by David Bell
Jared waited as long as he could. When he thought it was okay to stand up, he counted to twenty and then rose.
He was colder, his pulse racing. But he didn’t stop.
At the back of Tabitha’s house, a light burned in a window and then spilled into the darkness. Given the window’s placement, he guessed it was the kitchen. Jared felt a churning in his gut as he moved closer, a swirling of adrenaline and nerves that seemed to be on the brink of bursting through his skin. He still needed to pee. He knew if he was seen, if someone from the neighborhood or Tabitha’s father called the police on him, then Tabitha would know he’d been sneaking around. The relationship would be over. Game, set, match. But he needed to know she was safe. He’d seen guilt over Celia’s kidnapping rip his mother apart, felt his own guilt over that night like broken glass in his stomach. Did he want to feel the same way about Tabitha if something happened to her?
He came to within ten feet of the window. A dog started barking nearby, a harsh ripping sound that cut through the night, freezing Jared in his tracks. His breath came in quick huffs, but he realized the dog wasn’t barking at him. Somebody a few houses away shouted at the dog to be quiet, and the barking stopped. He willed his body to move forward again, avoiding the spill of light from the Burkes’ kitchen window.
He saw a row of brown cabinets, and a light fixture hanging from the ceiling by a decorative chain. The wallpaper was yellow and faded, a couple of corners peeling loose and curling away from the plaster.
Tabitha sat at the kitchen table. Her head rested in her hands, so Jared couldn’t see her face. Her shoulders rose and fell once as though she’d heaved a big sigh. Was she crying? A coil of anger wound its way through Jared’s chest. If someone hurt her, if someone made her cry . . .
Then the man came into the room, the same man he’d seen on the porch. He was close to fifty and overweight, his midsection straining against the confines of a stained sweatshirt. His face was flat and broad, and in the harsh overhead light of the kitchen, Jared saw pockmarks on either side of his bulbous nose. The lids of his eyes looked heavy, and his graying hair was greasy and thick. He lifted a newly lit cigarette to his lips and took a long drag, his eyes squinting as the smoke curled up toward the ceiling. Then he made a jabbing motion against the table, stubbing the cigarette out.
Tabitha hadn’t moved. Jared couldn’t even bring himself to look for a physical resemblance between such an ugly man and beautiful Tabitha. The thought was too distasteful. Jared’s anger switched to something else, something similar and even more pointed and painful. He understood it, even though he hadn’t experienced it in quite this way before. But the man’s proximity to Tabitha, the fact that he could be in the same house with her and know her so well, made Jared seethe. Jared was jealous, and the distance between him and Tabitha never felt greater. What else didn’t he know about her if he didn’t know what went on in her house?
The man said something, and Tabitha looked up. She didn’t appear to be crying, although she didn’t look happy either. Her face was a mask of caution as she considered her father from the corners of her eyes.
The man continued to speak, wagging his index finger in the air for emphasis. He didn’t seem angry, didn’t appear to be losing control of his emotions, but the lecture continued for several minutes while Tabitha listened without responding or moving.
And then the man stopped his talking. He stared down at Tabitha as though he was waiting for something. Finally Tabitha nodded, moving her head up and down three times.
The man moved closer to Tabitha. He hovered over her, looming like a massive shadow. Tabitha looked small. Young. Defenseless.
CHAPTER NINE
Jenna had met Celia Springer on the first day of junior high. They ended up sitting next to each other in homeroom, and at first, Celia acted as if Jenna weren’t there. Maybe that made the possibility of her friendship more appealing. Maybe it made Jenna want to work harder to earn that friendship from her. While the teacher, an older man with a comb-over named Mr. Phelps, read announcements, Celia studied her perfectly manicured nails, occasionally looking up with a casual flip of her flawless brown hair.
Then Mr. Phelps provided the opening for Jenna. At the end of his speech, he looked at them sincerely, not quite aware of what an object of derision he was in their eyes. Jenna felt sorry for him because he was trying so hard. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t make fun of him.
“I think,” Mr. Phelps said, “this might be hard, but if we work together we can handle it.”
Without missing a beat, Jenna whispered out of the side of her mouth, “I bet he says that to his wife.”
Celia tried to contain her laughter, but it burst out. She lifted her hand, cupping it over her mouth. But it was too late. And then Jenna laughed too, but louder, a sound that to her own ears sounded like a bray.
Mr. Phelps pounced, threatening them with detention. Celia controlled herself. Jenna couldn’t. It wasn’t even that funny, but Jenna ended up in detention alone. And then the next day, Celia didn’t ignore her in homeroom. They talked before the bell rang. They both loved George Michael, even though they wondered if he was gay. They both watched The Wonder Years religiously and admitted to daydreaming about Fred Savage, who they knew wasn’t gay. Celia had seen the movie Hairspray and looked disappointed when Jenna said she hadn’t. Jenna tried to recover by saying she intended to see it as soon as she could, maybe that coming weekend.
“I might want to see it again,” Celia said, her voice noncommittal.
