Hello Girls Page 2

  “Am I alive? Am I dreaming this conversation? Are. You. Dealing. Again.” She looked pointedly down at his foot. “Are you dealing out of our house again?”

  Marcus had spent the last year running Molly for one of the Upper Peninsula’s finest drug lords, who had the delusion of grandeur to refer to himself as the Candy Man. (Lucille was pretty sure that his name had to be, like, Shawn.) But at the end of last year, Marcus had taken a job washing dishes at Denny’s, and she’d assumed—naively—that he’d stopped dealing.

  Then he had “broken his foot” after dropping a box of dishrags on it.

  “I can’t exactly get around right now,” Marcus said finally. “I might as well work from home.”

  “Work from—” Lucille’s hands seized, and she stuffed them in her pockets. “So you’re just making money and hiding it somewhere?”

  He scoffed. “Like you can talk.”

  “I never did anything that jeopardized you and Mom! God, Marcus, they know you deal, they’re out there right now. You have to stop. You know you have to stop.”

  It was dark in the kitchen, hot without the fans going. In late May, Michigan lit up like a furnace, and it was always worse indoors. Marcus had little ripples of sweat along his temples. He looked like a fish. A sweaty fish. “If you hate me that much,” he said, “why don’t you just turn me in, then?”

  “Because,” Lucille told him, “Mom would never let your precious ass sit in a cell for months while they wait for a trial date. So she’d empty out her bank accounts. That’s what, two hundred dollars. The Pryce cousins pitch in, the Folgarelli cousins pitch in, nobody wants to have one of us rotting away for the whole town to laugh at, so everyone looks under their couch cushions. That’s maybe another five hundred bucks. Maybe. Which leaves what, I don’t know, another two thousand dollars, and so then we’ll have the bail bonds, another mortgage on the house . . .”

  Marcus blinked at her.

  “You don’t think about any of this, do you,” she said. “Do you. You’ve never had to. How about the part where I have to work another twenty years to pay it off while you get a law degree and a six-pack in prison? No. You stop dealing. You stop now.”

  But even as she finished speaking, Marcus was edging her backward, his cast thunking hollowly against the floor. “How about this? How about you get out of my face? My little fucking sister giving me orders. Saint Lucille. What if I give you an order? Do anything to screw up my setup, and I’ll tell the cops that you were in on it with me.”

  She stared at him, furiously trying to come up with some kind of counterthreat, when he tilted his head a little to the side.

  The way she did, when she was trying to work out a problem.

  He was her brother. Her blood. They were made of the same basic components—they were just machines with the parts rearranged.

  With a hitched breath, Lucille shoved him away. “You lose, Lucy,” he was saying, but she was already running, sick and shuddering, all the way out the door.

  On the front step, Lucille almost tripped over her work clogs and her phone, and she scooped them up with shaking hands. “Tammy!” she hollered. Her cousin stuck her head out the window; she’d probably heard the whole damn thing. “Mind if I come over and say hey to your kitties myself? And maybe I can charge my phone a little too.”

  Three

  Sometimes Winona felt guilty about not being able to control her thoughts. For even wondering what life would be like if Stormy didn’t come home from work one day.

  Right now, Stormy was driving Winona over the little red bridge that arced across the thawing creek, on their way to their Saturday morning visit with her grandfather, and all she could think was, What if there’s still some ice on the asphalt?

  What if the tires skid, and the brakes don’t catch?

  What if we flip over the railing?

  What if only I survive?

  It would only take one wrong move, a tiny mistake.

  Stormy made a smooth right turn past the whitewashed fence and glittering lawn into Grandfather Pernet’s neighborhood of wide-flung brick mansions and oversized stone cottages. No ice.

  “I heard from the nurse this morning,” Stormy said in the flat, toneless voice he often used when it was just the two of them, as if he’d used up all his charisma throughout the week and needed to let his vocal cords recover.

  Winona’s stomach dipped. “Is he all right?”

