When the Lights Come On (Barflies Book 4)

by Katia Rose

  I can’t stop doing that until I go in there and say what I need to say.

  I plant one foot on the doorstep, and then the other. The doorbell is faded brass with a white plastic button in the middle. I press it and hear the familiar chime chorus through the house.

  My dad answers, blinking in shock before his face lights up with a smile.

  “Mijita!” He pulls me in for a hug. “Qué sorpresa!”

  He goes on in a mix of Spanish and English. He’s the only person I get to practice actually talking in Spanish with; all I teach Ingrid is how to swear. I’m rusty enough that it’s hard to keep up, but I answer his questions and explain that I was in Toronto and wanted to stop by.

  Which is technically true.

  “Al, who is that?” My mom’s shrill voice calls up from the half-basement where their bedroom and her office are. I freeze at the sound. “If it’s the renovation man, I have some things to say to him.”

  “It’s not the bathroom guy!” he shouts back, looking at me with an excited gleam in his eyes. “Come up and see who it is!”

  I wave my hands for him to stop, but it’s too late. I hear the stairs creaking while my mom mutters complaints about the interruption in Vietnamese, and then she rounds the corner to where we’re standing in the entryway.

  “Paige?” Her eyes go wide.

  She’s wearing a flowy silk shirt and a bunch of makeup. I can count the number of times I’ve seen her without makeup on one hand. I used to love when she’d sit me on her bed and give me makeovers for fun when I was little. I always thought she was so pretty and wanted to look just like her. I’d sit in the backseat of the car and mime out applying lipstick and mascara with her whenever she did a touch-up on the road.

  That was before I learned what people want from pretty girls, before she told me that’s all they’d want.

  “What are you doing here?”

  No one has moved. My dad is looking between the two of us like he’s trying to figure out how to get out of here without being caught in the crossfire.

  It’s typical behaviour for him.

  I clear my throat. “I, uh—I was...around.”

  “You haven’t been home in so long.” She steps forward and puts her hand on my arm. I go tense, and she backs away. “Well, come in. Let’s sit.”

  She leads the way to the living room, and I’ve just settled myself onto the edge of one of the couch cushions when I hear the stairs creak again.

  “Isabella,” my dad calls out, “your sister is—”

  His warning comes too late.

  “Oh my god.” Isabella’s hands fly up to cover her mouth the second she steps into the living room. She stands there staring at me with her eyes bulging. Her arms shake a little.

  I can’t move. I can’t speak. All I can do is look back at her.

  I haven’t seen her in over a year, almost two now.

  She’s as stunning as ever, with long, wavy hair flecked with highlights that falls almost to her waist. Most people say we look alike, although she’s slimmer and taller than me. She’s wearing high-waisted jeans and a teal t-shirt knotted at the front. She seems older, even though she looks almost exactly the same as I remember. There’s something about her stance that makes it clear she’s been living in the city for a few years.

  “Paige,” she finally says as she lets her arms fall to her sides. “You’re here.”

  I nod. “Yeah. I am.”

  “Who wants snacks?” My dad jumps to his feet and starts towards the kitchen. “How about bruschetta?”

  “Dad. No.” My voice comes out harsher than I meant, and I feel the tension in the room kick up a notch. I try again, speaking as softly as I can manage. “I mean, no thank you. Do you mind sitting down? I have some things to say.”

  “I think some snacks would—”

  “Dad. Please.” I pause to take a breath. “Just this time, could you please stay?”

  If he goes into the kitchen, he won’t come back out. It’s always been like this. He’s around for all the fun stuff, but he disappears as soon as my mom and I get into it.

  He disappears as soon as I need him.

  “Okay, mijita. If that’s what you want.”

  He lowers himself into his faded leather armchair, and after a moment of throat clearing and nervous glances all around, Isabella sits down on the loveseat next to my mom.

  I dig my nails into the fabric of the couch beneath me. “So. I came here with some things to say. I know we haven’t been the most...close, and to be honest, I didn’t come here to try and change that. I just want to clear some things up so we can all maybe move forward instead of being so stuck. Everything feels so stuck when it comes to this family, and we...we don’t deserve that. None of us do.”

  I struggle to say it, but it’s true. Whatever happened in the past, we all deserve a future.

  “I’m really angry. A lot of things happened that...that hurt. They hurt really bad, and I know I said some things that hurt too, but I...I got a chance to move forward recently, and I want to take it.” I look straight at my mom. “Mom, I know about Youssef’s letter.”

  She blinks and then squints. “Youssef’s letter?”

  My nails must be about to cut through the cushion cover. “Yes, Mom. Youssef’s letter, from back in high school. I know you took it and switched it for one you typed, and I really need us to talk about that.”

  “Paige, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I can feel my skin getting hot, and part of my brain can’t focus on anything but grabbing the table lamp beside me and throwing it across the room.

  “Mom, please. I know you took it. I met up with him again, and we figured it out. I just really need to hear it from you so we can leave it behind us.”

