Everything's Relative

by Jenna McCarthy

  You’re not being fair, the voice of her peacekeeping middle-child mind scolded her. She did the best she could. She was grieving and scared and she had to raise us all alone. Try to cut her some slack. Brooke knew all of this on an intellectual level, but on an emotional level, she couldn’t help it; she felt as if she’d been robbed.

  She finished the book with one eye on her watch the whole time, then packed up her things and texted Jules that she was on her way.

  As Brooke made her way downtown, she busied herself by making up answers to the questions her sister would surely ask about her fake wine-tasting trip. Jules was waiting, of course, precisely where she’d told Brooke she would be.

  “How was it?” Brooke asked, trying to keep her tone light.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Jules said, slumping in her seat. She looked exhausted. They drove in uncomfortable silence for a while. Jules stared out the window.

  “Well, did you meet any interesting people or—”

  Jules cut her off. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it,” she snapped.

  Jules rarely snapped at anyone, and the harshness in her tone stunned Brooke. She fought back tears and did her best to focus on navigating through the horrible L.A. traffic.

  “Sorry,” Brooke said. “I . . . I just . . .”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Jules said, softening. “It was awful. I mean, some of the seminars were interesting and everything, but I just felt . . . I don’t know, out of place.” She smiled warmly at Brooke. “It’s fine. I’m new to this. I’ll figure it out. How was wine tasting?”

  “Oh, you know, it’s beautiful up there, so that was nice. Hey, have you talked to Alexis? We’re running a little late.” She hoped the abrupt subject change didn’t look too suspicious.

  “I texted her a while ago but she didn’t reply. She’s probably digging through my closet and her phone is buried under a pile of my clothes. I told her she could borrow anything she wanted and that we’d be home a little after seven. I’m sure she’ll be cool. She’s changed so much since she met Rob and got that job, huh?”

  “I’ve been afraid to even mention it,” Brooke said, turning her car onto Jules’s street. “I think she may have finally gotten her act together. How funny that Mom would have anything at all to do with that.”

  “Right?” Jules said. “Hey, there’s Rob. Slow down.” Rob’s squad car was on the street in front of Jules’s house and he was leaning against the front fender. He jumped up when he saw Brooke’s car. Jules rolled down her window.

  “Hey, Rob,” Jules called out.

  “Is she with you?” Rob demanded when they’d pulled up next to him.

  “Alexis? No. She’s at work. Well, she was supposed to be until six, and then she was going to ride her bike home. She’s not here?”

  “Not unless she’s hiding or a dresser fell on top of her,” Rob told them. “I’ve been out here calling her phone and banging on the door for twenty minutes.”

  Brooke’s pulse began to race. She looked at Jules, who was trying her best to look calm and unruffled.

  “She’s probably just got her earphones on or is taking a bath and lost track of time,” Jules said as she led Rob and Brooke to the front door. But Brooke knew better. Whatever the reason her sister wasn’t ready and waiting for her cute cop boyfriend, it couldn’t be good.

  Lexi

  Lexi had been floating in and out of consciousness for over an hour. Her arms and wrists ached and her face throbbed and she had a chunk of crusty, matted hair stuck to her face that she really wanted to wipe away. Rob would find her, wouldn’t he? Rob. The thought of him showing up at Jules’s house now and waiting and worrying or, worse, being furious at her, was far more painful than the ruthless beating she’d just endured.

  How could she have let this happen? How could she have been so stupid? Lexi had practically grown up on the streets, and she’d learned to always watch her back. She’d let down her guard for five minutes, that’s what had happened. She had no idea if this guy had gotten into the cash register, but if he had, there had to have been at least five hundred bucks in there. Benji would fire her for sure. Assuming somebody found her before her attacker came back for another round of beatings and finished the job.

  After what felt like hours she heard rustling in the alley behind the shop, then banging on the door.

  “ALEXIS! ARE YOU IN THERE?” It was Rob. He’d come for her. She was safe.

