Sara Benincasa - Great

My cell rang then, and I stepped away to answer it. It was my mother.

“Hello, Madame IPO,” I said. “Is that what I should call you now?”

“I need you to bring me my bag,” she said. She sounded frantic and out of breath, as if she’d been running.

“Well, hello to you, too,” I said.

“I’m not screwing around, Naomi. I need you to bring my bag.” Her voice cracked on the word “bag.” Quickly, I walked into the first-floor bathroom and shut the door behind me.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked. “You sound like you’re losing it.”

“Dammit, Naomi! I just need you to bring my bag.”

“Which bag?”

“My bag with my two medicine kits,” she whispered.

“Bring them where?”

“To New York.”

“ Now? ”

“Yes, now! Call a cab. A helicopter will be waiting for you in thirty minutes.”

I was bewildered. “Are you sick? Don’t you have anything up at the apartment you can take?”

“Why would I call you out on the island if I had my pills with me in Manhattan?” she snapped. “I am in the midst of a severe frosting crisis, and I don’t need your stupid attitude. Don’t question me. Just do as I say.”

“Well, you don’t need to be a bitch about it,” I said.

Silence. I figured I’d get in trouble for that one.

But then she surprised me.

“Naomi,” she said quietly. “Please. I need you.”

It got me, the way she said “I need you.” I’d never heard her speak to me that way before. I’d never heard her speak to anyone that way before.

“Okay, Mom,” I said. “I’m coming. Don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” she said, and I could tell that she really meant it.

I paused before I got off the phone.

“Hey,” I said. “I love you.” I felt completely weird saying it to her, but something told me she needed to hear it.

“Oh,” she said, her voice catching. “Oh, me too. Me too.” Then she hung up.

When I left the bathroom, Jacinta was clearing off the table.

“He’s not coming back until tomorrow, love,” she said brightly. “Isn’t that lovely?”

As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I felt uneasy.

“I need to go,” I said, my stomach beginning to turn over. “My mom needs me in the city.”

“Oh,” Jacinta said, looking disappointed. “Well, I hope she’s all right.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. She always is.” Something inside me, that same voice that said I ought to tell my mother I loved her—well, that something told me I shouldn’t leave Jacinta there all alone.

“Maybe you should come with me,” I said, even though it didn’t make any sense, even though my mother would’ve absolutely freaked out if I’d brought anyone with me.

“Oh, that’s sweet of you,” Jacinta said over her shoulder as she resumed cleaning up our breakfast. “But I’ve got to stay here and wait for Delilah to call. She’ll probably want to spend the day here.” She began washing the dishes in the sink.

“Delilah’s not coming over,” I said, but the rush of water was too loud and she didn’t hear me.

“Delilah’s not coming over,” I said louder. She turned off the water and looked at me quizzically.

“What’s that?” she asked. “I didn’t catch that.”

I hesitated.

“Nothing,” I said. “It was nothing. I better go.”

She dried her hands on a dishtowel and came over to hug me tight. She smelled like roses.

“If you’re back tonight, let’s go for a swim,” she said.

“All right,” I said. “See you later.” I left her there, in the kitchen, looking like a kid playing dress-up in a grown-up’s gym clothes. She fairly exuded hope, that most unreasonable thing.

I changed before I went to the city, of course. If my mother’s “severe frosting crisis” had nearly put her in hysterics, then my raggedy outfit might actually cause her to go completely and utterly mad. I picked out the only one of the Marc Jacobs dresses she’d bought me that I had yet to wear. It was her favorite and, of course, it was the one I liked the least—it was pink, with lacy, girly frippery and frills around the neck, short sleeves, and hemline. It looked as if it were made out of candy. I even put on the kind of subtle makeup of which my mother approves—lip gloss, neutral shadow, mascara. I thought that if I looked pretty for her, her kind of pretty, I might make her feel better. As I ran a brush through my hair, I remembered the last time I’d tried to please her with my appearance. I was ten, and she was fighting with my father all the time. I found her crying in her room one day, and even though I was already a little too old for it, I asked her if she wanted to have a dress-up tea party. She wiped away her tears and said that she did. So we got dressed up in these matching Laura Ashley dresses she’d bought us, and we put on hats and had tea in the living room. It was the first time I realized I could change her mood if I tried.

As the cab rolled away from the house, I looked back to see if I could catch a glimpse of Jacinta. But she was somewhere inside the house, waiting for Delilah.

My second helicopter ride was actually a lot more anxiety-filled than my first. It wasn’t the height or the loudness that bothered me. No, what I found was that I couldn’t focus on anything but Jacinta—not on the beauty of the changing landscape below me, not on the dumb magazine I’d brought with me, not even on texting back and forth with Skags, who was trying to tell me some story Jenny Carpenter had told her about how the other Beasts were all really into doing cocaine and how she’d never been comfortable with it and how they always made fun of her for it. I really wasn’t in the mood to think about the Beasts.

When the helicopter landed, I walked away from the heliport for a few minutes to clear my head. I decided I just ought to call Skags, since the texting thing clearly wasn’t helping me out.

“Wow, another phone call!” was how Skags answered the phone. “I must be really special.”

“Look, Skags, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch that much this summer,” I said all in a rush. “But I have to tell you what happened, and I need you to listen and to promise not to tell anybody , okay?”

“Okay,” Skags said, immediately getting serious. “Go.”

I wandered around the neighborhood, walking past fancy office buildings and fancier residential palaces, spilling my guts to my best friend. She listened for something like ten minutes, and when I paused to take a breath, she said, “Naomi.”

“Yes?”

“You know how serious this is. And you’re involved. If you don’t tell the police what you know, you could be an accessory to the crime somehow.”

“I know,” I said.

“You need to call the police and tell them exactly what you told me,” Skags said firmly. “This isn’t just some dumb drama. A girl died. She had a family. They need to know the truth.”

I was quiet for a little while.

“You’re not actually thinking about keeping this a secret, are you, Naomi?” Skags asked incredulously.

“No, of course not,” I said slowly. “I’m just thinking. Maybe I should give the others a chance to tell before I tell.”

“You really think Delilah is going to confess?” Skags said skeptically. “I mean, if Jacinta or Adriana or whoever was even telling the truth about who was driving.”

“Maybe she will,” I said. “I don’t know what she’s thinking. I haven’t even heard from her since we were at dinner last night.”

“And why do you think that is?” Skags asked pointedly. “She’s going to distance herself from you and Jacinta and anybody who might know the truth about what happened. Because even if she was just a passenger in that car—and I kind of think she wasn’t —it’s going to look bad for her family.”