The Deepest Secret

by Carla Buckley

  Delete.

  Next is the picture of Melissa leaning against the patio table and texting, her head bent. She looks nice. This is the Melissa he used to know.

  Tyler had been hoping for a film camera for his birthday, but he knows they can be expensive. His mom’s explained that he can borrow one from school while he’s taking Photography 101. She’s met the teacher and come home to tell Tyler how much she liked him. But sometimes his mom likes people who turn out to be lame, or doesn’t like people who Tyler thinks are hilarious. So he’ll wait until school starts before he decides whether she’s right this time.

  He doesn’t know why he took these pictures of Amy. It wasn’t like she’d been doing anything interesting. Her Hello Kitty nightgown’s too tight around her baby boobs and so short that he can clearly see her bright pink underpants. Gross. He wishes he could scrub his eyeballs. He holds his thumb over the delete icon and hesitates.

  His laptop sounds, letting him know he’s gotten another hit on his blog. He’d posted the deer photograph and gotten a bunch of comments right away. Sweet! How did you do that? Then, Your stuff is shit. He traces the IP address, hunts down the poster. Fuck you, Jersey boy, he thinks, and bans him from the site.

  His dad’s plane should be in the air now. His mom took Tyler to an airport once, parking the car outside the metal fence. He remained huddled beneath the sleeping bag while his mom ran the UV meter. Then she came back to the car and opened the door. Come on out, you two, she said. She spread a blanket on the grass and he and Melissa and their mom sat there, sunglasses on, arms wrapped around their knees, watching the planes roll down the runways and glide skyward. They looked like fat-bellied lizards, blindly nosing up to the stars. Where do you think that one’s going? his mom asked, and it was a race between him and Melissa to come up with some crazy place name. Twitty. Bugwash. Middle Wallop. Beziers, which was especially hilarious because it sounded so much like brassieres.

  He gazed up at the red and white blinking dots, all those planes filled with people, heading to another city, or coming home after being away. I wish I were going somewhere, he said, and Melissa reached over to tickle him and he laughed so hard, he rolled off into the grass.

  Zach chats him on Facebook:

  Hey dude you get your schedule

  yeah did you

  I got jenkins for math she’s so hot

  I got drago

  that sucks brian says she’s a real bitch

  Oh dang why

  Brian failed her class she’s really unfair

  Why is she unfair

  Tons of homework and she doesn’t grade on a curve

  Brb

  Tyler shuts his laptop and goes down the hall. Melissa’s in the bathroom, leaning close to the mirror, holding a tiny brush against her lashes, and scrolling it up. He watches, hypnotized by her deft motions, until she snarls, “What, perv?”

  This is prickly Melissa. This is cactus Melissa and if he gets too close, he’ll get stabbed. “Zach says I got the crappy math teacher.” He’s not really worried about the teacher. It’s the kids he’s thinking about. Some of them may not like having him in their class. He wants to tell Melissa this. He used to be able to tell her everything.

  “Like he’d know.” She tilts her face and flutters her lashes experimentally, then leans back in with the brush to apply another coat. She’s wearing her red shirt that hangs off one shoulder, her black bra strap showing, and her jeans with the big holes cut across the thighs and knees. She’s drawn eyeliner all the way around her eyes. It makes her look mean.

  “His brother told him. He says she doesn’t curve.”

  “What do you care about grades?” She doesn’t even look at him.

  Her phone buzzes, jiggling across the counter, and she snatches it up to read the incoming text. She frowns, bites her lower lip. “Shit.” She drops the tube of mascara into her cosmetics bag and pushes past him.

  He steps back to let her go. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  That’s a lie. She’s in her room, pawing through the clothes heaped on the floor of her closet. She yanks her purse free. Turning, she sees him standing there in the doorway. “Look,” she says. “I have to go out. Don’t set the house on fire.”

  He’s not the one who set the dishtowel on fire making popcorn while their mom was at the store. “Did Mom say you could?”

  “Sure.”

  Another lie. He tries again. “Is Brittany taking you?”

