Her Best Friend's Lie

by Laura Wolfe

  Sam set down her glass and picked up her phone, a perplexed look stretching across her face.

  “Still no reception?” I asked.

  Kaitlyn pulled her wavy hair back and twisted it into a bun. “I’m thinking there’s not going to be any reception, no matter how many times we check.”

  “We need a Wi-Fi password,” Sam said. “I thought I saw an available network earlier.”

  Jenna looked at her phone. “I don’t see any network on mine.”

  Someone coughed in the distance. It sounded like a man. Footsteps crunched from further up the path, and I strained to see through the dwindling daylight.

  A tremor slid down my back. I tilted my head toward the path and stopped breathing. “Someone’s there.”

  Sam perched forward in her chair.

  A shadowy figure materialized from the trees. “Evening, ladies.” A wiry guy with a shaved head marched toward us, only pausing to spit at the ground. He wore greasy jeans and a stained T-shirt. A tattoo of a knife marked the side of his pale neck. His eyes sank into purplish hollows and a rifle hung from a strap on his shoulder.

  My mouth went dry.

  “Is this your cabin, sir?” Kaitlyn asked, her voice artificially loud and overly friendly.

  He gave a nod. “I’m Travis. I forgot to leave a key. I know how city folks like to lock up.” His icy eyes traveled over us. His body twitched every few seconds. It wasn’t clear if he suffered from a nervous tick or if he was on drugs. The muscle in his sinewy forearm flexed as he reached across his chest to touch the gun strap. He strode closer and slapped a single key down in front of me.

  “Thanks.” I resisted the urge to hide under the table.

  Travis leered at me, then Kaitlyn. “You’re a good-looking group of ladies, aren’t you?” A sickening smile curved onto his lips.

  I felt as if a thousand spiders were skittering across my skin. Jenna cleared her throat, Kaitlyn and Charlotte stared at the ground, and Sam crossed her arms.

  Travis’s demeanor—and his rifle—made me nervous. I pictured the lifeless squirrel and clenched my teeth. Nothing about this place felt safe, especially now that we’d met the creepy owner.

  “Okay. Thanks for the key. Good night.” Charlotte spoke quickly and I could tell she also wanted Travis to leave.

  The man twitched again but didn’t move. His reptilian stare stuck on Sam for a beat longer than the rest of us, as he seemed to notice her for the first time. His bloodshot eyeballs protruded from his face, a flash of hate in his pupils. My pulse accelerated, and I wished I could trade places with her. I wondered if Travis had ever seen a person with dark skin before.

  An incident from college played in my mind. I’d been shopping with Sam freshman year. We’d taken the bus to a mall on the outskirts of town. As we strolled toward Macy’s to check out the coat sale, a man with white hair and a tattered jacket had stepped in front of us, blocking our path into a department store. He motioned at Sam. “Where you from?”

  Sam had stared the man directly in his face. “Phoenix.”

  “No. Where you really from?”

  “I was born in Phoenix.”

  The man grimaced, narrowing his eyes. “No. I’m trying to figure out what country you’re from.”

  I’d wanted to run, but Sam stood her ground. Sam’s mom was of Indian descent and had grown up in southern California. Her dad was African American and had been born and raised in Milwaukee. Sam’s beautifully unique look often caught people’s eyes as if they’d spotted a rare bird or a polished seashell. I’d never witnessed an ugly confrontation like this.

  Sam squared her shoulders at the older man. “I’m American. Just like you.”

  The man shook his head and grunted. Finally, he stomped away. I’d turned toward my roommate, so proud of her for holding her own, for not playing the man’s divisive game.

  “I can’t believe that guy,” I’d whispered to her, my heart pounding.

  She looked at me like I was from another planet. “It happens all the time.”

  “Really?”

  “ALL the time.” Sam turned on her heel and continued into the department store. The pungent scent of perfume stung my nostrils from the nearby cosmetic counter. I hung my head, feeling naïve and useless.

