by Mary Malcolm
Ana and Aunt Dolores set the table to reflect upcoming Halloween, and with the two men on either side of me and Ana and Dee across, I was a bug squished onto a slide under a very hot microscope. I was living my own reality show.
Between Aunt Dolores asking Eli and John uber personal and highly inappropriate questions, and both men fighting to hand me rolls as if my life depended on them, not to mention the horrible delight about my predicament on Ana’s face, I wanted nothing more than the night to end. I liked John, a lot, but this kind of display did not come across as sexy.
Drinks after dinner couldn’t come fast enough.
“So, Eli. You were recently promoted to detective?” Dee asked, handing him a pink cocktail.
He looked at the drink, sniffing it before taking a cautious sip. My sip wasn’t so cautious, and I downed my entire drink, ready for the next, before he had time to answer her question. “I’ve been a detective for about a year.” He set aside the drink. “John,” he asked. “How is the security business working out for you?”
John sat slouched and brooding in the chair. I swallowed the second cocktail Ana handed me. Please just let this end soon.
“I’m doing all right,” he said. “I’m more into my music and other hobbies than anything. And I’m glad I met Lucy. She is an amazing girl, especially with what she can do.”
I motioned for Ana to send another drink my way. She frowned at me.
Eli glared. “What do you mean what she can do?”
Great. He missed my earlier Dee lecture. This felt like round two.
John looked between them and sat up. “You know, like she kinda reads your mind but doesn’t. It’s cool. It makes her different, special.” Crap. Worst. Answer. Ever.
Dee frowned. I would have known what she was thinking even without any special ability. On my first day of high school Aunt Dolores warned me not to tell anyone about what I do. “They won’t understand and they’ll make life difficult for you,” she said.
I couldn’t imagine how. The way I saw it people would accept me, or they wouldn’t.
That day I stood up in every single classroom and introduced myself to the other students. Each teacher wanted the same thing: my name, where I came from, and something interesting about me. By fourth period, after lunch, I’d run out of interesting things. Plus, not one of the kids acted all that interested in the few things I’d said, so that left me in a strange predicament. What do I say now?
I knew what Dee had told me, and to an extent I believed her. But I also believed my mother: if people were to like me, it would be as myself. Plus, I had two more periods to go. “My name is Lucy Carver. I moved here from Shady Grove, Arkansas.” I paused and looked around at the bored faces of my new classmates. “And I’m psychic.”
A few of them tittered, and my teacher hushed them. “Okay, Lucy. I meant for you to tell us something like if you had any pets.”
“No, I am,” I insisted, knowing it wasn’t true but remembering someone pulling it off in a movie once. One of the boys in the front row rolled his eyes and tapped his pencil on his notebook. He slouched in his chair and leaned back to whisper something to his friend. “You,” I said, pointing right at him. “You pretend not to pay attention but you actually do. You spend a lot of time thinking about the answers and you rewrite them a lot.”
I’d been able to tell because of his pencil. It had bite marks all over it. And his eraser was worn to a nub. He spent a lot of time thinking about what he wrote and rethinking it. Anyone could tell that if they paid attention, I imagined.
He sat up straighter. A girl two desks over crossed her legs and closed her book as she watched me. “And you,” I said, “do a lot of walking. You walk to school, you have a job and you walk there. Your parents work a lot and you help by paying for your own things.”
She was as easy as the first kid. Her tennis shoes looked brand new on top but the soles were wearing down. They were also a lot more expensive than any parent would buy for their kid. I’d gone clothes shopping with my aunt Dolores that weekend and seen the same exact pair in the mall. Dee said no parent in their right mind would spend that much.
Plus, the girl looked tired, like she did more than just go to school. And she wore the same khaki pants and navy polo shirt as the workers at one of the local grocery stores. I figured she went right after school.
“That’s enough,” the teacher said. “Why don’t you go have a seat.”
“I can show you more,” I said.
