We Own the Night

by Ashley Poston

  LD squints, stepping up to him. “Is that you talking, or is that your leash?”

  “Fuck off—”

  “I’m sorry,” I quickly interject, stepping between them. I don’t want a fight. I just want them to leave. I just want everyone to go home. “I’m sorry. Thank you—it won’t happen again.”

  “It’s not your fault, North,” Billie rumbles, coming over to us. He must smell the fight brewing.

  “Don’t be her white knight, Bleaker. Let her own up to it,” Micah snaps at him. His shoulders are tense, his fists clenched. “Or were you her distraction?”

  Billie quirks an eyebrow. He crosses his arms over his chest. He’s easily four inches taller than Micah, and a good deal stronger, but it never occurred to me how scary Billie could look. Not until now, the tension tight in the air. “And what if I was? And so sue me, North let Grams out of her sight for one minute to have a little fun.”

  Micah narrows his brown-eyed gaze at us. “Well I hope it was worth it,” is all he says, and shoulders between LD and me. His shoulders slam against ours. His muscles are taut and tense, his fists visibly clenched, as he cuts across my yard to his and stomps up the steps. I can’t remember a time when he looked so furious. Why does he even care?

  He hasn’t cared in weeks.

  A silence settles between the three of us, so thick you can cut it with one of LD’s six-inch heels.

  Billie scratches the stubble on his chin. “At least she’s okay.”

  “Yeah,” LD murmurs half-heartedly.

  “No she’s not okay,” I snap. Billie’s eyes widen in surprise. I glare at him through tear-clouded eyes. “None of this is okay. Micah’s right, I should’ve paid closer attention to her. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted.”

  “So it’s my fault?” Billie points to himself.

  “No, it’s mine. For fooling myself.”

  “North—”

  My fists clench. I hate the way he says my name. Like I mean something. I don’t want to, anymore. “Go home, Billie.”

  He bites his words, his shoulders stiffening. “Fine—but for the record? I meant what I said when we were dancing.” Then he’s gone, down the road like a broad, sulking shadow.

  LD nudges her head up to the chief talking with Micah’s mom in the doorway. “Go see if Gram’s okay. I’ll see you later.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and waits for me to climb the steps to our house before she leaves, too.

  After a moment, the chief notices me standing in the doorway and tells me my grandmother is all right. That’s relative, I want to say, because she hasn’t been all right for a while, and no one seems to care. “Sebastian Darling already looked her over,” he says under his thick graying mustache, “and gave her a clean bill but . . . he suggested that she needs extra care. We know you are trying, Ingrid, but her safety comes first.”

  “I know,” I quickly reply. “It won't happen again, Scout’s honor.”

  He catches me by the arm before I can breeze by him. “This is a serious matter, Ingrid. You need to start thinking about what’s best for her. I’ll have Doctor Darling call you in the morning so we can start setting up something more permanent—”

  “I said I’ve got it,” I interrupt. I fist my hands. They’re shaking.

  His hard eyebrows soften. “Ingrid, we know you do. Everyone needs a little—”

  “Sir.”

  He finally gets the gist. “All right, then.” He tips his hat to Grams and leaves.

  Mrs. Perez tells me there is leftover lasagna in our refrigerator, and to call if I need anything. I see her to the door and draw the chain lock.

  Now it’s just me.

  On the couch, Grams is humming another tune from Singing in the Rain. It’s familiar, like a soft radio in another room.

  Sometimes, I like to imagine that my mom’s probably in Tahiti or Bora-Bora, interviewing some “retired” twentysomething starlet. Or maybe she’s in Russia, covering the filming of that new superhero movie. Or maybe LA, going to exclusive parties and dating exclusive men and getting exclusives about exclusive lives. Wherever she is, it isn't here.

  She isn’t where she should be.

  Grams looks up from her celebrity magazine and smiles at me. She doesn't look like she’s been down by the reservoir. She looks like she never went anywhere at all. She probably doesn’t even remember the festival even though she’s still wearing her sunflower dress. “It’s about time you came home!”

