He shifted a little. “So since I probably won’t ever see it, can you tell me what it was?”
Maggie stared out the windows, suddenly concentrating very hard on gnome lawn ornaments they passed.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Margaret...”
She wasn’t holding up well. Tommy expected her to be honest. She supposed someone who spent the day getting covered in mud looking for something you might have dropped, not commenting on you vomiting in his yard, and sharing his clothes was not going to be angry with her or think she was lying. She hoped so anyway.
Tommy deserved the truth, for what it was worth. Becca knew, so wasn’t it unfair keeping it from him? She cringed a little as she finally let it out. The truth hurt like a splinter, worse coming out than going in.
Chapter Twelve
Maybe Not Exactly Dead
Maggie gulped, and then it finally poured out, each painful word. “I found a note in my locker. It smelled like someone…female, and it was hidden at the top. It said, ‘see you tonight, M.’ I was hoping to hand it to the police, but I got the dumb idea to try and figure out who M was first.”
Tommy did not get furious and throw her out of the car. He didn’t burst into tears. He just thought hard for a minute. “It could have been for you. From Mark.” He sounded more hopeful than convinced to her.
She shook her head slowly, her expression sorry. “It was in there my first day...I found it when..”
His eyes widened a little as the full meaning hit him—betrayal; they had never looked so vulnerable. Maggie felt the squeeze of sympathy in her chest. Tommy just continued to concentrate. “What did it smell like?” he asked her.
Surprised, she answered. “Girly. I don’t know. Perfume.”
“But what did that smell like?”
“I really don’t know,” she confessed.
“Have you smelled it since?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.” She tried to remember. Maybe she had? Why hadn’t she thought of that? It might have been M’s smell.
He was quiet for a moment, frowning a little in thought as he flicked on the windshield wipers. It was drizzling again. “And is that why you freaked out about Mark acting weird? He’s an M?”
She nodded, her face pained at that point. She knew what it implied: Amanda had a note from someone that he didn’t know about, possibly from Mark. “Look, it didn’t have a date or a name of who it was addressed to—” she began.
“Yeah, but it was in her locker. When you got here, right?” he said, annoyed.
“Yeah,” she admitted, looking desperately for the right thing to say. “I told Becca.”
He looked at her, surprised. “You did?” He did not sound happy.
“Well, yeah,” she defended. Didn’t Becca have as much right to know as him? “She thinks maybe it’s Ashley Monroe.”
“What about Mazy?” Tommy asked, though he didn’t sound totally convinced himself.
“That’s what I said, but you never know. I mean, the note could be older. Could be anything to anyone who ever had the locker. Or a mistake.” She was blabbering.
Tommy shook his head and said nothing, and they pulled up to her house. Her mom’s car out front and the fading light of day, even if it was murky, made the place look completely different from the one she cowered in the night before. Tommy sat, frowning in deep thought as Maggie unbuckled, considering whether or not she should tell her mom all this.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at dinner,” she said, scooting off the edge of her seat. His hand on her wrist stopped her.
“If you smelled it again, would you remember?” he asked.
“Tommy, maybe we should let it go. We don’t have the note to be sure, we don’t have any proof even if we could be sure, and it’s so vague that—”
“Would you remember?” he repeated.
“Sure,” she nodded.
“Okay.” He gave a nod, absentmindedly adding, “See you tomorrow,” as he shifted gears. She watched it chug-a-chug-a-chig-a down Mulberry Street wondering sadly with a little sigh if anything here was ever going to be hers.
When she walked in, she smelled lasagna—the only thing her mom was really good at cooking. Garlic bread from a bakery sat on the counter too. It smelled like a home.
“Oh, thank God you’re here,” her mom said, downing her wine. “I need you to make the salad.” That was the only thing Maggie was really good at cooking, besides apparently her miracle breakfast and occasional baking.
Cassidy Brennan stopped a moment, looking her daughter up and down. Maggie stood there dumbly, kicking her shoes off. “What?” she asked her mom.
