Play nice, p.7
Play Nice, page 7
part #1 of 2025 Series
Dramatic license. He had a secret second family that she found out about when his mistress showed up at the door late one night. She moved in with her mother, he moved in with his other family. They reconciled several times but couldn’t make it stick, not until after his mistress’s funeral. As far as I know, they lived happily ever after in Florida. At least as happy as two people can be when one betrayed the other. Maybe she just wanted to be around to watch him die.
The house was priced very low, but that didn’t raise any suspicion on my part because I was told by my agent that it wasn’t in the best condition. It passed inspection, I could afford it, the girls wouldn’t have to change schools, and I could move in right away.
I packed up the home I’d made with my ex-husband and my daughters, the home I’d once hoped would hold a happy future, and moved into Edgewood Drive piecemeal, making so many trips I lost track.
My first impression of the house was that it was in a nice neighborhood. Perfect for trick-or-treating, for making friends with neighbors. I was struck by the color of the house—an intense red—and how different it was from the other houses in the neighborhood. More angular. Harsher.
It was surrounded by woods, and I worried about ticks.
Inside was dated, a little musty, the layout a bit odd, but overall I thought it would work. A big open living area, a small kitchen. The appliances were old, but I was never much of a cook, so it didn’t bother me. Four bedrooms, two full baths. A split-level.
There were two bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs, and they were awkwardly sized. One big, one tiny on each floor. I decided I’d let the girls pick their own rooms. I decided it was going to be a new beginning for all of us. A house full of women. A safe place for us to be. I’d paint it pink. It’d smell like vanilla and nail polish remover. It’d be ours.
My fantasy didn’t last long.
I hired two college-aged kids with a van to help move the bigger pieces of furniture. One of them lived down the street. He was polite, but I couldn’t help noticing he was acting strange. He seemed anxious. His eyes darting around, his skin going pale.
I overheard the other teasing him, using language I won’t repeat here.
“Whatever, man,” he responded. “I hate this house.”
When they were done, I thanked them and paid them their fifty bucks each. The kid who lived down the street started to walk home, and I called out his name.
“Why do you hate the house?” I asked him.
He stuttered.
“It’s okay. You can tell me,” I said.
“Just stupid kid stuff,” he said, shaking his head. “Empty house at the end of the street.”
It wasn’t an answer, but I nodded and thanked him again, and he picked up his pace.
I went inside and unpacked for a while, then poured myself a glass of wine and put on a record. Little Queen by Heart. My girls and I loved Heart. I’d play their favorite music when I missed them, when they were at their dad’s.
You might not realize, but I was very conscious about playing you and Daffy and Leeds music by female singers and musicians. I wanted you to know you could be rock stars, or whatever you wanted to be.
But the record kept skipping. It had never done that before. I was beside myself, worried my record player had been damaged in transport. I couldn’t afford another. I got up to look at it. I put on a different record, I forget which one, and it did the same thing. It would start to skip, and then make this noise. Almost a hissing. Like a hot kettle with something to say, trying to form words out of steam. It was utterly bizarre and frustrating, and after a long day, and an even longer year, I’d had enough.
I finished my glass of wine and put myself to bed, lying on my naked mattress that I hadn’t had the time or energy to make. And I cried. I let loose. Loud, hopeless sobs. I was in an empty house—so I thought—there was no one to judge me.
Bottle. I will be honest with you here.
I don’t know how long it took for me to hear it. Or perhaps I didn’t hear it but sensed it. The other sound. The other voice. It was almost as if it were attempting to harmonize with me. Or intentionally hiding beneath my sobs, obscuring itself. I bit my lip, covered my mouth to silence my own voice, to listen for it. But when I was quiet, it was quiet.
When I let go, fell back into my wailing, surrendered to my grief, to my tears, it came back.
Laughing. Throaty, hideous, soul-chilling laughter. Evil. Someone, something, laughing at me as I cried.
10
My phone rings—a jump scare. It’s Daphne. The book unsticks from my grip, and I pick up the call.
“We were promised coffee,” she says. She’s mildly annoyed, which is my favorite Daphne. She gets a little plucky when she’s pissed. “Why does it take you forever to do anything? Where the heck are you?”
She drops her voice to a whisper. “Dude. Are you at the house?”
“Yes.” I’m too rattled not to tell her what happened.
“So, I was right. Only it was a mouse instead of a spider.”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing. I felt…it felt…off in there.”
“The house doesn’t need an exorcism, Clio. It needs an exterminator and an electrician,” she says. “You just freaked yourself out.”
“Yeah, but when’s the last time something freaked me out?”
She’s quiet for long enough for me to ask if she’s still there.
“If you changed your mind after seeing how nasty the house is, you can just say that. No one will care.”
“Forget it.” I start the car. “I’ll be home soon. What do you want from Starbucks?”
“Nothing. There’s a better coffee place near Dad’s,” she says. “I’ll text you. But pay attention to the road. You suck at driving.”
“I’m a Manhattanite.”
