“Hardly. Egg whites are famous in my family for treating burns and, since I didn’t bring my aloe plant with me on vacation, it’ll have to do.” I direct Amber to tilt her head back.
Then I dip my fingers into the egg whites and smear the clear and pulpy mass down her face. The burn actually isn’t that bad; it’s more like a sunburn with a little bit of peeling on one cheek.
“Ahhh!” Amber moans in appreciation. “Who knew slimy rawness could feel this good? Wait,” she pauses. “Let me rephrase.”
“I think I just lost my appetite,” Chad says.
“Then can I have what’s left of your Danish?” Amber moves to nab it off his plate, but Chad is too quick. He takes a healthy bite and smiles at her as he chews. “Didn’t your mother teach you to share?” she asks him.
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to get egg on your face?”
“So hilarious,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Chad takes another bite, getting a clump of the raspberry goo stuck in his facial scruff.
“What’s that?” Amber asks. She leans forward and squints toward his face.
“What?” Chad rubs his chin.
“Is that a beard you’re trying to grow?”
I pinch her in response, hoping she gets the message.
“I don’t know,” Amber continues. “It kind of looks like one. But maybe it’s something else—dirt, hair dye, maybe.”
Chad’s mouth falls open, and I can’t help but laugh out loud.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.
“Ooh la la,” PJ sings, emerging from his room, saving Amber from having to answer. “A little food fun for breakfast? Whatever it is, count me in.”
“Is Clara with you?” I ask him.
He shakes his head.
“Well, then where is she?”
“Calm down,” Amber says. “She probably just went out to stand on some street corner.”
“This isn’t funny.” I move to the bathroom door and knock, just to be sure it isn’t Clara in there.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Drea snaps.
“She’s been saying that for the past hour,” Chad moans.
I peek back in our room, even though I know she’s not there either. I go to the guys’ room and knock lightly before peering in. Empty. “Where’s Jacob?” I ask.
Amber shrugs and gets up, her face and hands glossy with egg whites. She looks out the front window and then goes outside, leaving the door wide open. Two minutes later she’s back. “Found Clara!”
“Where?” I ask.
“Just like I said,” Amber gloats. “Ho ho ho, merry Christmas.”
“Is that supposed to make sense?” PJ asks.
“The skank’s next door, flirting with Casey,” Amber says. “How’s that for clarity?”
“Seriously?” Chad asks.
“Boo hoo for you too,” Amber gloats.
“She is not,” PJ says. “You’re just saying that because you’re all dry and thorny.”
“Horny, not thorny,” Amber corrects. “But if you don’t believe me, go have a look for yourself.”
PJ does, and I follow right after him. We move out onto the front walkway and spot Clara right away. Only it looks as though she’s doing a lot more floundering than flirting. She’s standing on the frat guys’ porch with Casey but she looks all distraught, waving her hands around, trying to explain something.
It doesn’t appear as though Casey is buying the story. He ends up leaving her there, going back inside the cottage to get away.
Clara looks in our direction and spots us, which perks her right up. “Hey there!” she bubbles, trotting her way over. “Anyone up for breakfast?”
“What’s going on?” PJ asks, completely straight-faced.
“What do you mean?” She cocks her head.
“What were you doing over there?”
“Oh,” she giggles—the noise sending nails-on-a-chalkboard shivers down my spine. “I was just saying hi.”
“It didn’t look too friendly,” I say. “I thought you two weren’t speaking.”
“Well, we aren’t exactly. I just went to give my deposit money for the cruise. Are you guys going? I’m so excited.”
“That’s it?” PJ asks, ignoring the question.
“Well, I also went to smooth things over. I mean, I hate it when people are mad at me, especially when it isn’t my fault.”
“So did you?” I ask.
“Oh yeah,” she says, adjusting the ties on her sarong—a candy-cane-striped one this time. “I mean, sort of.”
“Well, we still need to talk,” I say.
“Is something wrong?”
I nod.
“Well, it’ll have to wait, my little Stacey Bee,” PJ says, “because me and Miss Clara Bear have our own smoothing over and chit-chatting to do.”
“Sorry,” I say, linking arms with Clara, feeling a chill, even through her sweatshirt, radiate right down to the tips of my fingers. “My chit-chat takes priority.” We leave PJ and walk down the beach strip toward her cottage.
“He’s really cute.” Clara giggles.
“He’s really something, all right.”
“So, I need to ask,” she continues, “is Drea still mad?”
“She’ll get over it.”
“Me and Chad were just talking last night,” she reminds me. “Nothing more.”
I nod and bite at my bottom lip, fighting the urge to tell her that I wasn’t born yesterday.
“So are they serious?” she asks.
“Excuse me?” I stop short and turn to look at her, wondering if I’m hearing things or if she’s seriously asking me what I think she is.
“Chad and Drea,” she clarifies. “At the Clam Stripper yesterday, she said they got in a fight. I was just wondering if they made up, if they’re super serious or just kind of casual.”
“Clara,” I say, “I’m going to forget you asked that.”
