Pasadena

by Sherri L. Smith

  “Is Luke home?” I ask. “We’ve got a photo project we’re working on. He said to come by and he’d show us the contact sheet.” Luke takes photography classes every summer. It’s as good a cover as any.

  Joey blinks at me but says nothing. Mr. Liu calls over his shoulder in Chinese. The distant sound of dishes being washed by hand stops and a woman responds. It must have been a very late lunch.

  “Fine,” a girl sighs in English. Amanda Liu, Luke’s younger sister, appears in the doorway behind her father. He disappears into the house.

  Amanda wipes her soapy hands on a kitchen towel. “Hey.” She knows us from school, a freshman who’s learned our faces the way a tourist learns major streets in a new town. “Luke had a thing. He should be back soon, though.”

  “Mind if we wait?” I ask. She hesitates, looks over her shoulder.

  “How’d you like Shelstein’s history class?” Joey says out of the blue. Amanda blushes and gives Joey a full metal smile. Her braces and her desire make me cringe.

  “It was cool,” she says. “Especially the Rome stuff.”

  “I remember that,” Joey says, smiling a smile I’ve never seen. A confident smile. He leans into the doorway, posing pompously. “And that is why Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he says, mimicking Shelstein’s gruff tones.

  Amanda laughs and steps away from the door. We take the unspoken invitation and follow her inside. Chiming an explanation to her parents in Mandarin, she leads us back to Luke’s room. The narrow bed is all but dwarfed by a desk with a giant computer monitor and a deep bookcase stacked high with photo albums and archival boxes.

  “You guys want something to drink?” she asks, wiping her palms on her jeans.

  “That’d be great,” Joey says. He manages to make it sound intimate.

  Christ, if this girl had a tail, it’d be wagging.

  “Water,” I reply.

  She nods and scurries away. I drop down at the computer and start searching the photo files. Joey sidles up behind me. There’s a stack of DVDs labeled for the past month on the desk, but none for the week Maggie died. It must still be on the hard drive somewhere.

  Amanda comes back with two glasses.

  “Oh,” she says when she sees me on the computer.

  “No, it’s okay,” I tell her. “Luke called my cell. He’s running late and told me where to find the stuff. We’ll just take a look and talk to him later.”

  Joey steps up and takes a water glass from Amanda, closing his hand over hers. As if that was necessary. I let him handle it and go back to scanning the files.

  Suddenly, there it is. I pull a flash drive out of my bag and download what I need—Thursday, Friday, Saturday’s photos. I shut off the computer and turn around. Amanda is drinking my water and giggling at something Joey said. Jesus, he’s fast. It must have something to do with lowerclassmen. They’re not immune to him yet. His brown eyes and that damned smile.

  “Done,” I say.

  Amanda is reluctant to see us go, but she perks up when Joey says he’ll look for her at school. Just a hello in the hallway would boost her street cred. If it led to an actual date with a senior, it would change the entire landscape of her social life. Joey just threw her a bone. Or maybe he’s scratching an itch and he wants me to know it.

  “Home, Jeeves,” I say when we’re back in the car.

  “Quite,” Joey says. “Quite.”

  • • •

  The living room is empty when we get back to my place, but I can hear the TV on in my mom’s room. She doesn’t say anything as we go by.

  Joey follows me to my bedroom. I lock the door and flip on my laptop. Joey sits on the edge of the bed, drumming his fingers on his leg.

  “You going to call Amanda?” I ask, plugging the flash drive in and flicking through its contents. I see him shrug in the reflection on my screen.

  “Just doing my job,” he says, and lies back on my bed, bent at the knees.

  “And what’s that?” The photos are loading. Jesus. Even Luke’s thumbnails are saved in high res. I turn to look at Joey while I wait. He’s staring at the dingy popcorn ceiling, hands folded behind his head like he’s looking up at clouds.

  “The usual. To serve and protect,” he says.

  “That your motto?” I ask with a smirk.

