Don't Trust Her

by Elizabeth Boles

  Paige moves toward the kitchen. “Back here is a deck that y’all are welcome to use. And here”—she slides a rug across the floor—“is the wine cellar.”

  “Is that a trapdoor?” Blanche asks.

  Paige laughs. It is a brittle sound. “It looks like one, doesn’t it?” She lifts a large metal ring from a recess in the floor and tugs. A flap of door creaks open. She gently lifts it until it is fully open and lying flush with the hardwoods, leaving a gaping hole. Paige starts down the stairs. “Who wants a look at the cellar? I have to get more wine.”

  Faith volunteers. “I’ll go.”

  Blanche shrugs. “I’ve never seen a wine cellar before.”

  Paige’s head disappears before I make my decision.

  “You don’t have to come,” Blanche tells me. “I’m sure it’s just dirt and stuff.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I say, my gut squeezing.

  It’ll be small and damp down there, no outside light. I don’t want to start the trip off looking afraid, being shaky. I’m supposed to forget about the letter, supposed to be strong.

  But what if going down makes me weak?

  No, I can do this.

  I move slowly toward the kitchen. They are all down there, the three of them, having vanished under the floor by the time I reach the hole. A staircase unrolls like a tongue from the edge of the opening. I exhale and start the descent.

  My foot finds one rung, and the scent of earth strikes me. Ozone layers into the smell, and my head thickens, blackness walling in.

  I’m suddenly in an SUV. Rain streaks the windshield. We are laughing, my sister and me. Then a boom and it feels like my nerve endings explode, like an electric eel is racing through me. Steel screams as it crunches. Glass crashes in, striking my right cheek, leaving a streak of blood trickling to my chin. Thunder cracks in my ears, and the rush of drumming rain becomes a crashing wave.

  I’m in a car, a collapsed vehicle, the walls are pushing me down, and all I can see is blood. All I can hear are screams—from my sister—and cries from a baby.

  I suck air and force myself to focus.

  It’s not raining. You’re underground. You’re in a cellar, a wine cellar and the scent of earth and cheesy, fungus-ridden dirt looms all around.

  My foot catches the next rung and I exhale. I count—one, two, three, four.

  My foot hits dirt, and I stumble forward.

  Paige grabs me. “You okay, Court?”

  I rub my temple, try to smile, but it’s shaky. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  Concern brims her eyes, and with a wobbly hand I wave it away. She nods, dips her head to the walls. “Have you ever seen so much wine?”

  It takes a moment for the darkness to fade, and I can focus on something other than the memory.

  Never have I seen so much wine. Rows and rows of bottles peek out like wasps from holes, draping all four sides of the room. There are no windows, just black eyes staring at me.

  My throat closes.

  “Take whatever you’d like,” she says.

  Faith lifts two bottles. “Are you sure? Won’t Derek miss some of these?”

  Blanche snorts.

  Paige stiffens and shoots a quick look to Blanche. “No, he told me to drink whatever we wanted.” She winks. “He keeps the good stuff at the house.”

  “In that case”—Faith grabs a third bottle—“I don’t mind if I do.” She laughs and shrugs. “It’s a girl’s weekend, after all, right? We can party a little bit.”

  “Want a bottle, Court?” Paige asks.

  I punch my hands into my jacket pockets to keep my friends from seeing how badly they’re shaking. “No, thanks. I’ll just grab some water upstairs.”

  She squeezes my shoulder. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  But the black bottles stare at me. The walls down here are closer, confining. Before Paige can ask me anything else, I rip up the steps and throw myself into the kitchen, gulping down several deep mouthfuls of air.

  She appears next to me with a bottle of water. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would bother you.”

  I shake my head and chug the water.

  Faith and Blanche appear and eye me with concern. I dismiss their worry with a laugh.

  “Y’all, I’m fine. It’s okay. Just…you know…the smallness of the space.” I beam, proving that I’m okay. “Paige, why don’t you show us the rest of the house?” My friends exchange a look. “Please, Paige. I want to see this lodge you call a home.”

