“Afterward, we went and got burgers and fries, and we took it all to the top of this parking structure and just had a fast-food picnic in our fancy clothes and watched the stars.” Aside from a little awestruck blabber about how awesome it was that the Disasters had given us a private concert, we had eaten in a peaceful silence, listening to traffic and music and conversation drifting up from the street below. “She told me that it really had been the perfect date.” I smiled. “That’s what she was like, though. She could take the biggest catastrophe ever and somehow turn it into the perfect night.”
“Yes,” Tammy whispered, her eyes squeezed shut, a tear sliding down the pale skin of her cheek. Her lips trembled as she clung to my hands. “Yes.”
TWELVE
TAMMY ASKED ME, sweetly and fuzzily, to refill her drink. By the time I turned back from the desk, however, she had sagged against the sofa cushions, her mouth open, with faint rattling sounds emitting from the back of her throat. Trying not to wake her, I set the tumbler down on the coffee table and stole into the central hallway, ready to go home at last.
I didn’t make it past the library. The double doors slightly ajar, I could hear the voices of Eddie and Mr. Walker coming from within. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but just as I reached the spot between the polished newel posts of the twin staircases, I heard January’s name and it stopped me in my tracks. Through the slivered opening, I could see the back of one leather armchair and the mullioned panes of a window that looked out on the front of the house. It was Eddie who was speaking.
“—don’t care if you don’t want to hear it, John. You don’t have a choice. And do you have any idea what kind of a golden opportunity this is?”
“I don’t think—”
“Just listen to me!” The campaign manager was vehement. “We put together a proposal—we call it January’s Law, or something like that—and we go public with it immediately. Right now, you don’t just have the attention of Michigan’s voters, you have the hearts of the entire country. You cannot buy that kind of PR, Jonathan!”
“Eddie…” Mr. Walker’s low voice carried the edge of a warning.
“No! You hired me to do a job for you, and I’m doing it,” Eddie persevered. “This is your calling card; this is what will get you into the senate! You propose harsher sentencing laws for any violent crime where the victim is a minor, mandatory jail time for first offenders, blah blah, whatever. No one will dare go against you on it. Nobody wants to be tarred with the ‘soft on crime’ label, and now they’d also get lambasted for not caring about kids, about your daughter. Even that asshole Torkelson will have to support you!” Andrew Torkelson was Mr. Walker’s opponent in the race, and a relentless critic of the man’s views. “If we could just figure out a way to pin it on that scrawny little pothead boyfriend of hers, we could throw a Reefer Madness angle in there, too, get the anti-drug crowd running to the polls next Tuesday. You’d practically be guaranteed a second term.”
There was a silence, and my scalp prickled all over, goose bumps rising between my shoulders. I couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or not, and I suddenly wasn’t sure if my alibi of studying at home the night January went missing was strong enough to withstand the irresistible force of the Walker campaign’s financial influence. Then, with a disgusted undertone, Mr. Walker snarled, “What would it say about me as a father, as a man, if I capitalize on this for political gain, Eddie? I’ll look like a monster! We can’t treat this like just another platform issue.”
“Well, we have to,” the other man contradicted unapologetically. “You’re going to have to, because in your line of work, everything is either a setback or an opportunity—and the only difference is whether you want the job or not. You’re the candidate with the dead kid, now, John. That’s the brass fucking ring!” He actually laughed. “No one has to know what an obnoxious brat she was when she was alive.”
There was another long silence before Mr. Walker spoke again, his voice low and measured. “Eddie, I’m going to do you the favor of pretending that I didn’t hear you say that—and, as far as our official position is concerned, no body has been found, and January is still only missing.”
“Oh, come off it, Jonathan. It’s just you and me here, and you’re not paying me to blow sunshine up your ass. Everybody knows what blood-soaked clothes and duct tape means, and the whole Parent in Denial routine has short legs. That little bitch was your candidacy’s Achilles’ heel, a scandal waiting to happen, but now? She’s your golden ticket to D.C. You can hate me for saying this if you want to, but you know I’m right. This shit is the best damn thing that has ever happened to your campaign, hands down.”
