Quite frankly, sitting in the waiting room of the ER is what I imagine the ninth circle of hell to be like. And yet, here I am, waiting to hear the doctor’s opinion about Mike’s condition. I’ve been here at least three hours. You’d think the doctors would have made it to him by now. The waiting room isn’t that full. But no. Still waiting.
It’s after midnight, and I’ve just been told my dad is dead.
My dad is dead. The words themselves sound utterly ridiculous. Like they have no meaning whatsoever. It’s only a sentence. A grouping of words without depth, without truth. You’d think if my dad were truly dead, I’d feel something when someone said it. Like a knife cutting something loose. Like a grenade going off in my stomach. Like a block of wood in my throat.
People have been staring at me since I sat down. I must look a complete wreck, with my hair wild and singed, soot all over, and wearing a long black jacket that clearly doesn’t belong to me. The stares seem unfriendly and judgmental, as if I’ve done something wrong in all this. As if they know that I let my dad die.
I could call Sam. But it’s after midnight, and I’m in the ER. He would flip out. His parents would have a freaking cow. And I can’t deal with that right now. I want him here, but I can’t deal with the fallout.
I pull the coat tighter around me and wonder about Ralph for the first time in three hours. How could I have forgotten him? I sniff mightily, trying to rein in the saline.
I only have the number for his shop. I call Information in the vague hope of tracking him down, but Information is ironically lacking in the information department. Ralph must be listed under his Korean name, which I don’t know.
I hang up and cradle the phone, trying to come up with a new plan. I need to make sure Mike is okay. I need to find Ralph and make sure he’s okay. I can’t fail them like I keep failing my dad.
Part of me still clings to the hope that he’s okay. Even if the enforcer is telling the truth, she can only report what she saw. Which could be anything my dad wanted them to see. People fake their deaths all the time, and my dad isn’t people. He’s a mastermind.
But part of me is savvy enough to acknowledge that it’s much less likely that he’s alive somewhere, waiting for the heat to die down. He’s brilliant, but he isn’t immortal or infallible, and he definitely isn’t bulletproof.
A third part of me suggests the possibility that he is alive somewhere but has no intention of coming back for me. And that thought kills me, because I have no one else, not really. No one who owes me a favor. No one who cares enough about me to wonder where I am. It’s the cost of being a con artist. If you fake connections long enough, you end up friendless and alone.
And then the phone beeps. It’s a text from Tyler.
R U OK?
I’m so not okay. Beyond the concept of “not okay.” So I call him, despite the fact that it’s late and I’m teetering on the edge of hysteria.
“Julep?”
The sound of his voice on the other end of the line breaks me. I think I say something along the lines of, “The hospital is awful and Mike won’t wake up and nobody loves me.” Maybe I don’t say “nobody loves me,” but I can’t swear to it.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Tyler says.
Fifteen minutes to the second later, which I know because I’m watching the clock, Tyler strides in, finds me curled into a ball of abject misery on one of the hard waiting-room chairs, and rushes over.
“What happened?” he asks, kneeling in front of me.
“I—” Where do I start? “I went to Ralph’s. I took Mike. There was an explosion—”
“Who’s Mike?”
“Mike’s the—He’s a—” I make a frustrated sound as I rub my eyes, trying to think through the fog of exhaustion and smoke inhalation. Too many damn secrets. “It’s complicated.”
“He’s what?”
“He’s a friend. That’s all.”
“Why is that complicated?” he asks.
“Don’t tell Sam about him.”
“I don’t exactly make a habit of telling Sam anything. Julep, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. He’s just helping me figure out this mess with my dad.”
“What does that have to do with Sam?” He sits in the chair next to me without breaking eye contact. “If he’s anti-Mike, then I probably am, too. We don’t agree on a lot, but I trust him when it comes to you.”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that. Mike’s not bad, he just—” I can’t think of anything right now that won’t eventually lead to Mike getting fired. I should just come clean, confront Sam, especially now that Mike’s probably out of the Julep picture anyway. But I should talk to Sam first, so I say again, “It’s complicated.”
Tyler frowns at me but lets it go.
“Why were you even out so late? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I went to ask Ralph about the clue.”
The clue. I completely forgot about it. I check my hoodie pocket, afraid I lost it in the craziness. But no, its comforting pointiness is still there.
“What clue?” Tyler’s hand tightens on mine.
“The clue I found at the Strand.”
“Can I see it?”
I take it out and hand it to him. After reading the clue, I tucked the paper back inside the plane for safekeeping. Not that I need it, really, since I have the words memorized.
“A toy airplane?” he says, puzzled, as he turns the plane over. “What did Ralph say?”
“He wasn’t there.” I leave out the part that he could be dead.
“What happened then?”
He hands me back the plane and leans closer, tracing the tiny cuts and bruises on my face with gentle fingers. And it feels so perfect that I don’t answer right away. Instead, I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes.
In seconds, I’m out cold. I have no notion of how much time has passed when I feel Tyler nudging me awake.
“Julep,” he says softly against my hair. “The doctor wants to talk to you.”
