The Bargaining (16 page)

Another memory attacks, this one the grotesque laughter coming from beneath the mattresses in the room at the end of the hall.

“Where is she?” I demand, brushing off the memory and taking a step toward Rae.

“You know when I stopped wondering if anyone would miss me if I left?” she asks. “After my mom disappeared for three days. She drove to Flagstaff with some guy she barely knew so they could see the snow fall under the moonlight. She told me all about it when she got back, how it looked like fairies dropping little soapsuds from the highest treetops. I was eleven years old. I didn't think she was ever coming back. I ate cereal nine meals in a row.”

I want to tell her she told me that story years ago. I want to tell her I'm not even sure I believe her. I watched her lie about so many things to so many other people just so they
would see her as damaged. But right now, all I can think about is that girl.

“Where is she, Rae?”

“My mom? Taos. At least at last check. I think she had me cremated just so she could have an excuse to scatter my ashes in a place she'd always wanted to go.”

“The girl!” I yell at her.

“I don't know, and I don't really give a shit,” Rae says, suddenly serious.

I turn back to the shed and try the door, which resists my attempt so strongly I wonder how it could be rusted shut if I just heard it open a second ago.

I walk around the perimeter searching for any sign of the girl, but all I find when I come back is Rae.

“Did you hear the one about the coyote?” she says, her eyes smiling but her mouth turned to a solemn frown.

“It's been you this whole time,” I accuse, not fully believing it. But she's standing right here, and the memory of the little girl is already growing cloudy in my mind.

“They said all they found was my shoe. Gross, right? The shit people come up with. You know it was that chick with the tacky dolphin tattoo that found me. Screaming her head off like she was the one who had something to be afraid of.”

I look once more over Rae's shoulder. The woods only get deeper after that, and I know I won't be able to see a thing in there. Not with that thick tree cover. I pull my sweater closer to my body and hunch my shoulders against the latest chill to find its way under my clothes.

“They talk about how serial killers lack empathy, but teenagers, I think they're the real sociopaths,” Rae says.

This is when I give up. I take step after step back toward the house, the trees crossing their branches the way I cross my arms over my stomach. I must have cut a different path through the woods when I was chasing the imaginary girl. This path feels thicker, the trees reluctant to let me through.

“I saw what you did to that poor girl's face, by the way,” Rae says from behind me. “In the girls' room. Respectable.”

I stop walking and almost turn. But this is what she wants, and I will not say another word to her.

“I mean it, Penny. Really, really commendable. She was probably already on her way to rhinoplasty anyway, but you sped things along for her, I'm guessing.”

I start walking again, and her steps are just out of sync with mine, an inconsistent rhythm that grates on my nerves enough to make me clamp my hands over my ears and tug.

“But it doesn't really make up for it. You know that, right?”

The air feels thicker around me. I suddenly think I
know how the ground feels with all those pine needles choking up the surface, blocking the air above.

“See, here's the thing. When I couldn't feel my hands. When I couldn't hear anything but the blood pushing through my veins, crowding out all the rest of the noise from the bonfire off in the distance. When I thought my head was going to lift off of my neck and my heart pressed against the inside of my chest and wouldn't back away. When I heard you laughing at someone's stupid joke because you thought you were so fucking right and I was so fucking wrong, and you'd won, and good for you for being the person more deserving of a life outside of me. When all that happened, you were exactly where you told me you were going to be from now on.
Without
me. And I was exactly where you wanted to leave me. Alone.”

I can see the silver outline of the Carver House's rooftop searching above the tree line, but I can't feel my feet on the ground. I can barely feel the icy chill beneath my sweater anymore, either. All I can hear is Rae's voice.

“So I don't know why you're so unhappy, Penny. You got everything you asked for in those letters. You got every single thing you wanted.”

She spins me by my shoulder to face her, with her iridescent skin and her perfectly pinned curls. “So why am I still here?” she asks me.

