Girl in Snow(49)

A string of lo mein slipped from between her chopsticks.

“Yeah, they’re sure it was him. I know, I know. He was always so nice, wasn’t he? And his wife. Sweet woman, very timid. They have that boy, too; he’s two years below Jay in school. Skinny little thing. Never looks you in the eye.”

That was just the start of it.

The town talked for weeks. No one tried to hide it from the kids. Me and Amy weren’t allowed to walk past the Whitleys’ house, not while Cameron’s dad was awaiting trial. We had to take the long way around the backyard to get to school. I broke this rule whenever possible, dragging my feet across the sidewalk by their house, trying to get a peek into the Whitleys’ living room, to see where the bad man ate dinner and brushed his teeth. The Whitleys kept their curtains shut.

I’d steal glances at the headlines before Terry whisked them away every morning.

“WHITLEY TO STAND TRIAL; VICTIM WON’T TESTIFY”

“BROOMSVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT DENIES ALLEGED ASSAULT”

Lee Whitley never looked particularly threatening. He was slight, like Cameron, with duck feet and a scraggly beard that never looked full. He had pale skin and light eyes, somewhere between green and brown. Perpetually sweaty. Not intimidating. I’d see him in his cop car some days after work, just sitting in the Whitleys’ driveway, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup with his feet on the dashboard.

The headlines escalated as the trial progressed.

“EVIDENCE FOR ASSAULT CASE DISAPPEARS FROM POLICE HOLDING”

“BROOMSVILLE POLICE LIEUTENANT TESTIFIES FOR DEFENSE”

“WHITLEY PRONOUNCED NOT GUILTY”

“His friends got him off,” Ma said, swirling white wine at the kitchen table with the windows open. “Sick. It’s just sick.”

“RELEASED POLICE OFFICER FLEES, LEAVING WIFE AND YOUNG SON BEHIND”

The victim was a skinny brunette with a trail of hearts tattooed down the side of her neck. Hilary Jameson. She moved away after Cameron’s dad disappeared. Once they were both gone, everyone stopped talking about it. A few weeks later, I walked past the Whitleys’ house—the curtains were still closed, but someone had planted a single tulip in a pot on the front porch. It was a violent shade of purple, the color of a bruise.



WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY BUT CAN’T WITHOUT BEING A DICK

A Screenplay by Jade Dixon-Burns

INT. CHURCH—DAY

Celly and Friend sit in a church, surrounded by construction. Above them: a lopsided crucifix. Friend eyes Celly as she fidgets with an earring, impressed by her no-bullshit demeanor.





CELLY


Do you ever wonder why some people have beautiful faces and others don’t?





FRIEND


Genetics?

His words echo through the cavernous space. Celly looks up. Leans in.





CELLY


(whispered)

I have this idea. Maybe ugly people exist so we can understand the human brain a little better. If everyone was pretty, no one would need to talk.

(beat)

I’ve seen your drawings, stashed away in the art room.

Friend averts his eyes.

CELLY (CONT’D)

You make people prettier than they actually are. The way you smudge the pencil. The way you shape their faces.





FRIEND


I draw people exactly how I see them.





CELLY


But isn’t that a lie, if it’s not actually how they look?





FRIEND


Art can’t be a lie.





CELLY


That sounds pretty pretentious.





FRIEND


It’s all about perception. What I see is automatically my truth, simply because I’ve seen it. I’ve interpreted it that way.





CELLY


(in spite of herself)

Fair.

Celly picks at her black nail polish.

CELLY (CONT’D)

What do you see when you look at me?

He watches her.





FRIEND


A knife. An idealist. A rock. Soft flesh.





Russ





Cynthia used to be a ballerina. She told Russ about the big auditions she’d gone to in New York City. Showed him her old shoes, broken and streaked black from marley floors, sweat-stained ribbons tangled around invisible ankles. Put them on, Russ said, a joke. Cynthia laced them up her bare ankles and stood on her toes, using the arm of the couch for balance. She wore a pair of matronly khaki shorts and an old, faded polo shirt. Beaded earrings.

Lee came in from the kitchen and walked awkwardly to his wife. Russ, so small at the other end of the couch. Lee pressed his hands to Cynthia’s stomach, and she leaned into him. Lee’s smell: roll-on deodorant, hours-ago coffee. Wrapped around his balancing-act wife, Lee kissed the veins that bulged out the side of her neck.

Chapped lips, wrinkled skin.

A wound, gaping.



In the parking lot outside Lucinda Hayes’s funeral, Detective Williams plays a game on his flip phone.

Of course, Russ isn’t supposed to be here. But Detective Williams had nodded schemingly at Russ on his way out of the building, gesturing for him to follow like he was bestowing Russ with some cosmic honor. Russ almost reminded the detective that his brother-in-law was a suspect, but he kept his mouth shut and followed anyway. He found it interesting, detective work, in a temporary and provisional way: you could sit down for two hours and be fascinated by this, then you could go back to your everyday world. Your house and its stained carpet. You didn’t have to live inside this.