Marquez leapt out of her chair like she’d been ejected. “Are you sure? He didn’t say anything to me, Austin, and I know he would have. And he just started a new job, he’s supposed to work tomorrow, this doesn’t make any sense—”
“Whoa, calm down, Marquez.” Austin sat up. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. I did ask him about his job and he said they were cool with it.”
“How could they be cool with it? I’m not even cool with it!” She grabbed his phone. “Can I use this?”
“Sure.”
Marquez hesitated. “Damn. What’s his boss’s name? Linda something. Linda…Linda…” She pounded the receiver in her palm.
“Calm down, girl. You sneaking into the double espressos again at Jitters?”
“Linda Right? Linda—”
“Rice?” Austin ventured.
“That’s it!” Marquez dialed information, got the number, and waited impatiently for the phone to ring.
“So anyway, about this Summer-Seth situation—” Austin tried, but she ignored him.
“Linda?” she said when a woman answered. “This is Marquez—uh, Maria Marquez, Diver Smith’s girlfriend? I’m really sorry to bug you like this, but I was wondering if you could tell me if he’s scheduled to work tomorrow.”
Marquez listened, said thanks, hung up, and groaned. “He’s scheduled for the next four days straight. She didn’t know anything.” She wrung her hands. Her pulse throbbed in her throat. She couldn’t get enough air. It was like trying to breathe through a straw. “There’s something wrong, Austin. He wouldn’t just split like this unless something were really, really wrong.”
Austin put out his cigarette and stood a little unsteadily. He put his arm around her. “Relax, kid. Nothing’s wrong. Now, come here and sit down. Watch those Oreos. I’m getting you some water.” He led her to the couch. “Take it easy, Marquez. You’ve had a hard week. I mean, you just got out of the hospital a little while ago.”
She nodded, touching the Band-Aid covering her stitches. She’d felt a little like this that night—dizzy, lost. The diet pills, probably, or not eating. She’d fallen, hit her head.
“Austin, Diver tells me everything. He wouldn’t just vanish unless something horrible had happened. You’ve got to think. Did he say anything else? Leave a note, anything?”
Austin handed her a plastic cup from Burger King filled with water. “I don’t think so, Marquez.”
“Did he seem okay?”
“Well, I don’t know Diver that well. He’s always sort of…cryptic. But he did look a little down.” He sat down next to Marquez. “You know, he did say something weird. A message he wanted me to pass along—”
“To me?”
“To Summer, actually. He said something like, ‘Tell Summer she was right about me all along.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
Marquez closed her eyes. “It means he wasn’t feeling good about himself, I can tell you that much. Summer’s not exactly her brother’s biggest fan. She blames him for her parents splitting up, for running out on her family—”
Running out. As soon as she said the words, Marquez realized the truth.
Diver, who had spent his life running from problems, could be running once again.
Without thinking, she reached for Austin’s hand. He held tight and pulled her close. “He would never run out on you, Marquez. He loves you completely.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he told me so. In that Diver way he has. Said you were the only woman who didn’t disturb his wa. Whatever the hell that is.”
She leaned her head on Austin’s warm shoulder. The room was swimming in lazy circles around her. She had to clear her head, get organized. First she’d go see Summer, see if she knew anything. Then…well, she’d deal with then when she got there.
“Maybe he tried to call,” Austin suggested. He reached for the answering machine on the floor, his arm still around Marquez.
The first four messages were all from Marquez. Diver, where are you? Diver, call me. Diver, you said you were going to meet me after work. Damn it, Diver, where are you?
The next was from their boss at Jitters, reminding Austin he’d better be on time for his shift tomorrow.
Then came the last one. Diver, hon. I so enjoyed our little visit this afternoon. Can’t wait to see what develops.
That was it. No name, no number.
“That southern accent,” Austin said. “That’s got to be Caroline.”
