Aurora(69)

“What’s going on?” Aubrey asked.

Celeste turned away, now attracting attention she didn’t want. Aubrey saw her wipe a few tears from her eyes, more in irritation than sadness.

“It’s OK,” Scott said. “Just a little run-in, that’s all.”

“With who?”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s—”

She took a step around him, to see Celeste directly. “Celeste, what’s up?”

“I’m fine.”

“Where did you have a run-in? At the firewood house?”

“Yeah. There were more people there this time. It’s happened before, usually we all just agree on parts of the house and divide it up and leave each other alone, but I noticed somebody kept staring at me. He kept looking away whenever I turned—” She stopped, shaking her head.

Scott was unable to contain himself any longer. “It was Rusty.”

“What?”

“He tried to grab her,” Scott said. “I was around the back, and I heard her screaming, and when I came running that fucking asshole had his hand on the back of her neck and he was dragging her toward his car.”

“What? What happened?” It was Phil, who’d come outside and overheard the last bit. Norman and one or two others were joining the conversation now too, exactly what Celeste had been trying to avoid.

“Rusty tried to kidnap you?” Aubrey asked.

Celeste straightened, getting angry. “Could everybody just stop? I’m fine. He kept saying something about my dad, and that he was taking me home.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Scott said. “I am literally going to go back over there and kill him.”

Aubrey held a hand out, trying to keep him calm while she talked to Celeste. “Why does Rusty care if you go home or not?”

“He doesn’t,” Scott said. “He’s just trying to get in good with her dad. They have a very sick relationship, drugs and scams and shit like that. Rusty’s always sucking up to him.”

“My dad’s an asshole and a criminal,” Celeste said. “He can’t stand that I left, he can’t take it if anybody gets away from him, and he’s probably been pissed off about it since the day I got here.”

“How’d you stop Rusty?” Aubrey asked.

Celeste shrugged. “I stomped on his foot, elbowed him in the balls, then turned around and punched him in the throat.”

There was a moment of silence as the others digested that summary.

“Where’d you learn that?” Aubrey asked.

“YouTube.” She looked around. They were all staring at her. “What? That’s what we’re supposed to do. Right?”

“Yes,” Aubrey said. “It’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

“So maybe everybody could stop staring at me?”

They did. Aubrey turned to Scott. “What about you? What were you doing?”

“Watching her in awe.”

“OK. Do you guys think anybody followed you back here?”

“No,” Scott said. “Rusty was on his hands and knees barfing, I don’t think he followed anybody anywhere.”

“OK.” She looked at the open end of the block, where Cayuga met the cross street. The two SUVs they kept parked nose to nose there had been moved back into place after Scott and Celeste had returned in the pickup. The Witzky brothers were sitting in the beds of the trucks on folding lawn chairs, taking their turns on guard duty. “Let’s move another row of cars out, and maybe the Witzkys can stay out there after dusk for a few hours. Just to make sure.”

“He’s not coming,” Celeste said. “My dad’s not coming here.” She shook her head, but it felt like a gesture that was more to convince herself than anyone else.



At sunset, after Aubrey had made sure Frank and Johnny Witzky were still in their lawn chairs at the end of the cul-de-sac with their twelve-gauges across their laps, she hurried home. She was eager to get to the upstairs bathroom before the sun went off the window.

Opening the door, she was happy to find the room had retained an intense amount of heat from the late-afternoon sunlight. With the window shut and the door closed, it had approached sauna-like temperatures, and as she ran a hand through the water in the tub, she thought it was easily over eighty degrees.

She undressed, feeling a twinge in her right calf, which had slipped on a step to the basement while carrying one of the water jugs earlier. She thought that, if she could find a Ziploc bag later that was near enough to the end of its life cycle, she’d make a gel pack with rubbing alcohol and water and see if it helped. It usually did.

Aubrey stepped into the tub, settled back, and closed her eyes. Downstairs, she could hear Scott noodling on the piano. Sounded like a show tune of some kind, mournful and melodic. She hadn’t heard him practice this one before. It must have been something new he’d picked up from the neighbor over on Third. After years of trying and failing to get him to practice the piano, Scott’s overwhelming boredom had finally won the battle for her. He’d gone door to door around the neighborhood in late June, asking if anyone knew how to play the piano and if they might be interested in teaching him. Mrs. Papadopoulos, nearing eighty and alone, had been happy to oblige.