by Kara Thomas
One of the waitresses whisks past me with a tray of crème brûlées and says: “She’s meeting a guy at his house. I heard her on the stairs.”
My cheeks burn while Carlos and the others whoop and holler.
“Get some, girl,” Carlos shouts. “Maybe it’ll loosen your ass up.”
I give them the finger with both hands as I push my way out the back door with my shoulder. But when I’m out of sight, I touch the smile on my face, fingers stinging from the cold.
The smile is gone by the time I’ve pulled out of the parking lot. I have to see it every night when I leave work; the street sign for Idledale Road, home to Kat’s empty house.
It doesn’t seem right that everyone is going about their business just like last year, like nothing has changed. Like Kat and Jesse weren’t here at all.
But you are, I think to myself. You’re still here.
* * *
—
Ben and I are on his couch, eating the caramel corn his mom made this afternoon in case he wanted to invite a friend over. I don’t think his ex-girlfriend was who she had in mind, but she’s as casual about this stuff as my parents are.
When Ben gets up to get us some sodas, I text my mom that there was a change of plans and I’m hanging out with a friend.
She replies right away:
Which friend
Ben Filipoff
Claire, this is Dad. Your mother is quite drunk. I see that you’re with Ben Filipoff and I’d just like to remind you to be safe.
Blood surges to my face as I bang out a response.
O
M
F
G
WHY, DAD??
Because you’re my little girl, that’s why!
Ben comes into the living room, holding two Diet Cokes. “What’s so funny?”
“The fact that my mother is wasted on New Year’s Eve and I, a college student, am not,” I answer.
He hands me a Diet Coke and we segue into the obligatory college talk. He tells me about UVA, how he’s been thinking about transferring. The school is too big, it’s too hard to make friends. Without sports he’s not really sure where he fits in, especially when most of the people in his classes are smarter, wealthier, and laugh at his Long Island accent.
“I think what you’re saying is you miss being popular,” I say.
He laughs. “I think, Keough, you’re right.”
After a beat of nothing but the sound of our jaws working the popcorn, I take a sip of soda and ask, “What’s the gang doing tonight?”
I can’t help the note of bitterness in my voice, remembering how eager Noah and Shannon and Anna were to drag me when Kat and Jesse disappeared. How easy it was for Jamie to ghost me when she realized the tide was turning against me.
Ben flips the top on his soda. “Dunno. Haven’t talked to most of them since we left for school.”
“Really?” I realize sounding so surprised makes it sound like I care about who Ben is friends with, but I’m too curious to be embarrassed. “Why?”
“Because they’re assholes.”
Ben doesn’t offer anything more; I’m trying not to do that only-child thing where I automatically assume everything is about me, but I wonder if this is about me. If maybe he saw the Facebook posts and told them they were being assholes; if maybe he finally chose me over them, even when it was too late for it to make a difference.
“So.” Ben sinks into the couch, props his socked feet on the coffee table. “I texted you, after Mr. Marcotte’s accident. I just wanted you to know it wasn’t me—I didn’t tell Noah or anyone at school you were there with them that weekend.”
“I saw,” I say. “And I believe you.”
Ben didn’t have a reason to lie to me, and there were three hundred people in our class alone who could have heard from anyone that Kat and Jesse didn’t go on that trip by themselves. It doesn’t matter who outed me, only that they did, and where I wound up because of it.
“I was going to respond to you.” I glance sideways at Ben. “I just didn’t get the chance.”
There’s no non-embarrassing way to admit to Ben why I didn’t get the chance to text him back. My phone was confiscated for two weeks while I was checked into Twin Oaks. I wasn’t allowed contact with anyone but my parents for the first few days while I was stabilized for major depression and suicidal thoughts.
My chest goes hollow at the memory: me, pleading, crying in the waiting room. Don’t make me do this. I don’t belong here.
“You probably heard the rumors about where I was,” I say, keeping my voice even.
“I did,” Ben says. “You don’t have to tell me what really happened unless you want to.”
It surprises me, but I realize that I do want to.
So I tell him everything: How after Mr. Marcotte got hurt and the FBI announced Mike Dorsey was dead, the media backed off me a bit.
And then, Brenda Dean. She was the first person to suggest that Mike Dorsey might not have been acting alone. She didn’t use my name, but she didn’t have to. One of her guests suggested that perhaps I had pointed a finger at Paul Santangelo to cover up my own involvement in the kidnapping.
Because how could a crime so heinous also be random? Mike Dorsey had to have known we would be there; murders are spontaneous, but kidnappings are planned.
I read every single Reddit thread about me. There were dozens, speculating that I’d helped Mike Dorsey, promising to split the ransom money with him.
People posted one-star reviews for my mom’s therapy practice. Says she helps people yet she raised a liar.
Mom said it would pass, that people would find something else to get riled about, that we just had to ride out the storm. But I couldn’t stop reading that shit. I became obsessed with Googling myself.
I hadn’t slept in almost a week when my parents checked me into Twin Oaks.
