The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  Her father watched her through the rearview mirror. “How are the twins?” He asked with a slight grimace. The twins were his, biologically, but other than that, he had nothing to do with them.

  At the age of forty-four, Jill Dawson suddenly developed an overwhelming desire to have another baby and to have that baby by Oliver Dawson. She had to convince him to give her his sperm, and Emma had overheard several long conversations between her parents when they were still in the conception phase of the plan. Oliver’s compensation for his sperm to Jill was the ranch house in Cahuenga. Her mother had retained the property in the divorce, and it had steadily risen in value over the years until it was worth a small fortune. Furthermore, Oliver had made it abundantly clear that his fatherly role in the future child’s life would be non-existent, never mind that he had a relationship with Emma (however tenuous) and that her new brother or sister might one day question why Oliver chose to be a father to Emma but not them.

  Emma had casually listened to the conception conversation over a period of weeks, each meeting between her parents hours long and always conducted in the living room. While Emma microwaved leftovers, for instance, she’d listen to her mother outlining the steps of her impending hormonal changes in excruciating detail, stating that, although she was not experiencing noticeable symptoms of perimenopause yet, her body was in the process of going through the inevitable cycle, with which she could expect later climacteric symptoms that could produce a host of degenerative aging effects.

  Another time, Emma had peeked in on her parents to find her dad watching her mom with glazed eyes as she waxed poetic about the dating app she’d created. Emma knew he was only sitting it out for a chance at the ranch house.

  Once, Emma had asked her mom why she’d been attracted to her dad.

  Jill Dawson had cocked her head in thought.

  “He’s a good listener and he has very clean toenails. I think that’s important.”

  “So, you saw his feet and fell in love?” Emma asked sardonically.

  As usual, sarcasm went right over Jill’s head.

  “Well, no. We met on a Friday night at Johnny’s Bar & Grill on 3rd street. It was February sixth, 2004, at 7:13 PM. I was wearing a thin grey cardigan in forty-four-degree Fahrenheit weather. Understandably, I was uncomfortably cold. Colleagues had talked me into going out for drinks after work, against my better judgment, and your father sat down and introduced himself. He wore an eye-catching salmon-colored tropical shirt. I believe it was Tommy Bahamas. I thought it odd that he wasn’t affected by the cold and asked him if he’d just come to LA from a much colder climate. He laughed, although I wasn’t sure why. We then had a very stimulating conversation about Hemiptera. Cicadas, specifically. And although he knew nothing on the subject, he asked good questions and it seemed to me he had a natural, unbridled interest in the lifespan, diet, and locomotion of the insect.”

  The only thing Oliver Dawson had an unbridled interest in was beautiful young women, Emma had thought to herself as her mother told her this story. She could imagine Jill talking nonstop about cicadas and her dad finessing the conversation, staring raptly at her with his big, brown puppy dog eyes, buying her drinks, and, if he ever got a word in that first evening, latching onto some bit of information her mother had provided about the insect and adding whatever he could dredge up from his lecherous mind on the subject, pretending to be completely absorbed and fascinated. Emma had seen him pull that act countless times with women. If Jill only had her looks going for her, Oliver would have moved on swiftly. But the fact that her mom was beautiful, smart, and a natural at acquiring large amounts of money, meant that he stuck around and married her.

  Once, when Emma was in fifth grade, she, Cat, and Nisha had pored over Jill’s old high school yearbooks. Amongst all the big hair and pancake makeup of the eighties, her mom had stood out head and shoulders over her classmates. You could not miss the girl with the naturally sweet, heart-shaped face, mossy green eyes that Emma had inherited, wavy brown hair that hung un-harassed around her shoulders, and golden-brown skin.

  “Damn, Jill was a hottie,” Nisha had commented.

  “And the only normal-looking one,” Cat had added, pursing her lips over the outlandish fashion of decades gone by. “Who were your mom’s friends?”

  “She didn’t have any,” Emma told the girls. She’d asked Jill the same question.

