The Last Place You Look

by Kristen Lepionka

  I gave her a quick hug and walked out, adding Matt to the list of people I was currently, acutely mad at. Even though he was right. It wasn’t just something to say, either. I’d always been preternaturally good at finding things and finding things out, even as a kid, and Matt had benefited more than once. A wallet, the name of a girl he liked at the Y. Later: a witness to a hit-and-run car accident that left him with a broken leg, a stolen bike for one of his girlfriends. It was the only thing I was ever good at. And I’d been successful, until I wasn’t anymore. Until my father died and I forgot how to do my job at exactly the moment when I needed most to do it well.

  Outside I pulled my coat on, feeling startled by myself, like an animal spooked by its own reflection. I needed to put Veronica Cruz out of my mind. It didn’t matter, I tried telling myself. I didn’t know her. I didn’t know Shelby or Joshua. They were just people I’d come across on a case. Veronica probably just ran away. She had big dreams—fashion design, getting out of town. She described Belmont as a shithole, after all. That’s all this was. I started walking down the street to my car, but then Andrew called my name.

  I turned around and said nothing.

  He was lighting a cigarette. “Seriously,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn’t know where to start. “I’m just not in the mood for his sober-living bullshit tonight,” I said instead, wondering for maybe the first time ever if Matt actually had a point.

  Andrew kindly let me off the hook. “Yeah, he’s in rare form,” he said. “Before you got here, I wanted to beat him with that Midleton bottle. She didn’t even see me bring it down, but of course Matt finked on me.”

  “You know she’s going to pour every drop of it down the sink later,” I said.

  “If I don’t get any,” Andrew said, in a decent approximation of my father’s voice, “nobody gets any.”

  It wasn’t even funny but I laughed, a sad, quiet laugh that made me feel like my ribs were imploding.

  “That sink,” my brother said next. He pulled out a wallet and counted out seven hundred-dollar bills. “Here. Paid in full.”

  “You only have to cover half,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Andrew said. “You can make an appointment for the plastic surgeon on me. Listen, do you want to get into something?”

  “Like what?”

  “Food, maybe, since you didn’t eat America’s Bounty in there.”

  “We should probably go back in.”

  “No, no, we already made it out,” he said. “Besides, you don’t want to risk being there if Tom shows up, do you?”

  I cleared my throat. For the first time, I shared Andrew’s feelings about that. “Not a chance,” I said.

  * * *

  We went to Little Palace and sat at the bar. I ordered the fried chicken sandwich and a side of mac and cheese and a whiskey on the rocks. The food was good and greasy and made me feel slightly more human. It was pleasantly loud and crowded in the restaurant, and no one looked twice at my cheekbone.

  “I knew I should’ve said no to this case,” I said. “I had a weird feeling at the beginning.”

  “I remember,” Andrew said. “You told me you thought it might turn into something, and you were afraid you’d mess it up.”

  “And I did.”

  “What have you messed up?” Andrew said. “Other than Matt’s imaginary chances with this Danielle.”

  I pointed to my eye. “In a development that will shock no one,” I said, “this did not happen while hiking.”

  Andrew smiled. “I’m scandalized,” he said. “So are you going to tell me?”

  “I got arrested.”

  “What, for getting into a brawl at that party?”

  “Trespass,” I said. “And, resisting arrest, I guess. That’s where this comes in.”

  My brother stopped smiling. “Shit,” he said. “A cop did that to you?”

  “Belmont police,” I said, “yeah.”

  “Shit,” he said again. “What did you do, exactly?”

  “I was trespassing,” I said. “But the reason I was there, the thing I thought could have happened—I don’t even think it happened now, and it had nothing to do with Matt’s friend even if it did. So I wasted ten days, got my ass kicked, and I didn’t solve shit. That’s what I messed up.” And a seventeen-year-old girl has been missing for forty-eight hours, I didn’t say. That wasn’t my fault, but I sure as hell hadn’t helped.

