That girl is eating her fries in clusters of three. Just like Chris does.
It was disgusting, and the carpet began to puff up in brick-brown shame. I was such a hopeless freak. Introducing new Crush Nikki!* A Confused Asshole Doll with Trust Issues. *Understanding and kindness not included.
After what seemed like forever, Dad finally disappeared into his bedroom, and a few minutes later, I heard the shower turn on. I bolted from the couch to his office.
Tomato, tomato, tomato.
Eleven.
The number that never was.
I lowered myself to the floor and scooted on my belly under Dad’s desk until I could reach the black box. A part of me was surprised it was still there. Things had a way of disappearing—or dying—the minute I got a handle on them. I spun the dial.
Problem.
Eleven was one number. A tomatoey, juicy, delicious number, but still. One number.
Maybe if I split it up. Brown, brown. 1-1. Nope, I still needed a third number. I tried a third 1. The box didn’t open. Damn it. I put a zero in front of the eleven. Still nothing.
I heard the pipe rattle of Dad turning the shower off. Shit. Now I had to really move. Think, Nikki, think. Honeydew nagged at the back of my mind.
Ten. Of course. Ten. The player had murdered ten, but was working on eleven. What if the number was a combination of those two?
I tried 1-0-1. Still the damn box wouldn’t budge.
1-1-0. Nothing.
I spun the dial three times, thinking hard to remember what Barb had said about the movie. Eleven on his jersey. Ten people dead. Trying to catch him before he makes it eleven.
I dialed 11, spun to 10, and then back to 11.
It opened.
At first I just lay there staring in stunned silence. Then I almost cried out, I was so excited, but I could hear Dad’s footsteps upstairs as he dried off and got dressed. No time for celebration.
I reached into the box and pulled out . . . papers. No, not papers. Envelopes. A whole stack of them. I held up the first one. It was to my mother. From B. Carter.
Letters? Why would Dad lock up letters? Why would he even keep them in the first place?
I started to pull the letter out of the envelope but heard Dad’s footsteps hit the stairs.
“Nikki?” he called.
Jesus. Leave for one night and you become a prisoner. I stuffed the partially opened letter back into its envelope, shut the box and spun the dial to lock it again, gathered all the envelopes together, and stood. I had barely gotten back on my feet when Dad poked his head in the doorway. I was holding the letters behind my back.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked.
I smiled, trying to come off as nonchalant—my least believable act. “Looking for a pen,” I said.
“A pen,” he repeated, looking unconvinced. “For . . . ?”
“Does it matter?” I rolled my eyes. My fingers shook on the envelopes. “God. Okay, I was thinking about filling out some job applications. I didn’t want to tell you because you get all up in my business about it.” Fortunately, Dad was old-school enough to believe that filling out job applications was something you still did with a pen and paper.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he muttered. But he moved toward the desk anyway. I sidestepped out of his way, and while he was busy opening and fumbling around in drawers, I slipped the letters into my waistband, then pulled my shirt over them to conceal them. Finally, he handed me a pen. I smiled thinly.
“Thanks. Maybe a little faith in me next time?”
“I always have faith in you,” he said. “It’s you who doesn’t have faith in you.”
Ouch. That was a little too close to home.
Not true, I thought. It’s you I don’t have faith in anymore, Dad. That one was even closer.
I backed out of the room and hurried upstairs. I was halfway up when Dad called my name. I froze, my hand involuntarily going to the back of my shirt to make sure the letters weren’t peeking out. They weren’t; he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding the remote and the half-empty bowl of popcorn. “I just cleaned,” he said. “You could at least pick up after yourself.”
“Sorry,” I said, relieved. “I forgot.”
He grumbled and turned back to the living room. I heard the TV snap off as I hustled my way to my room, locked the door, and flopped belly-first down on my bed.
I had some reading to do.
21
Dear Carrie,
I was both happy and sad to hear from you this weekend. Happy because it’s been too long and I missed you. Sad because of what your letter told me. He has sucked you back in. I would say I don’t know how, but I guess that would be wrong. I do know how. He is who he is. Nobody says no to him. Well, nobody says no to him without paying for it, anyway.
Maybe there is a way for you to get out. It can’t be as bleak as it seems.
Come to Oildale. I have found a wonderful church home. You could live with me. You and Milo and little Nikki. We could be a family. I know it’s not impossible to get out, because I did it, Carrie.
Think about it. Please?
B
I had opened all the letters and ordered them according to their postmarks. There had been many of them, over a period of about six months. I wasn’t able to understand everything they talked about—it would have been really helpful if I’d had Mom’s letters to Brandi, too—but I was able to piece together a few things.
Mom had reached out to Brandi. She’d confided in her about going back to Hollywood Dreams. She’d felt trapped. Brandi had offered her a way out, but it wasn’t until she was pregnant and had nowhere else to go that she finally took Brandi up on her offer.
What Bill Hollis had over Mom was a bit of a mystery. But by reading Brandi’s letters, it became clearer what Mom had done.
Dear Carrie,
Yes, I heard about the fire. I had no idea, honey. I’m so sorry. Accidents happen, and you can’t take all the blame for that. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t drop the spotlight. You didn’t leave the props lying around. It is a shame—although not at all surprising—that he is using the accident as a way to get you back into the business.
You don’t have to do this. You have Milo and little Nikki to think of. What can he really do to you if you just refuse? Surely you’re not worried about him ruining your film career. With the failure of Eleven, it seems that it’s already been ruined. I hate to say that, but I’m afraid you need truth right now. And the truth is, that man isn’t your key to salvation.
You know who is.
Come see me.
B
I read them all. Every sentence begging Mom to come to Oildale. Begging Mom to get out of Hollywood Dreams. Begging Mom to get away from Bill Hollis before she ended up broken or dead.
Begging Mom to think—just, please, think—about Milo and Nikki. She was supposed to love us. She was getting seduced by Hollis power. She was too scared to see her way out. Brandi offered her a way out, over and over and over again.
And she chose to stay.
Why?
I found a letter dated about four months before Peyton’s birthday.
Dear Carrie,
Thank you for meeting me for lunch. It was so great to see you! Little Dru absolutely loves the race car you brought him.
I paused, touching the word Dru. Imagining him as a two-year-old sitting on my mother’s lap—another link between us—chewing on his fingers. Imagining him sitting on the floor of Brandi’s trailer, pushing Hot Wheels around the floor, making zooming noises. If he had been allowed to stay with Brandi, what would have been different? Would we have still crossed paths? Would there have been something more there?
I read on.