“It does, I guess, in a way.”
“If you have a shred of decency in you, you understand that truth. After Kim died, I made a promise to myself that when Ambletern was mine, I would do everything in my power to see that the island was returned, once and for all, to its rightful owners. The Guale are gone, so I went and found the next best thing.”
The next best thing? It was a bizarre way of putting it. Like Native people were nothing more than one big, nonspecific ethnic group. And they would want Bonny even though it hadn’t been their ancestors’ original territory.
She finally stopped. Turned to face me. She was breathing hard and pouring sweat. I could see where a branch had caught her along the neck. There was a line of red, a scratch, oozing and angry, leading down to the hollow of her throat.
“I can’t undo the past. But I can do my part to change the future . . . at least when it comes to Bonny.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” I said. But I couldn’t help wondering if Laila, Esther, and Koa ever got together and had a good laugh about Doro’s white-savior complex. It felt a little on the self-congratulatory side. A little weird.
“You sure you’re not Native?” Doro studied me.
“No. I’m Creole, Brazilian, and who knows whatever else. From my father.”
She nodded.
“I didn’t know him,” I blurted. “He died soon after I was born.”
She straightened. And smiled at me. I smiled back, even though I wasn’t sure why, exactly, since I’d just said my father was dead. Sometimes, I had to admit, Doro made me uneasy.
“Ah,” Doro said. “Here we are.”
We were standing before a bramble of long, sharp-leafed branches, all of them loaded with dark-purple fruit. She tossed one of the buckets to me.
“Only get the ripest ones,” she said. “We should have more than enough for a pie and Laila’s jam.”
I hesitated, feeling the woods rustle around me. Or maybe I was sensing the presence of something that didn’t belong. Someone watching us. Once I read that there’s a special area of your brain devoted to detecting the gaze of others. Even though you may not be looking directly at them, you sense them watching at the fringes of your awareness. Right at that moment, I felt like prey being stared down by a predator.
I reached for the first blackberry and felt a sharp sting on my hand. I snatched it back and pressed it against my mouth. “Ouch.”
“Oh, yeah,” Doro said from her spot. “Watch for the thorns.”
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 8
“Darling,” Delia said to Kitten.
“May I go upstairs and see Mrs. Cormley?” Kitten asked.
Cormley steadfastly kept at work on his plate.
“Kitten, dear,” Delia said. “Let’s leave the Cormleys alone, all right? Fay will find something else for you to do today, so poor Mrs. Cormley can get her rest.”
Kitten turned her cool gaze on Dr. Cormley. “It’s just that I’m so lonesome for a friend. And Mrs. Cormley is so sweet.”
Cormley didn’t respond, he just carried the plate out of the room like he hadn’t even heard. Kitten looked at the boy, Henrick, who was sitting across the table from her.
“Would you like to go swimming?”
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Eighteen
Apparently, I was expected to make the blackberry pie, the whole thing, entirely on my own. The idea struck me as a particularly merciless form of hazing. Especially since I’d never baked anything in my entire life, with the exception of chocolate-chip freezer cookies.
Doro ignored my litany of protests and propped a tattered, food-stained cookbook in front of me on the counter. It was opened to a recipe entitled “Mama Peg’s Blackberry Pie.” She informed me that everything I needed in order to do Mama Peg proud could be found right there, in that very kitchen.
“Exactly, and her name is Laila,” I said.
Doro threw open the fridge. She pulled out a bottle of icy white wine. “Funny, Meg,” she said, uncorking it.
I perked up. “Wine?”
“From my private stash,” Doro said. “If your pie passes the test tonight, I’ll share.”
“We keep it in the cellar,” Esther said. “You’re welcome to it anytime.”
“Traitor,” Doro said.
Laila, taking pity on me—and possibly worried that I was about to do irreversible damage to her kitchen—began to stack bowls and measuring spoons and sifters around me. Then she, Esther, and Doro sat and proceeded to knock back glass after glass of wine (as well as a plate of brie and grapes) as they shouted instructions and encouragement from their perches.
After I threw out the first batch of runny dough, I begged for my own glass.
“No drinking and baking,” Doro declared.
“She’s all tight in the shoulders,” Laila said. “She’s nervous. You can’t bake nervous.”
“Okay. Give her some wine.”
Esther poured a glass and trotted it over to me.
“But you have to stay focused, Meg,” Doro said. “Portions are essential here. You can’t just throw in a little of this and a little of that.”
“My mother didn’t teach me to bake, you know,” I grumbled and guzzled half the glass. Then I upended more flour into the measuring cup. “She taught me how to tip a concierge and order enough champagne for a table of thirty.”
“Maybe we should get Koa in here,” Doro said. “He’d get her loose.” The three women cackled and clinked their glasses.
“Jeez,” I muttered.
“You think he’s pretty cute, eh, Meg?” Laila asked.
I poured in the ice water and went at the new batch of dough with a wooden spoon. “You will not break my spirit. You will not.”
“He’s been working here an entire year, and I’ve never seen him so on top of the lawn maintenance,” Doro said. “He’s been so attentive to everything around the house. He’s edged about ten times in the last week.”
“Ladies.” I dumped out the dough and started kneading. “Your drunk is showing.”
“Don’t mind us,” Doro said. “You just do your job and bake the damn pie.”
“What about the rest of supper?” I said. “I mean, I hope this thing turns out, but Laila’s making other stuff, right?”
“Nope,” Laila said.
I twisted around, my hands buried in the dough, hair curtaining my face. “What?”
“No supper on Pie Night. Just pie on Pie Night.” She took a swig of wine.
“What if it doesn’t turn out?” I asked.
“Koa goes back to hanging out at the mission ruins, and the lawn grows back to its original shaggy state,” Esther hooted, and they clinked glasses.
“Why does Koa hang out at the mission?” I asked.
“He likes to look for artifacts out there,” Esther said. “Like pottery and rocks.”
I glanced at Doro.
“Not that rock, surely,” I said. “He’s not one of those nutcases.” I looked at the other two women. “Is he?”
Laila waved me off. “No, no. He just likes archaeology. Indiana Jones stuff.”