Nice Girls(36)

My mouth felt dry. I had forgotten about my early visit to Pho Village. I’d come home without telling her—and her father had known about it first. It looked suspicious.

“I’m back for my thesis,” I said quickly. “The research requires a lot of materials here. I can’t exactly transfer them to school.”

“What’s the project about?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “I don’t want to waste your time. You’re supposed to be networking, right?”

“Right . . .” she said, trailing off. “Well, whatever’s happening, it’ll be okay, Mary. The Ivy League can really wear people down—it’s normal. But if you need to shit-talk, I’m here for you,” she added brightly. “And you can come to L.A. for a bit.”

“Thanks.”

“But I should be heading back,” she said, sighing. “Why’d you call me?”

I had a brief glimpse of Mr. Nguyen, the restaurant, DeMaria, but my mind couldn’t connect them anymore. I felt like I could barely talk, the words all stuck in my mouth.

“Nothing serious. I just felt like calling you.”

“Did you get my text?” she asked innocently. I realized I hadn’t replied back to her in two weeks.

“The one about your ex?”

“Yeah. You’ll be proud of me—I avoided Jake like the plague at karaoke night.”

“That’s great,” I said. There was a long pause. I waited for Madison to elaborate, but she said nothing. She was waiting for me to explain why I’d ignored her. It seemed like neither of us was willing to budge.

“I should be heading back. Miss you, Mary,” said Madison. “We’ll talk soon. See you in December.”

“Sure. Love you,” I said, hanging up.

On the drive home, I could hear her voice. She sounded optimistic, breezy. Madison had a future. She was moving on with her life away from Liberty Lake, while I was sinking deeper into it. Ivy League Mary was now wasting away at a grocery store.



Before dinner, I carried a box of cookies up to my room. I ate them alone in bed, my trash bags still unemptied, my desk still unassembled in a corner of my room. While Madison was finishing her senior year, I was living alone in a pigsty.

Through the window, the street glowed with Halloween decorations. One of the neighbors had turned on a mechanical witch. It cranked its arm up and down, broomstick in hand, as a car drove past.

It was Friday, the night before Halloween. People would be running wild on campus, in Liberty Lake, everywhere else. It was an early celebration to start off Halloween weekend.

And the morning after, it would be the day of the search for Olivia.





19




I was in the lake. The water was warm and calm, but the rest of the city was cold, blanketed in snow. I was floating faceup in the water, my body warmed up from the sunlight that peeked through the clouds.

Something brushed against my leg. Nearby, another body was floating in the water. It was DeMaria Jackson, her eyes closed and her face shining under the sunlight. I slowly looked to my right, and I saw Olivia floating in the water, too, her eyes closed. We were all floating together, despite the snow.



I woke up just after dawn. There was a dread in my stomach. It made me nauseous as I lay in bed. I knew what I feared—that I would find another arm in the woods, rotting on a pile of leaves. This time it would be Olivia’s.

But I crawled out of bed anyway. I bundled up for the day ahead, and I beat Dad to the kitchen. When he arrived, I had already brewed some coffee.

“You’re going?” he asked.

I nodded and poured myself a second cup.

We left the house at half past eight. On Halloween morning, there were kids already dressed up in their costumes. Three of them raced around the cul-de-sac on their bikes: two monsters chased down by a fairy. One of the neighbors was setting up a small chalkboard on her lawn, beneath a scarecrow. The sign read: we’re open at 6 pm!

In the truck, Dad drove us past homes with trees covered in toilet paper. We passed by a pair of twin princesses who waved from a bike trailer.

The sun was out, the sky a wholesome blue. It was perfect weather for a Saturday Halloween: warm enough for activities in the day, then revelry at night. It boded well for a search.

By the time we reached Littlewood Park Reserve, cars had already spilled out from the parking lot into the streets. Police cars were stationed at the entrance, monitoring the crowds of people who clustered in the grass. The curbside parking stretched on for at least five blocks from the main park entrance. Around the corner, we saw more cars parked in front of looming two-story homes, their rears sticking out into the street.

“Why does nobody know how to park in the damn suburbs,” Dad muttered.

He eventually parked us at the corner of a residential street about four blocks away. As we left the car, a middle-aged couple came out of the house nearby. They wore matching plaid tan scarves. Dad froze, his hand still on the door handle.

“Howdy!” said the man, waving at us.

“Are you going to the search, too?” asked the wife.

“Yeah. We didn’t know that there’d be this many people, though,” said Dad.

“The Willands are like family to us. We’re not a community if we don’t help each other out,” said the wife.