Play nice, p.17
Play Nice, page 17
part #1 of 2025 Series
I fold over, the edges of everything going dim. I finally manage to inhale. Exhale.
“Clio? Hey.” He reaches out and touches my face. “You all right?”
“I’m perfect,” I say, brushing him off. I get up and grab my dress off the floor, slip it over my head.
“Okay…” I can tell he’s kind of annoyed, and I respect him more for it. It’s so boring when someone will just put up with me.
I’m struck with this sudden malignant strain of curiosity. How far can I push him? Will he ever speak to me the way my father spoke to my mother? How broken would I have to be to allow it? Am I close? Closer than I’ve ever been?
“Can you drop me at the train station?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll even buy you coffee first.”
“Won’t that make you late?”
He shrugs.
I kiss him and then whisper something in his ear that makes his knees buckle. “How’s that for dirty talk?”
23
When I get to the city, I buy weed from an ex-fling and smoke it on my rooftop. I’m back to self-medicating. I stare out at the skyline. I scroll through Instagram. I Google “Roy Johnston” and end up on the website for the New England Occultist Society, which is so janky and pathetic I immediately X out of it.
I call Daphne, and she picks up right away. “Clio.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Dude. What the heck? What happened?”
“I’m assuming you already know, since I have eight thousand missed calls from you.”
“I want to hear it from you. Your side.”
“Say, do you remember Mom and Dad fighting about dishes? A fight about a dirty plate?”
“What?”
“I had a dream last night, but I think it was one of those dreams that’s really a memory. The two of them were screaming at each other in the kitchen of our old house. He was mad because she didn’t clean a plate. He said it was her only job, or something along those lines. Then she broke the plate. Smashed it.”
“Alexandra broke a lot of plates. Glasses. Vases. She was dramatic like that,” Daphne says. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Everything.”
“What’s with you? You sound…”
“I’m stoned,” I say. “And tired. I’m beyond tired, Daffy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The clouds move so fast. “About what?”
“The book. You could have told me, and you didn’t. You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie. I omitted.”
“You lied.”
“Dad burned my book. Why isn’t that the topic of this conversation? Why is it my fault?”
“That’s…he shouldn’t have done that. But you can’t blame him for being upset.”
“I can, actually.”
“You crossed a boundary. You broke a promise. You lied,” she says. “To all of us.”
“What do I owe you?” I ask, looking out at the city. I’m more exasperated than angry. Disappointed that she’s not more understanding. I expected empathy from her, and it stings that I’m not getting any. “I made that promise when I was a kid. When my classmates still believed in Santa Claus.”
“Okay. Still,” she says. “You should have come to us when you found the book. When you started to read it.”
“I don’t need your approval for everything I do.”
She clicks her tongue. “Yeah, you’ve made that clear. But then you need to live with the consequences. Take responsibility for your actions.”
“You sound like Leda.”
“You’re too hard on her. On both of us,” she says. “And on Dad.”
“What if I’m not hard enough?” I ask. The weed isn’t calming me down. It’s just making me more anxious. I turn my gaze down to the street below. What’s that thing, when you feel the urge to jump off a building? Isn’t there a name for that impulse? I don’t want to die. I just want to know how it feels to fall. “What if Dad isn’t who we think he is? What if he’s everything Mom said he was? He cheated on her with Amy and lied about it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Wow. Whatever,” I say.
She takes a deep breath. “You need to apologize.”
“Apologize to whom? Captain Beatty?”
“Yes. And Leda. And Amy. Everyone’s really upset.”
“I’m upset,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m really, really upset.”
I close my eyes, and where there should be darkness, I see the scrapes in the wall. The frowning face.
“Please, Clio,” Daphne says. “Listen to me. Alexandra being gone…it makes things confusing. Emotionally. But she hurt us. Don’t you remember how she would scream at us? Chase us around the house. She kept us locked out on the deck during a exorcism. She showed up belligerent, drunk out of her mind to our dance recital, embarrassed the heck out of us before crashing her car in the parking lot. I know we never talk about it, but I think about it. I think about how she couldn’t see us if she didn’t get sober, if she didn’t stop ranting about demons, but she refused to do that. We weren’t worth it to her, Cli. She wasn’t well. She was abusive. What she did to us, it was abuse.”
“Are those your words?” I ask, shaking my head, backing away from the ledge. “Or Dad’s?”
“Stop. You don’t get to question my memories. My experience. It’s not fair. It’s not all about you, Clio.”
“It is about me. The whole family revolves around me. I’m the sun. That’s why you need me. You need me to apologize and make peace so you can all go back to pretending we’re normal and happy and that everything’s fine and has always been fine. And I’m done pretending.”
I hang up and immediately call Veronica.
“Hey, hey,” she says. “What’s up, babe?”
“Do you want to go out tonight?”
“You know it.”
“Can we smoke up here?” A voice from behind me. It’s my upstairs neighbor. 6B. He’s got a buzz cut and baby face and no job, enabler parents who pay his rent. He stares at me open-mouthed whenever I walk by. Something about him reminds me of Daphne’s old pet gerbil. Maybe in that he’s very cute but seemingly incapable of making conversation.