  A clink of a wineglass brought me back to the present. Sam cleared her throat and lifted her chin, locking eyes with the jittery cabin owner. “Do you have a Wi-Fi password?”

  Travis narrowed his too-small eyes at her. “Huh?”

  My fingers tightened around the edge of my chair. I could see Sam was using the same technique she’d used with the man at the mall all those years ago. She showed no weakness. She didn’t back down.

  Sam jutted out her chin and hardened her voice. “Is there an internet password we can use, sir? We’re not getting any cell-phone reception out here.”

  Travis adjusted the gun on his shoulder and pulled his stare away from Sam. “Ain’t many cell towers in the area. And I ain’t got no internet for guests. It’s all part of the experience.” The man’s thin lips pulled back, exposing yellowed teeth.

  I pressed my palms into the top of my legs, feeling the overwhelming urge to run.

  Travis jerked his hand toward the path. “I got a landline at my house in case of emergency. Same deal as the last time you stayed here.”

  “We’ve never stayed here before,” Jenna said.

  He spat at the ground and leered at each of us. “Sure you have.”

  Jenna shook her head. “No. We haven’t.”

  We flashed confused looks at each other, not sure whether to argue. Dread pooled in my stomach. Jenna coughed. I clenched my teeth, hoping she wouldn’t make any condescending comments about the accommodations.

  “You must have us confused with another group,” Kaitlyn said.

  The man grunted. “Huh. Maybe.” The same sick smile pulled on the corners of his lips. He threw his hand in the air and turned to leave.

  My breath finally left my lungs.

  “You always carry a gun around with you?” It was Jenna who spoke. I cringed, familiar with her psyche. She hated this man’s effort to intimidate us as much as I did. But, unlike me, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

  He turned back, glaring. “Sure do. There’s coyotes in these parts. Seen bears too.”

  Jenna leaned forward with a defiant gleam in her eyes. “That’s funny. I just watched a documentary about coyotes. Their diet consists mainly of rodents. Bears eat fish and berries. They only attack humans if they’re starving, so there’s nothing for a big tough guy like you to worry about.”

  Travis shook his head as another twitch jerked his shoulders. “Sounds like you’re from the city.”

  “Have a good night.” I blurted out the words before Jenna could antagonize the man any further. Anything to get him away from us.

  Travis grunted, raised a hand toward us, and strolled back up the hill, disappearing into the woods.

  Jenna tilted her head back and lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “Holy shit! Was that guy for real?”

  “Could he be any creepier? Was he on drugs?” I asked.

  Kaitlyn covered her mouth with her hands. “I don’t know. Were you trying to start a fight with him, Jenna?”

  Jenna rubbed her eyes, not responding. She hadn’t lost her flair for drama.

  I shook my head. “I guess we know who shot the squirrel.”

  Sam hugged her arms in front of her. “Thanks for renting a cabin from an armed redneck, guys. This is lovely. Next time, I’ll choose the location.”

  “You know what they say—the bigger the gun, the smaller the penis.” Jenna raised her eyebrows.

  “Yeah,” I said. “If Travis shows up driving a Lamborghini tomorrow, we’ll know the truth, for sure.”

  Our nervous laughter filtered through the air, but I couldn’t shake the unease dripping through me.

  Kaitlyn shook her head. “All of the misspelled words in his email are suddenly making a lot more s
ense.”

  Jenna stared into the distance. “Do you think he’s a flat-earther?”

  Charlotte looked confused. “A what?”

  “A flat-earther. One of those crazy science deniers who believes the earth is flat despite overwhelming scientific proof to the contrary?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s probably a strong candidate.”

  “He seems more like a child molester to me.”

  A cough sounded from somewhere beyond the trees. We froze.

  My hand flew to my mouth. I leaned forward and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Oh my God! He’s still here. Do you think he heard us?”

  Fear stretched across my friends’ faces. We waited in silence, listening. I pressed my back against the metal chair, hearing nothing other than chirping crickets and lapping waves.

  At last, Jenna exhaled. “I think he’s gone now.”

  Sam shook her head. “This is bad, guys.”

