I stare at Jeremiah. Holy shit. He actually believes this crazy story. He actually believes all of it. “That’s not what happened,” I say. “You’re completely wrong, about everything.” I want to tell him about the letter that will be arriving in the mail for him any day now. But, of course, I can’t. And now I’m realizing it won’t even help. It’s not enough; it’s coming too late.
“You can tell it to the police,” Jeremiah says. “I’m sure they’d love to discuss it with you.” And with that, he shrugs, then turns and walks away.
I stand there, my insides on fire. I want to scream and shout, tell him he’s wrong. But there is nothing left for me to say, nothing left for me to do. Everything is going to come crashing down.
Chapter 42
Delia
Once upon a time there was a boy named Trevor who did something bad but for very good reasons. To the wrong people, those reasons didn’t even matter, they just did not give a fuck about the why. So instead of sitting around waiting for the serious trouble that was coming, instead of waiting for them to kill him, Trevor drove off a cliff. And his body sank down, down in the water, so deep that no one could ever find it.
Trevor loved music, played a half-dozen instruments, and was a DJ. His old friends played songs at the funeral, a string quartet came, an electric guitar player. Then an urn with his name carved on the outside was buried in a hole in the ground. But it was only symbolic—there was nothing in there. “It’s as empty as my heart is now,” his mother said.
Now that boy’s name is Sebastian.
And today Sebastian has made a remix on his laptop.
Prominent surgeon, prom-prom-prominent surgeon. Meth-meth-methamphetamine. The news anchor’s voice has been auto-tuned, and there’s a video of William tipping his head down away from the camera, over and over and over. We’ve been watching it on repeat. The tune is really quite catchy. We are giddy, all of us. Ashling is dancing, arms up over her head, shaking her perfect ass. I reach out and smack it. She giggles. We are high on power and rightness.
“Does it ever get old?” I say to none of them, to all of them. But I don’t need to wait for them to answer. This is the fun part; I’m nervous for what comes after. But the reasons are everything. The reasons are what matter.
It didn’t take much convincing for them to understand what the next part must be. Ashling agreed right away—she wanted to claim it as her own idea, even. Evan, too. Sebastian was the holdout, but I put it in terms he could understand. What he did in his own life was hardly different at all. “What if the baby is a girl?” I said. “What then?” And that was enough.
But we don’t need to think about it now.
The song stops. “AGAIN!” Ashling says. And Sebastian smirks, almost smiles. He is watching the door. I know he’s waiting for Junie too. Well, get in line, pal. Get in the goddamn line.
And then it happens. I feel her before I see her, the bright blue light of her inside my chest, lighting up the dark parts. She walks inside earlier than expected. “Junie!” I call out. My voice loud and rough. I could overwhelm her so easily—I need to not do that. I don’t throw my arms around her the way I want to, and Ashling is watching, anyway.
But when Junie turns, her face says everything and I feel a flickering inside, something flaring up in the bad way, in the scary way that I cannot always control.
She stands in the middle of the room, she takes a breath. “Jeremiah thinks . . . he thinks I killed you.”
Her voice is low, hollow, terrified. I feel a flood of relief. I thought it was going to be something bad for real. Jeremiah is a pigeon, a donkey, a fly. A tiny candle so easily blown out.
“It’s okay,” I say to her. I want to pull her toward me, to stroke her like a sweet little rabbit.
“No, you don’t understand,” she says. She is looking at me, saucer eyes vibrating back and forth. She is more freaked out than I realized at first. I am feeling her feelings inside my skin. “He says he’s going to the police.” I pull her to me, and she’s shaking. She feels cold. I let the fire inside me warm her up. “He’s out of his mind. He told me . . .” She pauses then, like she doesn’t even want to say what she’s about to say.
“What is it?” And now I’m scared too, scared I know what’s coming, and scared I don’t.
“He told me that you were sleeping with Ryan before you and Jeremiah started dating. He said you were sleeping with a swimmer who was rich and pretty and that you told him that, and he decided that must be Ryan. But is it true you did that? With a swimmer, I mean?”
Her words come out in a jumble. But here’s the worst part, what terrifies me: She says Jeremiah is crazy, only she doesn’t think so, not completely. What she’s scared of isn’t just the police, an investigation. She’s scared he might be telling the truth.
The flame inside me grows bigger, hotter. I can’t let myself breathe, the oxygen will only feed it. I close my eyes. I wait for the blood to pound in my ears, for my body to scream out, to beg for air. I’ve passed out like this before, trying to starve that inside fire. I feel it going down, shrinking. When my vision starts to cloud, I finally open my mouth again.
“He’s lying,” I say, and my voice sounds almost like a regular voice coming from a regular mouth. “You must know that. If he thinks you did something to me, maybe he’s just trying to get you upset. He’s hoping you’ll crack and then reveal things without meaning to. But I will take care of it. Jeremiah can’t hurt you.” I don’t even bother saying “we” this time. Me. I will do this. No one else, all on my own. I will do what I have to do.
