They All Fall Down

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  Tom Doherty Associates ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  For that one English professor who didn’t want me to interpret precious English things as something darker and American.

  Best of an island is once you get there—you can’t go any further … you’ve come to the end of things.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

  The blue scarf caressed my ear as it dipped beneath my head and pulled me down into the water.

  It wanted to kill me.

  I could have let the scarf go, but I’d won it. It was mine.

  I was alone, drifting in the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez, floating on my back. Numb. My arms and legs felt so far away …

  It was the first time this week I was truly resting. The first time ever that I’d floated in the ocean.

  So many firsts.

  My cracked lips parted. “I don’t like it here.”

  Jagged rocks poked through my T-shirt and scraped the skin on my back. Salt water dribbled into my mouth, and I swallowed it. The sea tasted alive, tasted like tears. Morgan’s tears. She had cried so many times, and I’d held her, wanting to cry, too, wanting to cry now, but no, I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Crying would be admitting that they were right. Crying would frighten me into accepting the hurt. I didn’t feel hurt. No, not at all. I had to resist. Resistance was like the coral now scraping against my back and my arms and my neck. Resistance hurt. Resistance protected.

  I blinked—salt water was burning my eyes.

  The big sky had darkened into oranges and purples, juices and bruises, dragons and sunsets.

  Pretty. So pretty.

  I should’ve climbed out. Should’ve swum to the shore to join the others back at the house. If I stayed in the ocean, though, I’d still … join the others back at the house, just meeting up on the other side. No difference. Not now. Not anymore.

  A wave crashed over me. Pain burst and banged near my eyes. The world brightened, and I winced, and then the bright world spun. Dizzy, I closed my eyes.

  Morgan, swaddled in her nursery blanket, smelled of sunshine and love.

  Mother held my shoulders, so proud of me, then tapped the honor society pin on my collar.

  Daddy had stopped running beside me as wind stung my face, as the spokes on my bicycle’s wheels click-click-clicked as I rode faster and faster down Duncan Avenue.

  Bright light shone above me and made me close my eyes. Desi’s scarf wrapped tighter around my wrist, pulling me down as something behind my heart slipped past my ribs, through my skin, and drifted toward the light.

  There she stood, way up on the cliff, prettier than the sky. Her dark hair blew across her face. Those dark welts on her neck looked like tattoos. She’d torn a hole through a pair of pink tights. Had slipped them over her head and slipped her arms through the legs. Ballerina forever. There she stood, the fairest of them all, way up there, looking way down here at me. Always looking down …

  WE HAVE

  A WINNER!

  FROM: A. Nansi

  TO: Mimi Macy

  SENT: 4:45 a.m., Friday July 8

  SUBJECT: Your Arrival

  Congratulations! We are so excited and look forward to the journey you are about to take. It will be truly magical! As promised, we have a car, provided by Alpha Luxury Coaches, scheduled to pick you up at 7:00 a.m. and we have booked for you first-class air to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico. There, you will take a luxurious yacht across the tranquil Sea of Cortez to the exclusive Mictlan Island, a Tropical Paradise! Attached please find the ticket for the short cruise, courtesy of Molinero Ocean Charter Services.

  Thank you again for replying to our earlier email—we are always interested in personalities and how certain types of people interact. This is a television show, and we want viewers to tune in and to never look away. As a result, we look for personalities that may not work well together, types of people who wouldn’t seek each other out for friendships. You don’t have to get along with the other contestants—just let Nature take its course. Also, during your journey to Puerto Peñasco, we ask that you refrain from approaching others—we want to be sure to capture all interactions while also ensuring confidentiality. None of this should surprise you since you returned the signed contract agreeing to these conditions.

  Upon your arrival, you and six other contestants will enjoy five-star accommodations at the beautiful Artemis estate. Since this is a private island, Wi-Fi and internet connections will be intermittent. Further, the use of telephones is prohibited due to the nature of this competition. Do not worry, however. Satellite phones and radios will be available for dire emergencies. You have previously shared your emergency contact information should the need to reach someone arise. We have on record WILLIAM MACY, DDS, SPOUSE.

  Miriam, your days and nights will be filled with challenges and enchantment. There will be times you will cry and times you will celebrate. You will meet the REAL YOU during your short time with us.

  This is unlike any competition the world has ever seen!

  Congratulations again and good luck!

  1

  The Los Angeles International Airport was the worst place to lose your mind in post-9/11 America. Especially if you were a person of color. Especially if you perspired like Kobe Bryant in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Especially if you popped Valium twice a day to combat anxiety. And there I was, standing in the TSA security clearance line at LAX, a sweaty, anxious black woman wearing sweaty green silk, sipping air and blinking away tears.

  Miriam, keep it together. They’re gonna pull you out of line if you keep on. Calm down. But “calm” was slipping further away, an iceberg on a quick current being pushed by a pod of enthusiastic killer whales.