  Stormy glanced up from the road and studied her. Had she sounded too eager? Not concerned enough? Too concerned? Despite their standing Saturday morning coffee dates, her father and grandfather’s relationship was less than amicable, and Winona had learned to tread carefully when discussing one with the other.

  She’d thought, at first, that the source of the tension must have been her mother’s death—that perhaps Grandfather Pernet blamed Stormy for her overdose.

  But then, That Night had happened and Winona had realized her father hated her grandfather just as much—if not more than—Grandfather Pernet hated Stormy.

  “He’s having a bad week,” Stormy finally answered. “Don’t be alarmed if he confuses you for her.”

  They turned down the long drive, between the two stone lions that guarded it. Her mother had once told her that when she was a child, she’d imagined that at night the stone lions sprang to life, prowled around her parents’ lawns and gardens, keeping any evil thing that tried to intrude at bay.

  She’d said this like she said most things Winona remembered: wistfully, as if there were a secret, profound meaning Winona couldn’t yet decipher. Nearly every memory she had of her mother contained the thought, I’ll understand this when I’m older, but now, nearly ten years after Katherine Olsen’s death, Winona was no closer to understanding who her mother was, or what had happened to her.

  Briefly, she imagined the stone lions springing to life, pouncing onto the hood of the car, their massive paws swiping straight through the windshield to claw at Stormy’s—

  She needed to get a grip on herself. Really, she was being immature, not to mention dramatic. It wasn’t like Stormy had even hurt her—except that one time, which had probably been an accident—and if she walked around their house feeling like an anvil was on her chest, like any wrong move could bring apocalyptic fire raining down on her house, that was her problem, not his.

  Stormy was particular but not violent. Except that one time, which had definitely been an accident, now that she thought about it.

  Still, that weight pressed in on her from every direction, like it always did when she was near her father, or in his house, waiting for him to come home, or sitting in school, watching the clock tick closer to the end of the day.

  The weight only ever let up when she was with Lucille.

  Her best friend didn’t tiptoe through the world like any misstep could upset the balance of the world, and next year, when they were living together in Chicago—Lucille working in some hip, high-end restaurant and Winona taking gen-ed classes at her father’s alma mater—everything was going to be different.

  She just had to find a way to convince her father to let her live off campus. So what if he was angry? She’d be eighteen soon enough. She could do whatever she wanted.

  “Don’t encourage his delusions,” Stormy said as they reached the end of the driveway. “But don’t upset him either.”

  Winona nodded. Stormy put the car in park, its sleek black nose pointed toward the second garage where Grandfather kept his 1969 Alfa Romeo convertible. Not that he could drive it anymore. He was mostly blind, and for years his Alzheimer’s had been creeping over his mind like smoke, hiding everything he’d known bit by bit.

  “Such a shame,” Stormy said as he eyed the shut garage, just like he did every week. Winona didn’t know if Stormy meant that what was happening to his father-in-law was a shame, or that it was a shame for the car to sit here, unused, unseen, locked away, and undriven.

  They got out of the car and followed the flagstone walk to the Fren
ch doors, which one of the nurses opened before they’d even rung the doorbell.

  They were exactly on time. They were always exactly on time.

  “Mr. Olsen,” the dark-haired nurse, Vera, said. “Ms. Olsen. Gorgeous flowers! Come right in.” She accepted the vase of pale peach and yellow flowers, along with the twenty-dollar tip Stormy handed her just for opening the door.

  “Thank you, Vera,” he said, smile beaming at her like a spotlight. The nurse dropped her face and turned, leading the two of them through the maze of flocked wallpaper and picture frames, and Winona performed her own ritual: running her eyes over every photograph of her mother. Katherine Olsen looked like a Van Gogh portrait photographed in black and white: forlorn, secretive, always eyeing something just out of frame.

  Just how Winona remembered her.

  Just beyond the bright kitchen, in the solarium at the back of the house, Grandfather sat with his back to them, his chair pushed into a square of sunlight.

