Emma Cline - The Girls

Caroline’s desire to be invited was so blatant that I felt almost ashamed. But it didn’t stop me from following Suzanne outside, shrugging an apology at Caroline. I could feel her watching us go. The hooded attentions of a child, that wordless understanding. I saw that disappointment was already something familiar to Caroline.

—

I was scanning the contents of my mother’s refrigerator, the glass jars mortared with dried spills. The fumes of cruciferous vegetables, roiling in plastic bags. Nothing to eat, as usual. Little things like this reminded me why I’d rather be somewhere else. When I heard my mother shuffling in the front door, the razzle of her heavy jewelry, I tried to slink off without crossing paths.

“Evie,” she called, coming into the kitchen. “Wait up a minute.”

I was out of breath from the bike ride from the ranch and at the tail end of being stoned. I tried to blink an ordinary number of times, to present a blank face that would give her nothing.

“You’re getting so tan,” she said, lifting my arm, and I shrugged. She idly brushed the hair on my arm back and forth, then paused. There was an uncomfortable moment between us. It occurred to me: she’d finally caught on to the trickle of money that had been disappearing. The thought of her anger didn’t scare me. The act had been so preposterous that it took on the safety of the unreal. I’d almost started to believe that I had never really lived here, so strong was the feeling of disassociation as I crept through the house on my errands for Suzanne. My excavation of my mother’s underwear drawer, sifting through the tea-colored silks and pilly lace until I closed in on a roll of bills banded with a hair tie.

My mother furrowed her brows. “Listen,” she said. “Sal saw you out on Adobe Road this morning. Alone.”

I tried to keep my face blank, but I was relieved — it was just one of Sal’s bovine observations. I’d been telling my mother I’d been at Connie’s house. And I was still home some nights, trying to keep the balance in check.

“Sal said there’s some very strange people out there,” my mother said. “Some kind of mystic or something, but he sounds”—her face screwed up.

Of course — she would love Russell if he lived in a mansion in Marin, had gardenias floating in his pool, and charged rich women fifty dollars for an astrology reading. How transparent she seemed to me then, always on constant guard against anything lesser than, even as she opened the house up to anyone who smiled at her. To Frank and his shiny-buttoned shirts.

“I’ve never met him,” I said, my voice impassive. So my mother would know I was lying. The fact of the lie hovered there, and I watched her till for a response.

“I just wanted to warn you,” she said. “So you know that this guy is out there. I expect you and Connie to take care of each other, understand?”

I could see how badly she wanted to avoid a fight, how she strained for this middle ground. She’d warned me, so she had done what she was supposed to do. It meant she was still my mother. Let her feel this was true — I nodded and she relaxed. My mother’s hair was growing out. She was wearing a new tank top with knit straps, and the skin of her shoulders was loose, showing a tan line from a swimsuit — I had no idea when or where my mother had been swimming. How quickly we’d become strangers to each other, like nervous roommates encountering each other in the halls.

“Well,” she said.

I saw, for a moment, my old mother, the cast of weary love in her face, but it disappeared when her bracelets made a tinny sound, falling down her arms.

“There’s rice and miso in the fridge,” she said, and I made a noise in my throat like I might eat it, but we both knew I wouldn’t.

The police photos of Mitch’s house make it look cramped and spooky, as if destined for its fate. The fat splintered beams along the ceiling, the stone fireplace, its many levels and hallways, like something in the Escher lithographs Mitch collected from a gallery in Sausalito. The first time I encountered the house, I remember thinking it was as spare and empty as a coastal church. There was very little furniture, the big windows in the shape of chevrons. Herringbone floors, wide and shallow steps. From the front door, you could already see the black plane of bay spreading past the house, the dark, rocky bank. The houseboats knocking peaceably against each other, like cubes of ice.

Mitch poured us drinks while Suzanne opened his refrigerator. Humming a little song as she peered at the shelves. Making noises of approval or disapproval, lifting tinfoil off a bowl to sniff at something. I was in awe of her at moments like that. How boldly she acted in the world, in someone else’s house, and I watched our reflections wavering in the black windows, our hair loose on our shoulders. Here I was, in this famous man’s kitchen. The man whose music I’d heard on the radio. The bay out the door, shining like patent leather. And how glad I was to be there with Suzanne, who seemed to call these things into being.

—

Mitch had a meeting with Russell earlier that afternoon — I remember noticing it was strange that Mitch had been late for it. Two o’clock had passed, and we were still waiting for Mitch. I was silent, like they all were, the quiet between us expanding. A horsefly bit at my ankle. I didn’t want to shoo it away, conscious of Russell a few feet away, perched on his chair with his eyes closed. I could hear him humming under his breath. Russell had decided it would be best for Mitch to come upon him sitting there, his girls surrounding him, Guy at his side, the troubadour with his audience. He was ready to perform, guitar laid across his knees. His bare foot jiggling.

There was something in the way Russell was fingering the guitar, pressing silently on the strings — he was nervous in a way I didn’t know how to decipher yet. Russell didn’t look up when Helen started whispering to Donna, just a low whisper. Something about Mitch, probably, or some stupid thing Guy had said, but when Helen kept talking, Russell got to his feet. He took a moment to lay the guitar against his chair, pausing to make certain it was stable, then walked over swiftly and slapped Helen in the face.

She gave an involuntary yip, a strange burble of sound. Her wide-eyed hurt draining quickly into apology, blinking fast so the tears wouldn’t fall.

It was the first time I had ever seen Russell react that way, the cut of anger aimed at one of us. He couldn’t have hit her — the stupid blare of sun made that impossible, the hour of afternoon. The idea was too ludicrous. I looked around for confirmation of the frightening breach, but everyone was staring pointedly away or had arranged their faces into disapproving masks, like Helen had brought this on herself. Guy scratched behind an ear, sighing. Even Suzanne seemed bored by what had happened, like it was no different from a handshake. The vinegar in my throat, my sudden, despairing shock, seemed like a failing.

And soon enough, Russell was petting Helen’s hair, tightening her lopsided pigtails. Whispering something in her ear that made her smile and nod, like a goopy-eyed baby doll.

—

When Mitch finally showed up at the ranch, an hour late, he was bearing much-needed supplies: a cardboard flat of canned beans, some dried figs, and chocolate spread. Rock-hard Packham pears, individually wrapped in pink tissue paper. He let the kids clamber up his legs, though normally he shook them off.

“Hi, Russell,” Mitch said. A lace of sweat on his face.

“Long time no see, brother,” Russell said. He kept his grin steady, though he didn’t get up from his chair. “How goes the Great American Dream?”