Through Her Eyes

by Jennifer Archer

  Mary Jane drops the film into her purse. I have a sudden urge to grab it, to not let it out of my sight. That roll contains the proof that I’m either losing my mind or I’m not.

  “Write down your name and number and how you want the pictures,” Mary Jane says, handing me a pad of paper and a pen.

  “How I want them?”

  “The size and finish.” Reaching behind her, she presses a hand against the small of her back, winces, and mutters, “Roger better not expect me to cook dinner tonight. In fact, I think I’m swearing off cooking until after this baby comes.”

  As I’m writing down the information, a tall, balding, middle-aged man wearing a white pharmacist’s smock walks up to Mary Jane behind the counter. He winks at me, points at her stomach, and whispers, “Being pregnant makes her cranky.”

  One row behind us, Papa Dan flips the pages of a magazine and whistles a jazzy tune. Satisfied that he’s occupied, I hand the paper to Mary Jane.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” the pharmacist says. “I’m Jim Bob Cooper, chief pill pusher, bottle washer, and owner of this bustling enterprise. Call me J. B.”

  Jim Bob, Mary Jane, Sheriff Ray Don Dilworth. Does everyone in this town over the age of thirty have two first names? I introduce myself and we shake hands.

  “Oh, you’re the writer’s daughter.”

  “Yes,” I murmur.

  “I heard you folks made it into town. Nice to have you here.” J. B. gestures toward the cashier. “The ray of sunshine behind the register is Mary Jane McAllister.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mary Jane says. “You’ll have to come back for a chocolate soda or a root-beer float some afternoon. The fountain’s a popular after-school place.” She nods toward the far side of the shop, where a row of chrome stools with round red tops lines an old-fashioned soda fountain counter. Glasses in all shapes and sizes are stacked on shelves behind the bar, and the wall is covered with a chalkboard menu and old signs advertising Coca-Cola and Hires Root Beer.

  Before I can respond, the door opens, and two girls and a guy walk in. I flinch when I realize it’s Alison and her A-hole groupies. The freckle-faced guy struts in like a puffed-up rooster. His gaze cuts in my direction, and his mouth curves up at one corner. He nudges Alison with his elbow, and she looks at me and says, “Oh, hi.”

  “Hi,” I say quietly, grateful the brim of my hat hides my eyes when the other girl smirks and glances away. Lowering my head, I take off to look for Mom’s ibuprofen.

  “Hey, hoodlums,” J. B. calls out to the threesome, and they tease back and forth with him while I scan the aisles.

  “My kids have missed you, Alison,” Mary Jane says, sounding cheerful now. “You sure you can’t squeeze in a little time to babysit for me every once in a while?”

  “Sorry,” Alison replies. “I wish I could, but between school, cheerleading, and volunteer work in Amarillo, my weekends are going to be totally packed this year.”

  Mary Jane sighs. “Your mom told me you were crazy busy. She said you’re shooting for the honor roll this year. Good for you.”

  “Yeah, Alison’s become completely boring,” the rude girl says. “She has this sudden bizarre obsession with the letter A.”

  “That’s ’cause she never learned the rest of the alphabet, Shanna,” Rooster Boy calls from the direction of the soda fountain.

  Alison laughs. “Shut up, Jenks.”

  “I’m just sayin’…,” he mutters.

  I find Mom’s ibuprofen, then slowly start up front again. From the corner of my eye, I see Rooster Boy spinning in a circle on one of the soda fountain stools. As I place my purchase on the counter, he gets up and starts toward me. “Hey, I don’t think you’ve had the pleasure of meeting me,” he says. “I’m Jon Jenks.”

  “Idiot,” Alison murmurs, her mouth pulling into a tight smile that isn’t really a smile at all. She and Shanna wander over to a candy rack and disappear behind it.

  “I’m Tansy,” I tell Jon.

  “So I heard. Welcome to the big city.” He nods toward the girls. “Don’t worry about the wildlife; they aren’t as fierce as they seem.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Now I, on the other hand, bite.” Wiggling his brows, he starts off toward the magazine racks.

  J. B. shakes his head and sighs. “Always the clown.” Shifting his attention from Rooster Boy to Papa Dan, he asks, “Is that gentleman looking at magazines your grandfather? I heard he used to live here way back before I was born.”

