Never Smile at Strangers (7 page)

WEDNESDAY EVENING, HALEY sat at her father’s grave. “We’re having such a hard time, Daddy.” she told him. “Everyone’s so miserable without you. I just want so badly for things to go back to the way they were.”

As each new day passed, her memory of those old days seemed to fade. There were times when she couldn’t even remember what her father had looked like. Sometimes she forgot how his laugh had sounded. Forgetting terrified her.

She reached out for a dandelion blossom and began picking it apart, tears stinging her eyes.

“And Tiffany still hasn’t come home. No one seems to have any idea what happened to her. I wish you were here to help us. I miss you so much.”

She knew that even if her father were still alive, he wouldn’t be able to do much. It wasn’t as though he were a detective or bounty hunter. He had been a bookworm, a college professor. A slight, gentle man. But it didn’t stop her from aching to see his face again, feeling his thin arms around her shoulders trying to comfort her.

She hugged her knees and looked out at the trash on the side of the dirt road that led to the cemetery. Beer cans, abandoned fishing tackle, a Wendy’s wrapper. The barbed wire that was meant to shelter the cemetery was loose in places and leaning, hardly a protector of anything.

None of the headstones were as nice as her daddy’s or Nana’s. Some of the dead only had markers. Simple license plates containing the name of the deceased, dates of birth and death. Other markers were mere stones, some odd-shaped, some jagged. She noticed a lawn chair had fallen across one that read
Mother
in sharp, pointy letters.

She thought of her own mother. “Mama’s still in bad shape. She won’t even get out of bed,” Haley whispered. “I don’t think she wants to live without you.”

She tried to push back an awful thought, one that had come to her over and over in the months since the accident. Wishing it had been her mother, not her father who had died that night. Aside from Tiffany, her father and Nana had been her best friends. And in many ways, she had been much closer to them.

While Becky had been attached to her mother’s hip, it had been Daddy who Haley was most attached to. They were able to talk about anything, and they often did. She also knew that if it had been Mama who’d died, her father wouldn’t have abandoned them as Mama had. He would have been stronger, even if just for his girls. His princesses.

Several feet away, a branch snapped. Haley let go of her knees. Feeling her body stiffen, she peered out at the woods, a dandelion with no petals between two fingers.

“Someone there?”

Another branch snapped.

Her breath caught in her throat. She squatted, and planted her feet firmly on the ground, prepared to run.

After a terrifying moment, she heard a familiar female voice. “Sorry. It’s just me.”

She saw a hand, then a head full of hair emerge from the brush. In the murky light, it took her a second to realize that it was Erica Duvall.

“Hey,” Erica said, nervously brushing off her t-shirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

She turned to go.

“No. Don’t go,” Haley called. “You can stay.” She shuffled to the other side of the graveyard and sat down.

Erica stood still for a few seconds, as though she was trying to decide. Finally, she walked toward Haley and set her backpack down. “Any news?”

Haley shook her head. “No. None.”

Erica fumbled with her backpack and pulled out a bottle of wine. She twisted the top off and took a swig. “The wind is shifting,” she muttered, holding out the bottle for Haley, but not meeting her eyes. “It’s going to storm.”

Haley studied the bottle before reluctantly accepting it. She had only drank once in her entire life, but wondered if it might, for one teeny moment, help her forget. She took a sip of the bitter-sweet liquid. . . grimaced and handed it back.

“You visit him every day?” Erica asked, gazing at the other side of the cemetery. The side where Haley’s father lay.

Haley hugged herself against the chill in the air. The cemetery always seemed cooler than the rest of the town. “Most days.”

“I’ve seen you here before,” Erica said. “But figured you needed to be alone, so I left.”

Haley watched her down more wine and wondered how often her conversations had been overheard. “Why do you come out here?”

“There’s a different energy here,” Erica said, handing the bottle back to her.

Haley took a longer swig of the wine and winced at its sharpness. She marveled that after all these years she was actually sitting across from Erica Duvall, having a real conversation. Out of all the people she’d ever known, she couldn’t think of anyone she had been more fascinated with. The girl had a dark sense of mystery about her that no one else she knew possessed. Although barely five feet tall and rail thin, she also possessed a certain toughness. Not the feigned toughness a lot of teenage girls tried to exude, but the real thing.

