chapter 18
Audra wasn’t in the loft library or in her bedroom, but as Summer neared the end of the hall, she heard an odd noise coming from Cara’s room. Standing at the open door, she listened intently.
The noise she’d heard was low, muffled sobbing.
What was she supposed to do now? She had absolutely no experience dealing with volatile situations like this. Kids were a complete mystery to her, and with her luck, she’d make everything worse.
Gradually the sobs began to fade. When the inner bathroom door finally opened, Summer was waiting, trying not to panic.
She tapped briskly at the door. “Audra, Patrick says he has chocolate cake for you.”
“I’m not hungry.” Fabric rustled. Audra sniffed hard. “Go away.”
Summer opened the bedroom door slightly. “May I come in?” She took the silence for assent. “Sophy wants to swim, but Gabe says he has to do some repairs on the pump, so Sophy thought you could call Tracey on her cell phone and ask to use their inside pool.”
Audra kept her back to Summer. “All Sophy thinks about is swimming and ballet and Hello Kitty stuff. Besides, I don’t want to swim.”
“I’d consider it a huge favor if you’d ask. Maybe you could go in the water with Sophy, too. I don’t swim.”
The girl turned slowly. “Why don’t you swim? Don’t you know how?”
“It’s been a long time, and I was never very good.” A lie. Once Summer had been a natural, spending hours in the water.
No more.
She locked away the memories. “You’ve been crying,” she said quietly to Audra.
“No way. I was just washing my face.”
“I heard you, Audra. I know I’m a stranger, but if this is about food, about eating—well, there are things you can do.”
Audra gave a defiant sniff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about not eating anything but two spoonfuls of oatmeal this morning and not much more for lunch.”
“I ate plenty. You just didn’t see me.”
“And then you came up here and tried to throw up.”
“You’re crazy.” But there was desperation behind the words. “Why don’t you just go away?”
“It never works, you know.” Ignoring Audra’s tense look, Summer sat down on the bed, speaking calmly. “You feel worse and worse, hungrier and hungrier. After a while your metabolism shuts down, and your body fights to hold on to every pound. Pretty soon you feel tired all the time, and you’re obsessing, adding up the numbers, always counting the calories. After a few months you start digesting your own muscles and organs. Then comes the shortness of breath, the dizziness.”
Audra spun around, her face pale and tight. “How would you know?”
“Because my sister had the same problem.” Summer looked down at her locked fingers. “I watched her fade away week after week and there was nothing I could do.” The words were hard, the memories even harder.
Audra stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. “So?” Her voice was very quiet. “What happened?”
“She nearly died. It was like watching a terrible disease cut her down a little more each day, only the real disease was in her head, not her body.”
“What happened?” Audra whispered.
“She went away to a place with other girls who had the same problem. They talked about how they felt and the doctors helped my sister understand why she was obsessed with being thin. It took months, but she finally learned how to eat without throwing up.”
Audra sank down on a chair near the bed. “I can’t even throw up. Nothing comes up. Even a stupid, dumb thing like that, I can’t do right.” Her slender shoulders shook.
Summer put an arm around her, praying she would find the right words. “That’s a good thing, honey. My sister—” The memories still clutched at Summer’s throat. “Everything was damaged from what she’d done. Her throat, her stomach, all that took a long, long time to heal. So I’m glad you couldn’t make yourself do those things.”
Audra sank forward, braced against Summer’s chest. Then she pulled away and brushed hard at her eyes. “None of my clothes fit. I’m fat and I hate it. Tracey says I’m a cow, and she’s not the only one.”
“You’re no bigger than Tracey.”
“She says—” Audra stopped. “I’m not? Really?”
“No question about it.” It was a lie, of course. Audra was trim, with merely a hint of a curve at her hips and chest, while Tracey verged on skeletal. “She’s probably jealous because you have some muscles from playing softball.”
Audra wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want muscles.”
“Sure you do. Muscles and definition are very hot right now. Women in Hollywood kill to get muscles.”
Audra digested this, then looked down at her thin arms. “What if I did want to get strong? How would I do it?”
“The best way I know is kickboxing. For speed, strength, and grace there’s nothing better. Think Chuck Norris. No extra bulk there.”
“You know that kind of stuff?”
“Enough. And yes, I could teach you how. In fact, we could start this afternoon.” Summer glanced pointedly at the empty suitcase on the floor. “Right after you finish packing.”
Audra picked at the sleeve of her jacket. “I don’t know. I don’t seem to have much energy.” She took a deep breath. “I think maybe I need to eat something first.”
Though mentally clapping, Summer forced her face to stay calm. “Probably that would help. Maybe a salad. Toast and a hard-boiled egg. Nothing heavy so that you couldn’t exercise.”
Audra jumped to her feet. “Could you ask Patrick for me? I’ve got to finish packing.” She whirled around suddenly. “Did you mean that other stuff you said, about not swimming?”
Summer nodded.
“Why not?”
Summer felt Audra’s intensity and realized a lie now could destroy the tenuous connection they had made. “It’s a long story, Audra. It’s . . . personal, too.”
The teenager frowned. “Then you can tell me when we get to the ranch. We’ll have time up there.”
Summer didn’t answer.
“It’s something bad, isn’t it? Big bad, not little bad. I told you my stuff, so I think you should tell me yours. That way it’s even, right? Mom always says we should try to be fair and square.”
