Nicole Young: Kill Me If You Can

The bedroom door squeaked open. I poked my head in. The bare, blue-striped mattress of a full-size bed caught my eye. The scent of musty wood caught my nose. I sneezed.

The walls and ceiling of the room were paneled with cedar that had darkened to a rich golden hue over time. A good washing would take care of the dust. The floor, on the other hand, had been done over in the ’50s with some gray-and-black-speckled linoleum-type stuff.

I smiled. Things were the same as when my mom had slept here, although she’d had a soft white comforter on the bed, a colorful braided rug on the floor, and a vase of wildflowers on the dresser. When I was scared, I’d slept in here with her.

I traced a finger in the dust on the dark oak dresser. It was odd that whoever had made up my bed had known which room I’d slept in as a kid. Anyone else would have made the bed in this room for me. It was the logical choice.

I looked at the trail I’d made in the dust. DON’T ASK WHY, I’d written.

But I would ask why. And I wouldn’t stop asking until I had some answers.

I walked into the bathroom. The toilet bowl was filled with pinkish liquid, probably anti-freeze, but I used it anyway, reserving the flush for later when the water was turned on.

I checked my hair in the mirror. I’d been growing it out from its former chin length to its now shoulder length. I had chosen the shorter style to avoid looking too much like another resident of my old town. But with five hundred miles between me and Rawlings, Michigan, I was free to look any way I wanted.

I ran my fingers through reddish-brown tangles, deciding I looked good enough for a run to the store the day after a snowstorm.

The driveway had drifted over during the night, but the Explorer cut through scattered three-foot-high snow mounds without any trouble. I would never have made it in my inherited classic Buick, the one I’d finally unloaded for this dream machine.

The end of my driveway sloped upward where it joined the two-lane highway to Port Silvan. I slowed to look for traffic. All clear. I pressed the gas. My wheels started to slip. The car skidded sideways on the incline. I punched the vehicle into four-wheel drive and burst onto the lonely highway like a colt trying out its new legs.

“Woo-hooo!” I grinned at the swell of exhilaration rushing through my veins.

The county plow had already been through. Salt left clear patches on the otherwise slippery blacktop. I put the Explorer back in two-wheel drive and took it easy for the eight-mile trip to Port Silvan. Just down the road, a red wooden sign with white letters identified Cupid’s Creek. This time of year the creek was nothing more than a trickle of water at the bottom of an icy trough. The sign had been there when I was a kid. I wondered what else had stayed the same even after all these years.

Farther ahead, the roofs of farmhouses and barns were white with caked-on snow. Horses huddled over bins of hay. The fields around them looked like wrinkled sheets of bleached cotton.

A little ways up, the road straightened. In the distance rose the blue water tower of the Village of Port Silvan. The houses grew closer together as I neared town. Some I remembered from my time here as a kid, some looked new.

I reached the village limits. I nearly choked on the dry air in the SUV. Or was it nerves? I turned the fan to low and cleared my throat. There was no reason to be nervous. No one would recognize me. I wasn’t seven anymore. I was all grown up.

I pulled into Sinclair’s Grocery and shifted into park. I left the car running while I scoped out the neighborhood. The ancient building in front of me had been recently updated with a bright white coat of stain on its clapboard siding. The store’s name was traced in blue on a sign swinging over the entry. Painted-on letters in the big picture window said OPEN. Across the full length of the front ran a snow-covered boardwalk. I could picture its row of benches filled with kids eating ice-cream cones in the summer. I’d been one of them, of course. Blue Moon had been my favorite. Next door, a house had gotten new vinyl siding. So had the old gas station. Behind me across the street, a couple buildings, at least a hundred years old, had gotten fresh paint jobs as well. Port Silvan Museum, one of the signs said. Blinds covered the windows and the place had a vacant look.

I was beginning to think the whole town was vacant. Then I heard a rumble off to my right. A red four-wheeler pulled up next to me. Its driver wore a ski mask, though whether to protect from the bitter cold or to burglarize the place, I couldn’t be sure. I activated my power locks, thinking as I did that I couldn’t have done that in Grandma’s old Buick. The man glanced over at the sound and shook his head. He went in the store. I waited. He came out a few minutes later carrying a case of soda. His mask was folded back to his forehead. I scrunched in concentration as I studied his face. He was a notch older than me and good-looking in a rugged sort of way. But there was nothing familiar about him. He bore no resemblance to any nine- or ten-year-olds from the past. With a narrow-eyed look in my direction, he got on his four-wheeler and rode away.

I stepped out of my vehicle and walked into the store. A bell jangled overhead as I entered. The scent of fresh, sweet donuts met me at the door. To one side, candy bars and treats were laid out at kid-level beneath the front window. Directly in front of me, racks of DVDs promised night after night of entertainment. The covers were sprinkled with yellow Post-it notes that said “Sorry, Out.” The blizzard must have boosted rentals.

To the other side, a fifty-something woman with a poof of blonde hair stood behind the checkout. I gave a nod and smiled as I pulled a cart from the stack and headed in search of the bottled water aisle. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was watching me, even after I turned the corner out of sight. I glanced up at one of the large, round security mirrors and met her eyes. I looked away, focusing on the choice of bottles and jugs in front of me. I ignored the suspicion that nagged at me. I was new in town. She was curious. That was all.

I loaded the water and went down the remaining aisles of the miniature supermarket. I grabbed the basics on my way through, then ordered up six assorted donuts at checkout.

“Expecting company already?” the woman asked.

“Me? No, just figured I’d have some treats handy the next few days.” I stared at her, wondering if I should know her, and why she seemed to know something about me.

Her cheeks were rosy with makeup and her maroon lipstick looked freshly applied. She kept a pleasant smile as she checked price tags and punched buttons on the cash register. Stick-on fingernails flashed a metallic pink in the fluorescent lighting.

“That’ll be twenty-nine dollars and sixteen cents,” she said in a raspy smoker’s voice.

I grimaced at the high cost of groceries in this out-of-the-way burg as I groped through the pocket of my ski coat for the money. I laid two twenties on the counter.

The cash drawer popped open with a bing and she passed me my change.

“Oh,” she said, “this is for you.” She fished around next to an old-fashioned rotary phone and found a slip of paper. “Candice wanted you to have her number. Said to call her as soon as you got in.”

I reached for the note in slow motion. “Who’s Candice?”

The woman smiled. “Candice LeJeune. She figured you wouldn’t remember her. You used to visit her all the time when you were a kid.”

I stared at the folded paper with “Tish” written across the top. Whoever this Candice was, she had a lot of nerve calling me by the pet name my mother had given me. I only liked people to call me Tish after I’d given my permission.