A Girl by Any Other Name Read online

  “Cal, oh, sweetheart. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you. I was praying so hard.” I stared down at my leg and back up at her. She cleared her throat. “You’ve been shot in the leg. They found several stray bullets where you were. Praise the Lord, they missed you. There’s no paralysis. You can walk. You may not be able to run for a while, but you can walk, son.”

  I was only half listening to her. My mind was recalling the events like some horrible nightmare I wanted to forget. “Sylvie?” I asked.

  “You need to worry about getting healthy now.”

  “Sylvie?” I said in a louder voice. My hands were trembling.

  “Cal, you need to calm down.” She tousled my hair and practically begged me with her eyes not to ask again.

  “Sylvie?” I screamed.

  My mother shook her head. “She didn’t make it. I’m sorry, son. She lost too much blood.”

  “No!”

  “Cal, you have to be calm.”

  I sat up, but it felt like my brain fell apart with the movement. I tried to shift my legs off the bed. “She’s alive. She promised me. Where is she? I need to see her.”

  “You can’t,” my mother said.

  Two nurses came in. My father had taught me long ago that hitting a woman was at the top of the deadly sins list, so I tried to punch the male nurse, but I couldn’t even manage to connect my fist. They laid me back on the bed as if I was a child, fastening cuffs to my wrists. “I know she’s fine. She wouldn’t leave me.”

  “Cal, I’m so sorry,” my mother said. The pinch of a needle pricked my arm and drowsiness set in.

  “Momma, I love her,” I croaked, trying to fight against closing my eyes, but it was too strong for me. The darkness was coming for me, claiming me for membership.

  “I know you did, son.”

  * * * *

  I spent several days at the hospital like that. I kept insisting she was alive. They kept telling me she was dead until I became so hysterical they shot me up with another needle.

  The police and even the FBI came to talk to me. They asked me a million questions. I couldn’t tell them much. When it came time for my questions, they refused to answer. I begged so much that they gave me another damn shot to put me out.

  It was when the third psychologist came in to analyze me that I realized my leg was healed, but they wouldn’t let me go home until I admitted she was dead. That was what I did. After all, I couldn’t very well start my search for her laid up in the hospital.

  Sylvie and her father were cremated. Of course they were. There was no evidence of her death, no body to view. There was no funeral either. They had no family in Prairie Marsh, and apparently no family to speak of, except Uncle Joe. My mother said it wasn’t right and insisted on having a memorial for them at our house. I think she did it as much for me as for Sylvie. She wanted me to have some kind of closure, but it provided no relief. How could you bury a girl who wasn’t dead?

  I hobbled around with a cane like an old man. The physical therapy helped, but I still limped. My football career was over before it had ever started. People said that was part of the reason I was acting so crazy. They were fools. I didn’t even care about that.

  I preferred to sit in silence. Everyone greeted me with wincing faces or blatant pity. I didn’t want any of it. What I really wanted was to run into the woods and scream. Instead, I sat in the living room with my arms crossed, glaring when mourners went on about what a wonderful girl she’d been. How tragic her death was. What a bunch of hypocrites. They’d never even known her, choosing to spread malicious gossip instead of embracing the smart, sweet, funny girl I’d grown to love.

  Wendy Watson came over and put her arm around me. “I think you need a friend right now.”

  “Get the fuck away from me,” I said. She did.

  I spotted Sheriff Smalley and limped my way over to him.

  “Hi, Cal, how are you?” he asked cautiously.

  “Don’t you have a duty to find the truth? Don’t you care that there’s a cover-up in our town?”

  “I told you, son. It’s not our investigation.”

  “I am not your son,” I spat.

  He flinched at my words. I felt the slight hindrance of guilt, because he was a good man, but I wanted him to do his fucking job. “The FBI took it over. I don’t know anything. They’re saying it was random.”

  “There was nothing random about the shit that happened that night. They knew her name. She knew them.”

  “I know you want to get justice for her.”

