Tell (5 page)

“Felicia, we’ve been dating for almost a year and I’m leaving in two weeks.  I was cool with waiting until you’re ready, but it’s frustrating that you always make excuses to push me away every time I try to kiss you or do anything.  We haven’t even been doing the stuff we used to do.”

“That’s because every time we do, you start bugging me about having sex and
I don’t want to talk about that
.”

“Is everything okay in here?”

Felicia and Brian both turned toward the door.  It was half open and Shane was standing in the doorway, looking too casual to be casual.  His eyes flicked from Felicia to Brian and hardened slightly, and she suspected that her brother knew exactly what they were arguing about.

“Everything’s cool,” Brian responded smoothly.

He and Shane both looked at Felicia.

She smiled and nodded at her brother.

She knew that he knew her well enough to know that everything was
not
“cool”, but after hovering for a minute and staring at Brian suspiciously, he walked off down the hallway.  Felicia rolled her eyes and shook her head.  “I wish he’d mind his own business,” she muttered.

Brian looked at her.  “I wish we had more business for him to mind.”

“I still don’t see why you feel the need to go here,” Melody said, stepping over a fallen branch.

“Hold on.  Let me get a picture of this tree.”  Andy stopped in the path and aimed the camera lens at the tree with the gnarled branch that divorced the trunk around four feet up, but reconciled with it later in its ascent.  He snapped the shutter, capturing the tree in time.  “Mel, why don’t you get on that branch and let me take your picture.”

“Uh, no thank you,” Melody responded, though her face warmed at his use of her childhood nickname.  “That branch looks about ready to snap off.”

“No way.  We used to sit on it all the time.”

“Yeah, when we were about seventy pounds lighter.”

Andy continued down the path, and Melody followed him.  They wound around trees and shrubbery and stayed within sight of the creek.

“Good thing the creek isn’t very high,” Melody said conversationally.  “The path would have been underwater.”

The two were quiet the next several minutes when the path molded into a narrow ridge.  They held onto tree trunks for balance as they passed.  The height difference between the ridge and the creek below lengthened to several yards.  A fall into the foot-deep water would be unpleasant at the least.

“This thing keeps eroding,” Andy remarked.  “It won’t be long before we won’t be able to use this path at all.”

It leveled out eventually and the two were once again able to walk side by side.

“Remember when Cadie told us that the hill was just a house buried under a bunch of dirt?” Melody asked.

Andy nodded.  “I still believe that.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious!”

“You can’t be.”

“Melody,
look
at it.”  They rounded the bend and there it was, jutting out of the earth like a giant blemish, dotted with marble headstones and surrounded by an iron fence.  The creek wound away.  Even it wanted to be somewhere else.  Andy stopped in the path and gestured toward it.  “Look at how unnaturally it’s shaped.  It totally looks like someone just decided to bury their house.”

“What did Cadie say—that there was a witch who lived there, and they buried her alive?”

“Yeah.  And she still lives inside, casting spells and brewing potions using body parts from the people buried in the cemetery.”

“God, how do you remember all that?” Melody asked.

Andy shrugged.  “I used to have a crush on your sister.”

“Get out!”  She pushed him playfully.

He stumbled, then recovered.  “I almost dropped the Nikon.”

“Sorry.”  Melody waited for a few moments as they approached the iron gate, but Andy did not elaborate on the huge bombshell he had just dropped.  She was forced to pry.  “You used to have a crush on Cadie?”

Andy shrugged again.  “Yeah, I guess.”

“You
guess?
”

He grinned sheepishly, turning to look toward her.  “Okay, yeah, I did.”

“How come you never told me?”

“I dunno.  It wasn’t a big deal.  I was like ten.”

“Was that the reason you started hanging out with me?”

Andy rolled his eyes.  “Melody, I didn’t even
meet
Cadie until you and I became friends.”

“I guess.”

