by Zoe Aarsen
All the lights were out at Candace’s house when we parked alongside the curb. Isaac once again announced how stupid he thought this whole thing was before he texted Candace, requesting her to come outside. We waited for her response in silence, all of us knowing that there was a chance she wouldn’t reply since she was both heavily medicated and not on great terms with Isaac since the dance.
“Try again,” Mischa urged Isaac. “Tell her it’s imperative that she come outside.”
“Impera—how do you spell that?” Isaac asked.
When a few more minutes passed without a reply, I suggested that we resort to old-school measures and toss gravel at her window. We inched our way around the side of the house and stood beneath what Mischa believed was Candace’s bedroom window. I tossed a twig upward at the window and flinched at the sound it made, fearful that Candace’s mom or stepdad might pull back the curtain. But a minute passed, and Isaac grunted in annoyance.
“We’re gonna be here all day.” He withdrew a quarter from the pocket of his jeans and flung it. It made a sharp noise as it ricocheted off the window, much louder than any of us would have expected.
“What are you doing?” Mischa hissed at Isaac. “Do you want Candace’s mom to call the cops?”
Just then a window ten feet away opened and all three of us looked over in surprise at Candace’s younger sister, who stared out at us from above. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Go get Candace, Julia,” Mischa commanded. “We need to talk to her.”
Julia rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “She’s not here. She already left for her vacation.”
My heart stopped beating as the full impact of what Julia had said landed on me. Candace was already gone. We had missed her. Time felt as if it were slipping into slow motion. “How?” I asked, close to tears. “I thought she was leaving today.”
“Their plane left super early this morning, so her dad picked her up after dinner and she slept at his house,” Julia explained. “They’re supposed to land at like eleven our time? So, you could call her then.”
Mischa paced in circles, pulling at her hair. “No! No! No!”
“We could call the airline and say there’s a bomb on the plane,” Isaac suggested, suddenly sensing how dire the situation was. “They’d probably have to land, then.”
“Yeah, and then the FBI would probably come and arrest us!” Mischa shouted. “God, Isaac!”
I thought back to Violet’s grisly description of how Candace’s body would be found, and I shuddered. I hoped with every fiber in my being that Violet was wrong about Candace, or at least about her drowning at this age, on this trip.
That night, as I sat in my living room in front of the television with The Iliad in my lap, Candace texted me a picture she’d taken in Honolulu on her layover before her flight to Kona. The sun was setting in Hawaii, the sky shades of rose and coral over the tops of palm trees. All I texted back was Please stay away from the beach.
* * *
Monday after school, my mother was waiting for me with her arms folded over her chest.
“Sit,” she commanded as I entered the house, pointing to a chair in the kitchen.
I had, not surprisingly, failed my Spanish midterm, as well as (a little more surprisingly) my midterms for Calculus I and chem lab. I had gotten a C on my English midterm, which secretly I was a little happy about, because I hadn’t bothered finishing The Iliad. Perhaps I’d just read farther than a lot of other kids to have earned my C on the bell curve. But my grades were a complete reversal of my entire academic career up until that point. I had been a straight-A girl all the way until junior year.
“Well, during my Spanish midterm, I had a really bad headache and Mrs. Gomez sent me to the nurse,” I said nervously, picking at my fingernails. “She told me in class today that I could retake it.”
“You will retake it. Mr. Bobek called me this afternoon to tell me that all your teachers are concerned about you. This is your junior year, McKenna. A year from now at this time, you’ll be sending out college applications. This is not the time to be letting grades fall.”
I listened patiently as my mom continued on for a while about the burden she faced in paying my college tuition, my need to win a scholarship, her resentment of my weight loss bringing unfair scrutiny about her parenting abilities upon her by the staff at my school.
“So you tell me, McKenna. Where do we go from here?” she asked, staring me down, her arms outstretched and hands folded on the kitchen table. “Do you need to see a therapist every week?”
I looked at my feet. The only response that came to mind suddenly seemed so perfect—maybe if I’d failed to prevent Candace from going to Hawaii, I could convince my mom that I needed to meet her there. I blurted out, “Candace Cotton’s parents took her to Hawaii because she’s been having such a hard time with Olivia’s death. I think I could use a change of scenery—”
“I absolutely agree with you there,” my mother interjected. “I don’t know how many times I’ve asked you what’s happening this semester. You’re secretive about your friends, about what you and Trey are up to every day after school, about why you’re sleeping out here on the couch nearly every night. I’ve already spoken with your dad, and you’re going to be spending the week of Thanksgiving with him and Rhonda this year.”
Spending an entire week away from Trey in less than a month felt like it would be impossible to survive. I had to fight the urge to snap at her about snooping around in my room, since that would only make her more suspicious about how I’d known she’d gone in there at a time when I had been almost a mile away. “Fine,” I said, in a weak voice.
“Your father wants to talk to you this evening. He’s home now,” my mother informed me.
I called my father from my room, not wanting Mom to overhear our conversation. Even despite going into my room for privacy, I left my door open a few inches because I was fearful that if I closed it, anything could happen while I was on the phone.
