Page 22 of The Family Plot
From here, I can’t see who’s on the other side, but I watch as Charlie receives a casserole dish covered in aluminum foil.
“Thank you so much,” he says, cradling it like a baby. “That’s incredibly kind of you. My mother’s all but banned us from the kitchen while she auditions for America’s Next Top Cookie Chef, so this is much appreciated.”
There’s a murmur I can’t make out as the casserole bringer replies.
“No, no, it wasn’t like that,” Charlie says, “but have you heard about the memorial we’re holding? I think you’ll find that all your questions will be answered then.”
He runs through the details of his grotesque museum, words I’m already tired of hearing—artifacts,exhibits—before thanking the visitor again, smiling and unhurried. When he closes the door, his smileslips off his face and he puts the casserole on top of the credenza, where, I see now, others have already been placed.
He looks up as I walk down the stairs. “It’s like a food bank in here,” he says.
“Why are you even answering?” I ask. “You know they just want to gawk.”
Charlie studies my face as I reach the first floor. “Your eyes are puffy,” he says, lip curled in distaste. “I have a cream for that, you know. Remind me later to give it to you.”
He heads toward the living room, but he’s stopped midstep by the bell once again. He tries to nudge me aside as he lurches for the knob.
“Hey.” I slap a palm against the door. “You don’t have to answer it.”
Charlie pinches his lips together, looking at my hand as if it’s a spider splayed on the wood. Then he plucks it off.
“Of course I do,” he says. “Don’t you get it? The PR team is coming tous. They’ll spread the word to the rest of the island and we won’t have to lift a finger. Well, except to…” He nods toward the casserole dishes on the credenza. “Why don’t you go deal with those? And maybe check on Mom? I think I smell burning again.”
I smell burning, too. Last night, Mom thrust a pan of too-dark cookies at us. “Snickerdoodles!” she proclaimed proudly. But Tate was the only person to take one, nibbling politely at its crispy edges.
Again, the bell, piercing and insistent, and when Charlie opens the door, it’s to a trio of girls, each one ponytailed and smiling.
“Well, hello!” he says, and then, turning to wink at me, “No casserole?”
“What?” One of them laughs. “No, we’re, uh… Is Tate Lighthouse here?”
Charlie crosses his arms over his chest. “Tate Lighthouse,” he repeats, as if the name is unfamiliar. “You don’t look like islanders.”
And they’re not. I know it before the one in front responds. They’re tourists, lured by Tate’s Instagram toward an island with nothing to offer them. No cutesy shops. No soft, sandy beaches that, even in November, might provide a relaxing place to stroll. All that’s here—all they care about being here—are the dark, jagged rocks on which the Blackburn Killer’s victims were found.
“We go to University of Rhode Island,” the girl chirps. “We read online that… Sorry, is Tate here? We figured she’d be back.”
Charlie chuckles, clearly entertained. “You know my sister?”
“Yoursister. Wow.” She turns to her two friends and the three of them laugh, nervous but giddy. “No, sorry—not personally, but—”
“Tate!” Charlie yells up the stairs. I jump at his sudden interruption. “You have visitors!”
A few seconds of silence, then footsteps from above, followed by the creak of a door. When Tate descends the stairs, I’m surprised to see her looking disheveled. Well—her version of disheveled, anyway: a smudge of mascara beneath one eye, hair more limp than wavy. Even her lavender sweater looks rumpled.
“Friends of yours,” Charlie says, opening the door wider to reveal the three suddenly bashful girls.
“No, no,” the girl in front says. “God, we wish, but”—she blurts out a giggle—“No. We’re just really big fans, and we… we heard about your brother.” She sobers, mouth flattening. “We’re really sorry.”
The girls’ eyes are stapled to Tate, their sympathy directed only at her. And I don’t need strangers and gawkers to tell me they’re sorry, but it would be nice, maybe, to get some acknowledgment—that the person here with the biggest hole in them is me.
“Thank you,” Tate says, her lashes lowered, appearing more demure than I know her to be. “That’s really kind of you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome!” the girl says. “And we were wondering”—she looks back at her friends, who reply with the tiniest nods—“could we get a selfie with you?”
“Oh,” Tate says. She edges toward Charlie, who quickly steps in.
“Sorry, no,” he says. “She’s not really dressed to impress right now, as you can see.Yuck, right? She hardly slept last night. She’s been working ’round the clock on a new diorama.”