  Brittany’s always over. She’s only interested in horses because Melissa is. His mom says some people are leaders and some are followers. What am I? he’d asked, and his mom had looked thoughtful. You’re an independent thinker. Which means he’s neither. Once again he slips through the thin crack where no one else goes.

  Melissa doesn’t answer. She reaches for the car keys hanging from the hook beside the back door. He’s shocked.

  “Melissa, you can’t.”

  She slides on a jacket and flips her hair out, over the collar. “Make good choices,” she says.

  This is what their mom says when she leaves them to run to the store or the library. When his mom says it, it feels good. But here Melissa is, making bad choices. She’s going to that party even though their mom said no. She’s taking the car even though she doesn’t have her driver’s license. “I’m going to tell,” he says, and at this she stops and glares at him. She’s taller than he is and he feels small.

  “Go ahead.” Her eyes are narrowed. Then she smiles. “Who do you think Mom’s going to believe?”

  She climbs into their dad’s car. The garage door shudders up. Wind gusts in, rustling the newspapers stacked in the corner. Rain falls in heavy gray sheets he can’t even see through.

  There’s a bright fork of lightning over the houses and, without thinking, he steps back, behind the door. One of the XP moms told his mom that lightning has UV in it, and so he’s never been allowed out in a rainstorm. Big deal, Melissa said when he complained about having to stay inside. No one’s allowed to go out in lightning storms.

  He risks another look. Tiny red taillights shine up at the top of the street, then wink out, swallowed by the storm.

  The phone rings in the kitchen behind him.

  EVE

  She screws the gas cap on tight and climbs back into the car to start the engine. Which way should she go? Right is the shortest route, but the highway will be jammed. Left, then, along the less-traveled roads. She waits for a lone car to pass before pulling out behind it onto the road. It’s the same model as David’s. What was it he’d said? We can drive in tandem at night. As though that could create a protective bubble around them. One of the XP moms had been driving her daughter somewhere and her tire blew. She’d awakened in the hospital, with her little girl in the bed next to her, shrieking in pain as the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong.

  The rain’s falling harder now, hammering the car roof, smearing the windshield. The wipers can’t keep up. She switches on the defogger. In the distance ahead, twin taillights glow red. Damn. She forgot to ask Melissa to take care of the chicken. She reaches into her pocket for her cell phone.

  Put chicken in oven at 350

  She presses the arrow to send the message and looks back up.

  There’s something right in front of her, growing larger.

  She clutches the steering wheel, mashes her foot against the brake pedal. A sudden bump sends the car spinning. Her headlights pick out tree trunks, pavement, something pale, tree trunks. She jolts to a stop. She’s gripping the steering wheel, breathing hard.

  What was that she had glimpsed as she spun around—an animal? It had been larger than a dog, maybe one of those baby deer she’s spotted at dusk. How awful. She fumbles for the door handle, gets out of the car. She’s facing the wrong way. She turns, puts her hand up to cover her eyes, squints through the lashing rain. There’s nothing in the road. Maybe the poor thing limped off into the woods, wounded. She needs to call animal contro
l. Automatically, she reaches into her pocket for her phone, but of course it’s not there. She’d been holding it.

  She scans the seats and the floor. There it is, in the passenger foot well. She looks back through the windshield at the rain. She’ll just take a quick look. Reaching into her glove compartment, she pulls out her flashlight.

  She climbs out into the storm. She’s soaked in an instant, the rain pummeling her, cold and blowing. She snatches at the hood of her raincoat and sloshes along the side of the road toward the trees. Water washes across the road in tides of motion. She crosses to where the ground falls steeply away to the river below and peers through the darkness. It’s impossible to make out anything. She’s absolutely drenched, the wind buffeting her. She glances behind her to the waiting car. She can barely see it from where she stands. Then she turns back, presses the button on her flashlight and directs the fragile beam of light at her shoes to guide herself as she climbs down the embankment, skidding in the mud. The wind blowing rain into her face. It’s so dark. The trees cluster close. She grabs at branches to keep herself from falling, and when she reaches a level place, she looks around.

