Good Rich People(63)

I stand in the doorway. “You went into her garden.”

“You did.” How does he know that?

“I was invited. I went with Graham. It’s his mother’s house.” He shrugs, slips a square of foil from his pocket and chases a line. “This house reeks of heroin. How did you know I was there?”

“Saw you. I was in the red garden. The one with roses.” Lust.

“What were you doing in there? Do you want to get caught?”

“Looking at the flowers,” he says through smoke.

The flowers are already starting to die down here. “It’s not our garden. You can’t just walk around in there.”

He snorts. “Yes, I can. You ever seen a place like that? You ever seen anything so beautiful?”

“I don’t know,” I lie.

He chases another line, then leans against the counter. “They hoard beauty, too, along with their money.” He speaks like an oracle, a heroin prophet. “The world is a beautiful place, or it would be, but they take it all. All the beauty, and what do we get? Broken sidewalks and spattered blood.”

“Write a poem about it.” I hate when people are high and right.

“He’s good-looking, isn’t he?”

“Who?” Like I don’t know.

“But you’d better watch yourself,” he counsels me, shaking his lighter at me. “Bet you he’s bad. Bet you he’s worse than we are. Money is immoral. Money is the only thing God doesn’t forgive.” That’s convenient for him.

I rest my shoulder in the doorframe. “He said he wanted to help me.” My voice is weak with hope.

“He thinks you’re someone else.”

I trace the cracks in the molding. “Maybe if I explained to him what happened, how it was an accident.”

Michael springs from the counter. “No.” He pushes around me through the doorframe, carrying his flowers. He sets them in the corner, then sits on the floor beside them, just staring at them.

I should leave it. I don’t know why I want to convince Michael of all people, but all people are gone. “A person like that could . . . he could get us out of this for good.” I say “us” but I mean “me.” Michael knows it. “He could fix everything—he actually could.” That much money, you could do anything. Anything.

“No.”

“You said not to be poor-minded,” I persist. “You said to be the reason. This is an opportunity.”

He shakes his head, shuts his eyes. “Rich people are not opportunities. Poor people are opportunities. Dead people are opportunities. You can’t trust someone who doesn’t need anything. Trust me.”

I want to point out that I watched him kill someone, and he wants me to trust him? But I don’t want to remind him. I don’t want to remind me. He will just tell me again that he did it to save me, but save me for what? This half-life hiding in the guesthouse while right over our heads there’s a castle and I have the key.

He’s right: The people upstairs have all the beauty. I’m tired of sinking in tragedy, of feeling dirty with it. I’m tired of being trapped in this house with only Michael. I want more.

I would rather be in a rich person’s hell than a poor person’s heaven.

And I am so fucking close.





DEMI



I take another long shower. There is a cotton feeling in my ears. When I get out, Michael is gone again. I grab one of his beers from the fridge. I drink it on the sofa, then another and another. I think about Graham.

You’re special. It’s a line. I know it’s a line. But it’s nice to have someone care enough to give you a line. When I am tipsy, I think about his animal sanctuary. It’s nicer than all the places I’ve lived before this. I should ask if there’s room for me. I laugh out loud.

Then I hear it: footsteps on the stairs. But these are heavier; they take their time. They are in no hurry. They are inevitable. They are cop footsteps.

I forgot about the bag of hands, feet and teeth.

I was supposed to go and get it. I had a chance, and what did I do? I took another shower. I had another beer. I forgot who I was and what I did to get here. I’ve been sloppy—with everything—and now I am going to get what I deserve.

A fist raps—Bang! Bang!—on the door.

I don’t move. I am so used to not answering doors—to cops, to neighbors, to landlords—that it’s second nature. They can’t come in if you don’t open the door. Don’t open the door.

“Hello?” a teatime voice calls out. “It’s Graham from upstairs.”

The fear flushes through me again, drops to the floor. I’m safe. I’m protected. I have been lucky so many times lately that it’s starting to feel like I deserve it.

“Just a second!” I go to the bathroom to check myself in the full-length mirror. My face is still fear pale. I spritz it with an atomizer. I spray perfume and light a candle, hoping it will mask the scent of heroin when I open the door.

Graham stands behind the screen with his hands in his pockets. The sun glows along his neck and he smiles slightly, like we have met again by chance. “Sorry to bother you. It’s just that— God, I don’t want to scare you!” His cheeks turn pink, and he ducks his head.