“I can go talk to her.” I get up and head down the hallway to Shayla and Natalie’s room. The door is open and I walk inside, past Natalie’s bed. There’s stationery sprawled out over her coverlet—envelopes, cards, and letterhead. There’s also a fancy feather pen.
“Natalie,” I call, knocking on the closed bathroom door.
“I’m fine in here.” Her voice sounds all nasal-like; I’m guessing that she’s been crying.
“Will you come out…even for a little bit? We’re all just hanging out in my room, feasting on spider brownies and brain cake.”
There’s a loud thud against the door. It sounds like she might’ve kicked it. I picture her big black boots. I peer over my shoulder at the stationery, wondering what it’s all about, especially since we’re only here for the weekend.
I turn away and move over to her bed. Lying on the pillow is an envelope marked with her brother Harris’s name. I pick it up and look back at the bathroom door, still closed.
The envelope hasn’t yet been sealed.
I open it up, trying to be quiet, my eyes darting to the bathroom door. Thankfully, it remains closed. Finally, I get the envelope open and take out the card. It’s a note to Harris from Natalie.
Dear Harris,
I know you’re angry at me. Ever since I won this contest, something that was supposed to make me happy, it’s been nothing but misery—misery for you, for Mom, for Dad. And so it’s also been miserable for me.
I know you didn’t want me to come here. You made that clear from the start. But it’s too late to change things now. If I could I would, because nothing is worth anything if I don’t have you in my corner.
I keep trying to talk to you. I’m not sure if you’re listening. But I don’t think I can make it through this weekend without your voice.
Love,
Natalie
I return the letter to the envelope. She must’ve tried calling home again. Her brother obviously doesn’t want to talk to her. Still, I go downstairs to use the phone, hoping that she was the one who made the last call.
I pass the dining area—still a mess from dessert—and move into the living room. The lights are off. I flick them on, noticing a sudden chill in the air. The window over the sofa is open. The sheers blow in the breeze.
I go over to shut and lock the window, suddenly feeling like I’m being watched. I peer over my shoulder. “Natalie?” I call, wondering if she might be lurking.
No one answers. The stairway looks empty.
I glance over at the kitchen—also empty. And then I look toward the main door, assuming that it’s locked. I check anyway, wrapping my hand around the knob. It turns and my heart sinks.
What if someone broke in?
I lock the door and turn to face the room again. “Midge,” I attempt to call out, but my voice is far too soft.
I take a few more steps, before coming to a sudden halt, feeling my whole body tense.
Someone’s there. In the closet. The door is partially open.
I can see eyes through the door crack, watching me, locked on mine.
My chest instantly tightens. I hurry into the kitchen and grab a knife from the chopping block. I begin moving toward the closet. My fingers trembling, I hold the knife down by my side. My heart hammers. I can feel the sweat at my brow.
I whisk the door open with a thwack.
No one’s there.
The closet is empty.
There’s just an umbrella and a pair of binoculars.
I let out a breath and rest my head against the wall, feeling a giant wave of relief. I move over to the desk, grab the phone, and press redial. The phone rings and rings, but then someone finally picks up.
“Hello?” I ask, when no one says anything. “Is someone there?”
“Who’s this?” A woman’s voice.
“Is this Natalie’s mother?” I ask.
“Who’s this?” she repeats.
“I’m a friend of Natalie’s and she’s here with me now…in Minnesota…on the trip to see one of Justin Blake’s films….”
The woman doesn’t respond.
“Anyway,” I continue, winding the coil cord around my fingers, “she feels really bad about coming here. She knows that you don’t approve.”
“Well, she’s right. Her father and I don’t approve.”
“Okay, well she feels really bad,” I say, knowing I’m repeating myself. “And I know that if she could do it again—go back in time, I mean—she’d make a different choice.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Ivy Jensen.”
“And she’s talked to you about things?”
“Well, I know how she feels about her decision to go on this trip…and how she feels about Harris.”
“She told you about Harris?”
“Actually,” I say, noticing that my fingers are completely entangled in the cord now, “I think she’d like to speak to him. Did they have a fight?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, maybe their falling out is something you’re unaware of, a recent argument, something about this whole contest trip perhaps…”
“Harris is dead.”
Wait. “What?”
“My son was stillborn,” she continues. “Natalie was his twin.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, thinking how stupid the question is—not to mention how insensitive.
“I think I’d know if my own son had died. A word of advice: I’d be very careful around my daughter if I were you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”
IVY FINALLY COMES BACK INTO the room, her face just as pale as it was after finding the message in Taylor’s closet.
“I take it that things didn’t go so well with Project Natalie?” Shayla asks, searching through Taylor’s shoe rack.
“I think that maybe we should get her some help,” Ivy says.
“Help, as in calling the fire department to break down the door?” Shayla asks. “Because if that’s the case, you have my vote. I’m all for getting a few more hotties in the house.”
“Her brother is dead,” Ivy says.
