Theo said nothing, which is why I leaned back in the booth, turning to the window before opening my eyes.
Vivian was on the other side of the glass, her presence an unwelcome surprise. She stood on the sidewalk, wearing the drugstore sunglasses. Heart-shaped frames. Dark lenses reflecting diner chrome. Although I couldn’t see her eyes, the smile that played across her lips made it clear she had witnessed everything.
I couldn’t tell if she was happy about what she saw or amused by it. Maybe it was both. Just like during her games of Two Truths and a Lie, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference.
21
My excuse for going into town was to fill a prescription for allergy medicine I’d forgotten to bring with me. Yet another lie. At this point, I’ve fallen off the truth wagon completely. But again, I consider it justified, especially because it gave me the chance to return to Dogwood and grab my backpack and Vivian’s diary. By then the paint on the door had been completely wiped away. The only evidence it had been there at all was a swath of freshly cleaned wood and the nose-tickling smell of turpentine.
Now Theo and I ride in the same mint-green pickup that had whisked us out of camp fifteen years ago. Inside, all is silent, the radio apparently having died years ago. Theo drives with one hand on the steering wheel, his bent elbow jutting out the open window. My window is also rolled down. I stare at the woods as we leave Camp Nightingale, the trees a blur, light sparking through their branches.
I’m long past being mad at Theo about the camera outside Dogwood. My silence stems not from anger but from guilt. It’s the first time we’ve been alone together since I learned about his breakdown, and I’m not sure how to act. There’s so much I want to ask. If he felt as lonely during his six months of rehab as I did in the mental hospital. If he thinks about me every time he sees his scar in the mirror. With questions like that, silence seems to be the best choice.
The truck hits a whopper of a pothole, and both of us bounce toward the center of the bench seat. When our legs touch, I quickly pull away, edging as far as the passenger door will allow.
“Sorry,” I say.
More silence follows. Tense and thick with things unspoken. It becomes too much for Theo, for he suddenly says, “Can we start over?”
I wrinkle my brow, confused. “You mean go back to camp?”
“I mean go back to the beginning. Let’s start fresh. Pretend it’s fifteen years ago and you’re just arriving at camp.” Theo flashes the same crooked smile he gave when we first met. “Hi, I’m Theo.”
Once again, I’m amazed by his forgiveness. Maybe all bitterness and anger left him the instant that car smashed into a tree. Whatever the reason, Theo’s a better person than me. My default reaction to being hurt is to hurt right back, as he well knows.
“Feel free to play along,” he urges.
I’d love nothing more than to erase much of what’s happened between then and now. To rewind back to a time when Vivian, Natalie, and Allison still existed; Theo was still the dreamiest boy I’d ever seen; and I was a knock-kneed innocent nervous about camp. But the past clings to the present. All those mistakes and humiliations following us as we march inevitably forward. There’s no ignoring them.
“Thank you for doing this,” I say instead. “I know it’s an inconvenience.”
Theo keeps his eyes on the road, trying to hide how I’ve disappointed him yet again. “It’s nothing. I needed to go into town anyway. Lottie gave me a list of things to pick up from the hardware store. And what Lottie demands, she gets. She’s the one who really runs this place. Always has been.”
When we reach town, I see it’s more or less the same as I had left it, although some of the charm has been rubbed away. No patriotic bunting hangs from porch railings. A couple of empty storefronts mar the main drag, and the diner is gone, replaced by a Dunkin’ Donuts. The drugstore remains, although it’s now part of a chain, the name spelled out in red letters garishly placed against the building’s original brick exterior.
“After this, I might make a quick stop at the library. I need a place with good Wi-Fi to catch up on work emails,” I say, aiming for breeziness, as if the idea has just occurred to me.
I guess it works, because Theo doesn’t question the idea. Instead, he says, “Sure, I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
He remains in the idling truck, watching. This gives me no choice but to keep up the ruse and hurry into the drugstore. Since I know it’ll look suspicious on the return trip if I’m not carrying a bag from the place, I spend a few minutes browsing the shelves for something small to buy. I settle on a four-pack of disposable phone chargers. One for me and each girl in Dogwood. Franny will never know. Even if she does, I’m not sure I care.
At the cash register, I notice a rotating rack of sunglasses. The kind with a tilted mirror on top so customers can see how they look in the dime-store shades. I give it a spin, barely eyeing the knockoff Ray-Bans and cheap aviators when a familiar pair whirls by.
Red plastic.
Heart-shaped frames.
I snatch the sunglasses from the rack and turn them over in my hands, remembering the pair Vivian wore the entire ride back to camp that long-ago summer. I spent the whole drive wondering what she was thinking. Vivian said little during the return trip, preferring instead to stare out the open window as the breeze whipped her hair across her face.
I try on the sunglasses and lift my face to the rack’s mirror, checking how they look. Vivian wore them better, that’s for damn sure. On me, they’re just silly. I look exactly like what I am—a woman approaching thirty in cheap shades made for someone half her age.
I toss the sunglasses onto the counter anyway. I pay with cash and stuff the disposable chargers into my backpack. The sunglasses are worn out of the store, slid high up my forehead to keep my hair in place. I think Vivian would approve.
Next, it’s on to the library, which sits a block back from the main street. Inside, I pass the usual blond-wood tables and elderly patrons at desktop computers on my way to the reference desk. There a friendly librarian named Diana points me to the nonfiction section, and soon I’m scanning the stacks for 150.97768 WEST.
Astonishingly, it’s still there, tucked tightly on a shelf of books about mental illness and its treatment. If the subject matter didn’t already make me uneasy, the title certainly would.
Dark Ages: Women and Mental Illness in the 1800s by Amanda West.
The cover is stark. Black letters on a white background. Very seventies, which is when the book was printed. The publisher is a university press I’ve never heard of, which makes it even more baffling as to how or why Vivian learned of its existence.
I take the book to a secluded cubicle in the corner, pausing for a few steadying breaths before opening it. Vivian read this book. She held it in her hands. Mere days before she disappeared. Knowing this makes me want to put it back on the shelf, walk away, find Theo, and return to camp.