Such a Good Girl

by Amanda K. Morgan

  Brownies

  Honestly, I didn’t expect to learn a lot from the Senior Friends program I orchestrated, where I paired up students and cool senior citizens, but I have to say, Ms. Glenda did pass on the perfect brownie recipe. I happen to know her goddaughter, Dana, really had her heart set on the secret family recipe, but Glenda said that Dana had a real mean streak and she’d rather give it to someone who would appreciate it, and who am I to ignore the wishes of a dying old woman? Plus, Glenda said one day I’d need to make a decent pan of brownies, and I suppose she was right. I also suppose I didn’t expect to make them for my ex-boyfriend’s potential widow.

  Baking is, after all, what you do when someone is grieving. Last time I went to my neighbor’s house after her husband had died, everyone showed up with more pies and casseroles than she could have ever eaten. My parents showed up with a Jell-O salad with whipped cream and crushed pretzels on top.

  I stir the batter, wash and put away the dishes, and have the brownies out of the oven before my parents can get home to ask what I’m up to. And then I head to the unhappiest house I can possibly think of.

  A very familiar house.

  The Belrose house.

  I go with my brownies and my most perfect A-plus-student smile and a plan.

  And I go because I can’t stand it anymore even though there are a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t.

  I wear a perfect green sweater with a pocket on the right side of my chest, an A-line skirt that falls at just below my knees, and my National Honor Society pin. My hair is smoothed back into a careful ponytail, around which I have tied a dark pink ribbon that I’ve fastened into a neat bow so that two ends hang perfectly down on either side of my head. I in no way look like a harlot when I ring the doorbell with my plate of brownies. I know Jacqueline is home, because her obnoxiously bright car is parked at the end of the sidewalk.

  For a moment, I don’t hear anything, and then there are quiet little footsteps. The front door swings open, and then there’s Jacqueline, adorned in a thin black dress, her makeup done with absolute perfection. A black fedora is perched on the top of her head and she has donned tiny little fingerless gloves. It’s as if she’s waiting to be photographed as the sad, sexy widow.

  Like this has all been planned.

  “I don’t want Girl Scout cookies.” Her voice is clipped, and she begins to close the door.

  “I’m actually here on behalf of Mr. Belrose’s French honors students,” I say, my voice high and chirpy. “We just wanted to drop in on you to see how you were doing and give you these.” I hold out the foil-covered pan.

  “What are they?” she asks, turning her nose up a bit like maybe I’m trying to poison her.

  Which wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  “Homemade brownies. From scratch. We’re just so worried about you, Mrs. Belrose. We can’t imagine what you’re going through right now.”

  She gives me a long look, then cracks open her door, just a bit wider. “Well, okay then. Come on in.”

  I bite back a smile.

  Excellent.

  If the cops find my DNA in the Belrose house and someone traces it back to me, I want to say I’ve been in the house for a reason, even if it’s giving brownies to a falsely grieving widow who doesn’t look like she’s been crying at all.

  And if I happen to do a little detective work in the meantime . . . well. That’s fine.

  I sit down on the couch first, balancing my tray in my lap. “Maybe I should put these in the kitchen. They’re still warm. Um, where is it?”

  Because of course I haven’t been here before.

  “Just through there,” she says, pointing to the doorway toward the cheery little kitchen. “Leave them on the table.”

  I do as I’m told.

  “Those don’t have any peanuts or anything in them, do they? I’m just terribly allergic. I mean, I would totally die if you gave me peanuts,” Jacqueline says. Her hand raises her to throat. She speaks with an odd accent—maybe with the slightest French lilt, which is obnoxious, since I’m pretty sure she’s originally from a small town in Texas.

  “No,” I say. Regrettably. I file away the knowledge. So Jacqueline has a severe food allergy. I could use that.

  I sit back on the couch and cross my legs.

  “How are you, Mrs. Belrose?” I furrow my brow, showing concern. I am a puppet.

