Return (Coming Home #1)

by Meli Raine

  No more.

  “Here’s the sink. Brian hooked up water. And you have a bathroom,” she adds, pointing to the back. “You can use it, but once the tanks get full we’ll have to pump it out.” Elaine laughs, a bit embarrassed. “So use our bathroom in the house liberally.”

  “Message received,” I say, laughing with her.

  It feels good to laugh. Her shoulders shake and her face spreads with a look of youth that makes me blink. I imagine her my age, her whole life stretched out before her. What was it like to be married at twenty, like I knew she and Brian were? Living your life committed to being a grown up like that must feel so different.

  Being loved so young must feel like paradise.

  The coziness of the trailer drains away and I’m cold suddenly. A shiver starts at the base of my spine and travels up. Exhaustion sets in.

  I’m so tired.

  Elaine stops laughing and walks to the door, bending her head down as she climbs down the stairs, her sweater stretching across her shoulders. At the bottom of the stairs she looks up at me, the moon making her eyelids a mask.

  Her lips are a smile.

  “Welcome home, Carrie. No matter where you go, and no matter what happens, we’re always here for you.”

  And then she closes the door.

  The rush of air that pours out of me makes me see I’ve been holding half my breath. For hours. It hurts a little to breathe properly. I make myself do it anyway. Lungs that have been on best behavior stretch out and scream a little.

  It’s a good ache.

  Now that I’m alone I can really examine my new place. The kitchen is a counter with a sink big enough to fit a gallon jug. That’s it. One stove burner. A tiny microwave above the burner. The kitchen is so tiny I’ll be lucky to make microwave popcorn.

  The counter is polished stainless steel. A dorm-sized fridge is tucked to the right of the sink. The cabinets above have some old, mis-matched dishes in them.

  Everything is neat. Not a speck of dust or dirt. Another deep breath and I realize the trailer has a scent. Cinnamon.

  Elaine’s favorite. When I was a little girl she made reindeer ornaments out of real cinnamon sticks. Dad would catch me sucking on one, a craft eyeball from poor Rudolph’s face stuck to my lip. He’d put Elaine’s ornaments up high, out of my reach.

  But I still love the taste of cinnamon. Nothing better than a latte with a sprinkle on top.

  Coffee. My mouth waters at the thought, but it’s way too late. Then again, my hands and feet feel like they’re buzzing anyway. My body is too jazzed to sleep.

  I make my way to my car to get the small bag of groceries I’ve had in there for the road trip. Hot tap water and some instant coffee won’t kill me.

  Someone clears their throat behind me and I whirl around, senses on guard. Brian and Elaine’s neighborhood is safe, but nowhere is really safe enough.

  A man is standing behind me, leaning his bottom against a split-rail fence, the ground beneath his feet lined with bright white pansies.

  Mark.

  I drop the bag in shock and hear a sickening crack.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I hiss, bending down to get the bag. I look in.

  My cinnamon is all over the place, the jar looking menacingly uneven. Damn.

  “You shouldn’t be out here alone.” His voice is hard, though his words are caring.

  “It’s five feet from my front door to my car,” I say, making an impatient sound. I turn away and march up my own steps, reaching for the door handle.

  His hand closes over mine.

  “Let me help,” he says, his hot breath in my ear. Skin that hasn’t reacted to anything in three years gives a jolt. His body is two inches behind mine, his heat infiltrating my back. Warmth spreads through me, combined with the flush of wanting him.

  Wanting more.

  My hands are full with the bags and I don’t want to break anything else. I nod and he opens the door. As fast as I can, I get rid of the bags, then turn with a fake grin on my face.

  He’s supposed to know it’s fake.

  “Thanks for all your help,” I say in a voice that says the opposite.

  He doesn’t move. “You look great,” he says, perched one step below me. Our eyes are even. It’s unsettling, because normally he towers over me. Now we’re equals. My eyes study his, not from the perspective of looking up.

  Looking at.

  We say a thousand words with one long look, but none of them is right. No silent words can heal the rift between us. A light breeze lifts the sandy blond hair off his forehead. The skin around his eyes wrinkles, showing a wistful longing.

