What You Hide

by Natalie D. Richards

  Still, it’s odd the way she’s just standing there, mostly hidden by the curtain. Her fingers curl, pale and stark, against the bunched fabric. It’s like the woman I saw the day we found the body.

  Gretchen’s in the front office, coat shrugged onto the chair behind her. She offers me a bleary-eyed smile and a scratchy greeting.

  “You’re early,” she croaks.

  “Couldn’t sleep. No offense, but you look like crap.”

  “Allergies,” she says, and coughs so hard I’m sure she’ll have bruises.

  “It sounds like tuberculosis,” I say. “Or consumption.”

  Her red nose wrinkles. “People don’t actually get consumption anymore.”

  “They will if they hug you today.”

  She laughs, and it sets her coughing again. Then she frowns at me. “Why are you here so early again?”

  “Putting my immune system to the test, apparently. Mind if I get a soda before I start?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  In the vending area, I buy a Coke and notice half a dozen cheese and crackers wrappers sitting on one of the tables. Did the cleaning crew miss this room? A smear of black marks the floor near the cabinet door. A vague impression of toes.

  Ruby was cleaning up prints like this in the cookbook section. It’s bizarre. Who the hell keeps walking around the library in bare feet? There are smears on the cabinet door too, and come to think of it, that door is usually closed. It’s open a couple of inches now.

  I sigh as the reality sets in. The wrappers on the table aren’t from the vending machine. They’re from our cheese and cracker packs, the ones we give out at special story times. We keep them in that bottom cabinet, and apparently someone found the stash.

  Better tell Gretchen.

  First, I clean. Gretchen is feeling too shitty to deal with a mess, so I wipe up the black and scoop the wrappers into the trash.

  Cleanup done, I grab my Coke and head out. Halfway out of the room, I almost slam into someone. A strangled yelp gets caught in my throat.

  It’s Mallory.

  She’s got her shoes in her hand and her eyes are wide. How is she here? Did Gretchen let her in early? I’m open my mouth to ask when she holds up her hand. A deep flush starts at the collar of her shirt, rising quickly to the roots of her messy hair. I don’t get why she’s embarrassed or why she’s stopping me.

  And then I do.

  Messy hair. Rumpled clothes. Sock-clad feet. Gretchen didn’t let her in early; she’s been here all night.

  Why the hell would anyone stay in the library all night? To pilfer crackers and read the reference books you can’t check out? It’s weird.

  I hesitate, glancing up the stairs. Gretchen’s in the office, entirely ignorant that I’m not the only other person in here this morning. If she finds out, Mallory will probably get in pretty big trouble. Strange as this all is, I don’t want her in trouble.

  Mallory tucks her bottom lip between her teeth, her face still deeply scarlet. It hits me low in the gut because that’s where shame always hits me. I’m embarrassed that I caught her like this, and that it took me so long to put together the pieces. Her constantly being here. The stuffed to bursting backpack. The cracker wrappers on the table.

  She wasn’t pulling a studying all-nighter or a stupid prank like me. She’s here because she doesn’t have anywhere else to be.

  Mallory still isn’t moving. She stands there, in the space between the stairs and the hall, her breath coming hard and fast. I want to say something so badly, but what?

  “Spencer?”

  We both jump at the sound of Gretchen’s scratchy voice from the top floor. Mallory starts turning in a circle, her eyes panicked.

  “Just a sec!” I shout up, and at the same time I reach for Mallory, my fingers grazing her sleeve. She’s so different in this moment, so uncertain. I’ve never seen this girl so much as drop her gaze, and I hate it.

  “I won’t say anything,” I whisper.

  She lifts her chin, worry and fear jockeying for position in her eyes. I don’t think she believes me, but I’m not sure she has much of a choice.

  “Sorry,” I holler. “Machine was stuck, but I got it.”

  Gretchen coughs again. Distantly. “Would you bring me one of the Earl Grey tea bags?”

  “Earl Grey. Sure thing.”

