“These badges will do the trick,” he said, holding his badge out so it was parallel to the floor. Mulder’s upside-down face looked back at him.
“Ready?”
“Hold on,” he said. He unclasped his necklace. “Scully wears a cross.”
“Oh, no. Are you sure? It’s precious to you, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”
“No worries,” he said, stepping behind her. She held her hair up for him; he did the clasp. The gold cross flickered like candlelight and dangled just below the hollow of her neck, above the unbuttoned top buttons of her white-as-death blouse.
TALLIE
After they stopped at the coffee shop for a pumpkin spice latte for herself and a black coffee for Emmett, Tallie drove to Lionel’s house with Emmett in her passenger seat. The cake was on the floor in the back; her car smelled like an October dream. Algebraic crackles of light flashed Emmett’s face and hers as they drove the wet roads all lit up with streetlamps. The sun had set gold, and she drove deliberately slow, wary of trick-or-treaters in the autumnal darkness.
“My brother’s house is wild,” Tallie said to him. She had the radio turned down low; Counting Crows faded into Fiona Apple. “He had it built by this waterfall that’s part of the design, and it powers…something. It’s so over-the-top and strange. It’s modeled after the Frank Lloyd Wright in Pennsylvania. The Fallingwater house,” she finished, seeing Emmett’s impressed face in the light. “I don’t mean to sound braggy.”
“You don’t sound braggy.”
“And if at any point you need to talk or you feel anxious tonight, please let me know. What’s most important is your mental health,” she said.
“And yours. I’m not the only person in the world.”
“I know, but it’s okay if we focus on you.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m okay. Right now, I’m okay.”
“You’re sure? Because crowds and unfamiliar spaces can—”
“Tallie, I’m okay,” he said.
She drove through the open gate leading to Lionel’s street, overflowing with cars parked on the sides and in the grass. Costumed partygoers walked on the edge of the road. Two skeletons wearing puffy white wigs, every member of the Village People, a hot-pink Care Bear, and Mario and Luigi.
“I usually park up here, and we can walk over the back way. There’s a gate, but I know the code. And a bridge…a wooden bridge,” Tallie said, speaking carefully. She glanced at him, wanting to be extra sensitive, in case hearing the word bridge could trigger an impulse.
“Your brother’s house has a gate and a bridge?” Emmett asked.
“I’m telling you, it’s like one of Gatsby’s parties,” she said, slowing to a crawl because of the people and parked cars. The rain had stopped, but the rivulets still slipped through the grass and across the pavement, catching in her headlights as they spilled to the sewers, fleeting.
“Have you two always been close?”
“He’s five years older, and he never let me hang out with him when we were kids. Unless his friends were busy, then he would. But I had to promise not to tell anyone he played with my Barbies. He said he’d kill me if I did, and at the time I one hundred percent believed he would’ve done it. He has a very strong personality. I’m making him sound like an asshole, and he’s really not! He’s just…well, you’ll see,” she said. “He graduated college summa cum laude and went off to New York and came back like Scrooge McDuck, swimming through a gigantic pile of gold coins. He’s one of those guys who knows everybody and is good at everything. Everyone loves him. All my girlfriends have had crushes on him at one point or another—even my best friend, Aisha, and she’s a lesbian half the time!” Tallie laughed. “I guess all of it could make me jealous. Maybe it would if I were a man. He can be difficult, but so can I. I love being his sister. His energy is gold. It’s always been gold.”
“So’s yours.”
“That’s what you think?”
“Yes. And I like how you make your brother sound. Simpatico. Larger than life,” Emmett said through the dark of the car.
*
Lionel’s place was encircled by the forest on his property, and Tallie knew the secret spot where she could park her car. She and Emmett would be able to walk over the bridge leading to the enormous patio with two huge fire pits flanking it and a heated infinity pool in the middle that seemed to spill out into the grass like an illusion. In season, the bridge was surrounded by a copse of fecund apple and pear trees and a bright patch of wildflowers that attracted myriad hummingbirds and bees. It was a genuine certified wildlife nature preserve and sanctuary. They had a gardener, but Tallie loved getting her hands dirty with Zora and River. In the spring, they planted rows and rows of sunflowers, although oftentimes the deer would get to them before long—the big sunny blossoms appearing in the afternoon, disappearing overnight.