We Lie Here: A Thriller, page 5
I take a breath. Sounds like I’m whistling. My eyes sting and my chest itches. “I just need to . . .” I pull my inhaler from my pocket and take two puffs.
“You’re gonna have another asthma attack,” Dominique says, “just like the last time you came to Palmdale. And I don’t know how to do the Heimlich thing.”
“Heimlich is for choking, Einstein.”
“Whatever. You sound like you’re gargling Pop Rocks.”
“What’s a little labored breathing to make your parents happy.” I take another breath, and now, I don’t whistle or crackle. I pluck from the plastic tub a faded, fabric-covered journal and a salmon-colored conch shell with Bahamas branding. “Random question: Why does Mom still keep that bag downstairs in the foyer?”
“What bag?”
“The Louis Vuitton duffel bag.”
“No idea what you’re talking about—ooh!” Genuine delight breaks over Dominique’s face as she reaches into the tub.
An underwater picture of her and Mom snorkeling in the Caribbean’s turquoise waters.
“I love that,” I say. “Want to include it?”
She sets the picture in the centerpieces pile. “And I want a copy of it, please.”
I’ve added more to the pile than Dominique has. Everything I find has meaning.
Like the conch shell from the Bahamas: I learned to snorkel beside Mom on that trip.
Like the camping knife: Dad cooked the best hash browns and bacon using this single utensil on our trips to Yosemite.
Not fool’s gold. These were twenty-four-karat perfect moments.
I reach to the bottom of the tub and—ouch!—something sharp jabs my finger. A drop of blood pearls on my fingertip. “What the hell?”
Dominique has stopped looking for items and now scrolls on her phone.
I peer into the container to search for the mess that cut me. I spot a silver key with a circular head and cylindrical shaft. That couldn’t have cut me. “A handcuff key?” I wonder aloud.
Dominique winks at me. “Kinky.”
Another peek into the tub. I spot a broken picture frame, its glass shattered beneath the weight of the past. But the picture there . . . Mom is wearing a simple white slip dress, and Dad is wearing a dark vest and long-sleeved shirt as they hug beside an infinity pool. Taken at dusk, the hills behind them are lost in shadow and the sky above them is streaked with clouds. The pool reflects the sky and hills and newlyweds.
“Goals,” Dominique says, breathless.
I love the warmth rolling off the photograph, and I snap a picture of the picture. “Where is this? I wanna re-create this shot.”
“No idea, but you need to clean the kitchen. Don’t wanna mess with her mood.” Dominique places the pile of memories into a newer plastic tub I brought along for this trip. “I’ll go start the dishwasher.”
No, she won’t. The kitchen will stay a mess until I go down.
“And are you gonna get my necklace fixed?” I shout at her back. “Or do I need to . . . ?”
She’s gone.
I flip through the pages of the journal. Sporadic entries when Mom felt reflective, I guess. A twice-folded piece of paper sits between November 3, 1997, and November 7, 1997. Major Depressive Episode/Disorder—DSM-5 Criteria. All nine boxes have been checked, from “depressed mood” and “loss of interest in almost all activities” to “psychomotor changes” and “recurrent thoughts of death.”
Had Mom been diagnosed with depression? She’d been a new mother who’d ended her running career, so . . . maybe?
I stick the page back into the journal, then drop the journal into the plastic tub. I dump the frame’s broken glass into a brown paper bag and take out the picture of my parents on their wedding day. “You will be the centerpiece on Mom and Dad’s table and . . .”
A smaller photograph is stuck to the back of the perfect shot. In the smaller picture, a woman with cashmere-brown skin wears her thick hair pulled into an up-top bun. Behind her, water glistens as sunlight bursts across its surface. Her smile is as wide as the sky.
Though there’s some resemblance to my mother, she isn’t Queen Bee.
I don’t know this woman, yet sadness finds me. It’s heavy, sticky, like burned caramel.
