The One I Left Behind (26 page)

“Of course they’re sure,” Charlie said. “My dad came to her house and said so himself.”

“Well if old Yogi says it’s true, then it’s true.”

“Yogi?” Tara asked.

“That’s what the other cops call him. And a bunch of other guys, too. Didn’t Charlie tell you?”

Tara shook her head.

“Get it,” Sid said. “Yogi Berr? You know—” Sid made a goofy face and said in his best cartoon-bear voice, “I’m smarter than the av-uh-ridge bear.”

Tara laughed and Charlie gave the back of her head an icy look.

“Are your dad and Yogi pretty close?” Tara asked.

“Fuck no!” Sid said. “They fight about pretty much everything. They’ve been competitive as hell since they were kids—fighting over girls, who was the better football player, whose schlong was bigger—typical brother stuff. They can hardly stand each other, isn’t that right, Charlie?”

Charlie gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Provisions!” Sid announced, turning fast into the parking lot of Cumberland Farms, making the tires squeal. Sid and Tara went into the store. Reggie and Charlie waited in the Mustang, listening as a jet flew in overhead, watching as its shadow passed over the car, crossed the four lanes of traffic.

“What an asshole,” Charlie said. “And I can’t believe you guys are actually smoking pot with him. What are you thinking?”

“Tara said it would help,” Reggie said.

“And did it?”

Reggie shrugged. “I’m not sure.” The pot hadn’t slowed down her thoughts exactly but made them seem strung together. One flowed into the next, and on and on they went like a string of beads. Maybe thoughts were always connected like that, but you had to be high to see it. She wondered if it was like that for everyone, and if, when people got together, the strings of bead intertwined, the colors, shapes, and textures blending—if this is what conversation was. She wanted to say all this to Charlie but wasn’t sure how to begin.

“My mom has this theory,” she said, “that there’s this big web connecting everyone on earth. That we’re all strung together with serial killers and the president and the guy behind us in the checkout line at the grocery store.”

“Sounds like she’s the one who’s been smoking weed,” Charlie said.

“So you don’t believe in connections?”

“I believe we’re connected to the people we know. You and I might have some kind of secret string between us, but me and the president? I don’t buy it.”

“Do you think that if there is a web like that, or a secret string or whatever, that you could send thoughts or feelings to another person without saying anything?”

“Jesus, Reggie, you’re so wasted! Next thing you know, you’ll be the one channeling dead chicks.”

She reached out and took his hand. “Close your eyes,” she said. “I’m sending you a message.” She concentrated with all her might, trying to explain all of her feelings for him in three simple unspoken words:
I love you
. It felt a little corny, but still very brave. After a minute, he broke away.

“Well?” she asked, buzzing and hopeful. “Did you get anything?”

“Yeah, I did,” he said, his face serious. Reggie held her breath. He looked deeply into her eyes. “I got that you are stoned out of your
gourd
. It’s a miracle. Now I believe.” He turned away and started fidgeting with the door lock. “God, what is taking them so long?” he asked, sounding much too pissed off. “All we need is for some cop to pull up and take one whiff of the fumes coming out of this car. We’d be screwed.”

Sid and Tara returned with four Dr Peppers and a box of powdered sugar donuts. Sid opened the box and grabbed one. He turned the donut in his hand, pulled it up to his eye, and stared through the hole.

“Have you heard about the hole in the ozone? Now that’s some fucked-up shit. Know what caused it? Fucking hairspray. Aerosol deodorant. Chlorofluorocarbons. We’re all gonna get cancer, shrivel up and die because we want to look and smell pretty.” He took a bite of the donut. “The end of life as we know it.”

He finished the donut in three quick bites, then grabbed a second. The powdered sugar drifted down like snow, covering his faded black T-shirt in white speckles. “So, Reggie, tell me about your mother,” Sid said. “Like, when was the last time you saw her? Did she leave any clues or anything behind?”

And Reggie, feeling comforted by her string-of-beads theory, relaxed by how nonchalant Sid had been about the end of the world, surprised herself by telling the whole story, the highlights at least. Sid listened attentively, scarfing down donuts. He’d finished three-quarters of the box by the time Reggie was through. Tara was just licking the powdered sugar off hers. Charlie didn’t take one.

