Four Letter Word, page 2
Izzy descended the stairs to the second floor, where the rest of the bedrooms were located, and slid her palm over the smooth, worn railing at the top of the staircase before she gripped the mahogany newel post, topped by a finial carved to look like a giant artichoke. She jumped and swung around it like Gene Kelly on a lamppost in Singin’ in the Rain, landing on the second step of the main staircase. She’d been doing the same airborne move since she was tall enough to reach the artichoke finial, and the wood was eroding after countless trips down the stairs. Her dad, who had installed the newel post after rescuing it from a restoration project, didn’t mind Izzy’s habit, but her mom hated it.
She saw danger everywhere.
The Bell house was relatively quiet as Izzy trotted down the rest of the stairs, which was less of a rarity now that Taylor had his own place and Riley and Parker had both gone off to college. Still, Izzy had reacclimated to the increased volume with the younger Bell Boys home for a few weeks during summer break, and the current silence felt oppressive, pierced only by the slightly off-rhythm tick-tocks of the half-dozen mantel clocks that dotted the living room.
Over the years, her dad had picked up all six timepieces, as well as five more on the upper floors of the house plus two grandfather clocks, at local salvage yards and estate sales, restoring them to pristine condition in his workshop. They had all been gifts for Izzy’s mom, who had once made the mistake of admiring a Victorian mantel clock at a restaurant, after which her husband had, in true Harry Bell fashion, gone completely overboard. She’d gotten a clock for every birthday since.
And she hated all of them.
“I’m not just going to take your word for it, Riley.” Her mom’s voice cut through the ticking. “You lost that privilege when you almost drove Dad’s pickup into the river because you were making out with that waitress.”
“Kylie’s a bartender, not a waitress,” Riley said, sounding quite pleased with himself. “And that was ages ago, Mother. I was a child.”
“It was spring break!”
“Are you sure?” Riley asked slyly. “Maybe you don’t remember.”
“I’m not senile, Riley. And you can’t gaslight me into thinking I am.”
“Shit, Mom.”
From the dining room, Izzy tensed. If there was one thing her mom hated, it was curse words.
“Riley Anderson Bell, you watch your mouth.”
He instantly sulked. “Sorry, Mom.”
“No four-letter words while our guest is here, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And NO CAR.”
“Izzy!” This time it was Riley bellowing her name. “We need you!”
“Here.” Izzy slunk through the formal dining room, where every inch of exposed wood from the legs on the threadbare Victorian chairs to the hanging ceiling beams glistened with Old English, and found her mom and Riley in a kitchen standoff.
Elizabeth Bell leaned back against the farmhouse sink, delicate arms crossed over her chest, while she glared up at her youngest son. She was a mite of a woman, as Izzy’s dad liked to joke, five foot nothing and wiry like a cross country runner. Izzy, at five foot six with a size nine shoe, was burly in comparison.
Her mom’s long, chocolate brown hair was swept up into a high ponytail on the top of her head, a stark contrast to her milky white complexion, and with her outfit of cropped leggings and a sleeveless button-down blouse, she looked like a 1950s bobby soxer. The retro style mixed with her petiteness made Izzy’s mom look younger than her actual age. No stranger would have guessed that she had four strapping children, three of whom were legal adults. But tiny of stature didn’t mean small of spirit, and Izzy’s mom was not someone you wanted to cross.
Her head whipped around the moment Izzy stepped into the kitchen, ponytail bouncing around her delicate, pale face. “Did you tell Riley he could use the car this afternoon?”
“Yep.”
Her mom clicked her tongue, disappointed. “But you’re supposed to pick up bagels by three thirty, remember?”
“Peyton’s on her way over.”
Her mom’s combativeness ebbed the instant she heard Peyton’s name. Izzy’s best friend always had that effect. Her mom probably would have let her daughter drop out of school and join a free-love commune as long as Peyton was going with her. “Well, fine. But be back by six for dinner. I don’t want us to be late to the airport. Flight number—”
“Thirty-seven sixty-five,” Riley and Izzy recited in unison. “Nine twenty arrival.”
