The House in the Pines(38)

When she came across the obituary of an eighty-year-old woman, a dark thought crossed Maya’s mind, and she added “death” to her query. This yielded more obituaries and several articles. Hood River’s population was under eight thousand, so it wasn’t long before she found an article about a woman named Ruby Garza who’d died in a fire ten years ago. She’d been nineteen, a first-year at Columbia Gorge Community College who had recently moved into an apartment close to downtown. Ruby fell asleep without blowing out a candle beside her bed, and never woke. She was alone. Her hair was black, her eyes brown, and her face still childlike in the grainy black-and-white photo. She died less than two months before Maya met Frank at the library. Right around the time he left Hood River and moved to Pittsfield.





TWENTY-ONE




Aubrey answers the door in the oversized Tweety Bird shirt that she wears to bed, but she doesn’t look like she’s been sleeping.

“Hey, sorry about this.”

Aubrey watches Frank drive away, catching only a glimpse of his face. “No worries,” she says. But her voice is frosty, her gaze cool. “Guess he didn’t want to meet me?”

“Oh, I—” Maybe she should have introduced them after all. “Just didn’t seem like a good time.”

Aubrey leads her inside. The lights are off, the living room dark aside from the blue glow of the Law & Order rerun on TV. They walk quietly past Aubrey’s stepdad, asleep in his recliner, a beer in the cup holder. Maya is surprised he’s asleep; that Aubrey’s ten-year-old brother, Eric, isn’t sprawled on the floor playing his Game Boy; that Aubrey’s mom can’t be heard talking on the phone or doing an exercise video in the basement. This house is usually much louder than Maya’s. She feels terrible for being late.

Nothing from Aubrey as they enter her room. A Tender Wallpaper song wafts from the headphones on the bed; Maya recognizes the slow drums. A can of orange soda on the nightstand. A freshly smoked cigarette hangs in the air, but the whole house smells like cigarettes, so no one will know. Christmas lights frame the open window. Maya’s mouth hangs open when she sees the time on the alarm clock. 11:42 p.m. She’s three hours late. “Wow, I’m really sorry,” she says. “I was about to bike over here when Frank showed up at my house. He was just going to stay a few minutes, but then we started talking, and . . .”

Aubrey peers at her. “What are you on?”

“What? Nothing.”

Aubrey narrows her eyes. She sits on her bed, stops the CD on her Discman. “So what happened?”

Maya sits beside her, cross-legged. A soft wind blows in the window, cool with night. Her uneasiness recedes as she tells Aubrey about their kiss and the talk that led up to it. Maya’s wanted this for what feels like so long—but Aubrey seems unimpressed. Uninterested even. “So that’s why you’re late?” she asks. “Because you were making out with Frank?”

“No, we talked too. He told me more about his cabin.”

A smirk flicks across Aubrey’s face. “The one he’s building in his dad’s backyard?”

“Not in the backyard,” Maya says with a sliver of resentment. “His dad has property out by the state forest. The cabin’s in the woods, and Frank finished it. He’s taking me to see it tomorrow at one.”

“He’s taking you to a cabin in the woods. What is this, a horror movie?”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew him.”

“Really?”

“Look, I said I was sorry. And I am. I should’ve been here at nine.”

Aubrey softens, but questions swim in her eyes. Maya wonders if Aubrey is jealous. She’s never thought this before, but her suspicion grows when Aubrey seems to lose interest in the topic of Frank and suggests they watch a movie, an ’80s slasher film where a man in a mask hunts teenagers.

They watch it on an old TV-VCR combo that Aubrey bought at a garage sale. The movie is from a garage sale too, bought with the money she made as a bagger at Big Y. The movie is gory and terrible. Usually they’d be making jokes through the whole thing, but tonight, after a few quips from Maya, they just watch, and with every murder, Aubrey’s choice feels more passive-aggressive. She’s so quiet when it’s over that Maya thinks she’s asleep, so she turns off the TV and lies beside Aubrey in bed. The day was hot, but the night air is cold, so she gets beneath the blanket. Closes her eyes.

“What happens when you go away to college?” Aubrey asks.

“Huh?”

“With you and Frank. What happens when you leave?”

“I don’t know,” Maya says. “Maybe I’ll defer.” Only as the words leave her mouth does she realize she’s considering it, but now that she’s said it, she knows it’s true.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Plenty of people take a gap year,” Maya says, surprised she hadn’t thought of it before. What does it matter if she starts at BU next year instead of next week?

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Aubrey asks.

Maya doesn’t know how to answer. Nothing is wrong with her. And who is Aubrey to criticize her for staying? Aubrey will be here too, still working at Big Y while attending Berkshire Community College. She had said it wasn’t worth taking out loans to go anywhere else, that community college was fine, more than anyone else in her family had done.