Good. Not telepathic.
Louise should have known that her putting mascara on right before bed would not go unnoticed by her attentive little sister. But in spite of Addie’s tornado personality, Louise knows she would never tell.
The real challenge is not being noticed on the other end, at Finn’s house. He has six brothers, and one of them is a real pain in Louise’s ass. Finn’s twin, Nate. Of course the boy she likes would have a twin. Her older sisters hadn’t had to deal with that when they each fell for one of the Carson boys, the twinless ones.
With seven boys in the Carson house and four girls in hers, Louise is aware that sneaking over to the Carsons’ has become a bit of a cliché. She’d like to do something that isn’t seen as following in her sisters’ footsteps, but what choice does she have when the only path to anything exciting is the one they’ve created?
The next most exciting thing Louise and her sisters ever did was get really, really good at tp-ing houses. They called it Charmin bombing. They did it a lot. Louise could encircle entire carports without breaking the roll. Gladys could do a fifty-foot tree without a ladder or a boost. Izzy somehow did the insides of houses while people slept, and they would not wake up. She left her initials on their cheeks and drew mustaches on them with red lipstick and still never once got caught.
Addie hasn’t figured out what she might be good at yet.
The McQuillen sisters are proof that in a small town, teenagers are always and never bored.
Mr. Carson loved that he never had to buy toilet paper— thanks to Louise and her sisters he’d acquired hundreds of rolls, probably, over the years. He put it in his bathroom, wrapping it into fat loops that looked like giant fluffy rolls of cotton candy next to the toilet.
“Give me back my goddamn toilet paper,” Louise’s father would demand, standing in the church parking lot, lowering his voice because the statue of Mary was nearby, eyeing him askance from under her blue veil.
“I believe it’s on my property, and you have a bigger problem than toilet paper if you can’t keep your daughters in line,” Mr. Carson would bark back at him, also glancing at Mary.
It was all part of their routine, their shtick while smoking cigarettes after Mass. Louise’s father complaining that with four girls he went through a hell of a lot of toilet paper, even when he wasn’t chasing it around the neighborhood; Mr. Carson saying he couldn’t help it if Mr. McQuillen’s daughters and toilet paper always ended up at his house.
It was a crumbling town, held loosely together by these routines and miles and miles of toilet paper hung in the trees like prayer flags. Catholics aren’t normally ones to summon God with prayer flags, but Louise figured they needed whatever help they could get.
“Louise?”
Addie’s fingers are shaking her gently by the shoulder.
“What time is it? Oh, no, no, no, no.”
“Coyote Jones says there’s a wildfire over near Beaver Junction.”
Louise rolls over to find Addie’s face so close she can smell her bubblegum-flavored toothpaste.
“That’s not very close,” she says. “Your face, however, that’s close. You are a fire in my face.”
“I can smell smoke.”
“I just smell toothpaste.”
“I think you should stay home.”
“I am home. I was asleep.”
Dammit, how could she have fallen asleep?
“But you were planning to leave.”
Addie knowingly plucks the collar of Louise’s corduroy jacket. Her sneaking-out jacket.
Louise wishes she had more secrets. Better secrets. Any secrets.
“I was cold.”
“You won’t be when the fire gets here.”
“It’s not going to get here.”
“Should we fill up the gas tank?”
“What? Why?”
“In case we have to evacuate quickly.”
“It’s winter, Addie. There is no fire.”
“A fire can burn uphill at forty miles per hour.”
“Stop listening to Coyote Jones. He’s bad for your mental health. Now go back to bed.”
“He knows things,” Addie whispers icily in Louise’s ear, making her shiver.
When she opens her eyes, Addie is gone.
