by Nick Scorza
I tried to make friends with Clyde, letting him sniff my fingers to get used to my smell. He rubbed his fuzzy cheek against my hand once, then went back to sleep. At least I was all right in his book.
Around 10:30, my first customer came in. My eyes widened when I recognized Hector, and his jaw dropped when he saw me behind the counter. It looked like there were all sorts of questions running through his head, but all he could manage was to order a caffe mocha. At least it wasn’t some sort of triple caramel vanilla monstrosity. I made it for him while he set up his computer. I wondered if he’d ignore me in favor of his technology this time, too.
“Here you go,” I said.
“Thanks.” He kept looking at me, trying to think of what to say next. His eyes were narrowed with suspicion. “Hey, can I ask you something? Are you from Queens like you said, or from here?”
“I wasn’t lying to you. I’m from Forest Hills. My dad is from here.”
“Is there like, a secret handshake or something? Not that anyone would believe I was a local anyway.”
I suddenly felt bad—Hector had lived in Redmarch Lake a lot longer than me, and he didn’t have the benefit of an old family name to open doors that didn’t open for much else. And now he’d lost the only person he’d called a friend here. Still, if he hadn’t ignored me, he could have had a new friend.
“To be honest, this place weirds me the hell out,” I said. “They didn’t look at me twice until they learned my father was from here, so don’t take it personally.”
“Neil was one of the few nice ones,” said Hector. “Who am I kidding? He was my only friend. Hey, did they haul you down to the sheriff’s office too?”
Hector’s tone was suddenly anxious, unsure.
“Yeah. That wasn’t fun. What did they ask you?”
“Just what happened at the party, and the last time I saw Neil.”
“Me too. I saw him argue with his girlfriend, then nothing.”
“You mean Ash? She’s his ex. They broke up like two months ago. Then there were these rumors Neil had a new girlfriend, though he never told me, and I don’t think anybody’d actually seen her. Listen to me, talking about these people like they’re a stupid telenovela. That’s what it feels like being here, like this is all a TV show and I can’t interact with anyone because I’m the one audience member. I can’t even change the channel.”
“Well, now I’m watching too, and I think we changed genres to something pretty dark.”
Hector looked around briefly, to make sure we were alone—the same kind of suspicious glance I’d seen my dad make. Maybe he was more a part of this town than he thought.
“I think it’s always been pretty dark. Want to see something crazy?”
He walked over to the entrance, again making sure no one was loitering outside or coming down the street. A little painting of a sailboat hung on the wall above the door—the same kind I saw in a lot of motel rooms on family car trips.
Hector lifted up the painting. Underneath it, hammered into the wall, were a cluster of old iron nails. They’d only been hammered halfway in, then the heads had been twisted together to make a weird knot pattern. It reminded me of the old iron clasp my father had given me.
“All the houses here have something like this. There was one in mine when we moved in. The neighbors came by to make sure we didn’t take it out. They didn’t say that’s what they were doing, of course, but that was like, the one and only time they came to visit.”
“No one in this town will talk about what’s really going on. Not even my father. Neil’s just going to be remembered as a kid who got drunk and drowned unless we do something about it.”
Up until now, I was feeling that spark of excitement you only get when you finally find someone thinking the same thing you are. I already forgot about Hector ignoring me at the party, which really shouldn’t have bothered me that much anyway, and I was already thinking of the two of us on a mission, solving the mysteries of Redmarch Lake—just like Zoe would have wanted. That spark died abruptly when I saw the look on his face—like I’d just suggested we jump off a bridge.
“Not you too,” I said.
“You’re here on summer vacation,” he said. “I’m stuck here for another two years.”
“I won’t get you in trouble,” I said. “I don’t even know what to do next, but I have to do something.”
I could hear Zoe’s voice in the back of my head, urging me to get to the bottom of things. I couldn’t ignore it, not when I felt like I was the only one keeping her memory alive. And there was the matter of the note. Somehow my sister was a part of this, not just in my memory but here and now, and that thought thrilled and horrified me more than anything else.
Hector still didn’t look like he was about to help me, though.
“Why don’t you just ask the townsfolk? They’ll talk to you, since you’re in the club and all. I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
That stupid cocky smirk was back on his face.
“You know as well as I do no one here will talk to me,” I said. “The only way we’ll learn anything is if the two of us find it out ourselves.”
“You have fun with that,” he said. “I’m out.”
He packed up his stuff, shaking his head. I couldn’t believe it. Was this all because the other kids had talked to me, or was he afraid? I was about to call him a coward when two older ladies in track suits power-walked in and ordered nonfat lattes, which meant I had to get busy. Hector left as I got to work. To my surprise, he turned and looked at me one last time. I was expecting another self-satisfied smirk, but the look he gave me was almost sorry. Good, he should’ve been sorry. I stared daggers at him and he hurried off down the street.
The power-walk ladies were in the middle of an argument about whether the heat or the humidity was worse outside and didn’t pay any attention to me, or Hector as he was leaving, though they did put a dollar in the tip jar when I gave them their lattes.