  So is she.

  She wipes away a tear that isn’t there.

  “It’s been so hard—uh—what did your say your name was?”

  “Riley Stone.”

  I study her face. There is no flicker of recognition. Her eyebrows don’t raise.

  So he didn’t tell her anything. If he said he was going to leave her, I wasn’t a reason why.

  “I’m going to be the valedictorian,” I explain. “I am very good at French.”

  “Good for you, honey,” she says. She reaches forward and pats me very lightly on the wrist, her palm flat and stiff. Is she always this weird?

  For a moment, we’re just silent, and I look out the picture window, trying not to think about all the other times I’ve looked out that very same picture window, and who was sitting next to me, and how much better I felt before.

  “Is there anything—have you heard or found anything?” I ask. “We’re just all so worried—I had to ask.”

  She smiles at me, but her teeth are hidden behind her lips. “There is a reason why I wear black, my darling.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes flutter, like she’s holding back tears that aren’t really there. “A wife knows in her heart when she is widowed. And make no mistake. My husband is dead. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but the other half of my heart has stopped beating. I feel it here.” She presses her thin hand to her chest. “He is gone.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  She looks at me sharply. “You would know if you ever really loved someone, Rayna,” she says, forgetting my name already. “He is dead and has left me and all I can do is get used to it, and it’s time for everyone else to do the same, and stop calling this a rescue mission. My love is dead. He’s dead.”

  I stare at her. She’s nuts. She’s as much as confessing here. Why say someone is dead with so much certainty if you didn’t kill him?

  Why aren’t the cops holding her?

  “But how do you know?”

  “I have premonitions about these things, my dear. It does no good to ask questions.” She leans toward me. “Thank you for the snacks, sweet girl, but I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  Right. Premonitions. How very intuitive of her. And that’s a reason to give up on your husband if you didn’t absolutely murder him in cold blood.

  I stand. “Um, well let me know if you need anything else, okay?”

  She takes my hand, and her skin is papery and cold and reminds me of an old woman. “Thank you for caring,” she says. “No one else cares.”

  I try to smile at her. “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not.”

  I leave as quickly as I can.

  She’s right, of course. She would know that Belrose is dead. Especially because I am willing to bet that she did it.

  I blink away tears. Why can’t they figure out what she did to him? Why can’t the police understand that she murdered him? Why is it just me who can see it?

  When I pull into my driveway, I realize that my parents are home . . . and so is Rob.

  Rob Samuels.

  Who is waiting in the kitchen with my parents, talking to them about God knows what, and my parents are just standing there, smiling, like I should be happy that he just showed up and is smothering me and won’t leave me alone for a goddamn second.

  “Look who’s here!” my mom says, looking over the brim of her wineglass as she leans against the kitchen counter. My dad waves.

  “Hi,” I say.

  Rob stands immediately. “Hey, Ri! Surprise!” He loops an arm around my shoulders right there in front of
my parents, claiming me.

  We’re an us.

  We’re an item.

  We’re serious enough to show affection in front of my parents.

  I feel sick.

  He leans in and kisses me on the top of my head. “You okay?” he whispers in my ear, because he always notices things like that.

  Why does he have to notice everything?

  I shake my head.

  No.

  I’m not okay.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  We leave my parents in the kitchen and go to my room, and Rob puts his hands on my hips and draws me into a hug. “What’s wrong?”

  I stare out the open window. The sun is setting on the street, and everything is falling into shadow.

  “Just stressed,” I whisper.

  “I can make it okay,” he says. “If you’d let me.”

  I want to tell him that stopping by unannounced is not okay. I want to tell him that being buddy-buddy with my mom and dad without my permission isn’t all right, and moving in on Neta to get closer to me is really not going to work for me.

  But I need him. And so I will make this work. So I let him hug me, and all I can think is that I don’t fit right under his chin. Not like with Alex.

