Sharp_Objects

toddler in a fit.
    “But do…”
    “I don’t know if people really think John did it. I know the police talked to him,” Annabelle said. “They’re definitely a strange family.”
    “Oh, I thought you were close,” I said. “I saw you at their house after the funeral.” You fucking cunts, I added in my head.
    “Everybody important in the town of Wind Gap was in that house after the funeral,” DeeAnna said. “Like we were going to miss a function like that.” She tried to start the laughter going again, but Jackie and Annabelle were nodding solemnly. Melissa/Melinda looked around the restaurant as if she could wish herself to another table.
    “Where’s your momma?” Annabelle suddenly blurted. “She needs to come down here. Could do her good. She’s been acting so strange since this all started.”
    “She was acting strange before this started, too,” Jackie said, working her jaw. I wondered if she was going to vomit.
    “Oh please, Jackie.”
    “I’m serious. Camille, let me say this: Right now, way things are with your mother, you’re better in Chicago. You should go back soon.” Her face had lost its manicness—she looked completely solemn. And genuinely concerned. I felt myself liking her again.
    “Truly, Camille…”
    “Jackie, shut up,” Annabelle said, and threw a roll, hard, at Jackie’s face. It bounced off her nose and thumped onto the table. A silly flash of violence, like when Dee threw his tennis ball at me—you’re less shocked by the impact than the fact it happened at all. Jackie registered the hit with a wave of her hand and kept talking.
    “I’ll say what I please, and I’m saying, Adora can harm…”
    Annabelle stood up and walked over to Jackie’s side, pulled her up by her arm.
    “Jackie, you need to make yourself throw up,” she said. Her voice was a cross between a coo and a threat. “You’ve had too much to drink, and you’re going to feel real sick otherwise. Let me take you to the lady’s room and help make you feel better.”
    Jackie smacked her hand away at first, but Annabelle’s grip tightened and the two soon tottered away. Silence at the table. My mouth hung open.
    “That’s nothing,” DeeAnna said. “We old girls have little fights the same way you young girls do. So Camille, have you heard we might be getting a Gap?”

    J ackie’s words stuck with me: Way things are with your mother, you’re better in Chicago. How much more of a sign did I need to leave Wind Gap? I wondered exactly why she and Adora had fallen out. Had to be more than a forgotten greeting card. I made a mental note to drop by Jackie’s when she was less looped. If she ever was. Then again, I was hardly the one to frown on a drinker.
    Sailing on a nice wine buzz, I called the Nashes from the convenience store, and a quivering girl’s voice said hello and then went silent. I could hear breathing, but no answer to my requests to speak with Mom or Dad. Then a slow, sliding click before the line went dead. I decided to try my luck in person.
    A boxy disco-era minivan sat in the Nash driveway next to a rusty yellow Trans Am, which I assumed meant both Bob and Betsy were home. The eldest daughter answered the bell, but simply stood inside the screen door staring at my stomach when I asked if her folks were home. The Nashes were built tiny. This one, Ashleigh, I knew was twelve, but like the pudgy boy I’d met on my first visit, she looked several years younger than her age. And acted it. She sucked on her hair and hardly blinked when little Bobby waddled next to her and began crying at the sight of me. Then howling. A good minute went by before Betsy Nash came to the door. She looked as dazed as both her children, and seemed confused when I introduced myself.
    “Wind Gap don’t have a local daily paper,” she said.
    “Right, I’m from the Chicago Daily Post, ” I said. “Up in Chicago. Illinois.”
    “Well, my husband deals with purchases like that,” she said, and began running her fingers through her son’s blond hair.
    “I’m not selling a subscription or anything…. Is Mr. Nash home? Maybe I could just chat with him real quick?”
    All three Nashes moved away from the door en masse, and after another few minutes, Bob Nash had me ushered inside and was throwing laundry off the couch to make room for me to sit.
    “Goddammit, this place is a pit,” he muttered loudly toward his wife. “I apologize for the state of our home, Miss Preaker. Things have