  Down at the river’s edge, a blotch of … pink? She moves more quickly, her heart racing, stumbling the last few yards.

  A punch of lightning that bleaches everything.

  It can’t be.

  Not a deer, not an animal at all. A small figure in a pink raincoat. Little pink boots, lying at an angle. The wide forehead and narrow chin, the long blond hair. Amy.

  She falls to her knees, panting, grabs Amy’s wrist, presses her thumb against the skin, feeling for a pulse. There’s nothing, not the tiniest flutter. Come on come on. She moves her thumb around, searching. She has to be wrong. Amy’s skin is so cold. Oh God.

  She remembers CPR. She’s practiced it a million times.

  She pushes the sides of the pink raincoat away, presses down hard on Amy’s chest with the heels of her hands five times. When she takes Amy’s head between her hands, it lolls alarmingly. No.

  She leans over. Two breaths. Back to chest compressions. Two breaths again. The world squeezes down to silence.

  Come on come on come on. It’s going to be okay. Amy’s going to be okay. Focus focus don’t give up.

  Rain falls on the back of her head, slides down her neck. Thunder crackles. The woods flash white. Amy doesn’t blink when the lightning flares. She’s staring up. There’s nothing in her eyes.

  Eve can’t stop. She won’t stop.

  Two breaths. Five compressions. Two breaths. Five compressions.

  Her breath is ragged. Her arms ache and her eyes burn with tears. “Please.” She says this out loud, over and over, stopping only to breathe into Amy’s mouth. Trees shake. Water runs into her clothes, finds her skin. Amy is limp, utterly and completely limp.

  She stops. She just stops. She pulls Amy into her arms. This small girl, whom she’s known and loved all these years. It can’t be. It can’t.

  She sobs, rasps out words that make no sense, pulls Amy’s soaked hair from her cold forehead. Help. She needs to get help, tell someone what’s happened. She lays Amy’s limp body down, water running in rivulets all around them, and pulls her cell phone from her raincoat pocket. “It’s okay,” she tells Amy. She can barely hear herself in the downpour. “It’s okay. Mommy will be here soon.” Oh God. How will she tell Charlotte?

  She swipes droplets from her shaking fingers, taps the tiny phone icon. The phone lights up. She presses 9-1…

  A text message scrolls across the top of her phone. David! He’s wondering where she is. He’s wondering why she’s taking so long. But no. This isn’t the message he leaves.

  Sorry forgot the camera

  She stares, bewildered. What camera? Then it all rolls back. Tyler’s camera, the one he’s been longing for. The one Eve researched and ordered; the one David picked up in Washington and was supposed to bring home yesterday. Yet here he is, telling her he’s left it behind.

  The screen of her phone’s gone black, waiting for her to finish dialing. All she has to do is press the button on the side of the phone and tap the final digit.

  The operator will answer. Eve will describe her location. Emergency personnel will swarm down the side of the ravine. The police will take her away, just like they had that boy last year who’d plowed into a taxicab, killing the driver. He’d been texting, too, and now he was in prison, serving four years.

  Her phone slides from her fingers. She scrabbles in the leaves for it, stares at the screen.

  Sorry forgot the camera

  What will happen to Tyler?

  David forgets to make doctor appointments. He opens doors that should be kept closed. He wants to drive her son across the country to a strange house. He tells their son it’s okay to take off his sweatshirt. He doesn’t even think to check him over later.

  The rain slashes through the trees, unforgiving. It courses down the embankment; it turns everything black and gray and lashing. Fog rises up. She is kneeling in muck. She is soaked to the bone.

  Her parents can’t help. They won’t. Melissa’s too young. David’s sister lives in Arizona. There’s only David, and all he had to do was remember to bring home Tyler’s fucking camera.

  Amy lies beside her, leaves blown all around. She’s gone. She’s past saving. But Tyler’s still here. He’s waiting at home. He needs her. He has no one else. God help them both, he has no one else.

