Brea got out of the car and Jaxon held her arm, walking her up the white steps and into the foyer outside the viewing room. It smelled of wood oil and flowers and the only things between them and Harmony were two curtained, glass-paneled doors.
Brea struggled to keep her composure, dreading seeing her best friend dead. Fearful that Tom had a hit list and that she was next. She tightened her grip on Jaxon’s arm.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m a little woozy.”
The room felt like it was closing in on her. There were rows of empty chairs and only one floral arrangement—a heart made of red roses—propped up to the right of Jack O’Connor, the undertaker, who obscured her view of the coffin.
Adam turned around in the front row. He was wearing his usual tight-fitting jeans, a v-neck tee, and military-style boots with the laces dangling. His face was red from crying and he stood to help Brea down the aisle.
“Here, I got her.” Adam held her around her waist and walked her to the kneeler in front of Harmony.
Jaxon looked frustrated, but kept his cool.
Brea closed her eyes and took a deep breath, summoning the strength to open them. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really. I can do this.”
Harmony looked at peace, but wrong. The choppy hair cut hadn’t grown in and there were staples visible through the thinnest sections where the autopsy closures were made. Her ivory skin radiated against the black satin liner, but Beth, the undertaker’s wife, did the makeup too conservatively, like a young girl’s.
Brea set her hand on top of Harmony’s and the cold, hardness of them made her feel queasy. Her skin went clammy, the air around her was filled with floating, gray squares and she fainted.
“Brea. Can you hear me?” Adam caught her and propped her up against him, fighting Jaxon’s attempt to do the same.
“I got her,” Jaxon said.
She came to feeling like a wishbone between them.
Jaxon brushed the hair back from her face. “Are you okay?”
She felt weak, queasy, and unsteady. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing.”
“Don’t be embarrassed.” Adam held her from behind by her shoulders.
She looked back into the casket. “Harmony would’ve hated this. It doesn’t even look like her.”
“I gave them a picture,” Adam said. “But, they just…”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry. I was thinking out loud.” Brea leaned into Adam and Jaxon gave her a dirty look. She backed away. “Do you mind if I have a few minutes alone with her?”
Adam shook his head. “I could use a smoke anyway.”
Jaxon glared at him. “After you.”
Adam walked down the aisle with Jaxon a good distance behind him. Jaxon pulled the viewing room door shut and Brea reached for Harmony. Her skin was cool, waxy and synthetic-feeling. The tattoo Lance gave her showed through the lace-trimmed sleeves of her black dress. She wondered if anyone had told him the news.
“Summerland. I hope you get there.” She wiped her tears and unzipped her purse.
This was the last time she would ever see Harmony and she wanted to memorize every detail. She couldn’t let her be buried looking like someone else.
She took a narrow, angled brush and a palette of purple eye shadow out of her purse and drew a dark line from the inner corner of Harmony’s glued eyelids past the outside edge, recreating the smoky eye that was Harmony’s trademark. She swept a little blush on her cheeks and colored her lips a deep purple-red.
“There,” she said. “Better.”
The loud click of the door handle announced Adam’s re-entrance.
“She looks good.” He wasn’t shocked or put-off. “She would’ve done the same thing in your position,” he said and went awkwardly quiet.
Brea managed a smile and nodded in thanks. “Was Jaxon out there with you?”
“Got a phone call. Probably that Rachael chick.”
Brea raised her eyebrow. “Harmony tell you that?”
“Said she told you, too. She said you should be more careful.”
“She was always paranoid.”
Adam reached for her hand just as Jaxon walked in. “In this case, I think she’s right.”
Brea could clearly see the jealousy on Jaxon’s face.
“You ready to go?” asked Jaxon.
Staying would only mean trouble. “I’m ready,” she said.
Adam wiped his nose with a tissue. “There’s not much of a service tomorrow, but the burial is at 10:00.”
“I’ll be there,” she said. “Thanks. For everything.”
Jaxon pulled Brea close, asserting himself as boyfriend.
Adam wasn’t Brea’s type. He wasn’t even interested in her, she thought, but as she turned to walk out, his expression made her wonder.
* * * * *
It took a few minutes for the car to heat up and Jaxon gave Brea his coat.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” She laid it over her lap.
“I wouldn’t tell you if I was.” He smiled. “I’m sorry about in there. That Adam guy just rubs me wrong.”
“Funny, he says the same about you.” Brea looked over her shoulder at Adam smoking, alone, on the porch. They pulled out of the lot and she kicked off her high heels, trying to get comfortable.
“That was really something what you did in there. Her make-up and all. Weren’t you…I don’t know…”
“Creeped out?”
“I didn’t want to say it.”
“A little. But I didn’t want to remember her that other way. It wasn’t her.”
She thought about all the things she was too afraid to do in her life, the way her mother held her back, the way she, herself, held back.
“So, do you want to go right home? Or is there someplace I can take you?”
She took a deep breath. It was a night for big things. No fear. Revenge. She was going to have to face Rachael again and next time, she would be ready. “You can take me to Miller’s Pond.”