I blink up at a cheery-looking Indian man who can’t possibly be old enough to have a medical license. But then, who am I to judge?
“Miss? I wanted to update you on your uncle’s condition.”
“How is he?” I ask, straightening in my chair. My little white lie surprises Tyler, but he doesn’t butt in.
“He’ll be all right. He woke for a few minutes and answered some questions. But he fell asleep again and is resting comfortably.”
“Oh, thank god,” I say. “Can I see him?” I start to push myself out of the chair, but Tyler’s grip on me tightens.
“I’m sorry, but I think it is better for him to rest now. His wife just returned our call, and she should be here in a few minutes.” He pats me awkwardly on the shoulder.
I’d like to stay and see his wife—and apologize—but I know that I’m the last person she needs to deal with right now.
“I’ll take you home,” Tyler says, pulling me to my feet and partly supporting my weight until I feel steady enough to stand on my own. Smoke inhalation is a bitch—don’t let anyone tell you any differently.
Fifteen minutes in the car seem to fly by. Tyler, gentleman that he is, doesn’t push me. He waits for me to be ready to talk. And I try to, a few times. But I never get beyond the intention to do so. What would I say?
He parks in front of a fire hydrant so he can get as close to my building’s front door as possible. I want to argue, to say that I can walk a block or two. But the truth is that I don’t think I can.
And once I open the door to my apartment and see the tumbled mess of all my dad’s things, I don’t have it in me to cross the threshold.
“I can’t.”
“What?”
“I can’t do it. I can’t go in there.”
“But, Julep—”
“It’s all right, you can go. There’s a motel down the street.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not leaving you here this
upset.”
“I’m not upset,” I say, though I’m hardly convincing, so I end up sounding like a fool as well as a liar.
Only when he pulls me into his chest and I am bound by his arms do I notice that I’m shaking.
After a few minutes, he says, “Where can I take you?”
“I don’t have any place. I don’t have anyone.”
“You have me,” he says, and my heart feels a little less like a prisoner of war.
He closes the door to my apartment and walks me back to his car. After we’re seated and buckled, he pulls into traffic.
“We can go anywhere you want,” he says gently. “Just tell me where.”
I told him I don’t have anywhere to go, and I wasn’t lying. But I can at least give a condition.
“Take me someplace they can’t find me. At least not tonight,” I say.
Tyler stiffens. “ ‘They’ who?”
“The people who killed my—” I can’t say it. “Who tried to kill me tonight.”
“What?” Tyler asks with a calmness that suggests icebergs in quiet seas.
“At Ralph’s.”
“I think it’s time you tell me what happened,” he says, his knuckles white where his fingers grip the steering wheel.
So I do. I tell him everything—even about the girl in the muscle car rescuing us, and what she said about my dad. It almost chokes me, but I tell him everything.
And once it’s out there, my shivering stops, as if holding it all in had been like closing the vent on a pressure cooker. But it’s also irrevocable, like a tanker spill. The oil is out, and no amount of baby-seal rescuers armed with vats of liquid detergent is going to put it back in the ship.
I’m almost frightened to look at Tyler to gauge his reaction. If he has any sense at all, he’ll drop me off at the nearest bus stop and keep going.
A tense undercurrent that hadn’t been present in our drive to my apartment is making my skin itch. This time, I might have finally pushed him past the level of crazy a privileged teenage boy is willing to put up with.
And as if to confirm my assessment, he pulls onto the shoulder and puts the car in park. It’s after two a.m. now, but there’s still traffic.
“What—?”
“Stop looking at me like that,” he says, turning to face me in the small confines of the car.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to jump out and run screaming down the side of the road.”
“I am not look—”
“Yes, you are. Have I ever done anything to make you think I would just abandon you at the first sign of trouble?”
“Well, no, but—”
“But what?”
I straighten in my seat. “But why aren’t you jumping out and running away? This is hardly just a sign of trouble, and it’s not the first, either. I’m dealing with death here. Any sane person would be miles from me by now. So why aren’t you gone already? What’s in this for you?”
He leans back against his door, gazing at me, turning something over in his mind. I can see him struggling with whatever it is. But struggling how? Struggling to put it into words? Struggling to figure out what to tell and what to conceal? And does it really matter? Nothing he says changes the fact that every minute he’s with me, he’s in danger.
“You’re likely the best grifter in Chicago. Do you really not know?”
I don’t answer. I’m not letting him deflect me this time. I need him, yes. Somehow he wormed his way in and made himself essential. Because of that, I’ve been ignoring his reasons for doing so. But it’s past time to lay our cards on the table. And since he’s the one who opened Pandora’s box, he can go first. So I wait him out, arms crossed.
“You told me the other day that you want to know who you are, that you don’t feel like a real person. But the truth is, you’re the most real person I’ve ever met. You see beneath all the glamour to who people really are, what they really want. That layer people wear to show who they wish they were—you don’t have that. Sure, you can put on and take off any of those layers like clothes. But they don’t define you. The only thing you are is you.”
