She Loves You, She Loves You Not... (22 page)

Arlo chews and swallows. He chomps off another bite. “She had a breakdown. Stayed with Geena for a while. Geena says she’d wake up screaming, ‘My girl! My baby girl!’ ”

I hear Carly in my head, screaming, reliving the accident. I know I would.

“Then,” Arlo says, “she woke up one day, and she was over it.”

Like snap, you’re over this major trauma in your life? I don’t think so. She just buried it.

“She moved back to the house and picked up where she left off.” Arlo sets down his sandwich. “Milk.” He rolls to the fridge, calling over his shoulder, “Everyone admired the way she was able to carry on.”

The end of that phrase is left unspoken:
like nothing ever happened
.

My girl! My baby girl!
Angelica was Carly’s girl. I wonder if Carly ever woke in the night screaming for me? For the loss of me? Or was she like snap, over it?

Carly’s been home. She left me a note:

I sit at the table with my phone and wait. And wait. I call her, and her voice mail picks up. I don’t leave a message.

I hate this, sitting around waiting for a call. How much of my life has been wasted sitting around waiting for Sarah to call?

The sky’s so dark that it looks like the middle of the night, and the rain hasn’t let up a bit. I check my e-mail; there’s only spam.

I watch TV for a while. Every time I feel myself drifting off, the wind kicks up and hammers rain against the picture window. There’s a continuous scroll along the bottom of the screen with flash flood warnings for Eagle, Summit, and Grand counties.

The phone in my hand rings, and I almost drop it. “Hello?”

“Alyssa, are you home?” Carly says.

“Yeah. Where are you?”

I hear a guy’s voice in the background and Carly going, “Oh, thanks, honey.” She says to me, “I probably won’t make it back tonight. This rain is washing out roads, and already there’s a mudslide near Breckenridge. Now they’re saying it’s going to get worse overnight.”

A bolt of lightning strikes so close that the hair on my skin stands up, and the charge zings my feet and legs. “Carly?”

We’re cut off.

I try to call her back, but all I get is a busy signal. I disconnect so she can call me.

She never does.

There’s another lightning flash, and a thunder boom shakes
the house. I scrunch into a ball on the sofa. Thunderstorms scare me to death. Paulie’d always come running to my room, and we’d hide under the bedspread together.

Rain pummels the roof.

A streak of lightning splits the sky, and the TV flickers and then goes black. All the lights go out. Now what? When we lose electricity at home—which happens all the time because the wiring is old and we get lots of thunderstorms in Virginia—Dad goes to the garage to check the breakers. I’ve watched him flip them back on.

I creep down the stairs to Carly’s garage. I wish I knew where she keeps her flashlight. It’s pitch-black, and the floor’s wet, and I don’t have any shoes on. If lightning strikes, I’ll fry.

My phone’s in my hand, still, so I touch it on to use the lighted panel. I’m a freaking genius.

There’s the box. Sure enough, a bunch of the breakers are tripped. I flick them on one at a time and see lights illuminate behind me. The TV blares upstairs.

As I’m returning to the main level, a bolt of lightning illuminates Carly’s exercise room. Oh no. There’s water streaming in from under the window or the foundation. She has a closet with towels for the sauna, so I grab a stack and pack around the wet places. The sky lights up, and I see streams of water sluicing down the mountain.

What if the whole house floods? Or floats away? That won’t happen, will it? At least the main level isn’t on the ground floor. I wrap in a blanket on the sofa, surfing channels, trying and retrying Carly’s number. The line’s dead, and I feel cut off from the world.

The phone in the kitchen rings, and I leap up to answer.

“Alyssa?”

“Finn? Oh my God. Can you come over? I’m scared and Carly’s house is flooding and I don’t know what to do!”

Finn says, “Where’s Carly?”

“I don’t know. She left. She’s not coming home tonight.”

“How bad’s the flooding?”

“It’s seeping in around the foundation. I put towels all over to soak up the water.”

“Okay,” Finn says. “That’s good. You’ll be fine.”

“No, I won’t.”

Lightning streaks through the sky, and I hear Boner howl in the background. “I can’t leave,” Finn says. “Boner’s freaked out.”

“Then I’ll come there.”

“No! Don’t even try to drive on these roads.”

