The Town Read online

  Later, after opening the presents, after going with his dad to drop Scott off at his house, he pretended he was tired and retreated to his room.

  He sat on the bed, replaying the scene in his mind. He saw again the way she’d shifted in the booth, moving her legs, and how for a few brief seconds he’d had that perfect view of white cotton-covered crotch. He’d had a boner for half the night, although he’d been able to successfully hide it, and now he was once again hard.

  Sasha’s bedroom was right next to his, and he thought about drilling a hole in the wall between the two rooms so he could peek at her, so he could watch her getting dressed and undressed, but he knew that was not realistic. It was also not right. As he kept telling himself, she was his sister, and when he even started to think about her in that way, he should immediately try to focus on some other unrelated topic. That was unhealthy, perverted.

  Still, he could not stop thinking about it, and the thought that there was only a wall between them, that she took off her clothes in there in order to put on her pajamas, aroused him.

  He wondered what she was doing now. He wondered if she was naked. He placed his ear against the wall, listened. He could hear her, moving around, and he quietly pulled down his pants and leaned back on the bed. He began stroking himself, imagining she was walking around her room without any clothes on. He had never seen a naked girl before, not a real one, only pictures in magazines, but he could easily conjure up the picture in his mind.

  He thought of her secret spot, covered only by thin, snugly fitted cotton material.

  It was getting close, he could feel it reaching the fever pitch, and he began stroking faster, harder. He knew it was wrong, knew it was sick, but he wanted to hear her voice, wanted her to talk to him as he climaxed.

  He closed his eyes, thought about that glimpse of white cotton panty.

  “Sasha?” he called.

  “What?” she said from her bedroom.

  “Sasha?”

  “What?” she yelled.

  And he came.

  Seven

  1

  Julia needed the van to buy groceries, and after lunch she offered to drop Gregory back off at the café, but he said he’d rather walk off the calories, and he gave her a quick kiss and started up the drive.

  He was looking better since they’d moved to McGuane. The middle-age spread that had been overtaking his midsection for the past few years had receded somewhat, and he looked fitter than he had in quite some time. All the walking on those hilly streets was doing him good. He seemed happier, too, than he had back in California, and he’d made the adjustment to small-town life quite easily.

  She was getting used to McGuane herself. After her disastrous attempt at volunteering, she’d retreated back into her home and actually started to write her children’s book. So far it was going surprisingly well. She was pleased with what she’d accomplished.

  There’d also been no new “incidents,” as she called them, and her fear and dread seemed to have disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. She could still not truthfully say that she felt comfortable in the house, but she was not afraid of it anymore, and while Gregory’s mother continued to say a quick prayer each and every time she entered the place, a hurried blessing muttered half under her breath, she’d always done that, and it didn’t bother Julia at all.

  She walked back inside the kitchen, picked up the grocery list she’d made, and invited her mother-in-law to accompany her to the store, making it clear that she was planning to go to the Molokan market, but the old lady declined, claiming she was tired. She’d been tired ever since the funeral, and both Julia and Gregory were worried about her. She seemed to have lost something after Jim Petrovin’s death, some spark of animation, and she seemed to be just existing these days, exhibiting little or no interest in . . . well, in anything. It was as if she had simply disconnected herself from life and was biding her time, waiting to die.

  This could not go on. Julia knew that she and Gregory were going to have to sit her down and talk to her, but Julia did not feel qualified or comfortable enough to do it alone, and she did not press her mother-in-law to go on the trip to the market. She simply nodded, accepting the old woman’s decision, and said that she’d be back in twenty minutes or so.

  Julia took the keys out of her purse, walked outside, and got into the van, starting the ignition and immediately turning on the air conditioner. They had discussed buying another vehicle—they could certainly afford it now—but one seemed to be enough at this point. Sasha had been pressuring them for her own car, and while she and Gregory had adopted a “we’ll see” attitude in front of their daughter, they were planning on getting her a jeep for graduation.

  She drove down to the market, parking in the dirt lot on the side of the building. She grabbed a shopping cart and looked up at the painted butcher paper in the window that advertised this week’s specials. Bell peppers were on sale, as were whole chicken fryers, and she mentally adjusted her planned menu, deleting ground beef from her list. They would have fajitas tomorrow instead of burgers.

  She’d finished most of her shopping and was in the canned-food aisle picking up some diced green chiles, when a woman next to her said, “Excuse me, don’t you work at the library?”

  Julia looked up, confused. “Uh, no.”

  “Really? I thought I saw you there a couple of weeks ago.”

  “And you remembered me?”

  The woman smiled. “It’s a small town.”

  Julia examined her fellow shopper more carefully. Approximately her own age, with short blond hair and clothes that seemed far too hip for McGuane, she was not someone Julia recognized, yet she did seem vaguely familiar.

  “I was thinking of volunteering a few days a week,” Julia explained. “But I changed my mind.”

