Trouble Never Sleeps

by Stephanie Tromly

  “Digby?” I know what’s coming but I still gasp when the car slides down and comes to a crunching stop halfway in the river. He and I stand watching the car for a while.

  “Well, he probably knows he had that coming,” I say.

  * * *

  • • •

  It is already past midnight by the time Digby and I get back to his street.

  “I guess my mother got the email.” Digby says this because his house is the only one on the block that is lit up. “Oh, great. He beat us here,” Digby says.

  “Who?” I say before I notice the silhouette of a man standing to the side of the front door, leaning on a car and smoking. “Who’s that?”

  And then the guy steps out of his lean and lopes over toward us and I recognize the way he moves.

  “Princeton. Hang on to your hat,” Digby says. “My father is here.”

  I run back over the few stories Digby’s told me about his father and prepared myself for Air Force Colonel Joel Digby. Engineer. Strict. Speaks in short, angry bursts.

  “Are you her?” Digby’s dad says to me.

  At first, I flatter myself with the notion that Digby has told him about me. And then I realize what he’s really asking. “Oh . . .” is all I manage to say.

  “This is my girlfriend, Zoe,” Digby says.

  “But you have found your sister?” Digby’s dad says. “That email wasn’t some pathetic cry for help?”

  “Yes, I’ve found her,” Digby says. He notices his father’s clothing. “You’re wearing your gym clothes. You came straight here?”

  “Where is she?” his father says. “Is she all right?”

  “New Jersey. She doesn’t know she was kidnapped,” Digby says. It’s odd to hear the change in the way he talks. All the joking around that usually laces everything he says is gone when he’s talking to his father.

  “Your mother told you everything? About what happened?” his father says. When Digby nods, his father says, “So you know it’s not something we discuss in the open.” His father’s eyes flick over to me. “You’re excused. This is a family matter.”

  This annoys Digby and he squares up to his father and says, “Zoe knows everything, Joel. And she’s the reason I know where Sally is, so, in fact, you should maybe thank her instead of dismissing her.”

  Digby’s father nods, looks at me, nods again, and says to Digby, “It’s fine if you don’t want to call me dad. You’re your own man now. But address me as ‘Colonel Digby’ or ‘sir’ until I tell you otherwise.”

  The door flies open and Digby’s mother comes out to join us.

  “You found her,” Val says. She is cry-laughing. “I knew you would . . . and I knew she was alive.”

  Digby nods. I can see him struggle to return his mother’s happiness without breaking the cool façade he’s put up for his father.

  Val kisses Digby and then surprises me with a kiss too. “I called Fisher,” she says.

  “I told you not to,” Digby’s father says. “What do you need to call that fraud for?” Sparks fly when he throws his cigarette against the wall.

  “Fraud?” Val is outraged. “Fisher was the only one who believed Sally was still alive when everyone else—including you—”

  “Oh, here we go again with this,” Digby’s father says. “It’s not hard to have hope when you’re getting paid six K a week to care.”

  Six thousand dollars a week? I play back Fisher telling me I should think about going into that field and think, Hmmm.

  “Well, this, Zoe doesn’t need to hear,” Digby says. “Let me drive her home. I’ll debrief when I get back.”

  “That’s fine. I have to take a shower anyway.” Digby’s father is about to walk away when he stops and says to Digby, “You know . . . I always wondered if maybe you did it.”

  Digby nods. “I know.”

  “I need a drink,” Digby’s father says.

  When he is gone, Digby says, “I hope he likes chocolate milk, because that’s all we have.”

  “Zoe, won’t you come in?” Val says.

  “No, thanks, Mrs. Digby. It sounds like you have a lot to talk about,” I say. “I can call a cab.”

  “That’s crazy,” Digby says. “Come in. Have a drink while I get the keys and use the bathroom real quick.”

  “No, if it’s okay, I’ll wait here . . .” I say. “I’m just going to fall asleep if I sit down on the couch and get comfortable.”

