Chapter 13 #2
“Well,” Joe says, heaving a sigh that deflates his belly by a noticeable amount, “it devastated me. Ate a candle, you know—the dog did. Didn’t make it, of course.
It was a huge candle, three wicks and all, metal at the bottom of each one.
Perforated intestines.” He shakes his head and grimaces, and his grip tightens around the handle of the pitchfork he’s leaning on.
“Mango Melon Mamba,” he says solemnly, staring off into the distance.
I nod, keeping my expression appropriately somber as well. That’s the unspoken rule: When Joe wants to tell the story of Mackerel the Candle Eater, we listen.
After a second of straw-rustled silence, Joe shakes his head. “Needed a change after that. Came back to my father’s place; right here, if you can believe it”—he points to the ground he’s standing on—“and started working the land with him.”
“And look what you’ve turned it into,” I say, gesturing around us at the patch, the little barn, the slides. “I think Mackerel would love this place.”
“That he would,” Joe says with a grave nod. “I really think he would.” This thought seems to cheer him a bit—it usually does—and he straightens. “We could probably send one of them home,” he says now, looking at the part-timers.
“We have a field trip from the elementary school coming at eleven,” I remind him, and Joe grunts, tossing the pitchfork aside.
“I forgot about that. Kindergarteners?”
“Yep. And then second-graders tomorrow, and fourth-graders Friday.”
“Are we doing the pumpkin launch?” Joe says. He lumbers past me, heading toward the shed where we keep the truck parked.
“I believe so. Just the hayride around the field, over to the catapult and back.”
Joe grunts his understanding and continues on his way.
The kindergarteners arrive and then leave without incident, a gaggle of shrieks and laughter and harried chaperones. They love the pumpkin launch and slides, of course, and by the time we wave goodbye, we’re all tired.
Tired, but happy. My mind can escape from my worries when my body is exhausted and my brain is caught up in other things.
When I arrive home at the end of the day, however, and find a package addressed to me, some of my heaviness returns—accompanied by no small amount of embarrassment.
I am twenty-seven, about to attempt the same trick six-year-old Matilda Wormwood pulled on her father in what is arguably Danny DeVito’s best role to date.
But up the stairs I go anyway, clutching the box close and sneaking like I’ve stolen one of Alvina’s best bottles of Chardonnay.
She’s not home, but I don’t trust this process not to leave a chemical smell, so I lock myself in the room with the exercise equipment, lay down an old tarp from the closet, and open the window as wide as possible.
Several perusals of the instructions are required; when those prove insufficient, I look up a video online instead. Then I call Dominic.
And it’s so easy, pressing that Call button. There should be a secondary button—one that says Are you sure?
I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all. But we do need to talk. So I press the button and wait.
Dom answers after three rings, and his voice is out of breath. “Yeah,” he says instead of offering any sort of greeting.
“Are you exercising?” I say, momentarily diverted.
There’s no gym in Autumn Ridge, but that’s where my mind casts him anyway—wearing a muscle tank he would never wear and sitting on a black bench, pulling on an overhead bar that lifts weights.
“No,” he says, and the gym image disappears with a little poof. “I’m working on some stall doors over at the stables, and I kind of need both hands. What is it?”
Right. Down to business. “I was about to mix the bleach solution stuff,” I say, glancing down at the Tupperware I’m holding. “But the internet says it shouldn’t sit out for a long time or it will oxidize. So I should probably wait until right before we put it in the shampoo.”
There’s a second of silence, and then Dominic speaks.
“All right. Our parents”—I can hear the grimace in his voice—“are going out to dinner this evening at six.”
“What?” I say before he can continue. “Why?”
“It’s not my fault,” Dom responds, and in brief hindsight I can admit there was definitely an accusatory note in my voice.
“Sorry!” I say quickly as he grumbles under his breath. “I know. I know, okay? I’m sorry.”
A staticky sigh filters down the line. “Well, they’re going out at six, according to a concerned text from Emma.”
“Wow. Your sisters are on top of things.”
“Emma is,” he agrees. “So mix the bleach stuff then and meet me at my dad’s house at six-fifteen. Does that work?”
