by Jan Burke
It was as if she hadn’t spoken.
“What kind of animal is Squeegee?” Genie asked.
“A lion,” Carrie said.
Genie burst into tears and handed her the A section of the Las Piernas News Express.
CHAPTER 37
Tuesday, May 2
6:25 A.M.
HUNTINGTON BEACH
“WHAT are you doing?” Carrie asked.
In the time since Carrie had read the article, they had whispered questions that could not be answered and reassured each other a dozen times that they were “sisters no matter what.” They had cried softly while hugging each other, then sat quietly together. They had made and discarded half a dozen plans. Now Genie had taken her by the hand and was leading her downstairs again.
“We have to call her now, before Mom wakes up,” Genie whispered back.
“Who?”
“Irene Kelly.”
Irene Kelly was the reporter who had written the story about Carrie. Or a story about a girl named Carla, whose picture looked like pictures Mom had of Carrie as a baby, but who seemed to Carrie to be a different girl. The room — the room that belonged to that little girl named Carla — looked familiar.
And a lot of the story was about Mom, whose picture was in the paper, too, even though the color and length of her hair had changed since those photos were taken. The strange thing was, Carrie could remember Mom looking like that, although Genie couldn’t. In the story, Mom’s name was Bonnie, not Victoria.
Carrie wasn’t so sure about the man named Blake Ives. One minute he seemed familiar to her. The next minute he seemed to be a complete unknown.
The man Bonnie Creci Ives ran away with when she divorced Blake Ives looked mean. Reggie Faroe. Apparently he was one of the reasons Bonnie Ives didn’t get custody of her daughter. Reggie Faroe was one of the reasons Blake Ives was scared about what had happened to his daughter. Carrie didn’t blame him.
“I don’t remember Reggie Faroe at all,” Carrie had told Genie.
“You were only two when your parents divorced,” Genie had said. “You were too little. She didn’t take you from your dad until a year later.”
That was the way Genie was talking now, as if it were all about Carrie and not Carla. As if you could believe everything you read in the paper.
But Carrie was finding it impossible to convince herself that the story was about a different girl.
IRENE KELLY’S e-mail address and phone number had appeared at the end of the article. On almost all the local stories in the paper, reporters’ e-mail addresses and phone numbers appeared, with an invitation to readers:
Care to comment on this story?
On this story, the ending part was a little different. In addition to the comment line, it said that if you had information on the whereabouts of Carla Ives or Bonnie Creci Ives, to e-mail or call Irene Kelly.
“I don’t think we should call her,” Carrie said.
“Why not?”
“Maybe I should just ask Mom and Dad about it.”
Genie just looked at her. This was not the first time the proposal had been made. Mom and Dad were angry with each other right now. Bringing this up would only make them turn that anger toward whoever was stupid enough to mention it to them.
“If Mom didn’t make life awful for you,” Genie said, “she would lie about it. And so would Dad. Because they have been lying about you every single day.”
Carrie was silent.
“Doesn’t that make you angry?” Genie asked.
“Yes,” Carrie admitted. And hurt. And confused. But she had already told Genie about those feelings, and didn’t repeat that now. Besides, they had all pretty much turned into one feeling at this point: numbness. Genie pulled her into the downstairs office and closed the door softly behind them. Carrie stood still as Genie made her way through the darkness toward the desk.
Carrie almost hoped the moment in the dark would last forever. She could hide in its nothingness without having to make choices that might hurt people or cause problems.
Genie turned on the desk lamp. As if she could read Carrie’s mind, she said, “We both know that something is going wrong around here. It isn’t just you. And you aren’t causing problems. You didn’t make Mom have sex with Uncle Dex.”
“Genie!”
“Well, she did.” She picked up the phone and started to dial.
“Wait! I don’t think we should call now!”
“Why not?”
“We might wake her up,” Carrie said, knowing that the real reason was that she was so scared, she felt as if she needed to go to the bathroom.
“It’s a number at the newspaper,” Genie said. “See? The reporters’ phone numbers all begin the same way.”
It was the kind of thing Genie was always quick to figure out — relationships of numbers, codes, and visual groupings. Maybe, Carrie thought, I could have figured it out if the story was about Genie. She found that since reading the article, she wasn’t able to think right.
“You’re scared to do it?” Genie asked.
Carrie nodded.
“I’ll do it for you.”
She finished dialing. She motioned Carrie closer and held the phone so that Carrie could hear the outgoing message.
“You’ve reached the voice mail of Irene Kelly at the Las Piernas News Express. I’ll be out of the office on Monday, May first, but I’ll return on Tuesday. Please leave a message after the tone, including a callback number with your area code. If this is urgent, press three to reach our news department or zero to reach an operator.”
Genie took a breath and said in a soft voice, “Hello, Ms. Kelly. I’m calling about the girl you wrote about in today’s paper. She would like to meet you—”
Carrie reached over and hung up the phone.
“What did you do that for?” Genie said, forgetting to keep her voice low.
Carrie cringed and looked up at the ceiling.
Genie scrunched up her shoulders. “Sorry!” she whispered.
