Addie is so good at this game. Louise leads them through the dry sagebrush and doesn’t even hear Addie’s sneakers on the path behind her. She keeps going, sure Addie will give herself away, but minutes go by and there’s not even a giggle. She keeps going, into the dense alders, and still Addie is quiet, determined to win. Louise knows she will have to give in and declare Addie queen for the day, but she decides to walk just a bit farther, to the money bear, the stump that looks like a baby bear, where people leave coins if they have them. There’s always a dime or a nickel stashed in the wooden grooves when the girls get there.
“You win!” Louise shouts, pulling a quarter—big-money day!—from the money bear’s gnarled paw and turning to hand it to her sister. No Addie.
For the hundredth time tonight, someone is shaking her shoulders. Her face feels glued to the table, and it takes all her strength to lift her head. She can smell fresh coffee, sees two more cups being set down by Maeve, the waitress who has known them all since forever. Tonight she has a red streak in her hair and a look of concern as she softly runs a hand over Louise’s head, then turns back to the kitchen.
Louise tries to focus.
“Gladys? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here too, bug,” says Izzy. Her sisters look huge, standing next to the table.
“She’s been—I don’t know—imagining things, or talking about things that aren’t real,” Nate is saying. “She thinks Addie’s home, telling her not to go out. She doesn’t seem to remember that she and Finn aren’t together anymore.”
“Shouldn’t you two be in school?” says Louise.
Gladys and Izzy slide into the booth and Louise feels an arm around her shoulders, smells oranges, because Izzy always smells like oranges.
“I’m fine,” she mumbles. “What is this, some kind of intervention?”
“You don’t look fine,” says Gladys.
“Yeah, I’m a drug addict,” says Louise. It’s a joke. Nobody laughs.
“We know,” says Izzy. “We found your stash.”
“A few pills. God, Izzy, ‘stash’? Seriously.”
“Not that you were trying to hide it or anything. All those shoe boxes full of pill bottles, stuffed into your old doll houses?”
“Those are dioramas,” says Louise, putting her head back on the table. And they’re not mine, they’re Addie’s.
“Is she going to be okay?” Nate asks.
“She needs help,” Izzy says. “We’re getting her treatment. God, Nate, thank you so much for calling us.”
Nate has been spying on me?
“I have to go home. Addie’s waiting….” She didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“Shhh, honey, Addie isn’t at home. You know this. She was missing for two years, Louise. They just found her body in August.”
Gladys is crying. Izzy is crying. Louise is beginning to hear what they’re saying, which means she needs another pill, just to take the edge off. She does not want to live in the real world, where her little sister was about to be queen for a day and then disappeared forever. All because of Louise.
Her parents are splitting up because they can’t handle it anymore, and maybe Finn doesn’t want to be her boyfriend either, because who would? Has it really been two years since they split up? He must have told Nate all her secrets.
“I was sick of watching him let you numb yourself to death,” says Nate. “I don’t care if you hate me, Louise, this is killing me. The way everyone pretends nothing is happening and the world just falls apart around you. I’m sorry. I had to do something.”
He is incredibly serious as he unwraps Louise’s fingers from the coffee mug and then rewraps both his hands over hers. She stares at the familiar curve of his thumb, the bitten-down nails, the brown semicircle birthmark on his left knuckle, exactly like the one Finn has on his right. Two halves of a full moon.
Tom Petty is blaring through the speakers because Maeve, in her Maeve way, has surreptitiously turned up the music.
You belong among the wildflowers.
“Were you in Alaska or something?” she asks, pulling a vague memory from somewhere.
“No, not Alaska. You’re thinking of Finn again. But thanks for noticing I was gone.”
He’s actually laughing, but there’s also a real tear streaming down his cheek, or is that a scar that she’s never seen before?
“Don’t be mad at Finn,” Louise says.
“I told him if he gives you any more pills I will kick his ass to the moon,” says Nate.
Gladys laughs, and the tension pops like a balloon.
“You win, Nate. You are the best Carson,” she says.
“And we are qualified to judge,” says Izzy.
Louise puts her head on the table again. She was grateful when Finn started giving her the pills, right after they found Addie’s body. Everyone else had moved on to grieving, but Louise did not want to move on. She hears Addie telling her not to leave the house tonight. She knows she will never see Addie again, and her heart breaks for the millionth time since she lost her in the woods. Everyone, in their own way, has been left to make sense of something that can never be made sense of.