  Charlotte studied her empty glass. “I can’t believe the reviews didn’t mention him. Or that there’s no internet connection.”

  “There were a few bad reviews,” I said, “but like I mentioned before, they were down at the bottom. I assumed they were from difficult people.”

  “Most people come here to get off the grid,” Kaitlyn said. “That’s probably all they care about, especially if they didn’t meet Travis in person.”

  “Well, we’ve already met him.” Jenna made a face. “We can’t unring that bell.”

  I tucked my feet under my chair. “I say we drive back toward the airport and find another place to stay if Travis comes anywhere near us tomorrow. Something is really off with him.”

  Charlotte grinned. “Is that your professional opinion, Megan?”

  “Yes. He’s off.”

  My friends glanced at each other. Then their eyes darted from the cabin to the woods to the lake and back to me.

  Kaitlyn bit her lip. “We drove all the way up here. Let’s give the little cabin a chance. I bet that lake is awesome in the daytime.”

  “We can give it a chance. I’m only saying, if that guy does anything else to make us feel unsafe, we should leave.”

  “Deal,” Kaitlyn said as the others mumbled in agreement.

  Sam squinted at her phone. “I’m sure I saw a network fading in and out when we arrived. It’s not there now.”

  “It’s probably Travis’s home network,” Kaitlyn said. “He claimed there isn’t one for the guests.”

  Charlotte made a face. “Why can’t he just let us use his network?”

  I cracked my knuckles and looked out at the blackened lake. “I don’t know.”

  The only thing I knew for sure was that we were out in the middle of nowhere, down the road from a scary guy with a gun, and if he tried to do anything to us, we had no way to call for help.

  Chapter Seven

  It was after midnight by the time I washed my face and brushed my teeth in a pedestal sink, turning away from the rust stain circling the drain. After changing into a T-shirt and cotton shorts, I joined Charlotte in our shared room, crawling under the sheets and checking again for bugs and spiders. Charlotte rested her head on the pillow on the twin bed across from mine.

  Jenna’s heavy footsteps—signaled by her uneven gait—clomped down the hall. I held my breath and tried not to listen.

  Jenna popped her head into the bedroom. “Good night again, ladies. I double locked all the doors. All the downstairs windows are locked, too.”

  “Thanks,” I said, although I wondered about the purpose of locking the doors when the owner surely had a key. I hoped Travis hadn’t overheard us making fun of him.

  Jenna blew us kisses and left. Her comment from earlier in the night replayed in my ears—"Looks like everyone’s life turned out rosy and perfect, except for mine.” If only I’d been able to tell her how imperfect my life was. I shifted my legs against the scratchy sheets, feeling unsettled. My unease stemmed from multiple sources—Jenna’s angry words, my lack of forthrightness with my friends, the creepy cabin’s remote location, and Travis’s gun.

  I pulled the edge of the sheet up to my chin. “Do you think we’re safe in here?”

  Charlotte reached for the lamp and turned off the light. “Travis is a little scary, but this rental is probably his only way of making money. I’m sure he doesn’t want us to leave a bad review—or five bad reviews, for that matter. He’s given us the key now. I bet we won’t see him again.”

  I rolled onto my side, hoping she was right. The pillow smelled musty and I wished I’d brought my own. It was strange to be in this room with Charlotte, skipping my bedtime routine with the kids. Normally, I read them each two books and sang a song before saying I love you back and forth five times. They loved their routines. I guess I did, too. Andrew was taking care of it, though. I wondered again if he’d spotted the mac and cheese on the shelf in the fridge. My mundane concern suddenly felt utterly important. Homesickness needled through me. I wished I’d been there to pick Marnie and Wyatt up from school, collect their art projects, and hear about their day.

  “I was thinking about what you said earlier. About marriages having their ups and downs.”