  “The reason I ask is because I used to work at the library myself.” The woman paused. “How . . . did you like the other volunteers there?” she asked carefully.

  “They were loony. That’s why I quit. Alma was talking about some comet that was going to hit Earth and they were all into bizarre conspiracy theories.”

  The woman wiped her brow in a melodramatically exaggerated expression of relief. “Whew! I was hoping you’d say that. But you can’t be too careful in this town.” She smiled. “My name’s Deanna Matthews.”

  Julia blinked. “Are you related to Paul Matthews?” “He’s my husband.”

  “This is a small town. My husband is Gregory Tomasov.”

  Deanna laughed. “Gregory’s wife and a normal person to boot! It’s my lucky day. Are you Molokan, too?”

  Julia nodded.

  “I’m not, but I grew up here.”

  “So you knew Gregory when he was little?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I take it you were all friends—”

  Deanna laughed. “Well . . . Not exactly. To tell you the truth, he was kind of a . . .”

  “Jerk?”

  “Thank you. I was trying to think of a polite way to say it.”

  “I think he’s changed since then.”

  “I hope so.” Deanna chuckled. “Although, to be honest, Paul was just as bad back then. Maybe even worse. They were both typical teenagers, but in a place like this that means asshole.” She moved her cart aside to let another shopper pass. “Listen, Paul’s really grateful for everything Gregory’s doing. He’s not the kind of guy who’ll express it, but I can tell you that he’s really excited about everything that’s happening down at the café. We were just barely keeping our heads above water, and you guys’ve been a godsend. He seems to think the place actually has potential now.” She smiled. “Your winning the lottery’s having a sort of trickle-down effect on us, and since he probably won’t tell you, I thought I would. We’re really glad you’re here.”

  “Thank you,” Julia said, genuinely touched. “Gregory’ll be happy to hear that. He’s pretty excited about the café himself.”

  “Paul’s also glad Gregory’s bac
k just for personal reasons. As you can probably tell, this isn’t exactly the hub of cultural activity, and we don’t really have a lot of friends here in town. Paul hangs around with that Odd guy, and I occasionally see some of my old friends from high school, but . . . Well, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I hope we can become friends. It’d be nice to have an intelligent conversation once in a while.”

  Julia laughed.

  “You think I’m joking?”

  “No. Not after my experience at the library.”

  “Comet conspiracies are just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “What are you doing this afternoon?” Julia asked.

  “No plans. Why?”

  “Would you like to come over?”

  “Sure.” She nodded at her half-filled shopping cart. “Just let me take this home and get it put away.”

  “You know where we live?”

  “Of course.”

  Something about Deanna’s tone of voice, her surprise at the fact that the question had been asked at all, set off Julia’s internal alarm. “ ‘Of course’?” she repeated.

  Deanna frowned. “You live in the old Megan . . .” She trailed off, realization dawning in her face. “Oh, my God. You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “About your house. What happened.”

  A chill crept down Julia’s spine. She didn’t want to hear what was coming next, but she knew she could not turn back. “No,” she said. “I guess not.”

  “It was a while ago, and several people have lived there since, but . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t exactly know how to put this.”

  Julia felt cold. “What?”

  “A family called the Megans were living in the house. They’d been there for . . . well, for years. They’d lived there for a long time. And one day the father, Bill Megan, just snapped. He woke up in the middle of the night and . . . killed his family. His wife, their kids. He shot them all. Then he killed himself. No one knows why. He hadn’t been fired from his job or anything. Nothing traumatic had happened. He just . . . he went crazy.”

  Julia licked her suddenly dry lips. “How many kids were there?”

  “Three.”

  All at once her fears and worries didn’t seem quite so silly—all at once the dread she’d felt was understandable, made sense.

  “I wondered why you two would live there.” Deanna shook her head. “I can’t believe no one told you.”

  “Who could’ve told me?” she said, but at the instant she said it she thought of the Molokans at the picnic. “I don’t really know anyone in town.”

  Deanna laid a hand on her arm. “You do now.”

  Julia nodded, forced herself to smile, though inside she felt like ice. “Yes,” she said. “I do now.”

  She confronted Gregory the minute he came home. Deanna had left only a few moments before, and Julia was still putting away cups and dishes when Gregory walked through the door.

  She told him everything: Deanna’s story and the fleshed-out details her new friend had provided, her own uneasy feelings about the house, the mysterious box of dishes that had fallen for no apparent reason. She threw it at him angrily, getting in his face, but he seemed neither surprised nor particularly upset by her behavior. He was calm, rational, and his unflappability only increased her anger.

  “What do you want to do?” he said. “Move?”

  She met his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Come on.”

  “ ‘Come on’ what?”

  “You think our house is haunted? You think the ghosts of that murdered family are harassing you and breaking your china?” He shook his head. “Jesus. You sound like my mother.”

  “Maybe she’s smarter than you give her credit for.”

