by Jeff Vrolyks
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Mae fixed a glass of iced tea, changed into some sweats and tee-shirt, drew her hair into a pony-tail and cranked the air up, went upstairs to her room. There were still boxes she hadn’t unpacked since moving in a few months ago. She had already checked those for her diary. Weren’t there other boxes not in her room? Ah yes, there were. In the guest room, the movers had put some boxes in there. She went across the hall into the guest room. Inside the empty closet were three stacks of three-and-four high boxes. On them were written in Sharpie marker the things inside. She had written those words during the worst time of her life, just a couple days after her parents’ murders. She was bawling as she packed. She wouldn’t be surprised if she had forgotten to pack her diary. It had been stored under her bed at her old house, in a pink box that once encased some unmentionables from Victoria’s Secret when she received them as a gift from her mother. It was her fifteenth birthday, a special year for a girl in some cultures (quinceanera), when the girl becomes a woman. Her mother had given her an assortment of very nice bras and underwear, a little lacy and a lot uncharacteristic coming from her mother, who despised Mae’s relationship with Trent—in essence the gift extended to Trent, who was the benefactor of this sexy underwear. The box was so lovely that she kept it, put her life’s treasures in there. The magic wand that Breuer had once given her—Breuer who was imaginary, begging the question: who did give her that magic wand? The wand was nothing but a magic trick, held no special powers, though she sure thought it did when she saw Breuer perform the trick when she was but ten years old. There were a couple handwritten letters from Trent in that pink box. She even kept a memento that probably shouldn’t have been special to her, but was: a torn-out page from A Tale of Two Cities. On the page scrawled at the top read I am Mae Clark. When she got in the car accident that claimed her two kidnappers lives, that page was somehow in her pocket, found by the emergency medical crew and turned over to the police. That piece of paper was responsible for her being reunited with her biological parents, who had been without their abducted daughter for six years. That single page represented her salvation. When she put it that way, it was no wonder why she kept it: it was unequivocally precious. She thought Breuer had written I am Mae Clark, knowing what would happen because of it. She sure didn’t write it. Breuer isn’t real, huh? Nobody seemed to think he was real but her. There would never be a logical explanation for many things that Breuer had a role in, but such is life. There was a set of diamond earrings in the box that once belonged to her late grandmother and worn on special occasions. There were birthday cards in the box celebrating age 2 and 3, stopping at age 4, and recommencing at age 11. And lastly there was her diary in that box. She was disappointed in herself for having gone this long without seeking out her box of treasures. It felt like an insult to the sweet memories she possessed of everyone associated with the box’s contents.
She skimmed over the many scribbled-on boxes and nothing read pink box. She didn’t recall packing it, so that kind of made sense. It was probably still under her bed at her old home. No, the bed was moved to Uncle Matthews. She wondered if that old house would ever sell. The poor real estate agent had his work cut out for him selling a house that is tainted by the SacTown Slayer. Who’d want to live in a house with that ugliness attached to it? The house was worth four-hundred-and-seventy thousand dollars; the real estate agent was asking for three hundred grand. No takers as of yet. When the house finally does sell, the money will go into an account for Mae to be used for college. She didn’t expect the house to sell, ever. Where was she?—oh yes, the pink box.
She began taking the boxes out of the closet, setting them on the bed and going through them. She found some things she was happy to be reunited with, such as summer clothing—it had been early spring and chilly when she had packed this stuff away. It was definitely dress and skirt weather now. There were some old but cute shoes, some books she had bought and never got around to reading, and her X-box 360. She’d be playing that again, thank you very much. It would bring a distraction that she shouldn’t have been without this whole time. Trent occupied her time and thoughts pretty well; he had a monopoly on her attentions. But things were probably going to be different around here now; overnight visits to Trent’s all but gone. Video games would be a welcomed time-occupier. As would be the books. She set them aside and closed box after box, placed fresh new boxes on the bed in their place.
What’s the corny saying? It’s always in the last place you look? Well yeah it always is because once you find it there is no reason to continue looking, making it the last place you look. But in Mae’s case it had to be the last place she’d look because the pink box was in the bottom box of the final row.
She grinned widely as she pulled the pink box out, set it on the lid of another box and swept a hand over the top. It had collected some dust. Might that be proof that it hadn’t been read? It had collected dust. Like there needed to be proof, it was in a box in the corner of the bottom row, hidden in a guest-room closet of a house with locked doors and an alarm system and someone home nearly all the time. There was no way someone got to it.
