Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee (4 page)

AFTER DEE TOLD ME
about getting her period, she brightened up again. It was only a couple minutes before she was in the water.

“Let's make it all the way to the big bend this time,” she said. The big bend was this place where the creek made a turn, right before it merged with another branch and became a full-on river. Our parents had forbidden us to ever wade as far as the river because they were afraid we'd get swept away, so the big bend was the farthest we were allowed to go.

I didn't feel like wading anymore. I was still thinking about how I wanted to have my period, too, and how I wanted to have breasts, and how Dee would probably forget about me soon to be with her middle school friends.

“Come on!” She started moving.

I slid into the water, which was up to the middle of my legs. It was cold, the kind of cold that feels good at first on a hot day but then chills you from the inside out. I followed
Dee as she waded slowly, taking care not to slip on the wet rocks or gouge her feet on the snails and sticks and occasional beer bottles on the creek bed. There were days when the creek was full of people, and since it was Sunday, I expected people to show up any minute, but they didn't. I could hear the cars going by on the street above us, and the sound of a dog barking somewhere, but in the creek, it was just Dee and me. Her wispy blond hair bounced as she walked, flying everywhere in the breeze.

“. . . so I said she could have the shoes if I could have her red bag with the feather, and Lee said it wasn't fair because they don't even fit me anymore, but why should I just give her something? I mean, I could sell them. Or I could give them to charity. Or I could just sit there and look at them if I want to because they're mine, right? But then
Mom
came in and she said I had to give them to Lee because they don't fit me. And because Lee is my sister and we're a family and families share. But they're
my
shoes. And she never gave me anything for them!”

“Uh-huh,” I said. Sometimes Dee's stories about the fights she had with Lee baffled me. Having a little brother, I didn't have to worry about sharing my clothes, and I didn't imagine that if I had to share them, I would care.

“And this morning she was wearing them, dancing around, rubbing it in my face!”

“That's mean,” I said.

“I know!” Dee splashed the water with her hands as she walked. “Oh look, a trout!” She pointed at the fish that darted
away from us, its silvery skin flickering under the water. “And I know she's
still
going to be wearing them when I get home. She'll wear them out just to make me mad, and I should just ignore her and, like, turn the other cheek, but I can't! She's doing it on purpose!” Dee kept talking about it as the water got deeper, and I tried to listen, but my mind was going in different directions. Why did Dee have to change? With all this talk about shoes and clothes, it was like she was becoming more like Lee every day, but I wasn't changing. I wanted to change, but I also didn't want to. I wanted all of us to stay the same.

We weren't anywhere near the big bend yet, but I was cold to the bone. Today I couldn't ignore it the way I usually did. I wanted to sit in the sun and dry out, and maybe go home early.

“I'm cold,” I said. “I don't know if I can go all the way.”

“Oh,” she said. She looked down the river like she really wanted to keep going, but then she shrugged. “Okay.” Before I'd even started moving, she was splashing her way to the bank. We'd stopped at a place where there wasn't much of a beach, just a row of rocks and pebbles that led to a steep bank. There was a super-skinny path, though, just a strip of dirt through the brush. Dee stopped at the rocks and turned back. “Should we head a little farther?” She pointed upstream to where the rocks turned into dirt that was easier to walk on. But there wasn't a path there, and I had decided I wanted to go back to the street.

“No, this is fine,” I said. I brushed past her, sat down on the little strip of rocks, and started putting my shoes on.

She sat down next to me. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, I just don't feel good.” My feet were soggy inside my
now-wet socks and shoes, but I didn't care. I just wanted to get back to my bike. I honestly was starting to feel a little sick. I was wet and freezing, and the sun was starting to cloud over, and there was something going on with my stomach. If we had gone back on the bank it would have been slow going, and it would have taken us longer to get to our bikes. So when Dee started hiking up the little path, it seemed right.

“I'm sorry,” I said as I followed her.

“It's okay,” she said. “Maybe we can just hang out at your house.”

I kind of wanted to be alone, but I couldn't say that. Dee couldn't stand being alone. She had to have someone to talk to all the time, but when she was at home with Lee, who also loved to talk, she never felt like anyone heard her. It wasn't her fault she got her period, I thought. I told myself I was being stupid. She didn't even want it. She wanted to hang out with me and go wading in the river, so why couldn't I just do that?

“We can go back if you want to,” I said. “I'm feeling better.” Even though I really wasn't. But then again, I never really felt that sick.

“No, it's okay,” she said. She pushed her way through some shrubs and ended up on the gravel shoulder of River Road. There was a car parked there, a four-door Subaru that had seen better days. The rear window facing us was broken and covered in duct tape.

•   •   •

The first thing Amy noticed about Kyle was his head. It was really small. He was a big man. To her he was huge. He must
have been at least six feet four, and he had broad shoulders and a thick neck, the kind you expect to see on athletes. But his head was made for someone like Amy's dad, someone tall but thin. It was narrow, and the way his shaggy hair fell over his face made it seem even smaller. But he had a big smile, bigger than the face should have allowed. It was kind of like a clown's smile, and the way he walked was kind of clowny, too, kind of buffoonish. The way he smiled, the way he walked, he didn't seem like that big of a man. He seemed more like a child.

