ABOUT
that
NIGHT

Norah McClintock

O R C A   B O O K   P U B L I S H E R S

Copyright © 2014 Norah McClintock

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

McClintock, Norah, author
About that night / Norah McClintock.

Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4598-0594-1 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0595-8 (pdf).--
ISBN 978-1-4598-0596-5 (epub)

I. Title.
PS8575.C62A62 2014           jC813’.54           C2014-901559-3
C2014-901560-7

First published in the United States, 2014
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935377

Summary: When Derek disappears in the snow, suspicion falls on Jordie.
What does she know about that night?

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Design by Chantal Gabriell
Cover images by iStock and Shutterstock

www.orcabook.com

17   16   15   14   •   4   3   2   1

To my girls

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

One

It’s frigid—minus twenty—but Elise Diehl doesn’t notice. Nor does she notice the way the wind catches the fronts of her housecoat, which she hasn’t buttoned, and blows them out behind her like two quilted streamers. She is too enchanted to notice anything except the lacy flakes of snow that are floating down like so many tiny parachutists through the moonlit night. She sticks out her tongue. It isn’t long before one lone flake lands there like a tiny, icy doily and melts. She spreads her arms and begins a long, languid whirl. She has always loved the snow. She especially likes it at this time of year, when multicolored lights twinkle on the massive Scotch pine in the middle of the lawn. The time of year when she and Mama and Daddy would bundle themselves into Daddy’s big blue Pontiac and drive along the concession road, which is kept clear of drifts by the snow fences on either side, all the way to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, where Daddy grew up and where Grandpa was born, right there in his ma’s bed, and has lived all his life. The house, after they had stomped their feet on the porch and then stepped onto the oval rag rug inside, would smell of turkey and gravy and pie, and Grandma would help her off with her coat and boots and press a piece of shortbread into her hand. She loves Grandma’s shortbread.

Elise starts down the driveway toward the glowing pine. She doesn’t notice that the snow is accumulating faster now and that it won’t be long before it is higher than the slippers on her feet. She dances down the driveway, beaming at the tree and its lights and wondering what will be waiting for her under the tree at Grandma’s house. Grandma has beautiful colored-glass decorations that she inherited from her mother, who brought them all the way from England, wrapped in cotton and set into little compartments in the sturdy boxes where Grandma still keeps them. Grandma lights her tree the old-fashioned way, with little candles pressed into little metal candle holders with reflectors behind them to make them glow like fairy lanterns. Grandma strings popcorn and cranberries and garlands the tree with them. Later, after Epiphany, when the tree comes down, she takes off everything except these edible garlands, and Grandpa sets the tree out in one of the fields so that the birds can feast on the Christmas bounty. In a few places on the tree, Grandma hangs little wooden houses, painted in bright colors, with little doors in them that open. Elise hunts among the thickly needled branches for those houses. When she finds one, she is allowed to open its door and pluck out the piece of chocolate inside. Even if dinner hasn’t been put on the table yet, she is allowed to eat it. It is the one time of year that Mama allows such an indulgence. Elise dreams about those little houses the whole of Christmas Eve. She dreams about them now as she reaches the end of the driveway.

She stands there a moment and looks across the street. What is that over there? Lights! The same bright multicolored lights that ornament the tree on her own lawn, but they seem to hang there in the air, a whole long line of them. And then she sees—there’s a house over there. Its discovery stops her in her tracks. A house—where has it come from? She looks back at the house behind her, the one she lives in with Mama and Daddy. The house that Daddy so proudly built way up here, north of town, on a good-sized piece of land. He never intended to farm like Grandpa. But Daddy likes his space. He doesn’t want to feel crowded by his neighbors the way the folks in town are—at least, that’s how Daddy sees it. He keeps saying, “I don’t know how those poor slobs can stand it, huddled down there cheek by jowl.” Mama always looks shocked when he uses the word slobs. Elise always giggles. Daddy says it’s not a bad word. He says that if Mama had been in the army like he was, if she’d spent the war years with all those other boys, boys who looked well brought up and well mannered, she would have been shocked. It seems that boys, left to their own devices, cuss like sailors. Or, as Grandpa puts it, like stevedores. Elise isn’t sure what stevedores are. She thinks maybe they have something to do with bullfighting, like the picadors and the matadors in her favorite storybook, the one about the little bull who loves to smell the flowers.

