Chapter 7

About the time Josie was showing off her new guitar, Justin -- unknowing of his daughter’s new purchase and her days with Hannah -- stood on the brick patio of his brother’s home in Barcelona.  Luke did pretty good for himself, he thought, gazing out across the backyard and gardens to the Mediterranean Sea beyond.  

For the two weeks the naval submarine had been at sea, they'd been polishing up some training missions and getting the new communications system working to perfection.  They stopped at the Naval Station in Rota, Spain to restock the boat and allow the crew members a three-day shore leave.  Justin took the opportunity to fly over to Barcelona as early as possible and visit his brother.  Luke had been ecstatic to see him, but his job kept him away from the house most of Friday.  Justin didn’t mind so much.  He was glad to feel earth under his boots again, to breathe fresh air.  And sleep in a normal sized bed.  Luke’s wife, Lauren, taught English at the BarcelonaInternationalCollege, and their two kids were in school for most of the day as well.  Justin was pretty much left alone with the housekeeper and gardener.

And again, that was okay.  He slept and recouped during the first couple of hours he was there, and then he spent the second part of the day touring the city.  As soon as it was late enough to call back home, he did.  

“What do you mean she’s not there?” he asked his mom, frowning into the phone.  

Mary Alice Kirkland sighed.  “She’s with a friend.  They’re spending the day together.”

“What friend?”

“Does it really matter?  She’s a nice girl and I’ve known her family for years.  Josie is happy and she’s got someone to talk to all day, instead of hanging out here at the farm, bored out of her mind,” his mom said, but Justin didn’t feel easy about the whole thing.

“How old is this friend?” he asked impatiently.  He just didn’t like the idea of Josie spending time with an older teenage girl.  Those hormonal females got into too much trouble, and the last thing he wanted was his little girl thinking she was older and wiser than she really was.

“How’s Luke doing?” his mother asked, not bothering to answer the question.

“Luke is fine.  He said he’s been meaning to call you.  And stop changing the subject.  Who’s this girl that Josie is hanging around?  I don’t want her into trouble.  She needs a calm summer to temper the attitude she’s been getting lately.”

Justin felt his mother’s irritation come over the phone line.  “I raised two children of my own, Justin Lewis,” she huffed, “and I am fully capable of tending to your daughter’s needs as well.  I’m neither deaf nor blind to her issues, and I know a good girl when I see one.  Your daughter’s friend is a good girl, and that’s all I’m saying about it.”

“Mom...”

“Don’t you ‘Mom’ me,” she said in her low, calm voice, and Justin grimaced.  “Josie is doing just wonderful.  She’s having a lovely time, so I have no desire to squash her fun just because you don’t approve of someone you don’t even know.”  He heard her take a deep breath, and then she said, “Now...when she gets home tonight, I’ll tell her you called, and then she’ll call you tomorrow morning, so it’s not too late where you’re at.”

Justin shook his head, even though his mother couldn’t see him.  “No, have her call me when she gets home anyway.  I don’t mind if it’s the middle of the night.  I want to talk to her.”

The seconds stretched on in silence, and Justin narrowed his eyes, thinking his mother was trying to pull the wool over his eyes where his daughter was concerned.  In fact, he knew she was.  He listened for a moment longer.  He could almost see her wheels turning in her head.  Something wasn’t right.  “Mom?”

“I’m here,” she said.  “Just checking a cake in the oven.”

Uh huh.  “Mom?  Tomorrow morning, go out and get her a cell phone, and then have her call me on it.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.  “I thought you didn’t want her to have a cell phone.”

“Now, I do,” he said gruffly.

His mom sighed.  “Justin, you’re half-way around the world.  You can’t keep tabs on your daughter from there.  This is ridiculous.”

“Just get her a cell phone,” he insisted.  “I’ll be at Luke’s for the rest of the weekend.”

“Fine,” she said.  “But if I find out you’re hounding her during the day, then I’ll just take the phone away from her so she can have some peace.  You can’t keep her under your thumb forever, you know.”

“She’s a child,” Justin argued.  “My thumb isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

And with that, Mary Alice changed the subject again, asking after her other grandbabies and how his job was doing.  By the time the call ended, Justin didn’t feel any better.  Josie was up to something, and now she’s got her grandmother hiding her secrets for her.  It was Beth all over again, and Justin’s stomach soured from the memories of his ex-wife’s betrayals and conspiracies during his marriage.

