features more lush and ripe than mine. In one picture, she was showing off her silver tongue piercing; in another, I caught a glimpse of a blue butterfly tattoo at her hip bone. But now I could see the resemblance, through the prism of all her angles and expressions. Jessie Feathering looked more like me than my own sister—except that I was the diminished version, the ghost of her.
I clicked open Pete’s last read message, from Jessie, that had been sent the day before the accident.
Way to be a jerk not showing at green hill today. I’m pretty sure we had plans, y? What is it about Pendleton that makes you come back from there being such a tubocharge jackass? gets boring, Chippy & i don’t know what you think you know, or what Isa told you, but take it with a grain of salt. Isa can be freakishly imaginative.
And as for what She told you—that’s such a joke I wont even dignify it with a defense.
P: I luv you & I think we’re great together. But not when ur in a mood, not when ur an insecure paranoid. If you want me in ur life, then roll with my choices. What’s left to say? Drop me a line if you feel like it.
I sat there utterly still in the darkness and frowned into the puzzle of the text.
What had Isa said? Pendleton, where was that? She, who was She?
Too many questions and nowhere to find answers. I opened a new window, typed in a search and got parks, towns, shops and even a racetrack named Pendleton.
When I typed in JESSIE FEATHERING, I found the same old AP news brief all about the crash, plus some local coverage of the funerals, and then a tribute site that had been set up at Jessie’s school. A local link went to a photo, a sweetly smiling Jessie, younger than I’d ever seen her, and names—Jessie was the daughter of Patricia and John, Peter was the son of August and Katherine—but I knew most of these details already, from previous searching.
I returned to Jessie’s message. In my original picture of Peter and Jessie, they’d been two star-crossed opposites whose relationship had stirred the conflict between Bly’s lifers and locals. What everyone had seemed to agree on, however, was that the two of them were deeply in love with each other. Or (at the very least) deeply infatuated.
And yet this offhand, prickly, irritated note, written by Jessie only the day before they died, didn’t fit the picture of soul mates. This note spelled trouble between them.
NINETEEN
“I’m biking into town to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy,” I said. “Back in an hour or so. I’ll have my cell.”
Connie and Isa nodded. They were in round six of a Crazy Eights–athon. “And you’ll need to pick up a can of thtainleth thteel thcrubber,” said Connie, who never liked me to go anywhere without carting back a domestic offering.
Not a question = no answer. Please. Get your own scrubber, Funsicle.
Miles’s Trek bike was in the garage. Why hadn’t I thought to use it before? Before I’d thrown my back, I’d always relied on a long run to unwind whatever pressure had wrung knots in my day. Sweat off my problems, exhaust my mind as I burned out my body. A bike might be easier on me, physically—only how long since I’d taken out a bicycle?
Once upon a time, bikes were Mags and my main escape route: to the movies or Friendly’s or cutting across the highway to Walgreens, where we wasted hours in the Crafts aisle, pondering the purchase of stuff we didn’t need. But those days got junked with our Schwinns the second we passed our driving tests.
Hitting the open road was an old joy. I’d set a bad precedent that first morning, using Miles’s sports car. Isa didn’t like riding her bike—outside of diving class, she was a bit of a house cat, and she definitely saw riding in her dad’s awesome convertible as the height of summertime chic.
Maybe getting her onto a bike, motivating us both into some kind of daily exercise routine, would be my next au pair project. We could use it.
Bush Road was serene, with a hush of wind in the grasses tossed wild along its borders. Hardly any cars passed me on my way. It wasn’t until I wheeled through the wrought-iron gate and leaned the bike against a massive oak that I felt a tug of anxiety. I’d found the address in the Bly directory, but I hadn’t called ahead. At the time, it had seemed too formal a thing to do.