She entered and saw Clements, her mom, and her dad at the dining room table.
“Who died now?” Marissa asked. She was trying her hardest not to look or sound wasted. Though she knew she could never pull this off, it didn’t stop her from trying.
“Everything’s okay,” her dad said.
Then he looked at her more closely, probably noticing how bloodshot her eyes were. Clements and her mom were giving her looks, too.
“Why don’t you go upstairs?” he said, sounding embarrassed, disappointed. Yeah, like he should be the one to talk.
But she gladly left. She figured that nothing was going on, that Clements was just there to update them about the investigation.
She was in bed, starting to pass out, when her dad came into her room and said, “Can we talk for a second?”
Here we go.
“I’m really tired,” she said.
“It’s important,” he said, sitting in the chair at her desk. “Unfortunately things have gotten a little more complicated.”
“What do you mean?” she said, surprised he wasn’t laying into her about the drinking and pot smoking.
“Well, somebody… threatened me,”he said.
“What do you mean threatened?”
“There was a note under the door. Detective Clements isn’t as concerned as Mom is.”
She sat up and said, “I thought you said everything was okay.”
“Everything is okay. Nothing’s changed.”
“Nothing except you’re getting death threats.”
“Threat, singular- and it wasn’t a death threat, or any type of specific threat, really. I mean, technically I don’t know if you’d even call it a threat at all.”
“What did it say?”
“Just about how I’m going to pay for what I did, et cetera, et cetera. It was probably because somebody read those lies in the newspapers today.”
Marissa couldn’t believe how deep in denial her dad was. What would it take for him to actually admit he was scared?
“So you think the same person who put the note under the door killed Gabriela?”
“No, I don’t think that. And the police haven’t found any link yet between what happened to her and the robbery.”
“Wait,” Marissa said, “so what do they think? That it was all what, a coincidence?”
She saw her father’s jaw shift a few times as he ground his teeth. Then he said, “Possibly.”
“And you believe that?” Marissa asked.
“Look, there’s no reason to panic,” her dad said, weirdly calm. “The police are giving this case, cases, their full attention. It sounds like they have a lot of leads they’re following up on, and I’m sure they’ll have a suspect in custody soon.”
“Is that what Clements said or is that what you’re saying?”
Her dad shifted his jaw again, then said, “The other thing is the note could’ve been a prank. When I got home before a bunch of kids were playing football in the street, right in front of the house. The police are talking to them to see if they saw anything, but one of them could’ve done it. Justin Green was there. I remember his parents were having some discipline problems with him a few years ago; he almost got expelled from school. They even asked me if I could suggest a good child psychologist and I gave them a referral.”
It was amazing how her dad could make up these stories; it was even more amazing that he actually believed them.
“I guess anything’s possible,” she said and lay down again.
“But look,” he added, “I just want you to know, there’s nothing to worry about.”
She thought, Yeah, nothing except that some maniac wants to kill you.
He continued, “You might’ve noticed the police car outside. The cops’ll be there all night and all day tomorrow. Twenty- four- hour protection.”
“What about tomorrow night?” Marissa asked.
“They’ll probably be out there for the next night or two. Mom wants to get private security, and maybe, just to make her feel better, we’ll do that. But there’ll probably be an arrest by then and this whole thing will be moot.”
He stood up, and she saw him noticing her bong, which was out in plain view on her desk, right next to her laptop.
“I threw out all my pot,” she said.
This was true. She’d thrown out the dime bag this morning.
“So, did you have fun tonight?” her father asked.
She remembered Darren grabbing her arm, her screaming at the cabdriver to pull over.
“Yeah,” she said. “It was okay.”
“That’s good,” he said. Then, after several seconds of awkward silence, he said, “Well, good night,” and left her alone.
Marissa was still thinking about the cab ride, how she’d totally freaked.
She stirred for a long time and finally fell asleep.
She dreamed about Prague. She had never actually been there, but she’d seen enough pictures of the cobblestone streets, the buildings, the castle, the Charles Bridge, to know that she was specifically in Prague and not some other Eastern Europe an city. She was happy in the dream, hanging out, playing guitar, getting wasted. So what if she didn’t know how to play a single chord on a guitar- the dream still felt real.
She woke up, disappointed to be in her bed in her house in Forest Hills, and thought, Why not just pack up and go? What was stopping her from doing something radical like that? She had no job, no boyfriend, no responsibilities. And going to Prague would solve two problems: It would get her far away from her parents and all of their problems, and she’d be able to afford to live on her own. She still had about six thousand dollars left over from the trust fund her grandparents- her mom’s parents- had left her. That was two months’ rent at a decent apartment in Manhattan, but in Prague she could probably last six months or longer, especially if she lived in a hostel or some kind of cheap housing.
She went online and Googled “moving to Prague” and viewed pictures of the city- eerily, her dream had been almost dead- on-and read all about relocating, becoming increasingly psyched. She was so sure of her plan that she posted a blog entry entitled i’m moving to prague.
When she went downstairs, her mom was frantically vacuuming. It was obvious that her mom had a lot of manic energy today, but Marissa didn’t know if it was because she was worried about the break- in or if it had to do with her affair with Tony the trainer or both. When Marissa asked her if she was okay she mumbled, “Fine,” but barely made eye contact. Later on, when Marissa went downstairs to do some laundry, her mom was lying on a couch, covered by a shawl, watching a soap opera. With her dad acting so deluded and her mom acting so weird, Marissa felt like she was living with two mental patients.
She couldn’t wait to escape to Prague.
Marissa was still upset about Gabriela but was trying not to think about it too much and was resisting searching for information about the murder. She figured if there was any major news- if there’d been an arrest- her mother or father would let her know, and reading about it would only upset her even more. She also was afraid she’d stumble on some new embarrassing article about her father that would make her want to contemplate a name change. Instead she focused on happier things- Prague and, more immediately, her plans to go out tonight. Tone Def was playing a set at ten at Kenny’s Castaways, and there was no way Marissa was missing it. She was planning to meet Sarah, Hillary, and Hillary’s work friend Beth at the Bitter End for drinks at six. She’d also been exchanging text messages with Lucas, the bass player from Tone Def she’d hooked up with that one time, and Lucas had invited her and her friends to hang out at some place on the Lower East Side after their set. Marissa was looking forward to having a fun night out with her friends and then hopefully hooking up with Lucas, maybe going back to his place.
