Every Secret Thing

“Really?” Alice had thought there would be newspapers and television shows eventually, but not so soon.

“Really. I went to see Helen and she said-”

“Why did you go see my mom?”

“Because I was looking for you. And Helen said-”

She hated to hear her mother’s name in Ro

“Helen said-”

“She’s my mom. Not yours. You have your own mother and a father, too. All I have is a mother. She’s mine. Stay away from her. Can’t you just stay away? You don’t even live next door anymore. There’s no reason for you to be hanging around.”

“I just-” Ro

“My mom didn’t even approve of you.”

“Alice-”

“She felt sorry for you. That’s why she made me play with you, that’s why she let you spend time at our house.”

“I don’t-”

“Because she felt bad for how awful and nasty your family was, and how you didn’t have any real friends. But she never liked you. She made fun of you behind your back.”

“No. No, she wouldn’t do that.”

Alice had thought her final accusation would unhinge Ro

Now it was Alice’s shriek that cut through the night air. “She didn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t! You’re such a liar. You were always a liar and a loser, the girl that no one chose for sides or partners. My mom couldn’t possibly like you.”

Again, the voices around the pool stilled, waiting. Again, they resumed. Alice lowered her voice.

“Do you know why you did it? Why I told you to do it?”

“You said the baby was sick and unhappy-”

Alice’s voice, while low, was triumphant. “I made all that up. Because I knew they would take you away. I thought they would lock you up forever and I wouldn’t have to see you anymore. I didn’t know you’d be smart enough to steal my jack-in-the-box and leave it there. Otherwise, I could have said I was never there and they would have believed me because it would have been my word against yours.”

“I didn’t-I never-the jack-in-the-box wasn’t what I wanted-”

Flashlight beams suddenly began cutting paths through the woods, playing across the fence, landing only a few feet from where Alice and Ro

“Alice? Alice Ma

“It’s the police,” Alice hissed, her eyes bright with excitement. “They’re coming for you. They know who you are and what you did. They’re going to lock you up forever this time. And the newspapers are going to write about you, and everyone will know. Ro

“I didn’t.”

“I’m going to tell them you told me as much. I’m going to tell them that you said you took the girl and chopped her in little pieces and threw her in the incinerator. I’m going to tell them you did it because she looks half black and you hate black people, always have, just like last time. You told me you hate it when black people and white people have babies together. I’m going to tell them-”

But Ro

“Hurry, she’s getting away!” Alice cried out in the direction of the lights. “We’re over here, near the fence. Hurry!”

It sounded as if a dozen people were rushing toward her, but it was only two, the police detectives who had talked to her before Sharon said they couldn’t anymore.

“Alice Ma

“Ro

The detectives turned, shining their beams in several directions, but Ro

“We’ll send a patrol to her house,” the woman said. She had her hand on Alice’s wrist. Why was she holding on to Alice when she should be chasing Ro

“We want to talk to you,” the man said. “We need to ask you about something we found in your file from Middlebrook.”

“What file?”

“Your medical records.”

“Oh.”

“Would you mind coming with us back to headquarters?” The woman made it sound like a question, but Alice had a feeling it wasn’t. “You can call your lawyer from there if you need to. But we really need to talk to you.”

Alice turned her gaze back to the fence. The teenagers who had been allowed to take over the pool for the evening were standing at the deep end, looking toward the woods, their hands shielding their eyes as they tried to make sense of the light and noise coming from Alice’s side of the fence. She did not actually know any of them, but she might have. Her old friends from St. William of York could be among the bikini-clad girls. One of the boys could have been her boyfriend, if she didn’t already have one. She imagined confiding in one of these girls: “I have a boyfriend who’s six years older than I am. He has a pickup truck, and he takes me out driving, and he wants to marry me.” The last was not exactly true, but it was true enough. He would marry her, if she told him that’s what he had to do. He would do anything she told him to do. So would Helen, and Sharon, and even her new lawyer, that ugly woman who smelled bad. For once, everyone had to do what she said.

It was nice, being in charge, on the verge of getting the recognition she deserved. Finally, the world was going to know what it had done to her, and she was going to be compensated. She would probably be very rich when this was all over, not to mention famous. She would be on talk shows, where a professional would do her makeup, maybe even pick out her clothes.

Although, if she had a say in it, if she could change who she was and what had happened to her, she’d rather just be eighteen and thin enough to wear a bikini.

“Did you match the blood?” she asked the detectives, curious to know how they had gotten ahead of her, not that it would make much difference. “Is that how you found out? Did you get his blood?”

The man and the woman exchanged a look, but said nothing, just held out their arms to her to help her back through the woods, as if she didn’t know the way in and out better than anyone. They climbed the hill to the roadside, a detective on either side of Alice, holding tight to her upper arms. It was like The Wizard of Oz, Alice thought, except they didn’t skip.