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roosterbruiser · 15 days

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not to dunk on yall but I got to be one of the first people to read this and it’s so FUCKING exquisite. the vibes? immaculate. the setting? SO IMMERSIVE. the tension is ALREADYYYYY tensioning!

honestly i’ve never been suuuuper into circus stuff until now. katie, the way you wrote this literally has me obsessed with something i’ve never really cared about before. your mind….it amazes me.

also these are my favorite parts I cry

AETERNA | One

PROLOGUE | MASTERLIST

SYNOPSIS: TROUBLE COMES TO TOWN.

WARNINGS: smoking; the fic takes place in the 70s and so 70s era things will happen; smoking weed; mentions of sw as a joke; this fic has mature themes and is intended for adults, minors pls dni. spooky stuff. word count: 6312.

The summer in Atwood, Georgia, began as all summers in Atwood always had. Slow. Creeping in through the remaining breezes, blooms and spring showers. Fitting itself into the days so unsuspectingly. It never feels like it’s really summer until the sweat is already beading down your back and the girls’ skirts are an inch shorter than they were a year before.

There’s a spot around the back of Creekside Pines Retirement Village, covered by the shade of those namesake pines, where the girls who work there go to smoke. The Pines has been around longer than any of the residents currently in it; the Church started it decades ago and they made sure to keep it going.

Tucked under the shade of those thick, green pine trees, the branches provide a respite from the approaching early summer sun and also from your dirtbag boss, Conrad Wheelan.

Olive and you, you and Olive. Since Conrad hired you last September, the two of you have become quite the dynamic duo. Candy-striped partners in crime, experts at avoiding old guy sponge bath time. Smokers of cheap, gas station cigarettes. Gossipers of a truly impressive standard.

You’re sitting on opposite sides of the brick walls that bracket the stairs to the back door, your foot beside her hip and hers beside yours, your knees bent and a Marlboro between your index and middle.

“But anyway, I think she’s just jealous. He broke up with her for a reason.” Her face is veiled for a moment by tendrils of swirling cigarette smoke before the midday sun beams once again on her freckled face. She’s talking about a boy she has been fooling around with. He’s older, and he called off his engagement two months ago.

His ex really has it out for Olive. She’s a pretty little nurse at the local hospital. Her daddy went after the poor guy with a gun when the engagement broke. The ex went after Olive in the middle of Herb’s Wholefoods, shoved her right into the display of tinned peaches. But hey, your Mom got six dented tins for the price of one. Silver linings and all that jazz.

Your break was over twenty minutes ago, but the AC is broken and you’ve spent the morning choking on the smell of Eau de Old Lady — the smell of magnolias in bloom and Marlboros on fire are a much welcome change in pace.

Besides, your best friend is in crisis. She’s got a bruise the size of a not-tinned, regular ol’ peach in the middle of her back, a shattered ego, and apparently a new step-kid on the way.

“So, what’s he going to do about it?” You ask her, your face towards the sun, cigarette ash on the wall beside you.

“The baby? — I don’t know. She didn’t even want the kid until he told her he was leaving, now she’s suddenly Mother Theresa.” Olive says with a wistful sigh. Her older boyfriend got that girl in trouble and ran for the hills, but apparently he treats Olive like a princess. Your mother says she’s trouble, but you like her.

Girls like Olive will always pick the wrong kind of man. It’s that kind of No Man’s Land where human nature and fate come to make out — and that’s not Olive’s fault — she’s just at their will; like a puppet. Or a hamster on a wheel.

“You know, I think you’d make a pretty boss step-mommy.” You tell her, cocking your head the way that you do when you know you’re dancing right along her nerve endings. A smile creeps across your coral- glossed lips, revealing the coral-glossed ring they have left around the butt of the cigarette.

“Oh, bite me. You know I’d rather swap places with Hughie Marshall than get stuck raising her kid.” Olive scoffs out, flicking at the cigarette with a red painted nail and bending her bruised knees. That’s quite a thing to say around here.

You didn’t know Hughie, before. Not really. His dad was the principal of your high school, but you knew him after Hughie was already back.

Apparently before his accident, Hughie was a real stud. All-American with dark hair and a bright future. Then he stepped on a landmine in Cambodia; he wasn’t even supposed to be there by the official military statement. But he was.