  Charlotte’s voice made my eyes pop open, despite my heavy lids.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Mine is down.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

  My head weighed a thousand pounds. It had been a long and draining day, and I’d had one too many glasses of wine. Listening to Charlotte’s marital problems was the last thing I felt like doing. But having people confess their troubles to me was a hazard of my profession. And Charlotte was a friend. I opened my eyes wider, searching for the outline of her shadow through the darkened room. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Her sheets rustled. “Reed has become so distant.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sometimes, I think if I stood naked next to the TV, he wouldn’t even see me.”

  “Really? It didn’t seem like that this morning.” I pulled my quilt over my shoulders and inhaled. The vision of Reed kissing Charlotte on the lips before we’d left her house played in my mind. Andrew had only pecked me on the cheek. After Wyatt was born, our carefree lifestyle had transformed into a never-ending to-do list. We’d replaced our family outings with a “divide and conquer” attitude. Every weekend, each of us took one child to their activities and split the list of errands. It was exhausting keeping up with the house, the yard work, the kids, and our careers. When a task didn’t get accomplished, we were quick to blame the other person. Somewhere along the line, we’d gone from planning romantic candlelit meals together to microwaving frozen dinners and eating in front of the TV. We’d lost the spark that had brought us together. I’d hoped to find something better in its place—the unbreakable bond or comfortable friendship that older couples often hinted at—but something between indifference and resentment hung between Andrew and me instead. It was time to set aside my personal issues, though, and turn on my therapist mode.

  Charlotte sighed. “Reed was only putting on a show for you and Kaitlyn, so you would see what a great husband he is.”

  “Have you talked to him about your feelings?”

  “I’ve tried. I’m afraid of pushing too hard. I’m afraid of the answer I might get.”

  I lifted my head. “You’re afraid Reed might leave you?”

  “I don’t want to get divorced. Oliver needs a strong man in his life.” Charlotte’s voice cracked as she said the words, and my heart shattered.

  I remembered Charlotte’s frequent visits to my room back in college and how she’d fed me tidbits of her upbringing on her family’s eighty-acre dairy farm in northeast Wisconsin. Amid the tales of back-breaking chores, fall harvest festivals, and boring Saturday nights, her stories often circled back to the unreasonable demands of her strict parents. They had charged their daughter with looking after her two younger brothers. The boys, who were three and five years younger than Charlotte, were wild and rebel
lious and often got into trouble. Charlotte’s parents blamed their sons’ shortcomings on her; she should have done a better job watching them. Charlotte was the one her father berated and whipped with a leather belt, leaving welts across her skin. Charlotte’s mother hadn’t been strong enough to stand up to her short-fused husband. It made sense now, so many years later, that Charlotte would want someone calm and kind like Reed—someone the opposite of her own dad—to be the father figure for her son.

  I propped myself up on one elbow. “You and Reed don’t have to split up. It doesn’t have to come to that. It’s not too late. You can talk to a counselor. Take a romantic trip together like the one Kaitlyn mentioned. You have that trip to Europe coming up, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I work with a lot of couples in my practice. There are so many things that can help. You need to find a way to communicate with each other.” I thought of the months of strained conversations between Andrew and me and felt like a hypocrite. I was thankful Charlotte couldn’t see my face through the darkness.

  “Okay. Thanks, Megan.”

  “Sure.”

  “You know, just between you and me, Andrew and I have had our struggles lately too. We started neglecting each other after Wyatt was born. Now he’s five. We’re working on not doing that anymore. Things are getting better.” That was a lie. Things weren’t getting better. Still, I wanted to offer Charlotte some hope.

  “I’m glad you’re working things out. Children can strain a relationship. I know that from experience.” Charlotte’s breath heaved in and out, and I wondered if she was thinking about her first marriage. “I know it’s late. Let’s go to sleep.”

  “Okay. We can talk more tomorrow.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night.” I turned to the other side, facing the wall and cradling the bunched-up blanket in the crook of my arm. If only Marnie or Wyatt were lying next to me instead of a pile of sheets. I wanted to press my face against their silky hair and smell the fruity scent left from their watermelon shampoo. I wanted to tell them a funny joke and feel their laughter cascading through me. I wanted to sing whatever song Andrew had sung with them tonight.