“No, Ms. Carver, that is quite enough.”
I didn’t understand at the time, but it only took until the end of the day for word to get out. It wasn’t that I’d become some cool kid because I could read people; I became the freak who knew things I shouldn’t.
Luckily, within three weeks one of the seniors found out she was pregnant, and the school’s collective attention shifted from the freaky new kid to the mom-to-be.
Eli spoke before Dee. “She is special outside of what she can do. She’s funny and aggravating, completely unique. She doesn’t compare herself to other women. I may not know Lucy as well as the rest of you”—he looked right at John—“but I imagine most people would find her pretty likeable when it comes down to it.”
Great, right sense of chivalry, wrong guy. “I don’t think he meant—”
“I didn’t mean that’s the only thing I like about her,” John said, standing up. “It’s unique, that’s for sure, but Lucy is awesome, and I’m glad she chose me.”
“I haven’t chosen anyone—” I tried to say, but then Eli stood.
“She only recently started seeing you, isn’t that right, Mr. Poole? And correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you the one who told her to go talk to Mr. Winters?”
“I was but—”
“Weren’t you also the one who was with her the night he was found dead, providing yourself with an alibi?”
The two stood nose to nose.
“Yes, alibi. The operative word there,” John said, stabbing Eli with his words. “So what exactly are you saying, Detective?”
“I’m saying it seems awfully strange to me how much you’ve been involved with this case for someone who isn’t at all involved in this case,” Eli parried.
Dolores stood and placed herself between the two men. “You both need to stop right there,” she said in a voice that broached no argument. She looked at me. “So the detective knows too?”
I nodded and reached over for Eli’s cocktail, but Ana smacked my hand. “Look, Aunt Dolores. This is messy, but it’s my mess. I told John because I like him and I thought he could handle it. I told Eli because he’s the detective involved in this whole thing and I needed to explain how I knew what I knew.”
John spoke next. “Oh, so you’re involved then.”
“You,” I said back to him, “have nothing to be jealous of. And jealousy is not attractive to me, so if you want to be anything with me, you need to tuck that testosterone-fueled I’m the better man attitude away and trust that I’m into you.”
If he’d have been a dog, his tail would have been stuck between his legs.
“And you,” I said to Eli, “came here tonight to cause trouble. Maybe not originally, but for some reason you’ve decided it is your mission to make my life complicated, and I want it to stop. I will keep helping you, but I do not need you to help me. Do you understand that?”
His brow furrowed. “You need more help than anyone I have ever met,” he answered back. “You have little to no sense of what the world is like, you have people out there looking for you, who may or may not be dangerous, and you think you don’t need help?”
“What does he mean?” Aunt Dolores took a step closer, hovering by my side.
Eli’s phone rang, and he stepped from the room.
“This morning,” I said, realizing it would be better to fess up than face further questioning, “a guy stopped his car and asked if I was Lucy Carver.” Telling them the whole truth would only make things worse, so I ke
pt the car that tried to run me down to myself for now.
Ana came to my other side. “Did you know him? Who was he?”
“Did he say anything else?” John asked, joining in.
“Guys, I’m fine. It was probably nothing. Probably someone’s dad from high school that I don’t remember, or maybe someone I’ve worked with. There is no reason to get upset over some person who thought they knew me.” Aunt Dolores might think I blab too much, but if she knew just how much I don’t say, her heart would probably give out.
Eli came back in. “That was my captain. They’ve picked up Bonnie Kent, and he wants me to go in to question her.”
****
So I hadn’t originally planned to go anywhere with John after dinner, but since I only had two cocktails and he was driving anyway, we decided to get a late-night Frappuccino. Luckily, the daytime Jumping Bean barista didn’t seem to work nights. Which left me with no one to glare at, and my belly full of cocktail and icy coffee.
I mellowed as I leaned across the table to John. “You know I’m only into you, right?”