  “Yes,” I say. “His name’s Daniel Piper.” When the pharmacist calls out a greeting to Papa Dan, I lower my voice and say, “He doesn’t talk.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, Papa Dan yells, “Woo-wee!”

  Giggles drift from behind the candy rack.

  “He doesn’t talk much,” I add, my face heating up when I notice that my grandfather is looking at a Cosmo magazine while Rooster Boy snoops over his shoulder.

  “Well, I’m pleased to meet both of you. I look forward to meeting your mother, too. It’s not every day I get to talk to a famous author.” J. B.’s smile is kind, but I don’t feel any less mortified. “What else can I help you with today?” he asks.

  “You don’t sell film, do you? I need five rolls of black-and-white.”

  “Yes, we have film.” He stoops to search beneath the counter.

  I scan the store but don’t see the girls. Rooster Boy has moved to the opposite end of the magazine rack from Papa Dan. I feel Mary Jane watching me and glance at her. She settles one hand on her bulging belly and says, “When we heard a published author was moving to town, my husband bought one of your mom’s books at the grocery store. Something about a zombie girl.”

  Rooster Boy sputters a laugh, and I wish for the hundredth time my mom was a secretary or a nurse or a lawyer.

  “Roger stayed up till two this morning reading it,” Mary Jane continues. “Said he had to leave the lights on, it scared him so bad.”

  I shrug. “I’m pretty sure that’s the goal.” Faking interest in the merchandise on a nearby shelf, I pick up a box, then realize I’m reading the directions for applying hemorrhoid medication and set it back down. I search the shelves for something else to help me escape the woman’s scrutiny. Enemas. Home pregnancy tests. Condoms. Tampons. No place is safe.

  “The Peterson house ought to give your mom plenty of material for her books,” Mary Jane goes on.

  Hoping she’ll forget about me if I ignore her, I move to the analgesic creams. I hear a girl’s giggle in the next aisle, hear my name whispered, followed by a shhhh. Ducking my head, I read the label on a tube. Apply small amount to cut, abrasion, or wound to reduce sensitivity.

  “Here you go, Tansy,” J. B. calls, and I walk over to the counter as he hands Mary Jane the film. “Sorry that took so long. We don’t get many requests for black-and-white.”

  Mary Jane rings up the sale. “Have you heard that the Peterson kid who lived in your house back in the thirties committed suicide?”

  Startled, I nod and say, “Mr. Quattlebaum told me.”

  “My grandma says he was nuttier than a fruitcake. He was a class ahead of her in school, but she and pretty much everyone else steered clear of him. I grew up hearing her stories about the strange things he’d do. Grandma said he used to walk the railing on the old wagon bridge that crosses the creek in the canyon. Have you been out there?”

  “Not yet.”

  She shakes her head. “A person would have to be crazy to do that. It’s a long drop to the creek bed. Sometimes people would see him sitting alone in the canyon, playing his violin. Grandma said he was an artist, too. He painted pictures.”

  And wrote poems…

  “He was a loner. A real oddball.”

  “Aw, now…maybe he was just eccentric, Mary Jane,” J. B. says. “Or he might’ve been depressed. Back then, nobody thought kids suffered from depression.”

  “If he walked the railing, why do they think he jumped?” I ask.
“Maybe he fell.”

  “It makes for a better story,” J. B. says, winking at me.

  “I don’t recall all the details,” she says, ignoring him, “but I’ve always heard he committed suicide.”

  I pass Mary Jane some money and ask, “Is your grandmother still alive?”

  “Yeah, she’s in Willow Grove nursing home in Amarillo. I hate it, but what can you do? She’s close to ninety and can’t take care of herself anymore.” Mary Jane closes the register and eases down onto a stool, sighing long and loud before returning to the subject of Henry. “The turret in your house was the Peterson kid’s bedroom.”

  “Don’t start in on that.” J. B. frowns at her. “It’s nonsense, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” Mary Jane says, then turns to me and adds, “Sometimes he’d hole up in there for days at a time to play his violin when his parents were on one of their trips, and it was just him and the housekeeper. Wouldn’t even come out to go to school. Myra and Hank Quattlebaum swear they still hear him playing up there sometimes.”

