We Can Only Save Ourselves Page 23

  “Earth to Alice,” called Kathryn.

  “You’re right,” Alice said finally.

  “I know,” said Kathryn, and they finished their meal in silence.

  That evening, when everyone was home, Janie and Apple said they had something they needed to share. “Go on,” Wesley said. They sat in the kitchen while Hannah Fay cracked eggs into a mixing bowl. In the middle of the day, Janie told them, there had been a knock on the door at the bungalow, and when she opened it, it was a police officer. “Hi, little lady,” he said. “I’m Officer Francis. I’m here following up on the incident that occurred at the house next door.”

  “Goddamnit,” said Wesley. “What did you tell him?”

  “Oh, yes,” Janie said to the officer. “We heard what happened, of course. I’m not sure they’ve even been back since, have they?”

  “No,” said the officer. He smiled at her in a friendly way and asked to come in, and she acquiesced. Hannah Fay was napping, but Apple came in from the kitchen.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit, officer?” Apple asked.

  “The man next door found a picture of a girl he said lived in this house, and he was concerned,” the officer said. “He said there are lots of girls living here?” Without moving from the spot where he was standing, he looked around then, Apple told the others, as if all the girls were hiding somewhere out of sight, behind the door, in the kitchen pantry, in the crawl space below the house, like bodies buried under his own feet.

  “Family,” Janie said.

  “What’s this picture?” Apple asked, and the officer pulled out a photo of Alice. “This,” Apple told them that evening, “was when I knew we were fucked.”

  “I told you to leave the one where you couldn’t tell it was Alice!” Wesley said to Kathryn.

  “I did,” Kathryn said. “Her face was covered. All you could see was her hair.”

  “Oh,” Apple said then. “There were two. Two pictures of Alice.”

  When the officer handed Apple the first picture, she saw that it was clearly of Alice, but part of her face was missing, torn or peeled off, leaving behind a little white mark. Apple asked to see the other picture, which featured Alice as well, though it could have been any bright-headed young woman dancing in a crowd of people. This was the photo Wesley had meant for Kathryn to leave. “It was a good photo, Wesley,” Apple said. “Joyful.”

  “Yes,” Wesley said wearily. “That’s why I chose it. This was supposed to mark the beginning of an exciting time for us.”

  “It still can,” Apple said.

  She’d turned the picture over to see a thicker spot on the back, and when she held the other picture of Alice behind this one, she realized that they had been stuck together. “So you must have grabbed two without knowing,” she said to Kathryn.

  “Fuck me,” groaned Wesley.

  Kathryn’s face grew pink. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “We took care of it, though,” Janie said. “Honestly, he didn’t really seem too concerned.”

  Apple said that the officer asked if Wesley had anything to do with the incident next door—“We didn’t even have to lie,” she told Wesley—and did she know how the pictures of Alice might have ended up in the house. Janie and Apple said they didn’t, that it was very peculiar, and if anyone should be worried, it should be the girl in the photos, because she might have a stalker.

  The officer had shrugged. “He told us the owner of the house said we were very nice girls, but the officer personally thought something seemed fishy, but also he was busy with real murderers, not petty thieves,” Janie said.

  “You did kill an animal. That’s not nothing,” Hannah Fay said over her shoulder. She was standing by the stove, a spatula in her hand.

  “For Wesley,” Alice said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s not a dog person either. Anyway, we paid him off,” Apple said. “Subtly.”

  “What?” Wesley asked. He rubbed his eyes. “How do you subtly pay someone off?”

  “I could tell he wasn’t in this line of work because of any sense of justice,” Apple said. “He seemed sleazy. Honestly, he reminded me of my dad.”

  Apple had walked closer to him, close enough that she could smell his lunchtime cigarette in his hair, on his clothes, close enough that he could see the freckles on her nose, the shape of her mouth, smell her shampoo, and said she was sorry he’d had to come out here. “I have something for your trouble,” she said. “Stay right there.” She went into the kitchen and found the Tupperware container where they kept their money from the odd jobs they sometimes took, including the bills from the man next door’s wallet. “So it’s kind of like we paid them back,” she said.

