DUCK SITTER
TARYN
“Iknow I should talk to the guys about what brought me and Jo-Jo here to Star Cove,” I sigh, offering Baety the bowl of peas Tucker left to defrost on the kitchen counter. “But what if they think I’m a psycho? They could break up with me. Or worst-case scenario, Nash could call the police, who are investigating Tim’s murder in Hemlock Beach.”
“Quack.” Baety’s beady eyes look full of understanding, but I’m probably just reading too much into it. Tucker’s duckling is just happy to snack on the peas that apparently are an excellent healthy snack for ducks.
I watch as Baety eats most of the peas in the small bowl and then I clean after her when she promptly goes potty on the tiles of the kitchen floor.
“What do you want to watch, Baety?” The duckling doesn’t give me an answer as she settles into the dog bed Tucker bought her. “If you don’t have any preference, I’ll put on a documentary. I do my best thinking watching documentaries, you know?”
With a full stomach, Baety falls asleep, leaving me alone with my own thoughts.
The last week has been oddly quiet. Training is reaching peak level both for the Cove Knights and the Shooting Stars with just two weeks to go until the pre-season is over.
Three more dancers were cut last Friday, and that left our roster with thirty-five cheerleading candidates; three more than the final thirty-two who will be offered a contract for the upcoming season.
There are two more games in the mini tournament the Cove Knights are playing, and that means two more pre-season performances for the cheer team.
Once we move out of the campground, seeing the guys without being caught should be easier. Keeping a low profile hasn’t been easy, but they understand that there is a lot at stake for me. And they don’t even know that I’m not just talking about my spot on the cheerleading team. The low profile has been instrumental in silencing my stalker. If whoever is sending those threats thinks I broke up with the guys, they should leave me alone. And so far, my phone has been quiet as far as anonymous messages go, and I haven’t found any mutilated dolls in my locker since last week’s game.
If the messages come from Gen, once the final team is announced, she should have no more reasons to come after me.
The only thing that doesn’t add up with all my conjectures is how would Genevieve know about what happened in South Carolina? The last text I got mentioned it clearly.
The only person here at camp who can tie me to that party is Nash. If my gut feeling is correct and Nash isn’t my stalker, could he have told Gen about seeing me at the party?
It’s possible. And the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it’s the only possible explanation. When camp first started, Nash mentioned that party a few times. He only stopped talking about it after I insisted that he must have been mistaken. So it’s entirely possible that he could have told more than one person that he saw me at that party before he and I started getting closer. Besides, he could only place me at that party. From that to accusing me of murder, there’s quite a leap of imagination.
The truth is that no one really knows who killed Tim. So there’s no way that whoever is stalking me knows for sure. They’re just trying to scare me. And the reason I’m more convinced that it’s Gen with every passing day is that my stalker's demand is that I end it with them.
Gen has made no mystery of her jealousy of me. And she’s still convinced that I’m involved with Mack. It totally tracks.
“What do you think, Baety? Is Gen the meanest girl on earth?” I turn my gaze away from the TV to ask the sleeping duckling the question that has taken permanent residence in my head lately. “Baety?” I yelp when I’m confronted with an empty dog bed.
I look around, but I don’t see the duckling in my immediate vicinity. “Baety?” I rise from the couch. “Baety? Where did you go?”
A walk around the open plan living room and kitchen area confirms that Baety is nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I panic, running to the full-length patio doors in the kitchen and the living room. They both lead to the beach and if Baety snuck out, I’m fucked.
I heave a sigh of relief when I find both doors locked. “Baety, where are you? Please come out.”
How the fuck am I going to tell Tucker that I lost hispet? It’s not even like I can go look for her and alert anyone else. One thing that wasn’t accidentally left out of the housing rules was the strict no pets policy. That’s why Tucker asked me to watch Baety tonight. Baety is no longer the tiny duckling Tucker and the guys found abandoned by her mother in the campground. She’s tripled in size in the last month, and she’s become more adventurous. If someone saw her, he would land in hot water with his coach.
My eyes go to the apartment’s main door, but that’s closed too. There’s no way Baety could have left from there, so she should be in the apartment.
“Think, Taryn, think.” I say out loud.
Maybe she hid somewhere. I have zero experience with ducks, but some animals like to burrow or to hide. The cat I grew up with loved hiding inside cabinets and boxes. Mom and I used to lose our minds trying to find him.
If that’s the case, what could attract a duck? Water seems to be the obvious answer, and Tucker told me he’s excited about moving back into the Gamma house on campus, where they have a big pool in the backyard. In the meantime, he’s been filling his bathroom sink to let Baety enjoy the water. The apartments within the campgrounds have shower cubicles in the bathrooms rather than bathtubs, and Tucker went as far as to order a plastic kiddie pool to use in the shower now that Baety is getting too big for the bathroom sink.
Maybe that’s where Baety is. I run inside Tucker’s bedroom and straight into his en-suite bathroom.
The sink is empty and there’s no duck in the small kiddie pool inside the shower either.
With my pulse picking up its pace, I open the cabinetunder the sink. It was my family cat’s favorite hiding place. Nothing.
