After image, p.21
After Image, page 21
After we ordered our meal, Isabel slid the envelope of photographs across the table to me and waited while I looked through them.
“Peter’s very enthusiastic,” she said. “He’d like to line up a bigger shoot next time, if you’re interested.”
I felt a flush of excitement, followed almost immediately by a sinking feeling.
“What, don’t you want to?” Isabel asked.
“It isn’t that,” I murmured. It was just that, now that this modeling thing was actually happening, I knew it would cause difficulties with Allie. How could I tell her I’d accepted Isabel’s help? She would take it as a personal affront.
But it was unreasonable, wasn’t it, for Allie to hold her grudge for so long? Sure, Isabel had sent her to live with Giles, but that wasn’t the worst decision in the world. It was long past time for Allie to forgive.
But even if all that was true, I knew I couldn’t keep lying to Allie. The day before, when Isabel had called to set up the lunch, I’d snatched my phone off the kitchen counter so Allie wouldn’t glimpse Isabel’s name on the caller ID. I hadn’t liked the way that felt.
Thankfully, Isabel didn’t press me for an answer right away. When our food arrived, along with two glasses of champagne, she seemed to forget about the photos, shifting easily into small talk.
“So, school’s going all right?” she said. “And you’re doing well?”
I stabbed at my salad. “Yeah, definitely. Allie too.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to add that.
Isabel brought her glass to her lips, her eyes straying around the room. “Is she? That’s good to hear.”
Something in her voice told me she didn’t quite believe me. She had been frosty toward Allie ever since the pearl earrings had gone missing.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s really been focusing on her classes.” I felt a sudden urge to talk up Allie’s good points.
Isabel raised her eyebrows. “Well, that certainly makes for a nice change. What’s brought that on?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. She’s really into this writing workshop she’s taking.”
I had her attention now. “Writing, huh? Allie mentioned something like that.”
I felt a surge of hope. Maybe, if Isabel saw how hard Allie had been trying in school, things might smooth over between them. Maybe I’d feel less guilty for taking Isabel up on her offer of help with this modeling thing. I took a sip of my champagne. “I sort of recommended the class to her. The professor—he’s really good.”
She looked at me carefully. Then she smiled. “Well, see? That goes to show how much Allie respects you. She’s not much for taking recommendations from anyone else.”
I blushed. Isabel was good at making me feel as if I was something special.
After taking a few more bites of her salad, Isabel said casually, “And this professor—Allie likes him too?”
“Yeah, she really does.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” she said warmly. “What’s he like?”
“Um. Really smart. Really good at connecting with the class. He’s not a hundred years old, like some of our other professors.”
Isabel glanced down, her eyelids fluttering. “Young, is he? I’ll bet he’s handsome too.”
“Oh, well . . . I guess,” I said. My ears felt hot. “I hadn’t really noticed.”
Isabel leaned back in her chair, smiling slightly. “Natasha, I know my daughter. In particular, I know her tendencies with men.”
I chased a piece of lettuce around my plate with my fork. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She laughed, then reached out to touch my arm. “Oh, you’re a good friend, aren’t you? You don’t want to betray her confidence.”
I caught the delicate scent of her perfume in the air. How could Isabel have guessed so easily about Macnamara? Panicking, I mentally reviewed everything I’d said. Had I hinted at a relationship? Definitely not.
“But Allie can be self-destructive sometimes,” Isabel continued. “Choosing men who are . . . inappropriate. You’ve seen it, too, I’m sure.”
I bit my tongue. Yes, I knew exactly what she was talking about. Macnamara—that was a disaster waiting to happen. A mess I’d eventually have to help clean up.
“And I don’t mean to get overprotective,” Isabel continued. “It’s just that—after everything we’ve been through with her in the past few years . . .” She stared into the middle distance, her lips betraying the slightest tremor. And then she waved a hand in front of her face, sitting back in her chair. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get emotional.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
After a visible struggle, she gathered herself and gave me a watery smile. Then she reached out and grasped my hand. All of a sudden, we felt like equals; we were people who shared a bond.
