Local Girls by Jenny O'Connell
It was nothing, I knew that, he just wanted to get a good spot so we’d be able to hear the stories of haunted houses and otherworldly, unexplained island happenings. I tried not to think about how close he stood next to me as the crowd grew and people gravitated toward the center of the courtyard, and instead I concentrated on my ice cream cone.
Just as the sky tinted a cobalt blue and eight deep tones rang out from the church bells in the distance, the ghost lady arrived, kerosene lantern in hand. A hush fell over the crowd, parents shushing their little kids until the only sound was a couple laughing as they passed by on the sidewalk. And that’s when the ghost lady introduced herself to us.
“Welcome to the tour,” she began, holding the lantern up so that the yellow glow illuminated her face and cast a long shadow behind her. Although I’d expected her to be dressed for the occasion, maybe in all black with a cape or something, she was wearing a short-sleeved blouse and a peasant skirt that gathered around her ankles. Not exactly the menacing figure I was expecting.
“Tonight we’ll be visiting some of Edgartown’s longest residents, those who refused to leave the island long after their death.”
A nervous giggle rippled through the group and a few kids clutched their parents’ legs.
Henry slipped a finger through the belt loop on my jeans and pulled me next to him. “Don’t worry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll protect you.”
“You have experience with poltergeists?” I asked, waiting for his finger to let go. But it stayed there, hooked onto my waistband so lightly that I was afraid if I took one step away it would fall loose.
“Not exactly, but I can run pretty fast, so you better keep up.” Henry’s hand finally left my waist when he reached into his pocket for money.
“I’ve got this,” I told him, ready to part with some of the tips from my first week working tables of my own. So far I’d saved one hundred dollars in my Stanford envelope and kept fifty for spending money.
“My treat,” Henry insisted. “You kept me company at five in the morning, I think you’ve earned it.”
The ghost lady collected everyone’s money, stuffing the bills into a drawstring bag she carried over her shoulder, and then led the group down Summer Street toward the Charlotte Inn. Henry and I followed behind like obedient schoolchildren.
Off Main Street, under the cover of trees that obscured what little light the setting sun offered, our group gathered around the white picket fence running along the front of the Charlotte Inn.
Henry and I listened intently as our guide described the recurring visions of a little girl who haunts the main staircase at night, moving up and down the steps, her feet never touching the floor as she floats in midair.
“A few brave people have tried to talk to her and ask questions, but she just continues on her way up the staircase, leaving more questions than answers,” the ghost lady explained, her voice fading away so the image could sink in and adequately freak us all out.
“Have you ever seen anything like that at the Willow?” Henry whispered, the crowd pondering this story for a minute before moving on up the street.
“If I saw anything floating down the stairs, you can bet I wouldn’t hang around long enough to ask any questions.”
The sun had gone down, the sky now a velvety navy blue with just a hint of gold clinging along the most western edge. The flickering flame of the lantern continued down Summer Street and Henry and I fell into line behind a father carrying a very sleepy little boy on his shoulders. While anxious little kids ran ahead, eager to hear the next story, Henry and I hung back.
“Sometimes I feel like Mona’s doing that,” Henry said into the darkness, his hand tapping the tops of the white fence slats as we walked along.
“Doing what?”
“Chasing a ghost, waiting for answers.”
I didn’t have to ask Henry what he meant. Because while I couldn’t wait to graduate, head off to college, and leave stifling island life behind for good, Mona had never wanted to leave. She was waiting for the day someone who didn’t even know she existed would come back to the island to find her.
When we were twelve, Mona convinced me that we should ride our bikes to the ferry in Oak Bluffs. She even made a game out of it, wearing her Hello Kitty watch and timing how long it took us. But once we were there, Mona didn’t care if we made it faster than we thought. She just wanted to sit on the bench beside the dock and watch the ferries coming in. It wasn’t until two ferries had come and gone that I realized Mona wasn’t just tired from pedaling. She was waiting. And watching. And I knew who she was waiting and watching for. Her father.
“Does she still think about finding him?” I asked.
Henry shook his head. “I don’t know. She hasn’t talked about it since Christmas, which is a good thing, right?”
“Right,” I agreed, but added, “I guess I can’t believe she’s finally given up on finding him.”
“I don’t know that she’s given up, she’s just stopped talking about it. I don’t even know if she’s told any of her friends the whole story.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you ever think about him?”
Henry paused before answering. “It’s probably different for Mona, you know? I had Poppy to play ball with, take me to hockey and stuff. I never thought about it like Mona does, like one day he’ll magically appear and buy her a Barbie.”
“Mona did love her Barbies,” I joked, but Henry didn’t laugh. “Do you ever wish Izzy had told him?”
“Well, she never knew his last name, so it’s not like she even had the option.”
“But if she had, if she could have figured it out, do you wish he knew?”
“Look, for the most part I put myself in his place. Would I want some girl I hooked up with one summer calling me to tell me I have not one, but two kids? I don’t care how great a guy someone is, I don’t think that’s a call anyone wants.”
