She Loves You, She Loves You Not...

by Julie Anne Peters

  Finn eyes me over her shoulder.

  “I promise to keep my lips to myself,” I say.

  Does she crack a smile?

  She closes the door.

  “Don’t you have to work at the Emporium?” I ask.

  “I quit,” she says.

  “Why?”

  She leans against the counter, clutching the edge. “I’m leaving,” she says. “I gave Arlo my two weeks’ notice.”

  Already? I’m stunned. “What about my money?”

  Her eyes sweep the floor. “I’ll mail it to you. I promise. I just need to get out of here.”

  Boner’s licked his bowl clean and tipped it over, and now he’s shoving it toward us with his snout. We both lean down at the same time to get it, and our hands touch. It ignites every nerve ending in my body. Finn slides the dog bowl out from under my hand and takes it into the kitchen.

  “If it’s because of me…” I say.

  “It’s not. It’s just what I do.”

  “Run away? Bail on your friends?”

  She turns and meets my eyes. “Drift. I’m a drifter.”

  Unbelievable. I’m mad. Hurt. Everyone I need in my life leaves me. “Where are you going?” I ask. The thought forms in my brain that I’ll go with her.

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  It does to me. “I need to know where my money will be coming from.”

  “I told you I’d pay you back, and I will.”

  She doesn’t have to chastise me like I’m a three-year-old. “I know. I trust you.” I say it, but I’m not the best judge of character, and now the only person I feel any connection to here is leaving.

  She opens a cupboard and says, “I don’t have much to eat.” She holds a box of vanilla wafers. “I don’t know how old these are, but mold is a natural digestive aid.”

  I click my tongue. “Is that true?”

  Her eyes gleam. What will I do when she’s gone? Die of loneliness. She passes me as she heads for the couch, and I go to sit next to her, but Boner beats me to it. Finn hands me the box of cookies, and I take it. The seal hasn’t been broken, so I figure there aren’t any mice or spiders in it. Just to be sure, I peer into the box before sticking my hand inside.

  The cookies are still crunchy. At home—I mean, in Virginia—they’d be soggy after a day. “Is your family still in Canada?” I ask, passing the box to her.

  She takes a handful of vanilla wafers and tosses one into her mouth. She feeds one to Boner, who gobbles it down. “I don’t have any family.”

  “How can you not have family? Where are your parents?”

  “I never knew my father,” Finn says. “My mother was institutionalized when I was little, and I was chucked off to the foster system. I aged out at eighteen.” She passes the cookies back to me.

  God. “Then what?”

  “Then I left.”

  Boner whines, so I give him a cookie. “Are you taking Boner with you?” I ask.

  “On the bike? I don’t think so.” She scratches his head. “I’ll find him a home.” She looks up at me. “Can you take him?”

  He lays his head in Finn’s lap and gazes up at her with mournful eyes.

  “I don’t know how Carly would feel about a dog.” Especially one that eats furniture. Now may not be the optimal time to ask Carly for any more favors.

  Finn pets Boner and feeds him a cookie.

  “Won’t you miss him?” I ask. I want to add, Won’t you miss me?

  The silence between us lengthens. Wind whistles down the chimney, swirling in the firebox. Finally Finn says, “Did Carly tell you about Jason?”

  “After I accused her of being a prostitute, it didn’t seem like a good time to ask.”

  “You did what?” Finn’s eyes bulge.

  I recount the conversation Carly and I had last night.

  “Holy…” Finn begins.

  “Well, what was I supposed to think? Where is she getting all that money?”

  Finn closes the lid on the cookies without answering. She gets up and walks to the kitchen with the box and with Boner on her heels.

  “Does she really work as a massage therapist and personal trainer?” I ask.

  Finn answers, “Yeah. According to Geena, she has a high-class clientele.”

  “Enough to pay for a four-million-dollar home?”

  Finn twists her head and arches her eyebrows. “Is that what it cost?” She replaces the cookies in the cupboard, and Boner whines. “I don’t think her jobs paid for the house.”

  “Then who did? Oh, let me guess. The mysterious Jason.”

  Finn fills two canning jars with water and brings them back. She hands me one and goes over to stand by the fireplace.

