Aurora(6)

Aubrey’s car dropped her off at the house and she hurried up the uneven front walk, her rolly-bag’s cheap plastic wheels complaining in the cracked stone. She knew before she got to the step that Scott was inside the house, in direct violation of their agreement that he stay at Julian’s ’til she called him. Perhaps the criminal mastermind might have considered closing the front door if he’d really wanted to go undetected. She could hear the TV blaring in the living room.

She came inside and saw the back of Scott’s head, silhouetted against the seventy-seven-inch Sony he’d talked her into shortly after his dad moved out. That was early days. She’d told herself the TV was a lure, that it was better to have him interested in being in a central part of the house, where they could commune with each other and she could offer wise and kind guidance, rather than locked in his room at all times. But she’d known the real reason she got it. She just needed a little space to hide and pull her shit together, and maybe the TV would keep him busy.

Scott heard the door and turned. He blinked at her. “You’re home.”

“So are you.”

Scott furrowed his brow, thinking. “I did not expect this.”

“Clearly.” She closed the door behind her and shoved her bag into the corner.

He turned back to the TV. For some reason, he was watching cable news. Her brain dimly noted that this was not his usual fare. His back still turned, Scott pointed to the TV. “I think you should watch this.”

“I’m going upstairs to change, and then you and I are going to talk. This is not what we discussed, and I’m very disappointed.”

Scott didn’t bother to turn around. Three talking heads in a studio were hotly debating something that was probably pointless. His finger extended, Scott shook it at the screen, for emphasis. “I really think you should watch this.”

Aubrey ignored him and bounded up the creaky stairs with as much energy as she could muster. She made a lot of noise going up, then lightened her step when she turned at the top, headed for his room instead of hers. She opened his door softly and looked around. The bed was in its usual state of chaos, impossible for it to look any more unmade if deliberate effort had been put into it. Clothes were everywhere, so were the remains of food, and there were glasses scattered around every flat surface, various sugary, colored liquids fermenting within.

Aubrey went to the dresser and opened the drawers, one after the other, running her hands through the contents. No bottles hidden there. Likewise, there were no bags of weed under the mattress or in the nightstand, no scent of smoke in the air, and the glasses she sniffed seemed innocent of liquor. Satisfied, she turned to leave, pleased that she had one less thing to fight about with him. But as she turned, she saw it. Sitting right out in the open, on top of his dresser.

An orange prescription bottle. He hadn’t even felt the need to hide it.



Downstairs, she walked in front of him, cutting off most of his view of the gigantic TV, and put the bottle on the coffee table between them.

Scott glanced down at it and shrugged.

“I didn’t think you were coming home.” He leaned around her, trying to see the TV.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Would it be possible to discuss this later?”

She resisted the urge to explode. “Scott, it’s hydrocodone.”

“Yah,” he said.

“From my root canal.”

“Oh, is that where you got it? Right. Makes sense. That ever give you any more trouble?”

“What is the matter with you?”

“I didn’t think you were coming—”

“Will you please shut up about whether or not you thought I was coming home? You went into my medicine cabinet—or no, actually, you searched my bathroom drawers, until you found some fucking oxy, and then you took it, and you’re fifteen years old, and these are opiates, goddamn it!”

Scott turned to her, engaged now. “OK, I didn’t search your shit until I found some oxy, I searched your shit and then I found some oxy, which is, like, super different, OK?”

In a sense, one had to admire, if not the substance of his argument, then at least his willingness to try to steer the conversation onto a path more fruitful for his cause. Aubrey did not feel admiring.

“Fuck off, Scott.”

“Nice parenting.”

“You are in the wrong here.”

“I’m not the only one. You planted cameras to watch me.”

She paused. She tried to match his calm. “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t bother to answer that, just half laughed and nodded over his shoulder, where she could now see the three Zmodos had been stacked on the entry table. She hadn’t noticed them when she’d come in, but clearly, they were there for her.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said.

Things were making sense to her now. “You turned them off.”

“The minute you left.”

“I suppose you didn’t practice the piano, either,” she said, trying to regain the upper hand.

He just ignored that, looking back at the TV.

Aubrey persisted. “Did Caprice stay here?”

“Celeste.”

“What?”

“Her name is Celeste. Not Caprice. You always call her Caprice.”