  “I was too busy with my interests,” her mother told her and, as an afterthought, remarked that she was friends with one of the science teachers. She and Mrs. Marks used to have lunch together every Thursday, and Jill would often talk over her experiments and projects. And then as an added afterthought, she’d said with a frown, “I was often misunderstood by my peers. And I have to say, the feeling was mutual.”

  Once Oliver had agreed to help Jill conceive, she’d carefully planned her pregnancy, the maternity ward at Cedars Sinai thoroughly toured twice, copious notes taken. She’d scheduled a cesarean for the birth, and a night nurse for the first four months of their lives, starting them on a strict sleep schedule at four months, breastfeeding coming to an end at six months. The twins’ lives were meticulously mapped out for them, as Emma’s life had once been. Three years ago, Emma put her foot down with her mother, refusing to let Jill micromanage her time any longer. Now that she no longer allowed herself to be treated like a science project, it seemed her mother had lost interest altogether.

  Emma stared out at a darkening sky as her father negotiated his way through traffic. On the open road, he was a speed demon.

  “I thought we’d go to Katsuya tonight,” he said. “How do you feel about Japanese, darling?”

  Emma opened her mouth, but Mia spoke before she could respond.

  “I love Japanese,” she purred.

  Oliver Dawson’s lips curved into a slow smile and his hand crept over to Mia’s leg, resting on her knee. Emma rolled her eyes and put in her wireless earbuds, opening her phone. There were three more texts from Cat. Hearts, rainbows, and frowny emojis accompanied by “sorry” and “please call me” with hands in the prayer position.

  At Katsuya, valets swarmed their car. They knew Oliver Dawson. He was a regular at the upscale restaurant in Brentwood, and he tipped well. One valet opened the door for Mia and another for Emma.

  The restaurant had an all-wood interior designed like a bento box. Their party was whisked to her dad’s favorite table, situated on a wooden platform beside a plate-glass window, potted plants providing a natural aesthetic. They were among a handful of customers as it was still early. Emma’s dad ate early, went to bed early, and was up early.

  “That’s because he’s old,” Nisha once said.

  A hostess arrived with warm, moist napkins rolled on curved bamboo wooden trays and small glasses of water.

  “Good evening, Oliver,” she said with a big smile, giving a slight bow and another bow to Mia and Emma.

  “Good evening, Keiko.” Emma’s dad beamed back at her. “What are you drinking, darling?” He asked Emma.

  “A coke,” she said flatly.

  Her father frowned. He was not happy about her weight, but never came out and said it. “Darling, are you sure you don’t want an iced tea?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Emma snapped. “That’s why I ordered a coke.”

  Her dad flashed her a tight smile, his expression softening when he looked at Mia. “Do you like chardonnay?”

  “Yes, I do,” Mia said..

  “One coke and two glasses of Rombauer,” he said to the hostess.

  The hostess gave another slight bow and left for their drink order.

  “You’ll love Rombauer,” her dad said to Mia, Emma silently mouthing his words as he spoke. He then attempted to dazzle his date by telling her that he knew the owner of Katsuya and had attended the grand opening of the restaurant. Another story Emma had heard twenty times.

  “Wow, that’s so cool,” Mia gushed, and Emma sighed. She could mouth what her dad was going to say next. His game w
as so practiced.

  Emma excused herself to the bathroom, telling Oliver to order her usual popcorn shrimp as a starter and sizzling wagyu ribeye steak with maitake mushrooms and truffle butter for her main course.

  Making her way to the dimly lit restroom, she dug out her phone from her front pocket and leaned against the sink, taking a picture of herself snarling. She added devil horns and a pitchfork and sent the image to Hunter with a text.

  Dad doesn’t bring out the best in me.

  Hunter immediately sent back a laughing emoji and then asked,

  Where are you?

  Katsuya. His idea of comforting me is taking me out to fancy Japanese dining with some woman he picked up recently and doing his usual brag about his life.

  Harsh

  I don’t even like Japanese food.

  Have you told him?

