by Riley Sager
Instead, I did the opposite. Keeping people at a safe distance. Pushing them away if necessary. Closeness was a luxury I couldn’t afford to lose again.
Scanning Lisa’s photos, I mentally insert myself into each one. There I am, posing with her at the edge of the Grand Canyon. There we are, wiping mist from our faces in front of Niagara Falls. That’s me tucked into a group of women kicking up our two-toned shoes at a bowling alley. Bowling Buddies!! reads the caption.
I pause at a picture Lisa had posted three weeks ago. It’s a selfie, taken from a stretched, slightly overhead angle. In it, Lisa is raising a bottle of wine in what appears to be a wood-paneled dining room. For a caption, she had written, Wine Time! LOL!
There’s a girl behind her, mostly cut out of the tilted frame. She reminds me of those alleged pictures of Bigfoot I sometimes see on cheesy paranormal shows. A blur of black hair turning away from the camera.
I feel a kinship with that unnamed girl, even if I can’t see her face. I too turned away from Lisa, retreating into the background, alone.
I became a blur—a smudge of darkness stripped of all my details.
PINE COTTAGE
3:37 P.M.
At first, the idea of the cabin made Quincy think of a fairy tale, mostly because of its whimsical name.
Pine Cottage.
Hearing it conjured up images of dwarfs and princesses and woodland creatures eager to help with chores. But as Craig’s SUV bucked along the gravel drive and the cabin finally came into view, Quincy knew that her imagination had let her down. The reality of the place was far less fanciful.
On the outside, Pine Cottage appeared squat, sturdy, and bluntly utilitarian. Only slightly more elaborate than something that could be built with Lincoln Logs. It sat among a cluster of tall pines that towered over the slate roof, making the place look smaller than it actually was. Huddled together with their branches intertwined, the trees surrounded the cabin in a thick wall, beyond which sat more trees, spreading outward in silent blackness.
A dark forest. That was the fairy tale Quincy had been looking for, only it was more Brothers Grimm than Disney. When she stepped out of the SUV and peered into the tangled thicket, an unwelcome tickle of apprehension flitted over her.
“So this is what the middle of nowhere looks like,” she announced. “It’s creepy.”
“Scaredy-cat,” Janelle said as she moved behind Quincy, lugging not one but two suitcases.
“Overpacker,” Quincy shot back.
Janelle jutted out her tongue, holding the pose until Quincy realized she was supposed to grab her camera and capture it for posterity. Dutifully, she dug her new Nikon out of its bag and snapped a few shots. She kept on shooting once Janelle broke the pose and tried to lift both of her suitcases, thin arms straining.
“Quin-cee,” she said in that singsongy voice Quincy knew all too well. “Help me carry these? Pretty please?”
Quincy looped the camera around her neck. “Nope. You’re the one who brought all that stuff. I doubt you’ll even use half of it.”
“But I’m prepared for anything. Isn’t that, like, what the Boy Scouts say?”
“Be prepared,” Craig said, passing them both with a cooler perched on his sturdy shoulders. “And I hope one of the things you packed was the key to this place.”
Janelle jumped at the excuse to ignore her suitcases and searched the pockets of her jeans until she found the key. She then bounded to the front door, giving a smack to the cedar sign that bore the cabin’s name.
“Group portrait?” she suggested.
Quincy set the camera’s timer and placed it on the hood of Craig’s SUV. Then she rushed to join the others in front of the cabin. All six of them held their smiles, waiting for the shutter’s telltale click. The East Hall Crew, as Janelle had dubbed them during freshman orientation. Still thick as thieves two months into their sophomore year.
Picture time over, Janelle ceremoniously unlocked the front door.
“What do you think?” she asked as soon as it creaked open, before the rest of them had more than a scant second to take in their surroundings. “It’s cozy, right?”
Quincy agreed, although her idea of coziness wasn’t bearskin on the walls and a well-trod rug tossed over the floor. She would have used the word “rustic,” with an emphasis on the rust, which ringed the kitchen sink and tinted the water sputtering from the pipes in the only bathroom.
But it was big, as far as cabins went. Four bedrooms. A deck in the back that only shimmied slightly when they stepped onto it. A great room with a fieldstone fireplace roughly the size of the dorm room Janelle and Quincy shared, logs tidily stacked beside it.
The cabin—the whole weekend, actually—was a birthday present for Janelle from her mom and stepdad. They aspired to be the cool parents. The ones who thought of their children as friends. The ones who assumed their college-age daughter was drinking and getting high anyway, so they might as well rent her a cabin in the Poconos to do it all in relative safety. Forty-eight hours free of RAs, dorm food, and ID cards that had to be swiped at every door and elevator.
But before it could begin, Janelle ordered them all to place their cell phones inside a small wooden box.
“No calls, no texts, and definitely no pictures or video,” she said before stuffing the box into the SUV’s glove compartment.
“What about my camera?” Quincy asked.
“I’ll allow it. But you can only take flattering pictures of me.”
“Of course,” Quincy said.
“I mean it,” Janelle warned. “If I see anything that goes down this weekend on Facebook I will unfriend you. Online and in real life.”
