Pretty, Nasty, Lovely

by Rosalind Noonan

  “Who are those people?” Defiance asked, as we knew this hadn’t been organized by our sisters. “Did any of them know Lydia?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “Death can bring strangers out of the shadows.” I remembered the handful of neighbors and church members who had come forward after Mom and Delilah were killed. One of the nurses Mom worked with had delivered a sweet eulogy, and our neighbor Joy started bringing us dinner every day—soup casseroles and Crock-Pot corny wiener chowder—until Dad called her off. I had loved her lemon chicken soup, but Dad had struggled with Joy’s chattiness.

  “Ugh!” Angela groaned. “It makes the yard look like a cemetery. We live in a freaking cemetery.”

  “You don’t see lights like that in cemeteries,” Defiance argued.

  Isabel cupped her hands over her eyes and leaned against the glass. “I like the lights. They’re festive. Like we’re celebrating Lydia’s life.”

  “Really? I wish they’d just take their shit and go,” Angela said. “Take it to the bridge. Put the memorial there.”

  “But that’s where Lydia died,” Darnell said quietly. A rare comment. “The bridge symbolizes her death. The Theta Pi sign? That’s her life. It’s cool.”

  Angela let out a sigh. “I guess you’re right.”

  I turned away from the window and grabbed a warm fleece jacket. “I’m all in. There are a lot of people out there. Let’s make it into a candlelight vigil.”

  Isabel was tentative. “But we don’t have permission.”

  “We can’t wait,” Defiance said. “We know the university will never permit it.”

  “They won’t allow anything that draws attention to another suicide on campus,” I said. “But I don’t care. I mean, what’s the worst they can do? Send a security guard to shut it down?”

  “You go, girl.” Angela plunked on her fedora and wound a navy scarf around her neck. “You coming with us, homie?”

  Darnell shrugged. “I guess.”

  “This is going to make Violet crack.” Defiance was beside me in the closet, picking through the rack for a woolen pea coat. “NAY-shun-all didn’t tell us we could have a candlelight VEE-jall,” she said in a sugary voice.

  That made us all laugh, and for a moment I realized there was hope. There would be life after Lydia.

  * * *

  Within an hour, all of my sisters were out on the lawn, singing songs and holding candles to the gray sky. Violet had surprised us by unlocking the sorority ritual cabinet and bringing out a box of white candles to pass out to people who joined in.

  Had any of these guys and girls singing and swaying in the dark known Lydia? I scanned the starry field, flames casting glimmers of warmth on their faces. Glasses, hoodies, beards, and tender eyes. Most of them had probably never noticed the girl in the drab, oversized sweater. But that was okay, right?

  We all have to die alone. But it’s good to have a crowd at the after party.

  CHAPTER 12

  “And then I told her I was going to give her the fight of her life until she did something to help the students.” Although Finn was a few pints in, he felt the edge of his earlier battle returning as he brought Jazz up-to-date. “After that I stormed out. It was a fucking momentous exit, man.”

  “Really?” Jazz seemed unimpressed. “Sounds kind of overdone.”

  “It was a significant blow to administrative policy,” Finn insisted. “I rattled the cages.”

  “Sounds to me like you were a bit of a dick.”

  Jazz’s disapproval was a thorn in Finn’s side. Jasper Patterson grew up in Willowbrook, a Los Angeles neighborhood where nearly half the residents didn’t finish high school. That Jazz had gone on to finish his doctorate and land a teaching job in Oregon was a testament to his work ethic and blind faith. Jazz knew both sides of the street. If Jazz’s bullshit monitor was getting a reading, Finn had to respect it.

  Still . . . he could ask questions. “I’m a dick?” Finn asked. “I’m a dick when Merriwether’s policies send these kids plummeting to their deaths?”

  “Damn, Finn. You could radicalize a turnip, but it won’t make anyone want to eat it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Jazz wiped the condensation on his beer glass with his thumb. “Look, you’re upset. A student died today. But give Sydney Cho some respect, too. Don’t you think she’s upset about a kid dying?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “People don’t always reveal their grief. If you ask me, you need to dial down the anger. You know that old nugget about catching more flies with honey than vinegar? I’m just saying, you’ll make more progress as a nice guy than a dick.”

