by Dana Mele
I glance reflexively toward the staircase. “Is that a good idea?”
“They don’t care.” She loads the drinks and plates onto a tray and heaves her bag onto her shoulders, and I follow her up the stairs, down a long hallway, and up a second, smaller spiral staircase to her room.
Nola’s bedroom is a little tower perched atop the rest of the house. It overlooks the sea from one side and the village on the other, and the view is breathtaking even with just the sliver of moonlight. We sit on her bed in the darkness, watching the silent water crumple and crash against the rocks outside, and a foreign sense of calm settles over me. I decide I’m going to stay here. I’ll live in the crawl space or the servants’ quarters or something. I’ll become a dishwasher. Not lazy like the kitchen staff at Bates. The real deal. I’ll get in with Marla, plead my case to her first thing in the morning. I’m not sure about Mrs. Kent, but Bernie seemed like a decent guy. Good plan. Or I could just declare myself an indefinite guest and become one of those Tranquility leeches Nola spoke of with such disdain. I turn to Nola to crack a joke about it, to find her hovering with her face just inches from mine. I startle so suddenly I nearly fall off the bed.
“What the hell?”
“I drank my rum and Coke too fast and now I have to pee.”
I stare at her glowing eyes in the darkness. “Then pee.”
“Okay.” She rises unsteadily. “You didn’t drink yours,” she points out.
“Because I don’t like diet soda or rum. Together they taste like synthetically sweetened liquid butterscotch candy.”
“Okay.” She takes my glass with her and leaves, presumably to go to the bathroom. I dig into my overnight bag and change into a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved Bates T-shirt, then brush my hair out and weave it into a braid. I’m relieved to see that there are two twin beds in this room, each with a frosting-pink comforter and cream-colored canopy and dust ruffle. It looks like the room was decorated when Nola was five and hasn’t been altered since. I settle my things under one of the beds and am about to peel back the covers when Nola emerges from the bathroom with an empty glass in her hand, walking a little unsteadily, wearing nothing but a bathing suit and striped knee socks.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I say.
“Night swim,” she says. “It’s tradition.”
21
I’m getting over a monster cold and it’s barely above freezing out,” I remind her.
“So? People swim in the Arctic in the dead of winter. You don’t stay in for long. It’s about the ritual, not leisure,” she says, tugging at my arm.
“I’m not going out there without a coat and hat,” I say firmly.
She shrugs. “Fine. Hold my towel.”
I tiptoe down the stairs after her, feeling trapped. If we get caught, I’m going to be the bad influence, the one who got the Kents’ precious daughter drunk and flung her into the icy sea. But if I try to stop Nola, I’m the loser who doesn’t like rum and doesn’t jump into freezing, turbulent waters in late November. When did I become this?
Oh yeah. Halloween, just after midnight.
Nola leads me along a narrow, winding path that cuts steeply down the side of the cliff behind the house until ending abruptly, some twenty feet above the water. She turns to me, shivering. It’s freezing even huddled inside my Todd coat, my hat pulled down over my ears. I cling to the side of the cliff for balance and bend forward, peering down. The drop is clean and steep, but the water lashes roughly against the side. Unfortunately, my gloves are cashmere, and my fingers are now soaked. I press my back against the cliff wall and shove my hands into my pockets.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to jump.”
Her teeth chatter. “That’s the tradition, Kay. You don’t know this spot. I’ve lived here my whole life. There’s plenty of clearance.”
“What about the current? Your bones will be smashed. And I’m not jumping after you.”
She looks hurt.
“Two smashed bodies are not better than one, Nola! Who came up with this grand tradition? Where are they now?”
“My grandfather. He’s dead. He’s been jumping this cliff to kick off Thanksgiving week since he was our age.”
Oh. “Okay . . . Was he the only one to engage in this tradition?”
She shakes her head, her body shuddering so violently that her voice comes out in almost unintelligible bursts. “But when he died and we moved into the house, my family mostly stopped talking to each other, so my cousins didn’t come anymore. So it’s just me now. Well, and my sister. But Bianca’s not coming this year. Meeting her fiancé’s family is more important.”
I take off my coat and put it around her shoulders, but she shoves it at me angrily. I grab for it, but a strong gust of wind rips it out of my hand and hurls it over the edge. I watch helplessly as it flaps down like a large, doomed bird to the sea below and lands lifeless against the rocks before being dragged under the surf. Then I snap.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
She cringes, but it’s not in a really dismayed or apologetic way. It’s in an oops-my-bad-moving-on kind of way.
“Go ahead, Nola, jump. Do it now. It’s tradition, right? Get down there and bring my coat back. Get it back, or I will never forgive you.”
She looks at me uncertainly, but I just point down to the madly churning sea. I tell myself that I’m not in the wrong. She has full agency, and this was her idea. She’s been insisting, pushing, and it is not my responsibility to talk her out of it. And now she’s lost my coat, Todd’s coat, my piece of him that no one can take away. She’s taken it and hurled it into the sea.
“I’ve never actually jumped alone,” she says finally.
