Chapter 1 Nicola #2
My eyes snap open, and I check the clock on the dashboard.
3:15. I twist the key, and the engine rumbles to life.
The cars are packed bumper to bumper. I shrink lower in my seat, certain everyone’s staring at me.
That they’re all thinking the same thing Mrs. Walsh and Ms. Camus were: that I’m the reason those girls are dead.
That I’m the reason Claire’s dead.
My bones start itching under my skin. I can’t stay here. As soon as an SUV inches forward, my foot presses down on the accelerator, and my car speeds toward the pickup line.
A little girl darts into my sightline.
I slam down on the brakes.
I sit there, breath sticking in my chest, as I watch Ava, brand-new markers clutched in her hand, pause in front of my bumper, completely unaware of the fact that I was only half a second away from hitting her.
Her mother, however, knows very well what just happened.
She stalks up to my car and slams her palm against the hood. “What are you—”
She glares at me through the windshield. When she realizes who I am, all the color drains from her face. “You!” she shouts and turns toward our principal, who’s standing next to the entrance. “Are you going to let her get away with this? She almost killed my daughter!”
The principal hurries down the stairs and takes her elbow, gently steering her back onto the sidewalk with words and gestures that appear conciliatory. Ava follows her mother, but when she catches sight of me behind the steering wheel, she brightens and gives a little wave.
My hand drifts up and gives half a wave back.
I glance out the passenger-side window to find all the cameras aimed at the scene.
I don’t even want to think about what headlines are being uploaded to their websites.
I inch forward, trapped between two gigantic SUVs, and try to ignore all the parents scowling at me.
“Move faster,” I mutter as a father points in my direction, then takes a few aggressive steps forward. “Move faster. Move faster.”
Another parent holds him back as I crawl past, closer to the gates.
The news vans are stuck behind the pickup line, just like I’d hoped.
When my car crosses the border between the parking lot and the street, a round of applause erupts behind me.
This is how my teaching career ends: with parents so glad to see me gone, they give my dismissal a standing ovation.
My eyes sting, and the street blurs behind my tears.
Muscle memory guides me into the parking lot of Main Liquor Store—thankfully empty this early in the afternoon.
I check to make sure the news vans haven’t caught up, but the road’s empty in both directions.
Inside, reusable shopping bags in hand, I hurry past the humming coolers to the boxed wine at the back of the store.
I have no idea when I’ll next be able to get out here, which means I need to buy in bulk.
I start packing boxes into my shopping bags, shifting them like we’re in a game of Tetris.
When both bags are stuffed to the brim, I haul them up onto one shoulder and head for the register.
The cashier’s unfamiliar; he must be a new hire.
“Hey,” I say, unloading my purchases onto the counter.
I feel the need to cushion the sheer amount of wine with, “Hosting a party tonight.” I offer the cashier a half-smile; he doesn’t smile back.
Removing my driver’s license and credit card from my wallet, I slide them across the counter. Still no news vans outside. Good.
I turn back to the cashier. My license and credit card lay, untouched, on the counter.
A horrible sinking feeling settles in my stomach. “I’d like to buy those, please.”
The cashier doesn’t move.
“Is there something wrong with my card?” I grab my credit card and check the expiration date on the back, even though I know it’s still valid.
The cashier doesn’t move.
My throat tightens, but I push my emotions down as far as they can go and say, “I’m sure you already know this, but I’m having a really, really bad month.
A really bad year, actually. So, if you could please just let me make my purchase.
” I place both palms on the counter and lean forward. “I’d really appreciate it.”
“Lady,” the cashier says. “You need to back right the fuck up, or I’m calling the cops.”
I quickly step away from the counter. Taking out my phone, I total up the cost of the wine.
A little under two hundred dollars. I retreat to the ATM in the corner of the store and, with shaking fingers, withdraw the money.
Then I toss it onto the counter and repack the bags.
I consider leaving with a flippant “Keep the change,” but I don’t know if I can get the words out without cracking into sobs.
So instead, I shuffle out of the store, head bowed low.
When I reach my street, news vans are parked up and down the block.
