Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Maddy blows into her parents’ house and beelines into the kitchen. Her mother, Phil, Jack, Emily, and Tim are all there, gathered around the kitchen island, and they all stop whatever they had been doing to look at her. As her mother wipes her hands on her pumpkin-orange apron, her facial expression shapeshifts from worry to rage.

“Where have you been?” asks her mother.

“School.”

Maddy scans the top of the island and the counter by the sink. Both are crowded with glasses of wine, the charcuterie board already dug into, and the bowls, serving dishes, and platters of Thanksgiving dinner—brussels sprouts, turnips, canned and whole cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a green bean casserole, gravy, and the giant golden-brown murdered turkey. The counters are usually spotless but for a glass vase of flowers and her mother’s car keys. This is going to be harder than she anticipated.

“I was just about to call the police and report you missing.”

“Jesus, Mother, don’t be so dramatic.”

“Why didn’t you come home on the train with Adam yesterday?”

“I told him, I was busy.”

“Doing what?”

Maddy circles the island, searching, hurried.

“Can we eat now?” asks Jack.

“In a minute,” says Phil.

Maddy can sense her mother studying her, taking in her attire as she laps the island. She’s wearing black chunky-heeled Prada boots, distressed jeans, and a black blazer embellished with gorgeous gold flowers embroidered on the lapel over a lacy black bra, her signature look.

“It was you,” says her mother, her voice aerated with horror. “You spent over twenty thousand dollars. Maddy, what is going on with you?”

“What’s going on is going out.”

“What does that mean? Are you on drugs?”

“Are you on chardonnay?”

“Maddy—”

“I have to go.”

Talking about having to go without actually going makes her want to leap the fuck out of her own skin. If she weren’t stuck in a body in a house looking for car keys, she could already be out the door. She doesn’t have time for small talk with small people.

Where are the fucking keys??

“You’re not going anywhere,” says her mother. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

“I don’t have time for Thanksgiving! It’s time for me to go!”

She moves the charcuterie board and knocks a full wineglass onto the floor. It shatters, spraying shards of glass and red wine all over the floor. Emily and Tim rush over with paper towels to clean it up.

“Maddy, you have to slow down,” says her mother.

“I gotta go, gotta go, gotta go!” says Maddy as she zooms around the island.

On her next pass, her mother grabs hold of Maddy by the shoulders.

“Stop,” says her mother. “Sit down.”

“I don’t have time to stop! The watch is the clue and it’s high time and high tide on High Watch and I have to go now!”

She spots the strap of her mother’s Gucci bag slung over the back of the bar chair Jack is sitting on. Bingo! She twists out of her mother’s arms, yanks the bag off the chair, and dumps the contents onto the island counter.

Her mother gasps. Everyone else is bug-eyed, stunned silent.

Scavenger hunting the marble surface with her eyes, Maddy finds a tube of lipstick in the cranberry sauce, her mother’s wallet in the mashed potatoes, a tampon and car keys in the gravy bowl. Boom! She snatches them and squeals, victorious. She pushes past Emily, about to make her way out of the room.

“No you don’t!” yells her mother, rushing toward her.

Her mother snags Maddy by the wrist of the hand holding the keys.

“Let go of me!” yells Maddy.

Her mother is trying to pry the keys out of her hand. She’s trying to ruin everything. Maddy turns to face her enemy, and with her free hand, she slaps her mother across the face. The palm of her hand stings, tingling. Her mother’s cheek is pink, her expression stunned, frightened. Her mother is afraid of her. Maddy smiles, exultant. Nothing and no one can stop her.

But then Jack has a hold on her from behind, her keyless hand pinned to her back, the elbow of her other arm pinned to her waist. He’s too strong. She’s essentially immobilized but for her right hand, and now it’s her mother’s two hands against her one. Lubricated in a coating of gravy, the keys are slippery, and she’s beginning to lose her grip. It’s an unfair battle, and no surprise, her mother wrests the keys from her clutch. Jack releases her. Her mother raises her hand high as if she’s won the big prize, heaving, pink-faced, and relieved.

