The Night Before

by Wendy Walker

  It feels dishonest, but what I feel doesn’t matter. Not tonight.

  Rosie has been teaching me—how to be sexy but not sleazy. How to be smart but not intimidating.

  It’s a game, Laura. Do what you have to do to get the first date. Then you can be yourself. People don’t know what they want until it’s right in front of them.

  Yes. That’s true.

  Joe was more pragmatic.

  Men don’t read the profiles. They look at the pictures and measure their hard-ons.

  Sometimes I think I will lose my mind trying to understand. The shrink told me that I would find it here, at home. The answer to this question about me and men. Me and love. Why I lack the skills to find it, and why I beat it away when it finds me. Me with my fists for hands. The girl no one can love. So here I am.

  Our mother was beautiful and she did everything that was asked of her. She would have killed it on findlove.com. Even so, our father left her when I was twelve. He left her, left us, for a woman who was older than our mother. A woman who didn’t wear dresses. He left us and moved to Boston with her. Now our mother lives alone in California, still trying to get past that first date.

  Our father’s name was Richard. He hated when people called him Dick, for the obvious reason.

  I haven’t seen Dick in sixteen years.

  I’m tired of not knowing the answer about me and love.

  But tonight I will not ask questions. I will not wonder why Jonathan Fields clicked on my profile—if it was because my new pictures gave him a hard-on or because he read my fake profile and it made him feel good about himself. I’m so tired of all of this. I just want to be done. I want it to be over. I want to stop fighting. I want to be happy like Rosie and Joe. So happy, I talk shit about it.

  I take a deep breath and gather the cherry-red lipstick from the counter. I turn off the light. Walk out the door and down the stairs. I find Joe and Rosie in the kitchen, cooking something with too much garlic. Gabe has gone home to his wife, reluctantly no doubt. Still, I envy that he has someone waiting for him. He’s torn, but he’s also happy. Nothing is perfect. I would settle for that.

  “Oh!” Rosie gasps. “You wore the dress!” She stops cooking and presses her right hand over her heart like she’s about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She’s not sure if she’s happy that I’m going on a date. We’ve been walking this thin line of hope and worry since the day she came to fetch me in New York. But the fact that I’ve worn her dress somehow makes her feel better. Maybe it will just be a normal first date if I look this pretty.

  “You look very nice.” Joe nods with the approval of a teacher handing back a test. A teacher who’s not a pervert. A test with a good grade.

  “Thanks,” I say with the smile that got lost upstairs.

  I feel naked arms around my naked legs and look down to see a little creature looking up. “Lala,” Mason says. He closes his eyes like he’s savoring his knowledge of me, my smell, and my name (sort of) and how I will now bend down and pick him up and give him a giant kiss. He tires of it quickly and squirms away, bare down to a diaper, and filled with joy that is unstoppable.

  I wonder if I ever felt that way. I can’t imagine it.

  Rosie gives me her car keys. “You’ll be back, right? Otherwise I can call you an Uber.…”

  I take the keys. I will not stay out long with this man. Just enough to entice him. Rosie has told me how this works, and I am finally going to get it right.

  I take the keys to make sure of it. Driving your sister’s minivan is better than not shaving your legs to ensure abstinence. I’ll be home tonight.

  “Don’t forget the purse!” Rosie says. She points to a black purse that goes with the dress and that sits on the counter. “I emptied it for you.”

  I take the purse. I put the lipstick inside.

  I walk to the side door that leads to the driveway.

  “You’ll be home?” Rosie asks again.

  “Don’t worry,” I say.

  I give them one last smile. They look at me across a room that has grown silent. I see a flash of hope wash over Rosie and it kills the hope inside me. Because right on its heels is the bone-deep fear that never leaves her when she looks at me.

  I say nothing, swallowing the words.

  You don’t need to worry, because I’m not going to be me tonight.

