Becky just chuckled. She placed the tapes, CDs, the photo, and the file back in the box and switched off her computer. “We’re the same. You just don’t realize it yet.” She picked up the box and put it next to the large rectangular chest in the cupboard under the stairs, then shut the cupboard door and locked it.
Maybe it was best to steer clear of family heaviness. Today was supposed to be about fun. On the other hand, what else was there? It wasn’t like they had friends in common, was it? But even as she asked herself the questions, she knew the answer. There was something between them. Back in the van Abigail decided to ask something she had begged herself not to ask. Saying the words would mean that she cared. Then again, she supposed she did.
“Is he your boyfriend? You know …”
“Stick! Shit, no. Not that he hasn’t tried.” Becky fidgeted with the steering wheel, as if she couldn’t decide whether to go on. In the end, she shrugged and smiled, turning to give Abigail the stare she was growing used to. “Let’s just say I’m not interested in sticks.”
Abigail blinked. She nodded. She didn’t want to appear shocked, or overly impressed, but she was both. Score another one for Becky. This girl, this person, this sister, was a bottomless well of surprises. Plus, there was the bonus: she wasn’t Stick’s girlfriend.
And never would be, Squeaky-Voiced Finger finished in silence.
The guard’s growl was a familiar one. “You can’t take that in here!” Give the guard a brogue, he’d fit right in at a detention center in Glasgow.
“Right you are.” Becky handed over her iPhone and took a seat in the visiting area, gesturing for Abigail to join her.
The room was also depressingly similar. Leaflets littered the dirty walls: DRUGS HELPLINE! SUICIDE HELPLINE! USE CONDOMS! DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HEPATITIS C? ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IMMUNIZATIONS! She wished they could be back at the house, splashing each other in the pool.
Instead, Becky had brought her to a place filled with Unloved Nobodies. It was their last stop before heading home to drink cocktails and “get a swerve on.” Abigail had also made a mental note to divert Becky from the getting-a-swerve-on idea. They could go for another swim, or watch a movie … or something. She’d at least try to keep Becky from writing herself off every day. Becky obviously gravitated toward people less fortunate than herself. Becky wanted to help. Abigail got it; she’d wanted to help Camelia. But Abigail hadn’t had a choice. Why did Becky need to immerse herself in the lives of the miserable? Who would choose to do this?
“Hey!” Joe called, shambling through a door. He flopped in a plastic chair beside them. His orange coveralls seemed filthier and baggier. He was skinnier, more pimply. Dark circles ringed his eyes. “How’s it going? You okay? Me, I’ve been better.” He fumbled for a pack of cigarettes. “Assholes!” he barked for the benefit of the staff. “The assholes gave me solitary. And I’m expecting three extra months at least.” He struck a match.
“Hey! No smoking, Dixon.”
Joe eyeballed the guard as he took a long puff and exhaled.
A stand-off. Abigail swallowed. The guard strode over and snatched the butt from Joe’s mouth, grinding it out on the floor with his boot. Neither he nor Joe blinked. The guard returned to his station. Life resumed.
“Have you been working today?” Becky asked.
“Nah, they took away my paints and brushes.” He was fidgety, Joe. Constantly bouncing around in his seat, radiating energy and discontent. Abigail didn’t want to offend Becky, and she was concerned, but a part of her wanted to get as far away from him as she could. She felt grubbied, as if she were back at the Solid Bar with Billy.
“Can you get them back?”
Joe sneered. “These ASSHOLES can keep them forever if they want.”
“Oh, well.” Becky chewed her lip. “That sucks.”
He finally sat still. “We’re getting our shots tomorrow.”
“Shots?” Abigail asked.
Joe pointed at the immunization leaflet with a frown. “MMR: Measles, Mumps, Rubella.”
Becky stiffened, sitting upright. “What—What time?” she stammered.
“Afternoon.”
