Hidden Pieces

by Paula Stokes

  Mom strolls up to the front about twenty minutes after I get there. She glances around the dining area, her expression neutral despite the fact we have only two customers right now. “Call me if you need anything,” she tells me. “Otherwise I’ll see you when you get home.”

  “Whatever, old lady,” I joke. “We both know you’ll be tucked in bed by eight p.m. like a proper senior citizen.”

  Mom gasps in fake outrage, even though it’s true. She goes to bed early almost every night so she can be up at five a.m. to come back here. That’s what made it so easy for me to meet up with Holden at the Sea Cliff. As long as I left after eight and got back before five, my mom had no idea I wasn’t at home, studying or sleeping like I should have been.

  “I need a lot of beauty sleep,” she tells me. “So my hair will grow back thick and lustrous.”

  “I hope it grows back pink so you have to learn how to be cool,” I joke. Her oncologist warned her that sometimes after chemotherapy hair grows back a different color or texture, but I’m pretty sure he just meant she might go from blond to light brown or something.

  Mom heads out, and over the next hour I serve the after-school usuals: Thea and Janine, who clean the rent-a-cottages up on Cape Azure; Holden’s friend Zak, who gets coffee on his way to work; a trio of freshman girls who show up almost every evening to divvy up their math and science homework and then share answers; and the geometry teacher who drives forty-five miles from Lincoln City twice a week to run a small group tutoring session.

  Then the tiny Christmas bells Mom has hanging over the door jingle as a new customer comes in—it’s Lourdes, my mom’s best friend, who owns the Shop-a-Lot across the street. (“More like shop a little,” Julia likes to joke. The inside is about the same size as my mom’s bedroom, but it’s the closest thing Three Rocks has to a grocery store.)

  “Hey, Lourdes. The usual?” Smiling, I prepare to ring in her favorite drink—a cinnamon vanilla latte.

  “Actually, I’m feeling like a sandwich today.” She tosses her long black braid back over her shoulder. “What do you recommend?”

  “Hmm.” Whenever I eat here, I normally just slap some turkey and provolone on bread. I pluck one of our to-go menus from the stand by the register and scan the choices. “The Courtney Love and the Raymond Carver are both popular,” I say. “The Ahmad Rashad is also good. And the River Phoenix.” All our sandwiches are named after famous Oregonians.

  Lourdes squints at the paper. “Why is this sandwich called the Courtney Love?”

  “Order it and find out,” I say with a grin.

  “It didn’t kill Kurt Cobain or anything, did it?”

  “Ha. No,” I say. “Our food has never killed anyone, thank you very much.” I clear my throat. “Come on, Lourdes. Chunks of tender pot roast on a single piece of Texas toast, smothered in cheese and gravy? Clearly, it’s a hot mess.”

  “Ah, I get it. Well, it sounds delicious. I’ll give it a try. Plus a medium cinnamon vanilla latte.”

  I ring up her order and swipe her credit card through the machine. Matt starts working on her sandwich while I make her drink. I grind the beans for her espresso, and while it’s brewing I add flavor shots of cinnamon and vanilla to her paper cup.

  “Seems like your mom’s doing pretty well,” Lourdes says.

  “So far so good.” I knock gently on the wooden countertop as I start steaming some milk.

  “How’s Luke?” she asks. “Have you talked to him lately?”

  “Yeah, a couple nights ago. He’s good too,” I say. “He’ll hopefully be back for a visit in January.”

  My hand shakes a little as I pour the espresso and hot milk into her cup. I might be a temporary town hero because of pulling Sam out of the fire, but Luke is one of the golden boys of Three Rocks. The whole O’Riley clan is sort of famous for running the best restaurant in town, but Luke also happens to be the guy who led our school to the state hockey championships three years straight. And then two summers ago he was working as a lifeguard when the mayor’s daughter tipped her sailboat over. She got caught up in the ropes and would have drowned if Luke hadn’t commandeered a kid’s kayak and paddled out to rescue her. He’s been semi-famous ever since.