  “Come on, Mary Jane.” J. B. glances at me, flinching like he’s embarrassed by her claims. “You’re going to scare her. Surely you don’t believe that bunk.”

  She scowls at him. “Tansy’s mom writes horror novels; she can handle it.” Turning back to me, she says, “Myra Quattlebaum insists she’s seen a light burning up in the turret when the house was vacant.”

  J. B. cups a hand around his mouth and whispers loudly, “Mary Jane is a sucker for a ghost story.”

  I rub my hands up and down my arms to chase away a sudden chill. Could Henry’s ghost be one of the figures I saw through the camera lens?

  Ignoring J. B., Mary Jane says, “Hank was even considering buying a dog so he and Myra would feel safer out there all alone. He put it off when he heard you and your family had rented the place.”

  “No, they have a dog,” I say. “A big black one.” J. B. shakes his head. “They don’t have a dog. They were here this morning and Myra was on Hank’s case about getting one.”

  “They were here?” I take the sack off the counter, press it against my stomach.

  “They were waiting outside the door when I opened up,” Mary Jane says.

  “What time do you open?”

  “Eight o’clock on the dot,” she answers.

  “But I saw Mr. Quattlebaum in his yard this morning a little after eight. He was throwing a ball to a dog.” J. B. and Mary Jane stare at me, silent. Flustered, I say, “Maybe they have company staying with them, or it could’ve been a workman, I guess.”

  Excusing myself, I walk over to the magazine rack to get Papa Dan, ready to make my escape. Rooster Boy is flipping through a car magazine as I pass behind him. “Let’s go,” I say to my grandfather. I put back his magazine and lead him down the aisle.

  “See ya Monday at school, Zombie Girl,” Rooster Boy mutters as we pass by.

  Heat scorches my neck. I don’t look at him, just keep my focus on the door.

  “Glad you came in, Tansy. You, too, Mr. Piper,” J. B. calls as I hurry Papa Dan outside without looking back.

  As I’m driving through town, every person we pass waves at us as if we’re old friends. I feel weird waving back, but I don’t want to seem unfriendly and earn another lecture from Mom. I brush aside thoughts of Alison and her friends, how self-conscious I felt around them, how Shanna completely ignored me. Instead, I think of Henry Peterson and Mary Jane’s grandmother. I wonder if Mom would let me drive the forty miles into Amarillo. I could tell her I want to go shopping. She hates malls, so maybe she’d let me go alone. I want to go to Willow Grove and ask the old woman about Henry.

  We cross the city limits, and the landscape empties. In my mind, I picture Henry sitting in the turret with only his violin to keep him company, shut off from the world. Mary Jane called him an oddball for it, but I don’t consider his behavior to be all that strange. Maybe Henry and I are two of a kind.

  As I make the turn onto the road that leads to the house, I glance at Papa Dan and the hairs on my arms stand on end. He stares out the windshield, a far-off, haunted look in his eyes. I wonder if he sees what I see: the dirt road ahead, the man mowing the tall weeds in the parched yard alongside our driveway, the Cedar Canyon Handyman Service truck parked there. Does he see the house? The hollow-eyed windows? Henry’s turret sticking up from the roof like a vulgar insult?

  A shiver snakes through me. I have a feeling he’s looking at a very different scene. One I might see, too, if the light shifted.

  Or if I looked through my camera’s viewfinder.

  7

  On Saturday night, Papa Dan’s voice wakes me sometime after midnight. Again, I find him sitting up in bed, staring into the darkness, and shivering. I settle him down, tuck him in, and hold his hand until he snores softly, wondering why moving here has him so upset. When he lived in Cedar Canyon as a kid, he must’ve known Henry Peterson; nobody is a stranger in a town this size. Does Papa Dan remember that this was Henry’s house? Did he think Henry was some sort of freak? Did he keep away from him, along with Mary Jane’s grandmother and the rest of the kids? Could it be that, back then, Papa Dan wasn’t allowed to come out here—maybe he didn’t want to—but now he has no choice and he’s afraid?

