All Unquiet Things (11 page)

“When did you get so interested in my comings and goings, anyway?”

He looked away, as if embarrassed, and shrugged.

“Dad, what do you know about Enzo Ribelli?”

He thought for a moment. “You mean besides the fact that he murdered a girl down the road from my house?”

“Yes, besides that,” I said blankly.

“I didn’t know him personally. But if memory serves, he and his brother, Paul, didn’t really get along. They grew up here, you know. We all went to Brighton together.”

“Yeah, I know.” It was part of the Legend of Kevin Monroe.

“When we were at Brighton, Paul was the hotshot. He was three years younger, but he got better grades and was a great football player. Enzo didn’t even really try, but you could tell it bothered him, all the attention Paul got. All Enzo came out of Brighton with was a substance abuse problem.”

“Things haven’t really changed much.”

“No. They haven’t.”

“When they arrested Enzo, did you think he was guilty? I mean, did it make sense—just the person he was?”

“Well, there was this one incident in high school—but it might have been an exaggeration, and my memory’s sort of fuzzy on the details.”

“What happened?”

“Enzo had this girlfriend a grade lower than him, really pretty. Anyway, one day she came to school with a black eye and by the time the day was over everybody was saying that Enzo had hit her and that her father was going to press charges.”

“Did he?”

My father shook his head. “I don’t think so. She changed schools soon after that.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why all
the sudden interest in ancient history, Neily? Did something happen at school today?”

“It’s nothing. Never mind.” I went to the fridge, got another beer, and went up to my room.

Audrey caught up with me after second period on Monday.

“I’m late for class,” I told her, slamming my locker shut and walking away. She followed me. “How is it that my coldness is not putting you off?”

“I thought you were going to help me,” she said.

I stopped and faced her. “I changed my mind. Your father-he hasn’t exactly built up a reputation for honesty and nonviolence. Maybe you believe him, but that doesn’t mean that I have to.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I am known for my sense of humor.” I slipped past her and into the men’s bathroom, thinking that was the only place that she wouldn’t follow me. I was wrong.

“Unbelievable!” she shouted. The door swung open and hit the wall.

“You’re lucky we’re the only ones in here, or else this would be very awkward for you.”

Audrey ignored me. “Do you
know
what people say about you?” she asked sourly, crossing her arms.

“Do you know what people say about
you
?”

“They say you were infatuated with Carly. They say you were stalking her. Everyone who hasn’t mentally crucified my dad thinks
you
killed her. How does that make you feel?”

I turned on her, furious. “Is that really what you think? Can
you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me that you believe I could’ve done something that evil?”

“Everybody has a dark side, Neily,” Audrey said. “Even you.”

“I don’t care what people say,” I replied. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Audrey grabbed my arm. “I’m going to visit my dad this afternoon and I want you to come. If I can’t convince you that he’s innocent, maybe he can. And if you don’t believe me after that, I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

She looked desperate. Despite my instincts, I felt sorry for her. Though what my father had told me about Enzo had raised my suspicions back up to orange alert levels, I still believed that there were questions that hadn’t been answered, avenues that had yet to be explored. I was sure that Carly’s diary held the key to her true feelings for me, but it also occurred to me that it might hold the key to other things as well, and staying on Audrey’s good side was necessary for getting my hands on it.

“Fine. But you’re lucky I don’t have a life, or I would have been able to come up with an excuse.”

“Good. We’ll go straight there after school, then.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine,” she said. She glanced around as it finally sank in that she was in the men’s bathroom. “I better get out of here.” She pulled open the door and nearly collided with a freshman whose locker was near my own.

“What the—?”

“Sorry,” she said, grimacing at me as she slipped past him out the door.

The freshman glanced at me. “Should—should I go?”

I waved him on. “Just do your business,” I said. When he
had disappeared around the corner to the urinals, I bent over a sink and stared at myself in the mirror. There was nothing in the world that I wanted less than to get tangled up in all this, but I had no choice, not until I had the answers to the questions the police and prosecution had never asked: What had happened to Carly at the party the night before she died? Why did she leave me that message and what did it mean? And, most important, the answer to one final question: Had Carly still been in love with me?

Enzo Ribelli was being held at San Quentin. I’d never been to a prison before and I was just a little excited, not that I would’ve admitted it.

“Do you go see your dad a lot?” I asked Audrey as she drove.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “So we’re friends now?”

“Just making conversation.” I leaned back. After a moment, I asked, “Are you going to answer my question?”

“About once a month. I’m the only person he’ll see.”

“So what makes you think he’ll talk to me?”

