Those Girls (22 page)
“I went by Crystal’s a couple of times today, but she’s not around. She didn’t show up for work either. No one’s seen her.”
“I know you’re worried, Sky, but this is what Crystal
does
. You know that. Remember last year when she took off? She used to disappear for weeks and Dallas and I’d be so scared, then she’d show up like it was no big deal and we’d find out she was partying somewhere with friends or some guy.”
“Not this time, Mom. Not after the other night.”
She capped her nail polish bottle and looked at me. “Especially this time. Dallas and I were expecting something like this.”
I chewed my lower lip. “But she didn’t tell me.”
My mom covered my hand with her own. “She still loves you, Sky. You’re her number-one niece.”
I smiled weakly. “Because I’m her only niece.”
“Exactly.” She patted my knee and stood up. “I better get ready for work.” She looked back at me. “Don’t worry, baby. She’ll be back soon.”
While Mom went to get dressed, I pulled her key chain out of her purse and took the key to Crystal’s place.
* * *
It was nine o’clock and the sun was just setting when I pulled up in front of Crystal’s. There didn’t seem to be any lights on in her suite. No lights upstairs, either, which was good.
I opened the front door slowly, my eyes quickly taking everything in.
“Hello?” I called out. What if she had some guy over, or came running out with a towel wrapped around her, pissed I was violating her privacy? But the place was quiet. It was a little creepy being there alone.
The ashtray on the coffee table was full; empties stood in a cluster. All the cigarette butts were her brand—Player’s light, king-size. The kitchen sink was full of dishes and the garbage smelled. I pulled the bag out of the pail, tied it up, and left it by the front door. I made my way down the hall into her bedroom.
Her bed was unmade, a tangle of sheets and pillows. A beer bottle was on her night table, and the little foil crane I’d made was sitting on a Kleenex box. I picked it up, fingered the wings as I looked around.
Her perfume hung in the air. Some of her drawers were pulled out, clothes heaped in a laundry basket, but I couldn’t tell if anything was gone.
I checked her bathroom—no toothbrush in the stand. I opened all her drawers. Her makeup was gone too. I looked in the shower. No razor, just a couple of almost-empty shampoo bottles and a sliver of soap.
I stood in the hallway and frowned. Where was she?
Back in the living room, I sat on her couch, put my hand on the pillow lying there. I shouldn’t have made her talk about Cash Creek. I shouldn’t have brought any of it up at all.
She still had two joints inside the box on her side table. I moved to her desk, rummaged through some Post-it notes, just random notes about groceries or reminders, phone numbers. I turned on her computer and checked her search history. There was some stuff about some bands, and at the top: Cash Creek.
I stared at the name, my heart beating fast. I did a search, checked the links that came up. She’d clicked on one about cattle ranches in the Okanagan. It was a listing for ranches. I scanned the names but they didn’t mean anything to me.
I shut down her computer, left a note on her counter:
Please call me!
Then I cleaned up her dishes, took out her garbage, and made her bed. I grabbed the two joints out of the box—figured she wouldn’t mind.
I walked back into her bedroom and checked her night table drawer, under her mattress, in her closet, searching everywhere for the gun. It was gone.
I wish we’d killed them. I wish it all the time.
The way she’d looked at me, like I wasn’t even there.
* * *
In the morning Mom shuffled into the kitchen in her boxer shorts and tank top, her hair messy. She yawned as she opened the freezer and pulled out a box.
She glanced at my cup of coffee. “That’ll stunt your growth, you know.” She smiled at our running joke, which started after I shot up past her years ago.
She popped some Eggos into the toaster, grabbed the syrup out of the fridge, then sat across from me, using her fingers to taste some syrup from the lid.
I’d been thinking about what I’d discovered at Crystal’s place, had even logged onto my laptop last night and searched again for Cash Creek. It was a really small town, only about three thousand people. Wikipedia mentioned dairy farming and cattle ranching, but when I Googled “Cattle ranches, Cash Creek,” I didn’t get any hits.
Mom was talking about what we could do that day. I couldn’t really concentrate on what she was saying. I was thinking about how to tell her what I’d learned but every time I opened my mouth, she went on about something else.
