The Big Rewind

by Libby Cudmore

  By the time I hung up the phone, I was sweating and shaking. I had no idea how I was going to tell him, but I knew I didn’t want to do it over the phone. I wanted to go to Binghamton, meet him in person, hand him the tape and tell him I was sorry. He loved KitKat. He deserved better than a disembodied voice on the other end of the line.

  A FEW HOURS later I was making some pierogies and was surprised to see George Parker Lennox’s office phone number ringing my line.

  “This is George,” a voice with a slight lisp said. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Jett Bennett, I’m a friend of KitKat’s,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I have nothing to say,” he said.

  “Can we please meet?” I begged. “It’s really important.”

  “When?” he demanded.

  “Next Saturday?” I just hoped Sid didn’t have plans he couldn’t cancel.

  George was silent for a minute, and I held my breath. “The Belmar,” he finally said. “Nine o’clock Saturday night. And if you say anything to my wife, I’ll tell her that it’s a senior prank and call the cops.” With that, he hung up.

  My next call was to Sid. But before I explained the situation, he had explaining of his own to do. “Where did you go last night?” I asked. “You missed my set.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I just stepped outside for a minute; I wasn’t feeling good. Something I ate, I’m sure, but what I heard was great.”

  I didn’t believe him. I don’t know if he really expected me too. “George says we can meet Saturday,” I said. “Can you get the car?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “Cinderella’s doing a show Friday night, but we could go up Saturday morning. I’ll see what Terry wants in exchange and let you know later.”

  Fucking Cinderella. I was about to have the most awkward, awful conversation of my life and all he could think about was a lap dance. “Fine,” I said. “Meet me at my place at noon.”

  My phone buzzed the minute I hung up. I was popular today. A text from Natalie: Benefit raised enough for bail, Bronco’s out Friday!!!! she wrote. ES Sat. to CELEBRATE!!!

  I sure as hell couldn’t drive to the worst day of GPL’s life on an empty stomach. I texted her back and agreed. There was always time for brunch.

  Chapter 26

  GIMME THE GOODS

  I didn’t hear from Sid for another two days and when he did finally call, he had an ominous request.

  “I need you to go to Chinatown with me,” he said. “Terry wants us to score him some Oxy for a party he’s throwing while we’re away. It’s his condition for letting me use the car.”

  “He can’t get it himself?” I asked. I’d rather just give Terry the money. Hell, I’d rather blow him—at least if I got caught, I wouldn’t have a felony possession charge fucking up my life.

  “He doesn’t trust anyone but this girl who won’t return his calls.”

  “And how do we know this isn’t some sort of setup?”

  Sid sighed and I braced myself for whatever he had to say. “Gloria’s one of the dancers from Fairy Tales,” he said. “She knows me. She’ll get the Oxy for us; all we have to do is pick it up and pay her. As long as she doesn’t know it’s for him, she’ll play. Terry told me to tell her it’s for you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you don’t have insurance,” he said. “I’ve got health care, I could get my own damn pain pills. Terry said she cut him off when she figured out he was using it recreationally, but he insists that you haven’t played Mario Kart 64 until you’ve played while wasted on Oxy.”

  “He thought of everything,” I snorted. “Are you sure she won’t narc you out to your Cinderella?”

  I could hear him roll his eyes through the phone. “Do you want to go to Binghamton or not?” he snapped.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”

  SID AND I went over our plan in vague whispers on the subway: I fell down some stairs, clinic only gave me Tylenol, just a few until the swelling comes down. I took his hand and he guided me past stalls where men whispered, Gucci, gold watch, perfume, and women pleaded, Jewelry, Blu-ray, iPhone. Three weeks ago, my friend Birdie from MetroReaders had her phone stolen, and some cheap dope probably purchased it from a booth like this, fully convinced that the low price and dimly lit stall made for a completely legitimate place of business, that the $200 paid for their latest-generation iPhone was proof of smart bargaining skills and not the culmination of material heartbreak. I double-checked to make sure my purse was zipped, not that my two-year-old brick of a phone would fetch a very high price, unless there was some irony black market I was unaware of.