Then on her mark, all six of them sprinted to the bedrooms, each trying to claim the best one. Amy and Rodney grabbed the one with the waterbed, which sloshed wildly when they threw themselves on top of it. Betz, not having a boyfriend to bring along, dutifully took the room with bunk beds, flopping onto the bottom one with her dictionary-thick copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Quincy pulled Janelle into the one with twin beds pressed against opposite walls, just like their dorm room.
“Home sweet home,” Quincy said. “Or at least a close enough approximation.”
“Nice,” Janelle said, the word sounding hollow to Quincy’s ears. “I don’t know, though.”
“We can pick another room. It’s your birthday. You’ve got first choice.”
“You’re right. And I choose”—Janelle grabbed Quincy by the shoulders, lifting her from the lumpy bed—“to sleep alone.”
She steered Quincy into the hall, toward the room at the end of it. The cabin’s largest, it boasted a bay window with a sweeping view of the woods. Several quilts adorned the walls in homespun kaleidoscopes of fabric. And there, seated on the edge of the king bed, was Craig. He looked at the floor, staring at the space between his Converse high-tops. His hands rested on his lap, fingers laced, thumbs rolling over each other. He looked up when Quincy entered. She noticed a hopeful lift in his shy smile.
“I’m sure this will be much more comfortable,” Janelle said, a wink in her voice. “You two have fun.”
She knocked a hip against Quincy, nudging her deeper into the room. Then she was gone, closing the door behind her and giggling back down the hall.
“It was her idea,” Craig said.
“I assumed that.”
“We don’t have to—”
He stopped, forcing Quincy to fill in the blank. Room together? Sleep together like Janelle so blatantly planned for them to do?
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Quinn, really. If you’re not ready.”
Quincy sat beside him and put a hand on his trembling knee. Craig Anderson, the budding basketball star. Brown-haired, green-eyed, sexily lanky Craig. Out of all the girls on campus, he picked her.
“It’s fin
e,” she said again, meaning it as much as a nineteen-year-old contemplating the end of her virginity possibly could. “I’m glad.”
4.
Jeff finds me on the sofa with Lisa’s book in my lap and my eyes raw from an afternoon spent crying. When he drops his suitcase and sweeps me into his arms, I lay my head against his chest and weep some more. After two years of living together and two more of dating, he knows not to immediately ask what’s wrong. He simply lets me cry.
It’s only after I’ve soaked his shirt collar with tears that I say, “Lisa Milner killed herself.”
Jeff’s grip around me tightens. “The Lisa Milner?”
“The very one.”
That’s all he needs me to say. The rest he understands.
“Oh, Quinn. Hon, I’m so sorry. When? What happened?”
We settle back onto the sofa and I give Jeff the details. He listens with a heightened interest—a by-product of his job, which requires him to absorb all information before sifting through it.
“How do you feel?” he asks when I’m done talking.
“Fine,” I say. “I’m just shocked. And in mourning. Which is silly, I guess.”
“It’s not,” Jeff says. “You have every right to be upset.”
“Do I? It’s not like Lisa and I ever actually met.”
“That doesn’t matter. You two spoke a lot. She helped you. You were kindred spirits.”
“We were victims,” I say. “That’s the only thing we had in common.”
“You don’t need to trivialize it, Quinn. Not with me.”
That’s Jefferson Richards the public defender talking. He lapses into lawyer-speak whenever he disagrees with me, which isn’t often. Usually, he’s simply Jeff, the boyfriend who doesn’t mind cuddling. Who’s a far better cook than I and whose ass looks amazing in the suits he wears to court.
“I can’t begin to understand what you went through that night,” he says. “No one can. No one but Lisa and that other girl.”
“Samantha.”
Jeff repeats the name absently, as if he knew it all along. “Samantha. I’m sure she feels the same way you do.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I say. “I can’t understand why Lisa would kill herself after everything she went through. It’s such a waste. I thought Lisa was better than that.”
Once again, I hear her voice in my head.
There’s nobility in being a survivor, she had once told me. Grace too. Because we’ve suffered and lived, we have the power to inspire others who are suffering.
It was bullshit. All of it.
“Sorry for being such a mess,” I tell Jeff. “Lisa’s suicide. My reaction. All of it feels abnormal.”
“Of course it does. What happened to you was abnormal. But one of the things I love about you is how you haven’t let it define you. You’ve moved on.”
Jeff’s told me this before. Quite a few times, in fact. After so many repetitions, I’ve actually started to believe it.
“I know,” I say. “I have.”
“Which is the only healthy thing you can do. That’s the past. This is the present. And I’d like to think that the present makes you happy.”
Jeff smiles just then. He has the smile of a movie star. Cinema-Scope wide and Technicolor bright. It’s what first drew me to him when we met at a work event so dull I felt the need to get tipsy and flirty.
Let me guess, I told him. You’re a toothpaste model.
Guilty as charged.
What brand? Maybe I’ll start using it.
Aquafresh. But I’m aiming for the big-time—Crest.
I laughed, even though it wasn’t all that funny. There was something endearing about his eagerness to please. He reminded me of a golden retriever, soft and loyal and safe. Even though I didn’t yet know his name, I clasped his hand. I haven’t really let go of it since.
