“I shouldn’t have let you go so easily. I know I made a mistake, back then,” he said.
Ellie sighed. She had no intention of walking down memory lane, but perhaps it was inevitable. “Mmm,” she said.
“I was crazy about you,” he said. “You broke my heart.”
“We were young” was all she said.
“So young,” he agreed. “You ever think about that night?”
“What night?” she asked, although she knew full well the night in question.
“You know. The night of Stacey’s birthday party.”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “That night. Hey, about that night, you know who texted me today?”
“Who?”
“You’ll never guess.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
If One of Them Is Dead
October 20
Twenty-Four Years Ago
12:15 A.M.
DADDY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Mish stood in the doorway, her face frozen in horror. That was not Brooks in Leo’s bedroom. It was never Brooks, and it wasn’t Brooks now. She stared at the bed, the rumpled sheets, and she knew. She knew exactly where her father spent his nights.
Now her father was holding a gun and Leo was on the floor, in a pool of blood. Leo’s eyes were glazed and she wasn’t moving. Leo was dead. Oh my god, Leo was dead. Leo was dead. Leo was dead and it was all her fault. Mish knew it was. She knew.
She’d banged open the door, and she’d seen. She’d seen Leo with the gun, Leo with the upper hand, but the two of them had turned to her, her father and Leo, turning to the door to see what was happening, and in that moment, her dad had grabbed the gun from her friend and shot her dead.
“DON’T MOVE!” her father yelled.
Mish froze.
Her father held a gun. Her father had killed her best friend. He father had been . . . it was unthinkable. Her father had been having sex with Leo. Her father. Her father. Her father told her not to move. Her father was looking at her, wondering what she would do.
Mish knew what she had to do. She took a picture. She was still holding her camera; she’d run out of her room so angry she forgot she still had it slung over her shoulder. The flash startled both of them.
“WHAT THE HELL!” her father yelled.
She had to get out of there.
She ran.
“COME BACK HERE!” he screamed. He jumped from the bed, still holding the gun, and lunged for her, his fingers skimming her long blond hair as he fell.
He skittered in the blood, then tripped on the broken tile, slipped on it, just as Leo had that morning. Except instead of going ass-down, he fell at the wrong angle.
Slipped on the tile, and he went down hard, right on his head.
Mish heard the crack.
Just like the punch Leo’s dad had given that guy. One punch. Fell at the wrong angle. Hit the ground hard and died.
Her dad fell and hit his head.
The crack echoed throughout the tiny house.
Mish didn’t scream. She just watched.
Her father fell at an unnatural angle; he had hit his head and now he wasn’t moving. He had killed Leo and now he was dead as well.
When the front door opened, she almost screamed.
But it was only Arnold.
He looked at her and he looked at her dad sprawled on the floor, and through the doorway to Leo’s room, to Leo, dead on the floor.
He didn’t say a word. He just nodded. He was cool, like he dealt with this kind of thing all the time.
“Is he . . . is he . . . ?” she asked as Arnold leaned over her father’s body.
Arnold shook his head. “He’s still breathing.”
Shit.
“We could call an ambulance,” he said.
Mish nodded. They had to call an ambulance, didn’t they? That’s what people did when they saw all this blood, all this violence. But if they were going to call an ambulance, they would have done it already.
Arnold looked at Mish. Mish looked away. They stayed like that for a long time, the only sound the ticking clock on the wall.
They let him bleed out.
Finally, he stopped breathing.
“He was hurting her,” she told Arnold. “He hurt her.”
Arnold nodded. “Yeah, I kind of figured that. She kind of hinted something weird was going on. She didn’t want to be home alone. Not tonight.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Yeah. Except I was too late.” Arnold looked down at the dead man. “He’s gone now. He was still your dad. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” said Mish, and she kicked the dead man’s shin, hard. He was definitely dead. He was gray now, and getting cold. Now they could call an ambulance. “He was an asshole.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
After
October 20
Twenty-Four Years Ago
12:30 A.M.
What is dead may never die. It would be years before Mish would become a Game of Thrones fan, but later, when she thought about what happened next, she would think of the wights, the dead zombies coming to life to attack whatever poor soul was close enough to devour. Arnold had gone to get a towel, and some water, because she was still shaking. But just as she turned away from her father, just as she hung up with 911, just after she had finally called the ambulance—that was when she felt a hand grasp her ankle.
“Urrgggh.” Her father was alive.
The bastard was alive.
His eyes were mean. “This is all your fault.”
She grit her teeth and shook her head. “Shut the fuck up!”
“It should have been you,” he whispered. “It should have been you.”
Mish looked at Leo, lying dead on the floor. Beautiful, vibrant Leo who had just turned sixteen years old. Her father was telling the truth. It should have been her. She’d seen the way her father sized them up, the two of them, when he got back from jail.
