Big Summer(93)

Nick’s lips quirked upward in a thin, bitter smile. “I’ll bet.”

In that moment, I felt a great enfolding sympathy for him, a sorrow so piercing and complete it was hard to breathe. Had I really spent so many years feeling miserable because I was bigger than other girls, when there were people who’d grown up without their parents? Had I pitied myself because I’d failed at Weight Watchers, and because my high school BFF and I had fallen out, when there were people who’d found their own mother’s dead body on the floor? Had I fretted because I’d never been in love, and that I’d wasted two years on Wan Ron, when I had a mother and a father who loved me, who would have given me whatever help they could, who wanted nothing but my happiness?

I wanted to hug him; I wanted to cry; I wanted to tell him how terrible it was that his mother had been murdered and that his father was a stranger. Not just a stranger, but a preening, overbearing bully who’d cheated on his wife and slept with lots of other women. And, of course, I wanted to tell him how sorry I was that he was now a murder suspect. Except now I was one, too.

Instead of speaking, I reached for his hand. At first, Nick looked startled. Then, gratefully, he squeezed it back. Even in my sorrow and my anxiety, it felt reassuring to be with him, to feel his shoulder nudging my shoulder, his hand holding mine; the comforting warmth of another body beside mine. “Come on,” I said. This time, I was the one who pulled him to his feet. “Time to meet the parents.”



* * *




I felt my heart lift, the way it always did, when we turned the corner onto my tree-lined block, and I saw the building where I’d grown up, with its brownstone fa?ade and double front doors, its large, rectangular glass windows, with four panes of glass on each side, and the Japanese maple trees. One of those trees had grown right outside my bedroom, tinting the light in my room green, making me feel like I lived in a tree house. On Sundays, I’d wake up to the pealing of the bells from West End Presbyterian Church on 105th and Amsterdam.

“Come on up,” I said, and brought Nick inside and upstairs to where my parents were both waiting.

My mother wrapped her arms around me, holding on tight. I hugged her back, extricated myself, and turned to see Nick, looking amused at the scene.

“Nick, these are my parents, Jerry and Judy. Mom, Dad, this is Nick…” I got stuck, trying to remember his actual last name.

“Nick Carvalho,” he said, and extended his hand.

“Nick was an old friend of Drue’s.” I’d fill my parents in on the half brother part later.

“We heard they let go of the girl they’d been questioning,” said my mother, sniffling as she pulled a bit of tissue from her favorite tunic’s front pocket. “Do you know if the police have other suspects?”

I shook my head. “That’s why we’re here. Nick and Darshi and I are going to try to figure it out.”

“Figure out what?” my mom asked.

“Who killed Drue,” I said.

Before my mom could ask more questions, we went to the kitchen, where the refrigerator was still covered with my artwork, from my preschool finger-painted smears to the watercolor portrait I’d done of my mom as part of my senior-year project at Lathrop. I was wondering if I’d be able to slip into the living room and move the life-size papier-maché rendering of Bingo I’d made from its spot on the mantel to a closet or the trash.

My father, I saw, had been shopping. He’d already set out a dish of olives, a bowl of pretzels, a saucer of hummus with a slick of oil, pita chips, walnuts, a wooden board full of charcuterie, grainy mustard and crackers, and a small plate of crumbly almond cookies from his favorite Italian bakery in Brooklyn.

“Beer?” he offered Nick, rearranging the bowls and adding a small pile of linen cocktail napkins to the assembly. “Red wine? White wine? Coffee? Tea? I can make sangria, or I can mix up a pitcher of Manhattans…”

“Dad,” I said, “it’s one o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere,” he said, exactly the way I knew he would.

Nick held out my chair for me. I could see my parents notice, and the look of approval they exchanged.

My mother took her customary seat at the foot of the table. My father, in jeans and his oldest SUNY Purchase T-shirt, sat for a few seconds before popping up to his feet again to put out a wedge of Stilton, a dish of glazed apricots, another dish of wasabi peas, and a sleeve of water crackers.

“Coffee would be great,” said Nick. I mouthed the words “Thank you.” If my father was busy with the French press, he wouldn’t be able to keep emptying the contents of the refrigerator and pantry onto the kitchen table. My phone buzzed. “Oh, Darshi’s here!” I got up to let her in. She greeted my parents, and the five of us gathered around the table.

“Where should we start?” I asked.

My parents exchanged another look. “Daphne,” said my mother, “we aren’t sure that you should be involved in all of this.”

Darshi nodded emphatically. I ignored her.

“I understand. But here’s the thing. I brought Drue a drink the night she died. The police say that she was poisoned. So they’ll be looking at anyone who touched anything she had to eat or drink.”

My mother made a tiny, moaning sound and pressed her knuckles to her lips. My father put his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on them as he frowned. “Okay,” he said. “Does Drue have enemies? Any vengeful ex-boyfriends? Does the groom have any unbalanced ex-girlfriends? That would be the obvious place to start.”