“You hear anything this morning?” I said, even though I knew the answer. “Anyone?”
Sure enough, she shook her head. “The alarm didn’t go off.”
Mel had installed some fancy-schmancy system when he fixed up the house after Gram died and Aunt E refused to move to a “better neighborhood.” It was as much of a pain in the ass as he was, going off if someone so much as looked in its general direction. We’d only just started using it regularly after a minor break-in a month ago. I’d even paired it with my Alexa.
“Let’s go inside,” Aunt E said. “I need to call Mel.”
Five minutes later, I was at her kitchen table staring down a plate of leftovers. Aunt E and I were in our usual seats—her closest to the stove and me to her left. Aunt E’d rejected any and all attempts to get her a cell phone, making her calls from a landline older than I was. The phone hung on the tiny expanse of wall that separated the kitchen from the hallway, and its ultra-long cord stretched past me as Aunt E settled in to talk to Mel. She didn’t have a speakerphone, but luckily she kept the volume high enough you didn’t need it. I leaned forward. It picked up on the second ring. “Mel Pierce’s office.”
Tam sounded as professional as always. A first-time caller wouldn’t suspect she was the least bit upset. But I knew better. For one, she hadn’t checked the caller ID. Otherwise, she’d have known it was us. Plus, I could hear it in her voice, the rawness in her throat that could only be the result of extended crying. “You holding up, Tam?” Aunt E said.
“Aunt E!” For a moment Tam’s perky timbre was back. The one that sounded like it was truly her pleasure to say three words: Mel. Pierce’s. Office. Like life got no better than answering his phones, checking his emails, and helping him stick to keto. A joy right up there with playing with puppies and eating only pink Starbursts.
It had annoyed the shit out of me when I realized it wasn’t an act. Tam had been promoted to Mel’s EA right before my mom died. Whereas most execs have two, even three, assistants, Mel needed only Tam, as she’d taken to the role like it was her baby, managing each and every little thing in his life—from his calendar to his travel. She’d also taken to his newly motherless firstborn daughter, having counseled me through one and a half breakups. Yet I’d never heard her even mention dating. She seemed to have no life. Lucky for her, Mel had enough for both of them.
“Where’s Mel?” Aunt E said.
“On a call. We’ve been trying to reach you and Lena all morning.”
Aunt E looked at me. I still hadn’t said a word.
“I had Zumba,” Aunt E said. “Lena let me know.”
“Good,” Tam said. “We thought about sending someone to the house. We just didn’t want you to find out through the news.”
I sighed.
We.
That’s how Tam talked. We were just calling to check in. You get the Apple gift card we sent for your birthday? We wanted to make sure you were coming to the holiday party. As if Mel gave a rat’s ass about when my birthday was or that I was saving up for a new laptop or if I’d be one of the five hundred special guests in attendance at his annual White Christmas extravaganza.
“The police are stopping by the office this afternoon,” she said. “We want Lena to come.”
Aunt E looked at me, and I shook my head.
“I can hear her breathing,” Tam said.
I finally spoke. “Did Desiree say anything about trying to reach me last night?”
Tam paused long enough for me to get my answer. Mel—Veronika by proxy—had responded to my and Desiree’s estrangement just as I’d predicted: not at all. “You were obviously on her mind,” she said.
At five in the morning when she was high on cocaine. And just like that I was pissed. At Tam. At myself. And, most of all, at Desiree. I gestured to Aunt E, who was reluctantly handing me the phone. It felt like a brick. “You know this was inevitable,” I said immediately, ignoring Aunt E’s look.
A pause. “I’m sorry you think that,” Tam said. “She was doing so well. We sent her to rehab earlier this year.” She had left out the word “again.”
“Guess that didn’t work. Again.”
“Lena,” Aunt E said, suddenly looking every one of her seventy-two years. “Don’t you think you’re being hard on Desiree?”
I thought I wasn’t being hard enough. Just like always. Even in death, even when she was found with cocaine, we were the ones making excuses. I handed the phone back. Aunt E waited for me to say something, then just gave up. She knew how stubborn I was. How I substituted anger and sarcasm for hurt like a teacher always calling out sick. Sighing, Aunt E spoke to Tam instead. “When’s the last time you heard from Desiree?”
“Yesterday. We wanted to see if she got the gift. I keep replaying our last conversation. She didn’t seem like herself. Was distracted. Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
Not feeling well was straight out of Desiree’s “I’m using again” playbook. It was her excuse for why she was late. For the nosebleeds. For the constant trips to the bathroom. Yet for someone who never felt great, she sure loved to stay up all night. To talk about men. To binge reality shows with “Love” in the title that I hated but watched with her anyway. To share secrets. Just not the biggest—and worst-kept—secret of all.
The first time I saw her using was at dinner right after my mom died. I can’t remember the place. I can remember the single-stall bathroom. All stark and silver, like the latest model Terminator had morphed into a sink. She’d followed me in and casually whipped out the baggie of coke like it was lip balm, offering me some as I sat with my panties wrapped around my knees. All I could do was shake my head. It was a good year before I could say anything more.
But when I did start to bring it up, the excuse was that she just wanted to have fun, not caring that a good time for her most likely meant a bad time for everyone else. Not that I was always clean and sober, but if I had to piss in a cup, you’d find only weed and enough alcohol to get me tipsy—and even then only on special occasions. And the more time we spent together, the more I began to wish she hadn’t moved on to the harder stuff. I’d once flushed an entire gram of coke down the toilet when she passed out. She just bought more with Mel’s money when she woke up.
“We didn’t notice any of the usual signs,” Tam said.
“Did any of you want to?” I said back.
“Of course.” Tam ignored my tone. When you worked with Mel Pierce you were used to being yelled at for things that weren’t your fault. His temper was as famous as his artists.
It felt like she was reading from an official statement. Knowing Mel, she probably was. His version of a midlife crisis had struck soon after Gram died. It wasn’t marked by a flashy car or a hot young wife but by a desire to finally be seen as a respected entrepreneur.
I instinctively twirled the cord between my fingers like I had as a kid. I went round and round and round as Tam kept going. “There’re a lot of unanswered questions, which is why we’re happy the police are stopping by. You should really come. It might offer you some closure. Desiree was obviously worse off than any of us imagined if she was doing heroin.”