The Last House on Needless Street(13)

‘That’s it. Back to Mom and Dad. I don’t know why I even try with you …’

‘I don’t want to go back yet! I’m still thirsty, and I want to pet the kitty.’

‘You’ve had a drink of water and there’s no kitty here,’ Dee said. But for a moment she thought she saw a black tail like a question mark, disappearing behind a trash can. Black cats were supposed to be bad luck. Or was it good luck?

Lulu looked up at her sister with wide eyes. ‘Don’t be mean,’ she said quietly.

They walked back in silence. Lulu put her hand into Dee’s, and Dee took it because there were so many people around, but she held it as loosely as she could and didn’t return the squeeze. Lulu’s face was screwed up with sorrow. Her hurt made Dee feel good. Her heart was pounding. She thought of the diary, where she kept it in the floor vent. She screwed the vent back down each time. Lulu must have looked for it for a long time. She must have taken a screwdriver from Dad’s toolbox to open the vent, read the diary, screwed the vent back up again … The thought made Dee want to slap her sister, see her cry. Lulu could ruin her life if she wanted.

Dee had wanted to go to Pacific since she was five. It had taken eleven years of pleading to get her parents to agree. It was mixed, boys and girls. Dee would live in a dorm at the school. Her parents’ anxiety radiated off them whenever this fact was mentioned. Dee could see them half hoping that something would happen to prevent it. Her behaviour had to be perfect.

‘I won’t tell, Dee Dee,’ said Lulu. ‘I swear. And I won’t read it again.’ But Dee shook her head. Of course Lulu would tell, in the end. She might not mean to, but she would. She was like that. Dee would have to bury the diary in a random trash can and say Lulu was inventing things. She hoped that would be enough.

Lulu settled in the shade of the umbrella by Mom’s feet. Mom dozed with her magazine clutched to her breast. Dad sat in the striped canvas chair reading his book and rubbing his eyes. He was tired too; his head nodded.

Lulu started digging with her bucket and spade, mouth pursed. ‘I found a pretty pebble,’ she announced. ‘You want it, Dee Dee?’ She offered it on the flat of her palm, eyes anxious.

Dee ignored her. ‘Can I go swim?’ she asked her father.

‘Half an hour,’ he said. ‘If you’re not back by then I’m calling the cops.’

‘Fine,’ Dee said. When his back was turned she rolled her eyes for form’s sake, but actually she was surprised. He must be exhausted. He wouldn’t normally let her wander unsupervised.

‘Not so fast, Delilah,’ she heard her mother call. ‘You take your sister with you.’

Dee was a plausible distance away and she hurried on, pretending not to have heard. She wandered through the hedge maze of colourful blankets, beach umbrellas and windbreakers. She didn’t know what, or who she was looking for, just that it was important to be alone so that things could happen.

She tried to move through the crowd like it was a dance. She put a reason behind each step she took. Dee had danced the part of the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland at the end of the semester in her ballet class. She still remembers how the steps, the cha?nés, arabesques and développés became something different the moment she felt like a caterpillar. So now each step she took was a dance, heading towards a great romance. She imagined people (boys) watching her as she passed, though she couldn’t see anyone actually watching. She imagined their thoughts. How long and glossy her hair was, how different she seemed to other girls, how mysterious, as if she had a secret. She imagined it really hard so that the other thoughts didn’t come in, like about how her butt was too big and her chin was a weird shape.

She picked her way to the shoreline and sat down in the damp sand at the water’s edge. In the shallows was a flotilla of bobbing toddlers in water wings. Farther out, by the buoys, the lake was still, showing back the treeline and the sky in dark, upside-down perfection. She could imagine monsters out there, lurking just below the sleek green surface. The air smelled of burgers grilling and Dee made her yeeeugh face. Her thing at the moment was to despise food. It seemed important to maintain it, even if only to herself. Ballerinas don’t eat burgers.

‘Hi.’ Something loomed over her, throwing a tall shadow. Then it sat down, scuffing sand, and became human-sized. It was a guy. He was thin, yellow-headed. She could see swirls of white lotion on his pale skin.

‘Hi,’ said Dee. He had to be at least nineteen. She was suddenly aware that her palms were sweating and her heart was beating nervous and light. What would they talk about?

‘I’m Trevor,’ he said, and offered a hand to shake, which was very dorky and made Dee smirk. But she was also relieved because it made him seem familiar, what her mother would call ‘raised right’.

Dee lifted one eyebrow, something she had just learned to do. ‘How’s it hanging?’ She didn’t take his hand.

Trevor blushed. ‘OK,’ he said, wiping his hand on his shorts as if that was what he meant to do all along. ‘Are you here with your folks?’

Dee shrugged. ‘I managed to lose them,’ she said.

He smiled, like he appreciated the joke. ‘Where are they?’

‘All the way over by the lifeguard stand,’ she said, pointing. ‘They were sleeping and I was bored.’