The Fall of January Cooper

by Audrey Bell

  A few pickup trucks coasted along the otherwise-deserted road, and I walked leisurely on the packed dirt in the sun, and with $300 left in my checking account and Christian sleeping where I left him, I felt safe. I felt like I’d stopped the free-fall.

  Christian

  January was gone when I woke up. I lay in bed for a while, wondering what she thought of me.

  I usually slept through my bad dreams and when I woke, feeling halfway haunted, a vague memory of what I’d seen would play on the back of my eyes. And then I’d shake my head hard, and I’d be able to forget.

  January had woken me up and I remembered this one.

  I remembered everything about it.

  High school. Elisabeth Catalano holding a sign with my name on it, Sam drumming his fingers on the end of the bench, Coach Morgan yelling at me about my effort and my attitude. My dad shaking his head in the parents' section.

  Hyper-real at first. Like I’d just gone back three years.

  But I fell down and I couldn’t get up. Nothing hurt, I had just frozen up.

  Sam skated over to me. Sat down next to me.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "I'm tired," I told him.

  "Well, you killed me," he said and then he started bleeding from his neck and his eyes and his ears and I still couldn't move, and I couldn’t close my eyes, he was there on the ice bleeding when I tried too, and I couldn’t cover them, my arms wouldn’t move either.

  Even remembering it made me start to sweat, made my breath begin to go uneven. I pressed a pillow over my face and breathed into it.

  It was just a dream. I didn't kill him. I didn't. I would trade places with him in a heartbeat. He knew that. I wish it was me. I do. He would know that. If he knows anything, he knows I’m sorry.

  I heard the door click open. January.

  She looked like a dream. In a blue sundress, her eyes wide, her hair in a loose bun. She smiled at me, crawled into bed, pushed a Styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup into my hand. She burrowed against me. She smelled like vanilla.

  “You okay?” she asked, softly, and I had to balance the coffee carefully, to keep her head against my chest, where I wanted it. I kissed her hair.

  “I’m good.”

  She ran a cool hand over my chest. “You sure?”

  I nodded. I caught her hand and laced my fingers with hers. “Where’d you go?”

  “I thought we could have a pre-Thanksgiving picnic,” she said. “There’s an abandoned amusement park in the woods.”

  After I showered, I found her on the porch, thumbing through a worn paperback. I picked up the Styrofoam cup of coffee and leaned against the doorframe looking at her.

  I could be simple for you.

  I walked to her and bent to kiss her. Her lips were soft, she tugged on my wrist lightly when I kissed her, and her eyelashes fluttered against my cheek.

  She was good to me, I realized.

  That night when she’d came over and tried to make me believe that it was okay, that there was nothing else I could have done. All she was doing was being good to me.

  January

  He said nothing when we walked.

  We cut across the farmer’s land to the wooded area, near a wide river.

  A bridge swayed over the gurgling water, and I looked down at the water beneath us.

  It was strange that I felt calm here, in the middle of nowhere with Christian. I’d felt calmer than I had in weeks.

  Christian smiled when I fumbled with a map the boy at reception had given to me.

  “This would be the perfect trap.”

  “For what?”

  “For anyone? Your ex-boyfriends.”

  “Oh, you’re back on that again?” I asked. “Listen, player, you don’t have anything to worry about. I drove every single one of them crazy and made another one gay.”

  “I guess I’ll look forward to that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You never even told me how many ex-girlfriends you had.”

  “I told you I had one.”

  “Yeah. Okay? And what was her name?”

  One was a troubling number. It suggested that there had been someone irreplaceable.

  “Elisabeth. It was high school.” He smiled. “We fought about everything, for no reason.”

  I shrugged. “Why did you date her?”

  “Because my dad didn’t want me to date during hockey season.”

  “So, it was just a rebel yell thing?”

