Meredith and I had fun the next day. I was trying hard to erase the night before. I took her to City Lights Bookstore, because I knew she’d love it. I ordered us car service again. I wanted Meredith to have a really good time. No more Creeps of San Francisco.
And it was good. After City Lights, the driver dropped us off at Fisherman’s Wharf, and we went to the places Lila had taken me to the first time I visited. We went to Ghirardelli Square and bought chocolate. Meredith FaceTimed Hoodean from Lombard Street. We walked all the way to Pier 39 to see the gross, blubbery, stinky sea lions lying around on the docks. I took her to Madame Tussauds wax museum, and she went crazy taking pictures and texting them to her mom and Hoodean and Cora. We went to Nick’s Lighthouse and ate chowder from a bowl of bread.
That night, we ordered dinner on our own and watched a movie in the media room. It was a surprise for Meredith, something I knew she’d like even if I’d come to despise R. W. Wright’s sexy, murdered girls—an old movie of one of his earliest books, The Most Regular Evil. It was pretty cheesy, really. We made fun of the big hair and the super-high-waisted jeans. There was a lot to make fun of, until it got scary. What was scary in the 1980s was still scary now. A young woman, stalked on a dark street. She was the good girl, though, the heroine. She kept her blouse buttoned all the way up, so she got the knife away from the guy and jabbed it in his throat. I had to hide my eyes, but Meredith was brave.
“I could do it,” she said.
“Not me. No way,” I said.
“You cringe cutting into a chicken breast.” It was true. There was just something too unnerving about knives plunged into skin.
“Sick.” I shivered.
“You’d need a baseball bat,” Meredith said. “Then you could do it.” It was a weird conversation, but not. It was just Meredith and me being Meredith and me. It felt good. I’d made a successful day, all the way through to the end.
But then, right when the guy popped back up and the girl had to keep stabbing, Jake joined us. Meredith had finally met him that afternoon when we got home, but now he plopped himself down in the big, cushy leather chair.
“Hey, ladies,” he said.
“Hey, Mr. Antonetti,” Meredith said.
“Hey,” I said.
The room hummed with discomfort. All I could see when I looked at him was Lila’s black eye, and I could feel Meredith thinking about it too. But the awful awkwardness wasn’t just about the black eye. It was the way he sat there with his feet up on the footstool with the legs of his shorts open, revealing a dark cavity, his arms hairy and bare in his tank top.
“Watching a movie, huh?”
“Trying to,” I said. Meredith nudged me with her elbow. She wanted me to be polite, even though she felt the same as I did. I could see it in the way she pulled the blanket up over her pajama top.
“It’s nice to see you with girlfriends for a change,” Jake said.
I could feel Meredith’s unspoken question in a wrinkle of her nose. I knew her so well. God, I wanted Jake to go away.
But he didn’t go away. He just sat there and sat there. In my space. Pressing on me somehow. He watched the movie until the end, until the dead stalker lay on the floor and the camera panned away from the house in a way that almost made you feel sorry for the guy. R. W. Wright’s books never end happily. They just keep making you uneasy, all the way until the final page and afterward.
I don’t think I even really watched the last part of that film. I was too distracted with Jake there. Maybe Meredith didn’t see that last half hour either, because she got up the very second the credits rolled, as if she was just waiting for her chance to escape.
“I think I’ll go to bed now,” she said.
Upstairs, I asked Meredith if she wanted to go down to China Beach. It was only ten.
“It’s really awesome there at night,” I said. “The waves are like silver. The bridge is all lit up. Photo op!”
“It’s kind of dark,” she said.
“Want to stay up and play Mad Libs or something?” We used to do that with her family during sleepovers at her house.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m really tired.”
I couldn’t exactly blame her. I wouldn’t be able to think of a funny plural noun or a humorous article of clothing anyway. I wouldn’t be able to take in the magic of the silver tips of waves or run around on the beach. I couldn’t feel free if I didn’t feel safe.
When I went out to the garden, the moon was a shade fuller. Max lifted his leg on the very same bush, and I heard the murmur of Meredith’s voice on the phone again.
I’d failed. Shit, I was such a failure.