Never Smile at Strangers (12 page)

THE SECOND WEEK of July was blistering. The grass was burnt, the plants wilted, and people were unusually quiet. When they did talk, they were irritable. Truck drivers lumbered into Luke’s simply in their undershirts, yellow stains pooled at their arm pits. Blue-collared workers hurried in, ordered tall glasses of sweet tea, then asked for refills. The sheriff and the few men he had busied themselves with reports of domestic abuse, leaving Detective Guitreaux primarily in charge of finding out what happened to Tiffany Perron.

In the afternoons, high school kids from all over the area piled in, girls in short skirts or shorts, barely-there tank tops, their hair pulled off their necks. The boys wore muscle shirts and khaki shorts, their feet squeezed into black rubber sandals or mud-splattered sneakers.

During the winter months, the kids who went to Catholic schools in the surrounding towns tended to hang out only with one another, while the kids who went to public schools did the same. But during the brutally hot summer months, teenagers abandoned their cliques and congregated wherever it was coolest, leading a little over a dozen to meet regularly at Luke’s.

Haley liked to listen in on the kids’ conversations about their lives, their love interests, and what they wanted to do with their futures. They were still so full of hope, something she’d grown terribly short on.

It had been nine days since Tiffany disappeared and not a single clue had turned up, at least none that the detective or sheriff shared with the public.

Tiffany’s black Ford Mustang had been returned to her family, and was now secured in the garage. Everyone who had known her had been questioned at least twice; some like Charles and Haley, several times, the detective asking mostly the same questions again and again.

She had no faith in the detective or his abilities. And she had lost all hope of ever seeing her friend again. Tears had been shed until there were none left, and the possibilities seemed so limited, so dark, that she refused to think about them.

She had visited Mrs. Perron twice since Tiffany disappeared. The woman hadn’t worn any makeup since the first Sunday after Tiffany’s disappearance. And like her mother, Mrs. Perron seemed to have aged overnight. During the visits, they’d sit sipping tea in silence. Haley would sit quietly while Mrs. Perron, in her bathrobe, talked about how good a girl Tiffany is.

Haley would just nod.
No, Tiffany isn’t. . . hadn’t been. . . a good girl, not really.
But it didn’t mean she didn’t miss her, because she did.

The AC unit in Becky’s room had also died. It started with a peculiar noise, metal on metal, every few minutes, like a small animal shrieking, its flesh caught in the fan. Haley had been lying in bed in a Nyquil daze, staring at the walls, when a blood-curdling noise rang through the house, and the fan stopped spinning for good.

Becky and Seacrest had taken to sprawling out in the living room, keeping cool with the big GE wall fan humming behind them, old copies of
Teen Cosmo, People
and
Glamour
magazines stacked on top of the coffee table. MTV blaring on the television.

***

WHEN HALEY’S SHIFT ended on Monday, she walked out the front door of Luke’s to find Mac leaning against her family’s station wagon.

Her heart sped up. It was the first they’d seen each other in two days. She had decided not to call him. And he hadn’t bothered to call her.

He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun and smiled uncomfortably. But she couldn’t bring herself to smile back.

He grabbed something from the car’s hood. Roses encased in a transparent wrapping. “These are for you,” he said, when they were face to face. He handed her the roses, looking more ill at ease than she ever remembered seeing him look. He usually looked so confident, but now he looked extremely uncomfortable in his own skin.

“Thanks,” she muttered, and accepted them.

He took a cigarette out of its pack and eyed it. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s not right for me to lie to you. I don’t usually. . . I don’t usually look at those types of magazines, but sometimes I want to, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

Mac swallowed, and studied the unlit cigarette. “I’m a guy, Hale. Do I like my women wholesome? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Do I look at pornography from time to time? Well, yeah, I guess I do. I don’t know if that’s good or bad or maybe neither, but I do know I shouldn’t have lied about it.”

“I guess I said what I said because that’s what I thought you’d want to hear. I know girls don’t like it much.” He pushed some dirt around with his boot, then his eyes met hers, the sun glinting off of them. They were still and seemed sincere. “But I want to be straight with you about everythin’ from here on out and tell you that it’s somethin’ I like to look at from time to time.”

