03 - Silver Is For Secrets

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  “Last night. Well, actually, this morning. After you guys came back from my cottage, you went back to bed, but I stayed up for a little while. So when Jacob got up to go out, he saw that I was awake, and we just started chatting. I hope I haven’t said something wrong. I mean, we only talked for a couple of minutes. He’s really into you. Trust me; you have nothing to be worried about.”

  I’m looking at her, watching as she nods emphatically, wondering how she can sit here and pretend to be an expert on my relationship.

  “He has a dark side, though, doesn’t he?” she continues. “I mean, he always seems like he’s hiding something. So mysterious.” There’s a huge glowing smile across her face, like all of this is a compliment.

  I feel my jaw quiver just imagining Jacob talking to her, just imagining him opening up to her this way, when he’s been anything but open with me. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “What’s wrong?” Clara asks.

  “Are you serious?” Amber narrows her eyes at Clara. “I mean, are you seriously that—”

  Drea pokes a chocolate into Amber’s mouth. “We should probably get going.” She stands up from the table, gesturing for me to join her.

  “We’ll talk later,” I tell Clara. “Right now I’m just not feeling too well.”

  Clara nods like she understands, like she knows better than to believe that my feeling ill is the result of a headache, the heat, or something I ate, but right now I just don’t care. I need to get away.

  twenty-three

  After Amber and Drea reiterate their utter loathing for Clara, reminding me that Jacob may be next in her long line of summer diversions, the two head off to talk to the police, to get it over with once and for all. Meanwhile, I go back to the cottage to see if I can find Jacob, to see what was up with his needing to get away. But, as I might have guessed, he isn’t around.

  But Chad is.

  “Hey,” he says, lifting his sunglasses to the top of his head. He’s wearing a pair of swim trunks, bright pumpkin-colored ones, with neon-yellow stripes that run down the sides. “What’s up?”

  I shake my head and look away.

  “You can’t lie to me, Stacey,” he says. “I know you, remember?”

  “I’m just not feeling well.”

  “With good reason,” he says. “What’s up with Jacob lately?” He takes a seat on the couch and looks up at me for some response.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been acting kind of weird, don’t you think . . . sort of distant?”

  I plunk down on the sofa next to him. “I’m glad you noticed it, too.”

  “Yeah,” Chad says. “What’s going on with him? Are you guys fighting?”

  “No. At least I don’t think we are.”

  “O-kay,” he says with a quizzical look.

  “It’s just confusing, I mean . . . all this relationship stuff. Just when you think everything’s perfect—it isn’t.” I look away, feeling my eyes fill up. I hate myself for crumbling this way in front of Chad—my ex-boyfriend, of all people.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he says, reaching out to touch my shoulder. “It’s probably just something he’s going through right now.”

  “So why won’t he go through it with me?”

  “Who knows? Guys can be pretty cryptic sometimes, especially when it comes to relationship stuff. Just ask Drea. Sometimes I don’t know why she keeps coming back to me.”

  “You’re not so bad.”

  “And neither are you.” He smiles at me, and I bite my lip, my cheeks feeling suddenly flushed.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Sure.” He leans in to hug me, and I hug him back, closing my eyes in the embrace. It feels so good to hold him like this—as friends. So long overdue. When we broke up last year—when he started dating Drea and I started seeing Jacob—I think we all tried to pretend that it wasn’t completely awkward to stay friends. Even though sometimes—a lot of the time—it really was.

  “Hey,” Jacob says, startling us. He moves into the living room from the hallway.

  “Where did you come from?” I ask, looking down the hallway toward his bedroom. I scoot up on the sofa, breaking my embrace with Chad.

  “Out.”

  “Out where?” I ask.

  “I should let you two talk.” Chad gets up from the sofa. He flips his sunglasses down over his eyes, grabs his beach towel off the back of the kitchen chair, and heads outside.

  “So?” I ask, looking back at Jacob.

