Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  “Was she athletic?” Mary asked, remembering something Mrs. Fleming had said.

  “Yeah. Skating, bowling. Won a softball trophy one summer. She was real proud of that.”

  “Did you work for Keener Construction?”

  “Drove dozers for ’em for five years. Keener himself put me up in this house.”

  Mary frowned. “In this house?”

  “Yeah. You know, one of their test houses. They let new employees move in and test ’em out for a year.” He gave a bitter laugh. “That’s why I’m number one, Swannanoa Lane. All the test houses are number ones.”

  Mary blinked. So the Hendersons and the Flemings had all lived in test houses. She was so excited, she could barely ask the next question. “Do you still work for Keener?”

  Mr. Rankin shook his head. “I couldn’t take it anymore after Suzie. You know, seein’ kids she’d known grow up, get married and all. I quit and started driving for UPS. Keener understood. He was great about the whole thing.”

  “What about Mrs. Rankin?”

  He took a long swig of beer. “She moved back to her people in New Jersey.” He shrugged. “She never liked the South much, anyway. With Suzie gone, she had no reason to like it at all.”

  33

  “Kayla? Are you awake?” Avis Martin lay still, even the minimal effort of a whisper almost too much for her to undertake.

  “Yes.”

  “Has your dad gone to work yet?”

  “I don’t know. I think I drifted off to sleep.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Just lie still. Keep listening.”

  Avis had no difficulty lying still. Every muscle in her body throbbed with pain, and when she did muster the strength to move, agonizing prickles of fire raced all over her. Their bike trip had left no part of her unaffected. Her thighs burned from pumping the pedals, her hands ached from squeezing the brakes, and the hard, unforgiving bicycle seat had turned her bottom into a pulsating boil. She was pretty sure she was going to die. Right this very minute she ought to be calling her mother, telling her that she loved her, that she was sorry she’d been such a hopeless screw-up. Then she realized that was ridiculous. Nobody died of a bicycle trip, unless you fell off and broke your neck or got eaten by a mountain lion. She was just profoundly, amazingly exhausted. Don’t be such a nelly, she told herself. Kayla’s right beside you. At least pretend to be brave.

  Wincing, she reached down and felt beneath the bed. Her fingers curled around the treasure that they’d struggled so to retrieve. Bethany’s tapes. Bethany’s insurance policy. What could be on them? Some secret about the mysterious D? Some sex scandal at school? God, I hope so, she thought. She prayed it wasn’t some sappy love tape, with Bethany cooing about how much she loved Ridge Standingdeer.

  She pushed the tapes further under the bed, then massaged her left shoulder. She and Kayla had managed to get home just as the sun was cresting the mountains. They had ridden like fiends all the way, terrified that Kayla’s father would be awake and waiting for them, but when they tiptoed back inside the house, the only sign of him was a cluster of beer cans around the recliner in the den. Darby was nowhere to be seen; the television had been turned off, the rifle put back wherever it belonged. Still, they’d crept up the stairs like burglars, too scared to breathe until they reached the sanctuary of Kayla’s room. Once they’d gotten there, Kayla closed the door and they fell on the bed together. “We’ll wait until he leaves for work,” Kayla had whispered. “Then we’ll go down and get his tape recorder.”

  That, however, had been hours ago. Now, according to Kayla’s swiveling Elvis Presley clock, it was nearing ten A.M., and the only sound she’d heard was an occasional woof from Darby, who’d somehow gotten into the kitchen.

  Suddenly she jumped. Downstairs, a door was closing.

  “Kayla!” She punched her friend. “Do you hear that?”

  Kayla’s eyelids flew open. She gazed at the ceiling, listening as heavy footsteps drew closer to the bottom of the stairs.

  “It’s him,” she whispered.

  “Is he going to work now?”

  Kayla shook her head. “It sounds like he’s coming up here.”

