For the Best

by Vanessa Lillie

  My breathing doesn’t slow down as she pulls two metal carts behind her. A french fry hangs out of her mouth. She’s covered in layer after layer of coats and shirts and pants. She may be less than a hundred pounds under all that, but you’d never know. Except her face is puffy—bloated, maybe—and there’s a scattering of scars along her cheek. The years of walking and rummaging through discards outside has turned her skin to a weathered color, transcending all races to just dirty and homeless.

  Her eyes narrow toward our car, as if she recognizes something. Or someone.

  “Daddy helps her,” I explain, like that makes this moment less weird. Ethan’s job includes outreach to homeless people, and he’s talked about her many times.

  “Can we give her a dollar, Mom?”

  I have a twenty in my purse, and that’s it until Ethan gets paid on Friday. “I need it for your lunch.”

  “What if I get the toy out and give the food to her? Grammie will have snacks for me.”

  I reach back to squeeze his knobby knee, but I keep my gaze on the Trash Bag Lady as she yanks both her carts from behind the dumpster. She picks up speed and focus toward my door. There’s a car behind us in the tight drive-through, and I inch up so my car is almost touching the bumper ahead. I slam it into park in case we have to run.

  My slight movement hasn’t changed her trajectory. She hobbles over, the metal carts bouncing behind her massive form like a boulder heading our way.

  I suck in air, not sure what to do as she stops only a few feet from us.

  She drops one cart to point a ratty gloved finger at my window and hisses a great gust of breath to say: “You!” It’s a hacking noise, but I understand what she’s saying and who she means.

  She does it again—“You!”—then starts charging closer to my window.

  “Jesus,” I whisper under my breath, not wanting to scare Fitz. I press the lock, and it softly clicks, indicating we’re still locked in. “It’s okay,” I say to Fitz. “She has problems, buddy. Don’t worry.”

  She’s close enough to take her filthy finger and smear it down the middle of my window.

  “What do you want?” I yell at her.

  She presses her face and nose into the glass. Her eyes are dark like a shark’s, and I wonder what she’s seeing that’s so upsetting. She slams both her palms flat against my window. “You.”

  I jump back, fumbling to unbuckle, then slide over to the passenger seat. My throat is tight with fear as I try to think if there’s anything in the car that could protect us.

  “Mom?” Fitz whines. “What is happening?” His voice cracks, and I’m right there about to break too.

  She rasps “You!” into my window, her breath fogging and then evaporating. Her stare is vacant in her glassy eyes.

  I whisper “Shit” under my breath and keep my gaze on where she’s hitting the window. We make eye contact. Her weatherworn face twists. A scattering of scars covers one side of her cheek but briefly disappears as her skin pulls tight in rage.

  “You!” she yells and hits the window. “You!”

  “Mom!” Fitz yells. “Go! The car up there is moving!”

  I jump back into the driver’s seat, fumbling with the gear, and pull forward into the curve of the drive-through too quickly. The car runs up the narrow curb.

  With shaking hands, I put the car in reverse. My mind flitters with the idea of hitting that crazy psycho who just scared me and my kid, but of course, I won’t. The car righted, I pull forward.

  I’m scared to roll down the window, heart roaring in my ears, and I take a few more breaths. The window is smeared with homeless-lady finger grease. I start to go from scared to really pissed off.

  “Three seventy-seven,” a young woman says before reaching out her long-nailed hand. “How can I help you?” she says into the headset.

  “Excuse me,” I say firmly, the rage burning and overtaking the fear. “Miss!”

  She straightens up and faces me with a confused smile. “Three seventy-seven.”

  “We were just . . . attacked,” I say. “A homeless woman was banging on my window in your drive-through.”

  Recognition dawns in her large eyes. “The Trash Bag Lady, yes, ma’am. She bothered you?” Her pretty young face quirks to one side.

  “She scared my son to death,” I say, with my grip tight on the wheel. “Where is your manager?” I say, wanting more done right now.

  “I am the manager,” she says. “You know, I can call the police. They can handle it.”

  “No, no, don’t do that,” I say, as if it’s the dumbest idea in the world. That’s the last thing I need.

