Strange in Skin (8 page)

“Of course I do. She was such a lovely girl.”

 

“I think she’s coming back to town to visit her parents sometime soon. I’ll read it later. It’s
probably a long one.” I shoved the letter into the pocket of my jeans.

Sitting through dinner was even more intolerable than I had anticipated. Everyone was chatty, and I
found myself chatting along about nothing important, even speaking to my father from time to time,
wanting nothing more than to shove every bite in my mouth, swallow it whole and be done with
dinner so I could excuse myself to my bedroom for the rest of the night to read my letter, but again,
that would mean me not acting like my normal self. Not that avoiding the family the last few days was
normal, but it was something that likely would go without question. I had to be extra cautious, I
reminded myself. They would catch on if I made too many mistakes.

I was so relieved when I was finally able to reach the sanctuary of my bedroom. I almost hesitated
for a moment, thinking that my mother would burst in at any second and want to see the letter for
herself, but I knew she was still washing dishes downstairs and cleaning up from dinner. I sat down in
a small wooden chair that was near the window and unfolded the envelope that was now crinkled
from being inside my pocket.

Dear Anna,

I know you didn’t want me to write, but it’s been so long. I need to know what you think of me, if
you think about me at all. You’re all that I think about. Please come see me again. It feels like it’s
getting hard to breathe in here not knowing when and if you’ll return to me.

E.L.

My heart ached with a longing to jump in my car and rush straight toward the jail to see him. He
was thinking about me just as much as I was him. His letter was so short and simple, yet felt so
powerful. Emry Logan was missing me. What could this all mean, and where did I stand now? The
confusion came on again as my emotions overwhelmed my mind, and I struggled to think straight. I
didn’t know what I meant to him, but I knew what I had to do. I had to go see him right away.
Tomorrow, yes. I would go tomorrow. Amy Wright or Anna James, one of them would find their way
into that jail.

“Anna!”
I jumped at the sound of my name being hollered up the stairs. “Yeah?”
“Phone!”

I grabbed the cordless from its charger on my dresser and hit the on button. As soon as I pressed my
ear up to it, I heard the downstairs phone click off.
“Hello?”

“Hey, Anna.”

 

It was Buck. Hadn’t my mother said something earlier about how I was supposed to call him back?
I had forgotten all about it.

 

“Hey, Buck. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you back yet.” Emry’s letter was still gripped in my
hand as my eyes scanned over his words once more.

 

His breathing was kind of heavy in the phone as if he were out of breath. “Oh, no problem. Is now a
good time?”

 

“Sure. What’s up?” I folded the letter and pressed it in between the pages of the same book that
held Emry’s first letter to me. I put the book back in its place on the shelf.

 

“How are things going?”

It took me a moment to understand what he was asking. He wanted to know if I still had a
relationship with my father, if my mother still held a relationship with him. I had forgotten he’d
witnessed all of that. “Oh, same old, same old,” I told him, hoping he wouldn’t pry too much more.

“How are you holding up?” he asked, sounding truly concerned.

 

My irritable mood instantly returned.
Thanks, Buck
, I thought. I was beginning to think I could
possibly be bipolar. “I’m fine, I guess.”

 

He hesitated, sensing my unwillingness to talk to him about the matter. “Well, I thought maybe you
might need to get out of the house, go out and do something fun.”

“I do. What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Anything. How about … I could make you dinner,” he suggested.
I let out a small chuckle. “Buck, do you cook?”

“Hey now,” he said, pretending I had hurt his feelings. “I can buy food and put it in the bowl to
make it look like I cook.”

 

It was a little funny to think of him capable of making a meal.

 

“Tomorrow night after work come over to my place. I’ll make you dinner, and maybe we could rent
a movie or something, too.”

 

I hesitated for a moment. This was definitely a date date. I did need out of the house though, and I
did need to get closer to Buck to see if he could tell me any other information about Emry.
“All right. See you tomorrow then.”

