The reasonable period for a friendly hug had long passed and Regina was aware of this fact, but just couldn’t bear to let Nikki go. Nikki held her friend gratefully and took in the scent of tropical coconuts that wafted from Regina’s hair, she felt her eyes beginning to tense, but managed to hold back the storm of tears that threatened to erupt from her with distracting thoughts and two deep breaths.
“If the big city has turned you into a complete lesbian, I’m OK with that, but I’m starting to get a little claustrophobic,” Nikki teased.
Regina wedged herself from her friend, her eyes dilated, her conservative nature causing her immediate reaction to register as surprise quickly dissolved into raucous laughter as she looked at the face of her friend. She could never be quite sure of what was going to come out of Nikki’s mouth, but that was one of the things she loved about her. Her friend wore a purple velour jogging suit accented with rhinestones that fit snugly against her curvy body, which made Regina look down at her own thin frame with a new discontent. Nikki’s oval-shaped green eyes looked tired and were set just above smooth dark circles. Her dark curly mane was parted in the middle and on both sides the front patches of hair were twisted back and around the sides of her head like a crown until they let out into a free flow of hair in the back, a style she had often worn when they were in high school. She smiled and her white teeth were the only thing that had not aged and there was something about her that made her seem just like the flirtatious girl that she had been just a few years ago.
“How are you?” Nikki Valentine asked. “You look great, all grown up.” Nikki added with a flash of a smile.
“I’m OK, but I’ve been better.” Regina responded. “You have hardly changed a bit,” Regina added.
“I’m glad you came.” Nikki let the words flow out with an exasperated breath that told Regina that she was absolutely sincere. Nikki unconsciously picked at the hot pink polish on her nails. Regina was not sure if Nikki had too much to drink or not enough.
“Me too,” Regina agreed.
“How are you?” Regina wanted to know. Nikki gave her an acrimonious look causing Regina’s eyes to cast immediately down to the carpeted floor.
“What happened to her, Nikki?” Regina inquired.
“How would I know?” Nikki spit with an acidic tone. Regina had not meant for her question to sound accusatory, although it did.
Regina apologized and the wall of defense that had immediately gone up with her last question came tumbling back down. That was how it was between friends sometimes.
“Can we not talk about this just yet?” Nikki pleaded. “I’m just not ready. I know it sounds crazy, but can we just pretend for a little while that we are not here for the reasons that we are here? Can we just…just …” Nikki’s voice was hesitant. “Ignore it.” She was finally able to get the words out. “Just for a little while.” Nikki assured Regina. Regina digested Nikki’s words and their meaning and she had to admit that it did not sound like a completely heinous idea.
“I was on my way to visit Mom. Can you come with me?” she asked. Regina hesitated, but could not turn down such a request, especially when it came from a dear friend.
“Sure, just let me put on some clothes,” Regina told her.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Nikki said as she hurried out of the room and down the stairs. Regina lay back on the bed clutching the clothes that she had picked out for the day, her stomach churning fretfully. Regina was happy to be reunited with one of her best friends, and wondered why she had felt the need to be as far away from all of them as possible. But it didn’t take her long to remember how perverse it felt to hang out with all of her friends the same way she did before Lola vanished as if nothing had changed. She was ashamed at the thought of pretending that Lola had never existed.
As Regina bounced down the stairs, she saw that the front door was open. Nikki and Mrs. Dean chatted and Regina could see her purple outfit clearly through the screen door that creaked as she pushed it open. It was chilly outside, but that didn’t keep the sun from shining down and casting just enough warmth to make it a pretty day. Mr. Dean was in the yard gathering all of the grass waste into black garbage bags. Mrs. Dean was sweeping off the porch.
“You going with Nikki?” her mother asked with subtly raised eyebrows.
“Yes, we should be back soon. I have my cell phone,” Regina told her mother. “Aw, wait a minute, no I don’t. I dropped it in water yesterday and I got so sidetracked I forgot to put it in rice when we got home,” Regina said before she cursed herself under her breath.
