She always expected to see pain, anger, sorrow written on her face, but they never were. Her cheeks were pink, and her round face looked almost cheerful, like always. Her first weeks living with Aunt Jen, being introduced to Jen’s friends, she heard the same things over and over: “what a pretty child. What a happy-looking child she is.” Charlie always looked like she was about to smile, her brown eyes wide and sparkling, her thin mouth ready to curve up, even when she wanted to sob, the incongruity a mild betrayal. She ran her fingers through her light-brown hair, as though that would magically fix its slight frizziness, and put the mirror back into position.
She turned the car back on, and searched for a radio station, hoping music might bring her fully back to reality. She flipped from station to station, not really hearing what any of them were playing, and finally settled on an AM broadcast with a host who seemed to be yelling condescendingly at his audience. She had no idea what he was talking about, but the brash and annoying sound was enough to jar her back into the present. The clock in the car was always wrong, but she checked her watch. It was almost time to meet her friends at the diner they had chosen, near the center of town.
Charlie pulled back onto the road and drove, letting the sound of the angry talk radio host soothe her mind.
When she reached the restaurant, Charlie pulled into the lot and stopped, but did not park. The front of the diner had a long picture window all across it, and she could see right inside. Though she had not seen them for years, it took her only a moment to spot her friends through the window.
Jessica was easiest to pick out from the crowd. She always enclosed pictures with her letters, and right now she looked exactly like her last photo. Even seated, she was clearly taller than either of the boys, and very thin. Though Charlie could not see her whole outfit, she was wearing a loose white shirt with an embroidered vest, and had a brimmed hat perched on her glossy, shoulder-length brown hair, an enormous flower threatening to tip it off her head. She was talking, gesturing excitedly about something as she spoke.
The two boys were sitting next to each other, facing her. Carlton looked like an older version of his red-headed childhood self. He still had a bit of a baby face, but his features had refined, and his hair was carefully tousled and held in place by some alchemical hair product. He was almost pretty, for a boy, and wore a black workout shirt, though she doubted he’d ever worked out a day in his life. He was slouched forward on the table, resting his chin in his hands. Beside him was John, sitting closest to the window. John had been the kind of child who got dirty before he even went outside: there would be paint on his shirt before the teacher handed out the watercolors, grass stains on his knees before they came near a playground, and dirt under his fingernails just after he washed his hands. Charlie knew it was him, because it had to be, but he looked completely different. The grubbiness of childhood had been replaced by something crisp and clean. He was wearing a neatly pressed, light green button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the collar open, preventing him from looking too uptight, and he was leaned back confidently in the booth, nodding enthusiastically, apparently absorbed in whatever Jessica was saying. The only concession to his former self was his hair, sticking up all over his head, and a 5 o’clock shadow, a smug, adult version of the dirt he was always covered in as a kid.
Charlie smiled to herself. John had been something like her childhood crush, before either of them really understood what that meant. He gave her cookies from his Transformers’ lunchbox and once in kindergarten took the blame when she broke the glass jar that held colored beads for arts-and-crafts. She remembered the moment, when it slipped from her hands, and she watched it fall. She could not have moved fast enough to catch it, but she would not have tried. She wanted to see it break. The glass hit the wood floor and shattered into a thousand pieces, and the beads scattered, many-colored, among the shards, and she thought it was beautiful, and then she started to cry. John had a note sent home to his parents, and when she told him “thank you,” he had winked at her with an irony beyond his years, and simply said, “for what?”
After that, John was allowed to come to her room. She let him play with Stanley and Theodore, watching anxiously the first time as he learned to press the buttons and make them move. She would be crushed if he didn’t like them, knowing instinctively that if he did not, she would think less of him. They were her family. But John was fascinated as soon as he saw them; he loved her mechanical toys, and so she loved him. Two years later, behind a tree beside her father’s workshop, she almost let him kiss her. And then it happened, and everything ended, at least for Charlie.