  “Did you file a complaint?”

  I just looked at him.

  “Well, don’t let old Test Pavement rattle your confidence, Rox. If he knew you got hurt while you were working on this, you know he’d feel terrible.”

  I didn’t care if Matt felt terrible or not. “You’re never going to get over the name, are you?”

  “The Test Pavements. No. Never. It’s the single greatest slash worst thing I’ve ever heard. I cannot wait till Friday.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not going,” I said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I don’t want to drive all the way out to Trabue or Renner Road.”

  “I’ll drive you, then. It’ll be great. And he didn’t mean it, what he said.”

  “Why are you defending him?”

  Andrew finished his drink too. “You have to forgive people for being who they are,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll just make yourself crazy. Do you want to do another here, or do you want to go somewhere else? Guy from the hotel is doing a poker night tonight.”

  Veronica was gone and we were talking about poker. “I don’t like cards, you know that.”

  “We’d clean up,” Andrew said. “He’s an idiot.”

  I shook my head and chewed the rest of my ice. I wanted something else to happen, some other kind of stimulation I could stuff into my brain to stop the looping thoughts about Shelby, her father, Veronica, the assholes of the Belmont police department whom I had no choice but to trust to find her. If she wanted to be found at all. Which she probably didn’t. Right? She was probably in Manhattan by now, eating a vegan cronut and doodling in her sketch book. “Let’s go to this party I heard about,” I said.

  “Whose party?”

  I looked down at the smear of mayonnaise on my empty plate. “Friend of Catherine’s,” I said.

  Andrew didn’t say anything right away. “So she’s a thing again, then,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  “You really want to go to a party looking like you just got mugged?”

  “Oh, whatever, a minute ago you wanted me to go to a stranger’s poker game.”

  “Roxane, you’re a grown-ass woman and you can do whatever you want,” he said, “but you’re also my baby sister and I worry about you. Catherine isn’t a good person. I mean, she’s just not. She’s a selfish cunt.”

  I didn’t argue that. “What about forgiving people for being who they are?” I said.

  “If you were to subscribe to that all of a sudden,” he said, “Catherine Walsh is not the one you should start with.”

  “Well, I’m going,” I said. It was a bad idea. But I wanted Saturday night again, a switch flipping on to make me okay. I needed it. “Do you want to come or what? There’s bound to be plenty of borderline-personality art school girls there.”

  My brother sighed and dropped a fifty on the bar. “How can I resist that,” he said.

  * * *

  The condo at the Dakota was one of those lofts with high ceilings and exposed ductwork and beautiful, uncomfortable furniture that looked like it was looted from a Swedish train station. Neither of us needed anything else to drink but Andrew procured us some and we sat on a low leather ottoman near the windows, people-watching. There were lots of tattoos, experimental haircuts, and drapey black garments in attendance. The crowd a mix of art people—the ones standing near the twelve-by-fifteen-foot vagina painting on the wall and discussing its composition—and hipster lesbians—the ones discussing who the owne
r of said vagina might be. The consensus was that it belonged to Thao’s fiancée, who was presently in LA on a grant for building a public sculpture out of reclaimed plastic flatware, though there were murmurings that it could be Thao’s teaching assistant. I assumed Thao was the hostess. I saw a few people I sort of knew and collected two condolences about my father, plus one inexplicable compliment on my hair.

  I didn’t see Catherine.

  Classic.

  “If she was a guy,” Andrew was saying, “you’d write him off as a complete dick so fast. You’d never put up with it. This is boring.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Oh, so I’m being sexist?” I stood up and held a hand out for his empty cup. “I’m getting us a refill and then we can go.”

  He nodded, looking tired. But as soon as I walked away, a redhead in a sequined bustier and satin pants sat down in my spot, and Andrew’s mood appeared to improve. I went into the kitchen and found the bottles but I felt a hand between my shoulder blades before I could pour.

