‘Rae, will you shut up and get dressed,’ Emmy hissed, then turned back to Gabbi. ‘Did my sister do this to you?’
‘Hell no, she did this to herself!’ Rae cried.
‘You shut up,’ Emmy said. ‘What happened?’ she asked Gabbi.
‘I came to your party, and I was drunk, and then there was more drink, and I don’t remember a huge amount after that but I do remember Rae and I finding an ancient Body Shop henna hair dye in her room in the early hours of this morning, and I remember thinking I really loved my old black hair.’
‘So you did this here? What about the nose, and the… words?’
‘The words were funny at the time and we had a bit of henna left over. I don’t remember about the nose. It’s all really fuzzy.’ Gabbi flopped backwards on to the bed, pulling the hoodie over her again.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Rae said, finally pulling on some jeans. ‘I was as pissed as she was. We went at it.’
‘So this is written in henna?’ Noelle clarified, picking up a bottle of cream cleanser and dabbing a bit on Gabbi’s cheek. Nothing happened. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get this out.’
Gabbi made a groaning noise.
‘Come on,’ Rae said. ‘Let’s leave her to recover, we’ll figure this out when we get home.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Gabbi, without lifting her poor damaged head.
‘We’ve got to go to the police station —’ Emmy started, but was cut off by her older sister.
‘Something about complaints about the party. No big deal, we’ll be back in a while, you lie low here. Oh, if you could call the station though at some point soon – they just needed a quick word with you about something. ’Kay, bye.’
Leaving Gabbi they headed down the stairs, where the police were waiting for them. The three sisters jumped into Rae’s car with a ‘We’ll meet you there!’
Starting the engine, Rae said, ‘No way we’re being carted over there in a police car.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Gabbi about her house?’ Emmy demanded.
‘The poor thing’s in mourning for her face and hair right now, I didn’t want to be the one to break the news about her house as well, at least not yet.’
‘Those words though…’ said Noelle from the back seat. ‘Does Gabbi really feel like that?’
‘Nah,’ said Rae. ‘She was just letting her hair down. Or chopping it off completely, ha! We all like to have a vent about work sometimes.’
‘I’ve never called my colleagues that word, at least, not on my face.’ Emmy pulled down the sun visor to look at her own face in the mirror. Ugh. She still looked grey and like she could vom at any moment.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Rae said. But inside she wasn’t so sure. What the hell did happen last night?
Chapter 20
The three wise monkeys were seated in the pale-blue waiting area of the Maplewood police station. See no evil, Emmy, was leaning her head back against the wall with her eyes closed against the bright fluorescent lights. Hear no evil, Noelle, sat up straight with a smile on her face; the confident lawyer, who’d just got some, and was refusing to hear that anything bad was happening. Speak no evil, Rae, leaned forward with her elbows resting on her knees and her hands clamped over her mouth, lest she blurt out the location of the mayor and/or start laughing at the memory of her friend’s face, and/or puke on the police station floor.
Jared appeared eventually, looking flustered. He spoke to someone behind the desk, gesturing at the women and his voice rising until they heard him bark, ‘Just leave it with me.’
Behind the desk, Police Officer Two stirred her coffee, shook her head at Jared, glared at the sisters and walked away. Jared came over to them.
‘Emmy, Rae, Noelle, could you follow me, please?’ he said formally.
They followed him down a corridor to what seemed to be called, on US crime dramas, an interrogation room. Rae looked around, disappointed in the lack of a two-way mirror.
Emmy kept her eyes on Jared, watching the way he walked, the line of his face, the pink in his eyes. He looked tired, and she couldn’t help but be a little smiley because she knew why and nobody else did. Apart from him.
Jared took a seat on one side of the table, and gestured for them to take seats on the opposite side. Emmy noticed his discomfort. This was how he used to get around Rae and her friends, once he’d hit puberty. Trying to be in control, but actually caught up in his own confusion of what his role was in this altered dynamic.
‘Hi,’ she said first, nudging his foot to help him ease up.
‘Hello, again,’ he replied, but to all three of them. ‘Who knew I’d be seeing you all again so soon.’