  I’m not sure what other people would say if they found out I’m not with Luke anymore—that I’m hooking up with Holden Hassler instead. Actually, that’s a lie. I do know what they’d say. It wouldn’t be as bad as what some people still whisper about my mother, but it wouldn’t be good. My cheeks flush a little as I imagine the gossip. That’s another thing about small towns. Not only does everyone know everything, but they all have a strong opinion about everything, too. And they all feel perfectly justified in sharing it.

  After the shop closes, I wipe down all the tables and then count the money in the register and put it into the safe.

  “I made more brownies and sugar cookies, and I’ve got trays of croissants ready to go in the oven tomorrow,” Matt tells me as we’re grabbing our jackets and signing out on our time cards in the back. He does a lot of the prep work for our baked goods.

  “Cool,” I say. “My mom will really appreciate that. Thanks.”

  “What are you up to tonight?” Matt slides into his coat. It’s black and wool, like Holden’s, except Matt’s smells like marijuana instead of charred hotel. He keeps talking without giving me a chance to reply. “My friend is having a house party. You should come check it out. You must get bored in this crap-ass little town with almost no one else your age.”

  “Sounds fun, but I can’t,” I say. “My boyfriend is supposed to call me from Afghanistan, so I’d better get home.” This is a blatant lie, but Matt doesn’t know that.

  He retrieves a knitted hat from his pocket and pulls it over his spiky blond hair. “Maybe another time, then? I mean, it’s not like O’Riley owns you, right?”

  I grit my teeth. “Look, I don’t mind working with you, but you should probably stop hitting on me, okay?”

  “Sheesh, I was just being friendly.” Matt pushes through the door out into the cold and I’m right behind him. As I pause to lock the front door, he turns to me and says, “You know, some girls would be flattered.”

  I jam the keys into my back pocket. “And some girls would tell their mom to fire you for sexual harassment.”

  Matt lives his hands up in mock self-defense. “Whoa. Calm down, Woods. No reason to go nuclear.” He turns away and starts down the sidewalk.

  “Wait,” I say. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just stressed. I won’t say anything to my mom if you promise to knock it off. And I was flattered, the first couple of times, okay?”

  “Message received.” Matt pulls a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. “I’m going to guess you don’t want a ride home.”

  “No thanks. I’m good.”

  Matt crosses the street to the small paved lot behind the Three Rocks Community Center where he usually parks his car. I head in the opposite direction. Pulling my jacket tight around my body, I tilt my chin down toward my chest to keep the wind from directly hitting my face. All the businesses on Main Street are dark. I pass the ice-cream shop (closed for the season), the descriptively named Tacos & Burgers (our main source of competition at lunchtime), and the post office (staffed by one person on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for all your three-day-a-week postal needs). On the other side of the street is the community center (which also doubles as a nondenominational church every Sunday), the surf and scuba shop (open on weekends), the Shop-a-Lot, and the Three Rocks Motel, the last two being some of the only businesses in town that are open every day. Luke’s family’s restaurant, Fintastic, is open every night for dinner and for lunch on weekends, but it’s located on the way out of town, on the highway that leads toward Tillamook in one direction and Cape Azure in the other.

  When I reach the end of Main Street, I turn toward Cape Azure. On the left side of Highway W, a gravel road leads into the Three Rocks Memorial Park, a small cemetery that takes up the lower eastern section o
f Puffin Hill. There are only about sixty people buried there. My grandparents are two of them. My neighborhood is on the other side of the highway, in a recessed area about a half mile from the beach.

  Mom’s house—which we have only because my grandparents owned it before us and paid off most of the mortgage—is smashed in alongside twenty other small houses and Three Rocks Manor, our town’s only apartment complex. Unlike the houses on Puffin Hill that are partially sheltered by tree cover, our neighborhood might as well be on the plains of Kansas. The wind blowing in from the ocean cuts right through the fabric of my coat as I hurry across the damp lawn. When I open the storm door, I’m surprised to see a white envelope wedged in next to the doorknob. Whoever left this must have done it in the last couple of hours, and without Mom seeing them. I’m even more surprised when I flip over the envelope and see my first name neatly printed on the outside in small red capital letters. It’s probably a Christmas card.

