She knew Mr. Buddy’s silhouette, out in the early morning hours watering
his lawn. As the sun came up, he stood at the flowerbed holding a hose on
the roses. She passed him like this, walking down her driveway in the
mornings to wait for the bus, and he waved to her, calling, “Good Morning,
Val,” and her stomach fluttered. Her mother used to visit with him, but
that was back in May. She didn’t mention him anymore.

So Val didn’t stop and chat with Mr. Buddy when her mother was out of town.
Her mother had rules when Val stayed home alone: don’t have friends over;
answer mom’s calls; avoid the neighbors. If anyone knew her mother left Val
like she did, her mother could get in trouble. Being promoted to the
airline’s Milan route meant better pay, but harder hours. Val should stay
overnight with someone, like the Todd Family or her father, but the Todd
Family had been in a car wreck at the end of the summer. They could have
died, but they were in recovery. Val’s father lived in a trailer behind Our
Lady of the Lake that stunk of cigarettes and finch cages. If her father
knew, he could make her live with him and quit his spotty child support.
Val preferred her mother’s nice house on Old Hickory Lake, and she didn’t
like how the smell of his trailer stuck to her clothes long after she left.

She skipped school once, and her mother brought it up every time she went
over the rules again.

“Tell no one I’m gone,” her mother said, shoving a bra into her carry-on
for her next transatlantic flight. “And no more calls from the school
office saying you didn’t show up. What if I hadn’t been able to answer the
phone? Don’t you know what could have happened?”

“I know,” Val said, this being the third time she’d heard the
lecture.

“You know, huh?” her mother asked, buttoning her flight attendant blouse.
“You know how much I do for you?”

Val tucked in a lipstick that was poking out of an unzipped pocket. Besamé
Red, her mother’s color.

She waved from the end of the driveway as her mother drove off to the
airport. As Val waited for the bus, the neighbor, Mr. Buddy, bent over to
get his newspaper from the bottom of his own driveway. He wore the same
thing every morning: a white undershirt, athletic shorts, and house
slippers. He was around fifty, and he was a widower, a word that Val liked
to say, feeling it pucker her lips. Her mother didn’t share details, just
that the wife had been beautiful and sick. Too close to my age, her mother
said, every time.

Val thought Mr. Buddy seemed both young and old. His hair was grayer than
black, but his arms filled the short sleeves of his t-shirt in a way that
rushed blood to her face. He pointed at the paper on Val’s driveway.

“Your mom forgot her paper,” he said.

“That’s ok, Mr. Buddy,” Val said. “I’ll get it when I get home.”

He picked up his paper, straightened, used the paper to give a little wave, good day. As he walked back to his house, his calf muscles popped
out on each leg, taking turns, so visible under his tough, tanned skin.

When the bus pulled up, Val plopped down in the same seat she had always
shared with her best friend, Mamie Todd. But since the car accident, Mamie
hadn’t been back to school yet. She’d missed all of August and a week into
September. The middle school buzzed about the Todd family. Rumor had it,
Mamie wasn’t hurt at all, but her older sister, Charlie, hit her head.
Everybody wanted to talk about Charlie.

“I heard Charlie bruised her brain, and they had to take part of it out,” a
guy on the bus said. Val swiveled around and stared at the back of his
head.

“That’s not possible,” Val said.

The gossip turned to look at her, their faces close over the back of her
seat.

“Of course it’s possible,” he said. His name was Brent. He was a popular
kid, and his father dated Val’s mom sometimes. Val and Brent never talked
about it.

“You don’t know anything,” Val said.

“Do you?” Brent asked.

Val knew only what her mother had told her—that Mamie was living with the
neighbors, not her own mom and dad. Val’s mother had a theory about why,
which involved twirling a finger around her temple and whistling.

Val got out her homework and started looking at the math, frowning every
time she flipped to the back of the book for the answer. Val was Mamie’s
best friend. She should know more than Brent. She should know everything.

Val made it to her locker and to homeroom before she heard that Mamie was
back.