“You dropped your phone in water?” Nikki repeated. Regina nodded her head begrudgingly.
“That sucks,” Nikki assured her as she rose from the porch steps and dusted off her bottom.
“We’ll just have to get you another one,” her mother told her.
“Yeah, I guess,” Regina griped.
“You can use my phone while we’re out if you need to,” Nikki told her.
“You should put something on your shoulders. You’ll catch …”
“Death of pneumonia,” Regina finished her mother’s sentence as she stepped out into the yard. “I will be fine, Mother.”
Mrs. Dean shook her head and went back to her chore. Patricia Dean worried due to the reputation that Nikki Valentine had created over the past couple of years, but Regina was a grown-up and despite the current status of Nikki’s life, Regina probably needed her now.
The two girls waved good-bye to Mr. Dean who threw his palm up and waved it heartily.
Regina looked around and noticed that there was no car.
“Where is the Mustang?” she questioned her friend. Regina could still remember how excited they all were when Nikki received a brand-new bright yellow Mustang for her sixteenth birthday.
“That Mustang is long gone. I have a Mercedes now, I love it,” Nikki informed her. She noticed Regina’s eyes wandering the street and she thought she should answer the question before it was asked.
“I have a DWI and since my father bought the car, he decided to take it away. What can I do? I live with him. That was almost a year ago, I get my car back tomorrow. Hallelujah!” Nikki brightened, trying to make light of the matter. To her, it was a light matter, everyone knew her situation, and therefore it did not cause much embarrassment on her end, and besides, having the last name Valentine in this town was meaningful.
“Sheriff Handow gave you a DWI?” Regina’s mouth dropped.
“Yeah, he’s a douche, but it was the third time that they pulled me over for the same thing. He talked to my father and they decided that it may be a good thing for me.” Nikki sighed. “Can you believe that? Can’t even trust your own father.” Nikki smiled.
“Can’t trust anyone,” Regina agreed sarcastically.
“We can use my mother’s car,” Regina said as she began to call out to her mother before Nikki stopped her with a look of underlying mischief.
“Don’t you still have your bike?” Nikki asked. Regina was sure that her face registered some expression of confusion in response to that question, especially since Nikki was now laughing.
“Are you kidding? I mean, I do ride an exercise bike at the gym, but it has been awhile since I have used one for actual transportation.” Regina spoke words jumbled in laughter.
“Mom,” she called in a raised voice. Mrs. Dean looked up from her work on the porch.
“Do we have a bike?” she asked. Her mother paused and thought for a moment.
“Your father has one in the shed, I believe. Do you want to take my car?” she asked. The girls looked at one another.
“Nah, it might actually be fun to ride. It’s a nice day.” Regina was getting used to small-town living again in the short period of time that she had been home. Her father had one of those boy bikes with the large bar that went straight across from the handlebars to the seat.
“Geeze, that’s a vagina disaster waiting to happen.” Nikki announced.
Once Regin
a was able to stretch her legs, tight in her slim jeans, over each side, she felt secure and they set out down the rolling streets of Black Water.
Fall breezes fluttered Regina’s hair and she thought it felt great to have the brisk air washing over her face. The girls talked and laughed as they passed all of the places that were a distant memory to Regina. Regina closed her eyes for just a moment allowing her to breathe deeply and she could remember the days when all four girls would set out on their bikes on Saturday morning and would not return home until the sun had begun descending into the West. They would race up and down the residential streets, stop off at Klein Park for a couple of rounds on the swings, or a game or two of hopscotch. Marrying all of the money that they had been able to snaffle the night before from the couch cushions or forgotten change left on the kitchen counter from that afternoon’s errands in order to buy snacks, candies, and cakes from the bread store. Occasionally, they would take a break at one of their homes to use the bathroom, maybe get a drink of water and then it was on the road again.
Regina was snapped from her sweet memories when she realized that they were suddenly face-to-face with the dead.