I put my hands on her cheeks. The fire comes right back, greedy and starving, I feel the sickest I’ve felt in a long time. “It’s okay. It will be okay. I promise.” I hold her face and look deeply into her eyes until I feel her coming back to me.
I nod slowly. She nods too. We have to get out of this house, to go do something else, somewhere normal.
“Let’s go out,” I say. “Shopping. I need clothes.” I turn to Ashling. There is a bag of cash in the closet, so much of it, it looks like play money. Ashling dumped it all out on the bed and made me fuck her in it once. We laughed the whole time, because it was so ridiculous. “Some pervert would pay a lot of money for a video of this,” she said. “But we obviously don’t need it.” And she shoved fifty in her mouth, and then, because she was drunk and she could, she ate it.
They get it all sorts of ways. Evan’s skills come in especially handy for that. There’s so much of it, it almost doesn’t mean anything. Money is only as useful as what you can buy with it, and for a while there was nothing I could imagine wanting. But there is now.
We have to pretend we’re normal people living in the regular world, but better. We have to show her how good all of this is, can be. If we don’t, I will lose her completely.
Chapter 43
June
It’s three hours later, three hours since I got back to the house, sick and scared of everything. And now we’re at a fancy shopping mall two hours away, playing dress-up. It’s so insane and so surreal, but somehow this weirdness is calming me down. It’s like any other day, except suddenly there’s this bag of cash and I don’t know where it came from, and we had to drive for hours so that Delia won’t be recognized. Since she isn’t supposed to exist anymore.
Delia nods at Ashling’s reflection in the mirror. “Get it,” she says simply. “It would be criminal not to.”
Ashling is trying on a dark brown leather jacket, snug fitting to the waist, made of smooth leather with brass zippers on the sides and at the chest. She looks stunning in it. She faces the mirror and then turns halfway around. I look at the price tag. It costs half as much as my car, and I saved up for over a year to buy that.
“I’ll get it, then,” Ashling says. “Definitely don’t want to be criminal.” She sticks out her tongue. She’s trying to be playful, but something about it
feels forced. All of this feels forced, I think.
There are five bags at Delia’s feet already. Jeans, shirts, dresses, shoes, boots, bras, everything. Enough stuff for a brand-new life. Delia paid in cash for all of it, slapping stacks of bills down on the counter, smiling too widely, too brightly. I know this Delia, the charming one, making friends with everyone, talking fast. I missed this girl, but I’m also scared of her. She can do anything. She has. She does.
The dressing room is covered in piles of clothes; Delia brought them in by the armful. I’m sitting on a bench, near the mirror. Delia reaches out and grabs a cream-colored wrap dress made of lacy sweater material. She tosses it at me.
“Try that on,” Delia says.
“That’s okay” I say. I shake my head.
“For fun,” says Delia. And she has that look on her face—a wheedling smile, a come-on-out-to-play smile. I know I have no choice.
I slide my own sweater and shirt over my head, suddenly self-conscious to be half dressed in front of them, though I don’t know why. Putting on the dress is like putting on a bathrobe. The fabric feels so soft against my skin. But the belt is confusing and I can’t figure out how to tie it. Delia is watching me, still smiling. She comes over and takes the belt and fits it through a tiny hole in the side of the dress. She pulls the two ends around me and ties it at the back, tight. Ashling is staring. I feel myself blush.
“You look like a milkmaid,” says Delia. “The kind that might make a guy like Ryan consider stopping boning cows.”
I feel a tightening in my stomach. I try to force a laugh. I don’t want to think about any of that right now. So I focus on this dress.
“Doesn’t she?” Delia says to Ashling.
Ashling nods vaguely.
“Yup,” Delia says. “You’re getting it.”
I shake my head. “I was trying it on for fun. I don’t need it. This isn’t my money. It’s yours.”
“It’s no one’s,” Delia says. “But we happen to have it, and we share. And you’re with us. At least look in the mirror.”
I slowly turn to see the girl in the creamy white dress, whose skin looks pink and fresh, whose curves look soft and warm.
“It’s yours,” Delia says. “Don’t fight me. You know I’ll win.”
I shake my head. “I look like someone else,” I say, finally.
“So be someone else for a while.” Delia’s lips spread into a slow grin. “Who knows, you might like it.”
The house is beautiful at night, lit from within, orange and gold against a dark sky. We take Delia’s many bags out of the trunk, and Ashling’s jacket, and the dress, which I guess is my dress now.
We walk into the house.
“Honeys, we’re home,” Delia calls out.
“Hello, dears,” Evan calls back from the kitchen. Music is playing, trumpets and piano over beats. The lights are down low. The kitchen island is covered in platters of food. The air smells sweet and warm, like butter and garlic and other things I cannot name. I am filled with a wave of happiness, how lucky I am to be here. And then a squeezing in my chest, because I do not ever want this to end.
But it will. Soon, even. They will leave. This will be over.
And I will be alone again.
And this thought is followed by all of the other things I’m trying not to think about—Jeremiah and what he said, what he might do. Ryan and what they did to him.
But I’m here now. I remind myself I have to focus on that. I have to at least try.
Dinnertime.