He doesn’t leave the house anymore. His brain’s all mashed together and he’s got a metal plate in the left side of his head. One arm and no right foot, but worse than that — no jaw. Folks say it was taken clean off in the blast. They sent him out to California for a whole bunch of surgeries, but he still looks like a guy who has been pieced back together.

But Olive’s only kidding about wanting to be in his place. No one wants to be in Hughie’s place, especially not Hughie.

Her joke isn’t the kind of thing that needs to be laughed at, your polite exhale of amusement mixes with the soft rustle of leaves, a fleeting moment of rebellion against Dictator Wheelan and his reign of terror. Each smoky exhale carries whispers of things that would make your mothers shiver, but such is the way for two girls on the cusp of freedom.

In this hidden sanctuary, on the cusp of the woods, the two of you are a united front against the elderly residents of The Pines. Rather than the bell that signaled the end of your freedom in your school days, nowadays it’s the sound of heavy leather shoes on the linoleum that signal the end of your stolen respite.

“Shit.”

“Shit.” The two of you agree, stubbing out your cigarettes and leaping up from the walls, throwing the butts into the mess of fallen foliage at the side of the building.

And at once, Conrad swings open the fire escape door and finds the two of you standing there in your candy-striped aprons, white stockings and pristinely white shoes. Like butter wouldn’t fucking melt.

He’s a towering man, maybe six foot five in his prime, but he hunches a bit from his constant slouching at his desk. He was a red- head once, but now his hair has thinned to the point of scarcity, and he’s usually got a razor rash on his neck from shaving a bit too hastily in the mornings. He knows damn well that the two of you were out here slacking.

“Ladies,” He tries, his smile tight-lipped and half frozen, like a salesman who couldn’t quite make himself look human enough to get the job. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Halbert and Mrs. Knight could use some help in the dining room.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Wheelan.” Olive hits him back with a smile that comes much more naturally, and a cool shrug of her shoulders. She’s a real girl-next-door type. It’s why the wrong kind of guy likes her so much. You’re halfway certain that her killer smile and her long legs are the only reason that Conrad hasn’t fired her yet.

“Yes, sir.” You follow suit.

He allows the both of you to dip around him and just like that, you’re locked back in with the living dead. Old folks who seem just as confused as you about how they’re still hanging on. Oh, that’s mean, really — they aren’t so bad. They’re nice to you. You listen to them.

“I like it when you wear your hair like that,” Mrs. Knight tells you, sitting back uncomfortably. Her green eyes study you, her fingers curled around a shivering china teacup. “Much better than when it's down.”

You’ve learned by now that most of the compliments in this place come with a backhand. Your chin propped up on your palm, you answer her with an amused smile.

“Maybe you could do my hair like yours one day, June,” You suggest, stacking together the remnants of her lunch so that it’ll be easier to porter back to the kitchen. She used to own her own salon down on Mayfair Lane, your mother got her first haircut from June Knight. You shoot a look across the room at Arnie Knight, who is watching you care for his wife. “Teach me how to land a guy like Arnie.”

“Oh, honey — you know my Arnie’s one of a kind.” She giggles. Your mouth twists back into a grin. He sure is. He stormed the beaches in Normandy and still found it in himself to father seven kids once he made it back. In his day, Arnie sounds like he was a stud.

There aren’t too many studs left in Atwood these days. Those boys are either wandering hallowed halls, meat-heads that will be here forever or settled six feet under. Anyone more than four years older than you is either a war hero, or they’re like Hughie Marshall.

The ones that still wake up in Cole County aren’t the kind of boys you’ll be sharing your golden years with, anyway. No, you’ve got much bigger plans for your retirement.

Napa Valley, a sprawling house with burnt orange tile overlooking a vineyard withthat your silver-fox husband who tends to you while you enjoy the fruits of his labour and spend your afternoons tipsy, waiting for the party to start that evening. Far, far from the shade of the trees that line Marsh’s Creek, beside Creekside Pines Retirement Village.

That’s one day, though. For today, the excitement stretches as far as letting Billy Cline pick you up in his true blue 1965 Chevy short bed pickup. Just like most of the guys your age that are in this town, you’ve known Billy for a long time. Your mother still thinks of him as the sweet little boy with blonde curls and overalls.

He still wears overalls, but his blonde curls are now straighter, slicked back with a generous helping of pomade. He came right from work, the auto shop in town, to pick you up.

You change shamelessly in the passenger seat of his truck as he speeds along the old road out towards the Cole County airport, shoving your uniform into your bag and wriggling into the clothing you had smuggled past your mother.

