by R. J. Jacobs
A place where nothing goes wrong.
I nearly stumble into one of the dozen wooden stools lining the kitchen bar, but manage to set the tray down on a marble countertop. I wipe my sweaty hands against my pants. At least until I see Robert, I feel the need to keep my eyes down to keep the risk of being recognized as low as possible, but I can’t stop myself from looking around some. The crystal chandelier in the dining room fills my eyes with light. It seems to turn as I pass, each gem flashing like a camera.
Ken waves me over as he answers a question from one of the guests, his fingers searching his shirt pocket for a business card. Beside him, I try to stand still as I look around.
“Doing okay?” he asks me when they walk away.
“Okay.”
Andre passes carrying hors d’oeuvres. His eyes look blank but he wears a thin smile.
“Can you pass through the front room again?” I can hear the nerves in Ken’s voice. They are nothing like mine.
“You got it, Ken,” Andre says, exiting.
I start back outside with a tray of clean glasses, but Ken says, “Hang on one sec.” I listen while a guest asks him how spicy something is and he answers.
Then Owen James’s voice comes from the other side of the room, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Should I say something? Where is Robert?
Owen is saying, “… I do like to cook but it took some fiddling around to figure out how to actually turn any of it on.” He motions toward the double range as he enters.
I freeze, my eyes focused on the moon’s reflection in the window—a white circle trapped in the glass like a tiny ghost. It’s shaking a little from the air conditioner or the footsteps across the floor. I’m like that. Trapped and shaking. I try to make myself small in Ken’s jagged shadow, but anyone can see me, I know.
The couple I followed up the driveway earlier stands beside Owen. The man taps his cane as he asks, “Where is ol’ Shelly, anyway?”
A group of people laugh encouragingly, like they mean for someone to search the house for Shelly, like a family would look for a hiding house pet.
One lady whoops, “Yeah!”
“… was here just a minute ago.”
“… bet she’s just …”
“Upstairs, probably,” Owen says tiredly, like he wants no part of the game.
I step halfway into the pantry to stay dim, hating that I know the answer. Knowing reminds me of my own curiosity. Why did she go into the park?
More laughter. Across the room, something spills.
“Shell?” a voice calls.
I hear phrases, whispers as they look for her.
“… worse than before.”
“Having an off night …”
“I heard that …”
Then someone clears her throat so loudly the guest nearest to me jumps a little. Her accent is sweet as syrup. “Y’all, Owen is about to play a track from the new record in the studio if anyone wants to come hear it.”
A few of the guests exchange glances, then empty into the hallway. I hear the stairs creak with footfalls.
Ken snaps me back from my trance. “Jessie? I was asking about wine. You brought in a lot of glasses.”
“There’s plenty left,” I tell him, which is the understatement of the year, before heading back through the double doors into the warm evening. I rub the back of my neck and bite my lips. Something is wrong, I think, as muted guitar chords begin from deep inside the house. Shouldn’t Robert have approached me by now if he was looking for me? There is a word for the fear I’m starting to feel. Naïve.
But for a few seconds, time stops and I’m not where I am, or even who I am. My feet feel the music’s slight vibration as my hands shake like that reflection of the moon. I’m away from the risk I’m taking and I forget about the order of protection I’m so obviously breaking. Hearing Owen’s new track lifts my heart, and I strain to listen.
This is why I love music.
It’s the eye of the storm, like it always has been.
It isn’t until the song stops that the questions flood back. Did Owen mean to distract everyone from the fact that Shelly is gone?
I glance across the patio, where more people are arriving, and pray silently to see Shelly’s headlights.
I grind my teeth together. I force my face into a smile when a guest asks to check the time on my phone.
When I look back at the kitchen windows, I see Ken, standing with his back to me. I can tell he’s talking with someone by the way his head moves, and I tell myself it’s a guest—that maybe he’s about to hand out another of his cards. But then he turns and looks over his shoulder, right at me.
