by R M Wild
“What’s the matter?”
“I think she saw me.”
“Who?”
“Katelyn.”
He laughed. “Don’t be silly. She’s harmless.”
“Easy for you to say. She didn’t start a smear campaign against you online.”
“Actually, she did,” Kendall said. “She snapped a picture of me when I was climbing out of the pool in my Speedo and posted it online with the caption: banana or cocktail wiener? You decide.”
Katelyn spotted us, put down her ladle, and came straight in our direction. “I am totally surprised that you came,” she said with a flip of her hair. “And I see you brought the swamp thing.”
“Swamp thing? He’s hardly a beast. Swimmers have to shave all the time,” I said.
Katelyn glared at me. “I was talking to Kyle. Did you see the little signs I made for you on the way in?”
I had. She had hung little handmade signs on the custodian’s broom closet that said No Parking. That means you, Casket.
I wanted to yank off my heels and stab her in the cheek. “Yes, I saw them. It was so thoughtful of you. Where did you get the glitter? Hobby Lobby?”
She smiled. “I made sure it was nonflammable.”
Why should I still be afraid of this witch? “Listen, you—”
She put her hand in my face and turned away from me. “So, Kyle, what brings you back to Dark Haven?”
Suddenly and unexpectedly, my inner dialogue came right to the surface. It was like a killer whale coming up for air. I had survived attempted murder twice, yet couldn’t hold my tongue in the presence of this gossip monger.
“I’m sorry, hold on, you knock-off Barbie. Have I done something to offend you? I mean seriously, ever since high school, you have been trying to make my life miserable.”
She glared at me and cocked a hip. “Obviously, you don’t remember. And obviously, that is why I hate you,” she said. And with that, she harrumphed, turned on her heels, and strode away.
“Yikes,” Kendall said. “Remind me not to tickle your bad side.”
“How much do you want to bet that she’s the one who’s been smearing all that bad blood online?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Kendall said.
“So let’s go after her.”
“Absolutely. Show me the proof of damages and I’ll file the suit tonight.”
“Obviously I wouldn’t be here tonight if business was going well.”
“Yes, but correlation is not causation,” he said.
“I know, I know.”
Kendall smiled. “How about some punch?”
I glanced at the bowl that Katelyn had just vacated. “I wouldn’t mind giving her a punch.”
“Take a deep breath. The last thing you need right now is an assault charge.”
A sudden flash of bright light made me think the lights had fallen from the ceiling and exploded at my feet. I covered my face and blinked away the purple splotches.
“Geez man, put that thing away,” Kendall said.
Meat Locker Joey lowered his giant camera. He was now sporting a thick beard. With that Moe Howard hair-cut, he looked half Amish.
“Are you cheating on pretty boy?” Meat Locker said.
“No,” I said. “What’s with the beard?”
“Do you like it?”
“I haven’t formed an opinion yet,” I said. “If I get drunk and throw up tonight, I’ll let you know.”
“Well, I like it,” Meat Locker said. “The only problem is, every time I lean over someone’s open face, the beard keeps dipping into their brains.”
I scrunched up my face as if a dead body had just passed gas. “Kyle, you remember Joey Bunker?”
“Oh yeah, I remember,” Kendall said and offered his hand.
Meat Locker ignored Kendall’s handshake. “You’re the swimmer, aren’t you?”
“I swam, yes. I don’t know if I’d call myself a swimmer, though.”
“You are what you eat.”
Kendall and I glanced at each other.
“He’s a lawyer now,” I added.
“Uggh,” Meat Locker said. “Not another one.”
“So what do you do?” Kendall asked.
“He cuts up dead bodies for a living,” I said. “He’s the coroner.”
“D.I.,” Meat Locker said.
“Same difference.”
“Not really. I have a lot to learn.”
“That must be a tough job,” Kendall said.
Meat Locker raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“I’m assuming it’s emotionally taxing.”
Meat Locker looked confused. “Do you find it emotionally taxing when you carve up a turkey?”
“Not really—”
“Dead meat is dead meat,” Meat Locker said.
I smiled. “Yes, well, I think we best be going,” I said and pulled Kendall away from the psycho.
My heels were killing my feet, so I led him toward the bleachers.
“God, he’s weird,” Kendall said.
“You think?”
“Was he the same kid who got caught with a cattail in his backpack?”
“If you mean an actual cat’s tail, then yes,” I said. “The word creep doesn’t have enough syllables for Meat Locker.”
“Why do you call him Meat Locker?”
We sat on the bleachers and I took off my heels and rubbed my feet. “That’s what Matt Mettle calls him.”
“I see,” he said. Then, “Hey, do you want a foot massage?”
I glanced at him. “Seriously?”
“It looks like you’re not very comfortable in those heels.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Kind of.”
I glanced at the basketball court, at all the people I used to despise. “No offense, but it’s kind of weird.”
“Not at all,” Kendall said, putting up two hands to profess his innocence. “I don’t have a foot fetish or anything. We had to massage each other’s feet in swim practice. Sometimes, from keeping our toes pointed for hours, our arches would cramp up. I got over the weird factor a long time ago. Think about a bunch of dudes sitting around in their Speedos massaging each other’s feet.”
