“That’s hard to believe,” Marissa’s dad said.

“I can’t believe that either,” her mom said. “The money’s one thing. Anybody can get desperate, make a mistake, but drugs? I don’t think she’d be able to hide that from us.”

“You’d be surprised what people can hide when they put their minds to it,” Clements said.

There was an awkward silence in the room for several seconds- Marissa noticed that her mom and dad both seemed uncomfortable- then her dad asked, “So’s that it?”

“Yeah,” Clements said, getting up. “For now.”

Marissa and her dad stood, too.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” her mom said, remaining seated. “That’s it? There’s a killer out there, a killer who was probably inside our house last night, and you say that’s it?”

Her dad said, “You don’t know-” and her mom shouted at him, “We do know! Why do you think she got shot today? Because somebody was trying to shut her up, that’s why! And you shot the other guy! You killed him and you think he’s not gonna come back here?”

“Okay, try to calm down,” Clements said.

“Why the hell should I try to calm down?” her mom said. “Do you have any leads? Do you have any idea, any idea at all who shot Gabriela?”

“We’re working on it,” Clements said.

“Oh, you’re working on it,” her mom said. “That makes me feel so much better. You’re just so good at reassuring us. Meanwhile, you could’ve saved her life. Last night, if you weren’t here asking us about my daughter’s bong you could’ve talked to Gabriela sooner, stopped her from getting killed, and found out who the other guy is. Now you’ll never find him, and he knows who we are, he knows where we live, he’s been in our house!”

“I’m sorry,” Marisssa’s dad said to Clements.

“You don’t have to apologize for me, you son of a bitch!” her mom screamed. “You caused all this- you and your stupid gun! How many times did I tell you to get rid of that stupid thing?”

“Here comes the blame,” her dad said.

“I’m blaming you all right!” she screamed. “Who else should I blame?”

“See? I knew you couldn’t hold back forever. You’ve been dying to blame me. Go ahead, keep going, let’s hear all that rage.”

“I told you if you had that gun in the house something horrible would happen someday. You didn’t listen to me, and, what do you know, something horrible happened. What a shock!”

“Horrible!” her dad shouted. “That’s a good one, I love that. No, horrible would’ve been if you and Marissa got killed, that would’ve been horrible. You should be thanking me instead of yelling at me!”

“You wanna be thanked? Okay, thank you! Thank you for fucking up my life!”

“Can both of you just stop it already?” Marissa screamed as loudly as she could.

Finally there was silence as Marissa’s parents remained glaring at each other, breathing heavily. Then Clements announced, “I’ll keep you informed, and you let me know if anything comes up on your end.” Then he looked at Marissa’s mom and said, “And despite what you think, Mrs. Bloom, we do know how to do our job, and I think we do it very well.” He put his pad away in his pocket, then said, “Sorry again for your loss,” and left.

Marissa remained with her parents in the dining room, watching them exchange looks. Then her father said, “That was brilliant, insult the whole NYPD, why don’t you?” and that set her mom off again. Marissa couldn’t take it anymore and went up to her room. She heard her mother shouting, “You still think everything’s okay? You think it’s going to all miraculously blow over?- and then she turned up her stereo- more Tone Def- to drown her parents out.

She hoped this wasn’t just the beginning, that her parents weren’t going to start having marital problems again. In high school, it had seemed like her parents were on the verge of divorce, at each other’s throats 24/7, and they always argued about the stupidest things. Like her dad would leave some dirty dishes in the kitchen sink or pee on the toilet seat, and her mom would lay into him about it. Or her dad wouldn’t like a look her mother had given him or her tone of voice, and it would lead to a huge fight. And, because her dad was a psychologist and they were in marriage counseling, they would both go into this weird therapy- speak in their arguments that only led to more fighting. Like during a fight her mother might say,“You’re so annoying” and her father would say,“You’re generalizing” or “There you go with your rage again,” and then that would lead to a fight. Or sometimes they would be arguing and her mother would say, “You’re being defensive,” and her father would fire back, “There you go, projecting again,” and they’d be off, shouting at each other in their ridiculous mumbo jumbo about who was projecting and who was being defensive. Of course there was never any resolution to their fighting; no one ever won or conceded. It seemed like they had the same argument over and over again, like an annoying song stuck on repeat play. Marissa never understood why they bothered to stay together. If they couldn’t get along, why make each other miserable? Why not just get divorced? She’d hoped they weren’t staying together for her, because she would’ve preferred that they just split up and move on with their lives. What kid wanted unhappy parents?

Marissa turned down the music, and she could still hear her parents going at it; it sounded like they were in their bedroom now. She took a quick shower and was toweling off when she heard her mother shout, “What’re you gonna do then? Get your gun again? Shoot him?”

God, were they still arguing about the gun?

Marissa headed back to her bedroom, passing her father in the hallway. He marched by and went downstairs. He was in sweats and sneakers, probably on his way to the gym.

Sitting on her bed, Marissa texted Hillary, who worked in midtown. They arranged to meet for drinks at five thirty. Marissa typed: cant wait I SO have to get out of this crazy fucking house She got dressed quickly- skinny jeans, a black lace cami, and the cute little leather jacket she’d bought last week at UNIQLO in SoHo. As she left the house, she saw her father on the sidewalk, talking to several reporters. They’d probably come back to ask him questions about Gabriela and she could tell he was into it, furrowing his eyebrows and moving his hands a lot as he talked, acting like he was a movie star giving a press conference.

Marissa walked several blocks, through the gates of Forest Hills Gardens to the subway on Queens Boulevard. Riding on the R train, she wore her sunglasses because she was crying and didn’t want anyone to see. She still couldn’t believe that Gabriela was actually dead.

When she arrived in Manhattan, she had some time to kill, so she went to the Whitney to see the Man Ray exhibit. She’d sent a job application to the Whitney, as she had to practically every other museum in the city, and hadn’t heard anything yet. She’d been applying to a lot of galleries, too, and had gone to an interview to be the “events coordinator” at one downtown, but she’d gotten no job offers so far. Her father had probably been right about how she’d made a mistake by quitting the job at the Met. She should have stuck it out for at least six months to use it as a reference, or until she found something else. She just hoped she found something soon; she wanted steady money coming in so she could afford the rent for her own place, or even a share. She hated not having her own money and being so dependent on her parents.

After the museum, she walked to midtown, feeling out of place around all of the oppressive office buildings and stressed- out working people. Downtown was cooler, though all of Manhattan seemed so uppity and into itself that Marissa felt like she just couldn’t connect. She liked Brooklyn a lot better- especially Williamsburg, DUMBO, and RAMBO- But most of her friends were working in the city and always wanted to meet at midtown bars or go out in Murray Hill or, the worst, the Upper East Side.