He looked at her and, even in the dark, she could see his shock. “Brea, you’ve been through a lot. I…”
Her heart hammered as she touched his inseam. She leaned over the center console and kissed his neck, whispering in his ear, “Please don’t talk me out of it.”
And he didn’t. After that, he didn’t say another word until they parked at Miller’s Pond. “Are you sure you want to…?”
She took the condom from her purse that Harmony put there as a joke, for her mother to find. “I’m sure.”
A Pink Floyd CD played softly in the background. “Do you want me to leave the music on?”
She nodded and leaned over to kiss him.
His lips were tight and he seemed on-edge until she went from timid to almost aggressive. He slipped his hand inside her shirt to cup her breast, but the blouse was too tight. She unbuttoned it without stopping kissing.
“Ouch,” she said.
“What, I’m sorry…” He backed off.
She pointed at the raised emergency break handle. “It caught my knee.”
“Are you all right?”
“We’ll see.” She peeled off her pantyhose and fighting back the anxiety, climbed into the back seat.
The door locks clicked and he joined her.
She was straddling him, kissing him, feeling him growing and grinding eagerly beneath her.
“Can I ask you a question?” She pressed down on him harder, the seam of his pants pressing into her undies. “Why me?”
He slid her shirt down her shoulders. “Why not you?”
She reached back and undid her bra. “It’s my first time.”
He was quiet for a minute and lowered his eyes. “Mine, too.”
Hearing that flooded her with an unexpected, empowering relief. Eagerness replaced the fear of comparison, of failure, of awkwardness. She let him explore her, unrestricted, and let herself enjoy it.
The car windows fogged and everything mo
ved like a roller coaster cresting the drop hill. There was no thinking, no turning back, no stopping.
24.
It had taken some convincing to keep Jaxon from coming in, but when Brea saw only one light on in the house she knew she was either in the clear or in major trouble. She waved over her shoulder in a kind of awkward salute and opened the door.
Her mother was out cold, clutching the cordless phone on the couch. There was an empty Kleenex box on the coffee table and she had obviously been crying. Her crimson hair spilled around her head like blood from a wound and her mouth hung open.
Brea let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God.”
She was sore and disheveled, but the purest kind of happy and satisfied, willing to revel and mourn and dream.
She tossed a beige fleece over her mother and yanked off her white slip-on sneakers. She took the phone out of her hands and went quietly upstairs to change.
Her bedroom smelled like smoke and she looked at the bag of Harmony’s she’d yet to go through.
“I hope you have my back on this.”
Nervous as she was, she needed to talk. She needed her best friend however that could happen and the Ouija sticking out from a tear in the plastic was the only possibility.
If Tom’s end goal was for Harmony to be dead then he got what he wanted, she rationalized. He shouldn’t be a problem.
She lit a half circle of candles and set up the board.
“Harmony, it’s Brea. Can you hear me? I want to talk to Harmony Wolcott.”
The candles flickered and she tried to keep calm.
H-E-L-L-O
The planchette moved slow and jerky.
“Who is this?”
H-A-R-M-O-N-Y
Knowing spirits can and do lie, she asked for proof. “How do I know this is you?”
P-H-O-E-N-I-X
Harmony slit her wrist at the Phoenix Motel outside of Reston a year before. She was high and drunk and had broken in through an unlocked window not long before cleaning rounds. Housekeeping found her all but bled out and called 9-1-1. The ambulance took her to Reston Memorial where they transfused her, medicated her, and admitted her to the Behavioral Health Unit for what Harmony had called the worst three weeks of her life--and that was saying a lot. They had kept Harmony in an anti-depressant stupor and she kept repeating the word “Phoenix”.
It was her.
Brea felt a moment of peace and a short-lived embrace that was jerked away violently and as quickly as it came.
There was a loud rap on the window followed by vast silence.
“Harmony, are you here?”
No answer.
“Harmony?”
The planchette looped a series of figure eights, and then starting at “Z”, ran through the alphabet backwards.
“Harmony, stop it.” She flipped the planchette upside down, but it kept moving: I, H,G. “Stop it.” she screamed.
The planchette stopped at “A” and Brea was shaking. She couldn’t have stopped it.
She was hit full-on, salivating with nausea, and swallowed the bitter vomit puree rocketing up her throat. Her chest tightened and her head ached.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and with the eerie but familiar feeling of sensing someone you can't see, she knew a presence was there with her.
“Harmony, are you here?” She fought to keep her hands steady.
M-A-P-L-E 6
“Maple 6?”
The indicator picked up speed.
M-A-P-L-E-6-M-A-P-L-E-6
“What is Maple 6?”
The room went out of focus and Brea blinked to clear her vision. It was like looking through dirty glass. A burst of air blew past her, and then something pinned her to the ground. A shadow moved in the corner and her dresser mirror fogged. A pair of phantom hands appeared and wrote the words: help me.
Sweat soaked through the armpits and back of Brea’s shirt and her heart pounded.
“Stop,” she finally managed to shout and in an instant, everything stopped.