He didn’t like secrets.  And females were full of them.  Every time he saw a gorgeous woman on the street or in a store, his mind instantly wondered what kinds of secrets she was hiding.  He thought his mother was beyond such petty contrivances, but apparently not.  Still, he hated to think of her as anything other than the sweet, generous woman he’d grown up with.  If his mom was keeping something from him, it was for a good reason.

And that irritated him.  But like she said, there was nothing he could do about it from Spain.

When Luke and his family arrived in time for dinner that night, Justin was still waiting for Josie to call.  They sat outside on the patio, devouring a dish of some kind of breaded fish.  Justin kept wondering who this girlfriend of Josie’s was.  Someone his parent’s had known for years, apparently, but that really didn’t narrow the list down.  Most likely, it was a girl from their church.  His mother would have insisted that Josie attend with them, and the youth group at the Church of Christ had always been active and friendly...at least, back in Justin’s younger days.

While Lauren helped the girls with their homework that night, the two brothers walked out to the edge of Luke’s property with their cigars and beer, hiding their sinful pleasures from the curious eyes of the children.  “Guess who I ran into back in Arkansas?” Justin uttered with wry amusement as they watched the boats down at the harbor.

“Who?”

“Hannah Baker.”

Luke looked at Justin, confusion written all over his tanned face.  Then the light bulb went off.  “Hannah Baker,” Luke mused, a fond smile gracing his mouth as he puffed on his cigar.  “I haven’t thought about her in years.  What’s she been up to lately?”

“I don’t know,” Justin said with an uninterested shrug.  “I didn’t ask.”

Luke dropped down on the rock wall bordering his yard and sucked on his Spanish beer.  “I thought for sure we’d see her as a famous actress one day.”

“Apparently, it didn’t pan out the way she planned,” Justin replied, his own smile smug and belligerent.  “Mom said something about her dad getting cancer and dying, and now she runs the farm store.”

“Mr. Baker passed away?” Luke asked, surprised.  “That’s too bad.  He was a good man.”

Justin shrugged again.  “I guess,” he said, since he really never knew Hannah’s dad.

Luke was quiet for a moment, and then he snorted out a laugh.  “I’ll bet she’s married with a dozen kids by now...as pretty as she was.  All the guys from high school wanted to date her.”

“But she got you instead,” Justin commented sourly.  For some reason, the thought of Songbird Hannah with his brother didn’t sit well with him.  It had to be because she broke Luke’s heart.  No other reason for his odd stomach ache.

“Yeah,” Luke replied fondly.  “Those were some good times.”  Justin’s brother shot him a warning look.  “But don’t tell Lauren I said that.  She’d never let me live it down.”

Justin grunted and waved back at Luke’s giant house and gleaming pool in the evening sunset.  “You’re better off without her.  Hannah Baker was nothing but the female version of a player, always using her pretty smile, long legs and singing to get what she wanted.  She was a selfish, manipulative girl back then, and I’m fairly damn sure she still is.”

“Who, Hannah?” Luke asked, stupefied.  “No, she wasn’t.  You didn’t know her that well.  She was the sweetest girl I ever knew -- and don’t tell Lauren I said that either.  Hannah did me a favor when she broke it off.  Yeah, I was mad at the time, but then I would have never met Lauren or had my two beautiful girls.”

“I suppose,” Justin said, though he didn’t agree with the sweetest girl part.  He remembered Hannah’s wicked tongue lashing out at him back at that gas station.  At the time, it had amused him, but now, he was just glad she wasn’t part of any of their lives.  Especially Josie’s.

Suddenly, Luke laughed.  “Pretty smile and long legs, huh?  You’d better watch it, big brother.  You’re starting to sound like she got to you, too.”

“Piss off,” Justin growled.  “I don’t make the same mistake twice.  Hannah Baker has nothing I’m interested in.”

Luke shook his head.  “Still bitter over Beth, I see.  Frankly, I don’t know why you stuck with that bitch for as long as you did.”

Justin drained the last of his beer, wishing he had another.  “I stuck around because of Josie, but you’re right.  I should have left her a long time before I did.  I’m having a hell of a time with Josie now because of it.”

“What’s that sweet niece of mine doing now?  Surely she can’t get into that much trouble.”