  I have not convinced her with the lipstick and the dress. But she’ll see. I’ve left old me upstairs in the attic. I’ve done everything right this time. And I’ve chosen Jonathan Fields. A man with a proven track record in the sport of love and commitment.

  Don’t worry, Rosie. You’ll see in the morning.

  I am going to get it right tonight.

  Even if it kills me.

  THREE

  Rosie Ferro. Present Day. Friday, 5 a.m. Branston, CT.

  Something is wrong.

  Rosie felt it the moment her eyes opened to the dimly lit room. The body of a two-year-old was curled up beside her. Mason was a heat-seeking missile when he found his way into their bed. Joe was gone, his covers pulled down, likely in a fit of frustration as he made a hasty exit to the couch in the family room downstairs. Their bed wasn’t big enough for the three of them anymore, and neither of them had the energy to break Mason of the habit.

  A night-light lit up the room enough to see his sweet, innocent face. White as snow with a mop of dark hair, like his father. A little man-child.

  She pressed her cheek against his soft skin.

  “Okay,” she said to herself in a whisper. “Everything’s okay.”

  But she didn’t believe it.

  She reached for her phone on the nightstand. It was five a.m, which explained the throbbing in her head. They’d gone to bed later than usual. Mason had been restless and hard to put down. When it was done, after five stories and sitting by his bed while he dozed off, Rosie had washed down two Benadryl with a glass of wine. She knew her mind wouldn’t rest unless she hit it hard.

  Joe hadn’t asked why. He already knew. She’d been on edge like this from the moment Laura had moved in. Rosie had driven the minivan into the city, helped her pack up her things like a mother bear rescuing her cub from the side of a cliff. And just like a mother bear, she hadn’t stopped hovering and worrying, and yet trying to remain inconspicuous so she didn’t make things worse. It was a task that had every nerve in her body ignited, ready to respond to whatever crisis unfolded next.

  Joe had kissed her on the forehead as she lay in their bed, curled up in a ball, eyes staring at nothing. Her mind racing down rabbit holes of bad scenarios as she waited for the drugs and wine to kick in.

  She’s fine, Joe had said. It’s just a date.

  He’d gone back downstairs to watch whatever sports he could find and drink a beer. He seemed almost giddy as he left the room, having the television, and the entire downstairs for that matter, to himself for a change. Their house was small, and having Laura there had made it even smaller these past weeks.

  Joe and Laura were always together somewhere—the kitchen or family room—their shared sense of sarcastic humor fueled by each other’s company. And Gabe—he’d been coming over more often, it seemed—and without Melissa (thankfully, because Rosie had not gotten used to her). Joe was a different person around Laura and Gabe. He was that strong, good-looking kid who ruled the world. Or Deer Hill Lane, at least. It was in his voice and in his smile. Unbridled confidence. She missed seeing him that way. But time only moved in one direction. They weren’t kids anymore.

  Joe said he wasn’t worried about Laura, and Rosie was done fighting with him about the subject. He always had an answer, a comeback she couldn’t refute.

  You don’t know her the way I do.

  Really? I grew up with both of you.

  But …

  No buts … Is there one thing you know about Laura that I don’t?

  There wasn’t—and yet hearing a story is not the same as living that story. Seeing it and feeling it and absorbing the int
angible, indescribable things that settle into your gut somehow. Joe said he wasn’t worried that she was already out on a date, a date with a stranger from the Internet, just weeks after fleeing her entire life because of some guy who blew her off after she’d given him her heart, whatever that meant.

  Fact: Laura had never mentioned this boyfriend until she showed up back home. How serious could it have been? And yet he caused her to take a break from her job—a coveted job that wouldn’t be waiting for her much longer.

  It was undeniable that Laura had bad luck with men. For someone so smart, and Laura was that if nothing else, she kept making the same mistake over and over. What Joe couldn’t seem to grasp, the intangible thing he couldn’t feel, was the reason why. This latest breakup was just a symptom.

  Or, perhaps, a warning.