Marquez didn’t have to be told. She’d watched Diver at the beach party last night, eyeing beautiful, blond, petite Caroline like a lovesick puppy. She’d seen the looks they’d exchanged, and she’d known what they’d meant.
And now Diver and Caroline had spent the afternoon together. “His leaving,” Marquez whispered. “It’s about Caroline, I know it is.”
“Marquez, my darling, crazed Marquez,” Austin said, planting a kiss on her cheek, “that frothy little southern magnolia can’t hold a candle to you. Diver loves you.”
Marquez looked at him. “Yeah, and Summer loved you,” she said gently.
Austin gave a crooked smile. “You’re making comforting you extremely challenging.”
For a moment they sat together, considering their shared plight. At last Austin rose. “Come on. We’ll go talk to Summer, see if she knows anything.”
“I doubt Summer’s in the mood for visitors right now, Austin.”
“You can tell me all about it on the way. But first let me brush my teeth, assuming I remember how.”
“A little Right Guard wouldn’t hurt either.”
He laughed. She watched him disappear into the bathroom. When he closed the door, she replayed Caroline’s message on the machine. She listened for meaning, for clues in the sweet, musical lilt of Caroline’s voice.
But there was nothing there to hear, no matter how hard she tried.
5
It’s a Dog of a Way to Get Around
It never hurt in the dream. The sizzling embers under his bare feet were as cool as wet stones. The fire licked at his skin, the fumes poisoned his lungs, but he couldn’t feel a thing.
As the fire ate it away, Diver walked through the crumbling house until he found his father, his father who was not really his father, lying under a burning support beam. His clothes were on fire, his hair, even his skin. His mouth was contorted with pain.
He was screaming, but Diver couldn’t hear him.
The dream shifted jerkily, like a badly spliced film. He was lying on the ground outside the house now, the fire behind him. The grass was damp and springy against his cheek. His head was bleeding.
He looked back. The fire was like a living thing. He heard sirens howling.
Somewhere nearby he saw a light come on. A shadow passed by a window.
He climbed to his feet and ran, the way he always did in the dream. He was moving wildly, propelled by fear and by the sound of his father’s screams that now, at last, he could hear.
He turned the corner down the dark street. The sirens and the screams filled his head. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hand—a girl’s hand, familiar and yet not, reaching out to him. The hand extended from the doorway of an old, rickety house. The house seemed to float over a blue, endless ocean.
The sirens grew louder, the screams tore at him, and then Diver reached for the hand.
Something shook him hard. A voice penetrated through the screams. “Wake up, man.”
Diver’s eyes flew open. He saw a beefy forearm layered with blue tattoos.
He was on the Greyhound. It was night. He was headed for Miami, or somewhere like that.
“You musta been havin’ a nightmare, man.” The owner of the tattoos returned to his seat on the other side of the dark aisle.
“Yeah.” Diver ran his fingers through long, blond hair. “I guess.”
“I get those real bad, man.” The tattooed man shrugged. “Course, I’m usually awake.”
Whe
n the Greyhound made a stop just south of Miami, Diver was grateful for the chance to stretch his legs. It was a seedy building, low-slung and dirty, with a small twenty-four-hour restaurant attached to one end.
With his fellow passengers, groggy and grumbling, Diver shuffled off the bus. The driver leaned against the bus, sucking alternately on a Coke and a cigarette, looking as bleary as the rest of them.
Inside, most of the passengers headed for the restaurant, which smelled of grease and bus fumes. But Diver found himself making his way toward the telephones, old-fashioned booths with accordion glass doors. He entered one, sat on the wooden stool, and held the receiver, still warm from its last use.
He wanted so much to call her. Just to hear Marquez’s voice—hear her bitch at him and laugh at him and tell him how she didn’t care what was wrong, just please get his butt home.
He could call, let her answer, hang up.
But she would know who it was. By now she was probably pretty worried. It would be wrong, cruel even, to call her like that.