  And then it turns to a raw hunger that makes me shake, because I feel it, too.

  “You let your hair grow out,” he whispers, his fingers reaching out to touch one unruly lock. It rests right over my heart and the way he tenderly picks it up sends my pulse into a salsa beat. The air goes inside me and pauses, waiting to find sanctuary from so much that crackles between us.

  And then I release it to the wind, to mingle with Mark’s hair.

  “It’s easier,” I say, fumbling for words. I couldn’t afford the haircuts, not while trying to help Dad with lawyer fees and prison money. Letting it grow out was my only choice. Besides, when you don’t have someone special to look beautiful for, why bother?

  My hand is still on the doorknob but I don’t move.

  “I liked it better short,” he adds.

  Memories of Dad, of adding funds to his account so he could buy soap and toothpaste in prison, of counting out my pennies and nickels from tips at the diner so I could make rent, whip through me.

  Mark’s words break the spell.

  “Goodnight,” I say firmly, and close the door. With trembling hands I put the padlock on.

  As it clicks into place, my heart rate returns to normal.

  Whatever that is.

  Chapter Seven

  “Yoouuuuuuuuu!”

  My best friend Amy’s squeal of welcome is so blood-curdling you would think I’d just been murdered. Her hair, though, is a nice, sedate black color. Not something you would find in a Kool-aid packet. And her hair cut is chic. Refined. It’s long and controlled, framing her big brown eyes.

  She looks so put together I shrink a little in her arms. A flowery perfume tickles my nose. Hyacinth? What happened to the sandalwood essential oil she used to put at the edge of her hair, to tame it?

  Our hug is genuine, even if she feels a bit unfamiliar. “I can’t believe you’re home!” she squeals again. People in line, waiting for their coffee fix, give us a glance. Nothing more. We’re just two silly women in the town’s new (well, new to me...) coffee shop.

  “Half caf mocha skim latte!” a barista cries out. I know that voice. When I look over Amy’s shoulder I see Mikey behind a hissing machine. He wears a red apron with the store’s logo on it, a white outline of a man’s face, eyeballs wide and bloodshot, the words “COFFEE FREAK” large above the expression.

  Subtle.

  I’m more than a little freaked out, standing in what used to be Dad’s bar. It’s a short walk to the university. Dad loved that. He could work at the college and walk here in under five minutes. It made life easier.

  Back when life was easier.

  Amy pulls back from me and we examine each other. “You let your hair grow out!” she exclaims, and touches the exact same piece of hair Mark did last night.

  I shiver.

  “You cold?” she asks, her brow furrowing. “Let’s get you a drink.”

  The thick eyeliner she always wore is now gone, a lighter touch making her eyes seem big and alert. The lip piercing is gone, too. A tiny sapphire nose jewel is tucked in her nostril. Discreet. Beautiful. And just enough.

  We get in line, but Mikey waves us over to the counter where people pick up drinks. I hesitate. Amy doesn’t, striding to him with purpose.

  My God, is she wearing heels? And a pencil skirt? Who has my best friend become? She went from
being an emo-Goth girl to Sex in the City in three years.

  A plume of something too close to jealousy fills me. I want to be more like her. We used to be equals and now...I feel lesser.

  This isn’t going as planned.

  Amy returns to me, two white paper cups in hand. Mine has “Carrie mocha triple cin” on it, and I take a sip.

  Perfect.

  Catching Mikey’s eye, I hold up the cup in a toast. He winks, then works on the next order.

  “How did he know?” I gasp as Amy and I sink into huge, overstuffed burgundy leather chairs. The springs in mine are shot, so I go back further than expected. The coffee nearly sloshes out, but I hold it high.

  Amy giggles. Her chair, of course, is perfect. She takes a sip of her drink and I can’t help it.

  “Nails? You got your nails done?” I gasp. My turn to squeak. The Amy I grew up with would never in a million years do a manicure.

  A two-toned, sleek manicure with perfectly filed nails.

