Little Girls Read online

  Look—see here? Let me touch you here. Then you do it. Do it to me. See that? You see? How do you like that? Moisture crowded the corners of Sadie’s small mouth.

  And still—

  How much were genuine memories and how much had Laurie’s mind unconsciously altered after all these years?

  Toward the end, I hated you, Sadie. I was afraid of you, yes, but I hated you even more. After I got over the initial shock of what I saw happen to you, I found that I was relieved. I was glad.

  Chapter 19

  Stephanie Canton called early Monday morning and advised Laurie that she had begun compiling a list of interested buyers to come to the house and look over the items. This would begin later that afternoon, as Stephanie had someone very interested in the office furniture in her father’s study. Laurie agreed to the time and hung up, feeling somewhat lightheaded from Stephanie Canton’s efficient and businesslike approach to conversation.

  A few minutes later, as Laurie began making breakfast, she heard the shower turn on upstairs. A moment after that, a resounding clang reverberated down through the ceiling. Ted’s curses were muted, but the rage in his voice was not. In the upstairs hallway, Laurie found Susan standing in her sleepwear in the doorway of the master bedroom. Laurie moved past the girl, grazing her small shoulder with a soft hand, before rushing into the bathroom.

  Naked and wet, Ted stood with one foot inside the shower and one planted firmly on the ecru tile floor. Something metallic roughly the size of a softball was in his hands. When he looked up at Laurie, there was bemused expression on his face. A reddish knot swelled at the center of his forehead.

  “What happened?”

  He showed her the metallic softball-sized object. “Goddamn showerhead shot right off the spigot. Cracked me in the cranium.”

  “Oh, my God, are you okay?”

  “I’ll live. The bitching thing could have taken my head off, though.” He thrust the showerhead at her, then turned off the water. It dribbled from the broken nozzle jutting bent-elbowed from the shower wall.

  At that moment, the smoke alarm went off.

  “Oh, damn!” Still clutching the showerhead, she rushed back out into the hall (Susan still stood mesmerized in the doorway, shocked into speechlessness at her father’s barrage of curse words) and down the stairs. In the kitchen, smoke roiled from the slices of French toast that burned in the pan. She scooped the pan up off the burner and rushed it over to the kitchen sink where she dropped it, along with the broken showerhead, unceremoniously. Snatching a dishtowel off the counter, she hurried to where the little white disc beeped in the ceiling. She climbed onto a chair and flapped the dishtowel like a matador’s cape until the smoke dissipated and the alarm went silent.

  At two o’clock, Stephanie Canton arrived with a companion—a fastidious little man with a droll smile and the flattened nose of a prizefighter. He wore circular glasses with wire rims. The top of the man’s head was completely bald while the sides and back were in full bloom with wiry corkscrews of hair so dense it more closely resembled the fur of some woodland creature. He wore a forest green sport coat of a material that looked suspiciously like velvet and pants whose cuffs had been hemmed too high over the tops of his suede loafers and seaweed-colored socks.

  His name was Smoot and he was a self-proclaimed collector of antiquities. He was the proprietor of a boutique on West Street that sold refurbished pieces from the turn of the century. In the study, Smoot ran stumpy hands with abbreviated though well-manicured fingers along the aged wood with a lover’s caress. Laurie watched him with curiosity, the way one might watch a small but colorful beetle thudding around inside a mason jar.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Laurie offered him when it seemed he was permanently lost in a trance while staring at the piece.

  “Never, never,” chirped Smoot. “Gives me angina.”

  Susan, who had been in the hallway eavesdropping, broke into a fit of giggles and scampered away. Laurie smiled apologetically at both Smoot and Stephanie Canton.

  “Very nice,” Smoot said, returning his concentration back to the desk. He spoke with an effeminate lisp. “This is a Cutler, you know. A handsome model, too. There is no date-stamping, but I would guess it’s circa 1910 or thereabouts.”

  “Wow,” Laurie said.

  “Wow, indeed,” said Smoot. He opened and closed the desk’s flexible tambour, then stood upright while straightening his sport coat. “Do you have any of the original paperwork?”

