concluded the small talk between Rosa and her chivalrous enemy.
Manny was silent as well. Probably for the best, Rosa thought, as they drove along the highway, past fields of pumpkins that, in a month, would greet the visitors who came for that pick-it-yourself experience. She’d been too mature to indulge in such fantasies when they’d moved to Tumbledown. Fifteen-year-olds did not scurry about in pumpkin patches hunting for that perfect squash. At least, that’s what she’d told her family, but nothing would dissuade Manny and Cy until they’d rolled away the most enormous specimen—one that required both of them to heft it into the station wagon.
She remembered the expression they’d carved into that orange flesh. Intending eeriness, Cy and her father had somehow captured the mournful, contemplative look she’d seen on her mother’s face in her more sober moments, a hint that she’d let something pass her by while she was otherwise occupied. Or was it grief for something she’d lost? If she closed her eyes, Rosa could picture the pumpkin’s visage, illuminated by the candle flickering inside. If only there had been such a candle to illuminate her mother’s soul. Would it have revealed the dark impulse that drove her to drink herself to death? What could Rosa have done, or Manny, or any of them to drive that darkness away before it consumed her? She swallowed hard.
“Penny.”
She jumped. “What?”
“A penny for your thoughts,” Pike said. “Ten miles of awkward silence is my limit. I’m a trained talker.”
“The conversation lagged, so I guess I drifted.”
“Yeah,” Pike said, eyeing Manny in the rearview mirror. He appeared to have dozed off. “Took him a while to remember who I was.”
“You’ve changed.”
“More handsome, huh?”
He grinned. Darned if he wasn’t right, but she’d never tell him that. And not only more handsome but lithe and lanky, intelligent. Worst of all was that terrible, wonderful, dimpled chin. “I was going to say more stubborn.”
“Stubborn, sayeth the pot to the kettle?”
“Yes, sayeth the pot. Aunt Bitsy wants her inn reborn and I can do that better than anyone. It’s the best thing for her.”
He cut his eyes to her, a flicker before he focused again on the highway. “And you’re sure about that?”
“Yes. It’s what she wants.” Rosa twiddled with the hem of her linen coat, noticing for the first time a spot of paint staining the fabric. Why had she not thought to put on the green blouse, which brought out the spark in her hair? Get a grip, Rosa. He wouldn’t notice a spark if it leaped out and burned a hole in his retina. And why would you want him to? Remember Foster, the handsome guy from law school? The one who ruined you?
He chewed on his lower lip. “Maybe we shouldn’t always have what we want.”
She twisted on the seat. “Why? What do you know?” She lowered her voice. “Is Bitsy sick?” Bitsy’s pale face and trembling fingers swam into her memory and her stomach contracted.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Oh, quit the lawyer jargon.” Rosa would have grabbed his arm if he hadn’t been negotiating a narrow section of highway that pinched them against the dark cliff side. “You have to tell me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Pike, I love Bitsy. I need to know.”
“It’s for her to discuss with you, not me.”
“How can you be such a...” Rosa heard herself emit a sort of choking sob. She swallowed it and stared stonily out the window.
Pike shifted. “I’m sorry. I know she’s like a mother to you. All I can tell you is I’m going to make it all turn out for the best.”
So condescending. As if she hadn’t experienced and survived plenty of challenges in her life already. “Yet you still refuse to tell me, even though you know what she means to me?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “Not my place.”
Who was Pike Matthews to withhold information about Bitsy? He was the owner of the luxury vehicle in which she was now being chauffeured, with butter-soft seats and a top-of-the-line sound system burbling a blues song that made her want to cry. He had a career, a living and a future that did not depend on winning some nutty contest. He was, in a word, a success.
She thought about how ashamed she’d felt when she’d realized that Foster had been using her teacher’s assistant password to hack into the law school’s computer system and alter his grades. And again how she’d burned with fury when her professor believed it was her doing, a lovestruck girl risking her future for her boyfriend. Maybe if her father had been a benefactor at the school, as Foster’s had been, the administration might have believed her. As it was, Foster claimed he had no idea that poor, addle-headed Rosa was changing his grades. She was a crazy stalker. Obviously.
She fixed her gaze on the horizon, watching the fog ease away from the ocean. Inside her, fear ebbed and flowed like the waves below. Could Bitsy be seriously ill? She forced her hands to unclench. The very first thing she would do after they dropped Manny at his trailer was to sit down with Aunt Bitsy and ask for the truth. They turned into the Seascape Trailer Park.
“Dad, which one is yours?”
Pike lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
“I’ve been busy,” she sniped. “I haven’t seen the trailer.”
Manny didn’t answer.
“Dad? Wake up. Which one is your trailer?”
Manny blinked and stared at Rosa. “What?”
She forced out a breath and kept her voice in what she hoped was a pleasant range. “We’re here at your trailer park. Which unit is yours?”
He sat up and peered out the window, scanning the neat rows of trailers, which were separated by low picket fences. Some were permanent residences and others more likely vacation rentals. Pike slowed the car to a crawl. The trailers perched on small plots of grass, with lush patches of hydrangea and bougainvillea adding a blaze of color. The nearest yard was crisscrossed by a clothesline with children’s garments flapping gaily in the breeze. Clearly that one wasn’t Manny’s.
Rosa turned to Manny again with a stir of unease. “You can’t remember which one is yours?”
“Yes, I can,” he grumbled, passing a hand over his eyes. “Just takes me a minute.”
Pike watched in the rearview mirror and Rosa wondered what he was thinking. Probably that the Francos came from substandard mental material. With an alcoholic mom and a deadbeat dad who couldn’t find his way home, she could see where some might make the connection.
At least my dad didn’t sink his own boat, she thought uncharitably. She pointed to a sign. “Sea Cliff Lane,” she read off. “Is that the one, Dad?”
He smiled, relieved. “Yes, that’s the one. Turn there.”
Pike
