Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers (7 page)

“Nice to meet you.” The short blonde woman shook Regina’s hand lightly, using the same smile that she had undoubtedly used while she was running for mayor, one much too pleasant for this occasion.

“Would anyone care for some coffee?” Mr. Rusher offered. Both visitors needed coffee to brush off the freeze of oncoming winter and the grizzly circumstances of the matter at hand. Mr. Rusher retrieved mugs from the kitchen, poured two new steaming cups of coffee, and topped off the others.

“Is there something new?” Mrs. Rusher asked.

“Well, no.” Mayor Parks looked over all of the parties, allowing her gaze to linger on Regina a second longer than the others.

“It’s OK,” Mrs. Rusher assured her, perceiving her hesitation. “We don’t have anything to hide from Regina; she’s like family.”

Mayor Parks seemed relieved. Sheriff Handow cut into the conversation.

“Gloria, there is nothing new, but Mayor Parks and I were talking and thought about maybe calling off some of the Halloween festivities this year in light of everything that has happened. Everyone knows and everyone is discussing Lola’s discovery. Of course, the children would still trick or treat, but maybe the parade or the festival. I just…We just …” Sheriff Handow couldn’t quite figure out an acceptable way to end the sentence.

“We just don’t want the memory of Lola to be associated with Halloween and turn into some insensitive town ghost story.” Mayor Parks finished. Mrs. Rusher abruptly rose from the couch and walked around it to stare out the large window that overlooked the pool in the backyard.

“We don’t want to take Halloween away from the kids.” Bert Rusher argued.

“My husband is right. Lola is already a town ghost story; she has been since she disappeared eight years ago. Besides, she loved
this holiday. We wouldn’t dare.” Mrs. Rusher turned to face her guests and was now speaking faster and more matter-of-factly. Mayor Parks allowed the silence in the room to gel before speaking.

“Well OK then. We will respect your wishes,” the mayor said with a forced smile.

“Do you mind if I go up to Lola’s room?” Regina asked Lola’s parents, trying hard to extract herself before she had to be part of one more round of the depressing conversation.

Everyone stared at her for what seemed like hours before Mrs. Rusher answered.

“Sure, go ahead.”

Regina could still hear remnants of the cancelation of Halloween conversation as she climbed the stairs, which moaned occasionally under her feet. She looked around the home as if this was her first time seeing the place. It had recently been remodeled; as a result, everything was new and beautiful, but she knew, as the groans under the stairs confirmed this was the same old house. Lola’s door was cracked open; Regina walked in and was startled by the figure on the bed.

A
sixteen-year-old Lola sat on the bed with her head phones plugged into her ears, painting her toenails a bright tangerine color, layers of coruscating black hair lay flat against her shoulders, her white teeth were shifted slightly from their straight position since she had recently lost her retainer as she did at least once a year. Lola’s gentle face lit up at the sight of her best friend and Regina flounced across the foot of her bed as she had done hundreds of times. Regina closed her eyes and took ecstasy in the moment, but upon opening them, she was alone in the dark, haunted room.

Lola had vanished again and it was no less devastating the second time.

Regina looked around the room once more for the first time in so many years and unlike the rest of the freshly remodeled house, this room remained exactly the same. Her walls were a delicate garden green accented with mellow yellow drapes framing the windows where the sunshine used to pour in during the summer months. Sunlight probably came nowhere near this room now. The green comforter with white polka dots was fluffy and fresh as if it had been washed just a week ago, which it probably had been. Regina gathered all of the discombobulated parts of herself from the bed and strolled over to the dresser where she caressed Lola’s intimate possessions, her silver jewelry box and her hair brush. On the corner of Lola’s dresser sat her favorite perfume, La Beaute, which Regina had banned her from wearing while in her presence because it made her cough uncontrollably.

I’m allergic to you!
She always teased Lola when she insisted on wearing the perfume whose aroma was a heinous mix of rotting roses and Irish bar soap.

From one end of the room to the next, Lola had strung clothesline, and used clothespins to attach Polaroids evenly along the lines. Regina admired the photographs that had hung on that
clothesline unmoved for years. Some of them were beginning to fade into a yellow fog, distorting their doppelganger images, threatening to choke them out of the pictures altogether. In one photo a younger Lola was leaning over her mother, who sat in a chair on the front porch, Lola was smiling wildly in her usual excited, cheerleading personality.

How was it possible to be so happy?
Regina wondered.

Another was a picture of Lola, Regina, Nikki, and Natalie, taken one Sunday afternoon at the lake when they were just girls. They looked jovial but their faces were drawn in subtle expressions, tiresome and wilted. Regina could still smell the summer flowers. The sun was fiery that day, but a cool breeze brushed over the land a couple of times every hour making the afternoon bearable.

Lola’s father was at the barbecue pit giving instructions to Regina’s father on how wonderfully tender he was able to make the ribs. At a picnic table, the wives sat chattering. Gloria Rusher was handing out paper plates and napkins. In the glow of the July sun, she looked vibrant; she wore a brightly colored scarf around her head to keep her gleaming black hair from tumbling down into her jovial face. As a young bride she had begun having her children early and was a few years younger than the other mothers at the table, but she fit in so well it was seldom that anyone remembered the age gap. The other women hardly noticed the difference in Gloria’s age, but the girls did. Mrs. Rusher was cooler than their mothers, not better or more loving, but more exciting. The Rushers had a trampoline and they would let the girls jump off the roof onto the trampoline, causing them to flare with exhilaration. Lola’s mom and dad did things that the other girls’ parents would not have given second thought to and the girls loved every second.