“I’m not driving you home wearing that,” Billy chortles, eyes wide and already shaking his head as you pull the knitted halter neck over your chest, your lips pursed in concentration as you fasten the tie behind your neck. “I’ll stop at the Post Office and you can walk from there.”

Exhaling and kicking the bag into the footwell, you tug open the glovebox and start to root for the sunglasses you left in here last time.

“What? You don’t dig the orange?”

You know full well that Billy’s concerns about your outfit don’t start or end with the burnt orange color of your hot pants. He scoffs loudly beside you to agree as your fingers stumble across the little plastic baggie at the back of his glovebox.

“I don’t dig that your old man threatened to slash my tires last time he saw me rollin’ with you.”

That makes you laugh. You pluck the green from the glovebox and melt back into the blue suede seats Billy had spent all of last summer fixing up.

“Fred wouldn’t hurt you.” Your father talks a big talk sometimes, maybe that’s where you can get it from, but he likes Billy and he’s not the kind of father that spends his time worrying about which boy you’re messing around with. “Might trick you into doing some yard work for him, though.”

Straight, empty road for miles ahead, Bill turns his head and looks at the bag caught between your index and middle fingers, dangling toward him like the forbidden fruit itself.

“Great, so I’ll take you home high as a kite and dressed like a hooker and he’ll invite me to water his gardenias.” He hums, reaching out and snatching the bag from you. He still has every intention of lighting up, but he knows there’s a pothole about a mile ahead and the last time he let you roll up along this road wasn’t a pretty sight.

“Come on, Bill — now,” Your white canvas sneakers are still discarded in the footwell, you kick your bare feet up onto the dash. “That’s no way to talk to your best chance at ever getting laid, is it?”

There’s a fondness in the way he rolls those steely-blue eyes at you. There’s no real destination at the end of this long, empty stretch of road. There are one of four possible spots for the two of you to pick from.

Just far enough from Conrad Wheelan, and your father’s gardenias, and the Cole County sheriff's department for the two of you to crawl into the bed of the truck, light up and wait for time to pass.

It’s no way to spend summer, really. But this is the last May that your afternoons will look like this. Next May, you’ll be thinking about Olive and Billy from the Paramount Pictures backlot. Maybe Warner Brothers, you’re not in a position to be too picky.

As a kid, you had sworn that you would pack your things and head for the hills the day that you turned eighteen. Things hadn’t worked out quite that way, but now, you’ll be sitting in the Malibu sunshine before you turn twenty-three.

“Who the fuck is that?”

You drop the bag onto the bench and follow Billy’s eyes towards the rearviewrear view mirror, fully prepared to see your Uncle Paul’s police cruiser coming up behind you. Instead, you’re met with the picture of a very small heavy hauler. Cherry-red, coming over the hill like hell on wheels. It’s illegal to drive that fast, even out here. Especially in something that big.

The house that you pass on the left has two young kids who live there, and the Whistler family let those kids play in that unfenced yard all day long. A big, red truck coming along this country road that fast… bye, bye Whistler family.

“Fuckin’ maniacs.” Billy mutters, frowning and shaking his head. It almost makes you smile. William Cline, slipping back into the weepy little boy he had once been, a stickler for the rules back then. But you don’t have time to smile.

Your knees push up onto the suede, your palm flattening against the back window, sticking to the glass with a squeak as you slide it open. That cherry red truck is a lot clearer without the filter of dust and dirt between you, and a lot less small now that it’s getting closer.

“Probably late for a delivery or something. It’s gonna try to pass you.” You realise, resting your arms over the back of the bench. Billy almost forgets why that’s important as he glances across at the way those burnt orange shorts flex around your ass.

He swallows, checks the rear-view mirror and remembers the sharp bend coming up. There aren’t any signs and it kind of comes out of nowhere, and if this jerk tries to overtake him on it, his truck is going to wind up in a ditch.

He eases his foot onto the break and considers just stopping all together, biting the inside of his cheek. Out of towners. The truck grows bigger and bigger, the engine rumbling like a growl, until it’s close enough that you can see the man behind the wheel. His hair is longish and feathery, jet-black and his face is half covered by a pair of green lensed sunglasses.

By his side is a kid, already looking at you. She has long blonde hair tied back in two braids, and a strange look on her face. Like she is excited to see you. She sits forwards in her seat and cocks her head sharply to the side, her eyes tracking you as the truck whizzes by. The sharp motion makes you pull back swiftly from the window.

