I’m fussing over a gutted tub of eye shadow when I hear the truck pull into the drive.
Wyatt smiles at me when I meet him at the door; he is visibly relieved to see me, Ava, rather than the Zelda apparition I have been dressed as for the last few days. Instead of inviting him inside, I follow him out to his truck and hop in.
“You seem cheerful,” Wyatt notes. “Good day?” The question is laced with skepticism and censure, a reminder that I should be mourning, or at least shell-shocked. Oh, but what the hell.
“Actually, yes. I read most of the third book of Game of Thrones.” As I say this, I feel a sudden sense of worry about my drastically improved spirits. All through our childhood, Nadine was inclined to moments of intense despair, followed shortly by hyperactive periods of glee. She would spend three days barely opening her eyes and then would lace up her running shoes and disappear for two hours, returning sparkle-eyed and exuberant, frenziedly cleaning the house and proposing various plans. This would last for a spell, until she would suddenly return to her miserable brooding. We always thought it was just a personality trait, an inclination toward moodiness, only now I can’t help but wonder if it was a symptom all along. If I have that same symptom. I squirm unhappily. “So, this Kayla Richardson girl. Do you know her at all?” I ask.
“I mean, yeah, a bit. She’s a few years younger than us, think she graduated in 2012? Kinda flighty, in trouble a lot at school.”
“I recognize her name, but I never spent much time with her. And Kyle was a bit notorious, obviously. Fucking twat.”
Wyatt snorts in acknowledgment. “Yes, he was. Is.” He shakes his head then continues: “Anyway, it seems both Kyle and Mrs. Richardson are pretty sure Zelda had something to do with Kayla’s disappearance. I think the fire has them nervous.”
After a long pause, reluctant to vocalize it, I ask, “Do you think Kayla is the one in the barn?”
Wyatt bites his lip. “Could be,” he finally says. “Christ. Man. If Zelda killed her…”
“If Zelda killed her, there’s no coming back,” I finish. “She can’t come back here, unless she wants to get arrested for murder.”
“All we know is that somebody died in that barn. We won’t know anything more until they get DNA results or dental records or something.”
“True,” I acknowledge, staring out the window. I reflect, trying to decide whether my sister really could have murdered a twenty-something-year-old girl and burned her body in our barn. When I left for Paris, I would have said no, no fucking way. Zelda might be crazy, unpredictable, and more than a little volatile, but she wouldn’t kill someone. She is also impulsive, unswerving, and more or less amoral. Things have been going very wrong for the last two years, and maybe, with her life collapsing around her…
“Any other notes? More letters?” Wyatt asks.
“We’re up to S.” I fill him in on the letters of the past two days, enjoying his surprised expression. P for policy, the letter Q, R for REM. When I tell him about the doctor Zelda was fucking, he clenches his teeth and squeezes the steering wheel in a restrained show of jealousy, and I feel a corresponding clench of the same emotion. “I guess we can add Kayla to the list. Racking up quite a score card,” I can’t resist adding. The flicker of anger in his eyes intensifies my own possessiveness and renews my fury at both Zelda and him.
“And S?” he prompts.
“I’m pretty sure S is for symptoms,” I say. “Did you happen to notice anything—” I pause, realizing I was about to say “erratic” or “unusual.” Those will not be helpful descriptions when dealing with Zelda. The answer is: Of course. “Let me rephrase: Was she more than usually weird these last few months? Forgetful or moody?”
“Well, yes, but I thought that had a lot to do with how much she was drinking. She was blacking out sometimes. But she’d started doing the weirdest thing.” He shakes his head. “She was making up these bizarre stories. Like, she would get wasted with me and the next day, when she couldn’t remember anything, she would concoct some crazy story of where she’d been. I’d ask her how she bruised her thigh, and she would say that she’d gone for a midnight bike ride through the vines and had banged into a post, even though I knew she’d gotten the bruise from tripping down the steps of her trailer and that she hadn’t touched her bike in weeks.”
“You were checking to see if she remembered?” I say, mildly hostile.
