by Julia Derek
Mom put plates loaded with steaming blinis covered with raspberry jam in front of us and one at the head of the table. She sat there and we began to eat.
The blinis were as delicious as always, the warm ricotta inside pouring onto the plate as I cut through the jam-slathered pancake.
“Mmmm,” I said and looked at Mom appreciatively. “You have to make these when Dylan comes over. It’ll be a great way to introduce him to Russian culinary tastes.”
“We should have Beef Stroganoff, too,” Alex inserted, having already devoured half of his plate of blinis. “With some Stolichnaya.” He grinned, gazing at me and Mom with a glint in his brown eyes.
My mouth dropped open as I stared at my brother. “Please don’t tell me you’re drinking vodka now, Alex.”
Alex gave me a flat look. “No, I’m not drinking vodka. Have you ever seen me drunk? But I know that lawyers like vodka. And you want this dude to like Russian stuff, right? So I was just trying to add to the conversation.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have not ever seen you drunk. And you’re right. Lawyers do like vodka.” I smiled. “Well, at least Dylan does.”
Dylan
The street where my childhood home was located was outlined with rows of super tall palm trees with tiny crowns at the top. Each house Nina and I passed had its own personality. Some were loud and ostentatious, others were sleek and understated, yet others were warm and colorful like houses in the Caribbean or along Mexico’s coastline. They ranged from large to huge, each worth several million dollars.
Even though I had driven down this road hundreds of times, the air of money but not necessarily class never failed to have an impact on me. I snuck peeks of Nina beside me, wondering what went through her mind as she took in the area where I had grown up. The expression on her face revealed nothing, but I could still sense that she was nervous.
I put a hand on her knee.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m okay.” She turned to me with a brave smile. “It’ll be great to meet your family.”
I gave her knee a soothing squeeze. “They can’t wait to meet you. My mom especially. You’re just the type of girl she wants me to be with—a strong, beautiful, independent woman.”
I was glad my mom and sister were unaware of all the drama that had been going on between me and Nina. This way they wouldn’t get to know Nina with preconceived notions, like Victor would.
I pulled onto the long driveway in front of my parents’ house and parked to the side. Exiting the car, Nina gazed at the white Spanish-style stone house with its red tile roof, arched doorways and windows. Compared to the gaudy houses of most of my parents’ friends and acquaintances, theirs was modest and tasteful.
“That’s a beautiful garden,” she said, her eyes skimming the many colorful flowers in the well-maintained garden beside us. “I love the sunflowers.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking her hand. “You tell my mother that. She loves her garden. Let’s go see her.”
We walked up a few wide stone steps that led to the wooden front door. I turned the knob and opened the door. We walked through the huge hallway and into a spacious sitting room with big plants and a fireplace.
“Mom!” I called. “We’re here. Where are you?”
I turned to Nina. ‘She’s probably in the kitchen. My mom loves to cook.” I led Nina through a hallway that ended up in an ultramodern kitchen. It had all the latest appliances and cool metal details, yet it still managed to be warm and utilitarian. My mother was standing behind the white marble island in the middle, fixing a cheese tray. Her silvery blond hair was as usual tied back in a low ponytail and she was wearing a green sundress. She lit up at the sight of Nina and me.
“Hi honey!” Mom put down the knife and cheese in her hands, wiped off on a kitchen towel and walked around the island to greet us.
“Hi Mom.” I kissed her cheek and inhaled the familiar smell of her, a mixture of citrus and Estee Lauder’s White Linen. It always had the same effect on me, taking me back to my childhood.
She turned to Nina, grabbing hold of her hands and pressing kisses on both her cheeks. There was a big smile on Mom’s pink-painted lips.
“Hello, Nina. It’s so great to meet you. You’re even prettier than I imagined when Dylan told me. I’m Catherine. Would you care for some wine and cheese?”
“Um, sure,” Nina said. “That would be great.”
Victor walked in from another opening to the kitchen then.
Nina
The burly man with the balding head came straight up to me and Dylan, looking as pleased to see us as Dylan’s mother had. He shook hands with Dylan and they exchanged a man hug, slapping each other’s backs hard.
“Dylan, my boy,” the brawny man said with a grin that went from one ear to the other. “It’s good to see you.” His watery blue gaze found me and that jovial expression on his face changed, becoming a touch more deferential.
“You must be Nina.”
I wasn’t sure why I felt on display suddenly, but I did and it made me nervous. The man soon remedied this by taking my hand and placing a light, gentleman-like kiss on my cheek. “I’m Victor. I’m glad to get to meet you finally. Dylan can’t stop talking about you and now I can see why.” He swung an arm around Dylan’s broad shoulders. “My nephew is a lucky man, that’s for sure.” Victor turned to Dylan’s mother and gave her a bear hug and kiss on the cheek. “You just keep looking better and better, Catherine. If you keep that up I might have to trade in Jen for you!”
“Oh, stop it, you silly man,” Catherine exclaimed, rolling her eyes. She turned to me. “Would you like red or white, Nina?”
“Some white would be nice.”
