Page 111 of Play Nice

“How?” he asks, the distress in his expression eliciting in me a strange mix of guilt and satisfaction. He still loves me.

“Working in the house,” I say. “Dad. Please. Can we go? I’m starving.”

“You need shoes,” he says. He goes into the house and comes back out a second later with my heels.

He opens the car door for me, hands me my shoes, then goes around to the driver’s side. He starts the car, we back out into the cul-de-sac, and then he says, “You smell like cigarettes. And alcohol.”

I almost tell him that he smells like smoke, almost tell him that he smells like fascism, almost ask him if, after libraries, he plans on taking his flamethrower to the museums. I almost tell him how close I am to hating him. But my throat is sore, and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.

“Clio. You’re making me worry. You’re making everyone worry.”

What does he want me to say? Does he expect me to apologize? Everyone in my life wants me to behave in a very specific way that’s beneficial to them, and as soon as I deviate from their expectations, it’s an issue. As soon as I act out of whatever role they cast me in in their lives, it’s somehow my fault.

“This pattern of behavior is concerning to me,” he says sternly. “I’ve seen it before.”

“What, with Mom? You and Leda like to throw that in my face. But I’m nothing like Mom,” I say, playing with my snake charm. “The only thing I have in common with her is great hair and a haunted house.”

“It’s that book. And spending time there by yourself.”

“Why can’t you even entertain the idea that she was right? That I’m right? Why can’t the house be haunted by a demon?”

“Because that’s crazy. Don’t you hear yourself?”

“Why is it crazy? If I was a son and not your daughter, would you assume I was crazy?”

“Not everything is misogyny, Clio,” he says, taking a sharp turn. “What happened to your arm?”

Now I can’t resist, can’t hold my tongue lest it shred the inside of my mouth. “It was Mom. She did it. Right? Right, Dad? She hurt me.”

“Clio Louise.”

“Fuck it. Can we just get breakfast? Please? Please.”

He sighs. “Okay.”

We go to a diner—a different one than Austin took me to, though it still reminds me of him—and eat in silence.

Dad pays the check and then we go back to his house. Amy’s not around.

“I’m going to sleep,” I tell him.

“When you wake up, we’re going to have a talk about what comes next.”

“Ominous,” I mumble. I climb the stairs to my room. I fall into bed, fall asleep in an instant.

—

When I wake up, it’s the middle of the night.

Yawning, I turn over and reach for my phone, wondering if Roy has gotten back to me.

I could have asked Helen for his number but wasn’t keen on swallowing my pride after our last conversation, forcing my return to the tragically archaic website of the New England Occultist Collective. It was outside of business hours, but I called the contact number anyway, figuring there was a chance that Occultist Collectives might not maintain traditional business hours or whatever. I left a voicemail stating my name and requesting a callback from Roy. I said he’d know what it was about.

But even if he did call, I wouldn’t know since apparently my phone is dead, RIP. Its absence aches like a phantom limb. I plug it into the charger and steep in my thoughts. I have to pee, which means I have to get out of bed—something that doesn’t really appeal to me.

I groan and kick off the sheets, swing my legs over the side of the mattress. Shuffle out the door and down the hall to the bathroom.

The lights are too bright. I squint, still sleep drunk as I sit on the toilet, wipe, flush, wash my hands.