  “Ask her,” Finn says.

  “I can’t!” I cry. “She won’t tell me. Why can’t you tell me? I know you know more than you’re letting on.”

  Finn sighs before taking a sip of water. “Carly was married to Jason, and they had a little girl, Angelica.”

  “What?” My heart seizes. “When?”

  “Two, three years ago. I don’t know exactly. Like I said, I wasn’t here. All I’ve heard are the gossip and rumors, what people say happened.”

  “What do they say?”

  Finn takes a long gulp of water. “Are you sure you want to know this?” She sets her glass on the mantel. “None of it has anything to do with you, and if Carly hasn’t told you, maybe she doesn’t want you to know.”

  “It does have something to do with me. If I have a sister.” It has everything to do with me.

  Finn lets out a long, slow breath.

  “Just tell me the truth,” I say. “Someone, please, just tell me the truth for once.” My eyes pool with tears.

  Finn comes over and sits by me, not close enough to touch, but I feel her heat. “They built that house together. Carly and Jason. He was a doctor. They had a kid together.”

  “Angelica,” I whisper her name. I have a sister.

  “She was two,” Finn says, “when it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  Finn turns to me. “I’m not the one who should be telling you this, Alyssa. You need to get the whole story from Carly.”

  I set the water jar on the floor and leap to my feet. As I fling open the front door, I hear Finn call, “Alyssa.” The roaring in my ears drowns her out. I want to get home now, as soon as possible, because I have to know. I need to know the whole story.

  Chapter

  19

  Carly’s bedroom door is closed. I knock but get no response. I ease the door open. “Carly?”

  She isn’t here. She’s been here, though. Clothes from the closets and drawers are heaped on the bed, like she tried on everything and rejected it. Weird that she’d leave a mess like this. She’s anal about neatness.

  Smoke blows through her open window, the blue-and-white striped canvas curtains flapping like sails. There’s a thin layer of yellow ash on her nightstand.

  The bed’s unmade. King-size mattress, both sides of the sheets crumpled and twisted. She’s a restless sleeper. I know that. I hear her rattling around at two or three AM, when she gets home from work. It takes her an hour to unwind or get drunk. The wineglass on her nightstand is empty, and so’s the bottle.

  She dances to forget. Forget Jason? Angelica? Me?

  There’s no evidence of a husband and child in this entire house. I’ve been over every inch—

  The baby clothes.

  A for Angelica. Not Alyssa.

  I sink to her bed. Three years ago she got married and had a child. Around the same time she forgot I was alive. I was replaced.

  I double over, clutching my stomach.

  I should go; leave this house. She doesn’t want me in her life. She never did, not really. There’s nothing of me here. Not a picture, not a memento. There’s nothing of Jason either, and Angelica is reduced to a hidden box of baby clothes.

  I wonder if she meant to throw out the box and forgot. Or couldn’t bring h
erself to do it. She managed to get rid of everything that reminded her of me.

  Can you just obliterate people from your life? I know I’d like to—Sarah, Ben—but it’s impossible to erase memories that cut so deep.

  The top drawer of Carly’s dresser is open, exposing different colored bras. Ugh, what an invasion of privacy to paw through her lingerie. What the hell? It’s never stopped me before. Nothing but women’s underwear. The second drawer is shirts and shorts. Why am I doing this? I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Some memory of me. Anything. As I feel around inside the bottom drawer, my hand hits a hard object, and I grab it.

  A digital camera.

  I’ve seen this camera. She used it when she came to visit. She’d stop people on the boardwalk and ask them to take our picture. I sit on the floor and press the camera on. Check the memory—empty. If you have a digital camera, though, you upload the pictures. I jump to my feet and dash down to her laptop.

  I look in MY DOCUMENTS, MY PICTURES. Bingo. The folders are labeled by year, the first one three years ago. Nothing before that. Wow, she was thorough in wiping me off the face of the map.

  I thumbnail the images, enlarge the first one. A desolate landscape on a mountain. Caribou Mountain? The next picture is a bulldozer.

