by Elle Casey
“Stay away from the Bradley place,” my mother shouted from the kitchen.
“Why?” I asked, annoyed enough that I forgot to play it cool.
She stuck her head around the corner. “Do I really need to say it? It’s a circus over there with all those media vans.” She gestured out our front window. “Look! One of them is practically parked on our lawn.” She put her kitchen towel down and made as if to go have a word with the a-hole reporters.
I held up a hand. “I’ll go tell them to move. I’m going running, and for the record, I’m not letting those dickheads decide where I go and don’t go.” It was the closest I could come to telling them what I was up to. I wasn’t ready to risk being told I couldn’t be around Jason or his dad anymore. Admitting that I might go in that direction felt like less of a lie.
“Good girl,” my father said, clicking the TV on with the remote. “Give it to ‘em good.” He was no longer paying attention to anything we said or did.
I took his encouragement as a sign that on the day that I confessed, my dad would be on my side supporting me. I left the house with a slightly lighter step as a result.
And that tiny bit of euphoria lasted all of three seconds … the time it took me to get to the end of my driveway and into the range of the reporters who didn’t have any respect for people’s front lawns.
Chapter Seventeen
“ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH JASON Bradley?” the woman standing next to the van parked by my mailbox asked. She gestured to a guy lounging around the hood area of the vehicle and he picked up a big camera, hefting it onto his shoulder.
“You need to get off my lawn,” I said, walking in the opposite direction from Jason’s house.
“The street is a public place. Are you friends with him? Do you go to Banner High?”
I looked at her van again and immediately got pissed off with her casual dismissal of my grass. Maybe I was being petty, but I couldn’t help it.
“Listen, lady, I don’t know who you are, but your van’s wheels are on my lawn not the street. If you don’t move them off, I’m going to get a steak knife and cut a hole in them, got it?”
She put a microphone to her lips and turned to her cameraman, a look of feigned shock on her face. “Did you hear that? I’ve just been threatened with a knife. Right down the street from Jason Bradley’s house. Do you think there’s something in the water here?”
The camera man pulled his face out from behind the lens. “Seriously, Karen? You’re going with that?”
Her face morphed into one I’ve seen in horror films a couple times. “Shut the hell up, Will. Just do your job and run the camera.”
I stood on the lawn, pulling my phone out of my running bra. Yes, even though I never run, I do have a running bra. Call it wishful shopping.
“I’m calling the cops to report you as a trespasser right now.” I pressed random buttons, not at all interested in calling the cops over to my house. I’d never get to Jason’s place if I had to deal with that bullcrap.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She turned to her cameraman. “Will, move the van.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, the distinct flavor of disrespect lacing his words. I liked him a lot more after that, even though he was a blood-sucking parasite newsperson guy.
She glared for a few seconds in his direction and then dropped her microphone to her side, stepping gingerly through the grass as her high heels sank into the soft ground. When she was just a few feet away from me, her voice softened into something that I think was supposed to make me feel like we were suddenly BFFs.
“You could be on the news, you know. Just a couple sound bites and we’d be good.”
From here I could see that she had gobs of make-up on, making her skin appear to be made of mannequin plastic. She looked way better from far away. Not only was her voice fake, her face was too. Ugh.
“I don’t want to be on your version of the news,” I said, moving off to start my fake-run. I couldn’t wait to put some distance between us. It was as if just being in her presence made me somehow agreeing with her tactics and attitude.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she yelled at my back.
“The kind where people are guilty until proven innocent!” I yelled over my shoulder, running to the corner and crossing the street. My thighs jiggled, and I prayed that the cameraman was too busy moving the van off my grass to be filming it. I’m really not good at grand exits.
“You have a lot to learn about life!” she yelled, apparently not yet ready to give it up. “And the news!”
“Blow me!” I yelled loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.
Adrenaline was coursing through my veins. I could have sprinted all the way to Jason’s house on the high I was living, but instead I slowed down to a fast walk. No need to get crazy about this running thing.
A plan was slowly forming in my mind as I turned the next corner, taking the street behind Jason’s backyard neighbor. I knew for a fact that Mr. Baumgarten, the old dude who lived there, was out of town. My next-door neighbor was watching his dog for him until the following week. All I had to do was get into his backyard and I’d be home free. He had to have some kind of patio furniture I could use to get over the fence, right?
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one with this great idea.
Chapter Eighteen
I GOT THROUGH MR. BAUMGARTEN’S side yard and up to the gate dividing it off from the backyard, no problem. But as soon as I pushed the slatted wood door open, I knew there was going to be an issue. Three guys were there at the back fence, using high-powered lenses on big-ass cameras to get pictures of the inside of Jason’s house.
Dicks.
I hung out in the shadows and chewed my lip. I needed to get over that fence, but I wasn’t ready to have anyone know that’s what I was doing.