Elise looks back at her house, and for a moment thinks she sees Daddy in the window. A snowflake falls into her eye. She blinks, and her eye waters. When she looks again, she can’t tell if she imagined Daddy or if he has turned away from the window in disgust. Maybe he’s calling Edgar Poole, who runs the RCMP detachment in town, the one that serves the whole county. Maybe he’s asking him where in blue blazes that house came from. Elise would like to know the answer to that question. But even more, she would like to get to Grandma’s house to help Grandma make shortbread. This is the year Grandma has promised to teach her and share her secret recipe. But first she has made Elise promise never to divulge the recipe to anyone, especially not to Mama. That’s the one thing that injects a bit of sour lemon into every family occasion—the way Grandma feels about Mama. Grandma can’t understand how her son, who fought against Hitler, turned around and married a German girl. Married her right over there in Germany, where he was stationed for nearly a year after the war. Imagine. Married an enemy! Married one of those very same people who is responsible for her losing her elder son.

Grandma speaks to Mama. But she doesn’t speak to her the same way she speaks to Elise. There is no warmth in her voice for Mama, and the smile on her lips, the rare times she offers it, is not the same smile that she flashes so easily at Elise or Daddy. Once, when Grandma didn’t realize Elise was there, Elise heard her make fun of Mama’s accent. Mama pretends not to notice when she is at Grandma’s, but sometimes after she gets home, when she thinks Elise is asleep in her room, she cries, and Daddy comforts her and tells her that Grandma doesn’t know her the way he does and that if she did, she would realize what an angel Mama is, why she’s the best thing that ever happened to Daddy.

Who knows, Elise thinks, maybe this will be the year that Grandma sees Mama for the sweet person she really is. Maybe this is the year Mama will be the Christmas angel. Elise smiles at this thought and pictures Mama in a long white robe, perched on the top of the tree, the light from her halo making a big bright circle on the ceiling. She looks up the road, smiling to herself and thinking that this might also be the Christmas she tells Grandma how wonderful Mama is, perhaps when they are in the kitchen together, rolling out the shortbread and cutting it into star shapes and Christmas-tree shapes and bell shapes. Grandma loves Elise. Maybe she will listen to her. Maybe she will be nice to Mama this year—really nice, not phony-baloney nice.

As she stares at the thickening snow, Elise goes over in her head what she will say to Grandma. She thinks about the little houses on the tree. Grandma has been getting craftier about hiding them. Last year, there was one that Elise never did find. This year, she will not give up until she has located every single one, opened each of the little doors and popped each and every piece of chocolate into her mouth. What a nice thought.

She shivers and turns back toward the house. Her house. For a moment, she remembers who lives there now. A vague memory envelops her. House equals safety. House equals warmth.

Two

Earlier that same night, Derek Maugham, seventeen going on eighteen, stares out the living room window of Jordie Cross’s house. He has been staying with the Crosses for the past couple of days while his parents are out of town visiting his grandmother. This is the first time they have let him stay back instead of dragging him along, and that’s only because he had to work up until two nights ago. At least, that’s the reason his mother gave for finally waving the white flag. He knows, because his dad told him, that his dad thinks he’s old enough to make his own decisions about whether he wants to tag along with them, especially when where they are going is to visit “some batty old dame,” which is how his dad refers to his grandmother when Derek’s mother is not around. Richard Maugham has never liked his mother-in-law, and now that she has remarried and is living with a man whom Richard calls a “goddamned miser,” he likes her even less. Richard Maugham hates having to visit her, and he is grateful that his wife, who makes the trek several times a year, insists on his company only at Christmas. Richard goes because he loves his wife and because it’s more trouble than it’s worth to tell her no.