  “There you are,” Catherine said in my ear.

  I turned around to face her. She was wearing a claret-colored dress that brought out the green of her eyes and she smelled like whiskey and clove cigarettes. If anyone could take my mind off the Belmont situation, it would be Catherine. Or so I hoped. “I was starting to think this was some kind of trap. When did you get here?”

  Her eyebrows went up slightly when she saw my face. “I’ve been here,” she said. “I was upstairs. What happened to you?”

  “The first rule of Fight Club,” I said. We looked into each other’s eyes. Hers were bottomless. Everything seemed off-kilter, like a dream where you’re in one place that looks like somewhere else. “What’s upstairs?”

  “Quiet,” Catherine said. She nodded at the two cups in my hands. “Make a friend already?”

  “Andrew came with me,” I said.

  She laughed that big laugh of hers. “You brought your brother to this? Christ, you need to get a life.”

  Andrew was right about her, per usual. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”

  She poured whiskey into the cups I was holding and took one of them, tossing it back quickly. “Drink up,” she said. “And come on. I want to introduce you.”

  I looked out at the ottoman where Andrew and I had been sitting; it was now vacant. Andrew and the redhead were over by the vagina painting, and he met my eye and winked.

  I followed Catherine out of the kitchen toward the balcony, which looked like it might have been occupied past fire code, twelve or so women crowded into a space the size of a bathtub. The center of attention was an Asian woman with bluish hair and white plastic-framed glasses and an elaborate tattoo peeking out from the V-neck of her paint-spattered T-shirt. When she saw Catherine through the window, she pushed out of the pack and reentered the apartment.

  Catherine said, “Thao, Roxane. My first true love.”

  “Dude, the famous Roxane from Saint Bleeding Heart’s or whatever,” Thao said, taking my hand in both of hers. She had good collarbones, a good, wry smile.

  “I thought the two of you might get along,” Catherine said. I was confused for a second. Was this a fix-up? To puzzle me further, she linked her arm through mine, the curve of her hip pressed against my elbow.

  “Cat always thinks everyone will get along,” Thao said, which was the truth. “And ten minutes later, someone’s sobbing in the elevator. You look like an interesting type, though.”

  “Thao, you should get your camera,” Catherine said. “Wouldn’t Roxane be perfect for the series?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t know what she was talking about. But if there was a camera involved, I wasn’t interested.

  “Ah, you’re one of those girls who hates having her picture taken,” Thao said.

  “Thao’s doing these great portraits,” Catherine said. “Large format, straight-on angles. Think Richard Avedon, except naked dykes.”

  I almost choked on my drink. “I thought you were a painter,” I said.

  Thao grinned at me.

  “No,” I said again.

  “You think you hate getting your picture taken. But getting, like, a driver’s license photo taken isn’t the same as really being photographed,” she said.

  “I’m sure there are plenty of other people here who’d love the attention,” I said. I swallowed the rest of the whiskey in my cup. It wasn’t helping me forget about Veronica. It wasn’t doing anything.

  “Oh, it’s not about attention,” Thao said. She brushed my hair away from my cheekbone. “It’s about telling the truth. What happened here?”

  “I jumped out of a moving vehicle,” I said, and they both laughed.

  “Maybe you could do us together,” Catherine said.

  Thao nodded. “Hold that thought,” she said. She took my empty cup and headed for the kitchen. “This calls for more liquor.”

  I looked at Catherine. “Is this why you invited me?” I said. “Some fucked-up art project?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “But then here you are, looking all scrappy and hot?” She slipped her hands inside my leather jacket. “So sue me.” Then she pulled away, her eye on something over my shoulder. “Andrew, hi,” she said.

  I turned around. My brother was holding his car keys and the redhead was behind him, pulling on her coat. “Are you cool if I go?” Andrew said.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said. “She looks fun.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see,” he said. “Hey, call me tomorrow?”

  “To let you know I survived?”