He took my hand and squeezed it. “I get that. I do. But you seem like you’re around Eli a lot, and he’s definitely more Brad Pitt than DJ Qualls.”
“Who’s DJ Qualls?”
“You know, that nerdy-looking goofy guy in all those movies.”
“Still don’t know him.”
“Kinda weird-looking, but super funny. Scrawny. Big nose.”
“Oh, so more like you.”
He grinned and leaned closer. “I’m a hot nerd,” he said in a husky voice that made my insides melt like jelly on Texas toast.
I got a whiff of his cologne only moments before his lips settled on my neck.
Not Acqua di Gio but definitely my new favorite. I sighed slightly as he pulled away.
“Hot nerd,” he said again.
****
“You are quite the little tart,” Ana said as we readied ourselves for bed that night.
I groaned and covered my face. I might be twenty-two, but I slept in the same room from when I was sixteen, only with a few less ponies and pictures of boy bands. I still had my twin double beds, and currently I occupied one of them while Ana perched upon the other, slathering lotion on her legs.
“I thought you said I was the only girl outside of the movies who could have two guys fighting over her?” she joked.
“They weren’t fighting over me,” I muttered from beneath the crook of my arm.
“Sure looked that way to me,” she answered a little too cheerfully.
I turned onto my side and propped my head on my hand. “Eli is just someone I’m working with. Part of the investigation. Once that’s over, he’s gone. I’m into John. I don’t know what their deals were tonight other than pure male dominance. And I have no idea why they acted like that.”
“Oh, I know why, Lucy Goosy. You’re one hot little package, and you don’t even know it.”
God, she could be annoying. I grinned. “I’m just me. The same ol’ me I’ve always been.”
“Only now you’re you but with huge ta-tas.”
It was true. I had developed a few more feminine curves over the past year or two. It was as if puberty hit me late, and Mother Nature made up for her oversight. “You think it’s because of these?” I motioned to the girls.
“Not only those. You’ve also figured out who you are. You know how Dee feels about you telling people what you can do, yet you stood up for yourself tonight when you could have easily backed down again.”
“She’s probably right, though,” I defended for no explainable reason.
“Right or wrong, it’s your decision to make. And always should be. Tonight you made it.” Ana wore a smug, I know best smile on her face as she capped the lotion and set it on the table next to the bed. She pulled out the covers and scooted under. Turning to face me, she reached for my hand.
I grabbed it, just like every time she spent the night since I met her. “Sweet dreams, Lucy Love.”
“Sweet dreams, Ana Angel.”
She turned out the light and the bed squeaked as she rolled onto her other side.
Eyes refusing to close and unable to let go of everything that happened at dinner, I stared at the shadows moving across the ceiling. Did Eli have feelings for me?
Outside the wind blew stronger. We were supposed to have a cold front coming in tonight, and the gusts blew tree branches against the window, making scraping noises.
It didn’t seem possible that he did. I saw how he flirted with the coffee slut. If he liked me, too, he had a strange way of showing it.
My phone vibrated with a text. I looked at it under the covers. Eli. Wanting to meet for coffee in the morning. Hopefully he wanted to apologize for acting the way he had tonight. Yeah, that would be nice. Not likely, but nice.
I smiled, thinking about John kissing my neck, before responding. “KK.”
Pulling my head from under the covers, I saw a new shadow on the wall. At first I dismissed it as a tree branch, but then it moved differently. Looked more like Ana sneaking in when we were teens. My breathing hitched. I squeezed the blanket. It moved again, this time definitely human-shaped. I turned toward the window and saw a flicker of light. Small, but definitely man-made. For a moment I froze, my belly tightening. Fear and adrenalin mixed as they coursed through my veins. Another flicker of light spurred me into action.
I didn’t want to panic Ana so I scooted up and peeked from under my covers.
The outline of a hand appeared in a shadow on my wall.
Reaching under the blanket, I texted Eli. Someone is outside bedroom window on second floor.
