by Molly Harper
“No, it’s been… a long couple of days,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” he muttered. He balanced his hip on my desk. “So what did you need me for? I’m assuming it’s not more file folders, because Jane’s assistant is in charge of ordering that sort of thing.”
“No, it’s not really Council-related. And if that makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to say yes,” I assured him. “I don’t want to do anything to strain our friendship. You have to know how important you guys are to me, and I couldn’t lose that.”
Dick held up his hands. “Meadow, Meadow, it’s OK. Just ask. I’ll do whatever I can to help. Is it the rose hip guy? I think I can rustle up a supplier nearby if it would help you out.”
“How sketchy are your contacts near Lexington?” I asked. “Specifically horse country?”
“That’s not what I expected,” he admitted. “But there are a lot of levels to sketchy, Meadow. Can you give me an idea of what you’re thinking?”
“Pretty serious drug dealers?”
“Not even in my sketchiest days,” he told me. “Why are you asking?”
“I need to know whether a certain horse farm is still participating in… freelance pharmaceutical manufacturing.”
Dick’s face fell. “Oh, honey.”
“I just need to know, Dick.”
“OK. I have some acquaintances in the police department up there,” he said, and when my eyebrows winged up, he added, “Don’t look so surprised! I have layers. I’ll find out what I can.”
“Thank you, Dick.”
He ruffled my hair. “Anytime.”
* * *
I walked home from work to find Weston standing at the Capitol lot, staring into its depths as if it could offer him the solace it gave me. He heard my footsteps from half a block away, and to my surprise—given what happened the last time we spoke—he didn’t turn his back or walk away. He smelled sad, which was a sour emotional note under his usually delicious scent. He also smelled a little anemic. But I couldn’t tell him that, because most people considered it weird when you said you could smell their health issues.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Decidedly not,” he said, frowning. “I’m sorry for how I spoke to you, the last time we talked. I was angry and frustrated, and I took it out on you, and that’s not OK. I do find your relentlessly sunny outlook to be confusing and sort of annoying, but I had no right to yell at you.”
I waited for a justification, for him to tell me how irrational I’d been, but he just put out his hand for me to shake. I took it in mine and squeezed it.
“I know you don’t like what I’m doing here, Meadow. And there’s not much I can do about it. It’s my job. I’m good at it. And there are some things that need to be changed here.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but I realized I wasn’t going to change his mind. And while I believed the Council office to be this amazing workplace utopia, it probably did look like it was run by a bunch of yahoos from the outside.
“But small things,” I told him. “Like new locks for ghoul containment units or tougher security software. Not replacing our perfectly functional Council reps.”
“Jane… possibly, I’ll give you Jane. She seems very intelligent and fair… if a little misguided. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree about Dick.” He hastily added, “For now,” when I opened my mouth to protest. “But if you believe in him, I am willing to give him more of the benefit of the doubt. I hope I don’t find anything, but if I find he is guilty of anything to do with Jonas’s death… well, I’ll be there for you when you grieve.”
“Thanks…” I said, squinting at him because I wasn’t really sure how else to respond.
“And I never meant to imply that growing up with your parents left some sort of, I don’t know, criminal stain on you. I wouldn’t say that. I do see the world in black-and-white because, over the years, I’ve found the danger is in the gray areas. But I will try to open up my way of thinking because I don’t want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you, except in arguments, when I wound your pride. But I will lovingly kiss your pride wounds,” he offered.
I snickered. “That’s so weird.”
He leaned in and kissed me, slow and sweet, without all the pressure we seemed to feel the last time we kissed. Why was this so easy when almost everything else between us was so difficult? Things with Luke had been easy until they weren’t, but this… Was it because he was so open about what he thought of me, my friends, my workplace, my work? Because Luke had hidden things from me when I thought our whole relationship was built on fearless honesty. What more could Weston have to say that he hadn’t already said?
And then that beautiful scent of his enveloped me like an embrace, pulling me all that much closer to him. He bit gently at my bottom lip, dragging his fangs over it before slipping his tongue into my mouth. I relaxed against him, with a trust in him I hadn’t expected, sliding my fingers through his hair until I curled them around his neck. I lost all sense of time and appreciated the feeling of his arms around me. There were advantages in not needing to breathe.
Reluctantly, I pulled away from him and tugged him in the direction of our apartment building. I asked, “Do you even like me? When did we stop arguing all the time?”
“You liked arguing all the time?”
“I liked the simplicity of it,” I said, shrugging. “It made sense to me.”
“I happen to like you very much,” he said. “And I think that started sometime between the first time I met you and finding you in this very lot, reading it like you saw something that I can’t. I’ve gotten to the point where I feel like I only see what’s wrong, what could go wrong. And for the first time in a long time, it’s interesting to imagine seeing things some other way.”
“We’ve had a thousand arguments since then!” I exclaimed.
“I enjoy needling you,” he said, shrugging. “I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth.”
“You’re a sick, sick man,” I told him, even while I snickered.
“And…?”
I shrugged, eyes all guileless and innocent. “And what?”