  Lexi tried to yell but it came out a garbled croak. Her throat was parched and she still had the hardened, blood-soaked bandana in her mouth. She stomped her feet on the ground and shuffled the chair as hard as she could, hoping he would hear something and know that she was there and alive.

  “Alexis?” It was Jules. “Alexis, please open the door if you’re in there.”

  Lexi actually laughed at this, a tiny choked snicker. She knew she was a stupid fuckup, but did her sister actually think she was lounging in the back room waiting for her manicure to dry or enjoying a nice banana split? She prayed to a God she wasn’t even sure she believed in that they’d insist on getting in there to look for themselves.

  “Alexis, I’m going to shoot the doorknob to break the lock,” Rob shouted. In the little snippets of anxious conversation she could make out, Lexi was pretty sure she heard sobbing, which would most likely be Brooke. “Kick something if you can hear me.” Lexi pounded the floor with her feet.

  “Okay, you’re in there and you can hear me. Good. Kick again if it’s safe for me to shoot at the doorknob,” he yelled. Lexi scooted the chair until she was up against a far wall and not in the path of any imminent gunfire, she was almost positive. She kicked again.

  There were four or five deafening pops and then the door flew open. Rob rushed to her first.

  “Jesus Christ, Alexis, are you okay?” Rob tried to tug the bandana out of her mouth but the bastard junkie had knotted it good and tight, so he pulled a heavy-duty folded steel knife from his back pocket and snapped the thing off.

  “My God, Lexi, what happened?” Jules cried. “Were you robbed?”

  No, I’m practicing for my upcoming magic show, Lexi wanted to say. Didn’t I tell you about it? It was the first time Jules had slipped and called her Lexi since the fateful day they’d heard about their inheritance, but Lexi wasn’t about to point this out. Jules dropped to her knees in front of Lexi and grabbed her hands as Rob freed them. Her wrists were bloody and raw.

  Brooke covered her eyes and sobbed. She was white and shaking.

  “Hey, guys,” Lexi said weakly. She pushed the crusty hair aside and she could see everyone trying to hide their horror. Her right eye was swollen shut, and she could feel that one of her front teeth was chipped. She lifted her hands to her face and felt the dried blood all over it. “Thanks for coming. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to get cleaned up for you.”

  Just then Benji came blasting through the back door. He was wearing jeans and no shirt and his hair was wet and uncombed.

  “Rob, I got your message . . . Oh my God, Alexis . . . What the hell?”

  “We’re trying to figure that out now,” Rob said. Everyone looked at Lexi.

  “A guy jumped me when I went to take the trash out.” She shrugged.

  “And then what?” Rob demanded.

  “He wanted the key to the cash register.”

  “And?” Rob said.

  “I wouldn’t give it to him.”

  “So he beat the shit out of you.” Rob finished her sentence. Brooke let out a gasp; Jules buried her face in her sister’s lap.

  “I was sort of unconscious, so I don’t even know if he got anything,” Lexi told them apologetically.

  “Jesus,” Rob said again, shaking his head.

  “I’m fired, aren’t I?” Lexi asked Benji.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Benji said. “Even if he took ev
ery penny we had, the fact that you tried to stop him blows my mind. We didn’t really cover that when I hired you, but for future reference, if anybody ever threatens you in any way, you’re welcome to let him clear the place out.”

  “Really?” Lexi asked, shocked. She still found it hard to believe that there were people this good in the world, people who might even value her safety over a few hundred bucks.

  “Really,” Benji insisted.

  “Was it just one guy? Did you get a good look at him?” Rob wanted to know.

  Lexi shook her head. “It was just one guy, but that’s all I know. It all happened so fast, and when he was hitting me my eyes were closed. And then I passed out.” She couldn’t tell Rob the truth; that she knew the guy and had fucked him and then stolen his money. She just couldn’t.

  “It’s okay,” Jules soothed. “You were amazing, Alexis. You are amazing. Do you want to try to stand up? Do you think we should take you to the hospital? That eye looks pretty bad. You might need some stitches.”