As if running away from her without a word was somehow kind. He leaned against the glass. He felt something low in his chest, a tight place he associated vaguely with anger. He hadn’t been angry much in his life. He hadn’t felt much at all, actually.
His head hurt the way it had hurt in the dream. As if the dream had been real.
He laughed grimly. Of course, it had been.
He punched 411 into the keypad. “Directory assistance,” a man answered.
“I need the number for Blythe, uh…” What was Caroline’s roommate’s last name? “Blythe Barrett, I think, in Coconut Key.”
“Checking.”
He waited, flashing back to his visit from Caroline this afternoon. I didn’t kill him, he’d told her, but she’d known it wasn’t true, and so had he.
The operator gave him the number. He listened to the dial tone hum. What could he say? Yes, Caroline, you’re right. I did kill him. I burned down the house with my father in it and then I ran like hell. Like I’m running now, so fast you’ll never find me.
He hung up the receiver. What was the etiquette when you were running from your blackmailer? Probably it would not be in your best interest to call and taunt her.
He was hungry. He wasn’t thinking clearly.
He left the phone booth and went to the restaurant. His fellow travelers were camped out, each in separate booths, sullenly munching down day-old fries and burgers. Diver bought an apple and a granola bar and went outside.
The night wrapped itself around him, warm and damp. The bus was idling, filling the air with acrid smoke. Above the big windshield a sign glowed red. Miami.
He didn’t have much cash. It wasn’t the first time. After the fire he’d changed his name and lived on the streets. He could do it again, but the thought of dodging cops and sleazebags and dopers made him deeply tired. He could pick up odd jobs, get by. But he’d liked his last couple of jobs, taking care of injured wildlife at rehab centers. Lousy pay, great work.
A while back Summer had told him he had to get his act together, stop drifting, reacting. Grow up. He really had. He had a job, a place to stay with a roof and four walls, and, of course, his relationship with Marquez.
But a chance meeting with a girl named Caroline had ripped all that from his grasp.
He’d had lunch with Summer just today. It had been tense, like it always was between them these days. But there’d been a moment when she’d reached for his hand and he’d told his sister how much he loved her. At least, he’d told her in his way. He hadn’t exactly said the words.
He wolfed down the granola bar. It surprised him a little, the way he could still have an appetite while his life crumbled around him. How had Marquez starved herself all these months? Hoarding calories like gold, exercising to exhaustion, sneaking diet pills. He should have watched out for her better. He should have made her see how beautiful and perfect she was.
And now there was no one to tell her that.
One by one the other passengers returned to the bus. The driver tossed his cigarette. “Time to go, bud,” he said.
Diver watched him climb the steps. The engine revved. If he got back on that bus, he’d fall asleep.
If he fell asleep, he’d dream again.
He waved the driver on. The doors squealed shut. The bus slowly pulled away.
The fire, the smoke, the screams would have to wait, for a few more hours at least.
6
A Little Night Visiting
Tap. Taptaptap. Tap.
For the second time in one evening Summer awoke in a room that she didn’t recognize. This time, though, it didn’t take her as long to remember that she was at Jared’s—or to remember why.
She checked the glowing digital clock. It was a little after midnight.
Tap. Taptap. Taptap.
Was it hailing? South Florida was famous for its sudden storms, but when she’d been outside with Seth and Jared, the sky had been clear. And why hadn’t she heard any thunder or rain?
She climbed out of bed and went to the window. As she pulled back the curtain the sharp clatter of stones against glass made her jump in surprise. She opened the window.
“Summer! It’s me, Marquez!”
“Marquez?” Summer called. “Who’s that with you?”
“But, soft!” came a male voice, “what light through yonder window breaks?”
“Austin? What are you doing here?”
“Auditioning for summer stock.”
“Let us in, okay?” Marquez called.
“Wait there.”
Summer threw on the robe she’d remembered to pack at the last minute. The hallway was dark. Silently she swept down the wide staircase.