  Returning to my own bed, I slip under the sheet and listen to the sorrowful cry of a train passing by on distant tracks. I ran some errands in town for Mom late this afternoon and stopped by City Drug to see if Mary Jane was back from Amarillo. She wasn’t there, so J. B. called her house. Mary Jane’s husband said she hadn’t returned yet. I carried around my cell phone all evening, hoping she’d call, but she never did.

  My cell is still close by, on my nightstand, and when it trills quietly, I sit up, grab it, and look at the display. Hailey. I turn off the phone and slam it down a little too hard on the nightstand beside my camera. She’s tried to call me several times since I talked to her mom, but I haven’t answered. I have other things more important than her and Colin to worry about now. I couldn’t care less what she has to say.

  Just as my head hits the pillow, I hear a rattling sound outside. I sit up. The noise stops. Recalling Mom’s dream, I listen for a scream but only hear the bathroom faucet dripping and the sudden singing of a bird in the mulberry tree. For no reason at all, I think of the crystal and close my eyes. I imagine the cool, smooth feel of it against my palm, picture it shimmering like an icicle in the sunlight. The urge to get up and take it out of the camera case is strong, but my dread is stronger. I’m afraid to get out of bed; I don’t know why, but I am. Opening my eyes, I stare at the ceiling and listen to the bird sing for more than an hour before falling asleep again.

  The house is quiet when I awake the next morning. I blink up at the ceiling and notice the dingy paint. The curtain flutters at my open window, and birds chatter outside. Somewhere in the distance, a bell clangs, prickling the hairs at the nape of my neck.

  Grabbing my camera from the nightstand, I get up, walk to the window, and push the curtains aside. I use the zoom lens to look across at the Quattlebaum farm. The man and dog I saw the other morning stand in the side yard. The man is dressed in the same dark hat, gloves, and coat, with a shovel at his side. He takes something from the dog’s mouth and throws it behind the barn. The dog bolts after it, out of sight. The man pulls off a glove, holds his hand to his mouth as if to breathe on his fingers. Same as before.

  Goose bumps skate across my skin. Lowering the camera, I turn my back to the window and lean against it. The clock on my nightstand reads 8:15.

  “Tansy? Are you awake?” My bedroom door opens, and Mom looks in.

  I glance across at her, but I can’t speak.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, stepping into the room. “You’re shaking.”

  “I don’t feel good.” I set my camera on the windowsill and cross my arms.

  Mom quickly closes the distance between us, her brows puckering. She presses a cool palm against my cheek as I face the wind
ow again and squint across at the Quattlebaums’ yard. The man and dog are gone.

  “You don’t have a fever,” she says. “What’s the matter?”

  Turning, I look into her eyes. I want to tell her about the man and the dog, but if I do, she’ll worry about me…and I’ll feel crazy. What I’ve seen twice now over at the Quattlebaum farm is too strange to be real, which means I’m imagining it, and that I probably imagined those two hazy guys at the tree, too. It would freak Mom out to know that her father-in-law and daughter are losing touch with reality at the very same time. It freaks me out. “Maybe I just need to eat,” I tell her. “I’m sort of dizzy.”

  “I’ll scramble some eggs.”

  “You?”

  Laughing, she says, “Surely I can’t ruin eggs.” She crosses to the bed and sits, her gaze never leaving my face. “Are you nervous about school?”

  I shrug and turn away. “It’s no big deal.”

  “I faxed over your transcripts before we left California. All you have to do now is take a few papers by the office before homeroom and you’re all set. The lady I spoke with on the phone was very nice.”

  “Okay,” I murmur. She’s already told me all this at least ten times.

  “When I was your age, I always got a little antsy the day before school started.” Mom pauses, as if waiting for me to say something, and when I don’t, she says, “I won’t work today. We’ll do whatever you want until it’s time to leave for the Watermelon Run this evening. We should go out to the canyon, see that old bridge.”

  “The Watermelon Run…” I groan. “Do we have to go?” I carry my camera to the dresser and set it down next to a pile of books and other items I still need to organize.

  “Don’t you want to? I think it sounds like a lot of fun. But if you’re sick—”

  “I’m not sick. I told you—I just need to eat. But a bunch of guys running onto the field with watermelons while the whole town cheers?” I roll my eyes.

  “Oh, come on, sweetie. That’s what’s great about small towns—people carry on the same traditions their grandparents did.”