The Girl I Used to Be (8 page)

The office is spacious, all clean lines and windows. Just walking across the long expanse of mustard-gold carpet to the front desk makes me nervous. A half wall of marble, topped with a potted yellow orchid, separates me from the receptionist. She's talking on her headset.

When she says, “Yes?” it takes me a minute to realize she's addressing me. Her eyes are still on her computer screen.

“Um, hi. I want to talk to someone about renting 1707 Terrace?” My stomach clenches.

“Your name?”

“Olivia Reinhart.”

She finds an application and hands it over with a pen, all without her eyes ever leaving her screen. “Fill this out. I'll tell Christina you're here.”

I sit on the edge of one of four pristine white upholstered chairs clustered around a gleaming coffee table and use a copy of
Architectural Digest
as a makeshift desk.

I have just checked the “no” boxes for bankruptcy filings, evictions, convictions, and “not paying rent,” when a man's voice calls out my name. It's Richard Lee. Everything about him looks expensive, from his shoes to his haircut.

I stand up. “I'm Olivia Reinhart.”

My name clearly means nothing to him, which is a relief. He stretches out his hand. “Richard Lee. Christina's on the phone, and everyone else is at lunch.” He looks around, his forehead creasing. “So your family wants to rent the property? Your mom?”

“No. Just me.” I hold out my application.

He doesn't reach for it. Instead, his smile vanishes like a magic trick. “Don't take this the wrong way, Olivia, but how old are you?”

“Seventeen, Richard, but I'm emancipated.” I use his first name to let him know we're on the same level, two adults discussing a problem. “I've been renting an apartment in Portland, so I have a track record. And I'm transferring from the Burlingame Fred Meyer to the store down here.”

“I'll be honest with you, because you seem like a nice kid. But you're still a kid. The last few years, the housing market has been tough. I've taken chances on people who seemed nice, and I've gotten burned.”

I try to sound calm. “Like I said, I have a job. And I've been paying rent for months with no problem.” My Portland landlord is keeping my deposit, so he should still give me a good reference.

“As property managers, we're on the hook if someone skips out or trashes the place. And we only get a small percentage of the rent.”

“Yes, but if a rental stays empty, any percentage of zero is still zero,” I point out.

He continues as if he hasn't heard me. “And then when people can't make rent, they get roommates, so there's two or three times as much wear and tear for the same amount of money.”

“It's just me. And it will stay just me. I promise.”

“Do you know how many promises I hear? I'm sorry, but—”

I don't let him finish turning me down. “Okay, so the market's tough. And this house has already been sitting empty for months. With the murders back in the news, who's going to want to rent it now?”

He flinches a little. “You know about what happened?”

“Who doesn't?” I stretch the truth a little. “It's the first thing I heard when I stopped by to look at the house.”

Even though there's no one else in the lobby, he looks around. “Come on back and let's talk about it.”

I follow him down a hall. His office has a view of the valley through floor-to-ceiling windows. I sit in one of the visitor chairs in front of his desk.

“Nobody died at that house.” Richard smooths the front of his elegant suit as he sits. “Those deaths happened miles away.” On the polished expanse of his desk, there's just a sleek silver laptop and a penholder made of a can covered in burlap and lumpy felt flowers.

He must be a father, which for some reason surprises me. Something twists in my chest as I remember a series of school craft projects we were supposed to bring home to our parents, or at least our moms. First I gave them to Grandma. Later I sometimes handed them over to a foster mom. More often I stuffed them in the trash on my way out of school.

I force myself to persist. “Still, it's super creepy. Plus I heard that that lady's mom really
did
die there. Right in the kitchen.” I push away the heartbreak of finding my grandma dead, turn it into the horror it would be for a stranger. “Who wants to live in a place associated with so much death?”

He closes his eyes for a second. “Look, I was good friends with the people who were killed. Especially Terry. So they're not just dead people to me.” He focuses on me again. “They're not just
gossip
.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, but I can't let it rest, not when he might know something. “Why do
you
think they were killed?”

