by Sasha Dawn
Aiden offers the smoke again, but I waive the opportunity. I’m already feeling just how I need to be feeling—as if Rosie and her drama and her lies are happening on another plane of existence, just far enough from where I’m rooted down.
My phone buzzes.
Chatham: At the Tiny E till close. Slow tonight. Might get off early.
In that case, I’ll get the job done now. “Where’s this package?”
“In the trunk.” He hands over his dad’s keys—silver convertible Audi R8; niiiice—and says, “Keep it under the limit.”
“Will do.”
He tells me where I’m going, and I get on the road.
It’s a little chilly to have the top down, but in a car like this, it’s a must. And the wind in my hair only helps me savor the feeling I’ve been craving. Carefree. Alive. With the sunset at my back, I sing along to the tunes blasting from Aiden’s dad’s preset station: Lithium XM. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden.
I glance every now and then at the passenger seat, and imagine what it would be like to have Chatham sitting there, the wind whipping through her brown curls. In my fantasy, she’s as carefree as I feel right now, arms up, dancing in her seat, belting out a tune: Black hole sun, won’t you come?
What would it feel like to know her that way? To be with her without thinking, without second-guessing my every move in her company?
I’d put my hand on her thigh, without wondering if I should.
I’d lean over and kiss her at a red light. Just a peck on the lips. Respectful, yet intimate. A moment and memory that belongs just to us.
I downshift and slow as I approach an intersection, and glance at the empty seat beside me.
Only for a second, I swear she’s there, sunglasses on, lips pursed and painted red.
I shake away the feeling. Man, this Diesel is having a crazy effect on me.
I take North Avenue all the way to the shore and turn left on Sheridan, where the scene slowly evolves from rectangular, no-nonsense architecture of Northgate Park to softer lines of Victorian-era homes.
This more affluent area is where Rachel Bachton used to live. For weeks after her disappearance, you couldn’t turn on the news without seeing the sidewalk in front of her house strewn with gifts and flowers, which I’ve never understood. All of it seemed to be put there as if it could entice Rachel to come back home. Like it was her choice to be gone. I imagine her little brother experiencing the piling up of teddy bears and dolls at their curb, and not understanding why strangers were dropping off presents no one could play with.
I hook onto Regency Street, just to see if I can pick out her house, where the Bachtons no longer live. Just to see if people still decorate the walk with what I’m sure is meant to be kind gestures, but only serves as a reminder: that little girl is gone.
A few houses down, on the left, I see the Bachtons’ place. There’s a wrought iron fence lining the property now, and a gate at the driveway, but faded pink ribbons still circle the oak tree in the parkway. I stop for a minute and stare at the house that was supposed to be the forever in which Rachel’s parents, then a young couple, were to raise their family. Maybe they thought they’d live there for all eternity. Maybe when they bought the place, they envisioned warm Christmas mornings by the fireplace, with their children and grandchildren.
Then some asshole snatched the whole dream away.
I snap a picture of the house. I don’t know why. It feels a little stalker-ish, now that I’ve done it. But maybe it’s a reminder that even the best-laid plans can go to shit.
Time to get on with things.
I circle the block and head to where I’m going.
I park at the curb, open the trunk, and find a shrink-wrapped hardcover biography of Jim Morrison. I know it’s hollowed out in the center, and that’s where the weed—or whatever—is stashed. I know this because one summer, Aiden and I spent more nights than I can count slicing away the center squares of pages in hardcover books he’d bought for pennies at garage sales just for this purpose. I was also there the day he bought a four-pack of commercial-grade plastic and a vacuum sealer at Costco.
I take the book and head toward the house in question, which is painted a pale green with plum and lavender gingerbread. It cracks me up to think of someone living in a house like this rolling up a fatty of Midnight Oil weed.
The house is enormous. You could easily fit three of my houses inside this one. And like every other house on the east side of the road, it sits so high up from the road that it’s practically looming over me, like a presence I can’t avoid. Almost like it’s looking down its nose at the town below. It’s crazy that I’m feeling, suddenly, like I should put the book back in the truck and get the fuck out of here. Probably just a side effect of the Diesel I smoked. It’s just a house, and I’m just delivering Morrison’s biography.
I count eight steps from the curb to the sidewalk—I pause there to ping a finger against the address shingle hanging from a hook on a lamppost—and an additional eight to climb the porch. You have to consider people who live an entire story above the street have some decent money to throw around. I wonder what it’s like to live like this, wonder if these people have restraining orders against ex-stepfathers, if they have to steal a twenty out of a flour canister when they want to treat themselves—or their girlfriends—to an ice cream sundae. I wonder if these people would hole up in by-the-week rentals in chase of their runaway foster sisters.
Even the bell sounds expensive, a series of clangs, like church bells.
No one comes.
I peek in the sidelight, but the place is still and quiet, like a funeral home.
I hit the bell again.
Wait a few minutes.
When nothing happens, I turn to make my way to the car.
I’m down about four steps, when I hear the door open behind me.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
Over my shoulder, I see a mass of long blonde hair catching the breeze, and bare feet with toenails painted purple.