“Well, no offense to Uncle Yogi, but I’ve gotta agree with black magic woman here—you can pretty much give up on the idea of the cops doing anything. They’ve got their heads so far up their asses Neptune will kill every chick in town before they catch him. Fucking retards.”

Charlie sprang forward, “Hey,” he said, but Tara shot him a warning look, and he sank back in his seat, crossing his arms.

Reggie reached for a donut, realized it was the first food she’d had that day.

“The cops don’t have enough brain cells to handle anything beyond the mundane. Trust me on that one. No, Reggie”—Sid slapped the steering wheel—“if you want to find out what happened to your mom, you’re gonna have to do it on your own. You guys were right to call me. I’m the exact right person to help.”

Reggie swallowed a chunk of donut. It was powdery and dry and didn’t want to go down.

“How do you figure that?” Charlie asked, fiddling with the door handle now, like he was considering taking off and walking back home.

“I might not know anything about New Haven or theaters or actors. But I know the places on Airport Road. I’ve got connections, cuz. I know people who hang out at those bars.”

“You mean drug dealers?” Charlie said.

“Business associates,” Sid corrected casually. “Now come on, we’ll start with Runway 36. The bouncer there is a friend of mine. And I promised I’d drop a little something off for him tonight anyway.”

Tara looked back at Charlie with an I-told-you-so smile. Charlie closed his eyes and put his head back on the red leather seat.

Reggie remembered the last time she’d been in a bar and what it had led to. She self-consciously reached out and touched the new ear, ran her fingers over its rubbery folds.

Sid slammed the car into reverse and backed up fast, missing a cement pillar by only a couple of inches, and then laughing when he finally saw it.

“Would you look at that? You all stick with me. I’m lucky as shit,” he said.

Chapter 27

October 21, 2010

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

R
EGGIE NEARLY LOST HER
grip on the ladder as she scrabbled for her screwdriver. Above her, the door swung open all the way and a figure crouched down, smiling a Cheshire cat grin.

“Need a boost?” he asked, voice smooth as he reached for her.

“Charlie?” she stammered, holding her hand out to his, letting him help her up into the tree house.

“God, Reggie, I can’t believe it’s you. You look great. Really great.”

“You scared the shit out of me!” She scrambled the rest of the way up, tucking the screwdriver back into her belt. She dusted off her knees and took a step back, letting herself take him in from a distance. He wore jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket. He was taller, much heavier around the middle than he’d been back then. His face, once thin and angular, was big and doughy, jowly as a mastiff. His hair was thinner and there were wrinkles around his puffy eyes. He looked a lot like his father, only without the big bushy mustache. Her first thought was,
God, do I look this old and crappy to him?

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said, eyeing the enormous screwdriver. “I heard about Tara on the news this morning. And they said your mother was back. Then I looked online and saw this picture of you and your mother in front of the house a few days ago. I had to come and see for myself. And to find out if you’d heard anything new about Tara.”

There it was again: that old spark of jealousy Reggie had always felt when Charlie spoke Tara’s name. Stupid, feeling it now. Especially now that she looked at him and felt no pangs of love or romance. She didn’t even find him mildly attractive. It was strange to think that this was the boy she’d pined after for years, the very object of her unrequited love. The whole thing seemed . . . disappointing really.

This was the boy she’d grown up with and married over and over again in her fantasy life; that alternate universe where Neptune never took Vera and everything turned out the way it was meant to before some psychotic fuck messed it all up.

“So you came looking for me in the
tree house
?”

“No! Of course not. I came to your house and was heading for the front door when I saw the tree house. I couldn’t resist coming up to take a peek.”

She nodded. She was surprised she’d resisted until now. The tree house, like Monique’s Wish, was showing signs of age and neglect. The plank floor felt springy under her feet; the roof had been leaking. The empty holes where the windows should have gone had let years of rain and snow inside, quietly rotting the wood. There in the corner was the stack of games they’d left behind: Clue, Monopoly, Life, and the Ouija board. The boxes were faded and tattered, chewed through by mice and nesting squirrels. There was a Coke bottle full of Tara’s old cigarette butts. It was like stepping into a time capsule.

