The Girls I've Been(69)

Iris picks up the bottle bomb and shakes it vigorously. The plastic starts to swell under her hands, the chemicals building up the pressure, but she still holds on.

The door swings open, the smoke billows out, and Red Cap starts coughing. Iris chucks the bottle right at the sound, there’s a yell, a fitz-ing sound, and then bam! It explodes, in a forced projectile zing, spraying more smoke.

His scream is hellish—nails on a chalkboard have nothing on it—but I don’t let it stop me. I plunge forward into the smoke; it’s still pouring out of the bathroom, and Red Cap is on the floor, three feet down the hall, and it’s bad. It looks like it got him right in the stomach, and his hands aren’t just bloody; they’re raw, like the skin’s been stripped from them.

Where’s the gun? On him? He had the shotgun last time I saw him. Is it on the floor? Smoke pulses out behind me, and I cough. My eyes water, trying to wash away the feeling, and I turn to find Iris.

All I see is smoke and flame. Shit. Shit. The fire’s leapt from the fire barrel to the ceiling.

“Iris!” I run forward through the chaos and smack into her. She sags against me, coughing violently.

“The ceiling tiles!” she gasps out. “They’re old. Asbestos, maybe. I didn’t think—”

“Go!”

I push her forward, still searching for the gun on the ground. Where is it? It’s gotta be on him.

“Go!” I say again, even as I bend down on the ground next to Red Cap’s moaning body. His jacket’s zipped up tight. He’s gotta have the pistol tucked inside . . .

Iris’s little gasp and the thump is the only warning I get. I glance up and see him through the smoke, bloody and angry. Then the butt of the shotgun is zooming toward my face, and I think with sudden, belated clarity: I should’ve gone first.





— 53 —


    Raymond: How I Did It (In Four Acts)



Act 2: Bang

Five Years Ago

I have nowhere to go. If Raymond starts thinking it through, he’s going to realize there’s no way I could’ve taken whatever money he’s mad about. So I just keep moving, my mind latching on to the only thing I can: my just-in-case box. I don’t want to be here, having to use it.

Oh God, am I going to have to use it?

“Where are we going?” he asks sharply as I lead him farther away from Mom, through the kitchen and toward the back door that leads to the deck, with stairs down to the beach.

It’s one of the hardest things to do, to just keep moving, my hand turning on the doorknob like he doesn’t have a gun on me. Something’s building inside, this kind of reckless scream that can’t come out. He’ll know then.

“I buried it—duh,” I say, and I am never rude. The girls are not supposed to be rude. Perfect daughters don’t edge into that kind of real territory.

But I’m not perfect, am I? Or maybe I’m perfect at this.

I cross the deck and take the sand-coated steps carefully. He keeps following. That’s good. I need to keep moving him away from her.

“Where?” he asks me when we get onto the beach, struggling through the sand. The wind whips at my double braids, unpinned and unkempt for once. Ashley has gone wild; he just doesn’t know it yet.

I point down the beach to the docks.

“Under the dock.”

“I’m punishing you for this,” he tells me. “Come on. Let’s go get it.”

He grabs me underneath my arm—What is it about men and that spot, that painful spot that they just seem to know to grab and drag you by? Is there a class, or are they just born knowing it?—and tugs me down the beach. He’s talking now, angry and distracted, about how he thought I was a good girl, how I was so tough, how disappointed he was, he gave me everything I wanted, why would I do this?

I don’t answer, and he doesn’t notice because he’s not really talking to me, just like he never sees me. He sees a target.

I see a target, too.

We get to the dock and he bends down, frowning at the space between the sand and wood. He won’t be able to fit.

“I’ll get it,” I say, like it’s an imposition. I’m finding myself here in the sand . . . in this moment. He can’t see it, I’m too scared to admit it, but there it is. There I am.

I wiggle underneath the dock, the sand tickling my stomach where my shirt hikes up, and I feel safe under here. He can’t follow me.

But the storm’s brewing, and for better or worse, I am the kind of girl who comes prepared.

“Hurry up,” Raymond says, his voice echoing through the wooden slats.

I push forward on my elbows, heart hammering in my ears. I wish I could just stay under the dock forever, but then my searching fingers brush up against the hard edge of a box buried in the sand, and I know I can’t.

I dig it out with my hands—it’s harder than I thought; I used a spade to sink it in there—and sweat crawls down my chest and drips onto the sand before I finally wrench it out.

I flip the box open, praying it won’t creak, and thank God it doesn’t. I take it out, every muscle in my arm tense in an effort to keep my hand from shaking.

Use it. You have to.

I slither out from underneath the dock, box in my hands, and I scramble to my feet and away from him as soon as I’m in the open air again.