Her head twists to follow until she’s out of your view and you’re blinking at the painted trailer being hauled by the truck. Maverick’s Cabinet of Mysteries. A circus. Red and white stripes and a big, shining yellow font.

“Did you see that kid?” The words spill from your lips as you brace one hand against the dashboard, watching the rest of the truck whizzes by, trying to blink that awful, jerky, movement of her neck from your mind.

“What? — No, I saw that jackass almost take my side view mirror with him.” Billy huffs out angrily, putting his foot back on the gas the second that giant trailer is past him.

It’s not the only one. Right behind the first, is another truck that appears identical. You don’t get a look at the driver, just the red and white stripes and Maverick’s Cabinet of Mysteries in that shiny red and gold font.

“Who even goes to the frickin’ circus anymore?” Billy’s care for his truck spills out in bitterness as he steadies the wheel and watches the second truck be succeeded by a third. All three of them, red and gold and white death traps, growling as they speed along the road ahead of you.

The cold feeling from the first truck has passed by, now you’re at the mercy of the sun being at its highest point, casting out heat like a blanket, warming the cab of the truck like a greenhouse.

Twisting in your seat, your lips twitch as you find that the three cargo trucks aren’t unaccompanied. Behind them is a string of vehicles, lead by a pretty far-out Chevy camper with rad burnt orange racer stripes along the side.

You look back at Billy over your shoulder. “We could.”

It’s not like there is much else to do around this place. Beats the regular Friday tune of heading down to the Empire movie theatre by Lane Street and sipping at a sugary, fizzing coke while watching a Western.

As the camper draws closer, your gaze locks on to the two people sitting in the front. A dark haired woman, her lips red and round, sucking on a lollipop with her bare feet kicked up onto the dash. Her sunglasses hide her eyes, but you know she’s looking at you.

It’s almost at the speed limit, not quite at the same terrifying speed as the trucks ahead but still warranting a ticket. In the driver’s seat is a real stone fox, broad and tanned with sunkissed brown caramel-curls and a real Burt-Reynolds-in-100-Rifles kind of moustache.

They’re driving with the windows down, cooled by the breeze in their hair like they aren’t icy enough already. Her sunglasses are round and plastic-framed, with orange lenses. So cool— so California. And him too.

Even with his more standard gold-framed caravans, his barely buttoned blue short sleeve and the equally caramel coloured dusting of chest hair spilling out, he looks like a movie star.

You’re barely aware of Billy crushing your idea beside you. “Me? — Nah. Sorry, sister, no way — lame, lame, lame.”

Doesn’t matter, you’ll be going with or without him if Mr. Movie Star is going to be there.

His white camper with the orange stripes gets close enough for you to realise that it’s not just her looking at you, he is too. It’s a little narcissistic to assume that it’s for any reason other than the way you’re already staring at them, but the thought of the two of them liking what they see — thinking maybe you could look like them — makes your coral lips stretch.

Up close, you can hear the blaring sound of their radio. A guitar riff that you remember from somewhere deep in the back of your mind, something you know you’ve heard many times before but just can’t place.

You follow them, magnetized by the draw of their eyes, planting a palm right between Billy's greased overall thighs and leaning across the bench to keep staring through the rolled-down driver’s side window.

The raven-haired woman pushes the lollipop into the hollow of her cheek and tells him something. You can’t hear it over the sound of their radio blaring out. He responds with a just-can’t-help-it kind of grinning chuckle, turning his head to look across at you.

The door was open, and the wind appeared.

The candles blew, and then disappeared.

The curtains flew, and then he appeared.

Sayin’ “Don’t be afraid.”

On all fours, looking at him like he’s the new guy at the zoo.

Come on, baby (and she had no fear).

And she ran to him (then they started to fly).

They looked backward and said goodbye (she had become like they are).

Heat gathered across your skin, that knitted late summer sunset coloured halter stretched tight across your chest, scandalous by the standards of Atwood — downright foxy if you ventured further west.

Your hair has been freed from the tidy updo that Conrad Wheelan prefers it to be in while you’re working, but not quite tamed after that. Wild and free, as the wind whips through it.

As if to try to contain your grin, you sink your teeth into the coral of your bottom lip, beaming at him anyway. Then, you lift the hand that isn’t settled between Billy’s thighs, and wiggle your fingers at him in greeting.

