Never Smile at Strangers (11 page)

OPENING THE DOOR to her mother’s bedroom, Haley was stunned to see that her mother was awake and photos were scattered all over the bed and floor. Crisp, dog-eared black and whites, and hundreds of newer, color photographs. An empty scrapbook lay on her mother’s bureau, next to a box of tissues.

For a moment, Haley wondered if she’d had too much to drink and was imagining things. But then she reminded herself that she only had one gin and coke. So far. Since sharing the wine with Erica and experiencing the exquisite numbness it had induced, she had taken to a drink or two each day. To cope. Her father had a sizable stash in the bottom of the pantry: gin, vodka and bourbon. She sampled them all and found that gin was the easiest to get down.

Haley set a terra cotta bowl on the nightstand. “It’s chicken and dumplings. Your favorite.”

Her mother smiled. Not the relaxed, genuinely happy kind of expression Haley had grown up with, but the detached, obligatory, slightly drunk-looking one she’d grown used to over the last several months. “Thanks, love.”

“Scrapbooking?” Haley asked, hopeful, moving toward the window. The windowsill was covered in dead love bugs and strands of Wrigley’s fur. The storm had stripped the air of the heat and humidity, and the room was in dire need of freshness.

Her mother shook her head. The tip of her nose was red and balled up tissues littered her lap. “No, just looking at some old photographs, honey.” She reached across the bed. “Haven’t seen these for a while.”

This time, for only an instant, her smile was one of the old, warm ones.

She picked up a photograph and handed it to Haley. It was taken at one of Haley’s swim meets when she was ten years old. The one against Chester Elementary—Theresa Elementary’s biggest rival. In her red one-piece, Haley was crouched in position, tense and focused, waiting to begin her 600-meter freestyle. Haley could still smell the chlorine and feel the cool pool water. She thought about the University of Louisiana, and how she might be swimming right now had she started classes on time.

Her mother set the photograph down and picked up another. In this one, her father was standing at the barbeque grill, a silly grin on his face. He held a slab of meat and wore a white apron that read
Vegetarian
, a perfect example of his cheesy humor. “That one was taken at Becky’s tenth birthday party,” her mother said. She pointed at the top left corner. “See the balloons?”

Haley nodded.

The woman glanced up at Haley. “I don’t know why this one didn’t make it into a scrapbook. Seems like a lot of them didn’t make it. I don’t understand why they didn’t.”

“I don’t know, Mama.”

Her mother’s eyes, now bleary, went to her neck. “That’s a pretty necklace. Is it new? Did Mac get it for you?”

Her mother knew good and well that the necklace wasn’t new. She was the one who had bought one for both her and Tiffany for high school graduation.

Haley fingered it and thought of Tiffany. “No, it’s not new. You bought this for me. And one for Tiffany, too. Don’t you remember?”

The woman gazed at Haley’s face for a moment, then reached for a pill vial on her nightstand. She opened it, popped two in her mouth.

Haley’s shoulders sagged. Every time she thought her mother was getting a little better, she was wrong. She wanted nothing more than for her to get better, and for Tiffany to come home. Two situations she had no control over.

Which reminded her of Mac. An entire day had come and gone since her discovery of the pornographic magazine in his truck. And he hadn’t called or come over. She wondered if she had been too hard on him. If she had overreacted. She wasn’t angry with him any longer, just confused that he felt he needed to lie to her. Maybe she should be the one to make the first call.

She remembered how loud Becky and Seacrest screamed when Charles tapped at Becky’s window early Thursday morning. “Mama, why didn’t you come check on us the other night? Didn’t you hear the screaming?”

“Screaming? Who screamed? Is everything okay?”

Haley thought of the sleeping pills. But that wasn’t an excuse. She couldn’t just leave her and Becky alone to fend for themselves, no matter how much she was hurting. They were hurting, too. She needed to stop mourning and become their mother again.

“Did you know that Becky is hitchhiking now?” she asked, desperate to get the woman to express some sort of appropriate emotion.

“Hitchhiking?”

“Yes, Mama. You should say something to her.”

“Oh, my! I will. It’s so
unsafe
,” she said. Then her eyes dulled and she seemed to be looking not at Haley, but past her, as though she were focusing on something only she could see. She took several shallow, raspy breaths.

“Have you called Mrs. Perron yet?”

Her mother shook her head, her focus still on whatever it was she was staring at.

“You really should call her. Tiffany’s still missing.”

“My goodness,” her mother muttered. But Haley wasn’t convinced she’d even heard her.

“Mama?”

“Yes, darling.”

“You okay?”

