LJ Maas - Rebecca’s Cove

“Maybe, but it’s what gets me by.”

“Baylor...your father. Did he do something to you?”

“Yeah, he did all right, but it wasn’t what you’re thinking.” BJ wiped her eyes again and brushed her hand through her hair. She pinched the bridge of her nose and wondered once more why she was doing this, why she was opening up to this woman.

“It may not have been sexual, but it was still abuse. My father was an overbearing, controlling madman, to put it succinctly. He made it a habit of telling me, pretty much from the day I was born, what a disappointment I was. I think one day I just decided to live up to his warped expectations of me. I figured if he thought I was out drinking and fooling around, that’s exactly what I’d do. When I was fourteen, I got caught in bed with one of our housekeepers.” BJ raised her head and smiled sheepishly. “Okay, so I got a little wild, I’ll admit.”

Hobie smiled back and reached out to squeeze her hand.

BJ wondered if Hobie could imagine her as an unruly and rebellious teen.

“Caught by your father, I presume?”

“Of course,” BJ said. “Is there any other way for shit to happen other than in great big piles?” She cleared her throat and grew serious. “To say that my father freaked would be a major understatement. He lost it. Full-on completely lost it. He wasn’t the only one. I pretty much snapped, too. To this day, I don’t even remember what we screamed at each other. I took off in his BMW. He had me arrested and charged with stealing his car.”

“Your own father had you arrested?”

BJ let out a short bark of laughter. “That’s not the half of it. When I went to court, no one listened to me about dear old Dad. It was the seventies. Remember? Kids didn’t have things like rights then. My father used his lawyer and the services of a judge that his money elected. The old man brought up every mistake and stupid thing I ever did, like he’d recorded them in a notebook my whole life for just that purpose. They gave me two choices. One, I could do three to five in a juvenile lockup for grand theft auto.

Two, I could spend a short amount of time in a rehab facility.” “Which one did you go for?” Hobie asked when BJ paused. “I figured time in rehab wouldn’t be near as bad as prison. I mean, I heard all the stories from other kids. Juvenile detention was prison, plain and simple. I still couldn’t believe it was happening to me, ya know? It’s like it wasn’t real, like it was happening to someone else. So I took rehab.” She shook her head. “Turns out my old man wasn’t sending me to a traditional rehab center for drug or alcohol detox. I was there for a behavior adjustment. I ended up in a place that was determined to cure me of all my social ills, including homosexuality.”

“Oh, God.”

“God definitely wasn’t in this place. It was the Griffin-Ward Institute.”

BJ paused and Hobie frowned. “In Wisconsin?” “You’ve heard of it?”

Hobie nodded. “In med school. Griffin-Ward was a textbook case of the damage that power, money, and the misguided notions of some fanatical therapists could do to teenagers. Every resident who did a psych rotation heard about the Institute.”

“Whatever you heard or read wasn’t the half of it. I got beaten on a daily basis as a form of aversion therapy. There were kids, boys and girls, who were raped, shot up with drugs, even lobotomized. You name it and they tested the treatment out on us. The rich parents got their kids back just the way they wanted them. They were afraid of their own shadows, but hey, at least they didn’t party anymore. The nuts that ran the joint called it ‘alternative treatment.’Any prisoner of war would tell you it was ordinary torture.”

Tears fell from BJ’s eyes, but she was barely aware of them. She’d learned to block the emotions out, to think of that time as though it had happened to one of the characters in her novels. She never personalized it anymore. She was afraid of what would happen if she did.

“I guess I was one of the lucky ones. I bribed one of the orderlies and he mailed a letter to my grandmother for me. I’ll never forget the day Tanti broke into the place.” She laughed, and this time, the laughter was easier, less bitter. “She and Aimee brought along some reporters, and to this day, I have no ideawhere she got those big thugs with baseball bats that came in with her.”

“How long had you been there when Evelyn came?” “Six months.”

“I applaud you, Baylor.” BJ looked up in surprise.

“Really,” Hobie continued. “I don’t know if I could have even held it together, let alone turn out to be a normal functioning member of society after an experience like that.”

No one had said that to BJ before. Then again, she’d never told anyone about this small part of what had happened to her. Juliana knew the basics, but she had never been privy to BJ’s thoughts about those six months. “You would have been fine.”

