What We Buried Read online

I counted again before stepping up to the counter and taking the drinks: a Venti iced tea and a Grande Frappuccino. For Rory.

  I guess my parents couldn’t have known when I was born that I’d always have trouble pronouncing my own name—that a J, for someone with paralyzed sixth and seventh craniofacial nerves, was a bitch of a consonant to negotiate, second only to plosives—consonants like P and B and T. The one surgery helped my left side a bit but came nowhere close to fixing my pronunciation. If I’d done the series of surgeries, like the doctors had suggested, my own damn name wouldn’t have been such a challenge. There was even a chance I could’ve smiled—or something close. But then, my parents would’ve needed to see it as an investment. You know, like a Child Glitz Pageant?

  Like that.

  I walked back toward the wrinkled silk pantsuit that was my mother. My dad was still on his call.

  “I understand that!” he snapped into the phone. “And I said I’d sort it out. I need time. You need to give me that—” He pushed off the fountain with a dress shoe that needed a serious shining—the round buckle was dusty, another sign that he was unraveling by the minute—and strode out of earshot.

  I looked at my watch again; it was now ten to ten.

  “We’d better get in there,” my mom said, dropping her necklace back against her throat and reaching for the drink. She made no move to get my dad’s attention. “Judas Priest, but I’m all aflutter.”

  Aflutter was a hilarious understatement; she knew what was coming. Liv’s lawyer had won three straight cases in a row the past three years: all beauty pageant kids who’d participated in the Darling Divas reality TV show. And none of those girls had the footage Liv had.

  Even my parents’ lawyer had advised us all to prepare for Liv winning. He meant emotionally, I think. As in: prepare yourselves for Liv’s legal emancipation and the estrangement that would follow, because after this circus was over and all that was left were crumpled popcorn boxes, we were going to be sad little clowns indeed, without our main event—our Liv.

  Well, at the end of summer I was moving away from all this and restarting my life at Boston University, so, yeah, I’d prepared. I looked down at the hand that gripped my iced tea. Blood pumped oxygen through my veins, along my wrist, into my palm, my fingers, and back. A continual loop. Never-ending. I was a walking ouroboros.

  It was the courthouse, with its ironically cheap stucco, that was temporary; it was what it stood for that was ephemeral.

  About a year ago, Liv told me that she had learned from her new friends (“pageant survivors,” she called them) that it isn’t selfish to want retribution; that if you’ve been wronged, bringing light to the issue by punishing the perpetrators helps those who’ve been similarly wronged.

  I didn’t tell her we would first need to agree on a definition of “wronged” before I’d concede that she was enacting a public service. There was no point in having that conversation; Liv would never understand that justice was slippery and conditional, that it only existed for certain people in certain circumstances.

  She didn’t realize that she was, still, firmly center stage in an inane and self-absorbed fiasco. All that was missing was the mile-high tiara.

  LIV

  THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE the courtroom was long and airy; it echoed with the clip of business heels and a low murmur of voices. All that space made me nervous—I am way more comfortable in crowds.

  “Where is everyone?” I scanned the pencil skirts and tailored suits, chewing my upper lip. We’d breezed into the courthouse no problem, but I’d told myself that was because the media was probably inside. Now we were right outside the courtroom and I still hadn’t seen a single reporter. I hoped Asia hadn’t noticed.

  “They’re coming,” Cherish replied, looking at her phone. Asia peered over her shoulder. “But Brooke texted she’ll be a little late.” Cherish glanced up at me. “Or did you mean everyone everyone?”

  A hot flush washed over me. I waved a hand like I didn’t care. “I meant us.”

  Cherish flipped her long auburn hair. It had natural shine, the kind I had to use a special product to create. “Kaylie will be here any minute.”

  “How soon?” I said it more to keep Cherish off the topic of all the people who hadn’t showed.

  “Soon. Like five minutes.”

