by Nina Laurin
“We’re not supposed to.”
“Whatever. No one can see us.”
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“Oh yeah? You’ll tell on me?” His tone is humorous, but she can hear the barbs underneath. Her face flares hot. And when he motions impatiently for her to join him, she obeys.
One step, two, four. He’s always a step above her, goading her onward. Six, seven, eight steps—and he’s reached the platform. Above it, the three remaining rungs are painted orange, because you’re not supposed to stand on them.
“This isn’t so bad,” he’s saying. “Look. You can see everything.”
Instinctively, she turns to look. She isn’t sure what comes next. Did he push her? Did she make a misstep? Did she get dizzy? The next thing she knows, everything is sideways. Her stomach flips, and the rush of air fills her ears, the floor grows closer and closer, and then nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I wake up feeling like I drank three bottles of tequila the day before, or got hit by a truck head-on, or maybe both. Sitting up with a groan, I realize I’ve passed out on the love seat, my spine curved in an S shape and stuck that way.
On the couch, I find the pillow and blanket I got for Sunny. Sunny herself is nowhere to be seen, naturally. That’s why I fell asleep here instead of my comfy bed. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, at least not until I was sure she’d passed out cold.
So far, it looks like she beat me at my own game. A cursory check confirms that Sunny is no longer in the house, and neither are the change and crumpled ones and fives in the bowl near the entrance. Or the tiny gold earrings I left by the sink.
I guess I should feel lucky she didn’t call up Shawn or someone like him to clean out the electronics.
All my careful prodding and questioning didn’t get me any closer to figuring out whether Sunny really saw this Adele at the shelter or if it was just wishful thinking of a girl badly in need of attention. Although I’m not worried. I highly doubt Sunny will be calling up the police to share her theories.
With my joints and spine cracking like I’m eighty, I plod to the upstairs bathroom. Sure enough, Sunny also swiped some makeup from the cabinet. I sigh, unable to muster any anger, and then ditch my clothes and climb into the shower.
It’s earlier than I thought, around the same time I’d get up for the day shift at the shelter, when I did those. And my next step forms in my mind as I let scalding water run over my head, my hair slicked to my neck and shoulders. When Milt lived here, he never once complained about having to take a barely warm shower after I’d used up the hot water in the tank.
Once I’ve dried my hair and put on clean clothes, not to mention a layer or five of deodorant, I feel like myself again. The sight of Cynthia’s car makes me wince, a sharp reminder of the day before, but I get behind the wheel anyway.
As I get closer to my destination, there’s no police tape on the spot where I crashed. I almost miss it. I slow down on purpose when I drive by, wrestling with the temptation to stop, to put on the hazard lights. To leave the car, to wade into the bleak grass, letting it whip my shins. To walk as far as the horizon, peering at the ground at my feet. Looking.
But I don’t stop. Instead, I keep going until I get to the shelter, which sticks out of the concrete and flat grassland like a gray pimple. Cynthia’s car looks out of place in the parking lot next to the handful of sensible Hondas and the lone electric car that belongs to my supervisor, Marla Etan.
In the much less forgiving light of day, everything looks completely different. Last year we all got together to repaint the walls, with paint and supplies bought with our own money because our funding was as miserly as ever. We picked an assortment of purples, soothing greens and blues, cheery yellow—all meant to put the shelter’s residents in a better, healthier, can-do mind-set. But the result looks like a children’s jail with posters of missing teenagers next to guidelines for safe sex and safer drug injections.
The social worker on front-desk duty still sits behind bulletproof glass. She salutes me, not without a shade of hesitation. I scan my pass, and the door unlocks with a beep, a green light flashing above it. I’m now in the common room / cafeteria, with the dormitory and shower stalls to my right and the offices to my left. The offices are for those seeking counsel who might want some privacy.
