Such a Pretty Girl (14 page)

I
see the flashing red lights while we’re waiting to turn off Main Street.

“Looks like something happened in your building,” my mother says and gazes at my father, missing two gaps in the stream of oncoming traffic that would have allowed her to turn into the complex.

My father shifts and yanks irritably at the seat belt’s restraint.

“Charles?” my mother says as if waiting for instruction, as if all he has to do is say the word and she’ll flick off her signal light and sail right past the complex and we will never, ever come home again.

“What?” he asks.

She clears her throat. “Did you really register today?”

My father stabs her with a scornful look. “Turn in already,” he says, giving the finger to whoever is blowing the horn behind us. “Jesus Christ, Sharon, I
told
you I did, didn’t I? What, are you gonna start now, too?”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” She whips the car through a small break in traffic and zips into the complex. Brakes as a cop holds up his hand. “Charles, I think they’re at your unit.”

“They’re
in
my unit,” my father says and opens the car door.

“Wait till I pull over,” my mother says and scrapes the tires along the curb. She struggles to free herself and catch up with him.

I scan the crowd and spot Nigel talking to a patrolman. He waves me over.

“What’s going on?” I say as Gilly licks the sweat salt from my knees.

“Somebody redecorated the front of your old man’s place with eggs and threw a cinderblock through the sliding glass door,” Nigel said, tugging his pants up beneath his ponderous belly. “Took a dump on the back steps, too.”

“Gross,” I say.

“Stupid question, but can you think of anyone specific who might hold a grudge against your father?” the cop asks, keeping an ear cocked to his radio.

“Besides the whole town?” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“You were out tonight?” Nigel asks, giving my outfit a curious once-over.

“Yeah.” I tell him about the scene in Steakhouse Sam’s and about my father giving everyone the finger as we left. “So I guess it could have been anyone because everybody hates us.” I study Gilly’s massive head. “He says he’s not going to stay here. He wants us all to move away. Soon.”

Nigel narrows his eyes and lights a cigarette.

“Meredith!” My father jogs up, grabs my arm, and glowers at Nigel. “Leave her alone. She doesn’t know anything. Why aren’t you out there trying to catch who did this instead of interrogating children?”

“We’re following up on several leads right now,” the patrolman says coldly.

“Yeah, well, I want to know who’s going to clean up this mess,” my father says.

“So do we, Chuckles,” Nigel says, exhaling a stream of smoke. “’Cause it’s a hell of a welcome home from your fan club, isn’t it?”

I can feel the hatred radiating from my father and try to tug free of his grasp, but he only tightens his grip. “Ow.”

Nigel’s gaze dips. “You want to let her go before we start seeing bruises where there weren’t any five minutes ago?”

My father’s churning anger drags me down and holds me beneath the surface until I’m inches from panic. It’s all I can do not to lose myself in the standoff.

And then his hand falls away and he laughs self-consciously. “Sorry, guys. I guess I’m just really freaked over this.” He waves in the direction of the condo. “Are there any witnesses?”

“Not so far,” the patrolman says, pulling a pad from his shirt pocket and making a note on the page. “Nigel heard the crash and called it in, but the super says most of the units in your building are vacant. Nobody’s home at the two occupied.” The cop glances at him. “Anyone want you gone?”

“Besides everyone?” my father jokes, but his jaw is tight and he looks across the grass to where my mother is talking to another cop. Her arms are folded and her chin high. “I don’t know. This isn’t the town I used to know, that’s for sure.”

“Town’s the same decent place it always was,” Nigel says flatly.

I watch Gilly root through her stomach fluff for an errant flea.

“Why don’t I take you home, Meredith?” my father says. “There’s no point in your hanging around here.”

“I’ll walk her home,” Nigel says.

“No,” my father says.

“We’re going to need you here to finish our report, Mr. Shale,” the cop says. “We need to know if anything in the condo is missing—”

“Then her mother can take her home,” my father says.

“Gilly needs walking anyway,” Nigel says, crushing his cigarette out. “C’mon, kid.” He tugs the dog’s leash and she scrambles to her feet. “It’s no bother at all.”

My father is outgunned and hates it. “You can always stay here, Meredith.”

“No, I’ll go.” I force myself to wait for Nigel plodding along beside me, but once we turn the curve, I light up. “So were you the one who trashed his place?”

“Me? Nah, that’s kid stuff.” He snorts out a laugh. “Can you really see me taking a dump right out there on—”

“Stop,” I say, holding up a hand.

The light moment passes.

“Everything okay tonight?” Nigel asks as Gilly squats and pees.

“No.” Andy’s condo is dark and I see no silhouette in the living room window. Tomorrow he’ll be gone. “He rubbed against me in the parking lot and said he loves to watch me walk.”

“Cameras on?” Nigel asks, pausing at Andy’s curb.

“They will be when I get there.” I drop my cigarette and tap my pocketbook.

“You got Andy’s keys, too, right? In case you need a place to hole up?”

I nod.

“Meredith?” Nigel waits until I meet his gaze. “Don’t go being a martyr. Anything happens, you either call me or 911.” He runs a hand over his head and sighs. “I’ll see if I can get a squad car to keep an eye on your place tonight.”

“What, you think there’s gonna be a lynch mob or something?” I look past the Cadillac and into the woods behind the fence. “Coming after my father?”

