Night of the Living Deb Read online

  How could he? the uncertain part of me screamed, while the reasonable half calmly answered, He didn’t.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled all the things Malone had said to me in recent days, how he was tired, couldn’t wait to be done with this latest case so he could spend more time with me and catch up on his sleep (I wasn’t sure which came first in his list of priorities, but I was hoping it was me). He’d mentioned taking me to Mother’s for my birthday dinner on Wednesday, plus something about a “surprise” for the coming weekend. I usually didn’t like surprises, but I’d been anxious to see

  what he’d cooked up.

  So long as it wasn’t his running off with a wench called Trayla Trash. If so, that could well be the shittiest birthday present I’d ever received from anyone, including the time in first grade when Mike Weber had given me a booger sandwich.

  Yuck.

  Imagining Brian canoodling with a stripper gave me a double dose of the heebie-jeebies.

  It went way beyond “ick.”

  I shuddered, figuring that was one picture worth a thousand words . . . all of them curses. The only worse thing than imagining Brian with another woman was thinking of attending my mother’s dinner without him.

  Oh, Lord, why had I gone there?

  My brain did a momentary freeze.

  Dinner at Mother’s.

  Gulp.

  What if I hadn’t gotten this insanity straightened out by then? What if Malone didn’t come back by Wednesday?

  How would I explain showing up at Cissy’s house sans boyfriend? Particularly if the explanation was X-rated?

  I’d never hear the end of it.

  “I told you so,” would undoubtedly be Mother’s warm-up act. I didn’t even want to ponder Act Two.

  I groaned loudly and dropped my head to my hands, which must’ve freaked out Allie, as she jumped all over me again: “Do I need to pull over? Are you gonna puke?

  Roll down the window and hang your head out, why don’t you?”

  Hang my head out the window? Did she think I was Lassie?

  “I’m fine,” I told her, sounding anything but.

  “Listen, Kendricks,” she started in, as if I needed another of her lectures, “I’m nearly as mad at the son of a bitch as you, so there’s no need to mope alone. We’ve got loads to do on the Oleksiy case and Brian knows it, so if he really skipped out, I’ll murder him for you. And I’ll know by tomorrow morning, bright and early. If he’s left town, he’d better have called in to work with a dandy excuse,

  or he’ll find his ass on the street. I’ll buzz you as soon as I hear something.”

  Great.

  A morning wake-up call from the Blond Menace.

  Yet another thrilling moment to look forward to.

  Why didn’t God just strike me down and be done with it? Why was I being tortured? Was this payback for missing so many Sundays of church? For deciding organized religion just wasn’t my thing? For bailing out on my debut?

  If God worked in mysterious ways, would His plan for teaching me a lesson be so elaborate as this? So gutwrenching?

  Although I had learned one thing that surprised me.

  Allie Price wasn’t as completely unbearable as I’d pegged her initially. In fact, she was being awfully close to nice, when she could’ve easily shoved the knife in good and given it a turn or two. She might’ve reminded me again how Malone and I hadn’t even lasted as a couple as long as they had. She had ample opportunity to expound for the hundredth time on how even Boy Scouts can be pigs.

  Instead, she did an amazing thing, offering to drive me home in the Jeep and take a cab from there, though I told her no, I could handle the return trip all by myself. She did a quick “how many fingers am I holding up” test, as if to check my level of alertness—if not my sobriety, though I hadn’t drunk a thing—and seemed satisfied when I passed.

  When she pulled the Wrangler into a parking space at the Taco Diner, she shifted the Jeep into Park, turned to me, and asked if I wanted to head in for a margarita or three. “Don’t beat yourself up, girlfriend,” she told me.

  “ ’Cuz when you think about it, really, how well do we know anyone? Everyone has secrets. Even Malone.”

  “No,” I said. “Brian and I had”—why did I say that? I

  meant—“we have a great relationship. We talk about everything.”

  “Nobody talks about everything, Kendricks. That’s just a lie we tell ourselves to keep from feeling insecure.”