  “Is that really what you think?” Her eyes narrow, and her voice gets even more high-pitched. “You think I would do something like that to my daughter? I’ve always looked out for you. I worked hard for you and gave you the best life I could, and now you’re going to listen to some man lie about me? Did you forget everything I told you? This is what they do, Paige. This is why I tried to teach you, but you never wanted to listen.”

  “No!” I’m shouting now, but I don’t care. “You never wanted to listen, and he did not lie to me!”

  He couldn’t have. There were two letters. He couldn’t have made that up.

  “Don’t you scream at me in my house!” My mom gets up off the couch and starts yelling in Vietnamese, which is my dad’s cue to stand up too and start slinking away.

  “Really, Dad?” I hurl at him. “You’re really just going to go? Again? Like always?”

  “Now, Paige, listen. Your mother—”

  She cuts him off with another tirade and starts coming closer to me, holding a finger up to my face and speaking so fast I can only catch bits of what she’s saying.

  Everything is so loud, and I need it to stop. I start yelling right back at her, telling her she’s wrong, that she’s lying, that I know she is. Tears are streaking down my cheeks by the time I notice Isabella getting up. She darts over to the two of us and literally wedges herself between us to shove us apart.

  “ENOUGH!” she screams, and the whole room goes silent. “Enough, okay? I did it! I took the letter! I wrote the fake one! It was me. I did it.”

  My mom gasps, and the floor seems to tilt under my feet.

  “W-what?”

  She looks at me with those eyes that are the exact same colour as mine, and I see she’s crying too.

  “I’m sorry, Paige.” Her shoulders slump, and a sob wracks through her body. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. I just didn’t want you to go.”

  Now the floor is really doing some crazy things. “But...but you hated me. You wouldn’t even talk to me anymore. You said this family would be better off without me.”

  I wince at the memory. She said even worse things than that—right before she stopped talking to me at all.

  “Y
ou just got so different,” she explains between sobs, “and you were always fighting with mom, and it was scary. I—I—I thought if I was mean to you, you’d go back to being your old self, but you d—didn’t, and then you met him, and you were never around. I saw him leaving you that letter, and then I read all those things about you guys going far away together and him lo—loving you, and I didn’t want to lose you, Paige! I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “Isabella.” I take a step back, and my calves collide with the couch. I pause to steady myself. “Iz, you were never going to be alone. I would have been there for you whenever you needed it. All you had to do was ask.”

  And it hits me then, so hard I actually drop into a seat on the couch like I’ve been knocked down.

  That’s all I have to do too.

  All I have to do is ask.

  That’s all anyone can do. We all come up with these elaborate measures to protect the most vulnerable parts of who we are. We all wear armour to cover it up, but in the end, that’s all we have to offer to each other.

  That’s what my mom does when she takes the things men use to hurt her and turns them into weapons. That’s what she knows, and despite any mistakes she made along the way, that’s what she tried to teach me: to protect myself.

  That’s what my sister was doing when she took the letter. That’s even what my dad does when he chooses snacks or walks in the park over difficult conversations.

  We all build walls, create realities, and live by codes based on a version of the truth that’s been distorted by fear and pain.

  But we don’t have to.

  And I’m not going to anymore.

  My family stares down at me, probably wondering if I’m entering some kind of stress-induced coma, but I just sit there and take it in.

  “Paige?” Isabella crouches down in front of me, whispering and hovering her hand over my knee like she’s scared to touch me. “Paige, please say something.”

  There’s so much to say. All of us have so much we need to say and hear, but I start with the first thing.

  “It’s okay.” I lean forward and wrap my arms around my sister. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  Isabella pulls into the train station’s parking lot and turns off the engine. Her Mitsubishi is a new enough model to have a push-start, and the inside still has that fresh-from-the-dealer smell. The scent is joined by the sweet steam coming off our Starbucks drinks.

  I stopped for Starbucks.

  With my sister.

  Being in a car with her is so surreal I’m holding back from literally pinching myself, but I can’t stop grinning. There’s this light, bubbling feeling filling my body that asserts this is real, this is happening, this is amazing.

  I didn’t know how this trip home was going to go, but I did not expect it to make me giddy.

  I turn to face Isabella and find her smiling too.

  “Your, um, your hair looks really nice.”

  She glances at the highlighted layers resting on my shoulders, and I start twisting a lock around my finger.

  “Thanks. My friend dyed it. She’s actually one of the friends waiting for me now.”

  “Oh, right, right. You have friends waiting.” She looks at the steering wheel and shifts in her seat. “Well, it was good to, um, see you. Really good.”

  I don’t know if things will ever be ‘really good’ at home, but once I found out it was Isabella who switched the letters, being there did get easier. My mom may have done a lot of things wrong, but now that I know she didn’t do that, it’s easier to see how she was always trying to help me in her own weird, misguided way. It doesn’t make everything all right, but it does make me think we have a shot at some kind of future.

  Just like Isabella and I. She offered to drive me to the station after my dad insisted we stay for bruschetta. We haven’t said much, but we haven’t needed to. I’ve got my sister back. The bond between us is fragile, a patched-up thing that’s going to need way more splints and slings than I did, but it’s still there. I can feel it in every measured breath I take as we sit here in the car.

