Closer Home (19 page)

I hit “Mute,” but it’s too late. Ariel stares at the screen in horror.

“They think—they really think that’s what I’m doing? That I want this?” She gestures toward the window, sweeping both arms wide to encompass the parking lot and everybody out there.

“Well, this guy does. But he’s not everybody.”

“I can’t even . . .” Her cheeks are flushed. “Like I’m Britney Spears with that head shave thing? Ick. Ick, ick, ick. I feel slimy.”

“He doesn’t matter, honey. He’s some pretentious asshat taking advantage of your situation to look important. Which makes him pathological. Not you.”

“And you. Are you manipulating the situation, Aunt Lise?” Her voice falls into a mockery of the psychologist’s weighty tones. She draws a shaky breath and her lip trembles. “I just wanted to know who my father is. I always wanted to know. And she wouldn’t tell me. I never thought it would get all twisted . . .”

“Of course you want to know. Especially with her . . . gone.”

“I wanted it to be an adventure. They’ve made it ugly.”

“Only if we let them.”

“But there’s no way out of here without making it worse. Either we hide our faces like we’re criminals, or we come out waving at the camera. Like we wanted this.”

“Maybe they’ll go away.”

Ariel has her mother’s withering expression down perfectly. “Yeah. And the Pope is Jewish.”

The next channel shows the motel’s parking lot. Vans, fans, helicopter, and all. They are dancing out there now. Cop cars have established a presence on the perimeter.

“Sooner or later, some other celebrity will do something that attracts their attention. Then they’ll all go away and we can go back to normal.”

“There’s never been a normal. I don’t know what that is. Besides, I’m hungry. We’re going to starve to death in this scumbag motel.”

“Do I detect a note of criticism there, young lady? Maybe I should remind you that this whole thing was your idea.”

“You were supposed to stop me! No offense, but you suck as a parental unit. OMG, what an asshole!”

“Who, me?”

“No, Shadow. He’s tweeting about me and Mom. I don’t believe it.” She taps away again, then squeals with outrage. “And he’s posted on Instagram. A whole pictorial. Oh my God! I can never show my face again. Anywhere.”

“Never is a long, long time.”

But I feel the same way. My head hurts. I lie back on the bed and close my eyes, focused on breathing. Surely if we can just get through this day, the media circus will pack it in for the night. The fans must have homes to go to, kids and pets to tend. Then we can call a cab and get out of here without running the gauntlet.

My eyelids are heavy. Maybe if I lie perfectly still, I can fall back asleep and make this day go away. The bed dips down as a weight depresses the mattress right next to me.

“Seriously. You have to look.”

I sigh and lever myself to a sitting position. “What am I looking at?”

“You don’t know Instagram?”

Any response I might have given is washed away by the pictures. Ariel, pale and lost-looking at Callie’s funeral. Me and Ariel at the airport. Ariel and Kelvin. Timothy and Dennis. The kicker is a picture of me leading Ariel away from the Death Car. We look like a modern-day version of women visiting the tomb on Easter morning, heads bent, clinging to each other as though we’ll fall over without mutual support. In every one of them, Ariel looks fragile and ethereal. How the boy has managed photographs that capture real incidents and yet so widely miss the mark—her incredible strength, her resilience—is amazing to me.

Through his eyes and into the lens, I guess. This must be how he sees her. All the photos look familiar. Because I was there, I tell myself. Because I was living this while he was standing around snapping his pictures. Him and that blasted phone. But something about one of them nags at me.

“Wait, go back.”

“Which one?”

“Me and Kelvin.”

She scrolls up and pauses, her finger hovering over the mouse pad. “What about it?”

“Can you pull up the pic from the paper in Portland?”

Her eyes flash up at me, questioning, but her fingers are already moving. “You don’t think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She brings up the newspaper photo, which is black and white, and lays it side by side with the one on Instagram. They are not just similar. They are identical.