“Oh, Natasha. I would never ask you to tell tales on Allie; I hope you know that. The only thing I ask is: If you feel she’s in real trouble, getting in over her head with this man, this professor, will you tell me?” She squeezed my hand gently, her skin impossibly smooth and soft against mine.
CHAPTER 45
From the photograph on the mantelpiece, Allie stares at me accusingly. I turn away, unable to hold her gaze. Yes, I’d told Isabel about Allie and Macnamara. And I hadn’t been sorry about it. I knew that telling Isabel would mean the end of Macnamara and Allie’s relationship. And that was a good thing, wasn’t it? Afterward, I told myself I’d done it to protect Allie.
For days after the lunch, I’d found myself on edge, waiting for the bomb to drop, waiting for the moment Allie realized I’d told on her. But nothing happened.
Turning away from the fireplace, I look out onto the deck, where the guests are silhouetted against the sun. I can’t see Isabel, but I know she’s out there.
Her silence in the wake of that lunch has always puzzled me. Why would she ask for that information about Macnamara if she didn’t intend to act on it? Now, though, I know she did—just not in the way I’d expected. She hadn’t confronted Allie. She’d gone straight to Macnamara.
The whole time, I realize now, her interest wasn’t in protecting Allie; it was in protecting herself. She’d already known about the essay, about Allie’s intention to publish it. And in getting close to me, she was searching for a way to shut it down.
I hadn’t seen, back then, how expertly Isabel had played me. The lunch at the Terrace. The modeling shoot. Even showing up at the exhibition—that couldn’t have been an accident. She’d gone there on a mission. To find out what she wanted to know about Allie.
I feel chilly despite the warmth in the room. That week in January, the week Allie went missing, Isabel knew she’d successfully intimidated Macnamara. But Allie was another story. It wouldn’t be so easy to get Allie to back down.
I head for the long corridor that leads to the north side of the house. The champagne I’ve drunk has begun to give me a headache. But right before I reach the bathroom, someone emerges from one of the bedrooms, nearly colliding with me.
“Oh!” she says.
It’s Marisol, Isabel’s housekeeper. She’s short and compact, her hair cut in a stylish shoulder-length bob. Today, she’s dressed in a button-down shirt, pink jeans, and blindingly white Keds.
“Natasha?” She seems surprised to see me.
“Hi, Marisol.” I’ve only met her twice before, when Allie took me up to the Malibu house with her, and I’ve never known quite how to interact with her. Isabel always treated Marisol like the help, but Allie draped herself over Marisol like she was a favorite aunt. When the two of them were alone in a room together, they yammered away at each other in Spanish. Allie often made Marisol laugh, or—at other times—frown and swat her on the backside, telling her to shush.
“Are you here for the party?” I ask.
“Lord, no,” she says. “I live here, now that my kids are grown. In the apartment above the pool house.”
I can’t help but notice that the bedroom she’s emerging from is Allie’s old room.
Marisol glances over her shoulder, clutching her hands together. “I like to sit in there sometimes. To remember my girl.” She nudges the door open so I can get a better view. “Isabel keeps it just the same.”
The room is a museum of Allie’s fifteen-year-old self. Vintage movie posters on the wall. MAC makeup scattered all over the top of the dresser. Allie’s hairbrush resting on the bedside table. Would Isabel really leave the room like this if she had been the one responsible for Allie’s disappearance?
Seeing the expression on my face, Marisol asks, “Do you want to . . . ?” She steps aside to let me walk into the room.
I hesitate. Two years ago, Mom turned Allie’s bedroom in the Reseda house into a home office. I’d been upset about it at the time, but I have to admit it’s made it easier to go back to Mom’s place. I don’t know how Isabel lives with these reminders of Allie.