Inspiration struck when I remembered that my other neighbor, Mrs. Cook, used a key hidden in Mr. B’s garden to put his mail inside. If I could just get into Mr. Baumgarten’s place, I could scare them off by making them think it was my house. Trespassing was a popular threat tonight.
I went around to the front of the house and started searching through the mulch at the edge of the garden. I was expecting a fake rock, but the only thing there was a dog turd, and no way was I touching anything near that.
Sighing in frustration, I looked out into the street. Cars drove by and a couple people stared at me. Pretty soon I was going to be busted as the trespasser if I didn’t find a way inside that house soon. I glanced down at the garden again and watched as a snail started crawling over the dog turd.
A snail crawling over a dog turd?
I grabbed a nearby twig and poked the nasty pile. The entire thing moved as one disgusting unit.
“Why you sneaky little perverted bastard,” I said, whispering to the absent Mr. Baumgarten with a huge grin on my face. Picking up the turd with way more confidence than a person should be allowed to have where dog excrement is concerned, I confirmed my suspicions; it was faux poo. Brown, turd-like plastic with a front door key in the hollowed-out interior, accessed through the bottom.
Less than a minute later I was inside and opening up the back door, acting like I owned the joint.
“Hey! What are you guys doing in my yard? Get the hell out of here!”
Two of them ran. One of them took his time. I made a big show of getting my phone out and taking a picture of him.
“I just got your picture. I’m sending it to the cops. You’re trespassing, asshole.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” the guy said.
I snorted. Some people. Zero professionalism.
It was a lot of work keeping the smile off my face. Never mind the fact that I was breaking and entering. I told myself I was an official neighbor, not like those cheesedicks who came from out of town to camera-stalk one of our own.
As soon as the last guy was gone, I ran out the door and over to the back fence, grabbing a patio chair and dragging it along wi
th me. Falling over the other side into Jason’s yard only resulted in one largish scratch on my arm, so I considered my mission a success.
I looked up at his house and kind of stopped for a few seconds. Now what? I asked myself.
Chapter Nineteen
I KNOCKED ON THE BRADLEY’S porch door like it was no big deal that I was in their closed-off back yard. My plastered-on giant smile was supposed to stun them into not realizing how psycho that was.
“What are you doing out in the back yard?” Jason said as soon as he opened the door. Apparently the power-level of my smile was zilch-o in this house.
I pushed inside, worried the photographers would be back before I could get under cover of his roof and four walls.
“Just avoiding all the press.”
“But how did you get back there?”
Jason’s father came into the hallway and smiled. “Hello, Katy. Nice to see you.” He looked back at the door behind me and his smile slipped.
Time for a distraction.
“Yeah! I’m so glad you invited me. So what are you guys up to? Did you have dinner yet? What’d you have? We had pizza. It’s always pizza on Thursday nights at chez Guckenberger.”
Word diarrhea. That was my big plan. Flood them with the sound of my voice spewing nonsense and they’ll forget all about the part where I broke into their neighbor’s house and climbed their fence.
“How’d you get into the back yard?” Jason asked again.
I sighed, rolling my eyes in his direction. “Can’t you see I’m trying to distract you from asking for details? Jesus, get a clue.”
Mr. Bradley laughed and then acted like he was just choking. “I’m going to be in the living room if you need me.” He turned and left us standing there in the hallway.
A wave of silent awkwardness filled the small space.
“So are you going to tell me or not?” Jason finally said. It was a challenge for him at this point, to figure out my secret. I could tell by his tone.
“If it’s that important to you…” This was my attempt to make him feel stupid so he’d stop asking.
“It is.” He wasn’t falling for that either, persistent little twad that he was.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. Do you have any juice? I’m parched.”
He moved past me into the hallway, back in the direction he’d come.
Having him that close made butterflies take up residence in my belly. I wasn’t sure whether they were the nervous kind or the excited kind. I couldn’t remember ever being close enough to Jason that I could feel the heat of his body like that. I admit, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
“I have juice if you have a confession.”
I think he was trying to be funny, but the humor just kind of died with the word confession. Things we’d say without thinking in another life suddenly meant so much more in this one.
It made me want to stop fighting with him and just make him happy. “Yeah, sure. I’ll … uh … tell you how I got back there. After the juice.”
I stood in the corner of the kitchen as Jason went through the motions of filling my drink order. He’d probably done that a thousand times in this place, but today he was doing it as a confessed murderer. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much his life had changed since last week. It didn’t seem fair that mine was going on as normal, right along with everyone else’s that we knew. Well … except for Coach and his family, of course.
I blocked my mind from thinking about them. If I got too sympathetic, I’d never have it in me to support Jason. I refused to think about what that said about me as a person, that I’d choose a side even when on the surface it seemed like the wrong one.
I took the glass of juice from him and tried to be casual about drinking it. I’d take a sip and look around. Take another and look around some more. This would be the longest juice-drinking event in the history of the world if I had anything to say about it.
