When Adam turned onto his block in Forest Hills Gardens, it was starting to get dark. There were several teenagers playing touch football in the street, and as Adam got closer he recognized a few of them- Jeremy Ross, Justin Green, Brian Zimmerman. It brought back memories of when he was their age and used to play football on the street with his friends, not going inside until it was pitch dark.
“Hey, right here,” Adam said, and Jeremy tossed him the ball. Then Adam said to Brian, “Okay, go deep.”
Brian sprinted down the block, and Adam faded back and shouted, “To win the Super Bowl!” and then unloaded a bomb. Well, he tried to. The wobbly ball bounced off the windshield of a car about twenty feet in front of Brian.
“Next time,” Adam said, smiling, and headed up the walkway to his front door. When he went in he announced, “I’m home!” Then he saw the piece of paper on the floor. It was plain white, eight and a half by eleven, folded in half. He opened it and saw, written in Magic Marker in block letters:
YOU THINK YOU’RE SOME KIND OF HERO, HUH? YOU THINK YOU’RE A BIG SHOT. I’M GONNA MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN, YOU LITTLE COCKSUCKING SON OF A BITCH.
He went into the living room and saw Dana watching TV. Her feet were on the ottoman, a throw covering her legs. She looked very tired, maybe depressed.
“Did you see the note on the floor?” he asked.
She was slow to respond. Eventually, in a monotone, she said, “Note?”
He handed her the paper, watched her growing concern as she read it.
“I think we have a situation here,” he said.
twelve
Marissa’s goal for the foreseeable future was to spend as little time with her parents as possible. It was getting to the point where it was hard to be around them, even to be in the same house with them. It was bad enough with their arguing, but now her father was getting on her case because she went to a happy hour with Hillary? What, now she wasn’t allowed to hang out with her friends? What was he going to do next, lock her in a tower like Rapunzel? Oh, and how about her mom having an affair with Tony the trainer, of all people? It explained why her mom had been acting so uptight and distracted lately. If it wasn’t so annoying it would’ve been funny, hilarious actually, that her parents were always telling her how she had to grow up, get her life together, when she felt like she was the adult and they were the kids.
In the morning, after Marissa checked out her friends’ blogs and MySpace and Facebook pages, she posted an entry on her own blog entitled just when i thought things couldn’t possibly get any more fucked up. She wrote about Gabriela’s murder and how yesterday had officially been the worst day of her life. She was in a very nihilistic mood and ended with I’m so fucking sick of this stupid fucking world and I just don’t give a fucking shit about fucking anything anymore. She read the entry twice- she thought it was one of her best ever; maybe she should’ve majored in creative writing- then posted it and went downstairs. She brewed some coffee and was pouring a cup when her mom came in and said, “Dad got bumped.”
“Huh?” She had no idea what her mother was talking about. She also had no idea why her mom was wearing her robe and had no makeup on at- what?- one in the afternoon.
“He was supposed to be on Good Day New York this morning, but I fastforwarded through the show and he wasn’t on. They must’ve bumped him.”
“Oh,” Marissa said, surprised her mom cared after the way she and her dad had been arguing yesterday.
“If I were you I wouldn’t read the Daily News today. It’s not exactly a flattering portrayal of your father. Expected, I guess, but still not very enjoyable to see in print.”
“Did they say anything bad about me?” Marissa asked. She didn’t really think there would be anything bad; it was just instinctive insecurity coming out.
“They mention us,” her mom said, “but no, nothing bad.”
“Thank God,” Marissa said, then added, “That sucks for Dad, though.” She stood at the counter, sipping her coffee, trying to wake up. Her mother, meanwhile, started scrubbing the stove with a Lysol Wipe. “So,” Marissa asked, “are you feeling okay today?”
“I’m fine,” her mom said. “Why?”
“You didn’t get dressed yet.”
Her mom continued scrubbing, then finally said, “I have no place to go.”
What was going on now? Was her mom depressed? Marissa was tempted to blurt out, What’s wrong, Ma, boyfriend trouble? She managed to keep this to herself but couldn’t help smirking.
“What’s so funny?” her mom asked.
“Nothing,” Marissa said. “Why?”
Her mom gave her a look, then continued scrubbing- too hard, like she was trying to sand a piece of wood. Finally, maybe to herself, she said, “We have to find a new maid.”
Marissa had been trying not to think about Gabriela; it was too sad. “Is there anything new about that?” she asked.
“No,” her mom said, and she finally stopped scrubbing and dropped the wipe into the garbage. “But can you believe her sister called and asked me if we’d pay to have the body shipped to South America?”
“What did you say?”
“She was so upset, I didn’t want to be rude. I said I’d have to discuss it with my husband.”
“That was nice of you, I guess. I mean, we still don’t know for sure Gabriela had anything to do with the robbery, right?”
“Oh, come on, you sound like Dad now. She was dating that guy Sanchez, for God’s sake.”
She didn’t know what was up with her mom’s attitude, why she was acting so irritable. She wondered if it had to do with her affair. Maybe she was feeling guilty or something.
“I can’t believe she and that guy were together,” Marissa said. “I had so many talks with her about boyfriend stuff, you know, and I didn’t think she’d been with a guy since her fiancй died. She’d never said anything about any guy named Carlos.”
“She obviously had a lot of secrets,” her mother said. Then she made a face, as if she’d caught herself saying something she hadn’t meant to-Gee, Marissa thought, what ever could that be?- and said quickly, “Anyway, the answer’s no, I’m not paying to have her body shipped anywhere.”
“How much do they want?” Marissa asked.
“What difference does it make?”
“I mean if it’s only, like, a thousand dollars-”
“I’m not giving them a thousand dollars, I’m not giving them one dollar, I’m not giving them one penny. That woman hurt us, don’t you get it?”
Well, so much for trying to have a conversation with her mom. Marissa took her coffee and went back to her room, back to her PC. From now on maybe she should just stay in her room all the time, not even talk to her parents. Her parents should stay in different rooms, too. Maybe they’d all get along better if they never had to see each other.
She checked her blog and saw that she’d already gotten sixteen responses in the backlog, mostly from friends, but a few from random Web acquaintances. Everyone was very supportive, writing about how sorry they were and how bad they felt, et cetera. Marissa added her own comment, thanking everybody and writing that she was “feeling a little better today.” Then she checked Yahoo! Messenger and MySpace to see which of her friends were online and started IM- ing with Sarah, a friend from Vassar. Sarah lived with her boyfriend in Boston, but she said she was coming into the city tonight and planning to stay for a few days with her brother in Hell’s Kitchen. Marissa was excited. Hanging out with Sarah would be a great distraction from all the crap that was going on in her life.
Sarah typed, So you going to the party at D’s to night?
“D’s” meant Darren’s, but Marissa didn’t know about any party. Hmm, strange, what was up with that? She hadn’t heard from Darren at all the last couple of days, come to think of it, and hadn’t even gotten any response to the SOS e-mail she’d sent him about how he had to get rid of his drugs before Detective Clements busted him. Now that Clements had found out that the break- in had nothing to do with Marissa or her friends, she doubted he’d wasted his time with some low- level drug dealer, which meant Darren was blowing her off because (a) he was pissed off at her for trying to rat him out or (b) he wanted to make her think he was pissed off at her for trying to rat him out. Darren had played immature, hot- and- cold head games with her before, so choice (b) was much more likely. He was probably trying to get her to contact him and be all apologetic and clingy.