  “She’ll survive,” Catherine said.

  Andrew squeezed my shoulder, then walked away without saying a word to her.

  “Wow,” she said. “What’s his deal?”

  But Thao returned with my drink and thrust it at me. I had the distinct feeling that once again, the evening was getting away from me. Catherine slipped her hands back into my jacket. I closed my eyes and focused on her touch, like maybe enough contact with her could erase my memory. And I kept drinking. I didn’t know what else to do.

  THIRTY

  I woke at seven in a room thick with darkness. My limbs felt like I had spent the night folded into a metal suitcase. I ran a hand over my face and winced when I touched my cheekbone. I wasn’t sure where I was. I heard kitchen noises coming from far away and quietly got out of the bed. I didn’t feel hungover so much as fragmented, like half of my thoughts had been forcibly removed from my head. My throat was raw. I looked at my phone but the battery was dead again. My jeans were inside out on the floor, shed like a skin. I was still wearing my shirt. I looked through the open doorway and saw another bedroom with the door closed, an alarm clock bleating, ignored, inside. Over the metal railing, the lower level of the loft looked like the scene of a disaster movie, so many plastic cups and paper napkins and a smear of something on the wall by the vagina painting that was either hummus or vomit. A woman with long black hair was passed out on the ottoman, snoring faintly. Catherine was in the kitchen drinking coffee and her dress was unzipped. I pulled on my jeans and boots and went down the spiral staircase.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  She smiled but it didn’t touch her eyes. She had always been like this, all over me one minute, then struck down by the blackest of moods the next. “You were totally out up there,” she said. “I was surprised you stayed.”

  I thought that was a strange thing to say. “She stayed,” I said, pointing to the snoring girl. “You stayed.”

  “Um, yeah, I did,” she said like I was stupid.

  “So what, ah, happened?”

  Catherine looked at me. “Funny,” she said.

  I shook my head, grabbing on to the counter for stability as I did so. “Seriously,” I said.

  “Seriously, I think you drink too much if you don’t even fucking remember. Thanks for coming. We had a good time.”

  I felt my face getting hot. I looked at her in the thin morning light. Her eyeliner was smudged
and her hair was tangled and standing there in this big, modern kitchen, she could have been anyone.

  We.

  That we wasn’t Catherine and me. It was Catherine and Thao.

  It made sense, all of a sudden.

  I fumbled with the zipper of my jacket. I needed to not be in this apartment anymore. I should have known better than to think that Catherine could fix anything. I gave up on the zipper. My hands were shaking too much. “You couldn’t have said something?” I said.

  Catherine set down her coffee mug and it clattered against the granite countertop. “What does that mean?”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “It means the other night, I asked you where your husband was, if you’d stoop to having dinner with me,” I said. “I guess the more relevant question is where Thao was.”

  “Don’t get mad,” Catherine said. “The other night was great. Last night was great. Either way, I’m attached. So what’s the difference?”

  She knew exactly what I meant. I could see it in her eyes. “The difference,” I said, even though I knew I shouldn’t bother, “is last year you said you wanted to work on things with him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I said when you were done with all that, come find me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you said you would,” I said. “But instead you found her? You’re choosing her? How long has this been going on?”

  “It’s been a few months.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about, choosing. Come on, Roxane, you know how things are. It’s not like you and I owe each other anything.”

  It sounded a little like what I’d told Tom last week, except I liked it less when it was directed my way, and especially when I realized in both cases it was about sleeping with someone other than me. I blinked hard. “This is perfect,” I said. I felt every second of the last forty-eight hours pressing down on my heart. “Why would you invite me here?”

  She picked up her coffee cup again. “I wanted to see you.” Her tone was infuriatingly innocent.

  “You don’t get to want that,” I snapped at her. “Not when you don’t give me all the information.”

  She laughed, like anything could possibly be funny. “Oh, you,” she said. “Trying to tell me what I’m allowed to want.”