Marisol pats my arm, as if she understands what I’m feeling. “Take your time, cariño.”
Then she leaves me there, standing on the threshold. After a minute, I gather up the nerve to step inside. The room smells like furniture polish and, underneath that, a scent that might be Allie’s old perfume. In the mirror above the dresser, there are photos tucked around the frame. Allie at her old high school, with friends I don’t recognize.
I run my hand across the surface of the dresser. It’s been polished to a shine. Although none of Allie’s belongings have been moved, everything in the room is sparkling clean. I wonder how much time Marisol spends in here each day.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, then idly pull open the top drawer of the bedside table. Inside, there’s a bottle of blue nail polish. A pincushion in the shape of an eyeball. And a thick paperback book. I pull out the book, turning it over in my hands. This isn’t something the fifteen-year-old Allie would have read. It’s a college textbook: History of Western Civilization. I stare at the familiar cover: the Roman statue, the gold lettering.
Western civ was the class Allie had been flunking at the beginning of our junior year. After she’d been put on academic probation, she started carrying the book around with her. I’d never seen her actually open it, but the book was always there, like she might learn something from it by osmosis. If I ran into her at Café Bijou, she’d have the book out on the table in front of her, her sunglasses and phone resting on top of it as she flirted with the barista.
If this book is here, that means Allie brought it to the house sometime that fall. But I don’t remember coming up here with Allie during those months. And Allie never came to the Malibu house alone.
I open the book and flip through the pages. In chapter 1, it looks like Allie made a halfhearted attempt to study. She underlined a few sentences and drew squares around some of the paragraphs. The markings devolved quickly, though, into random doodling in the margins. Half-finished clothing designs. A caricature of Greg, his ears sticking straight out from his head. A phone number, written in her spiky handwriting.
As I flip through the rest of the pages, something flutters out and falls onto the carpet. I bend down to pick it up. It’s a strip of photo negatives, the perforated edges slightly warped. Squinting, I hold it up to the light. There are four images, all portraits of a group of people. Four adults and two teenagers. The reversed colors make the people look alien, and it takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at.
Giles and Mom, Isabel and Matthew, me and Allie. Our first Christmas together in the house on Via Montemar, when Mom said, Let’s take a photo in front of the tree.
I stare at the people in the negatives: white hair, black skin. Allie must’ve taken this strip with her the day she’d followed me into the high school photography classroom, the week after Christmas break was over.
She’d been bored by the amount of time I was taking looking at the film negatives I’d developed the day before and was swiveling back and forth in one of the chairs near the darkroom. “Are you done yet?”
I’d remained bent over the light pad, frowning. None of the shots were going to be usable. Allie was looking down or away in every frame. That meant, the day before, I’d wasted my time developing the roll of film, a tedious process that involved me shutting myself in a lightless closet and blindly ratcheting the film on a reel. “How can you even tell what you’re looking at?” she asked, scrunching up her nose.
“You get used to it after a while. Here,” I said, handing her the loupe I’d been using to inspect the negatives.
I don’t remember what happened after that. Allie, I think, spent some time bent over the light pad while I gathered up my things. And at some point, she must have taken one of the strips of negatives. But why keep it, if she hadn’t wanted to be in the photos in the first place?
Carefully, I tuck the negative strip back between the pages of the book. Then I hear someone walking down in the hallway. I step out into the hall in time to see Marisol headed toward Isabel’s bedroom, a stack of folded towels in her arms.
“Marisol?”
She turns with a jerk. “Yes?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“What’s that?”
I hold out the Western civ book so she can see it. “I found this in Allie’s room.”
“Oh?” She looks puzzled.
“It’s from one of her LACSA classes. Junior year. I’m just wondering when she left it here.”
Marisol shifts her grip on the towels. “Oh. Well, I’m not sure about that. Maybe it was at Christmas.”
“But she wasn’t here that Christmas. She was with me and Mom.” Marisol would know that; it’s not the kind of thing she’d forget.
