Hollow Back Girl Page 10

  “Good, how are you?” I recognized her, probably from high school, but that was about as far as my brain could go. I looked her over, tried to capture a stray bit of realization from her appearance. Her face was round, her dark pixie cut hair revealing a broad forehead. Smile lines bordered her brown eyes and her nose was wide but short. Her outfit was sensible, jeans and a T that showed evidence of young children or mild stomach flu.

  Another woman came around the corner behind her, half-paying attention to a can of soup in her hand, and suddenly it all came back to me.

  “Oh my god, hi!” I said, interrupting Megan before she could quite answer my question. The other woman, Ashley Wolitzer looked up, startled. She looked older than I remembered her, of course, but the years had been good to her. I remembered baby-fat cheeks and acne distracting you from her great smile and pretty eyes. She'd thinned up, grown out her dark curls, and aged out of the acne. When she met my eyes, she smiled, but it was tired, exhausted.

  “Gwen?” she asked, her voice strained as if through the dregs of a head cold.

  “Yes! How are you guys?” I looked between them, then at the little boy who rounded the corner behind Ashley and climbed onto the side of the cart.

  “We’re good. Haven’t seen you since high school. I thought you moved to Oregon?” Ashley asked, rubbing the little boy’s head in a motherly way that exasperated him.

  “Washington, actually. I moved to Seattle for college and just stayed there.” I glanced between them, unable to keep the smile off my face. “You two together?” I asked before I could control myself.

  Delight puffed out of Meghan and she turned to give Ashley a slightly shy smile. I felt Chloe’s curiosity as she stepped up next to me. Ashley looked between us, surprise sparking mildly, having trouble getting through a haze of discomfort and exhaustion I recognized as sickness.

  “We are. What about you two? No more Stan?”

  “Ah,” I said, glancing at Chloe. “No more Stan, but she’s just a friend.”

  “Chloe Warren,” she said, leaning forward to shake hands with each of them. “Nice to meet you.”

  The little boy on the side of the cart shifted his grip to stab pudgy fingers through the grated side and push himself back and forward rapidly. I felt impatience within him and it made me laugh. The little girl in the cart’s seat was unbothered by the delay.

  “You back in town for Thanksgiving?” Ashley asked. I nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s been awhile since I visited; everything’s so different—quieter even, you know?”

  “Mommy!” the little boy demanded, cutting me off. Ashley glanced down, patted him on the head again, making him jerk away as if she’d slapped him.

  “Shh,” she admonished quietly. He yanked himself closer to the cart and obeyed, but he wasn’t happy about it. After a moment, he dropped down, stuffing his hand in his pocket and pulling out a little gold disk.

  “How’s your family?” Meghan asked. I shrugged.

  “Pretty good. Robin has three kids, now, Thomas is … we’re not really sure what he’s doing.”

  “And you?”

  “Oh,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m a therapist. Nothing too exciting.”

  “That’s great!” Meghan said. “Not married?”

  “Ah,” I said, not wanting to go into the details of my sordid past and why Stanley Sneedley was my ex-husband. “Nope.”

  “Do you keep in contact with Stan? We’ve read his books and they’re really good. The new one’s out this week, I believe?”

  “I think so, yeah.” I nodded. I had no idea, to be honest. Chloe piped up.

  “Yes! The Floating Airship is supposed to be really good. I’m pretty excited.” Confusion tinged her psyche as she glanced down at the little boy. Following her lead, I gestured to the kids.

  “And who are these little ones?”

  “This is Penelope and that’s Samuel.”

  “Aww, they’re adorable. How old?” I glanced over to find Chloe had crouched down and was speaking quietly to Samuel. He wasn’t sure if he appreciated the action, but I got the feeling that was part and parcel when it came to Samuel.

  Meghan, Ashley, and I all chatted for a bit longer, catching up in that somewhat impersonal way you do when you run into people you knew as a kid but have nothing in common with as an adult. Ashley was a trooper, but I could tell without even asking that she felt like hell the whole time.

