“Was it safe?”
“Well, as long as the fire didn’t reach your laundry basket.”
“I’m just heading over to see him.”
“I bet that will make him feel better.”
“I really am sorry.”
“Got a minute?” He held up the scissors. “I need to go very, very short.”
When she’d met him, his hair had been hidden under a hard hat. But now it hung down like thick vines around his face, which was no longer covered in soot. He wasn’t much older than she was.
“I thought I could just tie it back all summer, but it’s a pain in the ass. Also dangerous. Crew boss says to cut it.”
“I don’t know anything about cutting hair.”
“But you know how to work a pair of scissors?”
“Yeah, if you don’t care how it looks.”
“I was just going to do it myself, so the bar isn’t very high. And besides, I wear a hard hat ninety percent of the time.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
It was awkward as hell. Jenny knew that if Jade were following a firefighter outside to sit on a log and cut his beautiful hair, she would be flirting and carrying the conversation as if she’d known him forever. But Jenny was dying to get back to Colonel Mustard.
“You know, my sister would be much better at this.”
“Cutting hair?”
“Well, probably that too. No—talking, flirting, whatever this is…” Way to go, Jenny, batting a thousand here.
“Um, not flirting, if that’s what you think.”
“Yeah, no, I just meant…Oh God, I’m sorry. Whatever. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
He laughed. “Relax. I joined the Forest Service to forget a girl, not find one. You’re perfectly safe.”
He had the towel across his shoulders and was sitting on the log with his back to her.
“Okay, just strike everything stupid I said from the record,” said Jenny.
“Already gone,” he said.
“Well, are you ready?” She made a couple of snipping sounds near his head.
“Please just don’t chop off my ear.”
If she were Jade, she might mention Van Gogh and the idea of mailing a severed ear to one’s love interest. But again: not Jade.
She picked up a thick chunk of hair.
“Still okay?”
“Yeah, but not if you keep asking.”
One snip and it hung limp in her hand. She waved it in front of his eyes, but he said nothing. She thought he might be holding his breath.
“So tell me about the girl you’re trying to forget. I mean, if you want to.”
But he talked about firefighting instead. The long hours, the food, the adrenaline rush. She kept snipping away, trying to focus on his words rather than on the intimacy of his hair between her fingers, smelling like burnt toast.
“I was hoping to get on a crew as a smoke jumper in Alaska.”
“Alaska?”
“Well, it would have gotten me farther away from home. You know, from things I’m trying to forget.”
He changed the subject.
“I have a twin brother who’s in Alaska at a summer camp.”
But Jenny was stuck on what he’d said before. “Things I’m trying to forget.”
Jade’s stupid umbrella.
If that umbrella didn’t exist, Jenny wouldn’t have been reminded of its significance. It was like a portal between what might have happened to Jade and how that event had shaped them, defined them.
Every time Jenny thought about that stranger saying “Just come through these trees with me,” she felt sick. For years she’d thought Jade was lying. But what if Jade had actually followed him into those woods?
Jenny wanted to feel relieved that her sister hadn’t been hurt or vanished, like that other little girl. Finding the umbrella had made it all feel real again.
If only Jade didn’t suck all the air out of the room, maybe things would be different between them.
“Am I boring you?” asked Nate.
“Oh no, not at all.” What had she missed? “So are you and your twin identical in every way?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t too off topic.
“Just looks. We’re actually pretty different.”
“Well, maybe you don’t look identical anymore. I think I’m done.”
He faced her, running a hand over his head, making the little bit of hair he had left all spiky. His ears stuck out at odd angles, not at all symmetrical. Jenny tried to arrange her features into a neutral expression.
“Okay, well, no mirror, so by the look on your face, is it that bad?”
“No, just…Wow. It’s pretty short.”
Her haircut hadn’t done him any favors.
“My sister and I have a complicated relationship too,” she said, surprising herself. “I mean, we aren’t twins or anything, but she has this way of attracting so much attention, I feel invisible most of the time.”
It was the first time Jenny had ever said that to anyone, and she was grateful that he just nodded as if she made perfect sense.
It was intoxicating, being honest for once, even with a stranger. Or maybe especially with a stranger.
When his face had been covered in soot, she’d only noticed the whites of his eyes, but now she could tell the irises were a forest green that changed shades in the light, like a mood ring. It surprised her, this tiny detail, or perhaps the fact that she’d noticed it at all. One of the scratches on his cheek stood out now too, a thin crevasse in his skin that had opened as he talked and was pulsing with little beads of bright red blood.
Without thinking, she ran a finger lightly down the length of his cut. “I’m really sorry Colonel Mustard did that to you.”
“Wow, Jenny. Are you going to introduce us to your friend?”
Jade’s voice hit her like an arrow in the back of the head.