The way he looks at me is different from a moment before. His eyes show a confused intensity.
Then I see Robert Holloway standing to Ken’s left, eyebrows raised, mouth moving. Robert moves beside Ken and they stand shoulder to shoulder.
I take a step toward them, then I stop cold. I can tell something is very, very wrong from the way they’re both looking at me.
Robert scowls and Ken shakes his head. I hear myself gasp when Ken moves to the door. Behind him, Robert raises a phone to his ear.
8
Robert Holloway disappears into the house. The way he looked at me was the same as last summer, when he stood on the beer-soaked loading dock, watching as the police dragged me to a car. His arms were folded, and he cast a triple-sized shadow on the concrete wall behind him. He mouthed a word at me I didn’t catch except to understand it was unkind.
Now Ken walks toward me slowly, his eyes dark with disappointment and fear. He glances at the guests on his left and right—a man chuckling as his wife leans down to touch the water in the pool, as if testing whether or not it is real.
He comes close and speaks to me slowly, the way Mr. Folger used to talk to wild dogs. “Jessie, the Jameses’ manager just told me something about you.” Ken gestures over his shoulder with his thumb.
My breath comes in short bursts, as if I’ve been punched in the chest. I shake my head slowly back and forth. I want so much to find the words, to explain. I try to start at the beginning, “Robert wanted me here. I’m supposed to meet Owen and Shelly.” But as words come out of my mouth, they sound all wrong—ridiculous, like I’m making up excuses that can’t possibly be true. My face starts to feel numb.
Why did Robert do this? Have I been stupid, or is this a terrible misunderstanding?
Our whole story is in Ken’s eyes—him hiring me, teaching me, taking me to events. For a second, the memories come back so vividly I grip the knife’s rubber handle as I cut vegetables. My job, and maybe the life I’ve built, are about to end.
He grimaces before saying, “Jessie, he’s calling the police right now.”
I start to have a thought—just a tiny flicker of an idea: Robert has tricked me into coming here. Why, I don’t know yet. Did he change his mind about me? Or learn something new about me? Does this have something to do with Detective Marion? I feel that wall-caving-in feeling of being set up.
For a second, I can’t think of the word “sorry.” I want to say it to Ken. I try to swallow but my mouth is dry. I look over at the pool, the driveway, wanting to run.
Ken can tell. “Jessie, let’s just stay here, okay? Let’s just keep calm.”
Keep calm?
When I see Robert heading to the back door, I start toward the gate.
“Jessie, wait.” Ken’s whisper is a hiss. I hear his shoes slipping on the pool tiles, then I don’t. I know already he won’t follow me. I hear the heave of my breathing over the fading bass and drums of the party, the back of my throat registering the cotton-thick night air. Through the dark, a stray laugh trails after me, but I understand it has nothing to do with me at all. Whoever called out belongs to a club I never will.
The angle of the driveway carries me forward like a push against my back. I picture Ken trying to explain his decision to hire me to the security guard who’d come to his kitchen on
Wednesday. I picture the cooks being interviewed—their recalling to investigators how long they’ve known me, how we met, how I’ve always been so quiet, so unassuming.
It’s always the quiet ones. That’s what everyone will say. I have just proven everyone right, without the slightest sense that I was doing it. I feel like I walked into a trap that I don’t understand. The one time I want to put everything about the Jameses behind me, I end up stalking them in spite of myself. In my head, I already hear Ms. Carr asking me, “If Robert Holloway invited you, why didn’t you stay and sort everything out with the police?” Because I know how this situation looks. And because I don’t enjoy being thrown on the ground.
“So, until I think of some better explanation, something that will fix this,” I want to say to Ms. Carr in my mind, “I’m making this up as I go along, walking as fast as I can.”
I go through the open gate, pass the valets all huddled around a single cell-phone screen, one of them saying, “Well, now it’s a full count.”