“Then I will.” I pull my shirt off and push it into her arms.
“You can’t do that.” An edge of panic has crept into her voice.
“Of course I can. I have to. It’s tradition.” The rocky cliff face digs into my back as I lean into it for support, removing my sneakers one at a time.
“Kay, you don’t know how. The water’s too rough tonight. We’ll come back and look in the morning.”
I slide my sweatpants off and hand them to her and creep to the very edge of the cliff, unsteady on my aching feet.
“You’ll die, Kay,” she finally says in a trembling voice.
I look down at the dark water. She could be right. And even if I didn’t, I still might not be able to find Todd’s coat. I think I see a piece of it caught on a rock, but I don’t know. “Forget it.”
I grab my clothes and begin hiking back up to the house in silence. I can hear her sobbing behind me, but there’s just nothing I can say to her. It was an accident, but she was still responsible. She had no intention of jumping, not really. So why did she drag me out there? It should probably just bounce off me after every other piece of hell that’s been thrown at me this semester, these past few years; but instead, it feels like a fresh splinter in my heart. I want my coat back. I want the worn collar and loose buttons and imaginary Todd smell, the too-long sleeves and the inner pocket I never open—the one that has to remain closed—because if I look at the picture inside, I will fall apart. The picture of Todd and me the day he died, just before the game, him hugging me and giving the camera a cheesy thumbs-up with Mom attempting to spike a football in the background, and me glaring into the camera. I need that picture. I want the coat back, and everything that goes with it. I want to curl up in it tonight and cry over all of the wonderful and terrible things in my life I’ve lost.
* * *
• • •
WHEN I WAKE in the morning, the floor is heaped with dozens of winter coats. Nola is sitting on her bed wearing a navy-and-white-striped polo shirt and a pair of khaki pants, no makeup, her hair swept back into a ponytail. She looks like she just walked out of the pages of a J.Crew ad. Family Nola Kent is so different from
School Nola Kent, it gives me the creeps.
“I got up at sunrise and searched the water and it’s gone,” she says simply, a matter-of-fact expression on her face. “This is every coat every visitor has ever left at this house. We keep them so people can claim them when they come back. But almost no one ever does. Take whichever one you want. Some of them are pretty schmancy.”
“Of course it was gone,” I croak in a morning voice. “The ocean was dragging it all night.” I wade through the mountain of winter coats. “I don’t want your crappy hand-me-downs.”
“Are you sure? Some of these abandoned items were once the property of British royalty.” She holds up a shabby camel-colored peacoat with tortoiseshell buttons that looks like it was scavenged from a homeless shelter. “Perhaps this is to your liking?”
I shake my head and dig through my bag for my toothbrush. “No thanks.”
She searches through the pile. “Her majesty does have odd taste. May I suggest this mint-condition Burberry wool navy coat? It’s not that different from your old one, just a slightly different shape. And way better quality, to be perfectly frank.”
I glare at her. “You can’t replace my coat. That was my brother’s coat. He’s dead. There won’t be another one.”
She pauses, then throws the Burberry coat on my bed. “I’m really sorry, Kay. It was an accident. You still need a coat. That other thing you traipse around campus in is barely a sweater.” She sits down next to me. “You’ve never mentioned your brother was dead. You talk about him like he’s still alive.”
“You’ve never mentioned your grandfather was dead.”
She rolls her eyes. “Everyone has dead grandparents.”
“I’ve got four. None of mine started a family civil war.”
She smirks darkly. “Oh, that. Well, when there are spoils to be had, there’s always war.”
I sit and place the coat on my lap. It’s a peace gesture. I should try to be gracious about it. “Were you close to your cousins?”
“They were basically my only friends. Before we lived here, we moved every three or four years for my father’s work. And my sister lives in her own perfect little galaxy. So my cousins were my only constant friends. But when the will dispute went down, things got ugly really fast. Actually, that started even before Grandfather died, because as soon as he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Uncle Walt accused my father of convincing my grandfather to change his will. And then Uncle Edward’s lawyer said that none of the cousins should speak to each other until the dispute was settled, so that side of the family wasn’t allowed to have any contact with the rest of us. Edward’s daughter, Julianne, had been my best friend. And when I called her to say how stupid all of it was, she accused me of trying to sabotage their family’s legal claim and said I was selfish and greedy just like my Jew mother. So, that was the end of that friendship. We don’t speak to any of them now.”
“Wow. She went right for the swastika.”
“Yeah. Turns out my family aren’t nice people.” She pauses. “It’s not like you and your friends were so much nicer, though, were you?”
Slap in the face that I deserve. “I hope you’re joking.”
“Totally.” But her face is expressionless and her voice softly singsong, and I get the feeling she might be mocking me. It’s the first appearance of School Nola since we arrived at Tranquility. Then she smiles reassuringly. “Don’t give yourself too much credit, Kay. Your whole operation is small-time.”
I suddenly feel a little lucky to have my grief-stricken mother and pushy father, completely disconnected from me, irreparable as it sometimes seems. Even Aunt Tracy. She was there for us when we needed her, even if her idea of comfort and nourishment is soap operas and ice cream. That is comfort and nourishment for some people. Maybe some wallowing is healthy. It’s healthier than anti-Semitism and alienation.
