House Broken (16 page)

ELLA

Q
uestion: What's gray and brown and lies on the floor?

Answer: Ella, because she feels like a shit.

When she found out Nana put the vodka in the iced tea, Ella pretty much blamed her mom. But a few days floated by, and she did a little thinking about the situation, taking a look at it from more than just her point of view. Radical, huh? Like the wordstorm, where things could line up in unexpected ways, where a word took on a surprising meaning just because it drifted past at the right time. Yup, it happened.

Ella grew a conscience.

Let's face it. She knew there was shady business between Charlie and Nana because he had an iPhone and new video games and, oh yeah, a big spanky amplifier. And she saw him at the
liquor store, buying porno mags, but only a moron wouldn't think he used that connection to get booze for Nana later. So she could totally have stopped all of this from raining down on her head if she'd done the right thing and told her parents about it. But she didn't, because she had broken a few rules herself—including sneaking out to that party where kids were so wasted it wasn't funny. (And she still wasn't feeling so great about driving into the city and denting the truck. Guilt didn't seem to wither with time the way she'd hoped. Was that the purpose of fessing up? If only her family were Catholic!)

But the main reason her conscience was ballooning inside her and threatening to choke out her last gasp of I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass was because she hadn't taken care of her brother. He sold porno, bought booze, cheated in school, smoked weed, and probably charged a lot more to Nana's credit card than she ever knew, and what had Ella done about it? What? Nothing? No, worse? Used it to cover her own tracks? Yeah.

Then the icing on the cake. At lunch yesterday, her friend Megan tells her she saw Charlie in the park near the community center with two older guys she didn't know. Megan was playing hide-and-seek with the kids she was babysitting, and neither Charlie nor the other guys knew she was under the picnic table when they walked by. She heard Charlie working his magic to get a better price on some skittles. Ella didn't know what that was.

Megan said, “Me neither. I googled it. It's Ecstasy.”

Ella asked her three times if she was sure she heard it right. Megan said she was, and looked really sad and scared. Ella's skin went all prickly and she couldn't finish her sandwich.

The Prince was her brother. He'd been there, in her life, for as long as she could remember. He made her laugh more than anyone
else, except maybe Diesel, and he wasn't that bad a kid. At least not until recently. High school wasn't designed to bring out the best in people, that was for sure, and because she wasn't looking out for him, he was on a slide.

So she made a resolution, because that's what people with consciences do. She resolved to tell her parents everything she knew or suspected about Charlie. She hadn't quite decided whether she would come clean about her own little slipups. There was no point in planning these things out too carefully. She'd play that one by ear.

And because Charlie was her brother, she was going to cut him one last break. Tomorrow was the Battle of the Bands, so she'd wait until that was over to spill the beans. Her mom wasn't home anyway, even though it was ten o'clock, and she really wanted to tell her parents at the same time. That way if one of them went ballistic—say, her mom—she could duck behind the other one.

So tomorrow Charlie would get to use his amp and be a rock star and stand next to Rosa the Hottie before his world came crashing down. For his own good. For real.

GENEVA

G
eneva read the monitor a second time, hoping her flight's status had miraculously changed from “delayed” back to “on time.” It hadn't. She walked briskly to the gate counter and asked the attendant if there was an alternate flight that might get her to San Francisco around the time of the scheduled arrival.

“Not a chance. It's fogged in up there. Welcome to summer.”

The new arrival time would put her in the thick of commuter traffic, but there was nothing she could do. She found a seat, pulled her phone out of her bag and was surprised to see two missed calls from Tom. She'd silenced her phone at the museum and hadn't expected his calls since she was supposedly at work. As she debated whether to call him, the phone warbled. Dublin.

“Hi. Were your boys impressed with Paris?”

“Distinctly underwhelmed. Whit said it was better when she was a myth.”

“I don't remember her being so . . .”

“Imperious? Self-important? Obnoxious?”

She laughed. “Yes. And she had some pretty strange answers to my questions about Mom and her. I felt like Bilbo Baggins talking to Gollum.”

“Do tell.”

“Hmm. I'm going to think about it first, okay?”

“You're the boss. Listen, I called about something else. Does Mom have a new iPhone?”

“I don't think so. Why?”

“I picked up her mail on the way home and there was a credit card statement showing that, plus some other weird charges.”

