I swam over to the wall and rested my arms on the edge. "The second."
"I couldn't sleep so I went for a walk," he said, shrugging. He was lying. He'd only come outside to smoke.
"How did you know I was out here?" I demanded.
"You always swim out here at night, Belly. Come on." He took a drag of his cigarette.
He knew I swam at night? I'd thought it was my special secret, mine and Susannah's. I wondered how long he had known. I wondered if everyone knew. I didn't even know why it mattered, but it did. To me, it did. "Okay, fine. Then when did you start smoking?"
"I don't know. Last year, maybe." He was being vague on purpose. It was maddening.
"Well, you shouldn't. You should quit right now. Are you addicted?"
He laughed. "No."
"Then quit. If you put your mind to it, I know you can." If he put his mind to it, I knew he could do anything.
"Maybe I don't want to."
"You should, Conrad. Smoking is so bad for you."
"What will you give me if I do?" he asked teasingly. He held the cigarette in the air, above his beer can.
The air felt different all of a sudden. It felt charged, electric, like I had been zapped by a thunderbolt. I let go of the edge and started to tread water, away from him. It felt like forever before I spoke. "Nothing," I said. "You should quit for yourself."
"You're right," he said, and the moment was over. He stood up and ground his cigarette out on the top of the can. "Good night, Belly. Don't stay out here too late .You never know what kind of monsters come out at night."
Everything felt normal again. I splashed water at his legs as he walked away. "Screw you," I said to his back. A long time ago Conrad and Jeremiah and Steven convinced me that there was a child killer on the loose, the kind who liked chubby little girls with brown hair and grayish-blue eyes.
"Wait! Are you quitting or not?" I yelled.
He didn't answer me. He just laughed. I could tell by the way his shoulders shook as he closed the gate.
After he left, I fell back into the water and floated. I could feel my heart beating through my ears. It thudded quick-quick-quick like a metronome. Conrad was different. I'd sensed something even at dinner, before he'd told me about Aubrey. He had changed. And yet, the way he affected me was still the same. It felt just exactly the same. It felt like I was at the top of the Grizzly at Kings Dominion, right about to go down the first hill.
Chapter ten
"Belly, have you called your dad yet?" my mother asked me. "No."
"I think you should call him and tell him how you're doing."
I rolled my eyes. "I doubt he's sitting at home worrying about it." "Still."
"Well, have you made Steven call him?" I countered.
"No, I haven't," she said, her tone level. "Your dad and Steven are about to spend two weeks together looking at colleges. You, on the other hand, won't get to see him until the end of summer."
Why did she have to be so reasonable? Everything was that way with her. My mother was the only person I knew who could have a reasonable divorce.
My mother got up and handed me the phone. "Call your father," she said, leaving the room. She always left the room when I called my father, like she was giving me privacy. As if there were some secrets I needed to tell my father that I couldn't tell him in front of her.
I didn't call him. I put the phone back in its cradle. He should be the one calling me; not the other way around. He was the father; I was just the kid. And anyway, dads didn't belong in the summer house. Not my father and not Mr. Fisher. Sure, they'd come to visit, but it wasn't their place. They didn't belong to it. Not the way we all did, the mothers and us kids.
Chapter eleven
AGE 9
We were playing cards outside on the porch, and my mother and Susannah were drinking margaritas and playing their own card game. The sun was starting to go down, and soon the mothers would have to go inside and boil corn and hot dogs. But not yet. First they played cards.
"Laurel, why do you call my mom Beck when everyone else calls her Susannah?" Jeremiah wanted to know. He and my brother, Steven, were a team, and they were losing. Card games bored Jeremiah, and he was always looking for something more interesting to do, to talk about.
"Because her maiden name is Beck," my mother explained, grinding out a cigarette. They only smoked when they were together, so it was a special occasion. My mother said smoking with Susannah made her feel young again. I said it would shorten her life span by years but she waved off my worries and called me a doomsdayer.
"What's a maiden name?" Jeremiah asked. My brother tapped Jeremiah's hand of cards to get him back into the game, but Jeremiah ignored him.
"It's a lady's name before she gets married, dipwad," said Conrad.
"Don't call him dipwad, Conrad," Susannah said automatically, sorting through her hand.
"But why does she have to change her name at all?" Jeremiah wondered.
"She doesn't. I didn't. My name is Laurel Dunne, same as the day I was born. Nice, huh?" My mother liked to feel superior to Susannah for not changing her name. "After all, why should a woman have to change her name for a man? She shouldn't."
"Laurel, please shut up," said Susannah, throwing a few cards down onto the table. "Gin."
My mother sighed, and threw her cards down too. "I don't want to play gin anymore. Let's play something else. Let's play go fish with these guys."
"Sore loser," Susannah said.
"Mom, we're not playing go fish. We're playing hearts, and you can't play because you always try to cheat," I said. Conrad was my partner, and I was pretty sure we were going to win. I had picked him on purpose. Conrad was good at winning. He was the fastest swimmer, the best boogie boarder, and he always, always won at cards.
Susannah clapped her hands together and laughed. "Laur, this girl is you all over again."
My mother said, "No, Belly's her father's daughter," and they exchanged this secret look that made me want to say, "What, what?" But I knew my mother would never say. She was a secret-keeper, always had been. And I guessed I did look like my father: I had his eyes that turned up at the corners, a little girl version of his nose, his chin that jutted out. All I had of my mother was her hands.
Then the moment was over and Susannah smiled at me and said, "You're absolutely right, Belly. Your mother does cheat. She's always cheated at hearts. Cheaters never prosper, children."