When I finish, Ben doesn’t say anything. I’m looking ahead, at the muted coverage of the ball drop, so I don’t have to see Ben’s face. Most people I tell about my stay at Twin Oaks, it takes them a second or two to wipe the pity from their face before they say something like There’s no shame in getting help.
When I glance at Ben, he’s watching me. I feel my lips part as he reaches, brushes a popcorn crumb stuck to the ends of my hair. He doesn’t blink as he moves his hand higher so he’s cupping one side of my face.
I climb onto Ben so I’m facing him. He pulls my face to his and kisses me like I am the only girl he’s ever kissed, which I know isn’t true because he’s better at it than he was when we were together, so I can only assume he’s had lots of practice on girls at college—
His hands move to my lower back and I press into him and when my fingers are on his belt loop he says into my ear, “Claire, this isn’t why I asked you to come over.”
I go still. “You don’t want to?”
“Of course I do—I just don’t have any condoms.” Ben turns the shade of the cranberry couch.
The last thing I want is to look as disappointed as I feel; I stay where I am, my fingers still hooked over the waist of his pants. “Burned through them all last semester, huh?”
Ben’s skin is hot on mine. “I’ve probably gotten one percent of the action you think I’ve gotten.”
“That’s still more than I’ve gotten.” I snort. “Including tonight.”
“That’s hard to believe.” Ben twirls a finger through the ends of my hair, dyed a lighter shade of brown than the rest. I’ve cut it to my shoulders, the shortest it’s been in my life. “Your new hair is ridiculously hot.”
I laugh, and he flips me over, pushing my shirt up to kiss my belly button.
He moves low
er, and I close my eyes. My head goes blank; for the first time in six months I don’t have to remind myself that I’m still here. I just am.
* * *
—
My parents beat me home from their New Year’s party, which is unfortunate because I would willingly go into witness protection if it got me out of questions about what Ben and I did this evening.
In the bay window, our Christmas tree is dark, but the living room lights are on.
Unease worms through me as I step through the door. Mom is on the couch, her face in her hands. She drops them to her lap. There’s a smear of mascara on the side of her hand and her face is spotted with red.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and she shakes her head, unable to bring herself to speak.
Dad comes out of the kitchen, a glass of water in his hands. He halts when he sees me.
I force the words out. “What happened?”
Dad’s voice is hoarse. “Mr. Marcotte is dead.”
NOW
When I find my voice, it comes out warbled. “I don’t understand. I thought he was stable.”
Mr. Marcotte has been in the hospital since last June, when Mike Dorsey mowed him down with his car. The last we heard, he hadn’t regained brain function. He hadn’t spoken or used his limbs since he woke up, and he likely never would again, but he was alive.
Mom produces a crumpled tissue from her hands and uses it to wipe the mascara pooling under her eyes. “Apparently he’s been on a ventilator since he got an infection last month. Beth decided to remove him from it yesterday morning.”
My throat goes tight. “You talked to Mrs. Marcotte?”
Dad looks uncomfortable. Oh. Of course they didn’t.
The last thing Kat’s mother ever said to us was over that voice mail last June. It’s Johnathan. There’s been a terrible accident.
The memory of her voice, so small over the speaker of my mother’s phone, turns my stomach. In the fall, when Mr. Marcotte was transferred to a rehab facility in Westchester, twenty minutes from Emma’s boarding school, Beth immediately packed up and moved with Elmo to be closer to both of them. We haven’t heard a thing from the Marcottes since.
Not Marian. Not Amos.
Dad sits next to Mom on the couch, setting down the glass of water on the coffee table. He puts his other hand on Mom’s knee. She grabs it.
“We heard at the party,” Dad says quietly. “A good friend of one of the Sullivans got the call right before we left.”
I turn this information over in my head until it feels real. Kat’s father is dead.
I have to call her.
The urge is as reflexive as blinking. It stuns me, fills me with shame. Six months have gone by, and some part of me can’t process that Kat is never picking up her phone again.
“Claire,” Mom says. “Are you all right?”
There’s fear radiating off her. She’s wondering what this will do to me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m just really tired. I need to get some sleep before work in the morning.”
Mom glances at Dad, her grip on his hand tightening visibly. Dad is looking at me sadly, like maybe he understands I’m not crying or anything because I’ve been ready for something like this. There was never going to be a happy ending for Mr. Marcotte.
“I’m sure Serg would understand if you tell him you need to take a day,” Mom says.
I blink at her. “No. I have to go to work.”
I feel their gaze, hot on my back, as I head to my bedroom.
I’m about to shut myself inside when I turn, see them still on the couch, watching me.
“I love you,” I say, meaning it quite possibly more than I ever have. “Good night.”
* * *
—
Over the past six months, I’ve come to crave the first few moments of each morning. Those precious thirty seconds when I first wake up, and all I know is that I’m safe, in the comfort of my bed.
Nothing compares to those moments before reality sets in.
