I look amazing. I look like a million bucks. All the bad days disappear from my reflection in the mirror. It’s not the same as Demi’s clothes. These are my clothes, and I have this wild idea that I will replace everything, start over, become a new person, myself in her.
I don’t stop at Chanel. I am carrying so many shopping bags that I look like a girl in a movie, the way no one shops in real life. When I get tired, I stop at a restaurant. All my bags gather around my feet like tributes. I drink expensive wine and eat raw fish.
If I could choose a moment to end my life, this would be it. I can’t imagine that things will ever get better. It’s stupid how wonderful it is. All my life I’ve been told that true happiness comes from friends and family. It’s been drilled into my head: You have everything worth having if you have love.
Bullshit.
I loved my dad more than anything and it never felt like this. It hurt. Watching him do things I hated, watching him suffer and get it wrong. This feels like clarity, like the answer to every question. It’s like heroin is to Michael, an absence of struggle, every bad thing disappears, maybe every good thing, too, but isn’t happiness a kind of pain? In knowing, always knowing, it will end?
I think of Graham’s offer. I want his help. I want to live like him. I can’t take back the things I’ve done.
But money forgives everything.
DEMI
On my way home that evening, I pass by the tent city in my car. I have money in my pocket. I could stop. I tell myself it’s too dangerous. I don’t want to be recognized. I dropped tens of thousands of dollars on designer clothes I didn’t need and I can’t even toss a dollar out the window.
As we climb up the hills, I justify it. It’s different for me. I earned this. No one helped me. I helped myself. I was poor. I don’t want to be poor again. I wasn’t born privileged like Graham and Lyla. It’s not fair that I should have to share with anyone. I think of my dad, the way he used to give everything away like it was nothing. But he was wrong. It was something, and I lost it. I deserve this. It’s only fair.
The Uber drops me off in front of the house. I collect my shopping bags. I thank my driver. I walk to the open gate. The smell of death washes over me so strong, it’s like something from a dream.
It’s all right. You’ve been through this before. You’ve walked through fire to get here. You’ll keep walking.
I grip my shopping bags, protection. I step into the courtyard. There is blood on the stairs. I follow it to the body. The red dog from the street with its head snapped back, like it reached too far and broke apart.
I scream. I fall back against the railing, fight the cage of my ribs for my breath. I don’t know what I am afraid of—everything suddenly overwhelms me: Astrid’s warning, Demi’s hands, the camp beneath the underpass, the nothingness in Margo’s garden.
I feel a body close to mine, a hothouse scent. Strong arms wrap around me. A voice hums in my ear. “It’s all right, it’s all right.” Everything is all right.
My shopping bags are scattered on the ground. I don’t remember dropping them. My Chanel necklace winks like it’s in on the joke. I can’t catch my breath. I see the dog even when I’m not looking. I have this weird, wet feeling that I am somehow responsible. I imagine all the different ways that I could be, contort myself in guilty shapes, like I hope to one day be held accountable.
Graham holds me. Lyla is cold, watches me with arch eyes. She tells me the dog belongs to Margo and not to say anything. Graham scolds her, pets me like one of his animals. The guesthouse is my enclosure.
I shake it off. “I’m fine. It’s just shock.”
Graham helps me with my bags. He scoops up the necklace, delicately lowers it into the case, tucks it in the bag, arranges the tissue paper.
He offers to help me down the stairs. I insist I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m so upset. Demi’s body didn’t have nearly the same effect on me. I do love animals but I think it’s more than that.
It’s easier to cry over a dog than a human being.
* * *
THE SCENT OF heroin is almost comforting when I step back into the guesthouse. I should have stayed inside. I definitely shouldn’t have gone shopping. It’s like I’m losing touch with reality. This place brings me back to earth.
Michael is in his corner, nodding out. He rouses himself enough to sneer, “What is that?” at my shopping bags.
“Upstairs bought it for me.” I set the bag in the bedroom, where he won’t see them. Then I come back to the living room, where he has nodded out again. He seems more high than usual, which only makes me surer of what I am about to ask. “Michael?” My voice has a dangerous snap. “Did you kill that dog?”