She’s going to tell you something stupid, she said to me. Like, You will see many places. Or, You will influence children. She put on a fake European accent, deep and sexy, and I laughed.
She rolled her eyes. It was Memorial Day weekend, and the midway was busy with out-of-towners and their kids. We were off from school for four days; it was hot already. We padded down the pavement in flip-flops, her, almost sixteen, in white shorts that ended where her ass did. Me, twelve. I looked older in some ways, the worst ways, the kind that got extra looks from men. My body was enough to get leers on the midway. Guys who wanted you to go in the haunted house with them, or on the roller coaster, or who offered you a ride in their car to get you a pack of Four Loko at the gas station.
Khaki handed the guy outside the psychic’s shack a ten-dollar bill. He sat on a metal chair in gray-blue mechanic pants and work boots, a white T-shirt. He slumped a little, with his arms folded over his belly. His hair, slicked back in ripples that were sandy gray.
Inside the door, I slipped my hand into hers. When the psychic moved the curtain aside, she said, What is this, a two-for-one deal? But she smiled at us. Come in, girls, she said.
She wore a long sleeveless dress and a band around her long red hair that went over her forehead like a crown. Strings of beads, a silver ring on every finger. She sat at a card table, on another folding chair. There was one chair on the customer side, and she had us sit one at a time.
I went first. She held my hand, palm up, traced her fingers over the skin like she was drawing off water.
Well, she said. She looked at my left hand and then my right. You have a long ways to go, she said. But it will be worth it.
I remember thinking, Isn’t that always the case? Like, isn’t that just fucking life?
She turned my hand over, looked at the side, and at the heel, where the lines disappeared into my wrist.
You’ll meet a stranger, she said.
Everyone you meet for the first time is a stranger, Khaki said. She had her arms folded over her chest, stood looking at a hanging string of copper bells, tied with different colored ribbons.
Well, the psychic said slowly, this one is different. She winked at me. This one’s a man.
Khaki snorted. Don’t get into a car with a strange man, Rainy, she said.
Why don’t you sit down, she said to Khaki.
My hands were slender and long. I wore a thin-banded opal ring on my middle finger. My nails weren’t painted, just long and shaped, rounded on the edges.
Not Khaki. She never wore her nails long, and her hands were like hard squares. Her palms were broad and her fingers short and strong. She had hands that looked like they could take you apart. Often, she had them balled into fists.
The psychic held them, palm up, the way she had with mine, and she traced over them lightly, the same way.
You’re a hard worker, she said to Khaki.
You think? she said. Then, I’m just a girl with big hands.
I watched over Khaki’s shoulder while the psychic traced triangles on her palm.
Maybe you should read me, she said to Khaki.
Maybe. Khaki took her hands away.
You’re going to break a lot of hearts, she said.
That’s my fortune? Thanks, Khaki said.
Outside, in the sun, the barker in front of the games was calling to us. One shot, he said, holding a basketball. One basket and you win, he said.
Why did she say that? I asked. That you should read her?
Khaki snorted. She put her white sunglasses back on, lit a cigarette. She’s just a dyke who wants my big hands up her twat, she said.
I tried to laugh. How do you know? I said.
How do I know she wants me? Khaki said. Oh Rayelle.
No, I said, that she’s . . .
A dyke? Oh Rayelle, she said again. I watched a clean straight line of smoke come out her nose. Her shoulders, square and brown in the sun. It takes one to know one, she said to me.
But she left with a man. She was the one who got in the car, not with a stranger, but with a man she knew, and left home.
And then, ten years later, I did the same.
Denis, Couper says, it’s good to see you in person. Couper shakes hands with him, but Denis just looks at me.
This is my assistant, Couper says, Rayelle Reed.
Denis says hello, but doesn’t shake my hand. He looks at me, looks away, looks at Couper, at the floor, anywhere he doesn’t have to look dead on at me. Then finally he stands directly in front of Couper, his hand on Couper’s elbow.
Likewise, he says to Couper. He flicks an eyebrow, flirty.
