by Kyra Davis
Slowly he rises from his seat, and I almost duck just in case this does go into Bond territory. But instead he crosses the room, stops in front of a lovely dark wooden cabinet, and opens it, pulling out what looks like a very expensive bottle of Scotch and a glass. He leans down, and I realize that the bottom part of the cabinet holds a minifridge, or maybe it’s a freezer, because he has ice in there, and it’s one of those big round ice cubes that people use for their Scotch these days.
“Would you like to join me?” he asks as he pours himself a glass.
“I don’t drink.”
He turns to me, bottle still in his hand. “You can’t be Melody.”
“Oh, so she has talked about me,” I say with a wry smile. “I used to drink. I did lines, chased the dragon, candy flipped, et cetera, et cetera, yada yada yada. Okay? I did it all. But I don’t anymore; that’s probably why I’m not dead. But please,” I say, waving toward his drink, “don’t let me stop you, because if there was ever a situation that called for alcohol it’s this one. So I’m counting on you to tie one on for both of us.”
He stands there glaring at me, his drink tightly gripped in his hand. “Why did you do it?” he asks in a low voice.
“Do what?”
“Fake your own death,” he growls. “Do you have any idea what you have done to Kasie? Or are you too selfish to care?”
“I . . . I didn’t fake anything,” I say, holding up my hands as if to block the accusations. “I didn’t do anything other than ask my father for help when I needed it. But he decided he was tired of helping me, so he wrote up my obituary and had some loser working at a second-rate local rag print it for everyone in his backward little town to see. Yeah, I’ve had to lug the weight of that little deception around for my entire adult life, but it’s not actually my lie.”
He’s still staring at me. He hasn’t touched his drink, but he hasn’t put it down, either. “You expect me to believe that your parents declared their oldest daughter dead out of, what, spite? And then they have spent a lifetime lying to their youngest daughter about it? Letting her grieve?”
I swallow hard and glance away. “Look, I’m sure that when you see my parents through Kasie’s eyes, my claims seem ridiculous. She had a totally different relationship with them than I did. Kasie was the child they wanted me to be and, I don’t know, I guess they’ve been good to her, because she seems to be doing well enough. They probably didn’t have to try to control her the way they did me. I mean with Kasie, the hole was round, she was round, and so everything just fit. I, on the other hand, was the fucked-up peg, you know, the square one that doesn’t fit into the motherfucking hole.” Mr. Dade doesn’t say anything, but he appears to be thinking as I hunch down in my chair. “Sorry,” I mutter. “Sometimes I swear.” He still doesn’t say anything, and his silence is completely unnerving. I rush on. “Look, it may not seem like it from the outside, but my parents are controlling. Particularly my father. I didn’t fit into the picture that he wanted his family life to be, and he couldn’t handle it, so he just sort of bumped me out of the picture, and I guess killing me in print seemed like the easiest way to do that.”
More silence. This time I look down at my hands, wondering at what point I should just get up and leave.
“Why now?” he finally asks.
“Hmm? Oh, you mean why am I coming to tell her about all this now?” I bite down on my lower lip and shrug. “I’m a singer, and one of my songs is sort of blowing up right now. I’m doing interviews, journalists are beginning to dig . . .” I shake my head. “I can’t keep this under wraps for much longer. One way or another, the story’s gonna get out there.”
And again he doesn’t respond! God, I have never known anyone who can use not talking as effectively as this. He could bring men to their knees with his silence.
I let out an audible sigh. This was obviously a mistake. I should have gone to Kasie directly. In fact, I will go to Kasie directly. This man is not going to help me.
“I think it would be best if you met her at my home,” he says out of the blue.
I look up, surprised. “You . . . you mean . . .”
“If at any point during this meeting she tells you to leave or I tell you to leave, I strongly suggest you do it, and swiftly,” he continues.
“When is this meeting?” I whisper.
“Tonight. Seven o’clock. Sonya will give you the directions on your way out. Do not be late.”
