The Bad Sister

by Kevin O'Brien

  She imagined—while she’d been unemployed last year, watching her film deal and her marriage unravel—that maybe all of it had been the answer to some fervent prayers from the Brewers and families like them. If they had known what a horrible time that was for her, they’d have said she had it coming.

  In the wake of it all, Our Lady of the Cove seemed like a good place to recuperate—and hide.

  But someone—probably her film agent—had updated her Wikipedia page, which mentioned that she now taught journalism at the university. So Ellie was still getting hate emails through her college email address. Even with all the misspellings and bad grammar, some of those notes were damn disturbing. As a precaution, she kept three fire extinguishers in her small townhouse. And she felt wary about non-students—like Nicholas Jensen—taking her freshman journalism class. The Brewers and their kind had a lot of friends. Two of the men convicted of arson were now out of jail. Ellie knew all their names and faces. Nicholas Jensen wasn’t among those arrested and convicted, but it could be a fake name.

  She’d have to wait until the first day of her journalism class on Wednesday to see if Jensen looked at all familiar.

  Ellie slurped the last cold drops of her watery latte, and then she pulled the class list out of her purse. She glanced at the names again—and then stopped once more at O’Rourke, Eden and O’Rourke, Hannah.

  She returned to her laptop screen, closed the email page, and tried a Google search for the half-sisters. The results came up, a long list of news articles from two years ago, when the story in Seattle first broke.

  Under the Google headings, Ellie clicked on New to see if there were any follow-up stories on the two girls. There were no articles. But Hannah O’Rourke was active on Snapchat and Instagram with all sorts of posts over the summer. The most recent was from yesterday: a selfie, taken at a high angle with her looking up at the camera so that the shot also included a half-packed suitcase on her bed.

  Heading to Chicago tomorrow to start college. 99 degrees there! Packing my swimsuit!

  For someone whose family was part of such a scandalous news story, Hannah didn’t seem publicity shy. Then again, she was a teenage girl, and some of them lived and breathed social media. If they didn’t photograph it and post it online, then it never really happened.

  Despite what Jeanne at the bursar’s office had said about the girls wanting to be left alone, Ellie once again considered the possibility of talking to the half-sisters. The notion of writing a follow-up story—or even another series—intrigued her.

  She couldn’t help it. Once a reporter, always a reporter. Because of her last big scoop two years ago, she was still getting horrible, hateful emails.

  Yet, all she could think about right now were the two half-sisters and the potential story there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thursday, 4:16 P.M.

  Hannah hadn’t really noticed the businessman sitting nearby on the train car’s upper deck until he asked if she needed help with her suitcases. He was thirty-something, and nerdy-cute with receding light brown hair. He must have taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie before coming to her aid. Hannah figured he probably heard her cursing under her breath as she struggled with the four big bags on the luggage rack—among them, a heavy as hell and embarrassingly ugly canvas suitcase with Eden’s moronic Magic Marker doodling all over it.

  He grabbed that one and a second bag, then led the way down the narrow winding stairwell to the train’s main deck. He took one of the suitcases from her while she was still in the stairwell, creating a pile of bags at the foot of the steps.

  “This is really very nice of you,” Hannah said. “My sister is supposed to be here helping out, but she wandered off. I think she must have gotten off at the wrong stop.”

  “Did you try calling her?” the man asked.

  She sighed. “Twice. She must have turned off her phone. This is pretty typical of her. I’m sure she’ll materialize eventually.”

  Nodding, the stranger gave her an awkward smile.

  Hannah wondered if her Good Samaritan recognized her from the news stories. Though it had been a long time since all the headlines, people still occasionally stopped her on the street or in a store. She got everything from “Hey, you look familiar” to “Oh my God, you’re the one from that screwed-up family!” Some guy had actually said that to her. “Were you there when that whack-job tried to shoot your father?” he’d asked.

