“…I don’t think so.”
Silence again. I pluck my keys from the kitchen bench. “I’m going to drive to your Airbnb. I’ll wait outside until you let me in.”
Breathing. A short blast of a car horn.
I lean against the bench. It digs uncomfortably into the small of my back. “We’ll talk, okay?”
“About what?”
Whatever it is you’ve found out about me.
“You tellme,Chris.”
“Okay,” he says, and I think he’s going to end the call, but a moment later the noise completely clears. It sounds like he’s pulled over to the side of the road, wound the windows up, shut the engine off.
“You know what I want to talk about, Melanie? The woods on Soldiers’ Road.”
I close my eyes. “I told you everything I know about Donny.”
“I’m not talking about Donny.” He snorts. “I want to talk about the other thing that happened there.”
I’ve been waiting for it, but my spine stiffens when he says,
“I want to talk about Amy Anderson.”
—
I drive down a windinglane the color of toast, past a community book library, crammed with paperbacks. A teenage girl with weedy hair pulls it open, plucks a book out, inspects it before giving me a short, perfunctory wave. I wave back, attempt a smile. It’s a family street: Bicycles lean against porches, clotheslines droop with school uniforms and sheets with dinosaurs on them. A panting St.Bernard lumbers past on a lead so long, it drags on the ground. Three tweens trail behind it, giving me the same distracted wave.
The driveway of Chris’s Airbnb is on a slope. I pull in, the nose of my car pointing at the afternoon sun. I’m sweating, jittery. The cicadas don’t help. They’re screaming in the landscaped bushes like they hate the whole world, and they really want you to know it.
I raise my fist to knock at his door, then reach for the handle instead, twisting it. It opens without a noise.
It’s cold in here. An air conditioner blasts my face as I step past the empty study and into the open-plan kitchen and living room. Oak flooring, stone benchtops, signed jerseys lining the brick walls. Two reclining chairs are aimed at a TV screen the size of my car. Empty.
“Chris?”
I step past a poker table, a stack of green chips balanced on the back of an unopened deck of cards. I reach for a chip, rub the ribbed edge over my thumb. I stuff it into my pocket, and I don’t know why.
“Here,” he mutters. “The bedroom.”
I peek around the corner of the master bedroom, and there he is, flat on his back on the king bed. It’s odd to see him in shorts and a T-shirt. His brick hair is damp and dripping, his arms and legs smooth and milky. He’s sulky and sipping on a Corona, three-quarters full, wedge of lime choked in its neck.
He catches me staring at it, lifts it from his lips, voice sardonic, baiting. “Want one?” He yanks open the bar fridge next to the bed. It hisses out icy air, and I notice the six-pack is five full.
“I don’t drink.”
He jerks the fridge shut, and the redwood doors of the wardrobe rattle softly. I hover in the doorway, staring at the shirts and slacks piled stiffly at the foot of the bed. I turn my face away, hiding a smile. Even when he loses control, he doesn’t.
“I’m driving to Bethanga tomorrow morning, eight-ish,” I say. “I’ll be back in the late afternoon. What time are you going?”
He studies me silently. “I’m getting there earlier.” He takes a pull of the Corona, lime wedge nudging his bottom lip. “I take it we’re still not going together?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Why not, Minnow?”
It’s the first time he’s ever called me by my real name. It’s so quiet, I can’t even hear the cicadas. I wish I could. Wish I could throw my head back, howling, and join their chorus.