Justin told Luke all about Josie’s stunts this last year.  Luke whistled.  “I don’t know what to do with her,” Justin went on.  “She’s spending the a few weeks at the farm, but when I talked to Mom this morning, she said Josie was with a friend, and then wouldn’t tell me who.  That’s the kind of thing I’m trying to correct, all this damn sneaking around and secrets.  But nobody will let me, you know?  I have a feeling Mom and Dad are letting her run wild, and then when I get back there, she’ll be worse than she was.”

Luke studied the sea for a moment.  “Mom and Dad wouldn’t let Josie go crazy, you know that.  Besides...what can she possibly do in Conway that’ll get her into trouble?”

“Well, she wouldn’t get into trouble if she’d just stay at the farm, but no...Mom and Dad are letting her run around town, and you remember how it was in town.  All those college kids and parties and...oh, god and the traffic!  It’s just gotten worse.”

Luke chuckled.  “Josie is a good girl.  She’s smart.  And she loves you.  She wouldn’t really do anything to hurt herself or you.  Don’t worry so much.  If Mom and Dad are letting her spend some time with friends, then it’s okay.”

Justin sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair.  “She’s supposed to call me tonight.  I’ll get some answers out of her then.  Mom was being obtuse this morning.  She didn’t tell me anything.”

“That’s Mom for you,” Luke said with a grin.  “Just be glad you didn’t ask Dad.  He probably would have breathed into the phone the whole time, and then you wouldn’t know anything at all.”

Justin laughed.  His dad was a man of few words -- mostly because it kept him out of trouble with his wife -- and they both knew that.  Yet, if Ronald Kirkland did say something, then the brothers were wise to shut up and listen.  

The sun finally set past the horizon and the garden lights behind them blared to life, casting a romantic glow on the whole yard.  Luke’s house was ablaze with light as well, and the two men could see Lauren and the girls through the windows.  They were playing a game on the Wii, their bodies punching at the air.  Luke smiled at the vision of his family, and Justin frowned.  It was a perfect scene, right out of a movie, and he yearned for that kind of illusion in his own life.  His thoughts drifted over his disastrous marriage, and he couldn’t pinpoint one, single date that even compared to what Luke had right now.  Not even the day Josie had been born, though that had been as close as they’d ever come.  Justin remembered how Beth almost immediately turned away from her newborn baby...because Josie had been screaming her head off and still covered in birthing fluids.  Only when the baby was cleaned and sleeping did Justin witness Beth taking her child into her arms.

She was a selfish, shallow woman then, and still is, he determined to himself.  Just as most women seemed to be, only wanting what was fresh and flawless and agreeable.  How am I supposed to teach Josie the value of life -- the good and bad parts -- when she seemed to be turning into her mother?  Lord, he tried.  He spent as much time with her as he could, taking her deep-sea fishing, exploring the forests near their home, watching the sunset on the beach, going camping in the Appalachian Mountains, hiking in Alaska, picking strawberries and oranges and just enjoying what the world had to offer outside of a shopping mall and shoe stores.  But lately, all Josie seemed interested in were those egocentric, girly things like clothes, hair and make-up...and boys.  She’d been obsessed with the way she looked, and talking about the boys she knew -- which wasn’t many, considering how Justin enrolled her in an all-girls school, doing what he thought was best to squash an unhealthy fascination for the male half of her age group -- and plainly, she tried her damnest to appear older than a thirteen-year-old.

Justin exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose.  Before he knew it, she’ll be sneaking vodka out of the liquor cabinet, experimenting with drugs, and becoming pregnant at the age of sixteen.

No!  His bones almost shattered with the thought.

That will never happen.  I’ll make sure of it.

Luke put a hand on Justin’s shoulder.  “Hey...what’s wrong?  Still thinking about Beth?”

“Josie, actually,” Justin admitted tiredly.  They started walking back toward the house.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her.  Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe Savannah isn’t the best place for her.  Maybe I should move back home...or to some remote cabin in the woods, far away from shopping malls and spoiled, rich kids, and boys.”

Luke chuckled.  “You do that, and she’ll hate you forever.”  They reached the pool and skirted around to the upper patio.  “Listen, Justin, I’m not exactly the best person to be giving parental advice, cuz’ heaven knows, I can’t figure out my own girls sometimes, but I do know that the more walls you erect around her, the harder she’s gonna push against them.  You can’t protect her from her mistakes.  Sometimes, we’ve gotta learn things the hard way.”

