“What’s next?” I say to him. “The other eye?”
“You did that to her?” Shelby sucks in her breath. “Shit, Max left that part out.”
He doesn’t even look at me. “We don’t have time for petty bullshit,” he says to Shelby. I’m sure I’m the petty bullshit.
“Maybe she’s in a dead zone,” I try.
“For hours?”
“Maybe her phone lost its charge. Or broke or something.”
“She’d find a phone,” Ezra says, “to let us know that.”
“Max has always been responsible,” I say, “but that’s a little extreme.”
Ezra reduces himself to looking at me. “Will and Race,” he starts, “are ev—”
“I got it. I’ll check her room. Maybe there’s something in there.”
Something wordless passes between Shelby and Ezra. Maybe they’re weighing whether they should let me in Maxine’s room. Whatever it is, it doesn’t make it into words, and I don’t let it slow me down.
Max’s room is nothing like I remember it. I used to make fun of her for keeping such a neat space. As if she expected Southern Home to bust in at any minute for a photo shoot. Her bed’s unmade. The sheets look stale. There are clothes strewn on the floor. I open her closet. Above the jumble of shoes and bags and notebooks on the floor hang three items on the rod. Only three. All mine. A nubby black sweater that I loved beyond reason ($23 at Target), a navy blue tunic with half moon buttons up the front that I’d wear with leggings in winter and alone in summer, and a pair of the softest cream sweatpants with a red stripe up one leg and As if across the tush. It’s like a closet altar. The sweater is even on a puffy padded hanger so the shoulders don’t get pointy.
I suck in my breath and knuckle the tears off my face. I back out of the closet. I shut the door, hollow sadness spreading through my belly. She loves me. Loved me.
“So?” Shelby stands in the doorway, hand on hip.
What am I looking for? A map? A phone bill? A ransom note? I start to feel ridiculous, poking around all Nancy Drew. Any second Max’ll call Shel or Ezra and the mystery will be solved.
Ezra pats down the surface of her dresser, jostling earrings, receipts, change. “There’s nothing here that says anything.” He and Shelby leave the room, but I’m drawn to the dresser. Tangled up with hair ties and a chiffon scarf is a wooden cross on a leather cord. My palm goes itchy and hot as I touch it.
I pick up the cross. It’s not heavy, but holding it, I have to sag onto Max’s bed. A bird wheels past outside, causing the sunlight coming through the window to flicker. And I am there. The cab of Tyler’s pickup, Lady Bird Lake glittering through the windshield.
“I’m not the most religious girl, you might’ve noticed,” I say, “but this is kinda cool.” I tap the cross hanging from the rearview mirror. It spins ever-so-slightly.
He laughs. “I’m not religious either, but I like the symbols. So I borrow them.”
I lift it off the mirror. The back of the cross is smooth as ice, but warm. The front has roses carved in relief on the vertical axis, pale pink sparingly daubed on them, the only bit of color.
“I made that,” he says.
“For real?”
“For real.” He smiles. His teeth glow like they’re borrowing the moonlight.
I whistle. “Shit, dude, I’m impressed. This is special.”
“When I was a kid, I got sent to this camp where idle hands were the devil’s workshop.”
“Doesn’t sound like regular summer camp.” I hang the cross back up, reluctant to pull my fingers away from it.
“It was after my parents died. My aunt and uncle didn’t appreciate having a little kid around after theirs were grown, so they came up with reasons to call me ‘troubled.’”
“Jesus, Tyler, I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“My parents died in the wreck when I was five. But it wasn’t ’til I was ten that my aunt was looking for somewhere to ship me off to. So every summer after that I got sent there. Until the funding was pulled and the camp closed.”
I let my breath out slowly. I feel like shit. Here he is, telling me all this, and I’m just messin’ with him. I don’t think I told him one true thing about myself. Other than I like live music.
“Hey, don’t look so sad,” he says, gently tapping my chin. “I’m stronger now because of what I survived.”
