THE METAL RISERS are set up in the main hall when Nell and I come for Princess rehearsal at six o’clock the next night. We’re early, so we stand over by the wall and watch the others wander in.
“How come you won’t tell us what happened?” Nell rubs the heel of her Keds against a scuff on the high-polish floor.
“I did tell you. We rode his uncle’s horse on some trails.”
“Mags says that’s only half of it. She says otherwise you wouldn’t be so quiet.”
“Yeah, well, Mags doesn’t always know. Remember that time she couldn’t find those earrings she got for her birthday, and she was sure that one of us must’ve borrowed them without asking and lost them? She wouldn’t talk to us for almost a week. Then she found them behind her dresser.”
“But that was a long time ago. She’s usually right about things now.” Nell chews her lip. “Hmm. He just better not have done anything bad.”
If I’ve been quiet today, it’s because I’ve been busy thinking. Jesse and I didn’t talk at work, mostly because I was raking like a madwoman, picturing Shea’s name on that chalkboard every time my body said quit. My biceps are swollen and sore, and my head swam when I stepped out of Libby’s car onto the sidewalk tonight, but I raked about 2,200 pounds today, a new record for me, and there was a bunch of buttercups waiting for me under Mags’s windshield wiper at the end of the day.
But about yesterday, with Jesse? It’s like having a feather down the back of your shirt, sliding out of reach and then cropping up again, niggling at you. He shot me down. No guy’s ever done that before. They’ve dumped me, ditched me, led me on, and lied to me, but never once have they said no. I don’t know how to feel about it, but I know I want it to be just the two of us again real soon.
“Okay, ladies.” Mrs. Hartwell steps in front of the risers with her hands clasped. She wears a wedding band attached to a huge diamond engagement ring. Back in the day, I bet her husband was captain of the SAHS football team and she was Festival Queen, with hair big enough for sparrows to nest in. “Tonight, we’ll practice our choreography for the coronation ceremony. Now, the stage at the fairgrounds isn’t set up yet, but it’s about three times the width of these risers and maybe five feet higher, so keep that in mind. Remember, you’ll be lifting dress hems and walking in heels, so careful, careful. Nobody wants to trip, but if you do, keep in mind, life goes on. None of us is perfect.”
She splits us into two groups, separating me from Nell. Our groups line up on either side of the risers and climb the steps as Mrs. Hartwell claps, keeping pace, calling, “Veronica, continue to the center, and Blair, you walk to meet her, then both face forward. Pretend there’s a crowd out there. Beautiful! Follow their lead, everybody, keep walking, keep walking. . . .”
Nell watches her feet and moves her lips, I guess counting how many steps it takes to hit her mark because that’s the kind of thing she’d like to know. Bella is two spots behind her, and when the girl between them finally steps on Nell’s heel and they stumble together, Bella says, “God!” loud enough for everybody to hear.
I’m ready to teach her how it feels to hit every riser on the way down, but Mrs. Hartwell speaks up: “Girls, the Miss Congeniality title is slipping through your fingers as we speak. Patience and kindness are virtues.” I don’t know how she gets away with those corny sayings, but they don’t sound too bad coming from her. Almost like she means them.
We take it from the top—ten more times, at least. Everybody’s sick of stepping and pivoting and smiling and sitting with right leg crossed over left, but by the time seven o’clock rolls around, we’re moving like a well-oiled machine. I watch Nell’s face when she smiles out at the imaginary crowd. She’s seeing something real, and not the folding chairs and bingo tables the rest of us see. You know what? No matter how weird it is for me to be here, I’m glad I’m going to get the chance to see Nell live the dream. She deserves it.
Mrs. Hartwell finally lets us go, reminding us to meet at the fairgrounds on Sunday morning, when we’ll add “the next phase” to our routine. Libby’s parked outside, reading one of her Amish romances under the dome light. Mom’s car is at Gary’s and should be back tomorrow, once the new starter comes in. I’ve got enough sense not to ask Mom how it’s been, riding with Hunt, but we all watch out the window as they pull in together at night, watch them linger and talk a minute as the twilight comes down. Libby’s been quiet since the big blowout, but she speaks her mind each time by letting the back door slam behind her when she leaves.
We stop off at Hannaford so I can talk to the manager about sponsoring me for the pageant and Libby can pick up a few things for her cupboard. I’m nervous, but Nell isn’t. “It’s okay,” she whispers as we wait at the customer service desk for the manager to answer his page. “People like doing stuff like this. It makes them feel good.”
“Giving away money?”
“Helping.” She folds her arms. “You’ll see.”
The manager’s a nice-enough-seeming guy in his thirties who says yes pretty much right away. “Got to love the festival. Best part of the summer.” He says to come back tomorrow and he’ll have a two-hundred-fifty-dollar check ready for me, enough to cover whatever dress and shoes I end up buying and flowers. I’m not sure why I need flowers or what I’m supposed to do with them, but I’m betting Nell does.
