The Twilight Swimmer (22 page)

“The
young
policeman.” Cody exhaled the words, obviously growing exasperated with this interrogation.

Brandi eyed her brother suspiciously. She had never thought him capable of deception, not on his own. But her parents may be taking advantage of his naiveté, selling him a story to sell to her. Trying to lure her out of her room in the hope that once she’d crossed the threshold, she wouldn’t go back. It was a dirty trick, if that’s what they were up to. And a peculiar trick. Why did they think a visit from Dallas was enough to draw her out of her self-imposed solitary confinement? It was a little insulting they thought the presence of a boy – even a handsome boy – was enough to displace her self-righteous ideals.

Before she could ask him a few clarifying questions to get to the bottom of the mystery, Cody spun on his heels and trotted back down the hall.

“Wait a minute!” Brandi called after him, but it was too late.

She crept out of her room fifteen minutes later. After washing her face, tying back her hair, and changing into a fresh top. If this was to be her first appearance in weeks, even in front of no one but her family members, she intended to be presentable. There wasn’t much she could do to make her clothes fit less loosely, or to restore color to her cheeks without looking clownish, but she could address these other issues easily enough. She would not consider, even for a moment, that she was so determined to clean herself up solely because Dallas might be waiting at the bottom of the stairs. In his uniform. With his shoulders thrown back and his awkward, disarming grin directed at her. No.
No
. That had nothing to do with it. She’d hardly thought of him the last month, after all. That was proof of something. What exactly, she couldn’t say. But she reassured herself of its importance all the way down the stairs, through the living room and into the dining room.

Dallas was sitting between Cody and her father. He wasn’t wearing his uniform. But when he heard her enter the room and looked up, his grin was exactly as she remembered it. As she had
not
remembered it much at all the last month, she quickly reminded herself. That had to mean
some
thing.

“Weren’t sure if you were coming, so we started without you,” said Conrad. He reached for the empty plate in front of her empty chair and began loading it with food. Too much food, even if she did have an appetite. Which she didn’t. “Everything’s still warm.”

“Warm and delicious,” said Dallas. He pushed back his chair and waited for her to sit, the kind of mannerly gesture she had often seen her father perform. She caught a glimpse of her mother glowing, both from the compliment for her cooking and for the chivalry on display. “I’m glad you did come down. Sheriff Vine might take it easier on me if you’re here.”

“Take it easy on you,” asked Conrad with a smirk. “When was I tough? All I wanted was your life story, in between bites.”

“Exactly, honey,” said Sherri. “You make the poor boy talk so much between bites he has no opportunity to draw a breath. Let him en
joy
the food, for cripes sake. He’s a
guest
, not a circus performer.”

Brandi took her seat across from Dallas, and he gladly retook his own seat. He kept his eyes on Brandi while he readjusted the napkin in his lap. “How’s school going, Brandi?” asked Dallas, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a cloth napkin.

“You want to know about school?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.

“She’s tough, your daughter,” said Dallas with a wry grin. “I have to plan out whole conversations in advance to make sure I don’t say something silly, or she jumps all over it.”

“Not the manners she was taught,” said Sherri with a sigh. “Answer his question, sweetheart. How is school going?”

“I heard the question, Mom.” Brandi turned to Dallas, trying to wipe any hint of sarcasm from her expression but failing miserably. “School is… great,” she said.

“That’s it?” asked Sherri.

“What do you want me to say? I know lots of synonyms for ‘great’. Or do you want me to actually be honest? It’s school we’re talking about, not a trip to an amusement park, so it’s not quite ‘great’ or any of the synonyms that could stand in for ‘great’. I can use more accurate words, but that wouldn’t make for very polite dinner conversation, and I wouldn’t be displaying the manners I was taught.”

“Watch it, Brandi,” said Conrad in a low rumble.

The table was silent for what felt like an hour, everyone gnawing at their food and eyeballing Brandi. She didn’t want to return the glance of anyone, especially Dallas with his vaguely wounded expression. But she let her eyes wander to Dallas’ hands, thick like her fathers, strong. He seemed to have some difficulty manipulating the designer silverware her mother always brought out for guests. Faint calluses at the base of several fingers. No dirt under his nails. A pale scar on the second knuckle of his left ring finger. She realized that if she was able to catalogue every detail of his hands, she was probably staring. She promptly averted her eyes.

“Funny story,” said Dallas with a slight crack in his voice. “I was at the gas station this afternoon. No, yesterday afternoon. Buying a soda. I know they’re bad for me, but I get a craving every now and again. Anyway, I was back by the cooler, digging around, when I saw a young guy walk in. Baggy pants, oversized sweatshirt. Hood up, even though it was the middle of the afternoon and plenty warm for October. No car out in the lot except my cruiser, so he must have just walked in. And he didn’t go for the aisles. Wasn’t buying a soda or a bag of chips or anything. So I was curious, what’s this guy up to? He just went straight to the counter, and he’s standing right up against it, half leaning over it to talk to the girl behind the counter. The cashier girl. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, he was talking so quietly. And I couldn’t really see her face. Just the back of his hood. His hands flat on the counter, shoulders up. And the girl isn’t saying a word. Just listening to this guy in the hood. So I start moving a little closer, down the aisle, because at this point I’m certain I’m witnessing a robbery. The guy in the sweatshirt is obviously demanding that this girl empty out the register, and she’s so scared she can barely move. If she doesn’t wake up and do what he says, I don’t know what’s going to happen but I know it won’t be good.”

Conrad laughed. “This is why I don’t let you carry a gun. Young men and their heroic impulses.”

“Don’t interrupt!” yelped Sherri, leaning forward in rapt attention. “What happened then?”