“Pretty little things,” he’d said, his eyes taking way too long over both of them, their long legs sprawled on the couch. They were twelve years old.
She’d known what he wanted.
Mish told him that Leo’s mom worked late nights, that Leo was always alone. But she hadn’t known what would happen after she told him, did she? Not really. She just hinted. She just let him look elsewhere. So that she wouldn’t have to find him in her bed.
Now he was clawing at her ankle, and he was strong enough to pull her down. She screamed. Arnold ran back with a glass of water and he yelled when he saw her father alive and clawing at her, and they all three saw it at the same time.
The gun.
The gun he’d shot Leo with, it was still there, on the floor, not too far from his right hand.
She had to get the gun before he did.
Get the gun.
But no, her father was there first. He was so fast for a dead guy. He grabbed it and cocked it and pointed it right at her.
“It should have been you!” he raged.
He was insane. He was crazy. He had killed Leo and now he was going to kill her too. She was going to die and she’d never even left this stupid neighborhood.
“No!” she screamed and she wondered why no one else was here, why the whole neighborhood was silent. It was like they were the only people on the planet.
Her father had his gun and it was aimed at her.
She was going to die.
Everything slowed down. For the rest of her life, she would remember it like an operatic ballet. Movies had it right sometimes; sometimes your life narrowed down to those few seconds.
The gun was in her face.
Then it wasn’t.
Somehow, Arnold slapped it away; he slapped her father’s hand away, and Mish caught the gun.
She ha
d it in her hand now. It was still warm, and so heavy. It had killed her best friend already.
She had the gun in hand, and without thinking, without hesitation, she shot her father straight through the temple.
Now he was dead.
* * *
—
Soon, there were lights flashing on the window, but it wasn’t an ambulance. It was a BMW. It was Brooks.
THIRTY-NINE
After After
October 20
Twenty-Four Years Ago
12:40 A.M.
Shit, is that your boyfriend? Shit!” said Arnold. “What are we going to do?”
Mish had to think fast. Brooks was here. What was he doing here? Was he coming back to see Leo? Was he? That fucking asshole. How much did he see? How much did he know? Did he see her shoot her dad?
“Get out of here!” she told Arnold. She gave him a shove. “I’ll take care of him. You didn’t see anything. You don’t know anything.”
“Mish . . .”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t have time to argue right now. Right now, Leo was dead and she had just shot her father. “GO AWAY, ARNOLD! YOU DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING! I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!”
“Fuck you, Mish,” he said.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Arnold glaring at her, his eyes burning with hate. He knew her. He knew her dark heart. It was why she hated him, because Arnold knew who she really was. She despised him for knowing her.
“Fuck you, Arnold,” she shot back. “What are you going to do? How can you help? You’re just the fucking neighborhood loser. Go! You can’t help me! Leave!”
Arnold shook his head and went out the back door, slamming it behind him.
She could hear Brooks outside. “Hey, man, what’s up?”
Arnold didn’t respond.
What was the story? What was she going to tell Brooks? How was she going to explain this?
She’d tell him the truth, or as much of the truth as she could tell. That she’d walked in on them, and her dad killed Leo. Then he killed himself. Right. Her dad had killed himself. Obviously.
That was the story. That was the story she’d tell for the rest of her life. And the first one to hear it was Brooks.
“HELP!” she screamed. “HELP! HELP ME! THEY’RE DEAD!”
Brooks burst through the door, confused. “What’s going on?”
Then he saw. His face turned white and he backed away from her, but Mish was having none of that.
She collapsed in his arms. “Oh, Brooks, thank god! Thank god you’re here!”
FORTY
First Comes Love
October 20
The Present
12:30 A.M.
It was so late. Ellie yawned. She was tired and she didn’t know if she had the energy to go play bingo with a bunch of drag queens any time soon. Plus, Brooks was still here. He’d missed dinner and the soprano and the speeches, but he was here for a drink or two. He’d come by because he was at some boring business convention and she’d invited him, since he was in town, to her birthday party.
“So how do you know Michelle?” Todd asked genially, as he brought over a round of cocktails.
Brooks raised his eyebrows. “Mish didn’t tell you?”
“Mish? You mean Mishon?” asked Todd, confused.
“Honey, I’m Mish,” said Ellie, who’d grimaced at hearing her old nickname once more. No one called her that anymore. Mishon—who had once been Shona Silverstein—was the only Mish that Todd knew.
“Right,” said Todd, after taking a sip of his drink, as if that wasn’t important. It was just her past after all. “Anyway, how do you guys know each other? Is it a secret?” Todd joked.
“Sort of,” Ellie mumbled.
Todd raised his eyebrows and gave Brooks a shrug. “Well, that’s no surprise; she keeps everything from me.”
