Fragments of Ash

by Katy Regnery

  “Tea? Oh. No. That’s okay, but thanks.”

  She drops her bag on the floor and pulls a stool out from under the counter. I pour boiling water into my white mug, then pull out the stool across from hers.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Jules didn’t tell me your name.”

  Jules? Hmm.

  “It’s Ashley,” I say, reaching my hand across the table to shake hers.

  I know that “Jules” won’t like it that I’m downstairs visiting with his sister, but it feels rude to leave her all alone, so I decide to stay just until he makes an appearance.

  Noelle cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing. “You look so familiar to me.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  “Why?” She pauses, her brain trying to figure it out. “Who do you remind me of?”

  Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading my mother’s diary today, or because I’m just so sick and tired of hiding who I am, but I sit up straighter and say, “Tígin.”

  “Tígin?” says Noelle. “The model?” I watch her face as she does a mental comparison, her eyes widening and lips parting as she makes the connection. “Oh, my God. I’ve seen pictures of you two in People magazine! You’re her sister.”

  I’m about to nod when a voice behind me makes me freeze.

  “Who’s whose sister?”

  I snap my neck to look over my shoulder.

  Julian stands in the kitchen doorway in jeans and a T-shirt, his feet bare, his hair wet, and his face so spectacularly handsome as he grins at Noelle, that the humming and buzzing starts up between my legs again. I gulp softly, clenching my thighs together before turning back to Noelle.

  “Ashley!” exclaims Noelle. “She’s Tígin’s sister!”

  “Tígin . . . the model?”

  “Yes!”

  I don’t face Julian, but I hear his feet step into the room, smell his freshly showered scent as he passes me. Now his eyes are staring back at mine from across the counter. Just like his sister, he scans my face, realization dawning on his features as he nods slowly.

  “Oh, yeah. Huh. I missed that.”

  “I didn’t mention it,” I say.

  “Why not?” he asks, his expression troubled.

  “It’s better if . . . I mean . . . she’s . . . forget it.” I purse my lips for a second before slipping off my stool and reaching for my cup. “It was nice to meet you, Noelle.”

  “Wait,” she says, hopping off her own stool and rushing around the counter to stand before me. “Where are you going?”

  I shoot a quick glance at Julian, who’s still staring at me thoughtfully, before I look back at his sister. “I stay upstairs. In the attic.”

  “So?” she asks. “You eat dinner down here, right?”

  “Yes . . . but . . . n-no. I can’t. I . . . I mean . . .”

  “Jules!” she says. “Ashley has to join us for dinner tonight. Tell her.”

  “I’m sure she has other—”

  “You’ll join us, won’t you? We always order from Pizza Hearth in Charlotte. It’s decent for Vermont. I promise!”

  Julian crosses his arms over his chest and shrugs. It’s clear he wants me to decline, but the thought of going back upstairs to my attic room and Tig’s vitriol makes me feel so desperate, I find myself nodding at Noelle.

  “I’d love to. Thank you for inviting me.”

  “Great. That’s settled.” She steps back around the counter and grabs her bag. “I’ll put my stuff in your room, Jules. Open a few beers for us?”

  She breezes from the kitchen, leaving me and her brother alone. He gives me an appraising look from across the counter.

  “Really?”

  “Really what?”

  “You’re Tígin’s sister?”

  I nod.

  “Kind of a big detail to omit about your life, don’t you think?”

  I know he doesn’t really want an answer, so I shrug, taking a sip of my tea and ignoring the opportunity to point out that he’s never really asked.

  “So why are you here?” he asks. “In a fight with your big sister? You must know a million people, have a million places where you could go.”

  “Gus is here,” I say simply.

  “Who is he to you?”

  “My godfather. He was her best friend.”

  “Wait . . . was?” His brows furrow.

  “She died two weeks ago.”

  “Oh, man.” He flinches. “Fuck. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  I reach for my mug and take a sip of my tea, quietly accepting his sympathy.

