They All Fall Down

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  The neighborhood hadn’t changed since I’d been displaced. The California ranch next door still boasted its grand piano and grander lawn. The Mediterranean’s porte cochere still harbored an aging Jaguar. The Remmicks still had that breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean on one side and the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles on the other. Billy always bragged about his view of the Santa Monica, San Gabriel, and San Bernardino Mountains.

  “Mimi, why the hell—?” Billy filled the doorway even though he was a slight man. Just forty-eight years old, he was now completely gray. Of course, he’d blamed me for his hair color. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Long story.” I offered a weak smile to match the quaver in my voice. “Are you gonna invite me in?”

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  I snorted and heat burned my upper lip. “Says who? Ashlee?”

  “No. Says Morgan—she wants you to leave.”

  I glanced back to the living room windows and to my seventeen-year-old daughter, who wore a sweatshirt that had belonged to me in 1984. “I was attacked tonight,” I said, my gaze still on our daughter. “They came to my house again and this time, they assaulted me.”

  “Okay. Who came?” Billy asked, rolling his eyes.

  “Prudence McAllister, Jake, and Cecily.”

  Freckled Cecily Pritchard, seventeen, with hair the color of fire and lemonade, had stood on the sidewalk. She’d been Brooke’s best friend and Morgan’s, too, once upon a time. All three girls had met on the first day of kindergarten and hadn’t separated until ballet and middle school and boys forced their breakup. Until sixth grade, Brooke, Morgan, and sometimes Cecily spent vacations in Hawaii and Mexico with each other’s families. The trio rode their first roller coaster together, learned how to swim and plié together. I drove Brooke to her first dance class, then drove her to every class after that until sixth grade. I taught Cecily how to make French toast and gave her lunch money anytime her mother forgot. I treated those girls like my own anytime we traveled—anything I gave Morgan, they also received without hesitation.

  But then a seismic BFF shift occurred, and soon, Cecily was out and Brooke was in. I noticed this change once Brooke and Morgan bought those necklaces with pendants that said BEST on one and FRIENDS on the other. It had never mattered that Brooke was white and Morgan was black. Sisters from other misters, they’d always say. But soon, Morgan got the lead in both winter and spring recitals. Cute blond soccer team captain Dylan then asked Morgan to junior prom instead of asking Brooke. Brooke started hurling the words “nappy” and “ashy” in Morgan’s direction, and then the swastikas and Pepe the Frog stickers came. Despite all that Morgan had done, all that I had done, Cecily and Brooke put goddamned frog stickers on my daughter’s locker?

  Last year, I did something about it, to make the abuse and harassment stop, and the rest was history. I pleaded with Cecily’s and Brooke’s parents to intervene. When the adults refused and the girls’ behavior continued, I posted pictures and videos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I talked to teachers and college counselors, dance instructors and volleyball coaches. And I had proof.

  And now Billy was smirking. “You’re telling me that three rich white kids—”

  “Jake’s not white—”

  “Two and a half rich white kids drove to a bad neighbor—”

  “Because it’s black, it’s a bad neighborhood?”

  Billy sighed. “Drove into a black neighborhood again after being told to stay away from you, but they drove there anyway to egg your house and beat you up?” He gaped at me. “And that’s a believable story to you?”

  My lips flattened against my teeth as I growled, “It’s not a story. Prudence, that little bitch…” I held up my wrist. “She broke it.”

  “You go to the emergency room?”

  “I’m on my way,” I lied, “but I already know that it’s broken. Fractured, at least.”

  “At least.” Billy shoved his hands into his pockets, then leaned against the doorframe.

  Morgan glared at me from her spot in the living room and shook her head.

  Ashlee appeared behind Morgan and wrapped her long arms around my daughter’s shoulders. She whispered in Morgan’s ear, then together, they left the window.

  “Miriam,” Billy said, “why are you here? What do you want?”

  I stared at the two-year-old scar on his cheek, made by one of my fingernails. The crushing in my chest made it hard to speak—no words came even though my mouth moved.