On her way out, carrying her boots and sliding along quietly in her socks, Louise pauses by Addie’s door, leaning her ear against it. She should peek in and make sure Addie isn’t mad or worried, but she’s already so late. Finn must think she’s blown him off. Addie’s probably asleep, anyway; it’s deathly quiet on the other side of the door. Either that or she’s still tuned in to Coyote Jones’s radio channel in her big fat headphones. Louise has always thought the self-proclaimed weather guy was a quack. She moves guiltily past.
She shuffles even more quietly past the closed door to Gladys’s room, because that’s where her father sleeps now, ever since the “second honeymoon.” Louise misses her sisters more than she misses her parents getting along, which she honestly can’t remember.
Sisters shouldn’t leave their sisters. It sounds like a bumper sticker, but it feels like a bee sting to the brain. Louise has already decided not to move away when she graduates, because she wouldn’t do that to Addie.
She figures she can get a job waitressing at the Duck-In—she could work nights—and maybe Finn will stay too and work for his father’s plumbing business. In her mind, it looks like a diorama, the kind Addie makes out of shoe boxes with little figurines glued down, all spit-spot. Very neat. As if living in miniature is less messy than life-sized. Even the tiny plastic toilets she puts in the bathrooms never have to be cleaned. That’s a life Louise can see herself living.
“Why so many dioramas?” she’d asked, looking at the twenty different-sized shoe boxes all over Addie’s room. The box the yellow boots had come in was the biggest, and Addie was making a tiny replica of their town out of it. Louise recognized their house and the Carsons’, and the path that led between them. Beyond it were all the right angles that connected the streets of Pigeon Creek. The school, the sledding hill, their church, and the Duck-In, decorated with Christmas lights and a sign that said OPEN 24 HOURS, just like in real life.
“I like to recycle,” said Addie. “Someday people will realize it’s important.”
“Yeah, but it’s so…extensive. And detailed.”
“I notice things.”
“Really?”
“No, Louise, I’m actually a human drone, and this is what you all look like from my perspective.”
“Just asking. Don’t get all panty bunched about it.”
When Louise peered closer she saw that the Nike box that was their house had five little plastic people—two parents, three kids—inside. Her dad had stopped running at least ten years ago, so the box was flimsy and old. The people were all seated around a kitchen table with what looked like roast chicken made of foil smack-dab in the middle of it. She couldn’t remember the last time her family had sat down together for dinner.
On the tablecloth there were dishes drawn with markers and little Tater Tots made of broken bits of wine corks rolling around inside them. A ketchup bottle the size of Louise’s thumbnail was standing nearby. In the bedrooms, every bed had a comforter made of a Bounce dryer sheet cut in half and then decorated with flowers drawn with brightly colored markers, made to look like the ones they all slept under every night. It was astounding how lifelike everything was.
“So these aren’t, like, voodoo dolls of us, are they?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“There’s only five people.”
Addie was focused on making a tiny vase, and she was uncharacteristically quiet.
Louise double-checked the bathrooms on the second floor in case a tiny plastic figurine was in there, constipated or something (that wou
ld so be Addie’s speed). She slid open the cardboard pocket door to an exact replica of the bathroom she and Addie shared. But it was empty. She admired the intricately designed sink and shower and tiny rolls of toilet paper—Certs candies—stacked neatly on the back of the toilet.
“Is one of us over in the Carsons’ house? That’s very clever, Addie.”
She looked at the huge yellow rain-boot box that was their town, but it didn’t show the insides of any of the houses, just long strands of real toilet paper connecting all the buildings.
“Someone’s missing, Addie.”
“Stop it, Louise. You overthink everything.”
Addie put her hand on her hip and stuck out her elbow like a handle before Louise could say anything else.
“Nice to meet you, Pot. I’m Kettle.”
Then she bowed deeply at the waist.
Louise groaned.
“Are you ever going to grow up?” she asked.
“Doesn’t seem likely,” said Addie.
Louise’s feet feel heavier than usual as she makes her way to Finn’s, glancing over her shoulder in case Addie has decided to follow. But she wouldn’t. She never does.