“Whatever. Bye.”
“Love you with a cherry on top! Byyyeeeee!” I turn around in the driveway so I don’t have to back out. I peek in the rearview to make sure that the front door is shut, that I didn’t imagine closing it behind me. There are smart locks now, something else I can add to the list, after an exterminator and an electrician. Or maybe I’ll just get a boyfriend.
I don’t think I’m ready to give up on the house. Not yet.
* * *
—
When I arrive back at Dad’s almost an hour later, it’s with coffee and pastries from the local place superior to Starbucks, which sufficiently distracts my family from noticing the book-shaped thing tucked into my hoodie.
I didn’t tell Daphne about the book.
I smuggle it upstairs, hide it inside my suitcase, take a long shower, put my sneakers in the washing machine, and join everyone after all the Danish are gone.
“Returning your credit card with witnesses so no one can accuse me of stealing it,” I tell Dad, slipping his blue Chase card back into his wallet.
“You probably have the number memorized,” Daphne says.
“If I did, I’d be in head-to-toe McQueen right now,” I say. “Which reminds me. I have a brand campaign scheduled to shoot in Chelsea on Tuesday.”
“I can drop you,” Daphne says. “I should get back to the restaurant.”
“Tom and I are headed out first thing tomorrow,” Leda says.
“No!” Amy says. “Stay forever. All of you.”
“You’re all still coming for Memorial Day?” Dad asks. “I’m getting ribs and hot dogs from the butcher.”
“Maybe. I’ll see,” Daphne says, such a tease. She’s too busy for us. She doesn’t get paid time off. She knows she’s not coming, but she gives us maybes to see if we beg. A test. If we fail, she won’t make a scene or outwardly mope. She hoards her hurt feelings like a squirrel with acorns. Feeds off them on cold nights, uses them as fuel. But she never makes them our problem. That’s Leda’s thing.
“We’ll be there,” Tommy says, smiling, poppyseeds wedged between his teeth.
“It’s nice out,” Leda says. “Let’s go for a walk.”
I doubt she ate a pastry, but merely being in their presence is enough to set her mind to burning calories.
We all suit up for a neighborhood stroll. My sneakers are still in the wash, so I borrow a pair from Amy. They’re neon green and leopard print, and it pains me to wear them in public, but whatever. We fall into our typical formations. Leda speeds ahead with Tommy jogging at her heels, then it’s me and Daphne, trailed by Dad and Amy.
But then Daphne stops to tie her shoe, Dad and Amy catch up, and there’s a switch. It’s me and Dad now pulling up the middle, Daphne and Amy hanging back, admiring a neighbor’s daffodils. It becomes immediately apparent that this was a deliberate swap.
“I know you went to Edgewood,” he says. “You could have told me.”
“Why would I tell you when my sisters would inevitably do it for me?”
“I’m not upset that you went. I’m upset that you felt like you couldn’t be open about it with me. We don’t keep things from each other in this family. We talk.”
“Not everything needs to be a conversation, Dad.”
“You don’t think the house warrants discussion?”
“Obviously not, since no one thought to mention it was still in the family. Not Helen. Not you. You kept that from us.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t know. How could I? I hadn’t spoken to Alexandra in years. She cut off all contact after—”
“I’m perfectly aware of the situation, thank you. Whatever. If you don’t want me over there—”
“I didn’t say that. Your sisters told me that you want to put some work into it. That’s fine. I think it’ll be good for you.”
“Really?” I was ready for an argument. I might have even been hoping for one.
The sky is blue and cloudless, the sun high and yellow, and the entire world is incapable of telling me no. It makes me feel like a god. Powerful, bored, dangerous.
Dad puts his arm around my shoulders. “We can get into the finances of it. What makes sense to invest into the house.”
“Whatever’s invested I’ll make back. I’m playing with house money, literally.”
“Not necessarily,” he says. “It adds up. You’d be surprised. That house wasn’t in great shape when Alex bought it almost twenty years ago. Probably needs a new roof, HVAC, et cetera. It’s not all fun stuff, like paint and furniture.”
“It isn’t?” I ask, all Pollyanna.
He shakes his head. “You’ll see.”
“Then I’ll see.”
“I’m proud of you for wanting to take this on. I don’t doubt you can do anything you set your mind to. But this is your project. Not mine. Not Daphne’s or Leda’s.”
“I know,” I say. Amy’s shoes don’t fit me right, and I feel a blister forming at my heel. The friction siring something ugly.
“I don’t want them over there. I worry about that.”
“You don’t worry about me?”
“You’re less sensitive than your sisters. Emotionally, I think it would be hard for them to be back there in a way it won’t be hard for you.”
“What if it’s haunted?”
He laughs.
He laughs so hard and so loud that it fills the whole neighborhood. So hard and so loud it occurs to me that I might not have been joking.
Usually, I love the sound of his laughter. Usually, making my dad laugh is my favorite thing.
It’s not my favorite right now, though.