  I sit on the couch next to her recliner and pull her into a tight, crushing hug. She feels like a bag of bones through her nightgown. “I'm so sorry, Grams.”

  “For what?” she asks in good humor, and rubs at the faded mascara under my cheek.

  “I wasn't here.”

  “Well, where were you?”

  I hesitate. I'm so tired of lying. “I was dancing.”

  Her gray eyebrows quirk up. “Dancing? Oh, that sounds grand. With a boy? Is he cute?”

  “He’s . . . nice. But he’s leaving.”

  “That’s silly. So are you! My baby girl going to California. Going to be a real reporter. He can always come visit.”

  My heart begins to free-fall from my chest, down, down, down into the pit of my stomach. There are plaques with my mom’s name on them still hanging in the hallway, high school awards for journalism, ribbons and certificates and banners. A reminder every day that my mom left because she was too talented for Steadfast, for me.

  “You know what?” Grams grabs my hands and encloses them in her bony ones. There are age marks and splotches on her well-worn hands, calluses as hard as Brillo pads. “I want to tell you something. I can see your father”–grandfather, I correct to myself—“in your eyes, darling, and sometimes people are just too big for the places that keep them.”

  She’s wrong. I’m not too big for the town. I’m too small. It’s swallowing me up. I’m stuck in at the bottom of the well, not because I don't have the resources to climb out, but because my ankles are weighted with what I’ll leave behind, and the water’s rising.

  RADIO NITEOWL

  SHOW #162

  JULY 9TH

  (CANCELED)

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The week rolls by like molasses. Billie doesn’t come to the diner even though LD and I wait for him every day, ordering chili cheese fries. We hope he does, but apparently Golden Boy has found greener pastures. I can’t say I blame him.

  I rub the sleep out of my eyes and order a refill of coffee. It’s my third on my lunch break.

  “You better stop or you’ll be bouncing off the walls,” LD warns, eating another chili cheese fry.

  “I just haven’t been sleeping well,” I reply.

  Ever since Grams went missing, my mind’s rattled me awake every night. I’ve tried everything—Led Zeppelin, ocean ambience, counting the popcorn on the ceiling (and that just made me hungry . . .)—but my brain just keeps racing with the same questions, over and over, like a NASCAR track, in circles.

  What if Micah hadn’t found her? What if she’d wandered somewhere else? What if it happens again? She doesn’t remember wandering off in the first place. When I asked her what she was thinking, she said she didn’t know.

  “But, oh dear, I’m forgetting something. Sloane, what day is it?” she asked this morning, grabbing onto my forearm.

  Sloane. Mom.

  “June twenty-second, Grams.”

  “That isn’t your birthday, is it? No, it’s—Ingrid! Goodness, Ingrid why didn’t you tell me!” She chastised me, and sent me to the store at two in the morning to get cake mix. I didn’t go. I just sat outside until she got up from the couch and shuffled to her room, having already forgotten that she’d sent me.

  I can handle this. I have to handle it. I made peace with that in March, when the doctors first told us about her Alzheimer’s. He gave us pamphlets, brochures, websites, informational videos to watch. He told us what to expect, what medicines to try, what to do to ease her pain.

  Her pain.<
br />
  That always worries me. Is losing your memory painful? Or is it something that happens slowly, like sand slipping through your fingers, so slight you barely notice you’re leaving bits of yourself behind?

  Stop thinking. Stop thinking. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed—

  LD slaps me on the hand. “You get this crease in your brow when you’re thinking something bad. So stop it! It’ll make wrinkles.”

  The waitress refills my coffee and I thank her, pouring three packets of sugar into the black cup. “I’m fine.”

  “I didn’t ask if you were. Is this about what happened last week? At the festival?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it—”

  “Well I do.”

  I fish in my purse for cash to pay.

  “Iggy,” she tries to reason.

  “Why don’t we talk about you, Lorelei,” I hiss. “Did you really choke on your audition? Or was it something else?”