“Like what?”

“A few Amazon purchases for forty or fifty bucks. Doesn't say what for. And an eight-hundred-dollar one to an electronics warehouse.”

“Electronics? Do you think we should contact the fraud department?”

“Yup. But can you talk to her first?”

“Sure.”

“Could be she's building a bomb or preparing to hack into the State Department.”

Geneva's gaze fell on the sports bar across the concourse. “Any liquor store purchases?”

“Nope. That was the first thing I checked.”

“Okay, I'll ask her. And Dub?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for being normal.”

He laughed. “If I'm the normal one, you are so screwed.”

• • •

She couldn't remember why she'd been reluctant to tell Tom about wanting to see Paris. After all, he'd been the one who'd encouraged her to fly to New York last time. How much explaining would it have taken? My sister's in L.A., so I'm taking off work and going to see her, just for the day. It dawned on her that perhaps she was engaging in her own teenage rebellion by making a move without consulting a soul, just because she could.

Tom picked up right away. “You okay?”

“Yes, I'm fine. I'm in L.A. waiting for a plane home.”

“What? What's going on?”

“Paris is here and I needed to talk to her.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“And I don't know why I didn't tell you.”

He was quiet a long moment. “Things have been pretty tense, but we've got to stay on the same page.”

“You're right.” But she wasn't sure they were in the same chapter. “Anyway, did you call about anything in particular?”

“Maybe we should discuss it when you get home.”

That didn't sound like news to look forward to. “I'm going to be a while. SFO's fogged in.”

“All right. Ivan called to tell me his boys have been smoking dope. They were high right after the band was rehearsing at Rango's house, so he was giving me a heads-up.”

What had Drea said?
Trust your hunches
. “Did you talk to Charlie yet?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you first.” His tone was slightly admonishing. She hadn't been available. “And he's not home until late tonight. He has practice. Then there's a study session for his history final.”

“I had a hunch about this.” Immediately she regretted admitting it.

“You did? Jesus, Geneva, do you think you might have told me?”

“It was pretty nonspecific. Haven't you felt as if something's up with him?”

“No. And maybe nothing is. Let's keep a level head.”

And put on some rosy glasses and skip through the daisies. He might be right, but she didn't think so. Her antennae had been twitching for a while. “Have you ever known me not to have a level head?”

“I don't know. Lately you've been sensing disaster around every corner. It's pretty wearing.”

His voice was strained, as if she were a bloodhound pulling him down every rabbit trail. And, in truth, that was close to how she felt. But she couldn't ignore her intuition about her son any more than those concerning her mother and Paris. If only she understood.

There was nothing to be done about Charlie at the moment. If it wasn't too late when she got home, they'd talk to him then. And she'd ask her mom about the credit card charges. Her mind circled back to her conversation with Dublin. An iPhone and expensive electronics. Add a skateboard and you'd have a teenage boy's wish list. Another hunch, or a logical deduction? In either case, too much to speculate about on the phone.

“You're right, Tom. We haven't got all the facts. I'll let you know my arrival time when I get it.”

“Okay. And don't worry about Charlie. If he were in any kind of trouble, Ella would have told us about it. I was the youngest and my siblings never let me get away with anything. Ever.”

The flight was delayed another hour, so she bought a sandwich and a bottle of water. While she ate, she thought about what Paris had said about their father “coming apart” after she left home. Florence said he'd turned to drinking, but Geneva didn't have a firm recollection of it. She did remember he'd broken his arm, or maybe his collarbone, falling into a bunker playing golf, and now she realized a drink or two could have made that more probable. The accident must have happened in October because she had an image of him carrying a pumpkin onto the front porch, his arm in a sling. As she watched from the window, the pumpkin tumbled from the crook of his good arm and exploded all over the clean white porch. He swore loudly enough for her to hear through the window. When he bent to pick up the pieces, he slipped on the innards and fell hard onto his backside. She ran away then, unused to seeing him compromised.

Even now she found it hard to accept that a broken bone marked the beginning of her father's demise. If it weren't for his injury, he would not have been taking Tylenol several times a day. Maybe a couple of tablets for bourbon-induced headaches, but no more. And if he had not primed his system with heavy daily doses, then the amount he accidentally took a week before he died probably wouldn't have killed him. By the time anyone figured out what was wrong with him, it was too late.

