Chapter 4
Cardboard Girl
The day before our house blew up; I woke up clutching the locket my father gave me. I always did that when Mom worked and I had to spend the night by myself. I didn’t mean to, mind you. I’d drift off to sleep just fine, watching Nick At Nite reruns or some old movie on the Hallmark Channel. It never failed though. Sometime during the night, my hand would creep up to my throat and settle on the locket. I guess it made me feel close to him, like he was still around in some small way.
I half expected to wake up and find that I had pried the thing open in my sleep, but I never did. In fact, I had never been able to get that open, asleep or not. Since the day my father gave it to me, the day he died, I wore it around my neck. I never took it off, even in the shower. But I had never managed to open the golden oval that hung at the end.
Whatever was in there, probably a picture, was my dad’s secret.
I crawled out of bed and into the shower, remembering that I’d had the dream again. That was two nights in a row. It had been awhile since that had happened.
It was always the same. I was being carried somewhere. I couldn’t see by whom, but I felt so safe that it had to be my father. I couldn’t see what was going on around me, but I heard screams and explosions. I smelled smoke and metal, and felt rain pounding against my face.
Whatever was going on, this was the end of it.
He turned, took seven steps, and carried me up seven stairs. He laid me in the middle of a dark gray room, in the center of a blood red circle. I tried to move, but nothing worked. My hands, my feet, no part of me responded.
He leaned down. I saw moisture glisten on his shrouded cheeks and, realized the rain I had been feeling wasn’t rain at all. It was his tears.
His voice cracked as he whispered in my ear. “Seven. It was always seven.”
I got to school early again, this time breakfast free. For once, Casper hadn’t slept in my backseat. He must have managed an entire day without pissing his dad off because when I picked him up things were quiet and he seemed relatively content.
It took me all of three seconds to tell him everything; about Owen, the pictures of me on his phone, and black Sedan that picked him up behind the library.
I didn’t know what to make of it. Who was in that black Sedan? Why were they visiting Mrs. Goolsby in the middle of the night or circling the school all day? What did they have to do with Owen?
“Oh my God, he’s a gigolo!” Casper said.
I should have known he’d have the answer.
“This makes so much sense!”
“Casper,” I said, picking at my steering wheel.
“No, it does,” he said, holding his hands out like he had made sense of all of it and was about to lay some serious wisdom on me. “What do we know about the guy really? He comes here from California, all super SoCal surfer boy.”
“No he’s not,” I laughed. Owen was a lot of things; cute, considerate, sometimes adorably off kilter, but he was not some blond chiseled surf god.
“Whatever Cress,” Casper waved me off. “The fact is, the dude’s weird. He’s always talking about stars, and moons, and Zodiac signs, and stuff. I mean, I don’t even know where he lives.”
“Yes you do,” I scoffed. “He lives on Abercorn. We were there last weekend.”
“Okay. Okay.” He was stretched across the seat now, sitting on his knees with his hands wide in front of him. It was very Casper. “But we were only there to pick him up. Let me ask you this; when’s the last time you were inside his house?”
“Well…” My mind went blank. I didn’t know. Owen had been in my house, and we had both been in Casper’s, but I had no recollection of ever setting foot in Owen’s place. Is it possible that I had known Owen for two years, became his best friend, fell madly in love with him, and never even seen the inside of his house?
“And what about his parents?” Casper continued. “Who even are those people? I’ve never seen them. I don’t think I’ve ever even met someone who’s seen them.”
“That’s not fair.” I was almost wrist deep in steering wheel now. “His parents don’t work in town. They’re probably almost never here.”
“Don’t be so gullible Cresta. What kind of people move here from a big metropolitan city, work outside of town, and never leave their house?”
“You literally just described my family,” I said.
He shook his head. “Don’t try to play it off just ‘cause you’ve got a thing for him. You’re boy’s a prostitute, plain and simple; a prostitute who caters to sickly old widows. Not that I’m judging. I’m sure there’s good money in it.”
“You’re insane,” I said as we pulled into DeSoto High.
“Probably,” he conceded.
I wrapped my hand around Owen’s cellphone, still in my pocket. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to him. I didn’t take Casper seriously. Owen might be a little mysterious. He might even be ‘weird’, like Casper said. I admit, there had been more than one time where I caught him talking to himself. But he was definitely, absolutely not a prostitute.
Was he?
No. No. He wasn’t. Definitely not.
