The Summer of Two Island

Chapter 12 – Sophie III

This chapter—as well as the one following it—take place at the same time as the previous. While I am not omnipotent, I did tell you before that Psychic Pokemon are the most honest beings in this mortal world. Recall that you have already met two. They will assist in the telling of these crucial moments.

The first comes from Wonder, the fortune-telling, load-bearing Chingling of Two Island Ranch.

When Sophie shuts herself up for the night, she knows she's being rude to Owen and Randall, who could definitely use her help running the checkbooks. She knows she's downright cruel to Casey when he asks what's wrong, and she pulls rank on the poor boy. As if she didn't know exactly why Casey had come asking where the party was; he had never had one of his own accomplishments celebrated for as long as he lived in this house. Sophie picked that up when his birthday passed, and when nothing happened, Casey smiled and said he was a fan of tradition.

She feels her face mimic that melancholy grin. Brianna's success would go the same way as Casey's if nobody did anything about it, and lo and behold, only Casey would make an effort.

Sophie asked herself more than once in those first few months: were there any boys like him at home? Or even on the mainland?

She lays on her bed and remembers the last boys she spoke with in Huntington. Her going-away party had to adhere to Chris and Cindy's rules. She was voluntarily throwing herself out; following rules was her way of peace-keeping. Rules stipulated that everyone had to show up in semi-formal attire. The four or five girls wore pretty spring dresses, the kind Sophie didn't even know those endearing bimbos had. Girl No. 6 even wore a gown. They sat around drinking sparkling cider and eating ice cream from the tub while the radio played.

The two boys showed up because of Sophie's brother advertising the get-together online. They wore wrinkles T-shirts, ripped jeans, and one of them brought a case of Bud Light to move the party along. Girl No. 4 ended up making out with the beer-less bro by the end of the night. Sophie wanted to hate her, but seeing as how Sophie herself ended up being groped by the other boy when her parents made an ice run...

Gropey and Beer-Bro. A far cry from Casey, who latched onto Brianna from day one. Sophie wonders, is her cousin aware of Casey's affection? And if so, how did she deal with boys?

...How did she deal with a dead Raticate?

The simple question sends torrents of tears down her face, but it has to be asked. What would her cousin make of the Pokemon that gave its life in the arena? Hell, where was she now?

A cruel thought: Brianna was known to make mistakes and take off for years at a time, then randomly showing up at relatives homes...

Sophie runs a hand down her face. Brianna and Casey are suddenly not her problem and she remembers: her parents want her to call. That's how this all began, right? Brianna might say that she's only here to visit, but Sophie knows the truth. She was sent to spy on her cousin.

...Well, that and to help the helpless, whatever the hell that meant.

Calling home was inevitable. The entire experience calls to mind jumping out of a plane: one can open the parachute at any time. But the longer one waits, the less effective it will be, and the odds of a heinous 'splat' on the ground become that much more certain. Yet at the same time, one is incredibly dubious of pulling the parachute chord. What if it doesn't work? And even if it does, won't that ruin the descent, thereby making the entire jump pointless?

Sophie goes back to that fight. Things were thrown, voices raised, once-forgotten incidents dug up and hurtful words sprayed like cotton candy. Sophie wanted her life to include both divination and Pokemon; her parents would have no part. And so she left, partly as a statement and partly to live the life she wanted.

If she reached out to her parents, wouldn't moving out like this make no difference?

Sophie laughs again, this time at herself. As if she moved out.

Brianna moved out. She made mistakes, she owned them, and she built a life around that acceptance. It wasn't pretty, but it was her own. Compare and contrast with how Sophie still regularly used the debit card linked to Cindy's checking account...And compare and contrast with how Brianna's parents looked for their daughter for all of a week or two.

But if Sophie did what her cousin had done...if she hospitalized people...?

Sophie finds her cell phone forgotten behind the nightstand. Forty-two missed calls, all from one number. The call is restricted—Chris never figured out how to undo that—and Sophie's heart warms.

She looks up at Wonder. The gold, gelatinous blob is rolling on the mat, his braids wrapped around his gut. When he stops, he examines Sophie with beady black eyes.