  Rosie pressed her lips against Mason’s warm cheek then slowly snuck out of the bed. She tiptoed across the floor, down the hall and then the stairs to the family room. She found her husband on the sofa, his big, burly body trying to hide beneath a small throw blanket to keep warm.

  From there, she went to the bay window and looked out onto the street, and to the short driveway to the right where she normally parked her car.

  She stood there for a moment, looking. Searching. Down the street to the right, then to the left. Her mind kicking into the next gear.

  She walked back to the sofa and placed her hand on Joe’s arm until he stirred.

  “What’s wrong?” he mumbled. “What time is it?”

  “Five,” she answered.

  “What’s happened? Mason…”

  “No, he’s fine. Sleeping.”

  Rosie lay down on the small space left on the sofa, curling her body into his. He opened his arms and pulled her close. The warmth of him, the feel of his physical strength, made her sigh.

  “Then what?” he whispered.

  “The car’s not back.”

  “What car?”

  “My car. The one Laura took on her date.”

  Joe kissed her ear and laughed. “Good for her,” he said.

  Rosie pushed him away and sat up, looking back and forth between Joe and the empty driveway she could still see through the bay window.

  “It’s not funny!” she said.

  “So she got carried away. So what?” Joe slid his hand across her thigh. “Maybe we should get carried away.”

  “Stop.” Rosie pushed his hand off and stood up. Arms folded, shoulders tense with worry, she walked across the room to the window.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange how she came back after all these years? Dating on the Internet. Staying out all night…”

  Joe sat up now as well, pulling the throw blanket around his bare shoulders. “She’s trying to figure things out, that’s all. Maybe it’s about time. Maybe she’s tired of running.”

  Rosie considered this. Laura had left this town the second she graduated from high school. She’d never looked back. There had been “drive-bys” at the holidays. She’d sent gifts for Mason. She’d called and texted and emailed. But she’d never come to stay. When Rosie wanted to see her, she took Mason into the city and forced Laura to be part of their lives.

  And now, suddenly, here she was. Wanting to change. Looking for the right kind of man. Wearing makeup and dresses. Taking advice from Rosie when she used to chastise her, calling her a girl, as if there were no insult that could sting more.

  Come on! Stop being such a girl!

  Christ, how she used to taunt them all into danger. Climbing trees taller than their roofline. Walking across the barely frozen pond.

  Come on!

  There was a nature preserve behind the houses on their street. Acres of woods, trails, and streams that had been their playground. Laura was the youngest and they had all taken to protecting her from herself, Rosie and Joe among them.

  She’d eaten up the attention like a starving animal, from the neighborhood kids when she was younger, and, later, from the nuns at their Catholic school.

  St. Mark’s of the Holy Trinity. It was a joke in their Protestant family. The city had decent schools through eighth grade, but they got too big and unruly after that. Private schools were expensive. So were the houses in the smaller towns nearby, the more suburban communities, because their public schools got kids into the top colleges. Parochial school was the best option for families like Rosie and Laura’s, especially after their father left.

  The faculty had adored Laura. So when they caught her smoking in eighth grade, and doing other things every other year until she graduated, they would speak to her like a little lamb who was born without the instinct to herd. There’s a good reason to stay with the herd, they would tell her. Nothing less than survival itself.

  If you keep leaving the herd, the wolves will come.

  Laura always had the same response.

  Good thing I like wolves.

  * * *

  Rosie looked back at Joe.

  “I’m going to check her room,” she said.

  “Don’t do that.” Joe was close to pleading.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if she did Uber home and was finally able to sleep, you’ll wake her up. She hasn’t slept well since she got here. She’s turning into a zombie.”

  “But what if something happened?”

  “It was just a date.”

  “With some guy from the Internet.”

  “That’s what people do these days. And besides that, he’s old as fuck and drives a BMW.”

  Rosie sighed. “I have a bad feeling,” she said.

