Lilly followed up with two quick hits of nasal spray, leaned back against the couch. “Oh, that’s nice. Your turn.”
This is where you leave. Kira heard Rebecca’s voice in her head, clear and loud. Get out of there, joke’s over. “Not for me.” She waited for Lilly to say something snide.
But Lilly only grinned. “One hit and we’ll dance, you’ll see, dancing on coke is the best—”
“Like Adderall?” She’d taken Adderall a few times, mainly to help finish papers. She had to admit she liked the wide-awake sensation, feeling like she could see around corners. Though the day after, she felt gray and cold, a dementor camped out in her bedroom.
Poor girl’s coke, one of her friends had said.
“Try and see.”
Suddenly a snippet from this old Killers song was playing:
He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus / But he talks like a gentleman / Like you imagined…
“When You Were Young,” it was called.
Kira loved The Killers. First band she ever cared about. First concert she ever saw. Her drunken brain slid the pieces together: the song was a sign, she was in Barcelona, and young and nothing could touch her—
Don’t, Rebecca warned, don’t—
Kira took the spoon and vial from Lilly, dipped the spoon deep into the vial—
“Not so much, first time,” Lilly said. She patted Kira’s arm, I’ll be your spirit guide.
Kira tapped the spoon against the top of the vial until most of the coke was gone. “Good?”
“Perfect.”
Kira lifted the spoon to her nose, pushed her left nostril shut—
You don’t even know these people—
And inhaled.
4
Where’s Kira?
Rebecca had been so busy banging at the piano that she’d forgotten her daughter. She grabbed her phone, expecting a text.
Nope. She found herself looking at the usual lock-screen picture of her kids, Kira and Tony standing together, fireworks overhead, red, white, and blue strings across the night sky. Even during the bad years in D.C. Rebecca had insisted they spend Independence Day on the Mall, go in the early afternoon with a blanket and picnic basket. The tradition had taken hold. Rebecca could track their progress as a family by their faces. In this year’s photo, only a couple of weeks before, the two wore big mock-goofy smiles and looked relaxed. Happy.
“Bri—”
Her husband was already holding his phone. “Nothing.”
She looked to Tony. He shook his head.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Brian said.
“Oh, you’re sure?” Rebecca knew she should control her temper, but the alcohol was coursing through her and fifteen years at the bureau had taught her to hate meaningless reassurance.
Especially since Brian didn’t know what she did.
“It’s Barcelona. Not Beirut. And it’s not like it’s five a.m. Just getting started out there.”
“She always texts.”
Rebecca called Kira. The phone rang until it went to voice mail. “Tony, try her please?”
“Voice mail,” Tony said.
Rebecca texted Kira: K where are you? Call me now please.
“Maybe she met a guy,” Brian said. “Or is that what we’re afraid of?”
“What was the bar she said she was going to?”
“The Mansion,” Tony said. “Supposed to be cool.”
Rebecca hesitated. She imagined Kira sitting in the corner of the bar, making out with some hot Spanish guy. Was she really going to be a helicopter parent? Thwack-thwack-thwack, I’m not letting you out of my sight for more than an hour… Kira was nineteen. Soldiers went to war at nineteen. People got married at nineteen.
“How about we give her until two and if she’s not home by then we go over there and drag her out by her hair,” Brian said. “Even in D.C. the bars don’t close until two.”
“Okay, two.”
Brian sipped his wine, crisis averted.
“Umm…” Tony said.
Rebecca looked over. Her son had the unmistakable look of a teenager about to confess, sheepish and defiant at once. She hated when her kids kept secrets. Unreasonable, she knew. Teenagers were entitled to their own worlds. Pushing too hard only caused a backlash. Yet she couldn’t help herself.
“You know something, Tony? Now would be a good time to share.”
“Don’t be mad.”
“We’re not mad,” Brian said. “We’re listening.”
Brian reassured. She too often slid into anger.
“She had a date tonight,” Tony said. “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
“We were with her all day,” Rebecca said. “When did she make a date?”
“His name’s Jacques. She met him last night in Paris.”
Now she was genuinely confused.
“He wanted to hang with her up there. She told him we were leaving this morning. He said he’d come down to see her.”
Rebecca closed the windows against the street noise. The room was instantly hotter, airless. She felt the