  In fact, the night that happened, Hannah wasn’t even home. She was having the time of her life at a slumber party—at the house of Taylor D’Arcy, who basically ruled their junior class. After years of feeling like the Invisible Girl at school, Hannah was—at last—in the in-crowd.

  Then bam, the thing that happened made headlines all over. She convinced herself that the horrible dark cloud hovering over her family had a silver lining. She assumed her new A-list friends would be there for her. Plus, practically all of the girls had noticed her father at different school functions because he was so good-looking. It was a little creepy when they referred to her dad as a hunk or a hottie, but Hannah kind of liked it, too. They acted as if her dad were a movie star or royalty or something. Suddenly, he was in the hospital, possibly crippled for life. Though her family was in a shambles, at least her friends would rally around her and she could take comfort in that.

  But she was wrong. The news coverage didn’t pull any punches.

  All at once, she, her friends, and the entire world knew about her father’s extramarital affairs. Yes, affairs, plural. There had been other women besides Eden’s mother, a lot of others. He went from being her cool dad to being this total sleaze-bucket, a national joke. Hannah felt like everyone was laughing at her, too. She knew she wasn’t supposed to care what other people thought of her, but it still mattered.

  Hannah had had a crush on this jock, Ian Westerlund. He was tall and ruggedly good-looking with dark blond curly hair. His family had moved to Seattle from Australia a few years before. Hannah became frazzled and breathless if Ian even so much as looked at her. A while back she’d mentioned to Taylor D’Arcy that she thought Ian was cute.

  On her first day back at school after the thing that happened, just before third period English Lit class, Ian approached her desk. He made eye contact and said, “Hey . . .”

  “Hey,” Hannah managed to reply.

  Here it is, she thought. In his sexy Australian accent, Ian was about to tell her that he saw her on the Internet—and how sorry he was about what had happened to her family. Hannah’s heart pounded furiously.

  “Hey,” he said again. “Listen—”

  “Hannah’s got the hots for you, Ian,” Taylor interrupted—for the whole class to hear. She sat behind Hannah. “But I don’t know if you should go out with her, because her dad has really screwed around a lot. For all you know, he could have screwed your mom. You and Hannah could be brother and sister . . .”

  It was a stupid, mean, tactless thing to say, but since Taylor D’Arcy had said it, everyone laughed. Even Ian chuckled awkwardly.

  But all Hannah could do was look down at the floor and try to keep from cringing.

  Before the end of the school day, everyone was quoting Taylor.

  In the corridor, after sixth period, some stupid-ass senior Hannah barely knew came up to her. “Hey, aren’t you Hannah O’Rourke?” he said. “I hear your father can’t keep his dick in his pants. So—do you party around a lot, too?”

  Hannah hoped it would all go away and everyone would forget soon. But it was in the news for days. Plus, after a brief absence, her bastard half-sister, Eden, was back at school—a walking, talking, breathing reminder that Hannah’s father was a womanizing scumbag.

  Even though she was older, Eden had started out at the high school a year behind Hannah—in her brother Steve’s grade. It didn’t seem to bother Steve much. But then Eden was quickly moved up to Hannah’s grade, and Hannah was utterly humiliated.

  Eden had cleaned herself up a bit
and lost the Goth look she’d featured when she’d originally shown up at their house. She could actually be pretty with a little effort. But she still had the dark eyebrows and platinum hair (à la Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones). She also had horrible taste in clothes, and looked just plain trashy half the time. It might have helped if she’d worn a bra more often. She had big boobs, too, so it was hard not to notice.

  Even if she weren’t the “braless wonder,” Eden still would have stuck out. In class, she questioned and debated their teachers at every turn. She seemed openly hostile to the people Hannah thought mattered. Even though they’d been pretty awful to her, Hannah still cared what they thought. She remembered Ian Westerlund saying something really funny in their world history class, and once the laughter had died down, Eden could be heard muttering to no one in particular: “What a fucking idiot.”

