Hanging by a Thread

by Sophie Littlefield

  Poor Amanda. Hearing Jack talk about her, she was taking shape in my mind, becoming a person rather than just an image on television or even the presence in my vision.

  She’d been so gorgeous. She had perfect long brown hair that fell in waves past her shoulders, perfect wide brown eyes rimmed in eyeliner that made them seem even bigger, perfect generous lips glossed in deep pink.

  “Amanda was messed up,” Jack said. “I was sorry for what she was going through, but it got way too intense. I didn’t want to deal with it. Look, I’m no saint, I know what I want, and when I want something I usually get it. But I never hurt Amanda.”

  He stared at me, barely blinking, and for a minute I almost thought he was going to kiss me. But he didn’t. “Believe it or don’t,” he said. “If you want to know something, ask, and I’ll probably tell you. But don’t fuck with me again.”

  His words had a strange effect on me. I was irritated, but I also wanted him to touch me. Half my brain was still knotted up about Amanda and the jacket and everything else. But the other half just kept replaying what it had been like when his lips first brushed against mine, when his hands slid down my back. His revelations, his anger, hadn’t dampened the way he made me feel. Even the possibility that he had hurt Amanda couldn’t drown out the way I wanted him.

  When he turned the key in the ignition and the old truck shuddered to life, I could have sworn he knew everything I was thinking. And even that didn’t scare me the way it should have.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WE NEVER MADE IT TO THE garage sale.

  A few minutes after we left the farm stand, I realized we were passing by the flea market where I bought the bag of clothes that contained the denim jacket.

  “Do you mind pulling in here real quick? I just need to ask … something. I mean, I need to ask one of the vendors about some vintage linens she thought she’d be getting.”

  Jack shot me an opaque look. “You’re in charge.”

  “You don’t even have to get out of the car,” I added hastily. “It’ll just take a second.”

  Jack drove into the dirt lot, pulling up to the row of cars parked haphazardly near the pull-off. I could see the woman who sold me the clothes slouched in a folding chair with her arms crossed, wearing a different baseball cap today. I jumped out before Jack could offer to come with me, and approached her table.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  The woman took her time looking up at me. “Yeah?”

  “Last week when I was here, I bought a bag of clothes from you for five dollars. Big Ziploc bag, it had a skirt, a pair of tights, a jacket—”

  “Hey, that was ‘as-is,’ ” the woman said quickly. “No returns.”

  “No, no, it’s not that. I don’t want to return any of it. I just wanted to ask, the jacket? It was denim, with silver buttons? I was wondering where you got it.”

  “Where I got it?” She stared at me suspiciously.

  “Yes. It’s … Well, I really like it, and it fit me perfectly, and I wondered if the person who owned it might have other things for sale.”

  It wasn’t much of a lie, especially because there was no way the jacket would ever have fit me. But the woman’s expression faded to boredom. “Can’t really say. I get stuff all over the place.”

  I tried to keep my frustration from showing. “But maybe you would remember this. It was … Well, it was dirty, and torn. It had a rip in the right sleeve.”

  I thought I saw a brief flash of recognition pass over her face. But her expression remained unreadable, and she yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth with her hand. “I can’t help it if people throw perfectly good clothes away,” she said. “Just there for the taking, maybe someone else can get some use out of it. Shame to let it go to waste.”

  “So you found it in the trash somewhere?” I jammed my hand in my pocket, grabbing the folded bills I’d stuffed there, a couple tens. Trouble was, I didn’t know how to bribe someone, and I felt my face grow hot as I smoothed the money flat on the table in front of the woman. “I think I underpaid. There were a couple of designer pieces in that bag, and I thought maybe I should give you some extra cash for them.”

  The woman just stared at me for a moment, then quickly picked the money up and pushed it through a hole cut in the lid of a coffee can. “Well, now you mention it, I think I found that jacket down by that landfill near the strawberry fields along Mills Peak Road.”

