The Elizas: A Novel(24)

I mumble a halfhearted apology and head out the door. I don’t slam it—that might qualify as erratic, unstable behavior, the kind of behavior defined by people who drink too much and don’t own up to skipping yoga and who throw themselves into swimming pools. I walk the whole way to the edge of the property line before I turn around and give the house the finger. Chore charts? Cable? Really?

It’s mild outside, and the sun has sunk below the trees. I start to walk, hoping movement will settle me down. Halfway to Riverside Drive, I hear footsteps and turn around. It’s Kiki. She’s barefoot, and her eyes are red, and her golden hair is flying behind her like the tail of a kite.

“Eliza,” she calls.

I consider running, but she’d catch me by the end of the block. So I stop. My arms hang heavily at my sides.

“I’m sorry.” She’s breathing hard. “I didn’t know my brother was going to say all those things.”

“You could have stood up for me.”

Kiki twists her mouth. “I know. But Steadman, he . . . well, whatever.” She smiles sheepishly. “And it’s kind of true, honey. Lately you’ve seemed barely aware of your life.” She puts her hand on my arm. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?”

I stare down at Kiki’s pale, freckled hand. She’s got a thick plastic ring with a plastic roach trapped inside of it. She got it at Steadman’s shop, but she doesn’t work there. Part-time, she plays an Elsa from Frozen for birthday parties, company meetings, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and for hungover fraternity brothers. It’s weird who requests an Elsa. You never know. Anyway, she wears the ring while princessing it up, the bug spun toward her palm. She says it gives her power.

Everything I need to tell weighs on me with the dull, pressing force of a dentist’s X-ray bib. Not just the drowning, not just the person Desmond saw running away, but everything else, too. I never told Kiki about the suicide attempts. I never told her about my tumor. I don’t want her looking at me differently, and I know she would. I don’t want her pitying me, though it seems like she is anyway.

Maybe, though, it would be okay to have a friend to worry with. It’s one thing for my family not to believe me about jumping into the pool; it’s another for Kiki to say, unprompted, that I’m having memory problems. What if I am still sick? What if the tumor has come back? Some people are good at crossword puzzles or jujitsu. Maybe I’m good at making tumors nestle inside my skull.

Only, what about that person running away? What is that, then?

I can’t tell Kiki. Just uttering those words, just giving my condition shape and air, means that this sudden and sharply defined worry might be the truth.

“I’m fine,” I say quietly. “I’m just . . . tired. Freaked out about the book, maybe. Afraid people aren’t going to like it.”

“Of course,” Kiki says. “It’s got to be a lot of pressure. But you should be happy about it, Eliza. You’re getting published in what, a month? It’s going to be amazing.” She slaps the sides of her thighs. “Want to get dinner somewhere? I’m up for anything.”

There’s a lump in my throat. “I just want to take a walk by myself.”

“Of course, of course.” She pulls me in one more time for a hug. She smells like weed, and her weight against mine makes my throat-lump six sizes bigger. “Get some Baked Alaska at Bob’s Big Boy,” she murmurs in my ear. “And a big glass of milk.”

I start walking.

It is after five, and Burbank is dead. The roads are wide and empty, perfect for drag races. A girl wipes off the tables of the greasy Mexican joint, and tinkling mariachi music escapes out of speakers. A high-end Mercedes slips silently out of the gates of Warner at the end of the road, then makes a slithery turn onto Olive, escaping for the highway. Its stealthy, amphibious motion triggers memory upon memory of all the weird, unexplainable things I’d recently done.

Like jumping the fence of a chain hotel and plunging into the first body of water I could find—which happened to be a large, outdoor hot tub. I forced my face into the hot water. Only when I couldn’t breathe did I feel relief. It’s going to end. I’ll be free.

Or the memory of riding a bike down the path that cuts through Santa Monica and Venice beaches and suddenly, arrestingly, having a palpable fear that someone was chasing me. I turned around, and I did see someone. Maybe lots of someones, all with angry, vengeful eyes. The only way I could fathom getting away was plunging into the Pacific, so I’d made a madcap run across the sand. A wave had taken me down immediately. A father and son dragged me out after the breath had left my body. Why is she coughing? the little boy kept asking. Is she going to be okay?

And the memory of two nights ago, when I’d crashed into the pool at the Tranquility. The cold water had been so shocking, but once again, I’d felt safe. I flailed onto my back and, for a moment, opened my eyes.

I stop short just before the curb cut. There was someone on the pool deck, just like Desmond said. The glare from a spotlight blotted out any discernible features, but whoever it was stood above me, chest puffed triumphantly, as I sank.

I grab my phone and dial the police station again. The same receptionist picks up, and I can’t remember Lance’s last name again, and I can’t bear to go through the spiel of the message one more time. I hang up and demand my phone’s automated assistant give me the number to the Tranquility. “Can I be connected to the Shipstead bar?” I ask after the front desk answers.