The Stories You Tell

by Kristen Lepionka

  “There’s a contest at my work. If you win you get a one-hundred-dollar Visa gift card,” her friend Miriam said from the other end. They both had plates with bowls of chili and thick hunks of bread.

  “And you called in a ringer.”

  “Naturally.”

  I closed the door and pointedly locked it, but before I could deliver the corresponding lecture, Shelby said, “I knew it was you, I heard you come in the building. It was totally locked before!”

  “It was, it totally was,” Miriam said.

  I looked at them. “Likely story. You seem very cozy there.”

  Shelby set her plate on the coffee table. “You’re always detecting, aren’t you? Sit, I’ll get you some.”

  She went down the hallway and I sat in an overstuffed thrift store arm chair opposite the couch. I said, “Was it actually locked?”

  Miriam lifted a solemn hand. “On pain of death, yes.”

  She and Shelby insisted they were just friends, but Miriam spent an awful lot of time over here. I liked her. She radiated a chillness that seemed to calm down some of Shelby’s anxiety. Her hair was a streaky purple color and long on one side, buzzed short on the other. Like Catherine’s had been after her skull fracture, except on purpose. She looked edgy and cool and made me feel about a million years old. They both did.

  Miriam said, “Shelby was telling me about the leggings. Leggings-gate? If you get any in that anthracite diamond pattern they have in, like, a size zero? I wouldn’t hate it.”

  Shelby came back down the hall with a plate for me and a bottle that turned out to be ginger beer. “It’s infuriating how nice they are, stupid overpriced leggings,” she said. I saw then that she was wearing a pair I’d given her under a long grey sweater. “I keep getting compliments. They’re not even pants! It’s like a cult.”

  “Don’t let my client hear you talking like that,” I said. I tasted the chili and closed my eyes for a second, reveling in the sweet, spicy, slightly smoky flavor. Shelby had taught herself to cook from the internet, and she was damn good at it, too. “If you ask her, leggings are the only pants.”

  Miriam broke off a piece of bread and swabbed the bottom of her bowl with it. “What about you, where do you stand on the are-leggings-pants debate? I, personally, am on Team Pants.”

  “You know,” I said, “I don’t think I have an opinion. You do you, is what I say about that. I’ve never worn a pair of leggings in my life.”

  They both stared at me.

  “Never?” Shelby said. “But what about when you exercise?”

  I laughed. “I’ll let you answer your own question there.”

  Miriam said, “But you have an apartment full of them! You’re not even curious?”

  I sipped the ginger beer. It was pretty good, though it was sorely missing the alcohol component. “I kind of figured it was a cult, like you said, and they weren’t that great.”

  “Unfortunately,” Shelby said, “they are.”

  “I don’t know, pants that aren’t pants are not really my thing. But Miriam, I’ll keep an eye out for the diamond ones for you.”

  “Size zero.”

  “Yeah yeah, don’t rub it in,” Shelby said, and they both laughed.

  I was glad Shelby had invited me up. It was pretty ridiculous that an almost-nineteen-year-old thought she needed to look out for me just as much as I looked out for her, but she wasn’t wrong. After I thanked her for dinner—and waited till she’d locked the door before going downstairs—I returned to the apartment and went straight to my own kitchen. I might not have had any food, but I had liquor. I poured an inch of Crown Royal into a rocks glass and drank it fast, the way whiskey begged you to, and then I regretted it because it was gone. I stood there in the dark, running my tongue along the rim of the empty glass. I wanted another. But I was always going to want another. That didn’t mean I had to have one. I thought about my father, about the glass that was always in his hand. He always wanted another, and he always had another, too. That was a good enough argument against it. But maybe, too, it was an overly simplistic way of looking at him. Subic Bay was still on my mind.

  I called Andrew. “Did you know Frank was stationed in the Philippines?”

  My brother was quiet for a beat. “What?”

  “When he was in the Navy. He was stationed in the Philippines.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, he never talked about it.”

  “Not to us, he didn’t, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  I shook my head. “I met someone who knew him today. She told me about him loving Filipino shaved ice. I mean, Frank? Mr. Only Vanilla Ice Cream and Not the Kind with the Little Black Dots in It?” I suddenly felt like crying.

  Andrew sighed. “I thought you were calling about Addison.”

  “Oh.” I wiped my eyes and poured another whiskey. “Sorry. I’m not. I still don’t know. But I can keep at it.”

  “I guess I should pay you.”

  “You don’t have to pay me. I never pay you, when I drink at the hotel.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “Just is.”

  I drank the whiskey. I still wanted another, just as predicted.

  “Well, good night,” I said.

  “Love you.”

  I hung up and put the glass in the sink and walked away.

  I wandered into the living room and looked out the window at the street. It was dark except for the sharp glow of headlights from down the block. They looked familiar, I realized. I grabbed my coat and gun and went out through the back of the building and up through the alley on the east side of the building so I could approach the Jag from behind. The driver was a grey blob with glasses, not the right build for Shane Resznik. I rapped sharply on his window and he looked up, eyes wide, and stomped on the gas. The engine whined against the parked transmission. Up close, I could see that the driver was a young guy, big, with a neat beard against dark skin.