“Yes. Your mama just needs some sleep, baby. Why don’t you let me get a little shut eye?”

LATER THAT NIGHT, he lay in his bed, trying not to listen to the sounds coming from his sister’s bedroom. Laughter, both Allie’s and some boy’s. He scowled, staring across his room, out the small window.

He wanted to stop them. What were they doing in there? He hated when Allie brought boys home. She did it to humiliate him.

He could smell her from her bedroom. He’d
always
had a keen sense of smell. Whether he was detecting Allie’s sweet odor, his mother’s mustiness, or the coppery odor of blood, he could do it from a distance that most couldn’t.

Allie was so fragrant, just like a flower. Like an oleander, it’s beautiful pink blossoms disguising its fatal venom. Like the flower, she was poison. Most women were. Most, except for his angel, of course. . . and
very
few others.

He thought of Tiffany, his mother, and the man who lay rotting at the bottom of the pond out back.

In life, Tiffany had been attracted to him. She’d wanted him, wanted to be close to him. For weeks, she had come on to him, but he had ignored her—something that seemed to make her want him even more. Then she’d succumbed to his plans and willfully entered his house.

Allie squealed louder. He clamped his palms against his ears. His heart pumped angrily and his breaths came fast. His skin became warmer, wetter.

She squealed again.

Not able to stand it any longer, he sprang from his bed and yanked his door open. He barreled into the hallway and found her bedroom door wide open, candlelight flickering inside.

He moved into the doorway.

They were in her bed. Allie was naked and sitting on the boy’s lap. She moved back and forth rhythmically, her arms clasped above her head.

After a moment, she turned and shot him a dirty look. But she didn’t bother to stop what she was doing. She continued to rock and just gazed at him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted from the doorway, not sure which one he was talking to. He took a step forward and saw that the boy wasn’t a boy at all. The boy was a man. A husky man much older than he was.

He had a flashback of all of the disheveled-looking men who would stay with their mother for a few hours at night and during some late afternoons when he had been younger. Of the young, pretty, dark-haired woman who came around all the time that one year, only to retreat in his mother’s bedroom for an hour or two.

He began having trouble breathing. His breaths came shallow and uneven and he began to feel weak. The onset of a panic attack.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” he repeated. “She’s just a kid, asshole!”

Alarmed, the man shoved Allie to the floor and bent to pick up his pants.

Trying to contain his rage, he flipped on the overhead light and went up to the man. He shoved him and the man floundered, tumbling back into bed, his pants around his hairy calves.

“I didn’t know,” he screamed. “She told me she was eighteen!”

“Eighteen? Christ, does she
look
eighteen?”

“Leave him alone!” Allie shrieked, scrambling from her place on the floor. “He’s a client!”

It felt as though bugs were squirming beneath his flesh. He scratched at his arms until he tore the skin, then stepped forward and struck the man in the side. The man shouted something he couldn’t make out because Allie was screaming again.

He noticed three wrinkled twenty-dollar bills on Allie’s nightstand. Now even more beside himself, he kicked the man repeatedly. Each time harder than the last.

Allie’s hands were around his waist now. “Stop! Please stop!”

“What’s the money for, Allie?” he shouted, tears stinging his eyes.

She was a whore. An evil, vicious, whore.

She held onto him tighter, her naked flesh burning his. Their eyes met for a quick moment and he could tell that she was enjoying this.

Her slow kill.

“What’s the money for?” he screamed again, out of breath. “What’s it for, huh?”

He had to get away from this place. This house, from her, or they would kill him.

Trembling, his eyes out of focus and filled with tears, he watched the man rise and fumble with his pants again. He snatched up a cowboy hat and a set of car keys from the floor, then staggered out of the room.

A few seconds later, the front door slammed.

AN HOUR LATER, as he sat on the narrow seat of a swing set studying the Anderson house, a boy walked up. The kid tiptoed through the yard until he reached the daughter’s bedroom window. Then, seconds later, the girl poked her head out and the boy helped her down. The two laughed quietly, then dashed across the yard and into the night.

After they’d disappeared, he studied the girl’s bedroom window. He breathed in the cool rain-cleansed air and tried to decide if it was too risky; if he’d be taking it too far to do the thing he wanted to do.

He thought for a few minutes, the polished stone tumbling violently in his palm, then decided it was worth the risk. He’d witnessed the girl sneaking out before, and she had always disappeared for hours. The rest of the house was dark, so the family was sound asleep.

Yes, he’d be safe going inside.

