I study her, think about her, recall everything I once knew about her.
“You’ve got more than ten journals under your bed where you’ve written on every available page.” By the time I left before middle school the count was four, but I can’t imagine she’s stopped writing.
She closes her eyes and scrunches up her forehead. “That’s two.”
I rub my hands together like I’m an evil mastermind rejoicing over my plan for world domination.
“You secretly watch that reality dating show, the one with the roses, but would deny it to anyone who asked.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth pops open, and I can’t help but stare at her lips. I may be the one who regrets this.
“Three,” she says.
I lean even closer, only inches away from her. “You’ve got a play list with nothing but old country, and I mean Hank and Waylon and Merle, but you only listen to it when you’re sad.”
Now she’s back to biting her bottom lip.
“I’m guessing that’s point number four, right?” I ask since she’s working that lip and staying quiet. I can tell she’s worried about what I’ll want when I win this.
She nods and I smile.
“Okay, so last one.” We stare at each other while I debate what I want to say next. “You may act like you’re pissed I’m back but you stand up for me to every person at school who talks shit about me. Or my mom.”
I hold my breath. This one is a gamble, one I hope is true but could just as easily not be. Her head drops and I can’t read her.
She waits a second, five, then ten, before looking at me again. “You win.”
I know the smile that breaks out across my face looks ridiculous. It feels ridiculous but I’m not pushing it away.
She crosses her arms in front of her and asks, “So what do you want?”
A kiss is the first thing that pops in my head, pushes against my lips, trying to escape. But that would be wrong. No matter how attracted to her I am right now, that’s not where we are. It’s not something I have the right to ask for from her. And if I ever do get the chance to kiss her, I want it to be because she wants to kiss me, too, not because she lost a bet.
“Eat lunch with me every day next week. I’m tired of sitting alone. It doesn’t have to be in the cafeteria where everyone can see us together.”
She stares at me and I wonder what she would have done if I’d have gone with my first choice.
“Fine. Lunch. We can sit in the cafeteria. Doesn’t matter to me,” she says then turns, moves away from me.
Just before she gets too far, I say, “We’re not strangers.”
“We’re not friends, either,” she answers.
“Not yet,” I whisper and watch her disappear into the darkness.
Noah—Summer of 1999
“Maggie, you gotta get up.” I nudge her but all she does is snuggle in closer. She’s been staying later and later every night, and I’m getting scared we’re pressing our luck.
“It’s close to morning, Mags.” Brushing her hair back from her face, I kiss her cheek, then her neck, until she’s laughing.
“You know that tickles,” she says in a sleepy voice.
“I know. That’s the only thing that will get you moving.”
She jumps up and almost falls out of the narrow twin bed. “What time is it?” she asks.
“Five a.m.”
“Shit!” Maggie jumps out of the bed and grabs her shorts off of the floor, trying to put them on and walk at the same time. “Shit! Noah. My dad’s going to be up in thirty minutes.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “I’ve been trying to get you up for forty-five.”
She drops to the floor, digging a flip-flop out from under the bed, and says something I can’t understand.
“What?” I ask.
“I said I’m picking you up at seven. No excuses. Be ready.” She’s shoving her feet in her shoes and grabbing her bag off of the small table.
“This is not a good idea,” I say for the hundredth time.
“Well, too bad. I’m not taking no for an answer.” She runs back to the bed and kisses me quickly on the lips. “I’ll make it worth your while after.”
I groan and she laughs, skipping out of the house and down the front steps.
• • •
I’m sitting on the front steps of Gus’s, waiting on Maggie. It doesn’t make any sense for her to drive all the way back to my place to turn right back around and head to town. Plus, I haven’t seen Abby in a while. She took a turn and hasn’t gotten out of the bed in the last week, but today Betty has her back on the porch.
“Your haircut looks nice, Noah,” Abby says.
I run my hand across the back of my hair where it feels like stubble. “Betty cut it for me this afternoon. All she had was Gus’s electric razor so that’s why it’s really short.”
“Well, I like it. Are you going out?”
“Yeah, Maggie is picking me up. Not sure where we’re going.”
Abby smiles and it transforms her face. “I know you’ll have fun. I’m glad you’re getting out of here for a while. And tell Maggie thank you for the smoothie she left for me yesterday. It was delicious.”
When Maggie found out Abby wasn’t able to get out of bed, she was even more determined to find things she could eat.
“I’ll tell her,” I say and stare back toward the end of the driveway, smoothing out the wrinkles in my shirt.
The only clothes I own are ripped jeans and tour shirts from concerts I’ll never be able to afford to see. But when Gus saw Betty cutting my hair, he asked what I was getting cleaned up for, and when he found out Maggie was taking me somewhere in town, he brought me a pair of his jeans and a button-down shirt, saying, “You’re going to need a little armor if you’re facing those people.”
So here I sit in clothes that aren’t mine, with a haircut that makes me look completely different, willing to hang out with people I’ll never feel comfortable with just to make my girl happy.
