“Great. Long and involved.” I slid out the contents. Eight and a half by eleven printed pages, stapled. About twenty pages, pure text. Double-spaced with wide margins. Markings all over it in red pencil. Lines. Scribblings. Hash marks. Slashes. Across the top: Lloyd Willman/Evert Toth, ed.
“It looks like someone’s term paper.”
He looked over my shoulder. “I think the ed. means editor. My first assumption was that it was a newspaper article.”
“Fan-freaking-tastic.”
“And unpublished, looks like. Or it wouldn’t look like something someone handed in for eleventh grade finals. My sister was a scary girl. I think digging dirt on people was more fun for her than actually trying to get them to sign her.”
“When do you have to leave?” I asked.
“Fifteen minutes.”
I threw myself on the couch. I flipped through. All words and marks. I looked up at Darren, who was wiping down the counter. I cleared my throat.
He didn’t look up when he said, “You’re stalling.”
“Why would I stall?”
“You tell me.”
I had a hundred answers.
Because I know half-truths and pieces of a story.
Because I’m committed to a man who is still a mystery to me.
Because I love him, and I will stand by him, no matter what the papers say.
Because Jonathan lies.
So I didn’t answer but tilted my head down and read.
Chapter 8.
The star of the article was the rain.
There had been a winter of storms. I was nine. Dad was away, as usual. Christmas sucked because we were broke and the crawlspace flooded. Pebbles from the driveway of what became the Montessori school came in on a tide of floodwater, pecking the north side of the house for hours.
I hadn’t done the math before. Why would I? Why would I remind myself that I was in third grade when he was busy having sex and falling in love? But that was the year I learned multiplication and long division and the year Jonathan lost Rachel.
The story wasn’t much different than I’d imagined. A party had started out as a family affair for Sheila Drazen, and it became wilder and more drug-infused once the adults left and the kids arrived. The police found a bong containing chartreuse absinthe, the remnants of White Widow bud, and sixteen-year-old Jonathan S. Drazen III’s DNA.
What happened after was the stuff of police procedurals, but according to witnesses, Jonathan argued with his girlfriend, Rachel Demarest. She grabbed his keys and ran into the rain. Everyone assumed she was keeping his f**ked-up ass from driving. The next morning, Jonathan was found passed out on the muddy front lawn of a house a quarter mile off, and his waterlogged car was found on the beach three miles south with no girlfriend in it. A day and a half later, he was committed to Westonwood after an almost successful suicide attempt. It wasn’t a half-hearted cry for help; he did almost die of heart failure.
Three months in Westonwood. The place was known for its lockdown: no phone, no radio. Nothing. A prison for the rich and disturbed.
But while he was away, his world was not quiet. What had happened during the rains had rippled outward in those months, and the Drazens had deflected and shrouded all of it.
Rachel’s body wasn’t found, and her death dissolved an already troubled family. The police had been to the Demarest house for over a dozen domestic disturbances over six years. Neighbors told stories of sexual abuse by her biological father, and near constant yelling and fighting after her stepdad moved in. Rachel had found solace in her classmate Theresa, who opened the Drazen home to her for study.
In the months before the accident, according to Rachel’s mother, Rachel started coming home with gifts. Pearl earrings. Gold bracelet. A new laptop. She became closed and distant. When police questioned Mrs. Demarest about the gifts, she threw around accusations. She didn’t believe her daughter had had an accident. She wanted the matter looked into because Rachel had been intonating that the Drazen family wasn’t all they were cracked up to be. She called the LA Times, who interviewed her and dismissed her as a crackpot, and the LA Voice, which seemed to be the paper the article was written for.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She called everything off and became non-responsive to further investigation. No interviews, and only the required police depositions, which she attended with a very expensive lawyer.
The Demarests had been paid off, that much was clear, and the article ended right there, mid-sentence.
“What the f**k?” I said. “Even this thing is half a f**king story.”
Darren stepped into his shoe. “What’s it say?”
“His girlfriend from sixteen years ago died under suspicious circumstances, and the family paid off anyone associated with it. Or got them fired. For all I know, the rest of the article is about who they killed.”
“You gonna tell him?”
I slid the papers back in the envelope. “How can I? I don’t know if any of this is true. It could be someone’s idea of a short story. He’s got enough shit going on without me coming to him with this....this.... I don’t even know what this is.”
“Gabby’s causing trouble from the grave.” He shrugged on his jacket. “I like that.”
“You would. Can I use your computer? I want to look up some of this.”
“Yeah. Not that I care, but will you be here when I get back? You look like you got your walking shoes on.”
“I’m going home today.” I glanced at my pile of crap, wondering if I could make it on one trip.
“I’m thinking about Gabby’s room.”
“Move in.”
“Did you ask?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ll ask daddy if it’s ok if a boy lives with me.”
I thought that was hilarious. Darren didn’t.
Chapter 9.
The all-knowing internet revealed a big fat goose egg, but I was never much of a researcher. I did find Evert Toth, who had a masthead listing as managing editor of elLAy Rag, a local left-wing free paper picked up in coffee shops all over the city. Though one might assume such a paper was trash from front to p**n -filled back, it wasn’t. Some of the biggest exposes, blown whistles, and no-bullshit journalism happened inside. I called the paper, got routed all over the place, and finally ended up on voice mail. I left a message.
I walked home, phone in hand, unwilling to put it in my pocket. I had something else to do. Someone else to call.
I was many things. I was submissive. I was masochistic. I was trusting. I was a sexual slave. But obedient?