“Maybe we could go to Stanley Park. Do you feel like Rollerblading around the seawall?” She got up and took her Eggos out of the toaster, dropped them onto her plate, and slathered them with butter. “Or we could go to Granville Island and walk around the stores, maybe check out the market.”
She sat back down across from me, picked up the syrup bottle.
I took a breath. “I went over to Crystal’s last night.”
Her eyebrows pulled together. “She’s home?” She set the bottle down.
“No, I borrowed your key.”
Now she looked pissed. “You mean you
took
it.”
I shrugged. “I needed to see inside her place. It looks like she left Sunday, maybe not long after I went over.”
“Yeah.” She took a few long sips of her coffee, watching me over the rim.
“I think she went to Cash Creek.”
She started shaking her head but I kept talking. “Mom, listen. She was on her computer, looking up Cash Creek. I bet she was looking for those guys.”
All the color had gone out of Mom’s face, and her hand was gripping the edge of the table like she was trying to hold herself up.
“Mom?”
She got up and refilled her coffee. She was stirring in sugar, only her profile visible, but I could see her eyelashes flickering like she was blinking hard.
“Crystal would never go back there,” she said.
“You don’t know what—”
“I know my sister, Skylar. She wouldn’t go there.”
“Her gun is
gone,
Mom. I think she went back to kill them.”
She turned around. “That’s crazy.”
“She looked them up. Why would she do that?” I couldn’t tell her about my last conversation with Crystal, the stupid stuff I’d said.
“Who knows, but there’s no way in hell she’s gone to Cash Creek.”
“I think we should drive there and see.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too dangerous, for one, and I can’t miss work.”
“Why aren’t you worried?”
“I
am
worried, okay? But Dallas and I learned a long time ago not to screw up our lives every time Crystal went off the rails. She’ll figure it out and she’ll come back and we’ll lend her money again and she’ll get another job.”
“I can’t believe you’re not going to look for her!”
“Skylar, you have no idea what we lived through in that town. None of us would ever go back there again.” She walked over, cupped my face. “Trust me.”
I leaned away. “I can’t just sit around and wait for her to come home.”
“So don’t. What are Emily and Taylor doing? Are they working?” She glanced at the calendar on the wall, her face slightly surprised like she’d just realized the date. “Oh, right. Emily’s going to their cabin this week.”
“She’s leaving tomorrow. They invited me, but I didn’t feel like going this year.” Emily’s cabin was awesome and we always had fun, but sometimes it was hard watching her with her dad, how nice he was. She could be kind of mean to him, making fun of his jokes or how he dressed, acting annoyed when he wanted to take us fishing. I’d feel angry at her, then we’d get in a stupid fight.
“Call and see if you can go,” Mom said.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“I think it would be good for you to hang out with some girls your own age. You shouldn’t be worried about this kind of stuff.”
“What about the gym?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll clear it with Dallas.”
“Maybe I’ll call Emily.”
“Good,” Mom said, looking relieved. She grabbed her coffee. “I’m going to take a shower.”
* * *
While Mom was at work that night I Googled maps and driving times, trying to calculate gas and how much money I’d need. I thought I could make it in about five and a half hours, a little more if I stopped for food or gas.
When I walked into the kitchen in the morning, Mom glanced up from pouring coffee. I’d heard the TV on late after she got home last night, and her eyes were puffy like she hadn’t slept well.
I felt hot and nervous. I’d raided the cupboard for granola bars and dried fruit, any stuff that would last awhile. I planned to drive all day, stop for lunch, then get a motel room in Cash Creek—I was going to pull a few hundred out of my bank account. I’d have to work extra shifts for the rest of the summer and maybe even babysit so I could still pay for the mixer and speakers.
I poured myself some juice and sat down at the table. Mom turned around and leaned against the counter. “Did you get hold of Emily?”
“Yeah, I can go. I’ll meet them at their house in a few hours.”
“That’s great, Skylar. Try to have fun and don’t worry about Crystal. I’ll text you when she shows up. Don’t forget to call and let me know you’re okay.”