The table is set—thick white plates on the gnarled wood, chunky glasses made of wavy bubbled glass. There are three thin candles, flickering in the center. I’m wearing the new dress, because Delia made me. No shoes, no tights, because I don’t have those things. It’s cold outside, but warm and cozy in here.
And when I walk into the kitchen in that yellow light, wearing my cream-colored dress and bare feet and no tights, and Sebastian looks at me, eyes sliding up and down before settling on my face, I feel fluttering in my belly and energy shooting up my spine.
I know Delia has arranged this, all of this, for me.
“You look pretty,” Sebastian says. And I feel myself blushing, embarrassed at how happy these three words make me. And then I try to find something to keep myself busy, because everyone is being useful around me and suddenly I do not know what to do with my hands.
Evan and Delia carry the food out to the table—roasted orange carrots, potatoes crispy and brown around the edges. A creamy soup, colored with saffron. Grilled salmon, flecked with dill. Ashling fills our glasses with wine.
Sebastian takes something out of the oven—a pie oozing with fruit—and sets it out to cool.
They’re moving together like a machine, like a single being, and there isn’t anything for me to do, so I straighten the shiny hammered silverware until it’s time to sit down.
“This looks awesome, bud,” Evan says.
“Yeah, thank you,” Ashling says.
And I realize that Sebastian has made all of it. I look at him, at his serious face. He shrugs, but I think I see a flicker of a smile.
We are all around the table now. Delia raises a glass. “To family,” she says. She looks me straight in the eye.
I stab my fork into a potato. I take a bite—the edges are crusty and the inside is perfectly fluffy. It is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. And so is the bite of salmon I take next, and the other dishes after that.
I am ravenous. My stomach growls. I don’t want to drop anything on this dress.
I take a sip of the wine just to slow myself down. But I’m surprised to find that I like it. It tastes rich and round as it swirls over my tongue. I look up, and Sebastian is watching me.
And so I take another sip, and then another one. I feel my face flushing red and I am starting to smile. The rest of them are smiling too. We are all smiling. We are all happy and here together. The world outside of here, the things I do not want to think about, they’re all so far away.
“So,” Evan says slowly, “that stuff we’ve been expecting . . .” Something about his tone makes me feel like he’s been waiting to say this, waiting for the right time. “It’s almost ready. Will be here by Friday at the latest.”
Ashling smiles and Delia glances quickly at me, then nods.
I take another sip of wine. The more I have, the better it tastes. “What stuff?” I say.
“Some stuff we’ve been waiting for,” says Ashling. She shrugs. “For Delia.”
Sebastian is watching Ashling. He doesn’t look happy.
“We can finish off now,” says Evan. “Because then it will be time to go.”
I feel a jolt of panic. “What’s next?” I say. I try to smile, to make my voice sound light.
And I want to ask more questions, the ones I haven’t allowed myself, that have been on the tip of my tongue since I first came to this house. They’re being loosened by the wine; they’re going to start making their way out of my mouth soon. But I keep my lips clamped shut. This moment is too perfect. I don’t want to ruin it. It will all be over too fast, then they will go wherever they’re going. And more than anything, I want to hold on to this to fill my heart up with it so that when they’re gone, and I’m alone, floating off in space with no one, I’ll at least have this night to keep me tethered to earth.
“So, who wants more salmon?” Sebastian says. He’s trying to change the subject. He doesn’t want me to ask more, to know more.
Delia looks me in the eye. She winks.
Later. We’re outside in the backyard and I know it’s cold, because my breath is fogging up the air around us, but I can’t feel it. I am warm, cozy, the very opposite of lonely. This is the very best feeling in the world. I think maybe I’m drunk.
Evan is rubbing his hands together while Sebastian lights a fire in the
fire pit. Ashling passes the bottle of wine to Evan, who swigs and passes to Delia, who swigs and passes to me.
“I can’t believe this bottle has lasted all night,” I say.
And Ashling gives me a funny look and lets out a little cough of a laugh. “June, that’s, like, the fifth one we’re on now.”
“Hmmm,” I say. “I guess that explains it.” Then I smile and half laugh without meaning to. I take a gulp. It tastes like the inside of my mouth. I look at the others, lips stained purple. Sebastian’s purple lips are perfect.
He is standing over the iron fire pit, twisting newspaper and adding sticks. He flicks a match, tosses it in. There’s a crackle and a whoosh as the flames flare up.
I wonder if this is what Delia’s fire looked like. I wonder if Sebastian was the one who lit it.
There are chairs around the fire, big ones made of logs. It seems weird to have wood chairs around such a big fire—it would be so easy for them to burn, I think. So many things are so flammable! It’s amazing everything is not on fire all the time, considering how it spreads.
We all sit down, lean back, and soak in the heat. Delia isn’t scared. We’re sitting around a fire, a big one, and she’s leaning up close to it.
I feel like I’m floating. I look up at the stars. I imagine I’m soaring up, up, up, and through space. I look back down at the people in front of me, warm on this cold night. Out here in the dark I feel like I could say anything. All those questions I’ve had stuck inside, I can open my mouth and let them out and it will be okay. So I do.
Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls Page 18