“Hold up,” Shayla says, trying to squeeze her foot into a ballet slipper. “Not the brother that she’s been talking about…not her twin…”
“Harris.” Ivy nods. “He died at birth.” She proceeds to tell us about the letter she found in Natalie’s room. “I know I shouldn’t have read it, but it was just lying there, and I had so many questions. And, anyway, in the letter, Natalie was apologizing to Harris for coming on this trip.”
I raise my eyebrow in suspicion. “She apologized to a dead guy?”
“Hold on,” Shayla says. “How do you know that he’s dead?”
“I called her parents.” Ivy brings her bottle pendant up to her lips. “I pushed redial after she’d called them, hoping that her brother might pick up. But her mother answered. And when I mentioned Harris’s name, she told me that he was dead.”
“Why would Natalie write letters to a dead person?” Shayla asks.
“Maybe it’s because she’s deranged,” I say, stating the obvious.
“It’s not just letters,” Ivy says. “She talks to him too. I’m thinking that Harris is the one she’s been mumbling to.”
“Okay, well, I’ll second Parker’s notion: the girl is totally deranged…and I am totally depressed.” Shayla tosses the ballet slipper back at the rack. “I need to go find me some big-girl shoes.”
Finally, she leaves, but now there’s an awkward silence between Ivy and me. I want to pick up where we left off pre–Shayla’s dessert invasion, but I also don’t know how to get there. After a couple more beats of silence, I pick up my mental camera, trying to imagine this as a shot.
>
INT. BEDROOM—NIGHT
Ivy sits down beside me on the bed. There’s a plate of desserts between us.
ME
That was really cool of you to want to help Natalie.
IVY
Believe it or not, it feels good trying to help her. Somehow she seems even more messed up than me.
ME
How so?
Ivy takes a spider brownie from the plate and chews it down, bite after bite, making it difficult to answer.
I eat too. But after six cream-filled finger rolls, I get up and call cut inside my head, frustrated that it seems Ivy no longer wants to talk.
“Don’t be angry,” she says. There’s a smear of chocolate in the corner of her mouth. If this were a movie, I’d lean in close and kiss it away. “I really like you,” she continues. “And I really appreciate how sweet you’ve been to me. But I don’t want to ruin your time here with my drama.”
I sit back down and venture to take her hand. “You’re definitely not ruining my time. Whatever the reason that you decided to enter Blake’s contest, I’m really glad that you did.”
She clasps her fingers around my grip and then peeks up into my face. “Believe it or not, I am too,” she says, causing my heart to stir.
“So, then, can I ask…eyes or bear?”
“Huh?” Her face scrunches.
“The wall etchings.”
“Oh.” She looks away. Her face falls. “How about you tell me about your snake, first,” she says.
“It was actually an eel,” I say to clarify, as if the distinction even matters.
“Okay.” She smiles, looking back at me. “How about you tell me about your eel.”
“I’d love to tell you about my eel,” I smirk. “If I had an eel, that is.”
“Excuse me?”
“Wait…that came out all wrong.” I can feel my face changing colors. “I made the whole thing up—my nightmare submission, I mean. It was a work of fiction, inspired by something that happened when I was a kid at summer camp. I got caught in a riptide and almost drowned.”
“And you had nightmares about it?”
“Not exactly, but it makes for good contest submission material, don’t you think? Especially when you add in the getting-attacked-by-man-eating-eels part.”
“So, you lied?”
“I embellished…and tweaked…and altered the facts. I’m a storyteller,” I explain. “It’s my job to alter the facts.”
“I’ll remember that,” Ivy says.
“Well then, remember this: I never embellish, tweak, or alter the facts when it comes to the people I care about.”
Ivy looks downward—at our hands, still clasped together—and a tiny smile forms on her face.
I look at the clock. It’s almost eleven. “Hey…” I begin, hating the idea of leaving her alone. But before I can finish my thought, a scream comes from down the hall, slicing our moment in two.
I go for the door and peer down the hall.
Shayla is there, dressed up like Eureka Dash from the Nightmare Elf movies. “He stabbed me,” she says, stumbling forward, holding her gut.
Garth comes from around the corner, dressed like Sidney Scarcella from Hotel 9 in a suit jacket with tails and a bloodstained apron. There’s a demented smile on his face.
Shayla tries to grab the wall for support, but ends up collapsing to the floor.
“Holy shit!“ I shout, rushing into the hallway. I scoot down to assess her wound, pulling up on the hem of her blouse.
“Not so fast!” she hollers, slapping my hand away. “You have to at least buy me dinner first.”
Both she and Garth start laughing.
“Die, you lowly peasant,” Garth says, pretending to stab his plastic knife into her back.
Shayla sits up and runs a finger over her blood-chocolate-smeared stomach. “You guys totally have to check out the costume closet downstairs,” she says, licking said finger.
Frankie peeks out into the hall, a guitar strapped across his chest. “Can you guys keep it down?”
“Good night,” I say, returning to the room and shutting the door. Shutting Ivy and me off from the rest of them—for a little while at least.
We end up lying in bed—me on Taylor’s and Ivy on her own—facing one another, with the lights kept dim. We spend the next couple hours talking about everything—about favorite ice cream and famous couples. And best movie kisses (for her, that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, when Holly and Paul share a kiss in the rain while “Moon River” plays in the background; for me, the upside-down kiss between Spider-Man and Mary Jane).