I watch the cross sway gently in the current my breath makes. There’s so much suffering in the world. I decide I’ll work with kids. Maybe become a social worker. Mom will be glad to hear I’m forming that “life plan” she’s been after me about.
“There’s so much I don’t know,” I say, more to myself than him.
“I want to tell you everything about me,” Tyler says.
Oops. Musing misinterpreted.
“What about you? How’d Emily get to be Emily?” He presses himself closer to me. This is the third time we’ve been together. And we’ve only fooled around. Not as in sex, but just making out, smoking weed, getting buzzed. No biggie. Despite how pay-her-parking-tickets Maxine wants to blow it out of proportion, I have never cheated on Ezra. I would never hurt him like that. Fooling around like this is not cheating. Not when you don’t give your body or your heart.
Tyler’s kissing me now, and I’m sort of kissing him back, except my eyes are open and I can see the cross hanging there, pale but with the illusion it’s glowing, as if it’s been rinsed with moonlight.
Tyler deserves better than this. Better than what I’m not giving him.
I pull away.
“Oh, sorry,” he says. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no. It’s just … well, Tyler, I think we’re looking for two different things here.”
He waits. I’ve never thought I’d use “with bated breath” to describe something, but that’s how he waits.
“I … uh …” I clear my throat. “I have a boyfriend.”
His brows shoot up. “You mean an ex-boyfriend?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
He pulls away from me. He grips the steering wheel as if it needs to keep him from shattering. “Shit! I really liked you, Emily.”
No point in making him feel worse by fessing up to the whole alias thing.
“And I liked you, Tyler. But I’m not looking for something serious.”
He twists in his seat and looks out the window. I wonder what he sees. His breath gets choppy. Is he crying?
“Tyler, I’m really sor—”
“Goddamn, when am I gonna learn?” His voice sounds strangled. “You’re just like everyone else. No matter how hard I try, they disappoint me.”
“I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.” I have my hand on the door handle.
“Wait,” Tyler says. “Don’t leave like this. Maybe we can be friends.”
“Sure.” Not likely.
“One more drink for the road?” He’s looking at me now. His expression is so earnest, so open, that I can’t help but think of the little kid carving crosses summer after summer, his next of kin glad to be rid of him.
“Why not?” I say.
I find Shelby in the kitchen. She’s calling hospitals.
“Where did this come from?” I practically shriek, dangling the cross by the cord like a dead rat by the tail.
Ezra shrugs. Shelby lowers her phone and says, “Max’s boyfriend gave it to her.”
“The boyfriend she’s with?”
“Yeah, why are you freaking?” She sets her phone down.
“She’s in trouble.”
24
MAXINE
Chris’s arm is a boa constrictor sunning itself on my neck, his fingers spider legs aimlessly playing on my arm. We’re sitting on the stiff, scratchy couch in this cheap room, a nature show on TV, volume low. He kisses my ear and breathes into my hair. “I like the way the shampoo smells on you,” he says.
“Motel 6 sulfate,” I say. “It’s all the rage.”
I take a swig of Diet
Coke. He throws back his head, finishes another beer.
“You know I hate drinking alone.” He pouts.
“I woke up with such a bad hangover this morning,” I say. “I’m on the wagon tonight.” I drain the last of my soda.
“We’re celebrating, though.”
“We are?”
“I am,” he says.
“You win a scratch-off or something?”
“Duh. Max. Our first overnight together. Our first time in a hotel room.”
“Motel room.” This place is right on the frontage road so the freeway traffic feels like it’s aiming straight for your head. The king bed has a sad depression in the middle, like a caved chest. There’s a Rorschach stain on the rug that looks like longhorns from one angle, crossed rifles from another.
“We need to have a toast,” he says. “I guess yours’ll be with Coke.”
I move to get up and fetch another can. He gestures for me to relax.
“Let me.” He fishes a soda can from the cooler of watery ice. Because the first one sprayed all over me when I popped the tab, I opened the others over the bathroom sink. He does that now. “You know what?” he says over his shoulder.