  “You always have a bad feeling this time of year.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that. It was barely September, but the distinctive smell was in the air, the changing seasons, fires burning, tugging at memories that would never find a place to settle. And once they crept from the back corners of her mind, they always played out to the end.

  Cool night air. Smoke and heat blowing sideways from a fire. The branches popping, not quite dead. Not ready to burn …

  “What if it’s about Laura? What if it’s a sign?”

  Rosie walked back to the sofa and stood in front of him.

  “Please don’t wake her up. I can’t take a sister fight at five in the morning.”

  “I have to check. I’ll be quiet.”

  Joe grabbed her wrist, but then let go when he felt her pull away.

  There were so many things they still didn’t know about Laura’s return. She never said his name—this guy who broke her heart. They called him “Asshole.” Or, if Mason was in the room, “A-hole.” That had been Joe’s idea. Neither of them had wanted to press her for answers she wasn’t ready to give.

  But there were so many pieces of her story that weren’t adding up.

  For the first time in my life, I thought I had it right.

  She said she’d been seeing a therapist, trying to break bad habits, change. But if she’d gotten it right, this man would not have disappeared.

  The nuns at St. Mark’s had been right about her, always leaving the safety of the herd. And Laura was right about herself. She liked wolves.

  But Laura was no lamb.

  Rosie stopped at the top of the stairs and let the memory play on.

  Cheep beer in plastic cups. Cigarettes. Flavored lip gloss. Bug spray …

  It was a tradition on the last day of summer, the last Saturday night before the start of school.

  Branston was a small city, flanked by the Long Island Sound on one end and the rural woodlands of New York State on the other. Just at the northern border, before the woodlands and rolling farmland, was the public preserve and river gorge that backed up to Deer Hill Lane.

  They didn’t live far from it now, though Rosie had never gone back. Not in eleven years.

  Every year it was the same. Dozens of local kids bursting at the seams with the excitement of change. It was in the air. A new season. A new grade. Getting older. Wanting new things. Dreading new things. Needing new things. Hope p
ushing up against fear like summer against fall. She could still conjure that feeling in her gut.

  They’d parked their cars on a gravel road along its edge and walked to a small clearing. Music from someone’s speaker had been drowned out by the clamor of drunk teenagers. She’d been a sophomore in college. Laura had been starting her senior year of high school. Joe hadn’t been at the party that night. His family had wanted one last weekend at their house on the Cape. Gabe had already gone back to college. Of the four of them, it was only Rosie and Laura who had been at the party that night. And it was only Rosie who knew what it felt like to hear that scream in the woods.

  Maybe that was enough remembering. Maybe it would leave her now.

  Rosie walked quietly across the hardwood floor. The house was a Cape, built in the 1930s. The floors upstairs were bird’s-eye maple, gorgeous but old, and every step created a noisy creak. She made it past her bedroom without waking her son, then continued down the hall.

  Laura stayed in a small converted attic. It was at the end of the hallway, just past the guest bathroom. The lights were off, her door closed.

  Rosie took another step, placing her foot down in front of her, gently at first, before shifting her weight.

  Then she stopped, suddenly aware of herself, creeping around her house in a state of panic the way she had done when Mason was born. How many times had she woken him from a peaceful sleep just to make sure he was still breathing? Her fears were not normal.

  Or maybe they were. Maybe there was good reason.

  Rosie had been her sister’s protector from the day she was born. It was in her blood, in her bones. But it had never been enough. In the end, she had failed.

  The smell of the fire. The scream in the woods …

  She would never forget it. She would never stop hearing it. The woods had been silenced in an instant. No one had moved. They’d all just frozen, wondering what they’d heard. Waiting to see if it would come again. And it did. A second scream. Rosie had looked around the fire, searching for Laura. Even as her legs had started to move toward the road where the cars were parked, where the scream had come from, she’d kept looking, hoping, that she was wrong. That the scream did not belong to her sister.