“I was thinking more along the lines of psychology. I’ve always been interested in why people do what they do. Then there’s philosophy . . . I honestly don’t know anything about that, but I want to, you know? Feels like something I’d like.”
“Definitely,” Maya says. “You’re so philosophical.”
Aubrey smiles, happier than she’s looked all summer. “And,” she adds offhandedly, “just in case I don’t get into LSU, I’ll also apply to UMass Amherst, UMass Lowell, and, um . . . BU.”
Maya rushes in to prop up her best friend’s pride—Aubrey would hate anyone, even Maya, to think that she was following them. “Good idea—but I’m totally sure you’ll end up at LSU. And it’ll be amazing and I’ll come visit you and—”
“We’ll go to New Orleans!”
“Yes!”
They beam at each other. The sky is getting dark.
“You know,” Aubrey says, “I don’t think I’d do this if not for you.”
“Oh, I don’t know . . .”
“No, really. College always seemed like something other people do. Never thought I wanted to go, but then when you got in, and you went to see the dorms and started talking about classes you were going to take . . . it made me so jealous I didn’t know what do. And it made me realize that—duh—I do want to go to college. And why the hell shouldn’t I?”
Fireflies blink in the yard, a restless constellation that Maya and Aubrey watch for a while before going inside to get ready. When Aubrey asks about Frank, Maya considers telling her everything—about his beautiful yet eerie cabin in the woods and the time she lost there—but with every hour that passes, the more improbable that all seems. The fuzzier her conviction. Not to mention that tonight is supposed to be fun, and she doesn’t want to make this about Frank too. Doesn’t want to revisit what he said to her on the phone. “You were right” is all she tells Aubrey for now. “Long story, but yes—Frank is definitely weird.”
* * *
— Tender Wallpaper is a trio of sisters who harmonize as only sisters can to the accompaniment of synthesizers and percussion. They and their music are moody and theatrical, appearing onstage draped in sequins and underwater lighting. Their sound is vaguely underwater too, siren-like, a shipwrecked warble to the piano. Maya and Aubrey have seen them in concert once before, and last time the band capitalized upon their sisterhood by dressing as the Three Fates. A giant spool of platinum thread figured into the choreography: one sister unspooled the thread, another measured it, and the third snipped it with a large pair of scissors.
But tonight Maya can’t discern the theme. She and Aubrey have pushed their way up to the front of the medium-sized venue and are standing near the stage, swaying along to the music. The sisters wear long, slinky gowns and capes, one dressed entirely in green, one in red, one in blue.
“Who are they supposed to be?” Maya asks Aubrey between songs.
Aubrey smiles. “Really? You can’t figure it out?”
A new song begins as Maya puzzles over the concert’s theme, but she can’t think of any other famous trios that the sisters might be dressed as and she starts to wonder if Aubrey is messing with her. It would be a very Aubrey thing to do.
Toward the end of the show, the sisters begin fluttering their fingers over the audience as if casting spells, and the lights go crazy, beams of green, red, and blue overlapping into darker hues as the voices build into what sounds less like harmony than the single voice of some enormous, divine, not-quite-human creature.
“Just tell me,” Maya says when the song is over.
Aubrey cups her hands over her friend’s ear and says, “Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.”
Of course! The fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty. Maya hasn’t seen the movie since she was a child, but now it comes back to her, the colorful spells unfurling from magic wands. A magic cake. A magic dress. Of course Aubrey remembered this. She loves fairy tales and magic. And sad songs. The last song of the night is her favorite, and when it comes on, she closes her eyes and disappears into the music.
TWENTY-NINE
Maya waited once more for her mom to fall asleep before taking her keys and driving her car to Frank’s cabin. Nighttime wasn’t ideal, but Brenda never would have let Maya borrow the car, not in her current state, all feverish, fidgety, and seized by an urgency she refused to explain. She just hoped Frank was at his usual bar tonight rather than at his cabin. Her plan was to go there, look around, peer in through the windows if it seemed no one was home. If nothing else, she imagined just being there would bring her closer to the truth, seeing as how the painting, a single image, had triggered memories she thought she had lost.
She drove faster as she left downtown, with its traffic lights and other cars. Two hours had passed since her second martini at Patrick’s Pub—she’d made sure of this before driving, and had even forced down a bowl of leftover chili while assuring her mom, between bites, that it was just as delicious as it had always been. She just wasn’t hungry.
Seven years ago, Maya had almost missed her turn onto Cascade Street, but this time her phone made it easy, stating the directions from the passenger seat—for now, anyway, while she still had service. The trees crowded in. The state forest, so green in summer, was skeletal this time of year, and Maya had no problem spotting the mailbox as she approached it on her left. She seemed to remember more than she knew.
She parked at the end of the long, winding drive and walked the rest of the way to what once was Frank’s father’s house. Someone else must have bought it by now, although she supposed it was possible, if Frank had, in fact, collected a large inheritance, that he’d kept it. Her heart sped up as she approached the house and saw a light on in one of the upstairs windows. It wasn’t as nice as she remembered, or maybe it had gone downhill in the last seven years. The porch sagged, the paint peeled, and two of its shutters were missing.
She slowed her steps and walked lightly, as if whoever was inside might hear her sneakers crunching over snow. In summer, she might have stayed low as she crossed the wide yard, hidden in the tall grass, but if anyone were to look out the window right now, they’d see her starkly against a white sheet. The moon brought out its arctic blue. An ancient poplar loomed at the entrance to the abandoned road, its rounded mass of huddled gray limbs reminding her of a brain.
She passed beneath its lobes, twigs branching like arteries overhead as she entered the forest. This time she had a flashlight, one she’d borrowed from her mom, but Maya found that she didn’t need it. The snow glittered, and if it was cold, she couldn’t tell. Adrenaline kept her warm. She thought of all the effort she’d put into repressing her memories of the last time she was here, all the pills she’d taken, only for the truth to go on simmering beneath that fake comfort that never quite fit. She should have been terrified right now, and she was, but there was also relief in feeling that she was finally getting to the root of Frank’s secret—and she sensed that she was close, that she could almost reach out and brush it with her fingers.
This time she didn’t hear the stream as she neared the bridge—it must have frozen—but it didn’t matter. The road, though clearly abandoned, was easy enough to follow. A straightforward path through the woods.