Lady Daphne had said I could have one of the café sandwiches for lunch every day—which was nice of her. They were all vegetarian but not bad. I cleaned everything until it sparkled and tried not to watch the clock as the minute hand crawled its way around. I was still furious at Hector, though I didn’t know why. I could understand his reluctance; he’d been here a lot longer than me and would still be here when I left. Who knew what consequences he’d face for stepping out of line around here. Maybe that was what happened to Neil? Still, for some stupid reason, I hoped Hector would be my ally in all this. I could feel at least a part of him wanted to be.
I hope he gets a virus and his computer blows up, Zoe whispered in my head. She was never any good with technology, but the idea gave me a guilty smile.
At noon on the dot, an old man walked in. It took me a minute to realize he was the same old man I’d ridden in on the bus with, still smoking a cigarette, NO SMOKING signs be damned. He ordered a regular coffee in a voice that sounded like rocks scraping together and then added enough milk and sugar to eliminate any trace of coffee. I winced just watching. Throughout all this, he gave no indication that he knew me, but as he was leaving, he gave me a brief, conspiratorial wink.
“Watch your back out here, kid,” he said.
My evening replacement was supposed to show up any minute now. I’d forgotten how boring summer jobs were. Each movement of the minute hand seemed to take a full hour. My mother once told me that the older you got, the faster time seemed to move. “Just wait,” she had said, “when you’re my age, it’ll feel like half a year is gone before you even know what happened.” I wondered if I’d ever look back on these hours of intolerable slowness with anything like longing.
Just when I was starting to think this girl was a no-show and I’d have to work a double shift, I heard the chime of the door opening. I saw a familiar tumble of long, dyed-black hair and I thought oh no. Judging by her expression, Ash thought the same thing at the same time.
“No,” she said. “No,” as if she coul
d will me out of existence. She looked like she was about to turn around and walk right back out of the café. “You’re doing this on purpose. You won’t be happy until you take everything.”
“Let’s talk about this—”
“You show up, and Neil dies, and now here you are, in his place, standing right where he used to stand. What the hell are you doing here?”
She stood still for a moment, taking deep breaths. The more she looked at me, the less angry she seemed and the more she started to look afraid. She thought of something she hadn’t considered before, and whatever it was, it made her turn two shades whiter, which I didn’t think was possible.
“Who are you, really? You’re not from New York. Tom Morris tells everyone he has a daughter, but I heard someone say his daughter drowned years ago. They say that’s why he moved back here and he’s always shut up in his house . . .”
“I’m real,” I said. “I swear to god. Do you want to see my driver’s license?”
“You’re one of them,” she said. She started backing toward the door, fumbling around in her purse for something. “You broke the rules. You can’t do what you did.”
I walked toward her, my hands out, trying to calm her down.
“Don’t come any closer!”
She pulled out something from her purse, brandishing it like a weapon, but it was just an old iron nail.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I’m just a normal girl, I swear.”
The nail wavered in her hand. I took another step toward her, praying she didn’t try to stab me with it.
“Don’t . . .” she said.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out the iron clasp my father had given me.
“See? I’m just like you.”
Just as delusional, I thought. What the hell was wrong with this town?
Gently, I closed my fingers around the nail, and she let it drop into my hand. She stumbled backward, all of her fury leaving her at once. I caught her by the arm to keep her from falling into one of the tables.
When she recovered her balance, she jerked her hand out of my grasp and collapsed into one of the chairs, weeping.
VII.
I brought her a box of tissues, and she spent the next few minutes drying her eyes and blowing her nose.
“I guess you’re real after all,” was the first thing she said to me.
“My twin sister drowned when I was eight. That’s probably where the rumor came from.”
She gave me a timid glance—wary but free of hatred. I’d take that as progress.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. What did you think I was just now, a ghost?”
“N-never mind,” said Ash. “My head hasn’t been right since Neil died. I guess I was just freaking out.”
There was obviously more to it than that, but it didn’t look like she was going to tell me.
“So I guess we’ll be working together,” I said.
“For a few hours anyway.”
Ash may have accepted my basic humanity, but she didn’t sound thrilled to be my coworker. I tried to imagine Neil and Ash meeting at the café, seeing each other for two hours every day, falling in love little by little, until they broke up, and then Neil was dead. I felt for her, even if she thought I was undead, or possessed, or whatever that thing with the nail had been.
I could see looking at Ash that things had never been easy for her, even before Neil died. It wasn’t the hair or the makeup—it was something deeper than that, in the eyes. I knew it because I saw it sometimes in my own eyes when I looked in the mirror. She’d grown up here, and who knew what that could do to a person, and what the rest of her life was like. Under different circumstances, I think we’d have been instant friends. I wasn’t great at making friends, but I hoped somehow I could make things right with her.
“I know you’re going through something really horrible. I barely knew Neil, but he seemed like a great guy. There’s a lot I don’t understand about this place. I didn’t do anything to hurt anyone, and if I upset some kind of balance or broke some unwritten rule, I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry.”
