The Drowning Game (6 page)

 

Chapter 7

T
HIS WEEK, INSTEAD
of cashing my paycheck like usual, I was heading straight to Farmers National to deposit it. I wouldn't buy weed and PBR, I'd bank the money to buy some new clothes for the gig and beers for my bandmates to try and make things up to them. I would be smart and disciplined this time, and I'd take whatever extra hours I could pick up at the grocery. Things were turning around—­I could feel it.

I opened the glass door to the bank and walked in, and there was Petty Moshen standing at the counter. What were the odds that, after all these years of living in the same town and never seeing her, now I'd seen her twice in one week? But then I remembered what a fool I'd made of myself the last time—­the only time—­I'd talked to her, and the humiliation drove me back behind a pillar, hoping she wouldn't see me. But I could hear the transaction going on at the teller's window. I tried not to listen, but the tile floor magnified every sound.

“All right, hon,” the teller, a girl named Britney, who was three years older than me, said to Petty. “What's your account number?”

“I don't know. My dad opened the account for me five years ago.”

Not a promising start. I peeked out from behind the pillar. Britney frowned at Petty and pecked at her keyboard. I remembered that look. She'd been the type of girl who smiled to your face and talked shit behind your back. She wore pearls around her neck, paid for, no doubt, by the bank's owner—­her father.

Petty probably had never been inside a bank before. She was navigating all these new things on her own, and I tried to imagine how terrifying and confusing it must be.

Britney put Petty's card on her keyboard and typed. “Okay,” she said. “Your account number is 06315. I'll need you to fill this form out, sign and date it, and I'll get your cash.”

I watched Petty bend forward, pen in hand, and I briefly wondered if she could actually write or if she was going to scrawl a big X on the paper. But then I felt like a dick for thinking that.

She slid the form back to Britney, who peered at it, then turned and walked away.

As if by magnetic force, Petty turned and looked right at where my head stuck out from behind the pillar.

Her eyebrows rose.

Busted. I stepped out of my hiding place and walked toward her.

“Hey, Petty.” I tried to sound casual, not like I'd just been spying on her or anything.

She stared at me.

“How's it going?” I said.

“How's what going?”

“Just everything, I guess.”

She shrugged.

Britney returned and opened her drawer with a key attached to her wrist. Then she counted out cash and slid it toward Petty. “There you are.”

Petty stared at the pile. “I need
all
my money,” she said. “Do I have to come back for it or . . . ?”

Britney looked at Petty like she had three heads. “That
is
all your money.”

It was two tens, a five, a one, three quarters, a nickel, and a penny.

“You took my money,” Petty said. “Didn't you? You're not going to get away with this.”

I had to stop myself from laughing out loud at this. She sounded just like someone from a bad TV cop drama.

“Of course I didn't take your money,” Britney said, in a puffy, insulted voice.

I needed to redeem myself for wanting to laugh, so I decided to step in. I walked toward the cage. “How much money do you have in there?” I asked Petty.

“I had almost thirty thousand dollars.”

Britney and I gasped in unison, the shock deflating Britney's indignation. “What made you think you had that kind of money in here?” she asked.

“Give me my money or I'm calling the cops,” Petty said.

“She didn't steal your money,” I said, and stepped up next to Petty, putting my hands on the counter. “There's been some mistake.”

Britney shot me an annoyed glare, obviously done here and ready to move on with her day. I could just imagine the story she was rehearsing in her mind about the spooky girl who had accused her of embezzlement. The bitch.

“She lost her dad a few days ago,” I told her. “She's trying to get her affairs in order, so if you wouldn't mind . . .”

Petty's suspicious gaze made my face burn, but I didn't care. She needed someone in her corner. That's what I told myself anyway, trying not to imagine her falling helplessly in love with me or anything.

Britney wrinkled her nose like she smelled something bad, but she turned back to her computer. “Just a second,” she said primly.

Petty bent over and put her hands on her knees, breathing hard. If it had been anyone else, I would have put my hand on her back. But she wasn't anyone else, so I didn't dare touch her.

“There's only been one deposit on this account,” Britney said. “The original deposit of twenty-­five dollars.”

“That's impossible,” Petty said, her words escaping between gulps of air. “My dad . . . deposited . . . all my paychecks . . . for the last five years . . .”

Britney leaned out of her window and called out, “Next.”

