The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(58)

“We need to call the police.”

A sense of creeping dread crawls up my spine, the backs of my arms, raising gooseflesh. “When we got back from the beach last night, Maui was acting really weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“He ran out here, and sniffed around, and then howled”—I gesture at the trees—“but I couldn’t see anything amiss. So we went inside and locked everything up.”

“Holy shit,” she says. I’m braced for her to yell at me over not keeping Jasmine safe, but instead she says, “They must have come back. Did Maui give any other warning?”

I have to think about it. “No, not that I can think of. We were just reading and listening to music.”

She touches my arm. “I’ll call the police.”

A fine trembling has started in my veins, and before it can turn to visible tremors, I go back inside and sit down at the table with Jasmine, forcing myself to only look at the seagull. He has a striped tail, not quite black but darkest gray. Yul Brynner has hopped up on a stool inches away from the bird and is making hiccupy hunting sounds that make Jasmine laugh even more. “What is he doing?”

Focus on the now.

“He is under the mistaken impression that he could take that gull down.”

“Like kill him?” Jasmine asks, eyes wide.

“He can’t,” I say as reassuringly as possible. “That gull is bigger than he is, but cats like hunting.”

“Does he ever catch other birds?”

“No.” I pick up my toast and think about taking a bite, but the bright-red paint floats across my vision and I set it back down. “He’s an indoor cat. He does sometimes catch mice or bugs.”

“Aw! Poor mice.”

“I try to get them outside.”

Phoebe comes back into the room and nods. Something about the angle of her head is softer, and I remember that she had a date with a hot guy last night. It gives me something else to fill the place where my worry wants to ramp itself up. “Want some tea?”

She lets go of a breath, kisses Jasmine’s head, and says, “Sure.”

“Can I play on my iPad?”

“Yes, just for an hour.” Phoebe slides into the vacated chair. I click the button on the kettle and it’s nearly hot already so I prepare a cup for her, a hearty English breakfast single source I discovered in London. As I settle the cup in front of her, along with milk and sugar and a small spoon, I say, “So . . . how was your night?”

Everything about her softens, all the angles of elbow and neck and jaw, and she looks out toward the sea. “Really good.”

I wait, but she gazes toward the waves with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?” I lean in, whisper, “Did you sleep with him?”

She blushes, neck to hairline, and says, “I don’t kiss and tell.”

I laugh. “You don’t have to.”

In a gesture I remember from our youth, she covers her cheeks with her hands, presses her lips together. Her eyes shine over the top of her fingers. She nods, slowly.

I reach over and squeeze her forearm. “Good.”

A knock sounds at the door, and Jasmine dashes into the foyer. “Wait, baby,” I cry. I leap up. “I’ve got it!”

I run to the door and haul it open, but it’s not the police. It’s Joel, and I feel myself getting shaky again. I forgot he was coming to bring a new part for the breaker box.

He scowls as he points to the scrawled word on my house. “What the hell?”

“We called the police.” I shake my head, but the trembling starts again in my body, and this time I get flutters of the baseball bat against my head—flash—a razor buzzing away my hair—flash—

I squeeze my eyes tight, shake my head, trying to fling the memories away. Joel takes my arm. Maui noses my leg.

Jasmine. She’s inside.

I suck in a breath, center myself in my gut, blow out the breath, open my eyes. Joel is close, and I see a circular scar beside his mouth that I remember. Focus. Breathe in. His lips are thinner than they once were—he had such full lips for a boy—but still beautiful, his mouth wide and, just now, stern.

“Okay?” he asks.

I look up, meet his velvet, dark gaze, nod. “I’m good. Thanks.” It feels weird to speak in such ordinary ways, and I feel our old selves, hungry and lost, behind all the polite moves of our reacquainted selves.

It happens, I tell myself. People meet again. What was is just what was.

A car pulls up outside, and it’s the sheriff. A middle-aged man, tanned and ropy like a runner, steps out. “Hey, Bryce,” Joel says.

He comes up the walk. “How you doing, Joel,” he says and shakes his hand, like he’s the one who made the phone call.

“I’m fine,” he says. “She’s the one who has a problem.”

Bryce nods. He has close-cut blond hair and a face carved of sharp angles. His last name will be Larsen or something spelled with an e instead of o to designate his Norwegian roots. A village of former Norwegians settled here long ago, and their roots go deep.

Until he looks up, he doesn’t register who I am, and then he does. “Ms. Ogden. Pleasure.”

I reach out a hand to greet him, and give him my solid shake. He returns it respectfully.