Be right there. Don’t do anything. Call 911.
I dialed and watched the hand reach for a branch. When a woman answered, my heart skipped. “There’s a man outside my window,” I whispered.
“What is your address?” she asked, not seeming to sense the true urgency of my situation.
“I’m on the second floor,” I added, “and there is a man in the tree outside my window.” I gave her my address, and she told me to stay on the phone. My brain wouldn’t let me; I had to wake Ana and Aunt Dolores. I scooted out of bed and crouched by Ana’s side. “Wake up, be quiet,” I whispered into her ear.
She moaned, then jumped when she saw me. “Wha—”
“Shh. Someone is outside the window. I have to go tell Aunt Dolores. I have 911 on the phone. C’mon.”
Handing her the phone, we slinked to the door and, with as little motion as possible I pulled it open.
We tiptoed down the hall, listening for sounds.
“This is so scary,” Ana whispered.
“Just stay close.”
Once inside Dee’s room, I looked first for shadows outside her window, then rushed to her bed. “Aunt Dolores, wake up. There’s someone outside.”
“Lemme get my gun,” she mumbled, reaching under her mattress.
“No!” I said in a hushed scream. “I called Eli and 911. The police are on their way. C’mon.” I turned back, but Ana wasn’t there.
We crept down the hallway together and back into my bedroom. “Ana,” I whispered, thinking she might have gone back for something. The window was still closed, and I didn’t see the shadow, but that didn’t mean I’d stay and have a tea party, either. “Ana,” I called again, more urgently.
Still no response and my heart threatened to burst through my rib cage. We went into the hallway. “Ana!” I tried one last time, but still no reply.
God, where was she?
For a moment my brain spun to the worst-case scenario. Ana, kidnapped by whomever had been outside. Why did she leave me? Who in the hell strikes out on their own when they have the boogieman lurking somewhere right outside?
A creaking sound came from downstairs. I had no idea if it was Ana or the person outside. Then, something broke.
Aunt Dolores heard it too. “Into the bathroom.” She pushed me ahead of her.
We ran in and locked th
e door. We slipped into the shower and pulled the curtain.
It unfolded like the scene from a scary movie. Any minute the axe-wielding murderer would burst through the door and chop us to bits. Another noise, definitely upstairs with us now. I whimpered, and Dee squeezed me. We trembled as doors opened all down the hallway. Someone was searching the rooms.
“Why is this happening?” I asked Aunt Dolores.
The person finally made it to the bathroom door. The knob shook as they turned it. Then rattled as they tried to break the lock.
When the person finally hit the door, it took everything in us not to yell when it busted open. The lights came on, blinding us temporarily.
The curtain pulled back, and we screamed.
“Police!”
The officer wore full gear and had his gun drawn, but holstered his weapon when he saw we were in our pajamas. “You ladies okay?”
“Yes,” I answered, glad for strong bladder control. “My friend Ana. She’s missing.”
“Downstairs,” he said. “We told her to meet us outside.”
I swallowed the tears that clogged the back of my throat. “Did you find the guy?”
“No, ma’am. Only a footprint in the mud, and a cigarette butt. We’re checking for fingerprints, but most likely it was a Peeping Tom or someone playing a prank.”
“Only a Peeping Tom.” Dee straightened her nightgown in a huff. “I don’t need no one peeping at me. Next time I’ll shoot the sonovabitch.”
We stepped out of the bathtub and followed the officer downstairs. The scene was surreal. Eli must have called in favors because for the number of officers in the room it looked like we’d been under siege. At least ten officers milled around, talking amongst themselves.
Ana bum-rushed us as soon as we cleared the landing. “Are you two all right?”
This time I couldn’t hold back the tears. I squeezed her as if she really had been kidnapped. “God, I was so scared for you.”
Dee joined us. “Shoulda just let me get my gun,” she groused.
I laughed at that, and the torrent of emotions I’d been feeling started to dissipate. I wiped my tears.