It was three weeks late and short, but it was from her, signed with her flowery “Mommy” even though Max had stopped calling Martha Revere “Mommy” when she was six.
“Happy birthday, Maxie! Happy big thirteen. I hope you have a wonderful year. I’d hoped to visit, but something came up and I couldn’t get away. I love you! Mommy.”
She said the same thing every year, and every year Max had a flash of hope—hope that her mother meant it, that she’d truly meant to visit, but knowing in her heart since that Thanksgiving she’d left Max with her grandparents, the month before Max turned ten, that she’d never see her mother again.
Lindy wasn’t in the clubhouse, but the door was never locked and Max walked in. She collapsed on the overstuffed couch and reached into a popcorn bowl with day-old popcorn. That’s when she saw Lindy’s diary.
It was out in the open, right there on the table. Lindy was possessive of her diary. She’d let Max read things in it, because they were best friends, but she didn’t let her read everything.
The hardest thing Max had ever done was not pick up that diary. She desperately wanted to, but Lindy trusted her, and trust was important. She stared at it, and Lindy walked in.
Lindy had always been one of the most beautiful girls on campus. They were in seventh grade, but Lindy had never gone through the awkward, gangly stage. She grew from cute, blond, Kewpie doll, when Max had met her in the middle of fourth grade, into young teenage beauty queen. Max had a growth spurt over the summer and went from average to five foot ten practically overnight. She was suddenly the tallest girl in junior high, all arms and legs and no breasts.
“Did you read that?” Lindy snapped and grabbed the diary.
“No.”
She glared at her.
“I’m not lying,” Max said. “I wanted to, I was sort of willing a breeze to come in and turn the pages.”
Lindy laughed. “Okay, I believe you.” She opened the diary to the middle, flipped through, and handed Max the book. “Read Monday.”
Max did. Her eyes widened. Ms. Blair was cutting herself? The PE teacher? Why? “You have to tell Mr. Horn.”
Lindy grabbed the book. “No way, then Mr. Horn and everyone else will know that I was kissing Andy in the locker room.”
“You can say you were just getting something you left. Or—”
But Lindy cut her off. “You think this is the only secret I have on the teachers at school? Really? I know everything about everyone in this town—and if I don’t know it, I will.”
“She needs help.”
Lindy wasn’t even listening to her. “I know that Mr. Horn’s secretary gives him a blow job under his desk, and the janitor, Miles, he jerks off after watching our swim meets.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“People are gross. Take Kimberly. I know she’s cheating on my father. I’m going to prove it.”
Lindy and her mother were constantly at odds. She called her Kimberly to get under her skin.
“You’re spying on all these people?”
“Hardly. I’m just more observant than most people.” Lindy stared at her. “So are you. You’re the one who told me Miles was a creep.”
“I didn’t know why.”
“Now you do. Be glad you’re not on the swim team.”
“Still, you have to do something about Ms. Blair. I really like her, and she needs help.” Max had read a book about cutting. She couldn’t imagine anyone hurting themselves, but she knew it was something serious.
“No.”
“How can you be so cold?”
“How can you be such a bleeding heart? I’m sorry I showed you anything. My diary’s off-limits to you.”
Max walked out and didn’t speak to Lindy for two weeks. Instead, she followed Ms. Blair, trying to catch her cutting herself, because then she could go to Mr. Horn and say what she saw, and not bring Lindy into it.
But she never saw anything. And a month later, Ms. Blair took a leave of absence. Lindy—of course Lindy would know—said she checked herself into rehab. In addition to cutting, she was a drug addict, and she’d nearly OD’d. Lindy had heard that from a school board member who was having dinner at her house with her parents.
True to her word, Lindy never let Max look at her diary again. They managed to rebuild their friendship, but conversation about the diary—and Lindy’s secrets—were off-limits. But two years later, in the middle of their freshman year, the book would come back to bite Lindy in the ass.
*
The waitress refilled her coffee cup a third time, startling Max from her memories. Max thanked her then looked back at her notes, needing to get her head out of the past. She noticed she’d scraped the polish off her thumbnail again. Why did she even bother with manicures when she always trashed her nails?
Penny and Henry Hoffman walked into the hotel’s dining hall and seemed relieved and nervous that Max was already there. They smiled and sat across from her. Penny said, “I was afraid you’d changed your mind.”
Max got right to the point. “I did a little research last night, but have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Please, anything we can do to help.”
“Did Jason’s parents, or anyone else, hire a private investigator to look into the homicide?”
They glanced at each other and shook their heads. “I don’t think so,” Henry said. “Mike would have told me.”
Possibly, though it depended how close the family was, and whether Jason’s parents wanted to spare the older couple.
“Did the police say anything to you or to Jason’s parents about the investigation? If they had a suspect or if there were similar crimes?”
“Maybe you should talk to Mike and Sara,” Penny said, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. “They really haven’t told us much of anything, though we’ve asked,” she added quickly.