by Audrey Bell
“Well, who is he, then?” she asked.
“Christian Cutlass,” I said, offering Mrs. Cooper my hand. January seemed shocked, or maybe she was just appalled her parents had continued living in luxury, without a care in the world, while she’d been struggling in Boston, having been ostracized by all of her friends. “I’m January’s boyfriend.”
Her mother took my hand with two fingers, like she thought it might be dirty. “We didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” she said to January, like she hoped if she ignored me long enough I’d disappear.
I smiled. “Really? We tried to call you, but we couldn’t get in touch.”
January looked at me vaguely and nodded.
“Richard!” Mrs. Cooper shouted.
“Where is Dad?” she bit her thumbnail, “And Lynda? Where is she?”
"Oh, darling. Lynda is staying with us. Richard! Could you come down here? January has…she brought a friend." Mrs. Cooper smiled at me.
"He's my boyfriend," January said spitefully. "Come on. Let's go upstairs."
Mrs. Cooper raised her eyebrows. "Well, January, darling..."
"Hey," I said, catching her arm. "Let me get your stuff first."
I could feel her trembling. "Jan, stay with me,” I said softly. “You’re okay.”
"Right. Right,” she whispered. Her voice was thick with the threat of tears.
“Let’s get your bags,” I said. She took a whooping breath once we stepped out of the house.
“I can’t stay here,” she said tightly. “We have to go. I can’t be here. I can’t believe. I can’t.”
I wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her to my side and pulled her suitcase from the car. “You’re okay,” I said.
She took a breath. “Yeah, yeah.” She closed her eyes and leaned against my shoulder. “I thought I’d be over it. I don’t know. I don’t want to see him. They said they had nothing, and…they didn't tell me they were in that house."
"I know," I said. I kissed her forehead. Felt her trembling. “You’re okay, though, January. Think about it. You are. You got a job. You figured out how to stay in school. You took care of yourself. That’s more than a lot of people could do in the same situation. You’ve got a lot more character than them. You did a lot better on your own than they ever could have.”
She swallowed. "I want to go. Tell me you’ll take me away from here.”
It was late, I was exhausted, and I had no idea where we’d go. “I’ll take you anywhere you want,” I said softly, and for a second I wished I had the kind of money that her father once had, so I could drive to an airport, put her on a plane, and take her away from this. I kissed the palm of her hand and then I kissed her. “But we can stay here and we’ll be fine.”
"I don’t know if I can look at him,” she murmured.
"We'll go, then,” I said. “I’ll do anything you want.”
"No. No." She swallowed. "We'll stay. I'll stay."
I grabbed her bags.
"My mom's a bitch. Sorry she thought you were a cab driver."
I smiled. "Nothing wrong with being a cab driver."
"There is when she's trying to pay you instead of meet you and you're my boyfriend."
I cocked my head and carried her things to the door. Her father wore a cashmere sweater. It seemed odd they would be dressed at such a late hour.
"January has a new boyfriend."
"You?" he asked, pointing at me.
"Dad, this is Christian Cutlass," January said.
He stepped forward.
"Richard Cooper," he said. "Nice to meet you." He smiled at January. "Darling, good to have you home."
January looked furious. "I thought the house had been seized."
"We filed an injunction," he said. He looked around.
"That's convenient," she said.
I winced, hating how upset her parents were making her but knowing she had every right to be angry.
"January, could I talk to you privately?" her father asked.
"No. I'm tired." She said. She looked at him. "I'm really, really tired." She met his eyes. I'd seen her look cold before, but I'd never seen her look like this. "We're going to go upstairs."
"It'll only take a minute," he said. He put a hand on her back and she stepped back.
"We can talk tomorrow."
"We need to talk now."
"Dad, I couldn't speak to you or Mom for three months. You can wait a few hours," she said. She grabbed my wrist. "Let's go upstairs."
"January’s here? I'm ready to go," a woman yodeled, coming down the stairs, wearing Birkenstock sandals, carrying a suitcase and two cats. "Yoshi and Banana too! Yoshi was..."
Her voice trailed off when she saw me.
"Go where?" January asked.
Her father looked at her. "We really need to have this conversation privately."
"Look, she clearly wants me here,” I said brusquely. “And you’re not exactly in a position to be making demands, are you?”
He turned slowly to look at me for the first time. He sneered—like I was trash, like I was beneath him somehow. He’d used the savings of his clients and his own family members and his friends as a personal checking account, and he had the nerve to look at me with disdain. "Look, buddy, I don't know what your problem is, but I can assure you that she's probably only dating you to bother me. We really appreciate you driving down here and everything. You know? That's been great. But." He reached into his pocket for his wallet. He started counting out hundred dollar bills. "Look, that's two thousand dollars...I just. I really need to talk to my daughter."
January let out a strangled noise. “Are you kidding me?”
“That’s fine,” I said coldly, refusing to accept the cash.
"You want more? I can get you more," he said.
"Don’t try to buy me off again,” I warned him, in a low voice. “It won’t work.”
