Nice Girls(14)

“Mary?”

“Yes?”

“My cousin Jayden and his friends can be a little messy.”

I was grinning.

“I like messy.”



At home, I took a nap. I showered, had dinner, and got ready. I dug through the trash bags for a decent outfit and settled on a pair of white jeans, a glittery top, and a leather jacket. I plastered on some makeup. I nearly gawked at myself in the mirror—somehow, even after everything, I looked good.

By the time I came downstairs, it was already half past ten.

“Are you going out tonight?” Dad asked from his armchair. He was watching a boxing match on TV and drinking a beer.

“Am I not allowed to go out?”

“You do whatever you want, Mary. I just want you to be careful,” he said, his gaze on the TV. “Who are you going out with?”

“A friend.”

“Which friend? Where you guys heading?”

He wanted me to elaborate, but I said nothing. I felt like I was sixteen again, a petulant teenager who needed supervision. It was as if he’d forgotten the past three years that I’d been away.

A beam of headlights flashed through the window. Dwayne was outside.

“Be safe,” Dad called after me. I didn’t respond.

Outside, there was a beat-up tan car in the driveway. Dwayne was holding the passenger door open. When he saw me, his eyebrows rose in surprise.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said as I slipped in my seat.

“It’s because I don’t have the work polo,” I said.

Dwayne grinned as he closed the door shut. He looked different, too—it was jarring to see him outside of his work uniform. He slipped into the driver’s seat. There was a moment of silence as Dwayne started the car, the awkwardness creeping around us.

“You clean up good, Ivy League,” he said suddenly. “You look nice.”

“Thanks. You do, too,” I said. I tried not to sound too pleased.

As Dwayne pulled out of the driveway, I expected to see Dad watching us through the window blinds. But there was nobody there.

I was jittery in the car, the reality sinking in—formerly fat Ivy League Mary was going to a party with the high school quarterback. It was a stupid, trivial thing. But it was something that high school Mary could never have imagined. She was pretty, she was cool, and she seemed successful. She was worth something.

If only they could’ve all seen.

Dwayne took us on the highway and turned on the radio. A breezy male DJ was speaking.

“—more prayers for Olivia Willand,” he said. “Just a huge story right now in the state. A lot of people think that there was foul play involved. It’s such a sad story. I look at her picture, and I’m like, this is horrifying to think—”

“Can you turn it off?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Dwayne said. The car fell silent again. “It’s kind of eerie.”

I couldn’t escape Olivia. She already had enough attention from the world and the people who looked for her, prayed for her. What was one less person? I’d dealt with Olivia my whole life. I wanted just one short night away from her, one fleeting moment.

We zipped past the lake, wide and never-ending, the water darker than the sky overhead. I could see the thickets of trees that surrounded the lake, blocking out the city lights from behind it.

But there was something that glowed out of the darkness. It was brighter than anything nearby—a giant beacon of light at the edge of the water. A tower of glass. It was beautiful, mesmerizing.

“Jayden’s a bit of a character,” Dwayne said softly. “A little blunt, but he’s a good guy. He’s grumpy about turning twenty-three, though.”

“Why?”

“He’s afraid of getting old.”

A few minutes later, Dwayne took the exit ramp. We were past the lake, entering the southern division of the city. I recognized it from the fast food restaurants and run-down homes. I could feel the streets beneath us, uneven and potholed. We passed by a defunct auto shop, a furniture store with a shattered front window, and an empty shack of a restaurant.

I was nervous. Dad told me that decades ago, the area had been the city’s landfill. Once Liberty Lake found another trash site, they decided to build over the area. The south side of the city became home to cheap one-story houses and quaint shops. It became a neighborhood of young midwestern families.

Then, a few decades later, came white flight. Minorities began to move in from other cities. Property values went down. It became a fast game of self-preservation. Anyone with money moved farther north in the city or left it altogether. Crime went up—petty robberies and domestic violence and shootings. People griped about the area like it was Compton or Newark, crime-infested areas plagued with gang violence. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but I’d avoided the area my whole life.

In elementary school, the older kids taught us that the shit from the lake was filtered down to the south side of the city. We called it the Sewers of Liberty Lake.

As if reading my thoughts, Dwayne cleared his throat.

“It’s not the nicest part of town, but it’s not as bad as people say it is.”

I could only nod, looking out the window.

Dwayne eventually turned onto a street of ramshackle homes. At the end of it, an apartment building loomed off to our right. It was ugly and covered in clapboard siding. The curtains were closed in most of the apartments. Dwayne parked us in a tight corner of the parking lot, next to the curb and a minivan with plastic over the driver’s window.