“Hmm?” There’s a close-up of the insides of a rhinoceros’s mouth on the screen. Apparently there’s a microcosm of teeming life in there.
“We should have our toast like grown-ups. In glasses.” I hear him unwrap the plastic cups in the bathroom, hear the cascade of bubbles.
The same old Chris. A nice guy, just not the guy for me. He’s in love and I’m not, and my sneaky brain doesn’t know what to do with that so it picks everything apart.
“That’s better,” he says, handing me my “glass” of Coke. He’s holding one filled with beer. He sits beside me and squeezes my knee.
“Ready?” he says, raising his cup.
Pushing through my exhaustion, I mirror his movement and raise mine.
“To us,” he says.
“To us.”
We clink cups. We drink. He kisses me on the cheek, lets his lips wander to my mouth. He tastes like the same old Chris too.
“So there’s something you should see,” he says after a bit. “Since you’ll see it sooner or later anyway.”
My eyes flit back to the TV. “You mean other than a giant plant eating a bird?”
He hikes the sleeve of his shirt way up onto his shoulder, revealing his bicep. His new tattoo. Since the only light comes from the TV and the short desk lamp in the corner, the room is dim. Which is why it takes me longer than it should to figure it out: the predesigned art he picked out at the inkstand is not what’s on his skin.
It’s: Mxine.
“Like it?” He’s smiling. His teeth are too white against the backdrop of this grimy room.
“Oh. Wow.”
He lets his sleeve drop. I convince myself I can still breathe.
“Is wow good?” he asks.
“Of course! I mean, I thought we weren’t gonna do the names …”
“You weren’t ready,” he says, “and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t wear my heart on my skin.”
“Ha. Right. I get it.”
“Are you trying to make me feel like I made a mistake?”
“No,” I say hastily. “Of course not. I’m … flattered. That’s sweet.”
“It’s sweet?” His eyes cut to mine, coolly linger there. This time, with his teeth hidden, his face is dark. “Sweet is something you say to a prom date who brings you a flower.”
“I’m tired, is all. Don’t focus on my word choice.”
He cups my jaw in his palm, lets my damp hair spill over his knuckles. “You seem jumpy.”
“Huh? Maybe the caffeine’s getting to me.”
He squints at me.
“Truth?” I say.
“Of course. Always.”
“I guess it’s harder to be away from the boys than I thought it would.”
He relaxes. “That’s natural. You’ve been a real mother to them this year. I think you’re amazing.”
“I’m sorry, Chris, I need to get home.”
“What?”
“I’ve never left them overnight before. I guess I’m not ready.”
He sets his jaw. His eyes get hooded. He’s breathing through flared nostrils, and it sounds weird. Choppy. “You asked me for this getaway, remember?”
“Of course. It’s just that I fig—”
“Do you have any idea what it took for me to get a few days off?”
“You said it was no big deal.” I sit up straighter, drawing my body into me.
“I didn’t want you to worry. I know you have a lot to worry about already. But it wasn’t easy. And now you want to chuck it?”
“I’m just anxious about them, is all.”
“Maybe if you had a fucking drink you’d loosen up.” He accordion-crushes an empty beer can between his palms and sends it to the floor. “You worried Shelby’ll hurt those kids?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then, maybe you should think it through before you get all, ‘ooh, be my knight in shining armor and take me away.’”
I do a slow blink, bite the inside of my cheek, try to keep it all inside. I’ll wait ’til he’s asleep, slip out then, avoid confrontation. Even though my body is stiff with anger, I do my best to sink into the couch like this is exactly where I want to be.
“You’re right,” I say, “that was inconsiderate of me. And it’s just normal jitters. I’ll get over it.”
He assesses me with a long look. He must be convinced by what he sees, because he grabs my hand and kisses the back of it. “Atta girl. This’ll be good for you. And for them. You’ll see.”
“I should check whether Shelby texted at least.”