  Her lipsticked mouth spreads in a knowing smile. “Corporate life changes you.” She touches the hole where her lip piercing used to be. “It’s nearly closed up now.”

  I can’t tell from her voice whether that makes her happy or sad.

  I’m not sure she knows, either.

  In May, she graduated. I was supposed to graduate with her. In July, she was offered a great position as an account executive for a huge financial services group forty minutes away. We had texted and talked until she was numb. Her mind and heart were torn between working odd jobs but having her freedom and being a corporate slave. She’ll pay off her student loans in five years.

  The corporate handcuffs won.

  Her chocolate eyes are warm and curious when she asks, “You ran into Mark yesterday?”

  “How did you...” I look pointedly at Mikey. “Oh.” I take another sip. “And how did Mikey know my drink?”

  She laughs, a mature sound of sophistication that makes me feel like a giggly tomboy. “I remembered. You don’t change, Carrie,” she declares. It’s not a question.

  Indignation flares up in me. Now I have reason to feel smaller. It feels like my best friend is trying to make me feel that way.

  “Just because I’m the same on the outside,” I say quietly, “doesn’t mean I haven’t changed on the inside.”

  Amy looks stricken. She reaches for my hand. Her skin is warm from holding her coffee cup. I see genuine emotion in her perfectly made up eyes. It helps my shoulders to release.

  It helps me to breathe.

  “Carrie,” she murmurs. “I am not like one of them.” The emphasis on the last word is close to the sound of someone spitting. Her anger bubbles up fast, and now she looks like the old Amy.

  Minus the silver ball on her lip and hair like a parrot’s feathers.

  “I might look like a pod person on the outside,” she adds, laughing softly to herself, her lip in a sneer. “But don’t ever lump me in with them. I’m not being passive aggressive, or negging you.”

  “Guys do the negging. Not women,” I say, jumping in.

  Amy makes a dismissive sound. She leans in, like she’s sharing a secret. “Women do it the most. You know, those backhanded comments that make you feel like shit inside, except you have to act like nothing’s wrong? Women are experts at that.”

  “At work? At your new job?” I ask, worried about my own new job.

  “Catty bitches are the worst,” she says, turning those nails into claws. “Meow.”

  “You’re not like that!” I hiss.

  “I know. And I’m making sure you know. I’m being open and honest with you, Carrie,” she explains.

  That makes my eyes fill with tears and I squeeze her hand. “I know,” I murmur.

  “No, you don’t.” She says this with a sad smile. “I know you think you trust me, but after what you’ve been through I couldn’t blame you if you never let anyone in at all.”

  My throat makes a strange choking noise after she says that. I wash away the gagging with some coffee. Almost too hot to swallow, it makes a different kind of eye watering happen. I am grateful.

  Pain can distract me so easily from confusion and overwhelm.

  But pain can’t last forever. Just like love.

  A television, attached to the wall above a corner near the front window, flickers with a bunch of changing images. It catches my eye as Amy pops the top off her to-go cup and blows on her hot drink.

  “Another missing woman,” I say under my breath. There have been a rash of missing woman cases for a while. I’m reading the words beneath the images. This is the third one. The missing woman is named Dina. Twenty-three. About my height. The woman has brown eyes and black hair.

  She looks kind of like Amy looks now, with her hair this dark color and the same style. I shiver at the thought and open my mouth to say so, but Amy speaks first.

  “How’s camping?” she asks with a big grin. She knows I’m living in Elaine and Brian’s trailer. I shake off the crazy feeling from the news report and give her a wry smile.

  “It’s more fun than I thought, and no roommates,” I confess. “Those assholes back in Oklahoma did give me a gift, though.”

  “A gift?” Amy makes an inelegant snort. It turns a few male heads, all curious. “What’d they do, pass on an infectious disease? Get herpes from the toilet seat?”

  Now onlookers were openly gaping.

  I burst out laughing, and then say, “You can take the girl out of the hair dye and piercings, but...”

  Amy’s giggle joins mine and the air feels a thousand times lighter, just long enough for me to take a big sip of coffee.