  Yea, brain won’t get the message

  Call me when you get home. We’ll talk it out

  Cool

  Emma started to send a heart as well, then changed her mind. They might get the wrong idea.

  When she returned to the table, her dad’s eyes lingered on her for a moment.

  “You look as if you’ve grown, Emma,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” Emma mumbled.

  “A little height on a woman is a good thing,” Oliver remarked and then returned his attention to Mia.

  The rest of dinner was spent listening to her dad name drop and brag about his life. Mia kept her composure and was the perfect companion, saying, “wow,” and “that’s incredible,” at the right times. At one point, when Emma’s dad was talking to the waiter, she noticed Mia staring out the window, a look of utter despair on her face, which she covered over with a huge smile when Oliver Dawson asked,

  “Another glass of wine?”

  “Oh, I’d love it.”

  Emma took a bite of her miniature forty-five-dollar ribeye, thinking that she’d caught a true glimpse of how Mia really felt.

  At the Malibu house, Emma excused herself to her room and her dad reached out a hand to give her shoulder a squeeze. “How are we doing, love? Are we going to be okay?” He tucked his chin down, forehead crumpling into a fan of folds. His sincere face.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Emma muttered.

  Her dad turned to Mia. “Emma’s had quite a shock. She was out biking with friends on Saturday and stumbled on a grisly scene at the beach in Santa Monica.”

  “Oh? What happened?” Mia asked.

  “Horrible, really,” Oliver said. “A friend from Emma’s school had come to a sticky end, I’m afraid.” He refocused on Emma, his sincere face growing more exaggerated.

  “What do you mean?” Mia asked, her smile gone, eyes flickering with confusion as she looked at Emma.

  “He means she was dead,” Emma said.

  Mia’s hand flew to her mouth as she took in a sudden, sharp breath. “Oh my gosh. That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah,” Oliver said. “Very unpleasant.”

  “It was more than unpleasant, Dad,” Emma snapped. “It was fucking traumatic! Her body was propped up in a chair and no one noticed she was dead for hours.”

  Oliver grimaced and glanced at Mia, who was still standing with her hand on her mouth.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Didn’t mean to sound callous. You do whatever you need to, love, to make yourself comfortable, and, of course, if you need me…”

  “Whatever, Dad.”

  Emma marched off to her room, flopped onto her bed, and dug out her phone from her pocket, opening the call tab. Then closed it. She was too angry to talk to Hunter. She got up and checked to make sure her door was locked. Climbing back into bed, she pulled out her earbuds and picked her phone back up, finger hovering over the screen.

  I’ll stop tomorrow, she told herself and opened the girl-on-girl porn video, a favorite at the moment.

  Lots of kids look at porn, she told herself for the umpteenth time. It was something she’d stumbled upon last year when she’d been doing research for a school paper about changing gender norms in society. She didn’t remember the exact trail that led her to the graphic images that were suddenly displayed on her screen. She’d scrolled quickly through the pictures and then clicked off the site. But later that same night, she’d typed “porn” into her browser, and just like that it appeared. Anything she could ever want to look at. And still later, some months ago, a link had been texted to her phone to a website called Candy Porn. It became her new favorite site to visit.

  Jill had never put a filter on Emma’s computer or phone. She did not make Emma use the computer in a public family space like Cassandra’s mom did. Emma knew her mother was clueless about what she had access to online, even though Jill ran a successful dating website. Her mother had a hard enough time keeping up with social norms that most people took for granted. Porn, drugs, and online predators were nowhere near Jill’s parenting radar. And Oliver, well, he could barely get it together to show up when it was his weekend with Emma. Last Friday with the sex dolls, he’d been flustered and angry when he found her in his closet, fondling the doll’s breast, but that was where it ended. Both had been mortified and agreed that the incident was best never mentioned again. He’d given her those mini bottles of booze to share around with her “little crew,” as he called her friends. A concession for not ratting him out to her mother. He’d been more concerned about his own hide than why Emma was going through his most private possessions. Things she had no business getting into, really.