  She blinks at me. “Okay, then. Do you still want the Happy Meal?”

  “I might call the paper. Or the regional manager.”

  “Please, don’t do that.” She scrapes a long nail along her hairline. Her thin silver hoops dance. “Look, the Happy Meal is free.” She peers back toward Fitz. “I’ll give you an extra toy, okay, little man?”

  “I will have a cheeseburger too. And a large Sprite.” I inhale sharply. “I’m shaken up, and my stomach feels upset.”

  The smile she gave to Fitz falls at my request. “Yes, ma’am. Pull forward.”

  We break the no-food-in-the-car rule. I inhale the burger, stress eating, and slurp down the Sprite as I’m driving. Fitz eats a few fries and plays with his new Pikachu toy.

  I’m still upset, and I call Ethan from the car.

  “What’s up, babe?” he says, sounding busy. “Everything okay?”

  “A lady tried to get in our car!” Fitz yells with half a nugget in his mouth. “She looked dirty.”

  “What did he say?” Ethan says, sounding worried.

  “The Trash Bag Lady,” I say. “She walks up and down Hope Street. She sort of . . . got aggressive with us. At the McDonald’s drive-through.” I feel a little embarrassed after I say it all out loud.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s Reba,” he says. “We had a briefing about her yesterday. Her case manager thinks she’s had a recent trauma. She’s been more aggressive. I’ll have a case manager go check on her. See if she’ll come to the shelter. Is it the McDonald’s on North Main?”

  “Yes,” I say, not really satisfied with her being helped, but also feeling guilty that I want her punished. She’s obviously had a tough life, but it’s not right that she scared us. “We’re heading to my mom’s house. Talk to you later.”

  “Love you!” Fitz calls from the back. “Can I push the red button to turn off the phone?”

  “No, it’s the car,” I say and hang up.

  That upsets Fitz, and he whines the rest of the drive. When I reach my mom’s, I text Phillip that I’m running late to Kara’s house.

  As we’re getting out of the car, Fitz keeps chatting about the homeless lady. “Call Dad back. Tell him that her face was so dirty! She looked big, like a dinosaur. Stomp, stomp, stomp! Then let me press the button to hang up.”

  We get out, and he’s still chattering.

  “Stomp, stomp!” He jumps on me, and I move away, getting what’s left of his Happy Meal.

  “Enough, Fitz. Just give me space.”

  He’s stomping slowly across the front yard, and I grind my teeth at his voice making dinosaur noises.

  Spotting Mom in the backyard, we creep toward the gate. Fitz growls and drags his feet. It’s suddenly so hot I’d kill for a mimosa.

  “Please hurry,” I say, wanting to get going and meet Phillip.

  “That trash lady had a weird face, Mom. Stomp, stomp!”

  “Enough!” I yell and then feel terrible instantly. “Sorry, but I’m late, buddy.”

  He frowns and starts stomping more, as if doubling down. I don’t know why I’m still upset about that homeless lady. I wasn’t in any danger. But she did come at me, almost like she knew me. Maybe unsettled is the right word.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” my mother says as we approach.

  “We saw a dinosaur. Roar!” Fitz slams his feet and smashes right
into my bare ankle with his Croc.

  “Ouch, Fitz, stop doing that! It wasn’t a damn dinosaur. It was a person.”

  His eyes go wide. “Sorry, Mom.” He looks at my mother, tears forming as his chin wobbles. “Sorry.”

  “Shit,” I whisper and then drop down to hug him. He lets me, but I can feel his resistance. I dig into my purse and find a piece of sugar-free gum. “How about this? I’m sorry.”

  He takes it but keeps the lower-lip pout. “I don’t swallow it, right?”

  “Exactly, but it tastes good.” I grin at him, but he’s not having it.

  “Your mom has the crankies,” my mom says and winks at him. “Go inside, and see if you can find the cookies. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He hugs me goodbye, and maybe I should feel bad, but I don’t. He hurries toward the back sliding door, which he proudly heaves open. That joy from achieving the small task reminds me of his pure spirit and breaks through my bullshit. I’m ashamed I yelled at him. I’m also annoyed at my mom.

