Burning September (11 page)

Kyle Cavanaugh, though only an associate at the firm, had an hourly price tag of four hundred dollars.  Not something a flighty artist could easily afford, though I guess her sponsor’s money would help immensely. 

Nobody tell the idiot little sister shit, hmm?  Her baby ears can’t handle the truth.  Turn off the light, shut the door, lock it for good measure—she’ll crumble to pieces if she knew what was really going on.

I flung Caroline’s bedroom door open and yanked out her desk stool, sending a spool of lace ribbon spiraling to the carpet.  Inputted her Bank of America information once again.  Scrolled through the list of recent transactions, only to find there weren’t any. 

I flopped back in the swivel chair, one knee jiggling of its own accord.

Why would she leave out such important information when she’d never done so before?  I realized getting locked up in a mental ward was slightly unsettling, but she’d had ample time to come back to her senses.  Ample time to learn Russian, dream up smuggling ferret plans, counsel me on who I should be friends with, leave me inane voice messages and emails. Still pulling strings, even from a loony bin.  Still treating me like a child,
her
child, that ten-year-old orphan with a Barbie vanity. 

I tabbed backward through the months on the website, scrutinizing the account history.  Something I hadn’t done earlier, probably because of shock.  October, September, August.  The cash deposits started in August and ended in early September, totaling one hundred thousand dollars, which had been dumped into Caroline’s account to keep her measly one thousand one dollars and fifty-nine cents company. 

I kneaded my eyebrow, clicking from September to October to September again.  The only debits to the account came on the first of the months; the rent.  Nothing labeled Singer & Harrison, no large withdrawal for an attorney’s retainer, which I had come to understand were massive.  I suppose Kyle could have taken Caroline on in a pro bono capacity, but why the hell would he?  She didn’t know any lawyers, have any contacts in that realm. 

He could have seen her on television, found out about her charges that way, but it didn’t seem likely.  If that were the case, he’d have wanted to talk to her at length, and all Kyle wanted was to stay as far from her as he could, however long he could get away with it. 

I pushed back from her desk and accidentally coasted into her bed, which soon had me engulfed in thick clouds of dust.  I swatted the air, rising on unsteady feet.

In movies, hiding places are obvious.  Under the mattress.  Beneath the loose floorboard, hidden in the vent.  One nudge and there it is, the bag of meth, the burlap sack with a dollar sign imprinted upon it. 
Aha!
The detective will say. 
Light ‘em up, boys, we got a bad guy to arrest.
 

But at least those actors knew what they were searching for. 

I stared around Caroline’s bedroom, eyes scouring the obvious areas.  I doubted she’d have ever expected me to dig through her stuff—would she go the obvious route, keep things in her desk drawers? 

Two hours later, I’d overturned her mattress, emptied her closet, and pried off the vent, to find nothing but cobwebs.  Eventually I settled cross-legged on the floor, sifting through piles of yellowed notecards, stacks of tax information, letters of recommendation kept in boxes she’d painted and hot-glued pearls onto.  Thousands of pictures of us, ranging from when I was an infant to present-day.  Notebooks packed with school notes, old homework assignments, graded essays and research papers.  Clippings of articles she’d written for a variety of media outlets.  Nothing useful.  Nothing to turn on that light bulb over my head, let me know with sudden, chill certainty who’d given my sister such a massive sum of money.

I shoved the junk off my lap and hunched forward, ducking my head inside the deep desk cabinet, fingertips sweeping corner to corner, until my left index finger caught the corner of what felt like a stiff envelope.  It took some time to work it free, and I cleared a patch of carpet free from debris and dumped the contents out. 

Some of the documents were photocopied, others handwritten by Caroline and another person. 

The letters began one of two ways:
Dear Caroline
or
Dear Graham.
  I plucked one up at random, the beginnings of something which felt like dread slinking through my skin.