Charlie shook herself, forcing her mind back to the present. Looking again at Jessica’s polished appearance, she looked down at herself. Purple t-shirt, denim jacket, black jeans and combat boots. It had felt like a good choice this morning, but now she wished she had chosen something else. This is all you ever wear, she reminded herself. She found a parking space, locked the car behind her, even though people in Hurricane, Utah did not usually lock their cars, and went into the diner to meet her friends for the first time in ten years.
The warmth and noise and light of the restaurant hit her in a wave as she entered, and for a moment she was overwhelmed, but Jessica saw her pause in the doorway and shouted her name, and Charlie smiled, and went over.
“Hi,” she said awkwardly, flicking her eyes at each of them but not fully making eye contact. Jessica scooted over on the red vinyl bench and patted the seat beside her.
“Here, sit,” she said. “I was just telling John and Carlton about my glamorous life.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, managing to convey both self-deprecation, and the sense that her life was, truly, something exciting.
“Did you know Jessica lives in New York?” Carlton said. There was something careful about the way he spoke, like he was thinking about his words before he formed them. John was silent, but he smiled at Charlie anxiously.
Jessica rolled her eyes again, and with a flash of déjà vu Charlie suddenly recalled that this had been a habit even when they were children.
“Eight million people live in New York, Carlton, it’s not exactly an achievement,” Jessica said. Carlton shrugged.
“I’ve never been anywhere,” he said.
“I didn’t know you still lived in town,” Charlie said.
“Where else am I going to live?” Carlton said. “My family has been here since 1896,” he said, deepening his voice to mimic his father.
“Is that even true?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know,” Carlton said in his own register. “Could be. Dad ran for mayor two years ago. I mean, he lost, but still, who runs for mayor?” He made a face. “I swear, the day I turn 18 I am out of here.”
“Where are you going to go?” John said, looking seriously at Carlton.
Carlton met his eyes, just as serious for a moment. Abruptly, he broke away and pointed out the window, closing one eye as if to get his aim true. John raised an eyebrow, then looked out the window, trying to follow the line Carlton was pointing to. Charlie looked too: Carlton wasn’t pointing at anything. John opened his mouth to say something, and Carlton interrupted:
“Or,” he said, and smoothly pointed in the opposite direction.
“Okay.” John scratched his head, looking slightly embarrassed. “Anywhere, right?” He added with a laugh.
“Where’s everyone else?” Charlie said, peering out the window and searching the parking lot for new arrivals.
“Tomorrow,” John said, and Jessica jumped in to clarify.
“They’re coming tomorrow morning. Marla’s bringing her little brother, can you believe it?”
“Jason?” Charlie smiled. She remembered Jason as a little bundle of blankets with a tiny red face peeking out.
“I mean, who wants a baby around?” Jessica adjusted her hat primly.
“I’m pretty sure he’s not a baby anymore,” Charlie said, stifling a laugh.
“Practically a baby
,” Jessica said. “Anyway, I booked us a room at the motel down by the highway, it was all I could find. The boys are staying with Carlton.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. She was vaguely impressed by Jessica’s organization, but not happy about the plan. She was loath to share a room with Jessica, who now seemed like a stranger. Jessica had become the kind of girl who intimidated her: polished and immaculate, speaking as though she had everything in life figured out. For a moment Charlie considered going back to her old house for the night, but as soon as she thought it, the idea repelled her. That house, at night, was no longer the province of the living. Don’t be dramatic, she scolded herself, but now John was speaking. He had a way of commanding attention with his voice, probably because he spoke less often than everyone else. He spent most of his time listening, but not out of reticence. He was gathering information, speaking only when he had wisdom or sarcasm to dispense. Often it was both at once.
“Does anyone know what’s happening tomorrow?”
They were all silent for a moment, and the waitress took the opportunity to come over for their order. Charlie flipped quickly through the menu, her eyes not really focusing on the words. Charlie’s turn to order came much faster than she was expecting, and she froze.