I flip over the picture. There’s fading block handwriting on the back.
E. at the lake
How did her picture become stuck behind my parents’?
Is she Mom’s friend?
Dad’s ex-girlfriend?
The welt on my neck from Felicia’s fingernails tingles, and I now have a strange desire to burn this picture. I will not ask Mom about “E. at the lake.” In this instance, what’s found in the attic stays in the attic.
I slip the picture back into the dusty tub.
Still . . . I wonder . . .
Who’s “E”?
6.
Holiday Inn
4:55 p.m.
Something is wrong with Felicia.
Watching her stumble around the Holiday Inn had been funny at first—there she was in the women’s bathroom, and there she was stumbling to the bar, and now, here she is, trudging to the lobby. Look at her shaky hands. Loot at her sweaty face. She looks as brittle and unreliable as the wallpaper in the bathrooms and as creaky as the bathroom stall doors.
Trippin’. That’s what we used to call it. Losing your mind.
There’s a history of women trippin’ in the Campbell family, but no formal diagnoses.
Beating a man with a shovel. That had been Cecilia Campbell.
Running a woman over with a car. That had been Felicia’s twin, Alicia.
Stealing a baby from the hospital. A Campbell woman back in the 1950s.
Murder. Felicia’s great-grandmother.
These are the kinds of stories you laugh at over cigarettes and slices of Thanksgiving sweet potato pie, right after the Cowboys beat the Lions.
But this . . . thing happening to Felicia right now. This is different.
She’s not too far gone. She knows someone is watching her.
And she’s right—I’m watching your every move.
A quick glance at the hotel lobby’s digital clock. Almost five o’clock.
Yara will come back to the hotel. Without Dominique buzzing around, Yara will listen to Felicia. That can’t happen.
Felicia now plops in a lobby armchair and stares at the large platter of apples on the coffee table. She closes her eyes as her lips move.
Is she praying?
Too late.
Two teenage boys snag apples from the platter and drop onto the couch across from Felicia. They set their sneakers on the coffee table. Felicia squints at them, irritated, but they ignore her and crunch into their fruit.
The hotel manager spots Felicia sitting in the lobby. She lifts an envelope and makes her way over.
Just as planned.
The manager holds out the beige envelope.
Open it. Open the freaking . . .
Felicia tears open the flap, then pulls out the note. She gasps, bows her head, and holds her heart. She looks up to the sky, to God, thankful.
Poor thing.
God had nothing to do with what she’s received.
That letter?
Courtesy of the snake in the garden.
7.
After cleaning the kitchen (alone), I follow the sound of theme music from some schmaltzy Hallmark movie. Mom has returned from the sporting goods store, and she’s resting in the den with a blanket around her legs and a glass of white wine in her hand. She looks like she’s watching late-night TV on a winter night in Vermont even though slats of desert sunlight brighten the carpet.
The front door mail slot creaks, and envelopes and catalogs scatter across the tiled floor.
I scoop it all up, hoping that this story ends soon so that Mom and I can watch Moonlighting before I leave for the hotel. I sift through catalogs, utility bills, and the mortgage statement before stopping at an envelope from Southland Collection Group.
My heart jumps in my chest. This envelope is addressed to me.
RE: Account 78736A
We have attempted several times to resolve the problem of your past-due account. However, we still haven’t received payment of the outstanding amount, which is now significantly in arrears. Your account is overdue in the amount of $7,000.
Description of services or products: tuition.
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS
Dominique attends Cal Arts, and every month, I help to pay some of her tuition. Mom sends me their share to cover the balance. I’ve never taken out a loan for Dominique.
I place a calming hand over my fluttery heart—this is just a misunderstanding, a mistake. Yes, that’s what this is. I step out onto the porch to call Southland Collection Group.
After pressing one, and then three, and then holding and explaining why I was calling, I listen as customer service agent Priscilla taps her computer keyboard.