  Avis listened as the man who’d last night passed out with a deer rifle across his lap started walking up the stairs. Her heart began beating so fast that she thought it might jump out of her chest. Closer the footsteps came, angry and urgent. Mr. Daws must have woken up and found them gone; now he was coming to have it out with them. She clenched her aching fists, waiting for the door to burst open, when, abruptly, the footsteps stopped. For a long moment she and Kayla froze, suspended in a fearsome silence, then they heard the footsteps again. Only this time, they were going down the stairs. Too scared to move, the girls listened as the kitchen door opened, then shut. They heard sharper footsteps of someone walking on concrete, Darby barking for real, then the roar of a truck engine. Kayla leapt from the bed and peeked out her window.

  “It’s him,” she whispered, watching as the truck pulled out of the driveway. “He’s going to work.”

  “Finally!” said Avis, willing her battered body into a sitting position.

  “I’ll go check and see if Mom’s asleep,” Kayla told her. “She probably is, but we still need to hurry. These days my dad could come back any minute.”

  Avis waited as Kayla scurried down the stairs to check on Mrs. Daws. Moments later she was back, standing in the doorway, motioning her to come on.

  “We’ll have to hurry,” she whispered. “Mom’s in the shower. Darby’s outside.”

  With her heart pounding, Avis hobbled after Kayla. Down the stairs they crept. They crossed the kitchen again, then tiptoed down the back hall to a bedroom that Mr. Daws used as his office.

  “Stand at the door and keep watch,” said Kayla. “I don’t know where he keeps that recorder.”

  Avis did what Kayla asked, gazing down the empty hall while Kayla rifled through Mr. Daws’ desk. What they would say if Mrs. Daws caught them, she had no idea. She just crossed her fingers and hoped her shower would take a long time.

  “Hurry up!” she urged Kayla, who was rummaging in the desk. “Can’t you find it?”

  “Not yet,” Kayla replied.

  “Try the file drawer. Look under T or R.” Avis bounced nervously on the balls of her feet.

  “Not in there,” reported Kayla, pulling one drawer open as she closed another. “Or in here. Shit. Where could it be?”

  “Could Bethany have taken it?”

  “I don’t know.” Kayla frowned, thinking. “Wait a minute! Maybe he keeps it with all his dopey old self-improvement tapes.”

  She opened a closet in the corner of the room. Reaching to a high shelf, she pulled down an old shoe box. Hurriedly, she brought it over to the desk.

  Avis glanced over from her sentry post. “What’s in there?”

  “Inspirational tapes,” Kayla replied drearily. “My father used to make us listen to them on the way to school. ‘The Power of Faith.’ ‘Believing in Yourself.’ ‘Listening to Your Inner Fear.’ Crap like that.”

  “I am listening to my inner fear,” Avis muttered as Kayla rummaged through the box. “And it’s saying to get out of here.”

  “Bingo!” Kayla cried suddenly. “Look!”

  Avis turned. Kayla held up a tape recorder, not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. “Great,” said Avis. “Now just hurry and put everything back like you found it!”

  Avis kept watch while Kayla restored the room, then they both crept back to the kitchen. Avis was starving, but she knew that Kayla had nothing to offer but old Chinese take-out, so she ignored the rumbling of her stomach and followed her friend upstairs. Once inside her bedroom, Kayla closed the door and this time pushed her desk chair against it, just in case.

  “Get the tapes,” she commanded.

  Avis limped over to the stash beneath the bed, sick with dread. What if they’d gone to all this trouble only to hear Bethany pouring out her love for Ridge
? How stupid would they feel then? Just examine the evidence, she told herself, trying to be as dispassionate as Sherlock Holmes. Let it speak for itself.

  Kayla inserted the first tape into the machine and turned the volume all the way up. The two girls stared at the small turning wheels, listening intently. At first they heard only silence, then Kayla opened the little machine to find the tape twisted up like a streamer, the wheels of the recorder unable to move.

  “Damn!” she said, gently uncoiling a length of shiny brown tape. “We’ll have to rewind this by hand.”

  “Go on to the next one, then.” Avis looked at the rusty orange dirt the tape had left on her hand. “This one must have gotten damaged underground.”

  Kayla snapped in the second tape. Once more, they listened. This time they heard a girl’s voice, coming on sporadically, between long gaps of silence.

  “Is that your sister?” asked Avis.

  Kayla nodded. “She sounds a lot younger, but I think it’s her.”

