Dead Letters(79)

“Where you can find everybody else this time of the evening: at the brewery. Least that’s what his mom says.”

I tap my feet on the floor, thoughtfully. Technically, I could probably walk to the brewery, which is just a few miles from here. God knows I’ve walked home from there, after closing the place out and being either too drunk to drive home or the only person left standing in the parking lot. I don’t want to ask Wyatt for favors; it makes me feel needy, incapable. But I’m not sure I trust myself to spend time at the brewery and remain in any state to drive home.

While I’m deliberating, Wyatt makes it simple: “Need a ride? I was just headed out there.”

“Oh. Yeah. That’d be good. I was just trying to decide whether or not to take the tractor up there.”

Wyatt laughs. “That’d be a sight. I’d like a picture of that, make sure all your cosmopolitan friends in Paris get to see it.”

I snort, imagining Nico smiling over a picture of me driving the tractor to the bar. This causes a narrow band to squeeze my rib cage, constricting my breath and making me skitter away from the thought.

“Ten minutes?” Wyatt asks, and I bob my head, even though I’m on the phone and he can’t see. When we were teenagers, we played a guessing game, trying to imagine what the other was doing. At some point, this inevitably turned kinky. Talking late into the night, slowly unbuttoning pajamas and feeling the tension build through the phone lines.

“See you in ten.” I hang up the phone and skip around the room with light feet, presumably still channeling my former self. With a giggle, I stoop down to change into one of Zelda’s costumes, then pause, bent in a half downward dog, about to root through her bazaar of fabric. I don’t want to dress like Zelda right now.

I cross the hall, into my white room, and look at my suitcase, neatly stowed at the foot of my bed. I haven’t unpacked anything but have refolded each garment and nestled it back into this wheeled caravan, refusing my clothes even temporary accommodations on the racks of my childhood. But I realize I don’t want to wear any of my clothes from Paris, either; few things would look more out of place than one of my slinky Zadig & Voltaire tops, all subtle sequins (I didn’t think such a thing existed until I moved to Paris) and charcoal grays. I turn to my old closet.

I try on a handful of old, larger dresses, from my old, larger days. Absently, I swish around in the spacious gowns, feeling them hang off my bones. With a sudden flush of shame, I realize what I’m doing and pull the last dress over my head, not bothering to unzip it.

I realize that I will likely be late now, as Wyatt is an on-time kind of guy. But he can wait for me downstairs. I snag a snug dress with a flared skirt, striped with thick swaths of navy blue and white; this dress is not loose, and I have to bend my elbows creatively to get the zipper all the way up my back. That is a skill I didn’t have to learn until I moved away from my sister, who always fastened me in. I smooth the dress over my hips and look critically at myself in the mirror. It fits as it did in my senior year of high school. A small miracle. I took something of a gamble in yanking out such a formfitting garment; if I hadn’t succeeded in getting the zipper up, I might very well have spent the rest of the night clinging to cold ceramic. I dab on some red lipstick and try to smooth my coarse curls. I wish I had an hour to straighten and tame them, like I used to in high school. I settle for pinning back the frizziest, most uncooperative pieces.

I’m fussing over a gutted tub of eye shadow when I hear the truck pull into the drive.

Wyatt smiles at me when I meet him at the door; he is visibly relieved to see me, Ava, rather than the Zelda apparition I have been dressed as for the last few days. Instead of inviting him inside, I follow him out to his truck and hop in.

“You seem cheerful,” Wyatt notes. “Good day?” The question is laced with skepticism and censure, a reminder that I should be mourning, or at least shell-shocked. Oh, but what the hell.

“Actually, yes. I read most of the third book of Game of Thrones.” As I say this, I feel a sudden sense of worry about my drastically improved spirits. All through our childhood, Nadine was inclined to moments of intense despair, followed shortly by hyperactive periods of glee. She would spend three days barely opening her eyes and then would lace up her running shoes and disappear for two hours, returning sparkle-eyed and exuberant, frenziedly cleaning the house and proposing various plans. This would last for a spell, until she would suddenly return to her miserable brooding. We always thought it was just a personality trait, an inclination toward moodiness, only now I can’t help but wonder if it was a symptom all along. If I have that same symptom. I squirm unhappily. “So, this Kayla Richardson girl. Do you know her at all?” I ask.

“I mean, yeah, a bit. She’s a few years younger than us, think she graduated in 2012? Kinda flighty, in trouble a lot at school.”

“I recognize her name, but I never spent much time with her. And Kyle was a bit notorious, obviously. Fucking twat.”

Wyatt snorts in acknowledgment. “Yes, he was. Is.” He shakes his head then continues: “Anyway, it seems both Kyle and Mrs. Richardson are pretty sure Zelda had something to do with Kayla’s disappearance. I think the fire has them nervous.”

After a long pause, reluctant to vocalize it, I ask, “Do you think Kayla is the one in the barn?”

Wyatt bites his lip. “Could be,” he finally says. “Christ. Man. If Zelda killed her…”