  Emma sighed, then started her video: schoolgirls whose friendship rapidly evolved into something else. Five minutes and three orgasms later, Emma shut her phone off and turned off her lamp, wondering about her sexuality. Was there something wrong with her? Was it normal to look at so much porn? She punched down her pillow and yawned. It was eight-thirty. In minutes, she was asleep.

  By midnight she was awake again, staring into the fuzzy darkness, a smear of images lingering in her mind. She’d been dreaming. Dreaming of riding her bike and stumbling upon Wren in that beach chair, bare legs stretched out in the sand, hands drooped over the armrest, multi-colored nails winking cheerfully in the sunlight. It was so damn hot, Emma thought as she got off her bike and went to Wren, noticing on further inspection her mottled flesh, legs rotting in the hot sun. The shock catapulted her out of the nightmare. Emma pushed back damp strands of hair stuck to her face, feeling around for her phone in the twisted pile of covers and finding it at the end of the bed. It was stifling and she realized after a moment that the air conditioner wasn’t on anymore. She reached for her lamp and flipped the switch. Nothing. Getting up, she went to the overhead light. Still nothing.

  A brownout, she surmised, feeling miserable.

  God’s punishing you.

  It was her grandmother’s voice whispering in her ear and she trembled with guilt, wondering if her grandmother was watching from beyond the grave, watching every little detail of her life—all the dirty stuff she did to herself and would die of embarrassment if anyone knew.

  Emma’s parents weren’t religious. In fact, her mother was atheist, but Jill’s parents had been very religious. It was Grandma Patty, Jill’s mom, who had told Emma about God always watching. Grandma Patty, who took her to church when she was small. Even then, the God-always-watching bit alarmed Emma. When she was around six years old, she’d consulted her mother about God. In Jill Dawson’s typical fashion, she’d overshot her attempt at comfort, only managing to frighten Emma even more with her clinical explanation of death.

  “God used to scare me, too,” Jill had explained. “But you don’t need to be afraid because God doesn’t exist. He’s made up, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”

  “What happens after we die?” Emma had asked.

  “Something much better than God. Our bodies are made up of minerals, energy, and water. After we die, all these natural elements break down and return to other natural elements, although if one is buried in a coffin with embalming fluid, which
many people are, the process is much slower.”

  Emma had not understood about the embalming fluid, asking, “but where do we go?”

  “I just told you,” Jill had said, handing her a carrot stick from the snack she was making.

  “But the part of me that thinks—what happens to that part?”

  “Oh.” Jill had looked at her thoughtfully. “That part decomposes as well. When you die, your brain dies. I used to lie awake at night, worrying for hours about an invisible God watching my every move, and about the afterlife. I wondered how people got around without bodies. It used to give me horrible anxiety. Then I learned that God and the afterlife are made up.” Pleased, Jill had given Emma a rare smile. “I wish I’d known the truth when I was your age.”

  When Emma had started to cry, Jill looked caught off guard and thought the tears were over her flip-flops.

  “I know you always like to wear pink flip flops, but we couldn’t find pink flip flops in your size this time, even though we checked at Target, Costco and CVS. There was only green, blue, and black. We talked about it, remember? Do you need to be alone?”

  Emma had looked down with watery vision at the green rubber straps of her slippers and nodded, yes. It was easier to be upset over flip flops than death, and her mom knew all about meltdowns when things didn’t work out and you had to buy the wrong color of something at the store. Jill still had fits about things like that. Emma had taken herself to the little dark room that she and her mom went to when they were having a meltdown. The reset room, Jill called it. That was when she decided it might be better to believe in God, even if it was creepy and uncomfortable that he was always watching. It was better than the alternative—her body dissolving into nothing and the part of her that was Emma ceasing to exist.

  Emma opened YouTube on her phone. She typed into the search: wren mahoney does makeup. A slew of videos popped up, and Emma scrolled through them, hoping to find the one with Hunter, instead she found a gregarious girl who smiled and laughed throughout her reviews of various makeup and hair products. Wren’s last video had gone out a day before she died.