Page 10 of Dirty Diana
I hitch my shopping bag higher onto my shoulder and drape one of L’Wren’s arms around my waist and Jenna gets under the other one. “On three,” I say. “One, two…” L’Wren grunts so hard she lets out a teeny fart. Jenna snorts and falls backward. She lands on her butt, then throws up her arms and cries, “My filler!” And then we all lose it, laughing until we’re crying and covered in mud.
—
By dusk we’re standing in the parking lot with a farm table, a pine armoire, three boxes of barn lighting, and two rugs. L’Wren is waving down a white cube truck. All three of us cringe as the truck scrapes aVIP Loading Onlysign. Liam leans his head out the window, his unwashed hair hanging over his eyes. “Sorry!” Then he takes out two traffic cones, honks twice, and pulls down on an imaginary rope, giving us a long-haul truckers’ salute.
“Ladies.” He hops out of the truck wearing aDeath to Capitalistshoodie with mismatched socks and Adidas slippers. Liam is somewhere between too young be the brother I spent my childhood praying for, and too old to be my misfit son, but since the day I met him, he’s felt like family. Like the cousin you gravitate toward at the family reunion and together you avoid everyone else at the party.
He takes a long look at the three of us still caked in mud. “Jesus.”
“Liam!” L’Wren hands him an armful of bags. “I owe you. You don’t mind dropping off Jenna’s armoire, do you?”
“Nope.”
Two guys from the antiques show help muscle everything into the truck. Liam and I watch as L’Wren and Jenna buy the last of the wicker baskets from the dealer next to the parking lot and toss them into the back of her Range Rover. “A thank-you gift for Liam!” L’Wren hollers.
“Awesome!” Liam gives her a thumbs-up. “I definitely need more wicker in my life.” He glances at me, then down at my muddy knees. “I have so many questions.”
“I’ll give you…two.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Was there, like, a mud-wrestling part of the day? And did you win?”
“Yes. And obviously, yes.”
“Last question. Is any of this crap yours?”
I pretend to study him closely. “I’m sorry, are you trying to buy a wicker basket off me? How many is too many, Liam?”
He laughs and reaches for the bag holding Jasper’s photograph. “I can put that up front if you want.” I know this is the sensible choice. To place more distance between me and my ghost from the past.
“That’s all right,” I say. “It can ride with me.”
We thank Liam for taking our stuff and pile into L’Wren’s car. In the back seat, I pull out my phone and text Alicia.
You’ll never believe what I bought today.
Before I hit send, I imagine our long back-and-forth. I quickly delete the text and decide to call her later instead.
I rest my head against the window, clutching Jasper’s photograph to my chest the entire ride home.
Chapter 3
—
The next afternoon, two mermaids on fake clamshells are gliding in slow, easy circles around L’Wren’s kidney-shaped pool. I recognize one of them as the teenager who works at the Subway shop near my office. It’s a beautiful early spring day, crisp and cool. Emmy is in heaven, running in and out of an enormous bouncy castle, squeezing Halston’s hand.
L’Wren’s backyard is an explosion of pink and purple, with balloons tied to every chair, table, and tree. Each balloon is like a Russian nesting doll, trapped inside a bigger balloon, which is trapped inside another bigger balloon. At the perimeter of the lawn, her hundred-year-old magnolia trees are shellacked in rainbow glitter.
I spot Liam stationed near the bouncy castle’s moat and feel a sharp pang of sympathy. He looks uncomfortably out of place andvery bored. Last night after Roundtop, L’Wren texted me a video from an Australian news station—grainy footage of a bouncy house being swept off a front lawn, the children inside carried away with it.
Should I cancel the castle???she texted.
For a brief moment, I thought she was kidding. But then I remembered how anxious she is about anything to do with Halston.
I typed:The weather’s supposed to be beautiful tomorrow. I say keep it!
Ok, Okkkk. You’re right. Thx!!!She replied. And then:I’ll have Liam stand next to it and make sure it doesn’t blow away. He can be bouncy castle security, right? He needs a job anyway—LOL.
I bring Liam a purple cupcake with a jaunty unicorn on top. He eats half of it in one bite.