  “I wouldn’t know. My father’s old housekeeper might know where it is, if it’s still around.”

  Smoot nodded perfunctorily. “I’ll give you eighteen hundred for it. And an extra two hundred for the bookcase.”

  Laurie blinked. “Dollars?”

  “Do you prefer francs? Pesos? Indian rupees, perhaps?” He smiled wryly and Laurie could see that this was as close to humor as this punctilious little man probably came. He withdrew a slender checkbook from the inside pocket of his coat.

  “Sold,” Laurie said, still in disbelief.

  Smoot leaned over the desk and meticulously printed out the check, which he then tore from the checkbook and handed over to Laurie.

  “I’ll have some men come for it later this evening,” he said.

  As Smoot left, another fellow arrived. Slender and well-dressed, and with an approachable demeanor, McCall was the antithesis to the Dickensian Mr. Smoot. McCall’s interests lay in the ornate bedroom furniture in the master bedroom. Ted was in the bathroom fixing the showerhead when McCall made his circuitous passes around the bed and nightstand; at what was probably the most inopportune time, Ted poked his head out into the bedroom just as McCall bent down to inhale the scent of the wooden headboard. McCall made an offer just slightly less generous than Smoot’s, though still quite impressive, and Laurie accepted it without hesitation.

  “I’ll need a truck for the bed,” McCall said, “but if your husband would be kind enough to assist me in transporting it, I can fit the nightstand in my car.”

  Together, Ted and Mr. McCall lifted the nightstand and duck-walked it out of the bedroom. Out in the hall, one of the drawers slid open. Her father’s Bible tumbled out and struck the floor.

  “That’s seven years bad luck,” Ted commented.

  “I believe you’re thinking of breaking a mirror,” McCall retorted.

  Laurie scooped up the Bible, then watched as the men slowly navigated the nightstand down the stairs, across the foyer, and out the door. Stephanie Canton followed them out, scribbling diligent notes in her binder.

  Laurie looked down. There was something poking out between the pages of the Bible. She opened the book and saw there was a photograph inside. She turned it over to view it and her skin prickled.

  It was a photograph of two young girls. One of them was Laurie, around age eight or so. In the photo, she wore a ribbon in her hair, a cream-colored knit sweater, and boyish corduroy pants. Beside her in the photo was Sadie Russ. Sadie was the same age as Laurie, but she looked much taller in the photograph. Sadie’s face was narrow and pale, framed in a cascade of russet hair. She wore a hand-me-down print dress that was too big on her; the hem hung almost to the tops of her feet and only a hint of a few fingertips poked from the long blousy sleeves. At first glance, it appeared that both girls were smiling at the photographer . . . but on closer inspection, she could see that Sadie’s smile looked more like a grimace.

  It was irrefutable. Abigail Evans was the identical twin of the girl in the photo.

  Smoot’s men showed up around five in a paneled truck with no writing on the sides. They were gruff-faced and silent as mimes, and wore little patches on the breasts of their uniforms that read W.W. SMOOT, ANTIQUITIES. They hauled both the desk and the bookcase into the back of the truck without as much as a grunt, then left before Laurie could offer them a glass of water or the folded singles she had pressed into her palm as a tip.

  The following day, a middle-aged couple came by and, much to Ted’s dismay, r
elieved them of the old Victrola. Ted even helped them load it into the back of their truck. To Laurie, who watched him from the front windows, he looked like a pallbearer loading a coffin into the back of a hearse.

  Recalling Smoot’s request of the Cutler desk’s paperwork, Laurie went into the basement to see if she could find anything in the plastic sleeve that hung from one of the wooden struts beneath the stairs. Inside the sleeve were the papers for the kitchen appliances, as well as for the water heater and furnace. There was nothing for the Cutler desk. With some reluctance, she telephoned Dora Lorton. A part of her hoped the woman wouldn’t answer.

  “Yes,” came the woman’s stern, practical voice.

