“I know,” Tom said simply. “It was chill.” And then, suddenly, he was jogging around the truck and, before I knew it, he had hugged me. He stuck his arms under my undone jacket and I could feel them press against my back. Tom hugged me so tight that my heels left the ground. Then, quick as he could, he kissed my forehead and let me go.
“See you soon!” he said and hopped back in his truck. I waved and then turned around, focusing on finding my keys in my pocket so he didn’t see how punch drunk I looked. It probably meant nothing. It was just a hug. But it seemed so…important.
I shivered as I climbed into my car. It would take forever for the heaters to work, and I’d likely be home before the car was bearable.
I wished that I could go over to Chloe’s house and tell her what had happened. But would Tom have ever hung out with me if she hadn’t disappeared? It wasn’t likely. For a second, the weak side of me was glad that she was gone. But that wasn’t right. I couldn’t just erase my best friend.
—
I parked in the communal parking lot in front of the government-subsidized town house where I’d spent my entire life. I was surprised to see that my mom was home. I felt a wave of nerves wash over me as I wondered why. What if she’d been laid off? It had happened once before, when I was really young and the restaurant she worked at had closed. That was when I realized how close to the edge of poverty we really lived. A couple of missed paychecks had sent us to the food bank, our cheeks burning with shame. When my mother got a job at the place she currently worked, we had celebrated by eating a meal that wasn’t composed of non-perishables.
I walked up the steps, gripping the handrail tightly just in case I slipped on the ice. I could see my mother standing in the kitchen, her shoulders and upper back rounded as she stirred a pot on the stove. Sometimes I hated seeing people when they thought they were alone. It denied them the chance to stand up straight and unfold an expression across their face. Right now, with no one watching, my mother looked utterly ordinary in her oversized sweater and jeans from the early nineties. Her face was slack and she looked so normal that it made my heart hurt.
I opened the door and kicked off my boots, my socks getting coated in the round clumps of snow that had formed in the treads.
“Hi sweetheart,” my mom said as she walked out of the kitchen. She was holding a wooden spoon stained with tomato sauce.
“Hey.” I tossed my jacket over the end of the bannister. My mom frowned. Ordinarily, she would have told me to hang it up, but since Chloe’s disappearance she had been extra-lenient. Tragedies made people give you a lot of free passes.
“How was your day?” she asked.
I stared at her. I looked a lot like my mom, despite the fact that I was six inches taller than her and freckled. We both had blue eyes and blond hair, although hers had been stripped of its youth and was shot through with gray. When I was a kid I used to read princess novels and wish my mother was beautiful or that my real parents were rich and glamorous. I felt bad now that I could ever have hated her for not being pretty, not when she was so busy trying to be capable.
“Uh…okay,” I said, hoping that she couldn’t tell I’d been smoking pot. There were limits on how much leeway I could expect. “A girl at my school died. Well, not at the school—”
“I know!” my mom burst out, pulling me into a hug.
“When I heard they found a body, I just couldn’t help thinking…Well, you know…Chloe,” she said into my shoulder. I stiffened.
“Well, it wasn’t,” I said loudly. “It wasn’t her, but that girl, she’s still dead!” My voice rang out, loud enough that our neighbors probably heard it through the wall. I knew I was acting erratically but I couldn’t stop.
My mom pulled away to look at me, her head tilted in confusion. We usually got along well, but lately I couldn’t seem to stand the things people said to me. Everything just made me mad.
“I know, sweetie, I know. And it’s scary that the killer’s still out there. He might even have had something to do with Chloe. But I just meant—”
“She was somebody’s Chloe,” I said flatly. Then I turned around and went upstairs. I hated myself for hurting my mother’s feelings, but that only made me want to be alone even more. Clearly, I couldn’t be trusted to be around normal people.
