"I haven"t seen you here before," the guy said. "I"m Nigel, by the way."
"Zee," she replied. "I come in here often enough. We must"ve missed each other."
"My loss," Nigel said, staring deeply into her eyes.
I wanted to laugh behind my hand, but I didn"t dare with Zee sitting so close. Drew cleared his throat loudly.
Zee rolled her eyes. "Sorry. Nigel, these are my friends. Drew you probably already know because he"s such a legendary pain in the a.s.s around these parts. That"s Saylor, and the dude next to you is Pierce."
Nigel nodded at each of us in turn. When he saw Pierce, he said, "Aw, man. Let me guess-bronchitis?"
Pierce shook his head, his eyes twinkling above his mask. "Nah. Just a touch of AIDS."
Nigel did a huff-laugh thing and looked around at the rest of us to see if Pierce was joking. "AIDS," he said wonderingly.
Here it comes, I thought. The hasty retreat. From Zee"s expression, I could tell she was thinking the same thing.
"Yep," Pierce replied. "Full-blown AIDS." It was like he was rubbing it in, daring Nigel to make a run for it. He put his elbows on the table and the sleeves on his sweater slid up, exposing the matrix of tumors on the underside of his forearm. He didn"t seem to notice Drew"s glare or Zee"s resigned slouching.
"Man, that sucks." Nigel took a swig of his beer. "I volunteered for the local AIDS organization downtown last semester." He blew out a breath. "Talk about intense."
Zee unslouched and preened a bit at Pierce, as if to say, See? He didn"t run off. He likes me and you aren"t going to ruin that.
"Really?" Pierce replied. "That"s cool. What did you do for them, exactly?"
"I helped their case manager. Every time I saw a dude or a chick around my age, I"d just be thinking, "Man, I am so f.u.c.king lucky." " He looked at Zee, waving his beer around as he talked. "You know? I mean, those sad b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. All skin and bone, struggling for each breath." He shook his head, caught Pierce"s eye. I saw his face pale just the slightest bit. "But obviously, that"s not how you are, man," he said, laughing nervously. "You look great." I saw him take in Pierce"s pale skin, his slender wrists with the bones jutting out like big white beads, the smattering of purple tumors like a constellation across his skin.
We stared at Nigel.
He clutched the pocket of his pants suddenly and stood. "Oh man, my phone"s vibrating," he said, not looking at any of us. "I gotta go. Nice meeting you all, though."
When he was gone, Zee sighed. "That"s how you can tell the ones who can"t cut it in our world, you know," she said to me. "Pity. They try to drown us in it."
Pierce took a sip of his drink. "They never last, do they?"
Chapter Twenty-Seven.
I decided to take a cab home because I could tell Zee was tired, even if she wouldn"t admit it. I finally pretended to have to stop by Walmart to pick up some late-night snacks so she could leave without feeling guilty. Pierce rode with her.
Drew waited with me as I stood on the sidewalk outside, letting the snow dust my head and shoulders.
"You look good in snow," he said, casually twining his hand with mine.
I laughed, my cheeks heating up as I tipped my head back to look at him. "Are you drunk?"
He stepped in closer, blocking out the streetlight that glowed orange in my eyes. "Maybe just a little tipsy." He smiled. "I really meant what I sang in there."
"Which part?" My words were just a breath, curling into the air.
He brought his head down to mine, so our noses were almost touching, and sang softly: And then you beckoned, said, "Come with me"
I followed without a word...
"Cause your eyes, they"re secret, so hidden, so dark And your lips, they tremble with the words of your heart Emotional awareness wasn"t my strong suit. I didn"t know what about those lyrics resounded with me so much. What I did know was that there was something in Drew"s voice as he sang, something knowing, that reached out and touched every one of my secrets. Those words seemed to have been written about me, about us, about our impossible meeting.
I wasn"t one of those girls who cried at every emotional thing they saw or heard; I"d never been that way. That might"ve explained why, when the tears cascaded down onto my cheeks, I felt with my fingers to see what the h.e.l.l was going on with my eyes.
"Hey," Drew said, catching one of the tears with a fingertip. "Are you okay?"
I opened my mouth to say I was, but all that came out was a sort of sob-hiccup, and more tears. Drew responded by putting his hand around my waist, pulling me to him, and covering my mouth with his.
I"d like to say that in that moment, I kept my head. That, in spite of feeling safer than I"d ever felt before, in spite of feeling more loved than I ever thought I had any right to feel, I remembered that I was lying to him. I wish I could say I was mindful of the fact that my entire existence in his life was only because of a huge untruth, and that I intended to extricate myself from him and the rest of the group. I"d like to say that I stopped the kiss.