“What the hell are you doin’? — I can’t even see the road!” Billy complains.

Mr. Movie Star couldn’t have heard him, but he shoots a look at the complaining driver anyway. Then, his attention is yours again. Still smiling that amused smile, he lifts a tanned arm from its perch against the open window ledge, and throws up a loose peace sign across the stretch of road between you. His passenger laughs around her lollipop.

”Sayin’ hello. It’s polite.” You tell him back.

Between his obnoxious music, the wind whipping between the cars, and the equally polite indoor voice you had spoken in, there’s no way that Mr. Movie Star could have possibly heard you. He laughs like he had.

With that, the camper passes by. It takes the song and the blaring guitar with it, the rhythmic picking carrying across the flat stretches of road. It’s got tinted windows all around the sides and back. A real pussy wagon, you bet. Mr. Movie Star has probably seen a lot of action in the back of that van. Queue the wistful sigh from you. If you could just stop from grinning.

“Get off. C’mon, put your seatbelt on or something.”

“He was really something, don’t ya think?” You say, still grinning dumbly as you retreat back to the designated passenger’s spot, tracking the camper along the old stretch of Airport Road.

“Yeah, yeah — mellow out before you ruin my seats.” Billy grumbles, frowning at his side-view mirror. Six more vehicles to go; none of them drive quite as wild as those first couple of big trucks.

“How long d’you think they’re in town for?” You prop one elbow against the side of the door and plant your chin atop your palm, staring after the camper as you kick your feet across Billy’s lap. “You think it’s like an all- summer deal or just a couple of weekends?”

Billy shoots a steely look across the cab.

Sure, he was kind of a weedy kid. Small for his age, with a mom who was rarely more than a stone’s throw away. He’s not bad looking. Stick thin with a long, straight nose but pretty blue eyes. There’s usually motor oil in his blonde hair these days.

Either way, he hadn’t always exactly been the pick of the litter but with the war and stuff, he’s not such a bad option these days.

And still, you’ve had him benched in the friend zone since freshman year. Both of you know that it’ll just take an especially dry season for you to finally do him, and you are good company, he likes having you around.

He doesn’t like the douchebag with the ‘stache moving in on the closest thing he has to a girlfriend.

“They might stop by The Pines — you know, like those folks from the fair did, that one time.” you’re really talking to yourself at this point.

Billy looks across, unimpressed as he’s overtaken by a 1959 Ford F-100, painted a faded shade of light green.

Three people are crammed into the cab, and as it slips in front of you, you find that the bed of the truck is also occupied.

Two girls and one hell of a guy. He’s sitting with his back to the cab, shirtless and golden all over with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a hand of cards held to his chest.

The two girls are wearing little tanks and coloured hot pants, conferring with each other while he watches, cool as ice.

He’s grinning, a smooth talker even when you can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s not money that he’s talking those poor girls out of either, that’s why one of them proudly has his t-shirt balled up in her lap.

“Mrs. Cavendish would have a cow if—“ your rambling trails and your smile spreads as Golden Boy looks up from his poker game and finds you watching. “Whoa. Where are they finding these dudes?”

“Probably jail,” Billy mumbles, begrudging the topless wonder in the back of the truck. “Or a register of some kind, if you catch my drift.”

Golden Boy’s lips stretch thin around his hand-rolled cigarette, his grin dimpling his cheeks. Totally jiving with the way you’re staring at him, stretching his already broad shoulders like a peacock would with its feathers.

He’s a sandy kind of blonde and maybe even more of a movie-star looker than his buddy had been.

He tips his chin and graces you with a nod of acknowledgement. Then, he looks down at the hand of cards and closes his lips around the cigarette, inhaling deeply.

With a cool shrug, he cocks an eyebrow and seems to dare his two lady companions to put their money where their mouths are.

Billy glances down at the bag of green still on the bench between the two of you, practically starting a mental countdown until the two of you are out by the Falls, high as kites. Far from tanned, muscled carnie folk.

The trucks and cars pass by and head for the horizon, and Billy’s blue Chevy hugs the curves of winding country roads all the way out past Route Thirteen. Past Airport Road, there’s no sign of your two new objects of affection — given the heat of the late afternoon, you’re starting to wonder if all of them were a mirage or something.

That’s what the boys who come back from war tell you they saw out there. Apparitions in the jungle, like ghosts, but nice. Tommy Holdman says he thought he had died out there, laying flat on his back after he lost his leg, and all he could see was miles and miles of coastline. A perfect, pretty beach. His own idea of heaven.