I feel so desperate for company. “Will you talk to me, at least?” The lights flicker, and I tell her, “The electricity keeps going in and out.”

“Keep calm. I’m here.”

I remote off the TV. “Stay on the phone, okay?”

A clap of thunder combines with Boner’s barking. “Boner, come here. That’s a good boy. I’ve never known such a wimpy dog.”

“Have you had a dog before?” I curl up on the sofa and shiver.

“My last foster family did. It wasn’t my dog. Nothing was mine.”

I know how she feels. I want to know the when and how
and where of her. “Tell me about your foster family. Were they in Canada?”

“Tell me about your family,” she replies. “Back in Virginia.”

How does she know where I’m from? I bet everyone in town knows all the dirty details of my life. “I’d rather not talk about them,” I say. “What are you doing right now? Do you have a fire going?” I wish I could build a fire, but the fireplace is in the formal living room, and I have no idea how to use it.

“Boner and I are in bed. He’s under the covers. Boner.” She laughs softly. “He’s licking me. Boner, stop. What are you doing?” she asks.

“Talking to you. I was thinking of taking a whirlpool bath, but I might get electrocuted.”

“Yeah. Don’t do that.”

“You should come over and try out the hot tub. Before you leave,” I say.

“Maybe I will.”

Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t leave. We start talking about work, and Arlo, then music and movies and I don’t know what else. At one point, Finn says, “I hope the minutes don’t run out on my phone. I’ve never talked to anyone this long.”

“Wow, I feel honored.” She’s never had a real friend. Friends can talk on the phone for hours. We jabber until my eyelids are heavy, and I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if I really hear Finn whisper, “G’night, Alyssa. Wish you were here. Sweet dreams.”

The ringing phone in the kitchen jolts me awake. I roll over—right off the sofa. The caller ID says it’s Arlo.

“Hey, boss man,” I answer.

“Don’t go out today,” he says. “Just stay put. The state patrol closed Highway 9 and Summit, and there are high-water warnings everywhere. Is Carly there?”

“Um, I don’t know.” I didn’t hear her come in.

“It doesn’t matter. She can take care of herself.” He sounds grouchy. Behind him, I hear, “Do you think we’ll be getting a pastry delivery?”

“Is Finn there?” I ask.

Arlo says, not to me, “Hell, I don’t know. If people come out to eat today, they’re daft in the head.” He goes, “Alyssa? Everything bolted down there?”

Everything but me. I hang up and race upstairs to get dressed for work.

Thank God I brought my boots. They’re leather, and the rain will probably ruin them, but they’re all I’ve got. They’re not that comfortable, anyway. They’re too narrow, and they pinch my toes, but Paulie (via Tanith) gave them to me for my birthday.

I only have a hoodie, so I check the downstairs closet for a raincoat or a parka. Carly has a full-length fur coat. Is it mink? Ick. I’m not about to wear a dead animal.

I crank everything on in the car—the wipers, defroster, headlights—and start down the access road. It’s slick and slimy, and my foot naturally jams on the brake, and then I feel the back end fishtailing. I steer in the opposite direction, but there’s no traction at all. The car is sliding, swerving, and I can’t control it, and all I see are gray shadows blurring past me, branches scraping the windows, and I skid, slide, and scream, “Stop! Stop!” Oh my God, please stop.

The brakes catch suddenly, and I’m jerked backward and then forward. If I hadn’t latched my seat belt, I’d have been propelled right out the windshield.

At last I reach Highway 102. Fuzzy headlights are the only visible patterns as semis roar by, splashing waves of water over my hood. I’m not religious or anything, but I make the sign of the cross and pray for my life.

The high-water warnings are no joke. I hit low spots on the highway and feel like I’m driving through a riptide. My heart is pounding as I putter along, getting blinded by every eighteen-wheeler that passes.

The Egg Drop-In sign is such a welcome sight that I want to cry. Water ripples down the street, and the incline to the
parking lot is pure muck. Finn’s bike is parked next to the building, covered with a tarp. How did she manage to get here?

When I blow through the back door, both Finn and Arlo stop what they’re doing to stare at me.

“Are you on crack? What did I tell you?” Arlo snipes.

“Am I late?” I ask Finn. “I wouldn’t want to get docked for being a minute late.”

She doesn’t smile. “Are you okay?”