"I'm not calling for them," Sophie promises. "I have to ask something. You believe me, right, Wonder?"

Wonder goes back to rolling.

"You're no help," she groans.

The clock reads way after Chris and Cindy's bedtimes. She calls anyway.

It rings once, twice, three times for the world...

"Sophia?!" Her mother shrieks. "Sophia, is that you?!"

"It's me, Ma."

"Sophia!" Then, hand over the receiver and shouting: "Chris, Sophia's on the phone!" He grumbles something excitedly. "Wait...Honey, are you hurt?"

"Hurt? Why would I be hurt?"

"Are you eating okay? Do you have enough money? I know it gets hot down there around summer, so are you remembering to drink enough water?"

"Ma, I'm fine, really." She pauses. "Sorry I called so late. You guys are probably in bed..."

"Almost there," Cindy replies. "Chris is watching the last few minutes of his show, I'm just reading my book...you know."

"I know," Sophie says. She feels the grin spread.

She has to ask it now, before she loses her nerve.

"Ma, I have a question. I need to ask you something."

"Go ahead, ask! Fire away."

"I...Well..."

"You aren't in legal trouble, are you? Because your father and I can be on a boat down there so fast—"

"If I just disappeared one day, you guys would try to find me...wouldn't you?"

There's a long pause. Sophie's not sure if the phone disconnected, if her voice didn't go through, or if Cindy is too busy trying to formulate a coherent response after the shock. Sophie races to backtrack: "It's just that Brianna's here visiting, and we got to talking about what happened after she left home and why she did it and what her life has been like, and I started thinking—"

"My brother is the world's most colossal scumbag I have ever seen." Sophie steels herself at her father's deep brogue. "He's lucky he hasn't busted his ass with how often he shoves his head in there."

Sophie laughs—

"Sophia, I am not kidding." Then, a rush of hands and Cindy speaking: "Honey, of course we would look for you. We'd scour the planet trying to find you."

"And never stop," Chris adds.

"You're our baby," Cindy says, becoming emotional. Sophie suddenly regrets calling home after several months and questioning her parents' love. "Nothing changes that. Ever."

"Well...Do you think it's the same for Brianna?"

Chris again. "What do you mean, Sofs?"

"I...She's quiet, but she's opened up after a few days. I listen to her story, about what she did to run from home, and I just...I put myself in her shoes and it gets me thinking, that's all."

"That's because you're my daughter," Chris boasts. It's as though their disagreements are gone and he's her fearless father once more. "You care about other people. It's something this family specializes at. It's what we do. Fortune telling and empathy go hand in hand."

"I know," Sophie says. "It's just...you know why Brianna ran away, right?"

Chris sighs. "Of course I do. I was there when her father called looking for someone to blame. Because that's my brother: blame someone for his kid leaving instead of, you know, finding his kid."

"Brianna didn't want to be found, though."

"She told you that, huh?" A pause; Sophie imagines her father running his hand down his face. The ole' Rowell Groan Technique. "Sofs, your cousin was a twelve-year-old girl who wasn't allowed to have friends, was forbidden from bloody dressing herself, couldn't choose what she wanted to eat on weekends and...God, Cindy. He hit that poor girl when she wanted to have a sleepover in second grade. Remember that?"

Cindy says something grim, but Sophie is too busy processing to hear it. Chris continues: "And then how my brother gloated, like he was some star parent for having a little girl trained to fear him...It made me sick."

"That's not even the worst!" Cindy says, ripping the phone from her husband's hands. These were Sophie's parents, she thinks. Fighting for the phone like a pair of high school kids. "Your uncle had the nerve to call us bad parents when we put you in divination lessons."

"Wait, why was that a bad thing?"

"He said it made us seem poor." Cindy spits it with the venom Sophie expected to receive herself.

Hands fumble, and then it's Chris again. The noise is a dagger in Sophie's ear, so she cuts him off and asks for speaker-phone.

"Oh, right. Of course. How does that work..." A slew of button tones go off before he presses the correct one. Sophie hears two people breathing. "Right, there. Now, Sophia. Listen to my words."