  “Hello, Ms. Lorton, this is Laurie Genarro again, Myles Brashear’s—”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Sorry to disturb you, but I was wondering if you might know if my father had kept any original paperwork for the rolltop desk in his study. A buyer was interested in—”

  “If it’s not in with his personal papers, I wouldn’t know where it would be.”

  “I see.” It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she had an ulterior motive for calling Dora Lorton, and it had nothing to do with the desk. Since Teresa Larosche’s sudden disappearance from the coffee shop Saturday, Laurie had tried a few times to reach the woman again by telephone. The calls usually went straight to voice mail, with the exception of one time when someone picked up the phone just to slam it back down again. “Perhaps Teresa Larosche might know? Have you spoken with her lately?”

  Dora’s voice seemed to creak through the phone lines. “What is it you’re doing, Mrs. Genarro?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Ms. Larosche told me about your . . . meeting. She also told me you’ve been calling her nonstop, harassing her. She said you wouldn’t leave her alone.”

  “Now that’s not exactly true. . . .”

  “No? I don’t see why the poor dear would have any reason to lie to me, Mrs. Genarro. Have you been calling her?”

  “I tried a few times, but I wasn’t harassing her. I just wanted her to clarify some things she told me the other day, that’s all.”

  “She is afraid, Mrs. Genarro. Can’t you see that?”

  “I’ve already promised her there would be no lawsuit.”

  “This has nothing to do with lawsuits.”

  “Then what does it have to do with?”

  “Leave Teresa Larosche—and me—alone,” Dora said, and hung up the phone.

  Ted was talking to someone on the front porch with the door wide open. Laurie came up behind him . . . then paused when she saw that the person to whom Ted was talking was Liz Rosewood. The woman wore a thin cotton tee that looked like a man’s undershirt and faded blue jeans. She smiled at Laurie from over Ted’s shoulder.

  Ted squeezed Laurie’s forearm and pulled her out onto the porch beside him. “Liz has offered to take the little bugger off our hands for a while,” he said.

  “What?” Just then, Laurie saw the two girls, Susan and Abigail, streak across the front lawn, laughing and shouting.

  “There’s a cute little park just up the road,” Liz Rosewood said. “Abigail and I were going to go for an hour or so, and I thought Susan might like to join us.”

  “That would be great,” Ted said. “Thank you so much.”

  Susan and Abigail now stood within a wedge of spindly trees on the front lawn. They spoke in quiet voices while Abigail pointed at something on the ground. When Abigail looked up, Laurie swore the girl looked straight at her.

  “That does sound wonderful,” Laurie said. “In fact, would you mind if I tagged along? This house is becoming oppressive.”

  Liz Rosewood’s smile widened. “Oh, please do. I’d love that.”

  Ted rubbed Laurie’s back. “Great. Then I can get some work done while I’m alone.”

  “Just let me put on some shoes,” Laurie said, and hurried back inside the house. Her shoes were in the laundry room where she’d left them, but she went upstairs first and went through her suitcase until she located the bottle of Excedrin she’d packed. She popped the cap and dry-swallowed two tablets. Her temples pulsed. Then she took the photo of her and Sadie and tucked it in the rear pocket of her jeans. Downstairs, she laced up her Keds and went back out onto the porch.

  Ted kissed the side of her face. “You girls have fun,” he said. He leaned over the porch rail and shouted to Susan, “Have fun, pumpkin pie!”

  Susan laughed and executed a fairly impressive cartwheel. Abigail just watched Susan from between the trees.

  “Let’s go!” Liz called to the girls as she climbed down the porch steps. “The train’s movin’ out!”

  The park was roughly a mile from the house on Annapolis Road. Back when Laurie had lived here it had just been woods, but it was now a sizeable clearing in which swings, seesaws, monkey bars, and tetherball poles had been erected. A paved parking lot shouldered the road and there were cars in a few of the spaces. Kids raced about while parents, perched on uncomfortable-looking benches, supervised from overtop the paperbacks and Kindles they were reading. In the distance beyond the park, the smooth green lawns of a cemetery rose up, the tombstones nothing but tiny specks behind a black wrought-iron fence.

