The Forgotten Girl

by David Bell

  “Colton Rivers.” Her voice was a little mocking. “The guy who’s been running for city council since the day he was born. Who could forget him? He does those awful TV commercials for his law practice.”

  “Exactly. I have his phone number memorized I’ve seen the commercials so many times. Well, I saw him in person yesterday. He invited me to lunch because he wants me to design posters for the summer festival.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m guessing there’s more to the story than that.”

  “Yes. The thing is,” he said, “Colton didn’t really want to talk to me about the poster very much. He was using me for something else. Get this—he’s trying to find Logan.”

  Regan’s expression didn’t change, but something did leave her face. The animation that had been residing there, the energy and life that was so readily apparent in her eyes, faded.

  “I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I know we’ve never really talked about that night.”

  “You left for school early,” Regan said. “You were gone as fast as you could go.”

  Her words stung a little. He suspected they were meant to. She was right—Jason couldn’t wait to get away from Ednaville and start a new life in college. He found a summer program and started taking classes early. He hadn’t looked back. He hadn’t wanted to.

  He almost apologized to Regan right there in Burroughs’, but decided that would be too awkward. Instead he said, “Colton wanted to know if I had heard from Logan over the years. If I knew of an address or anything for him.”

  “Why?” Regan’s voice sounded tight and clipped. “What could he possibly want with Logan now?”

  “His dad is dying. Did you know that?”

  Regan nodded. “I’ve heard. I know he’s . . .” Using her index finger, she made a circular motion around her temple. “I think he sits in that big house with a team of nurses and watches the time tick away.”

  “Logan’s the sole heir. Colton wants to find him and make sure he knows he’s got a boatload of money coming to him.”

  “He knew that. He always knew that.”

  Jason noticed Regan’s right hand, the one that was holding her drink. Her thumb swished back and forth across the mug, smearing a small drop of coffee around on the surface. Someone ordered an espresso, and the machine hissed while the drink was created.

  “You haven’t heard from him, have you?” Jason asked.

  “Of course not,” Regan said.

  Jason waited for her to say more, but when she didn’t, he said, “What exactly did he say before he left that night?”

  Regan’s thumb stopped moving. She let go of the mug and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. “I thought I told you.”

  “You told me a little back then. That was twenty-seven years ago.” Jason leaned forward. “Look, I’m not trying to upset you. It seems like me bringing this up is bothering you, and that’s not what I wanted to do.”

  “I just haven’t thought of it in a long time. I didn’t really expect this to come up today. I thought we were just . . . having coffee. Old friends catching up like we usually do.”

  “I didn’t expect it to come up with Colton. When he asked me about Logan . . . shit, it just came out of nowhere. But I’ve been back in Ednaville for five years. I can’t help but think of it from time to time. He was my best friend. The three of us, we were the best of friends. It all changed that night. So much changed. . . .”

  He left the thought unfinished, but they both understood. He and Regan had become closer the summer they were eighteen. Before that, they had spent a great deal of time together, doing all the things kids their ages did. Seeing movies, attending parties, sneaking cigarettes and liquor while trying not to cough. He and Regan had a ritual of walking home from school together on Fridays, slow, wandering walks during which they talked about . . . everything they could think of. School, parents, their hopes and dreams and fears. That summer after graduation, the two of them circled each other like the scared kids they were. Enjoying the flirtation, and both of them probably secretly terrified that it would come to fruition, that the whole friendship would be laid on the line with an infinite array of complications.

  What Jason knew then, and Regan barely suspected before graduation night, was that Logan felt the same way about her. And when they all went to the Bluff to celebrate graduation, Logan decided to tell Regan how he felt, how much she meant to him. When Regan let Logan down, telling one friend that she only had feelings for the other, Logan sought Jason out, and Jason ended up in the only real fistfight of his life.

  Regan took a drink. She said, “He just told me he was leaving Ednaville. He said he was done with all of it, done with all of us. I don’t know. . . . He said the town was too small, that his dad was an asshole. That was pretty much it.”

  “I wonder if he ever went to college.”

  “He didn’t care about college. He didn’t need to go. He had money.”

  “He intended to go. He was accepted to some good schools.”

  “That was all for show. Sure, he would have gone. But you know how he was in school. He got by on charm and his family name. And when that didn’t work, he pressured people. Teachers and classmates. This is a small town. Everyone knew he had money. He got by on that. It wouldn’t work in college.”

  “You seem angrier than I would have expected.”

  “We had to grind it out in life. He didn’t.”

  “That’s true.” Jason waited, then said, “I thought you’d feel a little . . . sad. Or nostalgic thinking of him.”

  “Maybe I’m getting too old for that,” she said.

  “I know Logan could be difficult. Believe me, I know that.”

  “I’m glad you see him a little more clearly now than you did back then.”

  “I saw him clearly,” Jason said. “I knew him better than anybody else.”

  “You hero-worshipped him,” Regan said. “That’s different from knowing somebody. Do you want a refill?”