“It’s not him I’m worried about. Flex a few beer muscles and that mob mentality takes over. They might decide to bomb you guys with something a little more lethal than eggs or bricks.” His eyebrows knit together in a fearsome scowl. “Just watch your back, is all I’m saying.”

“I will,” I say and run up the steps. Go inside and lock the door. Sag against the wall until the jittering subsides. Wobble to my room. Lock the door. Change into drawstring cargo pants and an oversize T without putting on the light, just in case anyone is looking for targets. Fill the pockets with my life essentials, then drag my bulky beanbag chair in front of the door in case anyone tries to get at me in the night.

It’s not enough. I need some kind of alarm that will trip at an attempted invasion. I have nothing but CDs and bottles of nail polish, so I stack them in a precarious pyramid on top of the beanbag chair, where a nudge will send them clattering to the carpet.

I make another pyramid beneath the locked window just in case the mob sneaks a frontal attack through my sliced-up screen.

The air-conditioning is on but I’m sweating bad. The sharp scent of fear is known to arouse the predator’s instincts so I rub patchouli oil onto my skin and hope it masks my weakness. I make a buffer wall of pillows and blankets on the window side of the bed to protect me from flying glass and cinderblock, then lie down and count my defenses.

Beanbag. Pyramids. Pillows.

The knife makes four.

I close my eyes to ease the burn and fall asleep with my hand in my pocket.

I
flutter on the edge of waking when the knock comes.

“Meredith?” my mother calls.

I open my eyes to streaming daylight.

“I know you’re awake because you just stopped snoring,” she says cheerfully. “Listen, your father and I are going down the shore; do you want to come with us?”

I sit up and rub my eyes. Clear my throat. “Uh, no. You guys go ahead.”

“Are you sure?” my mother asks, sounding even more pleased.

“Yeah.” I glance at the Madonna. Disassemble the pyramid so I can get out to pee. Call through the door, “What happened last night after I left?”

“Oh, the cops took all the information and then we had to wait for the maintenance guy to come and board up the sliding glass door. What a mess.” But she doesn’t sound like it was awful. In fact, she sounds way too happy.

“But he’s still staying there, right?” I drag the chair away from the door.

“In that disaster? Of course not. The glass people are coming to fix the door tomorrow and your father’s staying here in the meantime. And that’s just between us, Meredith.” A heartbeat of silence. “So, are you sure you don’t want to come along?”

“Positive.” I wait until she goes back to the kitchen to tell my father, then slip out, close the door behind me, and hustle into the bathroom.

They leave soon after that and I watch from the corner of my window until the car disappears around the blind curve. I wait, counting off four sets of twenty, but it doesn’t return and the knot in my stomach loosens.

I make coffee and retrieve the Sunday paper from the stoop. The Calvinettis are loading beach chairs into their minivan and both grandsons give me the finger when their parents aren’t watching.

How bizarre to think that when I stake myself out, it will be to save brats like them.

The thought stings and I push it away. Tomorrow belongs to betrayal. Today is mine and I don’t want to waste it being afraid.

I make my camp out on the back patio. CD player, coffee, cranberry muffins. I put on my red bikini top and pull back my hair. My mother left her cellphone so I take that, too. Relax on a lounge and listen to the birds sing.

The only thing missing is Andy. How cool would it be to sit out here with him, drinking coffee and reading the funnies? We could talk and brush each other’s hair while the sun colored us bronze and the air brushed away our scars.

I close my eyes and coax Andy from memory. Place him in the empty lounge next to mine. His walnut-shell brown eyes are soft and heavy-lidded, his hair spills down over his shoulders, and his legs are stretched out on the chair. I hold my breath as a buzzing fly lands on his bare toe, waiting to see if he’ll twitch the pest away. The dark earth scent of patchouli rides the sudden breeze….

“Close your eyes,” Andy says, wheeling away from his bureau and over to where I’m sitting. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Really?” I say, startled. “What is it?”

“You’ll see,” he says. “Now close your eyes and put out your hand.”

I do and something cool, smooth, and rounded settles into my palm. “Can I look yet?”

“No,” he says softly, from close, and kisses me. “Okay, look now.”

It’s a brand-new bottle of patchouli oil, the first gift any guy has ever bought me, the first he’s bought me, and I don’t know what to say.

“You said you liked it the first time you came over and we’ve been together a month now so I just thought…” He shrugs and flicks back his hair, trying for nonchalance, but when my smile breaks free his does, too….

I sit up. Look across the court at his back door. The Cadillac is gone, the kitchen curtains are closed and still. Nothing stirs but the birds.

Iowa is so far away.

The muffins in my stomach ball into lead and my pants are sticky with sweat. Nigel’s knife is in my pocket. I trace its outline and goose bumps rise on my skin.

I hate my father so much.

There is bold, bald truth in the ensuing silence; no one contradicts me or makes lame excuses for his behavior, no one urges me to forgive and forget, no one scolds or drops a noose fashioned of blood ties around my neck.

So I say it out loud. “I hate you so much.”

“Say please,” he murmurs, pressing against my trembling leg.

“Please,” I whisper, eyes closed.

“Please what?”

I am supposed to say “please stop,” but I know that when I do he’ll just make animal noises and keep going, and I’ll just lie here like a board and wait for it to be over.

“Please die,” I say, closing my eyes and letting the sun bake the rancid, rotten Dumpster stench deep into my bones.

It is no worse than what I am about to receive.