The Probable Future

Stella herself had a strange cold feeling, the same sort of shivers she’d had whenever she and Juliet stole makeup or jewelry from Saks. Is this the way badness was formed? A cold pebble that begins as a tiny speck? An impulse that couldn’t be resisted? A desire that can’t be denied? Stella didn’t think, she didn’t plan; it was like reaching for the sparkly hoop earrings behind the counter, like holding her breath and diving underwater. One minute she was standing there watching her uncle type, and the next instant she was folding the thesis into her backpack.

She tiptoed out, closing the door carefully; she waved to Mrs. Gibson, then hurried to slip on the soaking pair of shoes she’d left beneath the coatrack. Doing something so bad made a person hot: a coal in the palm of her hand. An arrow set afire. All her life, people had been hiding things from Stella, but not anymore. The rain was slowing, fish rain good for nothing but the old catfish in Hourglass Lake, for when such a rain dissipated there would be clouds of mosquitoes and mayflies. As Stella jogged through puddles she thought about the cancerous growth she had seen on Mrs. Gibson’s lung; if Dr. Stewart was alerted, and treatment was given, perhaps Mrs. Gibson would die of old age rather than of cancer; she’d pass on while asleep in her bed, or surrounded by the books in the library.

Since the accident when the young man on the highway had survived liver damage, Stella had become far more hopeful, even though Dr. Stewart had told her that there was no cure for some ailments. Hope was a good thing in most cases, but when it came to Elinor Sparrow, hope was out of the question, no more likely than snow in May, and that in itself was a good thing, since that was what Stella had seen, a snowy blanket covering her grandmother, drift after cloud-white drift. Thankfully it was too warm for anything like snow. The last of the rain sizzled when it hit the pavement. Stella darted inside when she reached the tea house. She hung up her jacket and kicked off her shoes, which were downright squishy. Her blond hair was drenched, like sleet falling down her back.

“You’ve been gone so long,” Liza called. “Did Juliet get off all right?”

“The train was late,” Stella lied. Perhaps she did take after her father, after all. Lies seemed to come easily. She’d been lying to the new handyman all weekend; he’d given Stella and Juliet the creeps. He lived in North Arthur and yesterday he’d offered the girls a ride to the North Arthur mall.

“Oh, yeah,” Juliet had said after Stella had demurred, with a polite lie, thanking the handyman for his offer, but assuring him there was plenty to keep them busy in town, activities such as dyeing everything in the closet black and fixing bird’s-nest pudding in Liza’s kitchen at 3:00 A.M. “Like there’d be anything in the North Arthur mall that would interest us. Doesn’t he realize we’re Saks girls? What a loser.”

“I liked Juliet,” Liza told Stella when she’d returned from the library and had come to fix herself some hot tea. “Tell her she’s welcome here anytime.”

Stella had her backpack slung over her bad shoulder, the one that had been broken at birth and which throbbed on rainy days. Stella’s father had told her a bedtime story when she was little, a tale about a girl who’d been born with one wing. After being repaired by the doctors, the only sign that she had ever been different was an aching shoulder. Anyone would think all Stella would remember were the many times her father had disappointed her, but that wasn’t the case. He always said, Ssh. No flying away tonight when the story was done and it was time for bed. Even now, what had happened wasn’t his fault. She should have never told him what she saw in the restaurant on her birthday. She should have kept it to herself. It was her fault Will Avery was in trouble.

“Did my father tell you anything about that murder case in Boston? Has he heard anything at all?”

Will had told Liza that Henry Elliot had filed a motion to have all of the charges against him dropped, due to lack of evidence. But the charges weren’t what Will worried about. It was the little house that had been taken that kept him up nights; when he closed his eyes, all he saw were its white gables and its wedding-cake form, its satin flowers, the carved front door. It was his daughter’s safety he worried about most of all.

“Nothing yet. But don’t worry,” Liza said protectively to Stella. “Your father’s a good man, deep inside.”

No one had ever said such a thing about her father before, at least not in Stella’s presence, and as she went up to her room Stella wondered if perhaps Juliet Aronson was right. Perhaps Liza was in love with her father.