Yours, apparently, is something far different.

The Falls isn’t really a waterfall. It’s maybe a ten- foot slow incline in the river bend. It’s shitty enough to not draw too many visitors, unlike the much more popular swimming spot out where the old quarry is. That place would be packed on an afternoon like this.

Your spot is on the far end of the county, nestled a while back off the road but not too far into the woods. It’s a spot to cool off without having to commit to really swimming, and it’s the only spot you know where the fuzz wouldn’t come poking around at the smell of skunk.

No one comes out here, not even the cops.

The afternoon is all yours, right through into the evening. It didn’t take Billy long to get over his mood, he’s grinning when he drops you off, right by your front door.

There’s no way he would make you walk all the way from the Post Office, not really. Everyone’s heard those stories of girls going missing in small towns like this, and through all of her faults, Betty Cline had raised a pretty stand-up young man.

“See ya Tuesday, I’ll call you!” You wave to him as you jog up the front steps onto the porch of your parents’ home.

He waves back from the driver’s side of his truck, and drives home to his mother’s roast chicken the same way he always does. She still packs his lunches too.

Fred looks up from Hawaii Five-O, in all of its multicoloured, static-fuzz glory as the screen door rattles to an abrupt shut. He flinches as the heavier, wood front door slams behind it.

“Look at that, she is alive.” He calls from the living room, for your ears more than anyone else’s.

“Hi, Papa Bear. You worrying about me again?” You coo, kicking your shoes off by the door and strolling across the hardwood, bracing yourself on the doorframe as you swing widely into the parlour, where Fred sits in his recliner, staring at his prized possession — the color TV set he bought after the new year.

“Worryin’ about you is like worryin’ the fox might hurt itself on its way out of the coop.”

You don’t much mind the image of yourself, the sly fox, prowling around town and making all of those chicken-shit boys cry for help. Your mouth almost twitches at the thought as you plonk yourself down on the carpeted floor and turn your attention towards Steve McGarrett saving the day.

Clearly at some point after you have nestled onto the carpet with your back to him, Fred clocks the outfit you have wandered home in.

“Now, where’d the hell did you even buy somethin’ like that?” You can hear the wrinkled frown on his aging face. He’s only in his fifties now, but with deep wrinkles and freckles from years working outside.

“Church-sale, I think.” You answer back, wondering if your mother is still up. She goes to bed early on weeknights so that she can be up early for her work at the grocery store in the mornings.

Fred lost his sense of smell when he worked in the mines in his late teens — he couldn’t tell the difference if you smelled like Mary-Jane or magnolias.

“You were with that kid from the auto shop again?” Fred puffs on cigarettes like a chimney. It turns the white ceilings brown occasionally, but your Mom has always been ready with a tin of cloud-coloured paint to fix that.

“Uh-huh. You know Billy.”

“Yeah.” He decides. There are worse boys you could be running around with than that teary-eyed fella.

“Saw a bunch of vans out by Airport Road today. Setting up a circus somewhere near here.” You tell him absently, both of you watching the television set as you pick at the carpet.

“Heard somethin’ about that. Gus O’Malley’s renting his south pasture out for something like that, I think.”

“I was thinking I could maybe borrow the car Saturday. Take Georgie.”

Georgie is an accident; an anniversary celebration turned rambunctious fifth grader with a knack for messing with your stuff while you’re at work. But he’s a cute kid, you’ll give him that. The little booger is fun to be around sometimes.

With Georgie around, there’s something to do other than head out of town and drink or smoke or spend the money that’s supposed to get you to California. If you take Georgie, Fred usually sponsors the trip.

“This Saturday?”

“Yeah. Figured they’d be running by then.” You lean your palms back into the rug, worn velvet under them. It doesn’t bother you that Fred barely turns his head from the television — before that, it had been the sports highlights in the paper.

“If you’re going to get him all hopped up on sugar, do me a favor and drop him off at Grandma’s on the way back.” Fred chortles, mostly to himself, as he brings a half-warm Budweiser to his mouth.

You smile at that, remembering the days Fred threatened to do the same to you. You grab at the knee of his faded blue jeans to push yourself up from the ground.

“Thought I might drop him off by the interstate, set him free. Like God intended.” You tell the house, headed for the hallway with the end goal being your bedroom on the second floor of the humble blue craftsman.

