Not What You Seem Read online

  They sell ridiculously well. Even Ms. Joanna buys one, and I have to sneak aside three for Dean.

  Although I’m disappointed when Benny comes in because it means I have to leave. As much as I’d rather drown myself in cupcakes and frosting, I’ve got another plan that I suspect is going to require most of my afternoon. So I take leave of Benny and wrap up the cupcakes, putting them in a small box.

  The Heroine’s not docked. I know as soon as I step out onto the Harborwalk and don’t see her masts. Dean had mentioned something about a couple celebrating an anniversary who had rented the full day. I shouldn’t feel disappointed. This is good for him—good for his business, but the place in the water where the boat usually sits feels empty. I set the box at the top of the ramp where I know he’ll see it, and then I point my shoes toward town.

  The library lives in an old, converted fire station. The tall garage door windows let in too much light, and the book covers are all faded. It isn’t actually called a library, but the Portage Idea Center. Perhaps because anyone entering with a preconceived notion of a library would be disappointed. There’s not even a copy of Shogun, which as I understand it, is a classic.

  Not that I want to read it just because Dean was. I wanted to read it before. Maybe. Regardless, when I stopped in last week to check out a copy, Mr. Fullerton said I’d have to order it from another library. Stopping by the Idea Center to pick up a book out of curiosity is one thing. Actively ordering it from another library is another step.

  Mr. Fullerton glares at me from behind the counter. I can’t ever tell if he’s annoyed that I’m here or if he has trouble seeing in his old age. He’s managed the Idea Center since ideas first existed. He’s not just old—he’s timeless. He might be undead. I can’t say the same for the library, since I’m the only one here.

  I nod at him and head straight to the stairs.

  Upstairs, dust covers the window sills and floats in the splashes of light between the two computers tucked into the back of the room. I pull up the local database, which includes the handful of newspapers in the area. And then I’m very alone with the blank search bar.

  Not long after moving back to Portage, I looked for my mother in all the local newspapers. And I found a lot—articles about her arrest and trial. Articles about her sentence and even an interview from prison.

  But that wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to know about before. Before she took us away from here. What her life was like when she was my age.

  Maybe evidence that she wasn’t always the woman I fear.

  When my mother was arrested, I was told she was a perfect example of someone with antisocial personality disorder. I even got a handout listing out what she “is.” Her disregard for social rules and obligations. Her impulsivity. Her lack of guilt. Failing to learn from experience. Ever since that moment, all I’ve learned is how wrong she is.

  How wrong I must be.

  But there has to be more to her than just a personality disorder. There has to be an explanation.

  I close my eyes, take a breath, let my fingers find the keyboard and type my mother’s name. The computer dings to tell me the search is done.

  The search is thirty-seven results. And that’s just for the tiny Portage Press. The last reference to her is from a week after her sentencing. A paragraph buried between advertisements for Christmas sales and a local theater presentation of Antigone. It dispassionately states my mother’s sentence of twenty years at FCI Danbury.

  But there’s nothing new. I’ve read them all already.

  I exit and type in another name. Charles Archer.

  It’s a name I’ve looked up before too. There isn’t much listed about him—birth and marriage records, but nothing else. I stare at the monitor. Dean said his mother knew mine. I pull up Charles’s marriage record to find Rosemary’s maiden name: Rosemary McMullin.

  She’s the same age as my mother. Born in Portage. There’s an article about her playing in a chess tournament when she was eight. A few articles about the Heroine and her parents. A picture of her in a parade, and then one for the Portage High Prom. I squint at the picture, trying to remember the girl pictured there as the mother of the two boys I played with so long ago. Or maybe I squint to see Dean in her features. The picture is dark and grainy—like it was taken in low light. She’s got a mass of long hair and a wide smile, standing between two other girls.

  My heart thumps to a stop, my hands instantly clammy.

  Laura.

  And my mother.

  But this photo doesn’t come up when I search for my mother’s name. I enlarge it, squinting at the screen so I can read the caption.

  Rosemary McMullin voted Prom Queen. Pictured here with classmates Laura Garth and Mira Audet.

  I must read the caption four more times before it sinks in.

  My mother’s name wasn’t Mira Jacobs.

  Mira Audet brings up a list of articles. The most recent one is from three years after I was born:

  NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the undersigned has filed a Petition, addressed to the above-entitled Court to change the present legal name of Petitioner, Mira Lace Audet, to the name of Mira Lace Jacobs, which is the name Petitioner desires to have in the future.

  Three years after I was born. Which means…

  I find my brother first.

  Anthony Robert Audet

  I’m listed after him.

  Ella Millie Audet

  …to the name of…

  Jacobs

  I stare at the words until they become fuzz, sinking into my chair. Jacobs isn’t my last name. It’s not Anthony’s, and it wasn’t hers.

  Mira Jacobs doesn’t exist. She’s a construct. Something created when I was a child. All my years of searching for her—to find out anything about her. Mira Jacobs wasn’t there because she didn’t exist.

  I blink out of my surprise. Sixty-seven results for Mira Audet.

  I fly through them, seeing nothing but glimpses of headlines dancing past. No court dates and jury trials. Nothing that makes me want to curl away from the computer.