7
As they passed under the beaten metal entrance of Rose Thorn Cemetery, the girls dismounted the bikes and pushed them along the narrow gravel path that led into the heart of the sacred ground.
Cemetery visits were not one of Regina’s favorite ways to pass a morning, but at least Rose Thorn was peaceful, almost welcoming, and Regina did not regret agreeing to come along. Brightly colored fresh flowers were placed in front of several of the run-down tombstones that huddled close together under the shade of the tall trees.
“I wish they would a put real road through here,” Regina thought aloud.
“Who?” Nikki chuckled. “Mayor Parks and Sheriff Handow? Yeah, right. Don’t hold your breath,” she snapped.
“It’s not too much farther. You remember, don’t you?” Nikki asked.
“Yes,” Regina lied. She had been to this cemetery a few times to visit the gravesites of her grandparents, but only once for an actual funeral, which was that of Fayleen Valentine, Nikki’s mother. When Regina’s grandparents died she had been too young to attend the funerals, but she was ten when Nikki’s mother died and Mrs. Dean struggled with whether or not to allow her to attend the funeral. Mrs. Dean hated to expose her to such a thing especially with Nikki’s mother committing suicide, which made it even less of a situation that Mrs. Dean wanted to open up for discussion, but she knew that if she took her daughter to the funeral, she would have to answer any questions that came up as a result.
“She is old enough, Pat. She will have to experience the rituals of death at some point in time. It may be better for poor little Nikki to have Regina there. That is my opinion, but I will support whatever you decide,” Mr. Dean told his wife when she asked him.
No one ever knew exactly what happened that snowy winter morning in the Valentine home. The family was getting ready for church as they did most Sunday mornings. As they settled in the car and began to pull out of the snow-blanketed driveway, Fayleen stopped her husband; she had forgotten her purse. Without a word to her daughter, she left the car and disappeared into the home to retrieve the missing bag and when she had been gone for over five minutes Mr. Valentine assumed that she had misplaced it, as she had misplaced several things lately. He began to tell his daughter to go and find out what was taking her mother so long, but in a sudden change of heart decided to go himself. He advised his daughter to stay in the car as he stepped out. The sound of the winter wind whipped the trees and there was the resounding fire of one lonely blast. From the car, Nikki could see Mr. Valentine’s eyes fill with horror before he entered the home. Nikki sat in the car for ten minutes not knowing what was happening inside, but sure that it was something awful. Soon she heard the sirens wailing in the distance, and only seconds later, the police cars crashed down on the house. There was too much commotion for her to make anything solid of the event, but she heard Sheriff Handow as he spoke to one of the EMTs.
“A single shot to the heart.”
“To the heart?” the EMT asked, scratching at the wrinkles that emerged in his forehead.
“To the heart,” the officer confirmed.
“Odd …”
The funeral was only days later.
That day was a blur in Regina’s memory; the only thing she could recall vividly was the itch of the decorative white lace collar on the black velvet dress that her mother had purchased for her to wear.
Mrs. Valentine was buried several feet off the gravel path and the women dropped their bikes and walked the short remaining distance through the grassy graveyard aisles. A huge tombstone with a stone angel perched just on top keeping constant vigil over the fallen soul read the name of Fayleen Valentine. As they approached the tombstone, the sun ducked demurely behind a bundle of clouds and the platinum sky bore its silver rays down on them.
The girls stood next to one another at one side of the burial bed. Nikki looked down solemnly on the rectangular patch of dirt in front of the tombstone where her mother lay rotted under six feet of dirt and grass. Regina stared down at her black and white Converse tennis shoes, her hands intertwined tightly behind her back. The young nurse wondered how she could be so comfortable in the emergency room so near death and yet so uncomfortable here in the graveyard with death in all its grand finality. Regina followed Nikki’s lead when the girl slid to her knees and began pulling weeds that were growing from her mother’s dirt. Regina had never visited Mrs. Valentine’s gravesite before and she wanted desperately to offer comforting words to her best friend. But she found her mouth extremely dry every time she cracked her lips to say anything. Even if she could summon enough saliva to allow her to speak words that were not hoarse with discomfort her mind offered not one organized and effective thought and she decided to focus on the lesser task of breathing, which seemed to be enough of a challenge at this point.
