3. Gilli
Gilli
B eing in front of a camera makes enemies.
I guess I thought I knew it all, going into the gig; I’d considered the scrutiny and the mental fuckery I’d face.
I did it anyway.
I thought I could handle the comments. People are always super brave when it comes to posting their personal opinions online, like the anonymity of a username gives them leeway to be complete dicks and steamroll over everyone else.
Or maybe they’re shitty to make up for their horrible lives.
“I should have taken the dude seriously from the start,” I grouse out loud.
There are a lot of things I should have done, I think as I pull up in front of the trailer at three o’clock in the morning, exhausted. No excuses .
Me and my ego, which doesn’t deserve to be inflated, assumed the poster was posturing, when I should have taken one look at the money and called the police immediately. Except the police may not take me seriously .
They aren’t going to do shit for me without concrete evidence.
Pulling to a stop, the engine clicks and I stare at the dented tin can where I’d grown up.
The dingy welcome mat packed with years of grime and dirt, from mine and my sisters’ sneakers, evaporates the last bits of moisture in my mouth.
The old place is a disaster and only waiting for a stiff breeze to blow over. Which was well and good until Ma came into money.
She married well.
For her, not for us.
Her new husband only had one kid on his own and decided he didn’t want to haul around a pack of screaming girls even if they came as a package deal with his new wife.
So Ma did what anyone would do—she enlisted my oldest sister Suzanne to watch us, while our father was on the road, and then took off for greener pastures and left us to rot in the shithole.
Claiming “Daddy will be back to watch you, be good until then.”
My bitterness mingles with a fresh wave of panic.
It’s only for tonight . One night to get some sleep and figure out my next move, to buy myself a little time. Time is one of those commodities that doesn’t care if you’re rich.
Inflating my lungs, I hold stale air inside me until I get my wits together enough to get out of the car. A cracked urn with dead flowers, like some kind of yard-sale Grecian relic, tilts haphazardly on one of the porch boards.
I stare at it, noting how the cracks have expanded their territory, and brush my fingers through cobwebs to get to the base. The key is underneath, ringed unmentionable filth, but when I lift it to the lock, the knob’s unlatched.
My heart thumps painfully against my ribs. Why the hell would the door be unlocked?
The porch light blasts on, retina-searing and blue hued, and black spots dance in front of my eyes before the door is wrenched open.
My father lets out a breath. “ Gillian .”
The passing years imposed more wrinkles, and a bald spot took up residence where I remember there being hair.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I blurt out.
His furry brows knit together as I gawk. “Neither are you.” But he thrusts the door open and holds it, stepping aside to give me space to go inside. “Sometimes I need to get the hell away from myself,” he calls after me.
I haven’t seen the man in years. He popped in and out of our lives before the divorce and once it finalized, the ax came down and severed whatever familial responsibilities Bill Kerrigan might have felt.
He devoted his life to the road and sent cards for Christmas, but never remembered our individual birthdays.
The trailer was in his name, I guess, otherwise he wouldn’t be around.
When I glance back, he’s running a hand through the slender strands of hair clinging desperately to the top of his head.
“I’m surprised you remembered the address,” I mutter.
He grunts out something adjacent to a laugh. “Just couldn’t remember where the key was hidden.”
“Seems your hearing is still as good as ever.”
My fingers clench around the strap of my shoulder bag, my stomach doing a free dive right into my toes. The air tenses in the room but Bill doesn’t seem to give a shit.
He pushes past me, our shoulders brushing in the tight space, and he drops his body into the recliner against the opposite wall. The television belches out some kind of joke that makes the stage audience hoot in laughter. His eyes are glued back to the screen.
I hadn’t seen the tv light from outside. Curtains hid the muted glow of the television .
“There are other places for you to go if you want to get away from yourself,” I tell him.
I should just leave. The trailer is there as a reminder of what we all fought to leave behind. Tonight, it was going to be my safe space and landing pad.
I hadn’t counted on it being infiltrated by the man who gave me daddy issues.