  Before Val follows Digby into the house, she grabs me and hugs me tight. “Thank you, Zoe. For bringing both my children back to me.” Thankfully, she hurries back into the house so neither of us has to deal with the emotions that kicks up.

  I jump up on the hood of Digby’s father’s rental car. The engine is still warm and even though I know it’s a bad idea, I let myself close my eyes.

  * * *

  • • •

  I don’t know how long I sleep, but I wake up feeling vulnerable. It takes me a second to work out that it’s because I feel myself being watched. I sit up and see I really am being watched by someone standing on the paved walkway to the house.

  “Digby?” I say before the sleep haze lifts and I realize my voyeur is far too short to be Digby. And is female. “Shelley?”

  Shelley says, “Zoe, right?”

  “How did you get here?” I say. “We just arrived like, two hours ago.”

  “What?” Sally says. “Why? You left the bakery hours before I did.”

  “Ugh. I know.” I don’t feel like telling her about the cheesesteak idiocy, so I say, “How did you find this place?”

  “I called the credit card company and told them we were reconciling our books. They gave me the billing address for the credit card he used in the bakery.” Shelley abruptly shifts gears. “I’m not adopted, am I? The way my aunt freaked out . . . Anthony said something to me about not calling the police.”

  “I don’t think I’m the right person to have this conversation with you,” I say.

  “Shelley?” Digby walks out of the house. He and his sister stare at each other.

  “Tasha said you came in asking for rhubarb pie and Fresca,” Shelley says. “What was that?”

  “Your favorite snack. Instead of a cake, we had rhubarb strawberry pie for the last birthday you had here,” Digby says. “I wondered if you’d remember.”

  “When I was in kindergarten, I had an imaginary best friend named Rhubarb TiscaFresca. I never understood why I made up that name,” Shelley says. “Who are you?”

  “I’m your brother,” Digby says.

  “You found me?” Shelley says.

  “Yes . . .” Digby points at me. “She and I did it together.”

  “Are you my sister?” Shelley says.

  “No,” I say. “He and I are . . .”

  Shelley nods at Digby and says, “Mazel tov.” She looks up at the house’s façade and says, “I used to have nightmares about a place I called the ‘screaming house.’ I had trouble sleeping for years. I even got hypnosis. I think it might have been this place.”

  “Our father is a recovering alcoholic and our mother is still recovering from a breakdown,” Digby says. “‘Screaming house’ sounds about right.”

  “Digby . . .” I say. “That’s a little bleak.”

  “She should know what she’s walking into,” Digby says.

  “That’s okay,” Shelley says. “It wasn’t exactly heaven where I was. It’s not like I was Tasha and Anthony’s Cinderelly or anything, but I always felt . . .” Shelley says. “Not at home.”

  Digby struggles to suppress something but it gets the best of him. “You know . . . your cousin Tasha’s stealing from the business.”

  “When she rings people up on the back register?” Shelley says.

  I vaguely remember thinking it was odd how one of the registers was
on the rear counter facing the wall so that Tasha’s back would block the customers’ view of the screen while she rung them up.

  “Like, she tells people seven dollars for a dozen bagels, and then rings up four-fifty for a half dozen so she can keep the two-fifty difference for herself?” Shelley says. “Yeah. Why do you think my aunt wants me to start taking over? Also, Anthony gets kickbacks from the suppliers.”

  “My God, there really are two of you now,” I say.

  “What happened to me?” Shelley says.

  “You should come in. We need to talk,” Digby says.

  “What’s your name?” Shelley says.

  “I’m Philip,” Digby says. “Philip Digby.”

  Shelley nods. “Then I am Sally Digby. The kid who was kidnapped.”

  “Googled the name on the credit card we used? That’s our mother’s name, by the way,” Digby says. “Yes, you are Sally.”

  “And my parents are in there?” Sally points at the house.

  Digby nods. “They’re divorced but they’re both in there right now. They know I found you.”