“You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t get caught. Smoke. Throw a rager. Set off fireworks. Knock yourself out,” I say, tossing him my lighter and giving him a wink. I head back inside. “Sorry, V. How’s seven thirty?”
* * *
—
We get drunk at dinner and then go barhopping, and somehow we end up at the cursed club Scorpio after midnight, which doesn’t bode well.
We’re with Kiera and Kaleigh. One of them does coke, but I can’t remember which one. I follow each of them into the bathroom at different points of the evening, hoping they’ll offer me something harder than liquor, but it doesn’t happen.
The music is corny and so loud it’s painful. No one’s dancing. They’re flailing.
“You want to go hit my vape?” Kiera shouts at me.
“Yeah,” I shout back.
She takes me by the hand and leads me outside. It’s raining a little. Misting.
“This place is the worst,” she says, taking out her vape. “But also kind of the best? I don’t know. I feel, like, alive. Like I’m seventeen again. Sneaking into clubs.”
“Right,” I say. It’s too quiet on the street. Too empty. Apocalyptic. “Makes me want to do coke.”
“I think Kaleigh has some.”
“Hard drugs and child labor pajamas. She’s a real kingpin.” I take a hit of her vape.
She pulls a face. “What did you just say?”
I exhale the mint-flavored vapor. “Relax. I’m not judging her. I asked for the drugs, remember?”
“No. You said…‘child labor pajamas.’ ”
“Yeah. Her partnership with SLIP.”
“That’s my deal.”
“Oh,” I say. I must have misread the text thread. “Congratulations.”
“I can’t believe you would say that. There’s no child labor,” she says, snatching her vape out of my hand.
I raise an eyebrow.
“Oh my goodness!” she shrieks. “There’s not!”
“If you say so. You would know, right?”
“I’m leaving,” she says, storming off as fast as she can in her Balenciaga knife pumps. I remember when everyone was up in arms about Balenciaga’s BDSM teddy bear scandal, for all of five minutes. No one in fashion cares about anything but fashion; they just pretend to to save face.
I’d call out to Keira and apologize, but what for?
I’m just bummed she took her vape.
“Scorpio,” I say, shaking my head. I go back inside and downstairs to find Veronica and Kaleigh at the bar, their arms crossed.
“Why would you say that to Kiera?” Veronica asks me, yelling over the music.
“Because I thought Kaleigh was the one with the SLIP partnership.”
“I would never. Never,” Kaleigh says. “Never ever.”
“She just texted the whole thread except for you,” Veronica says. “It’s bad. She’s pissed.”
I shrug. “She’ll get over it. Besides, you know I’m not wrong.”
“Yeah, but you don’t say that.” I hate when Veronica gets all high and mighty. She moved to New York from South Carolina with nothing but good looks and a box set of Sex and the City DVDs. She found a lawyer boyfriend who will soon be her husband, who will buy her a nice house in the suburbs, and after the wedding and the move, once the house is furnished, she’ll realize she needs to pivot her content, so she’ll start having babies, who will hopefully be cute enough to post.
Why is everyone so predictable?
“You should call her tomorrow and say you’re sorry,” Kaleigh says. “Avoid more drama.”
“Why do I have to apologize for being right?” I ask.
The two of them exchange a look.
“If my friends don’t want to side with me, I’m sure the general public will,” I say, smiling as I make my veiled threat.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Kaleigh says. She fakes a yawn. “You know, I’m getting tired.”
Coincidentally, Veronica is, too.
They say a quick goodbye and hurry out. I just broke an unspoken rule of influencer etiquette, and now they’re uneasy. We don’t sabotage; we support. If I were to publicly call out SLIP, what about Shine Inc.? Where do they source their diamonds? Did Veronica ever ask? And what about the face-tuning? What about the Photoshop? What about the lie of the lives we sell?
I don’t fully consider myself an influencer, since I have a career as a stylist. But I’ve done sponsorships. We all play in the same shallow, dirty sandbox.
I think about Austin at the nursing home. Doing something good with his life. Selfless. And where did that get him? His mom’s basement.
I think I miss him. Which makes me hate him.
He’s not good because he can’t be good. Because no one’s good. Not Dad. Probably not even Tommy.
I crawl out of Scorpio and start to wander. I want food but I’m not hungry, or I’m hungry but don’t want food. I’m thirsty. I’m tired. I don’t want to sleep. I want drugs. I want to scream. I want to go home. I want to be at the house, at Edgewood, staring at that frowning face. I want to stare for so long that it smiles back at me.
“Look who it is,” I hear. I turn around, and there’s someone familiar. Handsome. Right on time. Ethan. “My Lower East Side Cinderella.”
I curtsy. “Maybe you could help me. I seem to have lost my slipper.”
He approaches, breaking off from his group of drunken bros. “Last time I saw you, you were kicking me out of a car.”
“What poor manners,” I say. “Let me make it up to you.”
He laughs. “Yeah, uh, I’m not falling for that again.”