“So, what’s all this failure business about, McKenna?” he asked me. “Your mom said you tanked your midterms and your gym teacher thinks you have an eating disorder.”
In the background on his end, I could hear seagulls cawing and distant voices. I presumed that he and Rhonda were stretched out at the beach watching the sun set, or lounging on their boat with their neighbor. I struggled to remember what life was like when Dad lived at home with us, in the pre-Florida days. Enough time had passed that I really could no longer imagine how things would be different if he were tinkering around in our garage instead of over a thousand miles away.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. It felt like the most honest thing to say. I didn’t know. I didn’t know if Candace would live, didn’t know how the letter V had been assembled on the Lite-Brite in the garage, didn’t know if Arthur Fitzpatrick and the will of Violet’s grandfather had anything to do with the game we’d played on Olivia’s birthday, didn’t know why Violet hadn’t been able to predict a death for me.
“Level with me, kid. Are you having problems?”
“Just some problems sleeping,” I admitted.
“So, what is it? Is all this Student Government stuff too much work? Is that kid next door pressuring you into things you’re not ready for?”
“God, Dad, no! Trey isn’t pressuring me for anything.”
We talked for almost forty minutes, but I still couldn’t find a way to tell him what was really going on in my life. He informed me that he’d be purchasing a plane ticket for me, departing from Wisconsin on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and I’d be spending nine whole days in Tampa. Rhonda wanted to drive down to Key West while I was visiting and go on an alligator swamp tour. I looked out my window, where the cold autumn night air was picking up dry leaves and spinning them in miniature tornados across the Emorys’ driveway. It was difficult to imagine cruising through a hot swamp in four weeks, wearing a tank top.
The next morning, the high school was buzzing with gossip
because Violet had not only tried out and made the pom squad, our school’s version of cheerleading, for the basketball team, but the girl who had been junior varsity captain during our sophomore year, Hailey West, hadn’t even made the team this year. Mischa and I exchanged eye rolls in the hallway, not even needing to utter words on the topic to know that we were thinking the same thing. Somehow, Violet was making all of this happen for herself.
Violet’s junior year was shaping up perfectly. What else could she want from us? I wondered. There was nothing Candace had that Violet could possibly envy, so I couldn’t determine what Violet might gain from Candace’s death.
I turned down Violet’s offer to come over after school to watch television and bake cookies, claiming that I was informally grounded until I brought up my grades, which wasn’t a total lie. Her disappointment was palpable, but I didn’t feel the least bit regretful. I knew all she wanted to do was hear herself talk about her new romance with Pete, and her excitement about her pom squad uniform. It occurred to me that her invitation was oddly timed, and was perhaps a strategic tactic to try to reel me back into her clutches while Candace was out of town. I remembered my first impression of Violet back in September at the start of the school year: how she had seemed so meek and unsure of herself, nervously twirling her long dark hair around her fingers. Had that been an act? Had she intentionally been trying to convince us that she was shy and quiet to gain our trust?
Our lunch table crowds merged that week. Violet’s new status as Pete’s girlfriend entitled her to join him at the table formerly ruled by Olivia. Tuesday, she and Tracy shifted over, carrying their lunch trays without explanation or apology. Mischa, having at least the sense to acknowledge that angering Violet might put Candace in greater danger, slid down to the other end of the table with Matt to be as far away from her as possible without actually sitting elsewhere. Matt and Mischa had been together long enough for him to follow her social cues; he kept his interactions with Violet brief but polite.
During classes, Mischa’s and my phones buzzed in unison with carefree messages from Candace. We received and reviewed photos and quick notes about food she ate at the breakfast buffet in the resort where she was staying, and at the festive luau her family attended on their second night. She sent pictures of plates filled with lomi-lomi salmon, kalua pork, fresh pineapple slices, and macaroni salad. There were pictures of dancers in grass skirts and Candace’s discarded purple lei on the dresser in her hotel room after a night of fun, and pictures of her half brothers stomping across black dried lava in the volcano park.
And then on Wednesday, the messages stopped abruptly.
What are you up to today? I texted Candace nervously on Thursday morning when I woke up.
I became frustrated when she hadn’t replied by the time Trey and I began our walk to school, even though it was still the middle of the night in Hawaii.
I knew it was paranoid and silly, but my heart was beating irregularly from fear. Reality seemed to be operating on an abnormal timeline on Thursday, with periods slowing down and then speeding back up. I had an unshakable feeling that exactly what Mischa and I had been expecting was actually happening, but of course, without hearing anything from Candace, there was no way of knowing. Her phone battery could have been dead; she could have had bad reception; she could have decided she was having too much fun to keep in contact with us. Whatever the case may have been, it was impossible for me to focus on anything other than my irrepressible suspicion that events were occurring that were far beyond my control.
By the time I sat down in homeroom, I realized that the saccharine ukulele music that had been tormenting me for the past two weeks had curiously stopped. I had grown so accustomed to tuning it out, it was a surprise to listen for it and not actually hear it in my head. It was an enormous relief, like putting down a heavy book bag after carrying it on a long walk home, but it was still concerning. The end of the music could have meant any number of things, but for me it signified even more greatly that I had lost contact with Candace.