“I’ll be there,” I say, my voice as grim as his. “Bring snacks.”
Dominic does not bring snacks.
“Is there no food?” I say, craning my neck and looking him over when he lets me in to his dad’s. “I specifically requested something to eat.”
“Seeing as you are a grown woman,” he says in a dry voice, closing the door behind me, “and seeing as I am not your servant, I thought you could feed yourself.”
He’s right, but food tastes better when it’s given to you by someone else. Everyone knows this.
“I suppose you’re correct,” I say. Then I hold up my plastic container with foil over the top. “Shall we?”
He doesn’t answer but gestures at the stairs, and I hurry up, listening to the thump of his feet behind me.
Steady and sure and firm, whether walking toward me or away.
“First door on the right,” Dominic says when we reach the top.
My feet sink into the thick carpet and then meet the chilled tile as I enter a small bathroom with bright lights, a blue bath curtain, and a clean mirror.
My teenage self is drinking it all in with excitement and wonder, of course—This is where Dominic brushed his teeth!
This is where he got to look at himself in the mirror every day!
—but I rein her in. Then I hold out the foil-covered container to Dominic.
But he’s not looking at me; he has his phone in his hand, and he lets out a quiet snort of amusement.
When he glances up and sees me giving him a questioning look, he tucks the phone back in his pocket. “Bennett ran into his wi—” He breaks off, clears his throat, and then says, “His ex-wife today, and he was not equipped to deal with the situation.”
“Maven?” I say, remembering what I overheard when I took Dominic the letter.
He nods but doesn’t offer any more details, so I pass him the foil-covered container, and he steps into the shower, closing the curtain.
I close the door behind us and wait with bated breath, my pulse jumpy even though no one is home. I’ll feel much better once we get out of here.
From the shower I can hear the faint rustle of tin foil and the soft clunks of bottles being moved around.
“This shampoo is pretty full already,” he mutters.
“Just fill as much as you can,” I say. “It should still—”
But I break off when a sound filters to me, coming not from in the bathroom but from without. I freeze, and the faint noises in the shower cease too.
It could be nothing.
I breathe these words unsteadily to Dominic, who doesn’t reply. I don’t think he believes me.
And when the unmistakable churning of a garage door begins, I don’t believe me either.
“He’s home already?” I say. “How?”
Dominic renews his shampoo-bleach process behind the shower curtain, the sounds more hurried now. I dance on my tiptoes with anxiety as more noise begins to filter our direction—the deep voice of a man, followed by—
Oh, no.
Footsteps.
On the stairs.
“This is bad,” I breathe, looking around the small bathroom. “This is bad, this is bad—”
“Reese.”
I startle out of my skin at Dominic’s whisper that filters toward me from behind the shower curtain.
“You scared me,” I whisper. Then I frown. “Why did you close that?”
The corner of the curtain yanks open, and out pops Dominic’s head. “I don’t know. Instinct, I guess. I’m almost done with the shampoo.”
Relief cascades through me. “Hurry,” I say as my body sags.
Dom’s floating head twitches upward, his gaze jumping to the door behind me, and then he looks back to me. “We need a cover story.”
Great point. Except—
“What cover story?” I say as I glance over my shoulder at the door too. “What reason could I possibly have for being here?”
I can’t hear the footsteps on the stairs anymore, which means Dom’s dad has either gone back downstairs or gone somewhere else up here. I scurry closer to the shower. “Hurry,” I breathe. “Come on. Hurry.”
“I’m trying.”
“Why do you think he came back? Do you think they fought?” But I slap my hand over my mouth when I hear footsteps once more.
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears in the silence that falls. I whip my head to look at the door, and then I turn back to Dominic, whose eyes have gone as wide as mine—except he still looks handsome, while I probably look like a frog, or maybe one of those tiny monkeys with eyes like tennis balls.
Unfortunately, my tennis ball eyes pop even wider when someone outside the door speaks.
Because it’s not Daryl whose words we hear.
It’s the giggling, offhand voice of one Alvina Lucinda Berkeley.