I nod. Wyatt’s parents are old hippie farmers who have been out in Hector for decades. When they’re not farming, they run a meditation retreat center that attracts primarily other old hippie farmers. They’re nice people, but they never liked me much. They (quite rightly) thought I wasn’t very good for their son.
“And you don’t mind working with them?” I ask casually.
“It’s been…a little strange,” he admits. “But it feels good too. Knowing they can rely on me as they get older.” He blushes suddenly and looks away.
“It’s okay, Wy. I’ve made my peace with abandoning my mother and my responsibilities. I had to do it.” He nods, unconvinced. “Have they at least gotten less passive-aggressive with their disapproval?” I ask.
He laughs. “Not entirely, but they’ve toned it down. Strangely enough, they liked Zelda. Superficially, at least, she was more their kind of girl.”
I’m hurt, but not surprised. Wyatt was unapologetically preppy in high school: neat haircut; clean, boring clothes. He played sports, made good grades, and was an all-around Goody Two-shoes. His bedraggled, pot-smoking leftist parents were alarmed and dismayed that their only child turned out to be so straitlaced. They wanted him to rebel, do mushrooms, start a political newspaper, date men, grow his hair. Wyatt was the antithesis of their flower-child fantasy, with his strong chin and lack of imagination. When he brought me home, I could see their internal shudder; I could be wrong, but I think I was even wearing pearls when he introduced me to them. I was another confirmation that Wyatt had been corrupted by the conservatives in the school district, that he would live out a life of commercial conformity and would throw away everything they had fought so hard for.
“I imagine Zelda won over their hearts and minds pretty easily. What, did she bring a joint?” I ask in amusement.
“She told you?” he says, surprised.
“No!” I chortle. “A guess. She didn’t.”
Wyatt grins sheepishly. “Yep. In her best garb too. Flowers in her hair, some crazy kimono thing.”
“I bet they loved her,” I say with a rueful shake of my head. I’m sharply jealous but grateful for the lighthearted, casual tone the evening has taken thus far, and I don’t want to create drama. Above all, I want to avoid talking about that night.
“And, uh, Paris?” Wyatt asks, looking intently at the smooth red of his Pinot Noir.
“Good. Magical. Expensive,” I answer nonchalantly. No one in Hector knows about Nico, and I’d prefer it that way. I’m listening to the banjo jiving in the background, gazing at the dwindling liquid in my glass, and fixating on the possibility of another when the bartender catches Wyatt’s eye and hands him a bag filled with our dinner. Wyatt nods and shakes the guy’s hand in a hearty gesture that would make anyone else look absurd. He is uncannily likable. I shake my head, smiling privately.
Wyatt leads me out of the bar, which is quickly filling up with locals. A handful of young, dandily dressed twentysomethings, but mainly weathered-looking farmers, wearing dirty shirts and worn jeans, their brown faces wrinkled and furrowed by decades without sunscreen. I nod politely at another neighbor, who doesn’t nod back. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s drunk or if there’s some sort of angry undertone. I wonder if everyone over here on the lake judges me for leaving. Or maybe he thinks I’m my sister. Ah, country living.
As we walk across the parking lot, I hear someone hollering behind us and instinctively whirl around. Some guy with a thin blond mustache and ropy muscles in his neck is heading toward me, yelling.
“You fucking cunt. Where the fuck is my sister? Where the fuck is she?”
“Whoa, cowboy,” Wyatt says, stepping between us. He’s a gentle soul, but I’ve seen him throw a punch or two when he’s appropriately riled. His arm curls around me, protecting me. “Kyle, right?”
“Fuck you, asshole. I’m talking to her!” The guy is short and has to sort of leap around Wyatt to point his hand at me in a distinctly menacing way. “She’s the goddamn lesbo been fucking my little sister!”
“I think you have me confused with someone else,” I say slowly, my eyebrows raised. Oh, really, Zelda. “I’m Ava Antipova. Zelda’s twin sister.”
The angry guy looks barely convinced by this, but he does back off. “Fuck you. I know what she and Kayla been up to. When I find Kayla or Zelda, they’re both fucking dead! They better both stay disappeared,” he spits out, making that absurd roosterlike gesture that men make when they’re trying to be assertive. “Bitch.” He strides back toward the bar in a self-satisfied stroll.
“Uh…” I say to Wyatt.
“You remember Kyle Richardson? Upperclassman? A real prick. His little sister is Kayla Richardson. She and Zelda were, uh, friends.”
I make a note to see if she’s the girl on Zelda’s Facebook page. “Were they having sex?” I ask tonelessly.
“I don’t really know. Zelda could be real secretive. And she and I hadn’t. I mean we weren’t—” He coughs uncomfortably. I shrug.
As I jump up into the cab of Wyatt’s truck, I realize that I am starving. I fish out our falafel and start devouring my own, not minding the tzatziki that is leaking into the bag in my lap. Wyatt watches in amusement, silently unwrapping his own sandwich. He neatly, almost daintily, polishes it off in a few bites.
“Well, Ava? Where am I taking you?” he asks, poised in the parking lot.
I hesitate for a moment. He’s staring at me with an expression I can’t read.
“Kuma’s.”
“Are we thinking of the same Kuma’s?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
“I only know the one. I’m looking for a guy named Jason,” I explain. “I think he has something to do with…what happened to Zelda.”
“What do you mean?”
“Zelda texted him from her burner phone the night of the fire, asking him to meet her at the barn at eleven. I don’t know if Jason met Zelda or not.” I pause again, wondering whether to disclose the rest of what the cops told me. “But the cops are looking for him too. I guess there were some chains on the barn doors.”
Wyatt goes entirely white, and his hands grip the steering wheel. “Jesus, Zelda,” he says quietly. “Does it have to do with the money? Or the drugs?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never heard of this guy. But…I think Zelda wanted me to find him and talk to him.”
Wyatt frowns again, and I know he suspects something. I don’t know what he’s thinking, so I roll down the window and stare out at the trees lining the highway.