Chapter Nineteen #2
“Yeah, but it’s not like you couldn’t have texted or something.” I had to let this go.
“Sorry, I can be flaky when I get into something.”
“So what had you so engrossed?” I knew it was me. Well, not me, Gwen, the clingy girl complaining he wouldn’t return my texts, but me, Marin, the girl he thought was killing everyone.
“Can you blow off work tomorrow?” he asked.
“Are you serious? Attendance is not voluntary.”
“Is that a no?”
“It’s a Why?”
“I can’t tell you yet because you’ll never agree.”
“But you think I’m going to agree to that?”
“Yes, because you’re curious.”
“Tell me.”
“No.” He chuckled. “Trust me.”
“Give me a hint.”
“It has to do with Abel Haggerty. That’s all I’ll say.”
“I’m shocked,” I scoffed, as if it weren’t the exact piece of information I needed to hear in order to agree to this secret plan.
“You know, I was saving up my days for a nice vacation.” There was no truth to that.
I had plenty of time saved and was never going on a vacation.
The short notice was the bigger issue, but after making such a big deal about my weekend, I could say I had food poisoning.
“Last time, I promise,” he said.
“Fine,” I agreed, not at all appreciating the mystery of it.
What if he was bringing me to Edgar Valley to introduce me to my own father?
What if he thought that was some kind of honor?
I would have to practice the appropriate fit I would throw in the parking lot if that was the case.
Other than that, I guessed I had to wait until tomorrow and try not to lose my mind in the meantime.
- - - - -
Painting Pots was always slow when the weather was nice.
Sunday was supposed to be Porter’s shift, but since he had disappeared off the face of the planet, I was stuck with Jasmine, an actual high schooler.
She was a great fit for the job—bubbly, patient with the kids, proactive with cleaning/restocking/setting up—but she was horrible with boredom.
Why couldn’t they have hired one of those teenagers who were glued to their phones?
Jasmine had huge, curly red hair that kept bopping into my periphery.
She was buzzing around me. I tried taking my headphones out, thinking maybe she thought they were letting her presence go unnoticed, but then she started talking to me.
She was sweet, but talking to her was doing the opposite of calming me down.
When stuck in conversations I didn’t want to be a part of, my thoughts wandered from what they were saying to how they were saying it and why they were saying it.
I couldn’t help it. I listened for pauses, for emphasis, for word choice.
I studied body language. It was a skill I was taught—a great tool, if only I could turn it off when inconvenient.
I was at Painting Pots to numb my brain, not fixate on why Jasmine had first described her boyfriend as “chill” before shifting her weight and adding, “but, like, really passionate about everything.” I couldn’t have cared less about Jasmine’s boyfriend, but when an insane man raises a child to expect coded messages, some of the wires get crossed.
I offered several times to watch the store if she wanted to leave early, but the damn girl was too responsible and insisted on staying until the end of her double shift. Finally, when the clock hit seven p.m., I made a peculiar cuckoo clock noise and she checked the time.
“Oh, wow. It’s already seven.” She hopped off the counter. “Are you gonna stay?”
“Yeah, just for a few.”
I stayed another hour. I let my creation spin through my hands, chasing perfection, music blasting in my ears—finally the chance to zone out.
It was late enough now. I could go home and go to bed, pretending that I would be able to fall asleep immediately, and then it would be tomorrow and all would be revealed.
I flipped down the last light switch and Painting Pots went dark.
I stepped outside and inserted the key into the lock.
“Gwen?” A voice that I knew well came from my right.
I turned to see Elyse step out of the shadows. The cojones on this girl never ceased to amaze me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Sorry, is this weird? I was walking to my car and saw you.” She let out a nervous laugh. She was good, almost too good.
“No, of course not.” I tucked my bottom lip in and bit down.
She glanced up at the Painting Pots sign. “I’ve never been to one of these places.”
“Do you want to come in?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m sure you want to get home.”
“It’s fine.” I removed the key from the lock and pushed open the door. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”
I turned on the light in the back, just enough so that we could see but not enough for the place to look open, and she followed me inside.
“Do you work here?” she asked.
“No, but I have keys. I know the people who work here.”
“Porter?”
I nodded, still very sensitive to his proximity to the world I was trying to separate him from.
I pointed at the shelves of gray unfinished pottery. “You pick a piece from there and then you paint it however you want and they fire it in the kiln in the back.”
She walked toward the wall of pottery and perused the options. “That sounds straightforward.”
I watched her meander around. I could barely recognize her as Cody Abbington’s little sister, but there was something, the ridge between her eyes, that proved her identity. Did I have a marker like that, even after all the trouble I went through to alter my appearance?
“Do you want to paint something?” I asked.
She stopped and turned to me. “I can come back when it’s open.”
“It’s fine. No one cares.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, pick whatever you want. I’ll get some paints.”
- - - - -
We sat together at one of the long wooden tables painting coffee mugs. I watched her trace the curve of the handle with yellow paint. She was so focused, so careful. Did she remember I was there?
She dipped the brush into the paint, 1-2-3. “I never got to do anything like this when I was younger,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it because I understood it.
“You can ask me questions if you want,” she offered. “Everyone always wants to.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About my family. About Abel Haggerty and the murders.”
“Kind of morbid,” I said.
She shrugged and went back to her mug, using the blue paint to trace small circles.
My eyes followed her strokes, putting me into a trance.
She had three thin gold rings on her right hand—not ideal for killing.
My father always wore his wedding ring on a thin chain around his neck, tucked under his shirt.
I supposed it meant she didn’t plan on killing me yet.
“I don’t want it to define me,” she admitted. “What happened to me. But it does. How do you deal so well with what happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” I braced myself. Was it time to go there?
“The fire, losing your parents,” she clarified.
I exhaled. Yes, of course, my very tragic backstory. “Who says I deal with it well?” I watched her eyes come up and meet mine again. They blinked and it was a form of Morse code, communicating something, but I still wasn’t equipped to translate her facial expressions. I wished that I could though.
The sound of the lock turning broke the tension.
We both twisted toward the front door, where Porter stood on the other side. He fumbled with the lock, dirty and disheveled. His sweaty shirt was covered with dark red stains that I knew from looking at him were not corn syrup.