I smile. “What was that for?”
“For being somebody who cares about this stuff,” she says. “Not many people around here do.” She gives me a little wave, then gets in her navy-blue hatchback and drives away.
There are only two news vans here right now, which leaves me wondering where the other three are. Off getting coffee? On the curb at the courthouse, waiting for word on whether Greg and Randy will be tried asadults? The trailer park staking out Stacey’s place again?
After I start the truck, I sit there for a second before I throw it in reverse. I’m not even sure where I’m headed, really, until I make the turn toward Walmart.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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twenty-six
I DON’T MEAN to break in, exactly.
It’s just that when I reach out to ring the bell, I notice the door to Stacey’s trailer isn’t latched all the way. There’s no car parked out front. LeeAnne must be at work.
The Coral Creek Mobile Village looks shabbier without the benefit of an ethereal nighttime glow. In the stark light of a Saturday afternoon, Stacey’s trailer is still the tidiest, but it looks tired, too—as if it takes a tremendous amount of energy just to stay upright; that it might, at any moment, give up altogether and collapse in a great wheeze of dust and fiberglass.
An elderly black man sits by a stack of the tires in the yard next door, leaning back in a green plastic lawn chair. He’s reading a book while the Doberman snoozes, draped over his feet. When I walk up to the little white gate, the man smiles and waves a howdy in my direction. The dog stays silent and still, but I see his eyes open and follow me, like a painting in a haunted castle. The closer you look, the more you see. I smile back at him, then quickly open the white picket gate and close it again, as if these flimsy slats could protect me from a motivated Doberman.
I can hear a shower running through an open window as I climb the stairs of the redwood deck. Whatever possessed me to come here again must still have me firmly in hand. When I see the unlatched door, I push it open without hesitation, then walk in like I own the place, my hand held back to keep the storm door from banging behind me.
I find myself standing on a linoleum island right inside the door, surrounded by sculpted shag carpet the color of Mom’s two-alarm chili. I don’t know what I expected the inside of a trailer home to look like, but this one is as well kept on the inside as it is on the outside. It isn’t covered in old take-out containers and doesn’t reek of cigarette smoke. No one is standing in the kitchen to my right cooking meth.
I hear music coming from down the hall where the water is running. It must be Stacey in the shower. I make a decision then and there. I will wait for her. I will convince her that I’m not one of them. I just want to find out what really happened. I don’t need her to be my best friend. I don’t even need her to believe me.
I only need the truth.
Emboldened by my plan, a strange urgency takes hold. I walk around the living room like a detective in search of evidence. I quietly pull open the drawer of an oak end table next to an overstuffed couch, covered in a quilt. Remote controls. Loose change. A pack of peppermint chewing gum. I slide the drawer closed. It sends up a loud squeak, and I freeze for a moment, my heart pounding. I glance at the bathroom door. Still closed. Water still running. Music still playing.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, silently.
What are you doing?
What am I looking for? A filing cabinet filled with folders full of secret documents? A handwritten account of events labeled, “Dooney’s Party: One Week Ago”? I take a moment to imagine Stacey, fresh from a shower, finding me in her living room, unannounced. I picture her wrapped in a towel, hair wet, screaming, the friendly old man next door and his Doberman racing to her aid. Me, on a gurney, explaining to the police, my parents, and Ben how I came to be mauled by a dog outside Stacey Stallard’s trailer, and Sloane Keating’s smug little smirk, floating above us all as her cameraman captures every moment.
This is crazy.
I turn to go.