What I Saw and How I Lied

Chapter 26

They got to me late that afternoon. Mom's white and pink sundress was filthy. She was barefoot. Joe looked worse. His pants looked like he'd used them for a mop in a fish store. His shirt was missing a button or two, open at his throat. I could see how thick his throat was, the black hair curling up in a snaky line. The policeman who had brought them stood back a couple of paces while they hurried to me outside the hotel's front door.

Mom put her arms around me. "Baby, I thought I'd never see you again." I smelled water standing in a drain, and something else, sharp, like ammonia.

I stepped back before she was ready, maybe. Joe leaned over and kissed me. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"What about Peter? What happened?" I could feel the policeman's eyes on me, and I wondered why he didn't go.

"It was a terrible storm," Joe said.

"We almost drowned," Mom said. "I need a bath." She said it in a way that was almost angry, like we were standing in her way. She wasn't herself. I knew that, I could see that she hardly knew where she was, or if she was standing up straight.

"I'll let you folks get settled," the policeman said. "If there's any word, I'll come by."

"Thank you, officer," Joe said in his best-manners voice.

As we walked through the lobby, my mother pressed close to me.

"It was like an awful dream," she said. "Like it wasn't happening to me at all."

"We made it to shelter, but I thought the building would blow out to sea any minute," Joe said. "I'll tell you one thing: I'm through with Florida."

I showed them our room. No more suite for us. We had two double beds and a couch, the furniture all crowded together. It was dark. They hadn't taken off the shutters over the windows yet. I switched on the light.

"Glad this place has electricity," Joe said.

"It was so dark where we were," Mom said.

She saw the open suitcase on the bed and started to go through it. She shook out her blue cocktail dress. "This is the only thing you brought for me? Honestly! How do you expect me to wear this in broad daylight!"

"I didn't know what to bring," I said. "I didn't think.”

“I'll go back to the Mirage," Joe said. "I'll get your clothes, Bev."

"No!" Mom's voice was sharp and on the edge of something. "Don't make waves, Joe."

It was a funny choice of words, but none of us laughed.

"He wasn't what you thought," Mom whispered to me that night. We lay together in one of the double beds. Joe snored in the other one. "He wasn't what I thought, either. Joe set me straight. I should have known what he was, the way he went after you that way."

I was curled up, facing the wall. She was behind me, her voice thick and urgent.

"He followed us down here, you know. He was black­mailing Joe. He was holding something over his head. Peter thought Joe owed him money. They had some deal, and Peter thought one thing and Joe thought another. That's all. And so Peter said he'd go to the Graysons and tell them Joe was a welsher, that he'd walk away from a debt. You and I know that isn't true. The thing is, though, this came at a really bad time for Joe. You know he just opened up two more businesses. He put all of our cash into them. So he was trapped. That's why Peter made up to us and took us places. He flattered us and we liked his company because of that. Peter went after you behind my — behind our backs. He was using you, too. Evie? Are you listening?"

No, it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all.

But it looked like that.

I wanted to put the pillow over my ears. I wished she'd just shut up. So much noise was in my head.

"I'm just lucky I showed up that night at his house. Who knows what could have happened? Nothing hap­pened before that, right, baby?"

I didn't answer her.

"Because if it did, it's all right. You shouldn't feel... he was trying to get at Joe any way he could. Nothing was your fault. Nothing, baby. I had to tell Joe what hap­pened. He doesn't blame you. Not in the least. But the thing is ... we probably shouldn't tell anyone about any of this. Better to just keep our mouths shut, since Peter's missing. Joe wants to head back to New York. We're going to go back just as soon as we can. Won't you like that? Don't you miss your friends?"

No, I didn't miss my friends.

"We don't belong here."

No, we didn't belong here.

"If we can just get home, everything will be all right." She said this like it was true.

"We can be just like we were. I promise, Evie. You're the most important thing in the world to me," she whispered.

"Mom." I gulped in air so I could get the question out. "What really happened? Tell me. What happened on the boat?"

She rolled away from me. "Just what we said, baby. Now go to sleep."

I walked through the fallen trees and branches to the bridge over to the island. The lake was still cloudy and thick from the storm but the sun was out. The sky was blue again. Just a few blocks from me, you couldn't walk along the path beside the lake, the water was so deep. They said you could take a rowboat down the main street in Delray Beach. The tiki huts were gone and so was the boardwalk. The roof had been blown off the casino in Lake Worth.

We'll be back! he'd yelled it at me, waving as the boat took off.

Think of all the people in the world who said Be back soon! and didn't come back. That's what we found out during the war.

People kept saying about the hurricane, At least it's not as bad as '28. Because no matter how bad something is, there's always something worse to compare it to. Some people find that comforting for some reason. I didn't.

Joe wanted to leave, but he couldn't get to his car. There was no gas, anyway. You could only buy a buck at most, not enough to get you very far. We were stuck.

"I'm guessing you wouldn't want to leave yet, any­way," Officer Deary said when he dropped by the next day. "Not with your friend still missing."

We kept the radio on all the time. My head was full of music. The songs told me what would happen. I'd be seeing him in all the old familiar places. I wouldn't want to walk without him. These foolish things reminded me of him. Won't you tell him please to put on some speed. My dream would be here beside me.

He would come back. He would tell me the truth behind the lies. We would fill up his blue convertible with gas and we would take off, the way we had on those other long, hot afternoons, when there was nobody in the world but us.

The hotel sent our suitcases over. Joe got a ride over to pick up his car. He said it seemed like hundreds of palm trees were blown down. Green coconuts were lying smashed on the streets.

The roads weren't bad north of us. And he had found a place to sell him a tank full of gas. We were leaving tomorrow. After a good night's sleep and with a thermos full of coffee, because he'd drive all day and all night if he had to, as far as he could, just to get home.

Mom kept the lamp on the vanity burning all night long. I lay on my side and watched the shaft of light on the floor. I listened to her turn over in bed. I fell asleep to the sound of restless legs and whispering sheets. The sounds merged together in my head, in my dreams, and I wasn't sure if I'd heard Joe and Mom whispering together or if I'd been dreaming.

We were packing the car before sunup when the cruiser pulled up. Officer Deary got out. "Taking off?"

We all stopped what we were doing, Mom with a suitcase ready to slide in the trunk, me carrying a stack of magazines. Joe put his hand on my shoulder. "I like to get an early start."

"Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stay for a few more days," the sheriff said.

"Officer Deary, we've been here for two days since the hurricane," Joe said. "You have my address in New York. I have several businesses to run. This delay is cost­ing me."

Officer Deary nodded a few times. "I appreciate that, I surely do. I know how busy you Northerners are. Peter Coleridge's body has been found."

I gasped. The sentence had come without warning. There was no / came here to tell you or I have news.

It was the word body. I could see it, something heavy, like a log, not like a person, turning with the waves, bumping up on a beach.

Mom dropped the suitcase. Pebbles shifted, a fallen palm leaf blew, the fronds tap-tap-tapping against the trunk of the tree.

"We'd like to ask you and your wife some questions," Officer Deary said. "Right now."