A few teenagers are spread throughout the common room—a small group cross-legged on the floor and a couple of rough-looking girls nearly passed out on the shabby couch. In the corner, a drip coffee maker hums, spewing horrible coffee into a pitcher stained with brown sediment rings. Next to it is a stack of miniboxes of cereal no one shows any interest in. The smell of the place—a peculiar mix of tobacco, burned coffee, and chemical lemon cleaner—assaults the nostrils the moment you walk in, but you stop noticing it within minutes. Today I can’t get used to it. Instead, I become hyperaware, like a scent hound, detecting all the undercurrent smells: sweat, pot, despair.
“Hey,” I say as I approach the teens sitting on the floor. The nearest one lifts her head, and I only now realize it’s a girl, shaved hair and all. She has those stretching hoops in her earlobes. The one next to her, a guy hunched over his phone, dreadlocks obscuring his face, hardly stirs at all.
The girl looks at me questioningly. I decide to just jump in because otherwise I’ll never work up the courage.
“I need to know if you’ve seen her around before,” I ask, holding out my phone. On the screen, a picture of Adele Schultz. The one everyone has seen, the picture everyone will know her by from here on out. From the news.
Interest flashes briefly through her watery gray eyes but gives way to indifference. “Nope.”
The guy looks up, at last, craning his neck to see the photo.
“Please,” I say hoarsely.
The buzz-headed girl pulls unsubtly on the guy’s sleeve. “Don’t talk to her,” she whispers loudly, and then turns to me. “Are you police?”
“No, Cass. Come on. She works here,” chimes in the third one, a girl with short hair dyed Kool-Aid green. I’ve seen her around before, often. I usually remember all their names but not today.
The one she called Cass—same name as my mother’s—measures me with an icy look, clearly not eager to put her trust in me, police or not. I’m authority, which to her is all the same.
“Andrea,” calls a voice from my left-hand side. My head snaps up. The tone is that of cheerful surprise but I can read the notes it conceals. Marla is standing at the door of her office. “I didn’t think you’d come in today at all. A word?”
I follow her to the office. She lets me in first and then gently shuts the door behind me—exactly the same as she does with the teenagers she counsels. Especially when the news is not so good.
Marla’s office is the only one that’s personalized: a framed picture of her husband and adult daughter on her desk, a Monet print on the wall flanked by two motivational posters, a bowl on the edge of the desk filled with those little caramels from the dollar store.
“Look, Andrea, I’ll have to level with you,” she says, folding her hands with their pointy manicure. “I think you should take a break.”
I can’t say it’s a total shock. But I can still muster a certain amount of indignation. Plus, she’s looking at me as if she expects me to be surprised.
“I don’t need to take a break,” I say. “I’m fine.”
Marla heaves a patient sigh. I study her—pixie cut, rectangular glasses with a bright-purple plastic frame, pursed lips. She reminds me of Cynthia in more than a few ways, except Marla chose to channel her relentless will into something slightly less shallow.
Just like Cynthia though, she can’t stand to be disobeyed. “This whole thing with your brother,” she says, and doesn’t continue. Just lets the phrase hang there. This whole thing with your brother, as if it’s self-explanatory.
“What does that have to do with me? With my work?”
She leans in closer. “One of our charges s
aw you on the news. And you know how they talk. Before long, they’ll be making up all kinds of stories, and that…that just undermines their confidence in this place. It’s supposed to be a…a safe haven—do you know what I mean?”
“How is it any less of a—” I cut myself off, shaking my head as if trying to get rid of a bad dream. “So what? That means I don’t need a job? An income?”
“No one is firing you,” she says firmly, more and more reminiscent of Cynthia. And just like with Cynthia, I know by the tone of her voice she won’t budge. “I am talking about a temporary leave of absence. Once all this is sorted, you can come back.”
“Paid leave?” I ask pointedly.
She looks away.
“Andrea, please. Work with me here. This is a touchy situation. We could get our funding cut any day as it is. And you…Well, you have your fiancé, don’t you?”
I stare at her, astounded, not quite believing what just came out of her mouth. I don’t even correct her, remind her that he’s my ex-fiancé. And after all, I still live in his house, don’t I?