“What are you wearing?”
Maggie looked down to see basketball shorts and her tank top. Tommy’s shorts. She blushed, tossing her hair back as if it were nothing. “Oh, I got all muddy and had to change.” She held up her freshly washed and dried clothes. Her mother seemed to accept it, so Maggie set to work washing the lettuce. Her mom broke the silence by finally asking how Homecoming was.
She froze for a second, knife on the lettuce. She had not yet decided whether she was going to tell her mom, or rather how much. She didn’t make a habit of lying; she didn’t have to because her mom wasn’t nosy. She didn’t ask much. And if she ever wanted to know anything, who could discover it easier than a private investigator?
No, Maggie wouldn’t be able to lie and get away with it. She’d just have to be careful about her answers. So how was Homecoming? Eventful? No, that would create more questions. Creepy? No, that would lead to way too much explanation. The answer was simple: “We won.”
“Oh, good,” she feigned interest. “And the dance?” she asked.
“It was pretty good,” Mags shrugged. Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Well, someone tore up this memorial collage I had helped Becca make. For…that girl who was killed.”
“Oh that’s nasty.” He mom pinched off some bread and ate it.
“Yes. It was.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“No, but the police showed up.” She tossed in croutons. “Her death is still being investigated.”
“Seems like they suspect something.”
“It doesn’t have to do with why you’re here?”
“No. I wouldn’t put you that close to my work,” Maggie’s mom said firmly, opening the refrigerator behind her. “What do they suspect?”
“Well, she was hit by a car that didn’t stop, on a highway going out of town, but the real question was how she got out there at night and why. So maybe it wasn’t an accident.”
Cassidy Brennan turned toward her daughter. “You mean, someone might have taken her out there and then mowed her down?”
“It’s possible. Either that or someone knows why she was out there and doesn’t want anyone to think they had anything to do with hitting her. But at least one person knows something they’re not saying.”
“What about the boyfriend you’ve been hanging out with?” Her mom was alarmed. It was out of character.
“Tommy? He’s Nice Guy,” Maggie said, as if it was the most ridiculous idea in the world.
“Always look at the boyfriend first,” she recited.
“Well, I’m sure the police did that already,” Mags informed her.
“Yeah, I’m sure they did,” her mother said, thoughtfully crunching a piece of lettuce. Mags thought it best not to mention the boyfriend’s dad was the police. She pushed it out of her mind as they settled down for dinner and a movie.
It did not matter how many times Maggie told her mom she hated chick flicks; the woman never truly appreciated it. Sure, Mags enjoyed dinner, curled up on the couch, and she could appreciate a muscular, grinning lead, but it was all just so…sweet. Maggie’s eyes were usually sore from rolling afterwards.
But this time, the guy had pretty eyes and thick dark lashes. He looked wounded at one part when the girl ignored him, and she started to picture Tommy.
“Th
at’s it,” Mags stood and announced. “I’m going to bed.”
“You’re going to miss the best part,” Maggie mumbled her mother’s exact words as she said them, ignoring her and shutting the bedroom door.
Well, tomorrow would be the moment of truth: the perfume, finding out if the note belonged to Amanda at all. Tommy knew at last, as painful as it was for him that Amanda had kept something from him, and Becca knew too, giving them something to work toward, together. She sighed, supposing that was something. The sooner they got down to the truth, the sooner they could all move on with their lives.
When she finally crawled out of bed on Sunday, she felt like she had been hit in the head hard. Her mother felt even worse. Maggie swung open the bathroom door to find Cassidy sitting on the floor, elbow on the toilet seat.
She groaned when she saw her daughter. “Oh Mags, I’m dying,” she coughed.
“Guess you’re not going to eat at Tommy’s—”
“Don’t say EAT!” she exclaimed, and Maggie snapped the door shut just in time. Yep. Cassidy Brennan was in no shape to be a dinner guest.
Mom’s sick. he texted tommy.
