Thatcher killed the engine and stared out the windshield. “Guys, I get why they’ve rattled you. But in terms of crappy aspects of the past year, these letters don’t even rank in the top five for my family.” He spoke mostly to Ben. “Not the craziest. Not the scariest. They just seemed like another nail in the apocalyptic coffin lid that closed on my old life.” He still didn’t look at us. “I mean, you know about all that, right?” Thatcher turned his head to look out the window. “Pretty sure everyone knows about all that.”
“Yeah, man. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”
“It just didn’t seem so important. It was mail.”
“My sister Lucy? She thought maybe you wrote them,” Janie blurted out. Both Ben and I stared daggers, trying to shut her down. It was too late. “That would make sense, right? She has this theory that the house represents everything about your old life and all the aspects of privilege that you’ve lost. So of course you’re angry at us for taking over. You want to displace us the way you were displaced, punish us the way you might feel punished.” I focused on the VonHolt house because staring at the home where three kids died felt less uncomfortable than observing the social carnage inside Thatcher Langsom’s Jeep.
“Dude, what’s wrong with your sister?” Thatcher slid his eyes to Ben.
Janie blundered on. “Lucy is really smart—”
“What’s wrong with both of your sisters?”
Ben sank his face into his hands. I counted the steps on the VonHolt’s front porch. I noted the shape of the silver mailbox affixed by the door.
“It’s just a theory,” Janie said.
“We also considered the theory that Ben wrote them.” I tried to help. I did not help.
“Nice.” Ben turned and looked at me as if he was trying to measure how much I’d reveal about him, how much I could hurt him. Then he shifted his gaze to Janie because apparently I stopped mattering. “Really nice, Jane. I thought we’d gotten past that.”
“Well, sometimes you come up with stupid ideas. And you didn’t want to move here.”
“None of us wanted to move here.”
“In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t so awesome that you all moved here.” Thatcher sighed. “Listen, let me give you guys a ride home. It’s no problem, okay?”
“But we’re right here,” Janie said. “You don’t want to get out and walk around?”
“Janie—” I whispered. But I didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s just a house. Something awful happened there.”
“Right. But maybe whoever has latched on to our house also feels possessive over this house. That would make sense, right? They might attract the same type of crazy.”
“It’s a long shot,” Ben said. But I saw his eyes flick to the front porch and settle on the black front door.
“Worse than a long shot.” Thatcher stuck his keys back into the ignition. “For one thing, awful things happen in most houses. Maybe not VonHolt awful but I guarantee you I’m not the only kid in Glennon Heights to find out his dad was on pills. He’s not the only doctor with a missing prescription pad. People hurt each other all the time. They cheat on each other.” I looked down at my lap. “They suspect each other.” I heard Janie’s breath catch in her throat and Ben grunt as if Thatcher had landed a punch. “That happens in any house. You’re going to do what—Nancy Drew around the yard and look for clues?” I swung my head up. “Those people probably have enough to deal with. They don’t need tourists.”
“But we might find clues.” I spoke up. “Listen, Thatcher, I get it and I’m really sorry if we”—I looked at Janie—“seemed insensitive. But Janie and I found a bunch of possible evidence in your old backyard. We found cigarette butts and soda cans, like someone needed to pass along the time while they … I don’t know … watched the house. What if we just looked, real quick? We’re here anyway.”
Ben looked over. “No cars in the driveway, man. They won’t even know we were here.”
“Until we show up on a security camera,” Thatcher pointed out. “Come on, there’s no way they don’t have this place wired.”
“So Ben and I will go,” Janie volunteered. “We just moved here. We’ll just say we let our curiosity get the best of us.”
“We’ll be fast. I’ll time us,” Ben said.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” Thatcher gave in. “But I’m keeping the car running.”
“Two minutes,” Ben told him, then faced Janie. “That’s it. We do a quick tour of the backyard.”