Mr. Marcotte is dead, but a quick scan of the news when I wake reveals that the rest of the world does not know yet. I shower Ben off my body and pin my hair into a bun on top of my head. Today’s ensemble is a gray sweater dress and black boots and a fake smile because if someone posts on Yelp about how the hostess didn’t smile at them, I’ll hear about it from Serg’s wife.
I’m not supposed to use my phone while working but I always leave it tucked behind the menus at the podium. Today I leave it in my purse in the kitchen because I don’t know what Mr. Marcotte’s death means for me.
It sounds disgustingly selfish, but I have to be this way to protect myself. When Kat’s and Jesse’s names pop up in the news, there’s always the chance mine will appear next to them. Everyone will be reminded that I’m going to college, working, doing all the things Kat and Jesse will never get to do. They’ll be reminded that I came back and maybe they still don’t know how to feel about that.
I don’t go into the kitchen much except to use the staff bathroom back there; when I do, Carlos and the waitstaff are so busy that they don’t stop to harass me about going over to Ben’s last night.
The day goes by fast. My shift ends at three.
I wander to my car, the midday sun warm on the back of my neck. I buckle myself in and dig my phone out of my purse, bypass the handful of texts waiting to be opened, and Google Johnathan Marcotte.
It’s on every major news outlet in the country. I open an article from the Associated Press.
REPORT: FATHER OF MISSING TEEN KATHERINE MARCOTTE DIES
Johnathan Marcotte, 45, died after being removed from a ventilator at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. Sources close to the family say that Marcotte never regained consciousness after a hit-and-run accident in Sunfish Creek, where his daughter Katherine, 17, disappeared from Bobcat Mountain with her boyfriend, Jesse Salpietro, 18.
The driver of the vehicle, Michael Dorsey, was pronounced dead at the scene. Dorsey’s 2003 Dodge Charger collided with a tractor-trailer while he was attempting to flee the scene of the accident that critically injured Marcotte.
This morning, the FBI issued a new statement: “The investigation into the disappearance of Kat Marcotte and Jesse Salpietro is still an open and active investigation, as is our inquiry regarding the death of a suspect in the case, Michael Dorsey. Anyone with information is urged to come forward. Our tip line continues to generate dozens of new leads every week.”
A spokesperson for the family confirmed that Johnathan Marcotte died yesterday and asked for privacy.
I lean back in my seat, shut my eyes against the threat of tears. I wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve, force myself to look out my windshield, find something to focus on. A technique one of the doctors at Twin Oaks taught me. Name five things you can see around you.
I get stuck at one. The sky, brilliant and cloudless. It’s the type of New Year’s Day designed to trick you into thinking maybe this year the earth will skip the whole winter thing.
But there’s no fast-forwarding through a long winter; there’s only waiting it out.
* * *
—
Mom and Dad have to go back to work the day after New Year’s. I don’t have to be at the restaurant for my dinner shift until a quarter to four. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to kill an entire day when I have no school work and no friends.
Mom is already gone, on her way to the office, when I drag myself out of bed at nine. I’m rifling through the junk drawer in the kitchen when Dad tracks me down, hands cupped around his travel mug.
“Have you seen my headphones?” I ask.
Dad’s gaze travels to my sneakers. “Are you going for a run?”
“Not if I can’t find my headphones.”
“I think I saw Mom put them in your purse,” Dad says. He watches m
e fish the headphones out of my bag, which is on the kitchen table. “Since when do you run?”
I slip one of the pods in my ear, avoiding Dad’s eyes. “I started at school.”
“Oh,” he says, head tilted slightly. I’ve never once run voluntarily in my life, but the lie feels easier than saying I just decided to go for a run this morning.
If I say there’s no reason for what I’m doing, Dad will be even more convinced there is a reason. This is how it’s been since my friends died and I survived; everything I do has to have meaning.
“Where are you off to?” Dad asks, adjusting the collar of his shirt beneath his sweater. He’s trying to sound casual, like he’s just interested in my route, but I know the real reason. It must suck to be a parent, to have to watch your children head off into the world, knowing you have absolutely no control over whether they’ll come back to you in one piece.
“Just into the village,” I say. “I’ll watch out for cars and ice.”
Dad pours the dregs of the coffeepot into his mug, forehead creasing at how little is left. They haven’t adjusted to my being home again. Can’t remember to put an extra scoop into the coffee maker each morning. “You probably won’t be back before I leave.”
“Probably not.” I brush my lips against Dad’s cheek. “Have a good day.”
I can feel him watching me from the window as I head down the driveway and make a right toward the village.
January is back to its normal dickish self. I pull my hood over my head to keep out the chill, but as I pick up my pace, sweat starts to collect on my spine and my blood flows hot into my face.
The music in my ears is one of the playlists Jesse made me in middle school. He used to burn them on CDs, because he didn’t have an iPhone or an MP3 player. Some of the songs are his own; he always had lyrics written for them somewhere, but he never recorded himself singing because he was too shy about his voice.