The Accidentals(32)

As the night wears on, the front door opens and closes again, but this time the tide is running out. The voices in the living room diminish to only a few, and someone puts on Elvis Costello at a low volume.

I sit crosswise on my bed, flipping through the catalog, until the front door opens once more with a bang, and the quiet conversation downstairs breaks off at once.

“Fucking hell!” a female voice rings out. “I get a text that the party is at Freddy’s house tonight. And I think—that’s impossible! Because if Freddy was back in town he would have called me.”

My father’s voice says something low and soothing.

“Really?” Her voice is shrill. “Because you don’t look like a guy who was about to pick up the phone to call me.”

I can’t hear Frederick’s response, but it makes the woman even angrier. “You never told me to keep my voice down before. Not when I was screaming your name in bed. Who’s going to hear me, Freddy? I can’t wait to find out.”

And then I hear feet stomping up the stairs.

A few seconds later, a woman walks right past the door to my room, as if heading for Frederick’s. But since mine is the only light on upstairs, the woman turns, and a startled face peers into my bedroom.

“What the hell?” she yelps. She has shiny brown hair and big eyes, like a doe.

For the second time that night, I’m speechless.

“Liz,” my father’s voice barks up the stairs. “That’s enough already.” He sounds tired. “Leave Rachel alone.”

She retreats. I don’t hear any more of their exchange, but the front door opens and shuts again a minute later. And then Frederick’s footsteps slowly climb the stairs. His face appears in the doorway. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” It’s your house.

He sits on the foot of the bed, and then rolls backward, his hands behind his head. “I’m sorry. That was…”

“Classy?” I supply.

He laughs. “Right.”

“But not as classy as the two girls who were blowing coke on your kitchen counter.” Even as I say the words, I wonder if blowing coke is the right terminology.

Frederick lifts his head. “No shit?”

“They offered me some. I guess if the social worker calls to check on me, I won’t mention it.”

He jackknifes into a sitting position. “Rachel, you know drugs are for assholes, right?”

I look into his serious face, and try not to laugh. The anti-drug pamphlets they hand out at school would be more entertaining if they were titled: Drugs are for Assholes. And his expression is priceless. “Well…” I clear my throat. “I only get high about twice a day. It helps to keep my blues away.”

“What?” He gapes at me.

“It’s a song, Frederick. The rhyming couplet should have tipped you off. I guess you’re not a fan of BranVan 3000?”

He flops onto his back again. “Jesus, Rachel. That’s not funny.”

“I’ve never even seen cocaine before, except on TV.”

“Welcome to L.A. So who were these girls?”

“Um, no idea? They had on short shorts and tall shoes.”

“Well, that’s half of Southern California. How old?”

“Young. Younger than you.”

“Well that’s most of Southern California.” He scrapes his face with one hand. “I might need to get out of L.A. for a while. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“Why? Where would you go?”

“I was thinking of getting a place in Claiborne this year. If I can buy you a coffee every couple weeks, that seems like a low-key way to make sure you’re doing okay.”

Nothing he’s said to me yet is as shocking as this suggestion. I don’t even know where to begin. “Can you do that? What about work?”

“I’d only be there about half the time, and traveling the other half. But I wouldn’t mind getting away from here for a while. Too many people are pulling on me.”

“But… Henry makes it sound like you have a lot to do here.”

He shakes his head. “In the first place, you don’t worry about that shit, okay? That’s my problem.”

Well, ouch. For somebody who doesn’t know how to be a parent, he’s got the leave-it-to-the-grownups line right.

“And anyway, Henry says those things because the record label is pressuring him. But I’m not ready to record. My head is in a hundred places.”

“Will they be angry?”

He stretches his arms overhead. “Whatever. Recording artists are always pulling this crap. You wouldn’t believe the excuses those guys hear. ‘I can’t play today, because Mercury is in retrograde,’ and ‘I have a splinter in my left butt cheek.’”

I smile up at the sloping ceiling. “What about this house?”

“What about it? I’ll probably keep it.” He rolls onto an elbow. “Tell me what you really think.”

“I think that it sounds like a lot of expense and trouble.”

“If I stay in California, I might not see you for months. That’s not good enough.”

Really? It was for seventeen years. My heart rate accelerates, and I ask him one of the questions that’s been burning me up inside. “Why did you bring me here anyway?”