I’m back in my cottage for ten minutes when my phone rings.
It’s Russell. Calling from a tiny motel on Route 66, somewhere in the desert between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. It’s a bad connection, and the line crackles and pops.
“Quinn! What happened?” “I think I lost the job.”
“No, you definitely lost the job! Caroline texted me pictures of your crazy ape-shit art project. What the hell is going on over there?”
“There’s something in this house, Russell. Some kind of presence. First she went after Teddy and now she’s coming after me.”
“Presence?” Most days, Russell is a font of limitless energy and enthusiasm—but suddenly he sounds tired and just a tiny bit disappointed. “You mean like a ghost?”
“I’m not using. Caroline tested me.” “I know.”
“This is something else. This is—”
We’re interrupted by a hiss of static, and for a moment I’m worried I’ve lost him. Then his voice comes back.
“You should get to a meeting. What time is it there? Six thirty? Friday night? Try Holy Redeemer. They start at seven, I think.”
“I don’t need a meeting.”
“Are there friends you can call? Someone you can stay with? I don’t want you alone tonight.” And I guess he can tell from my silence there’s no one here to help me. “All right, listen. I’m coming home.”
“No!”
“It’s fine. I hate it here anyway. The weather’s impossible. I have to do all my running indoors, on treadmills, because if you step outside for ten minutes the heat’ll stop your heart.”
He explains that he’ll need two or three days to come get me. He’s currently en route to the Grand Canyon, so he’ll have to drive back to Las Vegas and book a new flight. “So maybe Sunday but definitely Monday. You just need to make it to Monday, okay? Doreen and I will pick you up. You can stay with me a few weeks, we’ll have a doctor look you over. Figure out a Plan B.”
“Thank you, Russell.”
I let my phone drop to the floor and close my eyes. I know I should get out of bed, I should go to a meeting or at the very least make myself dinner. But outside the cottage, it’s started to rain, one of those abrupt summer thunderstorms that come out of nowhere. Wind shakes the roof and water cascades down my windows. I’m trapped inside the cottage and I wish there was someone I could call. I’m dreading the long weekend ahead of me, the long lonely wait until Russell comes to get me. My only other friends are back at Safe Harbor, but I’m too ashamed to tell them what I’ve done.
Of course, there are also my friends before Safe Harbor. I’ve erased all their names and numbers from my contacts, but it wouldn’t be hard to track them down. Philadelphia is a thirty-minute train ride from Spring Brook. If I could just get to Kensington Avenue, I know I’d recognize plenty of faces, old friends happy to see me, ready to welcome me home. I have twelve hundred dollars in my checking account. I can pick up and go, and no one here would ever miss me.
Except Teddy.
Teddy would miss me, I know he would.
I can’t leave him without saying goodbye.
I need to stick around long enough to explain things, to let him know that none of this was his fault.
And so I stay in my perfect little cottage, the nicest place I’ve ever lived, a beautifully furnished reminder of everything I’ve just lost. It rains and rains and the buzzing in my brain is worse than ever—like my head is full of mosquitoes. I smash a pillow into my face and scream but nothing will silence the noise.
That night I sleep for ten, twelve, fourteen hours. Every time I wake up, I remember what happened, and then I burrow under my blankets until I’m asleep again.
At ten o’clock Saturday morning I stand up and drag myself into the shower. It makes me feel better, a little, I guess. Then I step outside and there’s a rock holding a sheet of paper on my porch.
Oh sweet Jesus, I think to myself, I’m really going crazy. But it’s just a note from Caroline:
Dear Mallory,
Ted and I are taking Teddy to the shore. We told him you’ll be moving away, and of course he’s upset. Hopefully a day of beach and boardwalk rides will take his mind off things. We’ll be gone until late so you’ll have the pool and yard to yourself.
Also: Russell called this morning with an update. He has booked a red-eye ticket for tomorrow night, and he’ll be here Monday morning, between 10 and 11 a.m.
We’d like to spend tomorrow afternoon celebrating your time with our family—with swimming, dinner, dessert, etc. Starting around 3:00 if that works for you. Please call if you need anything or just want to talk. I am here to support you during this transition.
Love, Caroline
I walk over to the big house to get some orange juice, but when I try to enter my passcode on the keypad, it doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t. Ted and Caroline might trust me with their backyard, but there’s no way they’ll let me back in their house, not after I drew all over the walls.