He pointed away, toward the far side of the cemetery.  “I’m going to take some pictures of the headstones over there.”

“Okay,” Melody answered somewhat moodily.  Andy headed off toward the other side of the hill, and she trailed to the iron fence to look over the edge.

It was a stupid thing to be pouty about and she knew it.  It was not as if Andy
still
liked Cadie.  And it had been six years ago.  She just wondered why he had had a crush on Cadie, but never Melody.  She knew he could not help it.  Still, she wondered.

Melody turned around, and Andy lowered the camera as she did so.  “You weren’t taking pictures of me, were you?” she called across the graveyard.

“Why would I take you all the way to a cemetery just to take pictures of you?” Andy responded.  He pointed the lens at a headstone.

A few minutes later, he announced that he was ready to go.  The two of them climbed through the bars of the iron gate, which had rusted shut probably a hundred years before.  “You think the lit mag will use pictures of a cemetery?” Melody asked as they started walking again.

“Probably,” Andy replied, turning off his digital camera.  “There’s always emo children writing some kind of goth poetry, and I’m sure a graveyard photograph would complement it perfectly.”

“A little different than your sunflower picture from last year.”

“At least this time, it probably wouldn’t be accompanied by the story
Bill the Bunny
,” Andy said condescendingly.

“Not unless it’s
Bill the Bunny Buries His Buddies
.”

“Cadie!  Dinner’s ready!” Mrs. Dawson called downstairs from the kitchen.

“Coming.”  Cadie was on the couch in the Dawsons’ family room, watching TV.  She turned the set off and walked upstairs into the kitchen, where her mother and father were sitting down to the table.  A steaming pan of lasagna sat in the middle of the table, along with a huge bowl of salad and a basket of garlic bread.  “Did Will Smith die?” Cadie asked without preamble.

“Not that I’m aware of,” her mother replied, beginning to cut up the lasagna with a spatula.  “Why?”

“Because all they have on right now is Will Smith movies. 
Men in Black
just ended and then
Men in Black II
was starting, so I changed the channel and
Hitch
was on.  I thought I might be missing something.”

“Maybe it’s his birthday,” her father suggested.

Mrs. Dawson’s first name was Daisy, and she looked just like the kind of woman who should be named Daisy.  She had the same long brown hair as her daughters, only more manageable, and she wore it in a bun high atop her head.  She liked to wear pink and sandals with heels, and she never wore white after Labor Day.  She was unemployed, but she volunteered a lot, mostly at animal shelters or assisted living homes—anywhere that involved taking care of someone or something. She had a bed of begonias in the backyard.  She preferred pansies, but the deer ate them.  She got a manicure once a month.  She liked things made out of wicker.

Mr. Dawson was a real estate agent.  His first name was actually Tom, but after he started dating Daisy in college,
his friends had started calling him Duke, and that was a name that they still used today.  Daisy thought it was cute.  Tom did not.  Cadie and Melody were just glad their father’s name was not Donald.  Tom did not like wearing pink, but he was an avid card player, and Cadie and Melody had both grown up with games such as poker, canasta, gin, bridge, and a bunch of other miscellaneous card games that none of their friends knew how to play.

“Where’s Melody?” Daisy asked.

“Out gallivanting with Andy,” Cadie responded, sitting down at her normal chair, the one that faced the big picture window into the backyard.  “Taking pictures and what not.”

Daisy made a disapproving noise.  Tom raised an eyebrow.

Cadie rolled her eyes.  “You guys can trust Melody.”

“I know I can trust Melody.  I don’t trust Andy,” her mother responded.

“Trust me, he’s more interested in the camera than he is in her.”

“That’s why I don’t trust him,” Daisy explained.  “He’s not very smart.”

Cadie smiled and took the bowl of salad that her father passed her.  “She should be home soon, anyway.”

“How was the first day?” her father asked.

