Clearer in the Night (31 page)

The sigh started from somewhere up above my hairline and encompassed everything between there and my knees. And so it begins.

Sophie’s room was such a weird enigma. About five years after she died, Mom had gotten drunk—this had been a novelty, back then—with Shannon’s mother, and they’d torn it all apart. They took out all the clothes and bedding and boxed it all up for Goodwill. The boy band posters and the other memorabilia of a high schooler’s life—playbills from concerts and plays, flyers from sports events and bake sales, notes passed in classes—were all thrown out. And after that, for a little bit, things had been better. Comparatively. Mom had talked about making it into a craft room/guest room.

And then, one day, with no warning, the new comforter they’d purchased was gone, and it was replaced with the one Sophie had picked out on her eleventh birthday. A few days after that, the books that had been boxed up and ready to go were back on the shelves. Her pictures of friends were tucked back under ribbons that were restrung over her mirror. We never talked about it. It was like elves came back, night after night, slowly reversing Mom’s attempt at healing.

I stripped off the sheet and the blankets and loaded them into the washer. If she wanted the pillows washed, that was going to be on her.

As I was bringing the dry sheets back up to the bedroom, I heard Mom’s car pull into the driveway. As I tucked in corners and fluffed the sheets into place, I heard them come in. Mom was using her too-cautious tone, and Sophie was huffing that she was fine. I could feel her irritation all the way up here. She’d been taking care of herself for a long time, and Mom’s attention was wearing on her nerves. So why had she even bothered to come home?

When the sheets were magazine perfect, and I was out of excuses for staying upstairs, I walked down into the living room. Sophie was on the couch, her feet up on a pillow, another pillow behind her back, an incredibly annoyed expression fixed on her face. Mom was fluttering around like a cracked out butterfly. “Eggs and toast? Or chicken soup?”

Really? All I’d rated was delivery pizza. This was fab.

Sophie looked up at me, and that irritated look faded. “Hey, Caitie,” she said, all softness and—something else I couldn’t quite make out, not all the way. “Sorry to appear in your home like this. I didn’t know what I was coming back to, or I would have…warned you.”

I leaned against the doorframe, watching her. “No one calls me Caitie anymore,” I said. “Just so you know.”

My mother actually scoffed. “Lots of people call you Caitie. All the time.”

“Name five.” She stared at me, and I stared back without blinking.

“Besides,” Mom said, turning back to Sophie, “this never stopped being your home. You just weren’t able to get here for a time.”

I made a gagging sound. Sheer willpower kept Mom from punching me. I did know that I was being a childish brat, it was just that the part of me that knew was light years away from the part of me that cared.

“That’s fine,” Sophie said, bypassing both of us. “What do you go by now?”

“Cait,” I said, as Mom said, “Caitlyn.” My turn to glare.

“What?” Mom said. “It’s your name.” And what she didn’t say, carefully didn’t say, just like she hadn’t said it a thousand times before, was “You ungrateful little bitch.”

“I’m out,” I said, standing up so fast that the wall seemed to have given me a shove. “Shan asked me to come over. Some crisis over some guy, you know how it is.”

“You need to stay here,” Mom said, her eyes wide, and more than a little desperate. “We need to talk about things. About our family.”

“Yeah,” I said, a head of steam building up that I hadn’t even known I had until it was spilling everywhere. It was a tangled sort of feeling, with octopus tentacles of upset. I was livid to see my mother climbing all over the girl in the bed, and the things Eli had said about my family weighed on my shoulders like bricks. I was the odd one out, all over again. They had each other now, and there was no room for me on that narrow hospital bed. “The thing about family is that Shannon was mine, when both of you were as good as dead to me. So if she needs me, that is where I’ll be.”

I grabbed my purse on the way out. I thought they might call my name, or tell me to come back, or even just say good-bye—but no. Apparently not. Not today, and not for me.

I drove around for a while. For all my bluster, Shannon had made no attempt to talk to me since the incident in her car. I had no idea at all whether she wanted to see me. I doubted she even really considered me family any more, after that. I didn’t know if I would, if our situations were reversed. If I’d be questioning what she’d known for all our lives, how long this mind-reading thing had been going on. Calling Wes was dangerous, and calling Eli was desperate. I wasn’t in the mood for either.

I found a parking spot, took my wallet, and my phone, but left my purse in the car. Coffee sounded like a good idea. Coffee, and a piece of chocolate cake, and some time inside my own brain.

I walked to the coffee shop where Shan and I had been, just a few days ago, and ordered my mocha and cake. The barista smiled nicely and got me my order. As I turned to find an empty table, I heard him say, clear as ice, “Nice ass, but no boobs. Not bad.”

I spun on my heel, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but he’d already moved on to the next customer. Who was an older woman, and not staring at him like he was a stain on the boxers of life, so maybe I was hearing things?

