Lock and Key(22)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Harriet,” Nate repeated. Again, no answer as she bent deeper over a crate.

“You’re going to have to be louder,” I told him as he was barely speaking above a normal tone of voice.

“I know,” he said. Then he took a breath, wincing slightly, and put his hand on the horn.

He only did it once, and it was quick: beep! Still, the woman literally jumped in the air. Completely vertical, feet off the ground, coffee spilling out of the cup backward, splattering the pavement. Then she whirled around, her free hand to her chest, and goggled at us.

“Sorry,” Nate called out. “But you weren’t—”

“What are you doing? ” she asked him. “Are you trying to give me a nervous attack?”

“No.” He pushed open his door, quickly climbing out and walking over to her. “Here, let me get that. It’s these three? Or the crates, too?”

“All of them,” the woman—Harriet?—said, clearly still flustered as she leaned against the Tahoe’s bumper, flapping a hand in front of her face. As Nate began to load the boxes into the back of his car, I noticed she was rather pretty, and had on a chunky silver necklace with matching earrings, as well as several rings. “He knows I’m a nervous person,” she said to me, gesturing at Nate with her cup. “And yet he beeps. He beeps!”

“It was an accident,” Nate told her, returning for the last box. “I’m sorry.”

Harriet sighed, leaning back against the bumper again and closing her eyes. “No,” she said, “it’s me. I’m just under this massive deadline, and I’m way behind, and I just knew I wasn’t going to get to the shipping place before they closed—”

“—which is why you have us,” Nate finished for her, shutting his own back door with a bang. “I’m taking them over right now. No worries.”

“They all need to go Ground, not Next Day,” she told him. “I can’t afford Next Day.”

“I know.”

“And be sure you get the tracking information, because they’re promised by the end of the week, and there’s been bad weather out West. . . .”

“Done,” Nate told her, pulling his door open.

Harriet considered this as she stood there clutching her coffee cup. “Did you drop off that stuff at the cleaners yesterday? ”

“Ready on Thursday,” Nate told her.

“What about the bank deposit?” she asked.

“Dad did it this morning. Receipt is in the envelope in your mailbox.”

“Did he remember to—”

“—lock it back? Yes. The key is where you said to leave it. Anything else?”

Harriet drew in a breath, as if about to ask another question, then slowly let it out. “No,” she said slowly. “At least not right at this moment.”

Nate slid behind the wheel. “I’ll e-mail you all the tracking info as soon as I get home. Okay?”

“All right,” she said, although she sounded uncertain as he cranked the engine. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Call if you need us.”

She nodded but was still standing by her bumper, gripping her cup and looking uncertain, as we pulled away. I waited until we’d turned onto the main road again before saying, “That’s resting assured?”

“No,” Nate said, his voice tired. “That’s Harriet.”

By the time we pulled up to Cora’s, it was five thirty. Only a little over an hour had passed since he’d picked me up, and yet it felt like so much longer. As I gathered up my stuff, pushing the door open, his phone rang again; he glanced at the display, then back at me. “Dad’s getting nervous,” he said. “I better go. I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”

I looked over at him, again taking in his solid good looks and friendly expression. Fine, so he was a nice guy, and maybe not entirely the dim jock that I’d pegged him as at first glance. Plus, he had helped me out, not once but twice, and maybe to him this meant my previous feelings about a carpool would no longer be an issue. But I could not so easily forget Peyton earlier on the other end of that pay-phone line, how quickly she had turned me down at the one moment I’d really needed her.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

Nate nodded, flipping his phone open, and I shut the door between us. I wasn’t sure whether he had noticed I hadn’t answered his question, or if he’d even care. Either way, by the time I was halfway down the walk, he was gone.

Earlier that morning, after we’d set up my schedule, Jamie headed off to work and Mr. Thackray started to walk me off to my English class. We were about halfway there when I suddenly heard Jamie calling after us.

“Hold up!”

I turned around, looking down the hallway, which was rapidly filling with people streaming out of their first class, and spotted him bobbing through the crowd. When he reached us, slightly out of breath, he smiled and held his hand out to me, gesturing for me to do the same.

My first instinct was to hesitate, wondering what else he could possibly offer me. But when I opened up my hand, palm flat, and he dropped a key into it, it seemed ridiculous to have expected anything else.

“In case you beat us home,” he said. “Have a good day!”

At the time, I’d nodded, closing my hand around the key and slipping it into my pocket, where I’d totally forgotten about it until now, as I walked up to the front door of the house and pulled it out. It was small and on a single silver fob, with the words WILDFLOWER RIDGE engraved on the other side. Weird how it had been there all day, and I hadn’t even felt it or noticed. The one around my neck I was always aware of, both its weight and presence, but maybe that was because it was closer to me, where it couldn’t be missed.

Cora’s door swung open almost soundlessly, revealing the big, airy foyer. Like at the yellow house, everything was still and quiet, but in a different way. Not untouched or forgotten, but more expectant. As if even a house knew the difference between someone simply stepping out for while and being gone for good.

I shut the door behind me. From the foyer, I could see into the living room, where the sun was already beginning to sink in the sky, disappearing behind the trees, casting that special kind of warm light you only get right before sunset.

I was still just standing there watching this, when I heard a tippity-tapping noise coming from my left. I glanced over; it was Roscoe, making his way through the kitchen. When he saw me, his ears perked up straight on his head. Then he sat down and just stared at me.