normal with them. Free. Before Kate, Fawn had been her newest friend. But they’d met two years ago now (in an acting workshop with Carmen’s favorite teacher, well before Fawn developed an interest in taking things that didn’t belong to her).
“I was never no / never no / never enough,/ But I can try / I can try / to toughen up,” Kate sang softly.
Carmen could see the camera’s focus tightening in on Kate and hoped she wouldn’t notice. Kate’s stage fright occasionally extended to the camera lens. But Kate seemed oblivious, quietly singing and playing while in the background Gaby began to clear the table.
Laurel made a slicing motion across her throat; the sound of clinking silverware was overpowering Kate’s singing. Gaby stood uncertain for a moment, a plate in her hand, and then sat back down again. Laurel looked relieved.
When the song was over, Carmen and Gaby clapped. “Another,” Gaby cried.
Madison raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know we were in for a sing-along.”
“No one’s singing but Kate,” Carmen pointed out. She was expecting some kind of snappy comeback, but Madison didn’t say anything; she just drained her wineglass and reached for the bottle. What was this new meekness about? Carmen wondered. She considered exploring how far it went. Could she tell a dumb blonde joke? Could she talk about the hazards of tanning beds? Could she ask Madison about her sister, Sophia or Sophie or whatever her name was? She was weighing her options when Gaby spoke.
“So,” Gaby said, too loudly, “Madison, have you heard from your dad since the other day?”
Madison flinched at the question, which Laurel had obviously just instructed Gaby, via text, to ask. Kate looked up from her guitar, her hair shielding half of her face but her expression of curiosity nevertheless evident. Madison never willingly brought up her family, so now that she was forced to, everyone wanted to hear what she had to say.
“No, I haven’t,” she said stiffly.
“Oh, did you run into him again?” Kate asked. “After that lunch?”
“Oh, it’s so boring,” Madison said, stifling a fake yawn. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“It didn’t sound boring to me,” Gaby said. “It sounded fun.” She turned to Kate and Carmen. “Madison and Sophia and their dad went to the Santa Monica Pier, just like tourists,” she told them. “They rode rides, they got cotton candy—”
“So, like six-year-old tourists,” Carmen interrupted. She couldn’t help herself. Madison shot her one of her trademark evil glares, and Carmen smiled sweetly back.
Gaby nodded and breathlessly began to recount the Wardell family day. “It sounded to me like her dad was trying to be nice, but Madison was all against him or whatever, but then she found out that he’d sent her all these letters over the years, like he hadn’t totally abandoned his kids to their drunk mother, and—”
“Gaby, shut up,” Madison hissed.
Gaby looked hurt. “What?”
Madison’s eyes blazed. “Do I go around airing your dirty laundry? Do I tell the world how you never eat anything but celery sticks and spirulina? Do I talk about how you’re practically a pincushion for your aesthetician’s Botox needle? Do I mention that when you go to get your nonexistent fat ‘warmed off,’ or whatever your plastic surgeon calls it, you look like you’re being roasted under a fast-food heat lamp?”
Gaby’s mouth dropped open. “I was just—”
“Well!” Kate exclaimed. “Anyway!” Then she walked over to Madison and touched her shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. I know that must have been hard, having all that intense family time.”
Smart of her to ignore the tirade, Carmen thought. “Yeah, that really sucks, Mad,” she added. She meant it, too. And she felt a surge of gratitude to her own parents for being there for her, emotionally, geographically, and financially.
Madison brushed off Kate’s hand and stood up from the table. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it,” she said. “So drop it, all right? I don’t need your pity. In fact, I don’t need any of this.” She gestured wildly to the whole room and then stormed off down the hall.
“Well,” Carmen said after a few moments. “That was awkward.” She glanced at Kate, who looked worried, and then over at Laurel.
Laurel looked thrilled.
Madison wanted answers. Not diversions or evasions. Not a lame “Aw, Sweetpea, I just wanted to see you,” or a “Well, I happened to be in the neighborhood.” No: She wanted real, honest answers about why Charlie had shown up now and exactly what he wanted from her.
The momentary flush of love and gratitude she’d felt when she learned about the letters had dissolved and become tinged with suspicion. It was time to uncover the truth.
The parking lot of the E-Z Inn was littered with fast-food wrappers and empty glass pint bottles still camouflaged in paper bags. (“Give me Rosie in a skirt,” her mother used to say to the clerk at the 7-Eleven; it meant Wild Irish Rose in a paper bag, which she could take to the park while she watched Madison and Sophie climb all over the jungle gym.) A man with tattoos on his neck, his hands, even on one cheek sat on a folding chair outside room 3, smoking. He asked Madison, as she stepped out of her gold Lexus, if she’d like to join him for a drink. Madison shuddered and hurried past, down the row of forlorn-looking doors toward the one that was marked OFFICE.
The last time she’d been in this neighborhood was when she got off the Greyhound from Armpit Falls. She’d made it out of downtown L.A. in under an hour, though.On the bus she’d befriended a guy named Travis who was going to visit his sister at UCLA. When the sister picked him up, she offered Madison a ride. Madison took it and never looked back. A week later she’d found a job at a little salon, and her transformation began with some free highlights and a spray tan.
A bell jangled on the lobby door as Madison entered. There was a man passed out on an avocado-green couch near a fake potted palm. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. The room smelled like stale cigarettes and mildew.
Madison walked over to the Plexiglas window that separated the owner of the motel from his guests. “Hello?” She tapped her knuckles against the greasy glass and wished she’d brought a bottle of hand sanitizer. Who knew what kind of infection you could get in a place like this?
“Be right with you.” The owner’s back was to her, and Madison could see that he was playing online poker. The man on the couch turned over and snorted wetly in his sleep. Madison shuddered once again. Maybe this had been a bad idea.
After a moment the owner turned around, and his expression turned from boredom to predatory interest the moment he saw Madison. “Well, hello and hello,” he said to her breasts. “Are you looking for a room?”
Madison nodded curtly. “Yes, I—”
The man smiled. “We don’t usually see your caliber of girl around here. You want the room for an hour or for the night? Money’s due up front, of course.