  “Well I—”

  I slam a twenty down on the table and leave the diner before I can hear whatever she has to say. I swung a low blow, I know I did, but it’s not fair how she thinks talking things out is the best medicine when she won’t ever talk about herself. How come I have to bare my soul when everyone else keeps theirs encased in armor?

  When I get back to the store, I pull a stool up to the counter and rest my head in the nook in my arms, hoping I can get some shut-eye. Maybe if I’m asleep I won’t think. I don’t want to think.

  I must doze off, because the next thing I know the bell above the door rings. It’s a group of people, their footsteps loud, voices annoying. Blearily, I think I recognize them, but I can't tell. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes, I sit up to greet them.

  And go still.

  “What, can’t get any sleep in the pasture?” Mike sneers. Beside him, Heather rolls her eyes, clutching Micah’s arm like he’s a new Louis Vuitton.

  “You have five minutes until my lunch’s over,” Heather says, ignoring him. “So hurry up and pick something out. Baby, want anything?”

  Micah kisses her chastely on the lips. “Nothing’s sweeter than you.”

  Mike groans. “Gag me.”

  The three of them walk past me into the candy store, down the Twizzlers aisle. Micah doesn’t even give me a glance. They follow Heather to the discount shelves, talking about the drive-in movie they’re planning on seeing this weekend. A double feature. Mike complains that they always go to the drive-in whenever he doesn’t have a date.

  “Not my fault you’ve exhausted every girl in Steadfast,” Heather replies sharply. The problem with working in a small candy store is that everything echoes. Voices bounce off the silver shelving and ricochet back to me. Heather knows this, even if Micah and Mike don’t.

  “You can start trying North Platte up the road,” Micah adds jokingly. My body goes rigid—but then Mike laughs. If Micah wasn’t dating Heather, that would’ve started a fight. Mike’s started fights over less.

  “Ha! But you two are wrong,” Mike replies triumphantly. “I haven't gone through every girl.”

  “Mike.” Heather’s voice is even. A warning.

  I hear his footsteps—they're easy to catch. Loud, clomping. Like he’s a giant come down from a bean stalk. I sit up straighter on my stool as he picks up a pack of Japanese panda cookies (the ones with the chocolate insides) and tosses them onto the counter in front of me. I begin to ring it up when he stops me.

  “I’m trying to decide what goes with those. Got any ideas?” he asks, nudging his chin toward the cookies. I bite the inside of my cheek, staying quiet. “Soda? Coffee? You?”

  “What?”

  He swirls his pointer finger in a circle. “I’ll buy whatever you want. You can eat whatever you want. I’ll pick you up at four. Don’t thank me—”

  “No, thanks,” I interrupt as he turns away.

  He pauses, and turns back. “You’re not doing anything.”

  “What if I am?”

  He snorts. “Come on, Ingrid. Don’t lie. Look, you can hang out with your boy again, too. Two birds with one stone. I’ll make sure you have a good night.”

  “No,” I repeat, and slide the box of cookies back. “Sorry, I’m busy.” Saturday nights I usually am busy. I usually go to the radio station. Although this last weekend I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house.

  I don’t know if I will this weekend, either.

  “Busy?” he echoes, and then an idea dawns on him. He laughs. “It’s Bleaker, isn’t it? I saw you with him at the festival—”

  “Billie’d never like me that way,” I quickly denounce before he even begins going down that road. I don’t think I can hear it. I don’t think I want to. That sort of possibility is one I can’t imagine even in a perfect world.

  A golden boy and an abandoned girl—there’s a reason there are no love songs about people like us.

  Mike grins. “You’re right, you’re right. How stupid of me. Then if not him . . . oh. Oh.” He playfully gasps and leans forward. “It’s Perez, isn’t it?”

  My mouth goes dry. “Shut up.”

  “No, no; I think I’m onto something. Because I’m finding out there’s an actual person under all those ugly cardigans.”

  I stare down at the counter. My insides are squirming. I want to be anywhere else besides here.

  “To think, Steadfast’s little Ingrid North has the hots for her best friend—and he’s dating Heather.”