  I had no strength to argue with her. Besides, it wasn’t worth it.

  “Sure you don’t want to have a drink? I’ll buy, and you can bitch if you need to,” she suggested, but I’d had enough “bitch” for tonight.

  “I want to be by myself,” I told her, because it’s how I felt. I needed time alone to wade in my self-pity without spectators.

  “You sure you don’t want company, just in case?”

  Just in case what?

  Did she think I aimed to swallow a bottle of Drano (definitely the most lethal substance I possessed) or slit my wrists with a butter knife (the sharpest object in my house, since I was afraid of pointy things, being that I was a Grade-A klutz)?

  “I’m fine, Allie, really I am,” I assured her, though she didn’t look like she believed me. Maybe because I hadn’t said, “I’m fine, bitch,” which would’ve been more in line with our relationship, if not my rotten mood.

  “You have my number, right?”

  “Yeah.” It was stuck on my phone after her calls earlier in the day.

  “Let me know if you hear anything from the ratfink.”

  I didn’t need to ask who she meant. “I will.”

  She hopped out of the Jeep, and I crawled over to the driver’s side, sliding my legs beneath the steering wheel.

  I shut the door, threw the car into gear, and left her standing on the curb.

  If that was ill-mannered, I’m sorry. Add it to my long list of misbehavior that would’ve required confession if I’d been Catholic. As a bad Presbyterian, I’d probably just get my retribution at the Pearly Gates, when I realized my key didn’t fit the lock and the room I’d booked was much

  nearer the furnace.

  Oh, well.

  After tossing my cookies on the floor of a stripper’s dressing room, I figured I couldn’t sink much lower than that.

  It was funny how life’s curveballs could toss etiquette out the window (sorry, Amy Vanderbilt).

  My mother would be appalled were she to learn where I’d been tonight and why, which is precisely why I planned to keep mum on the subject. Though, feeling as weak as I did, I couldn’t vouch for how closed-mouth I would be if Mother out-strong-armed me, like she had last Christmas when she’d bamboozled me into a stint behind the cookbook booth at the Junior League Holiday Bazaar.

  Cissy was a wily one, for sure, especially if she knew I’d kept a secret from her. My mother wasn’t big on secrets between us (unless they were hers).

  As I drove to the condo, I did a pretty good job convincing myself this had merely been “one of those days”— although an extremely sucky one—and, by tomorrow, everything would look peachy keen. My boyfriend would return with some amazing tale of how he’d had to play hero and whisk a barely breathing Trayla Trash to the E.R. after her boa had caught fire (or something equally life or

  death); my world would fall back in order, and this would be one hilarious blip on my cosmic EKG.

  I parked the Jeep, unlocked the door, went inside and brushed my teeth to get the rotten taste from my mouth. I checked my voice mail one last time before I peeled off my jeans and crawled in bed in T-shirt and panties.

  It’d been a while since I’d said my prayers, but I said them that night.

  Maybe that was what eased me into dreamland so quickly, when I’d figured I’d lie awake forever, staring at the ceiling through the dark, worrying until the dawn began to fill my room with sunlight.

 
I don’t even remember dreaming; but I did feel the jerk as I came awake.

  For a moment, I didn’t move, heard only my slug-slow breaths and the noise of my heartbeat.

  Then I realized what had interrupted my dozing.

  The phone was ringing.

  Not my cell, atop my bedside table, but the landline in the living room, though it was damned loud enough for being so far away.

  Tweeet.

  I would’ve ignored it, as worn out as I was, but something propelled me forward, the flood of hope in my chest.

  I stumbled out of bed, kicking aside the covers, banging into the doorjamb as I flew as fast as my feet would carry me toward the sofa table, where I snatched the receiver off the Princess phone and gasped, “Brian?”

  There was a pause that seemed eternal before I heard the familiar voice.

  “Andrea?”

  He sounded far off, like his cell needed charging, but it was him all right.

  Hallelujah and Amen! My heart did swan dives in my chest.