"I think I hit a nerve," Sophie tells Wonder, who's giving her the 'I warned you' look.

"Listen to my words."

"Yes, sir!"

"I want to hear from you: what did Brianna do before running from home?"

Sophie pauses, making sure to leave the Challenge out of the story. What was the inciting incident? "She had her story stolen," Sophie says. "And when she found out who did it, she beat them."

"Beat them bad," Cindy clarifies. "It was horrifying, Sophia."

"And I want to ask you a question," Chris jumps in. "After everything you've heard about your cousin's life: do you honestly think it's that child's fault?"

...Was it Brianna's fault that she hurt people?

Was it twelve-year-old Brianna's fault that she snapped and unleashed her hatred at the people who just happened to set her off?

And...Oh, god. This was a Challenge question, if Sophie wanted it to be. Was it Brianna's fault that Dawson was dead? That after all that she has to endure, someone ends up hurt?

Chris continues: "Be the sensitive girl I know you are, Sofs. Put yourself in her shoes. Imagine living the way she had to live, under a man who—I shit you not!—regretted knocking up his wife because it cost him the money for a second home. Imagine being raised to take all of that abuse—because it was abuse—and not even knowing that it was wrong.

"Then...I don't know anything about that story she wrote, but my brother said Brianna's English teacher was disappointed in her. And that was the only subject she did well in."

"How did you know that?" Sophie is stunned.

"Like I said, he called us looking for someone to blame first." Chris's words are faster now. He's venting just as much as Brianna needed to vent that day, in the empty stadium. "Your cousin goes through all she has to go through, and when she loses the one thing that makes her happy, she snaps.

"Of course that little girl would blame herself for it. Of course she crucified herself for it, because she had no idea that her life was crucifying her all the while."

...Of course Brianna crucified herself for the Challenge. She never understood how much of a challenge her life already was, how she had to accept me because she had no options left.

"But when my brother—your uncle—let her stay on the street, called up days later bragging that he was teaching her a lesson by not looking for her—"

"Her dad did what ?"

"Listen!"

"Sorry! Listening!"

"My scumbag brother was proud that he didn't look for her, threw her under the bus and called her a mindless psycho for getting into a school fight, and then—get this!—he tells us how to manage your life. God. What an asshole."

There's silence for a moment. Cindy speaks. "Sorry about that. Your father just gets a little worked up...These are old sores." She whispers: "When your uncle wanted to come after Brianna for her Champion winnings, your father nearly had a heart attack."

A lightbulb goes off. "This is why we don't talk to Brianna's family anymore, isn't it?" Sophie asks.

Cindy's pause is answer enough.

"Ma, you don't mind that I'm asking about this, are you?"

"Not at all! In fact, I'm sorry you had to hear it from Brianna. You should have known what she was going through before..."

"Before you sent her to my doorstep?" It might have helped, Sophie thinks. Maybe she would have stopped her cousin from fighting in the tournament just from this, from knowing her cousin needs a bloody break. "It's really fine, Ma. I'm glad she's here. I think I missed having family around."

"That's great," Cindy says, projecting her joy through the receiver. "How is the farm?"

"The ranch?"

"The ranch, right. Sorry, I confuse them..."

Right at the worst time: a knock on her door. "Hold on for a minute, Mom?" Then to the door: "I'm in the middle of something, Casey!"

"It's not the Case-face," Owen says. His warm words melt through the door. "Come out. There's an emergency."

"I'm on the phone."

"Then you can call back. Red-alert, Sophie."

Of course there would be a red-alert right now. Sophie jumps to her feet. "What did the tykes do this time?"

"It's not the tykes, it's the Adelsons. They're in our living room, so get out here." Footsteps echo down the hall.

It's the most stern Owen has ever been, and she couldn't even see his face. Sophie shuddered in the silence.

"Ma, I have to call you back," she says. She expects Cindy to start yelling, start complaining that she hasn't called enough. Instead, Cindy asks when her daughter plans to call again.

"I don't know yet," she says with sincerity. "You guys are fortune tellers, right?"