“It was… you know, school.”  Cadie took a bite of garlic bread and chewed slowly, trying to think of a way to introduce the topic that she was about to introduce.  “Um, Mrs. Davinsizer asked me to be the editor of the literary magazine.”

“Honey, that’s great!” her mother exclaimed.

“Congratulations,” Tom said.

“Thanks.”

The three of them heard the screen door at the front of the house open, then slam shut.  The hinges had been broken for about a decade.  “I’m home!” Melody called, walking down the hallway and appearing in the kitchen.  “Ooh, dinner smells good.”

“What did you want to drink?” Tom asked, immediately standing.

“I’ll get it,” Melody responded, gesturing that her father should sit back down.  “I’m late, I know.  Sorry.  Andy and I took a walk in the woods and then we rode our bikes into the other development to take pictures of cows.”  She opened the refrigerator and removed a bottle of grape juice.

“Sounds thrilling,” Cadie answered.

“Who wants to play cards after dinner?” Tom asked.

“I will, Daddy,” Melody offered.

“I might,” Cadie responded.  “I’m going to look over some calculus problems first, though.”  She felt a little surge of panic go through her again, and she took a deep breath.

“Cadie, is it okay if we pick up Susan again tomorrow?” Melody asked.

“I suppose,” answered Cadie, her heartbeat beginning to slow down.  “But we’re going to go the back way, because I told Stacy we could give her a ride too.”

“Stacy Monroe?” Daisy inquired.  She sipped her water.

Cadie nodded.

“I haven’t seen her in awhile.  How is she doing?”

“Fine,” answered Cadie.  “She’s actually taking a couple AP classes this year, so we have physics and English together.”  Cadie paused to chew and swallow a bite of lasagna.  “Anyway, usually Will drives her to school, but I guess his parents are making him take his cousins
and
his sister, so he doesn’t have room in the car anymore, and Stacy’s not a huge fan of riding in the glove compartment.”

“Doesn’t he have a trunk?” her dad responded without missing a beat.

Felicia climbed the stairs to the second-floor dance studio on Main Street where Brian had just dropped her off; the dance studio was located above a swap shop.  She pushed open the doorway and glanced over the girls in her class.  They had been the same girls since she was eleven.  Amanda Teller, Lauren Andrews, Elizabeth Markel, and Meredith Wachniki were all cheerleaders.  Rachael Dunmyer, Gabrielle Cherry, and Melissa McClellan were all in drama club.  There was also Charlotte Henry, who did not go to their school; her mother sent her to a private school simply because the public school mascot was a blue devil.  Charlotte also had a twin sister, Charlene, and it made for a confusing time when all three Henrys were around, because their mother referred to both girls as “Char.”  The dance instructor, Andrea Townsend, had not arrived yet.  One face Felicia had not expected to see was Elliot’s.

Shyness forgotten, Felicia marched right up to Elliot, who was sitting on the floor, stretching forward and touching her toes.  “You dance,” she greeted her.

Elliot looked up from stretching, not looking at all surprised to see Felicia.  “I dance,” she confirmed.  “Why?  Are you surprised?”

Felicia dropped her bag beside Elliot.  “You don’t look like a dancer.”

“Yes I do.  I have no tits.  And I’m fucking tall, so we can rule out gymnastics right away.  Plus I eat things other than rice cakes.”  She interrupted herself at the sight of Felicia’s wince.  “What?  Are you anorexic?  Did I offend you?”

Felicia sat down beside her.  “Yes, but not because of the rice cakes.  I don’t like swearing.”

Elliot sat back and looked at Felicia appraisingly.  “You don’t like
swearing
,” she repeated flatly.

“Well… yeah.  Actually…”  It was always a little embarrassing to reveal this part of her personality to someone new.  Shane, Cadie, and Brian had all dealt with it for years and had grown accustomed to it, but this was the revelation that usually caused people to decide that she was too weird.  “I actually have a swear jar and I charge people a quarter per bad word.”