Dead Letters(36)

I want to take a nap, but I desperately don’t want to go back to the house with Marlon and Opal and Nadine, all waiting for me there, each of them wanting to devour me with their special brand of neediness. I want my goddamn sister to be there, so we can roll our eyes and laugh at them and snort when they don’t understand our mockery. I need to sleep, so I drive to Zelda’s trailer. It looks lonely and cozy, perched on the hill amid the rows of grapevines.

I open the door and breathe in Zelda smells. I tug the mismatched curtains over the living-area windows to block out any light. It’s hot and stuffy in the trailer, but I don’t care. I start poking around, knowing it has to be here somewhere. Checking her usual hidey-holes reveals nothing, so I search the fridge and freezer, the top drawer, the frame of the ugly Pomeranian painting. I turn circles in Zelda’s hotbox of a home, annoyed with her and with myself for not being able to figure her out.

But then I see the dolls, Addy and Josefina, tucked away on a bookshelf, staring at me with their blank, baleful eyes. Let’s see, would Zelda pin it on the black girl or the Mexican? That, of course, is the wrong question. She would pin it on me. I reach for Josefina, and when I take her from the shelf, a familiar small box falls to the floor. I pick it up, the edges smooth and worn. Zelda has had this box since we were thirteen, one of the last gifts our father gave her before his flight to California. In high school, Zelda called it her “box of false promises.”

I open it up and am only mildly surprised to see a needle, spoon, and stretch of elastic nestled in with a slender bag of snowy powder. Zelda was always going to try heroin eventually. This part of the world is having a minor opiate renaissance: Rich white kids get hooked on Oxy, and heroin is a cheaper fix. I wonder if Zelda waited until I was gone or if she was using before. I’d like to write off her whole dalliance with Wyatt by that simple explanation: She was high. But that wouldn’t be the whole story. I’m unwilling to think about the whole story. In fact, I never want to think about it again.

Heroin isn’t what I’m after, though. Zelda always said that deep down I was conservative, timid, that I would never live wildly, even though I fancied myself a bohemian. I resented it then, but she was right. I’m surprised that my search for Xanax comes up empty. That used to be one of Zaza’s favorite come-down drugs. Instead, I settle for a Valium, which is almost as good. She has lots, probably lifted from my mother’s supply. There is a zip-lock bag filled with them, clearly labeled with a Sharpie. I swallow two, take off my clothes, and crawl into her bed, waiting to fall asleep. The exquisite prandial sun is beating violently down on the white tin roof of the trailer, and just as I’m drifting off, I imagine I can hear it sizzling, crackling, scorching.





9



To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Irritating, right?

June 24, 2016 @ 3:00 PM



Inimitable, Impeccable Ava,

Having fun yet? I bet you are, in your heart of hearts. You always liked to pretend that you were above games, that you couldn’t stand manipulation, wheeling, dealing. Sordid political jousts for power. You mocked Wyatt in high school for his fondness for winning, for getting first place. Do you remember when he wanted to run for student council and you virtually forbade it? He was crushed, but he did everything you asked him to, as always. He was such a good, obedient boy. Until you left him and he thought you weren’t coming back.

Have you caught on yet? Have you figured out what’s happening? You’re a sharp, clever girly, so it’s not impossible. But if I had to guess (and I have to, since I obviously can’t just pop up and ask you), I’d bet you’ve been too single-mindedly blotting out consciousness to have paid really close attention. But I’ve given you time to process and mope; from now on, you’ll have to focus harder and figure out what I’m up to. You’ll stumble across the rules of the game eventually, I’m confident. But here’s a nudge, to get you to the next step: What’s the thing you’ve always been the most afraid of?

I know your thoughts have immediately leapt to that old juvenile fear, the titanesque sturgeon ruffling their extra-large gills along the bottom of our lake, and I recognize your yawning, primordial terror, I do. Remember when we went out in the rowboat with Dad? And he began spinning his tall tales? (Ever the fabricator, our pops!) This one involved something about industrial runoff from Cornell creating these marine dinosaurs that had developed a taste for human flesh. You wouldn’t even know they were beneath you and—bam! They’d nibble off your feet or maybe swallow you whole. Your face went totally pale, and you begged and begged us to paddle to shore. And then, laughing mischievously, Dad dumped you into the water, just picked you up by the torso and chucked you in. You screamed and screamed, splashing in terror, and Marlon almost relented because it looked like you might drown. You pulled it together, though, and you swam, furious and panicked, back to the rocky banks of safety, storming off to the house without a backward glance, looking like a miserable drowned rat. You refused to speak to us for nearly a week. Silence always was your favorite weapon. You never remembered that I swam after you.

But, no, I don’t mean the sturgeon. What is the thing that you’ve feared and avoided your whole life long, that you’ve scampered away from at every opportunity? Another hint: I don’t think it’s coincidental that you’re irrationally afraid of a cold fish.