Girl in the Rearview Mirror Read online

  “But you’ve stolen before. Shoplifting. Petty stuff. It’s on record. You’re also known to befriend these . . . comfortable families. The Everetts. The Martins. You like to be welcome in their houses. Who knows how much else you took before they noticed.”

  “I shoplifted in high school. I was young. Stupid. It didn’t mean anything.” But my mother’s words surfaced as I spoke. Erica was always wild, and a little bit dumb. You’re smart.

  Bryant was starting to lose his unruffled calm. “Come on, Finn. Natalie. You lie about everything. How could anyone ever trust you?”

  I shook my head. “You’ve been dying to do this. Ever since Ammy. You wanted to get rid of me as soon as I was out.”

  “Do you really want to talk about Ammy?” It was almost a hiss. “I’ve been waiting for you to cry. To talk about her. Anything. You haven’t said a word. No memories. No mention of missing her. And then”—he waved the paper in his hand—“then I understood. You were faking it the whole time.”

  My gut lurched. It was a sickening punch. Amabel and Bryant and me, lying on the blanket, looking up at the fireworks; Amabel and her sticky lemon-ice mustache; Amabel and her wild fueled-up wriggling as she led us onto the Tilt-A-Whirl.

  I walked around him and began picking up my things. My purse. My phone.

  “Finn.” He caught me by the elbow. “Listen. You were there that day. Watching her. I’m sure the guilt is overwhelming. Instead of grieving, you’re lashing out at the Martins. Inventing this . . . conspiracy.” He was too close. His fingers twisted my skin. “It was only an accident.”

  The words sent a bolt of horror through me. I wrenched away. I moved for the door.

  As though he didn’t believe I was leaving, he came along, pressing his hand to my back. Coolly, he said, “You’ll go your own way now. No one is going to press charges. This is kind. Believe me.”

  He corralled me into the foyer. I picked up my sandals, straps dangling from my fingers. I didn’t want to kneel and put them on in front of Bryant.

  He opened the door. “Take care of yourself, Natalie.”

  40

  The long road to Verde burned past as if my anger were fuel.

  I pulled into Iris’s driveway. I pounded on the door and rang the bell until it echoed.

  “Iris! Stacy! Hello?”

  Not even a yip from the dog.

  I went around back, crunching gravel. The patio blazed in the sun. I cupped my hands to the sliding glass door. The kitchen cabinets were thrown open, empty. On the floor were heaps of towels and rags, packages of plates and cups.

  I looked in the den window. The TV was gone. The couch remained, stripped of blankets and cushions.

  They were gone.

  As I headed out of town, the black sedan appeared in my rearview mirror. When I turned onto Main Street, it followed. It crept along, never quite tailgating me, but sticking close. At a red light, the driver’s-side window rolled down a few inches, and a plume of smoke emerged.

  I got onto the freeway. I kept to the right lane behind a dusty van with a Jesus fish on the bumper. The sedan shifted left, crept through my blind spot, and pulled up beside my window. I faced forward. I held myself stiffly, determined not to show alarm. After ten, fifteen, twenty long seconds, he accelerated, pulled past me, and sped away.

  I could picture him so clearly. The smooth forehead, the mean smile. The way he moved, the tight rough energy pent up inside him, unleashing in sudden, sharp movements. Grabbing my elbow. Bending his face to my window.

  Was he the one who killed Clint?

  Terror momentarily closed my throat. Then I fought it off. I wasn’t like Clint. They wouldn’t hurt me, surely. I couldn’t just disappear.

  The black sedan was far ahead, but not quite out of sight.

  The Rolling Greens golf course was in a suburb south of the city, dense with McMansions built on the hem of the freeway, their tile roofs extending above the concrete sound barrier. The shells of new homes rose beside them. Apparently, demand for a freeway view hadn’t been met. I wondered if this was one of Philip’s developments. How much of Arizona did he own?

  The golf course was a vast stretch of lawn so vibrantly green it seemed digitized. Imposing white pillars fronted the clubhouse. On an ostentatiously tall pole, the flag drooped like a handkerchief. The parking lot was nearly empty. It was too hot for golf.