  I slip the envelope into the back pocket of my jeans and insert my key into the lock, clucking my tongue in disgust when I realize my mom left the door unlocked again. She’s kind of lax about security because Three Rocks is so small and almost nothing bad ever happens, but I hate the thought of her sleeping in her bedroom, completely vulnerable to some deranged lunatic who might break in.

  I step inside the house, closing the door behind me. Betsy is sprawled out on the living room floor. She rises to her feet and wags her tail when she sees me.

  “Shh,” I tell her. I toss my jacket on the back of the futon couch and then tiptoe into the kitchen, where I give Betsy fresh water and refill her bowl of kibble. “You need to go out?” I whisper.

  Even at the low volume, Betsy gets excited at the word “out.” I open the back door off the kitchen and let her into our small, square backyard, which is nothing but a patch of dead grass and an old dilapidated shed where Mom still keeps her gardening stuff, even though the thing looks like it’s two good gusts from blowing all the way to the beach. While I wait for Betsy to finish her business, I pull the envelope out of my jeans pocket and open it.

  Instead of a card, there’s a folded piece of paper tucked inside. It’s a printed note. I flop down at the kitchen table and start to read:

  “It was instinct for me to try to save that guy. It wasn’t a hard decision. Maybe I’m just good under pressure.” That’s what you told the police. That’s what you told the newspaper. Let’s test that theory.

  A. Write a full confession about what really happened at the Sea Cliff Inn that night. Post it to your Facebook page by eight p.m. tomorrow. It might ruin your life, but . . .

  B. If you don’t post a confession, I will ruin the life of someone you care about.

  Choose wisely.

  Six

  THERE’S A SUDDEN SCRATCHING SOUND, and I jump so hard I nearly drop the paper on the floor. But it’s just Betsy. When she’s ready to come in, she’s ready to come in. She lifts up onto her hind legs and drags her toenails down the outside of the door again.

  “Okay, okay,” I mutter.

  I let Betsy inside and then go back to the letter. My hands shake as I read it a second time. Fuck. Who could have left this for me? And why? There’s no way I’m posting a confession online. My Facebook friends include my mom, Luke, about thirty of my classmates, most of the people who work at the café, and some of Luke’s family. I imagine all of them reading my scandalous summary of that evening’s activities. Well, Mrs. O’Riley. First I evaded a marriage proposal from your son, then I slammed some vodka, then I hooked up with another guy, then I burned down a hotel. Pretty standard night.

  How long would it be before everyone in town heard about the post? Five minutes? How long would it take someone to call the cops? An hour? It kills me that I can absolutely envision the look on my mom’s face if Holden’s mom showed up at the door with an arrest warrant for me.

  I consider the specific wording of the letter. It’s very vague. It doesn’t mention Holden or the fire. If someone was really watching me that night, I would have seen them, wouldn’t I? And if they weren’t there, the only way they could possibly know what happened is if Holden told someone.

  I know he wouldn’t do that.

  I replay what I remember from that night in my head: I left work, went home to take a quick shower and make sure my mom was asleep. Then I headed up the hill, paused to take Luke’s phone call, and finally crept inside the back of the Sea Cliff Inn as usual. The only person I even saw after leaving work besides Holden was Mrs. Roche.

  I grab my phone and text Holden. You around?

  He doesn’t answer right away, and I spend the next few minutes pacing back and forth in the living room rereading the letter, losing my mind a little when I think about the consequences of obeying—or disobeying—the sender’s instructions. Trespassing, minor possession, destruction of property. And those are just the criminal charges, before Holden and I are held liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. “That’s a big nope,” I mutter. But then: ruin the life of someone you care about. What does that even mean?