  Sorry

  Eve staggers to her feet. The ground sways. She can’t look behind her, at Amy. The slope stretches before her, a thousand miles to the dark sky. Her feet slide beneath her. She grabs at trees to haul herself up. The road seems so far away. She puts one foot in front of the other, sinking each one into the sodden earth and then pulling it back up with effort. She breaks free of the woods, stumbles out onto pavement, where the rain comes harder, scouring, punishing. She wraps her arms around herself, though it’s no use. Where’s her car? She can’t remember which direction she’d come from. There it is, hulking on the side of the road a distance away.

  Three tries before she fits the key into the ignition. The engine catches and the road is illuminated. The world is drowning in rain. She’s drenched to the marrow, her teeth chattering. She’s never been so cold in her life. Her hair snakes wetly down the back of her neck. It wraps around her throat, and she drags it free. She presses the pedal and the car lurches forward.

  She can’t think about Amy. She can’t think about Charlotte. She won’t think about David. Tyler’s the one who matters. She says this over and over to herself as she drives on through the darkness, the storm gathering around her and pressing down.

  COME OUT, COME OUT

  WHEREVER YOU ARE

  The house phone never rings. Tyler shuts the kitchen door and goes over to the phone hanging on the wall. He scans the display. It’s Amy’s cell phone number. At least it’s not his mom or dad, asking to talk to Melissa. He picks up the receiver. “What?” he says, irritated.

  But it’s Charlotte. “Tyler, let me speak to your mom.”

  “She’s not here. She’s picking my dad up at the airport.”

  “Damn, that’s right. Listen, have you seen Amy?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  It’s a demand, and stern. Charlotte’s never mean.

  “Yes.” And now he’s curious. Why would she think Amy was over here? He’s just told her she’s not.

  “Could you check, please?”

  Amy couldn’t have come in without his knowing, but maybe she’s coming down the sidewalk. “Hold on.”

  There are two locks on the door, one a deadbolt and one a chain up high from when he was little and his mom was afraid he’d sneak out during the day when she wasn’t looking. He undoes the locks and swings open the door. Rain pounds the porch roof, streams down in curtains. He squints into the darkness beyond. Up the street, red taillights bounce as a car backs out of the Farnhams’ driveway. No sign of Amy. No sign of
Melissa returning. “I don’t see her.”

  “Check the patio.”

  “But it’s raining.”

  “Tyler, please.”

  Charlotte sounds really worried. “Okay,” he says, puzzled. He twists the lock and opens the French door to peer into the black of the patio. No pale face turns to him. No flash of pink in the dark. It’s raining really hard. No way would Amy be out in it. “Sorry,” he tells Charlotte. “She’s not here.”

  “Let me know if she shows up, okay?” Without waiting for a reply, Charlotte hangs up.

  DAVID

  The Columbus airport’s noisy and crowded. Several flights had arrived simultaneously. David walks past security, the pretzel place, the gift shop. Eve hasn’t responded to his text message. He hadn’t even realized he’d left the camera on his desk until he’d arrived at airport security and looked around for the bag to set it on the conveyor belt. Tyler will be disappointed, but it’s not the end of the world. Eve will be annoyed. No doubt she’s still upset about the sunburn. David had had no idea. Tyler had never said a word about it. Well, thank God it turned out to be nothing.

  He’s looking forward to this three-day weekend. He and Tyler can grill out every night. Tyler loves to adjust the flame, stab food with long-handled forks. This is as close as David can get him to the hunting trips his own father used to take him on, across the Nebraska prairies.

  Melissa will probably be busy with her friends. She used to Skype with him for hours while he was holed up in some hotel in San Francisco or Raleigh, gabbing away in front of the laptop screen, twining hair around her forefinger. She’d carry the computer around the house and give David tours. Here’s the water stain on the ceiling that Mommy just noticed. Here are the new pillows she helped Mommy pick out for the couch. She’d even take him outside, the screen going black while they waited in the garage for the door to lift, then the light would burst in and she’d walk with him outside to show him the withered brown stalks by the deck. Ty and I planted lilies, she’d announce. There was a big jumping spider!