The wind shifted and Haley wrinkled her nose. An overbearing, musky odor blanketed the air. “I smell a skunk.”

“Yeah, there’s a dead one on Harper’s Road,” Erica said, pointing to the dirt road to their right, easing her feet out of her flip flops and rubbing them across the grass. “Lying with his legs in the air. His beady black eyes staring up at the Lord. Not that there really is one, of course.”

Haley could tell by the way the girl slurred her words that she was drunk. She looked at her bare feet. “Aren’t you afraid to go barefoot around here?”

“No, not really. My feet are tough. Besides, it’s better to feel the world around you. People let themselves become too desensitized. How can you write if you don’t feel anything?”

Haley nodded.

Darkness blanketed the graveyard in a matter of minutes, bathing the cemetery in eerie shadows. Erica lit a cigarette and the two passed it back and forth. The orange ember was now the only light in the graveyard besides the dull bluish glow of faraway stars.

They remained sitting, passing the wine and cigarette to each other. Soon, Haley’s head was spinning with alcohol and nicotine.

“You know, this is the longest we’ve gone without talking since we were like three?” Haley muttered.

“You and Tiffany?”

Haley nodded. “If she was okay, she would have called me. But she’s not okay. She’s either hurt or she’s. . .”

The orange ember of Erica’s cigarette grew sharp against the night as she sucked in. She said nothing, but her silence spoke volumes.

“You know, it’s probably not the right time to say this,” Erica said, “but I never liked Tiffany. Not to say I hope anything bad happened to her. I just don’t want to lie to you. Just thought you should know how I feel about her.”

Haley shrugged. “Not everyone likes her. Or me, for that matter.”

“Are you kidding?
Everyone
likes you.”

Haley thought about it and silently agreed. After all, she’d never had an enemy. It had just seemed the right thing to say.

A branch snapped a few yards away. Haley jumped. “Did you hear that?” she whispered, not taking her eyes off the woods.

“Shhh. . . stay still.”

Another branch snapped, then leaves crunched as something or someone made their way through the tree line. An owl screeched from somewhere up high, then a dull, circular light appeared. It bumped between the tree line and the cemetery.

A flashlight.

But as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, and darkness returned to the cemetery.

“Quiet,” Erica whispered.

Haley nodded, and held her breath.

For several long seconds the two sat quietly. Haley’s ears strained against the night, but she couldn’t hear a thing out of the ordinary. Just a chorus of bullfrogs and the night breeze stirring the leaves above them.

Then she felt Erica’s small hand on her wrist, and the girl jerked her up. Before she realized it, she and Erica were running toward Harper’s Road. Fat raindrops began to fall from the sky as they ran. Erica had been right. A storm was coming.

AT THE ANDERSON house, Tom Senior glared at his wife, his face flushed. “I’m not validating that question,” he snapped.

“Validating?” Rachel asked from the edge of the bed. She planted both palms against her chest. “I’m not one of your college students, Tom. I’m your wife! Were you or were you not truthful about ending your affair with her when you said you did?”

She took a good look at her husband and tried to see him from an objective point of view. His hair had receded, the light strands now gray. A hangdog expression had taken over his once strong jaw, and as he angrily waved his hands, she noticed several sunspots.

“I’ve answered that question a million times! I’m not answering it again. I told you the truth, so either you believe me or you don’t. It’s your decision.”

Did he seriously think it was as easy as that? That their world was still so black and white? Even after all of his betrayal, his lies. No, their world was now shades of the dreariest gray. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t tell what was up and what was down, what was true and what wasn’t.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she said honestly, staring at him, her body racked with anger.

His arms fell to his sides. “I’ve apologized. Over and over, I’ve catered to your doubts and tried to make you feel better, Rachel. I can’t do anything more.”

Her laugh was sarcastic. “For your wife, you can’t do anything more? What’s that say about our relationship? Just where are we, huh? Where are we, Tom?” As the words left her mouth, she realized she didn’t want to hear the answer.