CHAPTER 45
I MANAGE TO WALK out of there and across the street to Brad, but as soon as I reach him my legs go out beneath me and he literally has to catch me before I crumple. I think I notice at least one person snapping a picture of me with their cell, as he helps me into a chair at his table. Great, so I’ll probably be seeing that on Perez Hilton in the next twenty-four hours. But I push the thought out of my mind as I tell Brad everything about my meeting with Robert Dade, from what was said to the whole Bond villain vibe.
“Wow,” Brad says, pausing only to stop a waitress so he can order me a cup of coffee. “Does that mean your sister is going to be a bad Bond girl? Like Pussy Galore or Xenia Onatopp?”
“Okay, let’s stop with the Bond talk before you start having sexual fantasies about my sister.”
Brad chuckles and shakes his head. “She couldn’t hold a candle to you. No one could.”
“No clichés,” I tease with a smile. I press my hands flat against the blond wood of the table to keep them from shaking. There’s a pleasant buzz of voices in this room that calms me. The place is pretty full, bustling even, just the way a café should be.
“Are you excited at all?” Brad asks, leaning forward. “You’re about to meet your sister for the first time in, what has it been, sixteen years? No, it’s been over twenty, right? Because by the time that asshole declared you dead, you hadn’t seen her in about five years.”
Brad never refers to my father as, well, my father. Asshole is his go-to term. SOB is a distant second. Scumbag, dirtbag, and prick all tie for third. I actually like that he’s angry on my behalf. I don’t know that anyone ever really has been before.
“So tell me,” Brad presses, “are you excited to see her?”
My smile wavers and I shrug.
“Mercy?” he asks carefully as my coffee is placed in front of me. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just . . .” I hesitate, and then find the words to forge forward. “Okay, I’ve always loved Kasie,” I say. “I’ve loved her almost as much as I’ve hated her.”
“Ah.” He sits back in his seat and waits for me to continue.
“She was perfect,” I whisper. “She was sleeping through the night by, like, day two, while I apparently kept the whole neighborhood up with my screaming for the first two years of my life. And as she grew older, she just got more perfect. She was pretty, soft-spoken, studious, and well behaved. She never colored outside the lines, literally or figuratively. I’m serious, her coloring books were like friggin’ art portfolios! And . . . and the more perfect she became, the worse things got between my father and me, because now he had proof. It wasn’t him, it was me. All me.”
Brad folds his hands on the table as he considers this. “You told me Kasie never saw your father hit you. That he was able to hide a lot of the abuse from her, both physical and emotional.”
“Yeah, so?” I mutter bitterly as I glare at the table.
“Maybe,” Brad says carefully, “there were things you weren’t seeing, too.”
It’s an incredibly simple and obvious statement, and yet for a brief second, it’s like the whole world slams to a screeching halt. Is it possible . . . wait, how has this never occurred to me before?
Because I was just so wrapped up in my own chaos, that’s how. I never imagined there might be a whole other mountain of chaos under the same roof as me, one that was being hidden in a different room.
“It was a long time ago,” Brad goes on as my mind frantically whirls through the possibilities. “You were a kid; part o
f the time you were on drugs, and even in the best of circumstances memory is notoriously unreliable. Trust me, as someone who works in the district attorney’s office and has to deal with eyewitness testimony all the time, I know all about the weak and deceptive nature of memory. Talk to your sister. See what she has to say. Give her the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully she’ll do the same.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I ask meekly. “What if she doesn’t even hear me out?”
Now it’s Brad who shrugs. “Pick up the phone,” he suggests. “Call a reporter. Let her read the truth in Rolling Stone.”
I glance toward the table where that girl took my picture. She’s with her friend and they keep glancing over here and whispering despite the fact that she’s clear across the room. I couldn’t hear her if I tried. I look around and I note another table, a couple this time, and they, too, are trying—and failing—to discreetly look over at me.
My privacy is tottering on the edge of a cliff. I need to wrap up my loose ends now before that privacy falls and is swallowed up by the sea of tabloid fodder.