“Hey there.”
“Hi.” I take in the rest of her. She’s thin, wearing a long, blue flannel shirt, buttoned crookedly. Her legs are as bare as her feet, and I have to wonder if there are shorts, or even panties, under the shirt.
A funny feeling skips through my system. Like an ultra-awareness. Like I know she just got laid, and I’m excited that I know it.
“Sorry,” she says. “It’s a big house. I was—”
“No problem.”
“—in the attic.” She thumbs over her shoulder.
“Is that my guy?” The deep, male voice comes from the innards of the building.
“I don’t know,” she calls into the house. “But it’s a guy.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Aid’s got a busy schedule, so he asked me to drop this off. Says you’re really into the Doors.” I offer the biography.
After a second, the girl takes the book. “Who isn’t? I recently read something about the Dead Presidents.” She shakes my hand. I feel the bill, folded into a tight square, pressing against my palm. “You should look into it.”
“Maybe I will.”
She sort of scratches the toes on her right foot against her left ankle, and the ultra-awareness jolts me again. It’s a deja-vu type of feeling.
Her male friend calls again. “You gonna invite the guy in for dinner or something? What’s taking so long?”
“Want some dinner?” She tilts her head to the side and smiles, so I know it’s a joke. “He’s so dramatic. But listen, we’re hitting a rave over on Foster tonight. It’s in the basement of that old brick building with the beer sign painted on it. Know the place?”
“Sure,” I say, although I don’t. Already, I’m backing across the porch.
“Maybe, if you bring me another something-to-read—”
“I gotta go.”
She laughs a little, like she was trying to make me uncomfortable. Mission: accomplished.
In order to prevent a tumble d
own the porch stairs, I take the railing.
She’s heading back into the house, and I’m a few steps down now, but I see a touch of green on her ankle.
A tattoo. A clover.
“Wait.”
She pauses. I zero in on the tattoo, take a snapshot of it in my mind. Then she moves away.
“I don’t know,” she’s saying as she’s entering the house. “He kept looking at me.” I hear her laughing as she closes the door.
S m o k e
It’s the weed.
Got to be the weed.
Just lingering a little longer than usual, that’s all.
The tattoo. Three heart-shaped leaves scrolled together. A shamrock. Or a clover. I don’t know what the difference is. But it was a tattoo. On her ankle.
Chatham drew something like that girl’s tattoo in the sand when I first met her. She said her sister Savannah has a clover—shamrock?—on her ankle. Was it a clover? Or a shamrock?
God, does it matter?
Either way, it’s close enough, right?
I have to ask Aiden who this customer is. If he has a girlfriend who might be answering the door. If she’s new to the area. If her name is Savannah.
From what I know of her, Chatham’s sister would certainly hang out with a guy who buys Grade-A shit from a grower’s son. And Chatham has reason to believe her sister’s here. In the vicinity.
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.
I can’t calm down. What if I just had a conversation with Chatham’s sister? A flush of embarrassment crawls up my neck, and I feel warm and uncomfortable. If that was Savannah, I was thinking about her on her back, with her legs wrapped around whoever was barking at her from inside the house.
I wanted to save her from him, I realize. That’s what it is. I felt sorry for her, answering the door freshly tousled like that. I mean, what kind of guy would make his girl do such a thing?
I text Chatham: Getting off early? Important.
By the time I roll into Sugar Creek, and I pull into Aiden’s circular drive, the sky is black and the sliver of moon in the sky is hazy.
I check my phone to see if I missed a text or a snap from Chatham, but there’s nothing there. An uncontrollable urge to see her slams into my chest. I want to put her in that passenger seat, drive her out to Sheridan Road, and watch her stand face-to-face with that girl in the green-and-purple house.
I’m sure lots of girls have tats on their ankles. I’m sure lots of girls have tattoos of shamrocks. It’s a coincidence, more than likely. But still. What if it’s not?
What if that girl was Savannah, and all the time Chatham’s been combing the streets of Sugar Creek looking for her, Savannah’s holed up, getting high on Sheridan Road?
I’ll just drop the cash with Aiden and go to the Tiny E and wait for Chatham’s shift to end.
“I’m back!” I drop the keys and the square of Benjamin on the kitchen countertop—I want to tell that girl: Franklin may be dead, but he wasn’t a president—and help myself to a quick glass of water. “Aiden!”
The place is deadly silent.
I peek out on the patio, but there’s no fire in the pit. “C-caw!” I call out into the night. Maybe he and Kai took a walk down the bluffs and along the shore. “C-caw!”
But he doesn’t answer.
The faint sounds coming from upstairs register then: the subtle creak of bedsprings.
Christ.
Talk about fast work.
I fish in my pocket for my keys, grab the hundred-dollar-bill—I’ll give Aiden whatever’s left, but what if I need some cash?—and head back out to my car.
I park on the street, across from the diner, and see Chatham wiping down tables. The sign on the door is flipped to closed.
I kill the engine. Might as well wait with her while she cleans up. I have nowhere else to go.