“Um, eggs,” she said at last. The woman’s hard expression was still fixed on her, and she realized she had not finished. “Scrambled. Wheat toast,” she added, and the woman went away. Charlie looked back down at the menu. She hated this about herself. When she was caught off guard, she seemed to lose all ability to act, to process what was going on around her. People were incomprehensible, their demands alien. Ordering dinner shouldn’t be hard, she thought. The others had begun their conversation again, and she turned her attention to them, feeling like she had fallen behind again.
“What do we even say to his parents?” Jessica was saying.
“Carlton, do you ever see them?” Charlie asked.
“Not really,” he said. “Around, I guess. Sometimes.”
“I’m surprised they stayed in Hurricane,” Jessica said with a note of worldly disapproval in her voice. Charlie said nothing, but thought how could they not?
His body had never been found. How could they not have secretly hoped he might come home, no matter how impossible they knew it was? How could they leave the only home Michael knew? It would mean really, finally giving up on him. Maybe that was what this scholarship was, an admission that he was never coming home.
Charlie was acutely aware that they were in a public place, and talking about Michael felt inappropriate. They were, in a sense, both insiders and outsiders. They had been closer to Michael, probably, than anyone in this restaurant, yet with the exception of Carlton, they were no longer from Hurricane, they did not belong.
She saw it before she felt it, tears falling on her paper placemat, and she hurriedly wiped her eyes, looking down, hoping no one had noticed. When she looked up, John appeared to be studying his silverware, but she knew he had seen, and was grateful to him for not trying to offer comfort.
“John, do you still write?” Charlie asked.
John had declared himself “an author” when they were about six, having learned to read and write when he was four, a year ahead of the rest of them. At the age of seven he completed his first “novel” and pressed his poorly spelled, inscrutably illustrated creation on his friends and family, demanding reviews. Charlie remembered she had given him only two stars. John laughed at the question.
“I actually do my E’s the right way around these days,” he said. “I can’t believe you remember that. But I do actually, yeah.” He stopped, clearly wanting to say more.
“What do you write?” Carlton obliged with the question, and John looked down at his placemat, speaking mostly to the table.
“Um, short stories, mostly. I actually had one published last year. I mean, it was just a magazine, nothing big.” They all made suitable noises of being impressed, and he looked up again, embarrassed but pleased.
“What was the story about?” Charlie said, and he hesitated.
Before John could speak, or decide not to speak, the waitress returned with their food. They had all ordered from the breakfast menu, coffee, eggs and bacon, blueberry pancakes for Carlton. The brightly colored food looked hopeful, like a fresh start to the day. Charlie took a bite of her toast, and they all ate silently for a moment.
“Hey, Carlton,” John said suddenly. “What ever happened to Freddy’s, anyway?”
There was a brief hush. Carlton looked nervously at Charlie, and Jessica stared up at the ceiling. John flushed red, and Charlie spoke hastily.
“It’s okay, Carlton. I’d like to know, too.”
Carlton shrugged, stabbing at his pancakes nervously with his fork.
“They built over it,” he said. “
“What did they build?” Jessica said.
“Is there something else there, now? Was it built over, or just torn down?” John asked, and Carlton shrugged again, quick like a nervous tic.
“Like I said, I don’t know. It’s too far back from the road to see, and I haven’t exactly investigated. It might have been leased to someone, but I don’t know what they did. It’s all been blocked off for years under construction. You can’t even tell if the building is still there.”
“So, it could still be there?” Jessica said, with a spark of excitement breaking through.
“Like I said, I don’t know,” Carlton said.
Charlie felt the diner’s florescent lights glaring down on her face, suddenly too bright. She felt exposed. She had barely eaten, but she found herself rising from the booth, pulling a few crumpled bills from her pocket and dropping them on the table.