The Donahue siblings made a quick exit and I sat in Thatcher Langsom’s car, feeling left behind and longing to disappear. The seconds dragged by. Finally I couldn’t help myself. “Hey, Thatcher, thanks for the ride.” His eyes flickered in my direction. “I’m really sorry about everything you’ve been through. I always thought of your family as sort of perfect. You know, seeing you guys in the neighborhood …” My voice faded out, without mentioning our wayward parents or wondering if Mrs. Langsom now regretted marrying the well-connected surgeon instead of my dad.
“You know it doesn’t matter what they find,” Thatcher said. “Someone smoking cigarettes and drinking soda—that doesn’t necessarily count as illegal. It’s a stretch to even call it trespassing. Honestly, you talking about my perfect family sounds a lot creepier. I mean, calm down.”
That got me mad. At Janie, for darting out of the car without a look back. At Ben, for making me feel like I didn’t count. And at Thatcher, who had seemed real for a second, but who suddenly felt the need to remind me of the distance between who he was and who I was.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not sounding at all sorry. “I guess your family’s been on my mind. I just found out about your mom and my dad. You know—together.”
“Oh yeah? Was that a recent development?” His voice had gone surly; his look had gone sour.
“No!” I said, indignant. “It was like twenty years ago, when our moms were close. Apparently, my mom got over it.”
“That’s a relief. ’Cause it seems like your aunt has a more recent reason to be angry.”
I heard myself gasp and that made me angrier, that Thatcher knew his words hit their mark. It only made it worse that I didn’t quite understand what he meant. My hand reached to open the door and nothing happened.
“My bad.” Thatcher smirked. “Child locks.”
I steadied my voice. “Can you let me out please?”
“Two minutes are up. We need to go.” He nodded in the direction of the house and Ben and Janie came hurtling out of the dark space between the hedges. The locks clicked and the Donahues vaulted into the car like two bank robbers hauling cash.
“Go. Go. Go,” Ben hollered, but he was laughing. Janie’s breath heaved as she settled in beside me. She had stretched out the front of her sweatshirt like a hammock and held a collection of cigarette butts and wrappers there.
“What kind of garbage did you bring into my car?” Thatcher asked. He smiled though, his wide Langsom smile. The play-by-play of Ben and Janie’s two-minute mission stretched for the duration of the ten-minute ride home.
“We found a spot,” Janie started.
“Beneath a tree,” Ben finished
“A big tree. Like an oak.”
“You could hide behind it.”
“If you wanted to.”
“To spy.”
“Well, yeah. To spy.”
“Anyway, there was just a pile of cigarettes.”
“Old, used.”
“Basically an ashtray.”
“Just like in our yard.”
“Candy wrappers.”
“Straight line of vision from the tree to the house.”
“So we were right.”
“Theory proven.”
Thatcher looked impressed. “Theory proven indeed.”
“Right?” Ben asked him.
“Will you turn it over to the cops?”
“Our collection of cigarette butts?”
“Maybe they can get DNA? Like
on CSI.” Thatcher whistled a low, impressed whistle. “I can’t believe you guys were right. We didn’t expect that at all. Right, Olivia?” It surprised me to hear Thatcher Langsom say my name. It seemed like everyone in the car turned to look at me. Even Thatcher, who should have kept his eyes on the road.
I didn’t answer. I dug in my pocket and found a leftover plastic bag, the kind we used when we walked Toby, to pick up after him. I held the bag open so that Janie could shake in her collection.
“Score!” Janie said. “Livvie always thinks of everything.”
“Listen, Olivia.” Thatcher cleared his throat. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to go on attack mode.”
“What’s going on?” Ben asked, on high alert. He twisted in his seat to see my face.
Thatcher looked toward Ben and then toward me. “Really. Sometimes when my family comes up in conversation … I just don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. I should never have said anything.” I meant I should never have attempted to hold a conversation with you, Handsome Lacrosse God. Maybe I’d pounced the way Brooke or any number of other people might have, reminding Thatcher that his status had fallen in the past few months.
Thatcher parked the car exactly between his old house and mine. It occurred to me that he must have known where I lived. He had just pretended he’d never noticed we were neighbors. Now he turned to face me full on. “No. Of course you should have. I’m sorry.”
“I get it,” I told him. “Thank you. And thanks for the ride home.”