Will someone come after me? Yell for me to halt? Or will Robert want to keep everything looking perfect? That’s what I want to believe. I don’t want to go to jail.
I wonder: What if I left? Really left. Got into my car and drove out of Nashville and started up somewhere new. I had enough practice moving as a kid—I know how to do it.
But then my stomach clinches. With what money? The state would stop my stipend if I disappeared, I’m sure, and I barely scrape by on my salary as it is. Every month I have to be careful not to overdraw my account. Ken can’t pay much, and I’ve made some bad decisions with money. I survive because I live sparingly. I don’t even know how many tanks of gas I can buy if I spend every dollar I have, or where I could go that I wouldn’t be found.
Points of gravel press against my shoes as I walk along the side of the road—which is now darker, quieter. The way back to my car seems like forever.
I dig into my pocket for the orange crackers. I’m nowhere near hungry but I want the salt in my mouth, something to focus on besides my shame and fear. I open the package and press so hard on one of the crackers that it breaks apart in my hand. The peanut butter dries on the roof of my mouth instantly, the sensation an odd comfort. I try to swallow what I can.
Clouds have begun to gather above and less of the moon shines down. I smell rain in the air now, and between tree trunks I see a splinter of lightning reaching down between two clouds. A quick flash but no sound.
As I come to the edge of the park’s parking lot, I see Shelly’s SUV is still here, still blocking the view of my car. Night has fallen completely during the time I was at the party, but there is no sign of Shelly—no light shining through her tinted windows, where she might be reading or on a call. No, she is still in the woods, I realize, looking at the shadowy stalks of pine. What is she doing in there? Part of me doesn’t want to know, not anymore. But part of me can’t stop myself from thinking about it.
I tap the base of my hand against my skull and tell myself to stop wondering about Shelly. As I get closer, I hope she’ll stay in the woods, at least until I’m gone. I don’t want this night to look any worse than it already does.
Like I somehow followed Shelly to this place. Like I followed her into the dark, right after I’d been caught, again.
A raindrop hits my neck, warm and sudden—the heavy, full sort that comes at the beginning of a real storm. I rest my hands on the roof of my car for a second, the metal still warm under my palms. Another few drops hit the gravel as I open my car door, keys dangling from my hand.
From the trail I hear the sound of crackling leaves.
I stop. I look at the trees, like charcoal lines on gray paper. My skin turns cold as the rain continues to fall all around me. The cricket sounds end, and the trees seem to become still.
And then there’s a voice, calling out.
I look toward the trail. The sharp edges of my keys cut against my leg as I shove them into my pocket, my feet carrying me into the dark. Was the voice calling out to me? I hear it again, over my own breathing.
Up ahead, a branch snaps. I make out the word “stop.”
When I look up, there’s just enough light for me to see the shape of a man looking down from the top of the hill. I can tell it’s a man—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a baseball cap. Light shines across his face for half a second as he raises a phone to his cheek. His is the voice I heard.
The rain picks up. I feel my shirt sticking to my skin.
Then he starts toward me. He is maybe a hundred and fifty feet away—so hard to tell distances in the dark. I forget about the trouble I’m already in and turn back to my car. I don’t know what’s going on, but everything inside me tells me to leave. I have a little head start.
Through the sound of my own breathing I hear the pounding of his footsteps as he follows. I yank my keys from my pocket, drop into my car, and start the engine. The windshield is a mess of streaks as I pull onto the road. My shirt and hair are nearly soaked, my chest heaving as the glass immediately fogs up from my breath. I can hardly think beyond the basic tasks of aiming my car toward the road and hauling ass away.
The move from gravel to pavement allows me slight relief. I pass the James house without slowing, where the thump of music still carries into the night. Do I tell? I find my phone, turn it over on the seat beside me, then wonder, Will it start to ring? What will I tell the officers who come to arrest me?
Don’t think. Just drive.