“Why didn’t you answer when I called up?” Reggie asked.

“I guess I panicked. I realized I’d look like a crazy person, so I thought if I held still, maybe you’d just go away and I could come down in a bit and knock on the door like a regular visitor.”

Reggie nodded. It seemed plausible. Strange but plausible.

“It’s true, then?” he asked. “Your mother’s back? She’s in the house now?”

Reggie nodded.

“Unbelievable,” he said. His breath had a little wheeze to it, like he’d developed asthma. Reggie guessed he was just out of shape and not used to so much excitement.

Charlie had never been big on excitement.

“Tell me about it.”

Charlie kicked at a loose floorboard. “I can’t believe this place is still standing. Takes you back, being up here, doesn’t it?”

It certainly did. She could almost see the shadows of their younger selves behind them, oblivious ghosts watching the time slip through Tara’s hourglass.
You have one minute to live . . .

She’d been thirteen the last time she sat up here with Charlie. It felt like someone else’s life—a girl she read a book about once. A girl smitten over a boy she’d never have a chance with. They’d stopped speaking soon after Reggie’s mother was taken, after everything that happened that final night. Even if they’d wanted to speak, they’d been forbidden to.

Lorraine agreed to send Reggie to the Brooker School for Girls that fall, using most of the family’s savings to keep her there four years as a day student. But it was a whole three towns away, and most of the kids there were from far enough away that they knew almost nothing about Neptune or Reggie’s mother. It was nothing like the torture going to Brighton Falls High might have been.

Somehow, coming up to the tree house by herself never felt right, so it sat abandoned.

She walked over to the sleeping bags, chewed through by mice and squirrels, and gave them a kick to make sure no rodent families were currently residing there. Her foot hit something hard. She leaned down, cautiously pulled back the tattered fabric and stuffing to reveal Charlie’s beat-up acoustic guitar. “It’s still here!” she exclaimed. “You never came back for it?”

Charlie shook his head. “It was a piece of shit compared to the ones I had at home. I guess I kind of forgot about it.” He leaned down, pulled the guitar out of the tangled nest of fluff. He ran his hand over the body and up the neck, eyes wide. “I’ll be damned” was all he said.

“You still play?” Reggie asked.

“Nah. Not for a long, long time.” He held the guitar against his thick belly and gave it a strum; then his fingers moved into position and he played a few out-of-tune chords. He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it and laid the instrument down, his eyes still fixed on it, misty and strange, reminding Reggie a little of the way he used to look at Tara.

“So,” Reggie said, “tell me about yourself. What are you up to these days?”

“I’m in real estate, actually. I kind of fell into it by accident. I studied marine biology in college and did some research work in Maine for a while, but I got homesick and came back to Brighton Falls. I sold cars at my uncle Bo’s dealership, but working for him kind of sucked. I got my Realtor’s license and discovered I had a real knack for selling houses. I run my own agency now.” He fumbled in his jacket for a business card.

Berr Real Estate, Charles Berr, Broker CRB, BRI

“Any family?” Reggie asked.

Charlie seemed to squirm a little. “Divorced.”

“Sorry,” Reggie said.

“Don’t be,” he told her. “We were all wrong for each other.”

“Kids?” Reggie asked.

“I’ve got a son, Jeremy. He’s six. I see him every other weekend.” He walked to the opposite corner, leaned down, and picked up an old, rusty hammer.

“We had such big plans for this place,” he said, studying the hammer.

Reggie only nodded.

He set the hammer back down. “So, I hear you’re some kind of cutting-edge architect,” he said.

She nodded.

“That’s great, Reggie. And what about you? Married? Any family?”

Now it was her turn to squirm. But she stopped herself and instead stood up as straight and tall as she could. “No,” she said. “I guess you could say I’m married to my work. I’ve been seeing someone a while, though.” She smiled as she said it, though her stomach was in knots. Len had called again last night and left a message that said only, “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to me right now, but please call just to let me know you’re okay. I’m really worried.”

Charlie seemed to study her a moment, as if he was waiting for her to say something more. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat. “So . . . do you think it’s really him?”