  Eden seemed determined to befriend the class losers and misfits. While that might have seemed noble or kind, it was also pretty stupid. Sure, kids sometimes were pegged as losers for no discernible reason. But most of the time, they didn’t fit in because they were just damned impossible to get along with. And yet Eden sought them out.

  “She’s kind of contrary, isn’t she?” Hannah’s mother had once said, describing Eden. “She seems bent on being different from everyone else.”

  For some reason, Hannah hadn’t expected Eden to pull her vanishing act on their very first day away from home together. Hannah kept telling herself, I’m not responsible for her. Hell, her half-sister was lucky she didn’t just leave her stupid bags here on the train.

  Hannah worked up another smile for her Good Samaritan businessman. “Is Delmar your stop, too?” she asked.

  “No, but you looked kind of overwhelmed, so I thought I’d help.” He nodded at the suitcases crammed in the aisle. “I can hand these down to you once you’re on the train platform. Are you at the college?”

  She sighed. “I’m starting my freshman year. And not a very good start, I guess . . .”

  He smiled again. There was nothing flirtatious about it. In fact, it was almost fatherly, like he felt sorry for her.

  As much as her half-sister could be a pain in the ass, Hannah hated the notion of getting off the train without her—alone in this strange town. She told herself she wasn’t going to cry—not in front of this nice man. Never mind how Riley had just burst her bubble with the news that he wasn’t seeing her this weekend. And forget that she was so homesick her stomach ached.

  She glanced down at all the bags again and wondered how she was going to manage lugging them around all by herself.

  The rest of their stuff had been shipped off to Our Lady of the Cove last week.

  Except for a virtual tour online, neither Hannah nor Eden had visited the college. Of course, she’d read up on the place. It was a small Catholic university with about four thousand students. It had been a women’s college, but now about twenty percent of the students were male. The school had a good reputation, but neither Hannah nor Eden would have chosen it for themselves.

  For a while, it had seemed they might need to put their college plans on hold. Their father’s hospital and physical therapy bills had put a huge burden on the family finances. The insurance covered only so much. Eden was due to inherit a large sum from the woman who had raised her, but she wouldn’t see a dime of it until she turned twenty.

  At just about the time Hannah should have been applying herself academically and planning for college, total apathy had set in. She’d hated her family and hated the kids at school. She’d spent most of her time watching TV and on social media. She might not have had many friends at school, but thanks to all those headlines, she had more social media followers than all her classmates put together. Studying was the last thing on her mind. So her grades were hardly scholarship-worthy. By the time Hannah realized she’d blown her chances of getting away from her miserable existence and into a decent college, it was too late.

  But then, out of the blue, both she and Eden received scholarship offers from a Chicago-based financial firm, the Slate-Gannon Group. Both the girls’ tuition and their room and board were covered. Apparently, the firm had a connection to the university, and every year, they selected a few financially challenged students for their scholarship program. Though the O’Rourkes weren’t exactly destitute, no one questioned the offer.

  The one condition was that the half-sisters were going off to college together. Hannah knew Eden wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect either.

  Maybe that explained why Eden had disappeared. Maybe she’d decided to run away, and hopped off the train at the first stop back in Chicago.

  Hannah felt so utterly pathetic and alone. Tears filled her eyes.

  The man was still smiling at her. It felt like they’d been standing there forever at the bottom of the steps to the train’s upper deck, waiting for her stop. She cleared her throat. “I—I really appreciate this . . .”

  “First time away from home?” he asked.

  She just nodded. She was afraid if she tried to talk, she’d start crying.

  “My daughter’s going off to college next year,” the man said.

  Just then, the car doors whooshed open, and Eden almost barreled into the guy. He must have thought she was slightly demented—what with her spacey, baffled expression and those hideous yellow overall shorts.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Hannah barked. She wiped away her tears. “I thought you were dead or something. This is so goddamn typical!”

  “God, bite my head off,” Eden replied. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep in another car.”

  With her foot, Hannah shoved aside Eden’s canvas suitcase to make room in the aisle. “Well, thanks a lot. Could you possibly be more inconsiderate? You left me with all the bags—”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Eden muttered. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Yeah, praise Jesus.”