  I knew the landfill she was talking about; the official structure was surrounded by a chain link fence, but people sometimes left trash in the lot outside it. Mattresses, old tires—even just bags of trash. There were ordinances against dumping, but people ignored them when they didn’t want to pay the disposal fee. The junk would make good hunting for the flea market vendors.

  “You found the whole bag of clothes there?”

  “No. Course not. Just the one thing, that jacket. Would have been worth a lot more if it hadn’t gotten that rip.”

  She was right about that, anyway. Scowling at me, she set the legs of her chair down on the ground, seemingly done answering my questions; my twenty dollars hadn’t gotten me much closer to the truth.

  Anyone could have dumped the jacket at the landfill. It probably wasn’t a bad place to leave something you were trying to get rid of; most of the garbage ended up being incinerated. Maybe whoever left it there—the person who took Amanda—hadn’t wanted to risk the security cameras wired to the office shed and had just left the jacket outside the fence, counting on it to be burned or else taken by a scavenger.

  Maybe not the best strategy, but I still had no idea where Amanda had been taken from, or where she’d ended up.

  “Get what you needed?” Jack asked, reaching across the seat and opening the door for me.

  “No. I mean, yeah, she’s going to have them next week so I’ll come back. Thanks for stopping. But you know, I’m thinking we should probably get back.”

  We barely spoke on the way home. Jack dropped me off without promising to call. I watched him drive down San Benito Road and take the hairpin turn down to the Beach Road, the vintage truck looking right at home next to all the old bungalows that lined our street.

  When he was out of sight I let myself into the house. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with her chin in her hand, a coffee cup next to her iPad, the crusts of a sandwich on a plate nearby. Her reading glasses were pushed up on her head. She’d just had her highlights touched up and her hair would have looked good if she would just quit getting it cut in the same severe corporate style. I noticed a chip in her pale pink nail polish, which I knew would drive her crazy until she could squeeze in a lunchtime manicure.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hey there, Clare-Bear.”

  I hadn’t seen much of her this weekend between the beach party and hanging out with Rachel, and today’s trip with Jack. A couple of times in the past she had gone with me on my bargain-hunting trips, and I wondered if she was feeling neglected.

  My guilt mixed with frustration again—I thought it was long past time for her to start getting a social life. She’d had one in San Francisco, sort of, but it had tapered off to nothing when we moved here. When I was younger I didn’t mind that she was always home with me in the evenings. In fact, I liked it. But in the last few years I’d started to resent that she didn’t have more friends, the hurt looks that flitted across her face when I turned down her invitations to go to a movie or out for coffee.

  “Did you call Mrs. Slade?” I asked, and I could feel her shoulders stiffen under my touch.

  “I haven’t had time. I’ve got yet another Chapter Eleven I need to prepare.… Honestly, Clare, if many more of my clients shut their doors I’m going to be in danger of going out of business myself.”

  “Who is it this time?”

  “A bed-and-breakfast south of town. Really cute place, but they poured a lot of money into it a couple of years ago and with the tourism hit so hard again this year, their bookings are way down. They just can
’t make ends meet.”

  “I thought the tourist trade was supposed to be getting better. They’ve got all those welcome banners up downtown.”

  “That’s the Chamber of Commerce talking.” Mom sighed. “They’re really hoping the holiday week will turn things around, but I’m afraid this town is going to be tainted until they catch the guy who killed those kids. I’ve seen the numbers, the ones they don’t make public. It’s pretty bad, honey.”

  “But it’s been almost a year—”

  “Did you see this?”

  Mom pointed to the newspapers stacked on the table. She still subscribed to the San Francisco Chronicle; the headline on the front-page story read “One Year Later—Cops Are No Closer” above photos of both Dillon and Amanda. A sidebar article carried the quote “How can we keep our kids safe?” next to a picture of Winston’s downtown.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “But that’s—it’s like they’re trying to scare people.”