  I feel strange and cold and for some reason, I feel like there’s someone else out there. Someone else in the room. Someone watching.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  I tilt my chin up to let him, and then as he moves his face toward mine, I duck away.

  “Do you want our first kiss to be when I’m this upset?” I say, burying my face against the blue cable-knit of his sweater.

  “You’re right, baby. We should wait.”

  He holds me tighter, and I feel like I’m dying in his arms. I didn’t ever tell him he could call me that. I didn’t tell him he could touch me. I shouldn’t be in his arms. This isn’t right.

  My eyes flick back to the window.

  “You’re a good person, Rob,” I whisper.

  Maybe it’s even true, but I don’t mean it at all.

  Things to Know About Riley Stone:

  • In preschool, Riley actually got in trouble for kissing too many boys in the schoolyard. Her teacher threatened to use rubber cement on her lips. Of course, Riley does not count any of these as real kisses because they were (a) embarrassing and (b) in preschool.

  • After Riley kissed boys in the schoolyard, she would push them. Hard. But she never actually got in trouble for pushing boys because the boys she kissed never wanted to admit they’d been hurt by a girl. Riley, of course, used their sexism to her advantage.

  • Riley quit modeling at age fifteen when she won runner-up at the local modeling show she’d won every year since she was four. That year, a new judge, a Miss Brown, rated Riley low in every category.

  • Kolbie won first place.

  • After Riley quit modeling, she joined the Keep First Street Alive historical site fund-raiser, which was scheduled for the same date every year. The year Riley joined, the fund-raiser rented the modeling contest venue, and the annual modeling event was subsequently canceled. By that time, however, Kolbie was already signed to an agency in New York and did not see the cancellation as a slight.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Car

  As it turns out, a lot of geniuses were insomniacs. Groucho Marx, Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Edison—I’m in good company.

  It’s something about smart people, I think, being unable to turn their minds off.

  Never mind that it’s become a more serious problem recently, since Alex’s disappearance. Never mind that I know every single little divot and crack in my ceiling, and how if I think too much about everything it all drives me a little bit crazy. Maybe I should take a Benadryl. The pharmacist told my mother to take Benadryl on any overseas flights instead of sleep aids.

  My phone pings.

  I roll over to answer it, pulling my already tangled sheets with me.

  It’s a new e-mail.

  A new e-mail from Alex.

  My heart almost explodes into a million pieces. He’s alive. Alex Belrose is alive.

  Unless it’s someone else using his e-mail.

  I click into the account, and there it is, plain as day: an e-mail from him to me. I can feel it. It’s really him.

  Meet me at the cliffs near Porter Lane at midnight.

  He wants to see me. He wants to see me at the cliffs near Porter Lane.

  Of course. It makes perfect sense. Everyone knows the cliffs near Porter Lane. Three years ago, it’s where Paul Billson, the local mortician, got drunk and ran off the road. He almost ran straight off those very cliffs, but the fencing along the side saved him. The next morning, the police found him asleep in his car, one wheel dangling over the edge of the cliffs, about to plunge three hundred feet down into a river.

  The fencing, damaged from Billson’s accident, was removed and not replaced. The locals, spooked by the story, avoid the place completely.

  Which is probably why Alex wants me to meet him there.

  I check the time.

  It’s 11:46. I have to hurry.

  Quickly, I pull on a hoodie, a pair of jeans, and sneakers, then slide open my window. I climb over the sill and push off, jumping clean of my mother’s flowers that grow along the sides of the house, then I slip back between the flowers to quietly pull my window down. If I leave it open, the heat will kick on more often than normal, which might wake my parents.

  I put my car in reverse and roll it out of the driveway without starting it, and then, once I’m in the street, I turn the key and pull away.

  No lights go on in the rearview mirror.

