“Jamie!”
At the sound of my name, I snapped around.
She was a flit of white high above, her arms making broad arcs, as if she needed rescuing. Standing in front of the lighthouse, she seemed as matched to it as a Dutch girl guarding her windmill. I signaled back as I swerved off the walk and broke into a jog to meet her, glancing back over my shoulder at the couple.
Only they weren’t there, and in my next breath, the late afternoon sun had burned through the haze to shine harsh in my eyes. I spun around, confused—whoa whoa wait wait, where had they gone? Had they climbed down, or dived off that rock? No way, it was so high. But I had to know, and I veered in the opposite direction, running to look over the edge of the cliff. I hadn’t been too aerobic since my injury, and by the time I reached the place where they’d been, I could feel the burn in my lungs and gently used muscles.
Nothing. Nothing below but the phlegm of foam breaking over the peaks of rock. The tide was coming in. I caught my breath. Had they jumped? For real? The water didn’t seem deep enough; any kind of long-drop jump looked incredibly dangerous. Maybe they’d climbed down quick, a pair of romantic sand crabs, and then scuttled off to some secret grotto, but the timing of that was almost impossible.
“Jamie! Over here!”
I turned again to face Isa, who was now gliding down the hill. She was even prettier than the picture Miles had jpged. On our one phone call, he’d told me that Isa had been adopted as an infant from Vietnam (“though she reminds me of my late wife anyway. Something about her laugh, it breaks my heart, go figure”), and her sandalwood skin and gourmet-chocolate eyes looked as if they’d been warmed by sunshine. She radiated with such a näive, delicate sweetness that it was hard not to automatically want to reflect some of it as I smiled back at her.
“Jamie, right? You’re such a honey, coming out here to find me,” she said. Calling me a honey seemed like a quirky, almost antiquated thing for an eleven-year-old girl to do. Except Isa wasn’t your typical almost–seventh grader. I could tell that at once; she wasn’t one of those girls trend-surfing on wash-out henna tattoos, retro T-shirts or the glitter body makeup that I’d forever associate with Maggie’s and my junior high experience—a two-year recipe of Trying Too Hard with a major pinch of Not Getting It.
Isa’s nearly waist-length hair and eyelet cotton dress were more old-fashioned and whimsical than anything I’d have been caught dead in at that age. But when she briefly took my hand in greeting, the needy pressure of her grip reminded me of the way I’d once grasped Mr. Ryan’s fingers under the table at Ruby Tuesday. My squeezing hand, my urgent and devoted stare. I’d been just as much a child, in my own way. And yet it also seemed like a long time ago, too, when I’d felt such innocence.
“What’s wrong?” Isa stepped back to scrutinize me. “You looked at me funny.”
“I’m sorry.” I smiled. In the bright sun it felt like I was grimacing. “Nice to meet you.”
She squinted at me, then grinned. “Me too. It’s been maximum boring here, especially since Milo’s away at camp this summer, which leaves just me and the Funsicle, who hates to drive me places or do anything cool. The Funsicle even hates music. Once I asked her what kind, and she said the musical kind.”
“Who’s the Funsicle?”
“Connie. It’s her nickname. Jessie made it up because she said Connie’s the Grim Reaper of Fun. As in, if she thinks people are having a good time, she slices it to the ground.”
“I like that. Fun sickle. And who’s Milo?”
“My older brother.”
“I don’t think your dad mentioned him.”
“Probably since you’ll never meet him. You’re just for me, after all. Milo’s away till August. Which is too bad. Miley’s the man. He’s major gorgie—all my friends say. And he’s sweet when he’s not intense. Sucks he’s fourteen or you’d have fallen madly in love with him.”
“Maybe it’s better that he’s not around to distract me.”
I’d been kidding, but Isa seemed to take my comment sincerely. “That’s true.”
“Hey, Isa”—I said her name tentatively; she was the first Isa I’d ever known—“did you see those kids up there?”
“What kids? I’ve been alone all day, losing my mind from boredom. When I saw you drive up, I was, like, Fine-Ally.” She spun out in a twirl of black hair and white dress. “My dad told me he went out with your mom way back.”
“Over thirty years ago,” I said. “It’s weird to imagine those days—before the Internet, right?”
“It’s weirder to imagine my dad young,” she said, giving me a look like perhaps she’d overestimated me. “C’mon. Let’s go down. I made mint lemonade.” As she yanked me toward the walk, her shackle on my wrist was too intense for me to run more than a quick check over my shoulder, to where the kids had stood.
I had seen them, hadn’t I? I knew I had.
“Connie hates anyone to be late,” Isa warned as we approached the house. “ ‘Theven meanth theven.’ Jess always used to say Connie’d chop off three of your fingers if you’d let her, to remind you what time to be home for dinner.”
I snorted. I liked that. “So where is your Jessie this summer?”
Isa regarded me. Her face was a golden, heart-shaped locket, with every feature scrolled into place like a careful calligraphy. Pretty as she was now, in a few years she’d be a knockout. I was also struck, even before she spoke again, by the sadness in her face now that her smile was gone.
“Jessie’s dead,” she answered.
FOUR
We arrived at the house to find a van stenciled with the sign LITTLE BLY LIVERY 1-800-BLY-RIDE parked outside the wide-open front door, where Connie emerged clutching a fistful of bills.
“Dad’s home?” I heard the catch of hope in Isa’s voice. “Yes way! To surprise us!” She looked at me gleefully, but my mind was still reeling with the new information.
Jessie, this my-age girl who’d held my job, this fun-loving, Connie-defying girl with whom I’d felt an instant bond based on those few facts, was dead.
How? Why? When? Had she lived at Skylark? What happened to her?
Isa hadn’t wanted to go into details, so I’d played it casually. Letting her ramble about the lemonade she’d made for me—using mint she’d picked herself from the kitchen garden—and recount her past performance this spring when she and her friend Clementine had put on a play based on the Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall” for their entire sixth-grade class.