Good Rich People(45)

He shrugs, runs a line of heroin. “I guess you’ll have to go out and score, then,” he grunts. “Pawn things. Keep this house together.” He is really overstating his importance.

I shake my head. “It’s like you want to be seen.”

He runs another line and speaks through smoke. “She can’t see me.” He coughs. My eyes go up automatically. I hear her cross the floor. “You know what a rich person’s blind spot is? Poverty. She doesn’t have any idea what we do, how we think. Doesn’t have any idea at all.” He smokes some more. “We can use that.”

Upstairs, I was afraid of being seen for what I really am, afraid of not belonging, but Michael is right: She couldn’t see me if she wanted to, couldn’t conceive of the machinations, the lies and the crimes that got me here.

I can hang on down here as long as I can, a rat picking up scraps, while Michael takes everything, while my chance evaporates. This has been my life so far. I clung to my wild dad, and when he died, I moved from place to place, a living, breathing apology. I felt bad for who I was, for all the things I wasn’t responsible for and I lost, again and again and again.

I don’t believe that the disadvantaged can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”; they’re born without boots. But I’m not poor anymore. I have been (re)born to privilege. And I can’t let Michael or my past or my own poor-minded self keep me down.

So the next morning when Lyla insists I go for a walk with her, when she denies my refusals, I capitulate. I give in. I accept.

I need to think rich. I need to think Me.

I am blessed.

She is the blessing.



* * *





WE FOLLOW A narrow, winding road up the side of the hill. It’s not the kind of path I would ever choose. The pavement is uneven, split open at the seams. Hairpin turns all but guarantee that any car will hit you; no brake could seize in time. It sends my instincts into overdrive.

She doesn’t notice the danger. It doesn’t exist for her. We pass cars with cracked mirrors, punctures and scrapes that run from bumper to bumper, and she just chatters away about nothing.

As we walk, the pressure of recognition slowly builds. She is taking me to the lake. Does she know what happened? Does she sense it?

The path around the lake is deserted, and it’s not really a path. It’s a wide asphalt road rimmed with pipes so wide you could crawl inside; you could sleep inside if it weren’t for the thatched bars at every opening.

An asphalt road encircles the reservoir, but it’s separated from the water by a fifteen-foot-high chain-link fence.

The reservoir itself is a pristine, untouched lake in the middle of a city touched by everything, touched by too much, but it is upended by a soulless dam. There is an enormous concrete ring in one end where the water drains, sucked down endlessly, that looks like the kind of place you would dump a body.

We walk along the trail together. I want to enjoy myself but can’t, which could probably be the title of my memoir. Lyla stops, smiles eerily.

“Here we are.”

“Where?” I see my escape routes, but I see my defense, too. She’s smaller than you are. She has a lot of hair. She is too Zen to move very fast.

“If we lift the fence up”—she bends down to show me—“we can walk down to the lake.”

“I don’t want to.” My heart is pounding. I know it doesn’t make sense. I am panicking unnecessarily, but I need to. I need to panic sometimes and my brain says, Why not now?

I have flashes of forcing the bag under the rocks and it’s filled with body parts, when it didn’t seem that way, not in the moment. You’re not a murderer; you’re a survivor. There’s a difference.

“But I thought you said—”

“I should really go back.” I need to leave. I am having a panic attack.

“It’s totally safe,” she says. “There’s nobody around. You said it was beautiful. You said it was inaccessible. Don’t you want to go there? Just to prove you can?”

“We’ll get caught.” I don’t mean for this.

“I never get caught.” I believe it. “You first. You’re smaller.” The fence squeals as she wrenches it up. “Hurry! It’s heavy,” she snaps, and I’m breaking a sweat. But she doesn’t know, couldn’t possibly know; this is just a coincidence. A terrible collision, like the kind that happened that night when two lives happened to overlap, almost as if they were living in the same world. “Stop being so paranoid.”

It’s all right.

“Fine. Hold it up.” The metal creaks as she holds it and I pass through. This is not what I imagined at all. I thought we would go shopping. I thought we would have drinks. If I wanted to break and enter, I would have stayed on the streets.

I face her on the other side of the fence. It feels so much like a trap that I know it can’t be.

“Shit.”

“What?” My heart is pounding.

“I have to change my tampon. I’ll be right back.”

“But!”

“Stay there; I’ll be right back!”

This is a setup, my paranoia roars. You were right. You’re always right. Everyone is out to get you.

I feel exposed standing next to the fence where anyone walking along the path could see me. There is no formal trail on this side, but the weeds are flattened in a line and I follow that into the brush. I am gazing out over the nervous water when I gasp, cover my heart with my hand.