  “Were you . . . being hounded? By the press?”

  It would be a lie to nod because, for most of my life, the press has left me alone, especially since Tig got married and retired. But I am not prepared to tell Julian the specific reason I’m hiding here. Besides, Gus hasn’t given me permission to talk about it, and I wouldn’t want to put him and Jock in danger by saying too much.

  I take a deep breath and lower my cup. “I just needed to get away.”

  “Yeah.” He nods slowly, though he’s still scanning my face like he has about a hundred more questions for me. “I get that. It’s tough to lose someone.”

  “It was sudden.” The words spill out of my mouth, though I didn’t feel them coming.

  “What do you mean? Like a sudden illness?”

  “The coroner said she overdosed on heroin, but she was clean. She got married a few years ago, and she hasn’t . . . I mean, she wasn’t doing drugs anymore. I don’t . . . I don’t know why she’d backslide.”

  His face changes a little as he absorbs this news. “She was an addict?”

  “Years ago,” I say. “But she was clean. I’d know if she was using.”

  He leans forward, bracing his elbows on the counter as he looks into my eyes, and I don’t know why, but I keep talking.

  “I saw her at Easter,” I say, the words falling from my lips in a nervous rush. “She seemed fine. A month later, she overdosed? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “I’m sure it’s a painful time for you, but . . .” He sighs softly. “It’s hard for addicts to stay clean. It doesn’t take much for them to—”

  “No,” I say firmly. “She took her sobriety seriously.”

  Julian’s eyes widen. “Okay. Then what do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I was at school. I . . .” My voice trails off. When I find it again, it’s thick with emotion. “I don’t know.”

  “How ’bout those cold beers?”

  Noelle bounds back into the kitchen, headed for the refrigerator. She takes out three amber bottles and places them on the counter, looking back and forth between me and her brother.

  “Whoa. Who died?” Suddenly she flinches, which means that, unlike her brother, she read somewhere about my sister’s death. “Fuck! I’m an idiot, Ashley. I saw the news on Twitter. Sorry.” She blows out a breath, wincing at me. “God, I’m such an asshole. Sorry, again.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, watching her pop the caps off three bottles.

  “Do you drink?” asks Julian, glancing at my untouched beer while he and his sister clink bottles in cheers.

  “No, thanks,” I say. “I’ll stick to tea.”

  For most of my childhood, I had a front-row seat to the ravages of addiction. I have no interest in setting off down a similar path. Because I like the way some wines pair with specific foods, I will occasionally drink it with a meal. But only then in moderation.

  Julian draws a bottle to his lips, sipping as he stares at me. When he sets the bottle back down on the counter, he asks, “So . . . what do you like on your pizza?”

  His voice is warm—almost kind—and something inside me sighs, feeling lighter, better, easier, than it did when I came downstairs half an hour ago. I’m not entirely certain what’s prompted the change in his demeanor—learning that my “sister” was a supermodel? finding out that she recently died?—but right this second, I don’t really car
e. Right this second, he doesn’t hate me anymore, and I’m surprised to discover that’s all that matters.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Julian

  As I sit across a picnic table from Ashley, staring at her sister-of-a-supermodel face in the glow of a flickering citronella candle, I admit to myself that I’ve enjoyed tonight. Perhaps more importantly I’ve allowed myself to enjoy it.

  Learning a little more about who Ashley is, and that she’s here to mourn her sister, has been a game changer for me in my feelings about her living here. It’s not that I suddenly trust her, per se, but I finally have some answers about who she is and why she’s hiding out in the middle of nowhere. I’m no stranger to loss, and the truth is—as I look across the table at my little sister—losing Noelle would break me. I can’t imagine what Ashley is suffering, and that I have added to her pain by snapping and barking at her fills me with shame. Gus brought her here for sanctuary, and I have compromised her peace by rejecting her modest efforts to live companionably.

  You can do better, Julian, I tell myself, and as I watch Ashley in the flickering candlelight, an intense longing takes root within me.