  I pluck gently at the fabric of Mallory’s sleeve, tugging her toward a quiet study room down the hall. She follows, reluctantly. The room is still dark save the meager morning light leaking through the half window.

  “She won’t come down here. They’ll turn on the lights when they open Youth Services. You’ll have to slip out then.”

  “Okay.” Her voice is strangled like she might cry.

  “Try to make your way to the front. I’ll distract Gretchen if I see you.”

  She nods, sniffing. Then, she asks, “Why?”

  I don’t have an answer, but when I take a step back, my legs feel loose and rubbery. It’s like coming off the ice after a long shift. I feel as likely to fall down as I am to stay up.

  “Why?” she asks again, stepping closer to me. Her eyes pin me to the spot. They peel back my bullshit, and I have no idea what she’ll find underneath.

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  She swallows hard, and there’s a shuddery breath. It’s hers, not mine, and it makes me want to touch her again. I resist the urge and bite down all the questions I want to ask.

  “You won’t get caught,” I say, my voice thick though I don’t understand why.

  She gives a sad laugh. “Maybe. My name means bad luck.”

  “Mallory?” I ask. When she nods to confirm, I shake my head. “Not to me it doesn’t.”

  Mallory

  Friday, November 17, 8:36 a.m.

  He leaves me shaking and crying in a dark study room. I hate myself for letting him see me like this. I sag against the back wall, my red sneakers dangling from my hand. They’re scuffed and obnoxious. My jeans are dirty. I’m sure I don’t smell good, and I shouldn’t care about any of this because it doesn’t matter. But I do care.

  I don’t want to be this girl, the one three days from a shower with grit under her nails and a pack of mostly used diaper wipes serving as her hygiene staple. I don’t feel like that girl now, even though all of those things are true.

  The sobs shake my shoulders, but I press my fist hard at my teeth, like I’m trying to punch the noise down. Maybe I am.

  Eventually, that works. The tears stop, and my breathing steadies.

  And I take stock of what’s happened.

  Spencer found me in the library. I should be grateful that it was him and not the night cleaning crew. They were a near miss my first night, arriving an hour after closing with a jangle of keys that all but launched me off the bench in Youth Services. I learned fast. They come every other night, and they don’t vacuum behind the puppet theater. So far, at least.

  Hiding in the theater and waiting for them to finish was the worst part of the last three days. That and trying to find things to do in the mornings. I make it a point to never be around too early.

  I’m lucky no one found me before. In addition to cleaners, I’ve heard other staff here once or twice. Footsteps. A voice, once. Honestly, how did I ever think I wouldn’t get caught?

  I touch my cheeks, surprised by how cold my hands are. I sigh and close my eyes. They feel hot and gritty from crying. I grab a tissue from a box and swipe at my snotty nose. I turn to rest my forehead in the corner of the room.

  And something scratches the wall.

  I’m startled and step away, but after a brief pause, the noise continues.

  A scratching and then a thump. I shift my gaze. It sounds like it’s coming from the floor above, drifting down through the walls.

  It’s probably a mouse. We had them
once. Mom couldn’t buy traps until she got paid a week later, but by then, it was a full-scale infestation. Awful doesn’t begin to describe it.

  Tap, tap, scratch.

  Tap, tap, scratch.

  Tap, tap, scratch.

  A cold shiver slides up the back of my neck. I don’t remember the mice tapping, and I don’t remember them sounding like this. This noise is different. Rhythmic, like a song.

  Tap, tap, scratch.

  Tap, tap, scratch.

  Goose bumps line my arms as I step closer, trying to find the source of the noise. Is it mechanical? Wiring or pipes? My mind isn’t conjuring images of bumping pipes or frayed wires, though. I’m picturing fingers tapping at drywall. When the noise stops, the picture’s even clearer in my mind, a hand drawn back, a head tilted to listen, maybe.

  I edge out of the room, unnerved. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of blue hair under a gray knit cap. I stop dead as the girl passes right in front of me. A staff member. I’ve seen her at the desk in Youth Services.