  “No, you’re wrong. First and foremost, I want to find her, Sheriff. I want to make sure she is okay and if she’s not, I want to help her recover. Once I do that, I’ll worry about beating down those assholes who did this. Right now, her safety is my priority. Why isn’t it yours?”

  “Cal, maybe you can talk to the agent assigned to her case?”

  “I call him twenty times a day. He won’t return my messages anymore.”

  “Well, I would take that as a sign to stop calling. Let them do their jobs.”

  I gave up. The man was no use to me.

  That was when good old Uncle Joe strolled through the door. He talked to my mother for a while, thanking her for the memorial. He even hugged her.

  I waited until he was alone to approach him. “Well, well, what do you know, Uncle Joe?”

  “Hello, Cal,” he replied, with a sigh. “I know you’ve been asking a lot of questions, but—”

  “Are you her mother’s brother or father’s brother, Joe?”

  “Father’s,” he said tightly.

  “Funny, because you don’t look like either of them.”

  “I was adopted.”

  “That’s convenient. You know she never talked about you. Where’s the rest of the family, Joe?”

  “There is no one else. I’m surprised you don’t know that seeing as you two were supposedly very close.” He was trying to piss me off. It didn’t make sense. He seemed somber, but there was no raw emotion there. The man had just lost his brother and his niece for crying out loud.

  “We were best friends, but you’re her family. I mean even if you don’t believe she’s still alive, as I do, you surely want the men who took her away from us to pay for their crimes.”

  He pushed his face into mine, trying to threaten me with his height. I didn’t back away. We were both close to the same size anyway, although with my leg it wouldn’t have been a fair fight. “Listen, kid, she’s dead. Her ashes are in that urn over there.” He gestured to the fireplace mantle where two urns sat. “You need to cut this out.”

  “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself, but I will find her.”

  “Cal, come with me,” my mother said, suddenly appearing behind me.

  I didn’t want to end the conversation, but Joe had already backed away from me, so I obliged. People were murmuring all around us. I could hear the gossipy evil in their quiet voices, especially Mona Simms since her whispers sounded like horse shrieks. She made some comment about how she’d known Sylvie was bad news. How any girl who dressed so weird wasn’t normal. How Sylvie was a troublemaker and must have been on drugs to bring such chaos to our safe town.

  I stomped my cane into the wood floor right in front of her. The thick shoulders any linebacker would be jealous of abruptly jerked to attention. Her mouth clamped shut, stopping the spew of garbage flowing from it. “Shut the fuck up. You’re not even good enough to shine her shoes, you fat bitch. The only troublemaker is you.”

  Her eyes widened and the mole on her cheek grew as her face morphed into shock.

  “Caleb James Tanner! Get in here now,” my mother screamed from her bedroom doorway.

  I staggered into the room. She slammed the door behind us.

  “You have to stop this madness right now.”

  “Momma, you have to believe me. I know she’s not dead. She promised me she would fight. I’d know if she died. I’d feel it. She was part of me. She was in here,” I s
aid, pointing to my heart. I sounded frantic, but I needed someone to have faith in the idea. “I love her. I know—”

  The hard slap stopped my tirade. My mother looked at me with those stern, but sharp green eyes. She took hold of my shoulders. “Cal, I know you have suffered more than any boy your age should, but you need to stop this now. Don’t you think I loved her? Don’t you think Mandy did? We’re all mourning her, but carrying on like this is making it so none of us can grieve and move on. She would have wanted you to go on, Cal. As long as you keep holding onto this false hope you never will.”

  My own momma thought I was crazy. Everyone did. “I’ll stop talking about it.”

  It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, but she accepted it. I knew she wanted me to denounce my views, but I would never do that. “I won’t make you apologize to Mona Simms, at least not right now, but I think you should apologize to Joe. He was her only family. He said he’d like you to spread her ashes.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied through gritted teeth. I would spread them. I had a feeling that both urns contained her father’s ashes, so I would give him a proper burial and say a prayer. I would do that for Sylvie.

  I wouldn’t bury her. She wasn’t dead.