‘Did you enjoy the party?’ Noelle asked.
‘Definitely,’ Jared nodded, avoiding looking directly at Emmy. She was okay with that, he was just trying to keep it professional in his workplace, she could do that too.
I snoggggged him.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he started, picking up the folder in front of him. ‘We need to ask you a few questions. I asked if I could talk to you initially, once I heard you were being brought in. So, um…’
Jared loosened his tie and Emmy looked at his neck. For god’s sake, focus. It’s just Jared’s stupid neck.
He continued, ‘There’s been an incident. Um, Gabrielle – Mayor Reynold – her house was vandalised at some point during the night.’
‘Vandalised how?’ interrupted Noelle.
‘A window broken, some pot plants pushed over and smashed, silly string and toilet roll flung about, a bit of graffiti.’
‘You do remember that last night was Halloween, right?’ Rae asked. ‘That sounds like exactly the kind of thing people do when they’re trick-or-treating.’
Jared gulped and all three of them looked at her. ‘Is it the kind of thing you do when you’re trick-or-treating?’
‘I don’t go trick-or-treating, I’m thirty-three! All I’m saying is, why are you questioning us, when Maplewood has quite a lot of kids and I’m sure there are a high percentage of shitbags among them.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Look, there’ve been some complaints related to the party – noise complaints, mainly – so my Sergeant already had it on his radar this morning that it was a pretty wild do. That, combined with a few reports we’ve had since you’ve been here – which I don’t agree with at all – means that when the call about the mayor’s house came in they looked straight to you.’
‘Who reported that the house had been trashed?’ Rae jumped in, as Emmy was about to demand to know what other complaints they’d received about them.
‘A passer-by.’
‘We were at our party all night – at our house which is on the other side of town – and we have a houseful of people that could vouch for that,’ said Noelle.
Jared nodded and wrote down some notes. ‘Okay, so Noelle, you know that there’s at least one person that could attest to you being at home from late last night until about seven o’clock this morning?’
‘Yes, absolutely. Same with these two.’
Rae and Emmy side-eyed her.
Jared took a deep breath. ‘Emmy,’ he said, finally meeting her eye. He smiled. ‘I can vouch for you, if needed.’
‘Can you?’ shrieked Rae. ‘For all night?’
Emmy shrugged, a blush creeping in.
Rae’s eyes grew wide. ‘Did you bone each other? You dirty little boners!’
‘We did not bone, will you shut up for two minutes,’ Emmy hissed.
‘And Rae, what about you?’ Jared asked, trying so very hard to keep things professional.
‘Who did I bone? Nobody.’
‘No, um, were you at the party all night?’
She shrugged. ‘Yep.’
‘Was that an “I’m not sure” shrug or a definite yes?’
‘I was there,’ she said, then shrugged.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘It’s just that, when we arrived at the mayor’s house, the door was wid
e open, and she didn’t seem to be at home. Did she come to the party?’
‘I wouldn’t vandalise my own friend’s house,’ Rae said in reply. She was pretty sure she was telling the truth… Why would she do that to Gabbi?
Emmy shifted in her seat, the hard plastic as unforgiving as her hangover. ‘Come on, Jared, you know we haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘This is clearly a case of Maplewood bullshittery,’ Rae scoffed next to her, peeling fragmented pigments of last night’s lipstick from her mouth and dropping them on the table like a pink pile of ash. ‘This town ain’t big enough for the three of us.’
Jared mirrored Emmy’s shuffling, uncomfortable under the gaze of the three sisters. ‘It’s just… We found this taped to the door.’ He pulled a piece of paper wrapped in a clear plastic bag from within his folder, and slid it across the table. It was a note, written in biro.
Rae read it aloud. ‘“I’ve got your mayor, assholessssss, she’s mine now. Goths rule. You suck. Fuck you. I love No Doubt.”’ Below the writing was a big kiss print, in bright pink lipstick. Rae put down the letter, swept the lipstick peelings from the table into her hand, jammed them in the pocket of her jeans and looked up at Jared. ‘I’ve never seen this in my life.’