  “Shut up,” I croak, begging.

  But he keeps going, his words like a dagger in my heart. Twisting, twisting. “You didn’t actually think you had a chance, did you?”

  “Please shut up.”

  “I mean, compared to you, he had the pick of the litter.”

  I fist my hands so tightly my nails indent into my palms.

  He leans in closer, and he smells like boy-sweat and Calvin Klein cologne. I hate the smell, the same that’s invaded my nightmares for years, the scent I turned away from in the hallways—like the stench off a corpse. “What’s it like, Ingrid? To realize that even your best friend couldn’t stomach dating you—”

  Somehow, with his smell and the way his voice dips into false earnest, it snaps me. I grab the cookies from the counter and throw them. “I SAID SHUT UP!” I cry, as the panda cookies miss him.

  They hit Micah’s shoulder and burst open, scattering across the ground.

  I stare at him through my blurry tear-filled eyes. His face is open, surprised. No, shocked—horribly shocked. The last thread keeping us together. The last thing—the final straw.

  Micah and I stare at each other for a moment, raw and irrational. Nothing hidden anymore, the truth laid bare as though Mike’s words split my rib cage open and bore my bloody, beating heart.

  “Igs,” Micah finally asks, hesitant. “Is that . . . do you really . . .”

  I swallow the bile climbing in my throat and remember the night LD and I sent my love for him to the stars. I sent it to the moon and it came right back. Is that what the saying really means? That love is a boomerang you can’t escape?

  “Yes,” I reply. My voice is calmer than it has any right to be. “Excuse me.” I leave from behind the counter to the workroom, grabbing my backpack. Heather tries to stop me on the way out, but I wrench out of her grip and shove open the door, and leave.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I am rage and hurt.

  It sounds romantic, but it’s clawing at me from the inside out. I can’t think—I don’t want to think. At least at home I don’t have to. I climb the worn steps to the front porch and grab the mail from the mailbox by the door.

  Inside, Grams is watching a daytime soap opera, rocking back and forth in her recliner. She looks up with a smile that quickly fades. “Oh, darling, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing—I got something in my eye,” I reply, quickly wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. I sit down at the table and begin to sift through the late bills and the college brochures asking me to “Come view
our beautiful campus!” as though their green gardens and their cobblestone walkways could pave the way for me to leave.

  My hands stall on the last piece of mail.

  The return address makes my heart skip. New York City. Muse Records. And it’s addressed to me. I stare at it with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

  Muse Records.

  The internship.

  “Sweetie, is something wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

  “No Grams,” I reply absently, and run my fingernails underneath the lip of the envelope to slowly tear it open. I hold my breath and unfurl the letter.

  Dear Ms. Ingrid North,

  We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected out of numerous other applicants as one of the finalists for our internship at Muse Records. Because of your dedication to the music industry and our high standard of employ, we believe you are an exemplary candidate for our program . . .

  The rest of the sentences gloss over.

  I sit back in the chair, staring at the raised seal at the top of the letter. This feels like getting my acceptance letter from NYU. A possibility dangles in front of me like a slab of meat, and I’ll never be able to eat it. It feels like walking beside Micah knowing I could never hold his hand. But knowing that if I were different, if this reality was a small shift to the left, if just one thing was different . . .

  No. No. There is a door in the back of my mind where I locked those thoughts away. They are ideas I don’t want to think about, dreams I covered over with sand so that someone else might find them. Mine ended at the doctor’s office that rainy day last March when, after so many blood and brain tests, Gram’s doctor dismantled our life and built it back again a different way. Of all the people who abandoned me, Grams stayed.

  Mom, who left.

  Dad, who never was.

  My three cats, my eleven goldfish, Micah . . .

  Grams stayed.

  I crumple the letter up and toss it in the garbage.

  Grams gets up from her recliner. “What’s wrong, sweetie? What did you just throw away?”

  “Nothing—junk mail.”

  “Oh, we could use that for kindling. You know it gets cold here in the winter.”