“No, hang on.” And he almost sounds kind, but he’s reaching for the landline next to the register. “I’ll call the station. They can help you if you just wait a minute.”
I don’t. I give him that same public smile and exit the way I came, through the gust of the AC. And out in the heat, someone is waiting for me.
six
it’s the girl from before, her phone in her hand, the glow from the screen washed out by the sun. She looks up as I let the glass pharmacy door slam shut behind me.
“You’re new,” she says. Behind her, at the center of the park, the others are laid out on the grass, one girl pulling off her shirt. She’s got a bathing suit on underneath, and she shrieks as the boy shoves her into the spray of the fountain.
The girl in front of me clears her throat. I haven’t answered her fast enough.
“Yeah,” I say. I check over my shoulder. Through the door I can see the clerk on the phone, looking right at me as he speaks. “Margot,” I say, facing her again. “I’m Margot.”
“Margot what?” She smiles when I don’t answer, smug and amused. If she knows what I am, she doesn’t seem surprised, the way the clerk was. Instead she just tilts her head so her glossy ponytail falls over her shoulder. “I’m Tess.”
Laughter from the others. I look over at them, but Tess doesn’t move an inch. Watches me, and watches, and pops her shoplifted bubble gum.
“Where are you from?” she says.
I have to not be standing here anymore, right where that man can see me. I don’t know who he called. The police, maybe, and if I stay here I could be letting them find me. Could be letting them send me back to Mom.
“Calhoun County,” I say. I step around Tess and into the road. I’ve learned my lesson about being direct. I can still get what I need; I just have to be more careful. “You know a good place to get something to eat? Or you got anything more than gum?”
“Yeah,” Tess says. “The Omni’s open.” She points across the square, to the grocery store with its mismatched signs.
“Can you show me?” This is the kind of girl who knows everything about her town, the kind of girl who can put the whole thing into her pocket without missing a beat. Calhoun has one of them, but she’s never gotten within three feet of me. Still, Tess can’t be that hard to work. I’m betting that if I can keep her talking, she’ll tell me where to find Fairhaven.
Tess raises her eyebrows—the Omni is right there, after all—but gives me an indulgent little smile that makes me feel about five years old. “Sure.”
I follow her down the middle of the road, checking behind me to make sure nobody’s shown up to answer the clerk’s call. But there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just the hum of crickets and the press of the sun, and Tess and her friends and the pharmacy clerk could be the only people alive, the only hearts beating in the whole town.
The boy watches as we turn the corner of the park and pass by. He’s too far away for me to be sure, but I think he’s frowning. Tess is supposed to be over there, stretched out, keeping up with her tan. Instead she’s here, with me.
The Omni looks pretty much exactly like the pharmacy. Same brick face. Same poorly fitted door that squeaks egregiously as we push it open and sidle through. The lighting inside is even the same, fluorescent and yellow and fizzing. The air-conditioning isn’t working, and the cashier is fanning herself with a tabloid magazine.
“Hey, Leah,” Tess says. The cashier ignores her, but Tess doesn’t seem bothered. She just keeps going, leads me down the first aisle—half of it empty, like the whole place has been raided or, more likely, understocked—toward the back, where a row of clear freezers covers the far wall.
She props herself against them, the chill raising goose bumps on her crossed arms. I look away, busy myself reading the prices on a rack of bruised produce.
“Margot,” she says, like she’s trying it on. “So, what are you in for?”
“That’s what they ask in prison, right?” I say, frowning.
Tess only laughs. “Where do you think you are?”
Something curdles deep in my stomach. I don’t know this girl, don’t know a thing about her, really, but I know what money looks like, and I know how it sounds when a person doesn’t understand what they have.
Fuck you, I think. I’d give a lot to be in your kind of cell.
“What’s so bad about it?” I ask, turning a particularly damaged banana over in my hands. It’s too soft, like just the slightest pressure would split the peel. Quickly, I put it back.
“Oh, you know.” Tess straightens up, strands from her ponytail sticking to the door of the freezer. She smiles when she notices me watching. “Middle of nowhere. Boring. But I guess it’s not boring if you’re here for Fairhaven.”
I go still. “For what?”
“Oh, come on,” she says. “Really?”
Is it that obvious who I belong to? If not for our ages, Mom and I could be sisters, could be twins, and maybe it’s the same with Gram, but I didn’t expect anyone to recognize me.
I could tell her. I was ready to when I got here, with no reason to hide. But the panic that wrapped around me as the pharmacy clerk reached for the phone—I can still feel it. Not safe, not safe, over and over in my head.
“Have it your way,” Tess says, when it’s clear I won’t respond, and I can see the interest leak out of her, see her summer smile sliding back on.
So she doesn’t care. If I’m not going to entertain her, I’m worth less of her time. But I still need to find Gram. And I know Tess can tell me how, if I can only find a way to ask that doesn’t mean giving her something in exchange.
I should talk about her. She’ll open up that way.
“Your family own this place too?” I say, grabbing a bag of chips from the rack. She frowns, and I wave it off. “I heard you before. Landlord’s daughter.”
“That’s me,” she says, giving a wide, sparkling smile for a moment before it drops and she’s rolling her eyes. “Yeah, they bought up half the town.”
The storefronts, maybe. Or the land I passed on the way in, flat and dry, furrowed from long-ago planting. “Are the fields yours too? They looked pretty wrecked.”
Tess takes the chips from me and opens the bag, fishes for a handful. “Out east? If it’s wrecked it’s not ours. Everything else is, though. It’s all a mess. Phalene used to be a big farming town when the Nielsens owned it, but after the drought, the land went bad and nobody could afford to grow anything.”