‘You didn’t write this?’
‘Nope. I don’t like No Doubt.’
‘Weren’t they your favourite band?’
‘… It was a band? I had no idea. No diggity. Noooo doubt.’
‘Is this your lipstick mark?’
‘Nope. Who are you – Miss Marple?’
‘No… I’m a police officer. Do you know where Mayor Reynold is?’
‘Yes, she’s locked in our basement.’
‘Really?’ Jared looked at all three sisters, surprised.
‘No,’ Rae cried. ‘Of course not, Jared, we don’t even have a basement. And I did not trash her house, I wouldn’t do that, I’m not the person this town always wants me to be. I’m not the baddie.’
They were all quiet for a while, mulling over their respective thoughts. Eventually, Jared put down his pen and spoke up. ‘How can I not bring you in for questioning? The misdemeanours are stacking up against you.’
‘Please tell us exactly what we’ve done wrong?’ prompted Noelle, who sat up straight, business-face on, the knowledge of the law behind her unwavering smile.
Emmy pushed her hair away from her face, and feeling something against her fingers, pulled a small stubborn leaf from the tangles. She met Jared’s eye for a second.
He refocused on his paperwork, a blush creeping out from under his collar. ‘I’ve had reports of theft, criminal damage, threatening language, antisocial behaviour, disturbing the peace, breaking and entering, devil worship, kidnapping —’
‘Alleged kidnapping,’ Noelle interrupted.
‘It’s all alleged,’ sighed Emmy. ‘What’s this about criminal damage?’
‘The window of Annette’s Newsagent’s was also smashed last night. That’s between the mayor’s house and yours. Do you know anything about that?’
Emmy and Noelle both looked at Rae, who turned back to them. ‘Are you kidding me? No.’
Emmy faced Jared again. ‘And the devil worship? Nobody’s been devil worshipping.’
He shuffled to another sheet of paper. ‘That was from a couple of weeks ago. Something about somebody walking their dog past the woods and they saw a, urm, naked woman holding a chicken up to the sky?’
‘My bad,’ sang Noelle. ‘Vicky and I were just catching some rays.’
‘In October?’ Rae derided.
‘It was unseasonably warm that day.’
‘Help me out here, ladies,’ said Jared, holding his head in his hands. ‘You can’t keep this silence up. Where is she? Where’s the mayor?’
‘We don’t know,’ Rae said firmly. ‘We don’t know exactly where she is right now, but let me try and get in touch with her and ask her to call you, okay?’
‘She’s not answering her phone,’ Jared replied.
‘I think I know where she might be.’ That wasn’t technically a lie. Rae didn’t know exactly where Gabbi currently was in their house, but she thought she might be crouched in the bathroom with her head over the toilet.
‘Okay.’ He stood up, and the sisters followed suit. ‘I’m going to let you go for now, but I expect we might need to speak to you again, probably later today. Perhaps if you’re able to get in touch with the mayor between now and then we could look at putting some of this to rest?’
‘We’d be happy to,’ said Rae, pulling Noelle out the door with her first, leaving Emmy to walk next to Jared.
‘Are you still drunk?’ Emmy whispered to him as they walked down the corridor.
‘No, are you?’
‘I don’t know. If I’m not drunk I might still be dreaming.’
Jared grazed his fingers against hers as they walked side by side, and she looked up at his warm face. ‘This’ll blow over one way or another,’ he said. ‘I’m sure.’
She nodded, but disappointment was starting to sink into her soul. Last night had felt like progress. Like a step forward. This felt like it might be a huge, drunken stumble back.
Chapter 21
Rae drove the three of them home in silence. Emmy had tried to ask her about last night but she’d shut her up with a stern look that she’d borrowed from their mother. She needed to think, not to be questioned and lectured by her little sisters.
She remembered having a fun time at the party, she remembered Gabbi showing up dressed as Ghostface, and she remembered doing shots with her and howling at the moon in her garden. Then she remembered deciding they needed more alcohol and suggesting they walk into town. They definitely didn’t need more alcohol. She recalled dancing down the dark, deserted high street, and both of them being loud and obnoxious. Not Rae’s finest moment, but Gabbi had been insistent she be allowed one reckless night because it had been so long.