I’m stunned into silence, my carefully marshaled arguments flying right out of my head. I want to tell him he’s nuts. But at the same time, something deep in me resonates with his words. I feel like a struck bell, pure, full, and vibrating.
I clear my throat, my head buzzing. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain why you’re still here, given everything. Why you still care.”
“That same day, when you asked me what I want, I told you that I want to know what I want. Remember?” He takes my hand, rubbing the back of it gently with his thumb. “When I’m with you, I know what I want.”
My breath catches at the expression in his eyes. I have no answer to that.
His grip tightens. “But you always have one foot out the door, like if you don’t let yourself need anyone, you’ll be safe. Not only is that not possible, it’s damned annoying. Just once, Julep, ask for help.”
“I ask for help,” I say.
“I’m not talking about calling in favors. Favors are payment for services rendered. I’m talking about depending on someone, trusting someone to hold you up when you can’t do it yourself. Do you think you could do that? Just once in your life, let someone else watch the world while you sleep?”
I don’t realize my jaw is hanging open until I click it shut. “I … I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“Okay,” I say. And because he seems to be waiting for more, I add, “I’ll try.”
He smiles briefly. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”
Then he drops my hand to shift gears and pulls the car into traffic. Once we’ve reached cruising speed, he reclaims my hand. The silence between us is friendly again, the air clear.
The idea of someone else taking charge is so foreign to me that I don’t think I can wrap my mind around it. It’s a terrifying thought to not be in control, but at this moment, it also sounds like a death-row reprieve.
“Thank you, Tyler,” I say. “Really, for everything.”
“I didn’t do it for thanks,” he says. “I did it because I care about you.”
“Oh,” I say, looking at the door handle.
And that’s how, without my even noticing, the first boy to ever make my heart race, to ever make me think I could have a normal life now, in high school, not in some random future dream, but now—that’s how the first boy I ever wanted to kiss takes me home to meet his mother.
THE SOCIAL WORKER
“Seriously, Tyler,” I hiss in a panic as he parks the car next to his mom’s BMW. “Don’t make me do this, not looking like this.”
“Remember what I just said about asking for help?” he says in a half-exasperated, half-amused tone. “This is what help looks like.”
I hide my face in the enforcer’s coat. “She’s Sarah Richland. She’s not someone whose house you show up at in the middle of the night looking like the creature from the black lagoon and smelling like a smokestack.”
“She’s my mother. And you look fine.”
“Don’t wake her up,” I say. “I can sleep wrapped in a bed-sheet.”
Tyler laughs. “As tempting as that is, I think you’ll be more comfortable in actual clothes. Besides, I don’t have to wake her up. No one actually sleeps in my house, remember?”
I put off moving until Tyler comes around to my door and opens it. I give him the Julep stink-eye. “This isn’t the best way to encourage me to ask for help.” But I get out anyway and follow him through the side door to the Richland mansion.
“Elle, will you go get my mom, please?” Tyler asks a maid making tea in the kitchen.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding about no one sleeping around here,” I comment when the maid leaves with the tea tray.
By the time we reach the living room, I’ve divested myself of the enforcer’s coat and my own ruined jacket and hoodie. My shirt mostly survived, but it smell
s as bad as the rest of me. I try to do something with my hair, but I give it up as a lost cause when I hear someone clearing her throat behind me. I swivel slowly and see Mrs. Richland standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing an ivory silk pajama set, her disapproving glare putting me instantly on edge.
“Mom,” Tyler says, taking me by the elbow, “this is Julep. She needs help.”
“I—yes, I’m sorry to intrude. But it’s very nice to meet you.” I don’t try to offer my hand. It’s disgusting, for one thing. For another, she doesn’t seem too terribly impressed by me.
“The feeling is mutual, to be sure,” she says in a tone that makes it clear the opposite is actually true. “What assistance do you need?”
The woman adds new dimension to the term ice queen. I open my mouth to say that this may not have been the best idea, but Tyler speaks first.
“She needs a shower, and something to sleep in. I’ve invited her to stay the night. In the guest room.”
Mrs. Richland presses her lips together, no doubt to hold back what she thinks of this idea. But she nods and sends Elle for some spare clothes before going back upstairs.
Elle returns with a robe, slippers, and a gorgeous satin nightgown. I’m already self-conscious about it, and I haven’t even tried it on yet. And self-consciousness is not a thing I feel often.
I follow Tyler up the stairs to the second floor. He heads in the opposite direction of his room and guides me to a spacious guest room in a darkened wing of the house. The room has its own bathroom, complete with a shower, into which I disappear without further persuasion.
As good as the water feels, I don’t linger long. I’m tired down to my bones, and hungry enough to eat the slippers. I don’t hold out much hope for food, but the bed is waiting for me with its plush down-filled comforter and three-thousand-thread-count sheets. Lonely and bereft, I’ll likely have trouble sleeping, but even the idea of lying down is almost enough to make me weep.
When I emerge, satin nightgown swishing against my skin, Tyler is sitting on the chaise fiddling with his phone, a tray of biscotti, cheese, and tea on the end table at his elbow.
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