Chapter 6
On the left is the new-construction home I passed on my way in.
It’s encased in robin’s-egg blue siding and bordered by precise boxwood landscaping planted in beds of fragrant mulch.
The dark metal roof brings the whole look together.
Track marks from large construction vehicles mark the ground at the edges of the woods and along the driveway.
A sporty little Audi sits in the driveway.
It has the energy of a frat bro brushing behind me at a dorm party and “accidentally” tugging my ass back into its groin. Wasn’t there a Jeep before?
I am drenched in sweat and sucking in air through my nose to try to calm my thudding heart. We alternated between jogging and fast walking the mile from my useless hunk of a truck to the intersecting road.
Ripley is panting—saliva slicking her snout and dripping from her tongue. Running in this heat is not good for her. She keeps looking at me like she doesn’t understand why I’m making her do it.
I don’t know how to break it to a dog that (1) you think someone has deliberately stranded both her and her person in the middle of the woods, (2) that her owner’s phone won’t connect to anyone despite having service, (3) that both of them somehow have to get to a phone that does work in order to get help, and, finally, (4) do so while avoiding being serial-killed, or axe-murdered, or attacked by a rabid coyote.
There’s a house farther down the road. I know this because I specifically made a mental note to put both it and the new-construction home into my report.
The other house was set too far back to see much of the actual building from the road.
What was visible were sun-bleached deer figurines, ragged windmills that had long ago lost their shine, and a crooked mailbox.
One of the curtains in the new-construction house twitches.
It’s a second-story bow window that juts out of the house.
Panes of glass like many boxy eyes glint down at me with over-Windexed intensity.
That’s how I’d draw it—each window an eye and the front door a grotesque mouth.
The curtain doesn’t move again. There’s a rock lying a few inches from my right foot that would shatter the bright-eyed windows spectacularly.
I keep walking.
I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this objectively silly decision to Emma or my mother.
How do you explain to someone that, yes, you were in fear for your life, but the Audi reminded you of the coked-out, dull-as-sea-glass frat boys you went to school with and the distant, unsympathetic length of their gazes?
How do you explain that you were desperate for a phone to call for help, but that you used to deliver pizzas to houses that looked just like this, and they always contained pinch-lipped women and bunched-up men who took the time to write in a zero for the tip?
How do you explain, without sounding utterly ridiculous, that you don’t trust people with money to the extent that it means walking another half mile through the woods to find help?
“Let’s go,” I tell Ripley. She doesn’t move. She’s facing the way we came.
She’s going to hear someone following us long before I do.
I stare hard in the same direction, waiting for either a blood-splattered, axe-wielding killer or a mangy coyote to come trotting around the curve in the road. Statistically, it’s more likely to be a common-looking white man in a button-down with an office job than a serial killer.
A bell goes ding ding ding in my head. Speaking of common white men. I did piss off one at the gas station.
I would have noticed if I was being followed though, right? If a car was tailing me from the gas station to the inspection site, I would have seen it. It would have been noticeable out here in the country.
Unless there’s some other trail or path or road I don’t know about.
No, no, stop it. Don’t make shit up. Be calm. Focus on what you can see or smell or hear.
Ripley’s focus breaks. Whatever held her attention is gone. Or gone quiet.
We keep moving—this time in a fast walk. Half a mile later we’re standing in front of deer figurines and motionless windmills. The mailbox has a faded sunflower painted on the side.
“Killers don’t paint sunflowers. Do they?”
Ripley looks at me to see if I’m gonna tell her to do something, then snuffs at the weeds around the mailbox’s post when I don’t.
“Sure hope not.”
It’s not a long driveway. The front porch isn’t nearly as decrepit as it seemed from the road.
It’s mostly just old and sun-bleached. There’s a shed at the side of the house that’s just as sun-bleached.
I knock before I can think twice. There’s movement inside—heavy steps and the creak of old wood under the weight of a moving body.
A man opens the door. He’s old, is my first thought. My second is that despite him being elderly, I do not think I could fight him off. He’s at least six feet and bulky in a way that working people get when they have a steady diet of manual labor and cheap, carb-heavy food.
He stares at me, not saying anything.
