Beautiful Lies (38 page)

Once we’re in the car again, I don’t say anything for a long time. My nerves are so frayed that the click of my seat belt
buckling makes me cringe. The turpentine smell from the apartment clings to my clothing. Even after I put down my window, I have to breathe deeply, inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth, to keep my nausea at bay as Kimber drives.

“Don’t take me home yet,” I say, as she’s approaching my street. “Go to Nicholas’s house first.”

“I don’t have time, Alice. I have Girl Scouts at six thirty.” I get the feeling she might be lying to me, that she might not have Scouts at all, but she just wants to get away from me as soon as possible. I don’t know if I blame her. But I have to do this now. If she won’t drop me off, I’ll walk.

“Please, Kimber.” I hug my bookbag to my chest. “It won’t take me long.”

“Mr. Hahn just fired you. He won’t like you showing up at his door.” But once we reach the next intersection, after a long hesitation at the stop sign, she turns onto Walnut Street, where Nicholas lives.

The only car in the driveway is Holly’s little blue Subaru. “See?” I tell Kimber. “His dad isn’t even home.” I hop out of the sedan before it comes all the way to a stop. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”

I ring the doorbell and wait, still clutching my bookbag tightly, until Holly opens the door. She leans against the frame as she takes a large bite from a bagel smeared with hummus. “Hey,” she says, her mouth full. “What’s up?”

“I need to see Nicholas.”

Holly continues to chew. Without a word, she turns and walks back inside, gesturing for me to follow her. Nicholas is in the sunroom attached to the back of the house. He’s lifting free weights and watching a rerun of
Family Feud
on a huge flat-screen TV.

“Rachel is here,” Holly announces. Nicholas nods at me, struggling to complete a bicep curl.

I glance at Holly. “Can I talk to him alone for a minute?”

She bristles. “It doesn’t matter if I’m here or not. He’ll just tell me what you said as soon as you’re gone.”

“She’s right,” Nicholas says, grunting. He drops his free weights on the floor.

“Fine.” I take a deep, slow breath. “Remember the party you had a few weeks ago? At the house your dad bought?”

He shrugs. “Sure. What about it?”

“Nicholas … I was in the basement. I was alone. I found something hidden down there.” I start to unzip my bookbag. “I took it. I’m really sorry, okay? I tried to put it back, but the door was padlocked.” I remove the paper bag and shove it toward him. “Here. It’s yours, right? I don’t know where you got it, and I don’t care. I’m sorry,” I repeat, so embarrassed that I can’t look him or Holly in the eye. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking at all, I guess. Anyway, it’s yours.”

I expect him to snatch the paper bag from my hands, to start screaming at me, to do
something.
But he only glances at it with mild interest. “Okay. Thanks, I guess. But I don’t
need it anymore.” He sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. “The tournament has been put on hold indefinitely. My dad doesn’t want us using the house anymore. I have to make a new map.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. My thoughts are a jumbled mess.

“My dad will be home any minute,” he continues. “You should probably leave. You’re not exactly his favorite person right now.”

“Nicholas.” I press the bag into his hands. “I don’t want it. It’s yours.”

He shoots Holly a goofy grin. “It’s not a big deal, Rachel. I can get more.”

My mouth falls open. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the prize.” He pauses. “What are
you
talking about?”

“The money! Nicholas, I stole it from you! Come on, take it!” My hands begin to shake as I clutch the bag, suddenly afraid to look inside.

Holly laughs. “Rachel, relax. He just told you it’s not a big deal.” She cracks open a Diet Coke and takes a long sip. The two of them look at me, bored, mildly amused.

“Is that all you wanted?” Nicholas raises a single eyebrow. “To give it back?” He takes the bag from my hands, turns it upside down, and shakes the contents onto the coffee table.

All three of us look at it. “You know what you should
do?” he says to Holly. “You should spread it out on my mattress and roll around in it.”

She giggles. “You’re so bad.”

“Okay, well, thanks,” Nicholas says to me, strolling away from the table. “You want something to eat? My stepmom is taking a cake-decorating class. We’ve got, like, three sheet cakes in our fridge.”

I don’t answer him; I can’t. I can’t do anything but stand there, staring down at the contents of the bag, trying to keep my knees from buckling as it slowly dawns on me what I’m looking at.

It’s impossible. I
saw
it. I counted it over and over again. I held it in my hands.

But I saw Robin too. I felt his breath on my face. I touched him. He was real, just like the money was real.

Except they’re not. Neither one of them, I realize. There’s no money on the table. There was never any money. It’s a geocaching prize, just as worthless as Holly’s silver medal. At a glance, the bills on the table seem like they could be real, but it only takes one good look to recognize how flimsy they are, their coloring slightly off—and then there’s the face in the middle. It’s not Benjamin Franklin.

It’s Elvis.

“Rachel?” Holly starts to seem concerned. “Are you okay? Do you want some Diet Coke?”

I shake my head, still staring. How did I not see it? “I have to leave,” I say, backing away. “I have to go home.”

“Rachel, wait.” Holly reaches for me. “Something’s wrong with you, I can tell.”

Yes,
I think to myself,
something’s definitely wrong with me.
I once heard someone say that the definition of insanity is when the reality inside a person’s mind doesn’t match up with the reality everyone else sees. The description, I realize, fits me perfectly. There’s no Robin. No money. It was all in my head.

“I have to go home,” I repeat. I think of the mural on the wall at my old house. All the time I spent with Robin, and the way he seemed to know me so well, almost better than I knew myself. How long has this been happening to me? For months? Longer than that?