  “I had to take care of something.”

  “What?”

  He takes a seat beside me on the sofa. “Why are you getting all upset?”

  “I just thought we were going to spend some time together. I wanted to go swimming.”

  Jacob takes my hands, sandwiching them between his own. “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

  I feel myself getting tenser by the moment, the pit in my chest getting bigger, harder to breathe away. I bite my lip to keep from losing it, fully aware that he’s avoiding the question. “How come you didn’t tell me you talked to Clara last night?”

  “Clara?”

  I nod and suck in my lips.

  “We all talked to her.”

  “No,” I say. “She told me you talked to her after we all went to bed.”

  Jacob’s eyebrows rise up like he’s genuinely surprised.

  “She said you went out early this morning after we got back from her place,” I continue. “She said you guys talked about how uptight I am, how when we first started dating I was much more relaxed.”

  “Stacey—”

  “Did you?”

  “I went for a walk on the beach—”

  “At 3 AM?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t check the clock . . . maybe. But I didn’t stop and talk with Clara.”

  “Not at all?”

  “I might have said hi. I might have asked if she was comfortable, if she needed anything.”

  “Then how did she know those things? She knew how long we’d been dating.”

  “She could have found that out from anyone.” He squeezes my hands tighter. “You need to trust me. I trust you.”

  “I don’t give you a reason not to.”

  “And I do?”

  I shrug, hating myself for being this way, for feeling so insecure. “What am I supposed to think? You say you went out for a 3 AM walk, but then you weren’t even around first thing this morning when we all got up.”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “And what am I thinking?”

  “I don’t know—that I never came back after my walk; that I’m seeing someone else, maybe. How can you even think those things? You know how I feel about you.”

  I take a deep breath, not wanting to repeat myself, not wanting to sound like an insecure nag.

  “I could have gotten jealous about you and your ex-boyfriend,” he continues, “cuddling up on the sofa a few minutes ago.”

  My first response is to lash out at him, especially since Chad was so understanding with me, since he also noticed that Jacob’s been acting weird. But I swallow my anger and, instead, ask the question that seems most obvious to me. “And did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  I concentrate on his eyes, knowing that I’ll be able to tell if he isn’t honest. “Did you get jealous of Chad and I just now?”

  Jacob gives me yet another surprised look, his eyes widening. “No.”

  I feel my lower lip tremble at the ease of his response. “Maybe that’s the problem,” I say, breaking his grip on my hands. I get up from the couch, my fingers clamped around my amulet necklace.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “I have some stuff to do,” I say, hoping that I sound as secretive as he does. I retreat to my room, closing the door behind me.

  twenty-four

  I try calling my mother for a much-needed dose of maternal comfort, but I just get the machi
ne. Fabulous. But even more fabulous is that I’m too depressed to bother leaving a message, and so I just hang up. Honestly, I don’t think I could feel any worse. I hate being the bad guy in the relationship, and yet I don’t know what else to be. I mean, I do trust Jacob—more than anything. But I can’t help feeling this way. I can’t help feeling somewhat jilted that he’s keeping things from me, that he won’t let me into his world completely. That he’s possibly talking about the problems in our relationship with people he doesn’t even know.

  I mean, when I really stop and think about it, I don’t think I have one solitary secret that Jacob doesn’t know about. So maybe that’s my problem. Or maybe it’s the moon, the pull it has on me this week, making me feel all off-balance. I don’t know; I’m just feeling so completely unhinged. I almost feel like the stress I have about helping Clara is one of the easier things I have to deal with—which, despite the boost of confidence I’ve had as far as that matter is concerned, isn’t saying much.

  I open the door of my room and look around the cottage for Jacob, but it seems he’s already gone out. Great. What I should really be doing is hitting the sheets, trying to score myself a little shuteye so I can dream. But since I can’t even think about falling asleep right now, I move into the bathroom for a shower, hoping the warm water coupled with steam and bath oil will help relax me a bit.