Jenna prayed that Celia would go with her. And Celia did. After the movie, Celia invited Jenna to spend the night. Jenna had read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory several times by that point in her life. As she fell asleep in Celia’s large and comfortable home that night, she felt she’d discovered her own personal golden ticket.
• • •
“We’ve been best friends ever since,” she said to Sally.
The wine bottle on the coffee table was nearly empty, and Jenna felt a drunken tingling forming at the back of her neck. But she didn’t feel sick anymore. She was hungry, her stomach sending gnawing messages to her brain. It felt good to talk to someone, someone who seemed content to listen without judgment. Talking of Celia made Jenna feel lonely and guilty again, but the pain wasn’t as sharp.
She looked at the TV. Reena came back from yet another commercial, so Sally turned up the volume. Jenna checked the clock. It was nearing the end of the show’s time slot.
“No,” she muttered to herself.
“If you’re just joining us, we’re covering the breaking news that an earring, an apparent match to the one apparently lost by Celia Walters on the night she disappeared, has been found. What we know now is that a man tried to sell this earring at a pawnshop in Hawks Mill, Kentucky, and an alert clerk notified the police. The man is in custody, but the authorities aren’t saying anything else at this time. Tune in to our coverage at eleven o’clock tonight, after The Foreign Affairs Hour, which is coming up next.”
“No.” Jenna jumped up. She scrambled around the living room until she found her phone and dialed Detective Poole. “Come on, come on.” It went straight to voice mail. She tried three more times, feeling Sally hovering behind her. The detective still didn’t answer.
“She’s busy,” Sally said. “A new can of worms just opened.”
“Drive me to the police station.”
Sally reached over and gently took the phone out of her hand. “No. Let them do their jobs. The cops are having a hard enough time around here. Everybody’s buying guns and jumping at their own shadows, even three months later. No one’s relaxed. Are you hungry?”
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
“Yes. Are you hungry?”
Jenna gave in. “I could eat something,” she said. “And that wine’s almost gone. But I have more in the kitchen.”
J
enna pulled some grapes and decent cheese out of the refrigerator and found a box of crackers in the cupboard. She pointed across the room. “There’s another bottle in there. Cabernet if you want to open it.”
Please, she thought. Let me learn something about this case. Something real.
Even if I have to wait until tomorrow.
I promise I’ll drink less.
“I have to pace myself,” Sally said.
Jenna looked up at the clock. Seven o’clock. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Sally asked. She dug in a few different drawers until she found the wine opener, and then she went to work on the bottle.
“Jared. Get a load of this.” She tried to shift away from Celia. From the earring. A man in custody. “Did your sons ever have girls in the house? I mean, without you knowing it?”
“Probably all the time. I don’t want to know what they did.” She poured them each a glass. “Ignorance is bliss.”
“I came home today after all that crap at the barn. I walk into his room, and he has this girl on top of him. I’d never seen her before, didn’t even know he was hanging out with a girl. What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Buy him some condoms,” she said.
Jenna had just started chewing a cracker with cheese on top, but she paused to give Sally a look. “That’s all the motherly wisdom you could come up with? He’s over at this girl’s house now. But how do I know that? Should I call over there? Or go over?”
“Relax. Kids are going to do what they’re going to do. I thought you trusted him.”
“I do. But how do I know I trust her?”
“You think she’s a bad influence?”
“I just met her. And ever since Celia disappeared . . . I try not to be too paranoid or crazy about what Jared does.”
“But it seeps in.”
“Exactly. It colors everything I do. I check the back of my car before I get in, even in broad daylight. I rush from the car to the front door like the bogeyman is about to get me. Like I’m a dumb girl in a horror movie. And I worry about Jared when he leaves the house. He’s a boy, so I figure he’s a little safer. But still . . . he’s young. He could be a target for something.” Jenna sipped her wine, then threw a grape into her mouth and bit down. She pictured the girl, Tabitha, in her mind again, tried to reexamine her first and only impression of the girl objectively. “And there was something about this girl, Sally. Something about the look in her eye. There was an edge to her, a toughness, something you wouldn’t acquire just growing up the way Jared did. Even with his dad leaving us high and dry.”
“A lot of kids come from shitty homes,” Sally said.
“It wasn’t just that, although I suspect her home life isn’t great. She basically said her parents are separated. It kind of sounded like she doesn’t have any contact with her mother. And her clothes looked . . . well, I suspect she’s poor. But her eyes . . . they didn’t have the spark of youth the way you’d expect to see it. There was something off there, something cold.”
“Maybe she thought climbing on top of Jared would keep her warm.”
Jenna picked up a grape and threw it at Sally. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping me?” She laughed despite the long, shitty day. The wine had helped her get there.
“It’s good to hear you laugh,” Sally said. “Hell, I almost feel bad.”
“About what?”
“The serious stuff we’ve been talking about. We can forget it if you want. Or talk about it another day.”
But Jenna was shaking her head, even before Sally finished speaking.
“Are you kidding?” Jenna asked. “I’m glad you finally asked.”
CHAPTER TEN
Jared’s hands were no longer cold. He flexed them in the darkness, felt an aching heat in his knuckles. Light rain started to fall, frigid drops pinging against the top of his head and dotting his face. He wished the man would walk away, leave the room and Tabitha alone.