  He sits up on his elbows. “Every sidekick should have a motto. A code to live by.”

  “Oh, so you’re my sidekick now?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

  “Close to accurate,” he says. “What else do you call someone who stands by your side and gets kicked?”

  He studies me for a long moment. I don’t look away. “You think you’ve been kicked?”

  “Right in the head.” He lies back down. “Why else would I help you steal somebody’s private property and flirt with his sister to do it?”

  “For Maggie,” I say, turning back around.

  The pictures are loaded. I set up a slideshow so I can see them fill the screen.

  If he’s got something else to say, I don’t hear it. Maggie’s smiling at me from the screen, that brilliant red-and-white smile turned deep, saturated into black and white and moody grays. She looks glamorous in these pictures, thanks to Luke’s love of monochrome. She would have been pleased.

  Taken from afar, there are blurs in the corners, rose leaves and tree trunks that tried to block the camera and failed. He must have moved around, looking for the best angle. Maggie in the foreground, the house behind her, the street. The taillights of an old sports car driving by. And then there’s Maggie again, sitting by her pool, drink in hand, laughing on the phone. The time stamp reads 18:00:00. Maggie was alive at six o’clock.

  “Holy shit,” Joey breathes at my shoulder. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “Nope. Luke’s been photo-stalking Maggie for almost a year.”

  “Huh.” Joey sits down again, leaning forward to watch the show.

  Maggie hangs up. Drinks. Smokes, never quite looking at the camera. She scratches the inside of her nose. These are candid. She doesn’t know Luke is there.

  But then something happens.

  Maggie puts down her drink. She stretches. She looks straight at the camera.

  The next instant, she’s smiling. She disappears into the pool house and emerges in the slip, a matching robe over it. Not pool wear. She’s dressed for seduction.

  Behind me, Joey gasps. The pictures judder forward. Maggie is pointing at the camera. Still smiling, she reaches out a hand. Crooks her finger. She’s inviting him in.

  The slideshow stops.

  Luke Fucking Liu.

  I remember the roses on the kitchen table. The ones that came too early to be for a funeral. But they were for Maggie anyway.

  “Shit,” I say. “Maggie popped his cherry. Would he kill her for that?”

  Joey shakes his head, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Why do you keep saying that? Maggie died. She killed herself. She got drunk and high and she took a header into the pool. Even if it was an accident, even if she just slipped, there is no killer here. It’s just Maggie’s fault. She got stupid and she’s dead. You never blame her for anything, Jude. Never. But now you have to. Anything else is just crazy.”

  He stops his ranting and stares at me. “Listen, I know you’re hurting. I am too. I went with this because I figured you needed . . . something. But Luke Liu isn’t a killer. There hasn’t even been a crime! I can’t do this with you. I’m done playing games.”

  He stops again. Sighs. And then he leaves.

  There’s a tightrope you walk with some people. Too far to the left, and you lose them. Too far to the right, and they want more than you can give. Right now, the line is thrumming with tension. I’ve got to focus to keep my balance, and hope Joey can keep his.

  I sit there for a few minutes, Maggie’s photo beckoning me in. Then I l
ock my bedroom door again.

  Tomorrow night at Blue House, I’ll talk to Luke. And as for Joey, I know I’ve just kicked him again. But he’s loyal. He’ll be back.

  7

  Tuesday, my mother takes the day off work. “I thought we could spend some time together,” she told me over pizza last night. I guess Roy has to work, because it’s just going to be the two of us. I get up early and walk to the coffee place around the corner, unwilling to face her without some caffeine and sugar under my belt.

  The line is short this morning. I order a latte and a cinnamon roll, then shuffle down the counter to the pickup line.

  “Hey, Jude.”

  I look up. At the counter, Keith Dunfee, Maggie’s ex, is nursing an iced tea. They lasted all of twenty seconds sophomore year. After Maggie had slept with his big brother, Scott. That was some kind of baggage. Nasty baggage, if the wrong person ever opened it.

