“I didn’t even know she had a kid,” I say. “The narcissist didn’t have any pics of her own daughter in most of the photo albums. It was all beach shots and sunsets.”
Moody considers. She raises the volume on the TV to conceal our voices. “Can you get rid of her?”
“I’m not going to kill her, Moods.”
“I didn’t mean like that, you idiot,” she says. “Make her go back to her family.”
Back to her family, or over the edge of a cliff. The way the girl breezed right into Edison’s house like she owned the place and ate thebreakfast I made him. Knew where he kept the mugs and what the Wi-Fi password was. Looked at me like I came bearing a plague.That’s right,I’d thought, willing her to read my mind as we stared each other down.I’m here now, and there’s no room for you.
Moody sees my expression and says, “Calm down, Sissy. Iris will be back soon. Then you and I will go see what we’re dealing with.”
“She’s in summer school,” I say. “I drove by the junior high on the way home. Classes start at ten. It’s walking distance from Edison’s place.”
It took all my restraint not to check Facebook for the girl’s profile, but I can’t have her in my search history. Nothing will happen to her. But you never know when leaving a trail will come back to haunt you, and the less in your search history, the better.
By the time Iris returns home, two hours later and bearing a fresh loaf of bread from the patisserie, my shock has worn off. I’m ready to be rational.
Moody puts on the wedding band and becomes Lisa. She wears her oversize sunglasses and forces me to take a shower before we go out. Says it will help me compose myself, and she’s right—it does.
“Montana had a meddlesome ex,” Moody says as she drives us toward the junior high. She’s talking about her first kill. His real name is already lost to her, or maybe she just doesn’t want to say it. “I thought she’d ruin everything. Kept writing him these weepy drunk texts at four in the morning. You know, one time that asshole grabbed his phone and texted her back while I was on top of him.”
Her rage flares, but then she smiles at the memory. The kill in Montana was her perfect match. Irrational, emotional, addictive. They were all over each other—he pawed at her in the restaurant right in front of me, shoved his hand up her dress and his tongue in her mouth. And then the next minute, some small offense—he lookedat the waitress a beat too long, or she flirted with a man at a red light—and the gloves came off.
Moody slams her palm against the steering wheel, two fingers raised as though she’s holding a phantom cigarette. “That fucker cheated on me with her. He denied it right to the very end. Even when he was bleeding out. He slapped me in the face with the last of his strength and told me I was crazy. He thinks that’s why I killed him—jealousy.” She laughs angrily.
I don’t tell Moody that I remember all this and there’s no need for her to tell me. Instead, I watch her with fascination as she relives it. She’s no longer talking to me, and she’s no longer in this car. She’s back in that maelstrom of a relationship, kissing him, cutting him open, wrestling his bloody form around the tiny bathroom like dancers in the final act of a gruesome play.
If Montana were still alive, he would have broken her heart eventually. He would have left her, or she would have given up on him. But in death he hasn’t left her at all. He’ll be the hot flush in her cheeks, the faraway stare in her eyes, for as long as she lives with the memory. It’s better this way.
Edison will be my Arizona. I won’t speak his name once he’s gone, but I’ll carry it. I’ll smile and think about his touch, and no one will know my secret. I’ll go back to him over and over in my head. Last night will be the first loud chord in our desperate song, all muscle and sweat and that helpless gasp he gave me as he fell, and fell.
“Did you want to kill Montana’s ex?” I say.
“Of course,” Moody says, coming back down to earth again. “But she wasn’t the one. We only do one at a time; otherwise that’s how mistakes happen.”
More than one is too messy, but also, it ruins the intimacy. Makes it less special, like having two birthday parties on the same day.
“Do you want to kill that little girl?” Moody’s voice is breezy. She’s telling me that she wouldn’t judge me if I said yes. No one in this world knows me like Moody, not even Iris. After that day we daydreamed about murdering those boys on the Ferris wheel, we wrote stories about all the vicious things we could do. Some of them we wanted, and others were just fun to pretend. We swapped notebooks and wrote on top of each other’s sentences between the lines, our words kindling on a fire that had always been burning inside us. Moody is my best friend, my mirror soul. She loves me more than Montana and I love her more than Edison. Love her like breathing.
“No,” I answer. Edison loves his stepdaughter, and this makes her a rival. It makes me angry. Sadie is a lightning bolt shot across my clear blue sky. She is the rumble of a coming storm that will flood my carefully laid plans. But the thought of harm coming to her upsets me in a way that I don’t have words for. It’s not logical. I should have daydreams of backing over her with my car as she sunbathes in the driveway, or taking her to the public pool and drowning her so that Edison will find her floating—a punishment, a sacrament.Love me. Love only me.
These thoughts damage me in some inexplicable way because she is a piece of Edison’s heart and that makes her precious. Even if I wish she weren’t.
I tell Moody something that will be easier to explain. “I don’t want to spend my limited time with Edison consoling him because something happened to her.”
“That’s smart,” she says, and pulls the car over. “Nobody wants a buzzkill.” We blend in with all the others parked here. The junior high is on a city grid across the street from several little shops.
The little lightning bolt is standing on the sidewalk. I recognize her purple backpack and her neon pink shoes. She’s talking to a wiryboy whose braces I can see from here. They stand close, and he brushes his hand down the side of her arm and nods soberly at whatever she is saying. He’s comforting her. She is a tiny queen in perpetual dismay. Already she has learned the power she has over males, because she is beautiful and she knows how to be vulnerable.
A small group of kids assembles and they make their way inside. But even then, she stands out. Her long light ponytail is flickering behind her.
Moody has said nothing this whole time, but she doubtless knew which girl was Sadie by the way I was staring at her. “Come on,” she says now, putting the car in gear. “We’ve got a couple of hours before she gets out. We’ll get lunch.”
We find a food cart two blocks away in the parking lot with the Safeway. Kebabs, sodas, and bags of chips. Comfort food. Thinking food. Nearly all our problems have been solved over takeout. Moody treats us both, and for the first time since coming here, I’m glad my sisters created Lisa without consulting me. I’m grateful that I have someone to confide in while we’re out in the daylight, even if she can’t give me any advice.
It’s too hot to eat outside, so we climb back into the car and crank the AC. When my phone begins rattling in the cup holder, Edison’s name appears on the screen. Moody mouths the wordspeakerto me.
I set the phone on the armrest between us and answer the call. “Hey!”
