All These Beautiful Strangers

by Elizabeth Klehfoth

  I limped a few feet from the fence and pulled up the leg of my jeans to survey the damage. In the stray light from the Collinses’ backyard, I could make out the pink half moon of flesh in the shape of Nancy’s front right incisor just behind my right anklebone.

  When I was a safe distance away, I chanced a glance back into the yard. Nancy had returned to her place beneath the elm, where she was quickly devouring the only evidence I had left behind of my presence there that night: the last strips of bacon from Mimi’s Supermarket.

  Out of the eight initiates, seven of us made it to the Ledge by the deadline. We laid our spoils on a picnic blanket on the hood of Ren’s car:

  One diamond collar stolen from the neck of the headmaster’s prized pit bull

  One set of the janitor’s keys

  One framed picture of Mr. Franklin, the trig teacher, shaking hands with President Nixon after returning from service overseas

  One file on Ren Montgomery stolen from the school counselor’s office, still sealed

  One pass code to the academic dean’s computer

  One set of hall passes, signed by the headmaster

  One beige scarf with a distinctive red wine stain

  I never found out what Auden was supposed to steal. He never showed.

  Six

  Grace Calloway

  August 4, 2007

  7:52 p.m.

  The phone rang. I stubbed my toe on my nightstand trying to reach it before the second ring. I didn’t want it to wake the girls. I had a fleeting thought as I answered it—What if it’s him? But Claire’s voice greeted me instead.

  “I saw Alistair’s car whipping down Main as I was coming out of the grocery store,” she said. “He was headed toward the freeway. Everything okay?”

  Claire knew our routine well—Alistair drove in on Friday evening and left late Sunday night. It was only Saturday, and after this week’s events, she was quick to check up on me.

  “Everything’s fine,” I lied. “He had to leave early. He has a golf thing with a client early tomorrow.”

  The first lie I’d told when this whole thing started—weeks and weeks ago now—had stuck to the back of my tongue. But now I found that the more lies I told, the easier they came out. Sometimes they slid out without my meaning them to, without my even knowing. I wondered sometimes if I fooled even myself.

  “Giving up a family day to go swing a stick around with another guy ignoring his family? How nice,” Claire said dryly.

  Her dislike for Alistair bordered on hostile. I didn’t respond.

  “It’s supposed to storm later,” Claire said, changing the subject. “Want some company? I could come over. I’ve got a bottle of Pinot in the fridge.”

  “I told the girls we’d have a game night,” I said. “Thought I’d get in some quality mother-daughter time while Alistair’s away.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure,” Claire said, obviously disappointed.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.

  In truth, I’d put the girls to bed early. Being on the boat all day had drained them. They’d fallen asleep on the living room sofa watching television, and I’d carried them, one by one, upstairs to their room on the second floor.

  I glanced out the window toward the lake. Claire was right—it looked like it would storm. There were clouds billowing overhead. The sky looked heavy.

  It had become my routine this summer to take a nightly solo swim out on the lake. I did laps out to the raft and back, my preferred form of exercise. But I hadn’t swum in days due to the injury to my shoulder.

  Now I longed to slip into the water, to feel my muscles lengthen and pull with each stroke, to close my eyes and hold my breath, if only to experience the respite of breaking the surface and gasping for air.

  I passed the suitcases open on my bed and went to my dresser to get my swimsuit. I had time for one last swim.

  Seven

  Charlie Calloway

  2017

  The drive from Knollwood in New Hampshire to the Fairchilds’ house in Hillsborough, Connecticut, was supposed to take four and a half hours, but I did it in three and a half, zipping along those New England freeways in my Mercedes. The party started at seven, but I had two stops to make first: one at the train station to pick up my sister, Seraphina, who was coming in from her boarding school in Pennsylvania, and the other at the supermarket so I didn’t show up empty-handed.