“Ah, well, it’s ancient history,” said Brooks.
Todd grunted.
“We were married, Brooks and I,” Ellie blurted. “Technically, he’s my first husband. But it got annulled, so it doesn’t count.”
Todd took a long sip of his drink. “Well, that’s a relief.” Then they all laughed, because what else was there to say?
* * *
—
They had eloped that night. For some reason, it all made sense. To keep Brooks from talking about what he knew, if he knew anything. If he’d seen anything. If he’d heard anything. Had he? Would he ever tell if he had? It didn’t matter, because you couldn’t testify against your spouse, right? There was some kind of law that covered that.
“Let’s get married!” she’d demanded. The ambulance would be on its way, and if not, Leo’s mom would be there soon. They would take care of it. They didn’t need to be around for that. She knew the sooner she could get out of there, the better.
“Are you serious?” He couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah, I love you,” she said.
“I love you too, but . . .”
“But what, Brooks?”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. When?”
“Tonight.”
“But what about . . .” He gestured to the house, to everything that lay in there. So dead and so cold.
“It doesn’t matter.”
They would find them tomorrow anyway. What did it matter? And by tomorrow, she would be Mrs. Brooks Overton, and everything it promised. He would protect her. He had to do it. He was all she had now. She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead. “Please.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Is that a yes?”
“YES!”
They flew out to Mexico that very evening, Brooks putting the tickets on his dad’s credit card, and were married by a sleepy clerk at the civic office the next morning. She had no idea why they’d gone to Mexico instead of Las Vegas, but they ended up in Tijuana. Brooks bought rings from a roadside stand selling cheap silver jewelry.
When they returned to Portland, all everyone could talk about was how Leo had been killed by a neighbor, that was all that was on the news, all that anyone cared about. No one asked where she and Brooks had been that night. No one cared. No one knew they were married. They kept it a secret, until Brooks told his parents right before graduation, that he was going to college and signing up for the married people dorm, and when they asked why on earth he was doing that, he confessed.
It was over quickly. His parents were lawyers; the marriage was annulled before the next semester even began. Brooks went off to college and she never saw him again.
She would have sat around heartbroken except by then, she had booked her first gig, in Tokyo, then London, and by the time she saw her eighteenth birthday, she had already met Archer, already hooked the bigger fish.
Brooks had been a blip, a mistake, a ghost, someone she never even thought about at all.
* * *
—
Todd excused himself to check on the caterers, who were packing up; only Victor was still working, and Madison was trying to get people to board the party bus to the next destination. Drag queens didn’t wait for no one.
Brooks looked at her, as if studying her face. It had been a long time since they were together, alone. “I didn’t speak to my parents for years,” he told her. “I was so mad at them for what they did to us. I hated them for it.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah,” he said.
She sighed. Poor Donald and Judy Overton. The worst thing had happened; some townie had married their golden boy. She still remembered the repulsed look on their faces when they found out, the truth behind their friendly smiles all those years.
“You know, I don’t think I ever got over you,” he said wistfully.
“Oh, Brooks, stop.”
“I came tonight to tell you that.”
“Well, I wish you hadn’t,” she said. “I’m not sixteen anymore. None of us are.”
She looked at her phone. Another text from him. He was finally here.
Come out to the back, she typed. I’m by the bar. Brooks is here too.
FORTY-ONE
Old Flames (3)
October 20
The Present
12:45 A.M.
Brooks didn’t want to stay to say hi. He had to go back to the convention, he said. It was good to see her, congrats on everything, truly. But he didn’t need to shoot the shit; it’s not like they were ever friends to begin with.
Brooks left and Ellie waited for her other guest. She saw him before he saw her. He looked exactly like he used to, with that long hair in his eyes, but skinny had turned to gaunt, and he looked a bit feral, skeletal. But at least he’d gotten his teeth fixed. He was still handsome, filthy-sexy, and she wondered if that was why she was so jealous that night, when he’d paid so much more attention to her friend than to her.
Because she’d loved him first.
Before Brooks, before Archer, before Todd.
There was Arnold.
They used to ride their bikes on the riverbank, and go hunt frogs together. They read comic books and wrote stories and sometimes when her dad was home between prison sentences and fighting with her mom, she would go over to Arnold’s house and they would watch television. He was her first kiss and her first love.
But then his mom died, and he had to take care of his grandma, and his sister started turning tricks and dating sugar daddies, and he dropped out, and he started selling drugs. He shared them with her sometimes. They’d do poppers in the alley and laugh and laugh. He’d asked her to go to some party where he was working; it was the same party Leo wanted to go to but didn’t, and that was where she’d met Brooks. Then it was all Brooks all the time and she forgot about Arnold.
The Birthday Girl Page 19