“But she never even let him make the choice,” I reminded him, repeating the argument Mona had made to me over and over again. She at least wanted him to have the choice.
“Let’s be honest here, Kendra. He probably wouldn’t have even returned her call.”
I didn’t want to believe Henry, not so much for myself but for Mona. It just sounded so bleak. I guess after all this time I’d just thought, like Mona, that if her dad knew about her he would have cared. Henry obviously didn’t believe this was true, and if Mona hadn’t even told her new friends about Izzy and what happened that summer, she obviously didn’t think they’d believe it was true either. But I did. I had to, if only so that Mona wouldn’t be the only one.
We’d fallen way behind the tour now, and up ahead the group was gathering around the lantern, ready for the second ghostly sighting.
“I heard you and Robbie were going out this year,” Henry told me as we made our way to them.
“For a little while. It was nothing, really,” I said, explaining five months of my life away in one short sentence. “How did you know?”
Henry tapped the side of his head with his finger. “I know things.”
“Who told you?”
“Ryan, I went and saw him at work. He filled me in on all the gory details.”
I must have looked stricken because Henry laughed. “I’m just kidding, Kendra.”
It shouldn’t have mattered, but still, I’m sure I looked relieved.
“What about you?” I asked him. “Any girlfriends in Boston?”
“There was enough going on this year without adding a girl into the mix.”
“What about now?” I asked, and Henry stopped to look at me. “I just meant, Mona told me some of her friends . . .” I didn’t finish my sentence. We’d reached the group just in time to hear the tour guide telling the tale of two sisters who once lived in the eighteenth-century house, and who now rattle china and shake the floor when they aren’t wandering around arguing with each other.
&n
As the group followed the glow of the lantern, Henry placed his hand on my elbow and held me back.
“We’re going to fall behind again,” I told him, but he didn’t seem to be in any rush to leave.
“We can always catch up.” He leaned against the side of the haunted house, his body disappearing into nothing but a shadowy outline. “Look.” He pointed through the leaves overhead. “A full moon.”
“Where?” I thought I must have turned in the wrong direction, because Henry reached for me and placed his hands on my shoulders and moved me toward him. Only it wasn’t a better view of the moon he was moving me toward, it was the side of the house, and before I could point out that I couldn’t see anything in the shadows Henry leaned in and softly grazed my lips. He tasted minty and cool and instinctively I closed my eyes; everything else, the chatter from the tour group, the car parallel parking on the street, faded away as I focused on the feeling of Henry’s lips against mine.
“Are you that scared?” Henry asked, pulling away. “You’re shaking.”
I was. Only it wasn’t the idea of being pressed up against a house occupied by two-century-old ghosts that had me shaking.
I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell him that I was cold, that the goose bumps on my arms and my trembling hands were nothing more than a physical reaction to the weather. But it had to be eighty degrees out and I doubted Henry would buy it. So instead I told the truth.
“What would Mona say?” I practically whispered.
Even in the dark, I could see Henry’s smile. “Do you really think we need to ask her?” he whispered back.
“You know what I mean.” I wiggled out from under the weight of his body and stepped back into the moonlight, which now seemed like a spotlight overhead. “It’s not right.”
“It’s not wrong,” Henry replied, but he didn’t attempt to pull me into the shadows again. And given the way my body wanted to let him, that was a good thing.
I started toward the sidewalk and Henry followed. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him, but I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Because if I did he would have been able to tell that it wasn’t okay. It was anything but okay.
I thought hanging out with Henry would help me better understand Mona, bring me closer to her in some way. Only instead of acting like Mona’s best friend, I was acting like the girls from Whittier. And I wasn’t just checking her brother out on the beach, I was letting him kiss me. Worse, I liked it. Here I was acting like Devon and Emily and the other Whittier girls when I should have known better. Instead of proving that I was a better friend than those girls could ever be, I was proving that I was just like them.
Chapter 11
“Come on, get up!” Lexi shook my leg, but instead of following her instructions, I rolled over and pulled the blankets over my head.
It was barely even light out, and after yesterday morning’s early wake-up call, I just wanted to sleep in. Unfortunately, Lexi wasn’t taking the hint.
“I said, get up,” she repeated. Then, just to get her point across, she tore the covers off my head and every other part of my body.
“Lexi, it can’t even be six o’clock, let me sleep.”
“It’s 6:01.”
I opened my left eye and glanced at the clock on my night table—6:01.
“This is the big day and we’re all going down to the deli for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.”
This time I opened my left and my right eye. I even managed to lift my head off the pillow. “The what?”
Lexi patted my knee. “I knew that would get you. I’m just kidding about the ribbon cutting, but I’m not kidding about everyone going down there together. So get up and get dressed. Mom and Dad are almost ready. I’ll even whip you up one of my famous egg sandwiches.”
“You don’t even have a famous egg sandwich.”
“Not yet!” she sang. “But today that changes.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Lexi.”