  “Tryggve,” Vera said, swapping today’s flowers in for the old ones. “You’ve got visitors!”

  “Hi, Dad,” Stormy said as they moved into the room.

  Grandfather’s blue eyes wandered vaguely to his son-in-law, but his face remained blank until his gaze fell on Winona. A line etched between his eyebrows, and she braced herself to hear her mother’s name.

  Instead, he said weakly, “I knew it . . .”

  Stormy clapped a hand on Grandfather’s shoulder. “Would you like some coffee, Dad? Vera, could you grab the cookies?”

  Grandfather stared Stormy down.

  Winona shifted uncomfortably. “Grandfather, would you like coffee?”

  Really, she just wanted a chance to slip away, to fold herself into the daybed in her mother’s childhood bedroom, run her fingers along the fringe on the silky patchwork comforter and skim the stacks of plays and books of poetry overflowing from her mahogany bookcase.

  But their visits were never long, and Stormy insisted they spend every minute with Grandfather Pernet, whose wispy eyebrows had lifted and mouth had formed a perfect O at the sound of Winona’s voice. He took her palm between his papery hands.

  “Mr. Olsen?” Vera called from the kitchen. “Could you approve these charges?”

  Stormy huffed, his dark eyes fluttering between the doors and his daughter, her hand caught in Grandfather Pernet’s trembling grip.

  “I’ll be right back,” Stormy said. His smile lit up his snow-white teeth as he turned back into the kitchen. “Yes, Vera?”

  Winona looked at her grandfather and tried for an encouraging smile. They’d never been close, and ever since that night last year—when he’d called her crying and confused and she’d driven out to pick him up on the side of the road, soaked to the bone, barefoot, and in his pajamas—she’d dreaded these visits.

  The way they set her father on edge each week.

  The way those watery blue eyes always searched hers.

  “Are you having a nice day?” she asked him.

  “I knew it,” he wheezed again, his eyes widening. He reached for her sleeve, his age-spotted hands fumbling for purchase on the crepe chiffon. “I got your letter. I knew you were alive, Katherine. I knew it.”

  The chatter of the birds went silent beneath the layer of static that rushed through Winona’s ears. Even having been warned, she wasn’t braced to hear her mother’s name, to be mistaken for her.

  “No, Grandfather,” she said gently. “It’s me. Winona.”

  But Grandfather Pernet was pulling himself out of the chair as he gripped her arm tighter and tighter. “What did he do?” he growled. “What did that bastard do?”

  She shook her head in terror, tried to unfurl his fingers. “It’s Winona,” she said again. “Winona.”

  He slumped back into the chair. “Yes,” he rasped. “Winona. He won’t have given Winona her letter . . . She won’t know . . .”

  “What letter?” she whispered.

  Stormy stepped back into the solarium, silver coffeepot in hand and a razor-edged smile on his broad mouth, and Winona felt the expression on her face wipe clean instinctively, though she was still holding on to her arm where her grandfather’s fingers had dug in.

  Stormy walked right between them and began to fill the white china mugs waiting on saucers on the table. “Lovely weather today, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Winona willed her thudding heart to quiet. She nodded. “It is,” she said calmly.

  But even as she modulated her voice, her thoughts raced away from her control. Her grandfather had mentioned a letter before.

  The night her grandfather had called her, crying and confused.

  The night her father had hurt her.

  The night she’d met Lucille.

  Four

  Winona was supposed to be writing her French essay, but she was staring blankly at her dark bedroom window instead. Stormy had gone out for dinner with a visiting colleague, so she was home alone, and she’d long since eaten the single-portion dinner their personal chef, Martina, had left in the refrigerator earlier that evening.

  Her phone buzzed. A message from Lucille: It’s back.

  The car. The one Lucille had seen watching her house the night before. She was worried it belonged to a barely-undercover cop, and her wasteoid brother was selling drugs to him.

  “Marcus,” Winona hissed under her breath. If Winona had a time machine, she would snatch Lucille’s brother and dump him on the Titanic. Maybe save baby Leo DiCaprio while she was at it.