“Why?” Her eyebrows furrow up like she’s thoroughly confused.
“Why?” I take a deep breath, swallowing down what I really feel like saying. “Because you have a lot more to worry about than boys.”
Her mouth slides into a frown. “Does this have anything to do with where we’re going?”
“We’re going to your place,” I say, guiding her in that direction again.
“Now?” Clara gasps. “What for?”
I nod, ignoring her other question. “Are your parents back yet?”
Clara shakes her head. “I doubt it. They said they were leaving around eightish, which means they probably won’t get here until after noon.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” I say. “At least for now.”
“Why? What’s going on? Is it something bad?”
I nod, knowing that I can’t keep it from her, that in only a matter of minutes she’ll see for herself.
“What is it?” She stops us again to study my face.
I keep my expression securely in check by looking away, focusing toward the shamrock-shaped clouds just ahead of us. I don’t want to give too much away. I want her to see the words for herself. I need to see her reaction to them—if it might reveal that she knows who’s after her. “You’ll see,” I say, moving forward again.
“I was actually planning on having you come over today,” she says, trying to keep pace with me. “Just later. I mean, don’t you think I should hang around your place for a little while . . . try and patch things up with Drea?”
“Well, I have a confession to make. I’ve already been to your place.”
“Huh?” She stops. Her mouth drops open.
“When I couldn’t find you early this morning, I thought that maybe you went back to your cottage.”
“And?”
“And I went inside. We went inside—Drea, Amber, and me.”
“What?” She gasps. “You guys went into my house? Without me? You just broke in?”
“The door wasn’t locked, Clara. I was worrie
d about you. We all were.”
“So what happened? What did you see?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, ignoring the questions. “I know—it was wrong. But if you knew me, you’d know; it’s only because I thought you might be in danger. You are in danger,” I remind her.
Clara studies me for several seconds. “What did you see?” she repeats.
Instead of answering, I look up at her cottage. It’s just a house away now. “Let’s go,” I say, holding out my hand. Clara takes it and we climb the back steps, the bamboo wind chimes so loud and clamoring that I almost can’t think straight. I wrap my hand around the doorknob, almost as though it’s my house, and guide her inside.
We enter her room and Clara sees it right away. It looks even worse with the sunlight shining in through the windows. Clara starts trembling. Her stance begins to wobble a bit.
I help her to sit down on the bed and do my best to turn her away from it. But she can’t stop looking. “Do you know who did this?” I whisper.
She swallows hard and shakes her head.
“Are you sure?”
She nods.
“Maybe someone who’s angry at you, somebody who wants to try and scare you—”
“I told you, I don’t know,” she snaps. She flops back against her pillow, pulling the slack of covers up over her, revealing a large manila envelope, sitting beside her on the bed.
I pick up the envelope, trying to concentrate on the fibers, the way it feels in my hand.
Clara sits back up. “What is that?”
I shake my head, noticing the chill coming from the seal, the coolness of the edges.
“Oh my god,” she says, her mouth trembling. “Where did you get that?”
“It was on your bed, under the covers.”
I bring the envelope up to my nose. It smells like butterscotch. Like her.
“What is it?” Clara asks. “What’s wrong?”
“It smells like you,” I say.
“What does that mean? It was in my bed.”
“I know. It’s just, whatever’s in here . . . I feel like it captures you in some way.”
Clara covers her eyes and rubs her forehead. “I don’t want to know, okay? I don’t want to see what’s inside. You look and then just tell me if it’s bad.”
“Okay,” I say, knowing already that it is bad. I turn away and tear at the flap, the envelope getting colder in my hands by the moment, like my skin is icing over just holding it. I peek inside and see a stack of Polaroids, reminding me of the ones that Amber found earlier. I look down at the floor by the bed. They’re still there—a picture of an almost-arm and a possible butt-cheek.
“What is it?” Clara asks. She’s looking at me now.
I reach inside the envelope and pull out the photos. They’re pictures of Clara, at least thirty of them. They’re all taken, it seems, from outside various windows of her cottage—Clara pulling off her sweatshirt, changing into her shorts, getting ready to take a shower, wearing only a towel . . .
“Tell me!” she demands.
I look at her and bite my bottom lip. “We should call the police.”
“Show me!” Clara holds her hands out for the pictures. “I have to see.”
“Are you sure?”
She pauses a moment before nodding.
I hand them to her and watch as she flips through each one—as her mouth trembles and her chin shakes. After seeing about ten, she throws them down on the bed and clenches fistfuls of pillow fabric.
“It’ll be okay,” I say, sitting down beside her. I pick up the other photos, the ones from the floor. “It looks like whoever left these dropped a couple.”
“What?” Clara grabs them from me.
I peek over her shoulder at the pictures, trying to make out blurs of peach mixed with globs of red and brown.
“It’s like they’re playing games with me,” Clara snivels.
“Nobody makes mistakes like this. Nobody puts photos in an envelope, puts it in your bed, and then happens to drop some on the floor.” She clenches the pillows harder, her knuckles turning to bone.