“When did you start liking me?”
“I didn’t say I did.”
He gasped at the insult, clutching his imaginary pearls. “You wound me!”
“I’ve tried! I caved in your chest cavity in the attempt!” I cried.
“Technically, that was the elevator,” he grumbled.
“I started liking you when Mr. Bollinger showed up at my door,” I admitted, “and you actually seemed concerned, breaking through your near-permanent shell of disdain.”
“I was concerned. Bollinger is a very concerning person,” he protested. He cleared his throat. “So… things went sour with Luke, I hear?”
“So… that was a terrible segue,” I retorted, making him laugh. “How did you even know?”
“Something I have come to appreciate about small towns: news travels faster than the Internet,” he said. “By the time I made it to my office tonight, Sammy, Lainie, and some guy from accounting had each told me. I didn’t even know the accountant. He just walked up to me and said, ‘Did you hear Meadow and Luke had a fight?’ ”
I laughed.
“So what was it about? The fight?”
“It wasn’t about you,” I told him. “It was about stuff between the two of us, things that weren’t right.”
“So his toes are no longer in the way?” he asked. “I won’t be stepping on them?”
“You are weirdly concerned about his toes,” I told him. “And no, if I believed in such things, I would tell you that his toes are permanently safe.”
“Good.” He very tentatively pulled me closer to him and kissed me. All of the heat from our elevator encounter was gone, but replaced by something deeper, and sweeter. “Because I would very much like to take you back to one of our apartments to get to know you better, in a way that does not involve a falling elevator, birthd
ay surprises, or heavy doses of sarcasm.”
I laughed against his mouth. “I can guarantee everything but the sarcasm.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
* * *
It had been a little more than a week since my conversation with Weston. Luke had called a few times, but I’d deleted his voice mail messages without listening to them. My online passwords were now a list of nonsensical, random strings of letters and numbers that I would never remember but Luke would never guess, either. Weston and I had managed to have several quiet nights in, where we weren’t put in mortal danger from an elevator, no one ran in to interrupt us, and no waffle-scented investigators dropped by with cartloads of emotional baggage. It was nice, just talking to him, not about our tragic pasts but about the movies we loved and music and the strange moments in history we’d witnessed. He grew progressively less rigid, or at least he sat less rigidly.
And the sex was pretty fantastic now that his ribs weren’t caved in.
But on a rare evening alone, I opened the door of my apartment to find Andrea and Dick standing there with a folded blue shirt and a six-pack, and I knew something bad was about to happen.
“Here, hon,” Andrea said, dropping the cloth bundle into my hands.
I opened the shirt to find a very proper green dinosaur trying to push a tea cart with its short little arms, its snout in the air. It said, “TEA-Rex.” I burst out laughing. “Why?”
“Because we thought it would make you laugh,” Andrea said as Dick pushed the six-pack into my hands.
“Why?” I asked again.
“Because I think you’re going to need it,” Dick told me.
“Aw, crud.” I motioned for them to come in.
I didn’t drink beer under normal circumstances, but if Dick prescribed it… I twisted the top off of one and offered the rest to Andrea and Dick as we sat on my couch. I drained the bottle and started on another before Andrea and Dick took sips of theirs.
“Dang,” Dick said, goggling at me.
“Misspent youth,” I told him, making Andrea snicker. “You might as well start, Dick.”
“So I asked around,” Dick said, sipping his beer. “Your parents aren’t quite as active in the ‘industry’ as they used to be. They’re still providing the chemicals and the cover. But only occasionally providing the facilities to manufacture.”
“So having their daughter turned in front of them had some effect on them after all, huh?” I muttered.
Dick shook his head. “It’s more like your dad actually got charged with criminal conspiracy a few years back, at the ripe old age of sixty-two. Of course, his backers’ attorneys were talented enough to get the charges dismissed, but it spooked him enough to get him to cut back.”
“Why is he still involved at all?” I asked.
“My guy says the money is too good to give up,” Dick said. “The farm is still in hock. The mortgage statements are… well, I don’t know a word that means ‘financially depressing,’ but I know what a downward spiral looks like when I see it. And from the pictures in the society pages, it doesn’t look like your parents’ spending has slowed down at all.”
“Do I want to know how you got ahold of their bank records?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “No, you do not.”
I drained the last of the second beer. “So they haven’t changed or learned anything at all. All that stuff about regrets and building bridges. It was all bullshit. Why would they even try to contact me?” I asked as Andrea took my hand in hers.
“That’s something only they can tell you. But if you were hoping that they’ve changed, I think I can safely say that they haven’t,” Dick said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and felt the weight of Dick’s hand on my shoulder. I was grateful for the both of them, their hands keeping me tethered to the present instead of spinning into some sort of emotional whirlwind.
I knew my parents. I knew they weren’t going to stop trying to contact me, not when even the loss of a child seemed to teach them nothing. They were stubborn and they were greedy. And they refused to break from a course when they wanted something they thought they deserved. And right now, they thought they deserved attention from their only child… even if they’d pretended that child didn’t exist for a good twenty years. And they could hire someone significantly less pleasant than Bollinger to find me next time… if it was possible to find someone less pleasant than Bollinger.