  And so I closed my eyes and I prayed again. God, don’t let them kick me out of LAX today. Please help me stay calm.

  “Next.”

  In my mind, I said, “Amen,” then opened my eyes. I forced myself to smile at the gray-eyed TSA agent seated behind the little podium, and hoped that she thought I was a slow blinker and not a terrorist praying one last time before setting one off.

  The agent flicked her hand at me and said, “ID and boarding pass, please.”

  I handed her both without saying a word.

  She glanced at me, glanced at my passport—Miriam Macy, Los Angeles, forty-five years old—then she stamped, scribbled, and handed me back each document. “Have a nice trip.”

  I croaked, “Thanks,” just as a teardrop bubbled to the rim of my right eye. I swiped it away, dropped my bag, shoes, and phone into a gray bucket, then sat the bucket onto the conveyor belt. With panic punching at my gut, I stepped into the full-body scanner. Clamped my lips together as imaging beams searched my body for
weapons.

  “Step through, please.” Another TSA agent, this one male and bearded, flicked his hand at me. He waited for the all-clear from the agent at the monitor, then said to me, “Thanks.”

  I snatched my bag, shoes, and phone from the gray bucket and hurried away from the security clearance area. I’d kept it together. But my prayer had met its expiration date and that calm I’d prayed for was now wearing away like sandcastles at high tide.

  You have to respond to her.

  You can’t get on a plane and leave it like this.

  Breathless, I tottered to the nearest bathroom, thisclose to 405 freeway levels of hysteria. I hid in the farthest stall, then shoved my hand deep into my bag. Shaking, I popped off the Valium’s cap, then slipped a tablet beneath my tongue, not caring if enough time had passed between this and my last dose just two hours before. I closed my eyes and waited for the drug to untangle the bundles of nerves along my shoulders and neck. Didn’t have to pretend for cameramen capturing B-roll here. I could be a loser in the privacy offered only in a bathroom stall.

  Outside my cubby, women washed their hands at the sinks, then convinced children to wash their hands, too. They pulled paper towels from dispensers and made the air blowers roar.

  So loud.

  Loud enough?

  Yes.

  So I wept and rocked on the toilet and waited for the drug to work, for the drug to make the world softer.

  How long would it take?

  How long would I have to wait?

  …

  * * *

  Valium became a part of my life on the afternoon I lost it on the westbound 10 freeway. It had been last New Year’s Eve, and I’d had enough, and I’d stopped the car to wail in the far-left lane. Traffic had built around me, but I didn’t care. I’d called my husband Billy, he’d called 911, and I rode in an ambulance for the second time in two months (the first time after I’d confronted Billy about his affair but left his girlfriend’s apartment without killing him). Dr. Sandoval, a kind man and Cesar Romero look-alike, diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder and wrote me a prescription for Valium.

  A week later, I took a leave of absence from my job as the marketing and communications director for Hidden Treasures, a luxury goods consignment store. I’d loved my job—spinning stories about a secondhand Gucci satchel (Indy stowed that simple cup here without worry…) or a Chanel brooch (She always said you had Coco’s overactive imagination…) or Louboutin stilettos (At the stroke of midnight, you chose the shoe over the prince…). Sartorial creativity made me swoon.

  But I hadn’t been able to create, not with all the drama swirling around me. My boss, Lola, lost all patience and told me that it was best that I left. No more creating something out of nothing for a living. After my departure, the copy read flat, like a bad first draft of an M.F.A. novel set in Nebraska. There were rumors that Hidden Treasures would file for bankruptcy—no one was inspired enough to buy other people’s crap (or, as I’d called it, “luxury shared between friends”) and no one ordered the catalogs just to read my product descriptions. Their loss—the company and its customers.

  …

  * * *

  Five minutes of hiding in the bathroom stall had passed—but the world still hurt.

  So tired. Last night, after fleeing from my ex-husband’s house, after popping ibuprofen to banish the pain in my head, I hadn’t slept. There had been cracking and snapping twigs outside my bedroom windows. Slowing cars rumbling too close to my driveway. Shadows lurking up and down my street, some stopping to lean against the palm tree in front of my house. In a state between dozing and awake, I had crept to my living room and perched in the armchair, eyes burning, iPad and cell phone on my lap. Flinching. Tight.

  My heartbeat had ticked in my head and I’d tasted sour milk and I’d tried to swallow it but my throat and stomach were too tight, and so whatever it was pooled in my mouth.

  A tub of Valium sat on the dining room table.

  Drugs would smooth me out, but I didn’t want to be smooth then. I had a game to win.

  And so, I sat there in the living room, forcing down bile and fighting back dizziness, until a shaft of copper light broke past the wooden shutters.