“Hi!” I say in a chipmunk voice that makes me wince. “Hi. My truck is out of gas and my phone isn’t working and I just, if I could use your phone? Or I could wait here while you use it to call … someone. I’m not from this area but I’m pretty sure triple-A won’t come out here, you know?”
He clears his throat in a way that suggests it being chronic. His gaze finds Ripley. Whatever he sees makes him frown deeper than he was before.
“She’s friendly. She won’t be any trouble—”
“Your dog’s hot.”
“Yeah. We were moving pretty fast.” She’s also entirely black and a bully breed. Neither of which are particularly good for respiration.
He stares, then turns away. Just before he shuts the door he says, “Put her in the backyard.”
Maybe we’re about to be murdered, but she needs water and I need a phone. Behind the ranch-style home is a quaint yard. Sunflowers and tulips are painted in vibrant brushstrokes across the short white picket fence along the perimeter.
The gate opens smoothly. Everything in this yard is well taken care of. Doted on, even.
The sliding door opens. The cool breath of the AC chills the skin of my back where my shirt has ridden up. The man clears his throat. Definitely chronic.
“You can stay out there if you want, or you can come in. I’m not gonna mess with you either way. Your choice.”
“If I come in, can I hold my hatchet?”
“Sure.”
“Can I bring my dog?”
He looks at her with pinched lips. “Wipe her down first. Just cleaned the floors.”
He disappears from the doorway and reappears with two damp floral hand towels that have seen better days. “No ’ffense, but you too.”
It doesn’t take long to wipe Ripley down and then brush the mud off my pants. I hesitate, but ultimately decide to kick the dirt off my shoes instead of taking them off. It’s rude and kinda gross, but I’m more invested in being able to run away than I am in being polite.
The house smells like the mornings after my mom invited her coworkers over for a drink and a smoke. I’d wake up bleary-eyed after staying up late to listen to them laughing and talking. The whole house would smell of cigarettes and perfume and beer.
Her friends love her. They call her whenever they have a problem and no solution.
No matter how exhausted she is, she has no-nonsense advice and stern yet compassionate words that draw people to her like a moth to a light.
I used to sit on the stairs and listen while she told stories that were technically true, but also very embellished.
“The story’s not the point,” she told me one morning at the kitchen table. I’d just shown her sketches for One Special Thing. “It’s how it makes people feel.”
This is a good kitchen. There’s enough space for two people to move comfortably around each other.
A tiny circular table is tucked next to the sliding glass door.
Cabinets the color of the sky just before a rain draws the eye toward the massive farmhouse sink set under a big, bright window.
If I ever have enough money to buy a house for my mom, that is exactly the sink I’d put in her kitchen.
“I love your sink,” I say when the old man returns with a cordless phone in his hand.
He sends a critical eye to the sink and huffs. “My wife did too. She was more excited ’bout that damn sink than any gift I ever got her. Think she might have been more excited ’bout that sink than our kid getting into Brown.”
He hands over the cordless phone, and I thank him.
I put the hatchet down on the table, careful not to scratch the surface, then sit.
His back is to me as he fiddles around on the other side of the kitchen.
Ripley stays standing next to me, her side pressed to my leg, her tail loose, and her eyes on the man.
She’s like me: initially suspicious, but generally friendly once she’s had a chance to warm up to new company.
My phone’s screen is dark when I fish it out of my pocket. It can’t be dead, can it? The battery was full the last time I looked at it. It flashes when I restart it, then goes black again. Two more tries give the same results.
“Everything alright?” He sets a glass of ice water on the table, and a bowl on the floor for Ripley, then backs away to lean against the counter.
There’s a water stain on his ceiling. I squint at it, then squint at the phone in my hand. This is starting to feel like a bad horror movie.
“My phone isn’t working. The only number I have memorized is my mom’s, but she’s sick and … I can’t call her.” Knuckling my eyes doesn’t take away the gritty feeling. I’ve been meaning to memorize Emma’s for the last few years. I just … haven’t.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Lou.”
“’M Clarence.” He pulls out the seat opposite and sits. “I could look up triple-A’s number. Like you said, I doubt they come all the way out here. Might be better off with the local mechanic in that case. I got his number in my Rolodex.”