There was another long pause, and I suspected—hoped, really—that Mr. Walker was about to throw the man through the window. But instead, I heard the sigh of air escaping through cushion seams as someone settled into one of the leather armchairs, and then Jonathan’s voice again, bland and weary. “Let’s start researching current sentencing laws and set up a press conference for the morning. There’s no time to put a functional proposal together, but we can draft a position at least. Tell Jeff and Rachel to get a speech ready for me to look over by tonight.”
I was stung, feeling betrayed and offended by the way Mr. Walker capitulated so easily to Eddie’s plan—the way his only defense of his stepdaughter was a perfunctory rebuke. Maybe January wasn’t some model child out of a 1950s sitcom, or something, but she wasn’t the way Eddie made her out to seem. And it was almost scary how much the heartless campaign manager seemed to hate her—and disillusioning how little Mr. Walker cared to argue about the subject.
As I was turning toward the front door then, I finally sensed the figure standing at the top of the stairs, looming in the shadows of the upper hall. Watching me. Looking up, I stifled a gasp. With broad shoulders and meaty arms, eyes glowering down through a shaggy fringe of dull, greasy hair, he’d obviously been standing there the entire time, listening along with me. When he saw that I’d noticed him, he smiled. It was a smug, gleeful little smirk—like he was glad I’d heard what I’d heard, and equally glad I knew he’d heard it, too. Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared on silent feet down the upstairs hall.
It was Anson Walker, January’s asshole stepbrother.
“You know, the only time I actually like this house is when my mom and Jonathan aren’t in it,” January had stated frankly one night the previous July as we were cooking dinner in the Walkers’ shiny, state-of-the-art kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Walker were in Detroit for some kind of charity benefit so Jonathan could press flesh with moneyed donors and finagle a few photo opportunities for the media.
“Maybe we can pull some kind of Scooby-Doo shit—you know, dress up like ghosts and make them think the place is haunted so they move out and let you stay here by yourself,” I suggested with a loopy giggle, a little buzzed on the champagne January had opened when I’d arrived. She was having most of it, though, drinking with a vengeance, like each swig from the bottle was a fuck you to her parents. “I can move into one of your many, many empty rooms and be your bodyguard, or something.”
“Oh, are you going to guard my body from all the bad guys?” January batted her lashes at me seductively as she turned up the heat under a pot of water on the stove. The kitchen was bright and modern, with brushed steel appliances, marble tile flooring, pale granite countertops, and an overhead rack of gleaming copper pots and pans. The Night of Flaming Peanut Butter had dimmed our culinary ambitions, though, leading us to stick with spaghetti and store-bought marinara.
“I will guard your body from anyone smaller than me,” I promised stoutly. “If any of the big guys show up, though, you’re on your own.”
“My hero.” She rolled her eyes, sipped some champagne, and sighed happily. “I fucking love champagne, don’t you?” She pushed the bottle into my hands and then dragged her loose-fitting top up over her head, tossing it onto the kitchen’s wide center island. She was wearing her bikini underneath, as we were plann
ing a soak in the hot tub, and the green-and-white triangles of fabric seemed dangerously insubstantial when coupled with the coy look in her eyes. “Doesn’t it make everything feel, I don’t know … sexy?”
“Maybe a little,” I agreed nervously, taking a small sip and passing the bottle back. I had pretty well-defined abs—they came with the “skinny” territory—but I wasn’t sure there was any power on earth that could make me feel actually sexy.
January hoisted herself up onto the island, right next to where I was using a long, serrated bread knife to hack my way through an uncooperative baguette. Behind me, tomato sauce simmered in a copper saucepan, and the water for the noodles was just coming to a boil. My girlfriend ruffled my hair. “You are so cute when you’re in the kitchen, you know that?”
“I’m cute everywhere.” I mugged at her, and she laughed. Then, as she lifted the bottle to her lips, champagne rushed and gurgled out of it, spilling down her chin and sloshing over her chest in a frothing, perfumed cascade.
