Page 56 of Strangers She Knows

“Wh…who?” Rae stammered. “Who are you?”

“I’m Miranda Phillips, the botanist assigned to Isla Paraíso for the summer.” Miranda gestured widely. “Did you know a botanist is here every summer?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know there was one this summer.” Embarrassed by her tears, Rae wiped at her face.

“Who are you?” Miranda asked.

“I’m Rae Di Luca.” This woman, whoever she was, looked familiar. “My parents own this island.”

“Oh. Oh! Hey.” The botanist stuck out her hand. “Didn’t we meet a couple of years ago at your parents’ wedding?”

Rae immediately felt relieved. “Yes! I knew I remembered you!” She wiped her palm on her shorts and shook hands.

“Nice wedding. I enjoyed it. Your mom’s dress—wow! Italian designer, of course, but still—wow! If only she hadn’t collapsed. That was a tragedy.”

Everything Miranda said assured Rae she had really been there.

Miranda’s bright smile lost a few watts. “I don’t think your mom was happy to see me, though. We used to work together. We were friends. Things went bad… When I went, I was hoping to get things back to normal between us. But she wouldn’t even talk to me.”

Rae immediately felt an empathy with this woman. “She makes me so mad.”

“You, too?” Miranda offered a fist bump.

Rae bumped, and admired the way Miranda moved and talked, without any glitches. She didn’t have a crippled hand. She didn’t freeze up and stop talking, like something was choking her. She wasn’t feeble…

No. Rae’s innate sense of fairness stopped her before she went too far—and that made her mad, too. She wanted to be mean. She felt mean. But she knew her mom wasn’t feeble. She was merely damaged, and fighting back. Rae knew she should cheer about that. But she was tired of being the cheerleader for her mother.

When was someone going to be the cheerleader for her?

Miranda was still talking. “I like your dad, but he’s all hers, so maybe don’t tell that it’s me who’s doing the botany study this year? In fact, maybe don’t tell them you met me at all.”

Rae’s inherent caution and good sense took possession of her. “I… I don’t know. I usually—”

Miranda smiled and made a gesture that meant,Pass. “No problem. I completely understand. I mean, your dad did give the okay about me being here, but you don’t want to keep things from your parents. You’re to be commended. I just thought—” she glanced around the solitude “—I might get lonely while I was here, and it would be nice to talk to someone.”

No pressure. Miranda had her reasons for wanting to avoid Rae’s mother, and they made sense. “I know. Me, too! I mean, there’s no one here, and no Wi-Fi or phone. Just the wind and the waves and the grass and the trees. It’s soboring. No TV! Just DVDs and my parents. And Dylan Conkle, who is some kind of space case, and Jamie Conkle, who acts like I have a disease.”

Miranda sat down in the sand. “I thought it was just me. When I went up to the house to check in, Jamie treated me like I was some kind of mass murderer. I mean, me! I was assigned to this island to do the annual survey, and you’d think she owned it and I was stomping on the coral reef.”

“There no coral reef here. The water’s too deep.”

“It’s a figurative coral reef.”

“Oh.” Rae felt stupid. “I knew that.” She sat, too. “My dad knows you’re here? On the island? He okayed it?”

“Huh.” Miranda scratched her head. “I thought it was him, but maybe it was a different Di Luca. Somebody did, though.”

“He never said anything, so maybe itwashim and he doesn’t want my mom to know.” For a moment, the idea made Rae brighten. Then she sighed, because at rock bottom, she liked having her folks behave like they enjoyed being married, and keeping secrets didn’t fit. “Where are you staying?”

“My equipment’s up there in the rocks.” Miranda pointed toward the top of the cliff.

“I came through there. I didn’t see anything.”

“I keep it all stashed pretty tightly under the overhang. If I don’t, the wind kicks up off the ocean and my stuff goes flying!” Miranda bent her leg and rested her arm on her knee.

Her shorts slid up, and on her thigh, Rae saw a scar. It looked like the bite of a big dog. She wanted to ask what had happened.

But Miranda saw her looking, pulled her shorts over it, and kept talking. “Which is okay if it’s just a pan or something, but—” she showed Rae the clipboard “—all this data has to be recorded on a certain time and in a certain place, and that’s work I can’t redo.”

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