Dear Graham,

Kat had her first kiss yesterday.  Her partner in history, I guess, he just up and did it when they were in the courtyard going over their assignment notes.  She was so flustered telling me the story, like she couldn’t dream up a reason why or what had possessed him.  Ha.  Sounds familiar, right?  I never miss high school until she comes home with stories like that. 

We’re doing okay, but thanks for your concern.  I’ve got a few side jobs going right now, so things are tight but manageable.  The magazine has been giving me more exciting articles, no more puff pieces on shoes and whatnot.  I guess everyone’s got to start at the bottom, though. 

No, Mr. Brown, sir, not dating anyone, but thank you for your not-so-subtle inquiry.  (See, this is why phone calls would be better, you’d be able to hear my inflection and know I’m joking, and I wouldn’t have to get carpal tunnel explaining myself.)  I’m just keeping busy with work and Kat; those are more important than dating.  God, she’s going to be in college soon, the time really flies.  I don’t want her to have to bust her ass working through school the way I had to.  Jesus, do you know how much textbooks cost these days?  Those assholes change the editions slightly every year, and you can’t get the course without the current textbook, so you pay an arm and a leg for it, and by the time you try to sell it back to the university bookstore, they’ll only give you $39.50 when it cost $150.00.  Focusing on work will at least help me pay for some of her tuition when the time comes.  I don’t have a lot saved up, but I’ll get there eventually.

You must be thrilled it’s almost summer.  Finally get a break from helicopter parents and dumb students.  I’d lose my mind if I had to teach teenagers.  They’re all idiots except Kat, I’ve noticed, though recently I had to force her to change the title of one of her essays—it was
Emily Dickenson, Commit Suicide Already
.  Something tells me her English teacher wouldn’t have been as indulging as you were. 

Oh, and yes, I would love to get together some time, but it’ll have to be later in June; I’m not sure yet of the dates.  This is another shining example of why emails would be better (or handier), if less ‘romantic’ (read: old-fashioned).  And the hand cramps aren’t a barrel of laughs, either.  Sigh.  I’ll just have to suffer in (not-so) silence. 

I’ll call you when I figure out which weekend I’m free. 

Caroline.

My first kiss had been when I was fifteen, proving this letter was three years old.  I knew she’d corresponded with Mr. Brown after high school, but seeing the photocopied letter—lord only knew why she’d bothered making a copy of it to begin with—riddled with glossed-over details and lies, was unnerving.  Caroline almost always had dated someone, juggling the prospective suitor, work, and me quite easily.  She made no reference to romantic feelings toward Mr. Brown anytime I’d bothered to ask if that were the case, but there it was, in her own cursive. Piles of letters, proof of her deception. 

The prose didn’t feel like her.  It felt like her Caroline Representative.   

I shouldn’t have been surprised.  I’d seen her lie to men before, start relationships based off her needs and what they could give her, but something about seeing her writing, all the thought and foresight and calculation that must have gone into spinning this wreath of poisonous flowers and thorns made my heart plummet to my gut. 

This man was obsessed, hopelessly infatuated since he’d met her during her sophomore year, and she’d been using that ever since. 

Dear Caroline,

Nobody bothers with writing letters anymore.  It’s turning into an archaic thing, but I think you’re worth all the hand cramps in the world.

I hope your so-called side jobs aren’t working you to the bone.  I’m always here for you, whatever you need, whenever you need it.  It can’t be easy being a mother to a teenager at the tender age of twenty-three.  She must take after you, your sister, being completely puzzled a boy would pay her any attention.  You never had any idea about all the heads you turned, all the love poems you must have inspired. From the pictures you’ve sent, she seems well on her way to being exactly the same way.

The setting of her first kiss is all too familiar.  A deserted courtyard, late in the school year.  It took me a long time to work up the courage.  You’d laugh if you knew the depths of it all.