  The tape continued. They heard rustling over some old eighties music, then Bethany, angrily crying, “I hate you!” With every moment Avis grew increasingly disturbed. It sounded like something awful was happening to Bethany on the tape. Sitting here listening to it made her feel sick to her stomach.

  For the rest of the second tape, though occasional phrases were audible, they still couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on. The third and fourth tapes coiled up as badly as the first had, and the fifth was nothing but static. Finally, Kayla put the last tape in the machine.

  “Listen as hard as you can,” said Avis. “Unless this tape is a hundred times better than the others, it’s not going to do us a bit of good.”

  Kayla punched the PLAY button. Avis held her breath as the little wheels began to turn, again feeling awful at having to listen to a crying girl who was now dead. Please, she prayed silently. Let something be on here.

  Her prayer was answered so suddenly, she jumped. All at once the same eighties music they’d heard on the other tape blared forth, so loud that Kayla had to turn the volume down. “What is all this old stuff?” Kayla whispered.

  Avis shook her head. “Listen.”

  Over the music, they heard a car door slam. “Hey,” a man’s voice said, clear as a bell. “How’s it going?” A long silence, then, “Aren’t you even going to talk to me?”

  “Let’s just get it over with.” This time it was clearly Bethany, only older. Sounding now more like sixteen than twelve.

  “You want to go in the front or the back?” the man asked, still pleasant.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then let’s do it right up here, in the driver’s seat.”

  Avis looked at Kayla, feeling like she might vomit. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she could tell Bethany wanted no part of it.

  The music continued. For a while no one spoke and they heard a shuffling noise, then Bethany came back on.

  “Ouch,” she cried. “That hurts.”

  “Stick your bottom out more,” said the man. “Then sit down.” He moaned as if someone was giving him a massage. “That’s it. Slow and easy, just like our old merry-go-round game.”

  For a long moment they heard nothing, then the man gave a long, expulsive cry. “You’re so good, baby,” he told her. “So very, very good.”

  “Can I get dressed now?” asked Bethany.

  They listened, their eyes wide as the tape went on. Though there were gaps when the recorder had apparently been turned off, the rest of it was more of the same. The same old music always played, the same man always asked her how she was doing, then proceeded to make her play the merry-go-round game or touch something “right there” or “lick something hard.” As they listened, tears began to stream down Kayla’s cheeks.

  “That must be D,” Avis told Kayla. “Do you recognize his voice?”

  Kayla shook her head. “All I know is that it’s not my dad,” she said, wiping her eyes, answering the question that Avis had been too chicken to ask.

  The tape ended; they flipped it over. Though neither wanted to listen further, they knew it was the only way they were ever going to find out who D was. The B side consisted of more music, more groaning. Then, halfway through, both their hearts stopped. At the end of a long rapturous moan, the man said, quite clearly, “Way to go, Bethany girl! You’ve just made your old Coach Keener a very happy man!”

  Avis looked at Kayla, stricken. The man on the tape was the same man who drove her to softball practice three times a week. Her father’s boss, the one who’d plucked them off the unemployment rolls of Greenville, South Carolina.

  “D didn’t stand for Dad at all,” said Kayla, her voice an odd mixture of bitterness and triumph. “D stood for Deke. D was Coach Keener, all along.”

  34

  Miles away, Coach Keener was driving to the First Baptist Men’s Club meeting. They’d scheduled a box lunch and ground-breaking for Camp Bethany Daws—a retreat, Reverend Matheny had decided, “where poor city kids could come for a week, enjoy the woods, and deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ.”

  Deke snorted as he drove out to the hundred acres of scrub pine that his Mexican carpenters and Ukrainian plumbers would turn into a memorial for Bethany. He hoped the kids who came out here would leave with a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ than he ever had. Maybe it depended on the setting. Maybe Jesus responded to prayers sent up from kids around campfires more readily than He did from scared little boys who scrubbed themselves raw in the shower.