  Standing in the mirror, my hair looks about as frazzled as I feel, if not worse—like the what-not-to-do picture in a magazine. The ends are all dry and frayed from the sun, from not taking the time to pamper myself properly.

  I grab my bowl of flower petals from the window. It’s full of roses, lilac buds, and hydrangea bits. Using a funnel, I drain the cup of water I added to the bowl last night into my half-empty bottle of shampoo. I shake the bottle to mix it all up. It’s a recipe my grandmother swore by to give hair life and luster—and to help enliven one’s spirit, since I’m feeling so completely depleted. The sweet rosy scent mixed with the lilacs and my dandelion shampoo does help to perk me up a bit.

  I turn on the shower faucet and step inside the tub, thinking how my grandmother used to stress the importance of cleansing as a way to prepare the body for a spell. I spend a good twenty minutes doing just that, imagining myself washing away the negative energy and restoring my inner peace.

  Feeling much more balanced, I slip into a robe and go back to my room. I wonder if all of what Clara said about her talk with the police is true—if she really did tell them about her ex-boyfriends, if she thinks one of them is responsible. But then why did they want to talk to Chad? What does he have to do with anything? I rack my brain for an answer, wondering what Clara might have said. I wouldn’t be so suspicious if the police wanted to talk to Jacob and PJ as well, but singling Chad out like this—it just doesn’t make sense.

  I pull a pad of notebook paper and a yellow crayon from my night table, wondering if Casey is indeed Clara’s ex-boyfriend. According to him, it’s like they barely even know each other, but she makes it sound as though they had some secret relationship going. I write the word “TRUTH” across the paper, hoping the yellow color of the crayon will help promote clarity, hoping my dreams will slice through all these contradicting stories of he-said versus she-said.

  I fold the paper up, whispering the word “truth” with every crease, until it’s a tiny paper ball that I slip underneath my pillow. I pull my spell-supply suitcase from under my bed and take out my hourglass. Tall and slender, made out of real cut glass with full-blown bulbs at each end, I position it on my night table and watch as the sparkly white sand inside filters down into the bottom bulb. I grab my dream box and position it open over my heart center. Then I lie back against my pillow, concentrating on the idea of time. I need to know how much time I have before Clara is going to die.

  I close my eyes, still picturing the sands as they fill up the bottom of the hourglass, feeling more relaxed by the moment. The sultry ocean breeze filters in through the window screen, filling the room with the scent of coconut mixed with seashells, easing me to sleep.

  twenty-five

  After my nap, I decide to take that swim I’ve been thirsting for. I change into my bathing suit, grab a towel, and head out. What’s weird is that despite the prime swimming hour, there isn’t anybody on the beach. I walk a bit farther down the strip, seeing if I can spot Jacob somewhere, wondering if he might be over at the Clam Stripper. But that’s empty, too. The order and pick-up windows are boarded up, and the picnic tables are missing, as well. It’s almost like I’ve been fast-forwarded to winter mode, which actually might explain why I’m feeling so cold, why goosebumps have sprouted up all over my skin.

  I decide to head into the bathroom to warm up. The public bathroom is in the center of the parking lot. It’s basically this houselike brick structure with showers attached to the outside of the building. I go around to the ladies’ room entrance and try the door, thinking how normally it’s left wide open, wondering why everything is closed up today. The door budges a little, but it seems like it’s caught on something.

  I pull a little harder on the handle, using both hands this time. Finally it tugs open, causing me to stumble back. I take a step inside, noticing how spacious it is without people standing in line for a stall. It’s dark, the only light coming in through a tiny window above the sink area. I look around for a light but can’t seem to find one. Instead, I spot one of those wooden doorstoppers. I wedge it into the crack at the bottom of the door, allowing the light from outside to paint a streak across the floor.