Natalie’s father was absent and had been for a long time. He went to work one day and never came home. Later Natalie’s mother, Carla Weston, discovered that he had not gone to work at all that day, and that their bank account was suddenly empty. Natalie and her mother, Carla, had to move back to Black Water where Carla could depend on the help of her own mother who was ailing, but still more help than a phantom of a husband. Mrs. Weston loved
her daughter, but was never able to relate to her, which created a wedge between them that grew over the years until her mother could barely find words to say to Natalie that would not send her into an uproar. Recently, Carla Weston had been sick and looked a bit haggard in the summer heat as she gripped a Kleenex in her hand, coughing often.

Nikki’s mother, Fayleen, was beautiful, with brown shoulder-length hair. The year before she had been their cheerleading coach, but had given the position to a younger and much more eager replacement. Over the years, sadness had crept up on her, seeping in through the emotional cracks. She did her best to hide it and was actually quite successful in front of others, but not in the mornings or at full night. In the evenings when the sun began to set the feeling that came with the draining of light and the onset of the dark was more than she could bear and the shadows would take over. At the table she laughed and smiled occasionally, but had insisted that the barbecue be early in the day, for she knew what would come as the sun disappeared behind the hills.

Finally, Regina came to her own mother, funny but serious, stern but approachable. Everyone loved her mother, despite her reputation for being almost mean. Mrs. Dean was a delight to be around, she was the woman that the other women went to when they had a problem to which they needed solution. She would listen while drinking her coffee, staring into the cup intently, and then she would think for a long time before speaking, which made people uneasy when they first met her, but once they got to know her, she made them feel the security that came with advice from a person who actually listened and thought before speaking.

The girls were picking through the grass not far from the gathering of their families searching for rocks worthy of a good game of hopscotch. They talked as they prodded through the grass, keeping their eyes to the ground. Soon they were far from their parents, at the lip of the trees. Lola held up a smooth round rock.

“This is a good one,” she stated while still examining the rock carefully in the light.

“Yeah.” Natalie looked up and agreed after laying eyes on the perfect stone.

“Smooth, but not too smooth,” Nikki added. Regina put another rock candidate in her pocket and sat against a tree to rest.

Lola noticed her friend resting and took the opportunity to address her acolytes.

“I been thinkin’ …” Lola spoke, allowing her voice to trail off. Nikki looked up to hear the rest of Lola’s statement while Natalie continued to move dirt and sticks around on the ground in a focused search. Regina was comfortable against the tree throwing one of her stones up into the air and catching it again.

“About what?” Nikki asked. By this time, Natalie stopped her search and was listening intently, wanting to hear what Lola had been thinking that was so important that she had to make an announcement. Lola was nervous under the eyes of her best friends. It was apparent that she had to take a deep breath and swallow hard before she could speak the words that throbbed just inside of her throat.

“I can’t sleep anymore,” Lola said, still not revealing the subject matter of her dilemma, but all the girls had a pretty good idea.

Regina could still hear Lola’s squeaky voice as if it were replaying in stereo. Regina dared not delve any further into that day, preferring to shut down her memories before they were allowed to creep too far inside.

She took the picture off the clothesline and softly settled back onto the bed, the mattress squeaked jolting a childhood memory. Regina laid the foggy photo on the comforter and knelt by the bed, lifting the mattress high above her head. She smiled as she laid eyes on the object she had been seeking. Regina pulled the red velvet journal from the place where it was buried. Lola’s room had probably been searched, and surely, this journal had been given to one of the Handow boys as evidence. Most likely, Mrs. Rusher had asked for it back when they concluded that the journal was not evidence and Mrs. Rusher placed it back in the exact place that her daughter had left it, as it appeared Mrs. Rusher had done with everything else, just in case her little girl came home one day.

But of course, they found nothing in this journal because Lola kept it in the one place that she knew her mother would look. Regina’s eyes dazzled, and as she recalled the crafty charm of her friend, she flipped through the pages.

Nothing too interesting in the “mom” diary, Regina thought with a sly smile as she turned and peered into the open closet upon a space where an imaginary X marked the spot. Lifting the mattress again, she replaced the diary with expert precision. Regina let the mattress fall, re-tucked and smoothed out the sheet and comforter. Back on her feet, Regina entered the extended gloomy closet cautiously and proceeded to the far back right corner. She picked up the empty clothes hamper and placed it behind her; she then pressed her foot down on the carpet in the exact spot, if she remembered correctly. The floor cried softly. Regina sat and dug her fingers into the floor at the edge between the carpet and the molding of the wall; the carpet came up with ease.

When the girls were freshmen in high school, Lola had to stay in the hospital to get her tonsils removed. For days before the scheduled surgery Lola had spoken about how terrified she was, she hated hospitals and begged her parents through wretched sore throat not make her go through with the operation. Mr. and Mrs.
Rusher assured her that she was being silly and that there was virtually no risk in her routine surgery, but that did nothing to assuage Lola’s fear. Regina knew her best friend better than anyone, and when she saw the opportunity to alleviate her anxiety she did. The night before her surgery Regina gave her a green crystal that hung on a thin silver chain. The amulet had been a gift from Regina’s boyfriend and she had been told that it offered protection. Lola was a big believer in all of that meditation, artsy stuff and Regina knew that the necklace would soothe her and she was right. Lola was thrilled when she received the crystal that night and placed it in her sacred, secret hiding place for safekeeping until the next day when she would put it on just before heading to the hospital. The following morning at the hospital, she realized that she had forgotten the good luck charm and sent Regina to retrieve it from this very place.

Regina swept the dust off the damaged wood panels that lay under the carpet and slammed her fist down hard but quietly on one end of a particular panel, just the way Lola had instructed her to do years ago, the other end popped up just as expected and Regina gave a satisfied breath. There was a small treasure hidden just beneath the surface, a $100 bill, a best friend bracelet that all of the girls had made and exchanged.