  Sally stares hard at the front door of the Digby house. “This was a mistake. I’m not ready for this. I need to get out of here.”

  Digby is momentarily taken aback but when he recovers, he says, “What if you stayed here without them knowing you’re here? Just so you can adjust at your own pace?”

  “How . . .” And then I realize what he means. “Oh, my God, are you seriously going to stick your sister in the garage?”

  “I lived in there for three months myself,” Digby says.

  “Sounds great to me,” Sally says.

  “You know there isn’t a bathroom in there,” I say. “You’ll have to pee in a sink.”

  “Actually,” Sally says, “people are grossed out by pee but it’s sterile—”

  “As your brother has explained to me. In great detail,” I say. “Maybe you guys should put it on your family sigil. House Digby. Pee is sterile.”

  Sally starts walking to the garage in the back. “Hey, am I Jewish?”

  “No,” Digby says.

  She thinks about that for a long while. “Maybe later, can you take me for a bacon cheeseburger?” And then Sally goes inside.

  “I’ll call a cab,” I say.

  “You don’t want to come in?” Digby says.

  “I think she wants to talk to you,” I say. “In private.”

  “Don’t call a cab.” Digby throws his mom’s car keys to me. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

  “Are you going to be okay?” I say.

  Digby shrugs. “I don’t know . . . but at least my problems are about to change.” He smiles. “And change is good.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Not going to lie, I am relieved when I pull Val Digby’s car into my driveway without having fallen asleep and crashing into anything on the way home. I fight the temptation to sleep where I sit and lure myself out of the car with fantasies of rolling into my soft warm bed and sleeping straight through until Monday morning.

  I lock up Val Digby’s car and turn to see Sloane, Henry, and Felix climbing out of Sloane’s SUV. My exhausted brain takes an age to remember that I’d texted Sloane something about finding Sally right before I’d fallen asleep on the hood of Digby’s father’s car.

  “Well?” Sloane says. “Where is she?”

  “Sally?” I say.

  “Who the hell else?” Sloane says.

  “Yeah, I thought about putting her in the car and bringing her over here for a show-and-tell with you, Sloane,” I say. “But weirdly, she wanted to readjust to her parents first.”

  “Parents?” Henry says. “Joel came back?”

  I grimace and nod.

  Henry whistles. “Joel’s back in town.”

  “Bad?” Felix says.

  “You think you had a bad afternoon with your mom? Pray you never have to give Digby’s dad bad news,” Henry says. “When I was nine years old, I told him that I’d spilled some juice in his car, and he turned around and gave me this one look that he has . . . and I just sat there and wet my pants. Luckily, he couldn’t tell because there was already juice all over the seat.”

  “Felix, why’d you have a bad afternoon with your mom?” I’m afraid to ask but I do anyway. “She didn’t find out about what we did, did she?”

  “No, no, she doesn’t know,” Felix says. “Wow. That would be bad. But I did tell them they shouldn’t buy that place in Boston.”

  I suck in my breath. No wonder he looks so worried.

  “How did that go?” I say.

  “Well, my father hasn’t spoken at all since I told them,” Felix says. “My mom, on the other hand, said plenty. And then she took a Xanax and went to bed.”

  “Then how are you out now?” I say. “Aren’t you at least grounded?”

  “Oh, you bet I am,” Felix says. “I climbed out the window.”

  “You’ve probably been hanging out with us too much,” I say.

  “How’s Digby?” Henry says. “How’s Sally?”

  “Sally is exactly like Digby. I mean exactly. Like, spookily so,” I say. “And Digby is . . . I don’t know. He seems like he’s okay but . . . you know.”

  “Who can even tell with that guy?” Sloane says.

  “Right,” I say.

  “What about Silk and his father?” Sloane says. “Did they leave town?”

  I nod. “All taken care of.”

  “Taken care of, like . . .” Henry says. “Taken care of?”