“Oops! Shit.” She laughed at her own clumsiness, but then her blue eyes quickly slid to me from under heavy lids, and her tongue swiped across her lower lip. Tossing her pale hair behind her, she arched her back, letting the recessed lights shine on her glistening, alcohol-soaked cleavage. “Flynn … would you help me clean this off?”
The bread knife stuttered over the crust of the baguette, and I felt a peculiar anxiety build up inside as I stared at her breasts. Did she want me to get her a towel, or … did she mean something else? I suspected the latter, and swallowed drily. At that point in our relationship, I was beginning to worry about my lack of sexual interest—in girls, generally speaking, and in January, in particular. This felt not unlike a test, and one that should be easy to pass. I was curious, which was a good sign, but I didn’t feel especially excited. Weren’t boobs supposed to be exciting?
I set the bread knife down and moved to where she was sitting, her legs dangling over the edge of the island’s granite top. Standing there between her knees, I could feel her body heat, her breasts at eye level, and she didn’t move. She wants me to look at them, I thought. But what the hell else does she want me to do? Tentatively, I leaned forward and swiped my tongue along a warm, wet inch or two of her sternum, just grazing her breasts with my chin, but otherwise staying in what felt like safe territory. I tasted wine and salt, and January purred happily.
“That is soooo hot,” she whispered, and then she put her hand in my hair again, tilted my face upward, and kissed me. I tasted more champagne on her mouth, mixed with vanilla lip gloss, and despite the awkward position of our bodies she really seemed to be enjoying this particular make-out. Little sounds escaped the back of her throat as she sucked at my lips and dragged her fingers across my shoulders, and when she drew back again, her eyes were soft and dilated. “Maybe … you know, I’ve been thinking—” She broke off all of a sudden, her gaze snapping to something in a corner of the room, and she jolted upright. “What the fuck?”
“Don’t let me interrupt,” came a deep voice from over my shoulder, and I jumped away from January, spinning around with a start. Standing in the dark rectangle of the open pantry door was Anson. His stringy hair was tucked under a snapback, which laid bare the acne-scarred skin of his elongated face, and the tank top he wore revealed the similarly pockmarked flesh of his wide, powerful shoulders.
“What are you doing down here?” January demanded unevenly, sounding both annoyed and a little perturbed.
“It’s my fucking house, remember?” the older boy replied, his voice thick with contempt. “You’re the one that doesn’t belong here.”
He sauntered forward from the pantry and started poking at the things we’d left sitting on the counter—the food, January’s iPod, my phone—and instead of telling him to fuck off, I found myself frozen to the spot. He was twice my size, and it was like having a bear prowl your campsite: You didn’t want to upset him, or draw any attention; you just wanted him to get bored and leave. It occurred to me, too, that he had to have come down from upstairs, where he’d been when I’d arrived, and circled through the dining room to access the pantry without our having seen him. He’d been deliberately spying on us. I tried to remember if we’d said anything blackmail-worthy.
“Why don’t you just go back upstairs and play with yourself.” January slid down from the island, crossing her arms self-consciously over her chest.
“Why? So you two can go back to fucking in my dad’s kitchen?” He glared at us, and that’s when he saw the champagne bottle next to the cutting board. His eyes lit up with glee, and he whooped, “No way!” Laughing, he grabbed the bottle and sneered nastily at his stepsister. “You picked this bottle—that is priceless! Dad’s been saving this bottle for a special occasion for, like, five years, and then White Trash Barbie goes and pops it open so she can slut it up with her faggot boyfriend. I can’t wait to tell him about this. You’ll be back in your shitty trailer park by next week!”
“What’s your problem, dude?” I demanded. He eyeballed me for a moment, and then took a long gulp of champagne. Turning back around, he picked my iPhone up from the counter and started messing with it. It was alarmingly easy to picture him smashing it against the floor out of spite, just to prove he could, and I felt a spike of anxiety. “Leave our stuff alone!”