Still, Casper did make a good point. I had never been in Owen’s house. I had seen it. I had picked him up there a hundred times, but he always met me outside. We never hung out there. I had never seen the inside of his bedroom, or even his parents’ faces. They were never at any of his football games. Bake sales, car washes, school plays; they were no shows. I’m not sure I could even tell you their names.
“Oh!” I said as a thought came to me. “Maybe his parents are in the black car. Maybe that’s why he was getting in there.”
Casper kicked a pebble toward the school, looking at me over his glasses and blowing red bangs out of his eyes. “And his parents are hitting up Mrs. Goolsby at four o’clock in the morning for what, sugar?” I blinked. I guess I didn’t have all the answers.
“That’s what I thought,” he smiled, kicking at another pebble. It went sailing down the sidewalk and hit the school’s glass door. “Nice try though. He’s definitely a hooker. Maybe whoever’s in the black car is his pimp. That makes sense. Look on the bright side though.”
I had one hand on Owen’s phone and the other wrapped around my father’s locket as I answered. “And what would that be?”
“Maybe he can get you a discount. You know, like a red light special or something. Oh, probably means he’s got a lot going on down there too.”
“Down where?” My head titled.
“Ya know… downtown.”
It was stupid and disgusting, but Casper’s joke wrenched a smile out of me and I slapped his shoulder.
“I gotta hit up the little boys’ room, who knows, maybe he’ll be there and I’ll get a look at the goods myself.” Casper nudged me with his shoulder. “I’ll see you in English.”
I waved him goodbye, took a seat next to Hernando, and waited for Owen to arrive (trying desperately not to think about Casper peeking at Owens ‘goods’). I was pretty much ignored by the other students as they poured into school. Every now and again, someone would break away from discussing their weekend plans or complaining about the likelihood of once again getting homework for the weekend, and shoot Hernando a glance. Me though; I might as well have been invisible.
Owen never came. I waited until literally a minute before the bell rang, sitting at Hernando’s weathered gold feet, looking for him. I thought maybe he was running late again, maybe the moon was still in Capricorn, and he would come running up at the last minute, all disheveled and adorable. But he didn’t.
Walking into homeroom, I started to wonder if anyone had seen him since he got into that black Sedan yesterday. Certainly he was okay. If he hadn’t come home last night, his mystery parents would have called the police or went looking for him or something. I’d have heard about it by now. They’d have called his phone. Right?
I wrapped my hand around his phone again. This time, I squeezed
it tight. I was being stupid. He was fine. There was a reasonable explanation about everything, and he would tell me tonight, over chicken.
School inched by. Not like the way it always did on Fridays, squeezing every ounce of torture out of the day before releasing you into the weekend. No, today was even worse than that. My mind hopscotched between points of stress. Where was Owen? Why did he get into that black car? Why did he lie to me about it? Should I ask about the hooker thing? And, assuming everything was okay, how was I going to tell him I was crazy about him?
By the time school finally ended, I felt like limping home and collapsing in a heap on my bed. But I couldn’t. My mind wouldn’t let me off the hook that easily. I jumped in my Jetta and drove down to Abercorn. I needed to see Owen, to make sure he was okay.
Dust blew up behind me as I pulled to a stop in front of Owen’s house. I pulled down the sun visor and checked myself out in the mirror. Just because I was showing up at Owen’s house unannounced and horning in on his privacy didn’t mean I couldn’t look presentable doing it.
I straightened my hair up, wiped my face with a moist towelette, and took a hit of my inhaler. I was used to the breathlessness that came with being around Owen, and I was ready to combat it.
Owen’s house was one of the newer ones in Crestview. A two story white thing with blue shutters and a front porch, I realized that, even though I had sat out in front of this place a thousand times, I had never really looked at it. I guess I was always just too captivated by Owen. Even in the early days, before I was so into him that it was hard to breathe, there was something about him.
I could never take my eyes off him. And it wasn’t just that he was cute, even though he was cute. Really cute. But so were a lot of guys. For a town that didn’t even have a post office, Crestview had no shortage of man meat. Even Casper, who was like my brother, had a sort of ginger-hued ruffled charm about him.
Had I managed to pull my gaze off Owen even one of those times and checked out his house, I would have noticed… absolutely nothing.
There was nothing about the house that stood out at all. In Chicago, that would have been normal. Back home, there was nothing but row after row of identical looking apartments. But here in Crestview, where people actually had things like front yards, people liked to use the space to express themselves.