“For what?” I ask, hailing a lucky cab. I open the door. “Are you coming?”
“You don’t respond to me. Not one text.”
“I’m very busy,” I say. “The meter’s running. Time is money, Ethan. You know that better than anyone.”
“If you kick me out again, I swear…” he trails off. He signals back to his boys, then follows me into the cab.
I give the driver my address, then inch closer to Ethan as he buckles his seat belt.
“Such a Boy Scout,” I say, stroking his leg.
He looks me over, his eyes landing on my neck. He reaches out and lifts my snake charm.
“Did you get this at Veronica’s party?”
“I did,” I say. “Along with a lifetime supply of glitter.”
“I was washing it out of my hair for weeks,” he says.
We start going at it once we’re across the bridge, after we’ve taken in the view of the river. We don’t come up for air at all down Flatbush Avenue. He’s not a good kisser, but it’s something for me to do.
He moves my hand over his jeans so I can feel that he’s hard.
It doesn’t turn me on. It makes me nauseated.
What am I doing?
“Here is fine,” I tell the cabdriver, fumbling for my wallet.
“I got it,” Ethan says.
I let him pay, even though I’m pretty sure I’m about to ditch him again.
I open the car door and stumble out onto the sidewalk. I smell smoke. Fire. Is it me? My imagination? The phantom scent of the book burning haunting my nostrils?
But then I feel heat.
“Incredible,” Ethan says.
We turn the corner to flashing lights. Fire trucks. Flames—red and yellow, tall and reaching. Ruthless. Ravenous. The air is thick with ruin. It’s perdition on my block.
My building is on fire.
24
It was the genius in 6B. He threw a party on the roof, and someone in his esteemed crew, probably high out of their mind, decided they wanted s’mores, so they constructed a makeshift firepit, which wasn’t so much a firepit as it was just setting the roof on fire.
After two days, I was able to retrieve my laptop, my jewelry, my clothes, and my fire safe with all my paperwork—passport, tax records, et cetera. The fire safe was a gift from Dad when I moved in. He also insisted I get renter’s insurance, which I’m now grateful for. The damage to my unit was minimal, thankfully. The top units weren’t so lucky.
On the bright side, because of my fiery misfortune, my friends can’t be mad at me for what I said to Kiera. She’s forgiven me. Or has at least claimed to. They all took me out to lunch yesterday. Ethan got me a day pass at a spa. My sisters have been checking up on me. Aunt Helen sent me cash. Dad called. He offered to come get me, but I said no. He offered to put me up in a hotel in the city, and I said fine.
I’m coming up on a week in the hotel.
Everything I own—well, everything I could salvage—reeks of smoke.
This room now reeks of smoke.
I can’t stay here forever.
I can leave anytime I want. I don’t live here. If you want to play with me, you have to play nice.
That’s what I said before I left the house. Before I came back to the city and smoked on my roof to alleviate some stress. Before I offered words of encouragement to my idiot neighbor, inadvertently inspiring him to commit arson.
This isn’t the fault of whatever’s there at Edgewood. Not directly. It’s not a coincidence either. It’s cause and effect. It’s distress instigating poor judgment manifesting disaster. It’s how all bad situations get worse. Give in to despair, let your demons win, end up like my mother.
I know better.
“You’re welcome to stay with me,” Austin says. I have him on speaker while I soak in the tub. “Work on your house during the day. Crash here at night. There’s a guest room upstairs, too. If you’d rather.”
“A guest room?”
“I’m giving you options.”
“Interesting,” I say. “Don’t want to live in sin with me? You know, I never took you for old-fashioned.”
“No? What if I am? Let’s get married.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
“Mom would be thrilled.”
The joke isn’t funny anymore. “I’ll let you know when I figure things out. I have to go.”
I hang up.
The thought of going back to Edgewood terrifies me, makes me forget how to breathe, makes me feel like I’m being constricted, squeezed to death by my own skin. And yet somehow the thought of never going back is even worse.
Because I want to go back. Even if it scares me. Maybe because it scares me.
It occurs to me that I now have an excuse I didn’t have before. No one could blame me if I were to ditch the renovation project in the wake of this fire. There’s no pressure for me to finish. When I want to be done, I’ll be done. I’ll have Leda put the house on the market—tell her I need the money for a deposit on a new apartment. She won’t be able to argue with that.
Part of me still does want to finish, to show them, to spite my sisters, to spite Dad. But we’ll see.
Part of me just needs to know what will happen. How could I walk away now? Just go on living with this half-baked supernatural mystery floating around in the back of my mind. Return to my old life, which seems, unfortunately, far less stimulating post-demon.
I had this boyfriend in high school—Kyle Matheson—who loved to go see horror movies. He’d pay for the tickets and the popcorn, and we’d make out in his car in the parking lot after, and he was beautiful and a great kisser, so I was game. I came home late one summer night to my sisters in the upstairs bathroom, Daphne helping Leda color her hair.
“Where have you been?” Leda asked.
“The cinema,” I’d said, flipping my curls over my shoulder for some drama.
