“Fifty cents.”
“Tom—”
“I have millions of football dollars.This costs nothing.Your safety is priceless.Now, what happened today?Do you want me to go and pick up Mabel?Is she safe?”
“She’s safe.She’s home, heading down to the beach to sketch birds.She knows not to go into the water.But she said Jolene showed up, circled around the house, and was knocking on the doors and yelling out to see if anybody was home.”
He murmured a bunch of Italian under his breath.I didn’t have to understand it to know that it was a slew of curse words.“She is a menace, that woman.”
“Agreed.”
“Danica says she can go pick up Mabel.She is texting her now.We do not like this.This is a violation of privacy and boundaries, and unacceptable.”
“I don’t know if you need to pick her up—”
“Mabel says it’s fine.She will wait for Danica.You can pick her up at my house after school.Danica is here.I am here.The animals are here.”
“O-okay.Thanks.If she’s fine with it, I’m fine with it.”
“Si.Ciao.”
“Ch-Ciao.”
Then we hung up.
I blinked a few times and stared at my phone in my hand.Was everyone on the island this pushy?While I understood where Tom and Danica were coming from, they kind of went around me to Mabel, even after I said it was unnecessary.Then again, they knew Jolene and the ways of the island better than I did.Maybe this precaution was necessary.
So many maybes crashed around in my head.Maybe coming here was a bad idea.Would a big city have been better?More anonymity.More opportunity to blend in and become invisible?I doubt anybody would be showing up at my house if I lived in Beverly Hills or Manhattan, demanding to meet my daughter.I thought island life would be simpler for us, but already it was proving to be more challenging to our privacy than living in Tallahassee in a community that already knew our business.
I left school as soon as I possibly could.Once I knew the last child was gone, I was in my truck and racing across the island to Tom’s property.The gate halfway down his long driveway was impressive.I had to buzz in and wait for them to open the gate from the house.And it was easy enough to see all the cameras and motion-sensitive yard lights placed around on every roof corner.The man wasn’t letting any blind spot get the better of him.
And it had to be for a good reason.
I parked the truck and climbed out.A moment later, a squeal and a cacophony of grunts echoed from inside the house, and a fat, squat pig came barreling out of a dog door and down the porch steps.It circled my ankles like a cat, grunting at me.
“Uh … hello,” I said, bending down to scratch its rough, hairy back.It paused and started to jostle its backside back and forth, encouraging me to continue relieving its itchy rump.
“Portia!”Danica called out, opening the door to the house.“There you are, you silly girl.Leave Lennox alone.”
Portia didn’t even acknowledge Danica, she just kept grunting, just kept wiggling her booty as I continued to scratch her.
“Well, now you’ve done it.You’ve won her over with butt scratches.She will be obsessed with you for life.”Danica swept her blonde waves over her shoulders and smiled at me.“How was school?”
“We spent most of it outside, then a few kids and myself decided to take an impromptu dip in the ocean.”
Her green eyes widened.“Did people fall in?”
“Well, one little girl.So I ‘fell’ in too, so she didn’t get upset.Then it kind of became a thing.”
“Did Sam go swimming?”
“I think the only kids from your family who got wet were Austin and Marco.”
She snorted.“That tracks.Mabel is on her way.She’s just finishing up a hummingbird sketch.I put fresh sugar water in the feeder on the deck before she got here, and the birds have been going nuts.”She looped her arm in a sweeping motion.“Come on in.Tom is in the field trying to wrestle Piñata free from where he got stuck in the fence.”
“Pardon?Does he need help?Who or what is Piñata?”
“A donkey.And maybe.I didn’t want to leave Mabel; otherwise, I would have gone to help him.”