  “I’m a nice guy. At least with the students.” He shook his head, thinking back to Lydia. “Maybe not nice enough. I should have reached out to Lydia Drakos. Kids like that, they’re the ones we’re fighting for.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for her suicide. You weren’t her only teacher. You were nice to her. You weren’t her biggest problem. You said she was struggling to pass all her classes.”

  “But I met with her. I should have seen the signs.”

  “What? Depression? Anxiety? Alienation? You’re not a shrink, Finn. This one is not your fault. Don’t take it personally.”

  Finn took a swig of beer, a bitter sting on the back of his tongue. “I can’t sit back and do nothing when I have the power to save a life.” He looked at Jazz, his angular brown face punctuated by bold black glasses. “You have the power, too. Get in on this and talk to Dean Cho. Let your voice be heard.”

  “I’m like Batman,” Jazz said. “I don’t come out until people really need me.”

  “These kids need you now, man. The local papers are calling this autumn Suicide Fall. Work with me on this. If we can get a few professors on board, the administration will have to hear us out. There’s power in numbers.”

  “Aw, man, it’s too risky for both of us. That’s a mission for the fat cats with tenure who have some weight to throw around. Or better yet, get the students on board. This is their community; it’s their time to engage and become activists.”

  “Come on, Batman.” Finn leaned over the table, nearly spilling his beer in the process. “You can’t count on the others to save Gotham City.” The last word came out on a sliding slur, and Finn wondered if he’d had too much to drink. Probably so.

  “Finn, come on. You and I are hired guns. I’ll do what I can to help the students, but I can’t stick my neck out to buck an administration policy right now. And you’d be wise to hold back, too.”

  “I can’t hold back. I never could.” Finn stared down at his empty glass. “Restraint was never my strong suit.”

  “It’s cool to have passion, but you need to watch your back, too.” Jazz looked at the curling piece of paper with the bill. “Are we done here? This is bad form, man. Drinking on a Monday night. Nowhere to go but down.”

  “We’re done.” The alcohol had kicked in, dulling Finn’s senses, muddying the edges of his vision. He put a twenty on the table, grabbed the backpack with his laptop, and paused. Closing time. This was the dark time of the day, when he had to face the biggest mistake of his life.

  Jazz took a last swig of his beer, and then reached into his wallet for a few dollar bills. “You sacking on my couch tonight?”

  “I should go back to the house.” Finn lifted his cell phone and read from his text messages. “Eileen told me if I wasn’t home by midnight not to bother coming home. EVER.”

  “Well, there you go. She set you free.”

  “Yeah. I wish it worked that way. Not a fine use of sarcasm.” Finn yawned. “Should I go home?”

  “You have no desire to be there. Hence the three or four beers, prolonging the inevitable.”

  “True.” Finn pulled his jacket on, then paused. “I keep thinking it’s going to get better. That I’ll bond with him and suddenly she won’t seem so abrasive. That a relationship will develop.”

  “That’s optimist
ic.”

  “It’s possible, right?”

  “My opinion? Hell no. But if we take on that topic right now, we’ll be here through finals week.” Jazz’s hand fell onto Finn’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They walked down the main street of Pioneer Falls, the cool darkness filling in for the lack of conversation. Across from Scully’s the windows of the coffee shop were dark, though Finn knew the lights would be on in a few hours as the baristas started a few pots brewing and loaded the cases with pastries. Finn was still a patron, although the café had been the original scene of the crime, the place where Eileen had badgered him over drinking his coffee black, her form of flirting, and damned if he hadn’t bought her a latte, grateful for the company. Hard to remember, but he had been attracted to her back then, only two years ago. So much had happened in the intervening months, the original meeting seemed like ancient history.