“The cabin has crappy cell service, remember? I’ll text when we’re on the road or shoot you an e-mail, okay?”
“Okay, baby.” She came closer, leaned down, and gave me a kiss on my lips, holding my chin like she did when I was little. “Be safe. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
I watched her walk down the hall to her room.
I felt bad—I’d never lied about something so big—but I pushed it away. Mom was wrong. She didn’t know everything about Crystal. She didn’t know what we’d talked about that day, didn’t see the look in her eyes, or how empty her house had felt. But I did, I knew. She didn’t plan on coming back.
I left around ten, while Mom was at the gym. I’d packed my stuff, including a switchblade she’d given me years ago—Patrick had shown me how to use it.
It was already hot—I was wearing cargo shorts and a tank top, my skin sticking to my seat every time I moved. The air conditioner in my car was broken, so I had all the windows rolled down, my hair pulled back in a loose braid the wind whipped around, the stereo pounding.
The Vancouver traffic clogged the highway all the way out of the city and it was slow going at first. I was nervous about the traffic; big trucks making my car vibrate as they roared past, the tires almost as tall as my car.
As I got farther away from Vancouver and passed Hope, a small town a couple of hours out of the city, the terrain changed, getting more mountainous, with fewer signs of people. When I reached the Coquihalla, the big highway that would take me the rest of the way up to Kamloops, the scenery had changed from cedar trees and tall firs to craggy mountaintops and high rock bluffs baking in the morning sun. It was a steady uphill climb and I passed a couple of cars on the side of the road, steam billowing out. I thought about my mom and my aunts, how scared they must have been when their truck broke down on the road.
I kept my eye out for Crystal’s car as I passed gas stations and motels along the highway. It was strange, thinking she might have been driving on this road only a few days ago. I had a few photos of her on my phone along with one I’d pulled out of our photo album. If I couldn’t find anybody who’d seen her in Cash Creek, then maybe Mom was right and she’d just needed to get away.
I kept going over my last conversation with Crystal. Wherever she’d gone, I was sure I was the reason she’d decided to take off. I shouldn’t have said anything. What did I know? My mom and my aunts had lied to me for my whole life, every single day. It made me wonder what else they’d been lying about.
When I’d been on the road for three hours I hit Merritt, another small town. The land had changed again, getting drier, more like a desert canyon with scrubby bushes and rolling fields of brown. I stopped at McDonald’s for lunch.
I ordered my food and took a table, then texted my mom, letting her know I was almost at the cabin, sending lots of kisses and hugs and promising to text her as soon as I had coverage again. I’d texted Taylor that morning, telling her that I was going to be working some extra shifts so she wouldn’t wonder if she didn’t hear from me. I wasn’t worried about her calling my house—my friends only used my cell. A girl came out of the bathroom with a big packsack on her shoulder, gave me a smile, and walked out into the parking lot.
I watched her go over to three guys standing by a white Jeep with a bunch of camping gear in the back. She was around my age and really pretty, with straight, almost-white blond hair pulled into a loose knot at the back of her neck.
One of the guys handed her a cigarette, then said something as she bent forward to light it. She stepped back to blow out the smoke and turned around, walking away from them. Now one of the guys made an obscene gesture with his mouth and hand, like he was imitating a blow job. The other two were laughing.
The girl gave them the finger, then kept walking toward the highway. The guys got into their Jeep and followed her, slowing to a near-stop where she was standing on the side of the highway with her thumb out. I watched, riveted, my hand paused on my fries. What were they going to do?
The guy on the passenger side had his head out the window, looked like he was shouting something, then he lifted his arm and threw a Slurpee cup at her. She put her arm up, shielding her face, but a spray of liquid soaked her. The guys gunned the gas, their Jeep swerving on the road. The girl picked up a rock and threw it in their direction, but they were long gone.
She walked back to the restaurant and disappeared into the bathroom, her face flushed. I felt bad for her and hoped she was okay.
I was checking my map in the parking lot when she came out, wearing a different tank top, a pink one, and peered into my car.