  I said, “Can I help you?”

  He frantically grasped at the gearshift, flung the car into drive, and lurched off down the block, leaving me to stand on the sidewalk with my gun at my side, wondering who the hell this guy was and why was he following me—badly, and in a borrowed car—if he was so afraid of me?

  NINE

  For the third day in a row, my phone woke me up on Saturday, vibrating in the pocket of my jeans, which I was still wearing. I felt vaguely seasick without knowing why. Then I remembered: the third shot of whiskey when I came in from the strange encounter with my friend in the borrowed car, then a fourth, then a fifth because the fourth wasn’t a good pour, and I wasn’t entirely sure what else.

  It had been a while since I’d woken up feeling like this. It was still terrible, and maybe worse.

  I answered the phone even though I didn’t recognize the number.

  “This is Jordy. Meyers.”

  “Oh,” I said, sitting up in bed. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes and tried to gather my strength so I could make the room stop spinning. It felt like ages since I’d met Jordy at Addison’s apartment, but somehow, it was only yesterday. “Hi there. What’s up?”

  “Well, I was just wondering. If you would be willing to come out to Blacklick.”

  I had a hazy memory of Jordy mentioning coffee plans with Addison. “Sure,” I said, “what’s going on?”

  “I feel like I probably gave the impression that I wasn’t worried,” she said, “but Addison never showed up at Starbucks for Elise’s birthday, so now I am.”

  * * *

  Elise Hazlett lived in a medium-nice white colonial in a medium-nice Blacklick subdivision with wide sidewalks and zero trees. A massive RV sat in the driveway, and a tall, slouchy guy was standing at its gas tank, looking puzzled as he watched a repair video on his phone.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m look
ing for Jordy and Elise?”

  He pointed me into the open garage. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  Then he went back to his project.

  I knocked on the door before going into the house. “Hi there,” I said to the two women standing around a kitchen island—Jordy and a slight blonde in yoga pants and a pink fleece. “The guy in the driveway said to just come in.”

  Jordy said, “Elise, Roxane, Roxane, Elise. Wait, did I do that wrong? Never mind, I don’t actually know how old you are so whatever.”

  I smiled. “Older than you two, that’s for sure.” I shook Elise’s manicured hand. Her hair was shoulder-length in the front but cut shorter in the back—the classic can I speak to the manager ’do. “Roxane Weary. Happy birthday.”

  “Ha, thanks,” she said. “Here’s my present.” She gestured at the sink, which was completely full of dirty dishes. “My kids ‘made’ me breakfast.”

  “Get this,” Jordy said, “a peanut butter omelet.”

  “That’s … interesting.”

  “What’s interesting is they were being supervised by my husband. Who knows that the boys aren’t supposed to eat before their swimming lessons, especially not peanut butter omelets, so the single hour of uninterrupted time I get at the gym every week was interrupted because somebody barfed during the doggie paddle warm-up.”

  “Elise is living the dream out here,” Jordy said.

  “Let’s go to the basement. Don’t let them see you, don’t let them hear you,” Elise said. I couldn’t tell if she was joking. I could hear the bright shrieking of children at play from somewhere else in the house. “They’re all suckers for a new face.”

  “Your kids?”

  “Everybody. My kids, my husband—well, I guess you already met him in the driveway—and my parents are both here too.”

  “The RV,” Jordy explained. “How long are they here for?”

  “First it was just for a few days, to get some hose fixed on that horrible thing.”

  “And it’s not like Brock’s actually going to fix anything. Was he still watching YouTube?”

  “He was,” I said.

  Jordy rolled her eyes. “He is such a boob.”

  “Well,” Elise said, opening an accordion door that divided the basement in half, “my dad’s not innocent here either. He could just pay someone to fix it. But no, Brock’s in charge which means they may Never. Leave.” The doors were concealing what appeared to be Elise’s private yoga studio. It had glossy wood floors, low lighting, immaculate decorations, the pleasant smell of white tea in the air. Even the noise from upstairs was muffled.

  “This is lovely,” I said.

  Jordy sprawled out on the love seat, and I perched on the edge of a shiny white desk.

  Elise sat down on her yoga mat in lotus pose. “My sanctuary. The only place in the house free of cookie crumbs and the sound of sporting events.”

  “She was going to do a she-shed,” Jordy said. “Like in the backyard. Dumb fucking name. But Brock decided he needed the shed more anyway. For his man-tools.”

  It seemed like Jordy was not a fan of Elise’s husband. “Like the whole world isn’t already space for somebody’s man-tools,” I said, and both women laughed. “So what’s up?”

  Jordy looked at Elise, then at me, then at the floor. “Well, I think we want to hire you.”

  I waited.

  “I looked you up. Online. And you’re, like, not just some rando. You’re the one who found that woman, the one who’d been missing for fifteen years. And, like, I know Addy’s not a prisoner in some creep’s murder basement or whatever. But I’m just saying. Something’s definitely wrong, for her to bail on coffee without even a text. Maybe it’s kismet or something, that I happened to be at her place when you stopped by.”

  Elise looked a little less convinced about my rando-ness. “Kismet? You sound like Addison now.”