  They passed Oogey’s, the 24/7 diner that offered everything from vegan Thai tofu rice to Southern fried chicken. Despite the late hour, a dozen or so students and locals sat at tables and booths. Eileen had ruined that place for him, too, always complaining about something to the students waiting tables.

  Nothing on Main Street was safe from Eileen’s taint of criticism. The IHOP, the Shell station, the Safeway . . . each business they passed had been dissed by Eileen Culligan. Had she always been so sour? It was hard to remember a time when he’d been attracted to her, when her voice hadn’t seemed shrill and full of criticism.

  The scenario resembled a poorly done film noir with Eileen playing the femme fatale. It was embarrassing, the way that he’d been duped. Eileen hadn’t been a student—Finn had always vowed he wouldn’t fall for that—but she’d been employed in the university admissions office, allowing her free tuition. She was five years younger than Finn, a “pioneer,” as the locals called themselves. He’d recognized ambition in her and had mistakenly thought she’d had her sights set on education. Instead, Eileen had chosen a simpler, more tangible goal: to become the wife of Scott Finnegan.

  No intellectual discussions or galas at the university museum for Eileen. She wanted a house with a white picket fence. A set of china. Kitchen appliances and juicers. Linens from Ralph Lauren and curtains from effing Martha Stewart’s Collection. And now a minivan. One child, and she needed to buy a minivan for a mere thirty grand that neither of them had.

  As he walked alongside his friend, Finn cursed himself for letting control of his own life slip through his fingers. He’d been an idiot to get involved with Eileen. A moron not to break it off earlier. A fool to let her move in and take over his home.

  How green he’d been when they’d first met. He’d been vulnerable—an emotional wreck from an injury sustained just ten days into a tour in Afghanistan. He’d been so focused on healing what was left of his leg and learning to walk with his prosthesis that there’d been no time to deal with the psychological damage. His family and doctors and therapists had warned him to take it slow, but he’d wanted to get back into the race, pull ahead at full speed. He’d needed to prove that he hadn’t lost an important part of himself on that roadside near the Pakistani border.

  So when he’d met a leggy blonde who wouldn’t stop interrupting him as he tried to write a course syllabus, Finn had sensed his luck changing for the better.

  “I’m a forever kind of girl,” she’d told him early on. “Don’t mess with my heart.” That was how Eileen spoke, in platitudes worthy of a sixties hit song.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not a surgeon,” he’d teased, trying to temper her fortitude.

  That had been the tone of the relationship: He’d tried to keep things light, while she pushed ahead. She’d wanted to move into his place, get married, start a family, but every time she’d pushed for more of a commitment, Finn had stood his ground. While he enjoyed seeing Eileen from time to time, he didn’t see that their relationship had a future. He made no promises and tried to keep things casual. No strings attached.

  Which had worked for him, until Eileen had gotten pregnant.

  When he’d gently suggested that she end the pregnancy, she’d called him a baby killer.

  The negotiations had gone downhill from there.

  “So you’re coming to my place?” Jazz called, interrupting Finn’s bitter reverie.

  “Hell yeah.” Finn tripped over a curb, but caught himself. “You’re stuck with me, Jazz. A broken soldier, drinking your coffee and taking up space on your couch.”

  “I’m fine with it, man.”

  “But it’s not okay. Not all the time. I need to fix this.” Somehow it was easier to throw out the personal details this way, walking into the dark future, face to the cool wind. And it didn’t hurt that he was slightly drunk.

  “It’s not like you haven’t tried,” Jazz said.

  “Tried and failed. Jazz, I want my house back.”

  “And you’ve asked her to leave?”

  “Begged her, more than once. She can move back with her parents. Her mother’s crazy about Wiley, and they have the room.”

  “But she won’t go?”

  “Says she values her independence. Translation, dependence on me.”

  “So . . . can you stop paying the rent? Find another place.”

  “Not quite so simple. My name’s on the lease, and that would jam me up for finding another rental in town. And then there’s the threat.”

  “The threat? From Eileen.”

  “Exactly. She’ll drag my ass into court for child support, and report me to the university.”