  Noelle nudges me under the table, and I curse internally. Like every little sister in the world, she has effortlessly picked up on something I just as soon would have kept to myself: my newly sanctioned crush. Fuck. When we get back to my room, she’s going to be relentless. Hell, she’s probably already planning our wedding.

  Thankfully Ashley’s stories are so compelling, I find myself alternately grimacing and chuckling at another misadventure of Tígin’s instead of brooding. The tales she’s told us about growing up with her famous sister are riveting. At turns hilarious, unbelievable, and awful, she paints a vivid picture of Tig as a hedonistic, headstrong woman who said “Fuck the world” a lot more than she probably should have.

  “Then what?” asks Noelle, sipping her third beer.

  Whether she likes it or not, it’s also her last beer. I’ve been counting, she’s underage, and a fourth beer will make her bold enough to say things that will embarrass me and Ashley. I’m cutting her off when this one is cashed.

  “Well, the ratings on Lure Me were still really good. I mean, The Devil Wears Prada had started this fascination with fashion magazines, and Ugly Betty was still their only major competition.”

  “So they didn’t fire her?” asks Noelle. “I mean, I know they didn’t, because she was still on the show, but what happened behind the scenes?”

  “The network said she had to apologize to Vanessa Williams and give ten thousand dollars to the NAACP.” Ashley’s smile is small as she shakes her head. “I mean, the weirdest thing of all is that Tig wasn’t racist at all. Not even a little bit. She just really hated Vanessa.”

  “Like, personally?”

  Ashley nods. “Which is so strange because she’s seriously the nicest woman in the world.” She picks up her glass and takes a drink of water. “Maybe Tig was jealous of her. I don’t know what the problem was between them.”

  Noelle has stars in her eyes. “I bet you know a ton of celebrities.”

  “I met a lot when I was little,” says Ashley. “But I’m not really from that world. Not anymore, anyway. We moved away from Hollywood when I was thirteen and my mo—sister enrolled me in Catholic boarding school.”

  “Boarding school?” I ask.

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Where?”

  She stares at me for a second, and I can read her face like a book: she doesn’t want to tell me. Why not? I wonder. Why is the location of her boarding school a secret? I suddenly realize that, while she seems forthcoming, sharing stories with me and Noelle over pizza, she’s been telling us a lot about her famous sister and precious little about herself. She mentioned, at some point, that her sister was born in Wales, where her parents still live, but she was born in Ohio. And I know that Gus is her godfather. But it startles me a little to realize I haven’t learned much else about her tonight.

  She smiles politely, her expression closing before my eyes, and says, “It’s late, isn’t it? Thank you so much for dinner. I haven’t had pizza in a long time. It was really good.”

  “Thanks for joining us,” says Noelle, smiling at Ashley like she’s her newly minted BFF.

  “I invited Gus and Jock for dinner tomorrow,” Ashley says, holding Noelle’s eyes and pointedly ignoring mine. “I hope you’ll both join us at six.”

  “We’d love to!”

  I kick my sister under the table. In retaliation, she reaches over and pinches the top of my thigh. Hard.

  “Can we pick up dessert?” she cheerfully asks.

  Ashley shakes her head. “Nope. I’ll take care of everything.”

  She pushes away from the table, reaching for our plates and stacking them on top of her own. Gathering the empty cups and used cutlery, she cradles the pile of dirty dishes in her arms as she stands. It occurs to me now, after learning that her sister was runway royalty, that she’s actually pretty humble. She cooks and washes dishes. She grew up in Hollywood, flush with cash, witnessing God only knows what, but was moved, at a young age, to a Catholic boarding school.

  Without realizing it, I’m piecing together the two strange halves of who she is.

  Part temptress, part angel.

  Part shrewd, part foolish.

  Part wisdom, part innocence.

  Our past determines our future, I think to myself as Noelle stands up and moves around the table to say good night to her. If she is part Hollywood chaos and part Catholic school virtue, I wonder, who am I? What makes up the parts of me? Without warning, three faces pass through my head: Noelle’s. My mother’s. Magdalena’s. Three different women who have influenced my life, my journey, my future.