They sit on the couch with a glass coffee table in front of them and I watch while Couper lays out pictures and a blank sheet of paper, one at a time, like he’s the one telling fortunes with cards.
I’m down to eight girls, Couper says. Holly. Alyssa. Jessa. Florida. Caitlin. Denise. Elizabeth. Haylee.
Plus this one, Couper says, and then glances at me before he lays down a picture of Khaki.
And there she is, her face, after all this time. She’s a kid, maybe fifteen, probably the last school picture taken. The background, hot pink and striped. Her hair, with bangs that year, angled across her forehead, the tips of her hair to a point above her collarbone.
Where did you find that? I say.
On file at the school, he says.
Jesus, I think. Who knows what else he’s found. She’s not, I say, and Couper shushes me.
She’s not dead, I think. She can’t be. I could kick him for shushing me.
Haylee, Denis says, moving one picture out, has not been found yet?
Right, Couper says.
Haylee, a round-faced kid with pigtails, in a flowered tank top and a jean skirt. Like many of them, the picture is grainy, cropped, and zoomed in from some other shot, the features in the face lost in a bad reproduction.
Holly, from the posters in town, a picture in her own front yard in South Lake, holding the handlebars of her bike.
Alyssa, before and after.
Jessa, with the baby.
Florida, a sheet of paper with only the word typed in the middle.
Caitlin, a big-boned blonde, standing beside a pickup truck.
Denise, with a butch haircut and a leather jacket.
Elizabeth, from her college ID card. Small with light brown hair to her shoulders, wearing a smile that is shy, the kind of look that hides everything else.
The ruling for Florida, Couper says, is suicide. He rubs the back of his head. It was a stretch, he admits, including her. I thought it might fit the pattern of the others.
It’s not the same, Denis says. He slides the piece of paper around to the front. The feeling I get from her, he says, isn’t like the others. It’s a different violence, a different sadness. Deeper, farther away. Neither does this one, he says, and takes out Khaki’s photo. These, he says, moving Caitlin’s picture forward, are immediate. Swift. Crushing. He pushes Haylee, still undiscovered, to the end of the line.
The others? Denis asks, That you took out?
Recently solved, Couper says, and isolated.
How many did you start with? I ask.
Twelve, Couper says.
Who is this? Denis says about Khaki.
Kathleen Reed, Couper answers. She left South Lake around the same time Holly disappeared, Couper says. Not exactly a runaway, but close.
Related? Denis says. He holds the picture up, peering into her face.
We’re cousins, I say.
I look at Couper, who doesn’t return my look, even though I’m boring into his head with my stare. I refuse to believe any of it. I don’t believe Denis can possibly discern anything from just her picture.
They didn’t find all of Florida, Couper says.
Are there pictures? Denis says.
You don’t want to see the pictures. Her legs were gone, Couper says. The body, in the ocean for days. But there was no sign of trauma to the neck or the skull the
way the others showed.
Haylee is still living, Denis says, pointing. He doesn’t ask. He declares.
She’s only fifteen, Couper says. Her sister made the call.
How do you know any of this is related? I say. Maybe she’s just a runaway. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.
She is a runaway, Couper says. There’s no evidence that she was taken. She ran from her sister’s house. Florida, he says, moving the paper, was also a runaway, according to her mother.
You think there’s a man preying on runaway girls, I say.
Couper shrugs. It’s not unlikely.
Holly Jasper wasn’t a runaway, I say.
Nobody knows that.
She was nine years old, I say. And Jessa was twenty-six.
Are you saying grown women never run away? Couper says. He moves another picture. Caitlin was twenty-five, he says. Also with a baby.
Denis appears to labor with his breathing, out of breath like he’s just come up the stairs, but he’s sitting. I’m sorry to interrupt, Denis says. He holds his hands up, his eyes closed. He looks like he’s giving a blessing.
What? Couper says.
Denis opens his eyes toward me. Could I talk with you? he says. Alone?