“I-59, not I-75. Can’t have him finding his way home.” Fred calls as you take the first step out onto the stairs, your fingers trailing your work bag, discarded onto the chipped wooden post that ends the railing.

“Now where in God’s name did you find those shorts?” Oh, she’s awake. Your mother’s voice is behind you, and if you had to guess you would imagine that her head is poking around the doorway into the kitchen and gawking at your fashion choices. She is.

“You went out wearing those?”

You stand, frozen on the stairs for a second, stuck in a moment of consideration. Fred’s pretending not to hear all this, he prefers not to get involved. Joan’s not so forgiving.

Turning around will mean a certain lecture.

“Gotta be up early, I won’t wear ‘em again.” You decide, hastening up the stairs before she can call you on your lie. Your bare feet hit the landing and slip a bit on the loose runner your dad swears he’s going to remember to buy underlay for one of these days.

As you steady, the door to your right creeks open and Georgie stumbles out of his cowboy-covered bedroom, rubbing uncaringly at his eye socket.

“Hey.” He yawns, heading for the bathroom, his hand-me-down pyjamas hanging down over the tops of his feet as he shuffles for the bathroom.

“Hey. Wanna do something with me Saturday?” You ask him, already headed for your own room. He stops and turns his head, eyes no longer heavy with sleep but wide open with curiosity.

“Yeah. What?”

“It’s a surprise.” You decide, twisting the handle and letting the door creak open wide as muscle-memory guides your hand to the lightswitch and illuminates your bedroom. It’s not really a surprise, but he won’t go back to bed if you tell him now. “Night, Georgie.”

“Goodnight!” He calls back, closing the bathroom door almost all the way. The light bulb’s still out and he’s still scared of the dark.

You close your bedroom door, shutting all of them out and immediately reaching for the ties of your halter top. They fall loose and you shimmy out of the fabric, then the shorts.

Flowered paper on the walls, hardwood floors, this room is filled with the remnants of the little girl you once were in here. The shag rug and the Janis Joplin print above the bed are evidence of the newer, cooler woman who now occupies the space. The two of you coexist in this little space just fine most days.

Next comes the quest for a shirt to sleep in — sleeping in the nude doesn’t work when you have a Mom like Joan. She means well, you’re grateful for her. She’s the first person you’ll thank when you get your first award. Even though she still comes in without knocking.

Shirt acquired, you hear Georgie’s door click shut down the hallway as you scan the room for the book you discarded last night.

The window in your room faces miles of fields. In the far distance, you’ve never really noticed that you can see the O’Malley farm. Well, kind of. Ahead of that, there’s a small dusting of forest that hinders your view.

Your search for the book comes to a brief stop as you turn towards the open window and look out over the view. More specifically, of the red and white glint of weatherproof canvas that comes to a sharp point, dazzled with lightbulbs.

“Did you see what your daughter came home in?” Joan asks, shaking her head from her seat at the sewing machine. It whirs impolitely over the conversation, seeing blue thread through the hole in the knee of Georgie’s blue jeans.

“Sure did.” Fred drops his beer into the trash with a clang and rolls his shoulders back. He turns towards her, already expecting the worried frown he sees.

“People’ll talk.”

“Let ‘em,” Fred shrugs. He considers another Budweiser, but knows he’s got to be up early to get to the factory in the morning. “She’s a smart girl, she’s not out causing any trouble.”

Joan stops the machine and hums in consideration.

“Besides, I’m sure it’s a right of passage — wearing stuff that makes your folks’ blood pressure go crazy.”

She smiles, pushing up from the chair. Her socks pad across the green and yellow linoleum until she reaches her husband, her head tucking into the crook of his neck.

“You’re right. But I don’t like those shorts.” Joan decides as her husband takes her into his arms, smoky smelling and familiar.

Behind them, the morning’s paper sits discarded with only the sports section disrupted. Printed in an appropriately black ink, is the freckled face of Audrey Weiss. Her large-round glasses are still sitting on the bridge of her nose, her shoulders are angled and she’s beaming, looking front and centre. Above her portrait, the word MISSING is in the same shade of mourning-appropriate black ink.

That was a school photo. It’s old, her bangs have grown out already. Her round glasses are all torn up now, shattered and mangled — about 200 yards from her broken body, which is yet to be discovered in an empty stretch of red-dirt land off of a highway in southern Arizona.

NEXT CHAPTER

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