Picturesque

Chapter 20: Confession

Jo had disappeared at lunch, and my afternoon was spent playing with building blocks with Judd and Holly. When I retired to my room that evening before dinner, I found something odd sitting on my bed. It was a bikini—the same pink bikini Jo had given me the day at the beach—laid out on the duvet with a note beside it. I picked up the torn piece of paper and saw scraggly writing on it. It was so messy and scratchy that I could hardly read it, but I was able to decipher: Meet me at the pool at midnight. JO.

She had written her two-letter name in all capital letters at the bottom of the note, and it made me smile. Even her signature was bold and outstanding. As I felt the paper between my thumb and finger, I recognized the texture and the lines inked on the torn piece. Glancing over to my desk, I saw one of my empty journals sitting on top, turned halfway open where one of the pages had a piece torn from it.

I was glad she had picked up an empty journal that I had brought in case I filled up my other ones, but it made me fear that she had nosed her way around my other journals. I didn't want her to know how sad a human I really was—my journals were the epitome of that. Plus, I had written about her. There wasn't anything about her that would kill me if she knew, but the extent to which I had written her might have been disarming.

At dinner, I felt nervous. I felt like if Marty and Katie knew that I was going to meet their daughter at midnight at the pool, they would have some questions. Marty's questions would be something innocent, like asking if I liked swimming, or if I thought the pool was deep enough, or if I wanted him to buy some floaties for it. Katie's questions would be different: Why are you meeting at midnight? Why are you trying to be friends with my daughter? Who do you think you are?

I shook the thoughts away and got through dinner and helped Flo put the children to bed, and then I waited. Normally, I would've been a couple hours into sleep already, but I sat up at my desk, journaling about my day as I stared at the green clock on the wall. Time seemed to go so much slower after Jo's summoning.

Finally, it was midnight. Reluctantly, I put the bikini on and tied my robe over it, not wanting one of the parents or children to catch me in the hallway half-naked. I hadn't ventured through the house at night very much. It seemed smaller, in the dark and quiet, the only noise being the grandfather clock ticking and Marty's distant snores that echoed from somewhere else in the mansion.

I tiptoed down the stairs and past the living room where I came to stand at the patio door. Jo was already there, to my surprise. She was wearing a pair of tight swimming shorts and a swimming tank top, sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water. Her hair was parted over to the side messily, and I saw the side of her face as she stared into the water, the blue light from the pool reflecting off her cheek. She looked like a child like that, so focused on the way her feet flipped in and out of the water, bent over with no concern for ladylike posture.

The sound of me opening the doors drew her attention, her eyes catching me across the patio. "Hey," she said a little wobbly—she seemed nervous. Nonetheless, she lucidly smiled.

"Hey," I said, wrapping my arms around myself and walking over to her. "What's so interesting about that water there?"

"Oh, nothing," she said, turning to look at her feet again. I stood beside her, waiting for her to say something or do something, still confused as to why she wanted to meet me here. "Sit down," she said, patting the space of concrete beside her.

I sat down beside her, hanging onto my robe for fear of it coming undone, and let my feet sink into the water. They didn't go as far as hers did, due to the difference in our height, but it was enough for me to wade them around.

"I wanna teach you how to swim," she said a little brighter. "So take that robe off."

Rolling my eyes, I laughed and shook my head. "No, Jo."