  Sid periodically checked his phone and followed Terry’s directions toward a game store on Mott Street, up a dimly lit flight of stairs to apartment 2B. He knocked four times. “Try to limp a little,” he whispered.

  A chunky blonde with round tits and too-big sweatpants answered the door with neon eyes and a smile you could have sold toothpaste with. “Hi, Sid,” she said with a Jersey honk. “I got the dumplings you asked for. You said ten, right?”

  I had a momentary panic. Were we going to have to sit and eat takeout with this woman? I just wanted to get our drugs and get out. I was a proud DARE graduate; I had sewn the shirt into my T-shirt quilt. I’d only tried pot once and hated it, yet here I was, about to purchase a fistful of illegal pain pills from a stripper. I’d never even seen Oxy.

  “This your friend?” she asked, gesturing us inside.

  “Yeah,” he said. “This is Jett—she really screwed up her knee and the docs at the clinic won’t give her anything more than ibuprofen.”

  I nodded. “Fell down some subway stairs.”

  “Been there,” she said as we followed her into the kitchen. It didn’t look like a drug den. It looked more like a funky apartment from a TV show: no doors but the front and the bathroom, with beaded curtains dividing the kitchen and the bedroom and bright green curtains in all the windows. The walls were that same beige of all cheap studios, but she’d garnished them with eighties movie posters: Dirty Dancing, The Breakfast Club, and, of course, Flashdance. She caught me looking and smirked. “I took a day off from my welding job to meet you guys,” she joked.

  She reached up into the cabinet, revealing the V of a lime-green G-string as she pulled down a bottle of pills. “You want some coffee or something?” she asked, doling ten out into her hand. “You might need it, these things will knock you flat—a little caffeine will even you out.”

  “I’m all right, thanks,” I said. “I’ll wait until I get home.”

  “Good plan,” she said, lighting up a cigarette. “There’s nothing quite as terrifying as being on painkillers on the subway.” She held the pack out to me and I was strangely tempted to take one. I didn’t smoke, but in the two minutes we’d been there, she’d already offered us two amenities. This wasn’t just some anonymous drug buy, this was hospitality, a chance to sit and chat with strangers in the hopes that you might become friends. She would have fit in perfectly on Barter Street.

  “You gotta be careful with that stuff,” she said, gesturing with her smoke. “I busted up my knee playing softball in college. Slid into home, won the game, but I had to be carried off the field. I keep some around still, just in case I have a bad night at the club. Helps pay the bills when I get the early morning legs-and-eggs shift. Those guys don’t pay shit.”

  “Where’d you go to college?” I asked, ashamed that I could hear surprise in my voice.

  She pointed to the framed degree hanging over the sink. “Indiana University at Bloomington,” she said.

  “How’d you end up here?” I asked.

  “America’s Teachers,” she said. “Oh, they promise you a nice master’s from NYU, all expenses paid, then stick you in some shithole public school as an assistant, slash your hours until you quit, then demand the money back. It’s indentured servitude.” She stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray.
“I prefer stripping, actually. Or I did, until Cinderella showed up.” She laughed another grim little laugh, all the sadness in the world flickering across her face. I didn’t know what she was expecting—company, a friendly chat, maybe dim sum later—but I felt sudden sorrow for her. She seemed so fragile and alone as she lit another cigarette with shaking hands. “Now she gets all the good ones—like Sid here—and I get the creeps like Terry.”

  Sid shifted in his chair, and it took me a moment to remember that he was sitting right there. “Guess we’d better get going,” he muttered.

  She took a drag and exhaled like a deflating balloon. “Sure,” she said. “Yeah, I’ve got to get ready for work. Hell, I’ll probably see you there.”

  As if he didn’t know what else to do, Sid took out his wallet and slowly counted out the bills. “Just put it on the table,” she said, moving to the sink to tap out her ash. “Hope you feel better, Jett.”