But in that instance, the only thing I felt, the only thing that mattered, was how hard I was falling for Andrew Dean.
I was falling for this scared, lonely, broken, brave man who sang songs about wearing masks and chance meetings and secrets, who lulled me into a whole new universe using nothing but his voice. I wanted him, all of him, and I pretended that I belonged. It was the biggest lie I"d told up to that point, and for someone whose entire life was carved out of lies of different colors and shades and shapes, that was saying a lot.
When a horn rang out in the stillness of the night, we broke apart.
"Someone called a cab?" the driver said, smirking out of his window.
"Yes." I turned back around to look at Drew. "I have to go."
He put his finger on one of my eyebrows, just a featherlight touch. "Can I see you again tomorrow?"
I nodded because I couldn"t speak.
When I got home, I had absolutely no recollection of the journey there. The cab ride was spent in a sort of cotton candy time bubble, soft and sweet. I kept replaying Drew singing the song to me, the way he"d held me closer, kissing me in the snow.
I paid the driver and walked into the house. The lights were on in the living room and the kitchen. I was pretty sure I"d turned them off before heading out.
"Dad?" I looked around, but I could already see that the place was empty. He was probably still upstairs in his study. Why had he left all the lights blazing? It was Mum"s pet peeve, the waste of power. I turned to the fridge to get myself a bottle of water when I saw the note.
Saylor, Had to go to police station. Back soon.
Dad The police station? I checked the time on my cell phone: a little past midnight. Why the h.e.l.l would my dad go there at this time of night? Even though he was a criminal defense attorney, his clients were high profile enough that they bypa.s.sed the whole "lowlife sitting in a jail cell" phase and went straight to the "meet with my four-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorney at a five-star restaurant" one.
I went upstairs, but the door to my parents" room was open and the lights were off. Mum wasn"t back from wherever she went either. I took my cell phone out and texted her.
Dad went to the police station. Is everything okay?
I waited, but there was no reply. After a full ten minutes, I texted my dad to ask him the same question. Again, there was no answer. I felt my palms begin to tingle. Something was very wrong. I had a creeping feeling along the skin of my arms and legs, like I always did before I had to undergo a painful medical procedure of some kind. I had this inherent sense of something unpleasant coming, something undesirable that I lacked the power to stop.
I considered texting Drew, just to talk to him, to let him rea.s.sure me, but I didn"t want to unburden on him so soon. I felt bad texting Zee because she"d looked exhausted at Sphinx. And to be honest, I didn"t know her that well.
Is that the truth? a voice inside me said mockingly. Isn"t the real reason that you don"t want to use them? Because you know you"ve already done enough damage simply by being in their lives. But I really wasn"t in a mood to entertain the voice right then. So I went into my room and pulled out my book on multiple sclerosis. I had some reading to catch up on anyway.
Symptoms a patient diagnosed with MS could expect: Dizziness Numbness Tingling Tremors Fatigue Slurred speech Blurred vision I didn"t think I"d have too many problems pretending-most of these occurred when you fell in love. And if I wasn"t there yet, I knew I was perilously close.
I heard the front door open and stood up to see what was going on.
"Jesus Christ. It"s a f.u.c.king nightmare." Dad, and he sounded more p.i.s.sed than I"d ever heard him sound.
"Well, it"s not your nightmare." Mum, her voice completely flat, like a sheet of aluminum foil.
"Actually, it is. You"ve made it my nightmare. Do you have any idea how this looks for me?"
I heard Mum coming up the stairs, and I stepped back into my room, out of sight. She shuffled by me, her clothes rumpled, her hair beginning to frizz. I"d never seen her look so... downtrodden. I tasted the word on my tongue, like a bitter pill that didn"t belong. My mother was cold, sleek, beautiful, marble. "Downtrodden" wasn"t a word you"d ever use to describe her. Not usually.
I heard Dad banging away, opening and closing drawers. He was probably pouring himself a drink. He was a Jack Daniel"s guy when things got really bad or really good. The last time was after he won a case that allowed him to buy his second boat, The Kindred Spirit. He"d been crazy about it for a week afterward, and then hadn"t ever talked about going out on it again. I didn"t know if he even still had it.
I came out of my room and turned left, meaning to go talk to Mum. Her bedroom door was closed. I knocked softly and opened it.
The lights were all off, but I knew she was in there because I could smell her tea rose perfume. Only this time, it seemed to be soured by something tangy and metallic. Fear?
In the light from the hallway, I saw their enormous four-poster bed in the corner. The all-white covers were virtually undisturbed except for a small lump on the left side, where my mother lay, buried under the comforter.