AS IT TURNS out, Robert Dade lives very close to The London. He’s a little up in the hills, but honestly, I could walk. I don’t, of course. I take a town car provided by the hotel and Brad promises to keep his phone in his hand, ready to run to my rescue.
The house looks nice. It’s at the end of a cul-de-sac with a reasonably impressive driveway. The gates have been left open to me. I get out of the town car and take a deep breath before ringing the doorbell.
Mr. Dade greets me, and as soon as he opens the door I realize that the front of the house is deceptive. This place is built on a hill, so what looks nice on the outside looks fucking amazing once you step inside. It’s all done in dark wood and feels a little masculine to me. He looks me over with just a touch of disdain. “You brought your dog,” he notes, making it clear he doesn’t approve of the decision.
“She’s an emotional support Yorkie,” I explain as I clutch Mammoth to my chest. When he doesn’t reply I say, “Would you have preferred it if I brought my emotional support boyfriend? Because I can make that happen with one phone call. Totally up to you.”
I think I see Mr. Dade’s mouth twitch, like he might have been about to, God forbid, smile. But of course he manages to suppress the urge as he finally leads me in.
Mammoth wriggles in my grip, perhaps disturbed by the unusually loud beating of my heart. “She’s in here,” he says, and then leads me into the living room.
And yes, there she is. She’s wearing a black slim-cut pantsuit, her blazer perfectly tailored and cinched at the waist with a black belt with sleek gold metal detailing in the front. I think she’s wearing a camisole under the blazer, but it’s hard to tell, because all I see is a diving neckline and a fair amount of skin. Her long, wavy dark hair is loose around her shoulders. It’s a sexy look, and every bit as intimidating as the look of her partner.
As she stands there, her hands are covering her stomach, as if protecting herself from an oncoming blow to the gut, and her eyes are wide with confusion and fear. She must have been prepped for the meeting and yet, really, how do you prepare for this?
So we just stand there, about ten feet apart, sizing each other up. I try to steady my breathing, petting Mammoth with a rapid urgency that she is clearly not enjoying.
“Is it really you?” she finally says, her voice strained.
I nod and bite down on my lower lip. What do I say? I look around the room, desperately hoping for some clue as to how to proceed. Finally I turn my eyes back to her and I see it. She’s shaking. She’s shaking just as I am. She’s my sister, and she’s scared.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
A small sob escapes her lips, and immediately I put Mammoth down and in seconds we have our arms wrapped around each other, her tears on my neck and mine on hers. I’m vaguely aware of Mr. Dade quietly leaving the room.
We stay this way for a minute or two, and then she abruptly yanks herself away. “How could they do this?” she hisses, still trembling. “How could they be this evil?”
I look away for a moment. I have to admit, I’ve never really seen this in terms of good and evil. Rather, I’ve seen it as something that falls in the realm of really fucked-up. “I was,” I say after a deep breath, “a difficult child.”
“So they decided to have you declared dead?” Kasie asks with both incredulity and venom. “I wasn’t even allowed to mourn you. They just told me you had . . .” Her voice fades off and she lifts her fingers to her mouth before turning around and walking to the window. A window that has one of the most impressive views I have ever seen. The whole city sparkles beneath us, and I sense that if it were daytime I would be able to see the ocean. Mammoth is weaving around and under antique furniture and over rugs that probably cost upward of ten thousand dollars.
Dear God, Mammoth, please don’t pee on the ten-thousand-dollar rug.
But most of my focus is on Kasie. I sense that she is about to say something that she thinks will hurt my feelings. “Kasie,” I say as I step up behind her. “Whatever it is they said, if you want to say it, say it. I mean, they already declared me dead, it doesn’t really get worse than that.”
“They said you overdosed,” she says, her eyes still on the view.
“Oh, that,” I say with a nod. “Yeah, I read that in the obituary.”
Kasie turns to face me. “You read the obituary?”