  He nodded. “Not her specifically. But she wanted to sleep with me. And she was cute.” He shrugged. “So, I dated her for a while. High school shit, you know?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

  "You guess?" he smiled. "You never had a boyfriend just because you thought you should have a boyfriend?"

  He vaulted a rotting wooden fence with one hand.

  I shook my head. "Not really. No."

  "Well, I met Tyler and Schuyler," he said.

  I put my foot on the bottom rung of the wet fence. "Careful," he said, reaching for my waist and lifting me over.

  I shrugged. "I sometimes had boyfriends just because my mother thought they should be my boyfriends. Like, take Wesley. We went to high school together. His dad was a Senator." I shrugged. "The boy was clearly gay. Is still clearly gay. And she knew if I was going out with someone like Sutton Hobbs..."

  "Who was Sutton Hobbs?" he asked.

  I laughed. "I mean, he was a massive jerk. But he was the quarterback. And, let me tell you, I thought Sutton Hobbs was dreamy. This was before he puked on my shoes at prom."

  "You went to prom with him?"

  "No. Obviously not. I went with Wesley," I said. "But Sutton wanted to go with me." I smiled, triumphantly. "And I thought he was dreamy. But my mother thought he was frighteningly badly behaved. So, she said she’d buy me a Birkin bag if I went with Wesley. Wes was nice to me, never wanted to have sex, thank god, and was very well-behaved. And I wanted a Birkin bag more than I wanted Sutton.”

  Christian's hand found its way into mine, and his other hand tangled in his hair. He stepped close to me and kissed me hard. “What would your mother give you to keep me away?”

  “Nothing,” I said seriously. “She couldn’t.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m serious. There isn’t anything that would work.” I looked at him. “I mean, Sutton, that was not anything like you. You—”

  “January, it was a joke,” he said softly.

  “Oh. Right.”

  "Come on," he said, taking hold of my wrist and nodding towards a clearing. “I think it’s up ahead.”

  It really was an abandoned amusement park. Emphasis on abandoned. A chipped wrought-iron gate was rusted down to a crumbling red skeleton. A Ferris Wheel from decades ago. It was no higher than the tree line, and it had once been painted white. Its complete deterioration is what truly astounded me.

  The entire park creaked. The tracks of the wooden roller coaster had collapsed in places, a car with a roaring dragon rested precariously on the elevated tracks, a few yards short of the gap in between them.

  Across from the coaster, an old merry-go-round's painted horses faltered back and forth in the slight wind.

  "This is creepy," I said. "It was supposed to be romantic. But it is totally creep show city."

  Christian laughed at me. "Come on."

  "You first."

  He looked up at the fence, which was about six feet high. He grabbed the top of it and lifted himself up so he was standing on the ledge. In one smooth motion, he dropped to his feet and looked at me.

  I rolled my eyes, turned my body sideways, and grimacing, slipped between two rusty bars.

  I watched him wiping his hands against each other and walking towards the Ferris Wheel. He squinted up at the swaying seats. "Probably safest to sit on the merry-go-round?"

  I nodded. "I didn't think it was going to be so abandoned. I thought it was going to be charmingly abandoned. Not like, Law & Order abandoned."

&nbs
p; He smiled. "You're fine. It's fine. Stop worrying."

  "I'm not worried. I'm scared."

  "Of what? An old Ferris wheel?"

  "I don't know."

  I followed him to the merry-go-round and we sat down on a sled full of damp leaves.

  "Watch out for snakes," he said.

  "Shut up."

  I sat down, facing him, and held my hand out for the shopping bag. "Gimme that."

  He handed it to me.

  I handed him a turkey sandwich and opened the bottle of champagne. He bit into the sandwich.

  "We probably won't have turkey at my aunt's." I shrugged. "She keeps her shoes in the oven."

  He cracked up.

  "I'm serious. Plus, my mother doesn't know how to cook."

  He took another bite of his turkey sandwich. I took a swig of champagne.

  "What do you want to tell my parents?"