He turned his back to her and opened his closet door.

As agonizing as it was, she repeated her question. “You said you can’t do anything more. What exactly does that mean?”

“Just what I said.”

Rachel glanced at the purple comforter they’d picked out at J.C. Penney’s the weekend before, and the valances they’d hung together. The expensive David Leroux canvas they’d chosen on the Internet minutes before they’d made love for the first time in months. That had been less than a week ago. Somehow she had thought the new décor would help them start over. That it would offer them a clean slate. She’d had plans for the kitchen, too, and the carpet in the den.

Thunder rumbled outside. She peered out the bedroom window. It had begun to storm. “So where does that leave us? You not being able to do anything more. You being unable to fathom why I’d have a problem with believing the words now coming out of your mouth after running around with that little
whore
for three months.”

“Rachel!” Tom spat.

“Rachel, what?” she screamed. “What do you mean?” she asked, fingering the bracelet on her wrist with such intensity, it could have snapped in half.

“I’m sick and tired of this game. That’s what.”

“Game?”

“Yes, game!” he repeated. “I’m sure it makes you feel better, but it’s driving me nuts. Fucking insane.”

Had she ever heard him say that word before? She didn’t think so. “Do you know where that girl is?” she heard herself ask, not being able to conceal the question any longer.

He whirled around. “For God’s sake, how should I know? Just what are you accusing me of?”

She formed her words slowly. “There was no accusation.”

He shook his head. His mouth contorted into a grimace, then an odd grin. “But there was. You asked me if I knew where Tiffany was. You were insinuating that I—”

“Don’t say that name in this house!” she shouted. It was a rule, just like no dishes in the kids’ rooms or the living room. But she’d be firmest with this one.

A door slammed in the hallway. One of the kids.

The air was still for several seconds before Tom spoke again. “To answer your question, dear wife, no. No, I don’t
know
where the missing girl is.”

She watched her husband who was now pulling out an overnight bag for a conference in San Francisco. “People at the college are talking.”

Tom paused briefly, a shirt in his hand. “Let them talk.”

“And let them think that one of us did something to that girl?”

He threw the shirt into the bag. “If that’s what they want to talk about, then sure.”

She hated the tone in his voice. How he made her feel so out of line so very often. “Am I such a bitch to ask you these questions? Am I such a bitch to ask if you know the whereabouts of the missing girl you were—” She fell silent, staring at the purple comforter beneath her. It now looked all wrong to her. Childish, like something one of her students would use to decorate a bed, not something someone her age would choose. The valances looked just as adolescent. Suddenly, she had the urge to rip them down.

Tom tossed an empty hanger on the carpet and reached for a pale blue polo shirt.

She retrieved the hanger from the floor. “Am I?” she pleaded. “Am I wrong to ask you? Is everything I say or ask these days so wrong?”

He threw a tie into his bag.

She reached for her wine glass and downed what was left, rage swelling inside her chest.

“It’s nice to see you’re drinking again,” he muttered under his breath. “That always makes things easy for us.”

“Easy?” Rachel laughed. “And you do? You make things easy for our marriage? For the kids?” Her eyes burned, but she was reluctant to let herself shed any tears. She’d shed so many over him. Too many. “Will you at least be back from San Francisco in time for family night?” After making up, she and Tom had agreed that a new tradition would be healthy for the family, so two weeks earlier they had declared Saturdays to be family night.

“I don’t know.”

Rachel sighed and watched her husband finish packing. She felt miserable. Neglected and powerless. She hated her life and what she’d become. “Tommy told me that Kelsey’s sneaking out of her room at night,” she said, a last ditch effort that some common ground might help unite them.

Tom closed his bag. “So talk to her, Rachel. But don’t do it while you’re drunk. She doesn’t need to deal with that.”

The anger inside was too much to handle. She inhaled sharply, feeling as though she would suffocate if she didn’t. “Fuck you,” she said, rising on wobbly legs. She walked to their bedroom door and turned. “Fuck you and the affair. You know, you might as well be a stranger to me.”

She gazed at him, into the eyes of the person she’d once trusted with her life, then stumbled out of the room.