What I Thought Was True(39)

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 133

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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 pres-ent 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.

“He treated you like a servant. A dishonest servant. No one needs a job that much.”

Though he’s been working hard, sweat dampening his hair, grass sticking to his knees, a smudge of dirt across his forehead, where he must have brushed his hair away, he still looks so good. All the anger I couldn’t show Henry floods in with a boiling rush.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Cass. I do. I do and so does pretty much everyone who works on Seashell. Including whatever island guy lost out on the yard boy job because your daddy bought it for you to teach you some Life Lesson.”

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He glares at me. “Let’s leave my dad out of this. This is you.

I can’t believe you just sat there and took that crap from him.”

“You haven’t been on the island very long. Don’t quite know your place yet. Taking crap is what we do here, Jose. ”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Lots of entitlement. Got it. But it’s not what you do. I can’t claim to know you”—he pauses, has the grace to turn red, then forges on—“but I know you don’t put up with crap. That made me sick.”

“Maybe you should take your break now and lie down. I’m sure it’ll pass.”

“Dammit, Gwen!” Cass starts, but then Mrs. Ellington is at the screen door, making her slow way onto the porch with her cane, tap, slow tap, tap. Her eyebrows are raised.

“Is there a problem, dear boy? You look overheated.”

Cass shoves his hair back again—leaving a bigger smudge of dirt, sighs. “It’s nothing.” Pause. “Ma’am.”

Mrs. E. studies us, the faintest of smiles on her face. But in the end, all she says is, “Henry really did mean it when he said he could only stay for a few minutes. He’s already rushed off.

Poor dear. I would love some iced tea, Gwen. Why don’t you get some for—” She pauses.

“Jose,” I say, just as Cass reminds her of his actual name.

“Maybe Jose should carry around his own water bottle,” I add, “like the rest of the maintenance crew. Then he wouldn’t need waiting on.”

“Jose dumped his water bottle on his head about two hours ago—it’s ninety-five today, no sea breeze, in case you hadn’t noticed, Maria.”

Mrs. E. has settled herself on the glider where Henry had 135

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been only a few minutes ago, regarding us, head cocked, the smile broader now. Her eyes are bright with interest. My nerves are still buzzing. At Henry—even though he’s just looking out for his mother. At Mrs. E., watching us like characters in a soap opera. At Cass, with his pink shirt and his attitude. At some random guy who zooms by on a Jet Ski, its buzz-saw sound cut-ting through the lap of the water. While I’m at it, at Nic, who ate the last of the Cap’n Crunch last night, which resulted in an early morning Emory meltdown, which could be soothed only by Dora the Explorer, definitely the most irritating car-toon character on the planet.

“All men need to be waited on,” Mrs. Ellington cuts into my thoughts. “Helpless creatures, the lot of them.”

“Nah, we have our uses,” Cass says. All the heat evaporates from his voice when he speaks with her. “Killing spiders, opening stuck jar lids—”

Caught between wanting to punch him and just laughing, I roll my eyes to heaven. I hate the way he flips the charm on— that he knows, damn well, just how effective it is.