Her sneaking-out jacket isn’t really warm enough now that it’s snowing. The conversation about a wildfire smolders in the back of her mind, the way a real fire would smolder this time of year. It felt more like an excuse for Addie to keep Louise home.
Gladys and Izzy had a rule about the car that the girls all shared: Don’t fill it up more than halfway, so that way if you crash and total it you won’t have wasted money on unused gas. But never leave less than half a tank in it for the next person either.
They would pass each other on the stairs and whisper ominously, “The tank is half full,” winking as if they shared a deep, dark secret.
Now that Gladys and Izzy are gone, Louise often leaves it with a quarter tank or less, since she’s the only driver. It’s an old Toyota hatchback with almost three hundred thousand miles on it that needs a Philips screwdriver rather than a key to start. Her feet are more reliable. And she rarely needs to go anywhere that she can’t walk, anyway.
Louise misses her sisters more than she allows herself to acknowledge, but walking over to Finn’s, shivering in her thin jacket, she feels too exposed to fight it and lets herself wallow for a few minutes in the loneliness of being left behind. In her pocket is a condom Izzy “bequeathed” her when she left.
“Those Carson boys are never prepared,” she’d said to Louise knowingly. “And while they are a fun distraction, you do not want to hitch your wagon to them forever. Trust me.”
Izzy had been hopelessly in love with the oldest Carson, Jeremiah, and Louise wondered two things about her sister’s sage advice: Had Izzy really not wanted to be hitched to his wagon forever? And did he pass on some intimate knowledge of “those McQuillen girls” to his brothers, the way her sisters had done for her?
Gladys had said, “The McQuillen–Carson pipeline. Don’t even bother signing up. All roads lead to the same place.” Still, she tossed one of those black-and-white photo strips of herself and Markus, the third oldest—into her suitcase when she left. Louise noticed that Gladys hadn’t packed any pictures of her and Addie, so she’d slipped one into the side pocket of her sister’s bag when she wasn’t looking. Addie was about six and had ice cream all over her face. Louise was fourteen and too old to be wearing a holster and riding a stick horse that was way too small for her. It always made Addie laugh when Louise wore her dress-up clothes, so she did it a lot. It’s also what Louise likes most about the picture—Addie laughing.
The photo booth sits in the back corner of the Duck-In like a time machine, documenting the late-night mischief of a small town’s teenagers through the years. Louise even had the same requisite Carson–McQuillen black-and-white photo strip—of herself and Finn—which made her feel boring and predictable. (Except that Nate had stuck his hand through the curtain and given them bunny ears, because he was also boring and predictable.)
Nate was not just her boyfriend’s twin brother; he was a constant shadow, a monkey on Louise’s back. He taunted her with his presence, his simmering jealousy about her and Finn. She wondered who he thought would be better for his brother, if not her? Cindy Trout, the one they called “the fish”? Or triangle-shaped Claudia Klein, with her big swimming shoulders? Or that new girl, Martha Hollister? She seemed to be on a mission to date every boy in Pigeon Creek before the year ended. Why didn’t Nate just date one of them himself? Louise didn’t know, because she rarely spoke to him, and yet she knew his moods like she knew Addie’s.
She knew his twisted downward grimace or the hundred-mile stare with the same hazel-green eyes that Finn had, except Nate’s were moodier. Louise would beg Finn to do something that was just the two of them, without Nate, but the only time that ever happened was if they were making out in the closet in the room the two boys shared. It was uncomfortable and sweaty—she had been jabbed more than once by a stray hanger—not at all romantic, the way Izzy and Gladys had described their jaunts at this particular rodeo.
But Finn had promised her that tonight it would just be the two of them. And I fell asleep on this night of all nights, she thinks, dribbling dog treats along the fence next door to the Carsons’ for the Doberman that lives there. (Thank you, Gladys, for the heads-up.)