  I shielded my eyes and scanned the course. There was a lake in the middle, dark blue and boomerang-shaped. Periodically, the whiff of a golf club ruffled the still air. On a nearby green, a caddy dressed in white lifted a white flag from the hole. A quartet of men in sherbet-colored pants and caps ambled toward him, each holding a club like Mr. Peanut’s jaunty cane. I knew exactly how they were talking—in that jocular, bullshiting, self-congratulatory way. I knew exactly what their homes were like, their wives, their cars, their social calendars. My lip curled against them.

  I headed to the clubhouse. Inside the atmosphere was frosty in every sense—the temperature, my reception, the hair on every head. Some retirees wetted their dry throats in the lounge. In the pro shop, a worker ran a rag along the stale racks of polo shirts. He looked me over as I asked whether Guy was working. I had to admit I didn’t know his last name, or even whether “Guy” was a nickname. I described him, blushing at the portrait my words painted.

  The clerk smirked like he knew what I was really after. “If it’s who I think, he was fired,” he said. “Stopped showing up for work. So if you see him, let him know, won’t you?”

  He cast his glance over my head to greet a vast bald man in vast khaki pants, and hustled around me to direct him to the drivers.

  I considered getting a drink at the bar, just for the pleasure of annoying them all, but I knew their voices would grate against me, like a too-small wool sweater on skin.

  I didn’t expect to see Guy again. I was the only witness left.

  41

  I set off on foot to find the grave. Flat shiny headstones ran in rows neat as cornfields. Their etchings recorded only the parentheses of birth and death—life itself abridged. I didn’t see any as young as Amabel.

  The grave was mounded up with fresh dirt, powdery as cocoa. The stone was simple gray marble. Amabel Opal Martin, the name a singsong.

  I’d brought a bunch of daisies. I unwrapped them from their crinkling plastic and scattered them over the ground. She’d loved being buried . . . in sand at the beach, under blankets. I imagined she’d giggle at the tickle of the petals.

  I sat on the stiff, parched grass. Once, picnicking in the side yard, Amabel had found a brown lizard crouched in grass like this. She held it in front of my face. “You need to know lizards are friendly,” she informed me. The lizard’s amphibian eyes bulged in terror, its throat swelled and abruptly shrunk like a popped bubble-gum bubble. It wriggled and kicked, startling Amabel. She threw it. The body flew. She wiped her hand on the grass.

  I’d yelled at her. She’d cried.

  I should have been better to her. A million moments I’d been irritated or tired, not as patient as I could have been, not as kind.

  A hawk wheeled overhead, pulling its shadow like a kite string over the flat ground. Somewhere out of my sight, a machine droned. Digging holes, maybe cutting grass. Around us, hundreds of American flags stuck out of the ground. I wondered if they’d been planted on the Fourth of July. I thought again of Amabel’s bossy, proud face, her sneaker soles kicked up as she ran to the Tilt-A-Whirl, her fat, pretty teardrops when I didn’t believe her about Iris.

  All the miles I’d logged, the digging, the questions, I’d been distracting myself. Anything to avoid thinking about this. Anything to forget what I’d done . . . the pool gate open, my ear to the living room doorway, my darling Amabel alone. I’d been pouring out my energy, like a rat on a wheel, and it hadn’t made any difference. I loved Amabel. I’d lost her.

  “Once upon a time,” I said quietly, “there was a beautiful girl. A princess. One day she lost something she loved
very much. She was so sad. For days, she went around trying to learn what had happened. Then she found out something very wicked. Her friends had schemed with a very bad man. A sorcerer. They were lying, greedy. Even the prince.”

  I touched the stone. Hard, and gleaming hot in the sun.

  “The thing is, the princess told some stories. She really only imagined that she’d ever lived in a castle. It was all make-believe. She wasn’t actually a princess at all.”

  I shifted to sit, cross-legged. I plucked a blade of grass and ran it along my ankle, like Ammy had liked to do when I told her stories in the yard. We sat under the citrus trees, and drank fruit juice, and ran from the bees.

  “The princess has to have a happy ending,” I said. “Isn’t that the rule?”

  Amabel used to frown suspiciously if it seemed like the princess wouldn’t wind up safely back in her tower.