“He’s not going to handle it well, Noah.”
I turn back around. “Who?”
She nods her head toward the house. “Gus. When I’m gone. He won’t handle it well. He lost his mom when he was young and his dad a couple of years ago. Now this entire place sits on his shoulders.”
It feels like my stomach bottomed out.
“He hasn’t left this place in months,” she says. “If it wasn’t for Betty, we would have starved months ago.”
“Why won’t he go to town?” I ask.
“He’s so private, Noah. When his mom died, he said he felt like the house was invaded. Then when his dad died, it was the same, but Gus put his foot down. I was already sick and not up to fighting with him about it. We had a private funeral in the little cemetery on the back of the property. Just us and Betty. That’s what he wanted. That’s what he’ll want for me.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask.
She gives me a small smile. “I want whatever is easiest for Gus to handle. Although I don’t think anyone will try to come here after he ran off those women from church a few weeks ago. Just don’t let him go too far over the edge where he can’t find his way back.”
I can’t make this promise. A promise that ties me to this place. But I answer, “Okay.”
Abby falls asleep a few minutes later and Betty moves her back inside the house. Gus comes out on the porch a few times, looks around, then heads back in, not saying anything about the fact that I’ve been waiting half an hour for Maggie to show. I think about Abby’s words and I can’t look Gus in the eye.
Just when I’m about to give up, Maggie’s little black car pulls up in front of the house. I meet her halfway down the front walk and I can tell she’s been crying.
I pull her in close and she buries her head in my shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Is that okay?”
I pu
ll her back so I can look at her. “Did someone hurt you?”
She shakes her head no and then she seems to take in my appearance. She runs a hand through my short hair. “Look at you. I like it. I can see your face now.”
I pull her hand away from my head and hold it close to my chest. “Mags, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“Family stuff. I don’t want to talk about it. It’ll make me cry again.”
I should push her, make her tell me what’s wrong, but her tears are killing me and I don’t want to do anything else that brings on more of them.
“Okay. But you would tell me if someone did something to you? Hurt you?”
She nods but doesn’t say anything else.
“So I’m guessing we’re not heading into town?”
Maggie runs both hands down the front of my shirt. “Can we just go to your place?”
“Of course. Whatever you want.”
She smiles and the panic I had when I saw the sadness in her face when she first got out of the car subsides a little. I don’t know what happened but whatever it was, it was enough to make her change her mind about bringing me to town.
And that makes me feel worse than I thought it would.
10
Jack and I have to carry Ray to the car. I knew after that last keg stand he wouldn’t make it on his own. Sai isn’t much better but at least he’s still upright.
Once they’re settled in the back and I’m in the driver’s seat, I turn to look at Jack in the passenger seat. “I can’t take y’all to my aunt’s. But there’s somewhere else we can go. It’s kind of rough but it’s all I have.”
Jack nods and says, “Lead the way.”
Once I get to the orchard, I cut the lights off until we pass the big house and the garage apartment where Gus is living.
“It’s spooky as hell driving in between these trees in the dark,” Jack says. He’s almost as sober as I am since he switched to water a while back. Knowing him, he wasn’t sure we wouldn’t end up in some sort of brawl before the night is over and he can’t fight for shit when he’s drunk.
“Just be glad the moon’s out or I probably would have plowed into one of these trees by now.”
I flip the lights on once we get close to the river and they sweep across the front of the preacher’s house when I turn into the clearing.
“What’s this?” Jack asks.
“The only place I could think to bring us.”
The small cabin is no bigger or cleaner than it was a few days ago but it’s easy to ignore the dirt in the dark. We get Ray and Sai out of the car and onto the couch, one head on each end.
“Come back out here,” Jack says and I follow him to the porch, sitting next to him on the top step.
The one thing about being out in the country is how dark it is at night. Even with the almost full moon shining down on us, you can’t see past the tree line or out into the river.
“You can come back to Sutton’s if you want,” Jack says. “Dad said he’d cover you.”
And just like that, there’s my old life, handed to me on a silver platter. A breeze blows off the river, snaking around the trees as if it, too, heard Jack’s offer and wanted to offer its opinion.
I run a hand across my face and blow out a deep breath. “Shit, Jack,” I whisper.
Jack and I would be roommates again. I could leave and not look back. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve been expecting this since I got Jack’s text telling me he was in town.
“Is that a yes?” he asks.
“It’s not that easy,” I answer.
“It is that easy,” Jack says. He turns toward me, drawing one knee up and leaning against the porch railing. “Dad talked to Dr. Winston. All you need to do is catch up with your classes from last week. You could head back with us in the morning.” It makes sense now, how they got out for an overnight. They were sent here by Mr. Cooper to bring me back to Sutton’s.
But what about Mom? She’s stuck here with Aunt Lucinda and getting threats from someone who thinks she knows something. Could I leave her here to handle that on her own?