I have to confess I’ve been clipping all the articles you’ve written, subscribed to the newspapers and magazines—flawless.  You must have a decent editor, or maybe you’re just that good.  I have a feeling it’s the latter.  Have you been doing the freelance photography thing as well?  I’d hope so, especially with all the praise Burning September got. 

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time on that novel I’m working on.  Maybe when I’ve finished you’d be interested in reading it.  I’m sure you’ll find a lot of parallels, but I hear you’re supposed to write what you know. 

I look forward to your call.

Always,

Graham.

I supposed it would turn into some bastardized version of
Lolita
, this novel he’d been working on, fraught with alleged angst and morality issues, but with none of Nabokov’s talent.  Turning my sister into the slutty schoolgirl who’d been begging for it.  Sucking lollipops, twisting her pigtails.  Caroline had been in high school when I was so young, unable to remember or comprehend any clues or signs of this little affair.  I just remembered her bedtime stories, the way her skin smelled when she tucked me in.  How she’d tell me I could be anything I wanted when I grew up, but all I ever wanted to be was her.

He’d be there for her, whatever she needed, whenever she needed it, would he?  The cash deposits made a little more sense. 

I spread the letters out, tried to put them in chronological order based on small details and timelines, and in doing so, I realized why she’d made copies of her letters.  So she’d remember her lies. 

***

A knock pounded behind my front door that evening, interrupting the pouring of my third mojito.  I didn’t have to wonder who it was.  The three missed calls from Kyle made it pretty clear. 

I flung the door open.  He stood there, leaning his weight against the arm he’d propped against the doorjamb. 

“You bastard.”

He offered a grim smile.  “I’m sorry.”

“I’d believe it if you weren’t smiling.  Maybe.”

“I couldn’t tell you.  Legally, I couldn’t.”

I turned on the heel of my plastic flip-flop, swilling the mojito before taking another sip.  “You didn’t have to let me believe you were a public defender.”

Slow footsteps and the small
click
of the door shutting came from behind me, but I didn’t turn around.  Just stared at a low-slung red sun through the glass doors of the back patio, the surrounding condos, humming and buzzing through thick humid air flies seemed to get stuck in, the glint of televisions against windows. 

“If I told you I wasn’t a public defender you would have asked more questions I couldn’t answer.  It was lose-lose either way.”

“Who’s paying your bill?”

He sighed.  “I can’t tell you that, either.  Take it up with the bar, not me.”

“Good thing I already have an idea.  The only part I don’t understand is why you’re not drawing payment from Caroline’s account.  She’s got a lot of money in there.  So why would Graham Brown pay you directly?”

“It’s not a question I’d ask.  All that matters is there’s someone to pay the bill when the time comes.”  The
thud
following his words made me think he’d dropped his briefcase in the foyer.  “Are you just mad you didn’t know?  A lot of people would be reassured, even happy.  Public defenders don’t generally inspire relief.  I don’t have a million clients to keep track of, an overbooked schedule.  I’m able to devote a lot of time to this case, to your sister. Which is what I thought you wanted.”

“What I want is for people to stop treating me like a child.  I stopped being a child a long time ago.”

“I’ve never treated you that way.”

“Yes, you have.  Not in the same way Caroline has, I’ll grant you, but you have.  Playing semantics, bringing me to singles’ night at the goddamn Chili’s.  I’m not a preschooler you take on field trips.” 

He cleared his throat loudly, but didn’t speak.   I carried on staring out the window until his non-response started to piss me off even more.  When I turned, he was loosening his tie, eyebrows lost in his hairline, wrinkles slashed into his forehead.

“I’m sorry if you felt like I was playing semantics, but those types of things have their importance in murder trials.  Yes, I asked you to meet me at Chili’s, knowing full well what would be going on there, but I did it for a reason, which was to get you to loosen up.  Maybe we’ve got drastically different senses of humor, but I find those things wildly amusing, and thought you might, too.  I’d say sue me, but that would be the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit.”