Heather(58)

Callie reaches in with her card. “You know what? I’ll take a pack,” Callie says. Layla pauses and looks at her, wary.

The cashier just shrugs, blows out a puff of air that ruffles her bangs.

Layla leaves, but walks slowly, and Callie catches up outside the store.

“Hey. I’m glad you’re doing better. Last few times I saw you, you were in rough shape.”

“So what? You’re gonna act like I owe you something now?”

“No,” Callie says. She feels clumsy and awkward with the cigarettes in her hand. She holds them out. “But I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about where you get your stuff.” She gestures to the sweatshirt. “You work for Luke?”

“He’s got nothing to do with it,” Layla says. “He hates it when I’m high. Unless it’s the stuff he grows.”

“Your boss gets high with you?” She’s seen it in kids of cops, that same arrogance that Luke has. They think they’re untouchable. But Luke, a guy in his mid-fifties, getting stoned with his teenage employees? She hadn’t seen that coming.

Layla gives her a look that Callie can only classify as pitying. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” Callie says.

She takes the cigarettes from Callie. “The rest isn’t your business. I’m not in the game anymore but I know better than to talk to you. I’ve been warned.”

“Warned by who?”

Layla bites the inside of her cheek. For a second, her bravado falters. “Let’s just say there’s some vipers in these woods.”

Vipers. Snakes. A dark, undulating creature running down an arm. “Fauver? Is that who you work for?” She does her best to ignore the chill that overtakes her when she says his name.

“I don’t sell for anyone anymore, remember?”

Callie reaches into her bag for the folded missing poster with Jenna’s face on it, now creased into softness. “Did you ever sell to this woman?”

Layla studies the photograph. “I’ve seen her before. She bought me a six-pack at the gas station once.”

Of course she did, Callie thinks. “But you’ve never sold to her?”

“Nah. Never sold to her. Look, lady, I’ve said plenty. I gotta go now. Thanks for the smokes.” Layla starts to walk away and Callie can’t help herself.

“I hope you’ll get help. It’s not a way you want to live, what you’re doing. I’ve seen enough to know that using, if you keep up with that stuff … it’s going to become the only thing you’ll ever want. What else do you want, Layla? I’m sure there’s something. Probably a lot of things. And you deserve a shot at them.”

Layla has gone still, turns slowly to face Callie again. She braces for another one of those furious, withering stares, but that’s not what she sees this time. For a second Layla’s lower lip betrays her. Trembles like the child she still is.

“Please, take care of yourself, okay? If not for yourself, then at least for your family, your friends. I only spent a little bit of time with Amanda but it’s so clear how much she loves you. I’m sure she’s not the only one.”

The look fades and Layla sets her jaw, hardens before Callie’s eyes. “My life and the people in it are absolutely none of your business.”

She stomps away and climbs into the passenger seat of a black Honda Accord, which reverses out of their spot and peels out of the lot like they’re being pursued. Callie catches one last glimpse of Layla from the passenger-side window, as she traces her mouth in lipstick, smacks them together to admire the color in the rearview. The color so bright as to be a warning, like the red of a poisoned apple in a fairy tale.





ANNABELLE


Sabrina is still asleep when the volunteer—Tammy—guides the white minivan into your driveway. You realize you are shaking as you stare through the window next to the door. In your bag, all of the money you’ve saved from this summer, which was meant for so many other things. College application fees. Books. But you’ll deal with all that later. You’ll make more money somehow. You have heard about other girls who had to pay for the whole thing themselves, girls who have had to ask the boy to contribute and come away with nothing. You are glad for all of those long, empty hours at the ice cream stand, though now you’ll have to find another job to pay for the SAT registration, for more study books because you don’t want to mess it up twice. But you’ll figure all that out once you sort this out. Once you are on the other side of whatever is going to happen today, this thing you have only heard the faintest whispers about.

You wonder if you’ll bleed a lot. You wonder if it will hurt. If they will have to cut you open. You run a finger over your scar. It wouldn’t be the first time, at least. That you have a part of yourself split apart and sewn back together again. It won’t be like Sabrina’s ministrations, the way she sucked in the breath between her teeth every time she pierced your skin with the needle, as though she felt it too. But maybe it’s better that way.

Tammy waves at you through the windshield, rolls her window down, calls to you. “Come on in, honey.”

You open the door. The car smells like cinnamon and underneath that, a sour smell, like old milk. A wooden cross dangles from the rearview mirror, swings as she backs out of your driveway. A lanyard strung with plastic beads hangs with it. Tammy sees you eyeing it.