The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Bel found her in their favorite place: the far end of the cemetery, beneath the red maple tree that bled its leaves for miles. They were morbid like that. Heels kicking against the stone of the raised wall.

Bel walked toward her, past mottled headstones and eyeless angels, old bouquets of flowers just starting to smell. She stopped twenty feet away, hand cupped over her eyes.

“Well, I’ll be,” Bel called. “Is that Carter Price, ballerina extraordinaire and soon-to-be documentary star?”

Carter stirred, cheekbones sharp up to her blue eyes, a diluted blue, like unsettled water. Nicer than Bel’s eyes. Price eyes. Carter tilted her head, her waist-length coppery-brown hair slipping over her shoulders, catching the bright sun, keeping it.

“Shut up, you.” Carter glanced down at her hand, something tucked between her fingers.

“You smoking?” Bel asked, climbing up to sit beside her.

“What gave you that idea?” Carter raised the cigarette to her lips.

“Since when?”

“Since yesterday,” Carter coughed. “Don’t tell my mom. Took it from her purse.”

“I don’t tell anybody anything,” Bel said, sliding over until their knees touched. “Give it here a sec.”

Carter balanced the cigarette between two skinny fingers, passed it over.

“Thanks.” Bel pushed the end between her lips for one deep drag. Then she stubbed it out on the wall, dropped it to the grass below.

“Hey.” Carter turned to her, annoyed. “I’ve seen you smoke plenty of times.”

“Well, you’re better than I am. And you’re fifteen.” Bel patted her on the back, not not-patronizing her. It was her job, after all: older cousin.

“Fuck sake,” Carter hissed.

Bel withdrew her hand. “How are your feet today?”

Carter glanced down at them, black Converse pivoting on the end of bare legs, flexing the lines of muscle along her calves.

“Fucked up. But fine, you know.”

“Aren’t we all,” Bel said, with a grin, ready to poke Carter in her armpit, the place she was most ticklish. Carter saw it coming, swatting her hand away, hitting it harder than she needed to, the slap of flesh on flesh, bone on bone.

“Ouch,” Bel cackled, cradling the hand. “We are in a cemetery, you shouldn’t hit. Disrespects the dead.”

“Fuck off.” Carter smiled.

“So does fucking swearing.”

“Well, you taught me that,” Carter countered.

Strangers sometimes mistook them for sisters. They didn’t look that much alike; Carter certainly got all the good genes on her side of the family. But they’d grown up together, almost as close as sisters. Bel and her dad lived at 33 Milton Street, and his brother Jeff lived with Aunt Sherry and Carter in number 19. Quite literally a stone’s throw away, well, a couple throws; Carter and Bel had tried it before. Got in big trouble, of course; Ms. Nosy next door told on them.

“Is that them?” Carter said, pointing with the sharp arrow-tip of her nose. Bel followed her eyeline. From here, you could just about see the road in front of Bel’s house, the minuscule LEGO-shape of a white van pulled up outside, tiny stick people emerging, moving arms and legs.

“They’ll be setting up the lights and stuff. Should probably head back soon.”

“How did the interview go?” Carter picked her nails for something to do now the cigarette was gone. She was always moving somehow, never still. Drumming fingers and jangling legs.

“Fucked up but fine, you know,” Bel echoed her. “Then Rachel’s mom turned up.”

“The Masshole?” Carter stared at her.

“Mmhmm.”

Carter clicked her tongue, understanding all the spaces between Bel’s words, a language of their own.

“Don’t know why they want me in the documentary,” she said. “I was born after Aunt Rachel disappeared. I never even knew her.”

“I never really knew her either,” Bel added, like it was a competition. “Oh, I should warn you. One of the documentary crew, the camera assistant, he’s the strangest person you’ll ever meet. Literally the love child of a washed-up rock star and a clown. And he’s useless; Ramsey clearly only gave him the job because he’s his brother-in-law. If we get bored today, we can just make fun of him.”

“Bel, be nice.”

Bel hissed, hiding from the sun. “I can’t, it burns.”

Carter shook her head. A small laugh, weighed down by something.

