The Invited(50)

Helen smiled and nodded. “I hope so, too.” But really, as she watched him limp away, leaving wet footprints behind, she thought he’d been very lucky.

She wants something, all right. She wants you, George Decrow had said.

Helen hoped this was the last they’d see of the white deer.





CHAPTER 14



Olive





JULY 13, 2015

Rosy’s Tavern wasn’t really the kind of place a kid stopped by for lunch (maybe kids weren’t even allowed in there?), but Olive went in anyway.

She pushed open the heavy wooden door with a dartboard painted on the outside and a sign advertising that Back in Black, an AC/DC tribute band, would be playing Friday night. She’d tried to talk Mike into coming with her, but he’d wimped out.

“No way,” he said yesterday when they were hanging out in his old tree fort. Since summer vacation had started, he wasn’t around much. His mom dragged him off to work with her most days. She ran a sewing alterations shop; she also took in dry cleaning and had it sent out. So Mike spent his days filling out dry cleaning slips, hanging dresses and suits in plastic bags, and doing receipts. “My dad and his buddies hang out at Rosy’s. If any of them saw me there, I’d be in deep shit!”

“Suit yourself,” she’d said, climbing back down the ladder and not stopping when he shouted down, “Olive, don’t go! Please?” She hadn’t picked up the phone when he called later, just let the machine get it, her mom’s voice echoing out: You’ve reached the Kissners. We’re not home right now, but leave a message and we’ll get back to you.

The dark tavern smelled like beer and cigarettes, even though Olive knew you weren’t allowed to smoke inside anymore. Not in any store, bar, or restaurant. State law. But maybe people cheated. Maybe they snuck smokes in the bathroom, or maybe the people who worked there lit up once the place was closed down for the night. Or maybe there were just so many years’ worth of cigarette smoke in the place that it permeated the floorboards, walls, and ceiling, clung like a ghost the building would never be rid of.

It was a Monday afternoon and the place was dead. Two sports announcers were doing a pregame baseball show on a TV mounted in a corner up above the bar. There was an older couple in a booth sharing a plate of chicken wings, a pile of chewed-up, sucked-on bones between them. Two young guys in Red Sox jerseys played pool in the back room. One of them looked up at her, puzzled. A man with really bad posture sat nursing a beer at the bar, his body curled in a funny question mark shape.

    Olive walked up to the bar, passing the question mark man, who gave off a raw onion smell. “Do I know you?” the question mark man asked.

“No, sir,” Olive said. “I don’t think so.” She moved down to the other end of the bar.

“Aren’t you a little young to be out drinking?” the woman behind the bar said. She wore a tank top and had a blue apron tied around her waist. Her hair was dry, frizzy, and dyed red, with blond roots showing.

Olive stood as tall as she could and placed two hands on the polished wooden bar top, between two cardboard coasters with beer logos on them.

“You’re Sylvia, right? I’m Olive. Lori Kissner’s daughter.”

Sylvia squinted at Olive. “Sure, yeah. You look like your mom, anyone ever tell you that?”

Olive shrugged. “Sometimes, I guess.” Actually, more than sometimes—at Quality Market, where Mama worked, all the cashiers teased her, called her Lori Junior. And Amanda, the woman who cut her and Mama’s hair—she said, “You’re the spitting image of your mother, you know it? You haven’t grown into it all the way yet, but you will. Then Lord have mercy on the boys!”

She didn’t think she looked much like Mama at all. Sure, they both had dark hair and eyes, but Olive was skinny and bony, with arms and legs that felt too long for her body; Mama was all perfect curves and grace. One time, Mama sat Olive down at her dressing table, put some of her makeup on her—a little blush, some bronzy eye shadow, mascara, wine-colored lipstick that tasted like wax. “Don’t you look all grown up?” Mama had said, and Olive had been startled, because when she looked in the mirror, she saw a strange version of Mama looking back; a Mama imposter, that’s what she’d become. She couldn’t wait to take the makeup off and go back to being plain old Olive.

Now Sylvia studied Olive while she polished a pint glass. “Last time I saw you, you were a whole lot shorter. You’ve shot up like some kind of weed. How old are you now?”

    “Fourteen,” Olive said.

“Fourteen,” Sylvia said wistfully. “Where does the time go?”

Olive didn’t know what to say. She stared down at the shiny bar top.

“So what can I do for you, Little Miss Kissner? Want a Coke or something?”

“No thanks,” Olive said, reaching into her pockets, which were empty. She hadn’t brought any money. Didn’t have any to bring.

Sylvia poured her a Coke anyway, put a cherry in it. “On the house,” she said, setting it down on a beer coaster in front of Olive.

“You hear anything from your mom yet?” Sylvia asked.

“No,” Olive said, touching the glass, watching the bubbles rise to the surface and pop, disappearing. “Not yet.”