She opened the diary the size of a lengthy novel and read the first entry, dated five years ago and some change. She was ten and freshly reunited with her mom and dad. Her entries reflected her newfound happiness, calling David and Rebecca the nicest people she ever met, and the best parents a kid could ask for. She flipped some pages, then some more. Three-quarters of the way through it she found where she met Trent. Boy was she enamored by him. She found the entry made the day she returned from Trent’s, having had her virginity taken. More wonderful things said about him. Nothing mentioned about the bruises he gave her. She was too smitten to mention those. She flipped back a bit, read a little, flipped back and back. She finally found an entry that mentioned Breuer. She didn’t write much about Breuer in her diary. Maybe she feared her parents would find her diary and read it. She didn’t want them thinking she was more insane than they already figured her to be. In fact, after they began giving her the ‘birth control pills’ that were actually a lithium compound, she didn’t mention Breuer once. That was by choice. Again, it was to protect herself in case her parents read her diary. Not to mention Breuer had disappeared from her life after she took the pills.
She closed the diary with a sigh, placed it back in the pink box. She shrieked and jumped back at the sight of a spider in the box. A little brown thing, scurrying over the folded-over love-letters from Trent. She went to the adjoined bathroom and took the juice glass used for rinsing, scooped up the spider and flushed it down the toilet. God she hated spiders. Trent liked the way they looked. He even said he might get one tattooed one day. He thought she should do the same, maybe get matching tattoos. She had liked the idea of matching tattoos, but wasn’t fond of it being a spider. Unless she made it look less sinister somehow.
The spider reminded her of a thought she had some five or six months ago, following her first date with Trent. His kiss reminded her of a spider’s venomous bite. She had likened it to the poisonous bite from the brown recluse or Fiddleback spider, only a friendlier spider such as the non-existing pink recluse.
“Hmm,” she mused. The spider she just flushed did resemble a Fiddleback spider. She didn’t examine it closely enough to see if there was a fiddle on its back, and it was flushed now so she’d never know, not that it mattered. Interesting though. Maybe a non-sinister-looking fiddleback spider would make a neat tattoo.
She placed her boxes back in the closet, save for the pink box. That she took to her bedroom and placed it under her bed. She’d be making entries in her diary beginning tonight. She went downstairs with her glass of tea and sat before the TV, texted Trent: I found my diary in a place that nobody could have found. Eddie didn’t read it. So don’t hurt him, or I’ll bust you in the lip (silly face).
A few minutes later her phone chimed. Trent had responded: Then how does he know so much? If not from your diary, then how? When
you eliminate all but one possibility to any problem, the one remaining is the correct answer. He read it.
She had no answer to that so she left it alone. She pictured it all going down in the barn loft. Trent confronting an unsuspecting Eddie with wild accusations that were probably all wrong. Eddie would defend his stance and get a little mouthy with Trent, which is the worst thing you want to do to Trent. He’d punch Eddie. Eddie would punch back, and then what might happen? It was easy to imagine Trent throwing Eddie from the loft, where he’d break his neck on the floor below. Nothing good could come from his going to the Stoddard’s. She wondered if there was a way she could interject herself in the matter. Such as go over there. She didn’t know the address, but she might be able to find it on Google. But how would she get there without a car? Lisa just got her license and she had an old Mazda Miata that she still loved driving. That was a possibility. But she didn’t want to drag Lisa into this. Lisa was nosy and would want to know everything about it, and probably insist she stay there while everything worked itself out. No, that was no good.
Mae brightened with an idea. She could go to Trent’s and wait for him. She knew he kept a spare key in the porch plant. If he did something bad, she’d know it the second he stepped foot inside the house. By his demeanor, his argumentativeness, his eyes that wouldn’t look directly at hers, his need to wash the blood off his hands, perhaps. She did want to be with Trent tonight, to keep a watchful eye on him. That he didn’t want her there tonight made her want to be there all the more. Maybe Lisa would drive her to Trent’s. She’d give her ten bucks for gas. It was worth a shot. Oh, but what about her uncle? He would be home from work in two hours. She concocted a plan. She’d have Lisa be here when her uncle got home. And together they’d ask him if she could spend the night at Lisa’s. Lisa would have to lie for her. That’s what best friends are for, right? Her uncle would allow it, she was sure of it.
She called Lisa and told her what was up, asked for a huge favor. Lisa would do it.