  Ding! Ding! The jingle of the front door interrupts our laughter. Amy’s face goes from full-on happy to a bitchy glare in two seconds. My skin grows cold.

  Without turning, I ask her through gritted teeth. “Who just walked in?”

  “It’s the dean’s daughter,” Amy says, looking away from the door and playing with the edge of a napkin. Her skirt is a lovely heathered grey and her shirt is a nice lilac that works with her brown eyes and black hair. She looks like she got an Oprah makeover.

  I shrug. “Don’t know her.”

  “Oh, you know her, all right. Claudia Landau.” Amy’s eyes watch me, narrowed and focused. “Speaking of claws...”

  “Claudia—oh, God!” I drop my cup, which is only a few inches from the coffee table. Luckily, I’ve finished two thirds of the delicious drink, so nothing spills. Picking the cup back up, I take a long, slow drink and mouth the words, Is she gone?

  Amy’s head shake is hard to see, but I see it. I know my best friend’s signals.

  “How can she be the dean’s daughter? She’s the chemistry chair’s daughter,” I whisper. The chemistry chairman at the college is the man who set my father up. Ignatio Landau, the famous almost-Nobel prize winner. He looks like that old dude from the Most Interesting Man in the World beer commercials. If only he acted that way in real life.

  Coming back home to work in the dean’s office isn’t just a smart move to get my student loans and debt under control.

  I’m here to learn more about what happened at the university three years ago. The chemistry department wasn’t going to hire me, but the offer from the dean’s office meant I had an in.

  An in that means I can investigate what really happened with my father’s arrest three years ago.

  “Oh, Carrie,” Amy says quietly. And then she goes silent and pulls on my arm. “Do not turn around.” Her voice has a catch in it, like she needs to tell me something. Urgently.

  “Stand slowly but do not turn around. Let’s go to the bathroom,” she hisses.

  “But I don’t need to,” I insist.

  She rolls her eyes upwards so hard I think they’ll dock at the international space station. “Come!” she groans through her teeth.

  Confused but obedient, I follow.

  The bathroom is a single-use, multi-sex restroom with a sign that insists everyone wash their hands after
use. Amy opens the door and shoves me in.

  I protest. “Someone might see us and then—”

  She interrupts me. “It’s better to be thought lesbians than to have Claudia see you. Not yet,” Amy says, shaking her head.

  “What are you talking about? No one will think we’re having sex in a coffee shop bathroom!” Amy was never a drama queen, but I’m starting to wonder.

  “It’s a college town, Carrie. People have sex in dumpsters. You think a coffee shop bathroom is exempt?”

  Why are my best friend and I talking about lesbian sex in bathrooms during our first meeting in three years? Life is increasingly surreal.

  A bzzzz from her pocket startles her. She pulls out her phone. “Damn. A client. I have to go.”

  “What about Claudia?” I ask as she opens the door and pulls me out, steering us to the exit. We’re both holding our coffees, still, but my stomach is so clenched I don’t want it anymore.

  Bzzzz! If cell phones could sound urgent, this one would win the prize.

  Amy walks me to a car parked on the road, a new little Mini Cooper with a convertible top.

  I gape as she beeps it open and starts to get in. “What happened to your Astrovan?” Amy’s mom gave her the family minivan our sophomore year, right after she got her license. The van was twelve years old then, and was missing fenders and rear-view mirrors, all taped on with purple duct tape the week before annual inspection.

  “Gone. New job pays well enough for this,” she says, smiling wide. The grin fades fast as she opens her window and looks up at me.

  “Carrie, I’m guessing you don’t know.” Her eyes darken with worry.

  “Don’t know what?” Her cloak and dagger act is starting to wear on me. I finish my lukewarm coffee and pitch the cup in a green metal trash can next to the parking meter.

  “The dean. The old one resigned to take a faculty job somewhere else. You have a new boss.”

  My blood runs like ice water at her expression. Light fills my eyes and my hands and feet go very, very cold suddenly.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” she says as she starts her car. It purrs. The old van used to belch.

  “Professor Landau is the new dean? You’re serious?” I can barely get the words out.