“He will if I ask him to.”

“Not to seem insensitive, but for that brief moment when you and I were friends, you didn’t seem to care too much for your father. Now that he’s in jail for murder, you’re suddenly a devoted daughter?”

“Do you blame me? He drank and gambled away everything he and my mother had—you would cringe to think of what we had to make do on because of him, Mr. Moneybags.”

“You should talk,” I said.

“Yeah,
now
I have money. But I grew up moving from
apartment to apartment in the middle of the night because my dad would default on the rent—we would go days without heat or electricity while he disappeared on a bender. My mom left us—left
me
—because she couldn’t stand it anymore. Hasn’t been heard from since.”

“Did he ever … ?” I let my voice trail off, certain my question was inappropriate.

“Hit us? No, not me. But he slapped my mom around once or twice when he was piss-drunk, which was enough.”

I didn’t know what to say. However cold my father could be, my childhood had been cake compared with what Audrey went through. I nodded sympathetically and let her talk.

“But he’s my dad, and he’s innocent. If I don’t stand by him, nobody else is going to.”

“That’s really decent of you, Audrey.”

“It doesn’t hurt that I believe him. If he had done it, I don’t think I could’ve forgiven him. Carly was practically my sister.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Has anything changed between you and your dad?” Audrey asked, eyes on the road.

“No, but next time I go to his house for court-ordered visitation, I’ll let him know you were asking about him.”

“Well, at least he’s not in prison.”

“If he was, I guarantee you that I wouldn’t be trucking it all the way out to the Q just to see him.”

She stiffened and glared at me. “You know what? The not-talking thing—that was working out really well for me, so if we could just get back to that, I’d appreciate it.”

“Fine by me,” I said, lowering my seat until I was lying down. As we passed a sign for the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, I closed my eyes and settled back for a short nap.

Eighth Grade—Spring Semester

T
hings got worse for Miranda Ribelli over the next few months. When school ended for the summer, she was already far into her first round of chemo, and her hair was falling out in large clumps. She couldn’t eat much without throwing up, and Paul was constantly taking her to the hospital so that she could be hooked up to IVs and pumped full of nutrients. Carly was beside herself, but instead of talking about it she committed every second to the program, completing assignments faster than I did and asking for more and more work.

“Don’t you sleep?” I asked her a few weeks before school let out.

“Not much,” she told me, rubbing her eyes. “Sometimes my mom needs me at night.”

“Maybe you should talk to your dad about getting her a nurse.”

“Why?” She frowned. “What does she need a nurse for? She’s got me.”

“Yeah, but you have school and your dad is always at work-it just seems like it’s too much to ask of you. You’re only one person.”

She shrugged me off. “I can do it. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Well, it bothers me.” She was so tired. Her face was full of
anxiety—she never smiled anymore, and she wouldn’t let me hold her as much as she did after we first got together. She seemed to be pushing me away, and as much as I felt for her I couldn’t help fearing that she was no longer in love with me.

Her bottom lip dropped a little. “Excuse me?”

“You’re never around, and when you are, you’re tired and cranky.” I knew I was saying all the wrong things, but they just kept pouring out of me like a faucet somebody had turned on. “You never talk to me.”

“That’s because you’re impossible to talk to.”

“How’s that?”

“Whenever I want to talk about my mom, you nod and tune me out, like I’m some kind of song you’re afraid of getting stuck in your head. You don’t
listen
. If it doesn’t have anything to do with you, you don’t want to hear about it.”

“That’s not fair.” But maybe it was. I had always thought of myself as a good listener, the sort of person you could depend upon and lean on, especially when it came to Carly, but the truth was that I had very little experience dealing with illness and the possibility of death. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, when to give her space and when to push her to confide in me. I was hopeless, and I knew it.

“And when you do listen, you keep telling me it’s going to be okay—like, what if it’s
not
okay, Neily? What then? What if she dies? What if she dies and you’ve been sitting here the whole time telling me that everything’s going to be okay?”

“What do you want me to tell you? Tell me what I can say to make you feel better.”

“I don’t want you to tell me anything—I want you to listen to me.”

“Well, I’m listening now.” I took her hand.

“That’s not good enough. You can’t just be there for me when it’s convenient for you, or when I tell you that you’re doing a lousy job at it. I’m going through enough of a hard time as it is, and I can’t be worrying about your feelings. It’s too much, Neily.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. I know.” She wiped at her eyes. “I need some time alone. To spend with my mom.”

“Okay. Whatever you need.” It killed me to say it. Part of me sensed that we were moving toward something dense and ugly and all too real, and that I had no power to stop it.