  Her gaze washes up and down me, as if waiting to make sure I’m not going to keel over. When she’s convinced that I’m fine, we continue.

  A hallway resembling a catwalk, exposed on both sides, sits at the top of the stairs, bridging one side of the house to the other.

  Paige points to the left. “Faith’s and Blanche’s rooms are over there. Court and I are on the other side. Let me help y’all with your bags.” As we hike our luggage up the steps, Paige continues. “Faith, you’re on the right side of the hall. Blanche, you’re on the left.”

  They splinter away from us, and I follow Paige. She opens my door and stands to the side, allowing me to enter.

  Lush carpet pads the floor. The guest room is decorated in chalk paint and country-blue accents. Gerber daisies rest in a vase beside the bed.

  Paige points to a door. “You have your own bathroom—everybody does.”

  “That’s some luxury,” I joke.

  Paige brushes off my teasing tone. “Nonsense.” Then she checks her watch. “Get settled and come back downstairs. The masseuse will be here soon.”

  She leaves and I find a note card beside the flowers.

  Court,

  I’m so happy you’re spending the weekend with me and helping to celebrate my birthday. Your massage will be after Faith’s. I asked Terry to give you hot stones to ease any extra tension you might have. I know that having small kids can make life stressful.

  Xoxo,

  Paige

  Ah, the first little surprise that Paige has in store for me—hot stones. Ages ago, I told her how much I loved them.

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the little surprises she has in store for us will be okay, after all.

  Then again, maybe not.

  Chapter 7

  Terry is a tall, muscular black man with irises the color of dark walnut. His lips are full and his eyes, gentle. It occurs to me that possibly Terry has perfected the look in his eyes to ease white women like myself. Or maybe he is simply a gentle man.

  He wears a brown leather vest fitted with pockets, and I wonder if he’s going to pull out a string of scarves and work a magic trick during the massage.

  “Do you have any problem areas, my lady?” he says in a voice that reminds me of fog lifting off rocks in a brook.

  I smile, feel the skin pucker around my mouth. If I have any question as to whether or not Terry is gay, I know the answer the moment he calls me my lady.

  He most certainly is.

  “My shoulders and back often ache,” I tell him.

  He makes a mental note and asks me to undress to where I’m comfortable and squeeze under the blanket. He’ll return shortly.

  When he does, I’m facedown, my nose and mouth peeking from the oval hole of the massage chair.

  “I’m going to place my hands on your shoulders,” he says. His palms are warm and glossy with oil. He presses firmly and grunts. “Stress?”

  “A car accident. I wasn’t terribly hurt, but there is some residual pain that I deal with.”

  “I have lots of clients who’ve suffered car accidents.” His fingers gently probe. “That pressure okay?”

  “Yes,” I murmur.

  Terry runs his palms down both sides of my spine. “Hmm. That’s interesting.”

  My nose is already stuffy, a byproduct of my face smooshed into a small hole. I inhale but my sinuses are thick with congestion.

  “What’s interesting?” I ask.

  “Usually when someon
e presents with trauma from a car accident, I find the spine compressed, the cushions between the vertebrae smaller. But you’re…different.”

  “How?” No one’s ever told me this before and I’m interested. “How am I different?”

  “Your spine is elongated, almost as if instead of being compacted during impact, you were pulled out, stretched from head to feet.”

  “You have a way with words.”

  “So they say. Also a way with my hands, from what I understand.”

  I laugh at his joke and let him work in silence for several minutes before asking, “Tell me—you’ve known Paige a long time?”

  “Oh”—he kneads down my legs—“yes, since forever.”

  “Forever? That’s a long time.”

  He chuckles. “Since before she was Paige.”

  Now it’s my turn to chuckle. “Before she was Paige?”

  He must mean before she was refined, before she met Derek and became rich. Surely that’s what Terry means. But the tone in his voice didn’t suggest that. Instead it hinted at something quite literal.