“She’s fat now,” Jenny said.

“I heard she doesn’t talk to her parents,” Brittany said.

“I heard she doesn’t talk at all,” Robin said. “Like, she’s on a strike
until Charlie gets better, or something.”

“How do you know?” Val asked. “You’re not even friends with her.” She
wanted to crawl over the desk and smother their faces.

“Everybody knows,” Jenny said.

These were the girls Val and Mamie gossiped about last year, who got their
periods before everyone else and sprouted breasts. They ran to the bathroom
with an embarrassed oval mouth every month. Val didn’t believe they were
really surprised. A period couldn’t be that sneaky.

Between classes, Val scanned the halls for Mamie and walked by her locker
more than once, but she couldn’t find her. At lunch, Val sat at their old
seventh grade table, surrounded by stinky seventh graders. Mamie never
showed.

Val got on the bus that afternoon and pressed against the window, watching
the stream of car riders. There, she thought she saw Mamie, getting into a
car, but it couldn’t be. The girl’s arms were thick and her middle pudgy.
Not like Mamie. When Val’s mother told her about the accident, Val burst
into tears. The Todd family’s car had hit another on the interstate. Her
mother tried to calm her by saying that Mamie was ok, that she walked away,
and Val would forever have the image of her friend getting out a crumpled
car, slamming the door, and strolling off down the road.

Brent leaned down to Val’s ear from the seat behind her.

“So, did you and your best friend hang out today?”

“What do you think?” Val asked.

“I think she spent all day in the counselor’s office,” Brent said.

“Then why’d you ask?”

“I know a lot more than you think,” Brent said. “I know your mom isn’t
home.”

This last part he whispered. Val whipped around to face him, her cheeks
burning.

“Party at Val’s house,” he said, sliding back down into his own seat.

Val’s heartbeat filled her ears. When she unlocked the door to her empty
house, the stillness unnerved her. Lamps and coffee tables lay in wait. She
flipped on every light she passed at only four in the afternoon. Had her
mother told Brent’s father she was going away? It was just like her mother
to break her own rules, and Val hated her surprise. She heard the hum of
the air conditioner churning back up. There was the whirr of an air filter
and beneath that, the eerie buzz of the fridge.

The doorbell made her heart stop, and she feared it was Brent, with a mob
behind him. Or worse, alone.

But there, on the front porch, was Mr. Buddy, holding their newspaper,
dangling from his grip in its plastic bag.

“Something told me I should just bring it up to you,” he said.

Val took the paper, mumbling a thank you.

“Tell your mother I’ll give her some of my tulip bulbs if she wants ‘em.
She’s got to plant them soon, though.”

“Ok,” Val said, knowing her mother would never put her hands in dirt. When
she wasn’t flying across the ocean, she was out on their dock with no boat,
reclining in black silk pajamas, sipping vodka and waving to passing
boaters who waved back sometimes.

“I need to show her what to do,” he said. “Is she home?”

“Not right now,” she said.

“When will she be back?”

Here it was. Val had avoided lying as best she could, but now it was either
lie or break one of her mother’s rules. Two, actually.

She breathed out and lied, “Tonight.”

She started to close the door, but he pushed the newspaper to her. She had
forgotten to take it. Her hand brushed over his as she grasped the plastic.
He had dirt under his nails. He smelled like dirt.

“Are you scared of being in this big house by yourself?” he asked.

The icemaker clunked behind her.

“Kind of,” she admitted.

“I remember that feeling,” he said. “Like there was someone with you in the
house, even though you knew you were alone.”

Val shrugged. That’s exactly how she felt.

“I have a confession,” he said, leaning down into her face so close, she
thought he might kiss her, and her heart slammed against her sternum, but
then he leaned a little to her left, his breath like a finger tracing her
face. “I still get scared sometimes,” he said.

He straightened so quickly it startled her, and his handsome face contorted
into a large, goofy grin with wrinkles all around his eyes.