“But that means . . .”Ariel doesn’t look fragile or ethereal now. Every line of her body is energized. She picks up the phone, and I figure she’s texting Shadow again, but this time she places a call.

“How dare you!”

Unintelligible words from the other end.

“How much did you pay him? Don’t you lie to me . . .”

Not Shadow, then. I lean in closer to listen, and Ariel thumbs the “Speaker” button. Ricken’s voice comes through, tinny but clear.

“Now, sweetheart, you can’t begin to understand. It was done for your best interests—”

“Really? Turning my friend against me was for my own good?”

“We need to play this up, make the most—”

“You’re a total creepazoid. And you’re fired!”

He laughs, his condescension so thick I want to reach through the phone and strangle his skinny neck. “You don’t run things, Ariel. Your aunt does, and she doesn’t know enough about the finances to risk—”

I lean in, being sure to speak slowly and clearly. “Ricken? This is Annelise. Guess what? You’re fired. I will not be signing your contract.”

“You can’t—”

“Can’t I? I’ll call Morgan and Genesis and tell them both. You’re out.”

Ariel hangs up before he catches his breath.

“Yes!” She gives me an enthusiastic high five. Both of us are laughing. But the elation seeps out of her like air out of a balloon. She pulls her knees to her chest to support the weight of her head. “All along,” she says. “He didn’t just grab the diary on impulse and then run off. He’s been spying on us. The flowers, the chocolate, everything . . .”

There is, of course, a picture of that, too. Ariel with her arms full of red roses, the chocolate box open on the table in front of her. She’s smiling up at the camera with adoration.

“I thought he loved me.”

All of the charitable things I’ve been trying to tell myself about the boy and what could make him behave this way go out the window at the sight of what he’s done. Anger seethes in my belly, stiffens my spine, wakes something in me that seems familiar and foreign at the same time.

The phone vibrates. Both of us lean in to peer at the screen. Ricken.

“Like I’m going to pick up, asswipe,” Ariel mutters. A voice mail notification pops up. Then a text message.

Ariel. Let me talk to Annelise.

She flings the phone away from her and belly flops facedown on the mattress, burying her face in the pillow. I stroke her hair.

“We can’t ever find my father now. We can’t even leave the motel room.”

“We’ll find him. No way we’re going to let that little schmuck and Ricken ruin this for you. Three left on the list, yes?”

She nods, head still buried in the pillow.

“And how many have popped out of the woodwork since the diary came out, claiming to be your father?”

She consults Google. “Five, looks like.”

“Any of them actually on the list?”

She flips over onto her back and looks at me. “Not a one. Why are they doing this? I don’t get it.”

“Money. Notoriety. I know you’ve seen plenty of people grabbing after their little bit of fame.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Bring me your yearbook, or did he take that, too?”

“Nah, he only took the diary.” She slides off the bed and fetches me the old book. It feels strange in my hands. I’ve never looked at mine; don’t even know where it is. My old classmates stare up at me, frozen in time. Some of them are connected to memories; some I can’t remember at all.

“Okay—give me the names of all the potentials who aren’t on your mom’s list and we’ll see if they could have known her.”

A quick search of the yearbook tells us that only one of the men claiming paternity went to school in Colville during the right time frame.

“Add him to the list. We’ll hire somebody to go swab the four of them, okay?”

Ariel doesn’t answer at first, busy clicking links. She stops. Stares at the screen. “Oh, shit.”

“What now?”

“There are twenty new ones.”

We’ve both had enough. Ariel slams the lid shut on the laptop. I click off the TV. It’s only eleven o’clock, and there are hours of daylight left to endure. Somebody else starts knocking at the door, but neither of us bothers to look this time.

Ariel’s stomach rumbles loudly. She giggles, then goes serious. “I’m really hungry.”

“Maybe we could order in.”

She bounces a little on the bed. “You think? I want pizza.”