  He cocked his head.

  "I mean, you're going to meet them."

  "I know."

  "You're staying with us. What do you want to tell them?"

  "That I'm your boyfriend."

  I smiled. I sipped my champagne.

  He finished his sandwich and nodded. "Get over here."

  Christian

  It was dark by the time the car was ready. I jogged from the inn to the mechanic's, thinking we could make it to January's aunt inside five hours.

  January wore a red and white Harvard rugby shirt. She told me about her friends. Or the girls she called her friends.

  She told me about her parents. She told me how she never wanted to go to Harvard. How her mother had fixated on it endlessly. How all of the girls she knew went to UT and SMU and even though she knew she was supposed to be more ambitious, she hated Harvard at first. She hated the cold and how competitive people were with one another.

  She hated feeling like the dumbest person in the room.

  And I told her about hockey. That was all I'd ever really done. Play hockey. At the big, Catholic high school I went to, people knew I was good at hockey. But they didn't see me out much. I was always on the ice.

  I told her about 5 AM practices, which I hated in high school, but learned to love the summer between my freshman and sophomore years.

  I told her about my dad coaching me when I was really little. I told her about how I had seen my dad cry twice—the day I was drafted and the day we buried Sam—and how sometimes I hated him for putting those two things on the same level.

  I told her how I had mostly stopped being friends with my former teammates because I resented the hell out of them.

  And I told her how I hated myself for that, because when I'd been healthy, when I'd been on top of the world, none of them ever resented me. Or, if they did, they hid it better.

  It was almost two o'clock, when we reached her exit, and I was still talking.

  "It's either right or left," she said, when we pulled up to a light on Main Street.

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "Shut up." She squinted. "It's left."

  "You sure?"

  "Yes, I'm sure."

  I turned left.

  "Actually..." she said, hesitantly. "Maybe it's the other way."

  I shook my head and turned left into an office parking lot, and headed back in the opposite direction.

  "Yeah," she said, nodding, affirmatively.

  "You sure this is the right city?" I asked, affectionately.

  "Quiet."

  I nodded. "Sure thing."

  "It's like down this way, for maybe fifteen minutes?" she cocked her head. "She lives on Folk Drive."

  I turned down Folk Drive about ten minutes later, when January recognized it all of the sudden.

  "I'm so nervous," she said suddenly.

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. I just am.” She gnawed at her fingernails. I believed her.

  The street was quiet and unlit. The first house we passed looked vacant, but the others were fine. A little rundown, maybe, but it looked like a lot of working class neighborhoods in America.

  "This is it," she said, uncertainly.

  I slowed to a stop.

  She seemed sure it was her aunt's house, but unsure about what to do. All of the lights were out.

  I pulled into the driveway and put the car in park.

  "Let's, um, leave my stuff," she said.

  I followed her up the stairs, to the front door. She rang the bell and stepped back.

  She looked up at the dark house.

  I did too.

  She rang the bell again and reached into her pocket for her phone. I could tell nobody was picking up.

  I tried the door and found it locked.

  "What the hell?" January said. She sounded terrified. She rang the bell a third time. "Hey, Aunt Lynda. I’m outside your house. Could you please call me back? Um. I don't know what's going on, but it doesn't look like anyone is here. Would you call me back? Please."

  I looked at the house.

  She ran a hand through her hair. "I swear. I'm not crazy. This is her house."

  I knocked on the door loudly.

  "Well, do you think they're here?"

  January put her hands on top of her head and sighed deeply. "I don't know."

  We stood outside for maybe five or six minutes, ringing the doorbell enough that we were sure we would wake anyone who happened to be living.

  "Where else would they be?" I asked.

  January

  All I could think was that they were dead or that they’d left me. Nothing else made sense.

  This was the house. I knew this was the house. I was supposed to be here with Lynda.