  “Even if she is, even if there are such things as ghosts, this house is safe because she purged it of evil spirits and she blesses it every time she walks through the goddamn door!”

  “Keep your voice down. She’s in her room.”

  “We’re not moving because you got a sudden attack of superstition.”

  “It doesn’t bother you at all that people were murdered in the room we sleep in? In the rooms our kids sleep in? That doesn’t bother you at all?”

  “It didn’t bother you until you found out about it.”

  “It’s not as if we have all of our money tied up in this place. We—”

  “All our money is tied up in this place. All our money for this year, at least. We’re not going to get another lottery payment until next August. So unless we can miraculously sell this house, which is pretty doubtful, considering its pedigree, we’re stuck here.”

  She stared at him, blinked. “You knew,” she said. “You knew about this.”

  “Paul and Odd told me. I thought it would be better if you didn’t know. I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “What gives you the right to make that decision for me? Who are you to censor my information like I’m some goddamn child?”

  “Why don’t you keep your voice down?” he said.

  “It’s my house, and I’ll yell if I want to!”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “School,” she said, but she couldn’t help glancing at the clock. Three-ten. They’d be home in twenty minutes.

  “Look, I admit it’s not the most comforting thought in the world, but we’re stuck here—for the short term, at least—and we’re going to have to make the best of it. I suggest we don’t tell the kids—”

  “Of course we’re not going to tell the kids,” she snapped. “But since our family seems to be the only one in town that doesn’t know what happened here, I’m sure someone, sometime, will tell them.”

  “And when they ask, we’ll explain that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Isn’t there?”

  Gregory looked at her. “You honestly believe Bill Megan’s ghost is going to try to murder us in our sleep?”

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  He wiped his forehead. “Jesus,” he sighed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, I’m just a stupid little backward Molokan girl, huh? Let me remind you, mister, that I’m the one from L.A. You’re the one from Hicksville here. So don’t try to pull any more-sophisticated-than-thou crap on me.”

  “Just shut up,” he said.

  “What?” she demanded.

  He turned away. “We’ll talk about this when you’re more rational.”

  “We’ll talk about it now!”

  “No,” he said levelly. “We won’t.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Go to hell!” she said, but he was already walking down the hallway toward the bathroom. She turned her back on him and stormed into the kitchen. She was shaking, with fury and frustration and some emotion she could not identify, and she poured herself a glass of water and sat down at the kitchen table, breathing deeply, drinking slowly, trying not to think about Gregory, trying not to think about the house or the murders, trying to calm down before the kids came home.

  2

  Sasha stood on the corner of Malachite Avenue, finishing her cigarette before turning onto her own street. She might be an adult, but she still didn’t want her parents to catch her. Her father would shit a brick if he ever caught her smoking, and while she wasn’t afraid to stand up to her parents, she didn’t want to go through all the hassle. It was better to avoid any conflict with the family and just pretend that things were going along the way they always had.

  She took one last deep drag, then dropped the butt and ground it into the gravel with the toe of her shoe.

  She popped a couple of Tic Tacs into her mouth and headed up the street toward home.

  Adam assaulted her the moment she walked through the door. “What’s twelve base six?”

  “What?”

  “We’re doing base six in math. What’s twelve base six?”

  Sasha pus
hed past him. “I don’t know.”

  In the living room, her father put down his paper and looked coldly at her. “I thought I told you to be nice to your brother.”

  “I am being nice. I just don’t know the answer to his question.”

  “You were short, brusque, and rude. I told you before, you may be almost eighteen, but as long as you are living in this house I expect you to abide by our rules. I expect you to treat your family with decency and respect. And that includes Adam. Now I want you to help your brother with his homework.”

  “Why don’t you help him, Father? Or don’t you know how?”

  He stood up, his already red face growing livid. “I will not be spoken to that way in my own house!”

  She thought he was going to hit her, and she stepped back, suddenly afraid. Neither of her parents had ever hit any of them before, aside from small slaps on the bottom when they were younger, and this new, threatening authoritarianism took her by surprise.

  “You . . . help . . . Adam . . . with . . . his . . . homework,” her father said evenly.

  Sasha glanced at her brother, and he seemed just as unnerved as she was.

  That little shit Teo started laughing, but Sasha silenced her with a look.

  “Do you understand me?” her father said.

  “Yeah,” Sasha told him, but she did not stay around to prolong the discussion. She stomped up the stairs to her bedroom, half-expecting to hear her father’s footsteps following behind, but no one came after her, and she walked into the room and boldly slammed the door.

  She threw her books on the bed. Everyone was acting fucking weird these days. Her father was all pissed off, her mother was all silent, Babunya seemed like she was getting ready to die. Everyone was freaked.

  They should never have moved here.

  She herself was behaving strangely—she certainly wasn’t the same person she had been back in California—but while she recognized that fact, she did not really care. She was happy with the new Sasha, happy with the way things were going, and if she had to live here in this dumpy little rathole of a town, at least she would do it on her own terms.