The Bay At Midnight Part 10

"You can call them back," Julie said. "Lucy's probably starved."

"It's true, I am," I said. "You know I don't like to eat before a concert."

If I hadn't piped up, Shannon probably would have argued with her mother over stopping for dessert, but once I'd made my case, she gave in.

"Westfield Diner?" Julie asked as she opened her car door.

"Sure," I said. "You want the front, Shannon?" I motioned to the pa.s.senger door of the car.

"Back's fine," she muttered, barely loud enough to hear, and I knew she was either sullen or scared, expecting me to bring up her situation over ice-cream sundaes, which was indeed my plan.

We settled into one of the booths at the diner, Shannon sitting next to me, the slight swelling of her belly hidden from her mother's eyes by the table.

"How's work?" I asked her.

She nodded. "Good," she said, studiously avoiding my eyes as she checked out the dessert menu.

"Are you still playing the cello at the hospital?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," she said. "I went yesterday. I saw Nana there."

"Cool," I said. We were all hospital volunteers. I was a translator for Spanish-speaking patients, Mom worked in the gift shop, Julie visited patients, often reading to them or just keeping them company, and Shannon played the cello in the hallways outside patient rooms. We had a long culture of volunteerism in my family.

"What should I do with your mail, honey?" Julie asked. "You'll probably be getting a lot of it from Oberlin over the summer."

Here was Shannon's chance to tell her mother, I thought. I squeezed her knee beneath the table, but she pulled her leg away from my hand and I sensed her annoyance. I knew right then that the talk I wanted the two of them to have wasn't going to happen tonight.

"Just stick it in a grocery bag for me, please," Shannon said, not looking at either of us. "I'll pick it up when I come by."

"Okay." Julie turned her menu over to look at the desserts. "And if it looks important, I'll let you know.You'll probably find out who your roommate's going to be in a few weeks. I think you should try to get in touch with the girl during the summer to see what she'll be bringing to the room and all of that."

Shut up, Julie, I thought.

"Uh-huh." Shannon studied the menu as if she didn't know it by heart.

Julie and I ordered sundaes and Shannon, a small bowl of chocolate ice cream. Then Julie excused herself to go to the rest room.

I s.h.i.+fted away from Shannon on the bench so that I could look at her.

"How are you doing, really?" I asked.

"Fine," she said. "Everything's fine."

"Living with your dad is going okay?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "I might as well still be living with Mom," she said. "She calls me, like, ten times a day."

"Why don't you tell her about the baby now?" I asked. "With me here? I can help soften the blow."

"Don't push push me, Lucy," she said. "Let me do this on my own timetable, all right?" me, Lucy," she said. "Let me do this on my own timetable, all right?"

"What is is your timetable?" I couldn't seem to stop myself. your timetable?" I couldn't seem to stop myself.

"I don't know." She spoke slowly, teeth gritted.

"All right." I gave up. "Sorry."

"Thank you," she said, as if I'd been holding her down on the ground and had finally released her.

"Can you give me...what's his name? Tanner?"

She nodded and looked at me, curious to know what I was asking.

"Can you give me his Web site address?"

"Why?"

"So I can check it out," I said, then added, "from the perspective of a former history teacher."

"Are you going to write to him or something?" She looked suspicious.

I shook my head. "No."

She hesitated. "You swear you won't?"

"You have my word. I just want to...you know, get to know this person who's so important in your life. I mean," I added quickly, "get to know him by seeing his Web site, that's all." I thought I sounded guilty, as if I did did have plans to try to reach him-which I did not-but Shannon tore off a piece of her napkin, pulled a pen from her pocketbook, wrote down the address and handed it to me. I slipped it in my jeans pocket. have plans to try to reach him-which I did not-but Shannon tore off a piece of her napkin, pulled a pen from her pocketbook, wrote down the address and handed it to me. I slipped it in my jeans pocket.

"Thanks," I said.

"It's a cool site," she said, that glowy look coming into her face again. "He knows everything about computers."

Julie returned to the table and sat down again.

"Who knows everything about computers?" she asked. "Dad?"

"No," Shannon said. "Just a friend."

The waitress took our orders "Any news from Ethan?" I asked.

"Who's Ethan?" Shannon asked.

"Ethan Chapman," Julie said. "Remember I told you about the visit I had from his daughter? How she-"

"That letter?" Shannon interrupted her.

"Yes," Julie said. "Ethan took it to the police. They searched Ned's-Ethan's brother's-house, but didn't find anything. Or at least, they didn't tell Ethan that they found anything." Although what she'd said was not particularly good news, Julie was smiling. Something was going on. I swore I saw a little spark in her eyes when she said the name "Ethan." I was sure now that she had a thing for him.

"He reminded me of the time Mom and Izzy and I floated to the bay on inner tubes," Julie said to me. "Do you remember that?"

"To the bay from where?" I asked.

"From the bungalow," Julie said. "You were there when we jumped into the ca.n.a.l and there with Grandpop when he came to the bay to pick us up."

I shook my head. I must have been a s.p.a.ce cadet when I was eight. I remembered so little.

"You floated on an inner tube?" Shannon looked at her mother in amazement. floated on an inner tube?" Shannon looked at her mother in amazement.

"Yep," Julie said. She leaned back as the waitress set our ice cream in front of us.

"I totally cannot picture you doing that," Shannon said, lifting her spoon. "You're scared to death of the water."

"I wasn't then," Julie said with a shrug.

