I shove the laugh back down in my throat and don’t correct him. I pull the hood off so I can see better, and instantly realize the mistake. I toss my hair, trying to cover the side of my face with the scar. The toss is enough for Marvin to take renewed interest in me even though I’m in roomy black sweats and running shoes and not wearing a stitch of makeup. It must have been a slow day for him at the Girls Only House, which is the real reason I’m guessing he stays.
“I’m curious,” I say hesitantly. “Did they find anything when they dug up the pool?”
“Ya mean like a dead body? Whoa, you should see your face. No bodies, sweetheart. Are you missing one?”
“No. No. Of course not.”
Marvin is shaking his head. “You’re just like those damn kids. Or maybe you’re a scout for one of those ghost shows?”
“What kids?”
“The sorority that rents the apartment right up there on the left-hand corner every fall, thinking it is haunted. Use it to scare the shit out of their pledges. Drape skeletons dressed in see-through nighties out the window. Invite their rich frat boys and serve black-eyed-pea dip and trashcan punch, the stuff they vomit up on the front porch for me to clean up. Gertie started charging a premium to rent that apartment. But do you think she pays Marvin more? Nope. Marvin just has to suck it up and clean it up.”
“Why do they think… there are ghosts?” As soon as the question rolls off my tongue, I regret it. You know the answer.
“Because of the girl who lived there a long time ago. The one who got away from the Black-Eyed Susan killer. We didn’t even know it was her until a year and a half after she moved in. She was nice enough. Worked at a little design firm downtown. She complained a few times that we wouldn’t let her gate up the staircase for her little girl. Gertie said it would take away the old house charm.”
Suddenly, his face freezes.
“Jesus, you’re that girl, ain’t ya? You’re the Susan that lived up there.”
“My name isn’t Susan.”
“Shoulda known soon as I saw your red hair. Crap, no one is gonna believe this. Can Marvin take a picture? You’re for real, right? Not a ghost?” For a second, he seems to be truly considering this.
Before I can think, the phone is out of his pocket, the button pressed. I am recorded, with flash, for all time, into infinity, about to be passed from phone to Facebook to Twitter to Instagram-Marvin’s Universe and beyond.
“Great,” he says to himself, peering at his phone. “Got the shovel in the background.”
If my monster didn’t know already, he will soon.
I am on the hunt.
A light blares from every window as I swing into our driveway around 7. Not a sign that Charlie is scared, I remind myself, just her habit of flipping lights on as she goes and never bothering to turn them off.
I spoke with Charlie about half an hour ago. A pizza with Canadian bacon and black olives had, indeed, been delivered, eaten, and deemed “solid.” Everything seemed so normal on the other end of the line. Far, far removed from my disturbing encounter with Marvin. So much so that I had stopped at Tom Thumb to fill Charlie’s texted list of special requests for her lunch: yelo cheez, BF (nt honey) ham, Mrs. B’s white brd, grapes, hummus, pretz, mini Os.
“I’m home,” I yell, kicking the door closed behind me. The security system is switched on. Check. Charlie had even cleaned up the pizza box from the coffee table in front of the TV, where I assumed she’d been sneaking in a Netflix rerun of something on my waffle-y I don’t really like you to watch shows like that list.
But no Charlie. No backpack. The TV, warm. I pass through the living room and set the bag of groceries on the counter with my keys.
“Charlie?” Probably in her room, living inside Bose headphones while reluctantly tramping around nineteenth-century England with Jane Austen.
I knock, because Aunt Hilda never did. No answer. I crack her door. Shove it wide open. Bed unmade. Pride and Prejudice operating as a coaster for a water bottle. Clothes strewn everywhere. Her underwear drawer dumped on the bed. A streak of mud across the floor.
Pretty much as she left it this morning. But no Charlie.
The rest of the house sweep takes about a minute, plenty of time for sickening waves of panic to roll in. I thrust open the sliding glass doors to the back yard, yelling her name. She’s not in the hammock along the back fence line, jerry-rigged from the thick trunk of the live oak to an ancient horse post that Effie had saved from a carpenter’s axe. The studio windows gleam black above me; the garage doors are shut tight.
My phone. I need my phone.
I rush back inside and fumble for it in my purse. Clumsily punch in the new security code that I had to choose after the software update yesterday. Locked out. Shit, shit, shit. Try the four numbers one more time, slowly. Promise myself that I will never, ever update my phone again. Hit the icon.
And there it is, my one-word, God-sent reprieve.
@ Effie’s
In seconds, I am banging wildly on Effie’s door. It seems to take forever for her to answer it. She’s cloaked in a long white nightgown with lace that strangles her neck. Gray hair, sprung from its usual braided bun, rains down to her waist. I’d peg her as a runaway from Pemberley if she were clutching a candle instead of the largest laminated periodic table I’ve ever seen.
“What in heaven’s name is wrong?” Effie asks.
Be patient, be patient, be patient.
“Is Charlie here?” Breathless.
“Of course she is.” Effie steps aside, and there’s my girl, the most beautiful sight in the world, cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table, scribbling in a notebook. I pick up every detaiclass="underline" hair fanned out around her face like red turkey feathers, swept up by a chip clip; the volleyball shorts she’s still wearing even though it’s 50 degrees outside; the fuzzy pink pig slippers; the chipped gold glitter fingernail polish. Her lips are moving, exaggerated, like a silent film star. Save me.
“I was sitting a bit on the front porch swing and I saw a man roaming around our yards,” Effie begins.
Pizza guy, Charlie is mouthing now. Her eyes are rolling and Effie’s still chattering while all my brain can do is pound out, He doesn’t have her.
“… I thought about how your car was gone but the lights in the house were on. Got me concerned. I called and Charlie answered and I went right over and got her. I was just helping her with a little early chemistry prep for next year.”
Charlie points to a plate on the coffee table that holds either very burnt or dark chocolate cookies, arranged in a smiley-face pattern. The smiley face is Charlie’s work, I’m sure. She picks up two of the cookies and holds them over her face like eyes. Definitely burnt.
Charlie’s antics, Effie’s sincerity, the inedible cookies. Charlie and I will talk later about breaking one of my hard and fast rules. An @ symbol and a single digital word do not yet replace an old-fashioned, handwritten note and a piece of Scotch tape. Which means I might as well have just stepped out of Pemberley myself.
“That’s very considerate of you, Effie,” I say.
“Charlie thinks it was the pizza deliveryman,” Effie says, “but I thought he had a stealthy air about him. We both know you can’t be too careful.”
My mind is basking in a warm cocoon of relief when this registers. Is Effie hinting at what we never talk about? Is she, too, on high alert for my monster?
“You know who I think it was?” Effie asks.
I shake my head, numbly pondering all the things she might say that I don’t want Charlie to hear.