  Jason pushed his mug across the table, and while Regan went back to the counter, he stared at the tabletop, alone with his thoughts. Ice cubes tumbled into a glass somewhere, and Regan and the barista made murmured small talk. Regan was right—Jason had looked up to Logan more than he liked to admit. But Logan was one of those guys everyone looked up to. He was confident, outgoing, daring. And he came from money. The status of his family gave his every action, his every gesture, a quality that seemed to a teenager’s eyes almost superhuman. Logan seemed untouchable.

  Jason wondered, on more than one occasion over the years, why Logan ever showed an interest in him. In grade school, Jason was a quiet kid, smaller than the other boys and more interested in studying than anything else. On a few occasions, he helped Logan with math problems, and after that, Logan started including Jason in things. Invitations to birthday and pool parties came Jason’s way as well as a coveted seat at Logan’s lunch table. It always felt to Jason like Logan saw something in him that others didn’t, that there was an untapped potential inside Jason, something waiting to bloom that slowly did as the years went by. It was hard for Jason to not see Logan as playing a role in bringing Jason’s real, more confident self out.

  Regan came back and put the steaming mug before him. She didn’t say anything and seemed to have closed something off from Jason, to have withdrawn from the conversation a few degrees. There was none of the lightness that usually existed between them, the comforting ease of old friends who shared a long history.

  “I guess I feel like I should go and see his dad,” Jason said.

  “Why?”

  “I hate the thought of the old man dying alone. He’s divorced, no other kids. I knew him fairly well. As well as you could know the workaholic, emotionally distant father of your best friend.”

  “He probably won’t remember who you are now.”

 
; “I understand that. But his son isn’t showing up, I guess.”

  “You’re right that Logan should be doing it.”

  “But he isn’t. Would it hurt anything to go see the old man? I wasn’t really here when my parents were slipping away. Maybe it’s silly.”

  Regan leaned forward, smiling. Some of the warmth returned to her face. “It’s sweet that you want to do that. I didn’t know his father at all really. When we used to go to Logan’s house, his dad just used to grunt at me. I got the feeling he didn’t have much use for girls. It’s probably lucky Logan didn’t have any sisters. His mother was always kind, but Mr. Shaw? Bleh.”

  “You remember his mother?”

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  “Barely. She never seemed to be around when we were kids.”

  “They were divorced.” Regan smiled as she remembered something. “Mrs. Shaw was in some kind of women’s club with my mom when we were growing up. She’d come to our house from time to time. She always asked about me and how I was doing. Was I planning to go to college? Was I thinking about a career? She talked to me like I was an adult, not the usual bullshit.”

  “Hmm. I guess I never really talked to her.”

  “You were a boy,” Regan said. “But you should go see his dad if you want. It can’t hurt anything—you’re right.” Regan looked at her watch. “I have to be getting back to the bank. Every fifteen minutes I’m gone, I get one hundred e-mails to respond to.”

  “I understand. Try working for a big company. We get e-mails telling us how much toilet paper to use in the bathroom.”

  “That’s adulthood, I guess.” She stood up and gathered her keys and her phone.

  “What do you think he’s doing now?” Jason asked. “Logan, I mean. Is he a beach bum? Is he a businessman? Did he get married and have kids?” Jason shook his head. “What on earth would he be doing?”

  “It’s probably best not to indulge ourselves with a lot of what-ifs,” Regan said.

  Jason got the feeling she was talking about more than just Logan.

  Chapter Three

  Jason and Nora were getting ready for bed when their front doorbell rang. They’d already done the dishes and turned out the lights on the first floor, leaving just a lone bulb burning on the front porch. It was past ten. Jason held his toothbrush, and Nora looked startled.

  “Who the hell is that?” she asked.

  Jason rinsed his mouth and, wearing just shorts and a T-shirt, started down the stairs to the front door. Halfway to the bottom, Nora called after him.

  “Are you sure it’s safe? Maybe you shouldn’t answer.”

  “Safer than New York, I would hope,” he said. He didn’t know if she heard him. He slowed his pace as he approached the front door. No one ever just showed up at their house, especially late at night. He figured it was probably kids playing a prank, ringing the bell and running off. Jason leaned over and peered through the narrow window that ran parallel to the door. What he saw brought him up short.

  The person on the porch who stood with her back to him looked familiar. So familiar that her posture, the shape of her body, struck a chord inside him, one that hadn’t been struck in years.

  “Who is it?” Nora called.

  But Jason didn’t say anything. His hands felt sweaty as he undid the two locks and the chain and pulled the door open. She turned around as the door came open, and there, in the sickly pale glow of the porch light, Jason came face-to-face with his sister, Hayden, for the first time in five years.

  “Hey, big brother,” she said through the screen.

  Jason was surprised by what he saw. Hayden looked . . . clean. Her hair, her clothes, her hands. All clean. She wore black slacks and black shoes and a neatly pressed blue button-down shirt. One hand rested on the sleek leather purse she wore over her shoulder and the other held a smartphone. She had always been tiny, almost frail. In the years since high school, when her drinking was at its worst and she was likely consuming most of her calories in the form of alcohol, Hayden always appeared fragile, her skin nearly translucent. She looked like that the last time he saw her, the time that caused the five-year break. When Jason hugged her or touched her during her longest benders, it felt as though her bones might snap beneath his touch. Like she was a bird.