  I move around the line to join him. “How’s it going, Keith?”

  He shakes his head. His skin is gaunt beneath the summer tan, the dusting of freckles prominent. “Kind of rough, actually.” He takes a sip of his iced tea. “Scott’s back.”

  Maggie and Keith had been a long time ago by high school standards. He wasn’t her type, just a B student with B-level charm, but he worked part-time at the local animal shelter, which made him more of an A minus in Maggie’s book. Keith had been her attempt at a normal high school boyfriend.

  But nothing was ever normal with Maggie Kim.

  Scott was more of a stereotypical teenaged dreamboat— a hunky blond football player who worked at the equestrian center. He was also a soldier, and Keith’s idol. Hell, Keith might’ve been glad to get Scott’s hand-me-downs once he found out.

  But maybe Scott had felt differently. Maggie was the last girl he slept with before leaving the country. Finding out she had moved on might be one thing, but moving on with his kid brother?

  I take the seat next to Keith and face him. “You heard about Maggie?”

  “Yeah. I know you guys were close.” He watches his cup make a ring on the counter. “Sorry.”

  “Me too.” I rest my elbows on the counter. “When did Scott get back?”

  “Not soon enough to say good-bye.” He turns to me. “She ever tell you she slept with him? The week before his deployment.”

  I nod slowly, alarm bells ringing in my head. “Who told you?”

  “Scotty did. When I first started dating Maggie, my mom sent him pictures from the spring dance, and he thought I should know.”

  So much for motive. Scott was up-front and honest. Maybe it came with the uniform, a twelve-step plan for making amends while at war.

  Down the counter, the barista calls my name to pick up my order. I ignore her. “How did that go?”

  Keith smirks. “How do you think it went? I was pissed she hadn’t told me. I mean, we weren’t together or anything, so what are you going to do? It’s not like she was a virgin. But she could’ve said something.” He clenches and unclenches the hand holding his iced tea.

  “So what did you do?” I prompt.

  “I confronted her about it and she told me everything.”

  I frown. “There was more?”

  He cuts me a look.

  “It’s Maggie. There was always more.” He relaxes his grip on the cup and exhales. “She was Scott’s pen pal. Wrote a letter to him every week from the day he left, even after we broke up. Real letters, too, not e-mail. Perfume and everything.” Keith smiles. “Scott said it made him feel like a doughboy or one of those guys in World War II.”

  I spin in my seat, my mind doing a few revolutions of its own. Maggie had been keeping up with Scott all this time. Or maybe Keith was the hitch in their longer romance? Either way, it wasn’t a stretch to believe he’d think those letters meant something more. If the soldier boy was back, maybe their reunion went wrong. Maybe Corporal Punishment had finally lived up to his nickname. “You think she was carrying a torch for him?”

  “No, nothing like that. It was just . . . The military wasn’t Scott’s first choice, and when his assignment came up in Afghanistan, well, nobody really wants to go to a war zone, right? But every few weeks, he’d get this batch of letters smelling like flowers and all the guys would go crazy. It made him feel . . .”

  I think of how it would have made me feel. How it did make me feel, every time Maggie turned her attention my way.

  “Loved.”

  Keith considers it. “Yeah, I guess. Loved.”

  I can see the appeal for her, writing love letters to a man in uniform. But why keep it from me?

  A sour taste fills my mouth. I swallow and ask the question anyway.

  “Did she say anything in her last letter to Scott?”

  Keith wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “You mean like, ‘good-bye, cruel world’?” He laughs. “No. She knew Scotty was coming home. It’s got him messed up, making it back in one piece to find out she’s gone. The last thing she said to him was ‘see you in July.’ To be honest, that’s why I don’t think Maggie killed herself.”

  I could hug Keith for saying it, for agreeing with what I’ve known all along. “So what do you think really happened?”

