Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

“Go back to bed, Clary.”

“No, guys, I think—” The noise got louder and louder until there was no doubt in our minds what it was. A flyby.

Instantly, all four of us were on our feet and out the door, though Clarissa found time to roll up the bottoms of her silk pajama pants against the morning dew. We looked to the skies, where indeed there was a large white helicopter circling low over the island.

“Salt’s gonna freak,” Jenny observed. We grabbed our flip-flops from the porch, rushed through the woods to the main compound, and found everyone else hurrying out of the cabins and buildings as well, eyes turned up. Was it a news helicopter? An emissary from the White House, come to exonerate Gehry and invite him back into the fold? Or had the conspiracy theorists finally scraped up enough dough to do an aerial pictorial?

Salt came running out of his cottage, walkie-talkie pressed to his mouth.

“Out of the way!” he yelled over the sound of the rotors, waving his free arm at the assembled crowd. “Move out, move out! You’re standing on the landing pad!”

The what? We all looked at our feet, where the path widened into a rough circle. This was a helicopter landing pad? We had landing pads on Cavador Key? And Salt wanted the copter to land here?

“Move!” the caretaker bellowed over the deafening roar. The helicopter dipped lower and hovered above us, stirring up massive clouds of dust and sand and whipping hair into everyone’s faces.

We moved, and as I scooted back to the fringe of the forest, I couldn’t help but glance over to the boys’ cabin. Malcolm and Poe stood side by side on the porch, watching the proceedings and leaning on the rail. Poe was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. As the helicopter descended into the compound, I saw Malcolm lean toward Poe and cup his hand around his friend’s ear to speak into it, and I stiffened.

Hands off, big sib.

Where the hell did that come from! Not that I suspected Malcolm had anything other than friendly feelings toward Poe—and there was definitely no chance of the reverse. That had been made breathtakingly obvious in the last two days. And yet I was as taken aback by the very fact that I had a reaction as I was by the reaction itself. Jealousy? Over Poe ? This was all moving way too fast.

The helicopter’s runners finally set down on the soil of Cavador Key, and the rotors slowed. Every inhabitant on the key waited in awe, their focus turned toward the machine.

And I do mean every inhabitant. While they all watched, I couldn’t help but notice four figures coming up the path from the house near the docks, forming a small nuclear family knot a safe distance from the group. Even our resident shut-in wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

But before I could nudge Demetria and point to the object of her political obsession, the door to the helicopter slid open, and Kurt Gehry dropped off my curiosity meter.

Out popped a figure in a tight, corset-style top and the biggest sunglasses I’ve ever seen. Her dark red hair fell past her waist, her smile looked like it was made for billboards.

“Hi, guys!” said Odile Dumas. “Miss me?”

Kevin let out a whoop of joy and rushed Odile, and several other members of my club followed. Enveloped in hugs, she laughed. “So I guess the answer is yes?”

“The question is,” Demetria said, slapping her a high five, “did you show up because you missed us ?” We retreated from the helicopter as the pilot set down Odile’s bags, waved farewell, and prepared to take off again.

“Yes,” Kevin said. “We missed you. What are you doing here?”

Odile shrugged. “Production shut down for a few days and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about this place.” She looked at her surroundings and wrinkled her pert little nose. “Bit rustic, huh?”

At least someone agreed with me! I glanced at the other people in the clearing. The younger patriarchs, used to seeing Odile around campus, had lost interest, but their families were still staring and pointing. Any second now they’d start asking for autographs. Poe and Malcolm had disappeared back inside their cabin, but the Gehrys remained on the lawn, watching silently from a distance. Kurt had his hands on his wife’s shoulders; she was in turn holding the hand of her little daughter. Darren stood beside them, hand raised to his brow to shield his eyes from the morning sun.

“Hey, Demetria,” I said, and nodded in the direction of the family.

“Oh, so he is here!” Odile said. “I’d been wondering, as has the New York Times .”

“He’s here, but it’s the first time anyone’s seen him!” Demetria exclaimed. “Let’s go say hi.” She started across the lawn, followed by the other Diggirls, and as soon as he noticed, Kurt nudged his wife as if to encourage retreat toward the house. Mrs. Gehry shook him off and kept staring at our group, and I saw her husband lean over and bark an order at his son before grabbing his daughter by the hand and marching away posthaste.

“Odile Dumas,” Mrs. Gehry said when we arrived before her. “My daughter is a huge fan of your work.” She looked around, but saw that the little girl was no longer standing by her side, no longer holding her hand. “Where? Where did she go?”

I saw that Darren’s arms were outstretched toward his mother, as if ready to catch her.

“Oh, she’ll be so disappointed!” Mrs. Gehry said, wavering slightly. Darren’s hand came closer. “Darren, darling, go fetch her. Tell her the girl from the dancing movie is here.”

“Mom, why don’t you come with me?” he asked pointedly, though he couldn’t take his eyes off Odile.

Odile caught on. “Ma’am, I’m going to be around for a while, so you can just have—”

“Darren!” Mrs. Gehry shouted, though I now noticed that her eyes were unfocused. “Go get Isabelle. What would your father say if he knew how rude you were being?”

“Tell you what,” Odile said quickly, as Darren fought back his blush. “I’ll come with you both to meet Isabelle, how about that?”

“No,” Darren said quickly. “We can’t. Mom, come on, let’s go back inside now. I’ll bring Belle by later.” And with that, he pasted on an expression not unlike his father’s at his most inflexible, grabbed his mother by the hand, and started leading her down the path.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Demetria said.

“My goodness,” Jenny added. “What’s wrong with the wife?”

“Heavy-dose pharms,” Odile said with surety. “It’s really obvious.”

Clarissa nodded. “Antidepressants, maybe?”

“Yeah, but those are like candy.” Odile shrugged. “There’s a lot more going on there. She was stoned.”

“Maybe she’s stoned stoned,” Demetria said. “Prescription marijuana?”

Jenny shook her head. “I couldn’t smell it.”

“Ganja cakes,” Demetria suggested.

“Or roofies,” said Clarissa. “See how she could barely stand?”

“Rohypnol is illegal,” said Jenny.

“So is marijuana,” I said.

“And so is employing illegal aliens,” Demetria finished. “Which, if I recall, was one of Gehry’s biggest hot-button issues. So apparently, the law just applies to everyone else. Not him.”

And yet, seeing his wife and children in that sad state…“I don’t know if I can blame her, whatever she might be on. Their whole world has fallen apart.”

Demetria toed the ground. “I have less sympathy for her, but I really feel for those kids. Darren must be mortified.”