  “Neat!” Susan said as she surveyed the park grounds. Back home, the playgrounds were little more than concrete basketball courts sprayed with broken glass.

  Abigail snatched up Susan’s hand. “Come on,” she said, and tugged Susan toward the monkey bars.

  Panic rose up in Laurie. “Be careful, Susan!”

  “They’ll be fine,” Liz assured her. She shook a cigarette out of its pack as they walked to an empty picnic table. “I’m glad you folks showed up this summer. Abigail was growing bored without someone to play with.” They sat together on the same bench at the picnic table. “It’s only been a few weeks, but it must seem like a lifetime to a little girl when you’re away from your friends. Susan must feel the same way.”

  “Yes. She was upset when she found out we were coming down here,” Laurie said . . . though she was hardly thinking about it now. Instead, she was considering the coincidental time frame of Abigail’s arrival in town and her father’s sudden death.

  “Have you and your husband decided what you’re going to do with the house?”

  “Sell it, I suppose.”

  “It’s a lousy market right now. I used to be a realtor. Are you working with anyone yet?”

  “A realtor? No. We haven’t gotten that far.”

  “Well, you let me know when you’re ready. I can put you in touch with someone who can help you out.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m happy to do it.” Liz puffed on her cigarette.

  Across the playground, Susan and Abigail hopped down from the monkey bars and ran toward the only empty seesaw. Two other little girls made a move for the seesaw but they stopped, perhaps intimidated by Susan’s and Abigail’s fortitude. Susan claimed the downed seat, then shoved up off the ground so that the opposite end went low enough for Abigail to climb aboard.

  “Had Abigail ever met my father?”

  If Liz Rosewood found the question unusual, she didn’t show it. “Abigail? I don’t believe so. Derrick and I only spoke with him on a handful of occasions. He used to sit outside when the weather was nice, but I hadn’t seen him out there since summer started.” Liz sucked the cigarette down to the filter, then tossed it on the ground. “It was Alzheimer’s or something, wasn’t it?”

  “Dementia.”

  “I got to know Dora Lorton a little,” Liz said. “As well as you can know someone like her, I guess. She was a bit standoffish. Do you know her very well?”

  “I just met her when we got here.”

  “I’d sometimes pick up things at the supermarket for her if I was on my way, seeing how she never left your father unattended.”

  “What about the other nurse?” Laurie asked. “Teresa Larosche. Did you know her as well?”
/>   “The one and only time I saw her was the night your father. . . the night he had his accident. Derrick and I heard the sirens and Derrick went over to see what had happened. When Derrick didn’t come back right away, I went out myself, just as the ambulance was pulling up the driveway. The woman—Teresa, you said?—she was talking to police. She looked petrified.”

  “Did you speak with her?”

  “I think Derrick did, once the police left. Just checking to see if she was okay, if she needed anything, that sort of thing.”

  Across the park, the two girls who had been making their way to the seesaw at the same time as Susan and Abigail now stood beside it, on Abigail’s side. Each time Abigail descended, one of the girls said something to her. Laurie could see the exchange even if she couldn’t hear what was said.

  “Is your mother still alive?” Liz asked. Her voice sounded very far away now.

  “No. She died a few years ago.”

  One of the two girls who had wanted the seesaw picked something up off the ground. As Laurie watched, the girl cranked her arm back and chucked the object at Abigail. The thing—it looked like a pinecone—whizzed past Abigail’s head. The pinecone-chucker’s friend laughed and pointed.

  “Ted seems very nice,” Liz said, perhaps desperate to change to a less morbid conversation. “We talked briefly about the John Fish novel he’s adapting. He seems like a very talented man.”

  “Thank you.”

  The seesaw stopped sawing. As Abigail’s feet planted on the ground, she leaned over and dug her own object out of the dirt. It was a rock roughly the size of a golf ball. The two girls backed away from the seesaw. Abigail hurled the rock at the pinecone-chucker. It struck the girl, who was a bit red-faced and chunky, high on the forearm.

  Laurie sprang up from the table. “Hey! Don’t do that!”