  A series of pictures of the house being built. The construction crew. Boring. The framing going up. A cute guy with a hammer. Is that Jason? I fast-forward through the rest of the folder, but he doesn’t appear again.

  In the next folder, the living room’s been painted and carpeted. Furniture arranged. The leather chair by the fireplace. A guy in the chair. Is that Jason? He’s in shadow. The next picture is a close-up. If that’s Jason, he’s hot. He has short, curly hair and rimless glasses. He looks intent, like he doesn’t know his picture is being snapped. He’s reading or studying.

  The next one shows him again, next to the Mercedes SUV. He has his arms folded and his ankles crossed, like he’s posing for a clothing ad.

  The next picture is the two of them together on a boat. More like a yacht in some tropical paradise. There aren’t any palm trees or giant ferns in the Rocky Mountains. Carly has on a bikini, and her hair is longer and blonder. Both she and Jason are toasting whoever’s taking the picture. In the next one, their arms are linked, and they’re drinking from champagne flutes.

  Jason’s built. Tall and buff. Gorgeous guy, if you notice that kind of thing. In another picture he has on jeans and a V-neck sweater. Yeah, he’s hot.

  Rich, too, apparently.

  The next picture is Geena, in a bikini. She’s with Carly, sunbathing on the deck. In every picture of Carly, her face seems brighter. More youthful. She looks happy.

  In the next folder, there’s a series of close-ups of Jason. He has striking blue eyes. Then a full-length picture of Carly. My pulse races. She’s pregnant. I punch through a series in which she gets bigger and bigger. She’s wearing the kimono. She’s out on the deck showing her belly. She, or Jason, wrote in Magic Marker on her belly bulge: BABY, with an arrow.

  Then, at the hospital? The baby’s been born. Carly has her wrapped in a receiving blanket and is gazing down on her with such joy and tenderness in her eyes. My throat constricts. Did she ever feel that kind of love for me? Dad doesn’t have one picture of me as a baby, or the three of us together as a family.

  Angelica is a curly-haired blond baby. I have straight dirty-blond hair.

  The door opens downstairs, and I slam the cover closed on the laptop.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Carly. “I never should’ve assumed…” God, how to redeem myself. “I know about Jason and Angelica.”

  Carly removes a bottle of wine from the cooler and reaches up for a glass. “You know what?”

  She’s speaking to me, at least. “I know you were married. You had another baby.” I want to ask, Is that why you forgot about me? But I don’t. I want to know about my sister. Half sister.

  Carly pours her drink. “It seems a lifetime ago.”

  “Where are they?” I ask. “Will I get to meet them?”

  Carly looks at me, and her eyes go glassy. She takes a long, slow drink. “Not now, Alyssa. I’m very, very tired.” She picks up her glass and the bottle.

  “You could’ve told me, at least, that I have a sister.”

  “Not now!”

  “When?” I shout.

  She ascends the stairs, walks into her room, and shuts the door.

  The sky through the skylights is a sickly orange color. The same way I feel. I storm into the formal living room just to irk her and curl up in the big leather chair. Everyone leaves. Is that what happened, Carly? Jason dumped you and took Angelica with him? Déjà vu. What goes around comes around, Carly.

  I’m suddenly awakened by this sense of danger. Carly’s looming over me. Where am I? I fell asleep in the leather chair. “Stay the fuck out of my room,” she says. “And this living room is off-limits. Get out and stay out.”

  I shrivel in place.

  “My life is mine, Alyssa.” She smacks her chest. “Mine.” Her eyes film over. She wobbles on her stilettos as she weaves down the stairs and exits through the front door.

  She’s drunk.

  Did I put the camera back? Shit. I should be branded: CAUGHT IN THE ACT.

  I want to finish the pictures and see more of the little girl, my half sister, but now I feel guilty. Carly’s right. Her life is hers. I have no place in it and never will.

  What time is it? The clock on the mantel has stopped. On my way to the kitchen, I automatically switch on the TV. The microwave clock reads 10:28. In my peripheral vision, I see BREAKING NEWS scroll across the TV screen, and a reporter comes on. I sit and amp up the volume. “The Eagles Nest fire has consumed approximately six hundred acres in the White River National Forest, and firefighters are setting firebreaks near Heeney to protect homes and livestock. So far no structures are in the direct line of fire, though the winds, as we know, can shift at any time.”