“Again?” I should be feeding her healthy meals, but my own stomach rumbles at the idea of greasy crust and melty cheese.

We look at each other, both silently weighing our hunger against the risks of opening the door for the delivery.

“I say yes,” Ariel says, “only first I get a shower. Just in case. I’m not going on camera looking like I’ve spent the night in jail.”

“Some jail if they let you wear fuzzy pajamas.”

She sticks her tongue out at me and vanishes into the bathroom. I pick up the phone to dial the number on a pizza flyer shoved into the motel information binder. The kid who answers puts me on hold, and I sit there, staring at the locked door that connects to the next room over. And just like that, I have an idea. Maybe there is a way out of here after all.

I hang up on the pizza place and make three separate calls. One to the manager in the motel office. One to Melody Smith. Last, and hardest of all, I call Dale. It being middle of the day and all, I call his cell, holding my breath and hoping he’s planning and not in the middle of cutting or framing. He carries a cell phone under duress, and most of the time he doesn’t answer, especially if he’s working.

But it only rings twice before his voice comes on.

“Who is this?”

“It’s me.”

“Lise. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Typical Dale. No expression of worry or hint that I’m in over my head and a victim of my fate. He’s clear that whatever mess I’m in is my responsibility.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“Why?”

“I’m in a spot of trouble.”

“I noticed. I’m already on my way. Just passed the Connell exit and should be there in about half an hour.”

My fault or not, he’s always ready to bail me out, before I even get a chance to ask. Damn the man, he’s too good to be real. My breath catches in my throat, and my body goes weak with relief.

“Lise? You there?”

I take a deep breath and try to steady my voice. “You obviously know what’s going on.”

“Kinda hard to miss it. Soon as I saw the news, I headed out.” His voice is matter-of-fact and calm, but I can tell he’s pissed. He’s got every right to be.

“They’ve probably scoped your truck.”

“I’m driving a rental. I can get to you okay. The dicey part will be getting you out of there.”

“About that—I have a plan.”

He snorts. “Considering what you’ve been up to, I’m not sure I want anything to do with your plans.”

“Just listen.” I tell him what I’m thinking, and he’s quiet for a minute. I know good and well the exact expression on his face as he goes through every step, looking for flaws.

“Sounds as good as anything else. All right. So the manager is primed for this?”

“Yep. I promised her a thousand bucks. I think it will hold her. There’s one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I sort of promised Ariel a pizza.”

He sighs, heavily. “Fine. I’m on it.”

My fingers are clutching the phone so tightly my hand aches, and I try to ease them off. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

There are so many things I want to say to him, but I can’t. The words are frozen and won’t pass my lips.
This means everything to me.
No.
You mean everything to me.

He’s so quiet I think maybe he’s already hung up.

“Lise?”

“Yeah?”

“You could have called. At the very least, you could have called.” And then the line is really and truly dead. I keep holding the receiver to my ear, like maybe he’s still there, maybe he’ll give me a chance to explain.

Ariel emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. She freezes when she sees me, her face going pale beneath the heat flush.

“What happened?”

“Rescue.”

“Then why are you crying?”

I put my hand up to my face, surprised to feel the wetness of tears. The receiver suddenly feels like it’s full of lead and I hang up, in slow motion.

“Who was that?” Ariel insists.

“Dale.”

“What did he do, cuss you out?”

“No, he’s coming to get us.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

What do I say to that? I can’t answer her; I don’t have an answer myself. So I shrug, as if I’m the teenager and she’s the nosy parent. Ariel narrows her eyes and gives me a long look. Then she nods wisely, and says, “He’s your Shadow, isn’t he?”

Honesty compels me to some level of truth. I shake my head. “No, it’s more like I’m his.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There’s no room in the motel parking lot. Dale finally parks next door at the truck stop. Nothing for it, they’re all going to have to traipse from the room to the car. He can’t imagine what the hell Lise was thinking that she didn’t see this coming. Well, one step at a time. He takes a peripheral course to the office, avoiding the crowd as much as possible, balancing a pizza box in his arms.

