“Nothing. She covered her face with her hands.”
Suddenly Novak smacks the table, making me jump. “Where’s Saskia? Who’s got her? Is it Freddy? Or your mom? Are we really going to have to do this the hard way?” He crouches to get a proper view of my face. “Is Saskia dead, Angela? Is she being held? Or worse? If you know anything—anything at all—do you understand what it means not to tell me?” His next question comes out as a roar. “Why don’t you care?”
I slide my hands under my thighs. Novak sits down, knocking his chair back a few inches, and when I glance up he’s smoothing his hair back into place.
“Do you know where we found Saskia’s elephant necklace, Angela?”
“I’ve told you, no.”
“In your copy of Jane Eyre. On your bedside table. That is what we need to talk about.”
chapter
* * *
16
The necklace was put into my book. She did it secretly. I swear I had no clue it was in there until Novak yelled the fact at me. It must have been pressed in a curl between pages near the back, the weight of the book holding it fast. Novak doesn’t believe me, of course. He won’t consider that someone else put it there. No, he’s convinced I’m the villain, even though one necklace can’t prove anything. He’s biding his time, one eye on the clock, one hand on his pager, hoping somebody will bring him something conclusive. In the meantime, he badgers me with endless questions. Why did you stay so close to the Parkers? Weren’t you just torturing yourself? His desperation to be done with me is sketched thick around him like a caricature. The interview’s draining us both: I’m as fidgety as he is. But we’re locked in now, two tired swimmers clinging to the same rope, neither of us able to let go until we reach the safety of an ending.
Why did I stay in Cove? It’s a good question, but at the time I just remember thinking that I needed to be around the familiar. And where else was I meant to go? HP was here. But as much as I wanted to run into him, our meetings were frustratingly rare. I suppose our schedules didn’t match any longer—once I was done with my degree, I worked every day until past four, and he was coaching full-time at Lakeside High—they’d delayed hiring him until he got back from Australia. I’m not sure what he did when he clocked off at 3 p.m., but most likely he went home to renovate his house. He built a home while Saskia built a baby. She wasn’t the only one doing that: quite a few girls I’d graduated with were now pushing strollers around the grocery store, looking shadowy-eyed and bewildered. The rest of my grad class had fled the town—only the marrying kind remained. Beyond that, a new wave of eighteen-year-olds swaggered around like they owned the place. They had no idea how much harder life would get for them.
Unlike HP, Saskia was easier to find. In the months after their wedding celebration she grew more and more swollen. By Halloween, when we crossed paths in the furniture store, she must have been eight months pregnant. She looked like the pumpkins on our porch.
“We hadn’t planned to start a family so soon,” she crooned, caressing the curve of her belly under her stretched-out Billabong fleece. “But you know, with HP, it’s hard to turn the guy down!”
I smiled with the lower half of my face. Mom was with me, shopping for new bedding for the lakeside house. At the time, I hadn’t realized it would be her who would sleep in it.
“You move fast,” I heard Mom say behind me. “Is that an Australian thing?”
“Pardon?” Saskia pronounced the word as if it contained four a’s.
“You know, early Australians battling through the mangroves, fighting back malaria, all convicts together building a home?”
Saskia brushed long bangs from her forehead, watching Mom test the thread count of cotton sheets by rolling them between her thumb and forefinger.
“Are you having a boy or a girl?” My tone was flat.
“Hopefully one or the other,” she trilled.
Nobody laughed.
Mom touched my shoulder lightly. “I’m sure it’ll be a little angel, whatever it is.”
“Thanks, that’s nice.” Saskia turned to me. “LJ, we should rent a movie together and eat popcorn in our tracky dacks. Girls’ night. It would be heaps fun.”
She hugged me good-bye and left us to wander on through the store. Mom turned to me.
“I can’t stand her.”
I didn’t say a word.
A week before the baby was born, HP called me from school and asked if we could meet up for a drink.
“What, in the evening time?” I asked. I was totally taken aback.
“Early evening for an hour or so? It’s nothing major; I just want to see you.”
I tried not to sound too excited. “Um, Friday’s free for me.”
“Perfect. Four o’clock at Fu?”
“Sure.”
It was the start of December and snowing for the first time. When I walked over to the bar, the flakes were fluffy and lovable in ways they would no longer be come February. There wasn’t much traffic, and everything felt still, quiet. Fairy lights twinkled in the apartment buildings above the shops on Main Street, and in some windows I could just make out the side of a Christmas tree. People were buying them earlier and earlier: soon stores would sell them as a two-for-one deal with Thanksgiving turkeys.
At Fu Bar things had changed. Tinkering jazz played on the stereo, a light flutter of piano keys here, a soft saxophone there. The bar was empty, aside from a few murmuring lawyer types on barstools, drinking European beer in tall glasses and shaking salted almonds in their fists like dice before dropping them into their mouths.
I took a seat at a table far enough from the door. HP came in at ten past four. He wore a black bomber jacket and trendy, dark jeans that Saskia must have had a say in. His dockworker-style toque was pocked with snow; he took it off and banged it against his thigh.
“Am I late?” He checked an oversized watch at his wrist that looked like it would save him in a survival situation. “Sorry, the roads are ugly coming in from the lake.” He settled into his chair, his cheeks flushed with cold. “Have you been here awhile?”
“No.” I looked around. “Look at this place. Nothing’s the same.”
“You should see it out back. The Ping-Pong tables are gone and the back deck’s now a terraced barbecue area . . .” He faltered as he mentioned the area we’d kissed in two short years ago. “Anyway, you look lovely. Elegant.” He stared at me in my thin black sweater.
“Thank you.”
“How’s life? Are you still working at the library?”
“No, I got a new position in vital statistics. It pays more and it’s more . . . interesting.”
“Well, good, that’s good. You need to be challenged.” He’d learned teacher-speak. Had he invited me here for career guidance? “How are things with your folks?”
“Oh, they’re all right, I guess. They fight a lot. You know how they are. Anyway, I’m less idealistic these days about true love and partnership.”