  “She’ll get the sorcerer in trouble, of course. Then she might go away, find a new castle. She’s still young and beautiful. She’ll live happily ever after.”

  But how? Ammy would say. What about the prince?

  I sat there so long the daisy petals had already begun to shrivel in the blistering heat. When I finally stood, my skin was mottled from the grass.

  I called the Verde police from the parking lot. A procession of cars was just pulling in as I dialed, and when I was put on hold, I watched the mourners gather in the lot before making their way to the grave. Mostly they were old, humped and heavy. There was a young girl with them, maybe seven or eight, who couldn’t be contained from romping across the grass.

  The officer came on the line.

  I explained who I was. I said I’d called earlier, about the car fire.

  “Right,” he said. “I remember you. The girl with the story about the detective.”

  I cleared my throat. “Well. I have the license plate of that man. He’s followed me around. Threateningly. If you look into it, I think you’ll find that he killed Clint Davis.”

  He sighed. “I don’t think so. The Davis death was an overdose. Cut and dried. And the car fire, well, that was a group of kids. Caught them at it again late last night. Things get boring in small towns, as you can imagine. We find that people have all kinds of ways to invent fun for themselves. Calling in tips, for example. The other day a woman came on claiming to have seen Elvis.”

  “But this man is following me around. Stalking me. You won’t do anything?”

  “You feel free to call the minute he breaks a law. In the meantime, I’d suggest the library. It’s got shelves full of thrillers. Bye, now.”

  42

  That night, the Senator was on the news. Not discussing Amabel’s death, but speaking at a town hall. He stood onstage, dressed casually in belted khakis and a collared shirt. A banner behind him read, Senator Martin—Our Senator.

  “We’re all frustrated by the economy,” he boomed. “Some folks have been hit harder than others. Some of us are out of a home. Some of us out of a job. Some of us? Out of both.” As he paused for effect, the cameras zoomed in. A microphone weighed down the lapel opposite his flag pin. He was swept up in his own words, perspiration glossing his forehead, his eyes glittering with fervor. “My opponent believes raising taxes on people is going to get us out of this mess. Myself, I don’t like taxes.” The audience began to cheer, and he raised his voice to continue. “I don’t like financing a problem we shouldn’t have in the first place.” Applause overwhelmed him, and he ended on a triumphant shout.

  The broadcast cut to an infographic. The Senator’s approval rating had jumped eight points in the last week. Bryant must be pleased. Changing the slogan from “Your Senator” to “Our Senator” was subtly clever, just his thing. I sensed the tide turning, Gonzales unable to attack as hard, the Senator acting the part of brave, tragic figure.

  I couldn’t sleep. Every light was on. My neighbor stopped playing his video game at two-thirty, and the ensuing silence felt lonely and dangerous.

  Keep busy. I sorted through my closet, weeding out clothes I could sell. Marina’s black dress was tempting. Its designer label and mint condition could pay my rent for a month.

  I found a Nordstrom bag crumpled in a corner. I didn’t recognize it. It was surprisingly heavy. I brought it under the light and unknotted the handles.

  Inside was a velvet pouch, the color of a shadow, thick and soft. I poured its contents onto the floor. A slim watch, diamond studs the size of dimes, a set of hairpins strung with citrine, a sapphire cocktail ring, a rose gold bangle hammered so thin it was nearly weightless. Marina’s jewelry, all her favorites, the pieces she kept out in a tray in the bathroom.

  For a moment I was confused, trying to remember how I’d brought the bag home—maybe Marina had put it in my purse by accident, instead of her own?

  Then I remembered Bryant’s accusation.

  He’d mentioned more than jewelry, though: clothes and art. I went back into the closet and hunted, pushing aside hangers and kicking through piles of shoes. Item after item surfaced. Strappy green Manolo Blahniks, a leather handbag soft as cashmere, a wooden carving of a coyote howling at the moon, pitted and scarred with age. This last hidden at the back of my underwear drawer, perversely tangled in lace.

  I lined everything up on the floor. My hands trembled, touching these familiar, coveted objects. If I had taken from them, wasn’t this what I might have chosen? Exquisite and understated pieces; you’d never guess looking at it that the bag must have cost five or six thousand dollars, or the coyote carving was hundreds of years old, and probably should have been at the museum.

