Debts (7 page)

I hated St. John’s. I hated the brand-new cars in the parking lot, the five-hundred-dollar purses the girls carried, the expensive haircuts. I even hated the teachers, with their eager faces, their anxious desire for their students to succeed and to like them. So after I overheard my parents argue about money, the first such fight in five years, I quietly applied to South St. Pete’s
Citrus Park High, the science magnet high school, known for its terrific marine-science program and ghetto location. Once I was accepted, I came to my parents and begged to switch.

I should have realized that things were getting bad, and fast, when with very little begging and pleading on my part, my parents let me transfer and attend a school at the edge of one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, where a little girl had died in a drive-by shooting a few months earlier and two policemen were killed in the line of duty a couple of years back.

I don’t regret switching schools but it’s never fun bumping into former St. John’s schoolmates. Somehow, they always manage to convey that by leaving the school to go to a public high school, I was no longer “one of them.” These two are no different. After an awkward little visit down not-so-fond memory lane, I take their order, serve them and send them on their way.

The moment they’re out the door, I hurry to my sister’s office. Her back is to me, head resting on her folded arms at her desk. She’s usually very aware of her tattoo, of her body, and like a model she always makes sure she’s displayed in the best light, at the best angle. In this position, though, Natasha’s curved spine puts the tattoo in stark relief, the Japanese characters stretched out. It’s not a good pose for her.

A horrible thought occurs to me.

“Natasha, are you pregnant?”

“What?” Her head snaps back to stare at me. “Don’t be an idiot.”

I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. Natasha procreating. I shudder. The world is not ready.

“Leni,” she says, her voice cracking. “You can’t even imagine,
you can’t …” She loses her train of thought and her eyes focus on something over my shoulder. Instinctively, I look behind me, but there is nothing there.

“Your birthday’s coming up,” she says suddenly.

“Yeah,” I say, wary about this change of topic. “The big one-eight.”

My birthday is in nine days and Natasha has already offered the shop to host the party. The gala, as my parents keep calling it. It’s a joke of epic proportions to think of hosting a gala for my eighteenth birthday. It’s only with the free use of space and Natasha’s wholesale contacts that it’s even conceivable, and even so it seems like a colossal waste of money. I told my parents that I would rather they tally up how much they were planning to spend and make a donation in my name to a couple of organizations that work to protect Tampa Bay, but they laughed me off and said they’d do both.

Maybe Natasha’s reneging on hosting the party. Fine by me.

“Don’t give the money to Mom and Dad,” she says.

“Whoa.” I hold up my hands. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Watch your mouth,” she snarls at me.

“What is your problem, Natasha?” I snap back.

“Do us all a favor, okay?” she says. “Get rid of the money. As soon as you can. As soon as you turn eighteen. Get rid of it. Give it away. Burn it. I don’t care. But it’s got to leave our family.” She chews on her thumbnail, a bad habit she broke years ago. It’s only because of how off she looks, how shattered, that I’m willing to go along with the change of subject.

“You’re not there when the water’s turned off and Dad
brings in buckets of water from the pool to flush the toilets. Okay? You don’t have any right to tell me what to do with that money.”

“Yeah, I do.” Her knuckles turn nearly white as she clutches the edge of her desk. She almost looks frightened, except that makes no sense at all.

“Why are we even talking about this?” I ask, exasperated, trying not to raise my voice. “I don’t have a choice. Mom and Dad are expecting that money. Let me rephrase. They’re
counting
on that money. It’s not mine to keep.”

“Lenore,” my sister says harshly, letting go of the desk and lurching forward, clutching my arm and stepping so close that our bodies nearly touch. She has to look up to meet my eyes. She’s been wearing heels for so long, I never realized I’m taller. “That money is cursed.” Her voice is low and hoarse as she enunciates. Her breath is sour in my face. “Get. Rid. Of. It.”

First of all, I hate it when people call me Lenore. She knows that. Secondly, her sharp nails dig into the tender skin of my arm and the small hairs on my nape rise, that prehistoric response to danger.

“Natasha,” I say, as if to a child. “It’s just money. We can do whatever we want with it.” I try pulling her fingers off.

“Listen to me.” She tightens her grip. “It … it was rigged, okay? That’s all I can tell you. We never should have won that money in the first place.”

Okaaaay.

This argument, this fight, whatever this conversation is, has devolved into a farce.

“Excuse me?” I ask, as if checking she’s still there. My sister has never had troubles with reality, with sanity, but Mom has an aunt that was institutionalized. “Are you on something? You’re not making any sense. And you’re freaking me out.”

“Leni.” She takes a shaky breath, visibly fighting for calm. “I know this sounds insane. I know you don’t believe me. But I’m telling the truth. The only reason Dad won the lottery was because of me, because I made a deal.” She lets go of my arm and uses her hands to rub her face, like she’s trying to wake up. “A really, really bad deal.” She covers her face, hiding her naked emotions as she starts crying.

I let her cry for a bit as I follow the logic.

Logically, I don’t see how what my sister is saying could be true. It’s not possible to rig the lotto; they have insane safeguards to make sure of that. Even assuming that it was somehow true, who could Natasha have possibly known who would do that for her when she was in high school?

“Tasha,” I say, asking the third thing about this that doesn’t make any sense. “Why would you even want to win the lottery badly enough to mess with some badass hacker people? Our life was fine.”

“I thought Emmett would stay if I was rich. So stupid.” Her voice cracks. Long black streaks of eyeliner and mascara have turned her face into a gruesome mask. “I was so stupid.”