  I take a few steps farther inside, moving around to the left where all the stalls are, noticing how the green concrete flooring is all muddy from beach sand mixed with water. The sinks are dripping; there’s a puddle on the floor underneath them from leaking pipes. I move to the sink in the corner, the only one that doesn’t seem to have a drippy faucet. I turn the valve on so that the warm water washes down over my fingers, and then I splash a couple times on my face. That’s when I hear the outer door slide closed, despite the door wedge—leaving me in the dark.

  “Hello?” I look over my shoulder toward the doorway. “Can you open the door back up?”

  But no one answers, and the door remains closed.

  I peer up toward the window above me, but it’s really too small to allow much more than a strip of light across the mirror and sinks. Someone’s foot scratches against the sandy concrete floor; I can hear the shifting. I stand frozen in place and look up into the mirror, waiting to see whoever it is.

  “Hello?” I call again.

  But instead I just hear giggling, like someone’s playing a joke on me. Slowly, I move around the corner toward the door, noticing that the farther I get from the window, the darker it becomes.

  “Are you looking for me?” a voice whispers.

  I stop, a shiver running down the back of my neck. “Clara?” I ask, recognizing the voice.

  “Clara’s dead,” she says, giggling. “You let her die.”

  “No.” I shake my head, reminding myself to breathe, to be strong. I take a couple more steps, but it’s completely dark in front of the door. I hold my arms out in front of me, my fingers trembling from how cold I feel, and search for the door handle. But I can’t find it. Instead I find something else. It hangs midair in front of the door. I wrap my hands around it and feel my thumb get pricked, like a needle. I gasp, rubbing my fingers together, feeling a bit of moisture. I must be bleeding. I poke my thumb into my mouth and then reach for the object again. There are pins that stick through the center of something soft and rubbery. Carefully, I move my hands up and feel cloth. I move them up a little more and feel hair of some sort. Like a doll.

  “For you, Stacey,” whispers the voice. It’s coming from where the door is, but I can’t see anything.

  My heart is thrashing inside my chest. I go to take the doll-like figure, noticing how it’s hanging from a rope, how it’s tied in place. Instead of trying to take it down, I continue to feel around for the door, my
hands padding over the crude cement walls, noticing how sticky they feel—how everything seems so numb and cold.

  “Over here,” the voice giggles. “If you want to leave, you have to come here.” Her voice is coming from over by the sinks.

  I move toward it, almost relieved to be going back toward the light. I feel a trickle of something roll off my lip. I move in front of the mirror, my knees shaking with each step. Sprawled across the glass—over my image, the blood trickling down my lips—are giant red letters that say CLARA WAS HERE. Below it is Friday’s date—still two days away.

  “She was here,” the voice whispers, “but now she’s gone. Because you were too late.”

  “No,” I say, fighting the urge to cover over my ears. “I’m here. She’s here. You’re her.”

  “Not anymore. She’s out on the beach. Haven’t you seen her body?”

  I turn from the mirror and see her—Clara. Only she looks different than normal—her coloring is grayish and her lips look pale blue. She’s wearing a coral-colored sarong with an olive-green T-shirt, and she’s carrying a camera—a big and bulky one, like a Polaroid. There’s a patch of blood at her middle. It runs down her legs, making a puddle on the floor. She moves into the stall at the end, closing the door and locking it behind her.

  I take a step backward, my heel crunching down on something. I look. It’s a heart-shaped box. I move to pick it up, recognizing the shiny golden color right away—a one-pound box of Godiva chocolates.

  My hands shake. I drop the chocolates to the floor. “Drea?” I whisper, wondering if she’s here, if she’s the one who left them.

  I move back toward the exit door, but it’s still too dark to see. I pad along the walls, my heart walloping inside my chest, my hands all jittery. I think I feel a hinge. I follow it around the doorframe, my fingers working their way along the door crack. I feel for the handle, find it, and pull.

  It’s locked.

  I pull harder, try pushing outward, pound at the door with all my might. But it’s no use.