“Who was it?” I ask dryly.
“Pardon?”
“That saw me on TV.” And is now running her big mouth. I know the answer without her needing to say it. Sunny.
Marla’s lips, already thin and shapeless, press together until they almost vanish. “I don’t think you get it. You brought him here.” She puts her hand down on the desk, her rings clacking loudly. “Understand? You brought him. I know you didn’t do it on purpose but does it matter? He was out there watching you. You and the vulnerable girls coming and going at all hours, with nowhere else to go. How does it make us look, do you think?”
This whole thing isn’t what it seems, I want to say. But understanding hits, along with a pang of betrayal. Figueroa already spoke to her—probably bled her for every detail about me, my work hours, which coworkers I don’t get along with, how I take my coffee. And then she probably made a few subtle or not-so-subtle threats. And Marla, who cares about the shelter above all, sold me out.
Not a single word leaves my lips. Marla gives a subtle nod, but I don’t need to be told. I turn around and leave, storming through the common room. Someone in the corner gives a wolf whistle when I’m almost at the door.
Without giving it a moment’s thought, I flip him off before slamming the door behind me.
The second I step toward Cynthia’s car, I stop, overcome with a feeling of wrongness that seems to rise from the very bottom of my soul. It knots in my gut, instinctive.
On the back window of the SUV, in the layer of tiny splatters of dirt, someone drew a heart.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ADDIE, it reads in crooked letters inside the heart.
Frantic, I look around. The air is chilly and crystal clear, but in all that bright sun, the shadows are darker and deeper than ever. I draw in an icy breath as I fumble for my car keys, feeling like a character in a bad horror movie. My hands are clumsy, shaking, and I manage to drop the keys to the ground. I crouch, pick them up, and get up so fast my head spins.
“Eli?” I call out, fully aware of how crazy I must look. My heart thunders but no answer comes. He wouldn’t show up here now, I try to reassure myself. It’s too big of a risk. He wouldn’t dare.
But these are all solid, rational things, and they fail to calm me.
“Where are you?” I yell out. My voice rolls across the open lot, uncomfortably loud. In that moment, I could swear something moves in my peripheral vision.
Primal fear fills me. In a panic, I thumb the car key, and Cynthia’s SUV responds with a reassuring beep. I clamber inside, slam the door shut, and engage all the locks. My hands on the steering wheel, I pant, not daring to look anywhere but right in front of me.
The car, with its hulking, solid weight, is a comfort. I start the engine and begin to maneuver out of the parking spot but as soon as I turn the car around, he appears as if by magic, out of thin air.
A tall, dark shape, in the shadow of the building, right at the edge of the lot.
I slam on the brakes, then change my mind, shift gears, and hit the gas pedal. In that moment, I’m 100 percent certain I’m about to mow my brother down with my car.
Like you should have.
But as the SUV roars toward the building, I blink, and the figure is gone, like it was never there.
I swerve at the last second and screech onto the road leading out of the parking lot. Sweat pours down my back as the SUV steadies its speed, careening away, away, away from the shelter.
Away from him.
Only when I’m at a safe distance do I pull over by the side of the road. Forgetting the hazard lights, I stop the car, drop my forehead on the steering wheel, and burst into tears.
I sob out my helplessness to the purr of the Cadillac’s engine, grateful for once for Cynthia’s predilection toward tinted windows—the affectation of the politician’s wife who never was.
I paw my way through the glove compartment (in this monster of a car it could fit a small suitcase): hand lotion, Tylenol, those clip-on sunglasses Cynthia uses, and, finally, tissues. I gut the little plastic pouch and use a whole handful of them to blow my nose and wipe my eyes. Still sniffling, I pop a Tylenol and flip open the visor to reveal the backlit mirror there.