It’s as dark as the inside of a freezer. And almost as cold. She thinks about Addie warning her about wildfire. It’s funny, but also not funny. Everything is a little off. Her lateness, Addie’s plea for her not to go, no Doberman coming out to get her dog treats.
And then something grabs her and she screams.
A hand covers her mouth and she’s pulled off the trail into the woods.
“Shhhhh. You’ll wake the whole world.”
Goddammit, Nate.
“I’m trying to help you. Stop it, Louise.”
But she twists madly, trying to get out of his grasp. He’s twice her size, in height and weight. She bites the hand that’s covering her mouth.
“Shit, Louise! What the fuck?”
Her mouth is free now, but he’s still holding her in a tight bear hug.
“I’ll scream again if you don’t let me go.”
“If you do, that’s it, goddammit. I’m done with you.”
“Well, that’s an incentive.”
But what does being “done with her” mean? And it’s very odd that he was waiting in the woods.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks.
“Let’s go to the Duck-In and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Finn is waiting for me.”
“I promise you, Finn is not waiting. He sent me here to meet you.”
“You’ve really gone too far this time, Nate. I’m going inside.”
“He’s got another girl in there, Louise. And if you go inside, you’re going to humiliate yourself.”
She stares at him. It’s so dark, he could easily just be one of the black spruce trees leaning up against her, his long arms branches clutching her shoulders through her thin jacket. She looks up at the fingernail moon smirking at her in the black sky….She was meeting Finn for something else; he’d agreed to meet her….What was it? Addie, telling her there was a fire—had she known something too? But how?
“So did Finn give you something for me?”
“Come on, let’s go to the Duck-In.”
Louise doesn’t remember moving her feet, but somehow she is sitting across from Nate at the Duck-In. As she starts to thaw out, everything hurts, but especially her pride. Not that anyone else is in the café to notice. It’s so bright inside she feels exposed all the way down to her core, like the empty skeleton hanging in her biology class—a bony cage with nothing inside except her heart. It must be visible, trying to pump blood to the rest of her body, as if the ventricle were a sponge b
eing wrung out. Maybe it won’t spring back into shape, the way it’s supposed to, and she will die across from Nate Carson, in a crappy diner booth, with syrup sticking to her ass.
Nate orders two coffees with cream, and extra sugar for Louise, as if they do this all the time.
If he’s gloating that Finn had someone else in his room, she doesn’t get why he brought her here to do it. His long legs bump the table as he shifts around in the booth, jostling their coffees, spilling cream everywhere.
“I can’t do it anymore,” he says.
“Okayyyy…”
She thaws her fingers over the steam rolling off her coffee cup.
“Don’t you want to know what ‘it’ is?”
Not really, she thinks. “He invited me over tonight. Why would he do that if someone else was going to be there?”
“He didn’t actually invite you over, Louise.”
She looks up into his face, surprised to see that it doesn’t hold one ounce of smugness. He pulls off his red knitted cap, running long, slender fingers through short hair.
It’s a drastic change from the Grizzly Adams look he’s always had. When was the last time Louise even looked at Nate? How long has his hair been short?
“Louise, you have to stop this.”
“What?”
“You guys broke up almost two years ago.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I think you need to talk to someone.”
“I talk to Addie all the time.”
The look on his face is so full of love and concern, she thinks she might cry. Goddamn him, making her talk. Making her say Addie’s name out loud.
She’s suddenly so exhausted she can’t hold her head up. She doesn’t even care that her cheek is pressing against dirty Formica that smells like old soup; she just wants to melt into the table and let the Jackson Five sing her to sleep with their lousy rendition of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” bleating out of the old jukebox.
“I called your sisters a few days ago,” he says.
Or she thinks he says it, but she is half dreaming now.
She and Addie are playing follow-the-leader in the woods. “Be as quiet as you can,” she tells Addie. “If I hear you at all, then you lose and we switch places, until one of us is queen.”
Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town Page 15