  “You gave him the money?” Wesley asked. “All of it? We needed that.”

  It was true. The girls had grown even thinner, their meals leaner. Beyond that, they were going to the desert soon, and they would need to pay for some kind of shelter. Wesley had told them about a crumbling old ranch that they could get for cheap because the owner was old and the land no longer offered him any income. But cheap didn’t mean free, and now they didn’t have anything.

  “This is all my fault,” said Alice.

  “Kind of,” Apple agreed.

  The officer had taken the Tupperware from her with a dubious look, but then he nodded and thanked the girls for their time. “I’m sure it was just a random thing,” he said. “Someone passing through town. And that it won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not,” Apple said. “It’s very frightening. Who knows what kind of monster could have done it?”

  “That part was unnecessary,” Alice said, but Apple laughed.

  “Crisis averted,” Janie said. “See?”

  “Only now there’s a new crisis,” Kathryn said. “We have no money.”

  “I’m going out,” Wesley said, sliding his chair back from the table and standing up. “I’ve got to get out of here for a while.”

  Kathryn got up too. “What about tomorrow?” she asked.

  Alice looked from Wesley to Kathryn and back to Wesley.

  “What’s happening tomorrow?” she asked. Kathryn glanced at her, then back to Wesley.

  “We’re going to the desert tomorrow,” Wesley said. “Not all of us. Just Kathryn and me. To look at the ranch.”

  “But now we can’t buy it,” Apple said. “Can we?”

  Wesley sighed. “Maybe we can cut some kind of deal. Or maybe we could sell this house.”

  Hannah Fay was walking over to the table with bowls of scrambled eggs in her hands. “You’re taking Kathryn?” she asked, and Alice could hear the hurt in her voice that she wasn’t getting a first look at the place her baby might call home, a sanctuary while the rest of the world fell apart.

  “It’s a long drive,” he said. “On bumpy roads. You would be very uncomfortable.”

  “Do you want eggs before you go, Wesley?” Hannah Fay asked. Her voice was bright again, but she still seemed fragile, like the cracked porcelain plate in their kitchen cabinet, a fracture running across its face and threatening to break it for good.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “So are we going tomorrow?” Kathryn asked. “I can pack for both of us, if you’d like.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The girls ate their eggs in silence. Alice’s mind felt too full—the desert, the dog, the officer, the money, gone. Wesley, gone. Coming back but then leaving again. Suddenly, she felt like she wanted to cry, and she excused herself. “You can go to my room,” Kathryn said kindly, and Alice nodded. Once inside, she curled up on the bed, her back to the door, and fell asleep.

  Later Kathryn came in and lay beside her, whispering over her shoulder. “Apple didn’t have to give that man our money.” Her breath was hot in Alice’s ear, waking her up. “She could have paid him in another way, if you know what I mean. Apple isn’t stupid. She’s sabotaging Wesley.”

  “She had
to think on her feet,” Alice said, though she wasn’t sure if she was talking aloud or only in a dream. “She had to be quick. No one is sabotaging anyone.”

  “Wake up, Alice,” Kathryn said.

  “I am awake,” Alice said. “You woke me up. Now I’m going back to sleep.” She listened as Kathryn went into the bathroom. But even after Kathryn came back and got in bed beside her, Alice found she couldn’t sleep. Her stomach ached, and she didn’t know why.

  (It’s sadness, we would tell her. It doesn’t feel good to be left behind, does it?)

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE NIGHT WESLEY and Kathryn were in the desert, the remaining girls made spaghetti without meat, just pouring in some cheap jarred sauce they bought that afternoon at the grocery store. Janie had wanted garlic bread, the kind in the warmer, but they hadn’t had enough money. “We can make garlic toast,” Hannah Fay suggested. So they put slices of stale white bread in the toaster and spread butter on them, and Janie used a can of peas to mash up some garlic, which they tried to spread on top of the butter, ripping little gashes in the bread.