  Hillsborough was a small, blue-collar town in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Its main industry was an old lumber mill my grandfather had worked at before he retired. My father had built a house there on Langely Lake for my mother two years after they were married. Most of the houses in Hillsborough were graying, vinyl-sided boxes with gravel driveways and slouching carports, but the house my father built wasn’t anything like that. It sat on the edge of town, right on the lake, with a paved driveway that wound its way from the road through a long green yard, ducking in and out of the shade of towering elms. Near the house was a stone fence, bordered by five-foot hedges. But still, you could see the house from a great distance, towering into the sky, three stories tall, with large arched windows gaping at you.

  When I was a child, I spent my summers in that house. My mother, Seraphina, and I would walk around barefoot in thin cotton dresses and large straw hats. We’d sleep late and have picnics on the lawn. In the afternoons, we’d swim out to the raft and lie spread-eagle on it, letting the sun lick us dry. In the evenings, we’d camp out in a tent and tell ghost stories, the canvas top of the tent so thin we could see the stars. On the weekends, my father would come up from the city. We’d run out to meet him when we heard his car turn down the drive and he’d pick us up and swing us around until we laughed with dizziness. He’d grill swordfish for us on the back porch and read poetry to my mother. I could still see her in my mind—her feet propped up on a chair, her eyes closed but her head tilted in the direction of my father’s voice as he read to her and I chased Seraphina, squealing, through the sprinklers.

  At the train station, while I waited on the platform for the six thirty train from Reading, my phone rang. It was my sister.

  “Don’t be mad,” she said by way of greeting.

  “Did you miss your train?” I asked.

  “No, not exactly,” she said.

  “Where are you?”

  “In Reading,” she said.

  “You haven’t even left yet?” I asked.

  “Here’s the part where I need you to not get mad. I’m not coming.”

  “Seraphina, what do you mean you’re not coming?”

  “Listen, I just . . . I changed my mind, okay?”

  “Are you worried about what Dad will say when he finds out?” I asked.

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Then tell me what it’s about.”

  “You need to let her go,” Seraphina said. “They need to let her go. What you’re all doing, it’s not healthy for anyone.”

  It wasn’t her fault, I told myself. Seraphina was only five when our mother left; she was too young to remember the good stuff. She only remembered what everyone else told her to remember, or rather, forgot what they told her to forget.

  The Fairchilds lived on the other side of town from the train station, near the hospital, in one of those graying vinyl-sided houses on a narrow yard. I parked in the street because the gravel driveway was full. I saw Grandpa Fairchild’s old station wagon near the house, the same car my uncle Hank had taught my mother to drive in when she was only twelve years old. Someone’s minivan was parked behind it, and at the end of the driveway, its tail end sticking into the street, was Uncle Hank’s rusting truck.

  Every light in the house was on, and I could hear the roar of a football game and Grandpa Fairchild’s staccato curses from the den as I stepped onto the front porch. My ankle still smarted from Nancy’s bite, and I limped a little as I made my way to the door. I had stopped at the Kmart on the way over to pick up some prepackaged cookies and I held the plastic tray
in front of me like a shield as I rang the doorbell.

  It took a while for someone to answer. But then the door swung open and he leaned against the door frame, a beer in one hand: Greyson Rhodes. He was wearing a UConn sweatshirt and a pair of worn jeans, his blond hair long and slightly wavy, a good week of stubble shading his sharp jawline. And those gray eyes. I hadn’t seen Greyson since we were kids. I had the biggest crush on him when I was little because he was tall and thick in the shoulders and played football. His mom, Claire, was best friends with my mom, and he used to babysit me and Seraphina and his younger brother, Ryder, when they would go out.

  He squinted at me and then I saw recognition dawn on his face.

  “Did you really just ring the doorbell?” he asked, as if my being there wasn’t weird at all, as if it had only been a week since we had last seen each other instead of years.

  “What are you, like, the welcome committee?” I asked, raising my voice a bit so he could hear me over all the noise of the game and people talking inside.

  “Kinda the opposite, actually,” Greyson said, taking a swig of his beer. “We thought you were a salesman or something. Or worse, the Mormons. I was elected to send you away diplomatically.”