“You’re not nervous, are you?” Bel asked. “You’ll be fine. Better get used to it, right? Soon you’ll be way too famous to remember your poor old cousin.”

“Sorry, what’s your name again?” Carter said.

Bel poked her, getting through this time. “I thought you’d at least wait until you got into Juilliard and fucked off to New York forever to forget about me.”

Everyone left, eventually. Wasn’t just Rachel Price. People were temporary. It was the one thing you could count on: people always left, even Carter.

“I might not get in,” Carter said, voice smaller still.

“Of course you will, if you want it enough.” Bel nudged her, feeling the hard rail of her ribs. “Come on, we should head back. Your audience awaits!” She shouted that last bit, to embarrass Carter in front of all the dead people, laughing at them from their graves.

Thirty-three Milton Street was already buzzing with people and equipment. Large metallic trunks clicked open, belching camera parts and long poles, softbox lights lying unassembled on the living-room carpet, Charlie lava-stepping around it all as he delivered the crew mugs of coffee that they absolutely didn’t have enough hands for.

Uncle Jeff and Aunt Sherry were already here. As soon as Bel and Carter walked through the open front door, Sherry pulled Carter to the side.

“I laid out an outfit for you, honey,” she said. “It was on your bed.”

Sherry must have spent hours getting ready: her hair was styled in neat brown curls, her pale skin closer to powdery orange now, clumping in the lines around her eyes, thick mascara, and bronzer to give her the cheekbones that Carter had naturally.

Jeff was doing what he did best: getting in the way.

“So, Ramsey,” he said, following the man around while he attempted to set up. “Would I have seen any of your work before?”

“I’ve made a few documentaries,” Ramsey said, picking up a yarn-ball of cables. “Did one a few years ago, about an Alaskan husky who worked pulling sleds. It was called Snow Dog. Disney bought it.”

“Oh yes,” Jeff said, scratching his salt-and-pepper hair. “My friend Bob, from Vermont, he used to have a husky. I think I’ve heard of that film.”

No, he hadn’t.

“The dog dies, real tearjerker.” Ramsey sidestepped him to get to one of the recently erected lights.

“Was that the last thing you worked on?” Jeff said.

Ramsey glanced toward the front door: the only escape route. “No, I shot another doc last year. About a high-school principal in Millinocket, Maine.”

“I think I’ve heard of that too!”

Ramsey smiled. “You must be thinking of something else, mate. It didn’t get picked up by a broadcaster. No one will ever see it.”

“Why’s that, then?” Jeff asked, not reading the room. To be fair, there was a lot going on in the room.

“Um …” Ramsey said, the word trailing off awkwardly, gaze circling, searching for help. His eyes caught Bel’s. No help here, mate.

“Yeah, Ramsey,” she said, doubling down on him. “Why is that?”

He scrunched his eyes at her, like he knew she was trying to make him uncomfortable but he found it amusing instead. Guess you come to know someone pretty well when you’re trapped in a room with them for hours, repeating the same conversations. Maybe Bel liked Ramsey after all.

He gave in. “Some of the networks said it lacked a human element. Don’t know how they worked that out—it was all about humans. So plotty and twisty—you couldn’t write it, honestly.” He shook his head. “But clearly they thought it was missing something.”

“Right.” Jeff was still in the conversation. “That’s a shame. Do you have a broadcaster yet for The Disappearance of Rachel Price?”

“Not yet.” Ramsey smiled. “But we will. It’s an incredible story.”

“Plotty, twisty,” Bel remarked.

He saluted her with the camera lens in his hand.

Jeff wasn’t done with Ramsey yet, but Bel tuned him out as her dad approached, offering her a coffee now. In his favorite mug, shaped into Santa’s bulbous face.

“Ms. Nosy’s watching from the street, by the way,” she said, taking the mug, the surface of the paint cracking slightly, Santa wearing those thousand Christmases all over his porcelain skin.

“Ms. Nelson, Bel,” Charlie corrected her, knocking his finger under her chin. “While I remember, you didn’t seal the trash can properly this morning. You’ve got to tie it with the cord, remember, it’s bl—”

“Black bear season, I know,” she finished for him. She thought she remembered doing it, hooking the bungee cord over. Must be thinking of another time. “Sorry.”