  “This is disgusting,” Janie said around a mouthful of food, and they all laughed and once they started, they couldn’t stop. For Alice, it was like a valve had been loosened, all the pressure releasing and turning into laughter. She tried the garlic toast and agreed it was terrible, and she put a piece in Apple’s mouth, and Apple sputtered around it until finally she swallowed and howled, tiny bits of toast flecking her lips.

  After dinner, they draped themselves around the living room, Janie and Apple on the couch, Alice on the chair with her legs over one of the cushioned arms, her head on the other, and Hannah Fay propped up on the twin mattress they’d dragged from her little room. They were quiet.

  “You know what,” said Apple, breaking the silence, “for some reason, Hannah Fay’s mattress always makes me think of that night Wesley put on the priest robes.”

  “Why?” asked Alice. “It wasn’t even out.”

  “It was. It was up against the wall,” Janie said. Alice sat up so she could see Janie and Apple, who looked like mirror images of each other. If Alice squinted, it looked like there were four of the same girl. A little army.

  Apple nodded. “I kept looking at it,” she said. “I don’t know why. What a weird night.”

  “I’m sort of sorry I missed it,” Hannah Fay said, brushing her belly with her fingertips, back and forth, like a little broom sweeping across a surface.

  “It was nothing, Han,” said Alice. She’d noticed Apple watching her, and saw she had that sharpness she’d gotten lately around Wesley, the sizzle of electricity. Her expression was relaxed, casual, but her body seemed rigid, like she was a creature made of steel, trying to bend herself into the shape of a girl.

  “That’s not how you felt then, Alice,” said Apple, frowning. Hannah Fay looked up from her stomach, head cocked.

  “Well,” said Alice, “it was helpful to learn some facts I didn’t know. I understood Wesley more. But it’s stuff I’m sure Hannah Fay already knows.”

  “It was about how Wesley was in jail,” Apple said to Hannah Fay.

  “Oh yeah,” Hannah Fay said, nodding. “The prison system in this country is broken.”

  “My dad’s in prison,” Apple said.

  “I didn’t know that,” Hannah Fay said. “Goodness. I’m sorry.” Janie didn’t say anything, and Alice wondered if that was because she already knew.

  “I’m sorry, too, Apple,” Alice said.

  “Embezzlement,” said Apple. “He got picked up at my field hockey game freshman year.” She shook her head, as if clearing her brain of the memory. Her hair shone, and Alice thought of how the other night it had concealed them. “Anyway,” she went on, “I’m just glad your baby won’t have that. I’m glad that was in Wesley’s past.”

  “Oh, me too,” said Hannah Fay. She began rubbing her belly again, this time with her whole hand.

  “It’s sad,” Apple said, looking at none of them in particular, “that I guess Wesley’s first son didn’t get that.” Beside her, Janie shifted, pulling her toes away from Apple’s, but Apple’s face gave nothing away.

  Hannah Fay’s hand stopped moving, and she knit her pale eyebrows together, a little crease popping up between them. “What?” she asked.

  “Oh my God,” said Apple. “I thought you knew. That night—with the priest’s robe—Wesley told each of us something different, a confession. That’s what he told me.”

  Now Hannah Fay shook her head. She tucked hair behind her ears. “No,” she said. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Apple,” Alice began.

  “Tell me,” Hannah Fay said.

  “I don’t know much. He was vague. But he has a son,” said Apple. “A little boy. I think he said he’d be seven now.”

  “A son,” repeated Hannah Fay. “Another son.”

  “But he must not love him, Han,” said Janie desperately. “You know? He left him. He found you! He loves you.”

  “That doesn’t help,” said Hannah Fay. Her cheeks were flushed and clammy. “And Janie, you knew too?”

  “I told her,” Apple said before Janie could answer. “I’m sorry. I had to—unburden myself.” Her right hand fluttered around her chest, as if Wesley’s son was trapped inside it and she had to free him.

  “The mother,” Hannah Fay said. “Who was she?”

  Apple looked at Janie, who looked down, away. “I’m sorry,” Apple said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Then stop!” said Alice.

  “His wife,” said Apple.

  “He was married?” asked Hannah Fay quietly.

