All These Beautiful Strangers

by Elizabeth Klehfoth

  “I’ll try,” I whispered back.

  I drove through the night and got to my grandparents’ house at two in the morning. My uncle Hank’s truck was in the driveway and the house was dark. I didn’t want to wake them, so I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. I expected sleep to elude me, but I woke to a loud rapping on my window.

  “Charlotte?”

  I sat up, rubbing the crust from my eyes. I groaned when I felt how stiff my neck was from dozing in the car.

  My grandma opened my car door.

  “Charlotte?” she said again. “Dear, what are you doing out here?”

  “Hi, Grandma,” I said. I blinked at her in the early morning light. “What time is it?”

  She was dressed in her bathrobe and slippers and she had the morning paper in her hands.

  I must have looked really lost, because she didn’t press me about why I was there again. Instead, she said, “Let’s get you inside. I’ll make you something to eat.”

  I followed her into the house and folded myself into a chair at the kitchen table. I could smell coffee brewing and looked around for the source. Grandma greased a pan and set it on the stove.

  “Pancakes and eggs sound good, sweetheart?”

  “Mhm,” I said.

  “Here,” she said, pouring me a mug of coffee and setting it down in front of me.

  She busied herself beating the eggs and whipping up the pancake batter but I could feel her constant worried glances. I sipped at my coffee and tried to arrange a coherent thought.

  Jake. Jake Griffin. Jake Griffin and my mother. I needed to know about them. What happened to Jake? How did he die? And what was the connection between Jake and my mother and my father? Because there had to be something that connected them. I knew I had the pieces; I just had to figure out how they all fit together.

  I was about to open my mouth to ask about Jake, to tell my grandma I had listened to her interview in the PI’s files and I needed to know everything there was to know right that instant, when my uncle Hank came in.

  He stopped dead when he saw me. As I raised my hand to wave hello at him, his face took on an ugly, terrifying look.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” he asked.

  My heart plummeted into my stomach. What?

  Grandma stopped mid–pancake flip and turned to face him. “Now, Hank, this is my house, and I say who’s welcome here, and Charlotte is always welcome.”

  “After the shit she pulled?” Uncle Hank spat. He pointed a finger at me; his eyes were wild with anger. “She’s not Grace, Ma. She may look like her, but she’s not her. She’s one of them. She’s always going to be one of them.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “You know exactly what you did,” Uncle Hank said, seething. “I thought you were that little girl I remembered. But you’re not. You grew up to be as slimy and manipulative as any of them. I trusted you. God, I trusted you. What a mistake that was. But I won’t make it again.”

  There were tears stinging the backs of my eyes. What could I have possibly done since the last time I was here to make him hate me so much? I was sure it had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

  “Uncle Hank—” I said, but he held up a hand to stop me.

  “Don’t you dare,” Uncle Hank said. “Don’t cry like we’ve hurt you, when you don’t give a damn about us. When you lied to my face.”

  “I don’t—” I looked at Grandma for help. She was clutching her elbows, hugging her arms to her chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “You went to him after I told you not to,” Uncle Hank said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Your father,” Uncle Hank said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then why did your uncle come to me? How did he know about the pictures?”

  “Uncle Teddy contacted you?” I asked.

  “He demanded I give him the pictures I found,” Uncle Hank said. “Threatened to charge me with breaking and entering if I didn’t.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know he would do that.”

  “Just get out,” Uncle Hank said. “Whatever you’ve come for, we’re not interested. You didn’t come here for us. You’re here because you want something, and whatever it is, we’re not about to give it to you.”

  I looked from him to my grandmother. I waited for her to say something in my defense but she didn’t. She just looked at me like I had broken her heart.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I said, and I rushed past Uncle Hank and out the front door before my legs could give out from under me.

  In the car, I told myself I wouldn’t cry. I drove to the only other place I thought I might still be welcome in Hillsborough: the Rhodeses’ house.

  It was around seven thirty in the morning. I knew it was a little early to be stopping by unannounced, but I rang the doorbell anyway.

  Greyson answered. “Hey there, Martha Stewart,” he said.

  I was trying really hard not to lose it. There was a huge lump in my throat, and I felt heavy and weighed down. They hate you now, I told myself. They hate you.

  It was difficult not to feel the huge disparity between the warmth and love I had experienced the last time I was at my grandparents’ house and the utter coldness with which I had been chased from the house this time. And my grandmother had just stood there. She’d just stood there and let Uncle Hank say those awful things and she looked at me like . . . like she agreed with him.

  I would never be welcome there again. I would never sit in the den with everyone and watch a football game on a Friday night. I would never sleep over in my mother’s bed. I would never belong there again.

  “Charlie, are you okay?” Greyson asked. The humor and smile had slipped from his face, replaced by a look of concern.

  “Is Claire here?” I asked. “I really need to talk to her.”

  “She took the boys to school,” he said. “And then she has a shift at the hospital.”

  I looked at him again and noticed he was all dressed in a suit and tie. It was a weekday. Of course he was on his way to work. How had I not noticed that before? My mind was hazy from lack of sleep.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  I turned to go.