Buck’s mood was lightened by my acceptance of his invitation. His voice instantaneously became
louder and more cheerful. “See you then. Oh, and come hungry.”
“Do you have to work at all or do you get to have the day off?” I was pleased with how I snuck the
question in at the last second.
“Actually I haven’t worked all week. Taking a few days off.”

“Oh.” Now I was the one whose voice sounded more cheery. “Well, I do have to work, so I’ll be
there sometime around six.”

 

“Have a good night, Anna.”

 

“You too.”

I started off the next day in a pleasant mood. I got up bright and early and planned out what I was
going to wear, that I was going to pull my hair back and put some makeup on. I was sure I still had lip
gloss somewhere in the bathroom drawer. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to actually apply the makeup
until I was in my car later that day after telling my mother that I was going to go have lunch with
Mandi Liswich somewhere out of town so I could have a little extra time. She told me to say hello to
Mandi for her, and I easily got out to my car and parked a few blocks away from the antique store so I
could put on the mascara and blush that I had stored away in my purse that morning.

I peered back at my reflection in the rearview mirror. I thought I actually looked pretty good
considering it had been years since I had worn makeup and also because of the fact that I was
applying it in the poor quality of light from within my car. I put the car into Drive and sped off toward
the prison, a fluttering sensation of butterflies in my stomach mixed with a combination of my heart
beating unusually fast took over and only increased after I had parked the car.

The same pattern happened as before. I had to go up to the window and sign in. Who would I be
today? Amy or Anna? I shuffled the thought around momentarily before writing down my own name
on the piece of paper. It probably wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had, but I was feeling a bit risky. Then
I sat with a slightly larger group of visitors today than before in the same small waiting room area.

“Okay,” a police woman said coming into the room at last. “Let’s go.” She looked down over her
list. “Which one of you is Anna James?”

 

My heart felt like it stopped. Why had she pinpointed
me
out? Was something going wrong? I felt
slightly dizzy as if with any quick movement I would black out.

 

I raised my hand unsteadily to reveal myself, but the officer barely looked at me.

“You’ll have to stay here and wait. We have two people wanting to visit the same person, so what
we will do is, we will split the time in half. I will come back and get you when it’s your turn,” she
said.

I slumped back into my chair. My eyes darted toward the faces of the people now going into the
room to see the prisoners. Which one was here to see Emry? He said he never had any visitors. I
don’t know why I was looking so intently, as if I could read their minds or faces and be able to tell
exactly which one was going in to talk to him. My heart sank. I would only get to spend half of the
time allotted with him today. I would have to share him. It made me agitated and furious. I clenched
my hands into tight balls and felt them beginning to sweat from doing so. Patience wasn’t my finest
quality, and it sure wasn’t coming into play now when I needed it the most.

I began to picture Emry. He was so close, yet I couldn’t see him. He was talking to someone else
now. Someone from his family? Had Lainey Tritt possibly come to see him? I had no idea because I
knew nothing of him really. Maybe a friend had come?

I started to become worried as the realization hit me that they’d soon pull that person out and I
would have to pass by them. They would look at me, I would look at them, and we would recognize
each other as a visitor of Emry. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and wonder why their time had
been split in half as well. I was trying to stay low key.

“Ms James?”

I stood up, startled. The same police woman entered in from the other room and motioned for me to
come forward. It was now my turn. I felt almost clumsy as my feet didn’t seem to want to work. I
passed through the narrow entrance and saw a row of people talking on the phones to each other.
Headed straight toward me was a short, thin woman with bright blonde hair and red lipstick. A young
girl was by her side walking parallel to her. Their eyes were glued on me. The older woman seemed
to be giving me a death look like she was furious and wanted to lash out at me, and before I knew it,
they had walked by and were headed out the door, and the officer was directing me to go sit down
where they had just gotten up from.

“And she’s returned,” Emry said into the phone when I first picked it up and held it to my ear. “You
look beautiful, by the way. There’s something different about you. Your hair. Your hair is pulled
back,” he complimented me, smiling, more talkative than usual.