  When I walked back out, Joe was leaving, with some excuse about needing to catch a plane. I was glad. I didn’t want to see him ever again. I didn’t like him. He was lying to me. Sylvie was out there and all alone. She needed me. I needed her.

  I sat on the couch next to Mandy. I swear there were invisible eggshells on the floor because everyone tiptoed around me, doing their best to avoid me as if I could fly off into another volatile rage again. I wouldn’t now. It was a waste of breath. I was alone.

  “Cal, you’re really scaring me. You’re scaring everyone,” Mandy said, putting her hand on my knee.

  “I’m sorry.” I patted her hand. She’d lost her best friend too. She didn’t deserve my crazy on top of that. “Will you play something for her? Maybe sing?”

  “What should I play?”

  “Something happy. Something she will like.” Mandy stared at me hard. I knew she hadn’t missed that I’d used present tense, but she nodded and smiled reassuringly anyway. I refused to use past tense when it came to Sylvie. I would see her again.

  I wiped the tears that were running down Mandy’s cheeks. She embraced me. After a while, she stood up and made her way to the piano.

  Matt Sampson took my sister’s vacant seat. It surprised me he didn’t want to stay the hell away from me like everyone else. I found some weird comfort in his company, though. He knew what I was going through on some level.

  “I loved her too, you know,” Matt said, bringing me out of my morbid silence.

  I wanted to be angry at him, but somehow it made me feel good to know someone else loved her. “I should knock your teeth out for that, but I won’t.”

  “It wasn’t the same way you loved her, but I did. We were lucky, Cal.”

  “How in the hell were we lucky, Matt?”

  He waved his arm around the room. “We both knew how special she was. Most of the people in this room never will.”

  The man had a point.

  Mandy started playing Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel. I smiled, remembering Sylvie and Mandy rearranging the music and words to work for the piano. It was definitely the most inappropriate song for a memorial service, especially one in a small southern Methodist town. The lyrics were shocking and maybe even blasphemous.

  No one sang along this time. I didn’t give a fuck. Sylvie was one of the few people who would appreciate Mandy’s musical choice.

  I hoped she was listening.

  Chapter Eleven

  Present day

  After Sylvie’s alleged death, I’d changed. I’d felt like part of me had disappeared with her. Momma had made me go to therapy. I drove forty miles each way since we had no therapists in Prairie Marsh. Dr Arnold had interesting books and a stuffed doll of Freud on his shelf. He’d suggested I couldn’t let go of Sylvie because I was feeling guilty that I hadn’t saved her that night. He’d called it damsel-in-distress syndrome or some shit.

  In a way, he’d been right. I did blame myself. I should have picked her up and carried her away sooner. I should have stood in the line of fire. I should have covered her body again. There were a lot of what-ifs from that night, but my guilt extended far beyond the should-haves and what-ifs. It was the present and what I should have been doing that worried me the most. She was out there and she didn’t have anyone to help her, protect her, love her, care for her.

  In the end, I’d decided I needed to go to college and get a job. After all, how could I help her if I had no money?

  I’d never planned a career in teaching. My first choice had been to play college football and eventually go pro, but even as a cocky sixteen-year-old, I’d known that was a long shot. My second choice had been to enter the police academy like my father and have a career in law enforcement. My third had been to sign up for the Marines and defend our country. My physical and mental injuries precluded all those professions so I’d settled for the only other thing I was good at. Reading. I’d majored in English Lit and it became the only career choice left to me.

  As I stared at Sophie Becker, I wondered if it was all worth it.

  She looked so different than she had in my class, but it was definitely Sophie. I sucked in a deep breath, drinking in the sight of her. It was Saturday and I’d decided to go an extra mile today, ending my run at the Wicker’s Cove farmers’ market, affectionately referred to as the WC by the locals. Ironically, I’d thought it would help clear my mind of her, but here she was in front of me like a scar that wouldn’t heal.