“Did your guy give any indication as to why they suddenly want to talk to me?”
“No,” he said. “No sudden turn to religion or change in politics. No recent deaths in their friend circle to suddenly make them realize what’s really important.”
I sighed. “I’m going to have to talk to them, aren’t I? If I want them to go away?”
“Speaking as someone who has ‘broken up’ with her parents, I can tell you that’s a delicate line to walk,” Andrea said. “Only do it if you think you would get something out of it. If you think it would hurt you more, forget it.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s going to hurt me. It’s going to be an enormous pain in my ass,” I muttered. “But maybe if I understand the sudden change of heart, I can, I don’t know, figure out how to make them lose interest.”
“Seems risky,” Andrea said.
“So is leaving them to their devices until they come up with a much more invasive and annoying plan,” I told her. “Dick, is there any way you could gather up that paperwork you mentioned and maybe any witness statements you could put together?”
“Well, the people I talk to aren’t really the type to want to sign ‘witness statements,’ honey, but I’ll try. Why do you want them?”
I smiled. “Insurance.”
* * *
Days later, I sat in one of the gray, spartan video conference rooms at the Council office. I was not looking forward to this conversation. I hadn’t wanted to ask Mr. Bollinger to arrange it. I didn’t want to talk to my parents at all. I didn’t want them to see inside my home. They hadn’t earned that. I did keep my hair pulled back in a conservative style and my wardrobe fairly neutral, because I didn’t want to spend the call with my mother criticizing me, either. That could take hours. I wanted this conversation to be brief and businesslike.
“You sure you want to do this?” Jane asked, standing by the door.
“No.” I laughed. “Not at all.”
“Good. If you were sure, you would be in denial.” She smiled. “Um, before you get started. Are you still seeing Luke Corso?”
“Oh, definitely not.”
Jane’s brow lifted. “Really? You two seemed so… content together.”
“Turned out to be not such a nice guy,” I said. “He logged in to my accounts and read my texts and used the word ‘crazy’ too often.”
“Ew,” she said, shuddering. “The relationship kiss of death.”
“Yeah, so if you were allowing him back into the Council offices to try to make things easier for me, please don’t bother,” I told her. “The more real estate between us, the better.”
“What?” Jane was interrupted as the green phone logo popped up on the Council laptop screen. She grimaced and backed out of the room, securing the door behind her. With a deep sigh, I clicked the icon.
My parents’ faces appeared on the screen with a blip, and yet not their faces. My mother, always so careful with her jawline exercises and liberal application of La Mer moisturizer, had deep brackets etched around her mouth like unhappy parentheses. Her hair was still meticulously cut and dyed a deep sable, without a gray hair in sight, which only seemed to emphasize the unnatural lines of her face. Eleanor Somerfield had been nipped and tucked and pulled until she looked a little bit like that lady Muppet who played tambourine with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. And my dad? My father didn’t look well. His skin was sallow, and there were bags under his eyes that went far deeper than the usual “up all night worried about finances” lines I remembered from high school. His hair had g
rayed, and his shoulders were rounded. My parents, despite all of their efforts to prevent it, had gotten old. Or at least, my father had. My mother had become… something else.
“Oh, my God, she looks exactly the same!” my mother exclaimed, though her face didn’t move through her elation. “Graham, look! She’s exactly the same.”
Even without my gift, I could tell there was something wrong with the way she was phrasing it. She wasn’t excited to see me; she was excited to see that I still looked like a twenty-year-old version of me. There was a greedy sheen to her eyes—so like my own—that I could only remember seeing when she’d found a handbag she loved. She wanted something, badly, and one little video chat wasn’t going to satisfy her.
And suddenly I remembered that documentary I’d seen about Elizabeth Bathory, who’d supposedly bathed in the blood of teenagers to try to stay young. I sank back in my chair as if putting space between myself and the screen could protect me.
“I can see that, Eleanor,” my dad grumbled. “Hello, Bitsy. How are you?”
The paternal greeting didn’t do much to ease my nerves. Twenty years and he still wanted to call me by that idiotic nickname—which I’d never liked. There were literally dozens of abbreviations you could get from “Elizabeth,” and he’d picked the dumbest one. There was nothing close or affectionate about it. He only insisted on calling me “Bitsy” because his mother’s name was also Elizabeth and everybody called her Bitsy. He knew me so little that even my nickname had nothing to do with me.
I felt like I’d managed to lose control of the conversation, and I hadn’t even said a word.
I cleared my throat and tried to sound completely unaffected. “I’m doing well, Graham, and you?”
My dad’s eyebrows, now thickly threaded with gray, rose. “Since when do you call your father by his first name?”
“Since you stopped being a father to me. I could call you ‘Mr. Somerfield,’ if you prefer.” My voice was so icily polite, it gave even me the shivers.
“Oh, please don’t start, you two,” my mother pleaded. “We haven’t spoken in years, and you’re wasting this time bickering.”