Lock and Key(34)

The backhoe was rumbling again, scooping, digging deeper.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said to her. “Not a thing.”

“And whose fault is that?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, ready to answer this; it was a no-brainer, after all. Who had left and never returned? Stopped calling, stopped caring? Managed to forget, once she was free and past it, the life that she’d left behind, the one I’d still been living? But even as the words formed on my lips, I found myself staring at my sister, who was looking at me so defiantly that I found myself hesitating. Here, in the face of the one truth I knew by heart.

“Look,” I said, taking another bite, “all I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to turn your whole life upside down. Or Jamie’s, either. Go on as you were. It’s not like I’m a baby you suddenly have to raise or something.”

Her expression changed, the flat, angry look giving way to something else, something not exactly softer, but more distant. Like she was backing away, even while staying in the same place. She looked down at her coffee cup, then cleared her throat. “Right,” she said curtly. “Of course not.”

She pushed her chair up, getting to her feet, and I watched her walk to the coffeemaker and pour herself another cup. A moment later, with her back still to me, she said, “You will need some new clothes, though. At least a few things.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at my jeans, which I’d washed twice in three days, and the faded T-shirt I’d worn my last day at Jackson. “I’m okay.”

Cora picked up her purse. “I’ve got an appointment this morning, and Jamie has to be here,” she said, taking out a few bills and bringing them over to me. “But you can walk to the new mall. There’s a greenway path. He can show you where it is.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Ruby. Please.” Her voice was tired. “Just take it.”

I looked at the money, then at her. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything, instead just turning around and walking out of the room, her purse under her arm. Roscoe lifted his head, watching her go, then turned his attention to me, watching as I unfolded the money. It was two hundred bucks. Not bad, I thought. Still, I waited another moment, until I was sure she’d gone upstairs, before pocketing it.

The door rattled beside me as Jamie came in, empty coffee mug dangling from one finger. “Morning!” he said, clearly on a pond high as he walked to the island, grabbing a muffin out of the box on the table on his way. Roscoe jumped up, following him. “So, did you guys get your shopping day all planned out? And FYI, there’s no just browsing with her. She insists on a plan of attack.”

“We’re not going shopping,” I said.

“You aren’t? ” He turned around. “I thought that was the plan. Girls’ day out, lunch and all that.”

I shrugged. “She said she has an appointment.”

“Oh.” He looked at me for a moment. “So . . . where’d she go?”

“Upstairs, I think.”

He nodded, then glanced back out at the backhoe, which was backing up—beep beep. Then he looked at me again before starting out of the room, and a moment later, I heard the steady thump of him climbing the stairs. Roscoe, who had followed him as far as the doorway, stopped, looking back at me.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “Nothing to see here.”

Of course, he didn’t agree with this. Instead, as Cora’s and Jamie’s voices drifted down from upstairs—discussing me, I was sure—he came closer, tags jingling, and plopped down at my feet again. Funny how in a place this big, it was so hard to just be alone.

An hour and a half later, dressed and ready with Cora’s money in my pocket, I headed outside to ask Jamie for directions to the shortcut to the mall. I found him at the far end of the yard, beyond the now sizable and deep hole, talking to a man by Nate’s fence.

At first, I assumed it was one of the guys from the digging company, several of whom had been milling around ever since the backhoe had arrived. Once I got closer, though, it became apparent that whoever this guy was, he didn’t drive machinery for a living.

He was tall, with salt-and-pepper gray hair and tanned skin, and had on faded jeans, leather loafers, and what I was pretty sure was a cashmere sweater, a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses tucked into his collar. As he and Jamie talked, he was spinning his car keys around one finger, then folding them into his palm, again and again. Spin, clank, spin, clank.

“. . . figured you were digging to China,” the man was saying as I came into earshot. “Or for oil, maybe.”

“Nope, just putting in a pond,” Jamie said.

“A pond?”

“Yeah.” Jamie slid his hands into his pockets, glancing over at the hole again. “Organic to the landscaping and the neighborhood. No chemicals, all natural.”

“Sounds expensive,” the man said.

“Not really. I mean, the initial setup isn’t cheap, but it’s an investment. Over time, it’ll really add to the yard.”

“Well,” the man said, flicking his keys again, “if you’re looking for an investment, we should sit down and talk. I’ve got some things cooking that might interest you, really up-and -coming ideas. In fact—”