  As he turned off the wide highway and onto the narrow, tree-draped road that led to the camp property, he felt a sour nervousness in the pit of his stomach. He was still puzzling about what exactly had happened last night as he reconnoitered Glenn’s backyard. The moment he’d started looking at that tree with the tire swing, the temperature had plummeted. Then that growl. So close, so deep, so fucking angry. Jesus, he’d never heard anything like it. For the first time in his life he’d run away from something—flat-out and farting, as big a chicken as Jerry Cochran had been, back when they wore lanyards and worked on merit badges. Forget finding Bethany’s tapes—all he’d wanted to do was put a significant distance between him and whatever it was in those bushes. Although in the morning light his cowardice embarrassed him, the foot-wide dent in the door of his car reaffirmed his decision to run the hell away from whatever had been out there.

  “It must have been a bear,” he told himself for the hundredth time. “Coming down from the mountains to fatten up at people’s garbage cans.”

  He knew about bears. He’d grown up in western North Carolina, had even studied them in Scouts. But he’d also spent enough time in the woods to know he was kidding himself. Ursus americanus did not lower the temperature and T-bone a Lexus like a small truck.

  He pulled into the wide, flat field that his bulldozers would soon grade into a parking lot. Matheny and a number of deacons were already there, hammering a sign into place. CAMP BETHANY DAWS—OPENING NEXT SUMMER, it said in cheerful red letters. A JOINT PROJECT OF HARTSVILLE’S FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH AND KEENER CONSTRUCTION. Yeah, right, thought Deke, getting out of his car. Keener supplies the architects and site plans and construction crews and First Baptist supplies what? Campers, he thought with a smile. Every summer, a new little girl, just for me. What a fitting tribute to Bethany!

  “Come on, Deke!” Reverend Matheny called jovially, one arm around a somber-faced Glenn Daws. “The photographer from the paper’ll be here any minute!”

  “Hang on, Carl.” Deke waved at the men, then turned. His ghost bear apparently had a bad effect on his bladder. He walked a few feet into the woods for some privacy, unzipped his pants, and aimed a stream of urine at the base of a tree. Freeing his penis brought Avis Martin to mind, and he remembered that lately she’d seemed less skittish when he ran his hand up her leg. Maybe tomorrow night, after the game, he could go a bit farther—maybe give those little breasts a squeeze. Smiling, he started imagining how that might feel, w
hen suddenly the temperature began to drop. All at once he was standing in late November instead of mid-August, in cold air that smelled like dry dead leaves and deer musk. His dick shrank even as he peed, and once more he heard that same low, savage growl that had last night sent him running. He looked around wildly, wondering if he’d run into yet another bear, but in front of him he saw nothing beyond thick pine trees; behind him, seven paunchy, middle-aged men hammering a sign into the ground. None of them were shivering from the cold or standing huddled against a growl that seemed to come from the air itself. Hell, they were telling jokes and passing out lunches, happy as schoolboys at recess.

  “It’s all in your head,” he told himself, his voice cracking. He hoped to take comfort in those words, then he realized, horribly, their truth. It was all in his head. This was his legacy from Bethany Daws. A monster that plagued only him, who lurked only at the edges of his own consciousness.

  Gulping, he zipped his pants and hurried toward the men, trying to put a lid on his panic, doing everything he could to keep from screaming, “Don’t you hear it? Can’t you smell the fucker?”

  But no, they didn’t; they never would. God had blessed Daws and Matheny and the others with simple normalcy. He was a twisted thing upon whom God had visited the worst of curses. A plague of frogs would be a welcome respite from the ache in his gut for young girls.

  “Deke?” Carl Matheny’s wide grin shrank into a frown of concern. “Are you okay, buddy? You look like something’s after you!”

  “Oh, no,” Deke gasped, trying to breathe. Why would that stink not go away? Didn’t any of them smell it? “I’m fine. Just don’t want to miss lunch.”

  “Well, here.” Matheny unfolded the lawn chair he’d brought with him. “Sit down. Have some lemonade. It’s good and cold.”

  Deke took the paper cup the preacher offered. The lemonade tasted both sweet and sour. It helped to clear the bear smell from his head and cool his overheated brain. Someone handed him lunch—a ham sandwich, potato chips, and a chocolate cookie, neatly packed in a white box. He unwrapped the sandwich and concentrated on eating, hoping the salty ham would reanchor him in reality. By the time he finished the photographer had arrived; everyone was waiting for him to step into the celebratory picture that would appear in Sunday’s paper.