The Window

by Amelia Brunskill

  Sarah sighed. “The pathetic thing is that sometimes I look at her and she’s so damn pretty that I catch myself wondering if all the stupid stuff she does—fasting, strange green protein shakes, obsessive moisturizing—is worth it. And then I get scared she’ll suck me into caring about it the way she does. That one day I’ll trade my eyeliner—which she hates—for her stupid coral lipstick and twenty years later, boom, I’ll be preaching the gospel of hot yoga and spending over an hour in front of the mirror each morning to achieve the ‘natural’ look.”

  “I like your eyeliner,” I said. “It makes you look like a warrior.”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes, even though I’d meant it—the eyeliner made her look fierce and tough, like an Amazon. We sat in silence for a few moments, and then I broached a subject I’d been wondering about for the last few days.

  “If you wanted to go somewhere with someone, where would you go?” I asked.

  “That’s super vague,” she said.

  “Like to drink,” I said. “Or other stuff.”

  “Other stuff?” Sarah grinned at me, her eyebrows arched.

  “This is hypothetical,” I assured her. “You can bring those eyebrows back down already.”

  “Hypothetical my ass.”

  “No, really,” I said. “Where do most people go? For stuff they can’t or don’t want to do at home.”

  “So, what—you’re just doing a sociological study of teenage habits in Birdton, right? Just an impartial survey to map the behavior of the natives?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, with you it’s almost possible. Well, the big place is the quarry. Especially to drink, but also to, you know, make out in dark corners or have the sexy-sex.”

  “The quarry? That was where there was a big party, right?”

  “Yeah, probably. Anyway, most people have three options: the backseat of their car, if they have one; some random place that just happens to be available when they need it; or the quarry.”

  “I guess privacy is kind of hard to come by around here.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, yet people find a way.” She stood up. “All right, my heat is coming up, so I’m going to head on down—wish me luck.”

  “I doubt you’ll need it,” I told her.

  “Thank you,” she said, placing her hand over her heart, beauty queen style. “That just means so much.” Then she pointed at my bag. “You got a message.”

  I followed her finger and saw a dim light shining through the thin canvas of my bag. “Thanks,” I said, but she’d already headed off to the track.

  It was only after I unzipped my bag that I remembered my phone wasn’t there. It was lying right beside me on the bleacher. The phone in my bag wasn’t my phone at all. It was Anna’s.

  I pulled it out, and there was a text on the screen:

  Stop calling me, little girl.

  I stared at it, bewildered.

  You don’t know, I thought. You don’t know that Anna is dead.

  We kept going to the bar. We needed it to escape.

  I didn’t ask Lily what she was trying to escape. I should have.

  I was trying to escape myself—even as I began to worry about what I might say if I got too drunk, talked too much.

  Somehow I thought of the bar as a safe place.

  That was a mistake.

  BIRDTON WAS NOT EXACTLY AN exciting metropolis filled with lots of newsworthy mayhem. People would get cited for drunk driving, someone might get arrested for shoplifting, and every couple of years, some guy went out hunting alone and either got lost in the woods or accidentally shot himself, usually in a painful but not lethal way, earning a new nickname in the process. That was the kind of news Birdton typically served up. Anna’s death had been major news, and it would’ve been very hard for a resident of Birdton to have missed it.

  For someone to not know that she’d died, they’d need to have been practically in a coma for the last few months, or to live outside town.

  Another thing that was odd about the message was the tone. Curt, annoyed. Dismissive, even. Whoever it was had seemed utterly unworried about not having heard from her in all this time, and totally uninterested in reestablishing contact.

  I had no idea how to track down someone whose only known characteristics were not living in Birdton and being an asshole.

  So I decided to move on to the quarry.

  * * *

  —

  THE QUARRY WAS ONLY THREE miles from school if you walked through the wooded area behind the parking lot. Which was what I did on Monday afternoon, after asking Sarah to tell Mr. Matthews I’d gone home because I wasn’t feeling well.

  In the woods, the trees were getting green again, and the sun filtered through their new leaves in an ever-changing pattern of light. I picked my way over dead logs and fallen branches, trying not to crush the occasional batch of emerging wildflowers.

  It took me almost an hour to make it to the fence. There was a sign, its wooden post embedded deep in the earth, telling people to stay out, and ancient frayed caution tape strewn across the barbed-wire fence. Someone had clearly made an effort, a long time ago, to keep people out. Now, though, the sign and the tape functioned as little more than a tepid suggestion, particularly since not far away, a section of the fence had been cut and curled in on itself, providing an easy gateway to the heart of the quarry.

  As I stepped through the wire, my foot hit a beer can, which rocked slightly and made a hollow sound. There were a lot of cans and bottles scattered around the dusty rock of the quarry, accompanied by the occasional fast-food wrapper or cigarette butt.

  I slowly made my way toward the base of the quarry, staring at the ground as I walked. At first, I hoped I might find the button from Anna’s dress or some other sign that she’d been here that night, but the longer I walked, the more I hoped I wouldn’t find anything. Because it was an ugly, sad place. This wasn’t somewhere you took someone you cared about, someone who wrote poems about you. This wasn’t anywhere I wanted Anna to have spent her last hours.