  I stop on a headline where her name is bold and clear. Her picture is tagged underneath. She’s younger and smiling, but so familiar. High cheekbones and arched eyebrows. The picture announces it was taken on a career day at the high school and that Miss Audet’s planning to become a pilot so she can be free among the clouds. I stare at the picture for a long while—studying her face. She looked so hopeful. I wonder what she would have thought about the things to come.

  The career-day photo is from a spread, so I click through the others. Rosemary is there again, with a caption that says she plans to run her family’s sailboat charter someday. There’s a few other pictures of people I don’t recognize. I stop on the last photo, and my stomach twists into a hard knot.

  There are smiling faces in the foreground—all unfamiliar. My mother stands in the background. Angry. Her lips curled back, one fist clenched. I shiver, remembering that look. The way she would fly between smiling and glaring. As quick as a photo is snapped.

  I take a breath and push off those images of her—anger and hatred and the way she would turn so suddenly. It was always there. Always inside her.

  I keep scrolling and puzzling together history. My mother is listed in the graduates for a nursing program in Upper Bay. Vital Records gives birth certificates for my brother and me at Portage Memorial. No father is listed on record for Anthony, but Benny is listed on mine. There’s even a picture of the house she grew up in. An arching oak tree in the front yard and a picket fence. The house is two blocks from the Harborwalk. Four blocks from where I’m at now.

  I power down the computer and sit in the softly falling dust. Sunlight cuts stripes across the bookshelves and over my toes. There are still so many unanswered questions about her. Why did she change her name? Why did she leave with us? I wonder how different I would be if I’d gotten to grow up here. How different Anthony would have been. My mother took that opportunity from us.
r />   Ella Audet. The name’s so unfamiliar. I’m not her. But now, I’m not Ella Jacobs either.

  I don’t know who I am.

  23

  Dean

  I stop counting days and start counting cupcakes. I didn’t think anything could top a bacon cupcake. But then two days later Ella brings pumpkin cream cheese. Pumpkin better than bacon? I wouldn’t have guessed it either. Day three is something sweet—cinnamon and sugar.

  That’s the point where Sebastian and Dev start wanting to make flavor requests. But I’ve got no desire to put in a request. Partly because I want to see what she comes up with.

  There are always three cupcakes. One for each of us. And in the fourth bag—the one that’s salted caramel—there’s a carefully wrapped doggie treat.

  A doggie treat that she baked. Matty devours it in one happy bite.

  If I wasn’t ready to draw a heart around our names before, I’m sure-as-shit ready now.

  It’s not until later in the week that we’re back early enough that she still might be at the bakery. I won’t say I push the group of photographers out of the boat, but it probably comes pretty damn close. Luckily, Dev takes over, laughing with them loudly as they slowly—painfully fucking slowly—pack up their equipment.

  “Get me one of those bacon ones,” Dev whispers to me before turning back to chat lazily with the group. I wave him off and cross from wood dock to cement sidewalk. A line that I’ve hardly crossed all week. Much to my annoyance, considering the half-painted ticket hut. I hadn’t even thought about what I’m going to do about the paint.

  The easiest solution would be to stick with the blue. Easier to re-paint. Easier to pick out. But with every step forward, my mom gets farther away. It’s just a paint color to anyone else. But it’s more to me.

  I cross by the hut, shoving my hands into my pockets and nodding at Georgina, who owns the coffee hut shaped like a lighthouse next door. And then at the guy who owns the little lobster shack. Shane? He asks me about the little kites the kids are going to make for the festival.

  They’ve all been more welcoming once they learned the Heroine is taking part in the festival.

  A few more steps, and I’m at the glass windows painted with the Laura’s Bakery swirl. Between the letters, a man wipes down some of the tables. Other than him, the place looks empty. I stand for a bit, hoping to see Ella. But it looks like she might already be gone for the day.

  I push open the door, the little silver bell announcing my presence.

  “Be right there.” He wipes another table, and then he turns, and whatever smile he was wearing is gone in an instant. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah.” I step farther into the room. It smells so damn good in here—warm and sweet. Strawberries. And very much like Ella. Or, I suppose, Ella smells like the bakery. There’s a new board filled with a list of sandwiches and sides. “I’m looking for Ella. Do you know if she’s around?”

  “Ella?” He pauses, looking me up and down. “Why are you looking for her?”

  How do I answer that question?

  Because I can’t stop thinking about her.

  Because I just want to know if she’s okay.

  Because she looked so damn perfect in my bed, and ever since she was there, I want her there again.

  Although with that hard look he’s giving me, I should probably come up with something else.

  “We’re friends.” I lean over the table and extend a hand. “I’m Dean. I run the sailboat charter.”

  “I know who you are, Dean.” He shakes my hand. “I was friends with your father.”

  I cut the handshake and step back. I really don’t want to be around someone who claims to be friends with him.

  “But that was a long time ago,” he says. “Back when you and your brother used to play with my daughter. You boys must have been five years old. My name’s Benny.”