  This morning, the show’s producer had sent a Town Car to drive me to the airport, and as I strode to the sedan, I ignored the state of my raggedy house and watched a flock of green parrots circle the glossy blue sky. Airplanes glinted like silver bullets en route to someplace better.

  That will be me, I’d thought. In Someplace Better. Soon …

  A half hour later, though, here I was, hiding in an airport bathroom.

  In Someplace Better.

  …

  * * *

  Ten minutes.

  It had taken ten minutes for the Valium to work.

  And now I felt nothing.

  Smoothed out. Empty. Void of emotion.

  And that hollowness lived solidly next to my heart and my lungs, that hollowness as useful as my appendix.

  I took a deep breath, then found my phone in my purse. I took another breath, then reread my daughter Morgan’s text message, the same message that had sent me flying into a toilet stall.

  It was a short message.

  Just three words.

  I hate you.

  2

  I stayed in that toilet stall a little longer, until my bloodshot eyes were no longer puffy. Until the eye drops whitened my whites again. Until my knees could withstand gravity. Until the Miriam Macy who had sashayed into the airport found her way back into my soul again.

  That took a moment. More like thirty minutes. But then, after that half hour, I was ready to face the world.

  I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sea-green silk tunic (airy) and matching silk slacks (luminous); and a signature jade and onyx necklace (At an ancient temple in the lost city of Ping Yao, your hand brushes against a crumbling wall…) that complemented my green eyes and elongated my short neck. A little lipstick, a little powder …

  Boom. You look like a boss again.

  Satisfied, I grabbed my black leather bag (They will wonder if this same classic handbag hid Janet Leigh’s stolen cash in Psycho…) and my vintage suitcase (Cuba meets Egypt…), then strolled out to the gates.

  Like a boss.

  I placed a final call to my attorney, Phillip Omeke. His phone line rang once … twice … and then hit voicemail. Phillip’s pretty Somalian paralegal’s voice told me that I’d reached the law offices of Omeke Squire and Pierce, that I should leave a message, and that he’d soon return my call. A lie—I’d left six messages in six weeks, and I’d only spoken to his machine, not even pretty Fazia, because Phillip Omeke no longer cared one flip about me.

  Still, I obeyed, because I had no other lawyer to call and because I knew in my heart of hearts that he really did care about me. “It’s Miriam again. You know what? I’m gonna press charges against Prudence McAllister once I get back to L.A. So ignore my other message, the one I left a little after midnight. That’s it. Talk to you soon. Wish me luck.”

  The invitation to participate in a reality television competition had appeared in my in-box just a month ago. New game show … filming pilot … all expenses paid … Mexico … Nothing like this has ever been filmed … Interested? I needed money—legal bills wouldn’t pay themselves, and now that I no longer received disability checks, I needed a source of income. So, in my reply to the show’s producer, I’d told him that I never flew anywhere coach and that I required monetary compensation for my participation. He had responded with “Of course,” and had then informed me that I’d take home at least ten thousand dollars for being on the show. In my excitement, I’d neglected to ask about the grand prize. If I’d receive ten thousand dollars for losing, though, the winner had to take home half a mil. Right?

  Throughout the flight to Mexico, I scanned the faces of the other passengers. Who would I be competing against? The pit-faced steroid junkie in the Ed Hardy graffiti shirt? T
he vacuous big-boobed blonde with more paint on her face than the Berlin Wall? Or the Ryan Seacrest wannabe with the frosted blond tips and the down-market Italian loafers? These were the types of people who bothered me—fake and frosted, wannabe hotties with more air between their brains than the space between heaven and earth.

  But no one associated with the game show approached me—not on the plane nor at the taxi stand in front of the Sonoran airport. Guess we were all obeying the order to avoid interaction before arriving to the port. No one associated with the Los Angeles Police Department approached me, either. Good. Cool.

  While I had been in the air, though, Detective Giorgio Hurley had left me a voicemail: “Ms. Macy, hi. Just checking in with you. We need to talk, either at your home or here at the station. Sounds like there was some type of altercation last night? Sounds like folks were hurt, you included? Sounds like—”

  I hung up before finishing his message.

  Detective Hurley would not destroy my fire, nope, not today.

  I tapped the camera icon and snapped a selfie of me crossing my eyes with a silly smile. I sent it to my daughter with a text message. The Krazy Lady landed safely in Mexico. A way to say, “No hard feelings, I will always love you no matter what.” I shoved my phone into my bag, lifted my chin, and forced light onto my face. Pictured myself on-screen, with that reality-TV synthesizer music bopping as I wandered about town wearing green silk. Sharp eyes, soft smile, and perfectly waxed eyebrows, I was now Black America’s representative—hardworking and stylish, persevering against all odds, a believer in fairness and faith and directness … You can win combined with lift ev’ry voice meets power to the people. Yeah, I saw myself on TV, and that vision of me, strong me, had now carried me from one country to the next, from plane to taxi, and soon, onto the Sea of Cortez.