Splinter (Fiction — Young Adult) Page 7

  “And the box was hidden there?”

  “Pushed in there pretty good. Anyway, I thought you should have it.”

  “Well . . . thanks.” But I don’t recall owning a copy of Gatsby, or ever reading it, for that matter.

  “Open it,” he says. I turn back the worn cover, which I now realize has been laminated at the edges. He reaches across the table and taps the inside cover with a blunt finger. “See?”

  Once he moves his hand, I see it: a small rectangular sticker with my mother’s typewritten name and address alongside an image of a sunflower—a return address label, proof that once, she lived at my house.

  But Ryan takes the book and starts flipping the pages before I have a chance to study the label in its entirety, before I have a chance to memorize the way her name looks in print.

  “And here . . .” He taps a finger at the bottom of page 117—eleven, seven—where my mother had doodled three sunflowers, which appear to have sprouted up from each digit. “My uncle says she used to love those flowers. He grew them against the barn, didn’t he?” He looks up at me.

  I meet his gaze. “Thank you. For getting this back to me.”

  “No problem.” His eyes now hold a question. “Been a long time, Sam.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m glad you came through the yard today. I was wondering how long you’d keep your distance.”

  I feel my cheeks grow warm. “You could’ve come over to say hello when you got here.”

  “I’ve only been here a couple of days, and you’ve been in school.”

  “Why aren’t you at school?”

  “I’m homeschooled. Just finished my senior year, as a matter of fact, so now I have time to help my uncle.”

  “Why’d you stop visiting? You used to be here all the time.”

  “Was there anything to do here—once you stopped coming around, anyway?”

  I guess it was no secret that my father didn’t want me to speak to Schmidt, let alone spend time on his property, after Mom was gone. From the little that Dad’s said, I gather Schmidt was pretty vocal about his belief that Dad was responsible for whatever happened to my mother.

  “But really,” he adds, “let’s just say as I got bigger, I was needed at home. Lots of land to take care of.”

  “Yeah.” I sort of remember he has horses. Or something. “You said . . . your uncle talks about my mom? About the sunflowers?”

  He shrugs a shoulder. “Just when I asked about the book—why he had it, why it was shoved in a box with the rest of these things.”

  The rest of these things?

  I peek into the box, which appears to be filled with old papers. Syllabi, applications for employment . . . with my mother’s signature on them.

  The moment my fingers meet the pages, a sense of coziness darts through me, as if the warmth of my mother’s touch has remained embedded in the aging fibers of these papers.

  Dad was right. Judging by the letters of reference addressed to deans at Clark Atlanta, Clayton State, and Coastal Georgia, Mom was planning to go home to Georgia—for good. But wouldn’t she have needed these things to secure a job there? And why leave them here if she needed them?

  I should call Eschermann. This is something else my mother left behind. And Ryan found it in the exact location I’d assumed my mother had gone!

  “Why would Schmidt have been storing all this stuff in his barn?” I murmur.

  “He said your mom asked him if she could keep a few things there. He was fine with it, and—I mean, she never came back for them.”

  I look up at Ryan, almost guiltily. “I—I feel like the police might want to see this.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He shrugs. “Uncle Henry said he turned everything of Delilah’s over to the police . . . you know, when it happened. But they must’ve missed this box.” I wonder how he’s interpreting all this. From his point of view, has he stumbled over memories a former playmate’s mom left behind? Or did he find clues suggesting foul play in her disappearance?

  I can’t decide. With most people, this would be easy. My family’s history is like a horror movie people can’t help but watch, peeking through their fingers as they cover their eyes.

  But Ryan—so far, anyway—doesn’t pass judgment. My mother is gone, but it’s just a fact to him. There’s no attempt to point his finger at anyone, or even try to explain the inexplicable. It just is.

  “Your uncle and my mom . . . they were friends, right?”

  A smile spreads in his lips. “Yeah. Neighbors, friends. Somewhere in between, maybe.”

  In between. Maybe less than friends. But not more.