Derek has been insanely happy these past few days. He is madly in love with Jordie—how could he not be? She is smart and pretty and funny—and she likes him. That’s the part he still can’t believe. She likes him, and she doesn’t seem to mind when he calls her his girlfriend. She’s been his girlfriend for two months now, a status he dates from the first time he kissed her. He’d thought he was dreaming, fantasizing right there in the front seat of the car, or that maybe he’d drifted off while they sat parked there, but it turned out neither was true—it turned out it was real. She smiled at him afterward and told him how much she appreciated his difference.

“Difference?”

“You’re reliable,” she said.

“That’s different?” If it was, well, vive la différence!

Being here in this house with her is like taking a stroll in heaven—no matter where he goes or what he’s doing, there she is. She’s sitting across the table from him, eating oatmeal at breakfast or a sandwich at lunch. She’s making hot chocolate with marshmallows when he comes in from helping her dad shovel the driveway. She’s beside him after supper at the sink, where he is rinsing dishes and she is putting them into the dishwasher. She’s beside him on the couch down in the basement, where they are watching a movie or, if her little sister is miraculously absent, cuddling and kissing and touching each other. And when he lies in the foldout bed in the basement at night, he knows that she is two floors above him, in her pyjamas under her comforter, lying there and maybe, if he’s lucky, thinking about him down in the basement. Life couldn’t possibly be any better. At least, that’s what he’s been thinking up until now.

Now he is in the living room, checking up on her while her parents wait for him in the den, and Jordie is outside on the porch with Ronan Barthe. The guy showed up out of the blue—or so Jordie said when she answered the door and Ronan was standing there. Derek wants to believe her. But if this is such a surprise—a supposedly unpleasant surprise because, after all, Ronan is the ex-boyfriend—then why did he catch a look of excitement on Jordie’s face, and why did she agree so quickly—she didn’t offer any protest at all—when Ronan said he wanted to talk to her in private? And, more important, why has she been out there so long?

While he peers out the window at them, Jordie’s kid sister Carly drifts past on her way to the den. Derek can’t keep his eyes off them, Ronan in a leather jacket that can’t possibly be keeping him warm in this subzero weather, and Jordie with a thick sweater wound tightly around her, held there by her arms, which are also wrapped around her. She must be freezing, but as far as he can see, she has made no move to hurry Ronan along so that she can get back inside where it’s warm—and where Derek is waiting. Derek doesn’t begin to understand what’s so special about Ronan. He knows the girls all think he’s cute, and grudgingly supposes he is, if you like those dark and dangerous looks and that sullen I-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-anything expression. But Derek? Jeez, Derek can’t stand the guy. He used to look at them together—Jordie and Ronan. They were a couple all last year, and Derek, who has been smitten with Jordie ever since he started high school, used to pray for the day she would come to her senses and dump Ronan’s sorry ass.

Then it happened.

Status change: Jordie Cross declares herself single.

And Derek Maugham sees his chance.

Now, though, Derek remembers that he never managed to get to the bottom of what happened between Jordie and Ronan. She has steadfastly deflected all questions—“Why dwell in the past?”—and no one else seems to know or, frankly, even care, least of all Derek himself. Because, really, why should it matter to him if it doesn’t seem to matter to Jordie? In all the time she has been with Derek, she has never mentioned Ronan, never spoken to him (that Derek is aware of), never even glanced at him across a classroom or in the cafeteria. She’s been a hundred percent Ronan-free, which is exactly how Derek likes it.

But she is not Ronan-free now. He wishes he knew what they were talking about, but with the weather so cold, there are two tightly sealed doors between him and the front porch. But Derek watches them. He keeps his eyes on them the whole time, sees Ronan talking earnestly from behind the puffs of frosty breath, sees Jordie nod. What is she nodding about? What is she agreeing to? Why is she even talking to him?

It occurs to Derek for the first time that maybe the breakup didn’t happen the way he’s always assumed it did. Maybe Jordie didn’t dump Ronan. Maybe it happened the other way around. And maybe Ronan has finally seen how wrong he was—only an idiot would dump a girl like Jordie—and has come to get her back. Maybe that’s why she’s nodding.