  Alice watched Apple swallow. Alice thought of killing the dog, how she realized it was something she had to do. Telling Wesley about Apple and the man next door—she’d had to do that too. Apple felt the same about this, Alice could tell. Her face was placid and resolved; it reminded Alice of a movie she’d seen once, about spies in World War II, in which an executioner in a firing squad waited for a signal, finger on the trigger, watching the person before him look around wildly, eyes covered by a blindfold, trying to catch the last glimpse of their world.

  “Is married,” Apple said. “He never divorced her.”

  Hannah Fay shook her head again. “He told you all this?”

  “He was confessing,” Apple said.

  “You’re lying,” said Hannah Fay. Her voice sounded, to Alice, hopeful and angry.

  “She’s not,” said Janie. “I knew he had a wife. He told me that part too. Just not about the boy.” She got up and went to sit by Hannah Fay on the mattress, then put her arm around Hannah Fay, but Hannah Fay did not move at all. “I really thought you knew, Han,” Janie said in a soft voice.

  “Well, I didn’t,” said Hannah Fay curtly. She put her hands down on either side of her and pushed herself up from the mattress. Janie looked up at her. Alice stood, too, but couldn’t bring herself to go to Hannah Fay and embrace her.

  “I need to go,” Hannah Fay said. “I’m leaving. I just need to go.”

  “You don’t have a car,” Alice said, feeling stupid as she said it.

  “I’ll find a ride.” Hannah Fay started walking back to her room.

  “That’s dangerous!” said Janie.

  “She’s right,” said Apple. But Alice heard no urgency in her voice.

  “I’ll call someone to come get me,” said Hannah Fay.

  “We didn’t pay the phone bill,” said Janie.

  “I’ll figure it out,” Hannah Fay snapped. And then she opened the door to her room and disappeared inside.

  Alice turned to Apple. “You did this on purpose, I know you did,” she said. “But why would you want to hurt Hannah Fay?”

  “I don’t want to hurt Hannah Fay,” Apple said.

  “But you did, and you knew you would! Look at her.” Alice gestured toward the study. “She wants to leave!”

  “She just needs some time to collect herself,” Apple said.

>   “Why do you think Wesley told you that, Apple? About being married and having a kid?” Janie asked.

  Apple sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. “I had a baby once too,” she said. “Right after my dad went to prison. My mom sent me away to live with my aunt and uncle, and after I had the baby, someone adopted her and I went back home. I never even got to see her. Wesley told me he understood, that baby wasn’t meant to be mine, and the baby he had wasn’t meant to be his.”

  “You’re lying,” Alice said. “No way is any of this true.” All of these things about Apple—her father, another father, some nameless child of Wesley’s, a baby. Alice had told Kathryn that Apple was slippery, and she’d been right. Every time Alice held a version of Apple in her head, it slipped away, phantomlike, and Alice had to start reconstructing her again.

  Apple shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m not going to try to convince you. But it is.”

  “Oh, Apple,” said Janie, crossing over to her and putting her hand on Apple’s shoulder. “You never told me.”

  “I don’t like to discuss it,” she said. “I don’t want to discuss it now. But that baby was lucky. I would’ve been a shitty mother.”

  “You would’ve been a great mother, I know it,” Janie said. Alice thought of how gentle Apple was with Janie. She thought of one of her own early nights here, the first trip she took, and Apple taking her to bed, tucking her in. She thought of Apple running the shower for her to wash off all the blood, sticking her hand under the water to make sure it was warm enough before she got in.

  “I don’t care,” said Apple. “And Wesley doesn’t care about his other kid. He does, however, care about Hannah Fay and this baby.”

  That was when Alice put it together. She wasn’t punishing Hannah Fay for anything. She was punishing Wesley, and Hannah Fay was a casualty. “She won’t really leave,” Alice said.

  “God, I hope not,” said Janie. “Wesley will kill us.”

  “I’m going in,” Alice said. “I’ll sleep with Hannah Fay.” But when Alice tried the door handle, it was locked, and no sound came from inside. “I’ll wait on the couch then,” she said.