"Mum?" I stepped forward. It was cold in there; colder than in the other parts of the house. "Mum, are you okay?"
There was a long silence, and I thought she was going to ignore me. But then she turned over. I could just make out her face in the dim light. She was on her back now. "Yes. I"m fine."
"What happened? I got Dad"s note, that he was at the police station. I... I texted you guys." I didn"t want to sound needy. Nothing drove her away faster than the stench of my neediness.
A sigh. She sat up, turned on her bedside lamp, and took a sip of water from the gla.s.s on her nightstand. "We were busy. I"m sorry we didn"t respond straight away, but there are some things more important than you, darling."
It stung, as she"d known it would. "I know that, I just wanted to-"
"I got charged with a DWI." She said it like she was flinging stones at me. Her words were quick and hard, her chin thrust out, her eyes holding mine.
I waited for the punch line. "DWI. That"s not, um..."
She sighed again and put the gla.s.s to her forehead, as if the pain of dealing with a stupid daughter was too much to bear. "Driving While Intoxicated. Yes. It"s the same thing as a DUI, just a different acronym." She set the gla.s.s down, looked at me, her eyes bright and cold. "Anything else you fancy asking dear Mum?"
I wanted to ask a million other things. What was she thinking? I mean surely, surely they had the wrong person. Mum, in her cashmere and pearls, with a DWI. It didn"t add up. Drunk drivers were those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who killed perfect families of four and ruined lives. They wore wifebeaters and actually beat their wives. They were rednecks, uneducated and poor. They weren"t lawyers" wives who a.s.sembled dollhouses for fun and played Bunco on Sat.u.r.day nights.
But I just shook my head. "No." The word came out a whisper, floated to the floor like a feather. I took a step back, then another.
My mother turned out the lamp, plunging us into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight.
Early the next morning, I made my way downstairs. I"d barely been able to sleep the night before, tossing and turning, examining the words in my head: DWI. Alcoholic. My mum. It didn"t make any sense.
I found Dad at the breakfast nook, staring at Mum"s newest not-yet-a.s.sembled dollhouse and drinking his health juice. He looked up as I walked in, and he offered me a wan smile.
"I never got her hobby," he said. "Fixing up dollhouses, painting them, and then throwing them away. Why go through all the trouble?"
I shook my head. "Is it true? About the DWI?"
He took a long drink and then looked at me. "Yes," he said simply.
It felt like a punch to my stomach again. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. "What... what are they going to do? Will she have to go to jail?"
"No. It"s her first offense and she"s got a h.e.l.l of a lawyer." The smile that flashed on his face fell off just as quickly. "They"re going to suspend her license and she"ll have to take some cla.s.ses. Show them she can handle her drinking, that sort of thing."
Handle her drinking. Isn"t that what drunks said? I can handle my drinking. I can stop when I want. It was like the worst, most cliched joke in the book.
On the counter, Dad"s phone buzzed. I was closer to it, so I looked at the screen. It said Preston.
"Someone named Preston," I said, handing the phone over.
"Christ," Dad muttered. "The guy can"t take no for an answer."
"Who is it?" I remembered Mum and Dad arguing about a Noah Preston earlier.
"Some liberal a.s.shole lawyer who wants a meeting with me to discuss HB 798. He wants me to withdraw support for it. Claims it infringes on the civil rights of the common criminal." HB 798, a legislative initiative spearheaded by my father and a few other lawmakers, had become something of a hot-b.u.t.ton topic in our community. It dealt with extended rights for white-collar criminals, many of whom my dad represented. Some people, apparently like Noah Preston, felt it was biased against lower-income prisoners. Obviously my dad and his clients refused to entertain that notion. He snorted and stood, palming his gla.s.s. "Not going to happen. I"ll be in my study."
I wondered if he should be drinking if Mum wasn"t going to be allowed to anymore. Shouldn"t he quit in a show of solidarity? But my parents were never solid about anything. They were amorphous when it came to our family, floating around the house to the corners where there was the most s.p.a.ce, the most emptiness.
I went back up to my room and slid out the book on multiple sclerosis. Playing with the curling edge of one of my bandages, I began to read.
A half hour later my phone buzzed, rattling against my nightstand, and I jolted awake. I must"ve fallen asleep reading. My heart seemed to know who it was before my brain caught up-it thrummed like a hummingbird"s wings.
Good morning. Sleep well?
Drew. I smiled, even though my mind flashed with a picture of Mum in bed, telling me she"d been arrested for drunk driving.
Yeah. You?