“Why were you bothering to do that?” I asked, flummoxed. “Why do you care?”
“You know what we used to call you?” Vivi asked me in return. “Snow Queen! Like that movie with the girl who made everything turn cold. You have that same stupid hair and those same ugly eyes.”
“My eyes aren’t ugly!” They were light blue like my mother’s, but maybe I also had a resemblance to a certain cartoon princess. I had heard that a few times before and I’d never liked it.
“You used to stare at us out of those icy eyes, never talking and watching everything. No one could stand it!” she told me. “It was like you weren’t even human, just a robot. Everyone hated you and we still do. Why don’t you just go?” Now, it seemed like she was going to cry—another emotion I’d never seen from her. She pulled herself together enough to order me again: “Go away!”
“Thank you for stopping by,” I said, and unlocked the car door. It was raining hard now and I stepped out into the downpour, sure that she wouldn’t follow me because she wouldn’t risk her hair. She and Coral felt a lot the same about water, and also in how they behaved inexplicably and hated me.
But my cat did run out of the bedroom when I slammed my door, and then she walked closer and meowed. Apparently, I had better relationship bonds with her than with any of Grant’s friend group. She even sat near my feet as I started to scour the internet for information about Vivienne and Lance—before I stopped myself. What was I doing? Why did I care about these people anymore?
“It was because she showed up again, out of the blue,” I said into my phone, and the words typed themselves out. “Why?”
“¿Por qué?” Hernán wrote back quickly. “I’m not sure. She won’t tell you?”
“She’s hinting around but I don’t get it,” I answered. “She keeps ordering me to leave and I don’t know why.”
“Pero no es normal para ella,¿verdad?O sea, no sois amigas. You two aren’t friends and it’s not normal for her to want to talk about personal problems.”
“The most personal she ever before got was to complain about her manicure. I didn’t know anything about her father’s asset distribution, her mom’s new boyfriend, or her own marital problems. I thought everything was perfect between her and Lance.”
“¿Quién sabe lo que pasa a puerta cerrada? Who knows what happens behind closed doors? I’ll ask Lucía for her opinion.”
Then I did hear the sound of Levi coming home, which I told Hernán.
“Dále un beso,” he wrote, and I went to the door and opened it before Levi had time to knock.
“You can just come in,” I told him, and then asked, “What’s the matter? What happened?” Because he was pale and he looked even more worried than Vivienne had as she chewed her thumbnail.
“I had a strange—bad—I don’t know what happened today,” he answered. He sat on the couch and Coral immediately climbed on him, and so did I. Not totally climbed, but I sat near enough that we were touching.
“Tell me,” I urged. The story of my meet-up with Vivienne could wait.
“Something’s happening with August. I think, but I don’t know.”
“Something with the police?” I asked, because it wouldn’t have surprised me.
But he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “We haven’t been in touch a lot lately, and I can’t think of the last time we talked on the phone. But as I was on my way home, he called me and said that I was his best friend and that he loved me.”
“Levi! Is he going to hurt himself?”
“That was what I thought. I told him to stay where he was, that I would come get him. But he said no, he was fine. He justwanted me to know how sorry he is that we aren’t getting along. He started talking about my mom making tuna casserole and how he thought it was the best thing he’d ever eaten, because he never had stuff made at home before. He said that it was fun to watch me tease my sisters and he had never thought of talking to girls like that, like they could be friends, too.”
“This isn’t making me confident in his safety.”
“Me neither,” Levi said. “But he wouldn’t tell me where he is or what’s going on. He just said that he wants to make amends and be friends again. I told him that he’s like my brother, that even if I’m pissed off at him, I still love him.” He hesitated. “He might have been crying.”
“We should call the police.”
But he hesitated again. “If August is doing something that he shouldn’t, I could get him in a lot of trouble over nothing.”
“Then we have to go find him ourselves.” I stood up. “Right now!”
“He’s not at his house, or the apartment, or the club, because I already checked. I know he owns more real estate—”
“He does,” I agreed, marching to my laptop. “I have a list.”
“Why? Why do you have a list?
