“HOW WOULD we find out if somebody lived in the neighborhood in 1973?” I’m looking up at Mrs. Franklin, who’s sitting on her lifeguard perch. Ally’s beside me, holding on to the edge of the pool.
“There are some folks still here from back then,” Mrs. Franklin answers. It’s sunny again and the pool is full. Mrs. Franklin is an expert at answering your questions while keeping her eyes on the swimmers. “You could ask them.”
“Like who?” Ally asks.
“Let me see.” She thinks. “The Gateses. The Dentons. Oh, Mrs. Hale. She was definitely here.”
The Gateses are an older couple who walk the big circle of the neighborhood every night. Mr. Gates waves at us with his walking stick whenever he passes. I don’t know the Dentons. They must live up on Queen’s Way. I know Mrs. Hale, of course, but it’s unlikely she’ll tell me anything about Ruthie Delgado.
“Or, I know,” Mrs. Franklin says. “We could look at the clubhouse register.” Next to the pool, there’s a clubhouse for Ping-Pong and stuff. “All the old registers are in there. We could look and see if there are any … what’s the name?”
“Delgado,” I say.
“We’ll see if there are any Delgados listed in 1973. If it goes back that far.”
I’m excited. This is the first real crack we’ve had in the case. “Can we look now?”
“When I have a break,” she says. “I’ll find you.”
I say thanks, then turn to Ally. Ever since we got to the pool this morning, I’ve been telling her about the concert ticket and how my dad said it was never used. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Maybe,” Ally says, but not in her usual bright way.
“You worried about tomorrow?” I ask, a little guiltily. The play-offs start tomorrow and we still haven’t solved her pitching mystery. Maybe I should be focusing on that instead of the unsolved case of Ruthie Delgado.
“Kind of. Coach still wants me to start but I don’t know.”
“Well, you’ve got to get back to normal sometime. And when you do, he wants you to be the one on the mound.”
“I guess.”
“What are you talking about?” We look up. Rose is standing above us at the side of the pool.
“You!” we say together.
“Ha,” Rose says. She’s wearing her new two-piece and I’m hoping a ton of sunscreen on that ghostly white belly. She jumps in, sinks to the bottom, then shoots up between us. “What’s up, buttercups?”
I give her the ticket update but try to be brief. Ally’s probably had her fill of Ruthie Delgado and the unused ticket. Something behind me catches Rose’s eye and I turn to see Romeo diving off the springboard. When he comes up, he waves at us.
Rose lifts herself out of the pool and says, “Come on.” Before I can object, she’s walking toward the deep end. I groan inside but follow because, well, I have to. Ally comes, too.
Romeo rests his elbows against the pool’s edge and looks up at us. As Rose starts flirting with him, I want to run away. She’d hate me for letting her go on like this when I know he likes me, not her. But I say a cowardly nothing.
There’s a loud creak from the springboard, followed by “CANNONBALL!” Joey Wachowski hits the water like an elephant, and the deep end explodes. Water flies everywhere.
“So juvenile.” Rose wipes water from her eyes, casting daggers at Joey.
He ignores her. “Hey, Blondie. How are the butterflies?”
“What butterflies?” Ally asks.
“The ones in your stomach cuz you’re going to lose tomorrow.”
“You better shut that cakehole or—” Ally’s about to jump in the pool after him when Romeo intervenes.
“Truce!” he says loudly, holding up a hand. “Just for today. Just for Sharks and Minnows.”
Romeo looks at Ally, then eyeballs Joey. Nobody gives. “Come on,” Romeo says. “You’re ruining my summer!” That last remark was for Joey, not Ally, so Joey caves.
“All right,” he says. “Just for today.”
Ally nods. “Just for today.”
Romeo gets Mrs. Franklin to shut down the deep end for diving so we can play Sharks and Minnows. Lots of kids join in, so there are probably twenty of us. I realize right away that I should have worked it out to be on Romeo’s team, because every time he’s a shark he comes after me, and Rose wants him to come after her.
After a couple of rounds of that, I claim a fake stomachache and lift out of the water. Romeo looks at me and I look back. Why doesn’t he get it? Rose likes him, not me. Can’t he tell?! I want to yell at him—STOP! Before he ruins my summer!
Grabbing my towel off a pool chair, I start drying my face and hair. Over the past five months, I’ve done a pretty good job of ignoring Romeo. We weren’t in the same class at school, so we’d only see each other at recess or ball games and then always with friends. I’ve never said anything to him (or anyone) about the Valentine’s note. I thought if I avoided him long enough, he’d get the message and start liking Rose. But he hasn’t.
“Birdie.” It’s Mrs. Franklin. Looking back at the lifeguard stand, I see a teenage boy sitting there while she’s on break. “Come on,” she says, and I follow her to the clubhouse.
As I walk inside, everything goes dim. My eyes have to adjust to the inside light after the bright outside sun.
“Mrs. Franklin,” I call out.
“In here!” The door to the storage closet behind the bar is open, so I head that way. Inside, Mrs. Franklin is standing on a ladder reaching for a box on a high shelf. “Help me with this.”
I hurry over and grab the bottom of the box as it’s coming down. It’s heavy and we struggle to get it to the ground.
“Well,” Mrs. Franklin says and claps her hands against each other. “If it’s anywhere, it’ll be here.”
“You think?”
She shrugs, then bends down and removes the dusty lid. The box is filled with red leather-bound notebooks. Lots of them. On each spine is a date embossed in gold. Mrs. Franklin grabs one and holds the spine out to me. “Read.”
“Huh?” I don’t understand.
“Don’t have my glasses,” she says. “Read.”
“Oh,” I say and call out the date on the spine. “1984.”
She digs deeper and pulls out another notebook. Holds it up. “1975.”
“Close,” she says and reaches in again. “What about this one?” She hands it to me.
“This is it: 1973.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Franklin says. “We’re in business. Open it up. The club members should be listed in alphabetical order.”
Sitting on the floor, I rest the book on my legs and open to page one. The title page reads: Gainsborough Club Member Registry, 1973. I flip through until I get to the Ds and run my finger down the page. Danner, Davis, Dearborn, Delgado.
“Found it!” I exclaim, and look up at her.
“Great! Mystery solved. Read out the address. Then we’ll see where it lands on the neighborhood map.”
I run my finger horizontally across the page to the Delgados’ address and stop. I don’t need to look at the neighborhood map. I know this address. I know exactly where to find the house of Ruth Delgado.