“What about your brother?” Nola tries on a luxurious fur coat and settles herself at my feet.
“He was murdered.”
She slides the coat off. “Well. Now my family drama feels trivial. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe you never mentioned that.”
I kick at the pile of coats. “It’s not my favorite memory.”
“Can I ask?”
“What happened?” I trace a line on my palm absently. “He was dating my best friend. Ex–best friend. They both kind of ditched me for each other. Then they broke up and all these nude photos she’d sent him mysteriously got sent out to his friends.”
“And by ‘mysteriously,’ you mean he sent them.”
I sigh. “He said someone stole his phone.”
She chews her lip. “Not to speak ill of the obviously beloved dead, but stole it and cracked the password and knew exactly who to send the pics to?”
“I know.” I pause. “But that wasn’t my thought process at the time. So I told the police I was with him at the time and that he didn’t do it.”
Nola nods.
“Megan—my friend—never spoke to me again. Soon after that, she committed suicide.”
“Oh no.” Nola puts an arm around me.
“It looked like Todd wasn’t going to be punished, and Megan’s brother decided that couldn’t happen. So he murdered him.”
She squeezes me tightly. “That’s Romeo and Juliet–level vengeance.”
“Except Romeo never broke up with Juliet and showed Benvolio and Mercutio nude sketches of her.”
She looks at me oddly. “You do know some Shakespeare.”
“Only that play. It struck a chord.” Not the love-story part. The vengeance killings. The families who cannot forgive. The part where Romeo tries to make peace and ends up causing his best friend’s death.
“You’re missing out big-time.”
I don’t think so, though. There’s enough drama in my life. Love, loss, revenge.
And fatal errors.
I wish I could ever know what to think about the brother I loved so much, who defended me when anyone put me down. Who did one bad thing. One unspeakable thing.
Does someone who does one bad thing, even one really bad thing, deserve bad things to happen to them? Deserve to be murdered or framed for murder?
I can’t wrap my head around whether I’m still allowed to remember Todd the way I want to, as the brother I adored, or whether the shadow of what he did has to darken and twist that forever. I think that shadow might be darkening and twisting me, too. Because I can’t stop loving or missing him. Maybe my brain is broken, or my heart is rotten. I want to be a good person who only says and does good things and loves good people, but I don’t and I’m not. I wish I could call Brie right now. I feel like I’m disappearing.
22
We spend the morning in the game room, a bright, sunlit room in the northeast corner of the house that overlooks the sea. Its centerpiece is a full-size pool table, and the walls are lined with relics from carnivals, like antique Skee-Ball games, pinball machines, and one of those creepy fortune-tellers with glowing eyes where, for a penny, you can ask a question and it spits the answer out of its mouth on a slip of paper. I’d like to remain indefinitely at the pinball machine, which is crowned by a rather smug-looking clown grinning demonically down at me. But after an hour or so, Nola seems to grow bored of throwing perfect Skee-Ball games. She glances outside. “Do you want to hit a few golf balls into the ocean?”
“What?” I don’t look up from the evil clown. “Who am I, Cori?”
“She doesn’t own golf,” Nola mutters. She plants herself on a carousel horse and produces a notebook and pencil from her pocket. “Fine. Who do you like more, Spencer or Greg?” she says.
I turn from the pinball machine reluctantly, one hand still on the flipper. “Seriously? After everything that’s gone down, I’m probably going to lay off dating for a while.”
She laughs. “I meant who do you like more as a suspe
ct.” She bites the end of the pencil. “Spencer has a weird creepy obsession. He kills Jessica and frames you to get back at you for hurting him. Then he kills Maddy when she stands in the way of getting you back. But Greg has a pure jealousy motive. It’s cleaner. No connection to Maddy, though.”
I hesitate. “I can’t see either of them killing Maddy.”
“Can you see either of them killing Jessica?”
“No more than you or me or Dr. Klein.” I slide down to the floor. “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”
She chews on the end of the pencil for a long moment. “I broke Bianca up with her boyfriend. We look almost like twins, and when we were little, we used to switch clothes, friends, boyfriends, just to see how long we could go before we got in trouble.”
“So you were close at one point.”
“It stopped being fun when I realized how much more people liked me when I was her. So I broke up with her first boyfriend while I was ‘playing’ her. I told him he smelled like a dead hamster. I mean, she forgave me for it. I was only eight.”
“Well, you’re probably not going to hell for that,” I say, sighing.
“If you believe my father, you can be forgiven for anything,” she says.
“He sounds like my dad.” My father before Todd died. He stopped being Catholic after the funeral, because it was outrageously unacceptable that a person could kill and ask for forgiveness and be absolved. No, Megan’s brother would burn in hell. That was Dad’s new religion. The religion of righteous burning in hell. Of seeking no earthly revenge, because you just can’t. That’s just not what we do. But the bastard will burn. That’s the faith that will keep the Donovans going.