My choices were I had no choice. I’d have to go to school and pretend nothing happened.
For not the first time, I wondered if I would see my mother if I killed myself. People who commit suicide can’t go to heaven, according to my research, but maybe there was a special room in hell for people like us—people who aren’t murderers.
People who are just too sad to live.
I let myself in the maid’s entrance by the kitchen. The Crawford mansion was silent—no sign of Ramona or her friends. I dropped my shoes by the door and tiptoed to the walk-in pantry to grab a bottle of water, before retreating upstairs to my room.
I was still in the pantry when I heard voices outside. It was Ramona’s high-pitched laughter, just outside the French doors that led out to the pool and grounds.
I couldn’t let her see me. My dress, Cressida’s dress, which I had sworn to return unharmed, was splattered with vomit. Worse, I was supposed to be out for the night. She’d be furious that I’d disobeyed her.
I pulled the pantry door closed and prayed.
The pantry smelled like garlic. I watched through a thin crack as the French doors swung open and Ramona stumbled in. Her face looked uncharacteristically flushed. She held a bottle of champagne and two empty flutes.
A man I’d never seen before stepped inside behind her. Their hair was wet and slicked back, and they wore the matching white robes from the pool house. The robes had been a wedding present for her and my dad. The man wore the one with the J embroidered on the breast pocket. He was tall and broad, with a bald head and a wide, brutish face.
Ramona set the bottle and glasses on the black marble island. The man walked up behind her and pressed his body against hers.
“Where were we, Mrs. Goodwin?” he purred in her ear. He pushed the collar of her robe away from her neck, exposing her shoulder. He bent his head and kissed her there. She closed her eyes.
“I’m still Mrs. Crawford. You know I never changed it, Wade.”
I couldn’t look away. The man crouched down a little. I could only see them from the waist up. Ramona leaned forward against the island. He yanked the back of her robe up.
“Will you change it for me?” Her lips twitched into a smile and she gasped in pleasure.
She closed her eyes, and splayed her arms out wide on the marble counter. The top of her robe slipped down, exposing small, tanned breasts with dark nipples. He pressed against her from behind.
I could not believe what I was witnessing. Horrified, I clapped a hand to my mouth and my elbow knocked over a glass bottle of gourmet tomato sauce on the shelf next to me. It toppled over and exploded on the travertine floor.
Ramona shrieked. A second later, the pantry door flew open. A huge hand clamped onto my arm and dragged me out of the pantry.
A fleshy, red face appeared inches from mine, shouting loudly.
“Answer me! Did you like what you saw?” he yelled. I looked away from him and saw Ramona behind him, clutching her robe tight around her body. “I thought you said they were gone for the night!” he yelled at Ramona.
I opened my mouth to speak but he hit me with a powerful slap across my face. My neck snapped back and I fell to the floor, my cheek slamming into the travertine.
I wiped my mouth and looked at my hand. It was smeared with blood. The whole side of my face throbbed.
“She won’t remember any of this. She’s obviously been drinking. Will you, Lana?” her voice was calm and soft. “You won’t remember what you saw, right?”
They each took an arm and dragged me outside, across the vast patio, and into the pool house. They pushed me through the living room, down the long hallway, and all the way to the last door.
The naughty room.
Ramona unlocked it and Wade pushed me in.
He stepped inside after me and blocked her from following us. “Let me handle this, babe. I’ll make sure she doesn’t remember anything,” he said. Ramona looked at him and then back at me.
“Ramona, please! I won’t tell my dad! I swear!” My voice was raw and ragged. She shrugged.
“I know you won’t.” She shut the door on us.
Wade glowered at me.
“That’s my dad’s robe,” I whispered.
“Shut up.” He took a step towards me and grabbed me by the throat. His meaty hand squeezed my neck.
“You like what you saw?” I shook my head, desperate to get away. You wanted to die. Looks like your wish is coming true. “You’re not going to tell anyone about it, are you?” I shook my head. His fingers pressed into my esophagus. “Especially your dad. He’s not going to know what you saw. Got that, you little brat?”
I felt my airway getting squeezed. Gasping for air, I managed to whisper, “I won’t tell. I swear.”
He relaxed his grip on my throat. “Good.” He dropped his arm and his fleshy lips parted. “Ramona never told me how pretty her stepdaughter was.”
I clutched my stomach. “I have to throw up.” He dropped his hand and backed away. Shaking, I put my hands over my mouth and hunched over like I was going to puke.
He stood watching me with a nasty smile. I felt something dripping out of my nose. I wiped it—more blood.
From outside the room, Ramona yelled, “Wade! I am not waiting all night.” He blinked and his nostrils flared like an angry bull.
“Coming, dear.” He left, slamming the door shut behind him. I heard the deadbolt turn. I curled up on the bed and sobbed until I fell asleep.
***
My father woke me up the next morning. The pillow was smeared with my blood. His face turned ashen when he saw me. Apparently Wade’s hand had left some nasty bruises on my face. I remember frantically shoving my clothes into black garbage bags that morning while he and Ramona screamed at each other in their bedroom. The surreal drive away from the Crawford Estate through the fog, my dad rigid and pale in the driver’s seat. The businesslike social worker at the hospital taking pictures of my bloody nose, purple eye, and bruised cheek.