I flopped on my bed, the only light coming from the amber glow of the streetlamp in the parking lot. It had started snowing again, and I watched the faint whispers of winter spiral downward past my window. The mitten was under my pillow and I found myself hugging it tightly against my chest like a teddy bear. It didn’t make me feel any better but I would have felt worse without it. I thought by now I would have found the other mitten. I looked for it wherever I went. It felt like a clue to what had happened to Chloe, to where I had lost my best friend. I lay in my dark room, listening to my mom move around downstairs, imagining her settling in for an evening alone, her only daughter sealed away upstairs like a dirty secret. My mom was worried about me and there was nothing I felt I could do to wipe away her concern.
I watched the snow fall past my dark room and I felt incredibly alone.
Chapter Four
February 23, 2006
The next day, I daydreamed through my morning classes, staring out the window and failing to process anything the teachers said. It was frustrating to feel like I had to kill time at school every day, not getting anything out of class but not being allowed to leave. It reminded me of working at the diner in the summer, and how, even if there were no customers, you still had to look busy and couldn’t just put your feet up and read a magazine.
I hurried out of the classroom when the lunch bell rang, anxious to leave before anyone tried to talk to me, avoiding the cafeteria, a place I hadn’t visited in weeks. It was the epicenter of gossip and I couldn’t face the rows of watching faces, an audience waiting for me to do something interesting. I hadn’t eaten there even before Chloe went missing. We just drove to McDonald’s or Subway.
I passed by the glass doors and came face-to-face with Liam McAllister. His hand hovered on the door handle but he didn’t open it. He just stared at me through the glass. Liam had a little gap between his front teeth, which, as his only visible flaw, enhanced his attractiveness. He had dark hair and the kind of olive skin that made people ask about his ethnicity, because it seemed too exotic for Thunder Creek. Liam was handsome, but he left a bitter taste in my mouth now that I knew the truth.
Liam always looked amused, as if he was so cool that he thought everything you did was pathetic and funny. His expression used to make me feel awkward. Now it just made me angry.
Liam was Chloe’s ex-boyfriend. The first boy she ever loved, the first boy who broke her heart and well…a lot of firsts. I hated running into him at school. It made me feel nauseous, a flood of nerves and anger overwhelming me.
Liam raised his hand, a mocking wave. He was so confident that I wasn’t a threat to him; he had total control over the situation. I didn’t wave back. I just glared at him, then turned away and walked down the hall.
Liam might have been the first boy that Chloe ever loved, but he was also the first boy I’d ever hated.
—
I drove to the Mike’s Mart a few blocks away. I came here a lot. There was a Subway inside the convenience store, which made it easy to buy lunch and stock up on Red Bull and candy at the same time. This time, however, after eating my sub, I did something I had done only once before in my life: I bought a copy of the local paper—the Thunder Creek Tidbit. I walked out of the convenience store clutching the daily and slid into my car. Even though class was starting in five minutes, I didn’t turn the key. Instead, I took a deep breath and unfolded the newspaper, resting it against the steering wheel.
The last time I bought the paper I was twelve years old. I had been in the middle-school choir and at a performance I noticed the Tidbit cameraman snapping photos. I did my best to look picture-worthy, making eye contact with the camera and opening my mouth re
ally wide to show I was singing. The next morning I’d walked to the store and bought the paper, thrilled with the prospect of seeing myself in print. I knew that if it was a good photo I might even put it in a picture frame. First though, I’d casually slide it across the table to my mother, say “there’s a good shot of me in there today” and let her freak out. She’d probably buy five more copies and take them to work to show her friends.
I remember desperately flipping through that paper on the way home from the store until I found the article about the choir. There was the picture, right under the headline “Spring Choir Recital Hits All the Right Notes.” Except it was of the group of altos standing next to me. Despite all of my scheming, the only visible bit of me was my elbow, veering into the side of the photo by Bethany Morris. I noticed that none of the people in the photo were looking at the camera or opening their mouths very wide. I must have looked deranged and desperate and that was why I had been cropped out. I threw the paper away and never told anyone that I’d been lame enough to care about it. I also quit choir the next year, but that was more to do with a lack of talent than the newspaper disappointment.
