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could happen to us that money couldn’t
fix, so no one paid attention.
    I had no self-control at that point. I
was a loose cannon of temperamental fits, drunken rages, and risky behavior.
The last incident had been driving my father’s new Maserati into South Gate to
drag my friend Gordon out of a meth house. I’d thrown him into the driver’s
side and hit the gas from the passenger’s side to wake his sorry ass out of a
stupor. We’d sideswiped his dealer’s Escalade, four-thousand-dollars’ worth,
and in the end, Gordon had gone right back to using, but my addiction to nearly
dying had been sated for a month, at least.
    Then, the week before Christmas,
Sheila’s birthday. Los Angles had already had twenty-two inches of rain since
school started. There was a rumor Death Valley would have a once-in-a-lifetime
bloom, come spring. My friends and I were planning a road trip in Charles’s
Hummer just to mow our path over fields of poppies.
    I was drunk already, bullshitting with
my cousin Arthur over which Ivy League schools we were going to stroll into.
Which had the best clubs, where the legacies were. Arthur was a douchebag. The
last time I’d driven down Sunset with him, he leaned out of his BMW to make
some noise at a girl, which was bad enough. But when she flipped him the bird
he shouted, “Man, I bet there’s some guy out there so tired of fucking you.”
    “Arthur, really?” I felt like getting
out and apologizing to her, but the light turned green and we were gone.
    “What, Jon? Look at her. All legs and
shit. Fuck her.”
    That was the last time I went out with
Arthur. But at a family party, as long as we kept to schools and baseball, I
could hold a conversation with him.
    Sheila’s party graduated from family
thing to some kind of pre-Christmas fuckall event,
and the kitchen got crowded. I was less and less inclined to move. People I
knew came in and out, most not related to me at that point, and aunts and
uncles kissed me goodbye and left.
    I don’t even know what I was drinking. A
bong went around. It was lead crystal and totally illegal, even if the bud
wasn’t, and the liquid inside was chartreuse absinthe.
    Just because.
    The movement of the party shifted down
the hall, through the library and into the living room, where I saw my father
was still there.
    And Rachel had shown up.
    ***
    Was
there ever something you wanted, but could only wish for, Jonathan?
    I
wish I wasn’t raised by crazy people.
    Something
for the future. That you want, but don’t think you’ll get.
    Yes,
I—
    Don’t
tell me. That’ll ruin it.
    ***
    Jessica was nowhere to be found. She
didn’t answer my texts or calls. Margie, who had taken her out for the “girl
thing” with three other sisters, said my fiancé had left the spa in her
Mercedes the hour before.
    “Did she have an accident?”
    “I don’t know little brother,” Margie
said, grabbing a glass of wine before the first guest arrived. “She seemed
fine. The usual.”
    “What does that mean?” I felt a stab of
anger. Seven sisters. A couple were bound to dislike my wife.
    “Charming and polite. Warm, even. But
not.”
    “Howdy!” Leanne came across the empty
backyard, grabbing a glass as soon as the bartender poured it. The emerald of
her dress brought out the fire engine in her hair. “You should see Jess’s nails.
She got a French with an airbrush. So cute.”
    “Did you see her out front?” I asked.
    “Nope. Are those the cufflinks you’re
wearing?” Leanne fixed the flowers in her hair by the reflection in the window.
She wanted to make clothes, so Dad had bought her a factory. Another
money-losing proposition. Next to Deirdre, the still devout, chronically
depressed Irish poet, she was the most creative in the family.
    “No,” I said. “I just wore these to
offend you.”
    “He wants to know how Jessica looked.”
Margie said.
    “Cool and collected. She’s a rock, you
know.” Leanne squeezed my cheeks. “You did good.”
    Leanne,