Callie’s newest album broadcasts loudly from speakers set up in the bed of a pickup truck. Her voice fills the empty space in his chest with a pain he doesn’t have time for. Shaking it off, he opens the door to the motel office. A wave of overheated air wafts out, heavy with old tobacco smoke and musty carpet. He nearly collides with a young man exiting, coffee cup in each hand, cap embroidered with the letters KXLT pulled down over his eyes. He grins at Dale.

“Bet you never expected you’d be sharing a motel like this with a celebrity.”

Dale plants himself in the doorway, exchanging a stare for the smile and counting to himself. About fifteen seconds, he figures, until the coffee heats through the cardboard and starts to burn. “Bet there’s some sort of news in town more exciting than two women staying in a motel,” he says.

“Aw, c’mon. With Callie’s daughter looking for her dad and everything? Where’s your heart, dude?”

Dale has one, and at the moment it’s connected to his fists. He reminds himself that the satisfaction wouldn’t be worth the cost. He lets the kid go. It’s a relief to pull the door closed behind him. The music fades into the background. A coffee urn sits on a small table with a hand-lettered sign that reads, “Guests only. Help yourself.” There’s nobody in the small lobby, nobody behind the desk.

He rings the little bell and a voice that could be male or female calls out, “I’ll be right with you.” A long fit of coughing follows. Finally, a heavyset woman emerges from the back room, rolling a walker and dragging a portable oxygen canister like a dog on a leash. A sharp tang of fresh tobacco smoke accompanies her.

Dale tries to keep his eyes on hers, but his gaze keeps being distracted by her hair, which is a bright shade of magenta. Only one prong of her oxygen tubing is in the nostril where it belongs; the other has wandered onto her cheek.

“You sure you want a room?” she wheezes. “It’s not going to be a quiet night.”

“I’m sure.”

“Hell of a thing,” she says, settling down onto a rolling chair and scooting it over to the computer.

“Hurting business, is it?”

“Oh, I dunno about that. If it lasts long enough, most likely will. For now, publicity might bring me some curiosity seekers.” Her words are punctuated by wheezes and clicks from the oxygen delivery system.

“I want a specific room,” Dale says, as her fingers hit the keyboard. “Number twenty.”

The woman pauses in her typing; her eyes, half-buried in fat, peer into his. She nods, and her chins wobble. “Your name?”

“Dale Elliot.”

“Okay, Mr. Elliot. Ms. Redding set it all up, said you’d be coming. I’ve got the room key ready.” Her gaze holds something other than curiosity as she hands him two keys. “They are in nineteen. This key is for twenty. And this one will open the door between the rooms. Can I do anything else for you?”

“Say a prayer, maybe.” He’s being flippant, but she nods, seriously.

“That poor lamb. Won’t be the first prayer I’ve said for her. May the Almighty send down a curse upon those vultures out there.”

“I thought they were good for business.”

“Maybe so, maybe so. But business isn’t everything now, is it? You take good care of that poor motherless child. And let the lady know I won’t be charging her card for that second room, you understand?”

Dale turns back and smiles at her. “You are a good person. But there’s plenty of money—”

She waves her hands at him. “Hush. That’s between me and my Maker. It’s not like you’ll be using the room. But I would enjoy a piece of that pizza, if you’re in a giving mood.” She inhales deeply, which sets her to coughing.

Dale opens the lid and lifts out a slice, dripping with cheese. She holds out both hands for it and grins at him. “Debt paid. Now get on with you.”

Keys in one hand, pizza in the other, Dale steps out of the office and back into the blazing sunlight, scoping out the most direct path to room 20. Reporters wait by their vans or lean against the trunks of cars, eyes trained on the window and door of room 19. People are dancing now, in a space cleared in front of the shrine.