  She wore a white billowy top that I was pretty sure girls referred to as a peasant blouse and cut-off jeans. Judging from the uneven frayed edges they were true cut-offs, not factory made. Her long cinnamon-colored hair hung down in waves of luxurious curls that looked so inviting, my hand actually twitched with a feral need to touch them.

  I swallowed hard as my eyes slowed to her choice of footwear. Cowboy boots. Most men preferred high heels, and I was no exception, but there was something so incredibly sexy about a woman in cowboy boots. The softened and scuffed leather made it clear they were well-worn. I knew Sophie Becker was a pretty girl even with the baseball hats and plain clothing, but seeing her like this made me wish I wasn’t wearing sweats. Not the best choice of attire when your dick decided to stand at attention.

  She looked so much like Sylvie, but different too. I was mesmerized. She hadn’t spotted me so I decided to do the most stalkerish thing I could and follow her.

  I had never been here, but Molly always said such great things about the WC so I’d decided the extra mile would be worth it to check it out. The WC farmers’ market was much more than a place to buy fruits and vegetables. It was part produce stand with all the offerings of local farmers, part flea market with numerous vendors selling handmade wares and part carnival midway with a few groups of musicians strategically aligned down the path. Sophie Becker wove in and out of the crowd effortlessly, often chatting with merchants, which told me she came here often. I watched as she bought a burlap sack filled with red apples. She knelt down, handing one to a little boy, before darting back into the hordes of visitors.

  I kept pace with her, oblivious to the other sights and sounds surrounding us. I only had eyes for her. When she stopped, I stopped, but kept enough distance between us so it wouldn’t be obvious. When we were toward the end of the street that comprised the WC, she paused to listen to a band, one hand shoved in her pockets, tapping her boots to the music. They played a mix of modern and folk-type stuff. A large crowd gathered around them, especially children.

  After they finished the song, the lead singer, a guy with a Peter Frampton look and ZZ Top beard, smiled appreciatively at the crowd before he spoke into the microphone. “Sophie Becker, come up here and sing with me,” he said, gesturing to her. She shook her head vehemently. �
�Okay, folks, I’m going to need your help. My friend Sophie here is a great singer. Would you like to hear her sing?” Everyone hooted and hollered in encouragement. “Come on, Sophie, the people have spoken.”

  He grabbed her hand and led her into their makeshift stage area. She was reluctant but allowed him to do so. He whispered in her ear and she nodded. I felt a pang of sudden jealousy at the intimacy, which was ridiculous since I had no right to that emotion. One band member took her bag of apples, while Mr Hippy ZZ Top shoved a tambourine in her hand. She looked at it with hesitation, but took it. “You know the rules. Everyone plays an instrument,” Mr Hippy ZZ Top said.

  They started playing. I didn’t recognize the tune until they laid into the chorus since it was a different arrangement. The Weight by The Band is definitely a toe-tapping song, even for a guy. Her voice was pure innocence with the perfect hint of sexy rasp that only some girls could achieve. But I was no audiophile and it was difficult to tell if it was a match for Sylvie.

  The next song took a while to recollect too, but when I did, it brought a smile to my lips. They played a more folksy, almost country version of Save Me, San Francisco by Train. They didn’t even pause as they continued on to Jane Says by Jane’s Addiction. It was not a song I expected to hear on a Saturday at the WC, but somehow they made it work.

  After the third song, she handed Mr Hippy ZZ Top back his tambourine.

  “A pleasure as always,” she said with a mock curtsy. I made my way to the front, hoping to hear more of their conversation.

  “You should play with us all the time.” There were people between us and the mic was turned off, so I had to strain to hear her.

  “Why, because my tambourine skills are so impressive?” she asked with a healthy dose of cynicism.

  “I’ll get a piano out here for you.”

  She patted his round belly. “You’re gonna drag a piano out here? You’ll need to eat more apples if you’re going to do that,” she said, shoving an apple into his hand.

  “Naw, a keyboard.”

  She laughed as she walked away from him, rubbing an apple against her blouse before biting into it. “No, thanks.”