Like a Sister(46)

I wasn’t the only one who broke ties with Desiree after the accident. E! followed suit, dropping her from NYZ. The grapevine, by way of Aunt E, told me she’d been devastated. The network had wanted her to seek professional help. We all had wanted her to seek professional help. And she’d refused, parroting her new go-to line, that she’d never drink and drive.

Like the rest of us, the police had disagreed. Desiree had been charged. Just like I told her she’d be. But I hadn’t accounted for Mel’s money, which had gotten her a good lawyer, who in turn had gotten her off with just community service. She’d done an Instagram video in the car from the courthouse. A publicist must have been on the other side of the camera holding cue cards and a gun because Desiree went on and on about learning experiences and mistakes—all while not admitting any semblance of guilt.

There was no further mention of her blacking out or that she wasn’t driving. I’d thought maybe she’d given up on that story, but what Sherry had overheard suggested otherwise. Could Desiree have been telling the truth all these years? It suddenly seemed like it wasn’t BS at all, and that she’d found someone who could prove it. I could think of only one person who’d know if Desiree had been behind the wheel.

Zor-El.

But if Zor-El had been such a Good Samaritan, why wasn’t she helping Desiree now? Sherry’d made it sound like Desiree was angry. If someone else really had been driving, Desiree obviously hadn’t known who it was. If she had known, surely she’d have gone to them directly.

Had Desiree found someone else there that night too?

If another person had been involved, they’d clearly had something to lose, since they hadn’t come forward. What had they been hiding? And how desperate would they have been to keep it secret?

Since Zor-El was the only witness I knew about, she seemed like my best chance to find out what Desiree had uncovered—and what it might have to do with her death.

I just needed to find Zor-El.

But it wouldn’t be through Desiree’s Instagram DMs. Or her missing phone. Or the hotel bill that listed calls but not numbers, in order to protect their guests’ privacy.

So I’d gone through Desiree’s stuff twice. There weren’t any names, numbers, email addresses. Save for scouring her Instagram posts for an “I was there when you had your accident—LOL” comment, I wasn’t sure what steps to take next.

Instead of getting up, I asked Aunt E, “Did Desiree ever talk to you about The Accident?”

Aunt E and I hadn’t spoken much about it ourselves, but that’s what we’d always called it when we did. The Accident, like it was some privileged-white-people-in-peril show on HBO.

“Not a once,” Aunt E said.

She didn’t expand, as usual, just zeroed in on my Warm Apple Pie candle and trudged over piles of dirty clothes to blow it out. “I hate these things,” she said. “Always getting my hopes up that you finally cooked something.”

One of the reasons Aunt E and Gram had worked so well was they’d complemented each other. Aunt E was TV and ten-minute showers. Gram, books and baths. Aunt E was color. Gram, classic black and white. Aunt E had a loud mouth. Gram had a sweet tooth. One she’d passed down to me. Her chocolate pie recipe had been my potluck go-to since Kat first invited me to friendsgiving freshman year at Penn. But then both Gram and my mom died back-to-back and even chocolate pie lost its taste.

Aunt E looked around. “This room is more of a mess than the last episode of Real Housewives.”

I couldn’t argue. Aunt E loved her reality TV as much as her Bible. Once CBS canceled Guiding Light, she’d simply packed up and moved down the dial to Bravo and VH1. “Now get up, Lena. Buck’s gonna be here any minute.”

I closed my laptop, not bothering to ask where we were going. I didn’t need to. Aunt E only took Mr. Buck up on his open-ended offer to play chauffeur to go to the doctor or over the bridge into Manhattan. And she would have told me if she had any checkups.

We were going to see Mel. The last place I wanted to go. I was too smart to say that, though. Just got up, got dressed, and got into Mr. Buck’s car, riding in his back seat like Desiree and I used to as kids. He drove only Cadillac Sevilles, refusing to touch anything else, which meant he hadn’t had a new car since the mid-2000s. At least this one was in pristine condition. Gram used to say he treated his cars better than he treated his women. Considering he was single, she must’ve been right.

My phone buzzed just as we got on the FDR. I felt like crap as soon as I saw the sender.

“Who’s that?” Aunt E said.

“Desiree’s friend. Erin.”

“The white girl?”

The white girl I’d essentially blown off since I’d walked out of PowerJam. After she’d made a point to support me when everyone else was acting like I’d lost my mind. I felt horrible about that. I really did. I opened my texts, expecting to find Erin annoyed. Instead, she’d written: What’s ur addy? Found something of Freck’s I know she’d want u to have. LMK. It only made me feel worse, especially when I realized one thing.

I needed her again.

If Desiree had been looking into The Accident, there was a good chance Erin knew something about it. I wasn’t even annoyed that she hadn’t brought it up—as long as she was honest now. I needed to talk to her—but not with Aunt E and her super ears in the front seat. She was the only person I knew whose hearing had gotten better with age. She was chatting happily with Mr. Buck about the Yankees, but Aunt E was a master of doing two things at once, especially if one of those things was eavesdropping. I’d learned that the hard way.