“Lucky your daddy’s here to fight off any bears.”

“Hey, I’m the mean one,” she sniffed. “I’ll do the fighting.”

Charlie grinned at her, then turned to slap Jeff on the back. They were both, by chance, wearing dark green sweaters and jeans.

“Jefferson, stop chewing Ramsey’s ear off. Let him get back to work.”

Jeff, despite being three years older, listened to his brother, backing off to find someone else to bother.

“When’s your dad arriving?” Ramsey asked Charlie, more wires in his hands.

Charlie glanced at his watch. “The caregiver should be here with him any minute. Had a bit of a difficult morning.”

“Great. We’re almost ready to go here. James—where’s that HDMI cable gone?”

“I’m ready to start miking up,” Saba said, appearing out of the chaos. “Ash, you take Charlie and Bel, I’ll do the others.”

Ash straightened up from behind the largest metal trunk. He was wearing a white tee covered in cartoon strawberries, under a blue denim shirt tucked into slightly darker blue jeans. Of course, flared at the bottom, if you were asking.

“Just going to change my sweater,” Charlie said, disappearing into the hallway.

“No stripes, please,” Ramsey called after him.

“Hello again.” Ash shuffled to Bel, unraveling a microphone pack. “Can I?”

“Can you?” Bel said, arms out scarecrow-wide, like he was about to frisk her.

“I just clip this on here first.”

Ash stepped forward, his face far too close to hers, breath warm and minty. His eyes were green, she hadn’t noticed that before; an unclean green, like football-field grass. He clipped the tiny microphone onto the collar of her baseball shirt and spooled up the wire.

“Now, this has to hide down here,” he said, nodding awkwardly at the front of her shirt. He pulled gently at the material of her collar, averting his eyes as he fed the mike pack under, holding onto the wire as it rappelled down her chest.

“So,” he said, “do you prefer apples or bananas?”

“Huh?” Bel said.

“Well, it’s a bit awkward, me just fiddling with you, so I thought I’d do a conversation,” he said, the body pack finally emerging from the bottom of her shirt.

“You’d do a conversation, huh?” she said, skin tingling where the cold wire pressed into it.

“Well, it worked. We are conversing.” He held up the pack. “Now this clips on behind you. Have you got a pocket on your trousers, or … ?”

Bel turned around for him.

“Don’t we need to do more conversation if you’re about to touch my ass?”

“Oh, I saw a moose this morning,” Ash said, fiddling with her back pocket. “It was massive.”

“Well, you are in New Hampshire now.”

“OK, you’re all wired up.”

Bel turned to face Ash, looked him up and down, moving her eyes but not her head.

“Double denim,” she said.

“Oh, thank you,” he replied, patting his clothes.

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“Where’s the HDMI cable?” came Ramsey’s voice, more desperate now.

“I left it over there,” Ash called, pointing over Bel’s shoulder. “By the tripe.”

“Aha,” Ramsey said, somehow locating it with those instructions.

“Tripe?” Bel asked Ash.

“Tripod,” he said. “I decided to shorten it. You gain a second every time you abbreviate. Those seconds all add up in the end. Time is money, my friend.”

“Yet you just wasted nine more explaining yourself.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, looking intently at his fingers, like he was counting them.

Bel narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t a real person, are you?”

He shrugged, deadpan gaze and an unbothered smile. Not the reaction she was looking for.

“I’m gonna … go over there,” she said, leaving if he wouldn’t.

“Oh wait, let me turn you on!” Ash said, loudly, the chatter in the room dimming around them.

Bel felt a warm and uninvited flush creeping up her face.

“Huh?” Voice breathy and awkward.

“Your microphone,” Ash said, with an almost-knowing smile, moving to fiddle again with Bel’s back pocket. Damn, did he know the game she was playing? He might even be better at it than her. Bel had underestimated him: she’d have to be even more unpleasant to win.

“Done, you’re good to go.” Ash straightened up, that same grin still on his face. Urgh, he was annoying.