He pulls me in for a hug, kisses me on the forehead. Daphne and Amy catch up to us. We encounter a neighbor walking their sweet, slobbery golden retriever. Dad and Amy argue about adopting a dog as we circle the block and get back to the house. Everyone gathers in the family room to play a board game. I lie and say I have a headache to get out of Monopoly or Clue—it hasn’t been decided. Amy insists on making me tea. I take it upstairs with me, close my bedroom door, lock it for the first time since I was seventeen and would make out with Natalie Ruggerio when we were supposed to be doing homework.
Dad and Amy were cool about Daphne, but I always suspected they would take my not being totally straight as proof that Alexandra turned us into man-haters. Which she tried. But I love men. I just don’t trust or respect them.
I take the book out of my suitcase, climb into bed, and start to skim the second chapter, titled “The Girls.” She doesn’t use our names, which I suspect was less about protecting us and more about not wanting to end up back at odds with Dad, who likely would have made it an issue, threatened legal action. We’re referred to as Elle, Dee, and Cici.
Elle and Dee pick the big upstairs bedroom to share. Cici wants the downstairs room across the hall from Mom.
Thinking back, that’s not how I remember it.
I remember wanting to be upstairs near Daphne and Leda. They’re closer in age, and when we were kids, before Leda’s teenage angst, the two of them were thick as thieves. They played with me like a doll, but I was never in on any of their jokes or secrets. They left me out on purpose, an older sibling power move. I eventually retaliated by feigning independence, which then calcified into legitimate independence.
But, yeah, I remember wanting the room next to theirs, the room that would become the office. There was more natural light upstairs, a bigger window with a better view of the front yard, the green of the trees.
And I remember Mom guilting me, saying something like “You’re going to leave me all alone downstairs?”
Conveniently, she left this out of the book. Or maybe what’s written is faithful to her recollection, to how it played out in her mind. One person’s truth is another’s fiction.
All I have is a fraction of a memory, edges frayed. I don’t recall agreeing to the downstairs bedroom, but that’s where I ended up. Did I do it to make her happy? Did I do it to show my sisters that I didn’t care about being part of their little club, even though I did? I don’t know, will never know.
The book in my hands becomes a bad idea, a piece of half-rotten fruit. Do I eat around the dark, mushy parts? Do I throw the whole thing out? I’m not sure that I even want to read it, that I care about her version of events. The uncertainty frustrates me.
But I can’t help myself. I can’t stop now that I started.
* * *
The first night with my girls in the house, I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner and let them eat in front of the TV—something they weren’t allowed to do at their father’s. I knew they would report back and that he wouldn’t approve. For as long as I’d been a mother, I’d been made to feel like I was a bad mother. My relationship with my ex-husband shifted after Elle, our eldest, was born. I couldn’t get her to latch, and my failure to nurse her became indicative of my failure as a parent. I appreciated that he loved our daughters, but it came at my expense. I was never good enough for them in his eyes.
I also, apparently, wasn’t good enough for him. He began an affair with our daughters’ dance instructor, spent a year denying it, accusing me of being crazy and insecure, and then one day I woke up to him packing a bag, telling me he was leaving me and taking the girls. He promised I could still see them. He told me it’d be better for everyone if I didn’t fight.
He’ll continue to deny this till the day he dies. He’ll tell you that I never recovered from my postpartum with you. That I became reliant on alcohol. That I was paranoid and mentally unstable. And that accusing him of cheating was my way of tarnishing his reputation while redeeming my own. I know you love your father. He’s a great dad. But he was horrible to me. This is the truth. I know you’re smart enough to see it, if you look back, and look closely.
But I fought. Of course I fought. Eleven months later, I was in the new house with my daughters, but as far as he was concerned, custody still was not settled.
There were stakes to feeding them peanut butter and jelly for dinner and allowing them to watch TV. It didn’t matter that I was exhausted from the move, physically and financially. There was no room for me to fail, to open myself up to ridicule.
The pressure put me on edge. It made me vulnerable.
So when I went into the kitchen to find all the cabinets open and peanut butter smeared on the walls, even though I knew in my right mind, in my heart of hearts, that it wasn’t my daughters, I called them into the kitchen.
“Who did this?” I asked.
They looked confused.
“Is this supposed to be funny?”
“What happened?” Elle asked, anxiously shifting her weight, shuffling back and forth.
“You tell me,” I said.
“We were in the other room,” Dee said. “It wasn’t us. But I can clean it up. I’ll clean.”
“Cici?” I asked. “Was this you?”
She wasn’t tall enough to reach the cabinets. Not unless she climbed up…
“No,” she said. Then, very matter-of-fact, added, “It was probably the thing that lives in my closet.”
We all looked at her.
“What?” I asked, kneeling so we could be eye to eye.
She repeated herself in her sweet little voice. “The thing that lives in my closet.”
There was no trace of her typical impishness, no wink in her eye. I knew my daughters, I understood them. I saw them. And I knew Cici was being serious.
“What thing?” I asked.