“I don’t think I can leave the parish. You know, the investigation…”
“Dad’s handling that, too. He talked to that detective. It’s not like you’re skipping the country; you’ll actually be watched closer there than you are here. Dad was going to call your mom tonight. He knows she left you at school as long as she could, so we figure she’d rather you be back there if possible.”
He’s right—Mom will probably jump at the chance to send me away, thinking she’s protecting me. And Detective Hill probably thinks there’s a better chance Dad will contact me again if I’m back at school. Maybe he’s thinking he can intercept another letter or something.
I drop my head in my hands, my mind spinning.
Jack nudges me with his foot. “Dude, it’s not like you have anything going on here.”
I can see how it seems that way to him given how everyone treated me, but there’s Gus and this orchard. I told him I’d help bring the crop in and I know there’s no way he can do it alone.
And Pippa. Pippa who agreed to have lunch with me every day next week. We’re not strangers but we’re not friends, either. If I leave again, I’ll be forever in that in-between space.
But none of that may matter after I talk to Dad. Maybe he’s got a plan to clear all of this up.
“I thought you’d jump at the chance to go back.”
Me, too, I think.
As painful as it is, I can’t stop David’s words from drifting through my mind…everything I wanted, you got. Is there anyone out there offering to give him the things he wanted, the things his dad was saving up for, like Jack is offering me my old life back?
If Jack had asked me this the first day I got back here, I would have jumped at it.
“As much as I want to, I can’t go back,” I whisper.
He doesn’t argue. We sit and listen to the things we can’t see…the crickets and the rushing water of the river and the soft snoring from inside the cabin.
Jack will build his case, think through the things he thinks are holding me here, work out a solution so I can’t refuse him a second time. He stares off in the darkness. “Anything you need, O. You know that.”
There’s a lump in my throat that’s hard to swallow past. After this week, I’ll never take my friends for granted again. I clear my throat and say, “Tell your dad thanks…for everything.”
He leans forward and punches me in the shoulder. “Things aren’t always going to be this bad.”
“Things will never be as good as they were, either.”
Jack gets up and jogs down the stairs toward his car.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Sleeping in the car. The couch is full and no way I’m sharing that twin bed with you.” He opens his door and looks back at me. “And I still owe you for the Playboy picture,” he says, then jumps inside.
• • •
Mom rushes me the second I push through the back screen door the next morning. She’s pissed but also hugging me, then pounds her fist against my arm a few times.
“You scared me to death, Owen! You can’t stay out all night!” She’s squeezing me so hard and I can feel her shaking against me. “Not with what’s going on.”
“I texted you that Jack, Ray, and Sai were in town and we were staying with a friend.”
She pushes away from me. “A friend? You’ve barely finished a full day of school! Have you even made it past lunch since you started?”
“I will for sure next week since I’ll be eating with Pippa,” I say.
That surprises Mom, and she stumbles over her next words. “Well…still, who was this friend you stayed with?”
I take a deep breath and answer, “Gus Trudeau. We stayed in that old house that Dad lived in that summer.”
“Oh,” she says. She drops down in the chair and rubs her hand across her mouth.
“You seem surprised.�
�� Shocked is more like it.
She shakes her head. “I am surprised. How did you end up out there? Have you met him? How is he?”
“He’s fine I guess. I have no idea what to compare him to. I mean, he doesn’t leave the orchard. He doesn’t like visitors. He says very little.”
She lets out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like Gus.”
“I’m surprised he gave me a job. Thought I would run into the same trouble you did but he hired me…sort of. He’s letting me borrow his truck in exchange for helping him in the orchard. He remembers you, you know, from when you hung out there with Dad.”
Mom is staring at me and she looks like she’s about to cry, which is surprising because she’s usually the queen of hiding those tears. I can’t take seeing her upset so I move to the fridge to grab something to drink. When I turn back around, Mom seems to have regained some of her composure. “So tell me how you like working there.”
I start at the beginning and fill her in on how I’ve spent my week. She’s staring out of the kitchen window, lost in her own thoughts.
“Who’s Abby?” I ask.
This question snaps her out of wherever her mind drifted off to. She gives me a sad smile and says, “Abby was Gus’s wife.”
Mom starts clearing off the table and I grab a blueberry muffin off a plate on the counter.
“That’s all he told you?” she says. “That your dad used to work there?”
“What else is there?” I ask.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Nothing.”
Mom moves from the table to the sink. There’s something she’s not telling me. So, hoping to get her talking about it, I say, “It’s hard to imagine Dad living there in that small house. There’s no TV. And I can’t see him on a tractor.”
Her head drops and her shoulders cave forward. She shuts off the water and dries her hands on a dishrag. “I can’t talk about him, Owen. I can’t talk about this.”
She turns to leave the room but stops. “I think you should go back to Sutton’s. William Cooper offered to cover your expenses. As much as I don’t want to take another dime from anyone, I’m willing to accept his help.”
“Do you really think I would just pick up and go back to school, leaving you here to deal with all of this?”
The Lying Woods Page 11