He reached out and touched her cheek with one of his strong hands. “Look, I don’t want to lose you, Hale. There aren’t many women like you out there. I’m a very lucky man and I know it. I won’t let you down again by lyin’. Cross my heart.”

***

HALEY HAD THE nightmare again. The same dream that had haunted her over the last several months. She thought it had gone away, but it hadn’t.

Many times, she had wanted to ask her mother how much of it was true. The dream that played out like a film, created by her subconscious amidst snippets of details she’d overheard about her father’s death. If not accurate, it was surprisingly detailed, from the expressions on their faces, even down to the clothes her mother and father wore that night.

Her mother and father were in the car driving down Coontz Road, a windy road on the edge of Grand Trespass. The night was dark, oily.

There was a jarring thump. They’d just hit something with the car.

Her mother brought a hand to her mouth. “Omigod, was that a deer?”

Her father calmly reached across the front seat, checking to see if her mother was alright. “You okay, Mary?”

“Yes. Are you?”

He nodded, and opened the car door.

“Was that a deer?” she repeated.

“No. . . I think it was a big dog.”

Her hand covered her mouth again. “Oh, no.”

He stepped out of the car and let the door close. She watched him walk behind the car and toward the lump that lay still in the road. Then she saw it shift.

“It’s still alive,” she whispered to herself.

He knelt next to the animal, then stood and took off his coat. He knelt again.

She noticed a light from behind the trees as he picked up the animal. Stepping out of the car, she called out to him. “Someone’s coming!”

He nodded and moved to the side of the road. His shoulders pitched forward, cradling the wounded animal in his arms.

She shielded her eyes and watched.

The headlights curved quickly around the bend.

“Mary!” he called. “See if there’s a towel or something in the—”

The truck was hugging the shoulder.

Her mouth opened wide.

“Move, Daddy! Move!!!” Haley shouted in her dream. “Get out of the way!” But of course, he couldn’t hear her. It was just a nightmare.

The truck bounded around the corner, then there was the sickening squeal of brakes. But it was too late. The truck smashed into her father, then into a tree behind him.

Her mother screamed, standing only a couple of yards away. She ran toward her husband. But he was pinned against a sycamore, dead.

Tyler, a blond-headed local whom the Landry family had known since birth, and who Haley once had a crush on, opened his door and stumbled from the truck. He took a few shaky steps toward the tree, bent, and wretched.

“You okay, Hale?” someone whispered. Mac.

She slowly opened her eyes. A layer of sweat had formed on her skin and pooled into the crevice between her breasts. It was nighttime and she was in her bed with Mac. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she whispered, even though she wasn’t. “Go back to sleep.”

She scooted closer to him and pressed her body against his until her heart calmed down. His skin had always been warm and soft, stable and secure. And he smelled strongly of both soap and beer. She’d always found the combination sexy and comforting.

Although she told him she forgave him for his lie, tonight she didn’t feel particularly comforted. Or safe, for that matter. It was as though the lie had been more significant for her than it should have been. As though it changed the dynamics of their relationship somehow.

She gazed at his bare back until he began to snore.

A couple of minutes later, she rose. She was going to wake her mother. The two needed to talk.

***

BUT SHE DIDN’T need to wake her mother. Because she
wasn’t
sleeping. And she wasn’t just laying around in her old nightgown like she had been since the accident.

When Haley walked in, her mother’s eyes were shining, and she was very awake. And of all things, she was smoking a cigarette.

She had on a pair of jeans, a wrinkled t-shirt, and sat Indian-style on the bed with an ashtray and photos scattered all around her. Beneath the odor of cigarette smoke, was the scent of perfume. She was even wearing eye makeup and lipstick.

Haley blinked, wondering if she could be dreaming. “Mama?” she said, in disbelief.

Her mother turned away from the photos and regarded Haley. “Hi, baby.” The muscles in her face twitched. Then she patted the bed. “Come sit here with me. Your mama has something she needs to tell you.”

HALEY SAT ON the edge of the bed and watched her mother take long drags from her cigarette. After a moment, the woman set it into the ashtray and exhaled.

“I’ve never seen you smoke before.”

