After school, as Burke and I walk out the side entrance, we notice that a small crowd has gathered near the parking lot. At the bottom of the steps, we stop and watch as Sarah Cash walks nonchalantly across the parking lot to her Nova. I notice Brianna standing off to the side with her friends, watching with narrowed eyes. As Sarah opens the back door and tosses her backpack in, Brianna—her eyes still on Sarah—leans in and whispers something to her clique. They all turn and stare, unimpressed, as Sarah jumps into the front seat and slams her door.
Brianna’s clique might not be impressed, but plenty of other people are, Burke included. As she pulls out of her spot, one guy gives her an exaggerated holler of approval. The car stops, and a moment later, the driver’s side window opens and her hand appears, a middle finger snapping to attention before the whole arm disappears back into the car and she squeals out of the parking lot and drives away down the street.
I reach over and tap Burke’s lower jaw closed with my finger. “You’re drooling.”
“Oh, and you’re not?” he asks. “I saw you looking back there in class.”
“You did not,” I say, turning around and starting to walk away before he notices me blush.
He catches up but knows me well enough to drop the subject. “Hey, can I come over for a while?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Terry is back in town,” he explains.
I understand what he means immediately. “Good old Terrance,” I say. Burke’s uncle Terry is a classic deadbeat. No fixed address, no stable job, and a tendency to drop in on Burke’s family every couple of years. He always pretends he’s just visiting, but he usually needs a place to crash and ends up sticking around for weeks, or even months.
“He’s staying in the basement,” Burke says. “Just lying around on the couch all day, watching TV and drinking beer and farting. He’s so gross.”
I laugh. When Burke’s sister, Alicia, moved out last year, on her way to college out of state, Burke inherited the bedroom in the basement. It’s nothing fancy, just a boxed-in room in the corner, but it’s private. There’s a toilet and shower in the laundry room, and the rec room has some battered old couches set up around a giant old TV. It’s like a personal lounge, except now that Terry is sleeping on the couch, Burke’s oasis has been invaded.
We leave the school and move away down the sidewalk. “The worst part,” says Burke, “is that he’s talking about staying this time. He says he’s ‘looking for work’ and as soon as he finds something he’ll get his own place, but that’s bullshit. He’ll be around for months.”
“Why don’t your folks kick him out?” I ask.
“If it were up to my mom, they would, but my dad would never consider it,” says Burke. “Terry’s his little brother. He’s a screwup, but he’s family.”
Instead of walking back to my house through town, we take a shortcut, heading down the alley next to the old abandoned bowling alley and skimming through the hole in the fence to get to the path that runs along the train tracks. Once we’re out of sight from the street, Burke drops his backpack onto a crusty, pebble-encrusted snowbank and unzips, rummaging around inside for an old Altoids tin. He takes out a small glass pipe and packs it with some broken-up weed. He sparks up as I stand shivering, waiting for him to finish.
“You want?” he asks through clenched teeth, holding the pipe to me.
“No thanks,” I say. Burke knows it’s not my thing, but he never fails to offer, which I find equally irritating and endearing.
He breathes out the smoke, a thin blue cloud twisting into the air like a ribbon. I like the smell, even if I don’t smoke, sweet and sour like the decay of fall. Burke shoves his little Altoids container back into his backpack and we start walking again.
“So what’d you really think about the new girl?” he asks.
“Well, she lives across the street from me,” I say. It’s a nonanswer, but it gets his attention.
“No shit? In that house that’s been for sale forever?”
I nod.
“Why didn’t we ask her to give us a drive home?” He takes another haul on the pipe.
“What, and miss out on our precious quality time?” I ask him. “Come on, man, I haven’t even spoken to her. I just noticed them moving in yesterday.”
“The girl next door,” he says. I can hear the grin in his voice even through his clenched teeth. He exhales a cloud of smoke.
I ignore him. As always, Burke shuts up for a few minutes after he smokes, so we walk along in silence. It’s fine with me, since I have some stuff to think about anyway.
We reach the path that takes me back to our house, and I climb up after him, digging the toes of my boots into the sides, where the snow hasn’t been packed down into an icy slide.
At the top, I turn toward my street, but Burke stops me.
“Hang on,” he says. “I want to grab some chips.” He grins and rubs his hands together. “Got the munchies.”