  I look up as Noelle opens her arms, and Ashley seems lost for a moment before realizing that Noelle wants to hug her. She puts the stack of plates on the table, steps forward into my sister’s arms, and hugs her back.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” says Ashley.

  Noelle nods, pulling away. “For sure. Night, Ashley. Thanks for the awesome stories!”

  “Anytime,” she says, picking up the plates. Her eyes land on mine.

  “Good night,” I say, holding her gaze in the candlelight before she turns away, walks back up to the house, and disappears into the kitchen.

  As soon as she’s out of sight, Noelle looks at me with huge eyes. I can feel my sister’s energy building, like a mega-wave coming at me from a distance, getting closer and closer, bigger and bigger, the funnel widening to the height of a fully-grown man until she blurts out:

  “OH. MY. GOD!”

  She whispers so loud, my head whips toward the house to see if Ashley is listening.

  “Noelle—”

  “She was so nice! And she’s so pretty! Don’t you think she’s pretty? Oh, my God, and she’s Tig’s sister! Tig! The supermodel! Holy cow! Her life was so glamorous, wasn’t it? JULES! She’s making dinner for us tomorrow night! Oh, my God! SAY SOMETHING!”

  The answers to her questions are: no and no.

  No, she’s not pretty. She’s gorgeous.

  And no, her life wasn’t glamorous. Growing up with a junkie sister before being shipped off to Catholic boarding school? Doesn’t sound so great to me, honestly. Sounds like a little bit of a mind fuck.

  But I will say this: her life has aged her, maturity-wise. She’s only eighteen, and yet she speaks, thinks, and carries herself like someone years older. My sister is twenty and she’s much younger in many ways. As evidenced by her next question . . .

  “Are you totally going to ask her out?”

  “No.”

  “What?” Noelle climbs up on the bench next to me and sits on the table, frowning down at me. “What do you mean, no?”

  “No, I’m not asking her out.”

  “You don’t like her?”

  She says this like it is absolutely unthinkable.

  “She’s fine,” I answer.

  “Fine? She’s
beautiful and like, so nice!”

  True. Noelle’s right on both counts . . . so far.

  But my mind flashes back to the way she hedged my final question about where she attended school. Hmm. There’s something going on with Ashley. I don’t know if I believe that she’s only up here grieving out of the public eye. I think there could be more to the story, and until I find out what it is, it would be smart to keep my distance, no matter what my cock wants.

  I cross my arms over my chest and give my sister a look. “Did you know Parker was cheating on you in Barcelona?”

  Hurt dusts over her features, and I’m sorry, but only a little bit. I need to make a point that my sweet little sister will understand.

  “No.”

  “When he left, did you expect him to be faithful?”

  “Yes,” she says, lifting her chin.

  “So would it be safe to say he deceived you?”

  She sighs. “Yes.”

  “That sucks, right? Believing one thing and finding out later that you were wrong.”

  “Obviously,” she huffs.

  “Well, Ashley’s not telling us everything, tamia. I can promise you that.”

  My sister stares at me for a second, her green eyes hard. Finally she practically hisses, “What the hell happened to you, Jules?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shakes her head, her expression a mix of sympathy, exasperation, and disgust. “I mean, you changed. What happened? Why did you lose your job?”

  “I’ve told you before: I made a protocol mistake that—”

  “What mistake?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Why’d you move up here? Why’d you become such an asshole? You don’t trust anyone anymore. You won’t even give someone a chance! When she’s perfectly fucking nice!”

  “Noelle, calm down.”

  “No!” she cries. “Tell me what happened!”

  “I can’t,” I say, and technically, at least, this is true. I’m not supposed to talk about what happened in Cartagena. It’s embarrassing for the Secret Service that one of their own screwed up so completely.

  “That’s bullshit. I’m your sister. You could tell me, and you know I’d take it to the grave.”