Interlude
“If I made a lipstick from your lips, I’d call it Dusk.” I turn over on my side, prop my head up on my elbow. The ground below us is hard, and something knobby pokes my ribs, but together in the burrito of the quilt, we’re warm.
“Dusk?” Charlie laughs.
I touch his lips with the tip of my finger, pluck the bottom one like a guitar string. Kiss him leisurely. “Maybe Red Fox,” I say. “Maybe Mischief.”
“That’s not a color.” He pushes aside a strand of hair that’s dangling in front of my face and tucks it behind my ear.
“Lipstick names are weird. You know what I’m wearing right now?” I look down at his neck and chest, marked here and there with smears of red. “Well, you’re wearing most of it by this point.”
He laughs.
“It’s called Interlude. But at home, I also have Fortune Cookie, Last Wish, Forbidden, and, let’s see, Cozy Couch. Lindsey says they must open a book at random and point. I mean, who wants to put Cozy Couch on their lips? But it is a pretty color. Kind of a glossy lavender.”
He leans in and kisses me.
“If I were to name a lipstick after you,” he murmurs against my cheek, “I’d call it Kissable.”
“Really?” I ask, laughing.
“Really,” he says.
We lie, side by side, watching the sky above us soften to a dusty not-quite gray.
“We should head back,” Charlie says. “I didn’t bring a flashlight, and I’m thinking getting lost in the woods isn’t on your to-do list for any given Tuesday.”
He stands and helps me up. We get ourselves together—“parent-ready,” as Lindsey calls it. With my thumb, I blend in the lipstick on his neck. “Now it just looks like one of your bruises.”
We’re halfway back to the car when I remember. “Oh! I wanted to tell you. Your flowers! I put them beside my bed so they’d be the last thing I saw when I went to sleep, and the first thing I saw this morning.” I know it’s corny, but whatever.
He stops walking, and since I’m holding his hand, I stop, too.
“Okay, so there’s been some kind of—I don’t know. Anyway. I didn’t get you flowers.”
“What do you mean—?”
But of course what he means is exactly what he said: He didn’t get me flowers.
So, if he didn’t, who did?
Who Did?
1. Jared
Possible, especially given the whole love-song and sparkly-eyes stuff. But what about It’s not your fault? I hadn’t given him a concussion yet, so he wasn’t letting me off the hook for that. Was it because I didn’t stay for his song? Because he knew something was up between me and Charlie?
2. Mystery Dude
A secret admirer might be cool.
A secret admirer who leaves passive-aggressive notes is not.
3. Someone with the Wrong Address
The woman in the blue house across from us might have done something really, really bad…?
4. Right Address, Wrong Addressee
They could be for my mom, I guess. I showed her the flowers, but not the note. Maybe it would make sense to her. I could ask.
But if I showed her the note and it wasn’t for her, she’d probably freak. Like call-the-cops freak or something. Because even though she acts all la-la-la everything’s awesome, I know she was shook. I’ve heard her talking with my dad, That boy—we never saw it coming. How did we not know?
Now her worry—the fear of all she doesn’t see—is like a piranha, darting around the edge of everything, little nip by little nip, eating her away.
5. Lindsey?
I’m grasping straws here, but I mean, Lindsey does some weird stuff sometimes.
Official
Thursday after school, my parents drive me to the Midland County Courthouse. It’s weird having us all in the same car, weird sitting in the back seat, weird that I’ll soon be talking to a total stranger about a boy I hardly knew who wanted to kill me. I don’t unclench my teeth for the entire ride, and by the time we get there, the tension in my jaw could snap a pencil in two.
My father leads the way through security and then down and around the courthouse hallways to a brown wooden door with a see-through window. Old-fashioned letters in milky paint spell OFFICE OF THE COMMONWEALTH’S ATTORNEY.
“We’re here to see Mr. Hayes,” my father tells a young redheaded man at the front desk. He asks us to sit, which we do. Maybe it’s nerves, but the waiting room air tastes stale to me, like something underground. A crypt with a coffee table and last year’s magazines.
After a minute, the redhead calls us over and leads us single file down a hallway, then ushers us into an office lined with thick wooden bookshelves.
There, a grim, gray-haired man glances up from his computer at a desk in the middle of the room.
Waving us over, he stands to shake my father’s hand. “Appreciate y’all coming in. Have a seat.” His drawl is exaggerated, like he’s been cast as the Southern Gentleman in the high school play. Clasping his hands together, he looks directly at me. “As you know, I’ve asked you here because it’s probable we’ll need you to testify at the sentencing for Kyle Paxson.”
Hearing this serious man in his serious office and his serious suit speak Kyle’s full name seems messed up, as if the very act of it makes Kyle and his murder somehow “official.” Like it’s been processed and pasteurized and wrapped in cellophane—the moral equivalent of fake cheese.
The bearded man proceeds to ask me questions, basic stuff about Kyle contacting me and not-so-basic stuff about our relationship, if you could even call it that.