  She quickly texted her best friend—her only friend—the one-word encouragement they’d been passing back and forth for weeks, whenever their lives in Kingsville proved to be particularly Kingsvilley: Chicago.

  Lucille texted back: Chicago.

  Winona sent two old-lady emojis back and waited for a reply, but Lucille didn’t send one, and Winona was forced to go back to staring down her homework.

  She couldn’t get what Grandfather Pernet had said out of her head, and her mind kept wandering back to That Terrible Night, the night she spent a lot of time and energy Not Thinking About. Sometimes she wondered if that was the source of the weight on her chest, but the truth was, the weight had been there as long as she could remember.

  That night, Winona had gotten home from school to find a voice mail from her father saying he’d be late. There was a hailstorm rolling in, and Stormy was going to cover it. She’d only been home twenty minutes when her grandfather called her.

  Stormy had a rule about Winona talking on the phone with Grandfather without Stormy present. If he’s calling you, there’s a good chance he’s confused, and if he’s confused, I need to talk to him.

  So Winona had ignored it, worrying whether Stormy would be angrier if she interrupted him at work or if she didn’t tell him about the call.

  While she’d been deciding, Grandfather had called her four more times in a row. On the fifth, she panicked and answered. He’d been crying, babbling incoherently on the other end, and by then the hailstorm had picked up, and she’d been fairly sure she could hear it in the background.

  The panic had started to set in. She should have answered right away; she should have called Stormy right away.

  “Where are you, Grandfather?” she’d asked, again and again, until he’d described the nearest street sign. She knew Stormy kept the keys to the Land Rover—which would be hers in a few short months—in his desk drawer.

  So she went to get them and drove out to pick up her grandfather, sobbing and soaked on the side of the road. She’d wanted to call Stormy on the way out, but her grandfather had been so scared, so confused. He’d begged her to stay on the phone with him. She couldn’t say no.

  “If he knows I got lost, he’ll move me into a home,” Grandfather had insisted hoarsely. “He’ll get rid of me, like he got rid of her. That bastard wants my money! He’s always wanted my money! Well, I won’t be blackmailed out of my own house! I’ll spend every dime before I die, if that’s what it takes! Don’t you tell hi
m, Winona!”

  Even now, she remembered the way her stomach had turned at the prospect of trying to keep something from her father.

  She had known it was impossible. Deep down, she had known.

  But she’d also known he was going to be angry when he found out what she’d done. He might not let her get her license after all. He might not let her have sugar for a month or take her bedroom door off its hinges.

  She’d decided to risk it anyway.

  But when she’d driven her grandfather home, her father’s car had been parked in the driveway.

  A neighbor had seen Grandfather wander off, barefoot, and called an Officer Carroway—lucky, because he was a “buddy” of Stormy’s. He’d let Stormy know so he could handle the “family matter” privately, and avoid the “town hens clucking.”

  Stormy had seemed so calm as he explained this to her and Grandfather, and that was how Winona had known he was furious. Other people lost their tempers when they were upset; her father found his. He was more in control than ever.

  “Winona,” he’d said. “Go wait in the car. I need to check in with your grandfather.”

  When their conversation was finished, Stormy met Winona in the Land Rover and they drove home together, leaving his BMW behind. He hadn’t said a word, and all that time, the pressure was building. Her stomach was twisting. It was hard to breathe.

  They walked inside in silence.

  The first words Stormy said, when they reached their airy, tastefully-taupe great room, were, “Stay here.”

  She stood in the middle of the cream-colored rug and waited while he disappeared into his office. As he walked back out, he lit up a cigarette: the next clue to how angry he was. He rarely smoked.

  “Did your grandfather tell you what upset him?” he’d asked.

  Winona shook her head.

  Stormy took a long inhale and blew the smoke out through his nose, studying her.

  “Every year or so, some con artist gets it into his mind to send the poor man a letter saying your mother isn’t dead. They’re trying to extort a poor old man.”