Some people put up political signs (always Republican) out by the road. Others stuck religious statues (mostly the Virgin Mary) by the front door. Mrs. Ratcliffe cut her bushes to look like swans. Even my mom who; in Chicago, barely took the time make her bed, let alone fancy up the apartment, decorated our yard a little.
Sure, they were those stupid cardboard cutouts; a little boy peeing and the horrified little girl who catches him, but Mom seemed to think they were cute. And at least she was trying. Which was more than I could say for Owen’s family.
The yard, the porch- all of it was empty. Other than Owen’s car (which must have gotten that fuel pump ‘cause it was sitting in the driveway), there was no evidence that anyone lived here at all. Maybe that wasn’t so weird though. Owen’s parents did work constantly. Maybe they didn’t have time for stuff like that. Yeah. That was it. It had to be. I was just letting Casper’s ridiculousness get the better of me.
I got out of my car, holding Owen’s phone out in front of me like an explanation. If he saw me, if he came running out the front door like always, I would just tell him I was coming to return it. Then, of course, I would linger around and be my relatively irresistible self. Totally. Awesome. Plan.
I waltzed up to the front door without incident and knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again. Again; nothing. He must have been gone. Maybe there was some meathead football meeting he was obligated to go to.
Or maybe he’s locked inside the trunk of some black Sedan death trap.
I was just about to leave; I’d give him his phone back when I saw him tonight, when the door opened. It opened slowly, like someone had pushed it but, there was nobody on the other side. Slowly, I stuck my head through the doorway. There was no one in there at all.
“Owen?” I yelled into the living room. “Owen, are you here?”
If he was, he didn’t answer.
“Owen, I’ve got your phone.”
I looked into the house, down at the cherry wood floor. This was it; Owen’s house, and it was open. I could just walk right in. I should. I had his phone. I could just go upstairs and put it in his bedroom.
Owen’s bedroom.
I thought about the little girl in my mother’s cardboard cutout. I bet she wasn’t so horrified after all.
“Owen,” I pushed in. “Owen, are you here?”
The house had a fresh smell to it; like bleach and lemon cleaner. The doorway led into a hall which, in turn, opened up to what I assumed was the living room. I had to assume, because it was totally empty. Like the yard outside and the front porch, the main room of Owen’s house was completely barren. No television, no couch, no chairs; nothing.
Maybe they didn’t use that room though. There were only three of them; maybe they didn’t need all the room. I walked through the room and into a tiled kitchen. Though there were appliances, they were all wrapped up. The stove, the dishwasher, even the sink were wrapped in clear shipping paper, as though they had been delivered but never used.
Maybe they don’t cook, or do dishes…or wash things.
From the kitchen I went upstairs. There were three rooms on the top floor. Surely one of them was Owen’s room. I opened the doors, but one after one, the rooms turned out to be empty. There was nothing, not even a bed.
What was going on? I mean; they had to sleep.
I walked back to the stairs. Halfway down, I heard the front door, which I must have left open, slam shut. An alarm sounded, the word ‘Intruder’ echoing through the house.
I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, yelling.
“I’m sorry! I was just trying to bring you your phone!”
But Owen wasn’t there. Neither were his parents. No one was in the house. So, what set off the alarm? I didn’t have time to figure it out.
‘Intruder’ screamed into my ears. With an alarm system like this, it couldn’t be long before the police showed up to check it out. The last thing I needed was Owen thinking I had broken into his house. I could see the conversation now. I’d be in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs screaming, “It’s not breaking in. The door opened up on its own.”
I pulled at the door. It wouldn’t budge. I was stuck in here and the police would be here any second. The moon must have been in Capricorn for me too.
‘Intruder!’ It screamed again.
“Yeah, I get it,” I yelled, like the security system could hear me. I pounded on the door and pulled again. It was no use. It wasn’t budging.
‘Intruder! Intruder!’
I ran out of the living room and through the kitchen. Maybe there was a back door. I found it pretty quickly and, luckily enough, when I flipped the latch and pulled, it opened.
By the time I got home, I figured my little break in would be the talk of the town. After all, when Mrs. Gooslby’s cat got stuck on her roof, people talked about it for days. It was that kind of place.
Mom was still at work when I got there, so I sat in my room and waited for the phone to ring or the cops to come knocking on the door. It’s not like I was stealthy or anything. I basically ran out of Owen’s house like a scared chicken, so it probably wouldn’t be too hard to follow the breadcrumbs back here.
