Chapter Two
Two
A pickup truck isn’t the most practical choice for a city driver, but it’s easy to spot in the parking lot.
The storm-blue double cab was one of Dad’s last splurges, and his scent still clings to the leather interior—dive bars and Parliaments.
I try to trap it in my lungs as I start up the truck, flinching at the time glowing back at me.
Mom is likely stapling LOST DAUGHTER posters around the neighborhood by now, but our visit feels suddenly impossible given the emotional bullet train I’ve just stumbled off.
I’m still deciding on my destination when another text from Mom sinks my stomach like an enemy ship. She’s asking for my ETA. Shit.
I give myself until the first red light to make up my mind and give Mom a call. It goes to voicemail, and as instructed, I leave a message after the beep.
“Hey, Mom, it’s me, I was jus—oh wait, hang on, you’re calling me back, bye.” I switch the line over. “Hello?”
“Hi, sorry, I was dealing with the pharmacy. They’ve been threatening me over your father’s prescriptions.”
My heart skips. “What? The pharmacy is threatening you?”
“Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration,” Mom admits, and my nerves dial back. “The automated texts just keep getting more aggressive, and…these aren’t the things they warn you about, Alice.”
This has become Mom’s catch phrase—not just since Dad died, but since his health took a turn.
These aren’t the things they warn you about, she’s said again and again, from when Dad first stopped being able to brush his own teeth to when they asked us how many death certificates we wanted, and now, battling the autorefills of the deceased—Mom has always insisted that, when they teach you about death, they never mention these strange little miseries.
If she weren’t still mourning her dead husband, I might ask who “they” are and what “they” did teach her that prepared her for this mess.
A car horn blares, and I swerve back into the lane I didn’t realize I’d drifted out of. A close call, compliments of my recurring daydream about a world where we all receive copies of What to Expect When You’re Expecting Your Dad to Die.
“Are you driving?” Mom sounds worried but chirpier when she asks, “You’re headed over then?”
My stomach feels wadded up, just like the last three or four times I’ve had to cancel on Mom. “I’m sorry,” I sigh. “I know you don’t want to hear excuses, but Gin went missing for an hour at this party, and it was a whole thing that kept me late, and I have work tomorrow, and—”
“I gotcha,” Mom interrupts, and I can hear the effort she’s putting into sounding unbothered, but the tremor in her voice gives her away. She’s sad. Of course she’s sad, and I feel like an asshole for being the reason.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. Not that it means much anymore. We’re well into May, and I haven’t visited since Christmas.
Mom is quick to change topics, and it’s a relief. She peppers me with questions about the engagement party, then about the wedding once I tell her I’m a bridesmaid. It’s not long before what’s left of my social battery flashes red.
“I should let you go,” I tell her. “I’m just about home.” It’s as true as I need it to be.
“All right, well, text me when you get there so I know you’re safe,” Mom says. “And please come see us soon, okay?”
“For sure,” I choke out, my voice as thin and flimsy as a wet party streamer. Come see us, she said. Us. As in her and Dad. There is no us anymore, but I don’t correct her. It’s not like she could ever forget.
I’m about to say goodbye when Mom tacks on, “And when you have a minute, we need to carve out some time to get out to Galena.”
It takes all my self-control not to slam on the brakes. “So there’s an update on the house?”
“Sort of.” Mom coughs.
“Well?”
“Well, I was going to tell you this over dinner, but The Handful is planning a memorial concert at the Galena Playhouse for your father’s Gone Day.”
That’s the term Mom and I went with for our new least favorite holiday. I personally liked deathiversary, and I think Dad would have, too. I can almost hear his gruff, booming voice, arguing, I’m not just gone, you idiots! I’m dead!
“A memorial concert,” I echo.
In a cautious voice, Mom adds, “It’s where they’re kicking off their tour.”
Their tour. Every molecule of oxygen disappears from my lungs.
“Alice? Are you there?” Mom asks, and I find a breath. Dive bars and Parliaments.
“So they, uh…they found a new lead singer?”
“Seems like it, yes,” Mom says.
My fingernails dig into the steering wheel leather.
I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew it was inevitable.
The band was—and is—far bigger than just my dad.
So long as there are bills to pay and fans buying tickets, it’s only logical that the show goes on.
But logic can’t fix a feeling, and when I picture The Handful taking the stage with a replacement Ricky Pierce, it feels like a bent nail is being hammered into my chest.
“We should go,” Mom says after who knows how long of a silence. We should go. Not I want us to go. Not Will you go? Should. It’s the right thing to do.
“Yup,” I choke out. “We should go.”
There’s relief in Mom’s voice. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
Glad. I shiver. I want to be glad, too. I guess I am, deep beneath all the heartbreak.
I’m glad that the band is honoring Dad in a place that meant so much to him.
To all of us. Joy and grief are two thin gold chains running down my spine, tangled in an impossible knot right where my shoulder blades meet the driver’s seat.
“Well, check your schedule when you get home,” Mom says. “The show is the Thursday before Labor Day weekend. Maybe we could go up earlier that week to get the house in order before the band stays there.”
By which she means we need to make room for Dad’s replacement.
“Alice? You there?”
“Y-yeah,” I stammer. “Sorry. I’ll check the dates.” I blow out a long, leveling breath. “But is there, like…is there an update on the house? The legal stuff?”
