twenty-two
Harper Apple
I spend the next week cursing everything. My mother for letting the electricity get shot off again, Willow Heights for being closed, and even the shitty weather, as it rains so much our basement floods, and I can’t even go take out my fury on the punching bag. What kind of school needs two weeks of spring break, anyway? Two weeks for kids to suffer at home. At least the lack of electricity means no internet, which means I can’t masochistically stalk the Dolces online and see them having fun with the Waltons as if I never existed.
I go on to cursing Royal for not returning my backpack like he said he would, for breaking up with me, for making me fall for him in the first place. I hate myself for caring, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry into a bowl of ice cream like a little bitch who got her ass dumped. Hey, I’m only human. Sometimes, a girl’s gotta wallow before moving on. I’m mostly pissed at myself, anyway. I already regret what I did, making the decision in haste, not thinking through the consequences.
A week into break, I wake up to my mother standing over me, screaming at me about hiding money from her. My heart nearly stops. I scramble upright in bed, sure she’s discovered my stash. But she’s not holding my hard-earned cash. She’s waving a piece of paper in my face, demanding where I got that kind of money.
“I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I grumble, throwing off the blanket and stalking out of the room. I stumble into the bathroom, leaving the door open for light.
To prove her point, Mom storms into the bathroom and shoves a paper in my face before flouncing off, hollering about how I could afford to think of someone else for a change. I rub my temple and glance over the bill. No, not a bill. A receipt.
Someone paid the electric—a thousand dollars of it. Fuck. I stare at it, my mind balking at the number, rereading it over and over, as if there’s been some kind of mistake. That will cover months of bills. A whole summer of air conditioning.
I didn’t pay it, and obviously Mom didn’t, so who did?
Who even knows our electric is out?
When I’m fully awake and dressed, I boot up the desktop computer and sit down. Mom’s on the phone with the electric company trying to convince them she overpaid by mistake so she can get the money off our account and probably spend it on crank. I open Gloria’s social media first because I want to know who’s accounted for, who’s in Park City with her, oblivious to my lack of electricity.
As soon as I see the pictures, I wish I hadn’t. But it answers that question. All the Faulkner Dolces are there. The Waltons, the Roses, and the Montgomerys are also there, along with the mayor and his family.
I close out of stalker mode, find a couple heels of bread in a bag, and make toast while I think. Is the bill a bribe from Mr. D to get me to continue spying? An apology? A thank you for giving him what he needs at last, the information to take down his enemies?
I know it takes time, but I wonder when he’s going to strike, when he’ll come forward. And what will happen to me when he does? It hits me then, the full weight of what I’ve done.
I probably cost myself my scholarship either way. Mr. D will pull it if he’s pissed that I cut him off. And even if he doesn’t…. I’m not just fucking with Royal. I’m fucking with their family, the one that destroyed one of the founding families of this town—three generations of them, including the elder and seven sons and all their kids. Royal all but admitted they have mafia ties. And I just put a huge target on my back. It’s not the boys in their fancy ski resort I need to worry about. It’s the fucking mafia itself.
*
“Some weirdo was here looking for you a minute ago,” Blue says as I step over the puddle in the hole in our walkway. “You just missed him.”
I just got back from running by Willow Heights to get my bike and see if Royal’s car was still there so I could get my bag. The car was gone, so I’m still without a phone, but at least I got my bike.
“Who was it?” I ask, glancing around, still feeling jumpy even though nothing has happened since I told Mr. D. Was it him? First he won’t meet, and now he’s showing up at my house? I already know he has no problem looking like a fucking stalker. Maybe he wants to convince me not to give up on Willow Heights, to keep my scholarship and keep being his snitch.
Or maybe it was some mafia hitman…
Blue’s scooping water out of Olive’s sandbox with a coffee mug while Olive kneels on the muddy ground beside the lawn chairs, lining up her Hot Wheels cars and humming a Brody Villines song to herself.
“I don’t know,” Blue says, pushing her lank hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist and sitting back on her heels. “He asked if we knew you, and if that’s where you lived, and then he went around back, like, looking at your house or something. It was super sketch, so I took Olive inside until he left.”
“He didn’t take my cars, though,” Olive volunteers. “Blue made me leave them out here, but they were still right where I left them when we came out.” She beams up at me like I should be impressed that the creep didn’t steal from a child.
I cross my arms over my chest, a shiver running through me. Who the fuck is looking in my house?
The Dolces are still in Park City. I know because my masochistic side couldn’t stay with the total internet blackout, and I’ve checked Gloria’s social media every day since we got electricity back. I wish I could stop. They look so happy—all of them. It breaks my heart. They don’t know what’s waiting for them when they get back.
“Have you seen him before?” I ask Blue, shaking my head to dislodge the pictures burned into my brain, pictures of the Walton girls on the laps of the Dolce boys in the hot tub, in the ski lift, at a restaurant. Smiling with their arms around each other on the slopes, like rich kids without a care in the world, who have never known pain. I know better now, but it still hurts. “What’d he look like?”
“That’s the really creepy part,” Blue starts.
“He had on a mask,” Olive cuts in. “Like it’s Halloween! But it’s not Halloween, so Mom said that means he’s crazy.”
“What kind of mask?” I ask. “Like, a ski mask? Or a gorilla mask?”
“More like a masquerade mask,” Blue says, going back to scooping water from the edges of the sand. “Fancy. And he had a fancy truck.”