And of course the giggling was coming from Shelby and Carly, because they were like Charlie’s Angels, always together and sniffing out gossip.
Jenny turned stiffly toward them, but not before she saw the look on Nate’s face: Confusion? Relief? Had she really just caressed his scratch?
Jade was staring at the wispy piles of hair scattered near their feet, as if a strawberry-blond sheep had just been sheared. Jenny waited for her sister to say something witty and Jade-like, but she seemed to be at a loss for words.
“Jade, this is Nate. He actually found Colonel Mustard for us. Nate, my sister, Jade.”
Whose timing couldn’t be worse.
Nate stood up and reached out a hand to Jade, then nodded hello to Shelby and Carly, like a proper gentleman.
He pulled the towel off his shoulders and shook it out.
“So thanks for the haircut. I should get back to base camp.”
He seemed in a hurry to get away.
From me, thought Jenny. Why did I touch his face like that?
“Going to see Colonel Mustard,” Jenny said to Jade and her friends, turning quickly in the opposite direction, grateful when nobody followed her. She was almost at the animal shelter when she realized she was still carrying the scissors.
The makeshift shelter was a cacophony of barks and meows and high, piercing animal sounds that made it hard to think, which was fine with Jenny.
“Can I just take my cat’s kennel with me? He seems really freaked out in here.”
She’d tapped someone on the shoulder. When the woman turned around, she was face to face with the dragon lady again.
“Oh, hi.”
“Hey. I don’t actually have anything to do with the animals.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“But did you see the news?”
Jenny brightened. “No…do we get to go back home?”
She handed Jenny a clipping from the Rocky Mountain News.
“Everyone’s talking about it,” she said. “I’ve got to run now.” Her radio was making a staticky noise. “And I guess I should say sorry. I know you all trusted him.”
But her finger was in one ear and her radio was in the other, and she was gone so fast, Jenny got the impression that she didn’t want to stay and watch her read the article. At the same time, Jenny had the distinct feeling that this was why the dragon lady had given her such a strange look in the locker room. She’d already known.
BODY SUSPECTED TO BE THAT OF GIRL MISSING FOR TWO YEARS
SUSPECT IN CUSTODY
Local celebrity and longtime weatherman Earl Jackson, known to radio listeners as Coyote Jones, has been charged with the abduction and murder of a six-year-old girl who went missing in the forest near her home two years ago. To protect the family’s privacy, the girl’s name is not being released at this time. The investigation is ongoing, and more charges are pending.
Jenny didn’t ask anyone if she could take Colonel Mustard and his kennel with her; she just did it. She wanted to get away from all the noise and bury her face in her cat’s fur. It was the only thing that made sense.
This was going to be too much for her mother, who had believed in Coyote Jones, just like everybody else. Small-town trust is the backbone of small-town living. But it was unraveling.
Before this latest article, people in the shelter had been grappling with news that the fire had actually been started by a priest way over in Granville. Her mother’s eye twitch had gotten worse when they heard this. She had been raised Catholic and said that was reason enough for her girls not to be.
“What those men get away with…,” she said to Jenny and Jade mysteriously. “One day the whole church is going to implode, and I, for one, am not going to be one bit surprised.”
As their mother watched them take Father Lazaria away in the big black car on the news, her eye twitch had been working overtime. He was being sent to a retirement home, where he would no longer be a danger to himself or society.
“Oh, that’s how they deal with it,” her mother had said. “I don’t care what they tell you on the news, I’ll bet my good eye setting a fire in a dumpster isn’t the worst thing he’s ever done.”
This coming from a woman who had almost lost her house.
Now Jenny wondered: Was Coyote Jones the same man who had given Jade the five-dollar bill?
“Jenny, there you are.” Oh, speak of the devil.
“Did you hear?” Jenny asked Jade, holding up the article. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she also didn’t want to talk about Nate and the hair cutting.
“I did.”
“Did you see his picture?”
“Yeah. I honestly can’t remember if he’s the same one I saw.”
“You’re not going to just make something up, though, say it was him anyway?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
Jenny was so flustered by all this new information, she wasn’t choosing her words very well.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“No, Jade, that’s not what I meant.”
But Jade was now staring at Jenny, as if they’d just met for the first time and she wasn’t sure what to believe.
“I was six,” Jade said. “And I did like the attention. But I never lied, Jenny.”
“I’m sorry, Jade. I didn’t mean it.”
“I think you did.”
“Okay, I did. I just…God, that was so mean of me. And now that little girl has just been found and I’m sort of freaking out and I’m so sorry. I can be so awful. I’m really glad that didn’t happen to you, I swear.”
“It was a long time ago. You have no idea how sick I am of the whole thing. We should just get over it. Can we do that?”
“Definitely. Done,” said Jenny.
Jade looked at Colonel Mustard in the kennel. She reached in to stroke his nose with the tip of her finger.
