It’s empty in the way Calhoun is, ramshackle and weathered, but there’s a quaintness to it that’s unfamiliar. Buildings border the park, low storefronts and flapping awnings in colors that used to be candy-bright, the sort of thing you’d see in a snow globe or a picture book. Most of the stores seem empty from here. A grocery, the name on the crooked sign different from the name in painted letters on the big front window. A pharmacy—Hellman’s, by the neon flicker over the door—where there at least seem to be some people inside. And behind me the laundromat, its door open, all yellow tile and peeling linoleum. An older woman sits behind the counter, her eyes shut as she listens to a commercial on the radio.
This is it. Phalene.
This is it?
I told myself I wasn’t expecting anything. But of course I was. Something inside me thought I’d set foot on Phalene land and feel it burrowing into me like roots—a belonging. Something inside me thought Gram would be waiting when I pulled into town.
She’s here somewhere. I’ll find her.
As I’m watching, a group comes spilling out of Hellman’s, their laughter carrying across the park. They seem about my age, maybe a little older. I shove my hands in my pockets and start to walk slowly around the park toward them. At the very least they can tell me where I can find some breakfast.
The closer I get, the more I can pick them apart. Three people gathered around a fourth, a girl with a long dark ponytail pulled so tight on her skull that it hurts just to look at her. She’s holding something in her hands, glancing over her shoulder into the pharmacy with a bright laugh.
“Hey,” a voice says, “I see we’re shoplifting for fun now,” and she twists around.
“It’s just a pack of gum, Eli,” she says to a guy standing a few steps back. Her voice is low, hoarse, like she’s been yelling all night, or like she was asleep until just a few seconds ago. “Besides, you really think Hellman’s gonna ask the police to arrest his landlord’s daughter?”
“His name’s not Hellman,” the boy says as she doles out pieces of gum to her friends. “What, you think the workers at Wendy’s are all named Wendy?”
The girl rolls her eyes. I’m near enough now that I can see how pretty she is, in a strange, almost secret way. Wide-set eyes, brown like her hair, and a pale, thin mouth. She’s wearing a version of what I am, shorts and a loose T-shirt, only hers looks fresh from the store, the rips in her shorts done just so.
“Calm down,” she says, popping a square of gum into her mouth and chewing with her obscenely white teeth. “It’s a buck fifty, max. I’ll pay him next time.”
The boy—he feels too old for that word, but not by much—kicks at a crack in the sidewalk and sighs. That kind of resignation you feel when this is just how someone is. I know it from Mom.
“Hey.”
I look up. She’s watching me from the hold of her friends, between the swing of their summer-blond hair. They haven’t turned to face me yet, and I don’t think they will. That’s all right. I’m not interesting to them, and vice versa.
“Hey,” I say back. It doesn’t sound right. I’m good with parents who ask where my father is, with the librarians who ask if I’m sure I don’t want anything from the vending machine, their treat, but girls like me—I don’t know what everything means. Just like with Mom, every word has some different meaning hiding inside, but I always guess the wrong one.
My heart trips in my chest as the girl slips free of her friends and steps toward me. A minute ago I would’ve said she was perfect, but now I can see the sweat at her hairline, the damp gleam of her throat and the chips in her pale pink nail polish. The color matches the pack of gum she’s holding in the palm of her hand.
“You want a piece?” she says, holding it out. Head tilted, voice too innocent, too friendly. But there’s a smile on her face like encouragement. And I unravel her in my head, because that’s what you do when you don’t have anybody there to fill the hole of your life, and here is this girl, waiting for somebody to join her, to take up her dares, to be the person on the bike next to her as she whips through midnight on her way out of this town.
Sure, I think. I could do that with you.
I don’t get the words out, though, before she’s shrugging and turning back to the others. I watch her knit herself back into her friends, arms around waists and ankles knocking, and they cross the road, onto the grass. Passing laughter between them like a joint, and the boy follows, reluctant, slow. For a moment I let myself imagine me with them. A fourth girl in that line. My hand in someone else’s pocket.
Doesn’t matter. I shake my head, clear it. A girl with needle-narrow legs and skin she lets the sun touch—that unnerves me more than anything. Terrifies me, that I want to be one. That I want to be with one. That I want to slice one open to see just how it works when you live like that.
I head for the door of the pharmacy, ignore the drift of voices from the park as I step through. The AC is on full, buffeting down so hard that my hair flickers into my eyes, and for a second I just stand there and let it push the summer out of me.
At the far end is a long pharmacy counter, a man propped up on his elbow behind it, flipping through a catalog. I duck into one of the aisles. I’m not hiding. I just hate that first moment when an adult sees me, when the good girl inside slips herself over my body like a goddamn couch cover.
Of course I picked the aisle stacked high with tampons. My face goes hot, blood rushing under my skin, and I hurry past pads and things that shouldn’t embarrass me, that maybe wouldn’t if I had a mother who didn’t make it seem like the very existence of my body was a personal affront.
“Can I help you?” the man at the counter calls just as I’m about to turn up the next aisle. I freeze, feel the tug of my public smile pulling at my cheeks. It’s already on tight by the time I turn around.
“Yes,” I say, starting toward him, careful to sound like I know what I’m doing. “I’m looking for Fairhaven. Or Vera Nielsen?”
I’m expecting a shrug. An idle gesture in one direction or another. Instead the man’s ruddy face goes pale as I get close.
“Nielsen?” He straightens. “Who’s asking?”
“Nobody,” I say immediately, my mother’s caution an instinct I can’t shed. But the damage is done. His eyes are wide, his mouth slack.
“Jesus,” he says, “you look just like them,” and I think of Mom, of the face I share with her. Gram must be the same. Here in Phalene, that doesn’t seem to be a good thing, if the look on the clerk’s face is anything to go by.
“Never mind,” I say, eager to leave. “I just got turned around.”