“Do you have a boyfriend?” I ask, surprised to hear the words come out my mouth.
“No.” She bites back a smile. Her cheeks turn pink.
I wait for her to reciprocate the question, but she doesn’t. “I should probably let you get some sleep,” I say, feeling a major blow to my ego.
“Don’t go,” she says. Her eyes widen. “Let’s talk some more.”
“About what?” I ask, hoping she’ll finally open up about her nightmares, but she asks me about favorite comic book characters instead.
Finally, around three a.m., after we’ve explored just about every topic, except the one she refuses to discuss—the one involving her contest submission—we decide to call it a night.
She slips beneath the covers and closes her eyes. I close my eyes too. But there’s no way I’m going to fall asleep. I toss and turn, flip and flop, finally resolving to wait it out until morning and watch her sleep.
I could seriously watch her all night, admiring her inky-black lashes against her pale ivory skin, the curves of her body beneath the coverlet, and those raspberry-colored lips.
But then her eyes snap open and I’m totally caught.
“I can’t sleep,” she says.
“Me neither.”
“Are you feeling anxious too?”
“More like restless,” I tell her. “What are you feeling anxious about?”
“Would you mind holding me for a little while?” she asks, in lieu of an answer. “At least until I fall asleep.”
My heart absolutely pounding, I move to her bed and lay down on top of the covers while she remains beneath them. She rolls over and I hold her, savoring the warmth of her back against my chest. She smells like chamomile and chocolate—like something I want to bottle up and wash all over me.
In the movie version of my life, I’d have met her someplace else—while vacationing somewhere tropical, maybe. We’d fall in love with both the island and each other, unable to part at the end of our stay. My favorite scene would be the one where the camera zoomed in as we kissed—in the ocean, while it rained—with the balmy beach air crushing against our skin like velvet. A kiss that would top both Spidey’s and Holly’s any day.
IVY WENT THROUGH MY STUFF. I know she did.
I almost opened the door. My hand was wrapped around the knob. My mind was flashing forward to what would happen if I confronted her.
But I didn’t, because it feels safer in here—more controlled, less influenced by time.
How long have I been away from home?
How long has it been since Harris spoke to me?
How long ago did I call my parents?
Sitting with my back against the tub, I look down at the strands of hair collected on the bath mat, between my knees. Twenty-six.
One-hundred-eighty-two wall tiles. Forty-three floor tiles. Thirty-six tissues in the box. Ninety-two squares of toilet paper. Three bars of soap. Five travel bottles of shampoo. Two drinking cups.
Someone screams. The sound echoes the screaming deep inside me. I grab the hair strands and get up, unlock the door, and take a step outside. Shayla’s out in the hallway. She’s dresse
d like Eureka from Nightmare Elf. Garth is with her, dressed as Sidney Scarcella. They’re both laughing.
I close the door, move over to the sink, and toss the hair strands into the basin. Ever since I left home, I’ve been itching for another tattoo: Harris’s beating heart, right over my own. When I was ten and wrote his name 311 times on my body, and my dad told me that I wasn’t worthy of having Harris’s name inked on my skin, I believed him. I wasn’t worthy.
But maybe Harris would think otherwise. Maybe it would even get him to start talking to me again.
I take off my T-shirt and remove the towels I’ve placed over the mirror, squinting my eyes to avoid the whole picture. I pluck a lipstick from my pocket and draw the heart right over my own.
It doesn’t come out right the first time—too pointy at the bottom, too narrow at the top. I wipe the mark and try again on the other side of my chest. But it looks more like a potato. I wipe once more and give it another shot. At least ten attempts later, my chest is covered in lipstick smudges and smears, and so are my palms. And the side of my face.
A floorboard creaks. Someone’s here. Outside the door. There’s another knock. “Natalie?” Shayla’s voice. “I have to get in there. I made a bloody mess of myself—literally—and I need to wash up.”
I ignore her and rip off my wig. My heart pounds at the image. I hate the way I look. I probably even hate it more than my parents do. My real hair, beneath the wig, is the same dark color. I dyed it. And pulled out big chunks—what started out as single strands. Now, it’s long in some places and short in others, with a gaping bald spot in the back and a few smaller ones on both sides. Too noticeable without the wig. Too much to cover up.
“Hello?” she shouts, knocking again. Luckily there’s a lock. “We called your parents, by the way,” she adds. “We asked them about Harris. Can you guess what they might’ve said?”
Sure, I can guess. Did they say that I was crazy? That I talk to myself? That I’m a constant disappointment? Did they mention that I preoccupy myself with things they don’t understand? That when Harris died eighteen years ago, the expectations for me were doubled? But who could possibly live up to the achievements of two people, particularly when one of those people is a baby who probably sacrificed himself for his twin before he was even born? But still, I’ve tried. I study hard. I get good grades. I volunteer at church. But that’s nowhere near enough. And I don’t know what else to do—I don’t know what else I can do.