Big Summer(102)

“How’s that working out?” asked Darshi.

I cracked one eye open to glare at her. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Yes,” she said. “My idea is that we stop this. You didn’t do it, and the police are going to find whoever did. And I’m all out of sympathy for Drue. She made her choices.”

“And so what? You think that she deserved this?” I asked.

“I think,” said Darshi, her words clipped and precise, “that if you use people your entire life, if you manipulate them and take from them, and throw them away when you don’t need them anymore, then yes, there are consequences. Bad things happen.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it. I couldn’t tell Darshi that she was wrong; couldn’t tell her that Drue hadn’t behaved in exactly the manner she’d described. Drue had used Aditya and thrown him away, just like she’d done to Darshi. Just like she’d done to me. And karma might be a hashtag for Westerners, but Darshi had been raised as a Hindu. She believed that actions had consequences, in this life or the next.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right.”

Darshi didn’t respond. The car hummed with tension. Finally, in a voice so soft I could hardly hear it, Darshi said, “You chased after her when she was alive. Are you going to keep chasing now that she’s dead?”

I thought about how to answer and what I could possibly say. “Everyone deserves justice,” I finally said.

“You have to let her go,” said Darshi.

“I know.”

Darshi obviously disagreed. She clicked her teeth, looking frustrated and sad, but she didn’t respond. The uncomfortable silence stretched until Nick pulled off the highway onto Ninety-Sixth Street.

“Can you drop me off here?” I asked.

“Where are you going?” asked Nick.

“I’m going to walk for a while. Sometimes I think best when I’m moving.” It was just after seven o’clock. “I’ll walk, and I’ll think, and I’ll meet you back at my parents’ place in an hour or so, okay?”

“Are you sure? If you wait, I can walk with you.”

“No,” I said. “Thank you, but no. I think right now I need to be alone.”

“It’s getting dark,” Nick pointed out.

“Broad twilight. L’heure bleue. Seriously, I’ll be fine. And I have my phone.” Not only did I have my phone, but I needed to use it, to respond to some of my followers, to make sure all the links that I’d posted were working. Maybe I’d even finally write back to that poor girl who’d asked me how to be brave. Not like I had any more of an answer now than I’d had the day she’d posted her query, the day I’d met Leela Thakoon.

Nick didn’t seem happy to leave me alone, but, in the end, he pulled away, with Darshi in the passenger’s seat and with plans to meet me at eight. When the taillights had disappeared, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, set the pedometer on my phone (a habit from my dieting days that I’d never been able to break), and started to walk. I was still wearing the Leef jumpsuit, but I’d swapped the wedges for a pair of flat black sneakers. I held my head high, swinging my arms purposefully, even though I wanted to drag my feet and let my hands and head hang like sacks of rocks. I could see it: Detective McMichaels, with his gray brush cut and his caterpillar mustache, waiting in the hallway. Just a few more questions, he’d say, standing too close to me, staring me down. He’d have printed out Darshi’s text messages, pried out of the cloud, and he’d show them to me: Why were you and your friend discussing murdering Ms. Cavanaugh? Why were you texting pictures of knives? Just confess now, he’d say. I’m sure the prosecutor will make you a deal. Hey, you must have had your reasons! Get out in front of it. Tell us the truth.

I tried to shut off my mind, tried to think of something else, anything else. My hand went automatically to my phone. I opened up Instagram, opened the comments on the last picture I’d posted, bracing myself for the condolences, the so sorrys and the broken-heart emojis and, inevitably, the people who wanted to share their own stories of loss, to tell me about their friend who’d been murdered, or their sister, their daughter, their mom. I’d have to remember to tell Nick that this was another one of social media’s uses, the way it gave even the small and anonymous a place to tell their stories and find comfort, to be recognized and seen, even if it was only briefly.

Everyone deserves justice, I thought. Even people who lie. And everyone lies. Especially on social media, where there were lies of commission and lies of omission on everyone’s page, woven into everyone’s public presence. I pretended to be brave, and Darshi pretended to be straight, and Drue pretended to be rich and glamorous and happy when she was, in actuality, only rich and glamorous. Maybe it was different for men. Aditya seemed to be exactly who he said he was, and Nick wasn’t online at all.

Focus, I told myself, and put the phone away. I remembered the question the detective had asked. Who benefits? Well, who besides me and Nick and Aditya and Emma, I thought, and sighed as I edged around the homeless fellow sprawled in the middle of the sidewalk. Maybe there were positives to getting arrested in your own city, in your own apartment. This way, at least I’d get to pick out a nice outfit for the perp walk. My sponsors would probably be delighted, I thought grimly. You couldn’t pay for that kind of attention.