The oven timer beeps. Barbara releases a giant exhale and jumps up.
***
The mountainside directly behind the house towers over the tiny backyard. Dark green conifers darken the fifty yards between the property line and the rocky upslope, which is peppered with even more trees. The trampoline is still there, in the far corner, nestled between shadows of huge Douglas fir branches and pine cones that litter the ground around them. Joey, Sophie, and Elena sit on the low deck with their legs dangling over the edge. Joey is still antsy. Frustrated.
“Oh my god, remember our camping nights?” Sophie says, swinging her feet.
“Yes,” Joey snorts, despite herself. “And the night you swore you heard howling, and I had to go check every hour that we weren’t surrounded by wolves.”
Sophie looks mock outraged. “Everyone was scared.”
Elena shakes her head vigorously. “That was all you.”
Camping nights were typical in the height of summer. The four of them squashed their sleeping bags together, yelping when their flashlights finally died, and cracking up when their shrieks woke Sophie, who was always the first asleep.
“How many times do you think we played Uno, like in total?” Elena says. “Ten thousand? A million?”
Sophie lets out a breathy laugh. “Oh my god, Uno.” Then, suddenly, she perks up. “Guys, our carvings. Do you think they’re still there?”
Joey doesn’t move. The day is steaming by. All she wants is to go through the night Quinn died, find some detail she missed, but she knows Sophie and Elena don’t believe her about the trees whispering,and she doesn’t feel like dealing with that again.
“I didn’t come here to reminisce,” Joey says, and it comes out cold.
Elena laughs out loud. “Neither did I.” She’s already on her feet, hopping off the deck and rounding the corner.
Maybe it’s her perpetual belief in the good of people, but Sophie doesn’t seem offended by Joey’s lack of enthusiasm either. “You’re not even a little curious?” she asks gently.
Joey shakes her head. “Nope.”
Elena peers at her through the bars of the deck. “How could you not want to see our pubescent angst carved eternally into this decking?”
Without giving Joey a chance to respond, Sophie reaches her hand down. “Come on, let’s kill five minutes. I desperately want another Chelsea bun, but I feel like I have to wait a socially appropriate amount of time.”
Joey doesn’t take Sophie’s hand; she just watches as her look morphs into one of profound disappointment. She hops off the deck too.
“Some gnarly spiderwebs down here,” Elena calls up. “What are the signs of a black widow bite? Also, thank god I’m wearing brown pants.” Her voice is muffled, and Joey knows she’s crawling under the deck. It’s only about three feet off the ground.
“I just want to go,” Joey says to Sophie, who she hopes will allow her to escape, even if it’s out of pity. But Sophie drops to her knees and crawls under the deck, ignoring her. Joey turns, catching a glimpse of Barbara through the sliding glass door. She’s cleaning a mixing bowl. The domesticity is incongruous with Joey’s churning insides. But then Barbara stops scrubbing to lean both hands on the counter and hangs her head. Her shoulders shudder lightly.
“Oh my god, we were ridiculous,” calls Elena. “Look at this one.PB&J milkshake. Like, what?”
“I think this one says,sugar babies?” says Sophie. “Honestly, I don’tremember half of these inside jokes.”
Wanting to move out of Barbara’s sightline, Joey hauls herself up and makes her way down to the grass. She sees Sophie’s feet sticking out from under the deck like the house has landed on her, and she sighs before lowering herself down and squeezing in next to them.
“Oh, hey, sugar baby,” Sophie says, shining her phone’s flashlight right in Joey’s eyes.
“Stop.” Joey can’t help but let a small smile break her stony mood. For an instant, she feels warm. A sliver of what it used to feel like. She accidentally bumps Elena’s elbow. Apologizes, but doesn’t inch away.
Sophie points the light at the wood above their heads. This space used to feel so much bigger when their bodies were small and flexible. Years of words are scratched here. It’s strange to see them again, as if her childhood has been condensed to just the CliffsNotes. The four of them came out here whenever they were bored, which was unsurprisingly often. Whisper Ridge is a tiny town. Joey’s eyes catch on a few words randomly. It’s impossible to know who wrote what.Witches, bitches. I hate Tanner. School sucks. Get high like planes.She’s suddenly young, and tiny rocks are digging into her knees, and she’s knocking into Quinn and Sophie, and they’re all laughing because Elena is scratching the wordvaginainto the wood with a box nail.
“Look,” says Sophie, stopping the roving flashlight on one spot. “See the ‘Q + R’ with the little heart?”
Joey looks, and there it is, bigger, more pronounced than the other carvings.
“Who’sR?” asks Elena.
Joey swallows. “I don’t remember that one.” And she doesn’t remember. But she can guess. Her shirt suddenly feels too tight around her arms.