They listened for long moments but didn’t hear any footsteps or other sounds coming from upstairs.
Carrie looked at Genie in exasperation. “Why did you tell that reporter I wanted to meet her?”
“Because you need to get more information. What if your real dad isn’t nice? She’ll know. She’s met him.”
“So has Mom.”
“Mom won’t tell you the truth about him.”
Carrie had to acknowledge that this was likely. But what might happen if she met this reporter? “Maybe I could just call her and talk to her about him.”
“Carrie,” Genie said, rolling her eyes. “We are calling her at six-thirty in the morning because we can’t make phone calls at a normal time without Mom knowing. If we didn’t call Grandfather and our aunts and uncles on their birthdays, we wouldn’t know how to use a phone!”
“We call our cousins….”
That got another roll of the eyes.
“How am I going to meet her?” Carrie asked. “It’s harder to get out of the house than it is to make a phone call.”
“Oh, no it’s not.”
“Yes, it—”
“Carrie! Listen to me. Dad is already out of the house. We have Mom outnumbered four to one. When it’s time for you to meet Ms. Kelly, I’ll start a game of hide-and-seek. You’ll just take a little longer to be found than the rest of us. You’ll go down to the corner, let her see that you are the girl in the photo, and come back here. Then hide behind the shower curtain in the downstairs bathroom. The boys will never look there.”
Temporarily distracted from her worries, Carrie said, “They won’t? Why not?”
“Troy and Aaron think there’s a bogeyman who lives in the shower.”
“Why?”
“I told them there was one, of course. It means there’s at least one bathroom I can use without little boys bugging me. Although I think Troy is starting to have doubts.”
“You wonder why you get in trouble more
often than I do? What if they tell Mom?”
“They won’t tell Mom because I said that right now the bogeyman was trapped in there by a hex, but that he always knew what little boys said to their parents, and if they mentioned him to Mom or Dad, he’d go live under their beds.”
“Oh, poor Troy and Aaron!” Carrie tried to make it sound the way Mom would, but she ruined it by smiling.
“To answer the first question, I’ve never wondered why I get in more trouble.”
Carrie sighed. “I’m not as brave as you, Genie.”
“You are. You just don’t know it yet.”
“What if I get caught?”
“I’ll take the blame. I’m the troublemaker, remember? They’ll believe it was totally my idea.”
“It is your idea!”
Genie smiled. “See, even you believe it.”
Carrie had to clap her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
Genie dialed the phone again. “Ms. Kelly sounds nice,” she said as she listened to the outgoing message again.
“Hi, Ms. Kelly, it’s me again. I’m sorry about the last time. Please meet me today in Huntington Beach. Please come to the corner of Playa Azul and Vista del Mar Streets at ten-fifteen this morning. Please do not tell anyone else you are meeting me, especially not Mr. Ives. I don’t want to hurt his feelings if I’m wrong. Thank you, and please don’t try to call me. If you aren’t at the corner at ten-fifteen, we’ll just try another day, but it might be a long time before I can do that, so please, please, pretty please try to make it today. Alone. Thank you. Good-bye.”
Genie hung up and looked at Carrie with triumph.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Carrie said.
“No, you aren’t.”
“What do I tell her?”
“Okay, first, you don’t get in the car with her.”
“Even I know better than that.”
“She’ll see that you’re Carla just from the photo.”
“You think so?”
“Well, she might. Anyway, tell her that you want to know about Blake Ives.”
“And that I’m happy and have a good family and I don’t want to hurt them.”
Genie seemed not to hear this. “Tell her about your rememberings. Ask her if a family by the name of Mason is missing a girl my age.”
“Do you remember them?”
She shrugged. “It’s like it is for you. I get these pictures in my head, or remember smells — I remember the smell of paint.” She began snooping around the desk. Genie was always getting into things.
“Paint?”
“Like oil paint.” She looked up from a stack of outgoing mail she had been studying. “Isn’t that funny? Voices.” She shrugged again. “People, but I can’t really see their faces. I wish I knew more about them.” She was studying the big Priority Mail envelopes now.
“I’m not so sure I want to find out more about my father,” Carrie said.
Genie smiled. “You just called him your father. You want to find out. You read that article — he’s sad without you.”
“But Dad would be sad without me.”
“True. So would I. But I think that we’re going to be sad and upset if we keep wondering about this. We aren’t going to be able to hide what we know from Mom and Dad forever.”
This thought didn’t help settle Carrie’s stomach.
Genie put an arm around her shoulders. “Ask Ms. Kelly to help you. She might know how you can live with us but still see your father.”
“Or she might call the police on Mom and Dad.”
“I don’t think so. Don’t worry. I didn’t give Ms. Kelly our address or phone number. Make her drive off before you come back to the house.”
“And if she won’t?”
“Run to another house and hide in the yard.”
“And meanwhile? What will you be doing?”
“Lying like crazy,” she said, and they started to laugh, having a really hard time not being noisy.
But their laughter was cut short as they heard the automatic garage door opener kick into gear.
“Oh no, Dad’s home!”
“Shhh,” Genie said, snapping off the light.
This time, the darkness didn’t seem so friendly.
