Stranger in the Lake(23)
“Seriously? Why? Who was she?”
“I don’t know. A tourist, I guess.”
He whistles between his teeth. “Talk about a crappy vacation.”
I smile despite myself, a particular talent of Chet’s. The other is the way his eyes, big and green and framed with a thick fringe of lashes, really open up his face, make it seem like he’s paying attention even when he’s not, which is pretty much the only reason he made it through school. His teachers liked him enough to let him squeak by with a C minus.
He steps away from the window, clomping in his boots across the rug and into the kitchen. He doesn’t bother to ask, just moves around the island and flips the switch on the coffee machine. Chet knows his way around Paul’s kitchen, and the two share a taste for strong espresso, which is about the only thing they have in common.
I sink onto a stool at the counter, taking in his grungy jeans and the ring of scruff around his mouth and along his chin. His hair is even shaggier, long and slicked back off his face, curling up where it hits the collar of his coat. I know we live in the Appalachians, but still. He’s taking the mountain man look a little too far.
“What’s up with the hair? Are you interviewing for Hells Angels or something?”
He rears back, frowning down his nose at me. “What’s wrong with my hair? You never complained about it before.”
No need to define what he means by before. Before Paul, when my boyfriends looked just like Chet, all denim and leather and hair one week away from shaggy. Sometime in the past year, Paul’s style, short and well clipped, has grown on me.
“Besides, you’re one to talk. You don’t look so great, either.”
Chet doesn’t have to tell me. I saw myself in the hallway mirror earlier, the unwashed hair I worked into a messy braid down one shoulder, the clothes that look dug from the bottom of the laundry basket, my face pale and shiny with sweat. I know I look like hell. I feel like it, too.
“Yeah, well, you walk up on a dead body in your backyard and let’s see how you look afterward. She was under the dock, Chet, just...bobbing there. She looked like a mannequin or something. Her skin was practically see-through. And then they flipped her over and I saw her face.” I shudder, a chill hijacking my spine at the memory of her one-eyed stare into the sky, at the shock of Paul’s words: No, I don’t know her. “I’m pretty sure my heart stopped.”
Chet frowns. “What, had you seen her around or something?”
I shake my head. “I just meant it freaked me out, is all.”
That’s the thing about lies, that they demand commitment. Once you spout one off, you have to stick to your story, to think before blurting the next words. Even at home, and even with Chet. Especially with him. He’s the last person in Lake Crosby capable of keeping a secret.
He brushes it off with a shrug. “Understandable, I guess. Remember all those nightmares I had after Uncle Jerry’s funeral? The way they just laid him out on that refrigerated table, his eyes all sunken in and stuck together with glue. I don’t care what anybody says—he didn’t look asleep. Creeped me way the hell out, too.”
“Exactly.” I steer us to a safer subject. “So what’s the big emergency?”
“Who says there’s an emergency? Can’t a guy drop by to see his favorite sister?” Chet steps to the fridge, sticks his whole head inside. “Hey, you got any of that pumpkin spice creamer? That stuff was the shit.”
“I’m your only sister, and it’s gone.” I don’t mention that Paul dumped it after he spotted it at the very back of the fridge, half-hidden behind a tub of Greek yogurt and some organic orange juice. As long as I’ve known him, Paul’s position has been, if it doesn’t come from a farm or the organic market, it has no business going in the body.
“Palm oil, cane sugar, artificial flavoring,” Paul said, squinting at the back label, “but you know what this stuff doesn’t have? Milk.” He twisted open the top, turned it upside down in the drain. “Imagine that, a coffee creamer without so much as a drop of dairy. You’re going to grow a third ear if you keep drinking this crap.”
The carton went in the recycling bin and Paul on a mission, rummaging through the kitchen for more Piggly Wiggly contraband. He found all the good stuff—the cheese in a can, the toaster pastries, the fruit rollups and snack cakes.
“Not the Moon Pies,” I said, laughing even though I was serious. When you grow up like Chet and I did, you don’t waste food, and you definitely don’t throw any away. I came up behind him as he rummaged through the pantry, distracting him with a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Just as long as you don’t find the SpaghettiOs I’m making for dinner.”
He turned in my arms, and the side of his mouth quirked up. “You’re joking, right?”
“Yes, Paul. I’m joking.” I tried to give him a serious look, but I couldn’t hold back my giggle. “We’re having Spam.”
The memory gives me a pang, both sweet and sour at the same time. I calculate how long he’s been gone, picture the map of Lake Crosby in my mind. Twenty-six miles of shoreline—the equivalent of a marathon if you go all the way around, which Paul won’t, and he can’t be moving that fast, not after a run and with that backpack strapped to his shoulders. Still, even with tired legs, he can cover a lot of ground in three days.