  Then why did my mother leave these things in his barn?

  In ten years, surely Schmidt could’ve gotten rid of this stuff if he’d felt like it. Especially if he was convinced that my mom would never come back to reclaim her belongings. Yet he’d kept it. Why?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement on my property.

  I practically jump when I see it: a motor home pulls up my driveway. It’s an off-white contraption, yellowed with age, with a fine orange pin-striping along the base. “Damn,” I whisper, walking to the kitchen window for a closer look.

  “What’s up?” Ryan’s behind me now, looking out the window too.

  I haven’t seen this glorified van in years. I suspect Dad calls my grandmother when things are getting hot, whenever the dust settling around my mother’s case gets stirred up again. Whatever the reason, her being here isn’t a good sign.

  “My grandmother’s here.”

  “Huh.”

  I know he doesn’t get why I sound less than excited to see her. Even as a little kid, I knew her being here meant things were about to get uncomfortable.

  “You know those grandmothers who sort of annoy you because they insist on giving you kisses that leave lipstick marks on your cheeks?” I ask. “And you don’t know how to talk to them, but you try because they keep asking questions, and the whole thing is really awkward? But in the end, they’re your grandparents, so you love them anyway?”

  He chuckles. “Yeah.”

  “Well, my grandmother isn’t like that.”

  He leans against the countertop and crosses his arms over his chest. “What’s she like?”

  “In a word? Controlling. And usually drunk. When I was a little girl and she was watching me one night, she stared at me across the table for three hours while I took tiny sip of milk after tiny sip of milk, insisting I finish it all. Do you know how gross milk is at room temperature?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I don’t even like it when it’s cold. And I’m lactose intolerant, but she doesn’t believe in lactose intolerance. I would’ve been there all night, if Dad and Heather hadn’t come home and put a stop to it.”

  “Geez. She sounds delightful.”

  Of course, Gram’s dietary tyranny is hardly the worst thing about her. But I’m not going to burden Ryan with my other memories. I imagine my too-thin grandmother, ever-present drink in hand. Sip after sip. Words slurring by dinnertime.

  One memory in particular is hard to shake. She’d been visiting the summer after Mom left—the summer the air conditioning was on the fritz—and we’d been watching television in the basement because it was too hot upstairs.

  Dad retreated after a few drinks, when he got that glazed look in his eyes. Gram went up after him. Just to check on Dad and get another drink, she’d said. She left me in the basement. A storm rolled in, and I was down there alone while thunder and lightning crashed and the house shook. She never came back. I know now that she probably just passed out on the sofa, but at the time I felt completely alone. I was too afraid to go upstairs, because I didn’t want to see my father depressed and blank; his drunken episodes were still new enough to scare me.

  So I’d huddled in the corner of Dad’s office, by Dad’s desk, and cried myself to sleep.

  I glance at Ryan, who is sort of frowning but sort of looking sad, as if to say sorry-you-had-to-
deal-with-that.

  I summon a breezy tone. “Anyway, we just don’t get along very well. At least I don’t have to deal with her all that often.” And I’m old enough now to come out of the basement. “Dad only calls her when he’s desperate for someone to help fill the gaps while he’s busy.”

  Busy, in this regard, means under suspicion.

  “And sometimes, she comes just because she’s breezing through town. But every time, she takes over like she belongs here.”

  “Sounds disruptive.”

  “To say the least.” I pull my phone out of my pocket. I wonder if Dad invited her this time or if she’s here of her own volition again. “I have to call my dad.”

  My mom used to make cookies by the hundreds. But she made them in multiples of eleven instead of twelve.

  I was in a hotel once that didn’t have a thirteenth floor. The buttons on the elevator went from twelve to fourteen. There was still a thirteenth floor, of course, but calling it number fourteen must have made things more bearable for the superstitious people staying there. Still, how gullible could they have been to have simply accepted a different number?

  Strange what people do to make themselves comfortable.

  And I’m wondering what adjustments I’ve made over the years to remain comfortable. Comfortable with Dad. Comfortable with the fragments of truth I’ve gathered along the way and somehow pieced together as an explanation for what must’ve happened to my mother.