His words are low, as if pitched for his own ears. “Maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He is quiet for a long time, then nods his head. “I'm going to take a chance on you, Olivia, but don't make me sorry.”

I start to grin.

Then he says, “The rent is eight fifty a month. I'll just need first and last. We can take a credit or debit card or a check, although we'll need two days for it to clear.” He looks at me expectantly, clearly waiting for me to fall to my knees in gratitude and then whip out my wallet.

The house is now slipping from my grasp. In my bank account, there's a little more than a thousand. “Could I make a down payment and then pay you the rest over a couple of weeks?” After all, I'll get it back. Eventually. Minus his company's 7 percent management fee.

His voice sharpens. “What? No. That's not how this works. Don't tell me how much you want to live there unless you also have the money to pay for it.” His features pinch together. “I have a perfectly nice studio apartment I could probably get you into. It's six fifty a month. Why do you need a whole house?”

“I don't want to live in an apartment anymore. Do you know what it's like to be surrounded by other people all the time?” Look at this office, at his suit that probably cost more than my car. He can't know what it's like to hear everyone's arguments and flushing toilets. “Now I want some privacy. And no one's going to want to rent that house right now, not with the news, not when there are so many other rentals. The longer that house stays empty, the worse it will look. But if you let me rent it, I promise I'll take care of it. I'll make it look like a home again.”

After a full minute of silence, he says, “As you point out, the house does need some sprucing up. I could let you paint the interior in exchange for the last month's rent. But it has to be a careful job or the deal's off. And I would need you to sign an agreement to that effect.”

“Okay. You've got a deal.”

Richard tilts his head and looks at me more closely. “Sure you don't want to go into the real estate business, Olivia? Because your talents are wasted at Fred Meyer.”

 

CHAPTER 16

TURN THE KEY

For I don't know how long, I've been standing motionless on the front porch of what used to be my house and now is again. The key Richard gave me is in the lock, but I haven't turned it. Instead, I'm pinching it so hard it's leaving dents on the ball of my thumb and the side of my finger.

I can't let go, but at the same time I can't turn it. Am I ready to walk back in time? A sound makes me jump. It's my phone. I pull it from my pocket.

“Hello?”

“Exactly when were you planning on telling me you were leaving?”

My stomach does a flip. It's Bill. My boss in Portland. I was so nervous about going to Lee Realty I forgot all about needing to call him before Chuck did.

“Sorry!” I say. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“Why in the world would you want to live in Medford? You know what they call it. Dead-ford. Meth-ford.”

Meth. Could my parents have been into drugs? “I just felt like I needed a change.”

“Then dye your hair or get your belly button pierced or something. But don't move away and leave me shorthanded.” Bill's always been blunt. So if he was really mad at me, he would tell me. But still, there's some emotion under his words.

“I'm really sorry,” I say again. “I was visiting a friend down here, and I just decided I liked it. It wasn't anything I planned.”

“There are a million other places I would pick ahead of Medford. Bunch of rednecks in a little valley with a bad economy.”

Bill begins listing all the reasons why no sane person would live in Medford, and as he does, I put my hand back on the key. Only this time I turn it, push the door open, and step through. My breath is stuck inside me, not coming in, not going out, as his litany continues. The lack of big-city culture. Smoky forest fires. Californians who have abandoned their own state for ours. Unbearable heat in the summer. Fog as thick as cotton in the winter.

As I walk into the living room, I'm prepared to be overwhelmed by memories, but the first hit I get is—nothing. Nothing about this place is familiar. There's a gold velour couch in the living room, but no other furniture on the flat gray carpet, just dents where it used to be. The walls are painted off-white. At least they were years ago. Shadowy rectangles of various sizes show where pictures have been put up and taken back down again. Cobwebs hang in the corners. It smells faintly of fried onions and dust.