He takes his time crossing the parking lot, blending in. It’s surprisingly easy to do. He’s got a baseball cap pulled down low and shades on. Nobody expects to see him here, so he’s free to look around. A few friendly voices rib him about the pizza, asking for a slice. He smiles and keeps walking. With the music playing and people dancing, it’s a little like the outdoor concerts he’s been to at the Gorge, except that in this case, the performer is dead and there’s way too much media here. A fair bit of weed is circulating. He can smell it, can see it in the laid-back facial expressions and loose-jointed moves of some of the dancers.

As he passes the shrine, he pauses. Callie smiles out of a life-sized poster, her eyes seeming to hold his, that half smile on her lips, one of amusement at his predicament.

Are we having fun yet?

He wants to reach out and touch her bottom lip, trace the line of the smile and trap it in his memory. Already she is fading. It’s been a long time since he saw her, and he gets lost trying to remember exactly how long it’s been. At her father’s funeral, as near as he could remember. Ariel was just a little kid, all big eyes and curls. He’d had a short, inane conversation with Callie, mostly weather and small talk with a smattering of questions about her career and his business. Both of them avoided the topic of the little girl who had attached herself to Lise.

If he’d known it would be the last time, how would it have been different?

He startles at a touch on his arm, half-surprised when he turns to see a strange woman. Her hair is dark, her skin copper, her eyes big and brown. About as different from Callie as a woman can be, and yet her smile is familiar, a mixture of mischief and invitation.

“I know, love,” she says, patting him. “You want something to numb you up a little.” She holds up a bottle and he very nearly accepts it. There would be a surreal comfort in giving in to Callie’s voice, drinking and dancing with this crowd of strangers.

“Not today, thank you.” He starts to walk away, then is moved to turn back and kiss her on the cheek. She tastes of sweat and dust and something sweet. Her eyes follow him as he turns his back on Callie and works his way through the crush of bodies to the door of room 20. At the door he hesitates, just for a second, then turns the key and enters.

“You should take a shower before this Dale guy shows up,” Ariel tells me, combing tangles out of her hair.

“I’ll have one later.” I’m tired; I’m hungry. Getting up off the bed feels equivalent to climbing Everest right now. At the same time, I’m pretty sure I’m a mess.

“Trust me. You don’t want to be seen like this.”

“It’s only Dale.”

He’s seen me at my worst over the years. Early morning. Late at night. In the middle of a bout of the flu, surrounded by tissues and empty mugs of tea. But despite all of this, I feel a fluttering in my belly at the mention of his name, and lift my hand to my lips, remembering his kiss.

“Dale and anybody who ever watches the news. Or looks at a magazine. Or the Internet.” She grins at me. “They’ll make up a story to match how you look. Depression. Or alcoholism.” Ariel plants her feet firmly on the carpet and tugs at both my hands.

Motivated by thoughts of headlines varying on the theme of “Alcoholic Breakdown for Mystery Guardian,” I let Ariel drag me to my feet. Once I’m in the shower, hot water sluicing away not only dirt but also the ugliness of the last couple of days, weariness gives way to a difficult mix of anticipation and dread.

Seeing Dale is at once the thing I most want in the world and the thing I most want to avoid. It took years for the two of us to find our way back to a comfortable friendship after the prom fiasco. We never talked about my betrayal or how I felt walking into the room and finding him with Callie. We buried all of that emotional mess without benefit of a funeral or public grieving, and now here it is again, resurrected by Callie’s death and the media.

The whole situation makes me want to lock myself in the bathroom forever. But when I think about Dale and Ariel having a private chat, I slam off the water and grab a towel. I’m grateful for the steamed-up mirror. I don’t want to see how I look after the days of grief and worry and ineffective sleep. Last time I caught a glimpse of myself, I didn’t like what I saw.