They sounded like captured soldiers repeating their name, rank, and serial number under interrogation.
Izzy’s mom snatched a frilly half apron from a hook. Her transformation into a ’50s housewife was complete. “I just hope Alberto doesn’t hate it up here after a week in San Francisco,” she grumbled, attacking a Yukon gold potato with a peeler.
“He won’t, Mom,” Izzy said, while Riley pressed a finger to his smiling lips and tiptoed out the side door. “The house looks beautiful, and you’ve worked so hard to make him feel welcome.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, thanking Izzy with her soft brown eyes, then paused her potato peeling. “Did you practice your Italian today?”
Izzy experienced a full body clench at the question. “Yep.”
“E come va?” she asked in perfect Italian.
Shit. Izzy attempted to translate her mom’s question, which she was pretty sure meant “How’s it going?” but she didn’t dare answer in Italian. She didn’t want her mom’s vicarious dreams to fall apart just hours before Alberto was set to arrive.
“It’s going well,” she said with a shrug, opening the fridge to hide her embarrassment. She wasn’t hungry but pulled out a slice of cheese anyway.
“Bene.” Her mom’s smile returned as she reached for another potato, then her eyes drifted over Izzy’s head to the oversize bay window that faced the water. “I hope the goddamn fog doesn’t roll in tonight.”
“It won’t.” Of course it will.
“And your father’d better not be a jerk.” Her next swipe at the potato seemed angrier than the last.
“He won’t.” Though Izzy certainly wouldn’t have bet on it. Her dad wasn’t really a jerk so much as a white guy of a certain age who thought all his jokes were funny and all his opinions deserved to be shared, and who didn’t believe in hiding his true feelings behind social niceties. He wasn’t on board with the Italian exchange student plan—or the “Italian Scheme,” as he’d dubbed it—and though he wasn’t a mean-natured man, his sardonic sense of humor frequently came across that way. Thankfully, he spent most of his time on jobsites or tucked away in the garage workshop and would probably only see Alberto at meals.
Izzy’s mom dropped the peeler and reached her hand toward her daughter. “I just want this to be a good experience for you.”
“I know,” Izzy said, gripping her mom’s fingers with her own.
“A chance to improve your Italian, get into that exchange program…” Her eyes hadn’t left the window. Izzy knew her mom wasn’t seeing gray skies and fishing boats, but the sun-drenched fields of a Tuscany she’d never experienced in person.
“It will be, but—”
“Don’t get stuck here, Izzy.” Her mom’s face hardened as she reached for Izzy’s forearm. “It’s fine for your brothers, but not for my Elizabeth.”
Izzy choked back the knot in her throat. Elizabeth, her given name. She was her mother’s namesake, which meant she carried the weight of her mother’s broken dreams.
“Promise me.” Her mom’s fingernails pierced Izzy’s skin. “Promise.”
“I promise,” Izzy managed to whisper, her throat constricting along with her mom’s icy grip.
“Fate is also a four-letter word,” her mom said, her tone suddenly more bitter than plaintive. “And yours isn’t here. I…” Her mom’s voice cracked, misery overcoming the flash of anger, and just as she thought her mom was about to break down sobbing, Izzy’s phone vibrated in her pocket.
“Answer it,” her mom said when Izzy made no move toward her phone.
“Peyton,” she said, without even looking. No one else would have texted her.
Not anymore.
Izzy’s mom released her daughter’s arm, turned slowly back to the sink, and picked up the peeler and the potato gingerly, judging their weight in her hands as if she weren’t entirely sure what they were. “You should go.”
“Back by six!” Izzy said enthusiastically, hoping to circumvent her mom’s darkening mood, but her mom didn’t respond, and as Izzy slipped out the side door, she noticed that her mom’s eyes had found the window again.
“DID YOU TELL RI HE’S DISGUSTING?” PEYTON ASKED AS IZZY climbed into the passenger seat.
“Twice.”