“Barely.”

Arlo growls, “Do you ever listen to anyone?”

I blink. “What?”

He clenches his jaw.

“How’d you get down the mountain?” I ask Finn.

“Very slowly,” she says. She holds my eyes, and the way she looks at me makes me forget I could’ve died out there. Her eyes are bleary, and mine must be too. Neither of us got more than two hours of sleep.

“I called around, and your mother’s with Mitchell.” Arlo spins his chair away. “Her latest conquest.”

Finn shakes her head at me. Sneaking up behind Arlo, I take the handles of his chair and sing in his ear. “You love Carly.”

He flaps a hand at me.

“You want to marry her.”

He pivots. “I don’t love her, and I pity any guy who does. She’s a selfish, thoughtless bitch who only ever thinks of herself and what’s in it for her. Or haven’t you figured that out yet?”

I flinch.

Arlo snarls, “Get out of my way.”

I step aside to let him pass. He slams out the swinging doors into the dining room.

Finn mimes wrenching out a heart from her chest and breaking it in two.

Really. He’s hurting bad.

It’s so awful out, I can’t imagine we’ll stay open long. I’m wrong. Throughout the morning we get dozens of people in the restaurant. “Fools,” Arlo mutters under his breath every time the bell tinkles. The rain beats on the roof, and Finn and I have to keep emptying buckets and tubs from the leaks in the ceiling. The forecaster on the radio reports flash floods and closed roads, accidents everywhere. “A rollover accident near Heeney has left one person dead,” I hear.

Arlo says, “Dutch lives in Heeney.”

“Oh my God. Do you know his number?” He hasn’t been in the last couple of days, and I’ve been worried about him. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

Arlo rubs his chin. “Don’t remember.” He goes over to the phone.

I tell Finn, “I’m afraid to drive home. Will you drive the Mercedes?”

“I have my bike.”

“Can’t you leave it?”

“My Concours? And by the way, why did you lie about the money being yours?”

“What does it matter? You’re paying it back, right?”

Arlo hangs up. “He’s not answering. I’ll go over there if the
road’s open. Bring your motorcycle in overnight,” he orders Finn, like he overheard our conversation—on purpose.

“Really?” Finn says.

“No, not really. I’m a heartless bastard who’s driving you away, according to your guardian angel. Bring it in, goddammit. Unless you’re scared I’m going to go joyriding, which I just might.”

Finn zips into her rain gear and slogs out for the bike. When Arlo turns away, I give him a hug around the neck. “Thank you. Do you need help getting into your van?”

He spins. “Do I look like I need help?”

“Shut up,” I say.

His eyes shoot poison arrows at me.

“It’s treacherous out there, and I don’t want you to get stuck because you’re so stubborn that you’d sit outside and drown before asking anyone to come and help you.”

Arlo’s eyes mellow but don’t let loose of mine. He says, “You’re not Carly’s girl.”

“No. I’m me.”

He reaches out and takes my hand, pulls me closer to him. In this confidential tone, he says, “Jason wasn’t the only one cheating.”

As I’m trying to process that, Arlo adds, “Since you worked today, you’ll need to cut your hours later.”

Damn. Nothing gets by him.

Finn crashes in and wedges her motorcycle between the back wall and the storage cabinets, and I feel Arlo watching me watch her. He pulls me down closer to his mouth and
whispers, “Word of advice: Don’t get attached to a moving object.”

It takes three tries for Finn to back out of the deep ruts I carved on my way in. Highway 102 has heavy traffic, like the big rigs are using it instead of the interstate.

I’m thinking about everything Arlo told me, trying to piece together the whole puzzle. Of course. “Carly was having an affair with Arlo while she was married to Jason.”

Finn goes, “You finally figured that out?”

I slap her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She says, “I don’t spread gossip or rumors.”

Unless she’s coerced. What else does she know?

She concentrates on the road, her hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel. Her jaw is set, and she seems worried.

“What?” I ask.

“The rain,” she says. “I’ve never seen it like this. It isn’t natural. I have a feeling something bad’s going to happen.”

The edge in her voice sends shivers up my spine.

At the end of Carly’s driveway, we pull in by the mailbox and stop.

I gasp. A river courses down the access road, obliterating it completely. “How do we get to the house?” I ask Finn.