Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

“I don’t think that was what she was afraid of.” In the branches overhead a dove began to coo.

Time to change the subject. “So what have you been doing since you left Coldwater?”

“College, graduate school. Married for a while. Working mostly with a bunch of biotech start-ups. It’s where the interesting science is right now.”

“So how did you end up back in Coldwater?”

“Billy called with the news about our parents. Their lawyer needed to meet with me.”

The birds stopped twittering and a cool breeze blew dust devils across the road. “I’m sorry,’ said Tom. “I heard it was a boating accident.”

Her face tightened and her mouth turned down at the corners. “Dad bought a forty-foot Sea Ray with some of his retirement money. Maybe it was too much boat for him. They found it smashed on the rocks in Wilson Cove.”

“I’m sorry.”

He had said that already. But an invisible censor stopped him from saying more.

“He was so excited when he bought it. He and Mom were going to cruise the Canadian side of the lake during the summer and then go out the St. Lawrence and down to Florida for the winter. It was something they’d been talking about for years.”

“It must have been a shock.”

Can you think of any more clichés?

“It still is. Then coming home for their funeral after being away all those years, and staying in that house I grew up in. I just couldn’t leave it again right away.”

He and Susan had once shared a passion for the hills above town, and the lake that stretched for fifty miles in either direction. It had been hard for him to leave, too. But without more to do than frolic in the woods, it would have been harder to stay. “It was lucky NeuroGene was here,” he said.

She smiled. “I suppose. After the funeral, I spent weeks riding my bike along the shore trails and hiking in the hills. When I was finally ready to leave, I ran into someone at Skippers who I worked with in California. She told me that she’d come here to help a biotech start-up with some grant work, but that they’d found private financing, so she was going back to California. I gave them a call, they gave me a job, and here I am. It’s hard to believe something like NeuroGene exists in Coldwater. But I guess it was meant to be.”

Tom picked up a stick and held it behind his back. “Where did Billy work?”

“He didn’t. He lived off my parents. After they died, he lived off the money they left him.”

“Did he live with them too?”

“Practically. Dad turned the loft above the boathouse into an apartment. Billy did whatever it was he did from there. Sleep mostly. Every once in a while he’d pick up an odd job, like feeding a couple of dogs on Pocket Island for an owner who’s never there. I’ve been staying up at the old house since the funeral. Billy would go out in the evenings, but I have no idea where. By the time he’d crawl back into the boathouse at night, I was in bed. I hardly ever saw him.”

Tom listened for tone as well as substance, taking gentlemanly inventory whenever pace or turn in the road provided the opportunity to do so. Susan had changed little in a decade. Five foot seven in bicycle flats. Her hair hung loose in a ponytail today. But at the funeral, it had been as he remembered: shoulder length, thick and the color of brushed gold. The bicycle outfit took the guesswork out of the rest: slim and curvy still. He remembered the girl on the dance floor laughing, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

Susan turned to face him. “You have that funny look on your face, Tommy Morgan.”

“Just thinking.”

“I can see that. So what have you been doing that I don’t already know from Googling Thomas J. Morgan about once every six months? You’re not married, either. Is there someone hoping to change that?”

He smiled. “My mother. And you’re toying with me. There are a gazillion Thomas Morgans in the English speaking world. What did you turn up besides pirates and rum makers?”

“Congressional staffer,” she said brightly. “Cornell Law School, Clerk for a New York federal judge, I forget which one. Pictures in ‘The American Lawyer’ on a bunch of corporate mega-deals.”

“Must be one of the other Tom Morgans.”

“Pictures with the eyes my mother warned me about?”

He laughed.

“And that you’re not happy.”

BOOM! It was a statement, not a question. An irritating echo of Joe’s: “Lot more than you get out of yours.”

“Google says I’m not happy?”

“No, some other research I’ve been doing. Your life sounds large. I’m impressed.”

Tom folded his arms, hoping the posture said skeptical rather than defensive. Every emotion except anger seemed to have surfaced in the last ten minutes. He felt as if he were wading through treacherous waters and needed to concentrate to keep his footing.

“It’s not personal,” said Susan. “It’s just science.”

“Which requires explanation, don’t you think?”

“Alright. But it’s that biochemistry stuff that used to put you to sleep.”

Tom smiled. “I could never hit Bobby Cashin’s knuckle ball, until I heard your father’s explanation of chaos theory. You used to have his gift. Tell it to me so I stay awake.”

She shrugged. “I’ll try. But let’s sit. This takes a bit of talking.”

They had arrived at a spot where two shallow streams came together and crossed under a stone bridge. A rough rock wall ran thigh high along either side. Susan sat on the wall and swung her legs over the water.

* * *

“All right. Imagine two cavemen: Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Barney tries to lead a balanced life. He kills only what he and his family can eat. The rest of the day he spends in quality time with Betty and Pebbles. Fred, on the other hand, is driven. He’s got to have the biggest cave, dried mastodon carcasses piled