Now, that was just unnecessary. I blocked her view and got in her face. “Let her see the monitor.”

We had a staring match for a minute, and I remembered all the times back in school that Britney had overwhelmed meeker girls with her nastiness, and I'd just stood by and watched. Not this time. I wasn't going to let her do the same to Petty.

“Yes,” Petty said. “Let me see the monitor.”

I was surprised by the granite in her voice.

“Fine,” Britney said in a hiss. She turned back to her keyboard and typed with a vengeance, fuming. She shoved her computer monitor toward Petty. I stepped away to give Petty some privacy. Britney pointed with her red pen. “See? This account was opened sixty-­two months ago with a deposit of twenty-­five dollars. Your account earns interest of one percent compounded daily, which means you've earned one dollar and eighty-­one cents on your original deposit.”

Petty's hands fluttered in front of her mouth, her eyes glistening.

Wow. What kind of an evil man had Charlie Moshen been to do this to his only kid?

“If you want to bring in the statements you've received from the bank over the past five years, we can get this straightened out,” Britney said, a snotty grin on her face. She slid Petty's ID and the cash to the edge of the counter. “Next.”

I blocked the next customer and said quietly to Britney, “Would it kill you to be nice?”

“Next!”

Petty ran out the door.

 

Chapter 8

O
UTSIDE,
I
COULDN'T
seem to get enough air.

“Are you all right?” Dekker asked me.

I shook my head. I looked up and down the street and then at the steamy white clouds in the blue-­gray sky, thinking.

I should be able to get copies of all the check stubs from Mr. Siebert, my boss at the dump. Dad must have deposited my checks into another account. I could prove that with the pay stubs. This money wasn't part of the trust. It was all mine. I needed to go down to Mr. Dooley's office to see if he had Dad's financial records. Otherwise, I didn't know where they might be.

Dekker stood motionless, staring at me.

“What?” I said finally.

“What are you going to do?” he said.

“I'm not sure.” I turned and walked west down Main Street toward the lawyer's office.

“Um, bye,” Dekker said to my back.

Randy's truck kept pace with me. His window slid down. He was not pleased. “Where are you going?”

I stopped and turned back to thank Dekker for his help, but it was too late. He was walking back into the bank.

“I'm going to walk down to Mr. Dooley's office,” I said to Randy.

His eyebrows came together. “Okay,” he said, but the end of it rose like a question. I ignored him and ran down the block to Mr. Dooley's office.

I burst in the door and said, “I need Dad's bank statements.”

An old man in overalls sat in the inner office. Mr. Dooley half stood from his desk and said, “I'll be with you in a minute, Petty.”

“How much money does Dad have in his checking account?”

The old farmer turned around in his chair and stared at me.

Mr. Dooley rose from his chair and walked around the desk. He put his hand on the farmer's shoulder. “Give me one minute, Ben.”

The farmer nodded, still staring at me.

Mr. Dooley's lips were white and tight over his teeth. He went to a filing cabinet and pulled out a file. He opened it, removed several sheets of paper and slammed them down on the counter in front of me.

“Here's your father's last bank statement.” He pointed at the bottom of the page.

It said $79.45.

“No,” I whispered. “There must be another account somewhere.”

“There's not,” Mr. Dooley said in a low voice. “This is all there is.”

“What happened to all my money?” I shrieked.

“Shh,” Mr. Dooley said. “The fact is, Petty, you were pretty much supporting you and your dad. And paying the premiums on the life insurance policy.”

“So . . . so all my money is . . . gone.”

“No. It was invested in the life insurance policy.” He positioned his face in front of mine. “Which you can have as soon as you marry Randy.” He put on a big phony smile and said loudly, “Okay?” as if he were speaking to a particularly slow toddler.

I felt a stinging in the bridge of my nose. I was going to cry.

Mr. Dooley scrubbed his hand over his face. “Did you ever stop to think how hard all this is for me? I'm only the messenger, but I'm the one who's getting all the fallout from what your father did. Think about that for a while.”

He seemed to expect me to say something. I didn't.

Mr. Dooley blew out a sigh. “Fine. I hate to have to put it this way, but marrying Randy is your best option. Deal with it.”

But it wasn't my only option. I had my blade with me.

“Where is your bathroom?”