  “Did you call Phil?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “You call the cops?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  I threw up my hands and squeezed shut my eyes. “Because … I didn’t feel like going through all that tonight. Because I should be home, resting for my trip tomorrow. Because Jake’s dad will simply do the powerful lawyer thing, twisting it so that I was the one who egged my own house and magically contorted enough to break my own wrist. He did it before, he’ll do it again. Once I get back from Mexico, I’ll send copies of everything to Detective Hurley, and to Phillip, and they’ll arrest her ass before she can hurt me again.”

  Billy ran his hands over his face, then let out a long, loud sigh.

  “I have video of them attacking me,” I said.

  He almost smiled, which meant that he smirked. “Let me see it.”

  Shit. I fumbled for my phone. Tapped the security system’s app. Video not available at this time. “I think I have to…” I closed out of the app, then opened it again. Video not available at this time. “Give me a minute.”

  “When was the last time you took a Valium?” he asked.

  My mouth moved again, but instead of speaking, I shrugged. And we stood there in silence until my larynx thawed, and I blurted, “The video, it’s here, I swear.”

  His brown eyes softened. “If the kids did, indeed, come tonight—”

  “I’m not making this up. I really do have video this time. It’s just not playing for whatever reason.”

  “If something truly happened tonight,” he continued, “you should call the police, just to be on record, and then you should call your lawyer. After you’ve taken care of business, you should really take something to calm down. That’s why Dr. Sandoval gave you a prescription. There’s no shame in that, Miriam.”

  I pointed at him with my trembling injured hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t act like you care. I know you don’t.”

  Billy pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re right. I don’t. Nor do I believe you. Because this is what you do.”

  We stood there in silence again.

  He appraised me, his pity barely hiding his scorn. Judging my egg-stained tracksuit and my stiffening hair, my midforties gut and my cracked iPhone. “What is it that you want me to do? What do you want me to say?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This.” He waved his hand at me, then at the sky. “All of this is staged. You manipulated this to get me to do … what? Don’t act surprised. I know you—we were married for eighteen years. What do you want, Miriam?”

  “I wanna see my daughter.”

  “She doesn’t wanna see you. Respect that.”

  Sweaty and shaking, I sipped the jasmine-scented night air as egg crackled and dried across my skin. Enough! I struck my thigh with my healthy fist, then shouted, “Respect? Even though you’re letting her disrespect me? Even though you’re letting her treat me like shit? Even though—”

  Morgan slipped behind her father. The loose tendrils around her head resembled a corona. Her coloring had returned, even though her green eyes still looked flat, lifeless.

  “You know I love you, Mo,” I said to her. “I love you more than anyone in the world.”

  Morgan rolled those cold green eyes. My eyes.

  “Maybe,” Ashlee said, “you should’ve thought about that—”

  “Did I ask you anything?” I demanded, head cocked.

  “You br
ought this on yourself,” Billy said.

  “I was protecting our child.”

  “By persuading another child to kill herself?” Billy screeched.

  “I was acquitted—I didn’t kill her.”

  Billy glared at me, his nostrils wide.

  Morgan hid her face in Ashlee’s knobby shoulder.

  Anger and sadness swirled from my gut up to my heart. “I leave tomorrow.” My knees hitched as I backed off the porch. “And life’s gonna be different when I get back. And you’ll see: you were wrong about me, about them, about everything. You’ll see that…” My voice caught in my throat. “But it’ll be too late.”

  “Okay. Fine. We’ll take that chance.” Billy’s gaze wandered to the neighbor’s house across the street, then down Corning Avenue. “Have a safe trip, Miriam. Get some rest. You need it.”

  My head was spinning and I tasted sour milk and bile. Ripley was hidden in my jacket pocket, and now my hand brushed against the gun’s wooden grip.

  That’s when I decided: as soon as I get back from Mexico, I will kill Ashlee and I will kill Billy. I wouldn’t fail this time. I wouldn’t flinch. I had come so close to it on the night I’d found them together and he had sneered at me, and she had flashed that cold smile at me, and I had launched myself at Billy like a jackal, spitting and clawing until his blood and skin had dirtied my fingernails. That night, at Ashlee’s dumpy apartment in San Pedro, I would’ve shot both of them dead if I’d had a gun. But that night, I didn’t have my gun.