But just when I get out of the car and I’m about to cross the road, I see Damien on the steps of the Churchill Room and Board. A too-thin woman wearing a parka, open over a baggy tee and jeans, leans a hip against the railing. She’s smoking a cigarette. Damien pats her on the ass, physically displacing her a few inches, which she seems to like because she laughs.
I freeze in place, and keep my eyes on him as he descends the steps.
Within a few seconds, he sees me.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he asks.
“I don’t know. What are you?”
He touches a button on his key fob, and his truck, parked somewhere behind me, revs to life. He’s never spared an expense on his car, but won’t pay child support. “Thought you’d be home, standing guard at the door.”
My heart tightens, and for a second, it’s hard to breathe. He’s going to go to Carpenter Street. He’s going to try to see my mother and sisters.
I should go home and try to stop him.
“Well,” Damien says. “While the cat’s away . . .” He walks past me, gets in his car, and peels away—tires screeching against the pavement.
I can’t help them, I tell myself. She’ll only lie again if I call the cops. Which means I can’t call the cops. And I could try to handle him on my own—I’ll bet I could give him a run for his money now—but where would that get me? I’d end up either in the ICU or the clink.
I can’t help someone who can’t help herself.
I shove my hands into the pouch front of my sweatshirt. The ring he brought over earlier is still jammed in with the lint and pilling cheap fleece there. He’s not worth my effort. But this woman . . . maybe she can help wake my mother up. If this woman is sleeping with Damien—and she’s obviously something to him—maybe my mother won’t let him back into our lives. I cross the street and walk up the steps.
She’s stubbing out her cigarette and entering the building.
“Excuse me.” I follow her footsteps across the dirty mosaic tiles on the vestibule floor.
She’s heading for the second door, which she gives a tug. It’s locked. “Shit.”
“Ma’am?”
The glance she affords me is one of pure annoyance. She leans on the buzzer to number 2F.
The door buzzer sounds, and she flings the door open and walks in.
“Ma’am.” I catch the door with my foot before it closes and follow her in. “You know Damien Wick. Obviously.”
She pauses on the steps, and burns me with a stare. It’s the first opportunity I get to look at her, really look at her, and she looks tired. Older than she is, probably. I recognize the same look of despair, of pure I’ve-given-up-long-ago that I see in my mother’s face. “Not supposed to be in here,” she says, “unless you’re renting a room.”
“Oh, I’m here to see someone who lives here. Chatham Claiborne.”
The name sparks no warmth in this woman’s face.
“But that man you were with . . .”
She turns away and hikes up a few steps.
“Please,” I say. “It’s important. Damien—”
She’s past the landing now, taking the steps that hook to the left.
By the time I reach the top of the flight, she’s around a corner, slamming a door shut.
I lean against the wall, and kick at the scuffed floor and utter a fuck. Well, what did I expect? It’s okay, really. I didn’t have to talk to her to get confirmation that she and my ex-stepfather are screwing around. It’s obvious. I’ve seen him cup my mother’s ass with the same sense of ownership before. It’s almost as if he wants to drive home the message one more time, like he wants them to know that with one final grab, he’s in charge.
And maybe this woman is the reason he’s been hanging around this block lately, even if it doesn’t explain why he’d follow me home.
I take the box out of my pocket, and stare at the ring inside.
It probably didn’t cost much, but it’s nicer than anything my mother has. When they got married, she was pregnant with the twins. He never bought her a ring because her fingers were fatter than usual. At least that’s the excuse he’d used. He�
��d always promised her a ring later. And I wonder if this piece of jewelry is his making good on that promise.
Something aches inside of me. Regret, maybe. My mother deserves this ring, even if she doesn’t deserve to put up with the guy who literally threw it at her.
And who does that anyway? Who throws a ring at a woman?
Too little, too late, asshole.
“Joshua?”
I look up when I hear her voice and snap the box closed. “Chatham. Hi.” In a flash, all the events of my evening come tumbling forward, wrestling with my mind. I want to tell her everything—about Damien’s visit with the ring, about the drop for Aiden, the girl with the shamrock tattoo . . . and I want to see her reaction.
But she’s looking at me as if she can’t believe I’d had the nerve to wait in the Churchill, and I have to admit it might be a breach of boundaries.
How do I tell her I’m not exactly in this building for her? On the other hand, how do I let her believe I am? I mean, here I am, outside her door, with a ring in my hand. We just started spending time together; this must look absolutely insane.
Her brow knits a little. “I was going to text you when—”
“I know, but I was out in Northgate tonight, and . . . Your sister.”
“Savannah? What about her?”
I swallow hard. “I think I just saw her.”
“You saw her?” There’s a sense of urgency in her voice. She touches me on the elbow. “Where?”
“A house on Sheridan Road.”
“What color hair?”
“Blonde.”
“Blonde?”
“Yeah. About this tall.” I demonstrate with my hand, hold it at about five-feet-four.
“How do you know—”
“The tattoo on her ankle.”
“Wait a minute.”
Another resident—a kid this time—barrels down the hallway on a scooter. I pull Chatham out of his path just in time. “Can we go in and talk?”
“You saw Savannah?” Her key dangles from her hand.