“I'm not saying it's forever,” I tell Bill. My shirt sticks to my skin. I pluck it away from my chest and let out a puff of air, finally able to breathe. “It's just for now. It's kind of hard to explain.”

His voice loses some of its sarcastic humor. “Has someone on staff been giving you grief?”

Does Bill think I've come down here to get away from some harasser or a relationship gone wrong? “It's nothing like that.” I turn sideways to maneuver through the small dining room, with its scarred wooden table and rickety chairs. “And who knows? I could come back.”

“And why would I want someone who might quit at any time, with no notice?” Bill's teasing again. I think. Teasing with an edge, as he always does. “I told that Chuck guy you were a good worker but that you're leaving me in the lurch.”

Have I just thrown away my life for nothing? Burned my bridges with Bill for a job I might not even get now?

“I'm sorry. It's just something that feels right.” It takes only four strides to cross the narrow length of the kitchen. At the back is a tiny alcove just big enough to hold a washer and dryer, with a door to the backyard. I look through the glass pane at the yellowing lawn bordered by a fence on the far side and laurel hedges on the others.

He relents a little. “Don't worry. I didn't tell Chuck that last part. In fact, I pretty much talked him into hiring you.”

“Thank you.” I press my forehead against the cool glass as I try to imagine playing out there. But still I recognize nothing. “I really appreciate it.”

“Let me know if you come to your senses and want to head back here,” Bill says. “And if you ever feel like telling me why you're there, you know how to get hold of me.”

“Thanks. That means a lot to me.” Especially now, when I'm starting to think I've made a big mistake.

After an awkward pause, we fumble through our good-byes.

On hollow legs, I retrace my steps and go down the hall. There's a single bathroom and three bedrooms. The one on the left is the biggest, but all of them are small, barely big enough for the beds they hold. Two rooms each have a twin bed, and the bigger one has a queen. They all have the same gray carpet, faintly stained in places. I think the carpet wasn't here when I was, but I can't be sure about that.

There's no magic. No memories. No flashbacks. I lived here the longest of any place I've ever lived, spent the first seven years of my life here, but it feels like a stranger's home. Nothing leads me back to my old self, my old family, to the dead who once walked through these rooms.

As I head back down the hall, tears close my throat. I was crazy to do this. Crazy to think this would jostle loose my memories. I reach out and touch the wall, steady myself.

Then I notice marks under my fingers. Faint pencil lines. They start at about midthigh and stop at about my chest. Next to each one is a bit of spidery writing, so light I can't really make it out.

But I know what the writing says. Each line has a date written next to it.

I close my eyes and put my heels against the wall. Stand straight and tall, lengthening my spine as if it's an elastic cord. I can almost feel the pencil parting my hair as it pushes through to mark my height.

When I open my eyes, I see the cream-colored curtains behind the living room couch. Now I remember hiding behind them while Grandma pretended not to be able to find me. In the far corner of the living room is the spot where we always put up the Christmas tree. On that corner shelf in the dining room, there used to be a fat blue teapot.

Everything looks so much smaller and shabbier than I remember. But at least now I'm remembering, or whatever you call a feeling caught between dreaming and déjà vu.

Through the living room window, I see a guy skateboarding down the street. When he sees my car in the driveway, he stops, kicks the board up into his hands, and starts up the walk.

Duncan.

 

CHAPTER 17

BROKEN-OPEN INFINITY

I step out on the porch as Duncan comes up the walk, his board tucked under his arm. He's wearing a red sleeveless T-shirt, jeans hacked off at the knees, and no helmet. His arms are muscled, and he has a scab on one tanned knee.

“Is this place all yours now?” he asks.

For an answer, I hold up the key. “And I think I got a job at Fred Meyer.”

“Freddy's? That's where my mom works. In the garden center.”

Crap. Chuck knows I'm from Portland. What if he tells the other staff that? Why did I tell Duncan I was from Seattle? Maybe I can think of a new lie that covers both the old lie and the real truth.