Across the top of the factory building was the word “Baypen.” It must have been the name of the company, but Quinn felt no strong desire to research it.
And under the clown was a slogan that was illegible but for the word “EVERYTHING” written in all caps and a looping, fake-fancy scrawl. Quinn snapped a picture of the clown. Maybe she’d send it to Tessa later. Her friend liked creepy stuff, would get a kick out of it. She’d make Quinn feel better about having a pervert clown watching over her. And then she’d tell Quinn what Quinn already knew: that her next task was to find some damn curtains for that window.
Two
Quinn woke to a phone alarm she didn’t remember setting.
She flopped onto her back and blinked for a second at the unfamiliar ceiling, then looked over to the poster that’d come loose overnight and was hanging limply by three corners; the new desk; the boxes still to unpack . . .
Nope. She hadn’t imagined Kettle Springs.
There was a knock on her door, the sudden noise shoring up Quinn’s consciousness.
“I made breakfast,” her dad said. A pause. “It’s downstairs. I’m going to head into the office to see what I’m dealing with, okay?”
There was another pause and Quinn stretched. Her dad was waiting for confirmation she’d heard him.
“Okay. Good luck on your first day.” Yeah, why not? It didn’t cost her anything to be nice. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said as he descended back down her attic stairwell. “And good luck, yourself.” But Quinn didn’t need luck. Only one of them was nervous about the fresh start.
With the house to herself, Quinn showered. The hot and cold knobs were a finicky puzzle that she only halfway understood, but it felt good to be clean again after all the moving and dust. She then dressed and dried her hair. She looked at the flat iron, deciding if she was going to start out the school year with her kinks or without.
It took fifteen minutes, and while some days she hated the iron, today the warm, smooth pull of the device put her at ease. She got the curls from her mom and with her mom they would stay, at least for a little while.
Quinn came downstairs to find that the “breakfast” her dad had mentioned was a chip-clipped bag of Lucky Charms. Dad had unpacked a single bowl and spoon and placed them on the kitchen counter. No milk. It was hard to tell if he was joking or if he thought this actually qualified as “making breakfast.” Before what happened with Mom, Glenn Maybrook had been a funny guy, but now that humor was . . . subtle.
Class started in forty-five minutes. Judging from what she could see of the town out her bedroom window, she estimated a ten-minute walk to school. She could take her time and still be early.
Quinn sat on the floor with her cereal bowl and scrolled on her phone. It didn’t take long to find herself frustrated at both the sluggish speed and that there seemed to be no morning messages from Tessa or Jace. And thanks to time zones, it was an hour later in Philly.
They’ve already forgotten about you. And you haven’t even been gone a full forty-eight hours yet.
She grabbed her empty book bag and set out for school early, just to be moving.
There were two cross streets that would’ve led her toward the school building, and Quinn opted for the one that looked less depressing. The houses were larger, farther apart, all carrying that “cat lady” vibe in both decoration and upkeep. And it wasn’t just the faded porcelain frogs holding signs that read “Bless This Home,” or the strings of Christmas lights drowning in overflowing gutters, or the pots of flowers dying either from neglect or because it was their season to die. No. There was plenty of shabbiness back home, but there was also new life creeping around the edges. Philly ate its rot, was constantly demolishing the old to make way for the new. Looking at these houses, Quinn was struck with the feeling that Kettle Springs had left its best days behind. The town had given up.
Quinn was so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed her neighbor following her. The boy was two houses behind, on the opposite side of the street. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he caught her eye and started to double-time it to catch up.
Quinn had asked her father about him last night, over dinner, but Glenn Maybrook couldn’t remember the boy’s name. Years of medical schooling, memorizing every major bone, vein, artery in the human body and still he couldn’t hold on to the neighbor’s name for a few hours.
“I want to say it was . . . Rodney?”
“Dad. If that kid’s name was Rodney, then two people in this family are set to have a nervous breakdown.”
They’d both laughed at that. It was a nice moment, even if her father’s iffy memory now felt like one more thing that she ought to be worried about.
“Hey. Hey there.”
Quinn looked across the street. Not-Rodney’s pace slowed to stay parallel with her. Still flannel-clad, the boy waved two fingers to get her attention.
“Hi,” she said. She didn’t feel like talking, but there was no escape now. He crossed the street between parked cars, not bothering to look both ways. Nobody was going anywhere in Kettle Springs anyway.
“I’m Rust. Ruston Vance,” he said, voice friendly but laced with—what?—Midwest dirt and grit? “I live next door. I met your dad yesterday.”
The boy stuck out his hand. Not how she usually greeted classmates, but she took the hand and gave it a firm, if awkward, shake. His hand was callused, something Quinn was unsure she’d ever felt. That and his general demeanor gave the impression he was an adult; maybe that was just the calluses and the crooked—broken and reset?—nose. Or his dirty-blond stubble, now tawnier that she was seeing it up close, but still impressive and fuller than she was used to seeing on guys her age. But then again there was also something goofy about Rust that kept him from being intimidating. Maybe it was the wide smile or the ancient stains on his flannel shirt. Or the shirt itself, its pairing with the camo backpack. Which was it, did he want to blend in or stand out?
“I’m Quinn.” She nodded at the school, the tallest building on the horizon, and added: “It’s my first day.”
“Dr. Maybrook mentioned that.”
Ha. Dr. Maybrook. She snorted back a laugh. Rust scrunched up his face like he’d misspoken.
“Oh, it just sounded very formal. I think of him as Dad.”
“Yeah, well, he seems nice. Seems . . . cool. My dad’s never worn sneakers in his life.”
Quinn remembered the white Reeboks, how happy her dad had been to buy them before the move. More evidence of a new start. For the last fifteen years as an emergency room doc, he avoided white shoes. Blood spatter was a work hazard.
“He has his moments,” she agreed.
“He also mentioned Philadelphia? Is that where you’re from?”
Maybe it was Rust’s downhome presence, or maybe it was that the sky had brightened, but talking to him made Quinn feel better, more relaxed. For a moment, she forgot that she was in Kettle Springs, that she knew no one, that her life was a wreck. Life, Quinn had decided on the long ride out here, was a matter of perspective and attitude. There was a way to look at anything and make it seem okay. She felt sure of it, because . . . well, what other choice did she have?