Ok. he replied. I will pick you up after church. We get out about 1130. Be there soon after that.
She’d need to wear something nice. She assumed they would be in church clothes, so she rifled through her wardrobe for something churchy. She picked a skirt, black with an ivory pinstripe, and a frilly, sleeveless ivory top. Black tights. She crept into her mom’s bedroom to borrow her white flats.
Her mom groaned from bed, clutching some tissues. “You look good. Kind of churchy, don’t you think?”
“That’s what I’m going for,” Maggie explained, balancing on the closet door frame as she slipped on the ballet slipper-looking ivory flats.
“Try not to destroy those,” Cassidy Brennan jibed, nodding in the direction of the laundry cupboard where two pairs of unreasonably muddy shoes sat abandoned.
“So, how’d the movie end?”
“Happy,” she coughed. “Tell them I’m sorry I can’t make it.”
“I will. Feel better.” Maggie slipped out. She checked herself in the bathroom mirror, thinking she should probably do something for her mom but unsure what. She took a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water to her, receiving a grunt of thanks. Just as she reentered the kitchen and glanced at the clock on the microwave, she heard the distinct sound of Tommy’s truck and tried not to get too excited.
“See you!” she called, grabbing her coat.
Tommy pushed open her door as she climbed in happily, but once she got situated and the vehicle moved forward, she noticed how silent it was. Maggie was instantly worried. She hoped things weren’t going to be awkward now that she told him about the letter. Maybe he didn’t even really want her to come over for dinner today. It was his mom, not him after all, who offered. Maggie tugged at the ends of her sleeves, waiting for the silence to break.
“You ever read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?” Tommy abruptly asked.
“What?” Maggie asked, bewildered.
“That was Amanda’s favorite book,” he explained. “It’s how we became close, sort of. We were the only people who liked it when we had to read it in middle school.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. “Yeah. I’ve read it.”
“I keep expecting her to not be dead. Like it’s a joke. Like in the book. Maybe it just hasn’t hit me yet. I don’t know. But the whole funeral I was waiting for her to be up in the balcony watching the whole thing like Tom, you know? I even went up there later, to check, and it was empty, but I swear I could smell her, but the casket was down there and…” His voice was strangled and he couldn’t go on; he cleared it again. It was thick and smoky. “I never told anyone that. They might think I was nuts.”
He took a deep breath. “Anyway, I felt like that again. I haven’t seen her body. I didn’t talk to her before it happened. It’s like she’s hiding. Like it’s all a big prank. That poster. Everything. I keep waiting for her to pop out.”
Could it be possible Amanda was actually alive? That would be a rational—no, the only rational explanation of what Maggie had seen Friday night. She opened her mouth to tell Tommy what she saw, then shut it. If she was wrong, she was giving him false hope, and that was cruel.
She offered him a small, sad smile instead. “I don’t know Tommy…”
“Yeah you do. She’s gone. You call me Nice Guy, but you know you’re the saint here.”
“What?”
“A whole school, a whole town, all your friends, grieving someone you’ve never met and you are just so…understanding.”
“I’m just doing what anyone would do.”
He laughed coldly. “You think Becca would care that much if you showed up here grieving your dad? Or that I’d sit around listening to you cry over your dead boyfriend and still act happy to see you? I’m a hypocritical, selfish jerk making you listen to her all the time,” he spat hatefully.
“No, you’re not.”
“It’s not fair.” He shook his head. “I’m making you sniff her perfume, for God’s sake.”
“It’s okay, Tommy.” She reached for his arm that was holding the steering wheel, but stopped short. He wiped his face, as if angry at its state.
“Sorry,” he sniffed, collecting himself as they neared his home.
“It’s fine,” Maggie mumbled. It wasn’t, but she didn’t want him to feel bad. That wouldn’t help anything.
In silence, they climbed out once he parked. She was headed to the door when she realized he wasn’t with her. He was standing near the truck, waiting.
“What?” she asked.