There was a free table in the corner, and I sat down. Alone. I took a bite of the chocolate cake—which tasted mostly like ash and chemicals—and tried to think of nothing in particular.

At first, it was quiet. No wondering which guy was lying to me—or if both of them were—or if I’d been lying to myself the whole time. No fear that Mom and Sophie didn’t need me, no terror that I would soon find myself alone. Without a place to live or a real job to support myself. How long would I really last like that?

And then, someone approached my table. He was a middle aged man, his brown hair laced with white, and heavy bags under his eyes. He carried a tea pot, and had the newspaper tucked under his arm. “Is this seat taken?” he asked. “It’s just that all the other tables are taken.”

I looked around; he wasn’t imagining things. There were other empty chairs at tables, but no other empty tables. “Sure,” I said. He gave me a faint smile as he set his things down and opened the paper. He looked nice enough. He had the kind of fine lines around his eyes that a person gets from smiling. His hand shook, though, when he lifted his tea cup. I wondered what brought him here, alone.

And then the floodgates opened. I knew, without any preamble, that he’d killed his girlfriend two weeks ago, and hidden her body in the woods. He read the paper every day now, waiting for someone to find her. When they did, he was going to kill himself. Because he wanted his wife to face as much scandal as possible.

Nauseated, I looked away from him and glanced at another table where a young woman, about my age, sat alone. She’d just told her boyfriend that she was pregnant, and he’d responded with the always classic line, “Why are you telling me about it?”

The businessman at the table next to me was embezzling from his company. Petty sums that he hid very well, and he was proud of himself. The kid next to him was trying to decide if he should kill himself or come out; he wasn’t sure which would hurt his parents more. The two young women, holding hands and too shy to look at each other, had just made love together for the first time. I could see the dark-haired woman’s face cave in and explode as she came.

I shoved my chair back. The table rocked; my mocha spilled, splashing onto my pants, the table, and the murderer. He shot me a filthy look and thought, “Crazy bitch.” I almost started to laugh.

The sexist jerk from the counter came over with a wet cloth and wiped down the table. “Do you want another one?” he asked, staring at my non-existent boobs.

“Asshole,” I said, and shoved past him. I was out the door and on the street before the cacophony of knowledge and voices seemed to taper off. It wasn’t gone, though. I could hear it, too close, disgustingly close. I didn’t want to hear anything more. Ever again.

A long time ago, Mom had given me a for-emergencies-only credit card. This suddenly seemed like an excellent time to break it in.

An hour later, my cold and coffee-stained jeans and shirt had been replaced with a barely legal micro mini and a halter top. I bought makeup, and I made my eyes pop. I painted my fingernails and my lips whore-red. I twisted my hair up, leaving a few tendrils on my neck, just begging to be brushed away. It was early, but there would still be a crowd. In the right place. Which was, as always, around me.

I went back to the club where I’d met Wes. The drinks were made with cheap booze, but there was no cover, and anyway, I was looking for a different sort of oblivion. It was packed, but it was always packed, a mix of townies and kids from the college. I didn’t care who I danced with, so long as I got lost.

There were so many people so close together that nothing stood out in the riotous noise in my head. It was the exact opposite of silence, but I breathed a sigh of relief anyway.

And then I started to dance.

I’d always thought of myself as a good dancer. Like all good little girls in a certain economic bracket, I’d taken ballet and tap classes when I was too young to really remember it clearly. But my body remembered. My muscles remembered. I didn’t know the names of the steps anymore, but I remembered how to isolate my hips, and after that, getting a guy to pay attention is basically a given.

He was watching me from the bar already, in fact. He didn’t elbow a friend, or point me out to a buddy; he just watched. Some girls would be tempted to wink or smile or maybe even flash a little wave, but I’d learned better. I let my eyes meet his, and then they kept moving, like he was nothing I cared about. Like he was no one to me. Because he wasn’t really any different from every other guy who was here tonight. Except he’d noticed. And now he was watching.

He was pleasing to look at, but he was no Adonis. As he set his beer on the counter and started to weave across the dance floor, people saw him and smiled, but no one stared. He didn’t make a ripple as he passed. Not like I did.

When he got close to me, he started to move to the music, undulating his hips and moving his hands to the beat. In the flashing strobes, I couldn’t tell with certainty the color of his hair or skin, but I knew the light that flashed from his eyes as he surveyed my body, and every inch of my long legs. I drank it up like I was dying. And maybe I was. Maybe I’d been bleeding out on the forest floor all this time, but I didn’t care. He leaned into me, fitting his body to mine without touching me, and I let him. Fire flared through me, and he gasped like I was incarnated heat. His pupils were wide, beyond dilated.

The beat of the song changed to something that passed for slow in a bar, and he pulled me in closer. “My name is Jamie,” he whisper-shouted in my ear.

“April,” I reply. Last month, I would’ve said June, if anyone had asked. It didn’t come up all that often.