“We never actually get older,” he said. “You feel the same on the inside.”

“You get older,” Val said. “You just don’t grow up.”

Mr. Buddy blinked and his grin relaxed.

“Good point,” he said. She couldn’t keep matching his stare, so she glanced
at the paper in her hands. “You look so much like your mother,” he added.

Val had heard it before, over and over, from all kinds of people, though
she couldn’t see it. When her mother was in full makeup, even she didn’t
look like herself. And at night, when she had stripped her face, she
slathered night cream that turned her skin an aggravated shade of pink. Her
eyes, lined and dry, seemed to register Val as a chore she forgot to do.

“I don’t think so,” Val said.

“No, it’s true,” Mr. Buddy said. “You’ll be as pretty as she is one day.”

Val had heard this, too. She understood what it meant.

“Thanks, Mr. Buddy,” she said. “I’ll make sure to tell my mother you
brought the paper up for us.”

“And the tulips bulbs?”

“I’ll tell her.”

“They can be a little tricky to plant. I’ll help her.”

Val saw his hope and wondered why her mother had quit visiting him. She
barely talked to him, or about him.

“I’m surprised she wanted them,” Val said. “My mother doesn’t garden.”

“She complimented my tulips in the spring,” Mr. Buddy said. “I promised her
some.”

“Ah,” Val said, understanding now. Her mother probably wanted his promise
of cut tulips in a vase, desiring them like she desired anything, easy.

Val thanked him again, closed the door, and turned back toward an empty
house and a night alone.

The sun was dropping on the other side of the lake. Val went to the kitchen
window to look out at her mother’s empty lounge chair, so lonely on the
dock, but she a person filled its space. The body was kicked back with her
legs propped just so, and Val felt momentary joy that maybe her mother’s
flight had been cancelled, and she’d simply been out on the dock this whole
time. But the person in the chair didn’t have the same grace or silk
pajamas.

Val walked down the sloped yard to the dock where she found the back of
Mamie Todd’s head. Mamie craned her neck to see Val and waved.

“Where have you been?” Val asked. “Were you at school today?”

“Yeah,” Mamie said.

“What did you do all day?”

“Sat in the counselor’s office,” Mamie said. “They’re trying to help me
transition, or some crap.”

“Are you coming back to school next week?” Val asked

“Yeah.”

A boat zoomed by. It was a weekend in September, the last chance for lake
lovers to enjoy the summer. Val’s mother would soon lament the cold and how
the lake sat so still in the winter and how it made her feel alone. Val
waved at these September boaters who waved back, then she sat next to the
lounge chair, her butt on the dock.

“Everybody’s saying things about you,” Val said.

Mamie pulled her legs in and hugged them. Her legs were thicker, bulging
against the seam of her shorts. She was heavier than the last time Val saw
her two months ago; her shirt stretched more tightly over a pair of
breasts.

“I need silk pajamas like your mom’s,” Mamie said. “Where did she go
anyway?”

“I don’t care,” Val said.

“Your mom is cool,” Mamie said. “Does she even care what people think about
her?”

“No,” Val said. “Just as long as they think about her.”

A screen door slammed, and Mr. Buddy stood at the top of the stairs to his
screened in porch, shading his eyes with one hand, peering down at them.

“Is that your mom, Val?” he called.

“No, Mr. Buddy,” Val called back. “She’ll be home later.”

“Remember the tulips!”

“I’ll remember, Mr. Buddy.”

He went back inside, the screen door banging behind him. Val could smell
something cooking, meat on charcoal; he must be grilling. It made her
hungry.

“Hey, let’s go inside and watch Days of Our Lives,” Val said,
hopeful that maybe Mamie would stay, and she wouldn’t have to face the
night after all. “We can open some peaches and eat them out of the can like
we used to.”

“I don’t really feel like it,” Mamie said. She stared out at the lake as
soft ripples thumped against the bank, the remnants of the wake from the
boat that sailed by earlier. The lulling slush against the shore always
made Val forget it came from violence. The sun, now deep, dark orange, was
so low behind the tree line across the lake that it shot directly into
Val’s eyes. She stared into her lap.

