Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Jesus.
But I slow as I walk, feeling the breeze on my legs and hearing the sway of the fronds on the palms. We might get a storm tonight.
I want to see him one more time. How could he fuck up so badly? How could he be leaving? Macon is right to be angry.
Macon …
I raise my eyes, seeing light glowing from inside the garage down the street, a shadow passing in front of one of the windows.
“Krisjen?” Clay says when I don’t reply.
I take a second, but then I ask. “What did she say about Macon?”
My voice comes out smaller than it was.
She says nothing, but I hear something brush over the phone and muffled words in the background. After a few seconds, she comes back on.
“You don’t want it to be him.”
But it’s not Clay’s voice in my ear. It’s Liv’s.
“If you think it was,” Liv says, “I wouldn’t pursue it.”
Why?
“Besides,” she adds, “he would never screw my friends. It’s Iron or Army.”
But wouldn’t they have mentioned it? Or been more obvious?
“Keep the costume,” she tells me. “I’m guessing it’ll hold some memories for you after tonight.”
“Oh, it’ll get dirty,” I tease.
She expels some kind of disgusted sound, and I laugh as I continue walking. “Bye.”
We hang up, and I pause mid-step next to my dad’s car before I veer left again and keep walking to the Jaeger house. Screw it. I can say goodbye to him. This could be it, right?
I pass the garage. Macon isn’t there, but the hood of my car is up, a drop light hanging from inside it and tools propped around the edge.
The sign Trace painted on a sheet billows from the windows above as more cars pull up and music pours onto the overgrown lawn from the open front door. Without looking at anyone, I dive into the house and jog up the stairs, walking straight for Liv’s room. Once inside, I drop my bag and dig in her closet.
Liv worked behind the scenes of our high school’s theater department for four years, and she never threw anything away. She’d take discards from costume designs and make them into something she could wear. There was a tweed vest cropped indecently that I fell in love with the last time I was in here, but I don’t see it now. She probably took it to college.
Finding the Mad Hatter costume, I take it out and start undressing. It’s a spectacular outfit. She always made the costumes without approval. She thought if she could show the theater teacher her new idea rather than describe it to her, it would go over better. It rarely did.
But she tried.
Liv was always trying to get roles that weren’t traditionally played by women. For the longest time, I didn’t understand why. The audience doesn’t want to see a female Captain Jack Sparrow or Hannibal Lecter played by a girl. They won’t show up for a woman performing as Darth Vader, Vito Corleone, or John McClane.
Norman Bates, Han Solo, Neo, and Freddy Krueger are men, and the world doesn’t want to imagine that it could be different.
But … they’re great roles, and if I were an actor like her, I could see the allure of playing them. They’re complex. Males in a story always get the great scenes. The great lines. The epic fights and battles and power plays. They can be loners and villains, criminals and crazies, and no one really worries about why they’re doing what they do. Motive isn’t important. They can murder, fight, blow things up … No one thinks less of Sherlock Holmes because he was never married or never had children. If a woman wants to be a spy, we wonder why. What happened in her past to make her reject a home and a family?
Liv didn’t want to be Ophelia, Desdemona, or Juliet’s nurse, because they were either manipulated, victimized, or subservient. And how often do we find ourselves still playing that shit every day? It’s not a challenge.
Sometimes I want to blow something up, and I don’t even care why.
I finish donning the patchwork skirt that falls mid-thigh, button up the sleeveless waistcoat with nothing underneath, and slip on the red velvet fitted jacket. I tease up my hair, add some blue and green eye shadow, and then finish it off with a bow tie around my naked neck, a top hat, and some lipstick.
I gaze in the mirror before realizing I’m barefoot and dig in Liv’s closet for the boots, one purple and one green.
A crash sounds downstairs followed by a muffled shout as someone passes by on the other side of Liv’s door.
Grabbing my phone, I head down.
The floor vibrates under my feet, the music banging against the walls, and I hear laughter behind me. Two guys I don’t know slam the door to Iron and Dallas’s room and race past me. I jump out of the way.