Justin grunted.  “Like Hannah Baker dumping you like yesterday’s garbage and breaking your heart?”

“Exactly,” Luke pointed to him as he spoke, but there was a tension in his eyes.  Maybe Luke had never really gotten over Hannah’s abandonment, Justin contemplated.  A man’s first real girlfriend -- especially when that girlfriend had practically been his first everything -- stayed with that man for a while.  Not that Justin would understand that attachment as well as some other men.  He’d never really had a steady girlfriend.  Even when he’d been with Beth, they only casually dated when she’d became pregnant.  As a teenager, Justin had been too busy trying to help out on his dad’s farm and get through high school to be overly concerned with girls.  He noticed them, of course, but back then, he’d been a scrawny farm boy, awkward with in his own skin and bones because of his height and large ears.  He’d grown and filled out since then -- thank you, United States Navy -- but his experience with girlfriends was about as long as his fingernails.

With a bitter, sarcastic grin, Justin asked, “So, Hannah Baker was a mistake?  I don’t recall you thinking so at the time.  In fact, I distinctly remember one phone call in particular where you accurately described the christening of Dad’s tweed couch--”

“Shh,” Luke said as Lauren spotted them through the open patio doors.  “You trying to get me in trouble?”  

“I’m just saying...”

Luke pushed him into the kitchen away from his wife’s prying eyes.  He grabbed two more beers out the fridge and handed one to Justin.  “And I’m just saying that Hannah was the best damn, blissful mistake I ever made -- she had a mouth gifted from heaven -- and if you breath one word of this to Lauren, I’ll deny every word, and then I’ll post that video from my bachelor party on YouTube...you know the one where you stumbled into that gay bar, drunk off your ass--”

Justin clamped a hand over his brother’s mouth as Lauren and his nieces walked through to grab the ice cream from the freezer.

“What are you two doing?” Lauren asked, raising an amused eyebrow at the brothers.  

Luke shook away from Justin’s hand with a grin.  “Nothing...Justin was telling me about his new girlfriend.”

Lauren smiled.  “A girlfriend, huh?  I thought you swore off women after you divorced that b-cough -- you know.”

Justin opened his mouth to confirm that and to deny any current relationship, but Luke purposefully punched his shoulder.  “He met up with an old friend from high school when he was at home a few weeks ago.”

“She was your friend,” Justin said, glaring at his brother.  “And she’s not my girlfriend.  I can barely stand the woman.”

“For a woman you can’t stand, you sure like to talk about her,” Luke commented absently, peeling the label from his beer bottle.  A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.  Lauren and the girls scooped ice cream into bowls and darted glances between the two of them.  Justin felt a heat flow into his cheeks.  Damn Luke...stupid baby brothers.  Always pestering...

Without asking any more questions, Lauren ushered her kids into the living room, where they sat down to watch a movie.  Justin hit Luke on his arm...hard.  “You promised me you erased that video,” Justin hissed.

Luke rubbed his bicep and shrugged the other one.  “I forgot.”

“Bastard,” Justin growled.

His brother laughed.  “Yeah, I know...but you love me anyway.”

*****

At two-thirty in the morning, Josie finally made a call to her dad.  He’d been waiting up for it.  “Hey, sweetie, how are you?”

“Hi, Daddy!  I’m fine.  Grandma said you’re in Spain.  That’s so cool!”

Justin chuckled.  “Yeah, I had some time off so I stopped by to visit your Uncle Luke.  So, whatcha been up to lately?  Grandma said you’ve made some new friends...”  He trailed off, hoping she would fill in the needed information, but all she said was, “I have!  I met some kids from church, and...and a few people in town when I go with Grandma and Grandpa...”

“Anybody I know?”

“I don’t know,” Josie said, and he could almost see her shrugging and it made him smile.  “So, what’s Spain like?  And the submarine?  Where else have you been?  Did you get me anything?  When are Uncle Luke and Aunt Lauren coming back?”

Justin laughed.  “Whoa, slow down a bit.  You seem to be in a happier mood than when I left you.”

“Oh, I’m having so much fun!” she exclaimed.  

“Well, I want to hear all about it,” he said to her.  “What have you been doing these past few weeks?”

A slight pause followed his question.  “Oh,” Josie began slowly and carefully, “I’ve been, um, helping in the garden, and babysitting some pets for a few people, and...uh, just keeping busy.”

Justin arched an eyebrow.