  I duck behind a wall, my heart slamming against my ribs, my eyes squeezed shut. There’s no way she didn’t see me. No chance. But when I open my eyes, I see her strolling slowly into the children’s area, an open book in her hands.

  That’s the second time I got lucky. Am I really going to count on a third?

  I need to get my head together. I stormed out of my home with a backpack and less than twenty bucks, and now I’m sleeping in the library? This isn’t a real plan. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. I can’t do this until the baby comes. There has to be a better way.

  The minute the library lights flicker on, my emotions settle. I don’t know what it is that moves me calmly from the study room and up the stairs, but I’m grateful for it. I slip into the stacks and hover close to the tall bookshelves, waiting for people to trickle in.

  Spencer is shelving DVDs in the room where we met. I can tell he’s looking for me. He said he’d help, and I think he meant it, but I’m not taking any more chances. I press my hand to the shelf and wait. It’s not the best section to be stuck in. Cookbooks, so lots of pictures of delicious looking meals for the girl who’s existing on granola bars. My eyes shift to the sleek, wood floor.

  A pattern of dark smudges sullies the gleaming planks. I lean back to study it. They’re footprints, filthy and bare. The five toes on the print closest to me are nearly black.

  Who walks around barefoot in a library and why are the prints still here? The cleaning crew mopped last night. I heard them filling the buckets and dumping them back out.

  These are recent. From this morning. They lead from the carpeted area near the stairs, like someone strolled here from the browsing room with filthy bare feet.

  I guess I’m not the only strange one in the library today.

  A clatter at the front catches my attention. Someone gasps, and then a child begins to cry. I look up to see a toddler amid a pile of spilled books at the foot of the check-in desk. A mother is trying to help pick them up with a baby strapped to her chest. Gretchen is already coming to meet them, cooing at the toddler and crouching down to help.

  In other words—she’s distracted.

  I move so quickly and quietly you would think I am made for sneaking and hiding in the shadows. I’m across the lobby and through the entry before anyone sees.

  The door opens easily when I push it. Outside there is a mixture of cold wind and bright sun. I heave a sigh and close my eyes. The warmth from the sun is meager, but I drink it in. Even if I’m good at hiding in the dark, the light feels good on my face.

  • • •

  Since there’s no way I’m spending my day at the library, I head to Suds and Fluff to wash my clothes. Mom and I used to come here before our apartment building put in a laundry room. The pre-Charlie era.

  We used to come on Sunday mornings and it’d be busy. Today it’s only me and a rumpled woman with a dog-eared romance novel and a bright pink kerchief on her head. She sits on a cracked orange chair, snapping gum and turning pages. Four loads of clothes tumble dry behind her, small socks and lots of towels. The windows of the dryer offer a glimpse at her life—a full house, at least some little ones.

  I slug my backpack off on one of the long white folding tables, rubbing my finger along a yellow-brown cigarette burn in the Formica. Then I jump up to sit with my pack on the table, sorting dirty socks and emptying my pockets.

  Before Charlie, Mom and I spent almost every Sunday here. The apartments hadn’t put in the tiny laundry room then. She’d pick up the Sunday paper and two apple fritters from the Yo-Ho-Ho Doughnut Shop. I’d sit on a table—often this one—with my legs swinging while we passed the crossword puzzle back and forth, waiting for the dryers to finish. The one with our jeans was always the slowest.

  In a million years, I wouldn’t have dreamed I’d miss those slow mornings, the smell of dryer sheets, and my fingers sticky with doughnut glaze. Now they are precious, bittersweet memories of my mother before Charlie.

  The bus rides added up and so did my stop at McDonald’s. After checking every nook and cranny and pocket, I collect nine dollars and seventy-eight cents. One packet of soap and a ride for my clothes in the washing machine and dryer will cost me more than half of that. I buy the cheapest box of detergent the vending machine offers, and after a brief thought of saving some, decide I’ll only end up with white powder all over my backpack.