  I shouldn’t have expected anything else, I told myself. It was late and dark and she went to meet someone. It shouldn’t matter where they went. It shouldn’t.

  And then I thought back to us passing the beer between us. How it had briefly felt like we were embarking on something new together—both experiencing something more adult, more complicated than we’d known before. And I wondered if maybe I’d had it wrong, if I shouldn’t have stopped her from leaving that night, if instead, I should’ve headed out with her, had some guy of my own waiting. And I could’ve simply suggested that we just go—quietly, quietly—out the back door.

  Except that hadn’t been on the table. Not really. She’d known I wasn’t ready, that I would’ve wanted her to stay inside with me. So instead, she’d had Lily. Lily, who’d been ready for the same things she had, who’d usurped me as Anna’s best friend, her confidante, without my even knowing it had happened. Things might be changing now, but I would always be two steps behind, running after a ghost.

  I shook my head fast, trying to snap myself out of it, to keep moving. No crying, I thought. Not here, among the bottles and the condom wrappers and the gray rocks.

  So I continued to hike toward the bottom, looking for a tiny button in a vast quarry, looking for a sign of something that may well not have happened. Button in a quarry, needle in a haystack. This was not, I thought, behavior that Mrs. Hayes or my parents would approve of.

  By the time I reached the bottom, I had almost fallen twice, had scraped my hands from catching myself on the rocks, and had, I was fairly certain, a deep bruise forming on my left thigh. I had not, however, seen anything even vaguely useful.

  Some small branches lay scattered around a large pool of water, presumably victims of a strong wind that had pulled them off the trees. Other
than those, the only debris was more trash. After three meandering loops, I stood by the pool of water, trying to gear myself up to start heading back through the rocks to the trail. I stared down into the pool’s muddy depths, its layers of dead leaves and rainwater. I picked up one of the branches and half-heartedly poked at the leaves, trying to push them aside so I could see how deep it was. The leaves swirled around the stick, circling it before settling. Nothing but dirt. Dirt and leaves and rocks and—

  I paused, unsure of what I’d seen. I pushed the leaves aside again, using a gentler sweeping motion. There it was, a metallic glint. The rounded edge of something. I tried to carefully brush back the leaves again, but they settled back too quickly for me to get a clear look. It was too far into the pool for me to easily reach it, so I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my sleeves and pant legs. And then I waded in, treading lightly in case there was broken glass in my path, and plunged my hand into the water where I’d seen it.

  At first, all my fingers encountered were leaves and mud, and then the rock underneath them. Then they hit something firm. I reached around it, and then, even before I could see it, I knew what it was. A phone.

  I pulled it out and held it in my hands. It had been a nice phone once, in a plain black case. I stood there in the pool of disgusting water, holding the dripping phone, and suddenly I began to laugh. Good job, I thought. You’ve solved the case of the drowned phone. Here it is. The phone some drunk kid lost—probably eons ago—you’ve found it. Well done. Gold stars all around.

  I laughed until I was no longer sure if I was laughing or crying. Then I made myself take a series of long, slow breaths, and I tucked the still-wet phone, my treasured prize, into my pocket. Anna, if only you could see me now, I thought. You wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry either.

  I backtracked out of the pool without stepping on any glass and collected my shoes and socks. I made my way to one of the larger rocks near the path back up and sat down to try to clean the mud off my feet.

  Once my shoes and socks were back on, I stood up. My leg knocked against an upright bottle, which swayed and threatened to fall. When I leaned forward and steadied it, the label caught my eye. It read AMBERMOUNTAIN ALE, but the name wasn’t what drew my attention. It was the pattern—a brightly colored series of intertwined geometric shapes. The exact same pattern as the coasters on Anna’s bedside table. The ones I’d set aside, not giving much thought to where she might have gotten them from, not then knowing how much she’d kept from me.

  I stared at the bottle.

  The world, I felt, was giving me some very mixed signals.

  One night, we were in the bar’s parking lot, ready to go home. When Lily turned the key, the car only stuttered.

  She tried it once, twice, three times. Nothing. She started to panic. I had to talk her down, make sure she didn’t flood the engine. I told her it would be okay, that someone would help us.

  ONLY ONE RESTAURANT IN BIRDTON had a liquor license, and when I called and asked if they sold AmberMountain Ale and used its coasters, they told me they weren’t a “coasters kind of place.” Which left me with bars.

  I looked up all the ones within an hour’s drive and started calling them. Only one stocked AmberMountain Ale, and they were pretty sure they had some coasters lying around. Unfortunately, that bar wasn’t accessible by foot or by bus. Which meant I’d have to get someone to drive me there. Someone I trusted.

  It was not a very long list.

  * * *

  —

  “YOU WANT ME TO TAKE you to a bar?” Sarah asked, loud enough that I was worried the whole bus had heard her.