Bel walked away without another word. If you don’t have anything not-nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Her dad came down the stairs then, dressed in a navy sweater instead, just as a knock came from the side door, where he’d installed the ramp.

“That’ll be Yordan with Grandpa.” He hurried off to greet them.

“OK, Price family, can you head to the sofa?” Ramsey called. “We are ready to begin.”

“Does the camera really add ten pounds?” Aunt Sherry asked Ramsey, sitting between Charlie and Jeff on the forest-green sofa, eyeballing the camera.

“You look great, Sherry,” Ramsey said from behind it, glancing down at the monitor. “Now can we get the girls to sit in front of the sofa. Yes, like that, in the spaces between. Perfect.”

Someone squeezed Bel’s shoulder; it was Dad.

“Carter,” Sherry whispered, “tuck your legs over to the side, honey. No, yes, like that. Good girl.”

“Dad, don’t touch that, that’s your microphone,” Charlie said. Grandpa’s wheelchair was pushed up against the side of the sofa, extending it.

Yordan, the caregiver, was standing awkwardly at the back of the room, behind the crew. His dark hair was shaved close to his head, his dark beard not so much. Grandpa always complained that Yordan didn’t shave, on the days he remembered who he was.

“All good?” Ramsey checked in with Charlie.

“For now.” Charlie nodded. “I’ll get Yordan to take my dad home if I think it’s getting too much for him.”

“Of course. Thank you so much for joining us, Patrick,” Ramsey said, voice loud, clean gaps between each word.

Grandpa pointed a shaky finger at him. “You’re the filmmaker from L-L-London.”

“Yes, that’s me.” Ramsey smiled. You wouldn’t know they’d already had this conversation just minutes ago. “Nice to meet you.”

“Never been to London,” Grandpa said. “Have I?” He looked at Charlie.

“We can all go together, Pat.” Sherry leaned forward. “See Carter perform with the Royal Ballet someday.”

Oh, so it was London now? Even farther than New York.

“Mom, you’re confusing Paw-Paw,” Carter said quietly.

Paw-Paw had been Bel’s name for their grandpa first, when she was a toddler and two different syllables had been too much work. Bel didn’t know if that had been pre-Rachel or post-Rachel, Grandpa probably wouldn’t remember now either.

“So I’ve hooked up to your TV there,” Ramsey said, overenunciating for Grandpa’s sake. “We’re going to play three clips from your old home videos, thank you very much, Charlie and Jeff, for sending those over a few weeks ago. I want you to watch them together, as a family, and just react. Organically. Tell me how it makes you feel, any memories of Rachel you want to share. I’ll dip in and out with questions. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Charlie replied for the family. Which was lucky, because it didn’t sound good at all to Bel. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen these home videos before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to, not with a camera pointed in her face. Carter poked her in the ribs and she stopped slouching.

“Camera?” Ramsey said, stepping back, out of the way.

“Rolling,” James answered.

“Ash?”

He moved forward with the black-and-white slate. Today, the scene was labeled: A trip down memory lane.

Ash snapped down the clapper board.

Grandpa flinched at the sound.

“This first clip is from Christmas 2007,” Ramsey said, crouching by the laptop plugged into the TV, the screen mirrored. “Seven weeks before Rachel disappeared.”

He pressed play and the TV sparked to life.

And there she was: Rachel Price.

The same as she looked in the photo they’d used on the missing posters. Wide smile that pulled her chin down into a point, dark gray-blue eyes, long golden-blond hair, almost as long as Carter’s in this snapshot of time. She was wearing a bobble hat here, so you couldn’t see the small birthmark high on the right side of her forehead, a flattened circle of freckle brown. An identifying mark if they ever found a body, which they hadn’t.

Rachel looked young, now Bel thought about it; she never got much older than this. Rachel Price un-disappeared. Pre-disappeared. Standing in the snow, wearing a long gray coat, the same one she’d left behind.

Rachel narrowed her eyes, stared right through at Bel, into Bel.

She shivered, hairs standing up on her arms, but she wouldn’t let it show.

Not to the camera.

Not to Rachel.