Once Libby’s loaded up her basket, there’s only one register open, and it’s Kat’s. Kat leans on the counter, but she draws lazily up to her full five foot three when she sees me coming. Her red employee polo shirt tents off her bony shoulders, and her black jeans are so skinny they look airbrushed on. “Supertramp,” she greets me. “Shopping with the fam-damily. Love it.”
I grin. Libby’s grown stiff beside me. “Kenyon working?”
Kat pops her gum. “Called out sick again. Loser.” She totals our order and stares at Libby, who swipes her card and gets an error message. “Wrong way.” Kat keeps chewing and staring as Libby fumbles the card around and tries again. “Wrong. Way.” When Libby finally gets it, her face is brick red. Kat rips the receipt and holds it out to her, smiling with her little sharp teeth.
Libby leaves in a rustle of plastic bags, and Nell, who watched the whole thing with her eyebrows raised, follows, glancing back to make sure I’m coming. I linger for a second, hissing at Kat, “You’re gonna get your ass fired. She’ll complain to your manager.”
“So? That’s your aunt, isn’t it? You said you hate her.”
I hope she didn’t see me flinch. “I said she can be a bitch sometimes.” Kat rolls her eyes like same difference. “I gotta go. Stay out of jail.”
She slides back into the position she was in before, fingering through the tabloids. “No promises.”
Libby puts the pedal down before I even have the door shut all the way, and I have to buckle up as we drive. The angry flush reaches all the way to the back of her neck, and I can’t help feeling another twinge of guilt.
Kat and I first started hanging out the winter of sophomore year, after Rhiannon and I had our big fight and stopped speaking. Until then, I’d always hung out with normal, middle-of-the-road kids, but there I was, between friends and spending a lot of time not liking myself very much. I had Mags and Nell, of course, but family’s different. Kat and I worked on a project together in American history and got to talking. She was funny and didn’t give a crap what anybody thought, so when she asked me over to her house one Friday, I said okay.
Once we were up in her room with her speakers blasting, she reached under her bed, brought out a shoe box, and said, “Take some.” It was full of lipstick, eye shadow, foundation, you name it, all sealed, some with Rite Aid sale stickers on the bottom. Most of them weren’t even Kat’s shades, just random colors she must’ve stuffed in her pockets without really looking. Now, if I were Mags, I would’ve said no. I would’ve said it was wrong, and told Libby. But since I’m me, I took a bottle of nail polish called Plum Velvet. It’s still on my vanity, half-buried in cotton balls and hair elastics.
It’s nearly dark when we get home, and the porch light is on. There’s a cop car in the driveway. Our headlights flare off the reflective lettering across the door, and my heart rises into my throat.
I’m the last one inside. Mom’s sitting at the table. Officer Edgecombe sits across from her. The air is hazy with smoke, looking like a scene from a bad dream, one where I can’t move forward or back because I’m rooted to this spot on the peeling linoleum for all time as Mom says, with her face giving nothing away, “Darcy. He’s got some questions.”
Edgecombe is older than Mom, his face loose and jowly, his gut a heavy sack hanging over his belt, somehow making him look even bigger than he is, which is big. He’s as tall as Hunt and must have forty pounds on him. He seems old to still be the kind of cop who has to wear a uniform; I thought the same thing last year when he sat me down at his desk in the corner of a room full of other desks that were empty because most of the force was out looking for Rhiannon. Now I read his name tag and it says Corporal, which I guess means he can boss the younger guys around a little.
“Darcy.” Maybe it’s the jowls and the hound-dog eyes, but this guy always manages to make me feel like I’ve disappointed him. “I didn’t want to have to make this visit.”
I sit at the head of the table with my fists in my lap. Libby and Nell stand at the counter. Everybody seems like they’re caught in the same bad dream. Feet too heavy to run, lungs too tight to breathe.
“I’d hoped you were honest with me last time we talked.”
“I was.” Libby makes a sound, and I hunch my shoulders. “I was.”
He takes a shallow breath, making a show of getting out a notebook and clicking open a ballpoint. “Ms. Prentiss, this might be easier if Darcy and I could talk one-on-one.”
Mom scrapes her thumbnail across the unlit tip of her next Kool. “Now, that wouldn’t be a very good idea.” There’s a humorless quirk at the corner of her mouth, and in this moment, I’m so, so glad she’s my mother.
Edgecombe blinks, says mildly, “This isn’t an interrogation. It’s a conversation. There’s no reason it has to become anything more than that.”
“What’s wrong?” Nell’s voice is high and sharp, her gaze going between Edgecombe and Mom. Libby takes her arm but she pulls away, turning to her mother. “No, why does he want to talk to her?”
“Lib, we’ll see you guys tomorrow.” Mom doesn’t lift her gaze from Edgecombe. It must be killing Libby to miss this, but she takes Nell out. Mom taps her lighter on the tabletop. “So this has to do with the car, right? Everybody knows you found it.”