Maybe what Paris meant was that if Geneva had been old enough to take Paris's role as the apple of their father's eye, he wouldn't have turned to the bourbon the way he did. Because that, too, as they later learned, contributed to the disastrous effect
of Tylenol on his liver. But Geneva, at eleven, was not Paris. Her legs were too long for the rest of her, and she hadn't yet dropped her habit of sucking on her hair. She didn't talk when she had nothing to say and didn't laugh unless something was funny. She knew what charm was—her mother and Paris had it in spades—but didn't believe she needed it. At the museum, Paris hadn't sounded as if she blamed her. How could you blame someone for being eleven? And both then and now, she knew that as much as she loved her father, the last person she wanted to be was Paris.

• • •

By the time she got home, it was nearly midnight and everyone was asleep except Tom. He was waiting in bed for her. She was relieved he didn't want to talk about drugs and credit cards and long-lost sisters. He didn't want to talk at all. He watched her undress, then pulled back the covers and opened his arms. “This is my idea of getting on the same page.”

She climbed into bed. Sex wasn't agreeing. It wasn't understanding, or even listening, but she welcomed it all the same.

ELLA

T
he Battle of the Bands was right after seventh period. The whole school was there, even the teachers, the rest of the staff, and, of course, the parents who show up at everything because they don't have a life. She was grateful her parents weren't the type to stalk her at school.

They'd set up the stage between the gym and the cafeteria. Everyone was hanging out wherever: on the benches, leaning against the walls, sitting on the concrete. She was with Megan, of course, near a bunch of other junior girls who they knew but didn't like. Not that it would occur to those girls that anyone might not be dying to trade places with them. Ella was pretty sure if a freak accident took out half her brain she'd still not be as dumb as the four of them put together.

The first band didn't completely suck, meaning a decade of piano lessons finally paid off for the guy on the keyboard, and the singer was cute enough that the fact that he couldn't hit any high notes didn't matter. For their cover they'd picked a song Ella supposed was popular in a very small circle—the other three guys in the band. Not very smart. It goes without saying their original song was a disaster. The next band was better because it was a bunch of the drama and band kids. They knew what they were doing, but there were so many of them it was like the Jackson Twenty-five.

Next up was the Accountants, the Prince, Rango and the Hottie, only their actual name was There's an Amp for That. They made a huge deal about hooking up their snazzy amplifier, making sure everyone got that it was Big and New and Expensive and Cool. She couldn't wait to find out how much that set Nana back. Anyway, they launched into “Rock on You.” Rosa the Hottie was next to the drums with a tambourine, which was hilarious. When the Prince took the mike a lot of kids booed him, just for being a freshman, but it didn't faze him. He did a good job getting the crowd jacked up and the music was loud, for sure. The cover was a hit.

Megan asked, “What're they doing next?”

“Supposedly a big surprise.”

Megan rolled her eyes.

Hottie came to the front. “Confession. We wrote the music, but the lyrics are by Ella Novak. Big shout-out to Ella!”

She couldn't believe it. What lyrics?

Because she's so popular, a bunch of kids said, “Who's Ella?” Then all these heads turned toward her.

Megan said, “What's going on?”

She was too confused—and worried—to even shrug. Then the Accountants and the Prince started strumming their guitars. Slow and open notes, like a ballad. She stared at the Prince, searching for some clue, but he was concentrating on his fingers.

Hottie shook her hair away from her face, leaned over the mike and sang low and throaty:

If I stare, at the boy over there,

Will he feel my eyes on him?

If I dare to say: You take my breath away,

Will he care how I feel about him?

Ella was sure she wasn't hearing what she was hearing. How the hell? Her entire body went numb.

Megan put a hand on her shoulder. “You wrote this?”

She knew the next line and the worst part was she couldn't stop it being sung. Hottie's voice, now higher and clearer:

I say “Marco,” you say “Polo,”

You're sounding so far away.

I'm looking for you, Marco,

Polo's all you've got to say.

I'm over my head here, Marco.

Swimming with my eyes shut tight.

If I reach for you, across the pool,

Will I find you in my arms tonight?

Marco.