“People are saying things,” she said after a moment of listening to the
ripples.

“Like what?” Mamie asked.

“Did your mom go crazy?”

Mamie switched her legs, draping her left over her right instead.

“A little,” she said.

Val’s phone rang in her lap. She looked down to see the name “Mom” lighting
up the screen. Her mother must have landed, probably two drinks in at a
hotel bar. Probably pausing her conversation with the pilot to call her
daughter. Val declined it and set the phone on the dock, face down.

They sat and watched the sun slip out of view.

“Brent said they cut out part of Charlie’s brain,” Val went on. “But I told
him to shut up.”

Mamie squinted at Val, the purple light around them making edges blur.

“They did,” she said.

Something plopped into the water nearby, and Val jumped. It could be a
turtle, but the bank was in shadow. Then, another plop.

“Party at Val’s house,” a voice said. Val turned to find Brent there, with
another rock in his hand that he tossed into the water. This one was
bigger, more of a kerplunk.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, annoyed. She stood up to face him.

“Ouch,” Brent said, slapping a hand to his chest. “You really know how to
hurt someone.” He brushed past Val and sat next to Mamie, who didn’t seem
surprised at all but smiled at him and put a hand on his knee.

“You invited him?” Val asked, feeling sick. “How did you know to come
here?”

They both looked at her as if searching for something to say.

“I thought you came to see me,” Val said to Mamie.

“You haven’t come to see me,” Mamie said.

“I don’t even know where you were.”

“I’m at my neighbors’ house,” Mamie said. “Everybody knows.”

Everybody
. There didn’t used to be an everybody. There used to be Mamie and Val, and
then there was an everybody else.

“Did your dad say something about my mom going away?” Val asked Brent. He
shook his head, said no way, but he wasn’t convincing. He took his
shoes off, went to the side of the dock and stuck his feet in. Mamie
followed him. Val saw how she pressed against him with her shoulder
touching his. “There’s snakes in there,” Val said.

“Agh, it got me!” Brent screamed, making both girls jump. Then he laughed,
and Mamie laughed, too, in a way that Val didn’t recognize. It was throaty.
Deep. Like a woman.

“He’s kidding,” Mamie said to Val. “Come on, put your feet in.”

“No way,” Val said. “My mom said snakes hang out by the shore.”

“Your mom is hot,” Brent said.

Mamie slapped his shoulder for Val, but laughed and said, “I want to be
Val’s mom.”

“I don’t,” Val said.

“Come on, Val,” Mamie said. “Sit down with us.” Both Mamie and Brent
started begging her to join them, though she could tell they were just
being nice. Who knows if they were even going to tell her they were here.
Maybe they wished she didn’t know. Her mother preferred to be out here
alone, and Val let her.

As she turned to leave, Brent got her by the wrist. He must have leapt up
right then, showing Mamie how he would include her friend.

“Come on, Val,” he said.

Val tugged back, saying no, let me go. They did a tug-o-war for a moment,
but then Brent gave up. When he released her, she flew backwards, flopping
into the water and doing a backward summersault just under the surface, her
legs rolling over her head. She flailed to get back to the surface,
sickened by the patches of warm and cold water. She opened her eyes but saw
only dark green, murky. When she grabbed the dock, her legs floated under
it, and she thought she felt something brush against her calf. Screaming,
she hauled herself onto the dock, greeted by a duet of laughter.

“Oh my god, you got out of there so fast,” Brent said.

Mamie wiped at her eyes.

“Stop laughing at me,” Val said, but the two cleaved to each other, hands
touching knees touching sides, pressed against each other, holding each
other up.

With water streaming off her head, Val screamed one long, cathartic scream
with no words, just rage. She was still in her sneakers, her socks squishy,
tears slipping down the sides of her face, and her hands clenched into
fists. Her phone buzzed on the dock. Brent and Mamie quit laughing,
eyebrows raised, exchanging glances.