“Good.” Peyton grinned wickedly. Even though she was practically engaged to her boyfriend, Hunter, her flirtation with Izzy’s least likable brother had been in full swing since they were tweens. Not that anything would have happened between them—dating your little sister’s best friend had to be some kind of social no-no—but Peyton was definitely hot in that shoulders-back, outgoing, overtly sexual kind of way that guys usually found attractive, and Izzy had always been afraid she’d walk in on the two of them making out in her living room.
“What are we doing today?” Izzy asked, changing the subject.
“Existentially or literally?”
Izzy snorted. “I can’t handle existential musings right now.”
“Fair. Well, if we’re not going to contemplate the very nature of our existence all afternoon, then I thought we’d just chill.”
“Chill?”
Izzy eyed her friend. Peyton wore a skintight, bright yellow halter that accentuated the spray tan on her usually pale skin, and she’d dabbed a peachy convertible color on both her lips and her cheekbones. She wouldn’t have bothered with either if she was planning to “just chill” with Izzy all afternoon. Hunter would definitely be part of the day’s agenda, and Izzy steeled herself for another afternoon of playing third wheel.
“I promise I won’t bail on you with Hunter,” Peyton said with a smirk, as if reading Izzy’s mind.
“Just make sure I have a snack before you disappear into his room,” she said. “And a fresh bowl of water.”
Peyton usually would have responded with a witty retort, but she unexpectedly changed the subject instead. “Hey, have you talked to your dad recently?”
“Well, we live in the same house and I see him every day, so…”
Peyton pulled away from the curb. “But not, like, about anything specific?”
What was she fishing for? “Not that I can remember.” Her dad wasn’t exactly the “serious talk” kind of parent.
“Oh.”
Peyton fell quiet as she chewed at the inside of her cheek, brows knitted together. Something was bothering her.
“You okay?” Izzy asked.
Her friend nodded, then shook her head rapidly, casting off her darkening mood. “So where am I going?”
“I need to pick up bagels at Frankie’s before they close, so let’s do that first,” Izzy said, content to let things go for now. She’d ask Peyton about it again later, just to make sure there wasn’t something wrong.
“Check. Then we can meet the boys.”
“Boys?” With an s?
“Did I forget to tell you? Jake’s home.”
Izzy had to fight to keep her face passive as a hot wave of shame washed over her. He didn’t even tell me he was back.
Peyton had no idea how close Izzy had gotten with Jake, her boyfriend’s best friend, since last spring, had not been privy to what Izzy had thought were strengthening feelings between them. Izzy had kept her connection with Jake a secret, even from Peyton. And though he’d stopped communicating with her a few weeks ago, Izzy had held on to the hope that once Jake returned from his summer internship, things between them would go back to the way they had been.
But he couldn’t even be bothered to give Izzy a heads-up that he was home. The rejection was complete, and Izzy was hurt and embarrassed that she’d ever thought she meant anything to Jake Vargas.
“Is that okay?” Peyton asked, eyeing Izzy closely as she zipped across town to the only New York deli within a hundred miles.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Peyton shrugged. “I dunno. You just looked weird all of a sudden. Pale.”
“I’m always pale.”
“Like you’d seen a ghost.”
“Ghost” was an interesting word choice.
It had all started in the spring when Jake accepted the summer internship at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. His girlfriend, Lori, had freaked out because Jake would be missing her older sister’s wedding and demanded he turn the internship down. They’d gotten into a huge fight.
A few days later, while Jake and Izzy were watching the end of a horror movie after Hunter and Peyton had disappeared into the other room, he’d opened up to her about it. Izzy wasn’t exactly sure why Jake had chosen her as a confidante—maybe because they were thrown together so much after their respective best friends started dating—but he did. Jake had shared his changed feelings for Lori, his love of oceanography and how desperately he wanted this internship, his dad’s expectations that Jake would follow in his footsteps with a military career. Izzy had learned more about Jake that night than in the previous three years they’d known each other.
The conversation had been interrupted by the reemergence of Hunter and Peyton with ruffled hair and wrinkled clothes, but it hadn’t ended there. Jake had texted Izzy later that night. And again the next morning.