“Go back to licking her titties again,” he commanded. “I’ll take some pictures for you, and January can start her porn career early.” She gave him the finger, and he grinned malevolently. “Your gold-digging mom whored her way into my dad’s bank account, but I bet you can do even better than that. You could be the next Sasha Grey or something!”
“You are so disgusting,” January said quietly as Anson made a point of pushing my phone’s camera at her cleavage. Uncomfortable, she reached for her discarded top, but Anson anticipated the move and darted forward, snatching it out of her hands and holding it up so neither one of us could reach it. “Give me back my shirt!”
“Show me your tits first,” he goaded, leering at her image in the view screen of my iPhone. “Push ’em together and say, ‘I’m a big slut just like my whore mom,’ and then you can have your shirt.”
“Fuck you, you demented asshole!” I had finally had enough. Without thinking, I lunged for my phone, yanking it from his hands. “You think you’re such hot shit, but all you do is jerk off and spend your dad’s money, so what does that make you? How come you’re not in college, anyway, Anson? Are you seriously so fucking stupid that even your dad can’t buy you into a halfway decent school?”
The instant the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Anson was at least seven inches taller than me, and his left bicep had to be as big around as my left thigh. His pitted face darkened with rage, his eyebrows knotting together in an ugly scowl, and I saw sinews ripple tightly in his bared shoulders. I swallowed a rueful lump only a half-second before the muscle-bound freak dove forward, his fist speeding toward my face like a truck with no brakes.
Then it stopped, two centimeters from my nose. It was a fake-out; one of those obnoxious Tough Guy things that boys do to make you flinch and prove that you’re a pussy—and, of course, it worked. I lurched back about a mile, crashing into the center island and almost knocking the cutting board to the floor. Anson laughed uproariously, pointing at my comically fearful expression, and finally turned to leave.
It was then, when I let my guard down, that he spun back around and decked me. He moved so fast that he didn’t really have time to aim, but even for a glancing blow it felt like I’d been hit by a steam shovel. January let out a surprised shriek as I crashed down hard on the marble floor, stars popping and sparkling around me like Mr. Walker’s special champagne. It felt like the left side of my face had been cut off, set on fire, and then stomped out. Towering over me like a sequoia, Anson snarled, “Watch your fucking mouth, you punk-ass bitch.”
And, just like that, the bread knife was in January’s hand, aimed right at Anson’s thick, bullish neck. It didn’t have a
sharply pointed tip, but it was extremely long, and its jagged teeth were plenty dangerous. Shaking all over, she said, “Get the fuck out of here, you steroidal! Mutant! Psychopath!”
“Oh, are you gonna cut me, White Trash Barbie?” He was taunting her, but he didn’t sound entirely sure of himself. “I’m so scared.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” January hissed in a tone I’d never heard before, ruthless and confident and deadly serious. “You’ve got no idea what I’d do. Maybe I will cut you, or maybe I’ll wait till you’re asleep and chop off that little pencil dick of yours … or maybe I’ll just show Eddie and your dad where you’ve been hiding your weed. And your oxy. And your coke.”
Anson’s expression changed, his sneer becoming a deep frown. His face a volatile shade of crimson, the boy took a step back, fixing January with a hateful glare; then, without saying another word, he hurled her shirt into the bubbling pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove, and stalked out of the kitchen.
It wasn’t until we heard his feet banging up the stairs to the second floor that January sheathed her improvised weapon in the knife block on the island, and dropped to her knees by my side. “Flynn, are you okay?”
“Some bodyguard I turned out to be.” I tried to smile, but I still felt like the aftermath of a natural disaster.
We rescued her shirt from the saucepan, though it was pretty clearly ruined, and decided we weren’t really into the idea of spaghetti for dinner anymore. Eventually, I called my dad to see if he could come get me early, and began preparing a cover story to explain the ugly bruise beginning to spread across my cheekbone. The last thing I needed to do was give my parents a reason to complain about Anson to Mr. Walker—who would do nothing about it anyway—and make myself an even more irresistible target for the sadistic burnout’s rage problem every time I came over.
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