On the phone was a text from her mother: Answer my calls.

“I didn’t mean to,” Brent said.

“Go change your clothes and come back,” Mamie said. “We’ll hang out for a
little while. I don’t want to go back to my neighbors’ house yet.”

“Why are you staying there?” Val asked, miserable about her wet, clinging
clothes. Miserable that her friend seemed like somebody else. Miserable
that something had changed. “Why aren’t you staying with me?”

The moon had appeared in the sky, but the light was gray, and Val could
still see Mamie’s expression when she said, “My mom doesn’t trust your
mom,” She said it like it was something Val already knew. And Val did.

“I’m going to go change,” Val said. She climbed up the hill toward her
shining bright house. She could see the refrigerator in the kitchen, the
couch in the living room. Everything vivid and exposed, and it looked like
a place she had never seen before, a place she wanted to darken, to shut
off every light now in her eyes.

She didn’t notice Mr. Buddy until he was almost next to her, appearing from
the shadows.

“Val, is everything ok?”

He smelled like a mixture of clean soap, pepper, and char.

“What?” she asked.

“I heard screaming down there. Is everything ok?”

“No one was screaming,” Val said, too stunned to remember that there had
been her own.

“You’re soaking wet,” he said. He wore a crisp blue t-shirt, jeans and dark
leather boots. She’d never seen him cleaned up like that, no dirt on his
shirt or hands. The skin on his face gleamed as if just shaved and
moisturized. He looked younger, except for his salt and pepper hair glowing
in the light. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“I need to change my clothes,” Val said.

“Your mother loves sitting out there, doesn’t she?” he said, looking out at
the dock. “She’s like the queen of the lake.”

Val stepped to the side, sliding out from under his hand. Her clothes
clung, a layer of heavy slime.

“That’s not my mother,” Val said, “if you’re looking for her.”

“I’m not looking for her,” Mr. Buddy said. “I thought I would let you know
I have some leftover hamburgers, if you’re hungry. I still forget sometimes
and make too much food.” He gestured with his head toward Mamie and Brent.
“You can invite your friends.”

Val frowned. “They’re not my friends.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh.” She could smell the burger. She felt hungry and empty
and wet.

“Ok then,” he said. “I’m right next door if you need anything.”

“I don’t need anything,” she said.

“In case you do,” he said then climbed the stairs to his screened-in porch
and disappeared inside. Val looked back to the dock, to wave at Mamie and
Brent in case they were wondering what was going on, but they had become
one silhouette, a blob of shadowed body on the lounge chair. Elbows poked
out and went back in. Heads moved from side to side.

The world stretched out around her, swallowing her.A terrible ringing rose
in her ears, squealing so that she could hear nothing else. It sounded like
it was coming from somewhere far away, filling the sky, yet it was all in
her head, her skull now a fishbowl.Old Mamie was gone. Val backed away,
then turned from the lake, climbing Mr. Buddy’s stairs. She looked back
once more to see if the shadowed blob had noticed, but they were still lost
in lips on necks. The moon’s light cast a runway on the surface of the
water. Perhaps it was the same runway her mother could see in some other
part of the world. Her phone rang again; it was her mother reaching out
across the vastness between them. Val put her thumb on the power button and
held it there, suffocating it until the screen turned black.

Through the screen door, she saw Mr. Buddy’s deck furniture, floral like a
woman’s touch.

“Is that you?” Mr. Buddy called from inside his house, the door to the
kitchen sitting open.

“Can I have a towel?” Val called back. “I’m cold.”

Mr. Buddy appeared in the doorway, looking at her through the screen. The
light from the kitchen behind him cast him in shadow, but she could see
that grin, folding the skin in the corners of his face.

“I can do that for you,” he said. “Come on in.”

Val put her hand on the screen and pushed, moving into the darkness of his
porch, which she shouldn’t recognize, but somehow she did, as if she should
have been here all along.