Tainted Frost, page 7
“Exactly.”
We share a quiet look, full of something I wish I had a word for. It gives me that familiar fluttering feeling in my stomach, and I wonder if he’s feeling it too, because his eyes seem to be telling me that he is. But I’m probably reading too much into them. When another person can get you all flustered with just a simple touch or lingering look, you know they have too much power over you. The worst part is knowing you’ve given that power to them, and you have no idea how to take it back.
I break our gaze. “You gonna stay and read every quote tonight? It might take a few hours.”
“No. I’m gonna space it out. I should get going for now. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
He walks out without looking back and I don’t follow him. I listen as he bounds down the stairs, says goodbye to my mom. I leave my room then, and walk to the top of the stairs, just in time to hear the front door close behind him with a soft click.
Chapter 9
It turns out there’s gonna be a party two nights from now. This girl named Joanna is throwing it. We only found out about it a few hours ago, and Natalie has been eviscerating her closet trying to find just the right outfit.
Gary will be there, and she has to look her best. She always looks her best, but don’t try to convince her of that. She’ll just roll her eyes at you.
I’m sitting in one of her beanbag chairs, flipping through a fashion magazine that’s at least ninety percent ads.
“I think I’ll just end up wearing a dress with tights and boots,” she says. “That’s always a foolproof combo. The question is, which dress?”
“I don’t know,” I offer. “Maybe just wear black. Unless some new color is the new black now.”
“Hmmm.” She tilts her head. “Maybe the black mini sweater dress with patterned tights and leather booties. It’s not exactly groundbreaking, but it’s chic.”
“Totally.”
“I’m glad you’re here. It’s always easier making fashion choices when you’re around.”
Natalie is heavy into fashion. She’s been planning on going to Parsons in New York since she was in junior high. She spends time almost every day making patterns and sewing, and back in eighth grade she got active in the social media scene. Now she has a combined two million followers on all of her accounts.
They’re all fashion-related and link back to her blog where she posts show reviews, fashion news, and her own personal thoughts on the industry.
Some brands send her free clothes to wear and share with her followers, because every time she puts up an outfit there’s an uptick in sales for the company. She’ll never post anything she doesn’t personally love, though. Sometimes brands will even send her money for a post, and she’s already saved half of what she’ll need for college.
I still lament the fact that I didn’t start a horoscope or cute dog account years ago when everyone and their moms weren’t on social media. I could’ve been rich by now. I’m never, ever the first to do anything.
“I’m gonna do braids and put some rhinestone hair clips in to make the whole look more festive.”
I nod solemnly. “That’s perfect.”
“Do you know what you’re wearing?”
“I was thinking my dark skinny jeans and that black shirt with the crocheted cuffs.”
“I love it. You always look hot in that.”
“Thanks.” I’m not a fashion guru, but I do try to look cute whenever possible.
Nat drapes the clothes she’s picked out for tomorrow over the back of her vanity chair, and carefully arranges the hair clips and jewelry she’ll wear on the table. “This is probably the fastest I’ve ever decided on an outfit. And I don’t even have a computer system for matching clothes like Cher from Clueless.”
“You don’t need it. Your brain is your clothing computer.”
She points at me. “Exactly. Thank you.”
I get distracted by a shiny ad featuring a model doing cartwheels in a ball gown. Nat’s gone quiet. When I look up, she’s running her hand down the dress on her chair over and over.
“I have to talk to him tomorrow night,” she says quietly. “How can I expect to get into Parsons and become a famous designer if I can’t even talk to a boy? I follow him on social, you know. It’s all images of nature and hockey with him. Do you follow him?”
I shake my head. I haven’t even checked my account in ages.
“He just seems so great. Obviously, I think he’s hot, but his posts make me think he has a lot of, like, heart. Or something. He just seems like such a good person.”
“You will talk to him. Anytime you say you’re gonna do something, you do it.”
She nods, now fidgeting with the dress’s hem. I hate seeing her down because she never gets down. If Nat’s sad, that means the world really is as crappy as it seems.
“You will talk to him,” I repeat. “I know you will. Remember when you said you were going to learn to crochet and you did it in a week?”
“Crocheting is so much easier than talking to Gary.”
“And remember when you said you were gonna start doing yoga and now you’re really good at it?”
“Yoga is so much easier than talking to Gary.”
I laugh. “Even a headstand?”
This gets her to smile a little. “Well, I haven’t mastered headstands yet.” She stands up straight with a determined look on her face. “Let’s go out. See what David’s doing and ask if he wants to come out with us.”
“You don’t have to babysit?” Nat has two younger twin sisters, Nicole and Naomi, that she’s almost always tasked with watching while her parents run The Haven Grille, a restaurant very popular with tourists during the winter season. We never go there because Nat doesn’t want her parents finagling her into helping there too.
“My grandma’s coming over in a little bit. She might even already be here, so nope, I don’t have to babysit tonight.” She smiles. “For once, luck is on my side.”
“Okay, let me text David.”
David is with his friend Jared at Jerry’s and tells us to join them. The diner is packed as expected. It’s mostly kids from school who’ve overtaken the place. They lean toward each other across the tables, spin around on the counter stools, and, of course, play DJ with the jukebox.