He stared at me the entire time. The longer I took to finish, the higher his right eyebrow got. It was pretty much in his hair by the time I got to the end of the glass.
The last sip of the juice took me almost an entire minute to finish. I watched the clock, every second ticking away getting me closer and closer to my complete humiliation.
He’d think I was desperate to be in here with him. He’d laugh at me. He’d feel sorry for me for being such a dork. It was going to be terrible, I was absolutely sure of it. I saw no good coming from the telling of the truth. My mind raced to come up with a decent lie.
“Just tell me,” he said, as if he could sense my distress. “How bad can it be? You jumped the fence, right?”
I put the juice glass down on the counter. “Yep. Jumped the fence.” I wiped my mouth with a swipe from the back of my first finger, trying to look graceful about having a juice mustache.
He folded his arms and leaned on the counter. “I’m pretty sure there’s more to the story.”
I couldn’t come up with a lie that sounded like anything he would believe, so I just went with what I had.
“All right, fine.” I had to stare at the floor to get it out. “I took Mr. Baumgarten’s turd key, went inside his house, then came out the back door, used his patio chair, and climbed on it to get over.”
“You could have just walked through his side gate. He never even closes the damn thing.”
I shook my head, sorry to have to be the one to tell him this. “I tried. There were reporters at your back fence.”
Jason frowned. “So … I don’t get it. Why’d you go inside his place?”
I sighed heavily. “Because, I had to act like I lived in there to scare them away.”
He nodded, taking my glass from the counter. “Slick,” he said, before walking around the kitchen island to put my dirty glass in the dishwasher.
Suddenly it didn’t seem so awful. “Thanks.”
“I’m still not clear on where the turds come in, though.”
Aaaaand just as suddenly it did seem so awful. My face heated up to the point that it felt like it might actually be getting a sunburn, like a permanent one that wasn’t going to go away after the embarrassment wore off.
My voice sounded funny when it finally started working again. “He hides his key in a plastic dog turd in the garden.”
Jason laughed. He laughed first just a little and then a lot.
I laughed a little too when it became too awkward not to. “What’s so funny?”
He turned around and fixed his eyes on me, leaning back on the counter. “I’m just picturing you having the balls to pick up a bunch of dog shit to try and find a key.”
My chin went up, horrified that he’d actually picture me doing this. “I’ll have you know that I didn’t touch anything until I saw a snail climbing over it.”
“A snail … climbing … what?” His laughter died off, but his smile didn’t.
“Must we, really?” I looked around his kitchen. “Nice kitchen you have here.”
He pushed himself off the counter and walked to another exit from the room. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour.”
Thrilled to be moving on from my B&E and the picking up of turds, I followed him into the dining room. Jason might be a lot of things, but he was still a gentleman. Bobby would have given me the third degree until he’d gotten every detail out of my brain.
“This is one of the rooms we never use.” He gestured to the table and chairs that all had a slight layer of dust on them. The waning light coming through the back windows emphasized all the faults in the room, including a big scratch on the wood and fingerprint smears on a photo on the wall.
I moved closer to that picture, noticing three people in it. “Is that your mom?” I asked as soon as I recognized him as the kid. He was wearing a sweater I knew he’d never be caught dead in these days.
“Yeah. She had cancer when I was little. Died when I was eight.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I faced him, knowing that I didn’t understand how that felt but wanti
ng him to see that I meant it when I said I was sorry. She’d died shortly after Jason moved in, but at the time I’d been so young, and death had been such a foreign concept. Had I noticed his pain? Did I see him grieving? I couldn’t remember.
“Thanks.” He left me standing there and went into the next room. The sound of the TV got louder as I moved closer to it.
“This is the family room. That’s my father. I think you’ve already met.”
I waved awkwardly as we passed through the room. Mr. Bradley waved too but said nothing, watching us go by for a second before going back to his program.
“This is the front hallway, powder room, and stairs.” He stopped at the bottom with his hand on the railing.
I waited there with him in the front hall, wondering what the hell he was doing just standing there and looking at me.
“Well?” I threw up my arms and shrugged my shoulders. “Do you have an upstairs or what?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to go up there,” he said, a very serious expression on his face.
“Why not? You got dead bodies up there or something?”
I hated myself a split second later for saying the first thing that came to my mind, but then I didn’t feel so bad when he laughed.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” Instead of waiting for a response, he preceded me up the stairs, taking them two at a time. His leg muscles bulged with the effort. I could see the movement of them under his jeans and it gave me a secret thrill. I immediately chastised myself internally for even looking. I was not here to cop a feel or anything else stupid like that. He really does have a nice butt, though. That was the first time I’d taken notice of that fact.
“There’d better not be any bodies up there, that’s all I’m sayin’,” I mumbled under my breath, taking the stairs like a normal person. I liked listening to him laugh, and I felt like a million bucks when he did it again.