Abigail peered at her sister. Becky had turned noticeably pale, as if her tan were painted on top of dead white skin. Ah, well. Abigail could relate. She hated needles, too. She and Becky really were connected. Sort of weird that Joe was getting the triple whammy now, though. The MMR was usually administered during infancy—or in later life if the recipient had HIV—or so she’d learned from a smelly text on a night alone at a Glasgow library not long ago. But … maybe he’d been severely neglected? Or was HIV positive? The thoughts hadn’t occurred to her until now. She knew nothing about Joe. Not even his last name.
Becky did, though.
Abigail squirmed in her plastic chair, suddenly guilty about wanting to run home to the sunny pool and the popcorn and giggling. “Have you ever had an MMR before?” she asked him. “It’s probably not that bad.”
“No, I know I got it when I was a baby. They said it’s a booster—” Before Joe could finish, there was a burst of swearing and shouting through the window.
Abigail turned and stared into an open-air quadrangle. Four teenagers were in the midst of a brawl. One had a knife. Alarms sounded. Staff raced to the scene, keys jangling. They were too late, it seemed. One of the youths was down, bleeding. The others had fled the scene, only to be wrestled to the ground by a gang of burly guards—a repeat of what she’d seen happen to Joe.
“Fifth fight today,” he said, without emotion. “Same old, same old.”
Becky was visibly trembling, however. Not that Abigail could blame her. The truth of the matter was that Abigail was probably a lot more like Joe than Becky in certain ways. A knife fight was no big deal.
“You okay?” Abigail asked.
“Fine,” Becky said, avoiding her and Joe’s eyes. She forced a deep breath. “I’ll come back in the morning, get you out somehow. In the meantime, try and chill out.”
Joe flashed a mirthless smile. “I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. Nothing.”
“All work and no play makes Joe a dull boy,” Abigail joked lamely, referencing The Shining.
The joke fell flat. Becky’s expression remained distant, as if she hadn’t heard.
A fleeting smile crossed Joe’s lips. He tilted his head at Abigail. “Well, you’ve had your whole fucking life to think things over. What’s a few more minutes gonna do you now?”
Abigail nearly laughed; it was a line from The Shining.
Joe took hold of Becky’s hand, serious again. “Listen, Becky, whatever happens, don’t ever feel guilty. It was worth it. All of it. The buzz. The work, it’s kept me going, y’know?”
Becky nodded, snapping back to the moment. “I know.” She looked him in the eye. “I love you, Joe, you know that? You still got that cellphone hidden?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll text you later. We’ll find a way to get you out of here first thing in the morning.” She kissed him on the forehead. “In the meantime, hang tough.”
A tear fell from Becky’s cheek.
Abigail’s breath came fast. She stared and turned away. It was the first time she’d ever seen her sister cry. As Joe was being escorted back into his prison (shaking off the guard’s arm, calling him an ass and a dick), Becky whispered to herself, “Tomorrow afternoon …”
ON THE DRIVE HOME, Becky was sullen, inscrutable. She stared straight ahead without talking. Abigail picked up Becky’s blank iPhone, mostly to see what her sister kept as a wallpaper. Not surprisingly, it was a “B,” scrawled in graffiti.
“It’s nine-seven-four-six,” said Becky.
“What?”
“The pin to my phone. Nine-seven-four-six.”
“Oh, that wasn’t why I was looking. I don’t need—”
“Just in case you do, one day. I hide it in my hiking boots.”
INSTEAD OF “GETTING A swerve on” together as planned, Becky went str
aight to her room and shut herself inside. Abigail wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t want to get pissed, but no doubt Becky was probably getting high alone in there. Besides, Abigail didn’t want the bonding to end. Did it have to? She paced around her room for a while and then knocked on her sister’s door, keen to be assertive. Something had freaked Becky out back at Juvie. Abigail wanted to know what. She also wanted to thank her for the day—for all of it, for trusting Abigail and including in her life without any questions or resentment.
Right: start with a thanks and a hug. If Becky was getting stoned or turned down the gesture, fine. Abigail could handle the embarrassment. Better to be honest about how she felt.
Becky opened a few seconds after Abigail knocked, two pink, fizzy cocktails in hand. “Hey, do you remember if I turned the computers off before we went out?” she asked. The color had returned to her face. She was smiling crookedly. She jerked a shoulder toward her monitor.