  I cut the conversation short for her sake, making excuses about needing to get back home, but Ashley was polite, not looking thrilled to end the conversation or anything. Samuel, on the other hand, wailed a frustrated, “finally!” which made us all laugh.

  “That was nice,” Chloe said, once we’d finished shopping and gotten back to the car. “You knew them in high school?”

  “Yeah, we had a LGBT club that some kid started and then never actually attended. Meghan had the biggest crush on Ashley, but I don’t think she knew it. I could always feel it, but she never said anything and always had a boyfriend. I’m glad to see she figured herself out.”

  “You were in the club?”

  “I was, but it wasn’t really a thing. Mainly it was six of us and we’d just hang out at a fast food joint around the corner after school once a week and rail about the unfairness of discrimination—as if any of us had any idea what we were talking about. I don’t even really remember doing anything useful. We didn’t change lives or anything.”

  “I don’t know; I bet they’d disagree. They probably found each other through the club.”

  “Maybe,” I said, leaving the parking lot. “I stopped showing up a few weeks after, when I started dating Stan, just because being with him was more fun.”

  “I’ll bet,” Chloe murmured. Ignoring her teasing, I changed the subject.

  “What were you and the kid talking about?”

  “Oh right,” Chloe said, shifting. She tucked a finger into her pocket, slid out the gold coin Samuel had been fingering. “Got this from the kid. Do you know where he got it?”

  “One of those treasure bins in the toy store?”

  “No, from a friend of his, whose dad got it in the forest.”

  “So?”

  “So, this is real gold. I mean, the genuine article. Samuel said his friend had a bunch of them and he took one.”

  “He stole it from his friend and you stole it from him?”

  “I didn’t steal it,” she said, though she wasn’t feeling entirely honest. I lifted a brow, gave her a cynical squint as we waited for a red light to go green. “I bribed him.”

  “With what?” I asked, laughing at her embarrassed admission that she’d had to hoodwink a kid.

  “A piece of candy.”

  “Oh sure, you’ll let him have candy. Wait, you said forest?” I asked, memories of what Owen had said poking eagerly into my consciousness.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “There are people missing, people who went camping in the forest. Maybe it’s related.”

  “Maybe. I grabbed it figuring we could get Izzy to look it over, tell us what he thinks of it.”

  “If there isn’t chocolate inside that gold coin, I doubt he’ll be interested.”

  “Maybe. But we have to try. It could be a clue.”

  “Did I tell you about the camping before?” I asked, lost, wondering why she’d thought to grab the coin from the kid at all.

  “Owen’s here, right?” she said, though a bump of frustrated regret nudged my elbow, confusing me. “It looked legit, like something a kid shouldn’t have. I figured, you know, maybe this is a clue as to what he’s here after?”

  “You …” I trailed off, trying to parse why her words felt weird. She wasn’t lying, but something wasn’t right. “How did you know it wasn’t—oh, wait, my phone’s ringing.” I fished it out of my pocket, glancing at it, but unwilling to fight with it while driving. “Looks like it’s Owen.”

  Chloe grabbed the phone, answering eagerly.

  “Hello darling,�
� she purred. I felt amusement roll out of her, though I couldn’t hear what was going on at the other end of the phone.

  “No, she’s here but she’s driving.” Chloe paused, shifted in her seat. “Is that so?” Annoyance flashed but her posture and expression remained mild. “Yeah, okay. I’ll let her know. Any particular time?”

  “For what? What’s going on?” I asked, turning down my parents’ cul-de-sac.

  “Okay, I’ll tell her. Bye.” Chloe hung up, handed the phone back.

  “He’s not going to be able to meet you as soon as he thought; he’s got more sources or something to meet this afternoon, but he’s hoping he can get away in time to take you to dinner.”

  “Hmmph,” I groused, turning off the car. “That was not the answer I was hoping for.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” She patted my knee, shifted to grab the grocery sack out of the back seat. “On the plus side, that gives us more time to interrogate Izzy and see if you’ll actually be bringing anything useful to Owen.”