  “Hey, there are worse things. But there’s typical-flaky-Addy behavior, and then there’s this. And if not us, like, who’s going to look?”

  “Fair enough,” Elise said.

  Jordy flopped her long legs over the armrest of the love seat. “So what do you think?”

  I didn’t want to take their money. I was already looking for Addison for free. But I could tell Jordy was the type of person who needed to take action; the mere idea of hiring me had changed her whole demeanor. It was dangerous to be like that, dangerous to think that worrying in a certain way was the same thing as making progress. But I nodded. “Sure. I don’t have a contract with me or anything, but I’m on your side here.”

  She gave me a tight little smile. “Thank you. Really. How does it work? Do I write you a check?”

  I waved a hand. “We can take care of the paperwork later.” I didn’t use contracts and never had. “But to get started, I’d want a list of her other friends, family, places she goes, things she likes, stuff like that.”

  “Well, there’s the deejay thing. And anything mythical. Or is it mystical?” Jordy tipped her head back over the armrest to look at her friend.

  “Addison’s a Libra,” Elise said, though that didn’t mean anything to me. “She’s very into astrology, that kind of stuff.”

  “Other friends?”

  “She never really talks about other friends or anything. But I’m sure she has them.”

  “So she’s secretive, or private?”

  “It’s not like she’s hiding something. It’s just how she is.”

  I didn’t respond for a while. Everybody is hiding something, even if it’s just how badly they want to be seen. “Do you know anything about the club she was working at?”

  “No. She told us we should come by, but like, that’s not really my thing.”

  “Family? Siblings?”

  “Only child.”

  “Textbook only child,” Elise said.

  “Parents?”

  “Her mom’s gone, oh, since two years ago. Cancer. Her parents were divorced way before that. Her dad’s been remarried for ages.”

  “Is Addison in touch with him?”

  Another nod. Jordy said, “To some degree. He’s always been very invested in being a cool dad type. He always was. Like in high school, before he moved, he’d let us come over and drink at his apartment. Which is the tiniest bit creepy, looking back.” She pulled the elastic out of her hair, shook it out, and redid her ponytail. “But anyway, when Addison decided what she wanted was to be a deejay, he bought her a bunch of equipment. Like a mixer? A sound mixer? I don’t even know what that is. I just remember her going, Jason bought me a mixer, and I was like, a KitchenAid? I didn’t know what she was talking about.”

  “She’s always, you know, reinventing herself. Or trying to.” Elise stretched her legs out on the yoga mat. “I guess that’s good. But there’s always something she needs before she can really start, you know?”

  “Reinvention gear?”

  “Yeah. Like, oh, I’m going to be a deejay, I just need all this equipment. Or, oh, I’m going to become an ESL teacher, I just need to save up for this online certification program first.”

  I said, “So she’s the manic pixie dream girl of your friend group.”

  Elise gave a small laugh, but Jordy’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I don’t want to make fun of her, though. So yeah, she’s the flaky one or whatever, but she’s not a frivolous person, you know? She’s very smart—”

  “Even if her grades never showed it,” Elise interrupted.

  “—and sensitive, and artistic. She’s a good person. I feel like shit for trying to put some space between us over the last year. It’s just that she can be a lot.” Jordy shook her head, looking pained. “Till yesterday I had no idea anything was wrong, and now I’m really worried.”

  “Well,” I said, “try to stay optimistic. We don’t know that anything is wrong-wrong.”

  The two women looked at me.

  “But I agree, it’s troubling that she stood you up on your birthday, without any notice. Is there a chan
ce she would go to her dad if she was in trouble?”

  Elise shrugged. “He lives in Georgia now, I think. She’ll see him once a year or something. But I guess it depended on what kind of trouble.”

  I steered the conversation to Addison’s potential online paramour.

  “Did she ever show you the Missed the Bus post?”

  “I remember she sent me a link, when she first saw it. But it was, what, six, seven months ago? It was something about that bar, wasn’t it? Where she was working at the time? Skully’s, yeah, that was it.” Jordy nodded. “And her tattoo! She’s got this huge bird on her back, with these big colorful wings. It’s cool because when she moves her shoulders, it almost seems like it’s flying.”

  “It had to have cost a fortune,” Elise said. “But yeah, it’s nice.”

  “The post though,” Jordy said. “It was more than ‘Hey, nice ink.’ It was, like, a good message. Something like, ‘Request for the DJ: I want to hear the story of your tattoo.’”

  “Smooth.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you don’t know anything else about him?”

  Elise said, “She called him BPG, when she talked about him. BusPass Guy. Like the Ohio version of Mr. Big or something.”

  The odds of me being able to figure out who BusPass Guy was based on that were pretty much nonexistent, but I made a mental note to download the app later and see what I could see.

  Upstairs, the door opened and heavy footsteps fell down the stairs. “Elise. Elise?”

  Jordy rolled her eyes. “Man-tool incoming.”

  Elise closed her eyes for a second. “What, Brock?”

  Her husband opened the door and looked in at us, a little blearily. He was holding a can of beer. “Oh, you still have friends over. Sorry to interrupt.” But he made no move to leave.