How did you meet Kyle Paxson?
You were in the same grade?
So he was a senior when you were a freshman, correct?
Did you two ever date?
Did you consider him a friend?
But he had your phone number?
Did he ever call you?
Did you socialize with him?
And at these parties, did you talk with him or give him any special attention?
How would you characterize your association with Kyle?
What about after he graduated?
Anything besides these casual sightings at a party or the mall?
Did you ever purposely meet with him?
But you did see him shortly before the murder, correct?
And that was when?
Where were you at the time?
How would you describe that encounter?
What did he talk about?
You say you were in a parking lot. Did he see your car?
And what kind of car was that?
This was a new car, correct?
Did you have any other contact with Kyle after that time and before July 11?
But he contacted you on July 11, the day of Jamie Strand’s murder?
What exactly did he text?
And you took “stuff” to mean drugs?
Marijuana?
Were you surprised to hear from him?
How did you respond?
When you heard that Kyle was arrested for Jamie Strand’s murder, what was your response?
Did you think it could have been you?
Did he attempt to make any contact with you after the murder?
Has he tried to contact you in any way since the time of his incarceration?
Either directly or by a third party?
Are you sure?
It’s unnerving. Before the murder, Kyle was just some guy. Over there. Where I wasn’t particularly looking. He wasn’t linked to me in any way. Now all these useless questions, all my useless answers, are like pencil lines on a dot-to-dot, bringing hidden connections into focus, drawing us both on a single, gruesome page.
I must have zoned out because my mom pats my knee. “Is that all?” she asks the lawyer.
“I believe so,” he says. “We’re trying to establish, you understand, a pattern of behavior here. To prove that the defendant showed premeditation, and
that he poses a future threat to society. We’ll be seeking a capital sentence.” He turns to me, his face full of bottled sincerity. “You’ve been very helpful, young lady.”
I know that “capital sentence” is just his lawyer way of saying death. And though Kyle deserves to die for what he did, the thought that I could somehow be “helpful” in bringing about that end doesn’t give me even an ounce of relief.
One More Name for the List
6. Kyle
What exactly did that lawyer mean when he asked if Kyle had tried to contact me?
It’s not your fault
That wasn’t… I mean, there’s no way he could possibly…
Right?
The Unexpected
We’re in the parking lot after school Friday, I’m perched beside Charlie on the hood of his silver Honda Civic, and there’s a mole on his chin I’ve never noticed before.
How could I have missed that mole, I wonder. Not that it’s huge, but I’ve been looking at his face a lot. Staring into his dreamy chestnut eyes in hopes they’ll somehow transport me to a place far, far away from this town.
“Your eyes,” I breathe, thankful they’re there to help distract me from everything I’d rather not think about—first and foremost being that annoying knot in my brain that keeps wondering about those flowers.
And Kyle.
And if somehow he could have managed their delivery from his prison cell.
And what would that even mean? Is the note an apology… or a threat? Or just some deranged plea for forgiveness?
Logical me: You’re being absurd.
Actual me: Someone killing Jamie Strand seemed absurd, too.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Charlie says, stroking the length of my hair. “I haven’t taken you on a real date. Yet.”
“Yet?” I ask.
“Um, would you? Go out with me? Tonight?”
He looks so sweet, a little nervous, even. I can’t help but tease. “I was thinking I might spend tonight, you know, drinking vinegar, eating crocodile,” I say, half quoting a line near the end of Hamlet that Mr. Campbell wouldn’t shut up about. “But I guess a date would be good, too.”
“I’m taking that as a yes.”
“It’s a yes,” I say. “But wasn’t last night a date?” After the lawyer thing, I’d met up with Charlie for a jog, and since I needed to blow off some serious steam, it was more a race than a jog. And afterward…“I mean, there was kissing involved.”
“Last night was… exceptionally nice, but I want to take you on a real date. Where I pick you up and we, I don’t know, do date stuff.”
“So for this ‘date,’ what should I expect?”
He grins. “The unexpected.”
When he picks me up at six, I’m wearing a short black skirt over black leggings and a red sweater. Even though the colors are all wrong and there’s no glitzy S stitched on the sweater, I always think of this as my Supergirl outfit.
I’m also wearing my best version of a smile. I’ve decided to give myself the night off. I’ve been so worked up about Kyle and the trial and the mystery flowers. And really, I could spend all day and night thinking about it and be not one inch closer to knowing what the hell happened or is happening or will happen. It’s all impossible.
So I tucked the note under some papers in my desk drawer, just in case, and I threw away the flowers. Gone. Out of sight, out of mind.
Tonight, I promise myself, there is no Kyle, no upcoming trial, no horror story lurking in the bushes. There’s just me and Charlie.
“You’re—man!” Charlie exclaims before he even gets through the doorway. Then he checks out my shoes. Red, open-toed four-inch heels. “Wow!”
He frowns. “Double wow, but you should maybe bring some backup tennis shoes,” he adds, with a secretive smile, “just in case.”