No, I say. The hairs on my arms tingle, all of them, like quills on a porcupine. I don’t want to be read, I say. I stand up, ready to go out. I need a cigarette.
Just walk with me for a minute, Denis says. I’ll show you the garden.
It’s like the highway isn’t even there. There’s a tall fence, hiding it, but it’s not even that. There are huge hollyhocks looming over your head and, looking down, roses, big bushes of something scrubby and purple, and paths of cut green grass that curve around with low flowers, pansies, snapdragons and marigolds and regular stuff and then all these other plants, tall and bright and waving in the breeze. There are bees and butterflies, the bees so big and heavy they barely take flight when they move from flower to flower. There’s a pond and a little stone bench. Big goldfish circling in the water.
I can’t smoke out here. It would be worse than smoking inside. All that fragrance and color. All that light. I stand still, and awkward, fidgeting.
Honey, Denis says, and when he touches my arm, it shocks me, not surprises, but like when you drag your feet on the carpet and then touch a doorknob. A crackle between us. In the dark, you would see the spark.
When he stands before me, he has to look up just a bit. I slouch out of habit, even with Couper. I’ve been compensating for everyone else’s shortness my whole life.
Honey, he says again, gently, like he’s afraid to startle me.
I remember, then, being in the front yard with Khaki when we were both little, maybe one of the first things I remember at all, at her house, not mine. Everything else blurs into one shitty kitchen.
Teddy and Doe lived out on Route 8 then, in an ugly little trailer that sat close to the road, and we played there in the grass, our hands and knees damp and stained, and Khaki wandered out, too close to the busy road. Teddy came up behind her, with that same gentle calling, not wanting to scare her, or startle her into running into traffic. She got down on her hands and knees too, crawling in the grass, creeping closer to Khaki, calling real soft, almost like she was trying to wake her up. She held a cookie out, crouched down beside the road while a truck went past, lifting up Khaki’s hair like a fan blew under her chin. She was seconds, inches away from being dead, crushed by a tractor trailer.
Denis lays his fingers on my wrist bone. Beside him, a line of roses that are doubled, white and red, their heads so big and full of petals they don’t even look like roses. I feel like I’m splitting open, like the shock he gave me is my skin breaking apart, that light is coming out of me, or bees, flying out of my mouth. He holds my hand.
You have, he says, slowly, closing his eyes. Quite a shadow. A sadness, he says, clinging to you.
No shit, I think.
I need you to work hard at moving away from that darkness, he says.
That’s hard to do, I say. Plus, I think, I’m here, I am moving. Moving is all I’ve been doing.
He takes both my hands, and from far away, we probably look like we’re getting married, standing in the garden, facing each other, saying our vows.
I’m worried, Denis says.
Don’t be, I say. It’s like I’m talking to Chuck. Like I’m being scolded for my lifestyle, my late-drinking, fucking-around lifestyle.
He seems to listen, his head cocked slightly, his eyes closing again. I’m afraid you’re in danger, he says to me.
With Couper? I ask.
Oh, God no, Denis says. I’ve known Couper for years, he says. Couper Gale wouldn’t hurt a fly. He might break your heart, he says, and laughs, but not before he tries to marry you. The way he laughs, warm and open, makes me wonder what else he knows about Couper. Not before he tries to marry you.
Then, It could be you, Denis says. In there, with those girls.
I shrug. I guess. What am I, but another woman running away, another woman taking up with someone who looks like he cares for her, looking for something else to hold on to, to move her away from what hurt her. I try to imagine the older ones, Jessa, Caitlin, hoping for something better than a baby and a man who hits you, and turning up in pieces on the bank of a river.
Summer, he says. Is Summer your sister?
Shut up, I say.
He smirks a little. Is she?
No. I yank my hands away.
Honey, he says, Rayelle, and reaches my arms before I back away from him to run.
Who is Summer?
That’s it, I say. We stand there like a V, me pulling away from him, and him desperate to hold on. That’s the dark cloud over my head, I tell him. The dangerous black hole I could fall into.