I remember my dad begging my forgiveness, over and over. Promising to take care of me from now on. I told them I didn’t want to press any charges. I just wanted to go home and forget it happened.
I thought about telling my dad about the Trevor incident. But a few days after we returned to our old house, he had a heart attack. A “minor” one, they said. But the nurses told me I had to help him get better by not “causing him stress.”
So that was that.
The first night back in our old house on Chauvet Road, intense relief washed over me as soon as I crawled into my old bed. I was actually glad Trevor did what he did and that Ramona had caught me that night.
I was glad Wade Jenner hit me.
Because my three-year nightmare was over.
I was home.
15
Mare Oriental ~ Eastern Sea
The intercom buzzed five times before someone inside picked up.
“Yes?”
“Hi, Cressida.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Lana. I need to come in.” Hot afternoon sun glinted off the hood of my car and stung my eyes. The intercom crackled. “Hello?”
There was a few seconds of silence. “This is not a good time.”
“You owe me this,” I said. Another long pause. “Cressida, I need your help. For once, can’t you just be normal?” The intercom went dead, and the iron gate creaked and rolled back.
The front door opened before my finger had time to press the doorbell. Cressida had circles under her eyes, and her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. A bright red scrape marred her pale cheek. She wore black yoga pants and a loose t-shirt. There was a small logo on the pocket of the shirt that said HARKER TENNIS.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped.
“I need your help. Is your mom home?”
“No.”
“Good.” I stepped inside and she backed away. “I need my mail.” We stood in the middle of the vast entryway staring at each other
.
“What mail?”
“Someone sent me a letter here. I need to know where it is, and if there are anymore.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you came to make up with me.”
I laughed. “Are you kidding? You lie to me about wanting to be my friend. You sleep with my boyfriend on prom night, after you make up a crazy story about Eden. You’ve treated me like dirt since the day we met. For someone with no sense of humor, you’re hilarious.”
Cressida stared at me openmouthed. Would she try to defend herself? Was she that crazy? To my astonishment, she blinked and nodded.
“You’re right. The whole thing was a lie.” She chewed a fingernail.
“The whole story about Dr. Greene. Your sister needing me that night. It was all bullshit, right?”
“Well, Dr. Greene is real. Only, she’s not a therapist.”
“Who is she?”
“My dentist.”
My hand itched to slap her across the face. Hard. “You tricked me so I’d bring Caleb to your party.”
“Kinda.” She rolled her eyes and ran her hands through her hair. “I know it’s terrible. I KNOW, okay? But you don’t understand. I needed one more chance. I was in love with him, Lana. Way before you. I needed to see if he still had feelings for me.”
“And apparently he did.” She nodded dully. “Well, you two deserve each other. He must be thrilled.” Her face stiffened.
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him.” She fingered the hem of his t-shirt.
“Oh, really? Stealing him from me didn’t work out for you lovebirds?” I didn’t share with her the other story of that night. About what he’d done to me in the naughty room. “Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it, Cress?”
Cressida’s nostrils flared. “Fuck you, Lana. Get out or I’ll call the police.”
“Go ahead. I’d love to tell them how your mother’s been stealing my mail. That’s a federal offense, you know.”
Her jaw dropped. She walked over to the mirror in the entryway, ripped the elastic out of her hair and shook it loose. She pulled her hair into a clean, tight bun. “I’m super busy. I don’t have time to look for some stupid letter.”
“Really?” I said, standing up as tall as I could. “Then I’m sure the Board would love to know the real reason Mr. Quarry got fired. I bet the newspapers would love a juicy sex scandal about a parent seducing a teacher at the most prestigious girls’ school in Northern California. Just so she could force him to change his students’ grades. And I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. Didn’t you ever wonder why you never failed out of Briar, despite having the worst grades in our class?”
Cressida’s face went slack. “How do you know all that?” she hissed.
“I just do. Now show me where your mother hides my mail or I tell the entire school.”
***
We sat cross-legged on the floor of Ramona’s huge bedroom rifling through the bottom drawer of her desk. It was stuffed with old papers, bills, and credit card receipts, but no letters written in tiny calligraphy.
“It’s not here,” I said.
“Let’s try the safe.”
She led me into Ramona’s closet. It was more than a walk-in—it was a drive-in. My feet sank in to the plush, snow-white carpet. I almost gagged when I smelled the perfume. A thousand reflections of me and Cressida bounced off the mirrored walls.
Cressida shoved the chic dark skirts, silky blouses, and cocktail dresses to the side, revealing a small safe cut into the back wall.
“I bet it’s in here.”
“Why would she put my letter in a safe?” I asked. What was I not supposed to know?
Cressida shrugged. “You know Ramona.” She punched a code in to the tiny keypad. It made a loud beeping sound, and then door unlatched and sprang open.
The first thing she pulled out was a heavy leather-bound book. She tossed it to the carpet, where it landed with a loud thud.
“She hides her college yearbook in here. She doesn’t want anyone to know her real age.” She tossed the yearbook onto the carpet where it landed with a soft thud.