“You want to come inside?” Ben asked Thatcher, but then looked back at me. “Everybody?”
“Liv, you have to. We need to compare specimens.” Janie shook the green plastic bag in the air. “We can use Lucy’s microscope. It’s majorly impressive.”
“Sure. Okay.” Thatcher shrugged casually, but his eyes darted around the street. He saw us notice and smiled wryly. “Just a little strange.”
“Yeah, man.” Ben hopped down. “It doesn’t have to be.”
The four of us walked from the curb to 16 Olcott and it felt easy and familiar, as if these were the friends I’d known for years. Anyone watching us would have believed that. The setting sun glowed amber and dappled the leafy maples that arched across the road. Behind us stretched our four long shadows, linked at the arms, even though, in real life, none of us even brushed against each other, right then.
And just as suddenly, the connection broke. We had reached the front steps of the Donahue house or the Langsom house, depending on the moment in history. Across the street, Miss Abbot’s sheer curtains fluttered.
“Look who’s spying—” I started to say.
“Hey, you know what? I should actually head back.” Thatcher stopped short at the bottom of the marble steps. He stared up at Ben, who had already reached for the door handle.
“What? No way. Come inside, man. It’s fine.” Ben looked at Janie, as if urging her to say something convincing. But Janie just swung her helpless gaze to me. Behind Thatcher, Miss Abbot stood fully framed in her front window, making no apologies for her surveillance.
“No, really. I have a whole lot to do for tomorrow. First day, right?” Thatcher backed down the walk, looking up at the three of us, who stood on steps of staggered height. “See you guys tomorrow. At school.”
The three of us just stood there, facing the neighborhood, because we didn’t want to turn our backs on Thatcher until he reached his car. Then Ben turned the doorknob and leaned back on the door. “This house,” he said. “So much grief over a little architecture.”
“You think he’ll be okay?” Janie murmured.
Ben scoffed. “Of course he’ll be okay. He probably just doesn’t want to see Mom’s miniature chair collection.” I laughed in spite of my concern for Thatcher. Mrs. Donahue’s collection was actually sort of odd—some of the chairs had creepy dolls perched on them. Some held figurines of animals. But Thatcher’s sadness trailed into the house with us. It permeated our jokes. Janie and I shifted in our spots, feeling guilty. But Ben just nodded again, reassuring us. “Thatcher’s fine. That kid’s strong enough to deal with a lot more than we can even imagine.”
“Look at you—showing empathy for another person,” Janie said. “So you don’t think our family counts as the worst-case scenario anymore?”
“Fifth worst, maybe.”
We heard a cupboard thump closed and then Mrs. Donahue calling out, “Ben? Jane? Are you both there?”
“Yeah. Olivia’s with us. We just went to the coffee shop. But we left our bikes there.”
“What? Why?” Mrs. Donahue sounded exasperated. “Well, okay. But you’re home for the night now?”
“Yeah, Mom.” Ben wrinkled his brow. “I can’t believe I’m the one pointing this out, but it’s a school night. Thatcher Langsom just left. He gave us a lift home.”
“Who?” Mr. Donahue came striding in. “What did you say?”
“Thatcher Langsom. The kid who used to live here. He drove us home from the coffee shop. He didn’t want to come inside.”
Mr. and Mrs. Donahue exchanged a look. If that look could have made a sound, it would have been the angry scrape of a chair against hardwood. Mrs. Donahue sighed and lowered herself into the sofa. “That’s for the best. That’s not a friendship I want any of you to pursue.”
“Any of you,” Mr. Donahue added with the hostile edge that occasionally sharpened his voice. He held up a hand to stave off Ben’s objections and explained, “Your mother and I are filing suit against the Langsoms tomorrow morning.”
For every first day of school that I can remember, my parents have taken photos of me in front of the azalea bush in our yard. Just me in front of fuchsia flowers. In the early photos, the blooms looked bigger than my head. In a few pictures, I’m reaching out awkwardly to touch one.
I couldn’t say no to my mom, not on the first day of high school anyway. And Janie wouldn’t let me opt out of carpooling. So that’s how I ended up standing at the side of our house, in front of a botanical backdrop, urging my dad to take the photos already before the Donahues showed up and the whole scene forever imprinted on Ben Donahue’s brain.
