Vice(2)

Laura nods. She wipes a tear away with the back of her hand and sniffs. “Tomorrow.” She turns and hightails it, racing down the stairs before he can stop her. Jamie stands there, watching her go, his hands on his hips, frozen like he can’t believe what’s just happened. He bows his head, sighing, and then slowly goes down the stairs, leaving me staring at an empty hallway.

I find Laura around the back of the house, leaning against the crumbling brick wall of an old outhouse, where Jamie’s grandfather used to store cattle feed back when the mansion wasn’t just a mansion but the main house of a huge farming estate. Jamie and I always used to hide from her here when we were younger, climbing up into the rafters of the outhouse, lying as still as we possibly could while she shouted at us and called us names below. Now, she’s smoking a cigarette, eyes still swollen from her tears, her mascara streaked halfway down her face.

“Your hands are shaking,” I tell her.

She nearly jumps out of her skin. “Jesus, you nearly scared me half to death, Cade Preston.”

I hold out my hand and she passes me the cigarette. Taking a deep drag, I close my eyes as my head starts to spin. Been years since I smoked. I didn’t even smoke when I was deployed. Leaning back against the wall with her, I nudge her with my shoulder, passing back the Marlboro.

“Wanna talk about it?”

She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “No.”

“Okay.”

She takes another drag, and then another. We stand in silence, both looking up at the stars, listening to the soft strains of music overflowing out of the back door. “All right, then,” she says after a while. “I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t want to feel this way.”

I put my arm around her, drawing her to my side. “I know.”

“I mean, who would? No one in their right minds, that’s for sure. He’s Louis James Aubertin the third, for f*ck’s sake.” She flicks the butt of her cigarette away, and the ember of the cherry flares in the darkness before it disappears into the long grass a few feet away.

“What does that mean?”

Laura lets out a frustrated sigh. “He’s just…more than everyone else. He doesn’t even know it, and yet he is. He can have any girl he wants. He does have any girl he wants. Regularly. He’s an *.”

“Then why are you out here, beating yourself up over him?”

“Because…I don’t know. I always thought he was going to be my *, y’know. Ever since we were kids. It just seemed as though it was always going to be us, the three of us, together.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I suppose, in a way, I figured that in the back of my mind, too. Or maybe I just never really considered that Lore might end up getting married to some guy I don’t know, and that Jamie would carry on being Jamie.

We’re silent again. She gets another cigarette out of the pack in her purse, and we share the whole thing this time, passing it back and forth between us.

“It doesn’t help that he looks the way he does,” she says eventually.

I let out a bark of laughter. “I can mess his face up if you like.”

“Yeah,” she says, leaning her head against my shoulder. “That would actually be really great, thanks. If he looks like a hideous, disfigured monster, I won’t be in love with him anymore.”

It rattles me to hear her say that—that she loves him. I sigh sadly, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “You think so, huh?”

She answers almost immediately. “No. Not really. I think it wouldn’t matter what the f*ck he looked like. I’d be in love with him all the same.”

I hug her, my heart aching for her. “You know that old saying?” I ask.

“If you tell me time is a great healer, I’m gonna kick you in the balls.”

Laughing, I shake my head. “No, not that one.”

“If you’re going through hell, keep on going?”

“Oooh, Churchill. Nice. But, no. Not that one, either.”

“What, then?”

I clear my throat, trying to give my words some gravitas. “I hope you step on a Lego, you arrogant motherf*cker.”

She bursts into laughter, digging me in the side with her elbow. “Yeah, I do know that one.”

“Well, you’re my sister, and I love you. So I’ll start putting Lego in his shoes for you. It’s the least I can do.”

“The very least,” she agrees, nodding. And then, softly, “Thank you, Cade.”

“You are more than welcome. You wanna go back inside?”

“No. I think I’m gonna go home. This party is f*cking terrible.”

“God, I know. Isn’t it?”





******





Next morning, I go into Laura’s room and her bed hasn’t been slept in. Not even a wrinkle marks the sheets. Downstairs, Mom and Dad are at breakfast, silently hating each other from across the table, as is their custom. I sit down, helping myself to coffee. “I didn’t know Laura left already. I thought she was going to hang around here for a couple of days before she headed back to the firm?” She’s just been made partner at Dad’s law practice. While her work ethic is intense, she did promise to stay home for a little while, though. We haven’t seen each other in a long time, after all, since she’s been away at college, and I’ve been on the other side of the world, dealing with insurgents.