Closer Home (24 page)

He flushes even deeper. “Just to, you know, prove you were really here. That I talked to you. Because nobody will believe it.” He holds out a pen.

“Ariel, come on. Let’s go.” I grab the bag of groceries and head for the door, thinking she’ll follow. But she takes the pen from the boy’s eager hand and scribbles across her picture before scurrying after me.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I ask her, as soon as we’re across the parking lot and speed walking down the street.

“He seemed nice.”

“Seemed means nothing. Now he has your autograph. You think he’s going to cherish that for the rest of his life, in secret?”

“I wasn’t thinking, all right? I just . . . he was so nice and polite, and it seemed like a small thing.”

“There are no small things when it comes to you. Not fair, not right, but it’s the way it is. Besides, what about all of those other people behind us?”

“There were two! An old woman and a drunk guy. You at least don’t have to exaggerate.” Her voice rises with emotion.

“The old woman took a picture. With her smartphone. You were too busy signing pictures for your fanboy to notice.”

Ariel stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Fear strikes me that I’ve gone too far and said too much, that she’ll refuse to come with me and I’ll have a runaway on my hands. But she’s not even looking at me as she fumbles her phone out of her pocket, her thumbs moving at lightning speed.

“Shit.”

“What?”

Mutely, she holds out the phone and I retrace my steps to look. Twitter. The avatar is some spiky comic book character I’m unfamiliar with. The tweet says, “Unbelievable! Ariel Redfern just came into the store & I got her autograph.” There’s a grainy photo of the newspaper pic with Ariel’s signature across it.

I start walking again. “Could be worse. Let’s get home.”

“You don’t understand.” She runs to catch up. “He has the location on.”

I almost break into a jog, but that would attract attention. It feels like a hundred miles to the house. Every time a car goes by my heart speeds up, then slows a little with relief when it keeps moving. When we turn into our street, both the white compact, still mud splattered, and the brown sedan are parked in front of the house. The two cameras are already aimed in our direction, clicking away.

“I’m sorry,” Ariel says.

“Don’t be. You were just trying to be nice. I’m sorry for being a bitch.”

“What now?”

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Right now, it means that you should act like you did at the funeral. Chin up, eyes straight ahead. They are kitty litter beneath your feet.”

“I don’t like kitty litter. Gritty. Crunchy.”

“Precisely. Ready?”

Shoulder to shoulder, like we’re marching into battle with plastic grocery bags as our only weapons, we head for the house. George is barking frantically in the backyard.

The guy from the white compact blocks the sidewalk, his camera right in my face. Click. I stare straight down the lens, unflinching.

“Are you through?”

“You owe me,” he says with conviction.

“For what?”

“Yesterday.”

I try to step around him. He blocks my path. “Not until you talk.”

Behind me, I hear the whir of the other camera, probably aimed at Ariel. He’s not in her way, though, and she’s almost to the door.

“Please let me go into my house.” I try to keep my voice calm. It would be so satisfying to grab the camera and smash it on the sidewalk, but if I did that, I’d be legally in the wrong. Assault charge. Jail time.

“Which possible father is from this little place?” he asks. “Come on, give us a name.”

“They’re all from here.” I push past him, eyes focused on the goal.

Up the steps, onto the porch. I fumble with my keys. The cameras are still clicking behind me.

“How do you feel about the allegations that you’re an unfit guardian?” the other camera guy asks. His words freeze me, key in the lock. I turn around and stare at him, at both of them. Before I can open my mouth and ask questions, Ariel drags me into the house.

I lock and bolt the door and then lean against it, breathing hard, weak in the knees. Ariel bulldozes through the house into the living room and turns on the TV. Since even I won’t pay for dish on an empty house, all we’ve got are local channels picked up by the roof antenna. At this hour, there’s not much of interest, but ABC has
The View
. No mention of Callie, thank God, and the guest list is not of interest to a teenage girl. Ariel switches off the tube and runs upstairs, returning with her laptop. I don’t pay for wireless, either, but apparently the Callahans haven’t secured their router and she taps in without difficulty.

A search for my name and Callie’s brings up a ton of hits, the most recent all with headlines like, “Is Callie Redfern’s Daughter Safe?” and “Custody Battle Looms.”