“Okaaaay,” I say, suspicious.
“Uh-um.” My mom clears her throat behind us. “Hi! You must be Charlie.”
For a second, Charlie has that deer-in-the-headlights look, but he recovers, gives a stiff smile, shakes my mom’s hand, and lies, “Good to meet you.”
He then travels back in time to the 1950s, where he trains with a team of crew-cut gents, and, without a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, reenters his present-day body. “I’ll have her back early, ma’am,” he says.
Mom gives me a curious look. “Why, thank you, young man,” she says.
She turns me to face her and gives me a hug, like I’m leaving for boot camp. “I love you,” she whispers in my ear, quietly enough that Charlie can’t hear. “You have your spray, right?”
“Mom!” I complain, breaking the hug. They gave me the cans of pepper spray—one for my backpack, one for my purse—after Kyle. And yes, they’re still at the bottom of each bag, with orphaned pens and tubes of ChapStick.
“Keep your cell phone on,” she says, then mouths behind Charlie’s back, Text me, as I pick up my running shoes from the basket by the door and scoot out.
When we get to the car, Charlie sprints ahead and opens the door for me. Before shutting the door, he leans in and kisses my cheek. I’m not sure if all this is because we’re on an official “date” or if he’s still in 1950s mode.
He climbs in, and before starting the car, turns to me and holds out his two closed fists. “Pick one,” he says.
I tap his left hand. He opens it to reveal a folded bit of paper. He unfolds it and passes it to me. “Hungry?” he asks.
Drawn in pencil is a simple five-point star.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“It’s where we’re going,” he says, as he pulls away from the curb.
“What was in the other hand?” I ask.
He crumples the still-folded paper from his other hand and tosses it into the back seat. “The road not taken,” he says.
Distance
Charlie takes the back roads into Roanoke, and then even deeper back roads out of it. Before I know it, we’re heading up a mountain, long and winding, and Charlie passes the time by singing off-key.
“Whoa-ooh-ooh-ooh, the sun and your armpits…”
Make that: singing wrong lyrics off-key.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask.
“It’s a surprise,” he says.
I know, I know I’m totally safe and there’s nothing to worry about, and this is fun, right? Surprises are supposed to be fun. And flowers are supposed to be beautiful and teenage girls are supposed to be alive. But with every mile, I feel a slight tick of unease. And of course Charlie is not Kyle, he’s not going to kill me—but there it is, regardless, that tick. Because once you know someone wanted to rape you and bash your head in, you can never not know it.
The woods on either side of the road blur red and orange in my periphery as we twist our way up the mountain.
“Hey, you all right?” Charlie asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s just, I’m… I’m not a big fan of surprises, I guess.”
“Okay,” Charlie says, all business and transparency. “We’re going to the Star.”
I give him a blank look.
“You know, Mill Mountain Star,” he says.
“Oh,” I say. “Of course! The Star.” Roanoke has this huge, tacky, lit-up star on the top of a mountain, which is kind of strange but kind of awesome, too. “Cool. I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”
“I made a picnic,” he says. “There’s a basket in the trunk. I figured we’d either set it up there or on the roof of that closed-down grocery store west of town. That’s what’s on the other slip of paper.”
“You have a very interesting definition of ‘date,’” I say, laughing. “I like it.”
“You want to know what I packed?”
“Packed?” I ask, confused.
“For the picnic. Do you want to know what’s in the basket?”
“Nah.” I tease, “You can surprise me.”
“So that surprise is okay?”
“You
know,” I say, “I’ve always found consistency to be highly overrated.”
“Absolutely,” he agrees.
When we get to the overlook, it’s starting to become the time of day that isn’t quite day. Dusk. I smile, thinking of Charlie’s lips.
A low, shadowy, luminous sky hangs over our heads. The electric star on the mountain is not yet lit, but streetlights have started twinkling on below. In the distance, the city spreads before us, a tiny toy village.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“Do you ever think, when you’re down there, doing just regular stuff, someone might be up somewhere, looking down. And you’re just a speck to them. Just part of the landscape?”
I consider it. “Not really. Do you?”
“Sometimes,” he says. “It’s strange, how distance changes things. What can seem so huge, so important when you’re right in front of it—the farther you get, it’s like neither of you exist.”
We watch as day morphs into night. When I squint, the highway below us becomes a silver stream of light.
“Come here,” Charlie says. He leads me down a path in front of the Star, which is now lit in white. There’s a bench on the other side of the path, but Charlie spreads a blanket at the foot of the star instead. He sits and pats the space beside him.
The ground is cold, but it’s not a cold I mind. It’s the cold of being alive and wanting some indefinable thing that may or may not be beyond your reach.
Charlie unpacks the basket, laying out a tub of strawberries, two sandwiches in clear plastic wrap, a large bag of salt and vinegar chips, a clump of grapes, two big Starbucks brownies, and two large drinks—Dr Pepper for me, Coke for him.
How She Died, How I Lived Page 13