“She’s right, Audra. But I’d like to . . . think about it first.” Summer stood up, smoothing her sleeve in an automatic gesture.
Then Sophy flew up the stairs with a towel around her neck and Liberace capering on a long red leash, and the subject was forgotten.
Clouds dotted the horizon as Summer watched Sophy tie Liberace’s leash to a beach chair. Audra had called Tracey about using her pool, and in short order they were heading to a big Mediterranean-style villa nearby. Something about the sunlight made Summer try to remember the last time she’d taken a real vacation.
There had been weekend trips to visit her sister in Boston, a few hasty expeditions to buy furniture for her rental apartment in Philadelphia, but no real time off.
No barefoot, sun-and-sand excursions to Antigua or St. Croix. No hedonistic retreats to an isolated Hawaiian beach. After she’d lost her father, stability and economic security had been crucial to Summer, and she had pared her life down to basics: preparing for her job, doing her job, and worrying about her sister. Nothing else mattered. There was no circle of understanding friends, no string of cast-off boyfriends. Unlike her outgoing twin sister, Summer had no people skills, because she had never made time for things she considered nonessential.
When her loneliness hurt, she simply buried herself deeper in her work.
Sophy called to her from the far side of the pool, full of trust and almost frightening honesty. Even Audra was showing signs of good humor as she splashed her sister from the nearby steps.
“Ms. M, aren’t you coming in?” Sophy kicked excitedly toward Summer, grasping a pink float shaped like a turtle on steroids.
“Not right now, honey.”
“Please? The heater is on.”
“It’s still a little cold for me.”
“But—”
“She doesn’t want to swim, Sophy. Just leave it alone, okay?” Audra splashed her sister, then darted an uncertain smile at Summer.
So she’d remembered. Summer was stunned.
“But why not?” Sophy persisted.
The sun was beating down through the big glass windows facing the beach, and Summer pulled off her jacket. To circumvent further questions, she picked up Audra’s Frisbee. “Catch this one, Sophy.” She aimed a low pass across the pool, right into Sophy’s hands. “Great. Now throw it back.” As she spoke, Summer moved backward, arms raised.
She slammed hard into Gabe, who was carrying flowers as a gift for Tracey’s mom—while he kept an eye out for anything unusual outside.
“Sorry,” Summer muttered. “I didn’t know that you—” Her breath caught as Gabe steadied her with one arm while he balanced two big geraniums with his other arm.
“Careful. You were about to fall into the spa.”
Summer ignored the brush of his thigh. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Gabe muttered.
Audra and Sophy studied them intently, and then Sophy kicked closer, scooping up a piece of dirt that had fallen into the pool. She frowned at Summer. “I still don’t understand, Ms. M. Why don’t you come in?”
“I can watch you better out here, honey.”
Sophy turned on her float. “What about you, Gabe?”
“Can’t. Soon as I drop off these flowers for Tracey’s mom, I’ve got four dozen more geraniums to get into the ground at your house.”
Pouting, Sophy rolled off the float, fast as a fish, and kicked away. In the process she doused Gabe, whose tee shirt darkened, clinging to his powerful torso.
Summer refused to look. She was already far too aware of the man.
Suddenly water pelted her, soaking her blouse and pants. Oblivious, Sophy continued to kick across the pool, singing happily. At the far end she climbed up the ladder and then saw Summer. “You’re all wet.”
“Thanks to you,” Audra hissed.
Sophy grabbed her towel and offered it to Summer. “I’m really sorry, honestly.”
Summer was about to answer when Tracey’s cat raced underneath the beach chairs, hotly pursued by Liberace, who yanked his leash free in his wild dash. When the cat turned, the ferret followed, looping back and catching Summer’s foot in the trailing leash.
“Be careful, Ms. M,” Sophy called. “Liberace’s right behind you.”
Summer grabbed vainly for the leash while the cat and ferret circled her in a manic dance. Then Liberace arched his back and jumped onto a pile of towels, the leash snapping taut against Summer’s ankles. Knocked off balance, she toppled sideways and landed in the deep end, with one ankle still wrapped in Liberace’s leash. When she finally managed to kick free, her hair was soaked and her blouse billowed out around her.
“Wow.” Sophy shot up in a storm of bubbles, grabbing Summer’s arm for balance. “Are you okay?” Anxiously, Sophy clutched at Summer. “You can swim. Why did you tell us you couldn’t?”
Then the little girl looked down. Her face went white beneath her freckles. “Why is your arm l-like that?”
Summer didn’t look. She knew exactly what Sophy saw, knew exactly what her scarred skin looked like.
The leash slid off Summer’s ankle. When she looked up, Gabe was holding Liberace. The pity she saw in his eyes was like an icy slap.
She yanked down her sleeve, a sick feeling in her chest. “Could you watch the girls for a few minutes, Gabe? I . . . need to change.”
She heard his gruff assent and Liberace’s nervous chattering, her whole body cold and numb. Too late to hide now. Too late to pretend.
She couldn’t forget Sophy’s look of horror.
Gabe’s look of pity.
“What happened to her?” Sophy’s tremulous voice echoed in the sudden silence.
“I doubt that’s any of our business,” Gabe answered quietly. “And I think swim time is over.”