But the look in Dale’s eyes before he kissed me drives a set of emotional reactions I haven’t experienced in years. Cursing both Dale and my own traitorous heart under my breath, I grab another towel and dry a clear spot on the mirror. I look old, I think. Old and tired. My eyes are puffy and red. The bathroom lighting gives my skin a greenish cast and emphasizes the fine lines and dark circles under my eyes. Callie looked better dead in her coffin than I do right now. A wave of injustice threatens to swamp me, the old jealousy busting out of the closet where I’ve stuffed it. Knowing this is stupid and wrong does nothing to make me feel better. I couldn’t compete with her when she was alive, and now she’ll be forever perfect in memory.

Makeup might help. But I’ve just opened the tube of foundation when Ariel knocks. “I think he’s here.”

“Already?”

“Well, there’s somebody in the room next door.”

Shit, shit, shit.

Dropping the towel, I grab my clothes, but my skin is still damp and it takes forever to work my way into my jeans. My T-shirt looks like I slept in it, which I did, but at least it passes the sniff test. I hear Dale’s voice and Ariel’s answering, but the bathroom fan drowns out the words. I attempt to drag a comb through my curls, but it catches and snarls. Unless I want to break half the hair on my head, detangling is going to be a long task. Remembering Ariel’s reaction to Dale at the funeral, leaving the two of them alone is not going to be a good idea. Abandoning the beauty program, I check to make sure I’m fully dressed and open the door.

They stand with a pizza box between them, open on the table. Ariel’s face is a study in wonder.

“How did you know?” she asks.

He smiles. “Callie’s favorite. I took a gamble.”

She grabs a piece out of the box with her hands, dripping sauce and cheese, and tilts her head back to cram the first bite into her mouth. “Maybe Lise is right about you,” she says with her mouth full.

I step into the room before he can respond to that. “Hawaiian with white sauce, I’m guessing.”

Dale turns at the sound of my voice. “You all right?”

I can’t move, can’t even breathe all at once. The room is too small, and there’s not enough air for the three of us.

He looks tired. There’s an expression on his face I can’t decipher, something in the way he looks at me that is unfamiliar. Up until this moment, I would have said I know him better than anyone else in the world. Every line on his face, every scar on his body. The way he thinks, his favorite foods, and his opinions on people and politics. The two of us share a history more entwined than most lovers.

Now he feels like a stranger. Only a week lies between us, but my internal landscape has shifted enough to account for years. I don’t know what to say or how to be. My knees feel weak and my legs start to shake. My skin heats from the inside out. Every detail of my appearance—from my uncombed hair to my bare feet—makes me feel naked, my shell cracked, my heart out in the open for all the world to see.

“We’ll be ready in a minute,” I manage, finally, as if he’s a taxi driver come to pick us up.

“No rush. We’ve still got to figure out a way to get through that crowd.” His voice sounds tight. There’s a line of tension in his jaw that makes me think he’s pissed. I can’t blame him.

“I’m eating pizza before I go anywhere,” Ariel says with her mouth full. “I’m starving.”

“Where’s the car?”

“All the way over by the office. Couldn’t get through.”

“I’ve got a plan. I think.” I have to do something other than stand here looking at him, so I turn and start digging through my bag for a pair of clean socks. Of course, there is no such item. I choose the cleanest-looking pair and sit down to put them on, sneaking glances in Dale’s direction.

He sits down across the table from Ariel.

“Have some pizza.” She holds a piece out and he takes it, rewarding her with a smile.

I want him to smile at me like that. I want him to smile at me at all.

“You want some, Lise?” Ariel asks.

My stomach rebels at the very idea. “Thanks, not hungry.”

It takes no more than a minute to pack, considering that the only belongings I’ve got are the few items I bought for the trip. Almost immediately, I regret refusing pizza because now I have nothing to do with my hands or my eyes and I can’t keep staring at Dale like a lovesick teenager. There are things I need to tell him, an apology being top of the list, but I don’t want to have that conversation in front of Ariel.