Reporters huddle outside my house, sipping from thermoses, waiting for me to pull into my driveway.
I consider speeding away, bunking down in the lot outside an anonymous big-box store, and pulling out the spigot on one of these boxes of wine.
But it’s not like the vans are going to have disappeared by tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that.
It’ll just be putting off the inevitable. Better to be safe inside my own home.
A reporter notices my approaching car, and within seconds, they’re jogging alongside me, lobbing questions at the closed windows.
I try to ignore them as I pull into the driveway.
Within seconds, they’ve surrounded the car—a barricade of boxy camera lenses blocking out the sunlight.
I draw my shopping bags onto my shoulder and, with a deep breath, step onto the pavement.
The shouts immediately overwhelm me. “Ms. Fischer! Ms. Fischer!” The front door seems so far away. I hurry up the sidewalk, questions scrabbling at my back. “Do you have anything to say to Greer Woods?”
I fumble the key into the lock, but it jams.
“Is it true you tried to impede the investigation?”
I press my palm against the door, pull the key out, try again.
“Have you been contacted by the Tenenbaums?”
The doorknob turns, and I lurch into the foyer, slamming the door behind me. I drop the shopping bags; flattening my back against the wall, I sink into a crouch. Have you been contacted by the Tenenbaums? Screw them. Screw all of them.
My gaze catches on the envelopes scattered across the floor, at all the red ink: PAST DUE, FINAL NOTICE.
I hadn’t known about the second mortgage against our house, not until after the arrest, or the loans owed by our family’s hardware store.
When the bills started skidding through our mail slot every afternoon, it had been stressful but manageable—as long as I kept my teaching job.
Famous last words.
I gather up the envelopes and toss them onto the sideboard.
I can’t look at them, not today. I grab a mug out of the kitchen sink—one that reads NOT PAINT WATER, a birthday present from my dad—and crack open a box of wine.
As the Moscato flows into the cup, it’s like the stress ebbs out of me.
This—this is the one thing I still have control over. How drunk I can get in a single night.
And tonight, I’m going to get very, very drunk.
I slump onto the living room couch and, against my better judgment, open up social media. It only takes a few seconds of scrolling to reach the first video starring me. I’m walking out of the school with my cardboard box. The caption underneath reads:
“Nicola Fischer, daughter of Ellicott Creek Ripper, fired from teaching position at Oliante Elementary after parent complaints.”
In the next one, my car swerves madly into the pickup line; I suck in a breath when my bumper almost collides with Ava. Comments pop up as the video plays:
“She tried to hit that kid on purpose.”
“Is this supposed to be revenge because they fired her?”
“Almost had two murderers in the family.”
I have to look away from the screen. Maybe it’s a good thing the news vans have me under house arrest. I shouldn’t be allowed to drive—not with my head as jumbled as it is.
I scroll down to the next video and groan.
The cashier must’ve had his phone out because there I am—on camera, stacking box after box of wine into my shopping bags.
As I hoist them onto my shoulder, my shirt rides up, exposing the roll of my belly.
Don’t look at the comments, I tell myself.
Whatever you do, don’t look at the comments.
I click on the comments.
“Is getting drunk supposed to help with the guilt?”
“Not the double chin.”
“Kill yourself.”
I spend the rest of the night drinking and scrolling until the box is half-empty.
Then I stagger upstairs to my bedroom, clutching the railing for support, and collapse onto my mattress.
My finger finds Greer Woods, the host of To Catch a Killer, in my contacts list. I listen as her familiar voicemail message plays.
“Hey,” I slur into my phone. “Just wanted to let you know I was fired today, so… that was cool. They made me carry out a box of shame and everything.” My head rolls across my pillow, so I can look at myself in the mirror mounted on the wall.
I stare at my double chin. “I almost hit a little girl with my car. I was so desperate to get out of there, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. ”
Silence from the other end of the line.
“I hate you,” I say, still staring at my reflection in the mirror. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
I keep saying it until my eyes droop shut, until the phone tumbles out of my hand, until my message reaches the time-out limit and never sends.