Dallas rubbed his hands together, emboldened to continue. “I’m maybe ten feet away from the counter, thinking about bum rushing the guy. Just tackling him, before he can pull whatever weapon he’s got on him. Probably just a knife, but you never know. He’s not a real big guy, about my size. There’s a mirror above the counter, one of those shoplifter mirrors, so there’s a chance he’ll see me coming if I’m not quick enough. And then maybe I’ll get stuck in the ribs.”

“Oh my god! The ribs!” Sherri gasped.

“I still can’t see the girl’s face, but I can hear her making little noises. Little panicky noises, what it sounds like. Whimpering, you know. He’s probably got the knife out already, and she’s staring at it. Probably always thought this would happen someday, working behind a counter of a gas station. And now it’s happening, nightmare come true—”

“It turned out to be her boyfriend, right?” asked Brandi.

The whole table that had been enthralled by Dallas’s story now turned to glare at Brandi.

“What? Am I right?”

“Yeah,” said Dallas. “It was her boyfriend, paying her a visit. I figured it out when I get a better angle and they were sucking face.”

“Sucking face!” cackled Cody.

Dallas cringed and turned to Sherri. “Kissing, I mean. Excuse me ma’am.”

Sherri hardly heard Dallas’ apology. She was focused on Brandi. “Why did you have to ruin the story?”

“I thought we were supposed to guess. Like solving a mystery.”

“And now you make it worse with your sarcastic—”

“Leave it alone, Sherri,” said Conrad, placing a hand on his wife’s arm. “Dallas knows all about her social skills.”

Dallas chuckled. “I’m not surprised she figured me out. Like I said, I need to plan out every conversation in advance or she knocks me down to size. The size she knocks me down to keeps getting smaller and smaller, though.”

”If the pattern continues, you’ll disappear by Christmas,” said Brandi.

Conrad leveled his gaze at Brandi, and she read in his expression a range of messages. There was a warning in his eyes, that she had better begin behaving herself immediately or face unspecified consequences. There was a fair amount of disappointment as well, that it was necessary to warn her to behave civilly in front of a guest. Oddly enough, she even recognized a tiny flicker of familial pride. He had told her many times that she had her mother’s looks and her father’s belligerence, and that he saw himself in his daughter most clearly when she was driving him up the wall.

The rest of the dinner was spent in cordial conversation that did not include Brandi. She chewed and swallowed on autopilot while her mother asked Dallas the usual polite questions about his family, his childhood, his education and more. Dallas patiently answered every question as though surprised and impressed by their depth. Conrad interjected to rib Dallas once or twice, affording Sherri an opportunity to come to their young guest’s defense. It was all manufactured, the joviality. She could have scripted the entire evening and come up with nearly identical results. To keep herself amused, she slyly removed a fork from the tablecloth and moved it down to her lap. She concentrated on the thin metal prongs, first trying to bend them with her mind, then trying to bend them with brute force. She didn’t succeed with either method.

After dessert, Sherri flew into a domestic flurry and began clearing dishes. She shooed Dallas from his chair and ordered him into the living room, but Conrad had other ideas.

“Brandi, why don’t you and Dallas take a walk?”

“A walk? Why?”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time in your room lately. I think you could use the exercise.”

She could tell from her father’s tone that it was not a suggestion.

The balmy evenings of summer were now a memory, and the temperature dropped considerably when the sun dipped below the horizon. Brandi pulled on a dark green sweater, and Sherri insisted that Dallas borrow one of Conrad’s jackets. It was too big for him, but he proudly insisted it was a perfect fit. Sherri also insisted that they take along a flashlight so they wouldn’t roll their ankles in gopher holes or squash a dog patty: a polite euphemism. Brandi resisted the flashlight idea, pointing out that it was a clear night and they would be able to see just fine. But Sherri wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Brandi suffered impatiently through nearly ten minutes of her mother rooting around in kitchen drawers for the right size batteries.

“Do they always do this kind of thing?” asked Dallas as they stepped out into the back yard. “Pawn guests off on you to entertain?”

“It’s a first,” said Brandi with a shiver.

“Cold, I know. Let me give you my jacket. The
Sheriff’s
jacket, I mean.”

“No, I like how it feels. And don’t call him ‘the sheriff’.”

“What should I call him?”

“I don’t know. ‘The sheriff’, I guess.”

“Quick change of mind, Brandi. It is okay if I call you Brandi, right?”

They walked down the gentle slope to the channel, where Brandi’s kayak was moored. She steered Dallas to the left and they walked the beaten footpath along the water’s edge. She had every intention of keeping a space of a few feet between them while they walked, and Dallas apparently had the same idea. When their swinging hands bumped, he recoiled so dramatically that he very nearly stumbled into the water.

“This is awkward,” he said, regaining his balance. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’re trying to—”

“What, a set up? There might be fathers in the world who are progressive enough to send their daughters on romantic strolls with boys, but Sheriff Conrad Vine is not one of them.”

Dallas snorted at the irreverent way she spoke her father’s name, title and all. The snort embarrassed him enough that he covered his nose with his hand, pretending he had an itch. “Is this romantic?” he asked, his voice cracking again just slightly.

“You know what I mean,” Brandi answered with a shrug.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

They walked in silence for a while, passing her neighbors’ houses and docks, following the gradual bend of the channel as it cut farther inland. The night was not as lively as it had been all summer, most of the insects lying low to keep warm. But they could still hear squirrels chattering overhead, thin branches bending and cracking under their dexterous paws. In the distance, they could hear a congregation of voices. A family around a campfire, Brandi thought. She could almost smell burning marshmallows and graham crackers.

“I knew your sister,” said Dallas, breaking the silence. “Jenny. I knew her.”

“You already told me that. The night of the warehouse fire.”

“I told you I knew of her. But I knew her a little more than that. We talked once or twice.”