Gold letters on the side of the black leather volume read “Barnard College, Columbia University.”
I knelt down and picked it up, turning it over in my hands. Could it be possible?
“Your mother went to Barnard?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Mine did too.”
She stared at me. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah. I guess they didn’t know each other,” I said. “How old is Ramo—your mother, anyway?”
“46. But she tells everyone she’s 43.”
My mother would have been 46. I cracked the cover. It opened to a bookmarked page of senior portraits.
Ramona wasn’t smiling in her photo. Younger, her hair longer, her cheeks fuller, but the same icy stare. I stared at her name. Ramona Savage.
“I forgot her maiden name is Savage.” Had I ever known that? To me, she’d always been a Crawford, even after she married my dad.
There was something else I had to see. I flipped to the Fs.
And there she was. “Tanith Fremont.”
My mouth gaped open. “My mother was in her class. Look.” Cressida’s eyebrows shot up and she grabbed the yearbook out of my hands.
“I thought your mom’s name was Annie.”
“Uh, that was…a nickname.”
“She has exactly the same hair as you.”
I took a closer look. Her lovely, clear-eyed face smiled out at me, peachy blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders. Fighting back tears, I clutched the yearbook to my chest and stood.
“Can I borrow this?”
“No way. She’ll know I was in here.” I reluctantly handed it back to her. She jammed it back into the safe. She turned to me, rubbing the cut on her cheek. The ice melted from her eyes. It almost looked like she was about to cry.
“You must miss her,” she said.
I froze. Years of coldness suddenly slid away between us. I shrugged and nodded. She put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a strange, sad smile. Then she jumped up, shoved everything back into the safe, and slammed it shut.
“We gotta go. I’ll look for your letters later.”
I followed her out of Ramona’s bedroom and down the endless hallway. She didn’t look at me. At the top of the stairs, I stopped her.
“Hey. Thanks for your help.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’m sorry you’re still dealing with her bullshit. Sometimes…sometimes I hate her, too.” Her voice was low and quiet.
Before I could respond, the doorbell rang.
“Shit, she’s here. Come on!” At the bottom of the stairs, Cressida grabbed her purse off the entryway table and pulled her keys off the hook in the alcove. The door clicked open and I fought the urge to run.
“Is it your mom?” I whispered.
“What? No—Ramona’s at Pilates. It’s the realtor. I was supposed to be out of here an hour ago.” Cressida scowled at me and then looked away.
A middle-aged blonde lady in a yellow skirt suit stepped inside.
“Oh! I thought you’d be gone by now. I have a client coming to see the house in ten minutes, dear. Didn’t your mother tell you?”
“We were just leaving, Debra.”
I walked to my car and Cressida followed me. She put her hand on my door handle before I could reach it, and turned to face me, leaning on the door. She kicked the gravel and looked at down. “Hey, do you think you can not tell anyone the house is for sale? I don’t want people to know we’re quote-unquote downsizing or whatever.”
“Sure, Cressida.” She nodded. “Well, that’s it, I guess,” I said. “Tell Caleb I said hi.”
“I haven’t seen Caleb.” She shrugged and chewed her fingernails. She pulled off one of her impeccable French tips and spat it onto the ground. “I thought if I got him alone he’d want to be with me again. But I was wrong. I got him so fucked up on prom night, I don’t think he even kne
w what he was doing.” She stepped away. Disgusted, I climbed in to my car.
She grabbed the door before I could pull it shut. “He doesn’t love me, Lana. He just used me. And I let him. I always let him.” Fat summer rainclouds tumbled east in the sky above. Gray shadows fell over us. Cressida looked up and sighed. “See you at graduation, Lana. We made it, I guess.”
I pushed my sunglasses onto my face and drove away from the Crawford Estate for the last time.
***
“You sure you don’t want to do anything for your birthday?”
“Trust me, I’m over it.” Piper and I walked through the sunbaked lot to our cars. It was the end of the last day of senior year. Our careers as Briar girls were officially over.
“And you can’t come to my party tonight?” she asked.
Graduation was Sunday. I turned eighteen on Monday. And in a little over two months I would report for duty as a freshman at Columbia. I had gotten a decent scholarship, but I was still taking every valet job Justine offered.
“I have plans with Maya this afternoon, and then I’m working an event in Glen Ellen tonight. Sorry, Piper.”
“You are officially the least fun person in Sonoma County.”
“Why, thank you.” We walked up to her gleaming graduation present: a brand-new black Audi A6.
“I drove one of these last weekend,” I said. “Not too shabby.”
Piper grinned. “I know, right? And I only asked for an A4. Can you believe? But I am going to be living in L.A., so I totally need a sweet car.” My graduation present had not arrived. Mainly because I wasn’t getting one. Anyway, I wouldn’t need a car in New York City.
Piper eased into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and slid a pair of huge sunglasses onto her face. She lowered the window and looked up at me.
“Well?”
“You’re so L.A.”
Piper grinned. “That’s the idea. Wyatt says hi, by the way. You’ll see him at graduation—I hope that’s cool.”
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