  With effort, I clamped my teeth together, tasting Brindled Glass, the matte lipstick I’d reapplied. My mom had tried to break me of my lip-chewing habit for years—she even had my pageant coach coat my upper lip in some kind of gloss that tasted like garbage. It would work for an hour or so, but the gloss would eventually sweat off during routine practice, and by the afternoon I’d be back to chewing my lip raw.

  “Thank heck for lip liner and airbrush gloss,” my mom used to say, “or you’d be a horror show.” She said it often enough that the cameras caught it, then they played it on about seven different episodes. It was a “frankenbite”: a clip taken out of context and spliced together with other footage to create a particular scene. A typical clip went like this:

  Hairdresser, doing my hair: “Wow, Livy. Your hair is holding curl so well today.”

  My mom’s voice: “Thank heck…”

  Close-up of eight-year-old me, looking in the mirror.

  My mom’s voice: “Or you’d be a horror show.”

  I guess when they used it like that, they were trying to show how unkind my mom could be. Later, they used the frankenbite in combination with my tantrums. Like at the Little Vixens Pageant in Tallahassee when I was nine and I’d thrown my Rich Wear Queen crown in the garbage because I hadn’t won Ultimate Grand Supreme. For that, they’d dub the whole quote over footage of me acting poorly. It was supposed to be so ironic it was funny, right? Clearly no amount of lip gloss could help me.

  I watched those episodes the most of any of the footage, because it was like watching a stranger who looked like me. I didn’t have memory of the really bad tantrums, where I’d flail and scream and rip at my cupcake dress. My therapist told me it is possible for a person to be so emotionally distressed that they basically black out and that this happened most often to children.

  I guess that’s what happened to me. Once, I raked a cameraman’s face and drew blood. That episode had the most hits on YouTube—along with comments that advocated instating capital punishment for spoiled children.

  I scanned the hallways for Kaylie. Media or no, I wanted all my girls here to share in my victory—our victory. We’d worked so hard on this, I couldn’t imagine winning without them. That was kind of funny, considering I used to think I hated them. Considering I had said as much on national TV.

  I’d said a lot of things on national TV.

  But that didn’t matter now. I was finally in control of the things I said, of my image, and I could write a new story for myself. I just hoped people were paying attention …

  “Hey, don’t be nervous.” Cherish was frowning at me.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Asia said. “Cherish threw up before she went into her final hearing.”

  “Seriously?”

  Cherish made a face. “That wasn’t nerves!”

  “No? Residual bulimia?” Asia smiled wickedly at Cherish, who laughed. But when Asia’s eyes met mine, I saw the unspoken question, the concern.

  Part of me loved that she cared, but it bothered me that she obviously wasn’t sure if I was over all that. I shook my head. I hadn’t thrown anything up in more than a year; I was strong, like her.

  Strong. Brave. Fierce.

  “I saw your brother on the way in,” Cherish said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he still not talking to you?”

  “Jory doesn’t talk much,” I said lightly. “So how would I know?”

  “What’s that called again?” Cherish asked. “I know you told me a few times, but I can never remember.”

  “Moebius syndrome.”

  “And it’s … like paralysis, right? God. I can’t imagine. Because he’s all there, right? Like, he understands?”

  I nodded, picking at the pinkie nail on my left hand before I realized what I was doing. I tucked it into my fist. “Scholarship to BU in the fall. Majoring in … rocks? Something science-y.”

  “Wow. Are they all like that?”

  They. “People who have Moebius? No. Like, some have … what’s that called—autism? But he doesn’t.” A fluttery feeling was starting in my stomach.

  “He’s not very friendly. Though I guess why would you be? It must be so hard.”

  I made an uh-huh sound, hoping she’d drop it. I didn’t like to talk about Jory much, and Cherish had a way of asking things that could be irritating. I didn’t black out anymore, but my therapist had identified some “problematic thoughts” I’d have when I was upset. We’d worked on ways to redirect my thinking when I felt that darkness creeping in.

  And there it was, hovering at the edge of my mind like a black cloud.