The woman smiled, and Haley could see that she’d finally brushed her teeth. “
C’est la vie
, baby,” she said.
That’s life.
“You don’t live forever, you know, Hale?”

Wrigley jumped off the bed, and went to the water bowl. She lapped at the water in it, then, sighing, lay down on the floor next to the door, staring at Haley.

Haley returned her attention to her mother. “You’re dressed.”

“Yes, baby. You think I look nice?”

Haley nodded and smiled. “You’re okay now?”

“Yes, baby. Your mama’s more okay than she’s been in a long time because I have something to tell you darlin’. Something beautiful.”

Haley waited, an enormous weight taken off her shoulders. She smiled both on the inside and outside. It was the first time she could remember feeling so at peace since the accident.

“Remember when Nana died? How peaceful her face was when we found her on the kitchen floor?” Her mother asked. “As though she was ready to go? Remember that Haley? You saw Nana’s face, didn’t you?”

Haley nodded. Death had waited impatiently for her grandmother, but it was true. She
had
looked peaceful when she passed.

“But your daddy, darlin’, God bless his soul. No, he didn’t look peaceful at all. He was tormented, baby, pinned against that big tree. . .” Her words drifted off. Taking Haley’s hands into her own, she studied her. “Is it okay for me to talk about this with you? I don’t want to upset you none.”

“It’s okay,” Haley murmured, the smile gone. Where could her mother be going with this?

The woman squeezed her eyes shut and let go of Haley’s hands. She picked up her cigarette and inhaled. After she blew the air out, she regarded her. “Hale, baby, I haven’t been able to get his face out of my mind, the way it looked the night he died. Every waking hour, I’ve seen your daddy’s face. And all the
tremendous
pain he felt.”

Haley’s heart beat so furiously she thought it might stop as she again imagined her father at that moment.

The woman’s eyes brightened and she reached out and took her hands again. She squeezed them hard. “But he’s okay, Hale. He’s with us now, and he’s okay.” Her brown eyes danced as though she were a child. “I saw your daddy, baby. He was sitting right there,” she said, patting the comforter next to where Haley sat. “Just about where you’re sitting. He’s come back to let us know he’s doin’ okay. He’s not hurtin’ anymore.”

ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, he set a box of Triscuits and a loaf of bread in the cabinet above the stove, then opened the refrigerator and filled it with deli meats, fruit, and condiments. As he unpacked the rest of the groceries he tried to remember Tiffany’s small face, but the fuzzy memory now did little for him.

But he had kept something to remember her by, and to set him at ease when he was angry with Allie and the rest of the world. He hid it beside the sandwich bag full of hair he’d taken from Kelsey Anderson’s room the night he’d had the close call, the night the beautiful Rachel Anderson opened the door much too quickly.

He hadn’t the time to do anything but scramble beneath the bed, and he’d been very lucky for that. She had stood at the doorway for what seemed like ages, before stepping forward, then crawling into the girl’s bed. She cried for a while, soft whimpers that tore at his heart. But then came the sounds of her peaceful breathing. She’d fallen asleep, waiting on her unruly daughter.

He thought about all the arguing he’d overheard the next morning when Kelsey climbed back through the window. All the hurtful words Kelsey Anderson had shouted overhead. The threats the beautiful mother screamed back at the girl.

He was forced to lie beneath that bed for some hours, until the last door had banged shut, and everyone had gone. And even then, in the dullness of dusk, he feared being seen fleeing the house.

He now set a package on the counter for Allie. Some nicotine gum. A small peace offering for screaming at her the weekend before. He hated shouting at her. She couldn’t help what she was either.

He ripped open a bag of cat food, poured some into a bowl, then walked out to the front porch and set it on the decaying wood.

“Here kitty, kitty,” he cooed. “Kitty, kitty?” A moment later, a pair of eyes glowed yellow at the edge of the porch. The sickly animal inched its way to the porch steps, then stopped, not knowing whether or not to trust him.

He looked into the stray’s eyes knowing that it, too, was an orphan. Feeling a pang of sympathy for it, he went back inside and watched it hurry to the bowl.

He slept almost peacefully that night with the wool blanket balled up in the shed, one of the Anderson girl’s thin sheets covering his body, and Tiffany’s gold necklace cradled in the palm of his hand.