I’m a horror show—red nose, swollen eyelids. It looks like my eyelashes disappeared altogether. I’m not, and never was, one of those girls who look pretty when they cry. I’ve never been able to pull off that thing so many girls have down to an art form, making people feel bad for me by releasing one or two artfully placed fake tears. And real tears aren’t pretty; real tears strip away all the prettiness, leaving you raw and vulnerable like a newborn. That’s why tabloids love pictures of famous women bawling their eyes out, almost as much as they love those no-makeup shots.
There’s a photo in the center insert of that god-awful true crime book, a photo of my brother pretrial. He’s wearing the requisite jumpsuit and handcuffs, and his expression is that of mournful resolve, his eyes shiny. A child in a situation no child should have to face.
In that book, the caption reads, The only tears Eli Warren ever spilled were for himself.
Instead of hitting the gas pedal and getting out of here—Where would I go, anyway?—I check my phone, and my heart jumps when I see the sheer number of notifications. Texts and voicemails to boot. My hands sweaty with foreboding, I unlock the phone and scroll.
The texts are mostly from Chris, my sponsor at AA.
Just checking to see if youre ok. Followed by, A, get in touch. I want to know how youre doing. Chris doesn’t like apostrophes and isn’t friends with Autocorrect. I better see you at the meeting tonight. Chris isn’t dumb. It’s obvious to anyone that no way am I showing my face there, or anywhere, tonight. Or tomorrow night, or the night after that, or any night for the next year. Or five. Or however long it takes for this thing to resolve. For the police to find my brother, arrest him, and then the trial, the appeals—because I know there will be appeals, that he’ll insist he’s innocent until the very end.
My mind fills with the two images of Adele, side by side. The smiling picture from the news and the one Figueroa showed me. Could he have done it? Truth is, I don’t know. And that’s not the question anyway.
There’s also a text from Milton, asking me to please call him, and all the missed calls are from a certain familiar number so the voicemails must be from Cynthia. I’m about to listen to them—or delete them without listening—but another text pops up silently on the screen. Chris: Answer my texts A. I know youve seen them.
Maybe it’s that vulnerable feeling that has had me by the throat since earlier, but instead of answering Milton, instead of driving home, I thumb Chris’s name in my contact list.
The phone barely has time to ring before my sponsor picks up. “Andrea,” Chris says in a level voice, “how are you doing?”
I’m about to answer before I realize I haven’t thought of what I’m going to say. On th
e other end, Chris jumps to conclusions. “Please tell me you’re not drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” I say, grateful for the out. And it’s an easy one. “I promise.”
“You’re coming to the meeting tonight.” It doesn’t sound like a question.
“Don’t you think it’s not the best idea right now?”
“I think it’s the best idea,” Chris says firmly. “More than ever, actually.”
“I’m not going to fall off the wagon,” I say.
“In times of crisis, that’s when we need friends the most.” This worries me—Chris has never been one for platitudes, and something about the words rings with a tension that wasn’t there before, a falseness. The idea of Chris judging me hurts way more than I expected.
“We’ll see,” I say, and before the inevitable protests can start, I hang up and hit the gas pedal.
I drive home and spend the afternoon watching the news on TV while also keeping an eye on what’s being posted online.
There’s a lot about Adele Schultz. Not all of it good—more of it bad, truth be told. After that first smiling, beatific picture, more crop up online: wild, blurry party pics and what looks like a mug shot—which shouldn’t be possible because she would have been a juvenile and that record should be sealed. Yet there she is, looking strung out as hell, premature hollows under her eyes, sullen expression, and a bruise on her cheek. Adele had problems with drugs, run-ins with the police, and a long history of unsuitable men. Of which my brother, supposedly, was the last and worst.
But no matter how hard I search and scour every online source, I can’t seem to find any up-to-date info. It would seem that Adele fell off the radar for the last couple of years, or at least cleaned up enough to keep out of trouble.
I click the search windows closed and turn my attention to the TV, where Adele’s mother, Colleen, is giving a press conference. Well, the police are—I can see Figueroa’s shoulder and half her face at the edge of the screen, looking on with an expression somewhere between motherly and squeamish.