  “We don’t want any!” someone yelled from inside.

  “I brought cookies,” I said, lifting the tray toward him.

  “How very Martha Stewart of you,” he said.

  “Greyson, who is it?” someone called, and this voice I recognized. It belonged to my grandma.

  “It’s Charlotte,” he called over his shoulder.

  There was a pause and then my grandma appeared behind him, gaping at me like I was some alien creature she was trying to make sense of.

  “Charlotte,” she said after she had recovered herself. “Charlotte, you don’t need to ring the doorbell like a stranger. Just come in, come on in.”

  She put an arm around me and ushered me into the house. She kept patting my arm as if she thought I might just be a figment of her imagination and she needed to reassure herself I was really there.

  “This is a surprise,” she said. “A good surprise. It’s so good to see you. Everyone, look. Charlotte’s here.”

  There were people in the living room I didn’t recognize and I wondered for a moment if I should recognize them, or if they were just my grandma’s neighbors. I recognized my aunt Caroline, Uncle Lonnie’s wife, who was sitting in the La-Z-Boy, bouncing a baby up and down on her lap. I wondered if I had another cousin I hadn’t met yet. Aunt Caroline stopped talking when her eyes met mine and hiccupped a little in shock. I gave a vague, half-hearted wave to the room.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Maybe I should have called ahead or something to tell them—warn them—that I was coming.

  “You brought cookies! How thoughtful of you, Charlotte,” Grandma said warmly as she took my pathetic cookie tray and led me into the kitchen.

  Grandma rearranged my store-bought cookies onto a platter and set them on the counter, which was crowded with all sorts of delicious, homemade food—a giant pot roast, gleaming buttered ears of corn, potato salad, and sourdough rolls.

  Two of my younger cousins ran through the room, and my great-aunt Jane, my grandma’s sister, who was balancing a tray of chips and dip on her hip, yelled after them to not run in the house. Someone called in from the den for another Bud Light.

  This was how my grandparents’ house always was, how I remembered it as a child: full of people, constant motion, everyone talking all at once.

  “These are your grandpa’s favorite,” Grandma said, plucking a few of the cookies I had brought and putting them on a small plate. She smiled at me as if I had known this and bought those particular cookies on purpose, though they’d just happened to be arranged at the top of the kiosk in the bakery section.

  Someone threw an arm around me and gave me a little squeeze. When I turned and saw who it was, I stiffened.

  “How are things, doll?” Claire Rhodes asked.

  It’d been years since I’d last seen Claire. When I was little, she’d been one of my favorite adults because she always talked to me like I was one of the grown-ups, or “one of the girls.” She was always at the house on Langely Lake during the summers, and she and my mom spent a lot of time together. She still sent me and Seraphina cards on our birthdays. But for all of her charm and ease and well wishes, I couldn’t help but be wary of her now. I knew Claire knew more about my mother than she was letting on. If anyone would have known that my mother was planning to leave, or if anyone was in contact with her now, it would be Claire.

  Claire leaned forward on the counter and scooped some potato salad onto her plate.

  “Things are good,” I said. How did one sum up the last ten years of one’s life cordially in a few sentences? “I’m going to boarding school up in New Hampshire now. Just started my junior year.”

  “How’s the boy situation?” Claire asked as she took a bite of the potato salad. “And the parties? God, tell me about the parties.”

  “Claire,” Grandma said, chastising her. “I’m sure Charlotte takes her studies very seriously.”

  “Yeah, but a girl can live a little,” Claire said. “You miss things if you always have your nose stuck in a book. I remember how Grace and I were at your age, Charlotte. The things we got up to.”

  “Grace had her rebellious moments as any teen does,” Grandma said. “But you don’t want to give Charlotte the wrong idea. Grace was a good student.”