This time Lexi wasn’t playing games. She stood over me and spoke in a very measured, very don’t-screw-with-me tone. “Look, you don’t want to work there, fine. But the least you can do is come with us to open the place.”
“I’m too tired. I’ll come down after work.” I reached for my sheet and pulled it up to my neck. “I promise.”
“Fine,” Lexi agreed, and left my room.
It was just about the biggest day in the Bryant household in the last year, if you don’t count the day my dad announced he was taking a leave of absence from his job. My mom had still been questioning whether it was a good idea even as Lexi gave my dad a pep talk on his way out the door to tell his boss. It was hard to believe that was almost five months ago. Summer had seemed so far away then, and now here it was. Two contractors and five months later, the Pot Belly Deli was finally going to open its doors to the public.
“Bye, Kendra!” my mom called from downstairs. “We’ll see you tonight!”
“Bye,” I called back, and then decided to add at the last minute, “Good luck!” But I was too late. The front door had closed and I could already hear them outside in the driveway—Lexi, Bart, my mom and dad—piling into my dad’s car.
I’d gotten what I wanted. I was still in bed and could probably stay there another twenty minutes. My morning routine had become a science and it didn’t take me more than forty minutes from the time I got up until I was at the bus stop. So I don’t know why I decided to get out of bed and go to my bedroom window, but that’s exactly what I did. And when I got there I watched as the proprietors of Edgartown’s newest deli drove away.
I could hear the four of them laughing as the car disappeared out of sight, and the only thing I could think of was how it reminded me of Lexi and Bart’s wedding. The only things missing were empty soup cans tied to the bumper and a JUST CRAZY sign taped to the trunk.
During my first weeks at the inn I learned that each of the servers worked on having their own rap. Camille was a junior at Boston College. She loved to wait on tables of guests from the city so she could share her knowledge of all things Boston, and in return they loved to leave her big tips. Susan and Tamara were friends from Connecticut who shared tables, tips, and, during the school year, a dorm room. They were sophomores at Trinity saving up to spend their junior year abroad. They mentioned this to guests within the first five minutes of seating them, and it paid off. Increasing the cultural awareness of two college girls was worth at least a 20 percent tip. Marcus, a freshman studying film at NYU, was always angling for a table of New Yorkers, figuring they might know someone in the entertainment business willing to give a chance to the next Steven Spielberg (which is how he described himself to guests). My first week Marcus managed to get the name of the best friend of Meg Ryan’s second cousin. I wasn’t sure how far that would get him, but from the way he practically carried the couple out of the dining room on his shoulders, you’d think Meg Ryan had just agreed to adopt him.
My rap was easy and didn’t require a whole lot of creativity. I was the local girl.
“It must be so great living on the island,” guests would gush to me, and, because agreeable servers were highly tipped servers, I’d gush back, “It’s really wonderful.”
“Tell us all the great places only the locals know about,” they’d whisper to me, as if we were all holding out on them, saving the best restaurants and shopping and beaches for ourselves. I didn’t tell them that the majority of the places they ate, shopped, and hung out weren’t even open when they weren’t here.
Instead, I’d lean in close and tell them the names of restaurants they already knew, beaches they were already planning to go to, and they’d look at one another like they’d been insiders all along. But there was one place I’d started keeping to myself when guests peppered me with questions about out-of-the-way beaches or good
I’d been at the inn barely two weeks, but already I knew that Shelby was the boss of the kitchen. Wendy never came out and said it, and she still handled breakfast on her own when it was Shelby’s day off, but when any of the servers walked through the swinging door, we knew better than to think we were doing anything other than working for Shelby. She begrudgingly let us use the toaster, but even then you could tell by the way she kept an eye on us that she thought we were doing it all wrong.
“It’s a toaster, Shelby,” I said, removing the two slices of whole wheat that had popped up. “I think I can handle it.”
But instead of agreeing with me, she pointed the spoon in her hand toward the rows of jellies, jams, and honeys lined up on the counter. “There’s a new black raspberry preserve, so don’t forget to include it when you’re telling guests what we have to offer.”
Sometimes I’d watch Shelby and try to picture her at UMass, walking to classes or hanging out in a dorm, or even sitting in some cavernous lecture hall listening intently to a professor discuss the governing philosophies of Aristotle or Plato. But I just couldn’t do it. Shelby looked like she belonged in a kitchen, not a lecture hall or a sorority or a university library.
Before Lexi’s brilliant idea to open the deli, my mom sometimes had the Food Network on in the background while she paid bills or cleaned the house or sewed. After Lexi’s brilliant idea, I think it was the only channel my mom watched. And it wasn’t like any of the shows even talked about making sandwiches, unless it was some funky panini I’d never touch, like goat cheese and asparagus. Still, this spring, no matter what time of day, the Food Network was on in our house and one thing I noticed was that there were two types of hosts on those shows. Either the chefs looked like they taste-tested every single dish they made and never came across a food they didn’t like, or they were skinny little things that resembled glamorous game show hosts more than cooks who spent their days surrounded by pounds of butter.