“Well, she’d started to have a real patchy recollection of what she’d been up to, and I wanted to see how bad it was getting,” Wyatt explains reasonably.
I sigh. “That’s called confabulation. It’s a symptom of Alzheimer’s and dementia.”
“What? Zelda wasn’t— What does that mean? You think she has what your mom does?”
“I think she was worried that she did. She went to see at least one neurologist, got a lot of info on early-onset. Of course, we’re a tad paranoid that we’re like our mother, so I don’t know if it was just…fear.”
“Was she taking anything for it?” Wyatt asks.
“You’re in a better position to answer that than me,” I point out.
“I mean, did you find any meds in her trailer?”
“She has a sizable pharmaceutical stash in there. I sincerely hope she wasn’t taking all of that shit, but who knows. Moderation isn’t one of her strong suits.”
“We should check her stash for prescriptions in her name,” Wyatt suggests. “See if she got diagnosed with anything or prescribed something. That would at least suggest she’s not crazy.” He smiles wryly. “Well, clinically.”
I nod my head. “Yeah, I guess we can do that on the way home.” I pause. “You don’t think—I mean, she’s only twenty-five. It can’t be dementia, right?” I want reassurance.
“It seems unlikely, Ava.” Wyatt pats my knee. “Probably just Zelda deflecting, pretending her problem was something other than…” He trails off with a cough, and he pinkens delicately.
“Alcoholism,” I finish flatly. “You can say it.” Wyatt glances over at me anxiously, wanting to see if I’m upset. “It’s not exactly a revelation, Wyatt,” I say drily. “My entire family—we’re all alcoholics. Zelda and I have been drinking pretty heavily since we were fourteen. I know it’s…I know it’s happening. I know it’s something of a problem. I’m supposed to say, ‘I know it has to stop. I know I need to clean up.’ But I don’t know that. I very much don’t believe that.”
“It was something Zelda didn’t really want to acknowledge,” Wyatt finishes for me. “She felt quite strongly that it wasn’t a problem. She pointed out that she didn’t have a real job to fuck up, and her personal relationships were already totally damaged. She didn’t have any DWIs, had never stolen anything or killed anyone—”
“Well, I guess that means it counts as a problem now,” I say sardonically.
“It was a problem before, Ava,” he says, his voice flat. I glance away, not meeting his eyes.
We pull into the parking lot of the brewery, and I hop out of the truck, onto the gravel of the steeply inclined driveway. Two Goats is a small operation, a small barn perched on the side of the lake. The beer is decent, they sell a smattering of local wines, and you get as many homemade potato chips as you can eat. But, really, people come for the view. The back deck, filled with picnic tables and bar stools, hangs over a field of grapevines, the lake sparkling below. This is one of the best places to watch summer sunsets on the whole lake. Tonight, it’s bustling, filled with most of our thirsty neighbors.
I know I shouldn’t, but I order a drink. I acknowledge how nice today was, to not have been swimming through an oppressive hangover. Only it doesn’t seem to matter, not to the other me, the one who wants a drink and doesn’t really care about tomorrow morning. My other twin. Tonight, I hope a bountiful harvest of fizzy liquid will grace our tankards, foaming exuberantly like profuse Jacuzzis. To avoid bringing it up with Wyatt, I just go ahead and order him a beer, a stout that I know he likes. Wyatt doesn’t comment when I hand
him his drink. He does take a hefty swallow from the frosty pint glass.
Looking around, I notice a bunch of people from high school, some of my parents’ friends; a teacher (geometry?) is standing in the corner.
“Busy,” I comment to the bartender, who looks vaguely familiar. I wonder if he was working here two years ago, when Zelda and I spent considerable amounts of time with our elbows marinating on the sticky bar. I hope he doesn’t recognize me.
“There’s a band playing tonight.” He points to the heap of instruments on the other side of the room. “They’re on break right now.”
“Who is it?”
“Richie Stearns,” he answers listlessly, wiping down the bar. I nod in recognition; I’ve heard him play my whole life. Banjos and soulful crooning. I look around, hoping to find Kyle Richardson. If he’s here.