  “I’m not saying Grace wasn’t smart,” Claire said. “Grace was sharp as they come. But she wasn’t satisfied with being stuck in a classroom or sitting still. Charlotte, your mother, she wanted to be out there, living life. The adventures we had together. This one time, sophomore year, we stole this pack of hall passes from the principal and we left school in the morning and drove down to the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. We spent all day on the beach, our toes in the sand, drinking warm beer we’d gotten from a stranger in a parking lot.”

  “Charlotte,” Grandma interrupted. She handed me a plate of the store-bought cookies. “Why don’t you take these to your grandpa in the den?”

  “Sure,” I said, taking the plate. Behind my grandma’s back, Claire smiled at me and mouthed, We’ll talk soon.

  The den was dimly lit. My grandpa was in his recliner, a beer in his hand and a bag of Lay’s potato chips in his lap. He sat up suddenly and raised his beer angrily at the TV. Some of the chips spilled out of the bag and into his lap.

  “You call that a fumble?” he yelled. “Get your damn eyes checked!”

  My uncle Lonnie, the youngest of my uncles, sat on the couch, next to Greyson and Greyson’s younger brother, Ryder, who was a teenager now. I guessed he was around Seraphina’s age. My cousin Patrick, who was a few years younger than me, was sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV, and my uncle Hank sat at the card table behind the couch. The color drained from Uncle Hank’s face when he saw me, and I quickly looked away. I knew he probably hadn’t told them about coming to see me up at Knollwood, or about the pictures he had found in his little breaking-and-entering stunt at the lake house. He’d probably thought I would never actually show up when he invited me.

  “Um, hey, Grandpa,” I said.

  Grandpa’s eyes flickered away from the TV to my face for a second, and then he glanced back quickly, looking slightly alarmed. I knew what it was. I knew for a second, he thought I was her, my mother. I had always taken after her but lately, the resemblance was uncanny.

  “Charlotte,” he said after a moment. “What are you doing here?”

  He gave me a smile but there was a sadness lurking there behind his eyes, and I remembered again why it was so hard to come back here, to be around them. He heaved himself out of his recliner and wrapped his arms around me. We Calloways were not ones for physical displays of affection, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I awkwardly tried to hug him back with the cookie plate still in my hands.

  “I brought you your favo
rite cookies,” I said when he released me.

  I held out the plate as proof.

  “Don’t tell your grandma,” he said, taking the plate and giving me a conspiratorial wink. “She thinks all this sugar is making me fat.”

  He patted his large gut.

  “It’s not the sugar that’s making you fat, it’s that chair where you sit all day,” my uncle Lonnie said with a laugh. He stood to hug me and I stepped around the coffee table so he could. “It’s good to see you, kid,” Uncle Lonnie said. “Hank, look who’s here.”

  Uncle Hank gave me a little nod from the foldout table. “Hey there, Charlotte.”

  “Hi, Uncle Hank,” I said.

  “There’s a spot for you right next to Ryder,” Uncle Lonnie said, nodding toward the end of the couch. “Why don’t you take a seat and watch the game?”

  I settled into the seat on the far end of the couch, near the wall.

  “Hey, Ryder,” I said. “It’s been a while. You grew.”

  The last time I had seen Ryder, he was five years old, short and scrawny, just a mop of blond curls. He had been a funny kid, this little ball of energy, always cracking jokes and making mischief. Now he was sprawling and lanky; he slouched on the couch and his long legs disappeared underneath the coffee table. He looked tired.

  “Yeah,” Ryder said without taking his eyes off the TV. “Growth spurt.”

  “Nice,” I said. “I’m still waiting for one of those myself.”

  Ryder just nodded.

  “Prepubescent teenagers, tough crowd,” Greyson said, leaning forward a bit and giving me a shrug.

  “I’m not prepubescent, asshole,” Ryder said.

  “Language,” Greyson said.

  There was another controversial call in the game that got everyone riled up, and then Uncle Lonnie was asking Greyson about UConn’s lineup that year, and I sat quiet and forgotten. I felt like an alien, a stranger. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I tucked them into the crooks of my elbows. For the hundredth time since I’d walked through the door, I regretted coming here at all.