They finally stop talking, but instead of Jordie coming back inside right away, she stands there shivering—her whole body is trembling—and watches Ronan walk down off the porch, along the path that leads to the curb and then down the street. She doesn’t come inside until he is out of sight. Then, instead of joining the family in the den, she says, “I need to get something,” and she disappears up the stairs. She doesn’t come down again for nearly an hour, during which Derek has to restrain himself from racing up to her room to ask her what the hell is going on, what Ronan wanted, why he came to the house. But Mr. and Mrs. Cross are both there in the den, watching The Lion in Winter. Mr. Cross has poured himself a Scotch, neat, and looks relaxed now that the Christmas festivities are over. Mrs. Cross is engrossed in the movie, which, according to Jordie, she has watched every Christmas that Jordie can remember (an odd choice, Derek thinks, until Jordie points out that the action takes place at Christmas). Even so, relaxed as they are, engrossed as they are, there’s no way they will let him go up to Jordie’s room, even if he’s been up there plenty of times when they weren’t around. All he can do is wait.

For what seems like forever.

When Jordie finally comes back downstairs, she hangs in the entrance to the den and speaks his name the way a teacher would: “Derek!” Like it’s a command or a caution. Even her parents notice. For the first time since Ronan left the porch, Mrs. Cross’s eyes stray from the TV.

“Is something wrong, dear?” she asks her daughter.

“I need to talk to Derek.”

Derek excuses himself and gets up off the couch. He follows Jordie into the kitchen, puzzled by what he reads as ill humor, which only deepens when she closes the kitchen door behind them. She faces him, her arms crossed teacher-like over her chest.

“Did you take something out of my room?” It comes out like an accusation, as if she already knows the answer and the answer is yes.

“No. Why? What do you think I took?”

“Some jewelry.”

Derek is stunned. “You think I stole jewelry from you? Why would I do that?”

“I know you have it, Derek.”

“Have what?”

“My bracelet.”

“What bracelet?” What’s the matter with her? “Wait a minute. Does this have anything to do with Ronan?” He’s never been able to say the guy’s name without disdain, and Jordie picks up on it.

“What if it does?”

“What was he doing here anyway?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Is she kidding? Her ex-boyfriend shows up and the next thing he knows, she’s accusing him of something—and it’s none of his business?

“What was he doing here, Jordie?”

“Did you or did you not take jewelry from my room?”

“I did not. But, hey, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Ronan says you did.”

“Ronan says he saw me steal from you? Are you crazy?”

“He saw you with the bracelet.”

Jeez, the bracelet thing again.

“He’s wrong.” Maybe even delusional—that wouldn’t surprise Derek. “I didn’t take anything from you. I would never do that. You know me better than that, Jordie.” He peers at her. “Don’t you?”

“He says he saw you with it.”

“I know what he says. He gave me grief at school. Look, I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but what he saw was the bracelet I bought you, and—”

“You bought me a bracelet?”

“I was planning to give it to you on New Year’s Eve. That’s our two-month anniversary.”

Her face softens a little. “And Ronan thought the bracelet was the one he gave me?”

“Yeah. But it isn’t. I bought it myself. The guy’s crazy.” Okay, maybe it’s a mistake to say that. Her tiny smile of surprise and, just maybe, appreciation vanishes. Yup, definitely a mistake.

“He’s not crazy.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But if you’d seen him…He was ready to take me on.”

“Take you on?”

“Beat the crap out of me. I’m not kidding. You know how he is. But he was wrong. I don’t have his bracelet. You want me to go home and get the one I bought and give it to you now? That’ll prove I’m not lying.”

She lets out a long sigh. He’s not sure what that means, but then she says, “I’m sorry, Derek. I feel like I’ve ruined things for you. I must have misplaced that stupid bracelet.” He likes the way she says it—as if Ronan has annoyed her with his petty problem. “I’ll look again.” She starts for the kitchen door. He catches her around the waist.