  Don’t cry until you get in the car, I told myself.

  “Charlie, wait—” Greyson called, and he rushed after me down the sidewalk. I started to run to my car but he beat me there and stood in front of the driver’s-side door, blocking my escape. “Charlie, what’s going on?” Greyson asked.

  Then he did the unforgivable. He wrapped his arms around me and I broke apart. I started to cry. Like really cry. Giant, heaving sobs.

  He rubbed my back and held me tighter.

  “It’s okay,” Greyson said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  And his words comforted me, even though I knew they weren’t true.

  When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. I looked around the room. The curtains on the window were shut, and I was lying in a bed, but it wasn’t my bed, and it wasn’t my room.

  It was a queen-sized bed with dark plaid sheets. There were a television and an Xbox sitting on a black dresser, and a desk and laptop against the other wall. And there were football trophies sitting on floating shelves, and pictures. Pictures of a boy with blond hair. Greyson. I was in Greyson’s room.

  I sat up. I remembered now—what a colossal wreck I had been, and how Greyson had held me in his driveway until I couldn’t cry anymore and I just felt raw. How he carried me to his room and tucked me into his bed like I was a child, closing the curtains tight, telling me to get some sleep, and how I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  I padded downstairs. Greyson was in the kitchen cooking something on the stove. It smelled savory and delicious, and I was hungry in spite of myself.

  “What are you making?” I asked.

  “Breakfast burritos,” he said. “They’re the best grief hangove
r food.”

  “It smells amazing,” I said.

  “You look like you’re feeling better,” he said.

  “I am.”

  I sat down on the stool at the island, and he fixed me a burrito and slid the plate across the counter to me. I ate like I was famished and licked my thumbs and fingers when I was done. Then I accidentally burped. I clamped my hand over my mouth and blushed. Shit.

  “Compliments to the chef?” I said.

  “That’s the highest form of compliment,” Greyson said, and I laughed despite myself, a deep sidesplitting laugh. Greyson laughed, too.

  When we recovered ourselves, Greyson asked, “So, I take it your uncle gave you the PI’s files?”

  “He did,” I said, and I filled him in on everything—from my aunt Grier’s revelation that my gold-digging mother had apparently been hunting for a husband in the Calloway family, to the discovery of Jake’s mysterious death in my father’s yearbook, to my grandmother’s interview, to my uncle Hank’s reaction when I had shown up at my grandparents’ house this morning.

  “Jeez,” Greyson said. “Forget my grief burritos. If I had known all that, I would have made you my post-traumatic stress omelet.”

  “Yeah, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, to say the least,” I said.

  “What can I do to help?” Greyson asked. “Put me to work. What can I do?”

  “I need to talk to your mom, actually,” I said. “She would know about Jake. How he died, how he might be connected to my mother’s disappearance.”

  “I’ll get my keys,” Greyson said.

  Greyson sat next to me in the ER waiting room. We had paged Claire about ten minutes ago. Suddenly, the double doors to the hallway flew open and Claire rushed in in her scrubs.

  “Greyson, what’s wrong? Is Ryder okay? Is it Nolan?”

  Greyson stood. “No, everyone’s fine, Mom. But there’s someone here who had to see you.”

  He motioned at me behind him and I stood too.

  Claire took a deep breath when she saw me and then turned and nudged Greyson firmly in the chest.

  “You don’t page someone nine-one-one in the ER unless you’re bleeding from the head,” Claire said.

  “Trust me,” Greyson said. “We’re sort of at that level here. Metaphorically.”

  Claire looked at me. “What is it, Charlotte?” she asked, not unkindly. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s about my mom,” I said. “I need you to tell me everything you know about her and Jake Griffin.”

  Greyson, Claire, and I sat on a bench outside near the entrance to the hospital.

  “Jake Griffin, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time,” Claire said. “What made you want to know about Jake?”

  I tiptoed around the truth, which was something I was becoming quite good at.

  “My father gave me access to the interviews the PI conducted, and Jake’s name came up,” I said. “I’m just trying to fill in the holes in my understanding.”

  Claire nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But Jake doesn’t have anything to do with your mother’s disappearance. That was decades ago.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand her better, is all.”

  “Well, there’s not too much to tell,” Claire said. “Your mom and Jake grew up together. The Griffins lived right down the street from your grandparents’ house—in that blue Craftsman home on the corner. They were always together, and sometime in middle school that turned into dating. But Jake—he was a dreamer. He wanted something more than what Hillsborough had to offer, and in high school he transferred to some fancy boarding school out of state on a scholarship.

  “Your mom and Jake did the whole long-distance thing. And for the most part, it worked out for them. I mean, they had their squabbles, like anyone.”

  “What did they fight about?” I asked.

  “Normal stuff,” Claire said. “Like not spending enough time together. But they worked it out. And then, Jake’s junior year, right before he was supposed to come home for winter break, he killed himself.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To tell you the truth, we were all pretty shocked by it,” Claire said. “Jake was this bright-eyed kid. He always seemed happy. But, I guess it just goes to show that you never really know what’s going on with someone. I guess Jake was struggling at school. They found a stolen exam in his room. They found a note, too. Jake wrote that someone had found out that he cheated and they were going to turn him in. Cheating would have meant expulsion. I think he thought that everything he had worked so hard for was about to be taken from him. When you’re that young, I guess that would seem like the end of the world. Tore your mom to pieces. She never saw it coming.”