I sink down into a chair, blinking at the grocery sack and the cup of coffee. I’d forgotten I was carrying them. Ariel clicks through links, stopping at a news video. Both of us gaze, mesmerized, at Ricken. His hair is smoothly combed. He wears a subdued pinstripe shirt with a conservative tie. Everything about him says decent, respectable, mistreated.

“Annelise Redding is erratic and unstable. She threw a reporter into a swimming pool, nearly drowning her and ruining her camera. Assault charges are under consideration. She allowed a sixteen-year-old girl to investigate a vehicle in which one of her alleged fathers shot himself in the head. How a woman like this can be entrusted with a grieving child is beyond my comprehension. Ariel needs the structure of school and the support of her friends. I held back from taking action because I thought perhaps being with family would be healing for her. Obviously, I was wrong, and I deeply regret not having expressed my concerns earlier.”

Two young, earnest newspeople—one male, one female, and both too beautiful and polished to be believable—discuss the situation. Ariel closes the laptop. I’ve never seen her look so pale. Her pupils are so big her eyes appear nearly black. “Can he do that? Get me taken away from you?”

“I won’t let him.” My voice doesn’t sound convincing, even to me.

“It’s because we fired him,” Ariel says. “It’s all about the money.”

The laptop sits between us, closed and quiet, but I can almost see exclamation marks hovering over it.

“What are we going to do?” Ariel’s voice trembles a little.

“Eat,” I say, fishing out the greasy paper bag that holds the burrito.

“I’m not hungry.”

Me either. The smell of fried food nearly makes me gag.

“Might be your last meal before foster care. They’ll feed you cornflakes with almond milk.”

“You’re not funny!” But a trickle of laughter escapes her, anyway. The color returns to her face and her voice sounds steady.

I need a lawyer. Fortunately, my old friend Ashley is a member of the bar. We’re still close enough that I keep her number stored in my phone. Which is in Vegas. Luckily, my mother was never an adopter of newfangled technologies and always kept a phone book handy. I dig it out of the drawer and dial Ash’s number. The receptionist who answers doesn’t sound any older than Ariel and probably isn’t. Ashley is big on hiring high school kids. Just as capable as adults, she claims, and more motivated by money. Also, it’s easier to tell them what to do.

“I need to speak to Ash.”

“She said not to bother her.”

“This is Annelise Redding. It’s important.”

“Ohhhh,”
the voice says. She forgets to put me on hold, just shouts, “Hey Ashley, Annelise is on the phone.”

Ash picks up twenty seconds later.

“The news is not good,” she says. “I’ve been watching.”

“You and the whole country. I need an attorney.”

Silence.

“Ash?”

“I’m not up to this, Lise. Small-town stuff I can do. Your mom’s guardianship papers. Wills. Maybe the occasional child custody case. That sort of thing I can handle.”

“This is about a will and maybe about child custody. Sounds perfect. Can you get Callie’s will sent to you? And all of the financial documents, too, while you’re at it? And then we can sue Ricken for defamation of character. Right?”

“Wrong. He’s got a point. She’s not in school—”

“But—”

“And you did take her to where that guy killed himself. What were you thinking? Forgive me for saying this, but you’re acting more like Callie than yourself.”

My right hand hurts. I change the receiver over to my left. There are red lines in my palm from where I’ve squeezed the phone too hard.

“Lise? Are you still there?”

“Yes. I’m counting to ten.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve pissed you off. But somebody has to tell you the truth.” She drops her voice, makes it softer. “Look, I’m not judging or blaming. Grief does weird things to people. But that’s how it appears from the outside looking in.”

“Well, how it looks isn’t exactly how it is. You all go on like Ariel is six. Like I’m dragging her around the countryside and forcing her to do all this shit. Did anybody ever consider that she’s almost an adult and has a mind of her own?”

“Legally, she’s a child. And you are an adult, and her guardian. You’re going to need a better story than that. Or make up with that Ricken guy.”

“That is not going to happen.”

“Then you need somebody besides me.”

“So find me somebody. Look, will you at least do this? Call Callie’s attorney and let him know that Ricken is, in fact, fired. Legally request that all relevant documents get sent to you. And find me a trustworthy attorney who can help me. Okay?”