  I cross my arms. “The crankies is what you called it when Dad was hungover.”

  “Yes,” Mom says too sweetly. “It is.”

  I stare out at the empty pool shimmering in the sun. “I’m not hungover.”

  “The interaction felt familiar,” she says. “Your dad used to give you and your sister Werther’s Originals when he lost his temper. I hate how they smelled on your breath.”

  I’d forgotten that but suddenly remember their overly sweet caramel taste. “Look, Mom, there was this homeless woman who attacked us—”

  “What?” She comes closer to me, and I soak up her concern. “She hit you?”

  “No, she hit the car window,” I say. “We’re fine. I’m just rattled and annoyed. I’m sorry.” I don’t want to talk about the Trash Bag Lady’s scarred face. The finger streaking muck down my window. How her vacant eyes flickered with recognition at the car or at me. Her hiss, “You.” I try to shove all of it deep in my mind to be forgotten. I think about the mimosa again.

  Mom gives me a hug, and I bend down to absorb her sympathy. “Poor Jules,” she murmurs, smoothing my hair.

  “Thank you,” I say, realizing how badly I needed that hug once her arms are around me. “I’ll pick Fitz up later, but can he stay until dinner? I should be back by six or seven. Ethan has a meeting with a funder.”

  She smiles, but judgment passes across her pale-blue gaze. “Whatever you need, honey. I can drop him off, too, if that’s better.”

  I swallow thickly, realizing I saw judgment. Does my mother see me differently because of this bad-mom moment? Or is she no longer seeing her daughter but Drunk Me, who made that one mistake and is accused of murder? Is this how she looks at Dad, and I never realized it was full of blame and assumptions?

  There’s this flick of rage at my mother, and if I don’t give it air, it’ll singe my insides. “I’m not heading out for drinks, Mom. Is that what you’re implying?”

  She gently lifts her shoulder, staring up at me. “If you do have a drink later, though, that’s all I meant. I think after everything, I have the right to ask for that courtesy.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Mom raises her hands, the fingers of her gardening gloves brown from dirt. “Why are you being so much like your father right now? I can’t stand it.”

  I keep myself from screaming: Then you should have left him! That maybe not being around him all the time would have kept this all from happening. But I don’t.

  The part of me that feels like a victim pipes up. If Mom had left him right after the accident, maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Our lives would have been different. Lindy would have remained close to us. If Mom had left Dad, maybe her big clients wouldn’t have fired her. Maybe it would have kept her business afloat, and she’d still be a reputable, in-demand landscape architect instead of this mulch-and-cheap-rosebush version of herself. Even just keeping that money from the pool for her business could have made a difference. We wouldn’t have had to play pretend day after day and decade after decade.

  I don’t know why I’m so kind to my father, whose fault most of this is, and mean to the woman who has worked nonstop to provide what we do have.

  “I’m sorry about being short,” I say finally. “The stress is a lot, Mom.”

  “But you’re the adult.” She takes a step back from me. “Make sure whatever is going on with you isn’t hurting Fitz. If you went to therapy like I asked, you’d probably be working on that very issue. It happens so fast.”

  “What does, Mom?”

  She snaps off her gloves in two quick tugs. “Children become the best and worst of us.”

  Chapter 14

  Phillip is sitting in his car when I pull behind him on Ivy Street. It’s a good grad student location, not quite as college-y as the nearby Thayer Street neighborhood, which runs through campus, but still close to school and bars.

  As I get out and scan for the addresses, I see that while there are a few nice homes here, Kara Nguyen lives in a dump—a.k.a. student housing. Real student housing, not the $4K-a-month condo building with a heated parking garage built on the remains of a protested but ultimately razed historical block.

  This once big and grand house is now a student Hooverville, a repurposed cash cow with eight rusted mailboxes on a sagging front porch. The color of the paint that’s left is maybe gray or a really faded blue. Chain-link fence. Narragansett tall boy left behind on the porch.

  “Hey,” Phillip says as he gets out of his car. “You all right?”