"Your mother did everything," I said. "She was adventure girl. I was the chickens.h.i.+t."

"That would be cool," Shannon said. "Floating down a ca.n.a.l on a tube."

Shannon had never seen the ca.n.a.l and had only been down the sh.o.r.e a couple of times with friends, as far as I knew. Certainly Julie had never taken her.

"It's probably not legal to do that now," Julie said.

"It probably wasn't even legal then," I added.

We finished our ice cream, then drove to Glen's town house. He waved from the front door when Shannon got out of the car, and I waved back. I didn't know if Julie acknowledged him at all. I didn't think they talked anymore. They'd been able to communicate about Shannon, though. They'd coordinated trips to colleges and actually went together to parent-teacher conferences, but I thought their relations.h.i.+p was truly over now. Most-although not all-of the pain and animosity seemed to have s.h.i.+fted to indifference, and I was glad of that. I knew from my own broken relations.h.i.+ps just how comforting indifference could be.

"I bet she's getting zero supervision over here," Julie said as she pulled away from the curb.

The horse was long out of the barn as far as supervision was concerned, and I ignored her comment. "So," I said, instead. "Do I detect some real interest in Ethan Chapman now?"

She might have blushed. I wasn't sure. "It was good to talk with him," she said. "He has the nicest voice."

"So, he looks great," I said. "He has an amazing body. Nice voice. Is good to talk with. What more do you want?"

"I don't want want anything," she said. "If he weren't Ethan Chapman, I might be interested," she admitted. "But I certainly don't want someone who lives in Bay Head Sh.o.r.es and is almost surely the brother of my sister's murderer." She was vehement and had a good point. I decided to change the subject. anything," she said. "If he weren't Ethan Chapman, I might be interested," she admitted. "But I certainly don't want someone who lives in Bay Head Sh.o.r.es and is almost surely the brother of my sister's murderer." She was vehement and had a good point. I decided to change the subject.

"I remembered something when you were talking about floating on the ca.n.a.l," I said.

"What?"

"I remembered Dad going over to the other side of the ca.n.a.l to get you when you were fis.h.i.+ng with the Lewis family."

"Oh," she said, letting her breath out. "He was not pleased with me."

"He was hard on you sometimes, you know?" I said. "I learned from watching you. I learned not to make waves around him."

"He was never hard on Izzy, though," Julie said. It was not the first time she'd said something like that.

"Did that bother you?" I asked.

"Not really," she said. "I think I just had a way of doing things he couldn't tolerate. Like hanging out with the Lewises." She suddenly grew very quiet as she pulled up to the curb in front of my apartment house.

"Do you want to come in?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No. I'm tired." She smiled at me. "It was a great concert. I love watching you. You have so much fun up there."

"Thanks," I said, but I felt worried about her. "Are you okay?" I asked.

She looked at her hands where they rested on the steering wheel. "You just got me thinking about George," she said.

I touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry I brought it up," I said.

She shrugged. "It's just that...if I'd never gone over there to begin with, George would never have gone to prison."

"Oh, Julie," I said, leaning over to give her a hug. "I wish Ethan and his daughter had just dealt with that letter on their own and never let you know about it."

She smiled gamely as I pulled away from her. "I'm okay," she rea.s.sured me. "Honest."

I opened my car door, then looked back at her.

"With regard to Ethan..." I began.

She waited, eyebrows raised, to hear what I was going to say.

"Grab some joy, Julie," I said. "Grab it."

Before going to bed, I spent an hour on Tanner Stroh's Civil War Web site. It was undeniably excellent, a scholarly site overflowing with information and so little bias that I wasn't able to tell if I would agree with his politics or not. By the time I turned off the computer, I had one overriding thought in my mind: maybe Shannon had actually found herself a winner.

CHAPTER 13.

Julie.

1962.

Grandpop and I were in compet.i.tion. We stood a few yards from each other behind the fence in our backyard, the morning sun in our eyes and our fis.h.i.+ng poles in our hands as we waited to see which of us could catch the biggest edible fish. I was wearing my purple one-piece bathing suit and after spending a few weeks in the summer sun, my skin was as dark as my grandmother's. Grandpop was still pretty pale. He never seemed to tan. He wore his usual brown pants-he must have had six pairs of them-and a white short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt and sandals. I'd never seen him go barefoot.

By the time we'd been out there for half an hour, I'd caught absolutely nothing, while Grandpop had reeled in two blowfish, which we considered less than nothing because they were too dangerous to eat. Their organs contained a deadly toxin, and after Grandpop tossed the second blowfish back into the ca.n.a.l, I came up with a plot for an intriguing mystery: The colored fishermen on the other side of the ca.n.a.l would begin dying, collapsing right there in the reeds, and it would turn out they'd been poisoned by the Rooster Man, who had fed them fried blowfish livers. I loved the idea and nursed the story along in my mind as we fished.

After what seemed like a very long time, I felt something good and strong tug at my line. I reeled it in, only to discover a hideous sea robin on my hook. Grandpop couldn't stop himself from laughing. There was nothing uglier in the universe than a sea robin, with its long bony fins poking out all over its body. I grimaced, watching the fish sway back and forth on my line. I was not squeamish, but the thought of holding on to that spiny creature while taking it off the hook was not pleasant.

"I bet Ethan would like that sea robin," Grandpop said, nodding toward the Chapmans' yard.

I looked over to see Ethan sitting in the sand, a huge pile of mussels in front of him. I had not even realized he was outside.