  But the version of Hayden on the front porch looked healthy and trim. Her cheeks were full and carried a trace of color.

  “I bet you wish this was the pizza guy, right?” she said.

  Jason still hadn’t spoken. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t.”

  He couldn’t think of anything else. He stared at his sister through the screen as june bugs and moths dipped and dived in the space between them.

  Hayden raised her eyebrows. “Am I allowed to come in?” she asked. “I understand if after last time . . .”

  Jason undid the lock on the screen door and pushed it open. “Come in,” he said, stepping back. “Of course you can come in. Jesus, Hayden, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just stand here.”

  Hayden slipped past him and through the foyer, trailing the faint scent of cigarette smoke. Jason didn’t know what to do. He flipped on the lights in the living room and let his sister go ahead of him.

  Nora asked again from the top of the stairs, “Jason? Who was it?”

  Jason looked at Hayden, who had taken a seat on the sofa. Then he said loudly, “It’s my sister. It’s Hayden.”

  “What?” Nora said. “Really?”

  Before anyone could say anything else, Nora was coming down the stairs, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood. She wore a modest, knee-length nightgown and brushed past Jason as though he weren’t there. Hayden rose from the couch when she saw her sister-in-law.

  “Hey, girl,” Hayden said.

  “Oh, Hayden. Look at you.”

  The two women hugged in the living room. They held on to each other and swayed side to side. Then they stepped back, and Nora gave Hayden a long appraisal.

  “You look great,” Nora said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You look . . .”

  “Sober?” Hayden said.

  Nora nodded. “Yes, you do. Healthy, I guess I was going to say. But sober works.” The two women sat next to each other on the sofa and Nora asked, “What on earth are you doing here? Are you moving back to town?”

  Hayden looked up at Jason. He remained standing, his hand resting on the back of a chair. A tension hovered between the two siblings, something unspoken. As always, Hayden was the one most ready, most eager to give it voice.

  “I wasn’t sure if I would be welcome back,” she said.

  “Of course you are,” Nora said. “Right, Jason?”

  “Sure,” Jason said, but he still didn’t take a seat. “I’m just kind of blown away. You’re the last person I expected to see on the porch.”

  Hayden maneuvered the purse around to her lap and undid the clasp. “I wanted to give you something,” she said. She dug inside and extracted a plain white envelope. She held it out toward Jason. “Here,” she said.

  “No,” Jason said.

  “It’s five hundred dollars,” Hayden said. “I know the car cost more—”

  “Oh, no,” Nora said. “Jason, tell her. We don’t want it.”

  “I want to give it to you,” Hayden said. “I’m working now. I’ve saved this money. I saved it to give to you. Please, Jason. Just take it. It will make me feel so much better knowing that you took it, that you let me off the hook just a little bit.”

  Jason came around the chair and sat down. He waved away the envelope that Hayden still held in the air between them. He crossed his legs and studied his sister. She looked good. She looked cleaned up and straightened out. But Jason also knew that meant nothing when it came to Hayden and her drinking. How many times had she been through rehab? How many times had she quit only to
start again with greater intensity?

  “Are you here alone?” Jason asked. “Where’s Sierra?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Hayden said.

  “What is it?” Jason asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Hayden brought the envelope back down to her lap. She stared at it for a moment, then looked back up at her brother.

  “I do need something,” she said. “A favor. And I know I don’t have a leg to stand on with either one of you. But this is different. It really is.”

  Jason looked over at Nora. Her eyes widened, her head nodded ever so slightly. Go on, she was saying with the look. Go on. She’s your sister.

  Jason looked back at Hayden. An image from their childhood flashed into his mind. It was involuntary. Hayden . . . a little brown-haired girl in a sandbox, holding a plastic bucket with one hand, the index finger of the other stuck into her mouth. She tottered, lost her balance, and fell back on her butt, spilling the sand. Before she could cry, Jason, a year older and bigger, was there, helping her up. Receiving praise from their parents for his act of brotherly protection.

  He had to help her. He wanted to help her.

  “What is it, Hayden?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell us all about it?”

  Chapter Four

  Hayden still held the envelope clutched between her fingers. She looked at both of them.

  “The first thing I want to do, need to do really, is apologize to the two of you for my behavior the last time I was here.”

  Nora made a gesture with her hand like she was smoothing something across a flat surface. “There’s no need to do that.”

  “Actually, yes, there is. I was a bad sister, and I took advantage of your trust and hospitality. I just want you both to know I’m sorry for that.”

  Shortly after Jason and Nora moved back to Ednaville, Hayden had come to visit. She was drinking then, heavily drinking. She showed up at their door with her hair matted and her clothes dirty. She smelled like she hadn’t bathed in a week. Jason remembered similar times with Hayden when they were in high school, and the tough love their parents eventually began to practice. Jason was still in that mode, because he initially was reluctant to let Hayden stay, but Nora convinced him. She said family was family, and they were obligated to let her in.