  “Are you worrying about my modeling career again?” Lexi asked, grinning. Then she turned to Rob. “I’ll bet you want to kiss me really badly right now,” she said, looking up at him and batting her eyelashes. Between the tooth and the eye and that crazy, bloody hair, she was quite a sight. Jules couldn’t help it; she laughed. Benji chuckled, too. Even Brooke was smiling now.

  “You have no idea,” Rob said. He pulled her to her feet and kissed her tenderly. Lexi swooned a little bit when he did. She’d have blamed the standing-up part if anybody had asked, but she was pretty sure it was the kiss that was responsible.

  Jules

  Jules was ashamed of herself. She’d been worried sick about Lexi before they found her, and she’d nearly vomited when she first got a glimpse of her sister’s battered, bloody face. She wanted to hunt down the animal that would brutally beat any woman like that and cut off his testicles with a dull, rusty butter knife, and then watch him die a slow, painful death. But as soon as they’d found Lexi alive and they knew she’d be okay, Jules’s very first thought had filled her with self-loathing: This would make a great scene in my book.

  She pulled up her manuscript and found the place where it would fit in—right there, toward the end, just when everything was looking up and they were heading into the home stretch. As she re-created the gruesome scene in her head and then on her computer screen, Jules couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that her ending was a joke. She had Brooke finishing her race and falling in love with Billy McCann because she was going to do everything in her power to make sure both of those things happened, and now that Lexi wasn’t going to get fired she was all taken care of—assuming they could keep her out of trouble for the next few months, which Jules now realized was a pretty big “if.” The biggest problem was that in her story, she’d completed her book and they’d all gotten their inheritance. But she hadn’t, so they couldn’t. It was that simple. And if she didn’t finish it, there’d be no money, no happy ending. It wasn’t a book without a happy ending, was it? Jules just didn’t know.

  For the hundredth time, she kicked herself for the missed opportunity at that writers’ conference. If she could rewind the clock and go back in time, she’d just suck it up and do it. She’d march right up to at least a handful of strangers and introduce herself, maybe see if she could find a few people interested in starting a critique group. She’d sign up for a seventy-five-dollar hour of coaching and collect business cards and force herself to approach some of the authors who had been there. But she’d blown it, big time. Maybe it was time to reach out to the super-connected Jefferson Wiley, Esq. As much as she didn’t want to rely on even peripheral help from her mother, she was fresh out of options.

  She closed the manuscript file and wrote Mr. Wiley a quick email—she didn’t have the nerve to pick up the phone and call him—before she had a chance to lose her courage. She simply told him that her manuscript was nearly complete and asked if he could introduce her to an agent, as her mother had mentioned in her letter. It was mostly true at least. She hit Send and turned her attention to Project Billy.

  Without Brooke’s consent or even knowledge, Jules had created a new-and-improved Facebook profile for her sister. She’d posted a few of the pictures she took the day of the conference as well as some funny jokes that reminded her of Brooke. She was careful to keep it clean and family friendly. Brooke was, after all, a preschool teacher; the last thing Jules wanted was to get her in trouble. She had racked her brain to come up with the names of some of Brooke’s high school friends and then friended them; from there, she’d searched their friend lists for names that sounded familiar. Brooke now had 154 connections and a smattering of posts from other people on her page; enough, Jules figured, to make her not look like a total loser when she reached out to Billy McCann.

  She pulled up Billy’s profile page and could see that he was online right now. She clicked the message button and typed quickly. “Hey, Billy, it’s great to see your face again. Hope you’ve been well. I’d love to catch up sometime . . .” She put a little smiley face at the end, because she supposed that’s what Brooke would do. A line at the bottom of the box said: Your message will go to Billy’s Other folder because you aren’t connected to him on Facebook. So be it. She hit Send.