He lifted the window a little wider and pulled himself into the house. Once inside, his heart pounded as he stepped slowly around the room, taking in the dim surroundings. There was a bureau with a ceramic ballerina and a jewelry box sitting on its surface. A dresser, untidy with small brushes, makeup, and a large can of hairspray. He picked up the brush, his hand grazing the strands of hair caught in the bristles. He pulled several out and rubbed them between his fingertips.

The strands were coarse. Probably dyed, not the natural, untainted hair her mother had. But the closest he’d ever gotten to his angel, so he pocketed them and placed the brush back on the bureau.

He walked over to the unmade bed. In the murky light, he tried to guess the color of the comforter. A big pillow lay at the foot of the bed. Embroidered within the shape of a heart was the word Kelsey.

“Kelsey,” he mouthed, and felt the word roll off his tongue. A word his angel probably said several times a day.

He said it again, and bent to smell her sheets. They smelled girlish, like Allie’s. Perfumed.

He lay on the bed and gripped the pillow. This is where her daughter slept. These are the things she sees just before falling asleep, the things she hears.

He glared in the darkness and his shoulders stiffened. Blood surged through his veins, and suddenly he wanted to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake her. Shake her until all that could be seen were the dingy whites of her eyes.

Didn't she know her mother would worry if she caught her sneaking out? This girl was no good, just like Allie. Just like the young girls he saw every day. The girls who looked at him, whispered, and sometimes went as far as to wink, their eyes evil slits, their lips the shade of blood.

These girls were dirty, dangerous. And he was sure they were no different outside of Grand Trespass. He’d seen the same girls on television. They were everywhere, a fucking pandemic.

He ran his fingers over the comforter. It was soft. Softer than Allie’s, the sheer opposite of the government-issue wool blanket he’d slept with since he was a child. He wondered how soft the mother’s comforter would be. Suddenly he knew he’d have to find out. He’d have to know or else the thought would muddle his already crowded mind. He closed his eyes and reveled in the thought. Then, he let himself silently enjoy a delicious memory.

Tiffany had been angry when he stopped to pick her up from the side of the road. Hopping in the truck, she asked him to take her away. Anywhere but here, she’d said. So he threw the truck into gear and they moved up Main Street toward his mother’s house.

Soon, her hand was on his shoulder, then her fingers in his hair. Long, red fingernails, the tips perfect crescents.

“We’re through,” she announced.

“Through?”

“Yeah, we’re done for good this time. He thinks he owns me, and I hate it.”

“Does he?”

She watched him in the darkness, fingering her necklace. Then she seemed to decide he was kidding. “He-ell no,” she said, and a grin spread across her small face. Her fingers again found his hair.

He jammed his boot against the pedal.

At the house, she draped her slim, tanned legs over the side of the recliner as he filled two shot glasses with vodka and twisted the tops off their beers. She complained about her boyfriend, Charles, as she downed the first two shots. He kept nodding, not really hearing her, but thinking of what he might do. Once he’d daydreamt of killing her, but that had only been a daydream. Or had it?

After a while, her eyes began to droop, but she was still babbling. She slipped off the recliner and, wavering, walked to where he sat, her warm breath tickling his ear. He tried to stay calm.

The closer she got, the more torment he felt. His breath quickened and he clenched his fists. He hoped Allie wouldn’t come home. He imagined her walking through the door, seeing the girl in the house—then saying something smart, or stupid. But he knew he couldn’t stop himself. Not now.

She pressed her lips to his, and his body filled with rage. He wanted to grab her by the throat and shake her, but instead he leaned back, out of her reach.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, alcohol wafting from her warm mouth.

He stood and took her hand, letting her long fingernails scratch his palm. She giggled and let him lead her.

“Teeny room,” she commented, as they entered the only bedroom he’d ever known. At that moment, he thought of how well off her family was. And he hated her more. “But cozy,” she added.

No, it wasn’t cozy. In her small way, she was being polite. He pushed her onto the bed and, as he’d suspected, she liked it.

She looked up at him, her eyes weary from too much alcohol. “This is so wrong,” she said, then she giggled.

He nodded.

“But we won’t tell anyone. It’ll just be our secret, right?”

He nodded.
It would. It would definitely be a secret.

She giggled again. Still staring up at him, she brought her fingers to her shirt and unbuttoned it, then pushed it away from her narrow shoulders, letting it fall into a heap behind her. She was wearing a black, lacy bra and he could make out her nipples through the sheer material.

His body grew warm all over. She had full breasts, not as big as the models’ in his magazines, but they were large for her small body. She laughed as she pulled one of the straps from her shoulder. “You know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” she asked, her eyes seeming even droopier than a moment ago.

“No.”