To my dismay, Mom feeds me the same old line. “The attorneys are still working on it.”
I picture a group of strangers in suits huddled around a single sheet of paper for months, working it out like a word problem: If Richard Pierce is part owner of The Handful Group LLC, containing a half dozen subsidiary companies, one of which owns the Outpost, then what the hell happens when Richard Pierce no longer exists?
I pull off the highway, and Mom and I say our goodbyes, then swap I love yous before ending the call.
The parks along the lakeshore are a peaceful stretch of green, breaking up the concrete with baseball fields and gardens, and I roll down the windows just enough to breathe in the spring breeze off the lake.
I love Chicago, but some of my favorite places in this city are the ones that make me forget I’m in a city at all: the urban forests and parks and less touristy stretches of lakeshore, places where I can find a little quiet.
At home, I peel out of Gin’s gunshot-wound dress and slip back into last night’s pajamas, which wait in a heap on my bathroom floor.
The sun hasn’t even set, but I get ready for bed anyway, then crack a window, compromising the silence for a little fresh air.
In spills the soundtrack of the neighborhood: The L rattles down its track.
A woman yells her half of a phone call. In the distance, a car alarm has either just started or else has been blaring for hours.
I don’t often mind the noise of the city, but when I’m fresh off the suburbs, I feel stuck inside the sound.
While last night’s pasta reheats, I cross-check my phone calendar with the paper calendar on my fridge, like I told Mom I would.
August has a big empty stretch of days leading up to Dad’s Gone Day, so I have no excuse.
It looks like I’ll be joining Mom to clean out the Outpost, and I’ll be dreading it every second until then.
I envisioned myself returning to Galena on my own terms, however felt right to me—but life has hardly ever played out the way I envision it.
I bring my pasta to the couch and browse the photos Gin has tagged me in from today.
Among them is the bridesmaids’ selfie: In it, three out of four of us rock big toothy grins—say Rishi!
—but my gaze pulls toward Renee, whose soft closed-lipped smile bridges smug with seductive.
My teeth lock together, grinding my first bite of rotini to a paste.
Of course she just had to be different, didn’t she?
Or maybe I’m just a little raw on the subject of Renee Roberts.
I sigh and tap my thumb, summoning a dark-gray bubble over each of our faces, each with a tagged account: mine, Chrissy’s, and Renee’s.
I’m surprised Renee hasn’t blocked me or abandoned social media for a superior hobby like reading personal-development books to orphaned kittens.
I thumb open her profile, which is public, thank God, and set my hardly touched plate on the coffee table, tucking my legs beneath me.
@TheReneeRob has a pretty bare-bones account.
Her bio is plain, just two emojis: the comedy and tragedy masks and the red heart.
Of the half dozen posts on her grid, the most recent is from her work holiday party with the caption “Merry, Bright, and Blomquist.” I swipe through several group photos before I land on a solo shot, and it hits like a shot of good tequila, sending a hot, buzzy burn down my throat.
Renee’s bloodred satin dress hugs every delicious curve of her hips and the neckline dips to tease an irresistible shadow of cleavage.
With her blond Hollywood waves and wintry blue eyes locked on the camera, she’s a real-life siren.
How could one person be so mean and so hot?
I swipe one last time, and in the final photo, Renee is joined by a living Ken doll in a charcoal suit.
They’re side by side, each with one arm tucked behind the other’s back in a way that provides no hard evidence about the nature of their relationship.
Not that I care. I tap the picture once, then again, hoping his account will solve the question of Siblings or dating?
Instead, a pink heart bubbles up from the bottom of the photo.
“Shit!”
My pulse takes off like a rocket, matching the speed of my phone as I lob it across the room. It lands with a stuttering th-thud on the living room rug, the sound of me hammering the final nail into my own coffin. Shit shit shit. I just Liked Renee’s photo from five months ago.
My brain blue screens, and when I scramble to retrieve my phone, I know there’s only one reasonable thing to do: I hit the follow button, then close the app altogether, waiting for my heart rate to agree that this is totally fine and normal.
It is normal, right? To follow someone and also like their most recent picture?
I guess it’d probably be more normal had I done those two things in the reverse order, but maybe Renee won’t notice.
Or maybe she will. Maybe she’s texting Gin separately right now, asking What the hell is up with your ex? And maybe I’m overthinking all of this.
I abandon my phone on the charger, cutting myself off from my screens and worst-case scenarios, apart from one final check before bed. My only new notification is an email from Renee, and I wheeze a disbelieving laugh at the subject line.
FROM: Renee Roberts
TO: Christina Amato, Alice Pierce
SUBJECT: Bachelorette Party Survey—Please complete ASAP.
Good evening, fellow bridesmaids! I’ve put together a questionnaire regarding Gin’s bachelorette party. I’ve planned quite a few of these bachelorette trips, and the sooner you fill out the questionnaire, the sooner I can start planning!
Thanks in advance.
XO, Renee
“God, this girl is doing the most,” I say to my audience of none. My throat squeezes tight. Would that I could text my dad. I swipe open our long-inactive text thread and treat myself to a few old messages, putting my heart on a spin cycle; then I open my Notes app and begin to type.
Hey Dad. Hope you’re good, wherever you are. Quick question: What would you do if you really couldn’t stand one of your bandmates?
I know he won’t respond, but the empty space feels like he just might. Sometimes it’s nice to pretend.