“Just waiting to see if you’re gonna use my dumpster.” His lips twisted in a half-smile he tried to suppress.
“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes. They were smiling again as they entered the den that was becoming so familiar and passed through the busy kitchen, Tyler constantly in his mother’s way, tasting things and making her fuss.
Sunday dinner was not formal, but to Maggie, it was amazing. She had heard about these types of dinners that took place at a larger table in a room usually kept empty. Sam was not allowed in, though everyone offered their sympathies as they passed his pathetic whimpering at the door. Unlike the stylish high sitting chairs and glass table for two her mom had bought, this long wooden one had a tablecloth, bread basket, napkin holder that resembled a barn, and ceramic salt and pepper shakers. Maggie shook her head at it, surprised at how real it was.
She was laying out cloth napkins in little triangles, the only shapes she could make with them, when the sharp scent of lemon pepper roast chicken drifted into the dining room. She stopped and took a deep breath, mouth watering. The smell was followed by the platter itself in Tyler’s arms. The golden bird was surrounded by roasted potatoes and some greens at the center of the long table.
Mags followed him back into the kitchen. “What can I carry?” she asked determinedly this time, hands on hips. With a smile, Mrs. Latchley wiped her hands on an actual apron and handed Maggie a proper serving bowl of sweet smelling, glazed carrots swimming in their own juices and another one of long, crisp green beans.
Tossing off the apron, the mother herself carried in the bread basket filled with her steaming homemade biscuits and the matching butter dish. Behind them, a gas fireplace sprang to life with a rush of air. Its warmth was so strong it almost burned the back of Maggie’s legs. She enjoyed it as they took their seats.
No one mentioned the fact that Officer Latchley was nowhere to be found. No one waited.
Maggie knew better than to ask, eagerly digging into the hot meal before them along with everyone else. There was a quick prayer given, during which Tommy and Tyler had to take one of her hands and one of their mother’s. Tyler’s were rougher than Tommy’s, though less shy. Tommy’s were warmer.
She knew that probably wasn’t what she was supposed to be thinking about during a blessing, but she was grateful. She had never really
been to a traditional family dinner like in movies or shopping catalogs. She would never tell anyone, but she had actually had dreams about it. This one did not have stunning décor or even many people—it was better. It was comfortable.
Their voices were low and rhythmic as they talked about simple things like school, the boys’ occasional laughter deep but soft, contrasting with the tinkles of ice in glasses and silverware on plates. The warmth and filling food were soothing, giving Maggie this sort of sleepy euphoria. Her feet swishing back and forth on the soft carpet under her, she simply smiled and chewed each savory bite, letting the butter melt on her tongue, inhaling the spices. Meanwhile, she watched the late afternoon grow gray, the weather getting darker and uglier.
“I’m sorry your mom couldn’t make it,” Tommy offered, seeming to notice Maggie wasn’t particularly talkative.
“She will be too. She didn’t want to miss it, but when I tell her how good it was, she’ll be really jealous.”
“Want more, Margaret?” Miss Latchley asked.
“No thanks. I’m stuffed.”
“Well, that just gives us an excuse to do it again when your mom can make it,” she smiled sweetly. “I’m so glad you could come,” she said. It was with a strange emphasis like she was trying to communicate more than she could say. Maggie nodded slowly, not quite catching her meaning.
“Thanks so much for inviting me. We’ve never really had dinner like this. You’ve all been really friendly.”
Tyler winked.
“Yeah, especially Tyler,” Tommy scoffed.
As dinner wound down, Maggie’s offer to help clean up was rejected by Tommy’s mom. As the boys were clearing away the table, their father finally entered. Sam was especially happy to see him, wagging his tail faster than usual. Miss Latchley had to shoo the dog back out of the room. Officer Latchley was mostly sturdy, smiling, but his eyes looked wet.
“Hey there, Margaret,” he greeted. Maggie offered a “hi” and a small wave.
“Here, dad.” Tyler sat down a plate for his father.
Keep Your Friends Close Page 17