She draws in a deep breath, then lets it out slowly.
“Marisol?”
The sound of party chatter drifts down the hall from the living room. The guests are making their way inside. Marisol glances over her shoulder. “Come,” she says, nodding toward Allie’s bedroom. “Let’s talk in here.”
CHAPTER 46
In the bedroom, Marisol sets the towels down on Allie’s bed. Then she turns to me, her face drawn.
“Allie came to the house,” she says. “Not at Christmas. At Halloween. She wasn’t supposed to. Not after those earrings went missing. Isabel would’ve been very angry if she knew Allie was there.”
Halloween. The weekend Allie told Greg she was in Vegas.
“What was she doing here?”
Marisol sits down on the bed. Up close, I can see that she’s older than I’d assumed. Her hair has been dyed that rich shade of brown, and I can see a few millimeters of gray glinting near the roots.
“I think she came to be alone,” she says. Suddenly, she digs in her pocket for a Kleenex and then blows her nose.
“Okay . . . but why here?”
Marisol looks at me, the skin around her eyes creasing. “She never told you?”
“Told me what?”
She gestures for me to sit next to her on the bed, and when I do, she pats my hand several times, as if she’s trying to comfort me. But she’s the one who’s upset.
“If I tell you, you can’t tell Isabel, okay? Promise you won’t tell.”
“Okay.” I feel a shiver of uncertainty. What is Marisol afraid of?
Marisol twists the Kleenex in her hands. “The house was empty that weekend. Isabel was away in New York. I had the week off. I only came back here because I’d forgotten my coat.” Her voice wobbles on that last word.
She dabs under her nose with the balled-up Kleenex. “When I got here, the front door was unlocked. And the security system was off. That scared me. But then I saw Allie’s shoes by the door.” She shakes her head. “I thought, ‘I hope that girl’s not doing anything stupid.’ Isabel was so mad about those earrings. And I know Allie took them. I just know. She could be so bad sometimes. I don’t know why.”
“Did she come here to steal something else?”
Marisol shakes her head again. Then she waves a hand at the pillows on the bed. “She was there,” she says. “Lying there.” It takes a second for her to collect herself and continue. “She’d taken pills. A lot of pills.”
My hands feel numb. I remember the note on the hospital form Golanski showed me. Continued suicidal ideation.
A tear runs down Marisol’s cheek, making a wobbly line in her foundation. “I found a little bag with a ribbon on it. There were still a few pills left in the bottom.”
I know the kind of bag she’s talking about. A little velvet jewelry pouch, the kind Greg packaged his deliveries in.
“She was hardly breathing.” Marisol’s mouth works for a moment. “I shook her and shook her. Eventually I got her into the bathroom and got her to throw up.” She puts a hand to her chest, as if she feels a physical pain there.
Numbness spreads through me. Halloween weekend. What had happened then? What had propelled Allie to do something like that? I don’t remember the weekend itself, only the aftermath. When I came back to the apartment that Sunday, Allie had been curled up in her bed, looking like hell. Hungover, I’d thought. “Greg’s super pissed you skipped out on his party,” I told her. She only grunted in response, then pulled the comforter over her head.
“I wanted to call 911,” Marisol tells me. “To take her to the ER. But Allie begged me not to. She didn’t want Isabel to know. She said telling Isabel would only make it worse. And I didn’t like to admit it, but she was right. Things were so bad between the two of them already.”
I can imagine Allie pleading with Marisol, grabbing for her hand. The room feels like it’s tilting gently to one side.
“So I stayed with her,” Marisol says. “I made her soup, made sure she ate and drank. I stayed with her until I knew she was all right.” She talks as if she’s trying to convince me, convince herself, that she did the right thing. “And I said, ‘The only way I stay quiet about this is if you get yourself some help.’ And Allie promised me, really promised, that she would.”
The light in the room is growing dim as the sun begins to set.