I roll my eyes, he’s such a cliché, but I follow him across the street and around the corner to the gas station on Livingstone Street.
I follow him into the store and stand around near the cash register, looking at my phone while Burke slowly mulls over the snack options on display. He turns into a sloth when he’s stoned, carefully picking up every bag of chips and analyzing the packaging. The guy behind the counter barely looks up from his phone. He’s used to this routine.
The door jingles, and I glance up as a tall woman I don’t recognize enters. She’s very attractive, with long, super dark hair and a sharp, fine-featured face. She’s wearing high leather boots over tight jeans, a dark green wool peacoat and a nice scarf, and huge dark sunglasses that she sweeps back onto the top of her head as she walks out of the bright sunshine of the winter afternoon. Her gaze sweeps casually around the store, passing over me. To my surprise, her eyes land on Burke and she smiles and approaches him.
“Hi, Burke,” she says.
He turns, startled, and then his dumb, stoned face breaks into a grin, and I can tell that he’s shifting into his patented “speaking politely to adults while stoned” mode.
“Oh, hi there, Mrs. Gerrard,” he says. “What brings you here to the, uh, Fuel-Up?”
She laughs. “Just needed to pick up a couple of things.” His eyes widen as if he’s had an epiphany, and he turns to me and beckons me over. “Hey, Dee,” he says. “Come here for a minute.”
Reluctantly, I slide my phone into my pocket and walk over to them, trying to look friendly while doing my best to send Burke “I hate you” vibes. I don’t enjoy talking to adults the way Burke does.
“Mrs. Gerrard, this is my friend Dee,” he says. “Delia. She used to live in your house!”
I realize too late that my mouth has dropped open in shock and scramble to slap a normal look back onto my face.
She also looks surprised, while Burke seems oblivious to the impact his bomb has had.
“Oh, no way,” I manage to say. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he says. “The Gerrards moved into your old place just a couple of months ago. They’ve got a cool little girl named Layla.”
Mrs. Gerrard is still looking at me as if she’s trying to figure something out. “Are you a Price?” she asks.
“Uh, no,” I say. “Skinner. The Prices bought the house from us.”
“I see,” she says. I can see the wheels spinning as she realizes who I am, and I brace myself for the inevitable questions, but instead she just purses her lips into a somewhat unconvincing smile. “Well, I have to grab some milk,” she says. “Nice meeting you. See you later, Burke.”
Burke pays for his chips and I follow him outside.
“Hey, look,” he says. “There’s Layla over there.” He points to a car parked by one of the gas tanks, and sure enough, there’s a girl sitting in the backseat, waving at him.
Before I can ask him not to, he’s striding to the car.
“Hey, Layla!” he says. She rolls her window down and smiles at him. She’s a small girl, tiny in fact, with a serious look on her face.
“Hi, Burke,” she says.
“This is my friend Dee,” he says, pointing at me. “Guess what? She used to live in your house. I think your bedroom used to be her bedroom. Pretty cool, hey?”
She regards me curiously. “You lived in my house? When you were my age?”
“That depends,” I say. “How old are you?”
“I’m eleven.”
“I was a bit younger than you, then,” I say. “We moved out when I was eight.”
Her question throws me. It’s not like I feel that it’s actually a secret or anything, but I’ve never put it in words for anyone before.
“My dad and mom wanted a bigger house,” I say. “We still live in town.”
“My mom doesn’t like our new house,” says Layla, matter-of-factly. “She says it isn’t our forever house. She says we’ll move somewhere nicer someday. When we can afford it.”
“What about your dad?” asks Burke.
“He likes it, I think?” the little girl says, and then she twists her face into a knot, thinking about the question seriously. “Actually, I don’t know if he likes it. He didn’t say. I guess I should ask him.”
“Cute kid,” I say to Burke, as we’re walking away.
“Yeah,” he says. “My mom babysits her sometimes. She’s real smart.”
We reach the corner and I turn to glance back at the car. From the window, Layla Gerrard is still staring at us. When she sees me looking back at her, she raises a hand in a calm, simple wave.
As I wave back, I register with some surprise that I feel vaguely unsettled. It’s been ten years since Sibby disappeared, but the memories of that day keep finding new ways to haunt me.