The Ocean House. Mary-Beth Hughes

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СКАЧАТЬ even if she did have to go to hell. Their mother had protected Paige against the boy ghost and the ocean. Like their mother, they only swam in the pool. And one time she’d found Paige in the dark rock cellar: I see you, darling. Come out now. She’d been missing for so long, their father had given up and feared the worst. Courtney had forgotten about all that.

      Don’t move, Ruth said. Don’t move a muscle.

      But to her father, Courtney had become invisible. The corrupt thieving assholes on the town council, the bastards at the Beach Club. He turned blood red. Courtney knew how this might unfold. Sometimes their mother had hidden them in the ocean house, hidden herself. But Ruth was too stupid and the house too small for really hiding. Courtney slithered down lower in her chair as a warning, staring at Ruth until finally she got the hint and relented. I’ll call you girls in a bit. Out! Out! Right this instant.

      Turn it up, Courtney said in the den. Quick.

      You, said Paige. But when the voices got louder in the kitchen, she threw Courtney the remote.

      They lay low together on the sofa. On the television, a triple homicide and not a single suspect so far. The detectives were stumped. Courtney couldn’t follow the story.

      Of the three boys still left in the orchard, the ones who hadn’t graduated last year, Courtney preferred the youngest, Eddie, with the leaky-blue-pen girlish lips. He was in the other sixth-grade class. On the playground, if she kept very still she could feel him watching her from within the clump of boys who shuffled around under the basketball hoop. The dark head of probably Eddie turned slightly toward her. She could feel it. Like an arrow. A dart.

      She asked Paige, casually, through the veil of the loud TV, she was just wondering, if Eddie had ever said much about her.

      About who? asked Paige, her head turning sideways, ready, for once, to give a straight answer. Who do you mean?

      Courtney waited a moment. Paige was teasing her. Then she realized, no, she wasn’t. She hadn’t heard her. Well, I mean, does he mention Fiona Murphy? asked Courtney.

      Not a prayer, snorted Paige. Good one.

      In a little while, Ruth appeared in the door then closed it behind her. Turn that down, will you?

      Courtney pushed the mute.

      Set up the TV trays and I’ll bring in sandwiches. She was talking to them as if they were all at the Beach Club. And they were just another pair of snotty kids waiting for their fries.

      The following Monday, Mr. Kemp from the orchard called Ruth on the telephone with terrible, shocking news about Paige. News that Ruth could scarcely believe much less repeat. Now Paige was the one sitting at the kitchen table waiting for justice. And Courtney was curled up on the sofa in the den still in her school uniform, eyes half-closed, watching a western. The long ruffled dresses on the saloon girls, the spark in their attitude, smiling for the deputy, who was a dunce, and longing for the sheriff, who was not. Bang, bang, bang, the crooked guys were run out of town. Most of them near dead. Now Paige was listening to Ruth’s threats, rehearsing what their father would say when he knew what she’d been doing in Mr. Kemp’s good clean orchard. People eat those apples!

      Ruth was bug-eyed with excitement. And something in her enthusiasm, the lush happiness of it, made Courtney feel that she’d told on Paige herself. Maybe she had. For so long later she would still feel the mistake in her heart, as if she had carried a mean little boy there, someone who would take aim at Paige and harm her, hope for the worst. Over and over and over until she was dead.

      During the commercial, Courtney made a casual trip to the kitchen for some milk. But Paige wouldn’t meet her eye. Outside in the yard, the holly bushes caught the first pink rays before the sunset. The phone rang, and their father’s voice spilled out of the receiver held close to Ruth’s ear.

      Right away, Ruth said.

      She punched the receiver back on the wall, rummaged in her purse for the car keys, and headed for the garage. Now Paige caught Courtney’s eye. Ruth? called Courtney.

      What now? said Ruth. She looked frantic.

      Should we come with you? You don’t want Paige out of your sight, remember?

      Oh, Christ in heaven!

      Should we get in the car?

      Come, she said. Come on. Hurry up!

      So many important-looking black cars already lined up along Ocean Avenue it looked like a funeral. A whole gang of policemen lounged at the gate of the ocean house between the cypress trees. Ruth knew her rights, she said, but the police did not agree. Besides, who were the little girls? This was no place for children. Someone might get hurt. Already the bulldozers were aimed at the turret side of the house.

      This is illegal, said Ruth, which made the policemen smile.

      Such an enormous house and it took no time to come tumbling down. The rot through and through, said a fireman later, smoking a cigar, stale and sour by the smell of it. He’d taken it upon himself to guard Ruth and the girls from harm. In the end they were allowed to stand just inside the old gate once Ruth had convinced them that the girls were the rightful owners. It was their mother’s house, she said. And there was a sheepish squint of recognition in the fireman as he looked first at Paige then less certainly at Courtney. All right, he said.

      Then a fireman with black hair swirling on his forearms came over and explained the methodology to Ruth. Turning his face close to the cypress and out of the wind. Basically I could have knocked it over with my fist, he said. So we didn’t need a lot of fancy machinery. Before the sky was fully dark the house lay tucked inside its foundation.

      Ruth had some old red cocktail napkins stuffed into her capri pant pockets. Here, she said to the girls, gesturing to their noses, and she did the same herself. The wind off the ocean had shifted and caught up the debris dust from the house like spray and a contaminated wet breeze now prickled their skin.

      Oh, you know what? said Paige. I forgot to tell you, her eyes serious over the mask of the red cocktail napkin. Eddie asked me to give you a message.

      Courtney looked at her.

      He said to tell you, no offense, but you stink like dog farts.

      Courtney looked back to the jetty. Completely visible now where the house had once been. So surprising how small and crumbling it was without the house to protect it.

      That was the last of the ocean house, a collapse of rubble in a deep pit, doused by spray coming across the rocks. For good measure the firemen directed their hoses toward any flighty timber. Whatever might be caught up by wind or vandalized was soaked until useless.

      Someone said, You’d think they’d want to save those precious windows.

      But Ruth shook her head. You start parsing this and that and you’re never done.

      Does Ruth hate the house? Courtney asked Paige. It’s not that, Paige said. It’s you. She told Daddy you were the worm in their happy cabbage. She said it’s a shame you’re not more like me.

      You? said Courtney. You? People can just rummage around your underpants whenever they feel like it. This was a lame insult and Courtney tried to think of something better.

      But there were shouts and the dousing firemen СКАЧАТЬ