Fuck, not just daddy issues. I’ve got mommy issues too.
“Were you expecting someone else?” Bill asks with a hastily covered belch. “Your mom doesn’t come anymore.”
My lips round, exhaling slowly like air leaking from a balloon. “You have no idea what she does or doesn’t do.” And neither do I .
Her flimsy attempts to make amends with the kids she abandoned always fell flat. Being the untrustworthy bitch I am, I decided not answering her texts was the best course of action and she hasn’t been able to forgive me for my bad behavior.
“If you want to can the attitude, Gilli Girl, there’s beer in the fridge. You’re welcome to one.”
I drop my bag. “It’s three in the morning.” And please don’t call me that.
It’s like some quaint version of Sonny Boy.
Bill gave me the nickname “Gilli” in the first place. Gave me the ridiculous full name Gillian Kerrigan that left me with no choice but to adopt the nickname. The rhymes on the playground were obnoxious. And hurtful.
Despite the chill, the walls of the trailer hold in heat, and I’m sweating again. Rather than join Bill in his drinking, I head to the loveseat crammed beside the lounge chair and fall into the hole in the center of the cushion.
This was always Lorie’s seat, my younger sister. Suzanne took the chair, and I perched on the edge, too restless to stop moving for long.
For half a heartbeat, I consider telling Bill the truth about why I’m here .
He’ll be no help.
To say things are strained between us is an understatement.
“I’m gonna take the master bedroom if you wanted to crash,” Bill continues. “You don’t ask about me, I won't ask about you.”
“No paternal concern for my welfare?” I tease lightly.
He cuts me a sideways glance that ruffles his scruffy brows. “Should there be? Are you in trouble?”
I shake my head. “I have everything handled.”
“If you had it handled then you wouldn't come back.” He snorts at his own joke. “You’ve always been tough, Gilli Girl. You know how to handle yourself. Got that from me.” He belches again, louder now. “Kerrigans push through.”
Except I shouldn’t have had to “push through,” to be resilient all my life. My parents were both too selfish and caught up in their own failures and shortcomings to care about anyone else.
Sometimes I wonder if Ma had three kids just to create someone to love her. Luckily for her, she’d found the perfect partner in the selfish, cheating, Scrooge McDuck rich prick she ended up marrying her second go around.
I knew what had drawn her to my stepfather, I muse, casting my gaze toward the one picture of their wedding day she’d left us with. Bill had turned the frame down to avoid looking at it.
Alistair Savage shit big and spent with reckless abandon.
And Honey Kerrigan could suck the chrome off a truck bumper.
Boom. Match made in heaven.
Bill tracks my gaze to the frame and his expression sours. He buries his disdain in a long swig of beer. “You hear from her at all?” he presses.
“Nah. We don’t get along.”
“Last I heard, she and Richie Rich took off to Fiji. Looking at houses or some shit.” Bill snorts, the sound ending on a yeasty hiccup. “Bullshit, if you ask me. Especially since his kid’s in real estate.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I whisper.
“Don’t they have enough houses? Lake Tahoe, Schenectady, and a shitty little fishing cabin in Bumfuckville, Jersey.” Bill’s bitterness is on display the same as his alcohol gut.
I force myself to shrug. If I’m this uncomfortable, I really should leave. There’s no reason to stick around because there is definitely no room to think about my next steps with Bill present.
For some reason, I stay. Not settled; I’m on the edge of the couch cushion with my knees bobbing like I’m five again.
“How do you know about their houses? Are you keeping track of her?” I ask.
It was more interest than he’d ever shown his daughters.
What would he think of my side hustle? My sisters don’t know. My coworkers are oblivious.
There’s only me and my secrets.
“I follow the son on Instagram. Hotshot real estate agent, or broker, or something.”
I turn to Bill with my jaw seconds away from dropping. “How do you know about Instagram?”
Christ, does my dad have an actual social media following?