  I listen to a report from the meteorologist. A map zooms in with fifteen fires indicated in the mountains. I’m not familiar with this area, or the geography, but I see that Dillon Reservoir is marked, and I know we’re not far from there.

  “We’re keeping an eye on two weather systems. One is currently centered over Oregon, and the other is off the coast of Southern California. In the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, either or both could bring in some much-needed rain for the western slope and high country. We’ll keep you posted on all the fire activity throughout the night and early morning.”

  It’s ominous. The magnitude of destruction. The color of the sky.

  The breaking-news ticker rolling across the screen reads EAGLES NEST FIRE 2% CONTAINED. STRONG WINDS EARLIER TODAY HAVE SPREAD THE FIRE TO MORE THAN 15,000 ACRES.

  Wind howls through the loft, and Carly’s bedroom door flies open. My heart jumps out of my chest.

  I go upstairs and stand outside Carly’s room. She left her window wide-open, or it blew open, and the curtains are flapping. I know what she said, but I go in to shut and lock the window. I yank the drapes closed and turn. Carly’s emptied the entire contents of her dresser onto the floor and bed, like she went on a rampage. For some reason, I feel responsible. I start picking up clothes, folding and replacing them in drawers.

  She’ll know I was in here. I find her sticky notes and write in my tiniest scrawl:

  YOUR WINDOW BLEW OPEN, SO I CAME IN TO SHUT IT. I CLEANED UP YOUR ROOM. I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND. I DIDN’T GO THROUGH YOUR PERSONAL THINGS AGAIN. I’M SORRY.

  I shut her door and stick the note where she’ll see it.

  Lying in bed, I listen to the howling wind and smell the smoke. I’m afraid to be here alone. I wish I could call someone.

  Dad.

  Yeah, right.

  I get up and find my phone. I call M’Chelle. Her cell rings and rings. Before her voice mail picks up, I disconnect.

  Sarah. If I could just call and talk to her—

  No.


  I go back down to the computer and slideshow through the last set of pictures. Angelica standing all by herself. Angelica smiling with her birthday cake. One candle. Angelica wearing the little sweater with the A.

  I don’t know how many hours elapse while I’m paging through the pictures. Over and over. My eyes ache. I want to close them and sleep forever, but my gaze drifts down to the clock on the monitor: 4:46.

  I’m going to be late for work.

  No time to shower, and I still have on my work clothes from yesterday. I can hardly see through the dirt, mixed with smoke, that’s blowing across the access road. Even with my brights on, I’m driving blind. By the time I park behind the Egg Drop, my nerves are shot.

  Flying dirt and debris sting my bare arms and legs as I hurry inside. The radio’s blaring. Finn’s chopping onions and green peppers. The sight of another human being makes me so happy that I rush over and fling my arms around her.

  She stops chopping.

  “Don’t go,” I say softly. Please don’t leave me.

  Finn’s head rests on mine, and I feel her relax in my arms. “Alyssa,” she says.

  “Finn.”

  “A tree fell on Arlo’s van, and he’s stuck at Safeway.” She twists gently out of my grasp.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He is. His van’s not. We’re on our own today. Can you cook?”

  “No,” I tell her. Tanith does—did—all the cooking at home. “I mean, I could try.”

  “I don’t want you getting burned. That grill gets hot. You wait tables, and I’ll man the grill.”

  I elbow her. “You mean woman.”

  She quirks a smile at me, and my stomach flips.

  The reporter on the radio says, “The Keystone fire, fanned by winds, is spreading east toward Silver Plume and Georgetown. That fire is approximately fifteen percent contained. At Eisenhower Tunnel, we’ve received reports of wind gusts in excess of eighty-five miles per hour. A new fire has sprung up near Kremmling.”

  Finn goes, “That’s close.”

  A guy hollers from the dining room, “Is anyone working here today?” I recognize the voice. Rufus.

  I grab my order pad and head out. The tables are filling fast, and none of the orders have been taken. I yell, “Hey!” Then louder, “Hey! Everyone!”