But she’s stupid to think she’s won. This isn’t over. Maddy has to go, and she can’t take a taxi or an Uber. She can’t bring an outsider to this location. The driver could alert the paparazzi or the press or the publishing industry. The driver could be one of the paparazzi. No, she can’t risk it. There’s too much at stake. She has to go alone. She has to show Taylor that she can be trusted. The car is the only way.

It’s high time.

High Watch.

I’m the one.

Watch me.

She spies the carving knife leaning against the turkey platter, snatches it, wields it high in the air, and then points it at the face of her obstacle.

Emily screams.

“Maddy, that’s enough! Put the knife down, right now!” says Phil as he slides his body in front of her mother.

Maddy doesn’t back down. Her mother’s eyes go wide, welling with tears and disbelief.

“Give me the fucking keys, now,” says Maddy.

Maddy stabs the tip of the knife in the air toward her mother, as if dotting an exclamation point. Her mother flinches behind Phil.

“Amy, give her the keys,” says Phil.

Her mother throws the keys toward Maddy. They land on the floor near her boots. Maddy drops the knife onto the counter and collects the keys from the floor. She wipes a spot of gravy off the toe of her right boot. Then she pauses for a moment, scanning her stunned audience. It’s too bad she doesn’t have time to perform her comedy set.

“Peace out, motherfuckers.”

She darts into the garage. She sits in the driver’s seat of her mother’s Land Rover, starts the engine, and hits the button on the garage door opener. She checks the gas gauge. Over half a tank. That should be enough to get to Rhode Island. She waits as the door lifts.

Fuck! No, no, no, NO!

Jack’s Jeep is parked behind her in the driveway. Tim’s car is next to Jack’s. Phil’s Jaguar is in the garage to her left. It’s a fucking parking lot here. She pounds on the steering wheel with her fists and screams, frustrated and disgusted with herself for not registering this clusterfuck on her way into the house.

“JACK!!”

She leans on the horn.

“Move your fucking car!”

Through the rearview mirror, she sees her family assembled in the front yard. Why is everyone just standing there? Can’t they see the Jeep is in her way? Why does no one understand the urgency of this situation?

“MOVE!”

She honks and honks and screams. They stare. No one budges.

“I will not be trapped,” she says to herself.

She shifts into reverse, steps a defiant chunky-heeled boot onto the gas pedal, and slams into the front of Jack’s Jeep.

“What the fuck?!” yells Jack, arms flailing, as he rushes to the front of his car.

Maddy cackles. Her mother dashes into the house. Maddy pulls back into the garage, slips the gear into reverse, punches the gas, and smashes into the Jeep again, nudging it back.

Jack and Phil bang on the windows and yell at her as she pulls forward again. She shifts into reverse for another go amid the protests but pauses first to check the rearview mirror. Tim has his arm around Emily. She’s crying. What the hell is she crying about? It’s not her car.

Phil’s face is inches from hers, practically pressed against the driver’s-side window. “If you don’t get out of your mother’s car right now—”

Maddy hits the gas and Phil’s face disappears. Jack’s Jeep lurches back some more, but she still doesn’t have enough room to get out. She’s about to shift back into drive, but now Phil is standing in the center of her mother’s parking space in the garage, blocking her entry.

Well played, old man.

Her mother has returned to the front yard and is standing on the other side of Emily, phone in her hand.

“Don’t bother calling me a cab, Mom. I’m almost outa here!”

Maddy stays in reverse and presses the gas pedal to the floor. The wheels of the Land Rover spin, and the Jeep starts to roll back. Just as she thinks she might have enough clearance to cut the wheel and weave herself free, she hears sirens. A moment later, a police cruiser materializes in front of their house, blue lights flashing, and parks behind Jack’s Jeep.

Shit.