At the sound of a raucous whoop from the back deck, Wyatt and I lock eyes, the same expression of exasperation on both our faces. That’ll be where our cohorts are. I shoulder my way outside, Wyatt following, and I take a serious slog from my beer, both to avoid spilling it down the front of my dress and to bolster myself for this interaction.
On the back deck, a gaggle of twenty-five-year-old men are engaged in some committed drinking, surrounded by stalagmites of empty glasses growing up from the rustic picnic tables. It’s almost dark out, and the fireflies blink languorously in the fields below. There’s a big moon hanging low over the lake, orange and strange. I see Kyle, perched on the railing, seeming to hold court over the other men clustered around him, who are staring up at him almost rapturously. His cheeks are flushed a dangerous crimson, and his eyes have the eerie blankness of the sixth or seventh drink. I notice now that he isn’t as thin as he was in high school, that his middle has thickened. Although judging from the beefy firmness of his arms, maybe this isn’t a result of beer so much as picking heavy things up and putting them down. He catches sight of me and nearly knocks his beer over as he leaps down from the rail.
“What the fuck are you doin’ here?” he slurs aggressively.
Wyatt makes a slight movement to get in front of me, but I weave around him.
“Hi again, Kyle.”
“I don’t want anything to do with your fuckin’ family. You’re all just a bunch of—psychos!” he spits out triumphantly. He is, of course, one hundred percent correct.
“I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your sister,” I say evenly. I notice that his cronies have turned toward us. Their testosterone is showing. They can sense imminent conflict, and combined with a significant amount of alcohol, this produces a blurry sort of electricity.
“Shit, is that Ava Antipova?” one of the guys says, and I turn my head, recognizing Josh Wheeler, a perennial stoner and all-around not-nice guy. Of course he and Kyle have stayed friends.
“Hi, Josh,” Wyatt says, shouldering closer to me. There was a time when he used to count these guys as “sort of” friends. In a high school like ours, with a graduating class of eighty, you become “sort of” friends with pretty much everyone. I smile pleasantly and wave to the rest of the crew.
“So do you bat the same as your faggoty sister?” Josh leers.
“Are you talking to me or to Kyle?” I ask sweetly, and it takes them a second to see what I’m getting at.
“Fuck you, Ava,” Josh says.
“Kyle, you want a cigarette? Talk a second?”
He looks at me very suspiciously but, after a moment, nods blearily. We make our way around the side of the deck to the smoking area, closer to the parking lot.
“Outta beer,” he says, almost whining. I hand him a cigarette and light both his and mine, looking over at Wyatt.
“Why don’t I go get another round?” he suggests, on cue.
“Thanks. The Belgian one for me,” I say lightly. Kyle just holds up his glass mutely, and Wyatt disappears back into the crowd inside.
“Whaddya want, Ava?” Kyle asks, his eyes tiny slits after he inhales a deep lungful of carcinogens. I take a drag on my own stick, feeling deliciously light-headed as tiny pieces of fiberglass shred my lungs, allowing the chemicals to enter my body faster.
“To talk about your sister,” I say. “And mine.” He says nothing. “Listen,” I go on. “I have a better idea of why you were so pissed the other day. I didn’t know about Zelda and Kayla, and I had no idea she was missing.”
“Yeah, well,” Kyle grunts.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Five or six days. She took off with Zelda on Monday, and we haven’t heard from her since.” There’s a note of blame in his voice, as though I’m somehow inculpated in this.
“And they were…together?” I’m reluctant to be too blunt. In high school, he was the sort of guy who called people “faggot” for wearing pink.
“Fuck if I know. They were spending a lot of time together, then Kayla got in a fight with our dad and, like, I don’t know, ‘came out’ or whatever homos do. Said she and Zelda were in love.” Oh, Christ. Zelda had some young girl mooning around after her, convinced they would be together forever, no doubt. “But Kayla wasn’t no queer,” Kyle continues, sounding hopeful.