  “Look, Paige, I know I’ve said it already, but I am so, so, so sorry that—”

  “Iz.” I cut her off, and we both grin a little at the use of her old nickname. “I’m not mad. I promise you, I’m not mad. Things got...bad when we were kids, and we were always just doing our best. You were always doing your best. To be honest, I’m just so fucking happy you never hated me.”

  She shakes her head, and her eyes start getting glassy.

  “Never,” she murmurs. “I never hated you, Paige. I’m just so sorry for everything I ruined. You and Youssef could have—”

  “I’m really done with the ‘could haves.’” I interrupt her again and load my voice with every ounce of the conviction I feel. “I’m done with the ‘what-ifs.’ What happened happened, and there’s no point thinking about who or where I might be if they didn’t. I...I like where I am now.”

  I mean it. I’ll take all the pain that comes with this story because it’s mine. It’s how I became me and accomplished everything that’s mattered to me so far.

  It’s what’s going to lead me to everything that matters to me now.

  “That’s good.” Isabella is really crying now. “I’m so happy you can say that.”

  I lean forward and hesitate for a second before reaching out to squeeze her arm. “Can you say that too, Iz? I want to know you’re happy.”

  “You know what?” She swipes at her eyes. “I like where I am too. I like Toronto. I like my job. Mom is a much better manager now, if you can believe that. I’m doing work that matters to me, and now that I have you, I...I mean, I’m sorry. I know I don’t have you. I know we’ve only just—”

  “Iz.” I squeeze her again. “You’ve got me. You always will.”

  She lets out a sob and throws her arms around me. I pull her close, and we sit like that for a while.

  When I finally leave the car, coffee in hand, she rolls down the window, and we promise to give each other a call when I’m back in Montreal. Ingrid and DeeDee are already waiting in the station. They give me curious looks as we head for the platform, but for now, I just grin.

  “So.” Ingrid finally cracks once we’re in our seats waiting for the train to start moving. “Are we gonna talk about it?”

  I turn from staring out the window and give her a small smile.

  “You were right. I needed that.”

  “Are you guys all good?” DeeDee asks. “We started to think we’d have to come in and do a convention.”

  Ingrid and I squint at her. “A convention?”

  “You know? A convention?” She looks between the two of us. “Like when someone is addicted to drugs, and they trick them into coming home, and the whole family is there, and they make them sit down on a chair and go, ‘This is a convention!’”

  Ingrid and I start killing ourselves laughing.

  “Intervention,” Ingrid wheezes after a minute. “I think you mean intervention.”

  We start laughing all over again, but DeeDee just shrugs and pretends to inspect her nails.” Whatever, English people.”

  “But seriously, Paige,” Ingrid urges after we’ve recovered. “You okay?”

  I nod. “Honestly, I don’t know if my family is ever going to be, like, picture perfect or anything close to it, but today is the first time I’ve ever felt like we could be okay. I feel...This is so fucking stupid, but I feel free.”

  “Ben ouais!” DeeDee holds her hand up for a high five. “That’s what I’m talking about! Now we must make a plan for you to get Youssef back when he comes home.”

  I shake my head as a huge smile splits my face. “I can’t wait. I’m getting on the next flight to LA.”

  Twenty-Two

  Youssef

  FIDELITY: A measure of audio quality

  “What’s up, You-man?”

  I drop onto my hotel bed and hold my phone in front of my face as Nabil comes into view on the screen.<
br />
  “You-man? That’s a new one.”

  “You don’t seem impressed.”

  I chuckle. “I’m not.”

  “Whatever. I’m just trying things out. I figured you needed a cool LA name or something.”

  “And you came up with You-man?”

  He flips me off. “Screw you. I’m being a nice friend, calling to check in on how you are and stuff, and you’re mocking my creative choices.”

  “Maybe you should make better creative choices.”

  He shakes his head and places a hand on his chest. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that. So, how are you? How’s LA?”

  I crane my neck to glance at the palm trees out the window. I can hear the rumble of the ever-present traffic even with the glass shut.

  “It’s pretty crazy. Everyone seems famous, or at least acts like they are. The city itself is amazing, but we haven’t gotten to see much of it. Mostly I’ve been in meetings or out having meals with industry people. We actually have this dinner tonight about the single. I’m supposed to sign stuff tomorrow.”

  I can’t keep the dread out of my voice. I knew what I was going to do the second I walked into my first meeting at Nautilus Records.

  This isn’t me.

  It took actually getting here to be sure of it, but now I’m sure this isn’t my path. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get over the mind fuck of being handed everything I’ve ever wanted on a silver platter and realizing I didn’t even want a bite, but that’s where I am now. I’m done questioning.

  I just have to let everyone else know.

  “And?” Nabil asks.

  I shift on the bed. “And what?”

  “Are you going to do it?”

  “I—Hey, wait. Shouldn’t you be telling me I’m crazy, or asking me why I’m not already popping champagne?”