“Not now, okay? It can wait. Can’t it?” He asks her if she wants to go back to the den and watch the movie with her parents or if she maybe wants to go down to the basement with him and watch a movie down there. In the end, she agrees to go downstairs, which would be perfect if Carly, fed up with Christmas tradition and having no patience for the slow pace of old movies, didn’t decide to join them. Still, Jordie calms down and snuggles against him and stays snuggled until Carly, bored or tired or both, finally drifts upstairs. Derek is glad to see her go; he pulls Jordie closer and gets ready to kiss her.

But she wriggles away until there’s a good chunk of sofa between them.

“Why would Ronan think you had his bracelet if you didn’t?” she asks.

Jeez, that again! The way the question comes out, coupled with the frown on her face, makes him think she has been chewing this over the whole time they were supposedly watching the movie.

“You’ve seen the one he gave me. It’s practically one of a kind. It’s not one of those mass-produced things you can get in some low-end jewelry store.”

“I never saw it.”

“I wore it all the time, Derek.”

“Maybe you did. But you weren’t wearing it anymore when we started going out, and before that, it wasn’t your wrist I was looking at. It was your eyes. And your face.” That earns him a smile. “You know what it probably is? Maybe he’s shortsighted, and he needs glasses. Or maybe”—he can’t stop himself—“he’s an idiot.”

Jordie tenses up, which annoys Derek. If Ronan is truly her ex, she shouldn’t care what Derek says about him.

But she does.

“Okay, I’m sorry I said that. Honestly, I don’t know why he thinks I have his bracelet. I don’t.”

He reaches for her again.

She pulls back out of his reach—again.

“Did you take it because you were jealous of him?” she asks.

She’s never going to let up.

“Okay. A, I didn’t take it.” There’s a sharpness to his voice now that he doesn’t try to hide. Everything was going along just great until that asshole Ronan showed up on the porch. “And B, what do you mean, am I jealous? What do I have to be jealous about? Ronan? You two split up, remember?”

She doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t know whether to press the point or not. They did split up. Everyone knows it. When it happened, everyone at school was talking about it, and they all pretty much said the same thing: it’s about time. He certainly seconded that emotion. She’s never talked about what exactly led to the breakup, and now he’s wondering again what did happen. And, more important, who instigated it. Everyone assumes it was Jordie because, really, why would any guy, especially a guy like Ronan Barthe, who’d won the lottery when he landed her, be stupid enough to let her go? But the guy is strange. Everyone knows it.

“Jordie, are you telling me I should be jealous of Ronan?”

“Of course not,” she says, but without the conviction he was hoping for. Without a smile. Without reaching for his hand, without sliding closer to him and snuggling up to him, without kissing him, not even on the cheek.

It’s because of all of that, and because she still seriously thinks he might have stolen some stupid bracelet, supposedly bestowed by an ex-boyfriend—and because Ronan showed up the way he did, no doubt about it—that Derek decides to slip home and get the bracelet he bought for her, the kind of bracelet he knows she is going to love because it isn’t some mass-produced thing either. It’s special. He doesn’t bother with a note. He plans to be back in a few hours, while everyone is still asleep.

Three

Jordie stays up late that night. In fact, she hardly sleeps at all. Long after Derek has slipped out of the house, she is sitting exhausted on her bed and surveying the wreck that is her bedroom. The contents of her dresser drawers are strewn across the floor. A half dozen or more purses have been upended and also lie on the floor. Her jewelry—almost all of it costume jewelry—is scattered across her dresser. The jewelry box is empty. Her closet door stands open from when she searched every pocket of every jacket and coat she owns.

Also searched: her desk drawers; both of her backpacks; the collection of vintage tea and cookie tins and boxes that she inherited from her grandmother, an avid collector, and which she has filled with makeup, more jewelry, trinkets and bric-a-brac, what she describes as “just stuff” when her mother asks how on earth she has managed to fill them all; the three mugs she keeps on her desk, filled with pens, pencils and markers; and the wicker ottoman that opens up and that she shoves all manner of things into whenever her mother nags her to tidy up. It looks as if her room has been ransacked by a thief searching for some specific treasure, or by a surly cop trying to pin a murder on her, or, perhaps, by a vicious little sister. But none of these is true. Jordie has done this damage herself.