Out of Natasha’s whole ridiculous story, that’s one thing that rings true. Natasha would have done
anything
to keep Emmett. She was never good with boundaries, and when she fell in love with him in high school and they started dating, nothing
he ever gave her was enough. She didn’t want him to spend a second without her. Emmett put up with Natasha’s craziness longer than a lot of guys would but when he graduated, he enlisted in the army. Natasha almost went insane. He was going to leave her, leave St. Pete, and who knew when or if he’d ever be back. I barely saw her during that period. I was a tomboyish ten-year-old, obsessed with marine biology, out on the beach every second I could be. It wasn’t until I was fifteen and in the midst of an ugly breakup with my first boyfriend that I even thought about how painful and heartbreaking it was to have someone you love say “no thank you.” But it never occurred to me to question the timing of winning the lottery and Natasha’s bad breakup.

“A deal works both ways,” I say, pretending this is real, pretending what she said could be true. “What did you promise?”

“I promised that I would do what he asked,” she says, taking a shaky breath. “One thing. Whenever he asked it.” She swipes at her cheeks, smearing the black lines across her face. It is surreal to see my perfect sister ruined with tears and paint.

“That’s pretty open-ended,” I say. What could she possibly do for a Mafia hacker that was worth millions?

“I told him I wouldn’t do anything that hurt our family or anyone we knew.” She crosses her arms defensively.

“And when is … is …” It’s hard to say it out loud. Like a joke. “… is this hacker person getting his one favor?”

“He just did,” she says, her skin matching her dress as she swallows convulsively, greasy with a film of sweat. “He cashed in his chip this morning.”

A nervous tremor runs through me despite my skepticism. “What did he want?”

“It’s none of your business,” my sister says in an empty voice. She turns away, returning to her earlier position, back to the door, hunched over her desk, her vertebrae jutting in a skeletal column through skin and indecipherable Japanese characters. “Get rid of that money, Leni.”

I walk over and place a hand on her back. Her skin is oddly chilled and clammy.

“Natasha, what hap—”

“Get rid of it, Lenore,” she snaps as she turns to me, her spittle flying and hitting my face. I stumble back. “It’s got blood on it.” She touches a hand to her lips, as if to take back the words, but I see the truth in her eyes.

“Natasha,” I whisper. “What did you do?”

But she won’t say anything else.

As they left the shop behind, she couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling lurking heavy in her chest. She checked on the baby, lifting the canopy for a quick peek, to see that sweet little sleeping face again. To make sure she was okay
.

Motherhood had had all sorts of surprises for her. The fierce mama-bear love, the constant need to see the baby, to hold her, to feel her tiny chest rising and falling, was a huge one. Sometimes she would slip out of bed at night and creep down the hall, only to ease down silently next to the crib and watch the baby in the dim light from the blue-moon night-light
.

She glanced at Craig: husband, father, laid-off accountant
.

He wore his now-familiar look of stress and worry. Everything had happened together. The baby was born and a month later, Craig was out of a job. They had said it was a blessing; he could spend this time with his new daughter. So many fathers didn’t. They figured he’d find something within a couple of months, and it was wonderful to have another set of hands when spit-up came out of one end while the other end squirted impossibly foul matter and the baby screamed like someone was performing surgery without anesthesia on her. They’d laughed in drunken, sleep-deprived jags, going through baby boot-camp together, and she’d pitied other couples who missed out on this. Gazing over their sleeping newborn together, melting over those fleeting, toothless sleep-smiles
.

Except the weeks turned to months and there were no interviews, no job offers. Craig began applying for jobs below his previous level, willing to take salary cuts. And still, no job offers. It wasn’t about them anymore. They were parents now. It left her with a hollow feeling of panic. What kind of parents can’t provide for their child? Even though they’d agreed she’d stay at home for at least a year, she started submitting her résumé, not that she had any better luck. They even discussed moving in with his parents, just until one of them found a job. When they drove by the Powerball billboard and saw someone had won the jackpot, both of them couldn’t help thinking how much they could have used that money. It was hard to stop the daydreams about how they could use that money
.

Fantasy aside, they needed to decide what they were going to do. But all she could think about was that woman who had come
into the tea shop after them. She shivered again, though the day was blazing hot
.

“She was weird, right?” she said
.

And Craig, bless him, knew exactly what she meant
.

“Yeah,” he said. “Freaky.”

“She really scared me. When I see people like that, I get scared that they want to hurt Libby.” She shivered again, feeling so off-kilter she had to stop and peek through the sun visor on the stroller to check on the baby again, as if some evil spirit could have snuck into her little carrier and spirited her away
.

“We would never let anything bad happen to her,” Craig said firmly, her practical and pragmatic sweetie
.

They were silent after that, he pushing the stroller, she walking at his side, both taking occasional sips of their teas. They walked all the way to the pier and then to its end, where Tampa Bay stretched out and the fishermen fished with their endless patience
.

“We have to let the house go, don’t we?” she finally said, leaning against the railing, her back to the million-dollar view as she looked at her husband and daughter
.

“Yeah,” he said. “We do.”

“And then it’s off to Illinois. And your parents.”

“Yeah. At least, for a little while.”

She felt an aching sadness at the thought of leaving their bungalow with its beautiful views and happy memories. But it was the right decision. They were parents now
.

“I
love you,” she said, and leaned over to him, touching her lips very gently to his cheek. “And Libby is lucky to have you for a daddy.”

Craig smiled, his eyes sad and sweet. “Right back at you.” They hugged each other, leaning into each other’s strength
.

Then Libby woke up, hot and fussy, and soon they were busy changing a soiled diaper and fixing a bottle, and then the heat was too much. They pitched their drinks into the trash and headed home
.