American Girls(36)

“I can’t stay here anymore.” I sat beside her and talked to the floor so I wouldn’t lose my train of thought. “You shouldn’t leave me here at night. And you shouldn’t be here either. It could be dangerous.”

She opened her computer and ignored me for at least two minutes. I almost checked her ears for earplugs.

“Why?” she finally said. “There’s nothing up here. You’re too big for a coyote to eat. Don’t be so dramatic, Anna. Did you think you were going to become rich and fall in love with a girl named Daisy when you read The Great Gatsby? You’re as suggestible as Cora.”

“I am not.”

“Yes. You are.” She typed as she talked, pausing to delete, type, delete. “But you can come over to Dex’s if you want to. He has a couch and I don’t think he’ll mind.”

“Thank you.”

Before shutting the computer down, she logged out of her e-mail account. That was a first.

“I get jumpy when Mercury is in retrograde. Yesterday Roger shot me on the steps of an apartment building where a stalker had killed an actress, a young one. She opened the door, and that was it. It’s the case that gave us the stalking laws we have now, so I guess that’s something good to come out of it, but it’s really eerie, being in all these places that look so, I don’t know, regular.” Delia’s eyes narrowed as she talked, like the body was right in front of her.

“I think the whole thing is creepy. Roger is creepy, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Roger has money and Roger is paying me.”

“So? I think he’s driving by your house at night. I do. He even told me I should try to be like a Manson girl, you know, for research. I know he’s paying me, but he’d probably pay me to eat dog shit, too, and that wouldn’t make it okay.”

“What are you talking about?” Delia said, laughing for real. “Why would he do any of that? He sees me every day. He doesn’t need to stalk me; driving by my house would be redundant.”

I wasn’t buying what she had to sell, not with that pitch.

“Anna, are you having an easy time paying back that money you owe Mom? Or your dad? Assuming that we forget that you’re living rent-free and eating my food? Does money just rain from the sky?”

“No.”

“Well, it doesn’t for me, either, okay? I can work five jobs one year and have nothing the next. In this town, unless you are insane, you say yes to everything within reason.”

The last time I mentioned the stalker, Delia repainted her just-manicured nails. This time, she took a pair of tweezers out of her makeup bag and plucked at the stray hairs growing beneath her brows.

“It’s not worth it if you wind up dead.”

“Dead?” she said. “You really do have an imagination.”

“I know about the note,” I said, playing a card I probably should have kept hidden.

She was quiet for a good five seconds before she answered.

“What note?”

“The one Roger left on your door. He thinks you’re a whore. I mean, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes, does it? He’s trying to ruin your relationship with his stupid movie, and he secretly hates you at the same time. I’ll bet he hired that lady to bang on your doors at night. Don’t you remember that awful thing that he said to you when you broke up?”

Delia slammed her fist on the table.

“I told you never to bring that up. People say stupid things when relationships end. I’m over it. And it’s none of your business. None. Get it? It’s not Roger driving by, okay?”

She was lying. I could tell because her lips were moving.

“How do you know?”

“I just know. It could be a million different things. It could be press, right? Ever heard of them? They might have gotten wind about Roger’s film. I have a feeling it’s going to be huge.”

I gave her a good, hard “Not on this earth” stare.

“Okay, I have a feeling it might be the actress that I beat for the zombie role. She probably decided to see what life was like without her meds and is taking it out on me. Once she’s back on them I’ll be fine. Happy?”

She wasn’t going to tell me the truth.

“How is that better?”

“It isn’t better, but she’s done this kind of thing before and she drifts on to the next person who beats her out. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Just ignore it. I can’t afford the emotional energy to make this an issue. My relationship is suffering. I need to start making money soon, or I’m going to be back in Atlanta working retail, okay?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m not trying to make you mad. And I’m sorry I looked in your purse, okay?”

“An apology doesn’t change anything, Anna. One more strike and you’re on the next plane to Atlanta. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

I had no idea what was really going on in her head. And while I definitely didn’t want to blow my invitation to stay with her in Dex’s condo, I knew for a fact that she needed to start taking the crazy around her a little more seriously. She could get as mad at me as she wanted to, but I was doing her a favor. Someone needed to wake her up.

“Why is everything always about money?” I said. “Can’t Dex just hire you?”