"You said your name was Christian, right?”
"That’s right.”
"Hi, Christian. Listen, you probably don't understand what's going on right now. But you should take the money and go. Okay? It would be better for everyone that way."
"I told you that wouldn’t work,” I said in a low voice, badly wanting to fuck this guy up.
"Where are you going?" January asked. “I don’t understand.”
"I have to speak to you. Without him here. That's going to need to happen. So, what do I need to do to make that happen?”
"I trust him."
"How long have you even known him?"
"Long enough." I watched her carefully.
He exhaled. "Darlene..."
"Where are you going?" January asked. "South America? Were you going to tell me?"
He looked at her for a long second. “Why do you think we’re still here? We need to go.”
"Oh my god," she said. "Where? Where the hell do you think you’re going? You thought I’d just come—just…they’ll arrest me. And you-you stole from—”
"You need to calm down, January.” Her father looked at me. "Like I said, I need to speak with you privately. If you don't want to do that, then that's your fucking choice, and it’s a bad one.”
"Don't talk to her like that," I said in a low voice.
He sneered at me. "Are you really still here?”
"January,” I said. “You were right. We should leave.”
"Just tell me the truth. For five seconds, Dad, tell me the truth," she said, pleadingly. She seemed to sway on her feet and I reached for her waist.
He looked at January levelly. “You need to come with us.”
She shook her head.
“You signed off on the things, January. You need to come with us,” he said seriously.
“I am not going anywhere with you,” she spat.
“Your funeral,” he muttered. He picked up his suitcase and nodded to his wife. “Darlene, she wants to stay.”
“Oh, honey,” her mother said softly, looking at January like she was tragic. “What a poor
choice.”
January was shaking. “You’re really going to do this? You’re going to leave? You’re just taking the money and running? Mom, are you kidding me?”
Her parents walked towards the door. They had packed more things than they could carry, and I watched them hunched underneath the baggage as they made their way out the door.
I shook my head in disbelief: “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
January’s aunt turned to look back. She gave January a little wave, and the big door shut behind her.
When the door closed, I thought January would collapse against me, but she didn't. She ran her hands over her face and threw her head up at the ceiling and took a shuddering breath. She looked at me uneasily.
"Jesus, I'm sorry,” I said.
"Don't," she said tightly. She sat down on the marble floor and I put a hand on her back.
“Don’t touch me.”
“January,” I repeated. “I—”
"Christian, please. Just. Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't try and make this better," she said.
“We need to call the police,” I said gently.
"What?" she said.
I looked at her. "We need to call the police. You, specifically, need to call the police. Like, right now. Think about how it will look.”
She stared at me blankly and shook her head. "I can't do that," she whispered. "It's my father. I can't just..."
“I know. And you’re his daughter. And he didn’t think of you. So think about yourself," I said urgently. "Think about what you have to lose. You knew they were leaving the country. They are going to ask you why the hell you didn’t call them. And if they find out that you signed anything and your dad is out of the country…they are going to make you pay for it. That’s how this shit works.”
She shook her head. "I can't do that, Christian."
"You don't owe him anything anymore," I said. "He left you here. You need to call. You can do it. You have to.”
January
All I did was dial. And then I said ‘hello’ in a small voice.
I hoped that would be enough. I hoped that would be forgiven. When I heard the police officer's voice, my throat closed up and I handed the phone to Christian, and he held me pressed against his chest and I closed my eyes.
The police who showed up weren't uniformed officers. They were detectives, who had been assigned to assist the FBI on the case.
They were bleary-eyed, each clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee. But you wouldn’t know they’d been disturbed in the middle of the night during the holidays. In no-iron dress shirts, firing off questions from the second they arrived, they hadn’t missed a beat.
They looked at the vastness of the house. I could see them judging my father’s greed. And maybe judging me for turning him in.
Christian knew how to talk to them. His voice stayed even when he described how we’d been driving back, after missing an east coast flight. We were shocked, he told them, when we realized my parents were fleeing the country.
“Where to?” one of them asked, in a clipped voice.
“South America,” Christian said.
The detectives looked to me for confirmation.
“Look, she had no idea,” Christian said.
Christian kept them from asking me too many questions. He kept a hand on my back and shook his head when they started to pry. He promised we’d cooperate, but it’d be easier for me to speak in the morning.
“It’ll be fine,” he kept saying to me.
“What are you going to do to them?” I asked stupidly.
The detective—the one in the polo shirt—he smiled wearily. “We have to find them first.”
Standing in the empty kitchen, I nodded slowly. I couldn’t tell what the lurch of my stomach really meant—whether I wanted them caught or wanted them to get away with it.
Christian
After they left, she looked like a butterfly caught in a rainstorm with nowhere to land.
She didn’t want to sleep in her bedroom—too many family photos—so we went to a guest bedroom. The walls were covered in rich blue and cream paper, you could sink an inch into the carpet, like it was snow.