My face is wet with the same undeserved tears from Miller's car. The same tears I thought I was done crying. The same tears I don't want to cry anymore.

“Go home, Penny,” she says, then walks backward into the shadows of the woods, the place she lives now.

“And Penny,” she says just before I've broken free of the trees. I can't see her anymore. I can only hear her voice. “These kids, they aren't playing around, you know. They have something to say. But you know what my dear old mom always used to say: Not all voices deserve to be heard.”

12

I
FEEL LIKE A TRUCK
hit me this morning. Worse than a hangover. After I got back to bed last night, it took me another three hours to fall asleep. When I finally nodded off, I could see the first shoots of sunlight peeking through the clouds. That couldn't have been more than three minutes ago. But that doesn't seem to matter to April.

“Ugh, you and Rob could compete for the prize of most hours slept in daylight.”

I drag the pillow over my head. It can't possibly be that late. It's not my fault she's probably been pacing the floors since dawn.

“Seriously, Penny, I need your skills.”

I lift a corner of the pillow and bring her into focus with
some difficulty. She's got her hands up in mirrored Ls, miming what I guess is supposed to resemble me holding Linda. “Click click,” she says, confirming my suspicion.

“April, I need to tell you something,” I say, lack of sleep and caffeine clouding my judgment. The effects of last night have not yet worn off, and I'm still struggling to make sense of any of it.

“Something weird happened. I think . . . I think I saw someone in the woods.”

April shakes her head. “Impossible. We're off the beaten path, remember? No one for miles. That's the pitch I'm working on anyway. But ‘off the beaten path' sounds a little, I don't know, like camping. Maybe something more like ‘rustic hideaway.'”

I put a palm to my temple and press hard. “No, I mean . . . okay, have you noticed anything about this place . . . I don't know . . . odd, or . . .?”

“Jesus, Penny, not this again. I swear to God, it's like you're just looking for excuses to sabotage this whole thing for me!”

This wakes me up. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at April's irritation, but I am. Because this is more than irritation. This is a full-on accusation.

“Is this a bad time?” I ask.

She closes her eyes. “I'm sorry. And yes. Sort of,” she says.

I do nothing to mask my dissatisfaction with her answer.

“It's just that I finally got a plumber to call me back, and if I don't meet him at his shop in thirty minutes, who knows if I'll ever get that toilet in my room to stop running. It's kept me up for the past four nights straight.”

Now that I look a little closer at April, I see the faintest trace of dark crescent moons peering out under a heavy spattering of concealer.

“Since when do you go to see a plumber? Are you bringing the toilet to him or something?” I ask. I refrain from asking whatever happened with the Realtor. I'm going to take it on faith that the roof and the floor below aren't milliseconds from collapsing, even though faith has an extra-short expiration with me these days.

She holds her hands up in a move that reminds me of Rob so much I feel a sudden twinge of loneliness. “I know. Honestly, I'm really starting to feel like I'm getting the runaround. It's getting old. And apparently, not a single contractor from Tacoma or anywhere else will touch the work. Something about a city ordinance Point Finney passed ages ago to keep work local. Anyway, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come into town with me. Bring the ole camera, snap some pictures.”

I drop my head back down on the pillow. The prospect of
getting out of bed hardly even seems like a possibility at this point. And the thought of another trip into town doesn't exactly tempt me. In three seconds, I conjure an image of an encore of the scene in Maggie's Grocery. But then I look at April, her eyes still managing to sparkle despite the heavy shadow cast over the rest of her face, and I remember that she's the one who's actually trying, even if that optimism is starting to show signs of cracking. So I let my feet drop to the floor and get dressed as fast as I can, convincing April with some difficulty to let me at least brush my teeth before we hit the road.

“I haven't been able to get an electrician to call me back,” April says as her old jeep searches out every single hole and struggles to recover traction on the dirt road leading into town.

“Guess they don't need the work,” I say, watching the smear of green and brown pass through Linda's lens. “Your tires might, though.”