“Thatta girl,” Mr. Dooley said, smiling. “Upstairs. Go freshen yourself up. Everything's going to be fine. You'll see.” He winked at me, turned and went back to the inner office.

I climbed the stairs straight up, not sideways with my back to the wall like I normally did, because it didn't matter anymore. Dad had stolen my money. He had made sure I'd be trapped here forever, that I'd never have a life of my own, ever. He'd died and left me all alone, to be given away to strangers like the rest of his stuff, as if I were a pet goldfish or a tablecloth. I was nothing, and when I was gone, no one would miss me.

At the top of the stairs was a cramped hallway, piled with boxes and furniture and typewriters and adding machines. I was never going to escape. I couldn't drive, I had no money, and unless I married Randy I'd lose the house at the end of the month and have nowhere to live. I now saw that no one and nothing could help me. There was no reason for me to go on living. My blade burned against my skin. It was my way out.

I knew exactly where my jugular and my carotid were. I hoped there was a tub in the bathroom upstairs because cleanup would be a snap, as the commercial says.

In the upper hall, I picked my way through the towers of boxes, and on the other side of the bathroom door a tower was topped by a box marked M R. The same box Randy had taken out of my house and put in his truck. On top of it was a Mac laptop with an L-­shaped dent in the lid. My dad's computer.

I glanced over my shoulder and then back at the box. I might as well take a peek before I killed myself. The box was stamped in several places with the warning
PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL
. I knew this warning was for me. If Dad had wanted me to see what was in this box, he would have shown me.

I looked behind me again and moved the laptop to the floor, then picked at the packing tape of the box and carefully, slowly pulled. My heartbeat sped up with each breath. I folded back the box sides. File folders. I don't know what I expected, but my disappointment had sharp edges that cut deep. I was about to the close the box back up when a flash of color between the folders and the side of the box caught my eye. I pulled it free and found it was a photo of . . . me.

I'd never seen a photo of myself. My dad didn't own a camera, and when I'd brought one home from the dump, it had disappeared. I'd asked Dad what had happened to it, but he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. There were no photos of me as a child. As far as I knew, no pictures of me—­or Dad or Mom—­existed anywhere.

I brought it close to my face. I'd read the term “cognitive dissonance” and knew that was what I was experiencing right now. Because this photo had to have been taken within the last year or two, but when and where? And why didn't I know someone had photographed me? A chill stole over me as I realized maybe someone had been stalking me and taking my photo and I'd never known.

But as I stared at the picture, I realized there was something about it that wasn't quite right. I flipped the photo over, and scrawled on the back was 987.

What did that mean?

I turned it over and studied the image again, especially my face. The heart shape of it. My round hazel eyes. My dimples. But . . . not my hair. Not my eyebrows. The hair was shorter and curly, the eyebrows were thin. The eyes were rimmed with liner, shadow and mascara, which I'd never worn, had never even owned. I only knew about them because of TV commercials.

I turned back to the box and reached in to search for more photos. Where there was one, there were bound to be more.

“Petty?”

Mr. Dooley's echoing voice made me jump straight up and I dropped the photo, which fell to the floor facedown. As I bent to pick it up, I realized my thumb had covered up part of what was written on the back. It didn't say 987. It said 1987.

“You okay up there?”

“Fine,” I called as I flipped the photo over once more. The photo that
wasn't
of me.

It was a picture of my mom.

While I knew next to nothing about her, I do actually remember her a little bit. I remember her in flashes and snippets, in three different mental movie clips. The first one is of me sitting on my mom's lap and Dad sitting next to us. Mom's telling me to “
Look! Look!”
And she's pointing at a little TV to our right. And just as I look, these snow-­topped mountains pop up on that TV like toast, and I'm amazed. How did she do that? And she and my dad are laughing.

The next clip is of me sitting across from her and we're gliding. My mom is moving backward, and the sky and clouds and trees are bending around her face. She wears round sunglasses. I can't move my head because I'm wearing a puffy orange vest. We're in a rowboat on a lake, and it's late afternoon. My mom is rowing, and then she stops and pulls the oars into the boat. It's sunny but cool, and the sun on the water makes me squint. She gives me a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich and a box of juice with a straw in it. It's just my mom and me and our sandwiches on the lake.

In the last clip, Mom is lowering me into the bathtub. “You want to play the game?” she says, and then the doorbell rings.

