Page 112 of Rest In Pink

“Molly thought that?” Vince said.

“Never. But Molly was growing up with Aunt ML. Her life wasn’t great while she was toeing ML’s line. If she’d tried to rebel and defend me . . .” I thought about ML and shuddered. “Molly’s life was awful. ML was awful. ML was . . .” I tried to think of a way to explain how she’d seeped darkness into Molly’s life, into mine, with her unrelenting selfishness and spleen. “See that big roof off to the side? That’s the auditorium. Our junior year they held the National Honor Society induction there. Big deal. Smart kids. Mom and ML and Molly and I were all there, and ML went off on what a disgrace I was, wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans and too much eye makeup, while her daughter was a credit to the family, pretty as a picture in a yellow sundress with little white flowers. And my mom never said a word.” I swallowed. “Molly really did look great in that dress. I’ll never forget that dress. She belonged to this perfect world that I would never be part of, a world full of yellow sundresses, even though I knew she really lived in hell growing up with ML.”

“So Molly was National Honor Society and you were a Riot Gurrrl.”

I turned to look at him. “No. I was National Honor Society. Molly didn’t make it. Didn’t care that she didn’t make it. She was just proud of me. That wasmycelebration. ML just redefined my success as one of my many failures, the way she redefined everything in my life. And my mother just stood there.”

I kind of hated the look on his face. It twisted a little, like he was trying not to react, but he was angry. I wanted him to be angry, but I didn’t. I didn’t need anybody to feel sorry for me, I wasfine.

I turned back to Burney, spread out before me. “See McDonald’s down there? That’s where Cash dumped me the first time when we were sophomores to take Belinda Roarke to homecoming even though he’d already asked me.

“Porter’s Garage? That’s where he told me we couldn’t be together anymore because Stephanie Longer was cuter than me. I thought Will was going to hit him, even though Will was like twelve at the time.

“And that awful blue pavilion in the park? That’s where he dumped me three days before our senior prom because Alicia Turner promised to put out if he took her instead.”

I turned to look at him again. “I, of course, had been putting out for three years, but he could have me any time, so he went with Alicia. I had a great dress for it, too. The first dress I’d really wanted, black stretch velvet, long and straight with this side slit and a jagged neckline. A real super-villainess dress. My mother had been thrilled I finally wanted a dress, even though it was black. She was pushing for pink or blue—”

“I really need to arrest Cash for something,” Vince said, his voice a low growl, the way it gets when he’s trying not to yell or hit something. “I’ll tell George he resisted arrest and . . . ” He took a deep breath.

“It was fifteen years ago. It’s over.” I turned back to the landscape. “See the farmer’s market shed there at the turn off of 52? That’s where Molly changed George’s campaign poster from ‘Pens’ to ‘Penis.’ Well, one of the places. We hit them all over town. That’s just the place where we heard the sirens and I told her to run.”

“Why?” Vince said, a real edge to his voice now. “Why would you keep taking the hits for her? For all of them?”

“She had a future,” I told him. “She has this amazing voice and she had a music scholarship to UC, she had big things in her future, she was going to get out of town and away from ML, and I . . . didn’t have anything. Even if I’d had some talent, I didn’t have the money for college, and even if I’d had it . . . . ” I turned to face him again. “You don’t understand. That was not the way the world worked for me. I was eighteen. All I knew was what my mother and ML told me, all I knew was what I saw, and what I saw was that I was always going to be second because I was a disgrace to the family and not what anybody wanted. Molly and I were always together against the world, she never made me feel second, she never used me, Vince, I swear, I always made the decisions, I chose to take the hit. But to everybody else, of course, I was second behind Belinda Roarke and Stephanie Longer and Alicia Turner and Molly Blue, and Cash thought that, too, and so did my Uncle Day who was trying to fill in for my missing father but who was really Molly’s father so I had to come second, even though I was his daughter, too. I came second to . . . everybody. I took the fall for Molly because that’s who I knew I was. And because it would have destroyed her to stay any longer with ML, and it was just another day in the life of family disgrace Liz Danger for me. I could handle it. ML would havedestroyedher.” I looked out over the town I hated. “Look, I got in trouble on my own a lot, too. I was an angry kid.”

“Ofcourseyou were an angry kid,” Vince said, his voice sharp.

“Yes, but then I did the smartest thing I have ever done.” I looked down at the landscape so I wouldn’t see the anger in his face, the anger that was for me. It felt too good to have him angry for me. “I took the thousand I had saved up from working at the Dairy Queen, and the thousand that was my Uncle Day’s graduation present, and I went to Johnny Porter and got him to sell me a five-year-old low mileage Camry, which of course was in great condition because it was the Porters. I don’t think Johnny was much of a husband and father, but he was a great mechanic. Like Will. He gave me the car for a thousand, which I didn’t realize was a deal until later, I was just glad to have the other thousand to live on until I got somewhere else and found a job. And I got the hell out of here.” I swallowed. “And my life got better. I spent the first eighteen years of my life trying to be what everybody down there wanted me to be and failing every time. Then I left town and found out what I wanted me to be. What I am. I’m good at being what I am. And I am not going back to where I was. And that’s why I don’t want to stay here. I’m second here but every other place I’m first, I’m Liz Danger, the person who comes in and fixes books. Not Lizzie the fuck-up, I’m Liz Danger who gets things done. I’ve got better now and I’m not going back.”

I felt him move beside me. “Will told me Patsy was going through old records and she found the record for your sale.”

“Wow,” I said, not sure where that was coming from.

“You didn’t get that car for a thousand bucks,” Vince said. “Cleve Blue paid another two thousand for it. He said there was a note on it in his dad’s handwriting that said, ‘Cleve said he owed her that.’ He knew you were a Blue.”

Well, hell.

He nodded toward the town again. “That pavilion down there is where I talked to Hen Mayhew a day ago.”

“Mrs. Mayhew?”

He nodded. “She remembers you.”

“I bet.”

“She said ‘That girl had so much fire in her, I knew she’d do something great. She’s going to amaze people’.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t.”

“She said it yesterday, Liz. She knows you’re not done yet. And the high school? That’s where Sun and Alex are going. I’m sure this year’s Cash Porter is there, too, being a complete narcissistic sociopath, but I bet there were Suns and Alexes there, too, when you were there.”

“I think IwasSun,” I said, and then I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t. Sun would have charbroiled Cash’s nuts the first time he hurt her. He was just so much the It Guy, my mom was so happy I was with him, his mom was so happy, I had finally done something right in getting him for a boyfriend, I couldn’t lose that so . . . Every time he dumped me, I lost more than just a hot boyfriend, it meant I was a disgrace again. Sun wouldn’t have fallen for that.”

“I’m pretty sure Sun has better backup than you had,” Vince said. “I like your mother, she’s a nice lady, but she sure as hell fucked up taking care of you. She’s like Day Blue, too soft to protect what she made. You’ve been fighting alone your whole life.”

“That’s not such a bad thing,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah,” Vince said. “See the Red Box down there?”

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