  “Your daughter,” I repeat. Does that mean… “Ella’s your daughter?” I eye the man standing across from me. A few inches shorter than me and mostly covered in flour. I don’t see a whole lot of family resemblance between them. Ella must take after her mother.

  Behind me, the bell tinkles and a woman steps in, black hair pulled back tight and her lips pursed. She peers at me, as if trying to come to some kind of decision.

  “I’ll be right with you, Joanna.” Benny balls the cloth and walks around the case. Behind him, Laura’s Bakery is painted across the back wall.

  I step closer to the counter. “Laura is Ella’s mother?” I ask Benny as he stops to wash his hands.

  I’ve never really wanted to meet a woman’s parents before. But with Ella, I want to sit this man down and ask him a million questions. Even though he turns and gives me another hard look. Maybe I can soften it a bit.

  “No,” he says sharply. “Laura is my wife and Ella’s stepmother.”

  “Okay.” I shrug, trying to look at ease. But the way he’s talking makes me tense as hell. My stance has already widened. I don’t trust this man.

  Benny eyes me over the counter. “Charles never told you.”

  “Told me what?” I let a breath slide out between my teeth.

  Joanna clears her throat, and Benny turns toward her, not even bothering to answer the question. Tension runs down my shoulders into my hands. I take a steady breath. I hate that I have my father’s anger. It always comes out in the most unexpected moments.

  I take a step back from the counter and then turn, heading for the door.

  I stop just outside. Why did he react that way when I asked about Ella’s mother?

  “Excuse me,” a woman says.

  I turn to see that I’m standing in front of the door. Joanna glares at me over a baguette. I step aside and pull the door open for her.

  “Thank you, Mr. Archer.” She looks me up and down.

  “Dean,” I correct.

  She nods stiffly, and the door falls shut behind her. But she keeps standing there, looking at me. Then her lips purse like she’s finally made up her mind about me.

  “Mira,” she says.

  I shake my head. That name again. But I’m not sure what she’s telling me.

  “Mira is Ella’s mother.” She turns and marches down the street, chin high, not a glance back.

  I stare after her for a long moment.

  Ella lied to me? She said Mira was a kidnapper. Convicted of attempted murder. And her daughter…

  That was Ella?

  She hid the truth from me. Something made her feel uncomfortable. Like she couldn’t tell me. Couldn’t trust me.

  But it’s not like I’ve told her everything either.

  I stand on the sidewalk for long minutes, staring out at the water. There’s a sea breeze coming in from the northeast, covering the smell of the bakery. Off to my right, the group of photographers is still lingering around the Heroine. They’re on the dock now, taking pictures of her. Dev stands with them, shoulders back with his usual swagger. I don’t see my brother, but I bet he’s on deck, tying everything off. Or maybe below deck, cleaning up from the lunch we served. Crappy sandwiches. We should get them from the bakery.

  Ella’s mother is in prison.

  She never really talked about it. That’s what Ella said—about herself. What if I got it wrong? What if instead of hiding the truth from me, she was thinking about telling me?

  Fuck, what she must have gone through.

  Was it just her and her mother? With Sebastian and me, whatever we went through, we were always in it together. Right next to each other. Dealing with the same shit.

  I’ve never fully appreciated what that means.

  I blink and look around. Waking up, maybe. Snapping out of the little blissful world where Ella holding my hand means there’s a next step. Maybe it’s not that simple.

  I need to sort this out in my head somehow. I force myself to turn and keep walking, rolling my shoulders, kicking myself awake. I’m glad I’m not sailing right now because I’d probably be running the Heroine into the
shoreline.

  The hardware store is a few doors down. I pull open the door and cross to the display of paint samples. I shove my hands in my pockets and stare at the light blues. It’s what I should pick.

  But it’s not like my understanding of blue is exactly what everyone else sees. Sure, I can see blue, but colors all temper each other. So I can’t always see the green in blue. It’s like however I see the world is just a fraction off from everyone else.

  Except for Sebastian, who is just as colorblind as I am. Although he admits it less. Maybe he sees it as a fault. But I’m not sure that’s the case. It’s a perception. And who’s to say that mine is the wrong one?

  I glare at the column of gray. Maybe it is wrong. I wish I could see what my mom saw. That I could talk to her. Ask her about Ella and Mira. Ask her why she stayed with my father for so long. Why she didn’t leave the Heroine to Sebastian and me.

  And tell her that I loved her.

  “Dean?”

  I jump at my name and turn to see Hal standing a few feet behind me.

  He holds out an envelope. “Ella asked me to give you this if you stopped by.”

  “Ella?” I take it from him and flip it over, this sudden expansion puffing out my chest. She gave Hal something to give to me?

  As soon as he goes back behind the counter, I tear it open and empty the contents into my hand. Three different paint samples, all gray. But she’s written on them.

  A pretty light green.

  A wistful sage green.

  A somber dark green.

  Ella picked out greens for me. I close my eyes, picturing her exactly where I’m standing in front of the display, picking out greens for me. And my heart damn near breaks out of my chest. When did she do this?

  There’s something else in the envelope, and I eagerly fish it out. This sample is blue, but the only thing written on it is a number.

  A phone number. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the world I want more. I don’t even step up to the counter before I pull out my phone.