  “It’s hard on everyone,” Asia said firmly. Her statement didn’t bother me, because she knew the whole story. She knew Jory and I had never been close, even though he was only eighteen months older than me, and that since I’d filed against my parents it had gotten so much worse. He hadn’t spoken to me in months, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t out of loyalty to my parents; it wasn’t like they were besties.

  Probably he thought I had nothing to complain about. And yes, the lawsuit had put us back in the public eye, and he is a private person, so he could’ve been annoyed about that. I’d tried hard to keep him out of it, though; I’d done interviews and appearances on the condition that he was left alone.

  But Jory had always been a prickly pear. Even as a kid he was hard to get along with.

  I was going to change that. He didn’t know it yet, but we both needed this. And when the judge read out her ruling, he’d see.

  “Does he work out?”

  “Cherish!” Asia chastised.

  “What? I’m just asking!”

  I took a sip of air and mentally pushed at the dark shadow. “I guess?”

  “You can tell,” Cherish continued, raising her eyebrows in appreciation. She wrinkled her nose. “Like, it’s kind of tragic that—”

  “Where’s Sandra?” I looked around. “She said she’d meet me at a quarter to.”

  “She’s here.” Asia waved to someone behind me.

  I turned. Sandra, my lawyer and Asia’s former lawyer, was striding toward us, dressed to kill in a seersucker skirt and jacket and patent maroon heels. I suddenly wished I’d chosen my maxi dress and heeled sandals. They were the first things I’d picked out, but then Asia had said she thought we should look teenager-y.

  I risked a look back at Cherish, inwardly cringing that I had cut her off. But it had been that or letting myself slap her insensitive—

  Stop it.

  I took another small sip of air and shoved down the person I used to be—the person my parents had made me. I needed to show people, the judge, that it had been the pageant world that caused my blackouts. Sandra had found me a therapist to make sure I could deal with my anger and not do anything that might compromise our win.

  Redirect. Focus on something good.

  Okay: Cherish didn’t look annoyed with me.

  “Good morning, Lavinia. Hi, girls.” Sandra always used my full name. I didn’t mind so much; she had a way of saying it that made it sound kind of fancy. The way my mom said it, it always sounded trashy. A spicy perfume settled in the air. The courtroom was a “scent-free zone”—it even said so on the door—but Sandra wasn’t the type to let anyone tell her how to present herself. She was so fierce.

  She touched my arm. “How’s my warrior?” She didn’t look the least bit upset that there wasn’t a crowd of media and onlookers.

  If you can’t make it, fake it. I pulled my stomach toward my backbone and squared my shoulders like I’d learned in Pro-Am modeling. It had been good for something, at least. “Ready,” I answered.

  “Great. Now, remember that you won’t have to say anything. You’ll just need to sit there while the judge delivers her decision.”

  I nodded.

  “I can send it out when it comes in, right? The verdict?” Cherish gestured to her bright-blue phone.

  “If that’s all right with Lavinia.” Sandra looked at me.

  “Totally,” I said quickly. “People will want to know. Won’t they?”

  “Everyone is so proud of you already,” Asia cut in. “But this moment of your absolute self-actualization will be the icing on the cake.”

  I smiled, hoping I didn’t look unsure. Asia sometimes spoke in a way I didn’t understand, but she never made me feel stupid for it. Still, I was pretty sure she hadn’t really answered my question.

  “And afterward we’re going to do something symbolic of your new freedom,” she continued.

  “Like putting all of Liv’s pageant crowns in a pile in the parking lot and driving over them?” Cherish suggested.

  Asia snorted. “Nothing that juvenile,” she said. “I mean like taking our picture in front of the Eiffel Tower—a placeholder until we visit the real thing.”

  A flush rose up my neck into my cheeks. Driving over my pageant crowns was pretty much exactly what I’d planned to do. I hadn’t told Asia; I was going to pretend it was a spontaneous thought. She liked spontaneous people.

  But she was right: the idea was childish.

  “Horror show.”

  “All right.” Sandra moved past us and opened the door to the courtroom. “You girls can sit in the first row behind our table. Lavinia, after you.”

