This interview is my chance. My chance to be heard. I’ve argued with Mom too many times on this subject. Between Dad’s exploits and the pressure on Mom to stay home, Crossfire’s sure to end.
And that’s what we all need right now. A little sanity. Dad needs it. I need it. Mom needs it. Mom, especially.
Ignoring Adriana’s offer to drive me home, I pace quickly through the streets. A car drives by and honks. I look over. Some creepy idiot fluttering his tongue at me. Maybe Liam’s right. Maybe I need to stop walking alone. I hurry home.
Again, Dad’s by himself. Mom’s car is still not in the garage. I can hear a guitar in the studio. But I’m not going anywhere near it. I don’t want to talk to Dad or J. C. or anybody right now. I enter my room, closing the door behind me. My computer flashes photos at me. The screensaver is set to shuffle through my digital album.
There’s me and Dad, hanging out on a hotel balcony. Milan, was it? Dad and Phil, raising glasses. Mom and I, hugging. Mom and Marie, waving. I sit at the desk and watch the show for a while.
When I move the mouse, I notice new e-mail in Outlook. Among the dozens of newsletters I subscribe to, I pick out the message from Matti McGraw and click it open:
From: matildemcg@crossfire.com
To: “Desert McGraw”
Subject: I’m ok
Honey, I’m sorry I left without saying anything. I can’t be around your father right now. I need some time alone. I’m at the Clevelander. Call me in Room 14. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon, I’ll explain everything. Two days tops, sweetie. If you can’t handle Dad for two days, let me know. I’ll come home. I love you.—Mom
I’ll explain everything. That’s all right, Mom. I already know everything. I try to imagine her, sitting in a dark hotel room, crying and smoking, flipping through cable channels. Watching the Food Network through tears. And it doesn’t seem right. She should be here.
Two days.
I open some newsletters. Sales, Desert! Big Events, Desert! Free Shipping, Desert, with any order over a hundred dollars! How totally exciting! Not. I scroll through each to find the unsubscribe link. The new mail bell pings. I haven’t even found time to sit and personalize all my sounds yet. I click over to see the new message.
My stomach tightens. Brianna.
From: bri4nn4@stalphonsus.edu
To: “Desert McGraw”
Subject: Loser
stop emailing me, u ass. ur the one who left, right? btw retard, ur dad’s doing it with marie she talks too freakin’ much now leave me the hell alone.
My pulse. It’s everywhere. Throat, fingertips on the mouse, ankle. Blood pumping, rushing all over my body, trying to provide oxygen, trying to save me. The flat-screen monitor, bearer of the news, silent.
Your dad’s doing it with Marie. That can’t be true. She’s lying. No, she’s right. Of course it’s true. Why didn’t I see this? Do I hear laughing?
Marie. Doing my dad. Lying to me, to everybody. Every nerve under my skin is alive. I want to kill something, somebody. I want to hurt her. Them. Both of them. All of them.
Mom? Don’t cry, Mom. It’s okay, Mom. Mom, please stop! Stop crying! Where am I?
Suddenly I’m on the monitor in a rage, hurling it away, crashing, sparks, glass on the floor. Keyboard flying, dangling off the desk. Chair, thrown against my bed, bouncing off, turning on its side. Books from the shelf, out, flinging across the room, one by one.
“Dammit!!” A voice is screaming. Mine? Can’t be. “Screw all of you!! Go to hell!!”
Backpack chucked on the floor, framed photographs plucked off the wall, flung to the mirror. Glass cracking. Papers everywhere. Goldfish in the aquarium, oblivious.
I can’t take this anymore! My heart, it’s gonna burst. It’s gonna break. It’s gonna…
Lie down, honey. Sweetie, it’s okay. Lie down. I’ll be fine. Daddy loves me. I know he does. Shh, it’s all right. Breathe, hon. Breathe.
It’s taken me two days to find Marie. Dad hadn’t spoken to her since last week, since they postponed the sessions. I figured she’d be in her condo on Collins Avenue, but she’s not. She’s hanging out with Faith at Max’s on Ocean Drive, about three blocks down.
When Marie opens the door to my livid form, Faith bolts down the stairs, disappearing along Ocean Drive. I stand in the doorway, as expressionless as I can get. My lack of beach bag, towel, and sunscreen should indicate I didn’t come to hang out with her on the sand. “How dare you.” Not even a question.