  But based on what I know now—the Trina Jordan connection, the box of job-hunting materials left behind in Schmidt’s barn—I can’t afford to be ignorant anymore.

  Ryan takes his eyes off the road long enough to glance at me. “So . . . bowling?”

  “No, that’s just what I told my dad.” I left Dad a message, telling him that Gram had arrived and that Cassidy needed my help at the shop before our plans tonight. I didn’t mention the hostile atmosphere at school, the box Ryan found in the loft, or even that I stopped by the police station to see Lieutenant Eschermann. I could have at least texted it to him, but truth be told, I just don’t feel like he deserves to know right now. He was married. Trina Jordan wasn’t just some girl he used to know. She was his ex-wife.

  I wonder what else my dad is hiding. What else isn’t he telling me?

  I glance at Ryan, who offered to drop me off at the Funky Nun when I decided I didn’t want to go home and see Gram. “We’re really just hanging out at Brooke’s,” I explain to him. “Not doing anything special, but you’re welcome to join. I mean, I’m sure you have your own plans, but . . .” My phone chimes. Dad’s calling back. I can’t take the call. Not now. Not in front of Ryan. I send it to voice mail.

  “You okay?” Ryan asks.

  “Yeah.” I don’t tell him the truth: that I’m confused. That I feel duped. That I’m angry and frustrated. With everyone. With my mom—obviously—for leaving us in this mess. With my dad for leaving so much to question, and with Eschermann for not figuring it out already. Even with Schmidt, who maybe through no fault of his own, or maybe through every fault, had been harboring a box of what might be evidence for ten years!

  I’m even a little irked that Ryan found the damn box to begin with.

  The windows in Ryan’s truck are rolled all the way down. Despite the slight nip in the air, it’s nearly sixty degrees. This is the time of year my mother used to call “second chance summer.”

  Let’s roll the windows down, Sami-girl! Last chance to feel this free until spring!

  Is there any chance someone like Mom could have something to do with Trina’s disappearance? Not the mother I remember. But then again, the mother I remember also wouldn’t have left me.

  There’s a little charm dangling from Ryan’s rearview mirror: a white ghost with big, black eyes and a cheesy smile. And I can’t help thinking that my mother, whether she’s alive or not—my heart sinks with the thought of the latter possibility—is a lot like a ghost. Mysterious. Residual. But not here.

  “This is it.” I point toward the end of the Lakefront Walk.

  Ryan expertly parallel parks. Across the street, in front of the Madelaine Café, Alex Perry is sitting outside in the alfresco dining section, reading, with an oversized mug in front of him. He looks up and waves when he sees me.

  I wave back.

  He goes back to his book.

  Ryan kills the engine. “I’ll walk you in.”

  “Oh, you don’t . . .” I shut up. If I tell him he doesn’t have to, he might think I don’t want him to. It’s not that I necessarily want him to, either, but it’s not like I mind. “Thanks. You can meet my friends.”

  Together we approach the Funky Nun, which is bustling. Most of Heather’s orders come through the website. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen six shoppers in the quaint showroom at the same time before tonight.

  Ryan’s hand meets the door before I reach it, and he opens it for me. “After you,” he says.

  Tonight’s soundtrack consists of heavy base and repetition. A new mix. Patrons leaf through racks, and some actually stand in wait with hangers hooked on their fingers, but Brooke hasn’t moved from her position behind the counter, where she’s flipping the pages of New Dawn magazine.

  She looks up when she sees us, offers a bored wave.

  “Hey.” I drop my backpack behind the counter and do a quick introduction: “Ryan, this is Brooke.”

  She raises her chin. “Sup?”

  “Excuse me.” A woman in professional dress leans over Brooke’s magazine. “I need a fitting room? If it’s not too much of an inconvenience?”

  I might guess this isn’t the first time she’d asked for one.

  “Sami,” Brooke says. “Fitting room.”