“HOW ARE YOU
feeling today?”

I'm here with Dr. Kayla, the same therapist who came to see me on Sunday, four days ago. She doesn't look frazzled anymore. Now she's immaculately dressed, with long, straight dark hair and a kind, in-control look. I think she's been told not to ask me directly. There's some plot going on behind the scenes, between the cops and my parents and Aunt Hannah, to get me to tell them, to trick me into letting it slip. The cops are ready to run if I say something, ready to burst in and save Dee.

There was a time when I would have liked that.

Dr. Kayla waits. I'm already learning that she's calm. I can't wear her down by my silence.

“I feel good,” I say.

“How has your sleep been?”

“Fine.” It's been two years since I've had trouble sleeping. And when I dream, it's bizarre. I don't dream about things that happened, or things I worry about. There are dolls in
my dreams, though. Blond, blue-eyed dolls. They appear randomly in places they shouldn't be. I don't remember much of last night's dream, only the dolls. A Lola, waving her chubby baby arms. A Barbie in a pink tutu, dancing.

She asks more mundane questions. Am I eating? Am I getting along with my mom? How does it feel to see my dad? And then: How do I feel about the news coverage? Have I seen what they're saying on TV?

I know I've been on the news, but my parents won't even turn the TV on, so I haven't seen exactly what they're saying. There was a news truck parked outside the house this morning, though. I think they stayed away at first out of respect for what they think I've been through, but now my grace period is over. It's been four whole days. How much time to recover could I need? And how much money can they make off me?

“I'm trying not to see any of it,” I say. I'm sure they're showing Dee's picture, and mine, from six years ago. They're talking about the day Kyle took us, rehashing how some man saw him forcing us into the car, but by the time the cops came, we were long gone. I saw that in the newspaper on Monday, before Mom canceled our subscription. I don't need to see those pictures or hear that story. How if the cops had come faster, they might have found us. If the man had been closer. If if if.

“One of the most difficult things for people to deal with is all the attention,” she says.

“I don't want to think about it,” I say.

“What don't you want to think about?”

I'm not going to be trapped. I will only tell her what she already knows. “The day I was kidnapped. How someone saw us.”

She won't ask the next question, about who kidnapped me. She's trained in how to manipulate people. How to get them to talk even if they don't want to. So she changes direction.

“It looks like you like the color purple.”

I say nothing.

She waits.

I say nothing and I say nothing, and I say nothing.

The time ticks by.

•   •   •

Lee picks me up at one o'clock sharp. I've barely said a word to my mom since I got home from therapy, and she's even more worried about me going to Portland now.

“Are you sure you want to go?” she asks. “Lee will understand if you don't want to.”

“I want to go,” I say. The truth is I don't feel anything about it right now. I don't want to go and I don't want to stay home. I want nothing. I sit as still as I can, as if my stillness will stop the questions, maybe the world.

Lee doesn't knock. She bursts in, and she's smiling from the first second.

“Hello, cousin! Are you ready for a whole new wardrobe?”

“Lee, I'm not sure—” my mom begins.

“Fork over the cash, mama!” Lee interrupts.

Mom glances at me.

I stand up. I smile, even though the smile is plastic. I'm going to walk through this. Every day I have to walk and talk
and smile like I'm Amy, and I'm back, and I'm fine. And the last six years were nothing. They never happened, and Kyle is not a real person. He never pulled Dee into the car, and I never went in after her, and we didn't drive away, and there was nothing after.

Dee never became Stacie, never began to change and crack. And the cracks never spread and widened, never tore her apart until nothing was left.

Lee is smiling Dee's smile, talking fast the way Dee did. I realize that when they used to fight, it was because they were so alike, more than we ever realized. As I watch her talking to my mom, cajoling her credit card off of her, assuring her that she'll take care of me, that it will be good for me to get out, that I deserve to be free, I realize there is something I want, and it even fits with being Amy. I want to be back down by the river, and see Dee's face when she got to the top of the path, the way she smiled that always-forgiving smile. I want to see that smile again.

Lee turns it to me. She waves my mom's credit card in the air. “Let's go!”

I nod. The shape of her face is a little wrong. It's a little too narrow when it should be round. Her hair is too curly. Her chin is too small. But I'll take it. I pick up my Safeway bag, which is the closest thing I have to a purse. At the bottom, I still have the Stacie doll. I don't like leaving the house without her.

As we're about to leave, Jay comes out of his bedroom. He sees us and turns back down the hall.

“Jay!” Lee calls. “Want to come to the mall with us?”

“No thanks,” he calls back.

“He'll come around,” she says, unlocking her car with the press of a button.

“I know,” I say, even though I really don't. He has every reason to be mad, and I don't know where to start with him. He's more like a stranger than the Jay I remember. I'm in a world full of strange new people, and one of them is driving me away, wearing Dee's eyes and Dee's smile. We're heading into a world I tried not to remember, a place I'm sure will feel new and strange too.