No, he says. No. Not at all. He lets go then and moves his hands round the side of my head, past my shoulders and down to my hips, like he’s pulling something off, like you would pull someone out of netting, someone who has gotten caught in a web.
She’s okay, he says to me.
Please stop talking.
Honey, no, he says. You’re not hearing me.
She’s not the darkness, I repeat, barely able to contain what wants to wail out of me. I’m ready to crumple onto the ground, next to the pond, to put my face underwater, and breathe.
Summer? No, he says. She’s the light in your heart.
He leaves me out there, and goes back in to confer with Couper again. I stay in the garden. There are short Japanese maples along the fence, their leaves fanned out like hands, soft and feathery. I sit on the bench by the pond with the goldfish. There are mounds of gravel pebbles around the pool, banking it. Tiny gray balls, perfectly round, like what you would put at the bottom of your fish tank, but gray instead of electric blue or hot pink. I pick one up in my hand and let it roll around like a pea. Then I get down on my knees, heavy, all at once, sinking to the earth, and I pick up the stones, by the handful, sifting. I let them drop through my fingers, cold and smooth, and I dump them, as many as I can pick up, as many as I can sift from my hands into the water, filling up the pool, giving the goldfish nowhere to go, no water left to swim in.
Inside, Couper is scribbling from one page to another in his flip-top notepad and Denis is in a galley kitchen off the living room, making tea. The photos are put away, and when Couper finishes, pausing to look up at the ceiling, and adding a few more lines, he closes the notebook with a flap and slides it into the file he’d brought in.
Denis brings out teacups on a tray, each one old and delicate, the tea in a ball that opens into a spiky flower as the water darkens. Mine tastes like clover, grassy and sweet. Denis sits on the couch next to Couper and runs his hand over his shoulder. He traces his fingers in a circle.
What’s this? Denis says.
Couper shrugs. Cotton? he says. He wears a military-style shirt, faded brown, soft.
No, Denis says, laughing. What happened here? I watch the movement of his wris
t tendons, his fingertips circling. I picture his middle finger in a divot in Couper’s back, but can’t think of one, can’t remember noticing anything there.
Couper’s eyes go wide with wonder. He answers Denis like he can’t believe the words are leaving his mouth.
That’s where I got shot, he says.
What’s left of the scar is just a wink. A tiny closed eyelid, or a dent from a fingernail, curved into the flesh of his shoulder blade. It’s less of a divot than I’d imagined when I watched the way Denis probed it. I sit with my legs around Couper, his shirt off, my fingers, my lips, tracing his skin.
It’s old, Couper says. Like the rest of me.
Does it hurt?
No. I forget about it most of the time.
I comb my fingers over the back of his head, by his ear. All the hairs at the edge gray, and the gray creeping into the darker hair on top. From the edges in, the way paper burns.
How’d you get yourself shot? I say, and lean, my lips meeting the smiling scar.
I was young and stupid, Couper says. And in over my head.
I hear his phone, its familiar burble of notes, and he turns it over, looks, and turns it back without answering.
A girl? I say.
Nope. He shakes his head and I feel the movement all the way down his big torso. The same way I always get myself into trouble, he says. Writing a story.
We park that night in a Walmart parking lot outside of Greenville. The lights stay on all night. The store is open all night, and the sound of cars, carts banging together, the downshift of tractor trailers pulling in, is constant. I want to ask him why he included Khaki, if he really thinks that she’s connected, that she could be missing, in pieces in the woods or sunk into a lake, the ocean somewhere.
But it’s late. Past midnight. Couper says, No more work tonight. Instead, he asks me about Summer.
You can say the unspeakable into the dark, even when that dark is interrupted by a streetlight, by headlights circling the parking lot. In a daylit garden filled with sunshine and flowers, the truth is too bright.
He runs his fingers up and down the grooves in my belly, the lines, vertical, but connected at the tops and bottoms. He goes from one to the next without having to jump, a whole highway of scar tissue, all the places where my skin tried to bust open but didn’t; it never broke at all, it only stretched.
The Scamp Page 12