“I’m one step ahead of you,” I said.
“This is nowhere near as weird as that.”
I glanced again at the crowd. The event had started only half an hour ago, but mitosis was well underway as they divided into their old cliques.
“Let’s give them something to talk about,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“It’ll be fine,” he said. He took my left foot, slid off the shoe, and rubbed around the heel.
I motioned to the congregation of familiar strangers. “You don’t care what they think?”
“I didn’t care much then, and I don’t care now. Besides,” he said and adjusted his tie, “I own them.”
“Must be nice,” I said as he kneaded the muscles in the middle of my foot. It felt downright heavenly.
“What’s that?”
“Not caring.”
“Once you get your business up and running again and you feel successful again, you won’t care either.”
I leaned back, my two elbows on the bleacher behind me, and closed my eyes and enjoyed the pampering.
“So what’s going on between you and Mettle?” he said casually.
I didn’t open my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I heard you two spend an awful lot of time together.”
“He’s helping me figure out what happened to my sister.”
“Nothing more?”
I shook my head. “No. But thank you for speaking with Herrick about what happened. You saved Mettle’s butt.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I opened my eyes. “Didn’t you get the charges dropped?”
Kendall grinned. “Again, I don’t now what you’re talking about. But whatever it is, you’re welcome.”
Soft gig
gling sounds came from behind me. I turned around. In my peripheral vision, I could see Greg Leader and Jessie Finkel hiding under the bleachers, sucking face. Greg had been our Salutatorian, a truly pretentious nerd who had bored the entire class with ten-syllable words in his graduation speech. Finkel, on the other hand, had been rumored to become an exotic “waitress” at one of the buffalo wing-joints in Bangor. Given that they were both married to other classmates, the scandal might be enough to make everyone at the reunion forget about me and my foot masseur.
“Oh my God, do you see those two?” I said.
Kendall put down my foot and turned for a look. “Yuck.”
“Mettle has to see this,” I said. I dug in my purse for my phone, but couldn’t find it. “Huh. That’s strange.”
“What?”
“My phone’s not here.”
“Maybe you forgot it,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. I wasn’t someone who needed surgical detachment from her phone, but I usually didn’t leave it at home, not with all the weirdos in this town. “Shucks. Mettle would have gotten a kick out of seeing that.”
Kendall looked me deep in the eyes. “Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you two?”
“No,” I said. “He’d think it’s funny, that’s all.”
A moment later, the underside of the bleachers lit up in a flash of white light.
Meat Locker had found them.
Kendall stood and straightened his suit. “Look at us. We’re hiding over here on the bleachers.”
“Like any good school dance.”
“Exactly. To be honest, I don’t know why I ever thought coming here tonight was a good idea. I think I’ve had my fill of yesteryear,” he said and offered his hand. “Would you like to get out of here, Miss Casket? Perhaps we could go someplace…saner?”
“You read my mind,” I said.
17
Outside, the moon hung over the old football field like a Chinese lantern strung between the rusty uprights. On the grass, a bunch of candy wrappers eddied in a colorful vortex like phantom kids chasing each other in their gym pinnies.
The wooden bleachers—where our balding gym teacher used to sit with a bottle of “Gatorade” in a paper bag and make us chase each other around the perimeter of the field—were as warped as the planks on The Moaning Lisa. For a brief moment, I thought I saw the specter of Captain Herrick climbing to the top of the bleachers, stomping one foot on the highest rung, and barking orders at the overgrown shrubs. But then I blinked and realized it was only Josh Delaney, come outside for fresh air and a long, drunken gaze at his old glory field.
I followed Kendall across the parking lot toward his shiny Mercedes.
“We made an appearance, right? That counts for something.”
“No FOMO here,” Kendall said. He took out his phone, swiped it alive, and the Mercedes started by itself.
“It’s like magic,” I said. “No fancy screwdrivers needed to get that thing going.”
“Fancy what?”
“Never mind.”
Like a gentleman, Kendall extended a hand. “Would you like to go for a carriage ride, my lady?”
“In what? That?”
“I’ll admit, the horsepower isn’t quite the same as a pumpkin coach, but it’ll have to do.”
This was hardly the kind of night of which fairy-tales were made. “I really should get back to the inn. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a decent night’s sleep and I’d like to recoup and figure out how to pay for breakfast in the morning.”
“Would you mind if I came to see it?”
“See what?”
“The inn. I’m curious. I’ve heard so much about it.”
I watched Josh Delaney stumble back toward the building. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Shall I follow you over?”
“Okay, but be careful, I brake for dust,” I said.
“For dust?”
“You know? Like a broom? The witch thing? Never mind. It was a stupid joke.”
“No, it’s funny,” Kendall said. “It’s very clever. I liked it. I will do my best not to sweep you off your feet. Deal?”
I looked at him blankly.
“That was a joke too,” he said. “You know, sweep? Like a broom.”
I forced a laugh. “Of course. I totally get it.”
“I’ll see you on Beacon Street.”
“You know my address?”
“I work with your foster father, remember?”
“Yes, of course.”