“I know,” said Ash. “Look, I can’t deal with this now. Why don’t you sign out and I’ll just take over.”
I nodded. I didn’t think I’d make things better between us by arguing with her, and I was already sick of this place. I hung up my apron, went over the totals from the register with Ash, and headed home.
As I walked out of the café, I noticed one of the sheriff’s patrol cars parked nearby. The silent deputy with the hard stare—I think his name was Harry—was sitting in the driver’s seat. I felt his eyes on me as I walked by, and I tried not to let it show. It’s only natural that they’d look at the café after what happened, I thought, it’s not like they’re keeping tabs on you or anything. But the way the deputy’s eyes followed me, I wasn’t so sure. As I walked by, I thought I caught a glimpse of him making a call on his cell phone.
My father was working on his book when I got back, or trying to at least—he was squinting at a block of text on the screen like he was losing a staring contest to it.
“Writer’s block?”
He jumped in his seat, then turned to face me. He seemed to be trying to block the screen with his head, as if what he’d written was too embarrassing to be seen.
“When do I get to read some of it?” I asked.
“Never—I mean, you wouldn’t want to. . . . It’s terrible.”
“Come on, Dad, have a little faith in yourself. I bet it’s great.”
He smiled, but he still didn’t volunteer to share any of it with me.
“Thanks,” he said. “So where have you been all day?”
“I got a job.”
He looked impressed but also worried.
“You’re a lot like your mother,” he said. “Once you decide you want something, you’ll make it happen no matter what. I’m glad you take after her in that. So where are you working? The diner?”
“The café. I’m—well, it’s Neil’s old job.”
Dad frowned, the worry back in his knotted brows.
“I know you love your coffee. That’s why you took the job, right?”
“Right.”
He probably suspected I was up to more than this, but he was willing to leave it be. With my father, there was a kind of parent-child détente; he would leave certain boundaries intact even if he suspected I was up to no good. My mother was a bloodhound—whenever she smelled something suspicious, she’d keep after it, no matter how uncomfortable it made either of us. Honestly, my father made me feel worse. I felt like I was taking advantage of his trust, even though, this time, at least I was doing it for the right reasons. I knew he wouldn’t understand if I told him everything I was thinking.
“You should give your mom a call,” he said.
I was so focused on everything that happened that I hadn’t even thought of calling home, much less what I would say to my mother. Now I felt the familiar dread of the long, slow battle of wills that our relationship had become. The Woodchuck was just the latest fight, but it may have been the one that lost me the war. My father could sense I was trying to come up with an excuse not to call, so he handed me the handset, and it didn’t look like he was leaving until I dialed.
“She’s probably at work now,” I said.
“I spoke to her this morning. They’re finished shooting for the latest season. Your mother has some downtime before post-production.”
“What if Chuck answers?”
My father made a face, just for a second, then he was back in dad mode.
“Just ask to speak to your mother, it’s that easy.”
My parents didn’t fight often since the divorce, but that was probably because they didn’t speak often. Dad must have been worried enough to fill my mother in on what was happening here, which complicated matters. My mother was an associate producer on a TV crime drama, and whenever they were filming, her head was full of worst-case-scenari
os.
I dialed the number, hoping for her voicemail, but someone picked up after two rings.
“DiStefano and Woods, attorneys at law. Have you been injured on the job? We can help.”
Chuck’s wry tenor crackled on the other end of the line, and I could hear him chuckling at his own stupid joke. It was all I could do not to hang up then and there. He started to get nervous when there was no response, which made me a little happier.
Tell him you’re the cops! Tell him that joke was criminally awful! Zoe whispered excitedly in my head, but I couldn’t bring myself to interact with the Woodchuck that much. I let the awkward silence do the work.
“Uh . . . whoever this is, I’m kidding. . . . This is the DiStefano and Woods private residence, but doesn’t it sound like a great law firm?”
“It’s Clara.”
“Clara! I’m glad you called. Your mom was worried—”
“Right, is she there?”
I could hear Chuck calling for my mother, then a shuffling noise as he handed her the phone.
“Sweetheart, your father told me what happened. I’d like you to come home.”
“Mom, I’m fine. I like it here. And wouldn’t you know it, all this forest but not a single woodchuck.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Clara, but that’s beside the point. It’s not safe.”
“I even found a summer job like you wanted. Listen, I know what happened sounds scary, but nothing like it’s going to happen again, all right? There’s no way anyone’s going to have another party after that, and you know I don’t drink or go swimming.”
“I know,” she said. “I just worry. Your father told me some stories about that town when we were first dating. It may look quaint, but it’s got a bad history.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t remember. Just that more bad things happen there than should in a place that small. We came to visit once, when you were just a baby, and something about that whole town just felt off. I know you’re careful, honey, but careful only goes so far. Listen, I had a right to be upset with you after you stayed out all night and didn’t tell me, especially when you promised to get your grades up. You know I worry about you, after all you’ve been though, but I’m sorry for the way I yelled . . .”