I love this place—the energy, the food, even the greasy smell. I want to be one of the girls here with her boyfriend, my head on his shoulder, with his arm on the small of my back.
David is sitting with Jared in a booth near the back. He waves us over. Jared is one of David’s closest friends on the hockey team. He’s Tlingit like Natalie. David hangs out with him whenever he’s “about to grow boobs from too much estrogen exposure.” His words.
We push through the throng to reach them with Natalie giving quick air-kisses to some classmates as we pass.
Jared pats his side and winks at me, so I sit beside him, while Natalie takes her place next to David. For a few minutes there’s silence as we all read the menu we’ve already memorized thousands of years ago.
“I want the cheeseburger,” Jared says.
“Me too. And cheese fries,” I say. “Can’t live without cheese fries.”
“Have you ever tried the cream of turkey soup? It’s awesome.” He does this face like Homer Simpson when he’s really hungry.
“Are you kidding me? I inhale that soup.”
“Same.”
David is still fascinated by the menu. I can tell he’s nervous. He gets really quiet when he’s nervous. But I don’t know why he’d be nervous. Despite his crush on Nat, he doesn’t usually get flustered around her like this.
Nat has put her menu down and is looking around the diner. Looking for Gary. I kick her under the table.
“Ow.” She glares at me, reaching down to rub her shin.
“Payback.”
She smiles. “I deserved that.”
“What are you gonna order?”
“The usual,” she says, giving me this look like, you totally know that. And then she’s back to scanning the perimeter. David turns toward the window, looking annoyed.
It’s still light out. It snowed last night and patches of snow are on the ground, along the windowsill, heavy on the thick branches of evergreens. They look like clouds that fell down from the sky and landed wherever they pleased. When I was little I wished that I could touch the sky, and now it’s almost like the sky has come down to me instead.
Lissa finally shuffles over to take our order. She looks like she’s so over this whole waitressing thing. I almost want to tell her to take my seat and I’ll do her job for her.
Silence descends on our booth after she leaves. Jared starts humming the Jeopardy theme song. I join in. Our heads start bobbing.
Natalie scowls at us, “What are you guys—“ And then her face softens. I turn around to see Gary walk in with Zack, one of his close friends and the goalie on his team. Natalie lights up and sits up straighter. One hand goes up to fluff her hair while the other reaches down to adjust her sweater.
Zack and Gary walk over to our table.
“Hey guys,” Gary says, addressing David and Jared. “Practice tomorrow. Early. Around 7. I wanna get at least an hour in. Hopefully more.”
David and Jared nod. “You got it, man,” David says.
Nat glances up at Gary politely. I wonder if he knows or has even a small inkling about how she feels about him. She’s always been good at hiding her romantic feelings.
“We’re not gonna lose again next time,” Zack puts in. He also has a crush on Nat. I feel like a quarter of the male population of our school does, honestly. Zack keeps looking at her chest then looking away, but Gary doesn’t even look at me or Nat.
“We’ll get ‘em next time,” he says. “You guys did good last night.”
David shakes his head, but Jared smiles and says, “Thanks, man.”
They walk away, heading to a booth near the entrance. There’s a few minutes of silence as our food is brought over and we all dig in simultaneously.
“Holy crap,” Jared says suddenly, nudging me with his elbow. “Check it out. It’s Mountain Man. In the flesh!” We all turn to look at the direction Jared is pointing, which is at a bearded, scraggly haired man in a gray fur vest and dirty, patched-up jeans that may have been blue once, but are tar-black now. We call him Mountain Man, because no one knows his real name. He’s this old dude that moved here from Montana before I was even born. He lives out in the woods in a cabin he made himself from scratch. Kind of like a Thoreau type. Every time I see him, I think, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
“Yo, David,” Jared says. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you go talk to him.”
David takes a long look at Mountain Man. “Nah.”
“Fine, be that way, coward.” Jared looks from me to Natalie. “How ‘bout you guys? Twenty bucks, come on.” Nat and I just look at him. “All right, I’ll make it forty,” he says, grinning.
“Jared?” Nat says.
“Yeah?” He looks at her with eager anticipation.
“No.”
Jared throws his hands up in defeat. I look at Mountain Man, sitting by himself in the back with all the other tables around him empty. He doesn’t seem to notice everyone staring at him, or if he does, it doesn’t seem like he cares. I actually think about Mountain Man a lot since my dad disappeared. I wonder if he knows anything about the disappearance, if he saw my dad that day, if he has any information he can give me. But I’m too intimidated to approach him. He looks…well, intimidating, dangerous even. Kind of like that old man in the first Home Alone, before it turns out he’s a perfectly normal, polite person. I suddenly don’t have an appetite and push my plate of fries and burger away. The conversation dies after that, and we turn our attention away from Mountain Man to our own inner thoughts.
David is quiet while Natalie looks back every once in a while to catch a glimpse of Gary. I sit back and breathe in the dozens of perfumes and colognes mixing in with the grease from the fryer and the scent of unrequited love wafting from my very own booth.