I stared at his face. He looked happy today. I retraced the features that I had merely grasped in
memory over the last month. Had his hair grown longer? He still had wisps of it in his eyes, some of
it brushed back as he sometimes ran his fingers through it. And there were those eyes again. I felt as if
I could get lost in them if I stared too long.

“What’s wrong?” he quickly asked, seeing through me more quickly than most people.
“Who were those two girls that were just here?”
“I think you made her pretty mad,” he told me, amused at the idea and laughing quietly to himself.

“I think I caught that by the way she was looking at me on her way out.” I waited for a moment. He
offered no further explanation. “Who was she?”

 

Emry’s smile quickly disappeared. He looked away from me to his hand and tapped his fingers on
the desk in front of him anxiously.

 

“You don’t want to tell me?”

 

“No, I do. Well, I don’t, no, but I will.” He still had his head shifted downwards as we sat there
saying nothing for a moment. I hated wasting valuable time like this.

“Why is it so hard to tell me? Please,” I pleaded, my eyes burning into his as he looked up just then.
He sighed. “Her name’s Candace Ramey, and the girl was her daughter, Traci.”
I waited for him to go on.

He looked at my face again and then up to my hair and down to my lips before returning to my eyes.
“Candy’s my ex.”

“Ex-girlfriend?” The words stuck as if they didn’t want to come out. My mouth felt suddenly dry.
He slowly shook his head. “No. My ex-wife.”

For some profound reason that I couldn’t explain, I suddenly felt a very similar feeling to the one I
had experienced when I saw my father with Mrs. Anderson that foggy evening. My chest felt like it
was being weighed down, suffocating me as I found it very difficult to breathe, and a strange
sensation zipped across my stomach and then shot outwards to the rest of my body. Why did every
emotion I seemed to get these days have to be so powerful and take control of every inch of me? I
suddenly felt too warm and quickly took off my coat to try to cool down before I really did faint.

“You were
married
?” That word definitely stuck harder than the last ones.

“I know, I know,” he said as if feeling remorseful. “It was a long time ago. It didn’t last long, only
about eight months.” He rewet his lips with the edge of his tongue before continuing on. “I thought that
we had had something once, but I was wrong. She had been in trouble, I had helped her out, and then
one thing had led to another, and before I knew it, we were married. But the whole thing was a mess,
a huge mistake that I wish I could take back. I regret every moment of it.” He looked up and straight
into my own brown eyes. “You have to believe me.”

And then suddenly I did believe him, because it was hard to even begin to picture the striking Emry
Logan actually married to someone who looked like her. She looked … I had to search for the words
as I remembered her face … tacky and fake, in my opinion.

“I have no feelings whatsoever for her now,” he added quickly.

“Was that your daughter, too?” Another heavy emotion overwhelmed me as I asked him that. My
fingertips that were holding the phone were feeling numb, so I switched it over into the other hand,
which felt just as numb as the other.

“No. Traci is …
was
my step-daughter. She’s a good kid. I kind of feel bad leaving her with
Candy.”
I don’t know why I felt so traumatized. I knew nothing about Emry at all. So what if he had been
married and had this little family before in his past and was now divorced and she was visiting him in
jail. Why did it all matter to me so much?

“I’m so glad you came,” he repeated. “You got my letter?”

All of the bad feelings washed away from me then and I smiled. “I did. That was very sneaky of
you.”
“I couldn’t resist. I meant every word, Anna. You’re all I think about. I can’t explain it.”

“Try,” I said quite boldly. “What is it you’re feeling?” I really did want to know why he bothered
with me, why he wrote to me with such a passion saying he needed me and thought about me. I needed
an explanation all of it, for this craziness I had suddenly become caught up in.

He paused then and looked down, regrouping his thoughts. “I think you’re the most beautiful woman
I’ve ever seen.”
Had he just really said that to me? A sudden joy filled my heart as I let the words sink in. I was
beautiful? He should be looking in the mirror to see what I was seeing when I looked back at him. No,
he was absolutely perfect. I, on the other hand, was just all right.