“Desert—”
“Don’t,” I say, extremely composed. I swore to myself on the way here in Michael’s car that I would not lose control again, no matter what. She doesn’t deserve to see me lose it.
“Come in,” she says, pulling back the door.
“I only came to tell you something.”
“Come in and tell me,” she urges, gesturing inside.
“No.”
Marie stands there, sarong and linen shirt over a swimmer’s one-piece. Her eyes are swollen. She’s been crying. Good.
“Suit yourself,” she says, rubbing her tired face.
I can feel my heart quickening again, veins expanding, lungs fighting collapse. Deep breath, Desert. Deep breath. My fist squeezes against my thigh. “Stay away from my father.”
A gust of breath escapes her, almost a laugh. “Really? That’s what you came to tell me? Stay away from your father?” Her lean on the door gets a little too comfortable. “Or what?”
“Or there’s no telling what I might do to you.”
“Is that right?” She obviously thinks I’m joking.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Desert, honey—”
“Don’t call me honey, you lying, scheming—”
“Excuse me!” she interrupts, holding up her stupid hand. “But I do believe you know nothing about the situation.”
“I know enough. I know you betrayed us, me, my mom, just to be with my dad, and for what? For sex? You are such a tremendous loser!”
“No, Desert, not just for sex. For love, okay?”
Love. Like she even knows what that means. “You’re mental, you know that? My dad doesn’t love you. He loves my mom. He loves me, J. C., Max, Phil, Ryan, the music. Not you.”
“He told me so,” she says, almost like a child.
This is news to me. Could that even be true? I mean—as a friend, I’ve always known that. But as more?
Marie sighs, leaning her head on the door, staring past me at the palms. Their long shadows sway on her figure. “He said he did. We were together for four months, Desert.”
“When?”
“During the last recording. It wasn’t just a night, or a mistake. He told me he loved me. Then he ended it—the day of the new release.”
Why do I care about these details anyway? It doesn’t matter anymore. Mom slashed her off the payroll last night. “Yeah, and you know why? Because he didn’t. He didn’t love you. He probably didn’t even know why he said it. He was confused.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Desi.”
Desi. What a lie. What a freakin’ lie of a name. How dare she use it. “Don’t call me that.”
“You’re upset. You have every right to be, but you have to believe me, your dad had an equal part in this.”
“I know my dad had an equal part in this!” I scream, and a couple of faces peer out down the hall. “What does that have to do with anything? But you, Marie! How dare you? How dare you tell me that everything you were doing, with Adriana, by hiring the photographer, hiring Faith, all those things. How could you tell me you were doing it for me? You lied!”
She stands there, quiet. Our eyes, locked.
“Stay away from my dad. That’s all I came to say.” I walk away, toward the outside stairs.
By the time I reach them, I can hear her crying. Her sniffs sound odd, unfamiliar. I’ve never known Marie like this. When she begins speaking again, I pause. “In the end he refused me, Desert. Unless you’ve been cast aside when you love someone, love them so much your heart can crumble just by imagining them gone from your life, unless you know what that’s like, you can’t judge me, you hear?”
Silence. The heads down the hall are actually listening. “What?!” I shout at the audience, and they retreat, slamming doors.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she goes on. “If he thought he could just play with my emotions like that, leading me to think we would someday have something, then ignore me on a new day—I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. He had to go down.”
And there it is. The ugly truth. That’s why she did it all. To hurt him. For hurting her. Eye for an eye. In the face of rejection, I can’t think of a more immature way to respond.
I see Liam watching me from the car, worried expression. I start down the steps again, leaving her behind for good. “Go to hell, Marie.”
The ride home seems long. No one speaks; no one dares. But my brain is screaming. So I do the only thing I know how to shut it up.
Until you’ve walked that mile in my shoes
Until you’ve seen my pain
Don’t even pretend to know me at all
Don’t even claim to know my game
I don’t know what’s worse, your betrayal or my trust
In you, because I wanted to, because I felt I must
And you laughed in my face, you laughed in it hard
But I’ll turn my cheek, try to disregard
Your foolish attempt to fracture this whole
This family, this love, that you tried to control
Leave me here to repair the wounds you made
In your joke, in your game, in your masquerade