Chapter 10
I remember his hands. They were always doing something. Building, painting, holding. His name was—. His name is Robert Monroe. But everybody calls him Bob. And everybody loves him.
He is one of the most reliable people in town. If times are tough and you need some money, he’ll gladly lend you some. If your truck stalls on the road, he’ll be the first to arrive on the scene with a spare tire or jumper cables or whatever it is you need. And he is everyone’s favorite hunting partner. He owns a hardware store called Bob’s Hardware & Supplies, located on Main Street between the Haven General Store and Quoth The Raven, the bookstore/library that David and I practically used to live in. The hardware store is run by one of his friends now, and I never go there anymore.
Is it crazy that I miss all of his bad qualities too? You think that when you lose someone, they become sort of like saints in your mind – perfect and infallible. But I remember my dad’s temper and annoying habits. I remember how sometimes he’d watch sports all day and never let me or my mom near the TV. Or how he would randomly tell me I couldn’t go out after dark without giving any reason. The thing is I want all of that back, along with his good advice and comforting hugs and willingness to help with every school project. I need all of it.
There were a lot of rumors when my dad disappeared. How can anyone just vanish into thin air when there were two other people there with him? people asked. It just sounds fishy, they said. One of the rumors was the worst, and I hate thinking about it. Some people said that maybe the two friends my dad had gone hunting with had killed him. Not on purpose, but perhaps it was just one of those hunting accidents, and that they had panicked and buried the body. It was like my heart stopped when I heard that.
Others said that maybe my dad disappeared of his own accord, stealthily separating from his hunting partners and eventually moving farther up north, knowing that most people would just think he had died. The perfect getaway. Like Christopher McCandless, the hitchhiker from the lower 48 who gave up all his wordly possessions to live in the true wild, eschewing comfort and striking out on his own. Maybe my dad even found an abandoned bus just like McCandless, and stayed there, living off the land. Away from the stress of life, free from obligations, free at last. He wouldn’t have been the first to do it.
I never knew the inner workings of my father’s heart. Maybe he was lonely or restless or exhausted from the routine and tedium of small-town life. But when I remember how much he loved my mom, and how eager he always was to spend time with me, I have a hard time believing that he would abandon us like that.
Still, all the rumors were like repeated stabs in the chest.
I’m at Sam’s again with David, bored, and my mind keeps wandering to the past. I wish Alex were here. I check my phone for the hundredth time, hoping for a text from him, but there’s nothing. I sigh and put my head down on the counter. It’s a slow day. The morning rush is over and we’re lucky if a couple of people trickle in once per hour. David is playing solitaire on Sam’s ancient PC. He taps me on the shoulder to show me that he just won his fourth game in a row.
“You must feel very accomplished,” I tell him.
He grins and says, “Hey, I’m getting paid to play,” before turning back to start a new game. As I put my head back down, my cell phone buzzes. It’s a text from Natalie saying, COME OUT. I look out the front windows, but there’s nobody there. Not even any cars. While I’m trying to figure out if Natalie is outside Sam’s or if she’s just playing a trick on me, I get another text from her: COME OUT RIGHT NOW.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell David. He doesn’t even look up from his game. “Don’t worry,” he says. “You won’t miss anything.”
Natalie’s parked in front of the liquor store next door. She waves me over. “Get in!” she calls out.
“What’s up?”
“We don’t have much time,” she says, putting the car into gear. “I have an hour off from watching my sisters, so we need to make the most of it.” She speeds off past Sam’s Shack and makes a U-turn toward the direction of Jerry’s. As she passes by Sam’s again, I catch a quick glimpse of David still sitting in front of the computer. He looks so tiny and lonely from here, and I suddenly feel a lump of guilt in my gut.
“I desperately need coffee,” Natalie says. “You in the mood?”
“Sure.” I close my eyes as she nears my dad’s store and open them after I’m sure she’s passed it. My throat gets tight. Natalie sticks her head out the window and sings, “Freeeeeeeedom.” She bounces in her seat.
“You seem happy.”
She grins. “Is it wrong that I’m happiest when my sisters aren’t around? They’re just so annoying. I’ve been trying to write a blog post all morning and they won’t leave me alone for one second.” She lets out a long breath. “I only managed to get down one sentence.”
“What’s the blog post about?”
“Oh, it’s basically my take on whether fashion is art or not. I’ve been wanting to write it for, like, ever. And at this rate it’ll take me forever to finish it.”
“How come you’re not taking this hour of freedom to work on it?”
She pulls into a parking spot in front of Lulu’s Café. Café is written in two-foot tall letters on the side of the building, and the windows are painted with smiley-faced snowmen and flying reindeer. “Because I have major news,” she says. “I’ll tell you inside.”
We order coffee and blueberry muffins from Tobias, Lulu’s son, and sit down at our favorite table near the window.
“So, what’s the news?” I ask. “The suspense is killing me.”
“Okay. So,” Nat says, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I think I know who Anonymous Asshole is.”
I look up from stirring my coffee. “What?”
She casts a quick glance over her shoulder then leans in close to me and whispers, “I think it’s Matilda.”