She didn’t remember going to the mayor’s house, and although she thought she might have mooned the window of Annette’s, she didn’t remember causing any damage. This wouldn’t have been the first time she was accused of graffiti, though – she was once suspended from school for a week because they thought she’d spray-painted a big swearword on the side of the teachers’ lounge. She hadn’t, but by that point she’d stopped putting too much effort into defending herself; she was a lost cause – her energy had to go on defending her sisters instead.
But that note was in her handwriting, and her lipstick.
I am never drinking again, Rae lied to herself.
Parking haphazardly in front of the house, Rae jumped out first and stomped ahead, trailing goddamn pumpkin pulp into the hallway.
‘Rae.’ Emmy grabbed her sister’s arm. ‘Will you just bloody talk to us?’
‘What? What do you want to know? I don’t remember what happened, I was smashed, but I didn’t do that to Annette’s, or Gabbi’s house, I know it.’
Gabbi appeared at the top of the stairs. Showered, but still under a hoodie. Still with a face full of crystal-clear swearies. ‘What’s wrong with my house?’
The sisters looked up at her. ‘Didn’t you call the station?’ Rae asked.
‘No, I can’t find my phone.’
Noelle stepped forward. ‘Gabbi, we really need you to call the police station. They think you’ve been kidnapped and are blaming us. Well, Rae.’
‘I lost my phone, I think. By lost I mean I think I remember flinging it somewhere.’ She descended the stairs and Noelle averted her eyes from the shitstorm that was Gabbi’s swollen and painful-looking nose. ‘Why do they think you kidnapped me? What happened to my house?’
Her poor friend. Rae felt for her. She’d just wanted a night off and now she was all shaved and punctured and grafittied and her garden had bog roll all over the trees. ‘Apparently, it’s been vandalised. Only the outside, I think. It sounds like trick-or-treaters to me. One broken window and a load of silly string. And they found a not
e that suggested you’d been taken, which kind of looks like it was from me. But you and I were together, so you know I didn’t do this. Can you just call Jared and let him know that you were with me, and that I haven’t kidnapped you, and that you’re okay?’
‘You can use my phone,’ Emmy said.
‘No,’ Gabbi backed up slightly. ‘They’ll know I was at your party.’
‘So what?’ asked Rae. ‘It’s over now and nobody’s going to care. And you were in a massive cloak and mask so it’s not like embarrassing photos are going to surface of you in the Maplewood Gazette!’
‘Please, I don’t want anyone to know.’
‘Why?’
Gabbi looked awkward (even more so). ‘I’ll tell them I’m fine, I’ll tell them I’m not interested in pursuing anything with the mess at my house, and we’ll leave it at that.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Rae. ‘Is it really that much of a political suicide for you to hang out with us?’
Gabbi looked at each sister and they knew it kind of was.
Rae shook her head. ‘Well, that’s good to know. If you don’t tell the police, I will, because I’m not having them or anyone else in this town think I’m some kind of abductor.’ She walked past Gabbi and up the stairs, sniffing her own armpit as she went. She needed a shower. And her husband. She’d had about enough of reliving her youth in this lifetime.
In the shower, Rae sang loudly her favourite song from Madame Butterfly. This was the real her, she thought as she relaxed into the music. This was her real life now – opera, her home up in London, being a grown-up. Not this childish rubbish, not being on the defensive all the time. She’d been so determined to be the opposite of Emmy, to prove that their past selves were something to be proud of, that she’d allowed herself to forget that life was constantly changing. She didn’t have to be exactly the girl she had once been in order to prove she wasn’t ashamed.
Back in her bedroom, she tried to call Finn but he wasn’t answering. He was never there when she needed him any more, she thought, unfairly. She stomped about the room for a bit, but curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she skulked back downstairs to see what everyone else was doing and whether Gabbi had fessed up to the police yet.
My Sisters And Me Page 19