The only images I have of Mom are the ones in my head. Except for the one I now held in my hand.

Where had it come from? I wanted to dig through that box, but I heard the front door open and the old farmer say, “Thanks a lot, Keith.”

“That's all right,” Mr. Dooley said. “See you in church.”

The front door closed.

I slid the photo in my bra, sealed the box back up, and put Dad's Mac on top. I was sweaty and cold, and that picture burned against my skin. I felt like it was glowing through my clothes.

What else was in that box?

I came down the stairs, shaking. “I want that box in the upstairs hall,” I blurted.

Mr. Dooley froze and didn't answer right away. “I'm sorry?”

“I want that box.”

A longer pause. He turned to me but didn't speak.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, Petty, I heard you. No need to shout. That box is the property of the trust.”

“So I can have it and Dad's laptop if I marry Randy,” I said. “Right?”

“No,” he said. “The laptop will be stored inside the box, sealed and in my possession.”

“Does Randy know what's in it?”

“I couldn't say. I just know that your father instructed him to remove the box and his laptop from the home and deliver them to my office for safekeeping.”

I couldn't think of anything to say. Why couldn't I speak? Why couldn't I be like Detective Deirdre Walsh and demand what I wanted? I grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled.

“I'm certain your dad had a good reason for not giving you access to these things. Best not to think about it.”

My dad was still controlling everything from beyond the grave.

“But—­”

“You always trusted his judgment in the past, didn't you?” Mr. Dooley's sharp tone startled me. Then he softened it again, but I didn't believe anything he said anymore. “There's no question in my mind that marrying Randy is the right thing. I was reading the other day that arranged marriages are actually some of the most successful. In the old days, they happened all the—­”

I turned and ran out the door. Randy was sitting in his truck and saw me come out. He got out of the truck and opened the passenger-­side door for me. I got in and buckled up. I was light-­headed and almost giddy as I sat staring out the window, marveling at how often and how quickly I'd gone from excitement to total despair and back again over these last two days. How I'd been committed to killing myself. Until I saw my mother's face.

“Everything all right, gal?” Randy said.

“Yes.”

Randy kept the country music turned up on the drive back, for which I was grateful. All I could think about was my mother's face against my skin, and how I wanted to be home alone to think about it.

Before I knew it, we were in front of my house. Randy put the truck in park.

“I'm gonna be coming by every day to make sure you're okay,” he said.

“You don't need to do that.”

“Dooley and me, we discussed it and we decided I do. Now that your daddy's gone and you're all alone in this house, you need someone to protect you.”

“I got the dogs.”

“You can't be too careful.” I wasn't sure whether this was a helpful warning or a threat. “What with your grief and all, you probably aren't thinking too straight. Just let me and Dooley figure out what's best for you.”

Figure out what's best for you.
Because that's what men did. What lawyers and dads and husbands did for girls. Decided what was best for us. Because we can't think straight. Because we're confused. Because we don't understand.

“So I'll be by later. Maybe you'll ask me inside for a beer.”

This time he didn't pretend to lock me in. He let me go, because he'd be back later.

I shut the door of the truck and squatted down to hug the dogs, who licked my face and danced around me. They were overjoyed I was giving them affection, which I'd never done when Dad was alive. But these guys kept me safe. I went inside the house and let them in before dead-­bolting the door.

I reached inside my bra and peeled the photo off my chest. My sweat had leeched some of the color off the print and my mom's face was now imprinted on my skin, which gave me an inexplicable rush of gladness. Mom's picture didn't seem to be damaged. I stood staring at it, scouring the image for clues. Her ears were double-­pierced. There was a tiny scar on her left cheek. She wore a silver chain with a tiny square silver box around her neck. Staring at her, I was suddenly overcome with the feeling—­the certainty—­that my mother was still alive.

I set the picture on the kitchen table to dry out.

The only thing in life that mattered now was to get that box, the laptop, and the envelope from Dooley's office and then get the hell out of Saw Pole.

I
DON'T REMEMBER
when I realized I wasn't supposed to ask Dad about Mom. I was pretty little though. We were in Kansas and I asked him if he knew the words to a song she used to sing called—­I think—­“Dig Down Deep.” He acted as if I'd said an obscene word or something. He was completely surprised and a little offended. It was like he'd forgotten all about her and figured I had too.