CHAPTER 38
Tuesday, May 2
7:02 A.M.
HUNTINGTON BEACH
GENIE took Carrie by the hand again, leading her through the dark room with an unerring ability to avoid furniture, making Carrie wonder how many times Genie had been snooping around in the office.
They stopped at the closed door and pressed their ears to it. They heard the sound of the garage door closing again, the motor of the van shutting off. The van door closing. Dad opening the door into the house, his footsteps passing by. They held their breath.
He didn’t hesitate near the office. He walked quickly toward the kitchen. They exhaled.
Genie carefully opened the door, transferred her hold on it to the knob on the outside. She let Carrie step into the hallway and then shut the door silently, slowly rotating the knob until the door latched again with a small snick.
They waited for some reaction to that sound, but in the kitchen, Dad was making quite a bit of noise. If he was fixing his own breakfast, they might be able to pretend they had just come downstairs. They usually got up at around this time to make breakfast for the family.
They had crept halfway down the hallway and were about to turn the corner leading to the kitchen when they heard the boys coming downstairs. Their voices carried to where the girls stood hidden from view.
“Daddy!” That was Aaron.
“Hi, Dad,” Troy said. “What are you doing?”
“Good morning, boys! You’re just in time to help me out. Will you go upstairs and tell Mom we’re going to serve her breakfast in bed?”
“Is it Mother’s Day?” Troy asked, confused.
“No, just a special treat for Mom.”
“Why are you making it?” Aaron asked. “That’s a girl’s job.”
Carrie and Genie exchanged a look. Genie signed, Aaron gets oatmeal for a week. Carrie smiled and signed agreement. Aaron hated oatmeal. Mom said the boy-girl thing he was into was just a phase, but it seemed like a long phase.
“No, no, it’s not a girl’s job,” Dad said. “When you and Troy are a little older, you’ll learn to cook, too. Boys have to be able to take care of themselves. You might not always have a girl in the house to cook for you.” He paused, then said, “Go on, go upstairs before Mom gets up. Hurry. Stay up there with her — it’s your job to make sure she doesn’t get up before we bring breakfast to her.”
The girls waited for the boys to go upstairs before they entered the kitchen. Dad was washing a small bowl at the sink. When he saw them he wished them a good morning and told them his breakfast-in-bed plan. Although he was trying to act cheerful, Carrie could see that he was still just as upset as he had been earlier this morning, when they sat on the stairs together.
Carrie suddenly thought of Uncle Dex, and wondered if Dad was doing this to make Mom like him again.
“How can we help?” Carrie asked.
“Would you please make some eggs and bacon? You know how Mom likes them.”
“Sure. Over medium.”
“I’ll make some toast,” Genie said.
“Thank you, girls.”
“What’s this for?” Genie asked, holding up a stalk of celery.
“Oh, for the special drink I’m making her.”
“Celery juice?” Genie said with disgust.
He laughed. “No, no. A Bloody Mary — a type of one, anyway. One without alcohol in it.”
“Bloody Mary? Like the queen?” Carrie asked.
“Yes, although I don’t think she actually had anything to do with the drink.”
“What queen?” Genie asked.
History was one of Carrie’s strongest subjects. “She was the queen of England. Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry the Eighth and Catherine of A
ragon. Queen Mary I.” She began to tell the tale of how the queen got her nickname. It was a good and comfortable thing to do, to talk about history, even sad history. She noticed that Genie and Dad seemed to relax, hearing her little kitchen lesson. Genie asked questions, and Dad did, too. They could forget about any problems or worries they had right now and concentrate on the troubles of people who lived centuries ago. History was something she knew, something certain — or so it seemed, even though Grandfather told her that history changed depending on who told it. She could understand that.
She fell silent, thinking that maybe her father — Mr. Ives, if he was her father — might have one version of history to tell and her mom another. More than what was in the newspaper. She would have to listen to both versions. And to Dad’s, too.
Genie glanced at Carrie in concern, then asked Dad about the Bloody Mary drink. When he told her the ingredients, she said, “That sounds weird.”
“Mom will think of it as a special treat.”
Something about that upset him again. Even Genie noticed that. She looked at Carrie and quickly signed, What’s wrong with Dad?
Carrie made the sign for mother and left it at that.
Carrie was making up the tray, which usually only got used if someone was sick and couldn’t get out of bed, or on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
Genie said, “Dad, is Mom sick?”
Carrie wondered if she had been reading her thoughts, but turned to see her holding a prescription bottle.
“No, no,” he said, taking the bottle of pills from her. “This is an old prescription, see?”
They saw that he was right.
“Go on, take breakfast up to Mom before it gets cold. And Genie, thank you for finding these. It was dangerous to have them down where the boys might get to them. Mom probably meant to throw them away. I’ll go do that now and be right up with you.” He started toward the bathroom, then turned back to them and said, “Don’t mention this to Mom, okay? She’d probably get upset if she realized she left them down here. I don’t want to ruin her breakfast.”
As they went up the stairs, Genie whispered, “Does he know about Uncle Dex and Mom?”
“I don’t know. I — I think so.”