“It’ll be okay,” I say. “Just breathe. We’ll get through this.” I pluck a tissue from the box beside her bed and blot the tears that stream down her cheeks.
Clara takes a giant breath, blowing out her mouth, trying to calm herself down. After several moments and even more tissues, she seems just a little bit stronger, more stable. She looks at me and tries to smile, her hands letting up a bit from the clench-hold on her pillow. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
“It’s just that I hardly know you. I’m not usually like this.”
“Of course not,” I say, patting her forearm. “I mean, this isn’t exactly the most usual of circumstances. It’s not every day you come home to—”
“That,” she finishes, looking up at the words again.
“Hey,” I say, turning her face away from it. “You need to be strong. You need to call the police. Get them over here. Have them see everything.”
Clara nods and grabs the phone.
“Wait,” I say, pausing her from dialing. “Do you think it might have been that photographer guy next door?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I hadn’t really thought about it ... maybe.”
The idea of it seems to upset her even more. She nearly bites through her cheek and resumes dialing. It takes her a couple times to actually get her jittery fingers to work right. “Hello,” she stammers into the receiver. “My name is Clara Baker. I’m vacationing at 24 Sandy Beach Lane. I need you to come right away.” She pauses a moment to stare into my eyes. “Because someone wants to kill me.”
twenty
In practically less time than it takes me to stuff the photos back inside the envelope, to try once more to sense something from them through touch, the police arrive. Clara does all the talking, which both surprises and impresses me. I think it’s healthy that she’s talking about everything, taking things seriously, and being proactive.
She leads them through the living room and into her room, telling them how we came in here this morning and saw the graffiti on the wall, and then how we found the envelope of photos stuffed beneath her bed covers. But what’s weird is that she fails to tell them how Amber, Drea, and I were actually here earlier this morning—how that’s when we saw the message on the wall.
I look at it, at the blood-red words sprawled across the wall, wondering if Clara’s intentionally leaving that detail out, if maybe she’s trying to protect us. I guess, as Amber pointed out last night, it would look kind of suspicious for us. I cringe just thinking how openly Drea and Amber have expressed sheer loathing for Clara. If the police started asking questions about that, about whether all of us got along as friends, after hearing that the three of us broke in here, it might not look too good for us.
So, while I can understand why Clara might be protecting me, I’m wondering why she’d bother protecting them. Unless, of course, the detail just slipped her mind. I ponder that possibility a moment, but then Clara looks directly at me. “Stacey,” she says, her face all flushed, “I’d really like to speak to the police alone now.” She grabs a tissue from the box and dabs her eyes. The two police officers stare at me—one woman with dark, slicked-back hair that curls around her ears, and an older skinny guy with tiny round glasses.
“Oh,” I say, taken aback completely.
“But I’ll come over after,” Clara says. “We can talk more then.”
I nod and look at the police, wondering what she’s going to tell them. The female officer takes my name, address, and telephone number, and tells me she might need to talk to me some more later—even though I didn’t get to say much at all.
So now what?
I head back to the cottage, eager to hear back from Clara—to see what else she said to the police, to see if they might have said something insightful to her. Though now, after being asked to leave just as the questioning was starting to heat u
p, I know I can’t rely solely on her for information. There’s obviously stuff she doesn’t want to tell me.
I enter the cottage, and Jacob is sitting at the kitchen table eating a bagel. “Where have you been?” he asks.
“I could ask you the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I got up this morning, you’d already left.”
“I went for an early swim.”
I look toward his swim trunks. “Then how come your bathing suit is dry? How come your hair isn’t wet?”
“It’s practically ninety degrees out, Stacey. It doesn’t take much for something to dry.”
I nod, trying to decide whether or not to believe him. “So?” he asks again. “Where were you?”
“With Clara,” I say. “Talking to the police.”
“What happened?”
“Total bust.” I sigh, leaning back against the door.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. Tired. Hungry.”
“Will a bagel make it better?”
“Only if it has extra strawberry jam.”
Jacob gets up and pops a frozen one into the toaster oven for me. He pours me a glass of iced coffee, adds in a little cream—just the way I like it—and sets it on the kitchen table beside the jar of strawberry preserves.
“Perfect,” I say, already feeling a smidge better. “Thank you.”
“Sure,” he says, sitting back down at the table. “So?”
“What?”
“What happened? I heard about the graffiti on Clara’s wall and how you went over there to show her.”
Plate in hand, I position myself beside the toaster oven, waiting for the ping. “There were pictures, too,” I say. “Polaroids of Clara—a whole envelope of them.”
“Were you able to sense anything from them?”
I shrug. “Just more of the same—coldness, chills. But I was also able to sense her; it was like I could smell her, her butterscotch scent.”
“Well, they were photos of her.”
“I know. It probably doesn’t mean anything. The whole thing’s a puzzle.” I take the bagel out and join him at the table for some much-needed fueling.
“Maybe some ex of hers did this,” Jacob says. “Maybe someone she might have upset . . . someone who may have thought she was cheating? I mean, she does seem kind of—”
03 - Silver Is For Secrets Page 11