John and Josh Adelson threaten to flatten the couch cushions and completely splinter the wood frame. Sophie barely remembers any of her childhood favorites, but 'Alice in Wonderland' and the infamous Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum come to mind. From their matching beards to their red and blue suspenders stretched around their rotund stomachs, the Adelsons belong in a cartoon. Sophie always thought as much when she saw one brother at a time, but with both together, it was surreal.

Josh stands. The couch creaks, and she wonders what will snap first: the sofa, or Adelson's too-tight pleated pants. "Here she is," Josh says. "The lady of the hour."

"Not me," Sophie says. "I don't fight the battles, I just live here."

"Right you are, for another...five, ten minutes," Josh replies.

Sophie waits for Randall or Owen to knock him out. Imagine her surprise when Randall Blevins goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of whiskey, and when Owen simply folds his arms and stands in the corner.

She rounds back on the brothers. "So...what brings you to Two Island Ranch, fellas? Tell me you didn't bring more goons around."

"No! Of course not. That was a foolish investment," John says from his seat. "We're here to see returns on our...other endeavor."

Josh picks up: "See, we realize that this home has far too many hip young people than is socially acceptable. What with those raging keggers you have so many times a week."

He sucks a front tooth, and Sophie represses the urge to rip his tongue out.

"We figured if one of our own local interns came by to scope out the competition, you would all be far too drunk to notice. You'd be too hung up on your private conversations, maybe saying things that shouldn't be said in public..." Josh raises a bushy eyebrow. It's awkward as Sophie makes it clear: she has no idea what's going on.

So, Blevins slams his glass down onto the table and pours himself another round. "Sophie, he bugged the house. They've been listening to our conversations for days."

"Really." She folds her arms. "You realize that's incredibly illegal, right?"

Josh paces around the coffee table. The whiff of his fancy cologne makes Sophie gag. "It is! In fact, it's so illegal, it almost counteracts your own transgressions."

"Excuse me?"

Owen leans his head on the wall. "He heard you tell Kimmie about the match-ups, Sophie. You and Wonder found out how Brianna would fight Forest."

The wheels in Sophie's mind race. "Yeah, so what?" She replies with default belligerence. "I mean...Okay. So even if you got to use that information in court, which you wouldn't, Forest still won. Me telling Kimmie her fate didn't do a thing."

"Surprising nobody," John remarks.

Josh starts before Sophie's blood can boil: "Regardless, this is a cheating offense. If Adelson Banking were to turn this information to the authorities, Champion Brianna Rowell would have her winnings voided the moment she handed them to the ranch. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is what this entire thing is about."

"You're not mistaken," Blevins groans from the other room.

"We thought not," John says. He regards Sophie with squinted, victorious eyes. "That's why we're here. We would like to avert this horrible fate."

"How generous of you," Owen says.

"There is no doubt of our generosity. We are prepared to wipe your intern's slate clean, Shepard. There are just two conditions." John laughs. "Obviously, you have to fire her."

Sophie snorts so powerfully, her nose burns. "Oh, that's real mature, John."

"About as mature as cheating," Josh replies. "That first term is non-negotiable. The second is, we demand a piece of equipment in your possession."

"Equipment," Sophie asks. "What, we can't just pay you?"

"We'd be paying him with Brianna's money," Owen says. Even beaten and locked in checkmate, Owen Shepard is still Owen Shepard. Hands in his pockets, body posed along the wall corner and expression locked in permanent ambivalence. "She would look like she benefited from your advice."

"And just like that, hers-and-our paycheck gets a fat 'void' stamp." Blevins sits in a dining room chair sideways, his head hung.

"So," Josh continues, "Because you have no money of your own, or at least not nearly enough...we'd like you to buy us off with this equipment we're requesting."

'Buy us off,' he says. I am with Sophie in appreciating the irony of the situation.

It clicks for Sophie: there is no possibility for changing this outcome. Randall and Owen think too highly of her to bring her out here just for a scolding and humiliation.

This was so she could hear, straight from the horse's mouth, why she was losing her internship.

She can't accept it. Not right away.

