On the school’s front steps, a few students larked about in the spring sunshine. But nobody who looked like Cassie. As she reached for the ignition, a girl with short dark hair and Cassie’s slender frame waltzed through the door, her arm draped over a boy in a leather jacket. She stopped and nuzzled the boy’s neck, playfully pushing her knee between his legs.
As Erin started the engine, the girl turned her head in her direction. Cassie, no question about it. She glared at Erin for several seconds, her posture rigid, a sullen look on her face, before whispering something in the boy’s ear. He smirked and wrapped her in a bear hug. Behind his back, Cassie shoved her middle finger high in the air, before stepping away, hands balled into fists. ‘Stop stalking me.’ She fixed her eyes on Erin, her face tight with fury. ‘Or I’ll call the police.’
24
Belle River, Maine
July 1977
He stumbles on the rocks above the beach, nearly dropping the crate of lobsters. A leaden sea sloshes in the fading light. It’s taken him twenty minutes of slogging through the woods to reach his father’s so-called secret cove. The town beach isn’t good enough for one of his famous parties. Ruined by out-of-towners with their fat wives and smelly egg salad and tinny radios. Or so he claims.
The rock-strewn spit of sand is a far cry from the yacht club, but even here the old devil manages to hold court. Master of ceremonies in his mirror sunglasses and a sky-blue polo shirt with the neck unbuttoned. Green and yellow checked shorts ride up over his father’s sunburned knees as he kneels to dig a bottle of Lowenbrau from a plastic cooler. His white teeth flash as he salutes his guests, though the smile sours when he catches sight of Tim. There’ll be hell to pay later, though who knows what he’s done this time. It’s always something. But he’s safe for now. The self-proclaimed wizard of the cocktail hour won’t let anything spoil his party.
As he trudges down the sand with the poor beasts struggling to escape the crate, the guests’ faces swim into view. The yacht club crowd. Summer people, mainly, though he recognises one of the fat-cat lawyers from the Portland office. The blonde lady with the frosty smile and tinkly laugh is making a ‘poor you’ face at his mother, who’s developed an ugly rash from something she ate. Swanning across the sand, the blonde lady flashes her long legs in an orange and white mini-dress. Next to her, his mother looks dumpy and glum. The jingle-bell titter grates on his nerves. Give it up, lady. No one wants to see your wrinkly knees.
‘The prodigal son, here at last.’ His father’s voice rises above the water slapping against the rocks. He smiles for his guests, but the words are tipped with ice.
He’s late. Before picking up the lobsters, he’d stopped by Jeremy’s for a couple of hits off his friend’s bong. His eyes, a tad bloodshot, might give him away, but he doesn’t care. All summer, his father’s been treating him like his own personal slave, and he’s sick of it.
‘Ooh, lobsters. How marvellous,’ the blonde woman says in a fluty voice. ‘You clever man.’ She tilts her chin and taps his father playfully on the arm. ‘You’d think there wouldn’t be a single lobster left in the state after last week’s regatta. And what a triumph that was.’ She bats her mascaraed eyes. ‘People will be talking about it for years.’
‘I happen to have a top-secret source,’ his father says, clinking his bottle of beer against the woman’s cocktail glass. They giggle like teenagers.
Perched on a piece of driftwood, his mother squirts a blob of white cream from a tube and smears it on her arms.
He picks his way down the rocks, hugging the crate to his chest. Poor beasts, scrabbling in their cardboard prison. Do they know that death is imminent? When school starts, he’s going to swear off meat and let his hair grow out. That’ll piss off the old man. You’d think he’d invented filet mignon and prime rib, the way he goes on about the benefits of a bloody steak. Washed down, of course, with liberal amounts of Scotch or gin. From now on, he’ll stick to carrots.
Near the fire pit, he drops the crate and tries to rub some life back into his arms. From the other side of the headland, a boy his age clambers into view, clutching a basket of seaweed against his bare chest. Crap. It’s the skinny kid who hangs around with that Viking asshole. What’s he doing here?
His father salutes the kid with a bottle of Lowenbrau. ‘There’s the man of the hour.’ A grin splits his face. ‘Without this marvellous harvest of seaweed, ladies and gentleman, there would be no steamed lobsters. So, let’s all give Louie a round of applause.’
As the boy lowers the basket to the ground, he’s got a stupid grin on his face, as he basks in the light of the old man’s praise.
Tim snorts in disgust. Does his father know that his skinny-assed hero is the biggest hophead at school?
With plenty of backslapping, and joking around, the kid and his father set to work lining the fire pit with seaweed. As the coals spit and smoke, the rich smell of the seabed, with its fish bones and scuttling claws, billows in the air. At long last, the lobsters are ceremoniously lowered to their deaths, antennae waving in a final plea for mercy.
His father slips a wad of folded notes into the boy’s hand and slaps him on the back once more.
‘Thanks, Mr Stern.’
The Boy Scout grin is bogus. Christ. If his father only knew. ‘Don’t mention it. And, hey, why don’t you stick around?
There’s plenty of grub. No need to rush off if you don’t have to.’ He
