Saltwater Secrets - Cindy Callaghan Page 0,3
under my armpits and flap like chicken wings.
Santoro closes the door. It’s incredibly quiet in here. He waves me to a chair.
“Comfortable?” he asks me.
“Sure,” I say, but actually I’m cold under the air-conditioning vent, and the room is anything but comforting—dull white walls without so much as a clock, dirty laminated floor on which there might be dots of blood.
Santoro sits across the metal table from me. The table is distressed with scratches and dents.
He indicates a mirror. “You can’t see or hear your dad, but he can see and hear you.”
“Okay.” I have nothing to hide. I mean, everything we did was for the right reason. He’ll understand once he hears the whole story.
“I may take some notes, but they’re just for me.”
I nod.
“What’s your name?”
“Stella Higley.” Because I’m from New York, sometimes it sounds like I’m saying “Stellar,” but I deliberately leave the r sound off.
“Right. I remember. The other one is the Aussie.”
“Yeah, Josie.” Then I ask, “Hey, any word from the hospital?”
“Not yet.”
“I hope she’s okay.”
“From what I understand, you did what you could,” he says.
I nod.
Santoro says, “We can stop anytime you want, and of course, you know you’re free to leave anytime you want.” The tone of his voice doesn’t sound like he means that, but he probably uses that voice all day with criminals and doesn’t know how to change it.
“Yeah.”
“Start from the beginning, when you first arrived in Whalehead this summer.”
I say to the detective, “We set out for the boardwalk, but Josie didn’t change from her T-shirt and gym shorts.”
He replies, “Thanks for the wardrobe details, but that’s not relevant.”
“It is, though,” I explain. “Because it bothered me. It shouldn’t have, but it did.”
“Her outfit bothered you?”
“It really did,” I confirm. “It told me she was still eighth-grade Josie, and, I mean, I was nearly-high-school Stella. Another season of riding the Minotaur Coaster wasn’t gonna cut it for me.”
Santoro studies me, then asks, “So, what are you saying? You were too cool for her?”
“Whoa, I didn’t say that.” I think for a hot sec. “Well, maybe.” I don’t like the idea of someone thinking that I think that I’m too cool for Josie. “Except that saying it that way sounds terrible. It makes me sound mean or something, and I’m not.”
His face remains flat. I don’t know if that’s just his face, like he doesn’t have other expressions, or if he doesn’t believe me.
“I’m really not,” I assure him. “I love Josie. I just wanted different things this summer. Is that so bad?”
“Look, Stella, I’m sorry you and your half sister had some tension, but that’s not relevant to this very serious situation.”
“I think it is.”
He stretches his neck right and left until he gets it to crack. “How so?”
“If things had gone the way I’d wanted them to, we would’ve been busy with bonfires and lifeguards.” I add, “The disconnect between Josie and me… it’s the reason this all started. The sitch on the pier was something we were both interested in. We were both excited about it. And we needed that.”
“Understood. But let’s get back to the facts that put someone into the hospital.” He looks at his watch. “Stella, we don’t have a lot of time, so please stick to the facts.”
“Okay, but can I officially state something important for the record?”
“You can, but understand that this isn’t official.”
“Gotcha.” Then, as calmly and maturely as I can, I say, “It was all my idea. Everything. Josie didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Three Stella
Boardwalk
June 18 (Continued)
Josie and I set out for our ritual: water ice and then the fun house, which is the building right next door to Water Ice World. Between the two buildings is a wooden ramp that goes from Thirty-Fourth Street to the beach.
On the way, Josie filled me in on life down under: “I’m super busy with my school’s marine conservation society. I’m running for prez in the fall, so excited about that.” Josie also does this Aussie thing where she shortens words as much as they can possibly be. “Sea turtles are espesh a big issue.”
“President sounds like a big deal. Good luck. Maybe I can work on some posters for you. My digital design has gotten pretty good.”
“That’d be great, Stell. Thanks.”
“How’s your mom?” I asked.
“Mum is Mum.”
Talk about a non-answer. I wondered what was up with that; instead of asking, I said, “Sea turtles are the cutest. Good thing they have your help.”
She nodded. “How’s Greg?”
I corrected her. “Gregory.”
“Right.”
“He’s good.