  My stomach churned. I knew they wouldn't have fled to Mexico with Aunt Lynda though. And someone would have called me. A lawyer. To tell me to shut up. To say no comment.

  I tore a ragged hangnail with my teeth. Christian caught my wrist. "Don't do that."

  "I don't know where they are!"

  He nodded. "It's cold. Get in the car. We'll figure it out."

  I nodded numbly. "We could try my old house. I don’t know. I thought…I don’t know.”

  "It’s worth a try," he said calmly. "Do you have anyone else's phone number?"

  I shook my head. "I'm not supposed to call them."

  "What?"

  "My dad's lawyers think his phones are tapped."

  "Well, I don't think they can use this in court," he said.

  My fingers twitched. My cell was completely out of minutes. "Can I borrow your phone?" How fucking useless could a person be? That’s how useless I was.

  He nodded and handed it over.

  I dialed my home number. It was still disconnected. So was my dad's cell and my mom's.

  "What do you want to do?" he asked gently.

  "Where the fuck are they?" I whispered. I had wanted to be angry, but my voice broke. And after all of the shit I’d been through, I was about to start crying again.

  He put a hand on the back of my neck.

  "Look, we can go over to your house. See if anyone is there."

  "What if nobody is?"

  "Then we go find a place to stay," he said simply.

  I swallowed. "It's two in the morning, Christian."

  "It's a big city." He smiled.

  "This sucks," I said. "My family sucks. You know that? They are really shitty people."

  "Left or right?" he asked, reaching the end of the road.

  "Left," I said.

  Preston Hollow didn't seem like part of a city, but it was, nestled in the northern reaches of Dallas. George W. Bush had a house here, not too far away from my parents.

  I could see Christian looking at mansion after mansion as we made our way down the winding roads. When we reached the high gate at the end of the drive, I swallowed uncertainly. "It's 1992. The passcode."

  Christian nodded and dialed it.

  "It used to be anyways. Probably won't work."

  The gates swung open.

  "Some place,” Christian murmured as
he took in the view of the property.

  "Thanks. It's stolen."

  He laughed.

  "You know what? You might want to wait here. I'm pretty sure the house was repossessed. You know, like my car."

  "You’re not going in there alone." He drove up the winding, gravel drive. The grass had grown. It looked knee high. The boxwoods that had once been carefully pruned, were overgrown. They just looked like bushes. But in the wide driveway, there was my father's vintage Bentley and my aunt's battered Chevy sedan and my mother's sleek Range Rover.

  And the lights were on.

  "If they're all inside, sipping champagne, I'm going to go crazy," I said.

  I looked over at Christian. His jaw was set. "They still live here?"

  "I don't know," I said. He put the car in park and I got out.

  Christian

  I was pretty sure I was going to knock out her father if he opened the door, so it was a good thing it was her mother.

  January Cooper’s mother wore a white shawl over her shoulders, and a dress that looked like it cost a small fortune—with a brocaded collar. She had a half-pound of diamonds draped across her sunken, starved chest.

  "January, when did you start doing your hair like that?" she asked, a hint of remorse in her voice. She was drinking. She held a tumbler between elegantly splayed fingers.

  “God, what a dumb question,” January said breezily. No wonder she was such a pistol. If she hadn’t been, her parents probably would’ve destroyed her.

  The house was palatial. Nauseatingly so. When we stepped through the door, which was three times my height, we were in an alarmingly large foyer with ceilings that soared forty feet in the air.

  The painting at the end of the entranceway was massive and impressionistic, and I recognized it as something famous though I wasn’t sure why.

  "Richard!" January's mother called. "She's home!"

  "I went to Lynda's,” January said throatily. I put a hand on her lower back to keep her steady. “Why didn’t anyone tell me to come here? I thought you were staying at Lynda’s.”

  “Oh. Right. You must need money for the cab. One minute, dear,” her mother said, noticing me.

  “No,” January said. “No, he’s not the cab driver, Mom.”