  I almost didn’t want to leave. I knew that sadness of hers all too well. It was a melancholy most people never feel, an understanding that this was not how the world was supposed to be. All the Girl Scout badges, the Very Special Episodes, and honor societies couldn’t prepare you for the cold hard truth of life—that you get used up, you get kicked around, that sometimes it all just sucks and there’s not a damn thing you can do but live through it. The only truth she seemed to have taken away was that, just like in high school, the pretty girl got all the good guys. Amen, sister.

  Chapter 27

  PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE

  The entire crowd of Egg School went silent when Bronco and Bryce walked in Saturday morning. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d gotten out on Friday and there was something different about him. It wasn’t prison ink or west-yard muscles—not after only two weeks—or the drug-monitoring ankle bracelet bulging under his skinny jeans. It was the way he carried himself, as though he was holding a SWAT shield.

  Mac gestured them over to our table and patted him on the back. “Good to have you home again.”

  “For now,” he said. “I’ve still got the trial to get through.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Bryce said. “They’ll find him not guilty.”

  I wondered if that meant that Bronco had finally given them his alibi, if this was his way of coming out. If so, he deserved a party with a rainbow cake, like my friend Chris had gotten when he’d made his big announcement our sophomore year of college. But if a courthouse admission was what would keep Bronco out of jail, we could have the cake another day.

  “You’ve got better faith in the system than I do,” Bronco muttered.

  Natalie gave him a side-hug and smiled. “We’ll worry about that when the time comes—how’s the real world treating you?”

  Before we could get an answer, an iced latte hit the back of Bronco’s head and splattered all over our table, ruining the French toast plate I was treating myself to.

  “Murderer!” came Brandi’s unmistakable snarl.

  Bronco whirled out of his seat like a cowboy called coward and faced his assailant, who was sitting at a back table with Jylle, who huffed her polka-dotted ass out of her chair. “I don’t want to eat in a place that serves misogynistic murderers,” she sneered, picking up a muffin and heaving it at him. “Take your order to go, asshole!”

  “Leave him alone!” Bryce yelled.

  “What, you think it’s okay for a guy to beat a woman’s head in?” said Jylle. “Take it back to Reddit, you men’s rights activist!”

  Bronco covered his face with a menu and shrank into his seat like he was trying to disappear. iPhones came out to record the whole thing, but no one else stood up to take sides. These were the same people who last week couldn’t wait to put a ten-spot into Bronco’s defense fund; now they were more willing to live-tweet the fight than stand up against it.

  “Enough!” Lovelle shouted from the counter. To Bronco, she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “What?” I asked. “They attack us and we have to leave?”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” said Randy. “But if you’re going to make people uncomfortable, we’ll have to ask you to go someplace else.”

  “Fuck no!” Natalie said, grabbing Bronco’s hand. “Those twats started this shit, they can pack it up in their snatch and scram.”

  “They’ve already got their food,” Lovelle said.

  “No,” Bryce said, holding up a gluten-free, egg-free, casein-free muffin. “We’ve got their food.”

  I stood up. I was done watching people—the girl on the subway, Gloria, and now Bronco—get shat all over just for the sake of those who felt like shitting. I was sick of seeing people get kicked around—by jerks, by cops, by neighbors they trusted because rumors made better Facebook updates. I was tired, really fucking tired, of the you-vs.-us one-upping mentality of this bullshit neighborhood. But most of all, I was furious that these trust-fund bimbos had ruined the one nice meal I was going to have all week, the breakfast with my friends before I had to give a stranger the worst news of his life. Jylle and Brandi could snort cocaine off fifteen-dollar French toast any day. My last meal didn’t matter to them. “We were here before them,” I snarled. “Those bitches ruined my French toast!”

  “Then why don’t you go back to your kitchen and make more, you patriarchal whore!” Brandi snarled.

  “Why don’t you eat a bag of dicks?” Natalie shot back. “Oh wait, your daddy left, so much for that idea!”

  Mac gave her a high five. It was a retort I wished I’d come up with, but before I could generate any follow-up, Bronco gestured to Bryce. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go.”

  “I’ll wrap up something, free of charge,” Lovelle tried.