“You haven’t asked about DeFrank,” Nikki said, still not taking away any of the attention that she was giving to the maintenance of her mother’s grave.
Regina swallowed the lump in her throat, figuring that Nikki was now ready to talk about death since they were surrounded by it.
“I have just been taking this thing one creepy, horrifying step at a time,” Regina told her. “Have they questioned him? Do they really think that he had anything to do with it?” Regina asked.
“I don’t know, maybe, but considering the fact that he’s dead I doubt they would ever be able to prove anything one way or the other,” Nikki said without even looking up, as she was now sweeping the dirt off the sides of the tombstone. A light gasp escaped Regina. After picking all of the weeds Regina sat back on her heels and brushed her hands against one another to rid them of the excess dirt. The wind carried the faint sound of dragging footsteps through the cemetery. A startled Regina looked over her shoulder at the landscape behind her, realizing that she was more spooked than she thought she had been at the news of Glen DeFrank’s death. She scolded herself silently for having such a morbidly creative imagination before resuming the conversation with Nikki.
“What’s wrong?” Nikki asked.
“Nothing. Glen DeFrank is dead?” Regina asked again as if she had not heard the first time.
“Yes, he is,” Nikki repeated with ice on her tongue. She stopped grooming her mother’s grave in order to review the concerned look on Regina’s face.
“Don’t tell me you’re upset about this, Regina? After his parents died he became a weirdo and he probably put Lola in that hole,” Nikki argued. Unharnessed frustration rose in Regina’s chest and was on the tip of her tongue before she was able to find the root of it and tame her reckless emotion which resulted in her not being able to get any words out at all only a vexing stutter.
“I…I…I am not upset…it is just, Jesus!” Regina spit, shuddering. “This just keeps getting more and more interesting, for lack of a better term.�
�� Regina quieted herself so that she could hear more clearly the voices that were mingled with the abrupt gusts of wind that billowed the leaves across the cemetery ground. Nikki read her friend’s face and jerked her head around in both directions trying to get a quick overview of their surroundings.
“What?” Nikki raised her voice. “You are FREAKIN’ me out, Regina!” Nikki scolded.
“Sorry. I just thought that I heard something,” she fired back.
“Heard what?”
The two stared at each other in silence for a moment listening for something, some validation that neither of them was going crazy. A moment before they resumed their sanity they heard a rushed scrambling noise that made them both jump. Their eyes focused on a flash of movement to their right. Two squirrels were chasing each other around one of the old trees. Both girls sighed and they may have even laughed if their conversation had not been so heavy.
“How did he die?” Regina asked.
“Some kind of condition, he had a stroke or enlarged heart or something. It took about a week for anyone to even find him. His sister moved to Johnson City a couple of years before it happened and she would come to visit him on the weekends sometime. When she came home one weekend, he was laid out on the couch, cold, or at least that is how Michelle tells it. You know Michelle couldn’t hold water if she were a bucket. You would think after all this time, that Handow would not talk business in front of his niece for not wanting the entire population of Harrisburg County knowing all of the details of his investigations. DeFrank had become a total recluse by then and had gotten really …” Nikki took her index finger and made circular motions around her ear to finish her point.
Regina raised her eyebrow at the politically incorrect charade.
Across the grounds, Regina pointed out a man, probably in his late forties, wearing dirty jeans, a denim jacket, and a trucker hat. Even from where they sat, Regina and Nikki could see that the man’s lower face was covered in hair that needed to be shaved. A cigarette hung limply out of the corner of his mouth. Behind him, he was dragging a long canvas bag and telling from the amount of effort he put into the feat, it must have been weighty.
Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers Page 8