  “No, no. Not like that. They got a lot of money to forget all about you,” I say. “What about the police? The fire department?”

  “We told them those guys tried to rob us,” Henry says. “So far so good. We’ll go give a report and my parents will file the insurance claim afterward.”

  “Hey, Sloane. I saw you with that fire extinguisher,” I say. “I thought you said you wanted to burn that place down—”

  “If that place burns down, it’ll be because I lit it on fire,” Sloane says.

  “So now what?” Felix says.

  “I have no idea. But I have got to get some sleep,” I say. “I feel like a zombie.”

  Sloane reaches over and surprises me with a hug. “Yeah, you look awful,” she says.

  “We really need to work on your phrasing, Sloane,” I say. I am just finishing my hug with Felix when the front door of my house opens and my mom steps out, communicating her fury with the way she plants her feet and crosses her arms. I groan.

  “Say good-bye to your friends,” my mother says.

  I walk past her into the house. “I already did,” I say.

  * * *

  • • •

  She shuts the door behind us. I want to walk straight up the stairs and pass out but I don’t want to start a fight when I don’t particularly feel any hostility. And so I lean against the wall and get ready to soldier through the next few minutes.

  “I’m trying to be cool because I know trying to tell you who you can and can’t be friends with—or more than friends with—would just drive you away but . . .” Mom throws up her hands. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Where have you been, Zoe?” Cooper says. I guess the indignation I feel flares up and shows on my face, because he very quickly adds, “I’m not going to Dad you around, but we’re at least roommates, and even a roommate would worry if you just disappeared like that.”

  “I didn’t disappear,” I say. “I texted.”

  Mom holds up her phone and reads me back my text. “I’m in New Jersey. BRB.”

  Hearing it aloud, I know it’s indefensible and I don’t have the energy to try to find a way to rationalize it, so I just mumble, “Sorry.”

  “You didn’t have to go all the way to New Jersey, you know,” Mom says. “They have plenty of motels rig
ht here in town . . .”

  “O . . . kay . . . now you’re being crazy.” I can see she’s about to really go off the rails, so I say, “Can we talk about this after I get some sleep?” I start going up the stairs.

  “And maybe we should also talk about what to do now that your father’s threatening not to pay any of your tuition if you don’t live at his place next year?” Mom says.

  “Just tell him I’ll live with them until he pays the balance in June and then we’ll submit the housing request right after his check clears,” I say. “If that doesn’t work, then we should file papers and get them served at his office during business hours.” I lower my voice and continue, “Or maybe I should just cut through the crap and ask him whether he’s visited his secret bank account in the Caymans yet this year . . .”

  Cooper whistles. “That’s hardboiled . . .”

  I climb the stairs, my entire body a slow-moving collection of aches and pains.

  “Zoe? Are you sure you’re okay?” Cooper says.

  The easy way out would be to say a simple “I’m fine” but for some reason, I instead say, “We found Sally Digby. She’s alive. She’s been working in a bakery in New Jersey.” And then, before Mom and Cooper can recover from the shock, I go back to stumbling up the stairs.

  “You what?” Cooper says.

  “Oh, my God,” Mom says.

  “Is Digby all right?” Cooper says.

  “He’s fine,” I say. “Sally’s in River Heights now but she’s living in the garage because she can’t cope with her crazy parents.” Mom and Cooper stare at me openmouthed. Clearly, they are going to need a moment to digest what I’ve just told them, so I continue up to my room.

  “Zoe, wait.” Mom runs up the stairs and hugs me.

  The hug goes on for a longer time than I want it to. “I’m okay, Mom,” I say.

  “You did a good thing. Digby is lucky to have you.” She strokes my cheek. “You’re still in trouble for taking off, though.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  I wake up several times after I collapse in bed fully clothed. The first time I rouse, I have enough energy to take off my coat and shoes. The second time, I’m able to take off my jeans and sweater. By the third time, the sun is up and I am actually able to propel myself out of bed and shower.