  I can’t keep myself from asking, “Did she have another name?”

  “Haven’t we all?” he asks smoothly. “Now, time to flip over, my lady. I’ll hold up the sheet.”

  I do as he says, but can’t get what he mentioned about Paige out of my head. “Did she?” I probe, searching his eyes. “Call herself something else?”

  His gaze snaps to mine before he says stoically, “She wouldn’t be the first one, now would she?”

  He lifts his brow suggestively before wrapping the towel under my arms and over my breasts.

  As I close my eyes, I can’t help but think that Terry’s keeping more from me than he’s revealing. But about who, exactly?

  Is he talking about himself, Paige, or someone else?

  Chapter 8

  After the massage I find Paige downstairs, waiting for me. She’s coiled up on the couch, her feet tucked underneath, wine in hand.

  She tips her drink toward me. “This should be water, seeing as I’m getting ready for my massage and all, but I really wanted a glass.”

  It’s barely two o’clock, but I won’t point that out. “I’m not telling if you aren’t.”

  She pats the empty spot beside her and I sit. “I’m sorry about earlier, in the cellar. I never thought you’d have that reaction.”

  “I didn’t have to go down, now did I?”

  She makes a throaty sound of reassurance. “Was it the accident? Did it bring back memories?”

  “Small spaces like that do.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” A little frown of sincerity tugs her lips down. “Faith mentioned this week was the anniversary of your sister’s and father’s deaths. Everyone says Brittany was a great person.”

  “She was.” I say it quickly enough to drop the hint that I’d rather discuss other things.

  She studies me for a moment before rising, wineglass and all, and offers her hand. “Come on. Blanche is in the shower, and Faith is getting her massage. There’s something I want to show you.”

  Curious, I follow Paige to her room. It’s twice as long as mine. The walls are painted a dusty rose. An oak dressing table sits against one wall, and a seating area is pushed up in the corner. The drapes are a satin ivory. I suddenly think of Rebecca’s room in the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same title. It’s decadent and looks like a very wealthy woman lives here.

  And at the very end of the room sits a sliding door—beyond it, a patio.

  Paige strides over, her movements airy. She turns and winks before slipping open the door. A chilly blast of air slices through my robe. I stiffen, shielding myself from the cold.

  “Let’s go. We won’t be out here long.”

  The whimsical smile on her face makes me think we’re teenagers, sneaking into a secret room—a very cold room. I step into the frigid air wearing only my slippers and robe. Paige seems unfazed by the cold. She loosens her ponytail and shakes out her hair, letting wild strands of wheat tumble over her shoulders.

  She takes a long sip of wine and lifts her glass to the sky. “Look, Court. What do you see?”

  The house is perched atop a hill, high enough to crest the trees below. They spread out like a constellation of pines, swaying in the breeze.

  When I don’t answer, she speaks. “There is nothing, not for miles. We are in open space. So if you ever feel like you did earlier, trapped, come out here and do what I do.”

  “What’s that?”

  Paige points up her chin and releases a yell. It is a shy, almost flirtatious scream. When it’s over, she turns to me.

  “That really sucked, didn’t it?”

  Before I can answer, she yells again, but this time it’s a bellow, and this time there is no fear in it, only release.

  She finishes, her lips spreading wide, her eyes sparkling. “Your turn.”

  “I can’t.”

  Paige hikes a brow and says in that smooth Southern accent of hers, “It is my birthday weekend, Court Lane, and as such, I demand that you give me one good yelp. Let all that fear out.”

  I brush my fingers over my lips. “I don’t know. This feels silly.”

  Paige sweeps her glass over the balcony. “No one can hear you. There’s no one around, not for miles and miles. Maybe they’ll hear inside, but it won’t mean anything. Just do it. Just scream.”

  I hesitate.

  “Please, Court.” Paige takes my wrist. “You’ll feel better. I promise.”

  I doubt it. “Okay.”