  He sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “Scotty used to go on patrol every few days with his team and they always made it back somehow. But then, one day, there’s this random helicopter crash and two of his buddies are killed.” Keith takes a sip of his drink and fixes me with a look. “The majority of accidents take place within five miles of home, right? Cosmically, it sucks, but it’s true.”

  “Is that how they comfort you in the army these days?” I say. “With statistics?”

  Keith slides down off his stool. “Come on, Jude. We’re in high school. We’re like salmon swimming upstream. It’d be a miracle if we all survived.”

  I stare at him. “Seriously. You’re comparing us to fish.”

  Keith smiles sadly. “Not everyone makes it to twenty-one.” He rubs his eyes. “When’s the funeral? Scott and I’d like to be there.”

  “Thursday. I’ll send you the details.”

  He comes closer and gives me the hug I’ve been holding back. “See you at the funeral.”

  “Yeah. See you then.”

  He pushes the door open and a gust of heat rushes in to fill his place.

  8

  There you are, honey.” My mom is waiting for me at the kitchen table when I return. A stack of fashion magazines is fanned out on the gold-and-white Formica and her car keys are in her hand. “I thought we could get breakfast, but I see I’m too late.”

  “Sorry, jet lag. I couldn’t sleep,” I lie, and toss my empty latte cup into the trash. My mom frowns, but pulls it up into a smile.

  “That’s okay, hon. It’s your day. What would you like to do? I was thinking mani-pedis?”

  I look down at my bitten nails and decide to throw her a bone. “Sure. I know a place at the mall. They give facials too.”

  “Terrific,” she says, shuffling the stack of magazines. “I got these for you. I thought you might like them.”

  I don’t read fashion magazines.

  I come up with a smile. “Thanks,” I say, taking a seat at the table across from her. “I spoke to Dr. Bilanjian yesterday.”

  The magazines stop moving. “Did you?” My mother tries to watch me without looking directly at me. “What did she have to say?”

  “She said you were worried about me and wanted to make sure I was okay.”

  My mother crumples with relief. “I am, honey. You’re going through a rough time, and we don’t ever seem to talk like we used to.” She reaches across the table. “I wanted to make sure you were handling things okay.”

  I pull away. “Mom.”

  She drops her hands to her lap and takes a breath. “You’re still my daughter, even if you aren’t a li
ttle girl anymore. You just lost your best friend, honey. Don’t you want to talk about it?”

  I study the sparkle pattern in our old Formica table, a retro constellation of glittering gold. The girl I used to be was close to her mother. The girl I used to be would date a boy like Joey, get her picture taken in the front yard before prom, and live on the East Coast with a mommy and a daddy and a stack of beauty magazines.

  Do I want to talk? “Yes,” I say, and I can feel her expanding with the joy of being useful.

  “But not with you.”

  Sometimes, you open your mouth, and out comes nothing but knives. It’s happening more and more with me these days. I should talk to Dr. B about that. When did my default mode become “bitch”?

  Was I this way before Maggie, or only after Roy?

  The bubble pops and my mother looks away, blinking damp eyelashes. Maybe Maggie’s mom was onto something. Looks like I’m going to Hell, too.

  “You’re not the first person to lose someone, Jude,” my mother says. “And you won’t be the last.”

  “Every high school has a body count. Yes, I know. Thank you for telling me. You’re the second person today.”

  My mother glowers at me. “Why do you have to do that? Can’t you see?” She’s trembling, red-faced, a matchstick about to catch light. “I’m just glad it wasn’t you.”

  And there it is. I love my mother. And I kick myself for not being able to show it. Because she still loves me, even if she sucks at it sometimes.

  She slaps the tabletop with the palms of her hands and stands up, grabbing her keys in one fluid motion, like a kid playing jacks. “Now, I’m going to get my nails done. Are you coming?”

  • • •

  The trip to the nail salon turns into a condolence visit to the Kims when my mother’s little tirade reminds her of her neighborly duty to drop by. I take the opportunity to scratch an itch that’s been nagging me since Edina cornered me in the john.