I pace the arc of the cul-de-sac. Over at the crooked-tree house, Mrs. Duncan sweeps dust from her entryway. Her front door faces the wind, and the same dust she’s sweeping will be back in her house two hours from now.
“You still there, Miss Gibson?” Priscilla asks.
“I am.”
“The loan is under your name,” Priscilla says. “Meaning, you completed the papers, and you signed the documents for ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand—when?”
Priscilla taps more keys.
“And it’s for how much again?”
“Original loan amount, ten thousand, with the balance now at seven thousand.”
“That’s a mistake.”
I love my sister, but I would’ve never . . . Ten grand? For Dominique? A girl who’s never finished a word search? Who thinks that reading books is akin to climbing Everest?
“I can send a PDF of the loan documents,” Priscilla offers, “though you should already have a copy when the loan was approved back in October.”
Where was I back in October?
Sure as hell not signing loan documents for my sister.
My phone beeps. The email from Southland Collection Group just landed in my in-box. There it is. My name. My social security number.
But that’s not my signature.
Mom aims the remote at the television to pause the show. “I signed for you.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Why would you do that?”
“You need to get some of that bass outta your voice.” Mom narrows her eyes, and her lips tighten into a slash. A warning that Bad Bee is about to climb into the cockpit.
My fingers pluck at the rubber band around my wrist. I don’t want Bad Bee to visit, but I refuse to just . . . let her freaking forge my signature anytime she wants, what the hell? So I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale slowly . . . then slowly exhale. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t have . . .” I push out a loud breath. “It’s in collections.”
Mom flicks her hand. “Not yet. We got a month to pay before it hits your credit.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“Because it’s happened before. Obviously I pay the bill, because your credit is perfect.”
I don’t answer.
“Isn’t it?” Her words are cold fingers on my very hot face.
“Yes. But you didn’t tell—”
She kicks off the blanket. “You told me that we could take out the loan.”
“That you could forge my signature?” I shriek.
“That I could sign on your behalf,” Mom corrects. “When Dom first enrolled, I told you that we couldn’t pay up front for the first semester because we needed to do the roof and restucco the house.”
I nod. “I remember that.”
“And then,” Mom says, “I told you that we couldn’t take out any other loans because our debt-to-capital ratio or whatever wasn’t good since the house depreciated.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You said that you’d sign for the loan if we paid it off.”
My memory gyroscopes and I’m dizzy—I certainly don’t remember that. “No.”
“You didn’t drive up to sign the papers,” Mom continues, “because you were in the writers’ room for a week and couldn’t get away.”
That sounds familiar. I use that excuse any time Mom asks if I’m visiting soon. My clammy face now burns with shame from crying wolf one too many times.
“And so I signed your name,” Mom says. “And I’ve kept my word, paying off the loan in bits and pieces, and you just happened to be snooping through my mail.”
I square my shoulders and hold up the letter. “My name is on the envelope.”
She squints at me and shakes her head. “You know what, Yara Marie? You do this all the time. You do shit, then say that you didn’t do it. Lose shit and insist that you didn’t.”
Like Shane and his credit card.
“Sometimes,” Mom says, “most times, you accuse others of doing the shit that you do.”
“Mom,” I shout, “what are you talking about? I didn’t accuse you . . .” But I did accuse her, maybe not outright but by inference.
Like I kinda accused my coworker Steph of losing the Tough Cookie episode six index cards. Do you remember what you were doing before you set them down? I’d asked her.
Mom stalks the den, eyes on me. “I can’t stand this, Yara. You’re looking at me like I took your million dollars and brought back a handful of magic beans.” Her gaze moves past me and out to the backyard.
At the rear garage, Dominique and Ransom Andrepont lean against the tarped Camaro.
“I took out the loan to ensure she got a degree,” Mom says, pointing at her youngest daughter. “Not to be tied down to that asshole.”
I squint at her. “I thought you liked them being together.”
