Erin shook her head. “She messed with Free because they weren’t talking. Not the other way around. Payback. They’d stopped talking because of rehab. There was an intervention during Fashion Week in February. Mel said if she didn’t go, he’d cut her off.”
Desiree had also inherited the Pierce stubbornness. Unlike the freckles, it wasn’t our best characteristic. “Let me guess. She got mad. Left.”
“No.”
“She stayed…”
“No, she left. Just not because she was mad. They put her in some uptight treatment facility in Connecticut.” She made it sound like the third circle of hell. “She wanted to go to this place in Hawaii that half the cast of that MTV show got sent to. She even had me call to make sure they had space. But he refused to pay for it. Cut her off. Said she owed him the one hundred forty thousand he’d put down as a deposit in Connecticut. Father knows best.”
Our waiter dropped off our plates. I didn’t even pick up my fork. Too shocked to eat. Yes, Mel was a shitty father. To me. Always to me. Never to Desiree. I’d had Murder Mel. She’d had the guy with the fifteenth-floor office suite.
Even when Desiree’d gotten her DUI, Mel’d rushed in to clean things up. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, especially if it meant keeping her record clean. Anyone else would have gotten jail time. Desiree got volunteer work.
When Naut told me they weren’t talking, I had assumed it was because of a minor disagreement. That Mel had still been funding the lavish lifestyle I’d seen splashed all over the internet. But no, Murder Mel had cut her off, and she’d fucked his mortal enemy. A “Screw you” that was also a “Screw you.” And that was screwed up, even for us.
Desiree had never had a proper job in her life, but she’d had money from the reality show and the occasional sponsored ad. Now I realized that couldn’t have lasted long. Not with the purchases she put on Instagram and the drugs she didn’t. Maybe Naut had been taking care of her? Or Free? And she’d screwed it all up by getting pregnant?
“Hate to be all rude, but your dad’s a dick,” Erin said.
I signaled our waiter. I needed a drink. “I’m well aware.”
“Yeah, Desiree said he treated you like shit growing up. That she tried so hard to make him treat you like he treated her. But I’ll tell you something I never had the courage to say to her. Living with Mel and getting all his attention didn’t always make Desiree the lucky one. It was conditional. The rehab thing was the first time she didn’t do exactly what he wanted. Look how that turned out. When she tried to contact him, he ignored her. She even tried going through Tam and her mother. I told her she was better off. That she could take care of herself.”
I played with my gnocchi, my appetite shrinking with each word until it was as small as the portion size. Maybe Erin was right. I’d never thought of their relationship like that—too busy seeing it through my own broken lens. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20.
“When did she run into Free?”
“Party in Miami couple of months ago. We found out he was performing. She really wanted to see him. I got us into the party. She got us backstage.”
“And what if I really want to see him too? Can you make that happen?”
“Why?” she said. “So you can tell him about the pregnancy? What would be the point—now?”
“Because I don’t think Desiree’s death was an accident.”
There. I’d said the quiet part out loud. The quiet part that had been banging around in my head louder than the illegal fireworks set off in my neighborhood every Fourth of July.
Erin choked on air. “Of course it was an accident.”
“Was it?” Saying it out loud made it feel real. Made me feel even more determined to figure out what the hell had happened. Not just what everyone else wanted me to believe. “You said yourself she’d stopped doing drugs. That she wasn’t depressed. If she was going to use, wouldn’t she have done it with you?” I could tell from her expression that she wasn’t convinced. I kept on. “I think it had to do with her pregnancy.”
I let that hang.
“And you think Free…？”
“I don’t know what to think. If we had her phone, it’d be different. But it’s gone, so the only option is talking to him.”
Her eyes started to well up, and once again I watched her cry. “No. No one would kill Desiree. Not even Free.”
I said nothing, did nothing—not even giving her the courtesy of looking away. Instead, I stared her dead in the eye. Even the waiter knew to stay away.
I understood Erin’s denial. She’d been born with a silver spoon, one which she’d used to do coke. It was easier for her to buy Desiree dying of an accidental overdose than admit someone she’d trusted might have wanted her dead.
If Erin didn’t want to help me, it was fine. I’d find another way.
Erin finally spoke. “You really think…”
I just nodded. After a few seconds, she wiped her tears away and grabbed her phone from the table. “I’m not convinced.” She paused long enough for me to deflate. “I do know where to find Free, though.”
Ten
It was another three-melatonin night. Same dream. Me chasing after an elusive Desiree, still not able to find her. I woke up with a headache that rivaled my hangover after earning my bachelor’s but still managed to be out the door in twenty minutes. Two of them I used to check for news. Even though I’d turned off my Google Alert for Desiree, I still did a quick search. There were a ton of articles, most rehashing what they’d already reported on her death. Thirteen I used to shower and put on my oversize Melanin T-shirt and leggings. Three were for forcing a granola bar down my throat. The final two to swallow down a Motrin and pray the lingering headache would disappear before I made it to Manhattan.
Aunt E and I had finally eaten the chicken ’n’ dumplings last night in front of her TV watching a replay of The Real Housewives of Potomac. Well, she ate. I picked at my plate and then threw most of it away when she went to the bathroom. Neither of us brought up Desiree, the designer-clad elephant in the room. It was quiet and awkward, which wasn’t our usual MO. But we were both lost in our own thoughts. Aunt E was the only family member left who knew me well enough to know something was wrong, and I didn’t want to have to tell her anything I suspected. At least not until I had more info.
I had begged off breakfast, blaming it on having to stop by school to finally drop off my paper. I grabbed it from where it’d been sitting on my printer in the spare bedroom for the past week and a half and ignored the clothes still on the floor as I left my apartment. I barely remembered to set the alarm when I grabbed my bike from the downstairs hall.
I had things to do. Places to be. People to confront. But first I needed a bike ride.
If you really want to enjoy Central Park, get there at about 9:30 a.m. The early morning health nuts are long gone—shined and showered and strolling into work feeling damn good they exercised this morning and you didn’t. The tourists are still enjoying overpriced breakfasts at places like Junior’s and Roxy Diner. Those who can still exercise at 9:30—the stay-at-home moms, the trophy wives, the college kids—are dropping forty dollars per class to have some over-muscled, under-endowed instructor yell tenderly in their ear as they do burpees.