“What were you asking me before?” April says, ignoring the comment about her car. It wasn't a dig. I sincerely think we might slide off the road at any second.

I set Linda back in my lap. “Nothing. It's not important.”

April seems to want to ask me more, but we arrive at our destination quicker than I think either of us was expecting, which is odd considering she's the one driving.

“Wait, I thought we were going into town.”

“Well, I'm going into town, but I thought maybe you could start with some photographs here?”

I look between Ripp's and Scoot's, knowing after our last visit that Scoot's won't open for another half hour and Ripp's is the only place I could possibly hang out while I wait.

“Come on, Penny,” April says, pleading like she's the teenager in the car. “It would be so great to add some environmental details to the sales materials. Anyone investing in a bed-and-breakfast is going to want to know there's an ­adorable general store and coffee shop nearby.”

“Yeah, except the coffee shop owner—”

“Is just a little eccentric,” she finishes. “Besides, he liked you just fine. It was me who obviously rubbed him the wrong way.”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” I say, not caring now if she knows how annoyed I am. “This is a total bait-and-switch, and you know it.”

“I know,” April says. “I know, I am truly an awful person. And I owe you big. But if you don't get out of the car now, I'm going to be late, and that toilet will run into perpetuity, and I think I might tear my hair out if I have to hear it flushing on its own for one more night.”

I'm already getting out of the car just so I can hear anything but the sound of her pleading.

“Whatever you want for dinner tonight!” she hollers as she backs out of the dirt parking lot and drives away. “Your choice!”

And in a flash of dust and rubber, she's gone, and I'm standing in front of Ripp's holding Linda, wondering if Miller would think I'm a stalker if I tapped on the door and begged him to let me in early. And considering he hasn't texted or stopped by since I unloaded on him the other night, that possibility has just become a mini reality.

Taking the opportunity to reconnect with civilization now that I have a decent cell signal, I text Rob.

Your mom's officially losing it.

I wait for a response but get none, not that I'd expect him to know how to respond to that, and eventually, my desperate need for coffee wins out. I enter Ripp's as quietly as I can, considering for a moment that maybe Ripp won't be there today. Maybe some random barista who's never met me or April will take my order instead.

But as I survey the utterly empty coffee shop, the door slamming shut despite my best effort to catch it, I know I'm not going to get my wish. There he is, his compact body leaning on the counter, frowning as I take another step inside.

“Um, morning,” I say, since one of us has to and he's clearly not making the first move.

He apparently doesn't think he needs to make the second move, either. Instead, he disappears behind one of the steaming latte machines, and the whir of the milk steamer fills the dense silence of his otherwise pleasant little shop.

I continue to walk around the café, knowing I'll ­eventually make my way to the counter, knowing he'll have to pour me a cup of coffee and take my money, knowing I'll have to look him in the eye and ask him without actually asking him if he could please not hate me so much. It's strange, but years of standing by Rae's side in order to be feared didn't leave me with the coat of armor I was hoping for. Instead, it just left me feeling like I was looking down at myself from somewhere on the moon. I've had enough of sensing the wariness of other people.

Right now, I like the sound of the milk steamer, and I like the warmth of his shop, and I'd prefer to look at the newspaper clippings and think about anything other than the dream or whatever it was I had last night, or the little girl I still can't get out of my head, or the way Rae left me with the vaguest of warnings after the heftiest of verbal beatings.

I return to the same framed newspaper clipping I landed on the first time I ventured in here with April. Ripp looking proud in his apron, confident in the love and support of
his town. I think about the way the clerk Roberta formed an invisible bubble around her customer, George.

The frame is crooked on the wall, but that isn't what gets my attention first. Just as before, my eye travels to the headline that's cut off at the bottom, the one announcing
ANOTHER LOCAL TEEN FOUND IN NOR—
. It's not too hard to fill in the blank: North Woods. That's what they call the woods where the Carver House is.