And what would I do when they got there?
I just wanted to get a look at his bedroom. I promise I didn’t steal anything. Not that there was anything to steal.
I laughed out loud, realizing I was more afraid of Owen finding out I was in his house than I was of any legal trouble. I held his phone in my hand, balancing it in my palm. Just having it for a few hours had given me so many questions. Why did Owen have those pictures of me? What was he doing in that black Sedan, the one that came b
y Mrs. Goolsby’s house every night? Why was his own house completely empty? What was his pimps name?
As I was thinking about all those things; wondering how I would bring them up when Owen came over for dinner, the phone rang. I jerked; dropping it. It fell to the floor face up. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. It was a phone, after all. But, in the twenty or so hours that I’d had it, this was the first call I had gotten. Owen hadn’t even called to find out where it was.
I looked down. The screen read those horrible words, the words I knew would come when I heard it ring; ‘Merrin Calling’. I felt sick, not that I should have. Long distance or not, she was his girlfriend. It would only make sense that she would call him.
I reached down and scooped it up. I had thought so much about this girl; about what kind of person Owen would fall for. It occurred to me then that I knew absolutely nothing about her. I didn’t know what she looked like, what kind of music she liked. I didn’t know if she was right handed or left handed. I had spent so much time building this girl up in my head, painting her as this perfect blond beach girl, that being faced with her, even on the phone, put knots in my stomach.
I wondered if she knew about me; about the pictures on Owen’s phone, about the lack of pictures of her. I wondered if she could answer the questions I had about Owen. But most of all, I wondered if she was anything like me. The idea that Owen would fall for someone like me, someone like me who he met first, was exhilarating and sickening all at the same time.
I had to know, if only to put it behind me. I put the phone to my ear and answered.
“Hello.”
There was no answer.
“Look. Um, I’m Cresta. I don’t know if Owen’s told you anything about me, but I’m his-we’re friends. He left his phone in my car. That’s all.”
Why was I doing that; explaining myself? If Merrin thought some girl was answering her boyfriend’s phone-
No. I didn’t want to cause trouble, at least not that way. If Owen was going to like me, if he was going to choose me, I wanted him to do it honestly, and I wanted to be honest with her.
“Merrin, here’s the thing. Owen and I are just friends.”
I paused for a second, gathering my thoughts. She didn’t answer.
“But I don’t want to be just friends. And I know that’s a bitchy thing to say, because you’re all the way on the other side of the country and I’m here with your guy, but it is what it is.”
My hand twisted around my locket, wishing I had my steering wheel to pick.
“I don’t wanna be that girl. You know, that girl, but I want to be real with you. I’m about to tell Owen how I feel and I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think he might feel the same way abvout me.”
I took a shaky breath and reached for my inhaler.
“Merrin, did you hear me?”
I took a whiff.
“Merrin?”
Nothing. This girl was a wall. She hadn’t said word one since the minute I picked up the phone.
“Mer-“
A tone, like music, rang out on the other end of the phone. A long sound, like somebody was holding down a piano key. Then, while it was still going on, another tone sounded on top of it. Then another, and another. Soon I was listening to a symphony; chords layered over each other. It was like a song, only there was no melody. There was no deviation in the noise. They were different chords; probably F’s, C’s, and D’s. The piano was never my strong suit. Whatever it was though, wasn’t meant to be pleasing.
I pulled my ear away from the receiver as the noise got louder.
“Merrin?” I asked again. “Are you trying to send a fax or something?”
Do people even send faxes anymore?
The noise only grew. I scoffed and hung up. Was that her answer? Was she really that childish? Maybe not. Maybe she didn’t hear me at all. Phone service was nearly nonexistent in Crestview. Maybe what I heard was feedback from a dropped call or something.
I huffed, my hand still on my locket. I blew a few strands of blond hair out of my eyes, realizing why I had told Merrin all that stuff, probably why I answered her in the first place. I wanted her to know everything, and not just because I wanted to be honest. Somewhere deep inside I knew that if Merrin knew then Owen would have to next. There would be no way around it. Merrin would force my hand and I wouldn’t have the luxury of chickening out anymore. I wanted to have no choice. I wanted that safety net gone. Even with all the questions I had about him, I still wanted Owen to know how I felt.
I sighed and lay back in bed. He would be here soon enough, and I would get my chance. My chance, and my answers.
I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.