I run toward the front door, ignoring Nicholas and Holly as they call for me to come back. When I climb into the car, I lean against the seat and take quick, shallow breaths with my eyes closed. For a second I imagine that I’m a kid again, riding in my parents’ car on that pretty day nine years ago, when everything seemed perfect, until it wasn’t. I keep my eyes shut as Kimber starts to drive again, afraid to open them and look at the world around me, preferring not to see anything at all, clinging to the knowledge that at least the darkness is real.

Kimber doesn’t speak to me until we reach my house. She pulls up to the curb and puts her car in park, but she leaves
the engine running. Then she slips off her sunglasses, sliding them up her forehead to use them as a headband.

“I have to go home,” she says. “I don’t want to be late.”

I stare past her, at my house. All I want is to go inside and find my sister there, waiting for me. I want her to explain everything that’s happened over the past few days. I want someone to confide in, someone who understands me and doesn’t think I’m crazy. I used to think Rachel was the only true friend I had, aside from maybe Robin. I’m starting to believe that I don’t have anyone, that even my bond with my own sister has been a figment of my imagination.

“You have to tell your aunt and uncle what’s going on,” Kimber says. “They need to be looking for Rachel.”

The night at the fair seems like it happened so long ago. Who knows if my memory of the events that evening is even accurate? I’m not certain of anything. I thought I was different, that I was special, just like my grandma. Now I realize, what’s most likely is that neither one of us is special at all. We’re just crazy.

“Kimber?”

She sighs. “Yeah?”

“When we were talking earlier today in the bathroom, I started to tell you what happened to the Captain, but I didn’t finish the story. I never told you how he died.”

She doesn’t even bother to feign interest. “You can tell me some other time.”

“No. I want to tell you now.”

“Alice,” she says, frustrated, “it’s not important.”

“Yes it is,” I insist. “Something happened that day after they took Rachel to the hospital.” I bite the inside of my cheek, hard, until I can taste blood. “Something happened to the Captain.”

“Okay,” she says, obviously humoring me, “what happened?”

“After my parents took Rachel to the hospital, and after my grandma bandaged up my leg, she put the Captain on the back porch. She tied his leash to the railing so he couldn’t get away. We could see him from the kitchen door. My grandma cut me a slice of angel food cake with strawberries, and then she went upstairs to change her clothes. I was alone in the kitchen.”

I pause, waiting for Kimber to give me a sign that she’s listening. She opens her purse and removes a stick of gum. Then she puts it in her mouth and starts to chew loudly, making it clear that she wants me to hurry up and finish so she can get the hell out of Crazytown.

“I sat there eating my cake, getting more and more angry with the Captain. My leg was throbbing. I was thinking about my sister at the hospital; I was worried about her. I started wishing that something terrible would happen to the dog. After a few minutes, I went onto the back porch where he was lying down, asleep. I put my hands on his body. I could feel him breathing. I hated him so much at that moment—I know it was wrong, and that he was just being a dog, but I
was only a little girl. Kimber, I stood there touching him for what felt like an hour. He was twitching in his sleep, like he was having a dream. Then he stopped. It happened all of a sudden. One minute he was breathing, the next minute he wasn’t. I could feel the life leaving his body. I know that sounds crazy.” I pause. “I thought I could feel the energy leaving his body. I thought I was taking it from him.”

Our next-door neighbor walks past with her dog. She flashes us a suspicious look, leaning down to peer inside the car. Kimber wiggles her fingers in a friendly wave, like nothing in the world is the matter.

I stare out my window at TJ’s house. His front yard is neatly manicured, the lawn recently mowed, the flowerbeds free of dead leaves or other debris from last night’s hard rain. At the edge of the property, there is a round burst of tiny yellow flowers peeking up from the frays of the lawn. They are the same kind of flowers, I realize, that Rachel has been collecting for who knows how long.

“Alice,” Kimber says, once my neighbor is farther down the street, “I can’t listen to this anymore.”

I nod. “I understand. I know it wasn’t real, Kimber. I know he just happened to die, and that it was all a big coincidence. But my grandma believed me. She told me it would be our secret. And I trusted her, you know? I wanted to believe her so badly.”

Kimber closes her eyes and leans back in her seat. She presses her palms against her face and takes a few deep breaths. “You need to go home,” she whispers.

“Kimber, what if none of this is real? What if
you’re
not real? What if this is all—”

“Just stop,” she interrupts, shaking her head. “I mean it, I want you to go. This is too much for me right now. I can’t do it, Alice. I’m sorry.”

She turns away, waiting for me to get out of the car. I’m having trouble fighting back tears. My world, I realize, does not make sense to anyone but me.

I get out of the car. Once I’m on my front porch, I turn around to watch her pull away without another glance in my direction.

When I walk into my house, I freeze. I drop Rachel’s bookbag onto the hardwood floor.

My aunt and uncle are sitting on the living-room sofa with Sean Morelli. TJ is with them.

My aunt is crying. She’s holding a sheet of sketch paper in her lap. It’s the drawing I did yesterday of Charlie, asleep with the kittens.

Sean Morelli won’t look at me. TJ is glaring. My uncle’s whole face is bright red.

“Alice,” he says.

I nod. “Yes. It’s me.”

He puts his head in his hands. My aunt’s cries turn into sobs. “What did you do?” she demands, staring at me. Her expression is pure heartbreak, a combination of anger and horror directed at me alone. As she stands up, the drawing of Charlie and the kittens drifts to the floor. My uncle reaches toward her, trying to pull her back into her seat.

“What did you do?” she repeats, screaming now, struggling to get away from my uncle, trying to lunge at me.

What did I do?
I cannot find my voice. I open my mouth to speak, but the words won’t come out. In my mind, I hear them over and over again:
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

My aunt and uncle seem almost paralyzed with anger and disappointment. After a long silence, it is Sean Morelli who finally takes me gently by the arm and guides me toward the oversize chair in the corner of the room. As we walk past TJ, I stop, even as Sean tries to pull me farther along.