Between Pine Cottage and Jeff, my social life was quiet to the point of nonexistence. Once I was deemed well enough to return to school, I didn’t go back to my old college, where I knew I’d be haunted by memories of Janelle and the others. Instead, I transferred to a school slightly closer to home, spending three years living alone in a dorm room designed for two.
My reputation preceded me, of course. People knew exactly who I was and what I had gone through. But I kept my head down, stayed quiet, took my daily Xanax and grape soda. I was friendly but friendless. Approachable yet purposefully aloof. I saw no point in getting too close with anyone.
Once a week, I attended a group therapy session in which a grab bag of afflictions was dealt with. Those of us who attended became sort of friends. Not close, exactly, but trusted enough to call when one of us was too anxious to go to the movies alone.
Even then, I had a hard time relating to these vulnerable girls who had endured rape, physical abuse, disfiguring car accidents. Their trauma was far different from my own. None of them knew what it felt like to have their closest friends snatched away in a single instant. They didn’t understand how awful it was to not remember the worst night of your life. I got the sense my lack of memories made them jealous. That they too wanted only to forget. As if forgetting were somehow easier than remembering.
While at school, I attracted an interchangeable string of skinny, sensitive boys who wanted to unlock the mysteries of the shy, quiet girl who kept everyone at arm’s length. I indulged them, to a degree. Awkward study dates. Coffeehouse chats where I amused myself by counting the ways they avoided bringing up Pine Cottage. Maybe a teasing kiss good night if I was feeling especially lonely.
Secretly, I preferred the jockish types found solely at frat parties and raucous keggers. You know the type. Big arms. Beefy pecs and slight beer gut. Guys who don’t care about your scars. Who are incapable of being gentle. Who are all too happy to tirelessly fuck, piston-like, and definitely not upset when you slip out afterward without giving them your number.
After those encounters, I’d leave feeling sore and chafed and oddly invigorated. There’s something energizing about getting what you want, even if that something is shame.
But Jeff is different. He’s perfectly normal. Polo by Ralph Lauren normal. We dated an entire month before I dared bring up Pine Cottage. He still thought I was Quincy Carpenter, marketing grunt about to start a baking blog. He had no idea I was actually Quincy Carpenter, massacre survivor.
To his credit, he took it better than I expected. He said all the right things, ending with, I firmly believe it’s possible for people not to be harnessed to bad things from their past. People can recover. They can move on. You certainly have.
That’s when I knew he was a keeper.
“So how was Chicago?” I ask.
From the half shrug Jeff gives me, I can tell it didn’t go well.
“I didn’t get the information I was hoping for,” he says. “Actually, I’d rather not talk about it.”
“And I’d rather not talk about Lisa.”
Jeff stands, struck with an idea. “Then we should go out. We should get dressed up, go someplace fancy, and drown our sorrows in too much food and booze. You game?”
I shake my head and stretch catlike across the sofa. “I just don’t have it in me tonight. But you know what I’d really like?”
“Wine from a box,” Jeff says.
“And?”
“Takeout pad thai.”
I muster a smile. “You know me so well.”
• • •
Later, Jeff and I make love. I am the initiator, tugging the case file out of his hands and climbing on top of him. Jeff protests. A little. It’s more like feigned protest. Soon he’s inside me, exceedingly gentle and attentive. Jeff is a talker. Having sex with him involves fielding a hundred questions. Does that feel good? Too rough? Like that?
Most of the time I appreciate his thoughtfulness, his vocal desire to meet m
y needs. Tonight is different. Lisa’s death has put me in a mood. Instead of the ebb and flow of pleasure, dissatisfaction seeps into my body. I want the impersonal thrusting of those nameless frat boys who thought they were seducing me when it was the other way around. It’s like an internal rash, irritated and itchy, and Jeff’s earnest lovemaking doesn’t come close to scratching it. Yet I pretend it does. I fake moan and squeal like a porn star. When Jeff asks for a progress report, I cover his mouth with mine, just so he’ll stop talking.
Afterward, we cuddle while watching Turner Classic Movies. Our usual postcoital habit. Lately, that’s become my favorite part of sex. The aftermath. Feeling his firm and furry body next to mine as rapid-fire ’40s-speak lulls us to sleep.
But tonight sleep doesn’t come easily. Part of it is the movie—The Lady from Shanghai. We’ve reached the ending. Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles in the hall of mirrors, their reflections shattering in a hail of bullets. The other part is Jeff, who shifts uneasily beside me, restless under the covers.
Eventually, he says, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about what happened with Lisa Milner?”
I close my eyes, wishing sleep would grab me by the throat and drag me under. “There’s not really anything to talk about,” I say. “Do you want to talk about your thing?”
“It’s not a thing,” Jeff says, bristling. “It’s my job.”
“Sorry.” I pause, still not looking at him, trying to gauge his level of annoyance with me. “Do you want to talk about your job?”
“No,” he says, before changing his mind. “Maybe a little.”
I roll over and sit up, leaning on my left elbow. “I gather the defense isn’t going well.”
“Not really. Which is all I can legally say about it.”