  It was funny, how my instinct was to believe I’d done it. To feel shame and guilt. Hadn’t Bryant been right about me? With the Everetts, I’d learned to cultivate generosity. There’s always extra room in those big houses; there’s a hole in every family, however happy. A pleasant, helpful outsider might slip right in. I didn’t even need to steal.

  It took me several minutes to remember that Bryant had a key to my apartment. What could be easier? He’d planted the items where I wouldn’t notice them for a while. Knowing what I would want, which pieces might tempt me enough to keep them. And as soon as he knew I knew everything, knew I’d turned on them, he dropped this final threat.

  If I didn’t leave it alone, they’d accuse me of stealing.

  Maybe it was also an incentive. Better than cash, because I couldn’t get rid of it so easily.

  It was ingenious, really. Bringing my story full circle. Once a thief, always a thief.

  43

  The next day, I packed the items carefully into a bag and returned to Ocotillo Heights. My gate pass still worked. I drove slowly up the tight road, catching glimpses of the opulent, familiar homes. I parked in the driveway and sat gazing up at the house.

  By now, Philip and Marina had boarded the ship, unpacked their suitcases, joined the other passengers for cocktails on deck. They’d steeled themselves to marvel at the beauty of the Mediterranean coast, to eat and drink and admire old artwork. When they came home, they’d be themselves again.

  Clouds knitted together at the horizon, and there was a charged, humid snap in the air. We were in for a storm, the first monsoon of the season. Back home, the end of summer brought coolness, a dry calm. Here, it brought the only extreme weather of the year, sudden furious storms, as though the desert were resisting the lessening of the heat.

  The foyer glowed in the gray light. The vase that always displayed fresh flowers stood empty. I’d never seen it before—the lush bouquets had concealed it. It was beautiful, with tiny handles like ears and a faded, intricate design, blue over white. The porcelain interior was stained a deep reddish brown from the water. My fingers came away with a fine coat of dust. Eva must not have come for her weekly housekeeping. Already the house had a stuffy, closed-up feeling.

  I went upstairs. I set the velvet pouch on Marina’s dresser and arranged the jewelry on top of it. I took her dress to the closet. Though I’d patted it with a damp cloth and
let it air over the shower, it still bore traces of my perfume.

  The coyote was the only piece I left out of place. I set it at the head of the dining table, Philip’s seat. I wanted them to know I’d been here, to see this proof of my integrity.

  The kitchen window overlooked the yard. Reflexively, I avoided the sight of the pool. Coward, I thought, and I went outside to face it.

  The wind had picked up, tossing handfuls of sand that hit the palm fronds with a gritty slap. The sky had darkened and lowered over the ground. I lifted the hinge of the pool gate and closed the gate softly behind me. As if my careful intention now made any difference. Reminders of Amabel were everywhere. In the chairs we’d used to support our towel forts, the paddle-shaped cacti I was afraid she’d run into, the shed stuffed full of floating toys.

  Dirt and leaves had blown into the pool, mottling the bleached concrete floor.

  As the storm gathered, the mountain rock beyond the backyard turned dark red. This was where the coyote had been shot. He’d dragged himself away, seeking protection in the cover of trees that were little more than a fence between mansions. I felt sorry for him. What chance had he had, in the Martins’ territory?

  I walked down the steps into the dry pool, daring myself to feel worse. In that instant, the air became water. Hot, soaking rain fell in drenching sheets. I ran inside, the bottoms of my sandals slick. I stumbled through the door, rain gusting in with me.

  The storm would pass soon; monsoons were always dramatic but brief. I went to the living room to wait it out. The white furniture and walls were greenish in the storm light. The ceiling fan spun, the movement eerie in the still room. The pot Iris had emptied her cigarette into was angled toward me, like a raised eyebrow.

  I’d expected to feel a righteous fury, returning here. Instead, I felt exhausted and sad. I stood at the window and watched the rain boil on the patio. Curtains of water obscured the valley below. I would never see that view again, and now I couldn’t quite remember it. How much was the urban grid of rooftops and roads, how much rock and tree? I should have paid closer attention.