“I feel like we’re on another planet. Like this is a copy of my house, only it’s on Mars,” she said, squinting out at the window. It was nearly dawn, but she was hours from sleep.
She kept pacing, then sitting down on the bed, then getting up again.
“Sit down,” I told her. “C’mon. It’s late.”
She shook her head, ran her fine fingers through her thick hair. “I need to take a bath.”
I followed her into the white bathroom—the size of my childhood bedroom—with a tub big enough for two people overlooking the overrun lawn and the pristine stable, which had been deserted long ago.
She pulled off her clothes, wound her hair into a bun, like a dancer, and she stood for a moment, ankle deep in the water, naked and slender and gorgeous.
“You look amazing,” I murmured.
She smiled weakly, and I reached her waist, and looked into her eyes, which were red-rimmed, icy blue.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She reached for the hem of my shirt. She pulled it over my head.
I caught her hand, pressed it to my mouth. “You’re so beautiful.”
She sat down in the bubbles while the water ran, and even in the low water, they clung to the curve of her hipbone, the skin beneath her breast.
She watched me step out of the rest of my clothes and step into the bath. She ran one hand along the uneven terrain of my damaged leg. She kissed me hard. I let her take control—she was falling, and she needed to feel like there was something she could control.
I was hard just from her hand on my knee, but as she slid it up towards my groin, I arched my head back. She locked her hips against mine and slid down onto me, breathing shortly.
“I just want to feel something,” she whispered, thrusting forward. “You’re the only person who makes me feel anything.”
I couldn’t speak. I held her hips, as she pulsed slowly.
My teeth scraped the soft skin beneath her neck, the water warm and January’s hands on my shoulders were tight, bruising almost. Her fingers must’ve hurt.
“Don’t stop,” I said as she slowed her pace. It was agony and ecstasy. “Don’t stop January.”
“Make me,” she whispered.
I lunged forward, shifting on top of her, cradling the back of her head in one arm. It was barely comfortable for me, but it felt so good, to hold her in my arms as we both came.
I pulled her back onto my chest, so she was lying on top of me, weightless in the shoulder deep water.
She closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
I chuckled, blissed out of my mind, looking at the Texas sun rising higher over the long stretch of land, my hand tangled in her soft, damp hair. “I think I should be thanking you.”
She shook her head. “No.” She said. “I’m lucky I know you.”
I cleared my throat. “So am I.” She didn’t move. “You’re the only person who’s made me feel anything all year.”
January
We watched the footage of border agents arresting my parents on a boxy TV at a diner near Harrisburg, PA. Christian, taking no more chances with the car, had driven all night. He knew I wanted to get the fuck out of Texas. But the closer we got to Boston, the less I wanted to go back.
“Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” I told him.
“Eat your waffles.”
“What are you, my nutritionist?”
He raised his eyebrows. I gnawed on my sleeve.
“Well, don’t eat your clothes.”
“I’m not eating my clothes,” I said, spitting out my sleeve. My mother looked strangely chic in handcuffs. Like she was a character in a Wes Anderson film. I still got nauseous when I saw her. She’d have been fine, I learned, in the news and from lawyers, if she’d just bee
n willing to give up the money and let my father face the justice system. They wouldn’t have been able to implicate her.
But she loved the money more than anything else.
That shocked the hell out of me. She could’ve had me. Aunt Lynda. She didn’t choose my father—she chose to live as a fugitive with a lot of money and they were caught.
I stabbed a waffle mutinously. “I don’t want to go back to Harvard.”
I’d been getting texts from anonymous numbers. Accusing me of being a traitor. Saying things about how my parents might hate me. I didn’t want to see anyone I knew.
“You’ll be fine,” Christian said dismissively. “You’re tough as nails.”
“Please.”
Christian shook his head. “No, you are.” He looked me in the eye. “You’re amazing.”
“It’s weird that we’re nice to each other now,” I said. I exhaled, wishing they’d change the channel.
He laughed. “Seriously, what do you think is going to happen at Harvard?”
I didn’t know. I shrugged. “I might get arrested.”
“You won’t get arrested,” he scoffed.
“What if they change their minds?”
“They won’t,” he said flatly. It was hard not to believe him.
The FBI had been grateful, they said. They told me they wouldn’t have realized for days if my parents had left—my father had a forged passport, and because it was the holidays, nobody had planned to drop in for at least another 48 hours.
They were only twenty miles from the border when they stopped them. They told me that anything I signed I’d be forgiven for.
“Stop watching this shit,” Christian said, annoyed. He got to his feet. His limp had gotten worse on the trip. He laughed about it, muttering about being an old man. I felt like it was my fault. I could see him asking the waitress at the counter to change the channel. ESPN. She smiled, touched his forearm.
Wench, I thought.
He sat back down. “Can you eat now?”
I ate a bite of the waffles. “Happy?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.” He grinned. “I am actually. Are you?”
I looked at him smiling and smiled hard back—hard enough that tears burned in my eyes. “Yes,” I admitted.