  I raise a brow. “Really?” I’m not even on the clock.

  “What?” Brooke grabs a scarf from a rack on the counter and drops it around her shoulders. She peers into a small mirror, which Heather hung on the wall behind the counter, to check her lipstick. “You know the drill. You want information on a voodoo doll? I’m your girl. Fitting room? Entirely out of my realm of expertise.”

  “Where’s Cassidy?” I ask. “Filling online orders?”

  “Nah, inventory.” Brooke turns another page.

  I turn to woman-in-pants-suit. “Right this way.”

  Three people with outfits hooked on their fingers follow me.

  “Here.” Brooke hands Ryan a Magic 8 Ball. “Keep yourself busy.”

  He shakes it. “Will I get accepted at Northwestern?”

  I unlock three fitting rooms, admit the customers, and return for the verdict:

  “You may rely on it.”

  “That thing’s never wrong.” Brooke moistens her finger and turns another page.

  “I guess we know where I’ll be next fall, then,” Ryan says.

  “The real question is”—Brooke finally closes her magazine—“where will you be tonight?”

  “Brooke.” Nothing like putting the guy on the spot, especially because he never answered when I invited him earlier. I turn to a customer approaching the register. “All set?”

  “No, really,” Brooke says, slouching out from behind the counter so I have room to work. “You should come to my place tonight. Just a smallish gathering. Sami, Cass, and me.” She walks right up to Ryan, stands toe-to-toe, and cranes her neck to stare up at him. “And some dweebs you could step on, if you wanted to. How tall are you, anyway?”

  “Six-two. But I should probably take a rain check. I got lots to do, so . . .”

  “Like what?”

  “Brooke!” I say. “Give the guy a break, all right?”

  “Fine,” she says, still staring up at him. “Be boring.”

  “Oh, no.” Cassidy enters the showroom with a stack of embroidered jeans. She looks me over from top to toe and back again. “You’re not wearing that tonight.”

  “What?” I look down at my standard outfit: leggings, tank top, and hoodie. Nothing fancy, but I’ll take this outfit over a run-in with my gra
ndmother any day of the week, so I’m not going home to change. “I don’t think the world will implode, Cass. This is Ryan, by the way.” While Cassidy and Ryan acknowledge each other, I bag the crocheted beret I just sold and hand over a receipt. “Have a nice evening.”

  “So here’s my real question, Ryan,” says Brooke, still sizing him up. “Are you man enough to hang out with my best friend?”

  I’m ringing up another customer.

  “News flash,” Ryan says. “She was my best friend before she was yours.”

  Best friend? My insides go gooey for a second. I feel flattered and important. And maybe like I should change clothes before the party tonight.

  “Touché.” Brooke stays her course. “But I’ve been here the whole time.”

  “Good. That’s important.”

  “Hmmm.” She squints at him and then finally steps back. “You’re a good guy?”

  “I’m a good guy.”

  “Okay, I approve. You should come.”

  He looks at me.

  “You should,” I say.

  I pick up the Magic 8 Ball from where Ryan abandoned it. While shaking it, I concentrate on my question: Is my mother alive?

  Its reply: Better not tell you now.

  Heather and Cassidy’s apartment above the Funky Nun still looks like they just moved in, although they’ve been here now for almost six months. Boxes still line the walls, some empty, some not yet open. This is one of the ways Heather and my dad are different. Seeing this place would drive Dad nuts—there’s not a single room in this place that’s completely put together.

  I’m in the laundry room, looking through Heather’s rejected samples, the designs she likes but doesn’t think will sell. The stock has always been accessible to Cass and me. Because most of the stuff is so out-there that it’s not even in the same solar system as my style, I don’t usually consider the prototypes when I’m looking for new clothes.

  But my sister insisted I find something more exciting to wear tonight, and while ordinarily I would’ve brushed her off, Ryan did agree to meet us there later.

  Cassidy suggested a little extra effort tonight couldn’t hurt, and maybe she’s right. I mean, nothing is going to happen between Ryan and me. But still.