Every Secret Thing

It was past twelve when Helen heard a strange snuffling sound coming from the backyard and found Ro

Alice knew she would need an alibi because she knew Ro

35.

Alice curled her fingers through the gaps of the chain-link fence and pressed her face close enough to feel the metal on her cheek, yet there was very little to see from this vantage point. Here, at the north end of the swim club property, there was a basketball court and an old shuffleboard court, but these areas were deserted after sunset. The pool sat on higher ground, beyond this neglected little valley, and the clubhouse was even farther away. But with nothing to see, there was no risk of being seen, which was why Alice had chosen this spot for her almost nightly visits.

There was plenty to hear, especially on an evening like this, when the pool’s teenagers were having a dance party, their monthly reward for all those fifteen-minute increments surrendered to adult swim. Water and concrete combined to send strangely pure sounds to Alice, snatches of conversation and music, the thumping bass lines beneath the songs. “I told you to stop.” “Diane thinks she’s so in demand, but she’s so not.” “We had to drive to D.C. to find the right ones.” The chatter was female, while the bursts of shouts and laughter were male.

“It stings!” This seeming objection, voiced by a girl, was clearly a mock complaint, flirtatious and pleased, but it reminded Alice to check the underbrush around her ankles one more time. No, there was nothing to fear here, no leaves of three, no reddish tinge.

Alice had been surprised the first time she realized how close the swim club was to her evening route through Ten Hills. It had seemed so far away when she was young, yet here it was all along, separated by a narrow strip of undergrowth and weedy trees. The sounds had drawn her here, once she figured out how to cut through people’s yards and driveways to reach the unclaimed land that buffered the club. That had been nerve-racking at first, but Alice had learned to vary the routes she took each night. She also had a lie at the ready if anyone challenged her. She was looking for a cat or a dog. Nothing more serious than that. After all, if you said you were looking for a little brother or sister, people might actually care. Her fictional cat was black, except for a spot of white on its chest, and wore a blue collar with a round silver tag that identified it as Stella. Her made-up dog was a collie named Max.

So far, however, no one had asked. Sometimes Alice drew a puzzled look from a homeowner watering her garden, or a man stealing a smoke at the edge of his own property. Alice, plain and fat, was as good as invisible. She had resented this once, even after finally finding someone who didn’t agree, who praised her eyes, who loved her body. But this quality had come in handy when she was on her quest.

She heard a rustling sound in the wooded no-man’s-land behind her and turned, ready to tell her story. A collie named Max, a cat named Stella. The cat has a blue collar. We call her Stella because my mom says she always wanted to have a cat named Stella, so she could go in the backyard at night and yell “Stella.” That makes her laugh. I don’t know why. Helen had, in fact, told Alice she would name a cat Stella, if she had a cat. But she had allergies.

The person coming toward her was thin and not very tall. Alice didn’t need to see the face to figure out it was Ro

“What are you doing here?” Alice asked, her voice soft yet belligerent. It was, in fact, Ro

“Looking for you.”

“We’re not supposed to talk to each other.”

“It’s not a rule.” Ro

“It’s good advice. For me. If I don’t have anything to do with you, I won’t get into trouble.”

“I’m not-I haven’t-I didn’t do anything.”

Something in Ro

“Really? The police think you did. The police asked me lots of questions about you and the missing girl.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Ro

“It happened near where you worked.”

“It was near where about a thousand people work, I guess.”

The pool area was illuminated at night, but there were no lights here at the edges, so Alice could not make out Ro

“There’s only one person like you who works near Westview.”

“What do you mean?”

“A baby-stealer. A baby-killer.”

Ro

“But you did. You held a pillow over her face until she stopped breathing. That makes you a baby-killer. Not me. I wasn’t there. Remember? I wasn’t even there.”

“It was your idea.” But she was growing tentative, betraying her uncertainty. “You told me to do it.”

Alice put on a grown-up’s prissy, reproving voice. “If Alice told you to jump off a building, would you do that? If Alice told you to play with matches, would you do that? If Alice told you-”

“Shut up.”

Ro

“I don’t want to talk about what happened in the past,” Ro

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Well, I didn’t do anything last time, and I got blamed.” Alice put on her bland, obstinate voice, the one she used whenever pressed to give answers she didn’t want to provide. You have to tell us what happened, Alice. Why? So we can take steps, punish the man who did this. But I wanted him to do it. I love him, and I don’t want you to punish him. You can’t love him. Why? Because he doesn’t love you. But he does, he said so. Alice, we have to know what happened. Why?

“It was your idea,” Ro

“Prove it.”

“You told me what to do, how to do it. You said it had to be done.”

Alice shrugged, her gaze fixed on the pool.

“Look, I don’t care about then.” Ro