  I dump the whole thing in and slot in my quarters carefully. I pause before I shove them in the money feeder, awkwardly zipping my coat so I can pull my arms inside and get my shirt and bra in the load too. I peel off my socks, sliding my bare feet back into my sneakers.

  The romance reader is folding her first load when I head into the bathroom with a bottle of baby shampoo from my backpack. It was all I could find when I packed, a free sample from one of my mom’s pregnancy visits.

  I run the freezing cold water for several minutes, hoping against hope that it will warm up. It doesn’t. I check the bathroom lock and strip down. Wash my hair and everything else I can. It isn’t easy—drying off with crappy paper towels, shivering with my hair dripping when I zip my coat over my still damp torso.

  The woman in the kerchief is eyeing me above the pages of her novel. I can’t decide if it’s horror or pity in her eyes, but I give her a long hard stare that dares her to keep judging my wet hair. She returns to her book, and I move my clothes to the dryer, checking the return change slot, just in case.

  The washer grumbles to life. Now there’s nothing to do but wait and think. I return to my perch on the table to do both.

  Money is becoming an issue, but the more I think about getting a job the less likely it seems. What address do I put down? What phone number? As a minor, I’m pretty sure they’d have to call my mom, and then…then, nothing, that’s what. There’s no chance Charlie will let her sign another document without his permission.

  I pause, imagining Mom sitting on the couch with her dark-ringed eyes and round belly. Is she really the same woman who sat on this table with me, drinking lukewarm coffee and filling in the crossword puzzle with a green pen?

  My mother isn’t stupid. How did she end up with a guy like Charlie?

  He was different in the beginning. When I met him, he took both of us out for ice cream and mostly listened while we talked. He was quiet and polite. When I asked, he told me he worked in computers. Back then, he wasn’t working at the school. He actually took a pay cut when he moved to Whitestone, just so he could be closer to us.

  Is that really why?

  I straighten my shoulders, the ugly possibility dropping like a hard clap. Did he get that job for better access to us? Mom worked at a steakhouse, so no IT jobs there, but her daughter’s school? I can’t think of a better way to keep tabs on us.

  I shudder at the disturbing thought. He got the job before they got married. Could he have really pla
nned that meticulously and snowed us so well?

  He could if he knew what he was doing.

  Charlie’s older than Mom. I’ve never thought about it much before, but he’s forty-one. Old enough that Mom can’t be his first girlfriend. Maybe not even his first wife.

  My heart pulses faster in my chest. Why don’t I know more about his past? Does my mom? Something tells me she doesn’t, but she should. The more I think on it, the more I’m sure I should have considered this earlier.

  Charlie wasn’t single his whole life.

  There had to be someone before Mom, but who? Because that woman isn’t with him anymore, and I want to know how she got away.

  Spencer

  Friday, November 17, 6:35 p.m.

  “Open! Open!” I hear the words and the frantic smack of Jarvey’s stick on the ice, but all I see is a moose in a black jersey coming at me. He checks me so hard my mouth guard flies and my skates come out from underneath me. I hit the ice, stars bursting in my vision as I roll to the side, reaching blindly with my stick. I catch a skate, another stick. My vision clears, and I jab the puck free.

  Doesn’t matter. It’s a sloppy mess that not even Jarvey can turn into a goal.

  On the bench, he’s on me before the next line moves to the face-off circle.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Sorry,” I say, shaking the clouds out of my vision. Sweat streaks down my face.

  “You need to wake the hell up!”

  “Hey!” Coach Tieger grabs Jarvey by his jersey. “Get to your side of the line.”

  Then he turns to me. “You need a skull check?”

  Concussion check is what he means. I’ve got most of the symptoms, head spinning and vision blurred. If I puke, it’ll be a trifecta, but I shake my head. “I’m good.”

  “You look like you’re going to hurl,” Alex says.

  “Well, maybe if you’d clean your gear and keep down the stench…”

  Tieger laughs and moves on, but Alex doesn’t bite. His eyes are dark and narrow behind his face shield. “Big hit.”