  “I’m bringing me; I’m useful.”

  “Yes, but not in a way that helps him keep his pants on.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Izzy, the coin isn’t made of chocolate.”

  Izzy turned to Chloe, staring blankly as if processing her words, and then slid the coin out from between his teeth. He frowned at her and then shook his head.

  “I know that. I’m just checking it out. It’s gold.”

  “Yes, we said that,” I pointed out. “We need to know where it came from.”

  “Looks like you got it from a kid named Samuel James Chatterton-Wolitzer. That’s a mouthful,” Izzy explained, tucking the coin back between his teeth as if to demonstrate. “He had Frosted Ducks cereal for breakfast.” Izzy’s eyes went a little blurry as if he could taste the sugary, puffed wheat cereal that claimed to be a healthy choice for breakfast.

  I’ve had those things and I love them so you know they can’t be good for you.

  “So, where did Samuel get it from?”

  “Hmm,” Izzy said, pulling the coin back to look it over again. “Beckett Franklin Farrell. That kid’s gonna be trouble.” Izzy handed me the coin, not bothering to wipe his spit off the side of it first. I rubbed it on my shirt, tucked it into my pocket.

  “And where did that kid get it?”

  “From his dad, who got it in the forest.”

  “He just found it?”

  “No, he was lost. Are we playing more dinosaurs versus pirates now? I was winning.”

  “I thought you were the Princess,” Chloe asked, shifting in her seat. Izzy shook his head.

  “Queen, now. Got promoted.”

  “Hmm,” Chloe gave a quick nod. “Before you go back to playing, can you tell us anything else about how the kid got hold of a solid cold coins? Seems like something you’d want to keep your kid from losing or giving away.”

  “Eh,” Izzy shrugged, shook his head. “Not really my place.”

  “Why?” I complained, sitting up further, exasperated. I was huddled on one of the couch cushions that had previously been the wall of one of the fort buildings, though, and the movement made me feel like the whole mess was about to collapse under me. “You said you and Chloe are here to be of help and now you’re being the opposite of help.”

  “I said Chloe’s here to help. I said nothing about me.” Rolling his eyes, he felt around under a pile of pillows and pulled out a crumbled crown cut crudely out of pink construction paper. “Besides, you want help, ask your brother about Owen,” he said before vaulting himself over the back of the couch and diving into the blanket fort they’d made of my father’s bar.

  I turned to watch him and caught sight of my nephew crossing the kitchen, his mouth open in an uneven yawn. He stopped at the step leading down into the living room and looked around.

  “Where’s Izzy?” he asked. I pointed at the bar fort and J.J. nodded, moving calmly to the opposite side of the room. Izzy let out a high-pitched giggle as J.J. dug into the giant basket in which my parents kept all the kids’ toys. When he came out brandishing a bright blue, plastic sword, he let out a battle cry and turned toward the fort. Izzy popped up through an opening in the top wearing an eye patch that was clearly meant for a much smaller eye and pointed an action figure at J.J. like a weapon.

  “Come on,” I mumbled. “I think it’s about to get loud again.”

  “You go,” Chloe said. “I think I want to play, too.”

  I shrugged a shoulder, moved around the action to head through the kitchen, through the entryway, and into the sitting room. Mom was tucked onto the couch with her tablet computer, wrapped in the blanket Thomas had been sleeping under.

  “Where’s Thom?” I asked. She held up a finger, ran her eyes over the screen twice more and then looked up at me.

  “I think he went out after you went to the store. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Robin, Jake? Dad?” I realized I didn’t feel any of them in the house. My father was probably across the giant backyard in his man cave, but Robin and Jake should have been within range of my empathy and they weren’t.

  “They took the girls to see a friend of Robin’s, I think. Your father’s out back. Did you want me to go get him?” The smile on her face and the mischief in her told me she knew my answer. I just sighed. Chloe yelled something in what may have been French from the living room and Izzy responded in what sounded like Italian. J.J. shrieked out a laugh that only a young boy having the time of his life can produce and I winced.