  Asia squeezed my arm and gave me a reassuring smile. “You’ll be great.”

  A thrill rushed through me at her touch. “Thanks,” I said, and then, feeling bold: “And thanks for the other day.”

  She tilted her head. “For what?”

  “Worrying about me.”

  Asia frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I paused, my cheeks growing warm. “Oh! I thought…” She’d texted me a bunch, wondering where I was, how I was. I’d just assumed … a dizzying sweep of humiliation hit me.

  “Thank heck for lip liner and airbrush gloss.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Forget it.” I was dying inside, but I drew myself up to my fiercest and entered the courtroom.

  * * *

  “Where are they?” Asia’s whisper was unreasonably loud in the silence.

  I glanced over my shoulder at my friend’s anxious face. She was wedged between Kaylie and Brooke. Cherish sat on the bench at the far end. They were all taking turns glancing back at the doors.

  I scanned the room. There were a handful of people: a few women who must’ve been from my mom’s homemade jewelry group, my mom’s sister, whom I’d only met twice when I was little, some men I didn’t recognize, and a few people with notepads who looked like press. Definitely not a high-profile-case kind of crowd.

  Beside me, Sandra shook her head slightly. I turned back around.

  The judge, a large woman with bright-red lipstick, checked her watch. The clock on the wall behind her read twenty past ten. My parents were way late. And it was flipping freezing in the courtroom.

  I shivered, pulled my arms close to my sides, and glanced over at my parents’ lawyer, a skinny middle-aged man with thinning hair. He looked confused, like he also hadn’t expected them to be late.

  Where the flip were they? Were they doing this on purpose? I’d seen Jory in the atrium. There was no way he’d take the bus, so he would’ve had to catch a ride with them. No. They were here. My mom was taking her sweet time climbing those steps.

  It was a little power play. Fine. She could enjoy it while it lasted. Because once the verdict came down, her ability to manipulate me, or anything related to my life, ever again, was over.

  Behind me, Cherish sighed loudly.

  Sandra checked her phone. The clock hand ticked over another minute.

  Silence.

  And then the door was flung open with a thud so sudden, my heart stuttered. Everyone turned.

  A security guard strode in. He ignored us all and made his way past Sandra and me to the judge’s bench.

  No one was following him.

  The judge bent to listen to the man’s low murmurings. She asked him something I couldn’t hear, and as he answered, she took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. She held her glasses in both hands, scanning the courtroom. Her gaze stopped on me.

  “Lavinia Brewer?” she said.

  I leapt to stand, but Sandra put a hand on my arm, keeping me in place.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to inform you that we’ll have to delay.”

  Now Sandra was out of her chair. “On what grounds?”

  The judge swung her gaze to Sandra, unhurried. “On the grounds that we currently don’t know where Mrs. and Mr. Brewer are.”

  “I’m sorry?” Sandra didn’t sound sorry.

  “Mrs. and Mr. Brewer are nowhere to be found. I’d like them present for my ruling. So we’ll delay until we locate them.”

  “Nowhere to be found,” Sandra repeated.

  My parents’ lawyer was also standing, looking bewildered.

  “That’s correct.”

  “They’re in the atrium!” I blurted out.

  The judge shook her head. “Not anymore. Security has scoured this building inside and out. Their vehicle is in the parking lot, but there’s no sign of them.”

  “I just saw my brother.” My voice was doing that whiny thing I hated. “Where could they have gone?”

  “Your brother didn’t go anywhere; he’s still on the premises.” The judge repositioned her glasses. “He’s the one who reported their disappearance.”

  JORY

  I DON’T KNOW from previous experience, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that being questioned by overzealous authority figures on an ordinary day is like dealing with wet sand in your underwear. Being questioned by said figures when you have my syndrome, on the most messed-up day ever? Gritty nether regions would be a welcome reprieve.

  I’d been speaking with two of the courthouse security guards for ten minutes, and I’d counted down from ten a dozen times. They were asking me questions really slowly, like I was from another planet, and they kept looking at each other when they didn’t understand my answers.