  “Do you know how worried I’ve been—” I started, but

  he wouldn’t let me finish. “P-Please,” he stammered, and I sensed his urgency.

  “Don’t talk, just listen.”

  Despite a million questions on the tip of my tongue and the equally strong impulse to ball him out, I stayed silent.

  Whatever he had to say, I was all ears.

  Chapter 10

  “I wanted to call s-sooner, but I couldn’t get . . . I’m sorry,” he said, more like a muffled murmur through the crackling line.

  He faded in and out so much that I had to press the phone hard against my head so as not to miss anything.

  Where was he? In a tunnel?

  “I didn’t mean for this . . . it isn’t what I wanted . . . things c-changed rather suddenly.”

  Uh, well, duh. I’d figured out that much, unless he’d meant to cause so much conflict by dumping Matty, keeping trial documents that Allie was dying to get her hands on, and breaking my heart.

  What were you thinking? I wanted to cry, though I kept my lips zipped and slumped onto the sofa, weak in the knees with relief at just hearing the sound of his voice, knowing he was alive, at least, when I’d imagined the worst.

  “Apologize to Cissy for me, will you? I can’t attend her dinner p-party,” he continued, as I strained to hear each word.

  I couldn’t blame him for his nervous stutter, not when he had to realize how worried sick I’d been since he’d pulled his vanishing act.

  “Tell her I’ll miss her famous cabbage soup. But I won’t be back . . . I have to, um, go away. And don’t try to find me, Andy, p-please. I need my, uh, space.”

  What famous cabbage soup?

  Was he on crack?

  I highly doubted my mother had ever cooked anything, with or without cabbages, in her entire life. In fact, I think she thought of the stove as a great big paperweight.

  Had Miz Trayla Trash taken him back to her singlewide that doubled as a meth lab, and he’d inhaled too many fumes?

  That would explain a lot.

  “Look, Brian, I’ve got a few things to say myself ”—I could only be quiet for so long, and I’d reached my quota.

  All my frustrations and fears of the past twenty-four hours bubbled to the surface, unrestrained. “I’ve been going crazy trying to track you down, and you know my birthday’s this week, so what do you mean you’re taking off?

  How could you even think of bailing?”

  “Andy, no—” he started, but the words were choked off, and I picked up the click of what sounded like an air conditioner turning on. But it was in the sixties, chilly for Big D. Who in his right mind would have his AC running?

  “It’s not what you think,” he finished.

  “Then what is it?” I demanded.

  There was a bit of a muffled noise, like he’d dropped the phone. I figured he’d lost his signal, and I nearly hung up when he came back on again.

  “I have to go . . . I’m so s-sorry, babe.” His voice caught so hard I knew he meant it. He sounded near to tears, or maybe it was the bad connection.

  “Hey, wait a sec—”

  But there was only dead air on the other end.

  An earful of nothing.

  “Brian?”

  I stared at the phone for a minute before my instincts kicked in. I hit the redial button, but his voice mail picked up after a single ring.

  Well, damn him!

  He wasn’t answering.

  So that was it, huh?

  The pulse at my temples began to throb, and my heart stung, as if I’d been target practice for the Olympic dart team.

  I’d waited twenty-four long hours to hear from the guy, and it was over in a twenty-second cell phone call. Sort of a technological version of the old wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

  Sling a cow pie at my head and call me Bubba.

  This wasn’t possible.

  I clutched the receiver, hand trembling, my guts gripped with confusion; blinking into the dark, disbelief sliding up my throat like acid reflux so I couldn’t even let flow a string of curses. The sound I made was more like, “Uhhh.”

  I couldn’t react. My limbs felt weighted, too heavy to do anything but sit there, zombielike, biting on my lower lip.

  I’m so sorry . . . things changed . . . I need space.

  Had he really said that?

  Had he meant it the way it sounded? Why not add the tried and true—and utterly barf-inspiring—“Let’s just be friends” line, too?

  Or maybe I was still dreaming and had imagined the entire pathetic one-sided conversation. I clunked myself in the head with the receiver and winced at the sting of pain in my skull.

