Page 55 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

I need to go and see Poppy and June. That’s all I care about right now. I think about driving to the bait shop to tell Clay about all of this, but I’m so ashamed about what’s being said about me. I wonder if he’s already heard. I can’t face it right now, so I rush home, tears blurring my vision and my head swimming—trying to understand who would be doing this. Why would anyone do all this? For what?

On a windy two-lane road a few miles from home, I stop at a run-down gas station. I stand shivering as I fill up my tank before I go home and grab an overnight bag so I can go to my mother’s and be with the girls and get the fuck out of here for a while. There is no indoor section of this place, just a tiny booth with a window you walk up to for cigarettes or soda. There are no other cars, just the wind blowing and the snow whipping. But I think I hear a car idling, even though I don’t see anything. It’s like somewhere just out of sight, the hum of a motor is present, but I can’t be sure because the howling wind is so loud and the pines are thick, so there are so many places a car could be. And now I think I’m being followed and I start to panic. Then, after a few minutes, once I am finished with the gas and sitting in my car, paralyzed in fear, I realize it was a car, and I hear it pull away, and I hear the rev of an engine until the sound disappears down the long road, but I never actually see it. I wonder if I’m going crazy.

Not like you see in the movies. Am I actually mad? Am I seeing things?No, like I seriously wonder if I’ve had some psychotic break and I can’t even trust my own thoughts.

But even if it was my imagination, it’s gone now, and I race home to get my things. I rehearse packing in my mind—I’ll grab theirFrog and Toad Are Friendsbooks and Poppy’s purple nail polish, and they’ll be so surprised. I’ll only grab a change of clothes and my charger, and I’ll be on the road. I text Clay to let him know where I’m headed, but I don’t call because I just need some time alone. To think.

I pull into our drive and turn off the ignition, and in the cold, night air, I think I hear it again: a car idling. But of course it can’t be, because this isn’t a public gas station. This is my home, and there is nothing but woods around us. The barn and garage, but I don’t see anything.Calm down, I tell myself. Get inside, lock the doors, get the gun, and just wait. The door is right there. You’re being paranoid. Just get inside, and if you need to call the cops, God-for-fucking-bid, then call, but just get safe and then reassess.

It’s like running up the stairs as a kid—when you’re in the basement and you’ve pulled the string to turn the lights off and you have to run before the boogeyman gets you. That’s how I feel right now. But as ridiculous as it might be, I start to sprint to the front door and I think for just a second that I hear footsteps behind me, but before I can turn around to see, I feel someone grab me from behind. As my phone drops on the ice with a thud, a thought flits across my mind—why would you come here? Whoever wants you dead knows there are no cameras here. Whoever wants you dead has just won.

And then, as my head falls heavy into soft snow, I see stars, and everything goes dark.

23

FLORENCE

The sun is setting but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from looking outside since these January days are hazy and overcast already. The mood at the Oleander’s is a bleak one. Heather is out for two weeks because the stress of it all got to her and she said she didn’t think an hourly job barely above minimum wage was worth getting potentially murdered over, and she wanted away from this place, and Shelby, and all of it for her own safety for a little while. I guess that’s fair.

Evan has the night off for a bowling tournament, and Shelby said she’s stopping in this evening, but there has been no word from her, so I’m starting to get a little worried. The four of us sit in the rec room eating Hot Pockets that Herb heated up for us and discussing the arrangements for Bernie’s funeral accommodations. His daughter is doing most of the planning,but we wanted to help so we’re coordinating volunteers to set up chairs at the church and serve refreshments.

PBS is playing on the TV in the background, and Bob Ross is painting little clouds in front of a winter moon on canvas, but nobody is watching even though we usually love to get canvases of our own from the craft room and drink chardonnay and paint along on Saturdays.

“I got my permanent today at Frannie’s Cut & Curl if anyone’s interested,” Millie says, picking a pepperoni out of her Lean Pocket. She seems to be in a mood since Herb gave everyone else regular Hot Pockets and decided to give her the Lean Pocket.

“Looks nice, Mil,” Mort says.

“That’s not what I was fishing for. All the ladies were talking about Shelby and the Trout last night. Where I guess you all went without me.”

“You were out. Snoring like a buzz saw,” Herb says.

“Anyway, the point is…people are gossiping about Shelby, saying they heard she’s lying about all the stuff happening to her, making it up! Georgette said she heard from Barbara Langer who heard from Belinda Riley that the electrical outage here was an attempt at insurance fraud. That Shelby did it herself. That’s the talk.”

“What?” I snap.

“Yep. Then I stopped at Smokey’s for a Juicy Lucy afterward and Candace Walberg shows me a video from the bar last night, which is how I know you old bats were there, ’cause it showed Shelby screaming at Riley, and there your ugly mugs are in the background gawking at the whole thing.”

“You were sleeping, Millie. Take a pill,” Herb says again.

“You could have woken me up for that sort of thing, Herb!” She sighs the sigh of a martyr and continues. “Anyway, then I take the bus home and who do I see but Gordy Willis, and guess what he wants to talk about? Belinda Riley’s video on Facebook,and how maybe there is nobody terrorizing the town and it’s all Shelby, and how she should be institutionalized if that’s true.”

“Jesus,” Mort says.

“Yeah,” Millie says, pushing her Lean Pocket away and folding her arms across her chest.

“People are terrible,” I add, thinking about poor Shelby and what she must be going through, and again I worry about her whereabouts and quickly check my phone to see if she’s responded, but nothing.

“Well, what if it’s true?” Herb says, and everyone scoffs at him.

“Herb, that’s out of line,” Mort says.

“Okay, but hear me out. She’s the only one with access to the cameras around here. I’ve thought about that—watching Evan scan through the footage searching for the tiniest movement that he’ll never find because…what if she got to the footage first? I mean, who else would want to hurt a bunch of old folks with a fire? Who else would have a motive if it’s not insurance money? What if she—you know, lost a screw when that trauma happened to her last year and she’s causing all this… I mean, crap, now that I say it all out loud…”

“No. What’s the matter with you?” I ask. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I do, Flor. I’m not making an accusation, just discussing all possibilities. Isn’t that what the podcast was supposed to be about? Isn’t that what Oleanders do? We stay objective. We solve shit. That’s what we all said.”

“Thatiswhat we said,” Millie adds.

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