“Coming right up.” Catherine threw a glance in Victor’s direction. “Can you please take out the cheese plate to the sitting room, honey? I was about to put another piece on it, but it isn’t really necessary.”
Without a word, Victor picked up the tray Catherine had been referring to and disappeared with it.
Catherine handed me a glass of white wine. She turned to Dylan. “What would you like, honey?”
“Same as Nina. Where’s Elle? Wasn’t her baby shower over at six?”
“She just called me,” Catherine said. “She’s on her way home. She’ll be here any time now. Why don’t you guys go into the sitting room and I’ll finish up here?”
“Do you need help to carry anything?” I said. “I’m happy to help.”
“No, no, no, sweetie,” Catherine said, shaking her blond head. “You’re my guest. Please go have a seat in the sitting room with Dylan and I’ll be right with you. Make yourself at home!”
Dylan took my hand and whispered in my ear, “Come on, baby. It’s best we do as my mom wants.”
I smiled and let him lead me back through the corridor we had taken to get to the kitchen. When we reached the sitting room, Victor had already positioned himself there in an armchair upholstered in silk striped with white and a smoky blue. He was munching on cheese that he picked from the plate in his hands.
Dylan and I took a seat on the navy sofa next to Victor, its expensive elegance so palpable I barely dared putting my full weight on it for fear of ruining it. It felt more like a sofa a person bought for show, not to actually sit on, and definitely not to eat on. Dylan handed me a plate from the ones stacked on the coffee table that contained the huge cheese plate. “You like cheese, right?”
“I love cheese,” I said.
“Well, dig in then. Don’t be shy.” He loaded his plate with cheeses and fruit, and had some of the assortment of crackers that lay on a different plate beside the cheese. When he was done, he leaned back into the beautiful sofa like it was some worn-out basement couch and began munching.
Empowered by his relaxed demeanor, I dug in as well.
“So, Nina,” Victor began, “Dylan tells me your one-woman show is something else.”
I smiled at the stocky man. The moment I’d laid eyes on
him, I’d taken a liking to him. He seemed like a really nice person. “Really? He did? But he’s only seen about five minutes of it.”
“Yes, but those five minutes were great,” Dylan said, squeezing my knee. “I’m sure the rest is as good.”
“Well, now I can’t wait to see it,” Victor said. “Dylan has good taste. You have to let me know when it’s on next.”
“I sure will. As soon as I have the official opening night for it. I’m not sure how long that will take, unfortunately. You’re welcome to come to one of my open mikes if you want. I’m doing a pretty big one next Wednesday.”
“That would be fun. Just have to check with—” Victor’s gaze moved to something behind me and he broke into another of those ear-to-ear grins. “Well, hello there, missy. Long time, no see.” He turned back to me. “Excuse me. I just need to greet my niece.”
Victor got to his feet and spread his arms wide. A tall, blond girl rushed up and threw herself on him, disappearing as the big man squeezed her close. He let go of her and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, looking at her as though sizing her up.
“So it’s all work and no play for you these days, Elisa?” he said. “Not a minute over to call and say hello to your old uncle, eh?” You could tell that there wasn’t even the slightest bit of anger in Victor’s voice, only pride and warmth.
“Sorry,” Elisa said. “I know I’ve been terrible, but I’ve really been swamped. You know how the first year it’s all about proving yourself. I barely have a life any longer.” She turned toward Dylan and me, pointing at Dylan. “Ask my brother. He knows how it’s been.”
I stared at the girl with the excited face and I stopped breathing.
It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.
But when Elisa’s gaze found mine and the excitement left her face, her expression turning pale instead, I knew it was the same girl I had thought it was.
One of the twelve girls who had chased me and Hannah to that aircraft hangar so many years ago and almost killed me.
Dylan
“Nina. Are you okay?” I said. All color had left Nina’s cheeks and she was staring at Elisa. My gaze moved to my sister and I discovered that she was looking as ashen as Nina.
What the hell is going on here?
Nina got to her feet then, slamming down the plate in her hands on the coffee table with a loud bang. She bent down to grab her handbag beside her on the floor. Squeezing it close, she swiveled around and dashed out of the sitting room.
I was so taken aback by Nina’s abrupt departure it took me a few seconds to process what had just happened. When I had, I got to my feet myself and turned to my sister. “Can you explain what just happened there? The way you two were staring at each other it’s obvious you had something to do with it. Or am I wrong?”
Elisa had let go of Victor and her hands hung limply by her sides. Mom appeared next to her, a tray of wine glasses in one hand and an ice bucket containing a wine bottle in the other. She looked from one person to the next, confusion printed all over her face.
“What is going on here? Where did Nina go?”
The faint sound of the front door closing reached everyone’s ears. I felt I should be running after Nina, but I couldn’t make myself move. I needed to know what had prompted her to leave like that in the first place before I did anything. I looked at Mom.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “But I think your daughter has an idea why she felt compelled to suddenly run out of here.” I stared at Elisa, who seemed to be crumbling before my eyes. She definitely knows why Nina left like that. What was worse, I suddenly realized that I, too, had an idea what this was all about. More than an idea. Which was why I had been so incredibly uneasy after speaking to Ricki at Nixon’s party.