I get up. He stretches out on the couch, annexing the cushion I vacated. I can’t find my phone. It was on the dresser next to the room key before I got in the shower. Wasn’t it?
“Chris?”
“Hmm?” He turns the TV volume up. The nature show narrator is talking about how patient lions are, how they “lie in wait until the ideal moment to pounce and kill.”
“Did you see my phone?”
“No, babe. Not since you were watching the kids’ video in the truck.”
“Oh, it must be in there. I’m gonna get it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s past midnight. And the parking lot is dark as hell, full of potholes. We’ll get it in the morning.”
Chris’s truck keys are right there on the dresser alongside the room key. Once he falls asleep I can grab them, get the hell out of here.
“C’mon,” he says, “let’s go to bed.” He aims the remote at the TV and shoots it dead. He cracks the knuckles on one hand, then on the other. Harper used to do that, even though I told her it gave me the heebies. Twisting around on the sofa so he can see me, he smiles. “What’ya say, beautiful? Hit the hay with me? I’m beat.”
“Me too.” And that’s the truth, I realize as I pull back the covers. I’m so tired that now I’m wobbly. But I can stay awake. I keep my sweats and T-shirt on so I’ll be ready to fly later.
“Our first time sleeping together,” he says, all gooey. “Right.” I’ve never been to his place in the city. He told me it was all he could afford for now, and he was embarrassed by it. “It’s not good enough for you,” he said once.
“You sleep in your clothes?” He strips to his boxers, tosses his clothes onto the couch.
“Yep.” Stay awake. Stay. Awake. As Harper used to say, there’ll be plenty of time to sleep when we’re in nursing homes.
25
MAXINE
There are hands on my face, on my neck. Caressing hands. Hands that spread warmth around my skin. I move my face into that touch. Then there’s a voice, a man’s voice, calling my name. Softly. Imploringly. Maxine. Max. Max.
The voice is a bucket on a rope, and I’m the water in the well that has been down here for too long. It heaves me up and out. I know that voic
e. But when I try to shape my mouth around the name, my tongue won’t cooperate. It’s too thick, too dry, too stuck. As the hands keep caressing my neck, I keep working my mouth, and finally it’s moistened enough.
“Ezra,” I say. “Ezra.”
The hands change. They stiffen. But just for a moment. Now they’re smoothing my hair back from my forehead.
It takes several tries to get my eyes open. And then a moment to sharpen my bleary vision.
No. No. It’s Chris.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says. “Not who you expected, huh?”
A nameless dread floods me, drowns me. My brain is stuck like my tongue and eyelids were. Until it’s not. My eyes widen.
“You …” I say. “You …”
“That’s right, baby,” he says. “It’s me.”
You killed her.
I moan.
You’ll kill me too.
I’m on a narrow bed. He sits beside me, leaning on an elbow. His face is inches from mine. My eyes roam the ceiling. Rough-hewn wood. Like logs. Thick canopies of cobwebs. Wait, this isn’t the motel.
My body. What’s wrong with my body? It feels like it’s nowhere near me. I try to shift, but Chris’s forearm is now anchored on the spill of my hair over the pillow, so my scalp screams. He gets up and releases my hair. He paces, shakes his head. But he’s wearing this smile that doesn’t fit, so the effect is chilling. “I was a fool, Max. I really was.”
I lift my neck off the pillow as best as I can—the movement sends pain searing down my spine—to look around me. This is barely more than a shed. He must’ve drugged me. Like he drugged her.
“Somethin’ feel off about this, darlin’?” he says. His voice is thick with a Southern drawl I hadn’t heard from him before. “I sink your name into like ten fucking layers of my skin so you’ll always be part of me, and you wake up with another guy’s name on your lips. Sound fair to you?”
Appease him. Hide what you’ve figured out. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know I was saying his name.”
“That’s what worries me. That his name was on the tip of your tongue.”
“Please, Chris.”
He sits back down on the bed again, his expression soft. “Please what?”
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