Now though, I wasn’t searching the pages for me. I just wanted to know what they had said about Helen.
I turned to the first page, expecting to see a giant photo of Helen just like there had been after Chloe was gone a week and the seriousness had sunk in. But the first page was a big story about the government cutting health care. Instead of a smiling, beautiful shot of a teenage girl, there was a collage of tired-looking nurses and the defeated elderly in hospital beds. I exhaled and turned the page. And then again. One more time.
I found her on page seven. The article ran down the side of the page next to the crease, so that you inevitably gouged into it if you tried to rip the page in half. The photo was tiny, about the size of a business card. Chloe’s picture had been a full page and made you care instantly that someone so pretty was gone. The newspaper had contacted her parents, who had sent them a professional shot, with Chloe’s red-brown hair elegantly draped over one shoulder.
I squinted at the photo. It was clearly a yearbook picture. I recognized the emerald green sheet they had hung behind us last year, the arms folded over a school desk, the awkward smile that hinted at the fact that there were thirty people lined up behind her, waiting for her to finish.
Helen wasn’t very attractive. She had good skin, a warm caramel color, and long eyelashes rimming dark eyes. But her hair was a frizzy, bushy mass that looked like it needed a bucket of conditioner and a good cut. She was also overweight. Not obese, but pudgy enough that her arms swelled out of her T-shirt in fleshy circles and the features of her face were obscured by its roundness. Her smile was closed-mouthed, the edges pulled up just slightly, which made her look nauseous. I felt a bit disappointed. I had imagined her as a Native version of Chloe, with shiny dark hair and the high cheekbones people always talked about when they talked about Natives. I didn’t know why it mattered whether she was pretty, how that affected what had happened to her, but it did.
I scrutinized her face. Had I seen her before? The school was big, but not that big. I would have thought I’d be able to recognize most of the faces. But I wasn’t sure about Helen. Maybe I had never noticed her, just another girl whose weight and cheap (almost matronly) clothing had made her seem more middle-aged than sixteen.
The article said Helen had been found in the woods. That foul play was suspected. That the police were investigating. It said Guy Robideau and his son Jamie found her and that she hadn’t been out there very long. It didn’t say much, but somehow what it didn’t say made the story all the more tragic. The white spaces in the article lodged in my brain, sinking in their hooks. Did she freeze to death? Or had she been stabbed and bled out in the woods? Was she already dead when she went into the snow?
The newspaper told the facts like they were synopsizing last night’s Law and Order episode, but it didn’t tell me what I wanted to know. In fact, the article just left me with more questions. Why wasn’t Helen’s story on the front page? Thunder Creek didn’t have enough murders to be nonchalant about homicide, especially when it happened so soon after a girl disappeared. Why wasn’t this the biggest news in town?
The last paragraph in the article made me moan. It simply said: “It is unclear whether this homicide is connected to the disappearance of Chloe Shaughnessy earlier this month, a tragic event that the police have made their highest priority. At present, the discovery of the homicide has produced no new evidence on Chloe Shaughnessy.”
I pulled my seatbelt on and started the car. Then I folded the paper and zipped it into my backpack. I squinted out at the blinding white snow banks that lined the street leading up to the high school. They bled into the road, which hadn’t been ploughed recently, so the street was just as bright. But the road was dangerous. Not because of what was on the surface but because of what the snow could obscure. Long streaks of thick ice and unexpected street curbs could catch you unaware. In one sickening second, your car could be wrecked or you could be stuck in the snow. The annoying thing was, you knew the roads were dangerous, but there was nothing you could do about it. Except wait for summer.
Chapter Five
After school, instead of heading home to a night of reality television and questionable food choices like a normal teenager, I had to go to the police station. I had already been interviewed a number of times in the last three weeks but apparently they would be trying again today.