  “Yes,” I said. “And could you keep it down, please?”

  She raised a single eyebrow skyward, but she did lower her voice. “I didn’t think you drank. You been holding out on me, Cutter? All those books an elaborate charade—just props to hide the party girl underneath?”

  “I’m not going to drink.”

  “You want to go to a bar but you don’t want to drink. Okay, mystery wrapped in an enigma, I’m going to need a bit more than that,” she said.

  “No, this is me calling in a favor for going to the basketball game. I want you to take me to a bar and not ask me why I’m asking you.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me, especially given how you enjoyed going to the basketball game,” she said.

  “Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy driving me to the bar,” I countered.

  She was not amused by that. Still, she did—eventually—agree to do it.

  * * *

  —

  THE BAR WAS A GOOD half-hour drive out of town, on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. It was long past sundown when we got there, and the parking lot was dark.

  Sarah peered out her window at the bar. “God, this looks like the kind of place where when someone slumps over dead they just put a bowl of peanuts on top of them and use them as furniture.” She turned to me. “You sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”

  “No. I mean, thanks, but no. I shouldn’t be long. Probably not much more than fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll give you five.”

  “Ten.”

  “Fine. Ten minutes. Any longer than that, though, and I’ll start honking the horn and embarrass you in front of your new biker friends.”

  * * *

  —

  I COULD HEAR THE MUSIC before I opened the door, but the smell of stale smoke only hit me after I walked in. The lighting was dim enough that it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. Once they did, I could see the tall wood bar in the back, where three people, two men and one brawny woman with a large neck tattoo, were vying for the bartender’s attention, raising their voices to be heard above the music. I looked around, half expecting some bouncer to swoop down and demand my ID. While some of the men seated in booths looked up, watching me, none of them moved.

  I grabbed a stool at the end of the bar, assuming that the bartender, a guy in his forties with a ponytail and a ripped T-shirt, would be the best person to talk to. So I waited patiently for a lull and watched him as he took an order from one of the men, reaching down behind the counter for two beers, which he uncapped on the counter with a smooth, quick flick of his wrist. He nodded at me. “Be with you in a minute,” he mouthed.

  Four beers later, two bottled, two from the tap, the bartender walked over and leaned his hairy forearms on the bar.

  “So,” he said with a smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  He thinks I’m Anna, I realized with a start. Which meant I’d found the right place. Anna had been here. I looked at his face. It was broad and open, and he had a large nose and curious eyes. Could it be him? I thought. Was he the reason Anna came here?

  “No,” I said. “I’ve been…busy.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, with a lack of interest that inclined me to rule him back out. “You want the usual?”

  I nodded. He put up his finger and walked away. A minute later he brought me a glass. “That’ll be four bucks, but you can pay at the end if you like.” He looked around. “Where’s your friend? Parking the car or something?”

  “Friend?”

  He laughed. “Dark hair? Pretty? Looks like trouble? The one you always come with?”

  Lily.

  “Right,” I said. “She’s just on the phone, outside. She should be in, in a few.”

  “Good,” he said. “I wouldn’t really recommend you hanging out solo for too long.” He paused. “It really has been a while—I kind of figured you guys had gotten bored with this place.”

  “No. We’ve just been busy. With school. I mean, college.”

  He laughed again. “Right, college.”

  I swirled the ice in my drink, trying to buy myself time to find a good way to phrase what I wanted to ask. “There might, uh, be someone joining u
s. A guy—I think maybe we brought him here before?”

  He shrugged. “If you did, it wasn’t during one of my shifts. Your friend’s pretty friendly, but I don’t remember seeing you let anyone too close.” Then he smiled. “That reminds me—how was your big date?”

  “Sorry?”

  He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Girls. Last time you guys didn’t talk about anything else, now you can’t even remember it. You were all secretive about it too, kept asking her not to tell anyone about it.”

  “Oh. Right,” I said carefully. “It was that night?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so. Next day or something.”

  The sound of a car horn sounded outside. It went on for three seconds. Sarah’s warning that my time had elapsed.

  I put a five-dollar bill on the bar. “I think that’s my friend. I should go check on her.”

  “All right. Don’t stay away so long next time,” he said.

  I threw him a half smile, trying to channel Anna.

  I was almost to the door when it opened and a man walked in—a man in his late forties with pale blue eyes and skin that had been out too long in the sun. I tried to walk past him, but he saw me, and faster than I’d have thought possible, he caught me by the wrist.

  “Hey, look who it is,” he said.

  I yanked my hand away hard. “Let go.”

  “Careful, now,” he said, moving to block my access to the door. “It’s rude to rush out just as I’m trying to say hello.”

  I stared at him. No. I thought. Not him. No matter how little I knew about Anna, not this guy. Not because he was ugly, which he wasn’t—not exactly—but because the way he looked at me made my bones want to crawl out of my body. “Get out of my way,” I said.

  He narrowed his eyes. “You should be nicer,” he said. “Given what I have, you should be much nicer to me than that. Nice when you see me, quiet when you don’t. Don’t you forget that.”