Abigail swallowed. The stink of alcohol made her wince slightly. “Um … They were off when we were here last, I think.”
“Shit, really?”
“Why?”
“They’re on now. I don’t remember switching them back on. Oh, I probably did when I came in without thinking about it. I’m getting paranoid. Chin-chin!” Becky handed Abigail one of the martini glasses. Pink liquid sloshed over the side as she clinked. She took a big gulp then set her glass down and began rolling a joint.
Well, so much for the speech and the hug. So much for diverting Becky from getting wasted. She wouldn’t even make eye contact. “Are you okay?” Abigail murmured.
Becky licked the rolling paper and sighed softly. “I’m sorry, but I am really, really busy tonight. Can we take a rain check? Will you be all right if I get on with it?”
“Sure.” A rock landed at the bottom of Abigail’s tummy. “But please tell me, is everything all right? You’re upset, since visiting Joe.”
Becky lit the joint and took a drag. “Well, it’s a sad place.” Her hand was shaking. “Why don’t you take your drink with you?” She pointed to the blender on the desk, three-quarters full of what looked like pink slime.
“I’m not thirsty,” Abigail said.
Joint in mouth, Becky had turned around and started tapping away at the computer. She wasn’t even listening anymore. Was she on some kind of website or blog? All Abigail could make out was two lines: THE TEASE IS OVER! So only the rich need fire in their bellies?
“Becky?”
“If you don’t want a drink, I left some candy in a dish. Saltwater taffy.” Her sister didn’t as much as blink.
Abigail returned to her room. After slamming the door, she poured her margarita down the sink, pulled Funny Physics out from under the bed, sniffed it, and threw it on the floor. There was no bowl of candy in her room, either. Big surprise, that.
“Abigail. Abigail, darling.”
Abigail opened her eyes to find her father sitting beside her on the bed. An alarm went off in her brain. Something’s wrong. Grahame had called her darling. His eyes were bloodshot. He had his hand on her arm. It was shaking.
“What is it?” Abigail sat up. She glimpsed Melanie standing at the door, her eyes also moist and red. The curtains were half open. The sun was quite high in the sky.
“Something … terrible …” Grahame choked on the words. He blew his nose on a large tartan handkerchief.
Her heart started thumping. “Tell me.”
“Becky.”
Without waiting for more, Abigail jumped out of bed and ran across the hall. The bedroom door was open. Two police officers—one male, one female—were hunched over something next to the bed. Abigail pushed her way in between them.
Her breath caught. That something was Becky: lying on the floor, dried white froth at the corners of her mouth, vomit on the carpet, eyes open. Abigail’s knees seemed to give out. She crumpled beside her sister. “No. No, no.” She lifted Becky by the shoulders and held her, rocking. The flesh was cold. This made no sense. Becky was fine when she’d last seen her. She’d been typing and drinking and smoking—
“I’m sorry, miss, but you have to stop that,” the female cop interrupted. “You can’t touch anything. I’m sorry.”
Abigail couldn’t let go. Last night she’d wanted to hug her. She should have. Rewind, rewind, Abigail thought desperately. It is last night. Becky’s hugging me back. Her arms are around me and she doesn’t want to get rid of me and she doesn’t want to get me into trouble and she loves me and she’s warm and I’m warm inside and I’m smiling—
“I’m sorry,” the officer repeated.
There would be no rewinding.
Abigail gently lowered the cold body to the ground. She’d seen violence. She’d seen tragedy. Fights, abuse, blood, teeth knocked out, even stabbings. But this was death, only the second corpse she’d seen in her life. Two corpses in a week. One, her mother; the other, her sister. Both strangers. Both the opposite of strangers. She kissed Becky’s clammy forehead. It didn’t feel like skin. She didn’t know what it felt like. Reflexively, she wiped her lips.
Jesus. Her throat tightened. Her eyes began to sting.
“Miss, you really must leave,” said the male police officer.
“Just … one second,” she choked out. “Please.”