  So close. Billy and Ashlee had no idea that death had been seconds away, that I’d spared them. On this night, though … Once I returned from Mexico, I told myself, I’d handle them the way I should have. And if that meant someone got hurt, so be it.

  * * *

  But that was then. This was now, and now, I didn’t mean it. Not any of it. That night, I’d been angry and hurt and …

  “Let it be, Char, all right?” Eddie said. “I didn’t mean to call you a whore. You know I’m not so good with words, honey. You know I go off sometimes. On everyone, not just you. I just wanted to scare you, is all. My bark is worse than my bite.”

  He chuckled, then added, “Although my bark is a son of a bitch. ’Member that time we got into it on the paddleboats? You really thought I was gonna knock you over into the water and you was scared cuz you can’t swim. You didn’t drown that day, did you? That’s cuz my bark, sweetheart. I’m all talk, Char.”

  It was too early in the morning for his brand of crazy.

  I scanned the room. Soiled cocktail dress. Stiletto heels. Bottle of perfume. Rattail comb. The baggie of Valium I’d reclaimed from Evelyn’s dresser drawer. None of them were good weapons. Especially if Eddie had been snorting Javier’s—

  Gun. My head jerked—in the kitchen, just a day ago, Javier had told me … something something … bag in the pantry … Gat … bought it off some pendejo …

  Tears of joy flooded my eyes—a real gun existed just rooms away.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Eddie continued. “I didn’t drown you, but I did all kinds of other shit to you. Did more than bark. But you know what, Char? You forced my hand.”

  To get that pistol, though, and to find food, I needed Eddie to leave my door. Right then, I was Wendy in The Shining and Eddie was Jack, and we were just as deserted on this island as Jack and Wendy at the Overlook Hotel high up in the Rockies. Wendy had made it out, though. Yes, she had made it out and Jack had frozen to death. All I needed was an ax, a blizzard, and a garden maze. Or Javier’s gun.

  “You cheated on me!” Eddie was now shouting. “What did you expect me to do? And you cheated on me with that nig—? With him? What the fuck, Char? He mouthed off at me, so yeah, I pulled his ass over when I saw him that night. And he disrespected me again, so damn right, I was gonna react. Fuck him. And you know what? Fuck you, too, ya fuckin’ skeezer. You think you’re scared now? You think you’re scared now? Just wait. I got something planned for you, sweetheart.” This time, Eddie’s kick made the armoire tip forward a bit.

  Get him away from the door.

  I lurched over to the vanity and popped a Valium, and then another Valium to make up for lost time. That’s when I spotted the crystal vase filled with fake roses. I tossed the flowers to the carpet and picked up the vase. A Waterford, the finest crystal in the world. I opened the window, letting in jungle-wet air. The sun sat high against the blue sky and its light glimmered down upon the rich green of the trees and high grass. It was a perfect day for destruction.

  I used all of my strength to throw the vase out the window.

  The crystal piece sailed high for a moment, catching enough light to form prisms in its belly before landing in a great crash at the start of the thicket.

  I heard Eddie gasp, and then I heard his heavy silence.

  Soon, footsteps bounded down the hall, then echoed against the hardwood floor in the foyer. The front door slammed.

  I closed my eyes and imagined him staring out from the porch, surveying the wilderness with his weapon ready, seeing nothing … nothing … then … that! That’s when I saw him, in real life, race toward the jungle. He stopped before the trail, knelt, and plucked a shard of crystal from the dirt. He peered at that fragment, then looked back at the house.

  I ducked beneath the window before he saw me. I rubbed my sweaty palms against my pants as I counted to thirty. At thirty-one, I peeked over the windowsill.

  He was now standing with his back to me. Staring … staring … He tossed the glass to the ground, then raced into the wild.

  Now!

  I pushed the chaise and armoire away from the door. Held my breath and peeked out from my room. Nothing to my left except Desi’s wonky door still hanging from its hinges. Nothing to my right except Eddie’s grimy Red Sox cap abandoned on the carpet. Shadows crept along the cold walls, and the heavy silence was broken only by my breathing.

  Go now!