  I put a little powder on my face, but honestly, I don’t feel great. That trash lady and my mother and Fitz—the swirl of it makes me feel anxious and angry. “Weird day,” I say. “Are the police looking into Kara yet?”

  “They aren’t,” Phillip says, almost sounding apologetic. “I’m hearing they think they know who did it.”

  I press a finger to my forehead and feel like collapsing under this day. But I have to continue. “Find anything on Kara?” I ask softly, trying to refocus.

  “Yeah,” he says. “She is from Brookline, Mass, but not next door to Tom Brady and Gisele. One of the working-class neighborhoods.”

  I went to the Brookline Booksmith once for an event, but that was about the extent of my experience with that area. “She go to private school?”

  Phillip shakes his head. “Public, which is pretty decent out there with that tax base. She got a full ride to Brown for undergrad and studied art and history. Then a nice fellowship for grad school. She’ll graduate this year.”

  At least Terrance didn’t have an affair with an undergrad. “You talk to any teachers?”

  “Yes,” Phillip says with an annoyed tone before he continues. “One professor said she has huge potential.”

  “What does that mean?” I get the feeling he’s not going to lie to me, but he’s also not going to volunteer much information either. If it’s on my vlog, then it’s not new for his book or whatever he’s cooking. “Come on. What else did you learn? I got her name, and one of my viewers found her address. Maybe you can help out a little.”

  He laughs to himself. “Well, she did a big art installation called Broke in Brookline, exploring her childhood. She won a New England emerging-artist award.”

  I picture her painting her heart out for years, and then she falls for this married professor. I feel sympathy, but not that much in the context of her possibly ruining my life.

  Plus, the police not taking this tip seriously ignites a lick of anger along my spine. “Let’s see if she can explain herself.”

  We pass the chain fence and head up to the drooping porch. Through the front door window, there’s a dumpy set of stairs likely leading to the various apartments chopped up from this once elegant house.

  I flip open the mailboxes and dig for Kara’s name.

  “That’s illegal,” Phillip says behind me and then starts turning up the rusted lids himself. “Nope. Nope. Ah, here we go. Lucky number thr
ee.”

  He opens the door, and we head up the stairs. Three flights, to be exact, and the heat and dried-beer smell permeates. My eye catches a Narragansett can on the window ledge. Phillip’s gaze goes from it to me with a “be my guest” look, and I glare at him.

  We’re both sweating as we arrive at the old metal door with a painted “3” on it. He steps back for me to knock. I’m suddenly nervous, not sure we’ll be able to talk Kara into giving us the truth, whatever that may be.

  I run a nervous hand down my bright summer dress, because it’s hot even for July in New England. I knock once and then a second time before the door opens enough to expose a chain and an eye. She sees me and then glances at Phillip.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is Kara here?”

  “She moved,” she says. “Several months ago.”

  “Oh,” I say, disappointed but not wanting to accept this as a total fail. “I’m Jules. I started a vlog recently looking into the murder of Dr. Castle. This is Phillip. He’s a bestselling author who was friends with Dr. Castle. We know he and Kara had a relationship. You knew her well?”

  There’s a long pause. “She was my best friend.”

  “Was?” I try to sound very sympathetic, almost as if it’s a certainty that it’s Kara’s fault.

  The door shuts for a moment. Maybe I overstepped. Cursing under my breath, I grimace at Phillip. Then I hear the chain click, and the doorknob turns.

  The door opens, and I can see it’s definitely not Kara, but a young white woman with overdone curls and heavy makeup. “I saw the video you posted of the picture with Kara,” she says. “You really think she was involved in Dr. Castle’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” I say as Phillip steps inside behind me, and the young woman shuts the door. “The police are only looking at me.” I clear my throat, trying to stay focused on the injustice rather than my own embarrassment. “Anything you know about Kara or Dr. Castle could help me.”

  “That’s awful they’re accusing you,” she says. “He was kind of a radical, right?” She says it to me, then sends a worried glance toward Phillip, as if she’s offended him. “I mean, he was a good guy. Everyone on campus is really upset.”