  “They just want to sell papers. Newspapers are struggling too, Clare. And it’s been on the morning shows. It’ll fade eventually, but …”

  She didn’t have to finish her thought. Not soon enough, not for the bed-and-breakfast, and maybe not for the other businesses downtown.

  That reminded me of something.

  “Listen, Mom, when Mrs. Granger stopped by yesterday, it was the day before her son’s memorial service—it’s today in Raley Park. Don’t you think that’s weird? That she was out running around yesterday like nothing was wrong, when it’s the anniversary of Dillon’s death?”

  Mom looked up at me, frowning. “Well, technically, the anniversary isn’t for three more days. But yes, I can see why you’d think that. But you have to understand, people grieve in all different ways.”

  “Do you remember her? She says she remembers you.”

  “I do, a little.” My mom’s tired features softened. “She was really sweet. I remember her selling Girl Scout cookies in front of the Frosty Top.”

  “My friends say Mr. Granger’s crazy. Like even before Dillon died, he used to yell at the referees and get into fights at his baseball games. I guess he has a real anger problem.”

  “Well, it would be awfully hard to judge, I think. Are you going to the memorial?”

  “I think so,” I said noncommittally, hoping she wouldn’t want to go.

  “With Rachel?”

  I thought about how drunk Rachel had been last night, how she’d been like dead weight after I used her key to unlock the front door and half-dragged her to her room. I’d been afraid her parents would hear us and come see what bad shape she was in, but the house was huge, and their rooms were in opposite wings. They never came out, and I let myself out the front after getting Rachel into bed.

  Still, I’d thought I would have heard from her by now. “No, I don’t think so,” I hedged. “I’m going with Victoria and Giselle.”

  “Well, I think I’ll stay here and catch up. Stick together, okay?”

  There it was, the warning that went along with every conversation these days, not just in our house but all over Winston.

  “We will. Giselle’s parents invited people back to their house for dinner, but I’ll text if we go.”

  “Okay, honey,” Mom said, already absorbed in her work again.

  An hour before the service, Rachel called to tell me that she was coming along with Giselle and Victoria. I was glad to hear from her, especially because I had nothing to wear.

  “Don’t worry,” Rachel said. “I’ll tell them to pick you up before they come over here. I have something you can borrow.”

  By the time the three of us got to Rachel’s, her parents had already left for the service with Adrienne. We were going to be late if we didn’t hurry, but as we filed up to Rachel’s room she ran to get something from the kitchen.

  “We can share,” she said, pouring vodka over ice into a sport bottle. She added most of a can of orange soda, but it was at least two-thirds vodka. She took a healthy swig and handed it to Victoria while she dug through her closet.

  I wanted to say something. It seemed completely disrespectful to be drinking at a memorial service. Giselle caught my eye and sighed. “Don’t worry, Clare. I’m not drinking.”

  “Here,” Rachel said, pulling out a simple black dress with white topstitching. It was the sort of thing she favored, tailored and short and simple. “I wore this to the JV cheer banquet last year. It’ll look great on you.”

  She tossed it to me and I caught it—and it was like catching a handful of fire. I felt the sparkle sensation that signaled a vision, and I had the foresight to head for the bathroom adjoining Rachel’s room before it took over my body completely.

  This was one vision I didn’t want to miss.

  “I’ll just change in here,” I called, hoping no one noticed the quaver in my voice.

  Inside her bathroom—it was larger than the one in our house, and I happened to know that Rachel’s house had four and a half baths, while ours had exactly one—I sat down on the toilet and clutched the dress to my chest. My vision flickered and swam.… And then I was walking through a house, the rooms large and beautiful, people laughing and talking around me.

  I was Rachel now, seeing what she saw, hearing what she heard.

  I knew I was in the Stavros house because Rachel had told me they hosted the end-of-year awards banquet. I passed through the living room with its pale furniture, its glass-topped tables. I touched the handrail of a curved staircase that led upstairs. I was walking up it, my hand on the rail, my heart beating fast in my chest.