  I let out my breath, which fogs up the windshield. The night air is frigid. It’s a bitter cold that settles deep into the bones of the earth on still nights, nights when birds and other animals tuck themselves away into nests and holes. The wind isn’t blowing, not even a breeze, and the silence, even more than the temperature, makes me shiver.

  I turn the heat on high and click on the radio, but for a moment, there is only static, and then a tinny old blues station comes in, like my car can’t receive anything else. Then it clears up and the pop station comes through, blasting Taylor Swift too loud.

  I turn it down, my skin prickling oddly.

  Something is wrong. Something feels wrong.

  But of course it does. It’s the middle of the night and I’ve just snuck out of the house to meet my missing (and possibly presumed dead) teacher.

  I reach the edge of town and turn onto the web of dirt roads that will lead me to Porter Lane. I hear the gravel crunch under my wheels even with the music on, hear it hit the undercarriage of my car as I draw closer.

  I’m going to see Alex.

  I’m finally going to see him.

  The blood in my veins turns hot.

  I turn onto Porter Lane, and my headlights fall upon someone: a tall figure, standing alone on the corner, in the tall weeds that the frost has been too stubborn to completely kill.

  Alex.

  I hit my brakes hard, my car jerking to a stop, and there he is, after so long, he’s just there, looking like he’s always looked, not hurt or lost or anything. I leap out of my car, leaving it running, the headlights on, and then I stop short, just standing in front of him, looking up at him, and it’s him and he’s there and it’s just us after so long and he’s okay.

  “Alex,” I whisper. His name, after so many days of uncertainty, feels good in my mouth. He gathers me up in his arms and kisses me, hard and long, my body against his, and it feels so, so good, like all the worry and pain from the past two weeks are just falling away, like they were never there in the first place, and I’m actually happy, just happy. He’s okay. Alex is okay. I’m okay. He’s back. Jacqueline didn’t kill him.

  “What happened?” I ask in his ear, and I realize I’m shaking. My body feels strange and tight and sore.

  He pulls away, and the moonlight casts his soft features into strange, sharp places and valleys
that I never saw before. “We’re going to be together,” he whispers, his voice a deep, long scratch. “We’re finally going to get to be together.”

  My pulse quickens. “How, Alex? How is it going to be okay?”

  “Do you trust me?” he asks.

  No. The answer is in my heart, automatic and unbidden, but I squeeze his hand, and then he’s kissing me again, and oh my God I have missed him and for just a second I feel like my life is back together but nothing is together and this isn’t right.

  I pull back for a moment, my head down but my hands still on his arms and his on my waist.

  “Run away with me,” he pleads. “Come on. Let’s run away from here. We can start over and be together. And when you turn eighteen, we can get married. We can have a family. We can forget this whole stupid town and all of these horrible people and it can be just us, forever.”

  I stare at him. Is this what Alex thinks I want? Babies and a family? To miss out on everything I worked so hard for? To just give everything up for him? What was the point of all the secrecy if I was so ready to throw everything away? Doesn’t he realize I want to go to college? To reap the rewards I’ve earned for myself? That I deserve?

  Doesn’t he know me at all?

  I step back, away from him.

  I stare at the man standing in front of me, holding his hands out, pleading.

  “Alex, I can’t. I’ve worked too hard for everything here. I can’t just walk out on all of my responsibilities.”

  “I worked for my life, and look where I am—with a wife who cheats on me and leaves me for extended periods of time? With someone who loves her stupid wine club more than she loves me? In a job that doesn’t pay me enough to cover my house and car payments? I can’t live like this anymore, Riley. Please. Come with me. I’m begging you. I love you. God, I love you.”

  “I love you too, Alex. But no.”

  But then he’s pulling me. Pulling me away from my car that’s still idling, the door open and the headlights on. “Just let me show you something,” he whispers. “Let me show you how it will all be better for us. Let me show you how I keep my promises.”

  “Can I turn my car off?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “It won’t take long. I swear. And then we can leave here.”