  The train screeched to a halt, and Hannah grabbed a handle by the doorway to keep from falling over. She gave her Good Samaritan a strained smile. “Thank you very much,” she said. “You’ve been really nice . . .”

  “Good luck,” he said. He handed her the third bag and quickly backed away.

  With a loud hiss, the train doors opened. Eden stepped outside with her bags, and Hannah followed her. Weighed down with the suitcases, she staggered off the train onto the station platform—smack into a wall of wilting heat and humidity. Hannah managed to hobble a few more paces before pausing to plop the heavy, bulky suitcases on the walkway. “Wait up!” she called to Eden.

  Her half-sister was shuffling along the platform with her two bags—toward Delmar’s quaint, Tudor-style station house. She stopped and then turned to scowl back at her.

  Hannah grabbed her bags again and caught up with her half-sister. Already, she was perspiring. She set down the suitcases once more.

  “Y’know, the way you were acting,” Eden said, talking loudly over the sound of the train as it pulled out of the station, “that guy helping with the suitcases probably thought you were a total raving psycho. Just saying . . .”

  “Well, maybe if you hadn’t wandered off and waited until the very last fucking minute to show up again, I wouldn’t have been acting so nuts.” Hannah stopped yelling as soon as she realized she didn’t hear the train anymore. But the sound had been replaced by an almost continuous shrill buzzing. “What the hell is that?” she asked, fanning herself. “Do you hear it? It sounds like—like jungle noises in the Amazon.”

  Eden rolled her eyes. “It’s not the Amazon. It’s Lake Michigan, and I’m pretty sure they’re cicadas.”

  But Hannah wasn’t listening. With the train gone, she had her first look at downtown Delmar. Among the storefronts, the one that stood out was the Sunnyside Up Café, which looked like a cheap greasy spoon. Its name was on an old, battered 7UP sign on a pole at the edge of the parking lot out front. Corn dogs were probably their specialty. Next door was a locksmith, and
beside that, Verna’s Hair Salon. It looked like just the place to go for a poodle cut and a blue rinse. Who, under the age of eighty, was named Verna?

  For the past hour, Hannah had been looking out the train window as they stopped in each north suburban town: Wilmette, Winnetka, Hubbard Woods, Glencoe, and so on. The towns seemed affluent and charming—full of quaint shops and classy-looking restaurants. Even the cars parked by the stations appeared expensive. But this Delmar place was a dump.

  Hannah’s phone buzzed. She dug it from her purse, and on the screen, she saw Riley’s handsome photo again. She opened up his text:

  Had to take a call from my mother. Sorry today got screwed up. If all goes well, let’s count on seeing each other a week from Saturday. OK? It’ll B a crazy week ahead 4 me, but I’ll try to be in touch. Talk to you soon. OK?

  Squinting at her phone screen, Hannah shook her head. It seemed like a total brush-off. If all goes well, they’d get together? He’d try to be in touch? Nothing definite, no promises, no commitments. He didn’t even say what this big family emergency was. Maybe he’d met someone else already.

  I don’t understand, she started to type. But then, she erased it and just typed K.

  She sent the text and then clicked off the line. She worked her thumbs over the phone again. “I wonder if they even have Uber in this shithole,” she said, her voice strained and shaky. “Do you suppose the college is far from here?”

  “About a mile, I think,” Eden answered. She dug her sunglasses out of a front pocket of her overall shorts and put them on. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Nobody,” she murmured. In a weak moment, Hannah had told Eden about Riley, and couldn’t help bragging that she had a date with him that weekend. She wasn’t exactly dying to tell her that the big date was off. She didn’t want to give Eden anything to gloat about.

  She ordered the Uber. “I’m roasting, aren’t you?” she asked her half-sister. “If our dorm bungalow—or whatever they call it—isn’t air-conditioned, I swear, I’ll slit my throat . . .”