She kicked the board over and tried to stand, but she felt dazed, as if she was just off the tea cup ride. She pressed her palms to her eyelids and tears seeped around them. Her muscles ached with a flu-like soreness, and she felt feverish and more tired than she’d ever been in her life. Her sweating turned to a bone-deep chill and she wrapped up tight in her down comforter, terrified to move.
25.
Brea made it through the entire school day without running into Rachael, which figured. Now that Brea had the best possible comeback—now that she was something to Jaxon that Rachael could never be—she was nowhere to be found.
Brea wondered if it was intentional.
The last period bell rang and she navigated the crowd, nervous for “the surprise.” Jaxon told her at lunch that he had something to do, but that he’d be back in time to drive her home.
A text message said he’d be there in a minute.
She traded her books for the ones she needed for homework and went down the hall toward the front door.
The bulk of the cheer squad gathered at the vending machines in the cafeteria and Brea kept her head down when she passed them. They’d be going out to the football field for practice in no time and she’d have to deal with Rachael.
“So much for peace and quiet.”
Brea texted Jaxon back, “Hurry up.”
She blended in to the group waiting for pick-ups and doodled on a blank journal page. When the front doors opened behind her, she didn’t look back. She didn’t have to. She heard who was coming.
Maybe they wouldn’t see it was her. Maybe, just maybe, Rachael knew about Miller’s Pond.
She doodled the words “help me” in bubble letters, the first thing that came to her mind. Remembering last night gave her goose bumps.
Rachael and her friends were chatting and laughing and suddenly Rachael’s voice got louder. “Hey, isn’t that freakshow’s boyfriend over there? You know, that weirdo, what’s his name?”
Brea couldn’t help but look. She hadn’t noticed Adam’s truck in the visitor’s lot because she wasn’t looking for it. Now, it was plain as day.
He was leaning against the side of the building, smoking a cigarette next to the “smoke-free campus” sign.
“Brea?” He dropped the butt in the grass and walked over to her. “I was looking for you. I need a favor.”
Just then, Jaxon pulled up in a brand new, black Audi A4.
“Holy shit,” she said.
Adam smiled. “That’s a little condemning, isn’t it?”
Jaxon got out of the car, puffed out his chest and clenched his fists. “What’re you doing here, loser?” He immediately went for Adam. “Ready, Brea?” He went to touch her shoulder and she moved. “What’s the matter?”
“You really don’t know?”
Adam reached for Brea’s hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I…”
“Brea, get in the car,” Jaxon said.
“Don’t do it, Brea.”
“Leave her alone, dirt bag.” Jaxon pushed Adam, hard, but barely moved him.
“That all you got, Abercrombie?” Adam bumped against Jaxon.
He was wiry strong, not built like Jaxon—but he was a better fighter. One hit knocked Jaxon on the ground.
Rachael ran over to help him.
Brea panicked and prayed for Adam not to get caught. “Adam, you have to get out of here.” If the school called the cops, her uncle would find out she was there, with Adam, and the fallout with her mother would be unimaginable. She pushed him toward the parking lot. “Go on, before it’s too late.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” He held out a hand and the look in his eyes was the most sincere she’d ever seen him. “Please come with me. It’s for Harmony.”
It was all she needed to hear.
* * * * *
Brea stood next to Adam in the showroom of Riley Monument, fidgeting nervously and waiting for the saleswoman to finish a quote for an obviously
grieving widow. She shifted from one foot to the other, biting at the edge of her thumb and wondering what had happened to Jaxon.
“I’m not going to bite you, Brea.”
“I know, but you have to cut me some slack. You just assaulted my…” she paused, then said, “my friend.”
Adam smiled and looked at his knuckles. “Hurt, too.”
The clerk shot them a dirty look for laughing.
“I’m sorry,” Brea said quietly.
The widows crying got louder.
Adam tugged her sleeve and she jumped.
“Whoa, easy girl.” He backed away, hands up and pointed at a black, granite headstone in the next aisle. “I was just going to ask you what you thought about that one.”
She flipped the tag over. “It’s two thousand dollars, Adam.”
It was going to take a long time to pay that off on a part-time mechanic’s salary.
“It’s nothing compared to the funeral.” He took a credit card out of his wallet.
“Speaking of, have you heard from Charity?”
“I went by to check in on her, but she wasn’t there. The place was unlocked, which is unusual, but I saw what she’s been up to. She’s getting worse.”
“She’s been getting worse. Last time I was there she taped over every hole and crack with duct tape to hide from ‘the cameras.’”
“I took this for you.” He held out a small, raggedy teddy bear, Harmony’s favorite, that she slept with all her life.
Brea held it up to her face and breathed in its scent. It smelled like Harmony.
“I sleep on her pillow just to smell her. It smells more like me now than anything, but I won’t wash it.” He took her hand and held it to his chest. “You know, I feel her when I’m with you.”
She closed her eyes and let him kiss her. “Oh, Oh my God. I’m sorry…I…I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’m so sorry.”
He pulled her back and kissed her again. “Don’t be.”
Her heart was pounding and she almost screamed when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. “What the...?” She opened the phone. “Hello?” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat.
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