  “Report you for what? She wasn’t a student, and you weren’t her boss. Is she saying that it was rape?”

  “She’d be willing to fabricate a story to get her way.”

  “That’s a crock of shit.”

  “A domestic Crock-Pot of shit.”

  “Have you told her she’d be breaking the law? That it’s blackmail and she’d be lying under oath?”

  “She just spins it into some sentimental crap. Says I’ll learn to love her, that we were meant to be together. That soul mate shit.”

  “Do you think that’s going to happen?”

  “The more I’m around her, the more she grates on my nerves. I make an attempt for the kid. Maybe I could tolerate it awhile, for Wiley.”

  “That’s not a good reason. Stick around now and you’ll screw up three lives. You need to get the hell out so both of you can move on.”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “You’re the one making it hard.”

  “It’s the kid. It feels wrong to bail on him.” Finn was about to say more, but he kept his mouth shut as he followed Jazz up the cobbled driveway to the cottage. Finn didn’t want to dredge up his absentee father, who hooked up with a woman when Finn was in fifth grade and ended up divorcing his mother. It wasn’t the loss of his father that hurt Finn as much as the fact that Mitch Finnegan had joined Helen’s family, playing father to her two girls and moving them all to California when he got a job offer there.

  Jazz fished his keys out of his pocket and held the gate open for Finn. “Plenty of men bail on their kids, and those kids survive. Some of them thrive. The term ‘nuclear family’ was coined by some white guy from Yale who wanted to maintain the status quo. A family unit does not need an alpha male. Not a requirement.”

  “I know, I know, but I don’t want to be the one who bails.”

  “Are you even listening to me?” Jazz shook his head as he unlocked the door and turned on the light. “I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation after a night of drinking. You won’t remember anything in the morning.”

  “I’ll engrave it on my brain,” Finn promised as he took a seat on the increasingly familiar couch. “Tell me.”

  “God’s honest truth? Eileen manipulated you from day one, and she’s still trying to steer the boat. The only thing that’s going to develop is animosity, which, from my experience, doesn’t take much work when someone traps you like that. The kid�
�he’s an innocent in all of this—but that doesn’t mean you’ll ever feel an attachment. Maybe you’ll both get lucky, but chances are, it’s not going to happen. You and Eileen will torture each other until you can’t stand it anymore. One of you will duck out—probably you. You’ll be stuck with child support, but if you can extract yourself, maybe you can walk away with your balls intact.”

  Finn dropped his face into his hands. “I have no balls.”

  “If that were the case, you wouldn’t have a son, which seems to be at the core of your dilemma.” Jazz tossed him a pillow and blanket from the closet. “But all kidding aside, it’s time to man up. There’re plenty of people out there with worse problems than you and they keep on keeping on. Talk to a therapist or a lawyer or an accountant. Do what you need to do to get free.”

  Freedom seemed like an impossible notion. For now, Finn would start with sleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  That night I woke up in our suite with my anatomy textbook open in my lap. With a groan I stretched my legs over the arm of the little sofa and tried to untangle the throw around my waist. The love seat was okay for studying, but not for sleeping.

  Planning to go to bed, I plodded to the doorway of my room and paused at the sound of Angela’s breathing. There was something unnerving about having a body in the bed across from mine; I had tried to fall asleep in there hours ago, but I kept worrying that I might wake up to find her stiff and cold and reeking like the cadavers in anatomy lab. Irrational, I know, but when you’re in that phase of twilight sleep, the mind wanders to some strange corners.

  Just then Angela sniffed and turned on her side, startling me. I froze, holding my breath.

  This was ridiculous.

  I backed out, quietly closing the door behind me. Outside at the memorial, Courtney had told us that she had moved in with Aubrey and Violet, unable to sleep in the suite she’d shared with Lydia. “And I’m never going back,” Courtney had said in a quavering voice.

  “But that’s a prime suite,” Angela had said. “You can’t just leave it empty.”

  “Then you move in,” Courtney had said with all the petulance of a two-year-old.