“In part.” He looks at me. “Last summer, you said you hadn’t been friends with Rhiannon for a long time. That you two didn’t talk anymore.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
I’ve already answered this, or danced around it, anyway. I fight the need to glance at Mom, to see if she’s been wondering the same thing or was just glad when Rhiannon stopped coming around. I always got the feeling that Mom never liked her much. “Nothing. Just grew apart.”
“You stopped being friends for no reason?” He waits, using the silence. I know that trick from years of living with Mom, and don’t rush to fill it. “I find that very hard to believe. When was the last time you were in Rhiannon’s car?”
“Never.”
“You never rode with her. Never even sat in it?”
“No. She got it after we stopped hanging out.” For a second I panic, remembering all the places in that car that my hands have touched, but I don’t think Mom will let him print me.
“When did you last see Rhiannon?”
“You know. That Friday, end of the day raking berries.”
“Friday, August twelfth?” I nod. “And she was doing what?”
It’s a snapshot in my mind now, a nothing-special moment sharpened with each passing month that she’s been gone. Rhiannon knelt about twenty feet away, packing up her bag, pausing to pull a piece of hair from the corner of her mouth when the wind kicked up. She looked over her shoulder and laughed at something one of the boys said to her, but whoever it was didn’t make it into the shot.
When it came to Rhiannon, I was used to pretending not to see, not to listen. I was so mad when she showed up that first day of the harvest. She didn’t need to work. Her parents gave her everything, most of all a brand-new car as a congrats gift for getting her license. She always used to spend her summers as a volunteer counselor at Camp Mekwi, this day camp in New Hampshire where she’d been going since she was little. She loved it, but I think she loved getting away from her parents more; they’re one of those couples who’ve been divorced for years but still hook up sometimes and make tons of drama. Rhiannon had camp friends, which are almost as bad as church friends: strangers who steal your bestie title when you aren’t around to fight for it. Whenever she’d tell stories about them all teaching kids how to macramé or put on plays together, I couldn’t help feeling jealous, sure they were all cooler or funnier than me. “She was getting ready to leave.”
“By herself?”
“I think so. But I didn’t stand there and watch her drive away or anything.”
“What was the plan for later?” He gestures with his pen when I hesitate. “Was everybody going to meet up at the fields after dark, or did it just turn out that way?”
Now that bugs me, him trying to trap me like that. “I don’t know. I didn’t go back to the fields that night. I went for a drive with Kat Levesque.”
“What if I told you I talked to somebody who says they saw you in the fields?”
The wall clock ticks. Ash drops from Mom’s cigarette. Another scar for the tabletop.
“They’re lying.” I need to clear my throat.
“Why would somebody do that?” Edgecombe watches me. “Hmm?”
“I dunno. To get me in trouble.”
“You think somebody would lie to the police, take a risk like that, just to cause trouble for you?” He gives a low whistle. “You must really know how to make enemies.”
I look at him, without a clue how to answer. All of a sudden the day’s work pulls on me like a weight, and I wish I could drop into my bed with its rumpled sheets and old stuffed dog hidden between the wall and box spring and not wake up until summer’s over.
That’s when I see Mags. She’s sitting on the last stair riser in the near darkness, wearing light-colored shorty pajamas, watching us through the railing. Knowing she’s been there the whole time helps me to find the words: “If you tell me who you talked to, then I can tell you why they might lie.”
He looks at me steadily, seems to decide something, then clicks his pen and tucks it into his chest pocket. “We’ll talk again soon, Darcy.” He gathers his notebook, which he didn’t write a word in. “In the meantime, think about what’s important here. The Fosses are in a lot of pain. We’re working hard to give them some answers.” He waits. “If you know something, we will find out.”
Mom stares at the place mat. Her voice stops him on his way to the door. “My daughter had nothing to do with this.” She lifts her gaze. “You go tell your chief that.”
Once he’s gone, Mom heads out to the porch. I hear Mags’s footsteps disappear upstairs, walking on the sides of the risers so they don’t creak, our old Nancy Drew trick. I don’t know what brings me to the screen door, watching Mom through the mesh. She sits in her usual chair in the far corner. Moths flutter around the overhead light, battering the frosted glass like they think heaven’s inside, like they could touch it.
Mom says, “You’d better start telling the truth, little girl. Not a thing in the world I can do to help you until you do.”
“I am telling the truth.” My voice sounds tinny, faraway.
She shakes her head slowly and says nothing. I go upstairs, touching Dad’s photo on the way. He was a big guy, a real bruiser, wearing a plaid work shirt rolled to the elbows, cigarette pack popping his pocket flap open. I study my laughing face when I was a little kid.
Mags’s lamp is on. I know she’s waiting up for me, but I ignore the invitation, go to my room, and shut the door.
I lie there for a long, long time, staring at the dried buttercups hanging in my window. After the house has gone quiet, a light rain falls. I’m almost lulled to sleep when I sense a change in the darkness and open my eyes.
Headlights shine through my curtains. They burn in place for a while, then glide up the wall, across the ceiling, and are gone.