Страница 25 из 76
Listening to the slow scrape and thump of her receding, I sense I’m losing an ally. Henry looks at me somberly from under lowered brows.
“Um . . . the book . . . Your mom picked it out. I wouldn’t have chosen it myself. I don’t read that kind of thing. Well, not a lot, anyway. I mean, sometimes you just need . . . that is . . . Not that there’s anything wrong with that kind of book, I mean, they’re actually really empowering to women and—”
He cuts me off with a raised hand and the ghost of a smile. “I’m well aware of Mother’s taste in literature, believe me. You don’t need to worry about that.”
His tone’s flat. I try to interpret his last sentence. What do I need to worry about?
He shifts back in the glider, looking out at Whale Rock. Lifting a hand to his forehead, he slides it down to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“We’re all grateful—my sons and I—that you’re available to look out for her. She’s always been very capable. It’s hard for her to accept that things change. Hard for all of us.”
I can’t tell if he’s simply speaking thoughts out loud or wants some answer from me. “I’m happy to help,” is all that comes to mind.
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t; still gazes instead at the waves flipping over the top of Whale Rock—high tide—where a cormorant is angling its dusky wings to dry.
Eventually, I look out too—at the grass ru
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Henry seems to pull himself back from some distant place, clearing his throat. “Well then, er, Guinevere, tell me a little about yourself.”
Flashback to my conversation with Mrs. E. I get this awful, familiar tingle, like a sneeze coming on, but worse—a sense of terror about my impulse control. Like when it’s incredibly still in church and your stomach rumbles loudly, or you just know you won’t be able to suppress a burp. I dig my nails into my palm, look Henry in the eye, and desperately try to give appropriate answers to bland questions about school and career plans and whether I play a sport, without offering that my most notable achievement so far appears to have been becoming a swim team tradition.
The questions trail off. Henry looks at my legs again, then out at the water. Over by the bushes, Cass swipes his forearm across his forehead, then his palm against the back of his pants, leaving a smudge of dirt. I count one, two, three waves breaking over the top of Whale Rock.
Then Henry leans forward, touches his hand, rather hard, to my shoulder. “Now listen carefully,” he says. Up till now he’s been shifting around in his seat, kind of awkward and ill-at-ease. Now his eyes spear mine, all focus. “This is crucial. Mother needs her routine kept consistent. Always. I’d like to be able to count on knowing that you will give her breakfast at the same time every day, make sure she gets out in the fresh air, eats well, and takes a nap. It was in the evening that she had her fall, and she hadn’t rested all day. She managed to get herself to the phone, but she was very confused. If one of the neighbors hadn’t come by . . .” He rubs his chin. “Mother will just go and go and go. I need to make sure these naps happen like clockwork from one to three.”
“I’ll look out for that, Mr. Ellington. Um . . . sir.” It actually isn’t that different from Em . . . he too goes till he can’t, gets overwhelmed and overtired. Although I doubt “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and the Wi
He flashes me his mother’s smile, incongruous in a face that seems like it was born serious. “You appear to be a sensible girl. I imagine your life has made you practical.”
I’m not sure what he means, so I have no idea how to respond. Inside the house, Mrs. E.’s cane taps close, up to the screen. “May I come out now, dear boy?”
“A few more minutes. We’re nearly finished,” Henry calls. The tapping recedes. Catching my raised eyebrows, he says, “I didn’t want to discuss Mother’s fragility in front of her. She’d be embarrassed—and angry.”
Back still to us, Cass stands up and stretches, revealing a strip of ta
“One more thing you need to know.” Henry’s head is downcast; he’s fiddling with a crested gold ring on his pinkie. “Everything in the house is itemized.”
At first, this seems like some random comment.
Like, “We’ve had the picture of Dad appraised.”
Some rich-person thing that doesn’t mean anything to me.
Then I get it.
Everything is itemized, so don’t slip any of our family treasures into your pocket.
“Every spoon. Every napkin ring. Every lobster cracker. Just so you know,” he continues. “I thought you should be clear on that.”
Cass rears up, flips his hair off his forehead, that swim-team gesture, then kneels back down.
Did Henry Ellington actually just say that?
Heat races through my body, my muscles tighten.
Take a deep breath, Gwen.
He seems to be waiting for me to say something.
Yassir, we poor folk can’t be trusted with all your shiny stuff.
I shut my eyes. Not a big deal. It’s nothing. Forget it. God knows I ought to be used to Seashell. When I helped Mom clean Old Mrs. Partridge’s house a few summers ago, Mrs. P. took me aside. “Maria, just so you know, I will be checking the level of all of the liquor bottles.” But Henry should know better. Mom’s so honest that when she finds change scattered on a desk or a bureau she has to dust, she writes a note saying she picked it up and dusted underneath it, then replaced it, then lists the exact amount. Even if it’s four pe
It’s just a job. Know your place, take the paycheck, and shut up. Other people’s stories—issues, whatever—are their own.
But no matter how I try to tamp them down, hot embarrassment and anger scorch my chest. I want to tell him where he can shove his lobster pick. But then I hear the slow beat of Mrs. E.’s cane moving around the kitchen. The halting thump-slide of it and her injured foot. The little rattle of her pulling out china, still determinedly independent. I lick my suddenly dry lips. “I understand.”
Henry gives me a slightly sheepish smile. “I’m glad you’ve got that straight. We’re all grateful for your help.” He reaches out a hand and, after a hesitation, I shake it. Giving me a card with phone numbers on it, he tells me the first is his office line and to let his secretary know it’s “in regard to Mother” if there is any sort of problem. “My private cell number is the second one. Use that only in the case of dire emergencies.”
I promise I won’t call him for idle chatter (not exactly in those words). He brushes off his hands as though he, not Cass, had been doing manual labor, gives one last glance out at the water. “It is beautiful here,” he says softly. “Sometimes I think the only way I can bring myself ever to leave is by forgetting that.”
The minute the screen door slams behind him, I sink onto the glider, look out at the dive-bombing seagulls, close my eyes and breathe in, trying to let the familiar rolling roar of the waves calm and focus me.
“What the hell was that? Jesus Christ, Gwen!” Cass is leaning a palm against one of the porch columns, jaw muscles tight.
I sit up, shifting gears from one embarrassing moment to the next, my cheeks going hot. Does this boy have to be present at every humiliation? Worse, does he have to be part of them? He listened. Just like he eavesdropped about Alex . . . and knew all about what went down with Spence. Not to mention what happened with Cass himself. I swallow. “I need the job.” I’m saying it to myself as much as to him. My voice wavers. Cass’s dark eyebrows pull together.