When I passed Violet for the first time that day in the hall, she smiled sadly at me before waving, and I wondered if she had any idea what Candace was going through at that very moment. She was wearing a beautiful gray cashmere turtleneck sweater over a black skirt with leather detailing on it that made her look enviably more punk rock than she actually was. Clothes like that couldn’t be bought at any malls within driving distance of Willow; she must have bought all her clothes online. During gym class, Violet chose me first to play on her volleyball team and tugged gently at my ponytail. “Your hair looks really pretty lately,” she complimented me. “It’s getting a little darker now that it’s fall.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She smiled at me weakly, and for a second it seemed as if she had something more to say, but then changed her mind. Coach Stirling blew her whistle to order both teams to their respective sides of the net, and the moment was lost.
Changing in the locker room after gym, Mischa was fraught with worry. “Still nothing since Tuesday night,” she told me in a hoarse whisper, not wanting Violet to overhear. We had both been receiving the same messages from Candace, so that didn’t surprise me. “I sent her ten text messages yesterday, and she didn’t write back at all. I’m starting to really, really freak.”
I asked, “Do you remember the name of the hotel where they’re staying?”
Mischa didn’t remember, and we spent our lunch break Googling resorts in the Honaunau Bay area trying to find anything that sounded familiar. The Kohala Orchid Village and Kohala Lani Halili both seemed like contenders. We requested bathroom passes from the lunchroom monitor, and from the otherwise empty ladies’ restroom we called the front desks at both hotels hoping to leave a message for Candace in her room.
“Hello, I’d like to leave a message with the Cotton party,” Mischa said in her most mature voice after dialing the number to the Kohala Orchid Village. She nodded at me a moment later, and then returned her attention to the phone. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I must have the wrong number.”
We had better luck with the Kohala Lani Halili. The concierge there connected Mischa to what we hoped was the suite rented by Candace’s dad. In a shaky voice, Mischa said, “Hi, this is Mischa Portnoy calling from Willow to leave a message for Candace. Me and McKenna just wanted to say hello and we hope Candace is having fun. Please text us as soon as you get a chance to let us know you’re okay.”
“Weird hotel voice-mail system,” Mischa informed me as she ended the call on her phone.
But the afternoon lagged on without a response.
When the bell rang at three fifteen, ending the school day, Mischa nodded off her sister in the parking lot, taciturnly announcing that she would be missing yet another gymnastics practice. We walked to my house while Trey served detention for mouthing off in Advanced Physics. “Would it be weird if we called Candace’s mom to see if she’s heard from Candace today?” Mischa asked.
We both agreed that the answer to Mischa’s question was yes, it would be totally weird.
My mom had left a note for me saying she had gone to campus to offer in-person office hours, and that she would be bringing home dinner. We turned on the television and chatted through a music video show on cable until Mischa grew bored and began flipping through channels. It was only then that we caught the tail end of a commercial for the evening news, during which a pretty brunette newscaster was saying, “A teen feared swept out to sea at a popular resort in Hawaii. More details at five.”
My heart seized and my limbs felt icy instantly. Mischa gasped as if someone had just punched her in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her. Just like that, a second later, the news segment was gone, switching unapologetically into a commercial for an energy beverage. Our lower jaws fell, leaving our lips hanging agape.
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered, my chest feeling too tight to even inhale normally.
“This is it, McKenna. It’s her! It’s
happening again!” Mischa’s voice sounded choked, hoarse with hysteria. She was trembling on the edge of the couch, her lower lip quivering, a layer of tears cresting over her eyes released to her cheeks by a blink.
My mind scrambled to justify an alternative reason for the broadcast we had just seen. We obviously couldn’t wait until five o’clock to find out more information, so we checked our phones like maniacs, searching hashtags on Twitter. Major news sites were only offering basic information about the story, and it wasn’t even a front-page headline feature yet. The press was stating that an American teenager was missing after disappearing from a beach on the Big Island of Hawaii, and authorities were hoping for a happy outcome. No names were given, and no news outlets even confirmed that the missing teen was a girl. There was nothing at all conclusive about the story having anything to do with Candace, and yet it was just too great a coincidence. We discussed once again whether or not to call Candace’s mom, and decided against it, not wanting to upset Mrs. Lehrer if, indeed, she knew there was a search on, or alternately be the bearers of bad news if by some chance she hadn’t heard about what was happening in Hawaii. My blood felt cold in my veins. I did not want to admit, for Mischa’s sake, how grave my sense of doom was becoming.
Trey knocked on the front door before entering when he got out of detention, having already seen the headline for the news article online at school.
“Any word yet?” he asked, already aware that we were both freaking out while we waited for any kind of communication from Candace. He set his doodle-covered backpack down next to the couch and sat beside me.
“Nothing,” I informed him.
He rubbed at his nose and then suggested, “Have you tried, you know, contacting her?”