Hush Baby Hush

“Hi, McKenzie,” she says, her voice softening.“I’m so glad I finally got ahold of you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m at work.”

“Of course. I won’t take up too much of your time. I was just wondering if you’d given any thought to my interview request. I assume you’ve been getting my messages?”

“I have. And I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“I see.” She pauses. “Can I ask how you’re doing? Off the record.”

Normally I would hang up at this point, but the gentleness in her tone is almost motherly. I know she’s just trying to gain my trust. But still...

“It’s been difficult,” I say.

“I can imagine, especially after the interview with your foster parents.”

My thoughts freeze in their tracks. I switch my phone to my other ear.

“What about my foster parents?”

“The Clines gave an interview with CDE News this morning. You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t.” I can’t begin to fathom what those assholes would have to say about Hollywood and me. My heart thuds against my sternum. “I haven’t spoken to them in a long time.”

“That’s the impression I got. And, for what it’s worth, I had some reservations about a few of the things they said.”

I gulp to loosen my throat.

“Like what?”

“I don’t want toeditorialize—”

“Go ahead.”

She sighs. “They just seemed tohold some surprisingly aggressive opinions about yoursexuality, in particular. As a foster parent myself, I was taken aback. Both by that and by what they said about you being the most difficult placement they’ve encountered. It struck me as a highly inappropriate way to speak about a child in your care. Even a former child.”

The blurred image of a man’s face superimposes itself over my vision. It’s a face I’ve strived to forget every day for the past six years. I can’t refine his features, but where memory fails, muscle memory succeeds.

My chest tightens. My stomach churns.

When I don’t respond, she says, “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to work, um... I won’t call you again. But if you change your mind about the interview, please reach out to me. I would very muchlike to continuespeaking with you.”

I set my phone face-down on the desk. I’ve tried to forget about the house Hollywood and I ran from, and more importantly, the people in it. But now it feels like I’ve only been putting off the inevitable. If it was mere curiosity, I could resist the urge to open this window into my past. But curiosity is the least of it.What I feel is a strong pull toward a darkcenter, like water circling a drain. So much of what has happened to me over the last two years is a direct result of what I faced in that house.

Hoyt Renier wasn’t the first monster I encountered in the dark, and he isn’t the only monster chasing me in my dreams.

I pull up the CDE News website, prepared to scour the archives for the clip I need. I should’ve known I wouldn’t have to search very hard. The clip is right on the homepage.

I click the play button to start the video.

The interviewer, a stout middle-aged man wearing a bowtie, straightens his glasses. “Mr. and Mrs. Cline, thank you for agreeing to speak with me”

“We’re happy to be here.” My foster mother, Janet Cline, looks more or less the same as I remember. She’s styled her dark hair into a short bob and overlined her lips. Her husband, Ewan Cline, sits beside her, his face and body more relaxed than he has any right to be.They’re in the family room in their house in Newport, Tennessee. I recognize the brown couch they’re seated on, recalling how scratchy the fabric felt against my face.

“Can you tell us what Holly Larkin and McKenzie Sommers were like as teenagers.”

“McKenzie was always getting into trouble,” Janet says. “We’d get calls from the school once, sometimes twice a week, about her skipping class. Holly was the quiet one, more fearful. If she ever got into trouble, you could bet McKenzie had a hand in it.”

“Were you surprised to hear the girls were involved in prostitution, and in McKenzie’s case, pornography?”