“That girl’s family is going to have to deal with this all over again,” said Jenny quietly.
Jade nodded. Mostly she just looked sad. “That guy you were with, he came by looking for you.”
“Nate?”
“Yeah, he said he had to leave and asked me to give you this note. He seems nice.”
“He is nice.”
Jade gave her a sideways glance.
“I’ll take Colonel Mustard back to our cots if you want,” she said, to change the subject. “He looks really traumatized.”
“Like all of us,” said Jenny.
“Yeah, like all of us,” Jade agreed.
She waited until Jade was out of sight before opening Nate’s note.
Hey Jenny,
Thanks for the haircut. Sorry I was a bit nervous about the scissors. Just wanted to say goodbye, we’re moving west with the fire. You guys can go back home soon.
It’s none of my business, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don’t think your sister upstages you at all. I noticed you and I haven’t noticed anyone new in four years.
Give my regards to Colonel Mustard. Look me up if you ever find yourself in Pigeon Creek. Just leave a note on the bulletin board at the Duck-In and I’ll get it. It’s a small town.
All the best,
Nate
THERE’S GAS IN THE TANK, LOUISE!
“Do you think it was because of her boots?”
Addie is lying on Louise’s bed, walking her dirty feet up the wall.
“Who?” asks Louise, even though she knows perfectly well who.
“Mom,” says Addie. “And Dad. The yellow boots.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Louise.
“They went on a second honeymoon—gross, by the way—and then they get home and can barely talk to each other,” says Addie. “Was it because of the ugly boots, and are they going to split up?”
“People don’t split up over boots,” says Louise.
“Why not?”
“They just don’t.”
“They could.”
“No, they could not.”
“Remember when you said people’s backs don’t go out because they bend over to pick up the shampoo? And then wham-o! Out went Dad’s back in the shower.”
“It’s called the last straw.”
“No, it was shampoo. Head and Shoulders,” says Addie.
“The shampoo was the last straw,” says Louise, trying to concentrate on putting on her mascara.
“So the ugly boots could have been the last straw?” asks Addie.
“I don’t know. Will you please get a washrag and wipe your dirty footprints off my wall?”
“If I don’t, will it be the last straw?”
Louise considers this, holding her eye open with her left hand, trying not to impale herself with the mascara brush in her right.
She has a long fuse for Addie, all things considered.
“Maybe,” she says.
Addie snorts disbelievingly.
“You’re funny, Louise.”
“Please just clean up the wall, in case Mom comes in here.”
That does it. Addie jumps up and goes into the jack-and-jill bathroom that separates their rooms. Their sisters, Gladys and Isabelle, have another jack-and-jill bathroom that separates theirs, but they’ve both gone off to college and don’t come home very often. Louise told Addie she should use the other bathroom—they could each have their own—but Addie says she likes sharing with Louise.
Four girls and twenty years of marriage.
Louise doesn’t even want to think about her parents and which straw might have been the last one.
She understands complexity and how to ignore things in a way that Addie does not. Her parents didn’t go on a second honeymoon. It was a Hail Mary trip, intended to save their crumbling marriage. Louise knows Addie has realized she was the surprise baby that came along eight years after her parents were supposedly done having children.
She tends to be overly sensitive about that at times.
“Mom threw them in the back of the closet and swore at them,” Addie says, dripping a sopping-wet washcloth all the way across Louise’s room.
“So what, maybe they gave her blisters.”
“She said the whole trip was ruined because of them.”
“Because of blisters?”
“No, because of the boots, Louise.”
Addie snaps her fingers twice near Louise’s head, a gesture her father often uses when he’s trying to get his daughters to “wake up and listen.”
“I heard her slamming drawers and throwing things into the closet, saying she didn’t care anymore, the boots had ruined her bleepity-bleepity-bleepity-bleeping trip.”
“Whoa.”
“Right?” Addie is pleased that news of her mother swearing has made Louise stop fussing with her eyelashes for half a second.
“What did she say after that?”
“She said something about how she hated Seattle, the people, the rain, all of it.”
Louise goes back to her mascara. She hadn’t understood why they’d chosen Seattle for a second honeymoon. But she couldn’t care less what her parents did anyway.
“Speaking of straws, I heard we shouldn’t use them anymore. One day they’re going to find one in the nose of a turtle. Plastic will destroy the world.”
Where does she come up with this stuff? Just keep talking, Addie. I am so out of here.
“Are you going over to Finn Carson’s?” Addie asks, smearing muddy water all over Louise’s wall.
“None of your beeswax,” says Louise, wondering if Addie is telepathic.
Yes, I am going over to Finn Carson’s and I’m going to lose the rest of my virginity, not that you need to know that.
“I heard that earwax can actually make you go deaf if you let it build up.”
Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town Page 14