How could I not have known before, put two and two together sooner?
The photo of fourteen-year-old Hannah that had accompanied the newspaper article about the bullying at the Harvard Westlake School, leading to her death, flashed through my mind. Except for not smiling wide on that photo, Hannah looked exactly like she did on the photo in Nina’s apartment.
How could I not have figured out what had happened at my sister’s school was what Nina had been talking about all along? Having seen Hannah’s photo at Nina’s place, knowing that she had been Nina’s friend and that she was dead, should have made me figure it out much sooner. Hannah had the kind of face you didn’t easily forget.
True, Nina had told me she graduated high school from Beverly Hills High, not Harvard Westlake. Still, even if she hadn’t told me straight out she’d transferred to a different school, I should have come to that conclusion on my own. Why would she want to continue at a school where she’d gone through such horror? Of course she had transferred elsewhere to finish high school.
But from what I remembered of the incident, Elle had been the one who made sure it all ended, saved the life of the other girl involved. Who just happened to be Nina. At least this was what she had told me and our mother… But I had always known my sister hadn’t been entirely truthful, hadn’t I? Yes, I had, even if I hadn’t wanted to deal with it at the time, ignored her evasive gaze as she told me what had happened. I hadn’t wanted to get to the bottom of the story then. I’d wanted to believe every part of the story Elisa had been feeding me. It had been so much easier. Now I had to face the truth. And suffer the consequences.
I glared at Elisa. “You lied to us about what happened at your school, didn’t you?” My sister seemed to have shrunk in size suddenly. My cheeks flaming, I repeated through clenched teeth, “Didn’t you?”
When she didn’t respond, I continued, “You lied to me about what happened at your school. You were as bad as all the other girls, weren’t you? How could you? How could you do such a terrible thing?”
My uncle and our mother looked back and forth between me and Elle. Victor walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Calm down, son.”
I shrugged off the hand, not about to calm down any time soon. I turned to him. “If you knew what your sweet little niece is capable of doing—what she did to Nina—you wouldn’t tell me to calm down. You would tell me to go over and slap her silly. Just like she and her friends did to Nina and her friend. Who they beat so much she died. Fucking died!”
Victor looked at me with uncomprehending eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You heard me. Your niece is a disgusting bully.” I turned to Mom, who looked nearly as pale as Elisa now. “Your daughter is guilty of beating another girl so much she ended up in a coma. She could have died, too, if she was really unlucky. But she survived. And she was just a guest in your house.”
I squeezed my fists, itching to go over and slap Elle hard across the face. But I knew I would never be able to do such a thing, no matter what she was guilty of. She was still my little sister.
“I didn’t beat her,” Elisa mumbled, staring at her feet. “All I did was chase her together with those other girls. I swear, that’s all I did. And then, when the other girls got really bad, I was the one who made them stop. They’d have kept beating and beating her just like Chrissy and the others did to Hannah. So I did save her in the end. I really did.” Tears were streaming down her face now.
“Stop your fucking lying and at least own up to what you did,” I hissed at Elle. “Stop pretending to be something you’re not.”
“Dylan,” Mom said in a flat voice. “That’s enough.”
I swiveled my head in her direction. I was about to ask her if she actually meant that—-she, too, must want to hear her daughter take responsibility for what she had done—-when the words got stuck in my throat. My mother wasn’t able to hold my gaze and her face looked as ashen as Elisa’s now. I could tell she was struggling to keep it together, her chest heaving.
My gut dropped and all the air in my lungs left me in a choked gasp.
Oh, God. She knew what Elisa had done… She had known all along. As I was about to ask my mother to confirm
this, my sister dashed out of our big, beautiful sitting room.
Nina
I ran along North Elm Drive, the street where Dylan’s mother lived, not able to get away from Dylan’s horrible sister fast enough. My heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest, my lungs burned and my legs hurt, but it didn’t matter. I had to get back home, far, far away from these people. I should have known that first night that Dylan was bad news from the way I’d reacted to him. I should have told him to go to hell when he came to see me at Bliss, certainly not have emailed him to accept his dinner offer. If that first night hadn’t served to warn me enough, what happened up on that cliff definitely should have. Could my body have rejected him any more clearly? Hardly.
How could I not have guessed him physically repelling me to such a degree had all to do with that one day in the aircraft hangar? Now, in hindsight, it seemed obvious I should have. As I had laid eyes on Elisa today, I’d immediately noted how striking their resemblance was. Their facial features were almost identical, both of them pretty like Barbie dolls. It was like they were twins, not just brother and sister.
Then again, at the time we were in school together, Elisa had insisted on coloring her blond hair light red, a shade darker than Ricki’s strawberry blond hair, so maybe it wasn’t so strange. And now that I thought about it, I had never known Elisa’s last name.
But still…They were so similar.
An image of Elisa’s face among the other grimacing ones right before my conscience slipped during the beating materialized in my head. I clearly saw how her strong eyebrows were pulled together into that now familiar V-shape, her turquoise eyes narrowed and her lips parted as she gasped. A rush of intense discomfort went through me and I made myself push away the disturbing image.
