No Longer the Clown novel · Chapter 2 of 16

Chapter 2: The Prize Bear

Addie bakes and smiles while she finds Phoebe in every alibi photo, and Susan catches her holding the phone with a perfectly clear voice.

I read the pinned message until the words stopped looking like words.

Saturday was my birthday.

I had booked Maison Rue three months ago.

A corner booth by the window, because Dexter once said he liked watching the ferries.

Behind me, the blanket rustled.

I locked Susan's phone and set it back on the counter exactly where it had been.

Screen down. Charger cable curled to the left.

Then I picked up the rice flour.

"Addie?" Susan's voice was soft and wandering again. "Is it spring?"

"It's October, Mom."

"Oh." She sighed. "I thought I smelled green rice cakes."

"It's osmanthus. Your favorite."

"You're such a good girl."

I measured the flour.

I measured the sugar.

I did not cry into the bowl.

I steamed four trays of osmanthus cake that afternoon, and she ate two pieces off each one.

At six she fell asleep for real, snoring with her mouth open.

At seven Dexter came home to his mother's house with a stuffed bear under his arm.

It was pink, with a Wildwater Park ribbon around its neck.

"My buddy won it at the ring toss and didn't want it," he said. "So I thought of you."

He held it out.

I took it.

"How was your buddy?"

"Loud. He screamed on every ride." Dexter laughed and rubbed his neck. "Honestly, I'd rather have been here with you."

He leaned in to kiss me.

There was a smear of pale pink gloss at the corner of his mouth.

I don't wear lip gloss. It melts in a kitchen.

"You've got something," I said, and touched my own lip.

He wiped it with his thumb without looking.

"Cotton candy," he said.

We drove home to Fremont.

He talked about the roller coaster.

I held the pink bear on my lap and said "wow" in the right places.

When he went to shower, I opened my own phone.

I went back through my photos to August.

Brooke's sunrise pictures from Mount Si were still in our text thread.

She'd sent eight of them. "Your man is a lightweight, he almost died on the trail."

I zoomed in on the one of Dexter at the summit.

He was wearing mirrored sunglasses.

In the left lens, small and curved, a blonde woman was holding up the phone.

Brooke has red hair.

I found Kevin's Disneyland picture from June next.

Dexter in mouse ears, grinning, in front of the castle.

A hand was resting on his shoulder from outside the frame.

The nails were long and painted cream.

My brother bites his nails to the quick.

I sat on the edge of our bed and heard the shower running.

Five years.

I had paid Kevin's tuition when our parents died.

I had held Brooke's hair back the night her dad left.

I had spent two years of Sundays in a blue house in Ballard, steaming cakes for a sick woman.

And all of them had typed "Got it."

The shower shut off.

I put the phone face down and picked up a book.

Dexter came out in a towel and stretched.

"Mom's episodes are getting worse," he said. "I'm worried about Saturday."

My heart went cold and slow.

"What about Saturday?"

"Nothing. Just, you know. If she has one, we might need to move dinner."

"We'll see," I said.

He kissed my shoulder and fell asleep inside five minutes.

On Wednesday, I went back to the blue house on my day off.

I told Susan I'd come to clean her fridge.

She didn't know me when I walked in.

Then she did, all at once, with a gasp of relief.

"Addie! Oh, thank God. They keep sending strangers."

"Nobody's here but me, Mom."

"Will you make me mung bean pastries?"

"It's October."

"Please."

"Of course," I said.

While the beans soaked, she went upstairs to lie down.

Her phone was charging on the kitchen windowsill.

I unlocked it.

I opened Phoebe's Guardian Squad.

I held down the first message from two years ago and selected everything after it.

Every date. Every photo. Every "Got it."

I forwarded all of it to my own email.

The progress bar crawled across the screen.

Thirty percent.

Sixty percent.

The stairs creaked behind me.

Ninety.

"Adeline."

I turned around.

Susan stood on the bottom step with her hand on the rail.

Her glasses were on their beaded chain.

Her eyes were sharp and dry and fixed on the phone in my hand.

She didn't sound lost at all.

"Put my phone down," she said, "before you do something stupid."

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