“Really, Mom likes to play hostess sometimes. I think selling souvenirs and telling fortunes gets boring. Right, Mom?” Renée asked while rinsing her plate, then adding it to the dishwasher.
“Yes, I suppose so, but I enjoy it most of the time. Now, get the dessert plates, and I’ll bring the pie.”
“Yes ma’am!” Renée saluted her mother.
“Teenagers,” she said. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
“Like men,” Ali said, then realized she probably shouldn’t have said that.
“Exactly,” Valentina agreed. “Most of them are asses. If not, they’re either gay or married.” She took the pie from the refrigerator, and Ali followed her out to the deck.
“Yes, most of them are jerks. Maybe there a few good ones out there, but who has the time to search? I’ve been on a couple of dates that turned into nightmares, but I’ll save that story for another time.” Ali didn’t want to discuss her horrid dates in front of Renée.
“Come on, I love dating disasters,” Renée encouraged her. “Right, Mom?”
Valentina sighed. “Yes, you’ve watched too many episodes of that Bachelor show. Real life isn’t quite the same. Besides, Alison’s personal business is none of ours.”
Valentina sliced the pie, each portion enough for two. She placed the matching dessert plate in front of Ali. “This looks delicious. I can’t remember the last time I had pie.” She did remember wishing for pie when she was a little girl. More than once, the Sterling family would have dessert in front of her and her foster brothers, but never offered them any. At the time, she thought pies and cakes were only for grown-ups. After her episode with the family tree assignment, she’d realized Craig and Martha Sterling were not an example of normal parents.
“Ali, are you okay?” Valentina asked, her voice laced with concern.
“I’m sorry, I was lost in my thoughts,” she explained, forcing the images of the Sterlings from her brain.
“So, what were they?” Renée asked as she dug into her pie.
“Renée! Stop being so nosy.”
“It’s okay. Honestly, I was thinking about my foster parents.”
“Oh wow, were they mean?” Renée asked, not caring that her mother had just scolded her for asking too many personal questions.
Ali cleared her throat. “That is a loaded question.” Unsure how or if she should answer, she explained, “Some were, and others had financial motives.”
“Well, crap, how many foster parents do you have?”
“Renée, that’s enough! Ali’s past is none of our business. Your nosiness is going to get you in trouble soon,” Valentina admonished.
“It’s fine, really. I don’t mind telling my story,” she said, knowing she wasn’t being completely honest.
“So what happened? Did they like lock you in the basement, or did they try to starve you?”
Ali couldn’t help but laugh. “No, I never starved, though I did stay in a basement once when I was being punished. Caring for children, whether they’re your own flesh and blood or a foster child, is the ultimate responsibility. Folks who start out with good intentions often find kids from broken homes, or those who’ve had dealings with law enforcement, are too much for them to handle, yet they’re afraid to admit this. To themselves and those in authority who place the children in their care, it puts them in a bad light, so they continue to take in kids who find themselves in situations where the parent can’t care for them. They collect money from a government agency, and often the kids suffer because the foster parents don’t want to give up the money.”
“Mom, do we know any foster families?”
Valentina shook her head. “None that I know of.”
“So, how did you end up, you know . . . living?”
Alison said, “I was fine, really. I had a few issues with some of my foster parents, but in the end, it worked out for me. It was a long time ago. I’m content with my life now.” This was a total bullshit story, but sometimes revealing the truth, at least her truth, scared those who hadn’t lived as she’d had to. There was no point in upsetting her new friends. Maybe in time, if they really got to know each other, she would tell them more about her past, though she would leave out the part that had sent her running when she graduated from high school. That alone would be enough to lose any hope of remaining friends with them. Again, the past is prologue. Maybe that idiom—if it even was an idiom—popped into her head when she needed to be reminded of what she had to lose if that particular part of her life were to be uncovered.
“I, for one, am glad I saw you on the beach. We don’t have any neighbors that stay here year-round, except for . . . John.”
Something about the way Renée said his name struck Ali as off.
“Is he that bad?” Ali asked, her thoughts returning to the bone she’d dug up earlier.
“I don’t like to talk about him,” Valentina said. “I get so pissed off, but you should know, it’s best to stay away from him. His family continues to pay those in power, hoping people will forget all that he’s been accused of, but most of the islanders know better.”
Ali wanted to ask Valentina what she thought about the bone she’d discovered. Did she believe John had any connection to it, and possibly the other bones that were discovered years ago?
“As I said, I had a brief encounter with him at the mango festival. He didn’t impress me,” Ali told Valentina. “His kind are usually bad news.” That was putting it mildly.
“Mom, tell her all the crap he’s accused of,” Renée said, her voice pumped up a level. “She should know, just in case.”
“I know he’s been accused of messing around with little girls.” Just saying the words made Alison sick. How did a man like this have the audacity to ruin the life of an innocent child?
“This isn’t a conversation to have with new friends,” Valentina told Renée, then spoke to Alison. “Another time, maybe, but be careful around him. He’s dangerous. Has been for as long as I can remember.”
“You’ve known him a long time?” Ali had to ask.
Valentina picked at the graham cracker crust left on her plate. “Since we were kids. Even then, his behavior was off the charts. His parents sent him to a private Catholic high school in town, hoping the strict environment would have a positive effect on him. I think he’s just a bad seed. He hangs around the bait shop owned by his family, acts like he’s just another beach bum, but when you’re around him for a while, he’ll show his true colors.”
Alison knew men like him were evil. She would do her best to avoid him, but if he initiated trouble of any kind, she wouldn’t hesitate to use her weapon to intimidate him. Could she actually shoot him if it came down to that? She never wanted to be in that position.
“I saw a bit of his true colors, and that was enough for me. Not my kind of guy,” Ali added.
“Just beware if you see him lurking around. He’s been known to peep into windows more than once,” Valentina told her.