I give her a wry smile. “He sent it to me, wanted to make sure I got the point.”
She stares at me in horror. “How could they do it?” she asks quietly again.
“I don’t know, Kasie, maybe . . .” I hesitate, and then decide to blurt it out. “Maybe they were trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?” Kasie snaps. “Please tell me that’s a joke.”
“Look, you were a good kid. You were doing all the things you were supposed to do. And I . . . wasn’t a good influence, let’s leave it at that. So yeah, maybe this was a way of making sure you never tried to seek me out so I couldn’t screw you up. Maybe they thought they were doing something good.”
Kasie lets out a humorless laugh. “Our parents never had the slightest interest in protecting me,” she says in a low voice. “They loved me like people love their Rolexes. I was some type of status symbol for them. It was always, always about their image. They used your death to control me. If I ever did anything they didn’t fully approve of, I was accused of turning into you. They convinced me that your problem was lack of self-control and that if I didn’t practice perfect discipline in my own life I would spin out of control, too. That I would suffer your fate and they would . . .” She gasps as something new dawns on her. “They would erase me,” she whispers. “After they told me you died, they never spoke of you. Not once. It never really did feel like you were dead, just that you were erased. They erased you.”
“Um, yeah, no.” I cross my arms across my chest. “They may have erased me from you and from their lives, but I’m right here living loud, with purple hair and a microphone. They did not erase me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you—”
“Why would I be insulted? Just because apparently your worst nightmare was turning into me? No really, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Melody—”
“Mercy,” I correct, holding up my hand to stop her. And then I wince at my own defensiveness. Mammoth comes up and tramples my toes, and with a sigh I bend down to pick her up. “I’m not insulted,” I say quietly. “Not by you, anyway. I’m just . . . this brings up a lot of feelings for me.”
She nods, regarding me carefully now.
“Really,” I assure her. When she doesn’t answer I gesture toward the window. “It’s a gorgeous view.”
She smiles, appreciating the change in topic. “The lights look like sparkling jewels, don’t they?” she asks as she turns back to the window.
“Like diamonds,” I say softly
. “Do you remember when I told you I was going to be a jewel thief?”
She lets out a light laugh. “You said you would steal the highest-quality stones, stones that sparkled without even the benefit of light. And you said you wouldn’t even sell the jewels you stole, you’d just hide them in the attic.”
“And eventually I would have so many that when I went up into the dark ol’ attic it would be sparkling like the night sky. Like the ground was covered with stars.”
“Yes,” Kasie says quietly. “I remember that.” We stand there in silence for a moment or two as Mammoth nestles against my chest, soothed by the now normal pace of my internal drumbeat. “I’ve missed you,” Kasie whispers.
Another tear slides down my cheek. “I’ve missed you, too.”
She turns, gestures to the leather sofa. “Come, let’s sit down. Let’s get to know each other.”
CHAPTER 46
AND WE DO get to know each other. We talk for hours that night, days later we talk on the phone, and we just keep it up. I find out that I actually really like her. She’s smart, stylish, and she doesn’t take shit from anybody . . . although apparently she used to. As it turns out, our parents did a number on her, too, but that’s her story to tell, not mine. Oh, and how do I know we’re really related? We’re both exhibitionists. Seriously. I mean, okay, she hasn’t danced in a cage or anything, and she hasn’t danced on a bar, but she has done things on a bar that would make me blush! Totally crazy shit.
I even get to know Robert, who, as it turns out, isn’t so scary once you get to know him . . . unless you get on his bad side, in which case he’s terrifying. He’s planning on proposing to Kasie. He has a ring and everything although she doesn’t know it. He’s just holding off until she has more time to digest the shock of . . . well, me. Also he’s apparently putting a lot of thought into how to stage the proposal. He hasn’t shared any details with me but now that I’m beginning to understand how Robert operates, I’m assuming he’ll hire Yo-Yo Ma to give them a private performance on Air Force One while the president of the United States is serving them champagne.