  I didn’t look at the table in the foyer—didn’t want to see which piece would go missing next. Instead, I crept to the kitchen. The Valium was already working like a flatiron that had just smoothed frizzy nerves. And as I crept, I didn’t fret; while I hurried, I wasn’t harried. All good. Just chill. Boom-shaka-laka.

  The kitchen smelled like a Nuyorican bodega on an August afternoon. Food Wallace had used to fix a frittata that no one had eaten still sat on the breakfast counter along with Javier’s dinner remains. Ice cubes clattered into the refrigerator’s bucket, and I froze. Had Eddie heard that noise wherever he was?

  I had to move now, and so I scurried past the dining room. The stink of chaos and vomit and old fish and death made me gag. As I stepped into the butler’s pantry, my stomach growled—my brain had told it that my eyes were now drifting across cartons of crackers, jars of olives, boxes of cereals, dried noodles, dried beans, and canned broth. So orderly in here. Everything stacked just so. Neat. Sensible. And yet, steps away, bodies, cold bodies.

  Business first. Javier’s black duffel bag sat beside a pallet of bottled water.

  I pulled at the bag’s zipper with twitchy fingers.

  Bam! A gunshot reverberated through the jungle.

  What the hell? My heart staggered in my chest for a moment before it was pulled back into its pleasant drugged hug.

  He’d be here any minute now.

  Which he? Eddie or Wallace?

  Didn’t matter. He’d be charging past the saplings, crashing up the porch stairs, banging into the house to find me here …

  Any minute now.

  I rummaged through the duffel bag. Bottles of rum, a baggie of weed, packets of rolling papers, an extra chef’s smock, and a black gun case that looked just like Eddie’s gun case. Yes! I pushed the clasps, and the case opened with a pop.

  Oh shit. No …

  Oh shit.

  The gun case was empty.

  30

  The gun case couldn’t have been emptier.

  No!

  Javier had told me …

&nb
sp; A gat … bought off some pendejo …

  Eddie must have found it and taken it.

  For a minute or two, I couldn’t move. I just stooped there in the pantry, staring at that empty gun case. I stood finally, eyes still on Javier’s bag, mind too relaxed, muscles too far from tense. The Valium was doing its job. Maybe taking two wasn’t a good idea.

  Disappointment poked at me, but I didn’t freak out. Couldn’t freak out. Medically impossible to freak out.

  What now?

  Thinking … thinking …

  I still had Eddie’s lousy popgun that I didn’t trust.

  Oh, well. If that’s the only weapon I have …

  Back on my knees, I sorted through Javier’s black bag. I kept the rum and dumped out everything else. I packed bottles of water, mangoes, and skinny loaves of French bread. In went cans of tuna, a jar of mayonnaise, and crostini just in case I needed to hole up again in my bedroom. Then, with Javier’s bag over my shoulder, I backed out of the pantry.

  Time to head back to my room.

  I paused as I passed the refrigerator. Six newspaper clippings sat beneath six magnets that I hadn’t noticed before.

  The article beneath the cactus magnet: WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS WOMAN LOSES HUSBAND IN TROPICAL STORM.

  Under the Mexican flag magnet, the clipping CUSTOMER DIES OF STROKE AT B.I.G. IN VEGAS included a picture of Javier standing in front of his restaurant.

  An iguana magnet with REDUCED SENTENCE FOR MORTGAGE FRAUD sat beneath the flag.

  There was BOSTON POLICE OFFICER NOT CHARGED and NEW CLUES IN FIFTY-YEAR-OLD DOUBLE MURDER beneath a pair of matching maracas.

  The last article—NO FELONY CHARGES FOR MOTHER IN BULLYING CASE—sat beneath a lime-green butterfly magnet.

  Who had put these here? Evelyn? Wallace?

  On numb feet, I crept back to my room without anyone jumping out at me from the shadows. Before closing the bedroom door, I whispered, “Eddie?” He could’ve snuck in during my adventure to the kitchen, but a quick glance in the closet and under the bed told me that I was alone. With a heavy sigh, I dropped Javier’s bag on the bed. My wrist throbbed as I slid the armoire and chaise back to barricade the door, then hid the gun in the fireplace next to those Bosch figurines.