Shadows from branches flow like waves on the streetlight-yellow road. I grip the steering wheel and press down on the gas pedal. I wipe my hand on my pants, hurriedly, brushing away the crumbs and oil from the cracker I’d crushed. I take my eyes off the road for just a second.
That’s when I nearly hit Finch James.
My brakes squeal as I slide to a stop. Through the fog on my windshield I see her staring back like a frightened deer. How close did I come to hitting her? Fifteen feet? Ten? The road’s curve hid her from sight until I was almost upon her.
I get out of the car. The open-door ding insistent as I look behind. The man who chased me could catch up any second. Through a clearing, the Jameses’ house is visible on the hill across from the park. The distance makes it look like a model, the moon-sized windows glowing with blue-white light, then darkness around the curved road. Still out of breath, I half expect to see headlights coming toward us and hear the sound of an engine gunning through the rain.
I close the door halfway as Finch James and I face each other in the pouring rain. Her skateboarding shoes have clumps of light-brown mud that the rain spreads onto the dark asphalt. I think of the story Andre and Malik told about her confronting them, and I expect her to be angry.
Instead, her voice is a small cry. “Can you help?”
Finch is wearing a black tank top and jeans, her hair is wet and dripping onto her bare shoulders. Her pale chest heaves. She clasps her hands to it, shivering, her eyes wide like she’s trying to make sense of what I’m doing in the world.
“Please?” she asks, just as the sky opens up even further—the thunderstorm becoming a downpour.
I squint through the rain at the still-quiet road and nod, pointing to the passenger door. Emergencies stop time. I forget about the week before, even ten minutes before. My head buzzes with confusion about what’s happened—too many things at once that I can’t understand—but I know this for sure: I have to get her off the road. I can’t be a watcher anymore. I have to get us both away from whoever just ran after me from the trail.
Finch gets in the car, then I drop into the driver’s seat and we go—both soaked to the bone, speeding into the pounding rain. It comes down so blindingly hard that for a few seconds my windshield wipers do nothing to clear it and I have to try to focus on the twenty feet directly in front of us, praying we don’t crash into some tree along the roadside.
For a long moment, Finch doesn’t speak. Are there right words for this situation? Then she runs her hands through her hai
r before pressing her palms against her cheeks. Her eyes peek at me over her fingertips. “Thank you.” I clear my throat as my mind forms a thought, but then she says, “Oh my God. Oh my fucking God.”
“What … happened?” I struggle to ask. I wipe my eyes with the heel of my palm. Rainwater runs down my arms, forming heavy drops at my elbows. Everything is drenched.
When I look at her, I realize her jeans are muddy and torn. She has a tangle of red scratches on each bare shoulder. Her hands stay pressed to her face, a protective barrier. But her eyes grow even wider. “I think someone just killed my mom.”
My foot slips to the floorboard. I nearly slam on the brake. I stare at her for a long beat, then have to swerve to keep the car on the road. I have to remember to press the gas pedal again. Drive.
“You saw it?” I ask.
Finch nods, frantically. “My parents had a fight. She was leaving and I called after her, but she drove off. She goes to the park sometimes to walk and think … I went to look for her there. I could hardly see, but when I found her …”
Her voice cracks, a heave of pain breaking through.
Killed?
The word re-echoes over and over in my mind, my hands so tight on the steering wheel they start to go numb. I saw her mom leave too, I realize, just as I got to the party. I remember the careless weaving of her SUV, and how I had to step off the road to avoid being hit. I’d watched her put on her shoes and start into the woods. It looks like I saw Shelly too—right before someone killed her.
It seems impossible for the rain to come down any harder, but it does, so crazily that the windshield is washed white for a few seconds.
“Someone was with her,” Finch says. “A man, standing over her. I think she had gone to meet him.”
She looks at me like she’s recalling a nightmare she can hardly believe, like she wants reassurance it didn’t happen.
“He turned when he heard me coming. She was lying on the ground. She wasn’t moving. I screamed. I could tell from the way her neck …”
