“And you didn’t want to mention that?”
He shrugged. “Not my information to share.”
I walked down the driveway and toward the small guesthouse, the ocean breeze growing stronger, propelling me forward.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” Zeddy called out. “COME BACK! Five-dollar oysters. Two-fifty beers.”
I kept moving, taking the front steps two at a time, ringing the doorbell.
“It’s my treat!” he said.
She opened the door. She was barefoot in a baby-doll dress (did people still wear baby-doll dresses?) with a ballet slipper in one hand and a jar of peanut butter in the other. And she had curlers in her hair. At least they looked like curlers until I realized they were sticky balls of the peanut butter.
And yet she looked me up and down, and rolled her eyes. “Of course!” she said.
The first words my sister had said to me in five years.
14
I sat at the kitchen counter, my sister perched over the sink, washing the peanut butter out of her hair. I tried not to make it obvious as I looked around. The guesthouse was more of a guest cottage: a living area with a loft above it, a small kitchen, one bedroom in the back. My sister had decorated it (if you could use that word) with bright throw rugs and sofas, large chairs, my niece’s artwork everywhere. Not an empty square foot. It made the house look even smaller.
“I’m leaving for work in five minutes, so you better make this quick,” she said.
I looked up at her. She was still tugging ferociously at her hair. “Who did you sell the house to?”
“A celebrity and her husband. Doesn’t matter. They’re here, like . . . never.”
“They’re here enough to be assholes,” I said.
“Well, I don’t see it that way.”
She kept pulling at her hair, the kitchen reeking of peanut butter.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Is the smell bothering you?” She motioned toward the front door. “Because you’re free to go.”
“I’m just asking.”
“Well, Sammy thinks it’s hilarious to put peanut butter in my hair whenever I sleep. And I made the mistake of taking a nap, since I’m on the late shift tonight. So currently I’m in the process of getting it out and trying not to kill her!”
She said this last part very loudly, and I noticed movement in the loft above. Sammy.
Samantha. Her daughter. My niece. I put a thousand-dollar check into an education trust fund for her every birthday. I hadn’t laid eyes on her since she was two months old. My heart started racing at the sight of her. And, quite honestly, at the thought I couldn’t stop myself from having: Could I get that six grand back, if I promised to replace it later? It would be enough for a shitty sublet in New York for the month, it would be enough until I was made whole again.
“We can skip the formalities, I know why you’re here. I mean, I said to Thomas, she is definitely going to show up, and he said she would never. But I knew.”
I knew she was setting me up by saying Thomas. The name of someone that I should have known and didn’t. Instead of taking her bait, I searched her finger for a wedding ring. Nothing there.
“Look, I have to get to work,” my sister said. “So if you could get to what you need, I’d like to speed this little visit up. And if you’re looking for money—”
“I’m not,” I said. “I just need a few days to hide out.”
“Forget it,” she laughed. She actually laughed.
“Rain . . .” I said. That’s right, let’s pause to register that my sister’s name was Rain. Sunshine and Rain. My father was a musician (and perhaps high at the time of our births) and he’d made a deal with God that if he named us in that way, his art would be protected. It’s too bad he hadn’t been interested in a deal protecting us.
“I want to be perfectly clear with you about this,” my sister said. “I don’t have any desire to help you.”