Bill’s laugh is the sound of two wet stones grinding together and his belly shakes with the movement. “I’m not completely ignorant, or helpless, you know. The boys at the shop got me on there. Helped me follow certain…influencers.”
Ugh, yuck. “And my stepbrother is one of those influencers?”
I haven’t thought about Soren for years.
Not like we got along. Or spent much time together in the past. He’s closer to Suzanne’s age than to mine, and I remember the wedding where he hung out with his buddies and they all looked down their noses at me.
The hoity-toity, ivy league-educated, holier-than-thou types. They had matching pocket squares.
I push my glasses up my nose, eyes burning with a combination of exhaustion and rancor.
“Got himself over twenty thousand followers,” Bill added.
“Hearing you talk about those things is throwing me for a loop.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
None of this is helping. None of this is going to get me out of my current circumstances.
Bill gets me thinking about things better left in the past. Soren certainly never wanted anything to do with me and my sisters, just like his father. Just like Ma.
In response, Bill belches out an off key rhythm like that Aerosmith song. “Then go to bed. I won’t bother you. Unless you want to catch the end of Whose Line Is It Anyway ?”
I push myself off the couch. “It’s a rerun.”
The twisting track of my gut has resulted in complicated knots. On my way to the old room we girls shared, I pause to lift the wedding picture and stand it up straight.
Honey and Alistair gaze longingly into each other’s eyes, with her ginormous diamond ring the center focus of the shot.
The photographer took a shit ton of pictures of the “family” together but those weren’t important enough to frame. Only this one.
“Dick move, Gilli.” Bill’s voice haunts me down the hall.
The first door on the left is the bathroom, squeezed beside a toast-sized kitchen. Mom’s room had been at the end, and the three of us were in bunk beds in the second room.
A stale scent of dust, old lemon cleaner, and forgotten laundry gusts out from the doorway when I push it open. Yeah, I’m not getting any sleep tonight .
I drop face first onto my old mattress. The agony in my head is at explosion levels, accompanied by a symphony of pain from my feet and the broken fingernail.
The trailer is temporary, just for tonight, I tell myself, but where to go next?
I don’t want to leave a trail anyone can follow, and this guy is clearly good at sniffing out personal information. If anyone else falls under scrutiny because I fucked up, I’ll never forgive myself.
He found my apartment, so he’ll find the trailer. He’ll find my work. Unless the whole thing is unrelated.
Stupid bitch .
I groan against the nasty voice in my head.
You need to find a hole to hide in for a while .
There’s no way I can tell my work the truth, either. They’ll get a call in the morning to apologize for not showing up but that’s the most I can do.
They’ll fire me, I’m sure, and I’ll lose whatever forward motion I made with the vet. Even the good relationships I’ve got with my coworkers won’t be enough to save my ass if I come back.
When I come back.
The quagmire is temporary. It’s what Suzanne always told us on those long nights alone. The quagmire is temporary, but survival is lifelong.
I flop onto my back and stare at the rungs of the top bunk. Ma’s in Fiji, huh?
Lake Tahoe is a long drive. Too far to trust my rust-bucket car to get me there safely.
But the fishing cabin in Jersey… I remember it, kinda. At least I’ve seen pictures of it before.
I’ve got as much right to go there as anyone else, if the blanket invitation from the wedding still stands.
What’s mine is yours , Alistair had promised us with a grandiose chest puff. Anything you want .
Seemed like a dream come true at the time. Things pretty much fell flat after that. He had his family: his new wife and his golden-boy son.
We didn’t fit.
The cabin should be empty, though. Alistair only used it to fish, unless things have changed in the last eight years.
They’re on vacation in Fij i.
And I can find the address.
I sit up quickly enough to slam my head against the upper bunk. I need to get out of town quickly and go somewhere private. The cabin is sitting there unused and empty.
Holy fuck. Did I just solve my problem?
Sinking back down, I force myself to smile. Because even though it’s an option, I know well enough to understand problems are not easily solved.
Even with the best escape routes.