  “Don’t bother,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Save your food for the customers you really value.”

  Mac, Natalie, and I gathered up our jackets. “I’m not paying for that,” I said, pointing to my ruined French toast. “Tasted like ass anyways.”

  Chapter 28

  COUNTING BACK TO 1

  I still hadn’t eaten by the time Sid pulled up in front of my building in Terry’s green Volkswagen. I huffed myself into the car and he passed me a cup of coffee.

  “I heard all about it,” he said. “Mac’s already called a boycott on Egg School that’s got about two hundred ‘likes,’ and Natalie Instagrammed a lovely photo of your ruined breakfast. Looks like a destroyed morning straight out of the seventies.”

  I was grateful for the coffee, but his chipperness about the whole awful mess made me want to strangle him. He reached into a brown bag in his lap and pulled out a maple-frosted doughnut. “I know it’s not French toast, but I hope it’ll do.”

  The doughnut made me forgive him. I took a bite and balanced it on my knee while I peeled back the tab on my coffee and took a grateful slurp.

  “I went ahead and booked us a room at the Marriott on the Vestal Parkway,” he continued. “I wish you’d let me go with you to meet him.”

  “I doubt he’ll want an audience,” I said, my mouth full of doughnut. “It’s kind of a private thing.”

  Sid sighed. “So what do you think you’ll say?” he asked.

  I finished the doughnut and took a sip of coffee. “Not sure yet,” I admitted. “My gut tells me it wasn’t him or Bronco, but I don’t know anything about the wife. Still, I found that tape, I listened to it, and the least I can do is be the one to tell him that she’s dead. If he can fill me in, that’s great, but if not, well, he deserved to get the bad news in person.”

  I drank my coffee and stared out the window. The truth was that I wanted to give up, go home, forget the whole thing. Bronco had a good lawyer and cops on TV always got the bad guy in the end. I was not Detective Olivia Benson. I was not Vic Mackey. I was just a dumb girl with a mix tape and a dead friend who wanted to believe there was some justice in a world that seemed so utterly fucking devoid of it.

  Sid reached over and put his hand on my knee. “You know,
Binghamton has a bunch of carousels,” he said. “They’re free, all six of them. Maybe we can go ride a few before we leave.”

  “Maybe,” I said. But it wasn’t the promise of carousels that took my mind off what was yet to come. It was Sid’s long fingers spread out over my knee, a gesture warm and delicate and tender. Sid and I had always had a generous friendship when it came to the physical, leaning against each other during a movie, him touching my waist to pass me in a narrow room, me reaching for his hand in a loud drunk crowd, but I found myself imagining his fingers moving up my thighs, between my legs, inside my panties. I sank into the seat and exhaled luxuriously.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  I snapped upright and suddenly remembered where I was, fumbling for an explanation. “Yeah, sorry, just got thinking about what I’m going to say.”

  He must have bought it, but he drifted from me anyway, reaching over to massage the screen of his phone. “I made us a couple of traveling mixes,” he said. “They’re not tapes, but it beats having to listen to Clear Channel play Rihanna once an hour.”

  He put on the Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” and within the first few notes, I was instantly transported back to my friend Amy’s teenage bedroom, flannel pajamas and raccoon eyeliner, waiting half an hour to download and print grainy pinups of Brendan Fraser off AOL, turning up the CD player to block out the sound of her sister, Emily, banging on the door, demanding we quit tying up the phone line.

  “Haven’t heard this one in a while,” I said. “My ex–best friend always said she wanted this played at her wedding.”

  “Why is she your ex?”

  “Because she slept with my boyfriend Ryan.” After she’d given up her freshman-year dream of marrying Brendan Fraser, she began to join us on casual dates, and Ryan always laughed extra hard at her jokes, gave her the last slice of pizza, and joined her in ganging up against me in an argument. It wasn’t until he offered to drive her home one night and didn’t come back for an hour, and only then with his sweater on inside out, that I, not being completely stupid, figured out what they were up to. Call it the first case I ever solved—the Mystery of the Missing Boyfriend. I told her she could have him and never spoke to either of them again.