Shelby left Kaley’s room, went up the hall, and paused at the sliding-glass door. She leaned her front against it, tired of being afraid, and surveyed the backyard. She tried to feel lordly. It was time to get rid of the kiddie pool. That was a chore she could do. None of the memories of Kaley playing in it meant anything and it was time for the pool to go. All Shelby thought of was curling underneath it that day. She would wait for garbage day, after her father had left for work, and drag it out to the road.
A thin, black snake lounged on the patio, still, half in the sun. She wanted to see it move, wanted to see how it slithered. She pressed herself harder into the glass and watched. She closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them the snake would be sneaking off. Shelby didn’t want to cheat, didn’t want to slide the door open and poke the thing with a stick. She could hear a clock in another room ticking dutifully. Shelby watched the snake, the line the shade made inching over it, until it was fully in the sun.
The phone rang. Shelby went to the kitchen and plucked the receiver off the wall. It was the FBI agent, the one with the pixie-cut.
“Why aren’t you in school?” she asked Shelby.
“I come home for lunch.”
Shelby went to the living room and sat. She was in the same spot as when the agents interviewed her. “Your investigation hit a dead end?” Shelby said.
“I talked to your dad. We shook down all the sex offenders in the region.”
“How many are there?”
“Sex offenders? About eighty in Citrus County.”
Shelby didn’t know if the number sounded high or low.
“They split us up,” the agent said. “My partner and I.”
“How come?” Shelby asked.
“They said it was poor performance, which was hard to argue, but really it was because we were involved.”
“You were her girlfriend?”
“You could say that.”
“So now you have a man partner?”
“That would’ve made sense.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Shelby asked.
“Oh, sweetie. A lot of people are going to tell you a lot of things. You’re like me. You understand everybody but nobody understands you.”
Shelby looked at the phone a moment.
“There was talk of us quitting the bureau,” the agent said. “Opening a shop somewhere.”
Shelby got up and went back to the sliding-glass door. The snake was gone. She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said the word “fuck.”
“I called in order to give you the last word,” the agent said. “I’m an adult and I realize that you deserve to have the last word with me.”
Shelby stayed quiet.
“I want you to tell me what you think of me, then hang up. I want you to be honest.”
Shelby held perfectly still.
“Shelby?” the agent said. “I know you’re there. Take a minute to think and then say whatever you want. I need some truth. I know there are things you want to say to me.”
Shelby closed her eyes.
“Please, Shelby. Don’t play games. Don’t be a jerk. Shelby? I’m being an adult here.”
On the way out of Mr. Hibma’s class, Shelby had whispered to Toby that she was going to find the old lost tennis court after school, that Toby should meet her there and keep her company, so once the final bell had sounded he headed out through the pastures behind the football bleachers. The tennis court couldn’t have been more than a mile away, but there was no trail. You had to walk through the pastures and then over a high spot in the swamp and then it was in among a bunch of spindly pine trees. It was in the middle of nowhere, a full tennis court.
When Toby arrived, the court was empty. He walked up to the fence. The surface of the court was cracked with weeds. The net was sagging. There was an aluminum bench with algae or something growing on it. Toby started as a ball flew over the fence and bounced into the corner. He turned and saw Shelby coming out of some high grass.
“I can tell you by the way you walk,” Shelby said. “Even with your hair short, I could tell it was you.”
Shelby was wearing sunglasses. They made it look like she had a hangover.
“What do I walk like?” Toby asked her.
“You have a hitch. You leave room in every step to change direction, to change your mind.”
“I hardly ever change my mind,” Toby said.
The sun was hitting Shelby. Her arms and legs were bony. It seemed strange that she could walk around and throw things, as bony as she was. Toby felt he was betraying himself, being out at this tennis court. Betraying the bunker. Even betraying Kaley. The courage he’d felt that day at the playground was gone. Shelby seemed dangerous, but not because she could find Toby out. For some other reason, she seemed like a trap.
“Help me,” she said.
She waded back into the tall grass and Toby followed. They dragged their feet and shook the underbrush and whenever Toby found a ball he handed it to Shelby and she threw it back over the fence. She seemed charmed that people used this court. Someone had dragged racquets and dozens of balls through a half-hour of Florida wilderness in order to play on a dilapidated court with a rotting net.
“People get really bored,” Toby said.
The two of them worked their way through the grass and then around some cypress knees. They found eight or nine balls, all new, bright in color and rubbery in smell. They looked absolutely fluorescent against the dingy court. Toby asked Shelby how she knew about this place and she said she’d heard some of the searchers talking about it.
“A while back a millionaire lived in Citrus County,” Shelby said. “His mistress loved tennis, so he had this court built out in the woods so they could play in secret.”
“Wow,” Toby said. He knew this story was false. This tennis court, along with a half-built golf course Toby sometimes walked through, were remnants of an unfinished development. Nothing romantic. And he wasn’t going to tell Shelby but her mysterious new tennis balls were probably the work of drunken teenagers. Most mild mysteries in Citrus County boiled down to drunk teenagers.
They made it around to the opposite side of the court, where the pines were. Toby had no idea why they were doing this. They found a couple more balls and then when it seemed there were no more Toby spotted something down under some thick brush, down in a little ravine that must’ve been formed by a sinkhole.
Toby held onto a vine and lowered himself. He mashed a bush over with his foot and reached down and grasped the ball. He cleaned it of clumps of dirt and an insect or two, put it in his pocket, and climbed up to flat ground.
He presented the pale, bounceless orb to Shelby, and she didn’t hurl it over the fence. She held it in one hand and with the other she drew Toby in by the elbow. She was kissing him. Shelby’s mouth was moist and assertive and Toby could feel the world’s vastness. He knew there were oceans out there that made the Gulf look like a puddle. There were places covered in snow, places where people ate snakes for dinner, places where people believed that every single thing that happened in their lives was determined by ill-willed spirits. Shelby tasted like nothing. She smelled like freckles and she was making sounds, but she didn’t taste like anything. Toby didn’t know whether his eyes were open. His feet were planted and he was keeping his balance as Shelby leaned against him.
When Toby thought of his hands, he began to panic. The point of the kissing had been reached where Toby was supposed to do more, something with his hands. Shelby’s fingers were up under Toby’s shirt in the back. He could feel the old bare tennis ball rubbing his skin. Toby took a step backward and Shelby almost fell. He said he had to go. Shelby looked at him like he was a silly child. Toby did have something to do. It wasn’t a lie. He always had something to do.