It's not like she has a choice, to accept it or not. Sophie cheated. She knew it going in. She knew right away, when she and Wonder attempted to divine the match outcome, how things could end. She's laughing at herself: she could divine the match-ups, but couldn't see this future with her own common sense.

"What's the machine you want?" She asks.

"The egg walker machine," Josh says. He stops in place to let the gravity of the statement hang. "We have a client in need of such a machine. Purchasing one from the mainland would be a bit...extravagant. Should yours be in working condition, we're willing to take it and let this entire situation be swept away."

John—Also known as 'Humpty Dumpty 2'—finally got to his ham legs. "If it's in working condition, we'll delete the recording. You can use the girl's winnings to pay us back, and as God as our witness, you'll never hear from us again."

And if they refused, the ranch lost its last chance for funding and finally closed.

Either way, Sophie was out of a job.

Josh and John waddle through the house before Owen can say: "Let me show you the machine, gentlemen."

Sophie waits for Blevins to follow. He doesn't show an effort to move. She wonders how much booze was in him before the Adelsons even arrived. Or did he get drunk solely to keep his composure?

Regardless, it was best to avoid him. Sophie went for the back porch. Her effort to keep out of the way went so well, she didn't even complain when Josh let the back door fence slam on her.

The four of them walk to the tykes' nursery, in the garage. Owen goes inside first, keeping his footsteps light and his breathing short, to not disturb the sleeping young ones. The Adelsons, of course, grope for the light switch and began droning in their brotherly way.

"That's the one!" Josh boasts as the lights come on. He strokes his beard with a rotund hand. "The egg inside, that's yours to keep, of course."

"Of course," Owen says through gritted teeth. He pulls open the glass panel and places a hand on the steel egg container silently bouncing in the air. The machine slows to a stop. He twists the top of the container gently, and it comes off with a simple turn of the wrist. Owen takes the beige egg inside with a steady hand. "It's all yours, fellows. I'm guessing you're coming for it in the morning?"

John laughs, and it's a perfect rendition of the jolly fat man stereotype, hand on his gut and everything. "Owen, my boy, we came here in a truck. We're taking it right now. You're going to bring the machine out to that lovely log fence, and we'll bring the truck around and load it in."

"Right." Owen raps his head with his knuckles. "How foolish of me. I'll have it around in a moment."

"Excellent news! Pleasant doing business with you." Josh deliberately says nothing to Sophie as he exits the nursery. John gets one last sneak-but-not-really stare at her body before following.

Seconds pass. Owen does not speak until the house door slams and he's certain the Adelsons are gone.

"For what it's worth, I'm not mad at you, Sophie."

"Thanks," she manages. She watches as Owen opens the once-shut garage door and unplugs the machine. "Anything I can do?"

"Hold the egg for me," he suggests. She takes it in her arms and holds the warm egg to her chest. Then: "I suppose you want to know why I did it."

"Why you cheated?" Owen asks as he unplugs the machine. "Actually, not really."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'm over this. I know you, Sophie. I've known you for a while now, and I know you wouldn't do something like cheat. And hell, even if this is what it looks like, you had a good reason."

"That's a lot to assume," she says honestly. Not that she wants to explain why knowing the outcomes was more crucial to Brianna's performance than Owen would ever know.

"But it's the truth. Your fortune-telling stand kept us afloat for an embarrassingly long time, the tykes love you, you've got the balls to keep Kimmie in line and you're the only one who really tries to understand Casey—"

"Until Brianna showed up, anyway."

"You're hearing what I'm saying," Owen says simply. He gets the machine unplugged and onto a dolly, and begins wheeling it out to the back lawn. "You're great at what you do, Sophie. Don't think I'm angry...Actually, no. I'm pissed that I'm losing my assistant, but that's beside the point."

"I guess it is," Sophie sighs. "There's nothing you can do? I mean, come on...The Adelsons obviously aren't the brightest bunch. There's no way to keep me?"

"Not unless Randall figures something out," Owen answers. "Though that won't be until he sobers up. And that won't be until he hears back from Kimmie."

"Kimmie, right...How's she doing? I can't believe I'm asking that, but still."