  “I’m gonna go see what Thom’s up to. Chloe and Izzy are keeping J.J. busy, but I can bring them with me if you want?”

  “It’s fine. I like the commotion.”

  I just shook my head, moved to grab my coat from the closet and my bag from the table by the door. I rubbed a hand over the coin in my pocket for a second, wondered if I should leave it at home in case some other enterprising young boy was feeling criminal while I was out and about. I decided to keep it, telling myself it was just in case Owen called and wanted to meet.

  I stepped into Stripped Teas and glanced around at the rows of pots and cups and at the two cozy chairs by the front window. I didn’t see my brother, but a little poking around with my empathy told me he was in one of the supply rooms at the back. I let the door shut, felt a puff of curiosity from the other side of the store and moved toward the back.

  “Thom? Carter?” The curiosity turned to a slight embarrassment and I couldn’t help but smile. My brother’s friend had always had a bit of a crush on me, despite our age difference. He came out of the back room first and I grinned wider. “Hey Carter.”

  “Hey Gwen, Thomas said you were on your way. How are you?”

  “Pretty well. The place looks good. What’s on tap?” I asked, moving to the counter. Peering at the three glass pots with little tea lights burning under them, I pointed at the pinkest one. “This one good?”

  “You wouldn’t like it,” Thomas said as he exited the storage room. “But the one next to it is more your speed. Think fast.” He tossed me a little shaker of raw sugar. I caught it awkwardly and set it down on the counter. Next to me, Carter let out a hacking cough, tucking his chubby face into his elbow. I winced at the distress and pain boiling through him.

  “Jeez, you sound terrible,” I said. Figuring he wasn’t in any shape to go near the delicate teapots, I moved around the counter, grabbed a mug with a sunflower on it and poured my own, shaking the sugar over the cup. Thomas hopped forward and grabbed the shaker before I could sweeten it too much and I glowered up at him.

  “Yeah, I just can’t shake his cold. Thom’s been helping a lot with the store, though. My brother comes by every so often, but he can’t get away from the kids too much.”

  “How many did Karen rope him into having?” I asked, blowing on the pale beige tea. The mug was a touch too hot against my palms but I was willing to ignore it; the tea smelled amazing and I’d left my gloves at home.

  “They’re up to five
now, but it's not Karen.”

  “But she was always talking about wanting a hundred babies.”

  “Well, she was fine with three, but Bobby wanted six.”

  “You are kidding me,” I groaned, taking a slow sip. It burned my tongue a little, so I sucked cool air in, causing it to burble in my mouth,

  “Yeah, but she loves it. I think your sister’s over at their place now, actually.”

  “Yeah, Rob and Jake are there with Stella and Nat.” Jerking his chin at me, Thomas leaned against the counter. “You and dad get into another fight?”

  “No, I just wanted to ask you something. Carter, you mind if I talk to him alone for a second?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. Clearing his throat wetly, he pointed at the row of narrow doors along the wall. “I’ll stay out here; you guys can go in the back.”

  “Thanks.” Thomas led the way into the little closet that, at one point, had been a dressing room. Before Carter’s parents had bought the storefront thirty years ago it had been a little clothing boutique. Thomas and I crammed into one of the small rooms, doing our best not to accidentally slosh my tea all over my hands.

  “You know Izzy?”

  “Your weird friend,” Thom stated. I nodded.

  “Well, you know he’s not human, but what you don’t know is that he can kind of … he can sort of tell the future. Not every time and not about important things, apparently, but he said that I should ask you about something.”

  “Ooookay,” Thom drew the word out and I felt his confusion; it was edged with discomfort. “Shoot.”

  “You know my man friend?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “The one I went to see the other night.”

  “Oh yeah, him. No, I definitely do not know him.”

  I let out an annoyed chuff of air, rolled my eyes. “You don't even know who he is! You could know him.”

  “Exactly, I don't know who he is.” Thom grinned at me, socked me lightly in the arm. “But maybe if you tell me, I can say if I know him.”

  “Um, his name's Owen.”

  “Mathers?”