“You must blame me,” Louise whispers.
“Oh, bug.” Izzy is crying so hard she can barely speak. “Nobody blames you. How could we? We all loved that game, especially Addie.”
Everyone is crying now, even Nate.
Sitting between her sisters makes Louise realize how much she has missed them. Not just for their advice about the Carson boys, or passing them on the stairs and hearing whispered assurances that the tank is half full. She has missed them because sisters should never leave their sisters.
“I didn’t fill the tank,” says Louise. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
Izzy lays her head on Louise’s shoulder.
“We’ll take my car,” says Gladys. “And you’ll never have to worry about being stranded all alone again, Louise. Ever.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Hands down, my favorite character in this book is Elizabeth the invisible mermaid. Thanks to Rosie Fuller for introducing us; I tried hard to keep her alive. Rosie’s mom, Maeve Conran, listened to me read way too many versions of these stories aloud, and I am so appreciative. Also, Sinead Fuller, thanks for naming Ruby, here and in real life.
Over the past few years, people gave me houses to work in, they lent me cars, took in my dog, brought me heating oil and wine and medical care (once). They taught me about marmots and bras that cause cancer, homemade toothpaste and what amnesiac shellfish poisoning is. They took me on hikes and taught me about the flora and fauna of Colorado. And they read so many versions of bad stories, I’m sure they wondered if I’d ever write anything good. These people include, but are not limited to: Stacie and Chuck Power, Debbie Jo Rock, Colleen Hitchcock, Lori and Mike Cady, Loren Waxman, Susanne Larsen, Sam Rabung, Kendall Rock, Kathleen Glasgow, Ann Keala Kelly, Ann Dixon, Elizabeth Schoenfeld, Rebecca Grabill, Jessie Carlson, Bonnie Disalvo, Vicki Stegall, Garima Fairfax, Ken Aikin, Cheryl Van Der Horn, Bonnie Sullivan, Meg Johnson (Gramzy), and Chris Todd, who does so much more than bring me coffee, but he does that too. Arianna Sullivan, thanks for helping me try to find a Brecht scholar.
Suellen Nelles, Alison Jennings, Bonnie Powell, and all the counselors from Camp Kushtaka 1989, thanks for the memories and the great material!
Thanks to the German band Parking Lot Flowers, who lent me their name and whose music I love.
William DeArmond read many of these stories before he passed away in 2017. An original member of The Squeaky Elbows and a true friend. I miss him dearly.
Thanks to the Alaska Fire Service and the Bureau of Land Management fire management teams that saved our place from the Shovel Creek Fire in the summer of 2019, inspiring more than a few details in “The Stranger in the Wo
ods.”
As always, my agent, Molly Ker Hawn, is a godsend. The only reason this book exists is because she had faith in my desire to write a collection of short stories. Faith is a beautiful thing. Thank you, Molly.
Alice Swan, at Faber and Faber, whose keen eye never misses a chance to make me a better writer. Her work on this book was monumental, as if she knows when my brain is holding back and she just needs to stab it with a red-hot poker. I’m also very grateful to everyone at Faber who continues to support my books.
And a million thanks to my editor, Wendy Lamb. This is one of the last books she worked on before stepping down from her amazing imprint. I will savor every word, every edit, every hilarious email from her. I look forward to her freelance editorial life, and hope to be a part of it.
Many thanks as well to the whole Penguin Random House crew: Dana Carey, associate editor extraordinaire of Wendy Lamb Books; Adrienne Waintraub and Kristin Schulz in school and library marketing; Colleen Fellingham in copyediting; Tamar Schwartz in managing editorial; Alison Impey and Ken Crossland in design; and the rest of the RHCB crew.
Special thanks to Dylan Hitchcock-Lopez, who always knows what I’m trying to say and can bluntly tell me when I haven’t achieved it, even when he is short on time.
Thanks also to Sylvia Hitchcock-Jones, who gives just the right amount of feedback, no extraneous fluff. I’d be so lost without these two.
Finally, “Basketball Town” was inspired solely by my dad, who was a great coach and referee but an even better father. I miss him every day.
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Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town Page 16
