| laughed. “It wasn’t hard. She wanted to go. She didn’t fight me or anything.” “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t believe you.” “Well, I can’t believe you!” Robin snapped. “When I told you about it, you said I was lying! I wasn’t lying!” I stared at her. She was bright against the white of the tub, roundly healthy, pink-cheeked. Beautiful. She couldn’t have killed anyone. She didn’t have it in her. No… The nausea returned. I’d known for a long time what it was that lived in her. “I did it because I loved you, Leslie,” Robin said, wringing her hands. “I didn’t think it would make you hate me. I was just a kid. I didn’t know how your brain worked.” Like it was me that was crazy. “But you did.” Her brow wrinkled prettily. She really looked hurt. “You never looked at me the same after that. You acted like I was some kind of monster.” Had I? I’d spent so much time flattening the memory that now it was fractured. I didn’t know whether I’d pushed Robin away. But it was true that before my mother died, we’d done everything together. Spent all our time together. After my mother died, we slept in separate bedrooms. I’d always thought it was Robin who’d never liked me, who’d kept her distance. When I was in middle school she got her own room, I’d told Mary. Suddenly she hated me. She’d hated me, so I’d hated her back. No. She’d |
kind of steakhouse. The building wore a badly constructed stone façade, like a Macaroni Grill, and all the blinds were drawn, but the outer doors stood open. The bottoms of my shoes warmed as I crossed the parking lot into the stuffy little vestibule and pushed through the inner set of doors. It was cooler inside, with a large exposed air vent near the ceiling whuffing away; despite that industrial fixture, the rest of the restaurant was outfitted like a midcentury men’s club, with dark wood paneling and heavy curtains flanking each window. At the edges of the room were large plush booths with gold hooks for coats and hats; the rest of the dining room was taken up by freestanding tables set with white tablecloths and upended water glasses. No one was in the restaurant, not even any workers; except for the air vent, I was the only thing breathing. I went up to the host stand, feeling underdressed in my slacks and blouse. “Hello?” I said. “Are you open?” There was a clanking noise from the kitchen, and a rat-mustached teenager leaned out from between the swinging doors, his head suspended briefly midair. “One second.” I edged behind the host stand and took a menu. It was expensive to eat here. Vegas prices. Ordinarily I wouldn’t. The red meat. But my hands wouldn’t stop shaking; the menu fluttered as I held it. Didn’t they say you should eat protein if you felt faint? The teenager returned and crept |
