Echo Bridge by Kristen O'Toole Read Free Book Online Page A

forth over a square of paper. Whatever the subject of the photograph, it was a mass of black and white blotches now.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    “It’s all right,” said Lexi. “I can print it again.” She pushed up her sleeves and turned on the faucet again, the rushing water obscuring the photograph. A tattoo curled around one of her thin, white forearms, just below the elbow.
    “Is that real?” I asked her, pointing to the tattoo. It appeared to be a snake.
    Lexi held up her arm. “Yeah,” she said. “I got it over the summer.”
    “Wow,” I said. “You must have a good fake ID.”
    “Nah, my grandfather signed a form.”
    “That’s pretty cool of him.” I was impressed. I didn’t want any tattoos myself; as an actress, casting directors would view me as more versatile with unmarked skin, at least while I was starting out. Obviously it’s not an issue for Angelina Jolie. But still, if I had wanted one, my parents never would have agreed. They’d lost their minds when my sister Anna came home from college with a nose ring.
    “We compromised,” explained Lexi. “I wanted it right here.” She tilted her head and ran a finger from her earlobe down her neck.
    “You wanted a tattoo on your neck?” I asked. “That’s pretty hardcore.”
    “It’s my name,” said Lexi. “Lexi’s short for Alexandra, which was an alternate name for Cassandra in Greek mythology. You know, Homer and the House of Atreus and all that.”
    “She was someone’s concubine, right?” I didn’t take Latin, but at Belknap,
The Odyssey
and
The Iliad
were part of the freshman history course. “A spoil of war, or whatever.”
    “Yeah. She could see the future. In one version of the story, these snakes that were associated with the god Apollo licked her ears, giving her the power to hear the future. Hence,” she pointed to the spot on her neck just below her ear again. “My grandfather thought I should at least get it somewhere it could be covered up.”
    “So can you read tea leaves now and stuff?” I joked.
    Lexi rolled her eyes. “Well, in the myth, Apollo is so pissed Cassandra won’t screw him that he curses her so no one will ever believe her prophecies. She’s kind of a crappy namesake. Can I have a drag?” I put the cigarette in her hand. “So what’s the story?” she asked. “What exactly drove the famous Courtney Valance to the demon nicotine?”
    Suddenly, I heard Melissa’s voice in my head:
“She practically fell to her knees and undid his pants with her teeth.”
When she’d said it, I had simply assumed Hugh was exaggerating or maybe lying outright about a minor liaison with Lexi. Here, in the darkroom, I wondered if there was more to it than that. But I didn’t know how to find out without showing my own hand.
    “Oh, you know,” I said breezily, taking the cigarette back from her. “College applications. Creative stress. The pressure of all those boring eyes down in Thistleton.”
    Lexi laughed and placed her dripping print on a pane of glass propped in the sink, dragged a squeegee over it. “Welcome to my little sanctuary.”
    “So what is the story with you and Marian anyway?”
    She shrugged and leaned over the counter next to the Arbus enlarger, cutting a strip of film with an X-Acto knife. She held a negative up to the eerie orange bulbs overhead, then sprayed it with one of those cans of pressurized air people use to clean their computer keyboards. “There’s no story. She likes to hang out in here and smoke weed—clearly the ventilation system is quite a draw—” she gestured at me with the spray can—“and one day she wanted to make out a little.” She squinted at the negative again. “I wish I hadn’t done it. It was creepy, like she felt like she had to do it, like it was some kind of trade for her hanging out in here.” She made a face. “And it was like the one day of the year Mrs. Geary decided to check the expiration dates on the chemicals and walked in.” She slipped