Chapter 10 #3
In Way’s portrait, she and Calla were standing next to a fence at the back of the yellow farmhouse. Strokes of gold and crimson,
emissaries from a setting sun, traced their profiles. Vivi couldn’t look at the photo without remembering the day’s humid
exhale and the foolish pride she’d felt as she posed with her hand behind her on the post, chest lifted like one of the models
from the magazines she and Calla hoarded.
But she didn’t look like any of those wholesome young things with their glossy manes and crowing stage mothers.
In the photo Wayland took, the girls had just returned from the woods.
Noses sunburnt, bare feet patched with clumps of cut grass.
They bristled with the unconvincing bravado of teenagers—children—who’d seen more than young people ever should.
One could see the scab blooming on Calla’s knee.
Mid-blink, Vivi’s eyes were half closed, giving her a squinty truculence.
An air of neglect hung from them, as palpable as the pot-bellied clouds on the horizon.
Vivi had hated the photo when she first saw it.
You might as well have called it The Indigent Girls Next Door, Way.
But she kept the print buried in a keepsake box in her closet, as a reminder of all that had passed. She was afraid to forget,
but she was just as afraid to remember.
The painter tore off his finished sketch and presented it to the sisters. He’d rendered them flatteringly, with half smiles
and graceful, bent heads. His sketch couldn’t have been farther from The Seekers of Deer Creek. Neither were quite faithful to reality, but Vivi preferred the painter’s version to the photographer’s. Calla cooed over
the sketch, lavishing compliments.
“What can we pay you for this?” Vivi asked.
He tilted his head. “Nothing. Take it. And take care of each other.”
An ache pulled at the tendons behind her eyes. She thanked the painter and walked with Calla back toward the hotel dining
room.
“I’ve scoped out the cottage,” Calla whispered. Her eyes danced with the unbridled delight of subterfuge.
“You promised.”
Calla continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s not far. A fifteen-minute walk, at most. We can just zip in and out.”
“What about the property owner?”
Calla waved the objection away. “I rang the bell. No one answered. He’ll never know. Probably gone for the summer.”
“Let’s make a plan at dinner. I’ll bet we can get permission tomorrow if we explain it all. I’m dying for some steak frites,
aren’t you?”
But Calla’s eyes glittered, there was a determined clamp of her jaw, and Vivi knew that she was in for an evening of resistance.
To: Vivian Nguy?n [v_nguyen@]
From: Samuel Noi [samnoi@]
Subject: Re: the perils of rationalizing
Vivi,
I didn’t think I’d be writing again to you so soon. It’s getting cooler in the evenings. The grad student next door put up
a life-sized skeleton holding a joint on his porch. My father went over to lecture him—think of the children!—but to no avail. The undead stoner continues to watch over Hyde Park. I kind of like him, but don’t tell Dad. Our own front
steps are guarded by a gnarled pumpkin that we picked up from South Barrington over the weekend. Remember last fall, when
you went with us to the farm? I couldn’t believe you’d never had an apple cider donut before. Or that a grown person could
get lost in a child’s corn maze. Good thing Phoebe was there to haul you out.
She’s taken to burying her gemstones around the yard, then digging them back up days later. She pretends she’s a geologist
named Dr. Dirt. My mother is frenzied over the state of her garden beds, which hide any manner of treasures these days. Yesterday
I found a piece of quartz under a lawn chair. Dr. Dirt was pleased at the discovery, if not my unschooled manner of retrieval.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s hard not to share Phoebe with someone who loves her. You did love her, right?
I believe you did. The reason I’m writing is because she drew you a portrait and asked me to scan and send it to you. I promised
I would. She’s getting better at the mouths, don’t you think? They’re marginally less terrifying than they used to be.
In your absence, I’ve been studying Blue Mirror. The woman on the left—she looks like you. The freckle, yes, but more than that. There’s a certain way she carries herself.
The defiant tilt of her chin. The tiny dip between her brows. I’ve seen exactly that expression on your face when you’re defending
a point with Smith or Abel. I can only imagine how startling finding that echo must have been. I can’t agree with what you’ve
done, Vivi, but I’ve come to understand it. Who knows? If it’d been me, in a different timeline, one where I had no one to
account for but myself, maybe I’d have done the same.
In any case, I think this will be the last time I write to you. It’s better this way, cleaner. Less painful for me and maybe
for you too. I hope you have found what you’re digging for, Vivi, I really do.
Sam
ATTACHMENT:
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