Owen rolls the dolly to the back porch and parks it by the log fence. The garage door slams, and he gestures for Sophie to close the nursery down again.

"Kimmie Gracie Cole? The failed Two Island Champion? No idea," he says. "She was humiliated. Truth be told, I'd be surprised if she ever came around again."

"There's a joke about coming around and her dating Randall," Sophie says.

"There is, but it'd be far-fetched. Besides, if you ask me, I'm fine with her staying away."

Sophie finds a wistful smile. "I know it. You...when are you going to tell him, anyway?"

The pause is painful. Worse than hearing that she would lose her job, worse than having the door slammed in her face and worse than Dawson lying limp, because those weren't so damn lonesome. The sight of Owen Shepard standing in his backyard, hands in his pockets and eyes up at the stars...something just about broke Sophie's heart.

"I think he knows," Owen says. "About me and...well, me. He knows. And really, I think that's why he's drinking. He knows Kimmie's gone and..." A smile, then: "Let's say he's not as oblivious as we think he is."

Owen sits on the log fence. Sophie follows. She rests the egg on her lap. It's Wonder, just not as flabby.

"You know, this isn't a 'get out' kind of thing," Owen says, eager to change the subject. "You can't work here, sure, but I'll be damned before Adelson says who can stay in my house."

"Owen, I'm not going to freeload off of you."

"And you don't have to. If you want to just stay long enough to get another job, or maybe if you want to take fortune-telling on full-time—"

"Don't want to let me go, huh, boss? The idea of playing Pokemon House with Randall just doesn't strike your fancy?"

Owen beams. "Not without our belligerent chore-machine and her globluar Chingling, it doesn't."

"I don't think that's a real word," Sophie laughs.

"Neither do I. Maybe when we get tonight's recording from the Adelsons, we can contest that with Webster."

...And that's kind of how they go, back and forth, for the next couple minutes. One says something serious, the other deflects it with an innocent one-liner, and the verbal joust continues. They're both aware that the banter lost its innocuous rhythm long ago, but they're also aware that this is the end of an era. When would Owen get another intern willing to cheat for him? And when would Sophie get a boss generous enough to let her divine on the side?

Neither side wanted to say goodbye, but both knew that this might be the perfect time to do so. Maybe the last time, even.

But the jokes keep on, and at first, I wonder if this is cowardice. Are Sophie and Owen too afraid to say what matters?

And then I consider, perhaps this is the best goodbye. Going out the way they have always been. Feckless boss to soulful intern. It felt fitting, when I put it that way.

Somehow, half an hour passes. Owen finally stands on the log fence and looks around the side of the house.

"Owen? Is something wrong?" Sophie asks. He is quiet. He steps onto the tall grass beyond the log, and walks casually toward the front porch—

Torrential flames spray the tall grass! Owen braces himself on the house, then runs to the front porch, Sophie following.

He doesn't know what to expect, but even in awe, he finds the capacity to joke. "Well," he says of Kimmie Gracie Cole in their front yard. "Speak of the devil."

Sophie sees more than the twintailed girl. Her Blaziken, recovered from its past beating, stands proud. Across from it is Gardevoir from before, and caught in the middle is none other than Zack Forest. But clearly, Forest is a changed man. He holds his head in his hands and staggers, his nails digging into his scalp.

When he blinks, his eyes flash from their human hue to a very alien—for me, a very familiar violet.

"Kimmie!" Forest coughs. "Kimmie, now!"

Gardevoir's arms raise high. Above the house, the very picture of the night begins to warp. The stars and the clouds curl into a fine point, reminiscent of the mainland's tornadoes, and aims itself slowly for Blaziken.

Before she can ask, Sophie finds the Adelson brothers: knocked out in the tall grass, their fat, clogged bodies piled like bags of sand. Randall watches from the porch railing, no glass to be seen.

The fine points of the night reach to Gardevoir's fingertips. The same violet in Forest's eyes curls around its hands, its eyes, and bombards my senses.

"The devil, huh?" Kimmie repeats. "Shepard, you have no idea."


And so we enter the final arc. Thanks for making it as far as you have. It's been a rocky road getting here, definitely. Review and let me know what you think!