“Is it the house?” June pressed. “Has the fire reached it? Tell me the fire hasn’t reached it.”
“It hasn’t.”
“I don’t like the fire,” Nicky said into her neck.
“I don’t, either.” Melanie moved from the entryway to Max’s living room and folded herself onto a leather couch with the little boy still wrapped around her middle.
Eva and June followed her into the room.
“I guess we just wait now,” June said.
Any other person besides Eva might have thought June meant wait for the fire to be put out so they could return home. But Melanie knew June meant wait for the phone to ring with Max on the other end.
The call came twenty minutes later, a few minutes after Nicky fell asleep in Melanie’s lap. June reached for the receiver on the end table next to her.
Melanie listened to the only words she and Eva could hear—June’s—but from them they could easily guess what Max was saying.
“Yes, Melanie and Eva are here now,” June said. “…What do you mean Elwood is missing?…” She closed her eyes—perhaps against the performance she was giving. “What note?…I don’t understand what you’re saying…Yes, he owns a gun…”
The tears that were suddenly tracking down June’s face, Melanie had not expected to see, nor did she expect to feel them on her own cheeks at this moment. She’d known for five days that Elwood was dead.
June’s tears looked as authentic as her own. There was nothing artificial about them, and Melanie would know. She’d producedplenty of false tears for casting directors who needed an actress who could summon them on cue. She realized that for the near-week Elwood’s death had been a secret to be kept, it had seemed like make-believe. A fiction. A dream. But not now. Now word of his demise was coming from the outside world. The world that was real.
“Tell me again what the note says.” June’s voice broke even though she already knew what the note said. “Oh, God, Max…I’m coming. I’m leaving right now…I can’t just wait here. I need to help look. I need to be there…”
Several seconds of silence hovered in the room as Max said something Melanie could not hear.
“I’ll be fine…I need to be there, Max,” June said. “Don’t tell me I can’t be. I’m coming.”
She hung up the phone and reached for a tissue in her pants pocket to wipe her tears. Melanie palmed away the wetness on her own face with the hand that wasn’t encircled around the sleeping boy.
“Max has already called the police,” June said. “And I need to go up there. It’s what I would’ve done.”
June was trembling all over.
“Maybe I should go with you,” Melanie said on impulse. “Eva can stay here with Nicky.”
“Yes,” Eva chimed in. “Please take Melanie with you.”
June shook her head. “I don’t want you to have to pretend any more than you have to.”
“I’m an actress, June.”
“I mean, I don’t want you to have to pile on lie after lie. For me. Max won’t care if you all stay here until the fire’s out. Call a cab if you don’t want to wait for me and you’ve found out the fire department will let you back in. I’ll pay for it.”
“You’re not paying for anyone’s cab,” Melanie said. “Eva and Nicky can wait here. But I’m coming with you. It will look better if I’m behind the wheel when we get there anyway. You need to look too worried to drive.”
June let out a long breath, perhaps of resignation, perhaps of gratitude. She stood. “Let’s go, then.”
Melanie transferred the sleeping boy to Eva’s arms.
Melanie and June were silent as they traveled the urban sprawl of Los Angeles to reach the quieter highway that headed east, toward the desert a hundred miles away.
When they were out of the city, June let out a long breath.
“You all right?” Melanie asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