  Where was I going? The party was downstairs, the laughter of all the girls echoing in my ears. But I was feeling something other than celebration. I felt … I concentrated, willing myself deeper into the vision, letting Rachel’s emotions take over mine, letting her memories fill my mind.

  I was feeling resentment. Burning envy. But why? Amanda’s house was no more opulent than Rachel’s. Rachel was every bit as pretty as Amanda.

  I walked into Amanda’s room—deep gold walls, ruby red covers on the bed, a bookcase filled with books and knickknacks—and started going through her things. Her desk—all those papers. I fanned them out and didn’t see anything that interested me. Her backpack, left lying on the floor; I searched it quickly and found only textbooks and an empty Tupperware container, remnants of some lunch that had been consumed and forgotten.

  I kept going, turning my attention to the shelves. A hatbox full of hair accessories. A little silver dish that held rings and, inexplicably, a tiny glass penguin. A journal that was empty except for the first few pages, which I didn’t bother to read.

  Jewelry box. A smooth ebony case with five drawers, which I yanked open one by one. Necklaces, earrings, I didn’t care. One, two, three—and then I opened the fourth and my eyes lit on the thing I had been searching for.

  My fingers—I noticed my perfect manicure, the one Rachel was never without—picked it up delicately. A shimmering gold chain with a charm shaped like a key. Amanda’s name engraved along the side infancy letters. My heart skittered and soared. I’d found it. I would have it.

  It should have been mine.

  Then I was retracing my steps, shoving the necklace into my pocket, fixing a smile on my face. No one saw me. No one would know.

  “Hurry up, Clare!”

  Rachel’s voice cut through the vision, and I hastily tugged my clothes off, leaving them in a pile on the floor.

  “Just a sec,” I called back. “You know, this doesn’t fit after all. Do you have anything else?”

  There was grumbling outside the door as I managed to hang the dress from a hook meant for a bathrobe. Rachel stuck her arm in the door, holding a navy blue dress with red piping. “You’re making us late.” She sighed dramatically.

  But I was already tugging the dress on. I didn’t even care what it looked like. All I cared about was that it had no terrible secrets to reveal about the girl I’d thought was my best friend.

  We were
late, but so were a lot of other people. We parked three blocks away and joined the throng trying to get to the park.

  The weird thing was that, even though it seemed like half the town had shown up for the memorial, there were almost as many media people as townspeople. We counted four news vans and at least six reporters filming at various spots around the park. As I scanned the crowd, I didn’t see many of the merchants who’d been working so hard on the Independence Day festival. Maybe they didn’t want to add to the spectacle, staying away in an effort to take the focus off the tragedy. In three days the town would be crowded with day-trippers, and the park, downtown, and beach would be full of distractions. In addition to the food tents and the music stages, there would be a beach volleyball tournament and a parade and model airplane show and a dozen other activities. It was as if the entire population of Winston was working together to erase the history that had hung over the town, and give it a second chance.

  But that was all in the future. Today, the second anniversary of Dillon’s death was big news. Reporters and cameramen pressed forward toward the stage, where an older woman in white pants and a red jacket was fiddling with the microphone up at the podium. Half a dozen folding chairs were set up on the stage, and people were starting to take their seats.

  “Here,” Rachel said, thrusting the sports bottle at me.

  “No thanks.”

  She shrugged and took a sip. We pressed forward with everyone else until we were in a group of people under some trees off to the left of the stage.

  “Well, hello, girls,” a voice called, and we all turned to see Mrs. Granger hurrying toward us. She was wearing a suit like the one she had on the other day, in a sapphire blue color that looked beautiful with her hair.

  She gave us all a tired smile as she caught up to the edge of our group. “Thank you so much for coming. It means so much to me and Dillon’s dad.”

  Mrs. Granger gave Rachel’s shoulder a little squeeze, and I could have sworn Rachel winced before Dillon’s mom was off to greet other people standing nearby.