The man moved even closer to Tabitha, who stared up at him with a look that seemed to waver somewhere between fear and disgust. He made a quick lunging gesture with his left hand. Tabitha flinched, as though she thought he was going to hit her. Jared tensed, took a step forward.
But her father’s hand—fat and broad like a large cut of steak—stopped inches from her face. It brushed along her cheek and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her father spoke to her, the words lost to Jared, as he continued to stroke her hair. Tabitha’s eyes remained wide, but some of the tension drained from the rest of her face. The skin around her mouth relaxed, and the rising and falling of her shoulders as she breathed settled into a more natural rhythm.
She nodded to something he said, her eyes staring up at him with nearly complete attention and devotion.
Jared felt the jealousy twisting in his guts again, an irrational but powerful surge he couldn’t stop. He needed to turn away, to let Tabitha be with her father without his spying on her.
But he didn’t go. He watched as her father bent down at the table and placed a quick, gentle kiss on Tabitha’s lips. It wasn’t a long, lingering kiss. Their lips made just the barest of contact with each other’s. And when her father straightened up, keeping his hand resting on Tabitha’s shoulder, she wore a slight, uncertain smile, as though the kiss had reassured her of something she’d been doubting.
But it seemed wrong to Jared. A violation.
Those lips. He’d just been kissing them.
Without thinking, he bent down, lowering his hands to the cold earth. He fumbled, his hands passing over brittle blades of grass and dirt. Then his hand closed around a rock, small and jagged like a throwing star.
In one motion, he straightened up and threw it toward the window, hoping to stop the scene playing out before him.
It made a short, sharp crunching sound as it passed through the windowpane. Both Tabitha and her father flinched as the rock bounced off the wall behind them. The look on her father’s face transformed. From doting love to defensive. He started toward the window.
“Shit.” Jared turned and ran back out to the street, his legs pumping so fast they seemed about to lift him off the ground. He ran and ran, the cold air in his face, his heart pounding. The dog barked again, and then a voice called after him.
“Hey!”
But he didn’t break stride. He kept running and running, the increasing rain like a frozen river on his face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I wish the media could capture and really convey what good friends Celia and I were,” Jenna said. “Are.” They’d moved back into the living room, the snacks and the new bottle of wine on the coffee table before them. Jenna settled into an overstuffed chair while Sally sat on the couch. “We went through everything together. Everything over the last . . . Shit, we’ve known each other for twenty-seven years.”
“Everyone needs a friend like that. Women especially.”
“Do you have someone like that?” Jenna asked.
“My friend Dee. She lives in Atlanta now, but we talk almost every day. And we go see each other.”
“Exactly. Celia and I, we went through losing our virginity, prom, falling in love, and getting married. She was there during my divorce. She really encouraged me to go back to school after Marty left. She helped with watching Jared while I did it. If it wasn’t my mom, it was Celia. Always.”
“And you kept it up all these years?”
Jenna didn’t say anything for a moment. She ran one hand along the puffy contours of the armrest while the other held a full glass of wine. She felt Sally watching her, waiting for more. “It hasn’t been quite the same the last few years. Not that we weren’t close, Celia and I, but we hadn’t spent as much time together. Her husband, Ian, his family runs the Walters Foundry.”
“I know who they are.”
“Ian’s been taking a bigger and
bigger role at the company as his dad gets older. They’ve become part of a different social circle. I’ll be honest—I worried about her as a mother. Was she spending enough time at home? They spend more time at the country club, more time traveling to places I could never afford to go. Barcelona. Costa Rica. I’d love to visit those places, don’t get me wrong.”
“But a nurse who’s a single mom can’t just jet off to Spain.”
“Exactly.” Jenna tried to find the right words to describe what had changed between her and Celia. It wasn’t anything big. It wasn’t the kind of shift that ends a friendship or even fundamentally alters it. There were just times when they’d see each other or talk that they seemed to be speaking different dialects of the same language. How could Jenna compete with stories of seaside dining in Saint-Tropez? “There was a little barrier between us the last few years. Not a wall. Not even a curtain. Maybe I’d describe it as mesh. Something sheer and see-through, but I was still aware it was there. And I think Celia felt it too.”
“Friendships, even the best ones, can go up and down.”
“Yeah.” Jenna looked around the room. Her house. Her space. Pictures of Jared from all stages of his life. A framed college diploma. She’d made a life, and she hated that sometimes, like an insecure teenager, she still held it up next to others to see how it compared. She thought she’d made her peace, way back in high school, with the fact that she’d never measure up to Celia in certain departments: looks, money, decorum, boyfriend. But she had other things. She knew she did. She had a life she’d built mostly by herself. “We used to sneak out all the time in high school. Weekdays, weekends, it didn’t matter. We’d sneak out after our parents went to bed, usually around midnight, and we’d meet at Caldwell Park. Sometimes there’d be boys or other friends to meet up with. Sometimes we’d just talk and wander around on our own.”
“And that’s what you were doing that night? Reliving your wild, single girl years?”