“Maybe,” I agree. Wyatt reappears in the doorway, holding two beers instead of three. I’m momentarily concerned that he’s decided to cut me off, but he hands me my drink in the curvy beer glass and reaches over to Kyle to give him his. Kyle immediately sloshes some of the liquid down his chin, and a few drops slop onto his shorts, darkening the fabric. He doesn’t seem to notice. Wyatt folds his arms across his chest, hands empty.
“How long had Kayla and Zelda been hanging out?” I ask.
“Few months, maybe six? Christmas?” He seems bewildered. “But since it warmed up this spring, Kayla’s off with her in her fuckin’ trailer more and more. Started using.”
“Using what?” Wyatt chimes in.
“Druuugs,” Kyle says as though Wyatt is unspeakably slow.
“What kind?”
“Fuck if I know,” Kyle repeats. “Expensive, whatever it was.”
“Doesn’t really narrow it down,” I say.
He doesn’t hear me. “She stole a whole buncha shit from my mom’s jewelry box. Then when my mom chucked her out for a coupla days, she took off to my aunt’s and sold her TV. How do you, like, explain that shit without drugs?” He punctuates this query with a rhetorical jab of his finger in my direction. I step back to avoid him knocking my beer into my chest.
“Good point. Did she and Zelda ever hang out with other people? Do you know who their friends were?”
“How the fuck would I know that? Kayla was always off sneaking around—she didn’t tell me shit. Mosta what she said the last few months were total lies. That girl is gonna be in so much fuckin’ shit when she comes home….” His voice wavers uncertainly.
“Where do you think she might be, Kyle?” Wyatt says. “Why do you think she’s laying low?”
“Jesus. You people and your fucking questions. She probably knows there’re rumors that somebody killed your crazy-ass sister, and she doesn’t want to get picked up. Then she’d have to get clean. Fuck, maybe she killed your fucking sister.” Kyle chuckles. “Wouldn’t that be poetic justice. Irony.”
I don’t really see how that could be, but I decide not to press it. Wyatt looks dangerously close to starting something, and I put my hand on his forearm. The sudden contact with his warm skin makes me flush, and I realize the beer has just kicked in. My fingers linger for just a second longer than they need to.
“Any proof of that? Theories, maybe?” I ask.
“Fuck! They got in a fight over who got the last squirt of heroin, and Kayla kicked her ass, maybe went too far. You’ve never seen my little sister when she doesn’t get what she wants.” Kyle seems to find this idea both plausible and entertaining. He giggles tipsily. “Or maybe she got jealous ’cuz she found out you were fucking her girlfriend,” he says to Wyatt, giving him a shove that is not entirely friendly. “Maybe you better lo
ok out!” He chuckles again and drains down most of the rest of his beer in a gulp.
I sip mine daintily. Somehow it is easier to stay sober when confronted with a convincing reminder of just what being fully toasted looks like. Too bad I’m usually that reminder.
“Have you talked to the cops at all?” I ask Kyle.
“No, why would I?” He seems surprised. “They got their guy, that fucking Jason dude. Why would I rat out my sister? If they catch her with drugs, she’ll go to prison. She’s got a record, yo.”
I look over at Wyatt. I’m distracted by this turn of the conversation with Kyle when my phone starts ringing. Wondering, as always, which phone is vibrating in my bag, I poke around before pulling either phone out. It’s my phone, though, and I swipe across the screen to answer it. A local number, not saved to my contacts.
“Hello?”
“Ava Antipova?”
“Yes…”
“This is Officer Giles, with the Watkins Glen Police Department. Do you think you could come down to the station?”
“What, now?” I ask. Wyatt raises an eye.
“The coroner was just here,” the cop continues. “And he was able to complete his report. We’d like to discuss his findings with you and your family, if possible.”
“What do you mean? What did you find?”
“Well, ma’am, I’d really prefer to discuss it in person, with you and your family,” the cop says uncertainly.
“Why? I mean, it wasn’t Zelda, was it?” I say, the beer making me reckless. Still, I don’t need to get dragged down to the station at this time of night just to hear that it wasn’t my sister in the fire. They can tell me that on the phone.
Dead Letters Page 25