I know I should go for a run. I know I’ll feel better if I get out and log a few miles. But I’m too embarrassed to leave the backyard, too ashamed to show my face around the neighborhood. I imagine that news of my deception has spread quickly, and now everyone in Spring Brook knows my secret. I walk back to my cottage, pour myself a bowl of Cheerios, and then remember I’m out of milk. I eat them dry, with my fingers. I lie on my bed with my tablet and go to the Hallmark Channel, scanning the selection of movies, but suddenly they all seem fake and horrible and awful—full of false promises and bullshit happy endings.
I’m ten minutes into something called A Shoe Addict’s Christmas when I hear footsteps on my porch and a soft knock at my door. I figure it’s probably Mitzi, coming to apologize for her behavior during the séance. I yell out “I’m busy” and raise the volume on my tablet.
Adrian’s face appears in the window. “We need to talk.”
I leap out of bed and open the door. “Yes, we really do, because—”
“Not here,” he says. “I’ve got my truck out front. Let’s go for a drive.”
 |
He doesn’t say where we’re going, but as soon as reach the on-ramp for 295 I figure it out. We merge into fast-flowing traffic, connect with 76 West, and cross the Walt Whitman Bridge, soaring high above the shipyards and seaports of
the Delaware River. We are going to South Philadelphia. Adrian is bringing me home.
“You don’t have to do this. Turn the truck around.” “We’re almost there,” he says. “Five more minutes.”
It’s too early for football and the Phils must be out of town because the expressway is clear, no traffic. Adrian takes the exit for Oregon Avenue. He keeps glancing at his GPS, but from this point I could direct him blindfolded. I still know every road and stop sign and traffic light. All the old businesses are still here: the fast-food places and the cheesesteak shops, the Asian supermarkets and the cell phone retailers and the sports bar/strip club that recruited two of my classmates straight from high school. No one was ever going to mistake my old neighborhood for Spring Brook. The roads are full of potholes; the sidewalks are littered with broken glass and chicken bones. But many of the rowhouses have new aluminum siding and look better than I remember, like people have been making an effort to keep everything nice.
Adrian stops at the corner of Eighth and Shunk. I’m guessing he found my address online because we’re right in front of the short squat rowhouse I used to call home. The bricks have been repointed, the shutters have a fresh coat of paint, and there’s bright green grass where our white gravel “yard” used to be. Next to the front door is a man standing on a ladder; he’s wearing work gloves and scooping dead leaves from the rain gutters.
Adrian shifts into park and turns on his flashers. I haven’t seen any of my neighbors since high school and I’m afraid of being spotted. The houses are all packed tight together and it’s easy to imagine everyone opening their doors and streaming outside to gape at me.
“Please just drive.”
“Is this where you grew up?” “You already know it is.”
“Who’s the man on the ladder?”
“I don’t know. Just drive, all right?”
The man turns to study us. He’s middle-aged, balding, not too tall and dressed in an Eagles jersey. “You need something?”
I’ve never seen him before. Maybe my mother has hired a handyman. More likely, she’s sold the house and moved away and this man is the new owner. I wave an apology and turn to Adrian. “If you don’t go right now, I am getting out of this truck and walking back to Spring Brook.”
He shifts into drive and we move through the green light. I direct him through traffic to FDR Park, South Philly’s go-to spot for picnics, birthdays, and wedding party photography. Growing up, we all called it “the Lakes,” because it’s speckled with ponds and lagoons. The largest one is Meadow Lake and we find a bench with a good view of the water. Off on the horizon, against the gray sky, we can see the elevated roadways of Interstate 95, six lanes of cars hurtling to and from the airport. And for a long time we don’t say anything, because neither of us knows where to start.
“I wasn’t lying about the scholarship,” I tell him. “In my junior year, I ran a 5K in seventeen minutes, fifty-three seconds. I was the sixth-fastest girl in Pennsylvania. You can google it.”
“I already googled it, Mallory. The first day we met, I ran home and searched for every Mallory Quinn in Philadelphia. I found all your high school stats. Just enough to make your story feel credible.” Then he laughs. “But nothing on Twitter, nothing on social media. I thought it was cool—this aura of mystery. The girls at Rutgers, they’re on Instagram twenty-four/seven, posting glamour shots and fishing for compliments. But you were different. I thought you were confident. I never imagined you were hiding something.”
“I was mostly honest.”
“Mostly? What does that mean?”
“I only lied about my past. Nothing else. Not the pictures from Anya. And definitely not the way I feel about you. I was going to tell you the truth last night, over dinner, I swear.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just stares out over the lake. Some nearby kids are playing with a drone; it looks like a miniature UFO with eight furiously spinning propellers, and every time it passes by, it sounds like a swarm of bees. I realize Adrian is waiting for me to continue, that he’s giving me the chance to come clean. I take a deep breath.
“All right, so—”