“I’m going to go outside for a minute,” she said. “Smoke break.” She added hastily. You don’t smoke. She chided herself for the clumsy lie as she made her way to the door, jostling past a family of four without saying “excuse me,” and stepped out into the cool evening. She walked to her car and sat on the hood, the metal denting slightly under her weight. She took in breaths of the cool air as if it were water, and closed her eyes. You knew it would come up, you knew you would have to talk about it, she reminded herself. She had practiced on the drive here, forced herself to think back to happy memories, to smile and say, “remember when?” She thought she was prepared for this. But of course she had been wrong, or why would she have run out of the restaurant like a child?
“Charlie?”
She opened her eyes, and saw John standing next to the car, holding her jacket out in front of him like an offering.
“You forgot your jacket,” he said, and she made herself smile at him.
“Thanks,” she said. She took it and draped it over her shoulders, and slid over on the car’s hood for him to sit.
“Sorry about that,” she said, and in the dim lights of the parking lot she could still see him blush to the ears. He joined her on the car’s hood, leaving a deliberate space between them.
“I haven’t learned to think before I talk. I’m sorry.” John watched the sky as a plane passed overhead.
Charlie smiled, this time unforced.
“It’s okay. I knew it was going to come up, it had to. I just—it sounds stupid, but I never think about it. I don’t let myself. No one knows what happened, except my aunt, and we never talk about it. Then I come here, and suddenly it’s everywhere. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
“Uh, oh,” John pointed, and Charlie saw Jessica and Carlton hesitating in the doorway to the diner. She waved them over, and they came.
“Remember that time at Freddy’s when the merry-go-round got stuck and Marla and that mean kid Billy had to keep riding it until their parents plucked them off?” Charlie said.
John laughed, and a smile broke out across Charlie’s face.
“Their faces were bright red, crying like babies.” She covered her face, guilty that it was so funny to her.
There was a brief, surprised silence, then Carlton star
ted laughing.
“Then Marla puked all over him!”
“Sweet justice!” Charlie said.
“Actually, I think it was nachos,” John added.
Jessica wrinkled her nose. “So gross. I never rode it again, not after that.”
“Oh, come on, Jessica, they cleaned it,” said Carlton. “I’m pretty sure kids puked all over that place; those wet floor signs weren’t there for nothing. Right, Charlie?”
“Don’t look at me,” she said, “I never puked.”
“We used to spend so much time there, privileges of knowing the owner’s daughter.” Jessica said, looking at Charlie with mock accusation.
“I couldn’t help who my dad was!” Charlie said, laughing.
Jessica looked thoughtful for a moment then continued.
“I mean, how could you have a better childhood than spending all day at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza?” She said.
“I dunno,” said Carlton, “I think that music got to me over the years.” He hummed a few bars of the familiar song and Charlie dipped her head to it, recalling the tune.
“I loved those animals so much,” Jessica said suddenly. “What’s the proper term for them? Animals, robots, mascots?”
“I think those are all accurate.” Charlie leaned back.
“Well anyway, I used to go and talk to the bunny, what was his name?”
“Bonnie,” Charlie said.
“Yeah,” said Jessica. “I used to complain to him about my parents. I always thought he had an understanding look about him.”
Carlton laughed. “Animatronic therapy! Recommended by six out of seven crazy people.”
“Shut up,” Jessica retorted. “I knew he wasn’t real, I just liked talking to him.”
Charlie smiled a little. “I remember that,” she said. Jessica in her prim little dresses, her brown hair in two tight braids like a little kid out of an old book, walking up to the stage when the show was over, whispering earnestly to the life-size animatronic rabbit. If anyone came up beside her she went instantly silent and still, waiting for them to go away so she could resume her one-sided conversations. Charlie had never talked to the animals at her father’s restaurant, or felt close to them like some kids seemed to; although she liked them, they belonged to the public. She had her own toys, mechanical friends waiting for her at home that belonged only to her.
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