  I blot some sweat from my upper lip, even though it’s freezing inside the house. I suddenly feel a bit dizzy. As I reach out for the edge of the futon to steady myself, I realize I’m hyperventilating. “Calm down, Embry.” I try to channel my mother. What was it she used to say about how she survived mammograms and ultrasounds and biopsies and chemo and surgery without completely losing her mind? I focus on the things I can control and try not to obsess about the ones I can’t. It sounds very motivational poster, I know, but there’s no denying that it seemed to work for her.

  But what do you do when there’s nothing you can control?

  There’s always something, my mom’s voice says.

  As usual, she’s right. Shoving the note into my back pocket, I slide back into my coat and step outside, closing and locking the front door quietly behind me. The house on the left of ours is owned by Mr. Mancini, a man in his sixties who still works full-time at the cheese factory in Tillamook. I know he leaves for work even earlier than my mom does, so I’m not going to disturb him.

  I head to the house on the other side of me instead—the Lerners. They’ve got about seven million watts worth of Christmas lights going in the front yard, but there’s no car in the driveway and no one answers the door. I try the house next to them. Cori Ernest, a single mom who works at the Three Rocks Motel, comes to the door, her two-year-old daughter, Corinne, propped up on her hip. “What’s up, Embry?” she asks.

  “Weird question,” I say. “But someone left a note in between our doors and didn’t sign it. Have you seen anyone around my mom’s house?”

  Cori shakes her head. She gestures at Corinne. “This one has been throwing up for most of the day, so I haven’t been outside much.” She pauses. “What did the note say?”

  “Nothing too important,” I mumble. “I’m just trying to figure out who sent it so I can, um, reply.”

  Corinne squirms in her mom’s arms. “I’m thirsty,” she whines, tugging at Cori’s hair.

  “Sorry I can’t be more help,” Cori says, adjusting her hold on her daughter and peeling Corinne’s hand loose from her hair.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “Thanks anyway.”

  Cori gives me a quick wave before shutting the door. I hear the dead bolt slide into place.

  I’m debating whether there’s any point to ask anyone else when a couple of grade school boys on bikes turn the corner onto my street. The Jameson brothers. They live a couple blocks away, in Three Rocks Manor.

  I flag them down as they pass by. “Hey. Have you guys been riding around for a while?”

  “What’s it to you?” the older one asks. I should know his name, but I don’t.

  I point at my house. “I was just wondering if you saw anyone around that house in the past half an hour or so.”

  The older brother shakes his head. “Nope. Sorry.”

  “What about the kid in the hoodie, Cam?” the younger bro
ther says.

  Now I remember. Cameron and Cayden, those are their names.

  “That kid was farther up the street, wasn’t he?” Cameron says.

  “What kid?” I ask. At this point any leads would be helpful.

  “I don’t know. We only saw him from the back. Jeans. Hoodie. Walking fast. Turned toward the beach.”

  “Did you see him in my yard or on the porch or anything?”

  Cayden shakes his head. “I thought he was on the sidewalk in front of your house, but maybe I’m wrong. He might have just been looking at your neighbor’s Christmas lights.”

  “How old was he?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Like middle school or high school probably,” Cameron says. “Skinny. Not that tall.”

  “What color was the hoodie?”

  “Gray, I think,” Cayden says. “Or maybe black?”

  “All right. Thanks a lot,” I tell the boys.

  “Did he do something bad?” Cayden asks.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Trying to figure that out.”

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and the boys ride off. A soft rain starts to fall as I head back to my house, my eyes focused on the new message from Holden.

  Holden: At work. What’s up?

  Me: Have you received any weird letters lately?

  Holden: ?

  Me: About the other night?

  Holden: No clue what you’re talking about. Want me to swing by later?

  Me: I don’t want to wake up my mom. Can we maybe meet on the beach?

  Holden: Sure. I’ll be heading home in about 30 min. Meet at the pot hole?

  I make a face. The Pot Hole is this natural cave at the far end of Three Rocks Beach. It’s carved into the side of Cape Azure, and during low tide it’s a passage from our beach to Azure Beach, but during high tide it floods. And anywhere in between, it serves as a place where high school and college kids go to get high.