Again and again.
Buried on Izzy’s phone were months of heartfelt, in-depth messages between the two of them. In a short amount of time, Jake had become a very important part of Izzy’s life, the only person other than Peyton in whom she’d confided her fears about studying abroad. And the only one, Peyton included, who knew just how tough Izzy’s mom’s mental health situation had gotten over the last year. She’d even confided in Jake about her mom’s official diagnosi—Bipolar II—and her struggles to find medication that worked. Jake, more than anyone, understood why Izzy was going along with this Italian Scheme.
In an odd twist, Elizabeth Bell’s mental health had been a source of bonding between Jake and Izzy. Jake’s dad, a former Marine Corps sergeant, suffered from PTSD, a diagnosis Master Sgt. Alejandro Vargas, USMC, Retired, kept hidden from everyone outside his family.
Jake and Izzy had commiserated over parental expectations, and the importance of that connection had surprised Izzy. Delighted her. Their secret correspondence had continued through Jake’s breakup with Lori and his temporary move down to Monterey for the summer. Jake was everything Izzy didn’t know she was missing—a levelheaded sounding board with a smart sense of humor and an unexpected streak of empathy—and she’d looked forward to their daily texts.
Then a few weeks ago, Jake had gone silent. It had been a particularly rough period for Izzy as her mom had cycled rapidly through manic and depressive moods. Though Parker and Riley were both technically home, they made sure they were out of the house a lot. And her dad was always working, which left Izzy to manage her mom. Alone.
There was only so much A Room with a View could counterbalance, and her mom was spiraling as she obsessed over Alberto’s arrival.
Izzy had texted Jake one night, voicing deep fears about both her mom’s mental health and Alberto. She was getting more and more excited for his arrival. Something to look forward to. Something for her mom to look forward to. She was nervous that Alberto wouldn’t like the house or her or would be offended by her wretched Italian.
Izzy had shared her fears with Jake and confided that she really wanted Alberto to like her.
Jake, who usually responded with encouragement and positivity, had merely typed a short, “Oh, I see.” Then gone silent.
For weeks.
The suddenness of Jake’s ghosting was devastating. Izzy had followed up, asked if he was okay, and gotten a few brush-offs like “Busy” and “Out on the boat all day” before she finally stopped trying. She felt foolish, ashamed that she’d imbued their friendship with more meaning than he had, embarrassed that she missed him, depressed that she had no one to talk to about it, and now angry that she was going to have to hang out with him again and pretend like nothing had happened.
“I was thinking,” Peyton began slowly. “Now that Jake’s back and, like, totally single, maybe…” She let her voice trail off as if Izzy was supposed to fill in the blanks. Which she wasn’t about to do.
“Maybe what?” she asked sharply, her anger at Jake spilling over.
“Sorry.” Peyton paused, eyeing her friend. “You guys seemed to get along pretty well last spring, and I just thought—”
“I’m not interested in Jake Vargas,” Izzy snapped. Her anger covered the lie.
“Okay, that’s totally fair.” Peyton chewed at the inside of her cheek as the old SUV rattled to a stop at a red light. When she spoke again, her words felt carefully chosen. “I’d never push you into something you didn’t want to do, Izz. I promise.”
Something she didn’t want to do…
So that was it. Peyton had been skeptical of the Italian Scheme from the beginning, worried—rightly—that Izzy was just going along with her mom’s latest whim. In her charming but pushy kind of way, Peyton was trying to help Izzy find something else in life she wanted, something other than keeping her mom happy.
She didn’t realize how close to home she’d hit.
“I just thought it would be cool to spend some time with Jake,” Peyton continued, her eyes flitting toward Izzy in quick movements, like a hummingbird scanning for predators. “And it might take your mind off things.”
Izzy arched an eyebrow. “Things?”
Peyton took a deep breath. “Like how your mom is trying to live vicariously through you by forcing you into something you don’t really want. Like how some stranger is about to show up at your house to teach you a language you don’t want to learn.” She pulled into a parking spot at the deli. “Things.”