“No. No, I wouldn’t have,” Hobie said. “We are who we are. If I had been as strong a person as you, I wouldn’t have given up on medicine like I did.”

“What did happen to make you change directions like that?” Hobie gave the same smile that BJ wore earlier, tinged with regret and pain. “Maybe another time, huh?”

“Sure. It’s been kind of an emotional day, hasn’t it?” “You could say that.”

“Personally, I try not to have more than one breakdown on an empty stomach,” BJ added with a smile. “Do you forgive me for talking to your mom that way?”

“How could I not? You followed your heart and I don’t think that’s ever a bad thing. Besides, I’ve got the strangest feeling that you never do what you’re told anyway.”

“You’re on to me.” BJ grinned. “Hey, speaking of empty stomachs, could I ask a big favor?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think you could feed me? I’m really starving.” Hobie laughed aloud and BJ realized that she was coming to adore that sound.

“Hey, Mom, Baylor, look what I can do!” Noah stood on the lawn and turned around in a circle. After spinning like a top at least ten times, he took a step forward and promptly fell to the ground.

The two women sat and listened to the youngster’s giggles. “That’s great, sweetheart,” Hobie called out. She hid her face

behind her hand and peeked out at BJ. “Would you believe me if I told you that he’s really a prodigy in disguise?”

BJ looked out at the boy who was lying in the grass and laughing at his own ingenuity. “How proud you must be.”

The two women continued to laugh as they entered the house.

“Okay, Squirt!” BJ opened her arms and Arturo jumped into her grasp. “I feel like I’m acting out an episode of Mission: Impossible every time we do this.” She flipped the box closed on the greenhouse’s water system controls, then hopped to the door and escaped into the sunshine before the first drop of water fell.

“Are we gettin’ good at this, or what?” she asked her canine companion.

It had been two months since BJ arrived on Ana Lia. She still had a few things to learn about the island and its eccentric inhabitants, but every day, she became more comfortable. She ate most of her meals at Rebecca’s Cove, talking about everything from books to sports with the other patrons. The greenhouse, Arturo, and all the other chores around her grandmother’s home had become routine. She even managed to do some of her better writing while lounging with her laptop on the porch during the warm evenings.

A certain veterinarian took up a great deal of BJ’s free time. She enjoyed spending time with Hobie and Noah. The boy was quiet and shy, but he had an incredibly free and interesting way of looking at life. Nothing seemed to discourage him; he took everything in stride. The question mark still in BJ’s mind was Noah’s father. She supposed that she could have asked about him, but that might have been pushing it. She didn’t want Hobie to think she was interested in her.

BJ could see where Noah inherited his reserved nature. Hobie was as tender and gentle a person as she had ever met. Hobie had a sizzling temper when provoked, but for the most part, she was patient, even long suffering. That wasn’t to say that BJ and Hobie didn’t continue to have off days. Hobie wasn’t used to having anyone else to talk to or confide in besides Laura. It seemed as if Hobie went out of her way to keep hold of her spirited independence.

BJ was also new to the arena of friendship. So far, she had done little more than the occasional light flirtating with Hobie. She wasn’t sure why, but every time she thought about pursuing a more intimate relationship with her, she became sick to her stomach. Because having a friend was a rather new experience, she decided to leave well enough alone. Aside from Juliana, BJ had no other friends she could rely on or share confidences with. Hobie fit the bill on both counts.

BJ looked at her watch one more time. She had to write a few more paragraphs while the characters were still shouting in her head or she would lose the scene. She was due to meet Hobie, who was taking her to Doc Elston for the first time. She prayed that she might switch to a walking cast, which Hobie had explained was a possibility if the x-rays looked good. BJ began typing once more. She knew she would be late, but she had one rule when writing: never say no to your muse.

“I don’t understand why you can’t put on the new cast,” BJ said. She and Hobie were sitting in the Jaguar outside Dr. Elston’s office.

“First off, we don’t know for sure whether you’re far enough along in the healing process to allow a short cast, let alone a walking cast. That’s why you need the x-rays. Secondly, I’m not the town’s physician. I only saw you that day because Doc Elston was on vacation. It would be unethical of me to take one of his patients.”