Neither officer argued. Perhaps they could see into her brain, perhaps they could see that she regretted not taking more time with her mother. Perhaps everyone in America had the shining. Whatever the reason, the police-officer couple allowed her to sit over her sister for just a little while, taking in her dark lashes and her perfect little nose, now unfortunately smeared with white powder. Abigail’s blurry eyes roved over Becky’s square shoulders, the high insteps of her feet, her skinny forearms, and slender, toned, tanned legs. She stared and stared, burning every detail into her memory. Lovely, troubled Becky …
“That’s enough now,” the male cop finally said, helping her to her feet.
“I want one last look at her room. I promise not to touch anything.”
She shook free from his grasp. She knew exactly why she wanted to do this: the video they’d shot would not wind up confiscated by the police. She poked her head in the bathroom and then darted into the walk-in closet. There were the boots, tucked behind a pair of trainers. Before he could catch up to her, she dug in the left boot—not there—dug in the right, and her fingers clasped around the iPhone. Thank God for small favors, she thought. Her throat tightened. She wiped the image of Nieve from her mind and shoved the phone into her bra just as he appeared behind her.
“What are you doing?” he snapped.
“Just looking to see … if she left a note,” Abigail said feebly.
It wasn’t a lie; she really wanted to know. She brushed past him into the room. There were traces of white powder on the desk. Becky had said she’d only smoked pot. Maybe she was too ashamed to admit a more serious drug problem. By the looks of it, Becky had guzzled almost a liter of very strong margaritas (the blender was empty) and a bottle of red wine (upside down in the bathroom sink); plus she’d smoked two joints (snuffed down into the china saucer-turned-ashtray by the window) … a bag of powerful-smelling marijuana lay open on the bed. Saddest of all, two empty pill bottles lay open next to her right hand.
“No note that we can find,” the female officer said.
As Abigail backed out into the hallway, dizzy with shock, a thought struck her. The room was a mess as far as the booze and drugs went. Yet Becky had tidied up everything related to her other secret pastime. Her stencils and paints and brushes were gone. The paperwork once strewn all over the desks and floor was gone, too. Maybe she’d snuck out in the middle of the night and taken it to that weird house, the “Headquarters” she and Stick rented.
All of a sudden, Abigail noticed that Becky’s computers were gone, too.
Had the police already taken them for some reason? How could someone so chaotic and drug-addled be so organized at the same time? Wouldn’t someone so
organized have written a note? What the hell was Becky’s problem, anyway?
Why did you do this, you idiot? Abigail felt like screaming.
Black dots swam at the corner of her eyes. Her head spun.
At that moment, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist. It was her father.
If he hadn’t caught her, she’d have fallen unconscious to the floor.
Lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, Abigail wondered if she were a phony. The black hole at the center of her belly couldn’t be real.
She hardly knew Becky. She hadn’t warmed to Becky to start with, and probably would have never understood her politics or her Graffiti Tease “art” or her mood swings. Abigail could sort only through the facts, the evidence. All amounted to the same: Abigail Thom ruined everything. Wherever she went, disaster struck. She should never have come to LA.
Three days—three measly little days in her presence—and an innocent eighteen-year-old girl had died. So that initial fear was probably spot-on: Becky must have been overwhelmed by her new sister. Jealous, even. Shoved out of the way at the party, by her father’s speech, the whole circus. Abigail had driven Becky over the edge. Was that why she was hurting?
Her mother’s death hadn’t had much impact. Then again, Mum was a dream; Becky was a promise. The promise of family and of friendship. (For fuck’s sake, for the first time ever, Abigail had reveled in being called “Abi.”) Now that promise lay motionless on the floor of an LA bedroom. Becky was dead, ugly-dead: froth, powder, booze, pills, vomit. Abigail had learned dead was never pretty, and now she’d learned dead could never promise anything but an end.
Without the painkillers, Becky’s autopsy might read “Death by misadventure.” That’s what the authorities called ODs in Glasgow. More euphemisms, supplied by idiots in charge. Misadventure: such a playful word. Death by Playfulness. Death by Idiotic Horrible Accident, more like. A bottle of pills wasn’t a fun night gone wrong. It was suicide.
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