“Stand up a little straighter,” Mom instructed while Dad’s camera clicked away.
“We’re done, right?” I craned my neck, checking for the minivan backing down the drive. “How many do we need?”
“Until we get a good one.” The dew on the grass dampened my sneakers. “Look at the camera. Try to relax,” Mom implored. “Janie and her mom will wait for a few photos.”
“We’ve taken hundreds of photos.”
“How about you turn, just slightly, and look back at Daddy? Peek over the backpack!”
As she said it, Janie’s mom pulled into the driveway. Ben sat right up front, and even from my spot near the trellis, I could see his eyebrows arched in amusement. I almost sank into the ground. My dad kept clicking and probably caught the moment I realized that I would never achieve any semblance of coolness in the town of Glennon Heights.
“Mom?” I asked desperately. “Are we done now?”
Janie’s mom killed the engine but I was the one who died, silently screaming in front of the azalea plant. Mrs. Donahue swung her door open. “You’re so good! Every year I promise to take pictures. But then I count myself lucky just to get all three kids out the door.”
My mom threw up her hands, “Well, get them out here!” She tapped her watch. “We have plenty of time!” A better friend might have waved her off, run for the car, and claimed a need to arrive early for registration or paperwork. But I stood with my hands folded across my chest and waited for Janie and the twins to suffer through it right along with me.
For the first few, just Janie and I stood with the plant between us like a science experiment we had cultivated together. “How did this happen?” Janie murmured out of the side of her mouth.
“Every year this happens,” I said. Her mouth dropped open, just as my father’s camera clicked. “In this
same spot.”
Our moms arranged Ben and Lucy on either side of us. Then the three Donahue kids stood together and I got to stand off to the side, smirking. Then Ben and Lucy, Ben and Janie, Janie and Lucy.
“Don’t we need to get a shot of Ben and Olivia?” Lucy asked, her voice poisonous.
Janie’s eyes moved from Lucy to Ben and finally to me. “Why would we need that?”
“We don’t need that,” Ben said. I concentrated hard on the azaleas.
Aware of Janie’s eyes on me. I found my voice. “We should go.” I spoke to the flowers. “We really can’t be late on the first day.”
In the car, I sat hunched as close to the window as possible without actually hanging out of it. As soon as we arrived, I sprang out of the car and grabbed my bag from the collection of bags in the trunk. “Thank you for driving me to school today, Mrs. Donahue,” I sang out.
“Of course, honey. Look out for Janie today, okay? All of this has suddenly gotten so complicated.”
Maybe it was different in bigger towns or boarding schools or other places where you didn’t know by heart the people who surrounded you. But in Glennon Heights, the first day of school felt pretty anticlimactic. Maybe you felt different because your locker sat in an unfamiliar row or you were wearing new shoes. But most of the kids knew you too well. It was hard to start fresh in September even though you might have felt transformed. And if you actually were new, then the opposite happened. If you had recently moved to town like Ben, Lucy, and Janie, all eyes followed you everywhere. Heather Singer moved here from Seattle in the fifth grade and we still called her New Heather. Heather O’Leary, who grew up here, got to be Heather, unadorned and undescribed.
And then there was the Donahues’ address. And the fact that Thatcher Langsom, previous occupant of said address, stepped out of the crowd to greet Ben as soon as we approached the school’s domed awning.
“You have arrived,” Thatcher announced, as if welcoming Ben to his kingdom.
Our classmates watched this scene intently because most of us were accustomed to watching Thatcher intently. I watched, wondering how Ben would react—his father’s warning still scowling in my memory. But Ben just clapped one arm around Thatcher’s shoulders and grinned. Lucy separated herself quickly, but Janie and I walked behind them as long as we could and I marveled at the way the crowd parted for Thatcher. The boy. The athlete. The recently rich kid. All this power he flexed without even realizing it. But then I remembered how quickly Thatcher had turned on me the night before, how easily he’d reminded me how insignificant I was. Maybe he understood exactly how much power he flexed.
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