  I was awake, all right.

  The realization made me groan, and I dropped the handset of the phone onto the cushion beside me, burying my face in my hands.

  Brian had blown me off three days before my natal celebration.

  That’s what this was: a cell phone dumping.

  No nicer way to put it.

  Happy Birthday, loser girl.

  I’d been skunked.

  Which meant that everyone else was right and I was wrong, didn’t it? Malone had turned to the dark side virtually overnight. Four months together, and I was being tossed for a chippie who wore fringed tassels on her nipples.

  Oh, wow. Was that it?

  I winced as a sudden thought struck me.

  The age-old “good girl vs. slut” conundrum.

  Could that be the problem? Was sex at the crux of everything?

  I wore big T-shirts and flannel jammie bottoms to bed. I didn’t own a pair of tassels or even a push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret.

  Was I not woman enough for Brian? Was I too much the girl next door and not enough ho?

  I knew that teenage girls were getting bikini waxes these days, paid for by their super-hip mommies, so they’d be ready for bidness at the drop of a zipper. Every MTV video bordered on soft core porn, as did half the beer commercials. The world moved faster than a quickie in the broom closet; nothing was romance or even innuendo anymore. It was hooking up and one-night stands and “drunk sex,” as a friend of mine called it (without apology, I might add).

  Perhaps Cissy wasn’t the only one who was old-fashioned in our family, at least where love was concerned.

  Because that’s what it was about for me, the feeling close and caring, the emotional part, not body parts or dirty talk or trashy accoutrements.

  Is that how I’d lost Brian? After one night in a strip club to celebrate Matty’s upcoming wedding?

  Had he felt trapped by his faithfulness, by the mere idea he might be spending the rest of his life with me, under the thumb of my overbearing mummy? By the fact that Said Mummy expected him to put a ring on my finger and purchase this cow on layaway?

  Did it scare him to imagine that maybe the idea of marriage didn’t sound so all-fire awful to me
either? That the idea of being legally bound to one another at some point in the future wasn’t Cissy’s alone?

  Ohmigawd.

  There it was, out in the open.

  I’d admitted it, if only to myself.

  I wasn’t falling for Malone good and hard: I’d already hit the mat. I was sunk, a goner, snookered, down and out for the count.

  All right, so maybe I’d realized it before, but I’d been too wary to even whisper how I felt to anyone. Besides, I’d figured I had plenty of time to tell Brian, when the moment was right.

  The right moment.

  Talk about missing the bus.

  Hell, I was sucking up exhaust fumes.

  I balled my hands and tapped my fists against my forehead.

  How stupid was I?

  I thought I was being smart, guarded even, protecting

  my heart as I waited for the perfect time to say something.

  Though what made any time “perfect”? How did we even know we’d have another tomorrow or the next day?

  We didn’t.

  I thought Malone and I had forever.

  Instead, he’d taken my vulnerable heart and stomped it with the verbal equivalent of golf cleats.

  I felt like my guts were bleeding out, and I had no Band-Aids large enough to patch up all the holes.

  “You sappy-ass girl,” I berated myself, making a feeble attempt at laughing into the dark and empty room where the only noise was the beep-beep-beeping from the handset that I hadn’t hung up until I tossed it to the floor, yanking the phone off the sofa table and sending it clattering to the floor.

  Like I gave a hoot.

  I shuffled into the kitchen, where 2:35 glowed in bright blue on my microwave clock. Instinctively, I went for the freezer, pulling it wide and reaching for the Haagen Daz, until I remembered I had none.

  What’re you doing? I asked and stopped myself.

  I shut the freezer door with a smack.

  Because what I needed wasn’t anything edible, it was food for my sad, just-dumped, beaten-down soul.

  I walked over to the stereo and fumbled in the dim, finding the CD I’d burned years ago just for such situations.

  I dusted off the cover, popped that baby into the player, hit the power button, and set the volume at a reasonable level, one that I could hear but wouldn’t wake up