I hear her hesitating on the other end of the line. She doesn’t want to say yes, but I’m an old friend.

“Ash? Please help me. I don’t know much, but I know that Ariel and I need to stay together.”

There’s a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “Yeah, okay. Since you’re already my client, I will initiate these things for you. But I’m finding you another attorney.”

“Thank you.”

“And I’m raising my fees.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Don’t tempt me. I’ll call you.”

The phone clicks off. I’m sweat soaked and shivering so hard my teeth chatter. The idea that anybody might take a custody case seriously hadn’t even occurred to me. Ricken seems so pitifully obvious.

Ariel brings me a blanket and wraps it around my shoulders. It’s the one from Callie’s bed and it does smell like her, for no rational reason. But it doesn’t begin to touch the cold.

“You should drink your coffee.” She hands it to me and I take a sip. It’s bitter and lukewarm, and I hand it back to her with my face all scrunched up.

Ariel rolls her eyes. “It’s medicinal. Here. I’ll fix it.”

Her footsteps run up and then down the stairs and into the kitchen. The microwave purrs for a minute. Then another minute. I can’t help smiling a little at the thought of Ariel and her high-tech world confronting my mother’s kitchen. The microwave is an enormous thing that is activated by a dial. No touch pad. And it takes forever to heat up anything.

But she comes back with the coffee, in a mug this time. Steam rises off the top. I sniff it, suspiciously. “What did you do to it?”

“Doctored it a little.”

I take a sip. It tastes better, all right. A lot better. “Where the hell did you find Baileys?” Mom didn’t drink, that I know of. Dad drank hard stuff straight out of the bottle. Besides, I’ve been through these kitchen cabinets about a hundred times.

Ariel grins. “I was snooping in Mom’s dresser this morning. It was in the second drawer, wrapped up in a pair of jeans.”

“Seriously? After all this time?” A part of me has to admire Callie’s audacity at hiding alcohol right under my nose like that. I take another sip. The coffee goes down smooth and sweet, warming my belly. “You know, if they are trying to make the case that I’m not fit to be your guardian, maybe I shouldn’t be drinking at ten in the morning.”

Ariel waves her hand dismissively. “It’s only one shot. And we won’t let anybody in the house until you’re stone-cold sober.”

“Thank you.” It’s surreal, having her take care of me instead of the other way around. I pretty much raised Callie. And ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been taking care of my mother. This small gesture of a blanket and spiked coffee makes me feel warm and nurtured.

“I heard what you said on the phone,” Ariel says. “About us needing to stay together. And about me having my own free will and stuff.”

“I was kind of pissed.”

“It’s true, though. And I was thinking that Mom did, too, you know. Like when she hid the booze in her drawer. That wasn’t your thing. It was hers. Her sleeping with all those guys and getting pregnant with me—that was her thing, too.”

I look at Ariel, as tall as I am, and just as stubborn. The thought of forcing her to do anything seems ludicrous.

“So what now?” she asks, sliding from wise woman back into scared teenage girl in a heartbeat.

“I don’t know. It would be great to have somebody from your mom’s team to help us out. Definitely not her attorney. And that accountant . . .”

“Genesis? Yeah, she was sleeping with Ricken. But Glynnis would be good.”

“Who is Glynnis, again?”

Ariel looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“Humor me, I’m bad at names.”

“You weren’t paying attention. Glynnis is the agent.”

I remember those sharp, intelligent eyes, the no-nonsense face. “Maybe. I don’t know how to contact her.”

“I do. Mom made sure I had numbers for all of her people. In case.”

She flips through her phone and gives me a number. When I dial, I get a receptionist. This one is a lot more polished than the one in Ashley’s office and there’s no way she’s going to just “put me through to Glynnis,” no matter who I am.

“Let me,” Ariel says, taking the phone. “Hey, Courtney? It’s Ariel.”

A short burst from the other end that sounds like it ends in a question.

“I’m okay. Sorta. Hanging in. But I really need to talk to Glynn. Can you make that happen?” She nods, looks at me, and mouths, “I’m on hold.”

After two minutes and forty-three seconds by the clock, Glynnis comes on. “You’ve seen the news?” Ariel’s voice is hard-edged, older. As if she’s talking about stock markets and business, not her personal life.