Parked in the blue handicap paint next to my Honda was a Prius with a license plate that read SLICER. I climbed into my own car, not sure if the need to explain each other’s jokes was an omen for a bright future.
The whole ride back to the inn, Kendall’s insanely bright headlights were never more than ten feet behind my trunk. He was good at following, I’d give him that. I didn’t worry about going through a yellow light, nor about driving too fast. He was only a quick stop and screeching tires away from a solid fender-bender.
I supposed there was something to be said about that kind of reliability. His manners, his clothing, his hair, all made Matt Mettle seem like a brutish caveman. Plus, Kendall’s hair gel was sitting on top of a reservoir of more intelligence than Mettle had ever needed a helmet to protect. There was no denying that on paper, Kendall was a great choice for a mate. He was attractive, courteous, and had a six-figure job.
Yet, something left me feeling meh. Don’t ask me what.
I glanced in my rearview. Kendall’s headlights were making interlocked rings of light on my back window. Maybe that was it. Maybe Kendall was marriage material—and having missed out on the wild romping I should have experienced in my early twenties, I wasn’t ready to settle down yet.
In the rearview, I shifted the focus to myself. In an attempt to impress, I had gone so heavy on the makeup tonight that I felt as if I were wearing a mask.
Other than talking to yourself, you must be crazy. You’ve turned Matt Mettle into a straw man as bad as Dorothy’s scarecrow. In reality, your choice isn’t between Mettle nor Kendall. Your choice is between Mettle, Kendall, and every other single man in the world.
Yes, but Dark Haven has one of the lowest populations in Maine. Finding an attractive guy here is like finding a gold nugget at the bottom of your Cracker Jacks.
“What the—!”
A moose darted across my path.
I slammed on the brakes. Kendall swerved, clipped my bumper, and screeched to a stop beside me.
I sat there, my heart pounding. The moose had darted into the woods and was gone.
Kendall rolled down his window. “You okay?”
“I think so,” I said, out of breath. “Good reaction time.”
“I saw the moose coming. I always keep one eye on the road ahead and the other on the dark woods surrounding me.”
“Not a bad philosophy,” I said. “Is your bumper okay?”
“It’ll be fine—a few bucks at the body shop. I won’t tell insurance if you don’t.”
“Fine with me,” I said. That was the beauty of driving an old car. A little dent wasn’t noticeable.
“How about I take point?” Kendall said.
“Do you know the way?”
“I’ve got my GPS. Besides, my car has cameras on each of the side mirrors, so if anything’s lurking on the side of the road, it will let me know. It’s practically herbivorous.”
“What about your rear end? Do you trust me with it?”
Kendall raised an eyebrow.
“That came out wrong,” I said.
He smiled. “I trust you.”
I followed his red taillights back to Beacon Street. He was a superb driver, five MPH above the speed limit at all times, and never accelerating too fast to make me feel like I was falling behind. He was so good, in fact, that by the time we pulled into my driveway, I was wishing I had washed my bedsheets.
Kendall turned off the engine and got o
ut. I pulled up beside his car and parked half in the grass so he would have an easy time getting out.
“So this is the famous Inn on Beacon Street?”
I grabbed my purse, closed my door, and headed to the front porch. “When there are no guests, it’s just a house.”
He followed me. “I like what you’ve done with the trim.”
“That wasn’t my choice. That was Phyllis Martin’s.”
“The outside is lovely, but I’d love to see the inside. Any chance I could get a tour?”
I smiled. I didn’t even have to fake it. I fished in my purse for my keys. “Things have been so crazy, I haven’t tidied up.”
“I don’t mind. Really.”
“But I do. This is my home and my business.”
He gazed at me. Then he leaned toward me. I didn’t pull away, just stood there like an idiot and closed my eyes. He kissed me on the lips. I didn’t reciprocate. I didn’t fight it either.
Kendall pulled away. “You ever wonder what it would be like to go back in time and tell your younger self all the crazy things that are going to happen to you?”
“Sometimes,” I said quietly.
“Back in high school I never would have anticipated this moment.”
“Me neither.”
In the dim light, Kendall studied me, his eyes shifting back and forth. “Your face, my lady, is as a book where men may read strange matters.”
“Macbeth,” I said quietly.
“Yes, impressive. You look as if you’ve got weighty things on your mind this evening.”
“Sorry. It’s not you.”
Kendall smiled and stepped off the porch. “Of course not. It’s never me. There’s no need to apologize. I’ll let you go now. Thank you for coming with me tonight. I had an…interesting…time.”
“Me too.”
“Hopefully, I’ll see you around?”
“Yes, hopefully,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to leave. “Thank you again for helping Matt.”
He snapped and pointed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I watched as he headed back to his Mercedes. He gave one last wave and then ducked into the car and backed out the driveway, his wheels throwing stones at the trees.
I felt pretty stupid. I mean, what was the harm in a night of fun? Besides, it had been a long time, so long that I considered myself a born-again virgin. Here I was, with a perfectly perfect gentleman, ready to massage my feet and treat me as if I were the only woman in the world, yet I sent him home so that I could do what? Clean? Read? Make breakfast?
