Before I Fall

There are hardly any cars on the road. I keep crawling along at fifteen miles per hour. I’m looking for something, but I don’t know what. I pass Elody’s street and keep going. Each streetlamp casts a neat funnel of light downward, illuminating the inside of the car briefly, before I’m left again in darkness.

My headlights sweep over a crooked green street sign fifty feet ahead: Serenity Place. I suddenly remember sitting in Ally’s kitchen freshman year while her mom chattered on the phone endlessly, pacing back and forth on the deck in bare feet and yoga pants. “She’s getting her daily dose of gossip,” Ally had said, rolling her eyes. “Mindy Sachs is better than Us Weekly.” And Lindsay had put in how ironic it was that Mrs. Sachs lived on Serenity Place—like she doesn’t bring the noise with her—and it was the first time I really understood the meaning of the word ironic.

I yank my wheel at the last second and brake, rolling down Serenity Place. It’s not a long street—there are no more than two dozen houses on it—and like many streets in Ridgeview, ends in a cul-de-sac. My heart leaps when I see a silver Saab parked neatly in one of the driveways. The license plate reads: MOM OF4. That’s Mrs. Sachs’s car. I must be close.

The next house down is number fifty-nine. It is marked with a tin mailbox in the shape of a rooster, which stretches up from a flowerbed that is at this point in the year no more than a long patch of black dirt. SYKES is printed along the rooster’s wing, in letters so small you have to be looking before you can see them.

I can’t really explain it, but I feel like I would have known the house anyway. There’s nothing wrong with it—it’s no different from any other house, not the biggest, not the smallest, decently taken care of, white paint, dark shutters, a single light burning downstairs. But there’s something else, some quality I can’t really identify that makes it look like the house is too big for itself, like something inside is straining to get out, like the whole place is about to bust its seams. It’s a desperate house, somehow.

I turn into the driveway. I have no business being here, I know that, but I can’t help it. It’s like something’s tugging me inside. The rain is coming down hard, and I grab an old sweatshirt from the backseat—Izzy’s, probably—and use it to shield my head as I sprint from the car to the front porch, my breath clouding in front of me. Before I can think too much about what I’m doing, I ring the doorbell.

It takes a long time for someone to answer the door, and I do a little jog, my breath steaming out in front of me, trying to stay warm. Finally there’s a shuffling sound from inside, and then a scraping of hinges. The door swings open, and a woman stands there, blinking at me confusedly: Juliet’s mother. She is wearing a bathrobe, which she holds closed with one hand. She is as thin as Juliet and has the same clear blue eyes and pale skin as both of her daughters. Looking at her, I am reminded of a wisp of smoke curling up into the dark.

“Can I help you?” Her voice is very soft.

I’m kind of thrown. For some reason I expected Marian would be the one to come to the door. “My name is Sam—Samantha Kingston. I’m looking for Juliet.” Because it worked the first time I add, “She’s my lab partner.”

From inside, a man—Juliet’s father, I guess—shouts, “Who is it?” The voice is barking and loud, and so different from Mrs. Sykes’s voice I unconsciously shuffle backward.

Mrs. Sykes jumps a little, and turns her head quickly, inadvertently swinging the door open an extra couple of inches. The hallway behind her is dark. Swampy blue and green shadows dance up one wall, images projected from a television in a room I can’t see. “It’s no one,” she says quickly, her voice directed into the darkness behind her. “It’s for Juliet.”

“Juliet? Someone’s here for Juliet?” He sounds exactly like a dog. Bark, bark, bark, bark. I fight a wild, nervous urge to laugh.

“I’ll take care of it.” Mrs. Sykes turns back to me. Again, the door swings closed with her movement, as though she is leaning on it for support. Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Juliet’s not home right now. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I, um, missed school today. We had this big assignment….” I trail off helplessly, starting to regret having come. Despite my North Face, I’m shivering like a maniac. I must look like a maniac too, hopping from foot to foot, holding a sweatshirt over my head for an umbrella.

Mrs. Sykes seems to notice, finally, that I’m standing in the rain. “Why don’t you come in,” she says, and steps backward into the hall. I follow her inside.