She laughed again. “A looooooong time.” She pulled the other strap down, then reached back and unclasped the bra. Full, pale breasts with taut, pink nipples popped out. The heat grew more fierce. He was getting hard.

She lay back on the bed. “You like what you see?” she slurred.

He stood at the edge of the bed and studied her.

“Touch me.”

Reluctantly, he lowered himself onto the bed.

She reached out and kissed his neck, then guided his mouth to her breasts.

The heat consumed him, flip flopping its way between his legs. He pressed his lips against a nipple, then opened his mouth and pulled it in. His erection pulsing, he shifted his knees forward and reached for her other soft breast and ran his tongue over the nipple.

She arched her back, her long hair cascading behind her. She giggled for the millionth time. “You’re kinda clumsy,” she whispered, barely moving her lips.

The light went on inside his head and he jerked away, instantly softening down below. All the heat in his body gathered and climbed into his head.
She was teasing him.

She sat up, not bothering to cover her sinful breasts. “What’s wrong?” “Did I say something wrong?”

Blood crashed inside his head and the room seemed to shift.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, her eyes wide. “I didn’t mean nothing, honestly. It’s just. . . it’s just that you. . .”

He backed away, disgusted at the wetness in his underwear.

She lay back. “Oh God, I’m getting soooo dizzy. . .” she said, the ugly smile returning to her lips. She giggled, then waggled her index finger at him. “Come back here.”

When he didn’t, she leaned forward and pulled him by the belt loops. She unclasped the button on his pants, then unzipped him.

He was shaking.

She reached in and gently took him out. As she brought him to her mouth, the room began to shift faster. He seized her wrists and held onto them tightly.

“Ooooh,” she purred.

She liked it.

His head ached, not from the alcohol but from what she’d said. What they were doing. He squeezed harder.

Her eyes widened. “Hey, that’s starting to really hurt,” she said.

But he didn’t loosen his grip.

Her eyes darted between his and where her wrists were pinned.

“You don’t like pain?” he asked, looking at her hard. Confusion flooded her eyes.

“Then why would you cheat on your boyfriend?” he asked. “Didn’t you think that it would be painful for him?”

“What?”

“Why would you cheat—”

She glared at him. “Yeah, you’re one to talk! Let me go! Dammit, let go of my fucking wrists!”

He gripped them tighter.

“I don’t go to bed with whores,” he barked. “You should have known that.”

When she spoke next, her voice was softer. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears welling up beneath her eyelids. “I’m sorry. I. . . I thought you liked me. I mean, you acted like it. Look, let me go and I’ll just leave. We shouldn’t be doing this anyway.”

He released her wrists, and she leaned forward, covering her breasts. Fat, pathetic tears streaked her mascara.

He picked up a pillow.

Her eyes followed his movements as she struggled to button her shirt, having forgotten her bra that now lay on the floor.

Ian scratched at the window.

He turned to look at the cat, and felt the bed shift. One of her legs was on the floor, the other quickly dropping.

He lunged forward and brought the pillow to her face. She kicked and shrieked into the pillow, but he pinned her legs with his. She hit him in the chest, and clawed at his skin. She tried to turn her head, but his hold was firm. He felt no pain, just heat.

He felt fantastic, better than he had in a decade. His rage flowed out of him as though a vent had finally opened. A powerful titillation filled him, a feeling much more erotic than the one he’d felt earlier when he was tasting her sinful flesh. Every part of him was now alive.

“It’s all right to be afraid,” he whispered.

She clawed at his neck and chest, but he didn’t feel a thing. Eventually, her protests grew weaker and he shifted the pillow so he could see her eyes. They were wide at first, big green crystals of pain. But then they wilted, and she grew still.

Ian, at the window, hollered.

He turned and glared at the cat. It regarded him, its features unclear from where he knelt, but he was certain it looked angry. He’d get rid of it, too. He took air deep into his lungs, then let it out, finally able to breathe freely.

He stared at the girl’s lifeless body that was now twisted and still. He’d robbed her of her dignity, her power. The realization was liberating.

The screen door at the front of the house snapped shut. Allie was home.

His eyes had been closed for only a few moments when there was a loud crash. He shot up in the bed, and for a long beat had no idea where he was. The room smelled foreign, the window wasn’t where it usually was.

Just as he became oriented, an orange light illuminated the hallway and streamed through the inch of space between the door and carpet.

Then he remembered he wasn’t in his house at all. No, he was at Rachel’s, lying in her daughter’s bed.

The footsteps grew closer. He slipped out of the bed and, as he fumbled to get under it, the door flew open.