  Now what? It could be days, weeks, even months until Billy saw that note. And he may get it and not even respond. Jules hated waiting; even more, she hated not having any control. She refreshed her email and saw she had a reply from Jefferson Wiley. She scanned it hurriedly: some pleasantries about how he hoped that she and her sisters were well, congratulations for making such headway on her manuscript, and then a name: Derek Stanford, literary agent. A phone number and email address were included. Mr. Wiley ended his email with, “Derek is a lovely man and a good friend. Do tell him that I sent you.”

  Now she had no excuse. She opened a new email and addressed it to Derek Stanford; in the subject line she put “Referred by Jefferson Wiley, Esq.” She figured it couldn’t hurt.

  “Dear Mr. Stanford,” she started. “My name is Jules Richardson and I’m—”

  She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t write author, no matter what Shawn said. She was contemplating the perfect wording when her computer made the familiar you-have-a-Facebook-message bleep.

  It couldn’t be; not this quickly. But it was. Billy.

  Jules hovered her curser over the unopened message guiltily, wondering if this had been such a great idea after all. Now she was pretending to be Brooke and talking to the one great love of her sister’s life. She prayed his note wasn’t too personal or, God forbid, didn’t include a picture of his penis. Figuring she’d better finish what she started, Jules clicked the message open. She hovered her cursor over the little escape-to-close X in the corner, just in case.

  Brooke! I couldn’t believe it when I saw your name in my inbox. I thought after you sent me that letter at the Coast Guard Training Center telling me not to write to you that I’d never see you again. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve wondered about you and where you wound up and, honestly, what I even did to make you write me off the way you did. I’m sure you had your reasons, though. I settled in Miami after grad school—I didn’t feel like I had much to come back to SoCal for, if you want the truth. I was married for two years but that didn’t work out. Long story, but I’ve got a great kid. His name’s Alec and you’d love him—he’s hilarious. Tell me about your life. It’s really great to hear from you. You look fantastic, by the way. Hope to hear from you soon . . .

  No penis picture, phew. But what was he talking about? Jules wondered. Brooke had said that after Billy left for the Coast Guard, she’d written him dozens of letters but he hadn’t written her back. And now he was saying she’d told him not to write to her at all? With a heavy heart, Jules realized it must have been Juliana. What other explanation could there be? But why? Jealousy, possibly. Control, probably.
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br />   Jules shook her head as if it were an Etch A Sketch she was trying to clear. The motive didn’t matter now. That was all in the past, and Jules was tired of trying to rewrite that. But she could affect the future. Buoyed by that thought, she pulled her focus back to the present.

  She reread Billy’s note and decided that despite dropping that little bomb, the rest of it was great news. He was obviously thrilled to hear from Brooke, so to speak; he hadn’t sent her anything X-rated; and, most important, it appeared he was indeed single and interested in reconnecting. Jules knew she should probably hand things over to her sister now, but she was worried. What if Brooke was furious at her for meddling, or said she needed to lose more weight first? What if she was just too scared to pick up the ball and run with it? Jules decided she would nudge things with Billy along a bit, gently, just for a little while. Brooke would thank her when she told her eventually; she was sure of it.

  Brooke

  Brooke had taken to carrying her cell phone in her pocket at school, even though it was frowned upon. She didn’t like breaking rules, but she was ninety-five percent sure that one was for the teachers who had a habit of surfing social media or texting their boyfriends during the day. She, on the other hand, was worried about her sister, plain and simple. She’d never been a caretaker before, at least not in her family; that role had always belonged to Jules. But after Lexi’s run-in with that thug, Brooke had the feeling that one mere parent figure wasn’t enough for her capricious baby sister. She wanted to be available if Lexi—or Jules or Rob, on Lexi’s behalf—needed to reach her.

  It was nine a.m. sharp when her phone vibrated in her pocket. Brooke pulled it out and looked at the screen anxiously: unknown local number. Well, that wasn’t very helpful. It could be the hospital or the police station or a wrong number; it could be the shoe repair place calling to tell her that her heels were fixed, or her dentist reminding her it was time for a cleaning, or Lexi on the side of the road. She had to take it.