Mom tilts her head. “Oh yeah. I dream of my child getting knocked up by a thug.”
Ransom and LaRain insist that he’s not a Crip, though he may have Crip sympathies. His friends and a few ex-girlfriends may be members, but Ransom is just a confused young man caught up in a town of unsupervised children. Those numbers on his torso—3-18-9-16—don’t correspond to C-R-I-P. That’s just . . . Ransom being random. At least, that’s what his attorney claimed after fourth-grade Ransom broke into a 99 Cents Only store and stole twenty bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
A crime of opportunity, not pathology, Ransom’s social worker said after thirteen-year-old Ransom stole a bicycle that belonged to a mall cop.
The college loan makes sense now, and I probably did hear Mom’s frustrations and fears that day and say, Sign my name and just pay the bill.
“It’s all good,” I say to Mom now. “I’ll make arrangements to pay off the seven thousand. We just got our wires crossed, that’s all.”
“My wires never cross. I have proof.”
“It’s okay. I believe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
No, I don’t.
Mom scrolls on her phone. “Ah.” She holds out her phone for me to see.
Just confirming it’s okay, Mom had texted.
Yeah. That’s me.
It’s a big loan.
I know
We can drive down and you can sign
I trust you Mom
And it’s a crazy time right now
You sure?
MOM I APPROVE ILY
My tongue sits dumb as meat in my mouth.
The front door opens. It’s the second time today that Dad trudges into the house dusty and dank with sweat, this time after his evening hike. The camera I gave him for Christmas hangs around his neck. He beams once he sees that I’m in the den. “You’re still here!”
“Always home in the nick of time,” Mom mutters. “Yara was about to lose her head.”
Dad’s eyes flick between Mom and me, and his smile dims. “What’s wrong?”
I wave my hand. “Nothing’s wrong,” I say, my voice still shaky. “How were the trails?”
He pauses, then bends to take off his boots. “Crowded. People kept getting in my shot. You should’ve come with me—”
“Robert,” Mom says, “don’t even think about it. Take that dirt out to the porch.”
“Thought you liked it dirty,” he says.
She smiles and winks at him. “Outside.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Haven’t done that in a long time, but I’m—”
“Shoes on the porch, Robert,” Mom says. “Then shower. Again. Please.”
“I’ll go next time,” I chirp, watching as he turns to the front door.
Out back, Dominique and Ransom cup each other’s faces and kiss.
Though part of me celebrates love and my sister finding someone to spend time with, the larger part of me worries. I can see this story arc play out, and in every episode of Queen of Palmdale, their situation worsens.
In the pilot: Dominique Gibson, former student body president and voted Most Friendly, gapes at a positive pregnancy test as Bruno Mars sings about twenty-four-karat magic from her HomePod mini. The baby daddy: Ransom Andrepont, the neighborhood gangsta who she thinks has a heart of gold.
In episodes one through ten: Dominique drops out of college, thereby wasting thousands of dollars of her family’s hard-earned money. She wanders from one low-paying job to another, her belly swelling until she can no longer work because of gestational diabetes. She has the baby, and I throw a party to celebrate little Deja’s arrival. At the taco bar, Dominique grabs my hand and says, I’m leaving him. For good this time. You were right. Credits roll as we all do the Electric Slide to Cameo’s “Candy.”
Midseason finale: Dominique lands in jail for getting caught up in some hood shit.
Season finale: Dominique takes gunshots to her head and shoulder because bullets meant for Ransom don’t have GPS.
Postcredits scene: Dominique’s eyes open—she’s alive and it was all a dream . . . but then she finds herself back in the bathroom, gaping at a positive pregnancy test, wearing the same sweatshirt and listening to the same Bruno Mars song playing from her HomePod mini.
Stuck. There. Forever.
If being stuck can happen to Mom with a good guy, it can certainly happen to Dominique with a lesser man who lacks Dad’s integrity and dedication.