Ella's face was on fire. If only she could have melted straight into the concrete. Megan was shaking her shoulder to get her
attention, but all she could do was stare at Hottie's mouth. Ella's words kept pouring out of it, like a volcano spewing lava.

One of the girls next to her saw her face and squealed, loud enough for the universe to hear, “Oh my God. Is this about Marcus?”

And Ella's life was officially over.

• • •

She pushed her way out of the crowd. News traveled fast. Everyone was hooting and pointing and laughing and, unbelievably, the song was still playing, like sinister background music in her own personal horror flick. She could barely see through her tears and white-hot anger.

The only minuscule good thing was that she'd driven to school because she was supposed to take The Absolute Fucking Traitor to the dentist after the Battle of the Bands was over. If she didn't have her dad's truck, she'd have to take the bus, and the problem with the bus was that it had people on it. High school people. The ones who listened and watched her starring role in Life's Most Embarrassing Moments.

She found the truck right away because she always parked in the same place. She threw her backpack on the ground, squatted down, and rummaged through the pockets for the keys. Megan caught up and squatted beside her.

“You okay?”

She couldn't open her mouth, because if she did, she'd start screaming and never stop.

“Not everybody thinks the song has anything to do with Marcus.”

Damage control.

“It's a really great song. I mean, poem.”

That did it. She collapsed against her friend. Megan put her arms around her and they stayed in a huddled, mewling ball for a long time.

“I hate him!”

“Me, too. How could he think that was okay to do?”

She imagined her brother going through her stuff in her room, finding her poetry journals, flipping through the pages with his disgusting, thieving fingers. Taking her work, her art, and using it to make himself look good and—oh, yeah—destroy her.

She found the keys, got up, and opened the truck. There on the front seat was Charlie's backpack. He'd gotten the keys from her earlier so he could leave it there. Just looking at it made her want to kill him.

She reached across and grabbed it and threw it out of the truck as if it were his head. Splat on the ground.

Turns out it wasn't zipped up all the way because his crap flew everywhere.

Megan said, “Whoa . . .”

“Shit.”

Megan looked at her, wondering what came next.

“I don't care about his stuff.”

“I don't blame you.”

Some other kids were headed to their part of the parking lot. Megan and Ella stared at the books, paper, wrappers, pens, shorts (shorts?), water bottle, playing cards, and tons of other garbage scattered around the truck and under the other cars.

Megan pointed at a light blue triangular case at her feet, like she didn't know whether picking up stuff belonging to The Absolute Fucking Traitor was good form or not. “What's this?”

Ella shrugged and picked it up. It was weirdly heavy. She turned it over, then laid it flat in one hand and unzipped it.

Megan leaned over to see. “What the . . . ?”

Ella nearly dropped it. She couldn't fucking believe it. Why did Charlie have this? She looked at Megan in case maybe she knew. Nope.

She'd never held a gun before. The closest she'd been to one was standing near a policeman. Of course, the policeman's gun wasn't pale blue.

A senior whose name she didn't know was a few yards away, kicking at Charlie's stuff. “What's up with all this?”

She shut the case. She was holding a weapon on school property. Holy crap! Was it loaded? How could she tell? Okay, okay, assume it's loaded. Assume the worst. Because that's today.

Megan said, “It was an accident.” She glanced at Ella. “We were just going to pick it up.”

Frozen to the spot, Ella nodded and her friend started shoving stuff into the backpack. The senior went to his car.

Her hands shaking, she slowly zipped up the gun case. Then she didn't know what to do with it. Tears stung in her nose and she bit her lip so she wouldn't whimper like a freaking baby.

“Megan,” she said softly, “can you do something with this?”

Megan looked at her as if she wasn't sure any friendship, even theirs, should include weapons handling. But then she held open the backpack. “Let's put it back in here.”

She slid it in carefully and Megan zipped the backpack closed and put it in the truck. They both stared at it like it might jump at them, or explode. Ella pulled her phone from her pocket. Her sweaty fingers slid across the screen as she dialed.

“Mom? Yeah, it's me. What? No, I'm okay.” Tears clogged
her throat. “Maybe not so okay.” Now her nose was running and she really couldn't help the fact that she was coming unglued. Totally unglued. “Can you come get me? Please? I'm so sorry. I'm really, really sorry. There's a bad mess and it's my fault. Can you please come get me? Please?”