It had started out so simple. Ronan showed up unannounced on her porch (she had forgotten how much she loved looking into those dark blue eyes of his) and asked for the bracelet back. Her first thought: tough luck, buddy, it was a gift, and it’s mine now. She loves that bracelet. And if he wanted to get all pissy because their relationship hadn’t worked out—his fault, not hers—then too bad for him. A gift is a gift: once you give it, it belongs to someone else, to do with as they please.

The thing though? He wasn’t angry about it. If anything, he looked sad.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” he said to her out there on the porch. “You know that, right, Jordie? Did I ever ask you for anything, ever?”

No, he never had. But it’s not the virtue he makes it out to be. The truth is, Ronan Barthe is a guy who can’t bring himself to ask for anything from anyone, no matter what the circumstances. If he were drowning and someone were to appear on the shore, he wouldn’t call for help. He has too much pride for that. It’s either save yourself or admit your failure, because any man—this apparently applies only to men—who can’t save himself doesn’t deserve to live. It was part of the problem between him and Jordie. He never asked for anything. And because he never asked, he seemed to think she didn’t have any right to ask either, not even for the things that don’t require effort or expense to give, like maybe a phone call when he was going to be late or an explanation for why he was so clearly out of sorts, or just a word, one little word, to help her understand why he felt he had to put his fist through the wall in the chemistry lab, right in front of Mr. Thornbury.

“I need that bracelet, Jordie. I’ll get you another one if you want. But I really need that one back.”

She didn’t ask why he needed it. If she knew him at all—and she wasn’t entirely certain anyone could claim to truly know Ronan, but if anyone could, she guessed probably she was the one—he wouldn’t explain anyway. So she said, “Sure.” She said, “I have company right now, but I’ll look for it later, and I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can. Okay?”

He said okay, but even though she’d agreed to give him what he wanted, he didn’t leave. Not right away. He stood there, frosted breath streaming out of his nostrils, as thick as cigarette smoke, and looked at her. Then turned and looked through the window into the living room.

“Maugham has it,” he said.

“What?”

“Your boyfriend.” Just the way he said it irked her. “He has the bracelet. Did you give it to him or what?”

“No.” Why would she do that? “What makes you think he has it?”

“I saw him with it.” He glanced at the living room window again, and this time Jordie followed his gaze. Derek was standing there, only half hidden by the curtain, peering out at them. “He’s here tonight?”

“He’s been here for a couple of days. His parents are out of town, and my mom said he could stay over.” She knew what Ronan was thinking: Your mom never said I could stay over. She never even liked to have me in the house. What he said, though, was:

“Stay over? For how long?”

“Until his parents get back tomorrow afternoon.”

Ronan digested this. “Yeah, well, he has my bracelet.”

She let that ride—my bracelet, as if it still belonged to him.

“I’ll look for it,” she said. “I’ll give it back to you.”

Funny, it didn’t occur to her to doubt Ronan when he said Derek had the bracelet. She isn’t sure how she feels about that. On the one hand, as far as she knows and despite his many other faults, she is one hundred percent rock-solid certain that Ronan wasn’t lying to her. On the other hand, what kind of person believes her ex-boyfriend’s description of events when it flies in the face of the tale recounted by her current boyfriend?

The minute Ronan had left—after she’d watched him go, all the while wishing he would stay—she’d gone up to her room and checked the top drawer of her dresser, which is where she had put the bracelet after she and Ronan broke up.

It wasn’t there.

So then, with Ronan’s words still in her mind, she had gone downstairs and asked Derek if he’d taken it.

Accused him of stealing the bracelet from her room, in fact, and grilled him as if she were a cop and he were a thief.

He said he hadn’t taken it, but did that put an end to it? Of course not. She’d let it eat at her for hours—for the whole length of a movie plus commercials—and then started in on him again. And he stuck to his guns: I didn’t take it, the guy’s an idiot, and by the way, you ruined the (so-called) anniversary present I had planned for you.