The first time I’d met Officers Trudeau and Bragg was two days after Chloe went missing. They’d been more sympathetic back then, sure that I would tell them everything because I was so worried about my friend. They’d come to my house that time. Now they just made me come to the station. They were sick of talking to me and getting the same answers. The feeling was mutual.
I parked by the front doors, staring up at the bland cinder-block building with a large Canadian flag hanging limply out front. Walking up the stairs, I already felt exhausted by the fact that I could be here for ages, answering the same questions over and over. They wanted something from me, something I wasn’t prepared to give them. Their only recourse was hoping that I’d finally crack under the threat of never-ending interviews.
The police station smelled like burnt coffee and the warm ink of freshly printed papers. I asked the receptionist where I should go and she pointed toward the same meeting room I’d been in last time. The door was shut so I sat outside, wishing I’d thought to bring a magazine with me. The station only had old copies of Reader’s Digest and Canadian Parenting. Rather than pick one of those up, I sat there trying to remember what I’d told the police before so I didn’t deviate from my story.
The door opened and Officer Trudeau stepped out, talking to a person behind her. She moved out of the way and Liam McAllister walked into the hall.
Inwardly, I groaned. It was awful luck, running into him twice in one day. He must have come over here while I was still in school, maybe on a fourth-period spare.
“Jenny, we’ll be right in. We’re just going to grab coffee. Do you want anything?” Officer Bragg asked. I shook my head.
Liam waited until the officers had moved off and then shot me a vicious look, clearly angry to be here again. I was the one who’d told them he’d seen Chloe the night she disappeared. It pissed me off that Liam thought he was some sort of victim, being investigated by the cops; I knew he deserved far worse.
“Another wasted hour, thanks to you,” he hissed, standing uncomfortably close. I could smell the spearmint gum on his breath and the musky scent of his deodorant. It made my skin crawl.
“Just tell them what you did then,” I whispered back. It was unsettling, being alone with him even for a moment. I pushed past him toward the meeting room.
“You’re a freak, you know that? I can’t believe Chloe ever hung out with you,” he murmured.
“I think the same thing about you,” I said, closing the meeting room door in his fac
e. I pressed my back against the door, trying to slow my pounding heart.
The doorknob turned once, but I stayed pressed against the door. Then I heard his footsteps move down the hall, leaving the station. I counted to twenty and then sat down at the table.
Officers Trudeau and Bragg walked in a couple of minutes later. They were both holding takeout coffees from the place next to the station. I wondered if they’d taken their time on purpose, in an effort to make me sweat. Anything was possible.
“How are you today, Jenny?” Trudeau asked. She looked young to be a cop, though it might have been because she was on the shorter side. She also looked strong, like a gymnast. Her dark hair was scraped back into a bun and her eyes were a stormy green-gray. She seemed both smarter and meaner than her partner, Bragg, who was a middle-aged man with a thick black moustache that had likely remained untouched since the seventies.
“Okay, I guess,” I said flatly. I folded my arms and stared at them. Trudeau shot a look at Bragg, who laughed.
“Well, let’s just jump into it. I’m wondering if you’ve remembered anything new since the last time we talked. Anything you think we should know?” Bragg asked.
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s surprising, since you’ve given us so little to work with. Okay, so let’s go over that last day. It was a Thursday, so why was Chloe staying at your house?”
“Her ex-boyfriend Liam had invited her out to pizza. She thought it was a date and she thought it’d be fun to get ready at my house and then sleep over afterward,” I said. I felt as if I was talking about something that had happened in another lifetime, not three weeks ago. Things had been so different then, even if they hadn’t been ideal.
“But she didn’t stay over?” Bragg asked.
“No. It turned out not to be a date. Liam was just being a friend. Chloe was so disappointed that she wanted to go home,” I said, the well-rehearsed lie still feeling funny in my mouth.
The Lives of Desperate Girls Page 3