Marquez. It would be so good to see Marquez.
She didn’t let herself think about how it would be to see Austin.
It took her two tries to disarm the door alarm the way Juanita, Jared’s nurse, had taught her before Summer went to bed.
Marquez and Austin were waiting on the wide porch. Summer pulled them in, enforcing silence with a finger to her lips. She led them upstairs to her room and shut the door.
“Be very quiet or they’ll fire me for sure,” she said in a whisper.
Marquez flew into her arms. “Summer, are you okay? I was so worried when you just left behind that note, and now with Diver—”
“What about Diver?”
Marquez burst into tears. Summer looked over at Austin, who was scanning the bookshelves. “Austin? What happened?”
He turned to her, his face grave. “He’s gone, Summer.”
“Gone?”
Marquez was sobbing—great gasping sounds that Summer had never heard her friend make before.
“This evening I ran into him as he was leaving my apartment,” Austin said. “He said he was taking a couple of days off, and that they were cool with it at work.”
“B-bu-but I called his job,” Marquez sobbed. “And th-th-th—”
“They didn’t know anything about it,” Austin finished gently.
Summer led Marquez to the bed. They sat there together, Summer’s arm draped over her friend’s frail shoulders.
“I just saw him this afternoon,” Summer said. “He was sort of down, but he didn’t mention anything to me.” She shook her head. “This would be just like Diver, to run out without a word. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time. He didn’t even leave a note, nothing?”
Marquez shook her head and sniffled. “But I know why he left. It’s that Caroline girl. She left a message on Austin’s machine. They got together today, and at the beach last night he couldn’t take his eyes off her.”
“Marquez,” Austin interrupted, “Diver is not interested in Caroline. He’s in love with you.”
“Diver told me about her, Marquez,” Summer said. “He and Caroline were neighbors when they were kids, that’s all.”
Marquez looked at her hopefully. “Really?”
“He told me at lunch.”
“Still, he had to leave for some reason….” Marquez’s voice faded away.
“Damn it,” Summer muttered, all her pent-up anger at Diver resurfacing. “How could he just walk out like this? I mean, before, when he left Minnesota, I could almost understand. It was a new place, and my family was new to him. It was a hard adjustment, sure. But now? Now, when everything’s going so well? He has a cool job, and he has you—”
She paused, suddenly aware of her rising voice and of Marquez’s soft sobs. There was no point in making things worse. “Marquez, you know Diver,” Summer said, softening her tone. “He gets these whims. He’s probably sleeping on the beach, doing his back-to-nature thing. Truth is”—she forced a laugh—“he probably couldn’t hack living in a normal apartment with Austin.”
“Wouldn’t be the first roommate I’ve driven out,” Austin agreed.
“And after all,” Summer added, “before this, Diver was living in a tree house. He’s not like other guys, Marquez. He’s got this wild streak in him. He’s sort of, well…uncivilized. Give him a couple of days without indoor plumbing or remote controls and he’ll be back, good as new.”
“You think?” Marquez asked.
“I know. He is my brother, after all.”
“Still”—Marquez grabbed a Kleenex box off Summer’s nightstand—“he should have told me. At least when you ran out, you left a note.”
“Interesting,” Austin noted as he thumbed through a thick book he’d pulled off the shelves. “You both pull a disappearing act on the same day. Perhaps this tendency to vanish runs in the family.”
“I did not pull a disappearing act,” Summer said sharply. “I was offered a live-in position and I chose to…to exercise that option. That’s all.”
“And what exactly prompted this…exercising?” Austin asked, smiling just enough to tell Summer he’d heard about her and Seth.
Summer sighed heavily. “Austin, if you already know about Seth and me, why are you asking? And since we’re getting personal, there’s this newfangled invention on the market. It’s called a razor. I’ve got one in my bathroom you could borrow, but I’ve already used it on my legs.”