  “What about my father?” I asked.

  Claire looked confused. “What about him?”

  “The boarding school Jake went to was Knollwood Augustus Prep,” I said. “They were friends.”

  “Jake and your father knew each other?” Claire asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “My mother never mentioned that?”

  “No,” Claire said. “No, she didn’t.”

  Was it possible that my mother was unaware of the connection? Or perhaps it was just a weird coincidence that they had met years after Jake had passed away?

  But there was a feeling that nagged at me in the pit of my gut. A feeling that even though I couldn’t yet figure out how things were related, they somehow fit together. The connection was important. I just had to figure out why.

  “Maybe it’s like that six-degrees-of-separation thing they talk about,” Greyson said. He leaned forward to turn up the dial on his radio. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing. “Like I know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone who knows Tom Cruise,” Greyson said. “It’s a smaller world than you think. A couple of summers ago, I was backpacking around Europe with some buddies, and we were standing in front of Buckingham Palace waiting for the changing of the guard and I look to my right, and who is standing next to me but Mrs. Chavez and her husband, who live across the street from us. Clad in fanny packs and everything. Like, what are the chances that I would travel halfway around the world and somehow be in the same place at the same time as my neighbors?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s weird, I guess.”

  I balanced my feet on his dashboard. It was midafternoon now and we were headed back to Greyson’s house. We stopped at a red light and I glanced out the window. There was a homeless man sitting on the bench near the bus stop. Uncover the Facts. Discreet and Confidential, the sign behind him read.

  As the light in front of us turned green and we started to move, the man shifted in his seat and lay down on the bench. When he moved, I saw the whole bench ad. Under the title Hindsberg & Thornton Investigations, there was a shot of two men in suits, from their shoulders up. They looked straight on and smiled confidently. A shock of recognition ran through me.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “Stop the car.”

  Greyson ground his Corolla to a halt in the middle of the intersection. I jerked forward in my seat. The driver in the car behind us laid on his horn.

  “What?” Greyson asked. “Charlie, what is it?”

  The man on the right in the bench ad was older than when I had last seen him. His hair had receded at the temples, and he had gained some weight in his face. But it was him. I was sure it was him.

  “Look,” I said, pointing at the bench. Greyson’s gaze followed the direction in which my finger was pointing. “It’s him,” I said. “The man in Uncle Hank’s photographs. The guy in the diner with my mother. That’s him.”

  Twenty-Two

  Alistair Calloway

  Summer 1997

  The Hillsborough art gallery was in an old brick building off Main. Inside, it was crowded. I squinted at the bright recessed lighting that reflected off the white walls and concrete floors, scanning the room for the only familiar face I could expect to see there, but Grace was nowhere
in sight.

  I’d received the flyer about the gallery show for local artists in the mail a week ago. Grace’s return address was on the envelope. She had scribbled a short note on the flyer: “Alistair—In case you’re interested . . .” I’d put the note in my top desk drawer, out of sight. I wasn’t interested. Well, I shouldn’t have been interested. But this morning, I’d taken the flyer out again. Before I could think better of it, I’d thrown on a button-down shirt and called down to the valet to pull around my car.

  I meandered idly around the perimeter of the gallery by myself, looking at all the artwork in different media that hung on the walls—photographs, oil paintings, drawings. I spotted her finally. Grace was standing across the room by the hors d’oeuvres table, talking to a group of people I didn’t know. The man next to her placed a hand casually on her back and Grace went on talking like it was the most natural thing in the world for this guy to be touching her. Something tightened in my chest.

  I shouldn’t have come. It had been an idiotic, impulsive decision, made all the more asinine by the fact that I should have been working. We’d fired our lead design consultant for the Murray Hill project, and I should have spent the afternoon going through the résumés HR had sent over for his replacement. I glanced at my watch. Without traffic, I could be back in the city in an hour and a half. I was contemplating where I might stop off for a bite to eat, when I looked up and saw it—Jake’s eternally youthful face staring right at me.

  It was an abstract oil painting on canvas. The bright colors on his features were startling—yellow, orange, blue. Such vibrant, happy hues, and yet something about his gaze was somber. The paint was thick and textured on the canvas, spread by a palette knife, making each angle of his face, his sadness, palpable.

  “You came.”

  I looked over to see Grace standing next to me. She smiled and held out a glass of white wine.

  “I got your note,” I said, taking the glass.

  Grace nodded. “I never got to thank you for, you know,” Grace said.

  I cleared my throat and looked away. I hadn’t seen or talked to Grace since Teddy’s graduation ceremony. That image of Grace as I reached out to steady her in the corridor between buildings, her eyes slightly teary, her ankle twisted, as she babbled on about Teddy and his stupid game, still haunted me. “Teddy’s an idiot,” I said.