  The only way to get out of this is to do it right the first time. Otherwise she’ll demand I do it again. The pushy look on her face suggests as much.

  I close my eyes and think of how my sister shouldn’t have died, how if God had to take one of us, that it should have been me. I shouldn’t have been the one to break the news to my mother while holding Jonas.

  The memory flares bright and hot in my head—sitting by her hospital bed and telling her what happened, revealing in gut-wrenching detail what we had lost.

  The yell that rushes up from my gut splits through the air. It feels like I’m screaming at the sky, the clouds, the forest, damning them for losing my family and for the letter and all the guilt that has latched on to me.

  My throat burns, but I keep pumping out air. I open my mouth wider, and something inside me pops. My locket of suffering, one that I’ve tucked behind my heart, springs wide. My lungs are flaming, but I keep screaming.

  And Paige joins in.

  There is no way to tell who is winning, who is loudest, because our barbaric sounds are wraiths in the wind.

  Finally I stop, panting. The cold hits me, and my teeth chatter. Paige drags me from the balcony into her room, laughing all the way. She settles me on her bed and rushes back to close the door. The weather stripping at the bottom makes a slurp as it seals shut.

  When Paige returns, she plops down beside me. “The temperature is dropping. Can’t be out there too long now, not without proper clothing. There. How did that feel?”

  I collapse onto her bed, and my arms flop to my sides. “Stupid. And good.”

  Paige giggles with glee before sighing in ecstasy. “Wasn’t that sublime? Some days I could do that for hours. Just stand there and scream, forget about everything and let it all out.”

  “Sounds like a party,” I joke.

  “And the best part?” She hikes a brow. “There’s no one to hear me. Isn’t that a scary thought? You could be out there, screaming, praying that someone would hear you, but no one would because there’s no one else here.”

  I shudder. “It’s creepy more than anything else.”

  But she doesn’t seem to be listening. “Out there, there’s no one to judge you, no one to question, no one to tell you that you’ve done or said the wrong thing, made the wrong choice. Because there is no one.”

  The Paige I know wilts in front of me. I’ve never seen this woman, never witnessed her so raw. It’s as if she’s been
snapped in two—one Paige never has a worry and is always up for anything, gracious and kind. The other is a cloud of the former, her true thoughts tied to that scream and everything she wants to purge from herself.

  “I sound crazy, don’t I?” The look she gives me is begging for me to say the opposite.

  “It doesn’t sound crazy at all. Do you do it a lot?”

  She rubs her finger along the rim of the wineglass, watching as it streaks the clear surface. “A little, when there are things I want to forget, memories that I want gone.” She laughs and shakes out her hair. “But don’t worry about me and my silly troubles. I don’t suppose you have things that you want to forget.”

  So many. “We’re all your friends here. If there’s anything you want to discuss, you can always talk to us. We don’t judge.”

  Anger flares in her eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

  Surprised, I grasp for words. “I’m sorry. Did we do something?”

  The smile returns, and she runs those long, lithe fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry, I’ve just gone to a bad place, is all.” She takes my hand and says in a voice overflowing with happiness, “All I know, Court Lane, is that the three of y’all are the best friends a girl could ever have. I just wish y’all had come into my life sooner.”

  Paige grins, her pink cheeks glowing, and rises with a quick inhalation. She gulps the rest of her wine and licks moisture from her lips.

  “Y’all—you, Blanche, and Faith—are the nicest women that I know. There have always been mean girls in my life”—her voice hardens—“people who lashed out at me. But y’all have welcomed me without question. You have made some of those scars vanish.”

  My throat is raw and parched from all the screaming. My gaze bobs around the room in search of a glass of water, but I find nothing. “I can’t imagine anyone being mean to you.”

  Paige shrugs her shoulders, her gaze distant. “Believe me, they have been.”

  I don’t want to dive deep into this and relive her past pain. I’m not a psychologist, nor can I analyze a problem and offer a solution. If we start discussing the wounds branded onto our hearts, we won’t enjoy one moment of the weekend.