Chasing Chaos: A Novel (25 page)

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It
had not been Daphne’s plan to push Jamison off the cliff. No. She’d planned to
leave him up on Mulholland that night, sans cell phone, to let him know what it
felt like to be alone and scared on the side of the road. To feel, in just one
small way, some of the terror Carrie had felt. And to hopefully get him in a
bit of trouble.

But
right then, standing behind him, she pictured her hands on his back, his feet
slipping on the sandy ground, his body falling into the darkness.

The
plan would work. His intoxication. His history of drug use. The unprotected
overlook. It would be so easy to say he simply fell.

She
would report the fall to the police. She would be horrified, and she would be
sad. It would be a tragedy. Perhaps he was feeling the loss of his best friend,
and he was taking unnecessary risks. She’d tried to save him, she would say.
The police would believe her. Of course they would.

One
push.

One
push and there would be no more Carries in the bathroom. No more Carries who
hadn’t been able to fight Jamison off.

One
push and she would report his death. And then, once the furor died down, she
would disappear. She would sell her condo and take her savings and disappear
forever to a place where she would hurt no one ever again.

But
what would one push do to her?

What
would it do to Daphne to become one of the monsters?

She
took one step back from him. Then another. Then she turned.

She
dashed to her car. She jumped in, locking the doors. She grasped the steering
wheel with both hands and rested her head there. She wept, then. Suddenly,
Jamison was trying to open the passenger door. He was banging on the glass. He
was yelling.

“Let
me in! What the fuck, Daphne!”

Suddenly,
she wasn’t weeping any more.

She
could speak plainly, without a hitch in her voice.

She
cracked the passenger-side window so he could hear her. She held up his cell
phone so he could see it, then dropped it on the seat next to her.

“Get
back to town on your own, you asshole.”

She
threw her car into first and sped off, tossing gravel behind her.

About
three miles down the road, Daphne got out of her car. She placed Jamison’s cell
phone behind the rear wheel of her car, then backed over it. She picked up the
crushed device and tossed it from the cliff. Climbing back into her car, she
picked up her own phone and dialed 911. The operator answered.

In
her very best North Carolina accent, Daphne spoke. “Hi,” she said, her tone
frightened. “I’m up here with my husband and kids on Mulholland Drive. We were
at a scenic overlook and saw a man selling drugs! He had cocaine or heroin—it was
some kinda white powder.”

“Can
you provide a physical description?”

Daphne
described Jamison in detail. “When he saw us he started running west.” She gave
his approximate location. Then she smiled.

After
she hung up, she glanced at her phone. It was flashing with unread text
messages. She read the most recent one.

It
was from Greta.

For
an instant Daphne was thrown back to five years ago, to another night, when she
stood on another, metaphorical cliff—but no. She was here, in her car, and
Greta was trying to reach her.

Greta
was trying to save her.

“That
was a really stupid note you left,” Greta’s text message said. Daphne laughed.
Of course Greta would find the note stupid.

“Need
you to come back now. Going to have brunch with my dad tomorrow. Need you there.”

Before
she’d left her apartment, Daphne had packed a suitcase full of clothes, her
toiletries and her laptop. She had enough of her things that she could
disappear for a while if she wanted to. And part of her really wanted to.

And
here was Greta, yanking her back.

Daphne
felt relief. She dialed Greta.

“You
ready to come home now?” Greta asked.

“I
almost did something terrible.”

“Did
you do it?”

Daphne
paused. Did she do it? She didn’t push him, no. But she’d come so close. What
was the difference, in the end?

“I
didn’t do the thing I wanted to do,” Daphne said. “No. I didn’t do it.”

She
heard Greta exhale. “Good. I’m glad. Where can I meet you?”

“I’m
up on Mulholland of all places.”

“So
just come home. We’re all at your house.”

“Who’s
there?” Daphne asked, surprised.

“Me
and Timmy, Miranda, and Sandy and Marlon.”

All
five of them, at her house, looking for her? Why? How? For a moment, she felt
astonished they’d all come for her.

But
why was she astonished? Hadn’t she spent all of these years building herself a
new family? Why
wouldn’t
they come for her?

Wouldn’t
she do the same for them?

Something
broke free in the back of her mind. An idea that perhaps she’d gotten something
very, very wrong.

“I,
um, can’t go back that way.”

No,
back that way was Jamison and perhaps the police.

“We
can all head to Sandy’s house,” Greta said. “You can take Mulholland to Laurel
Canyon and meet us there.”

“When
I get there, can you and I talk first? Somewhere alone?”

“I’ll
make that happen,” Greta reassured her. “Head to Sandy’s, and I’ll meet you
outside.”

“You’re
having brunch with your dad tomorrow? Aren’t you supposed to be on your
honeymoon?”

“Since
we came back early, I figured I’d get it over with. Seemed practical.”

“Of
course.” Daphne smiled to herself. Oh, Greta. Always practical.

“You’ll
come?” Greta sounded almost nervous.

“I’ll
do anything for you, Greta. You know that.”

Daphne
drove slowly. She wanted to give her friends a chance to beat her to Sandy’s
house. She wanted Greta to be waiting outside for her when she arrived.

If
Daphne arrived first, she might lose her nerve and consider taking off again.

As
she drove, she thought about Jamison. What Jamison had done to Carrie and what
he’d tried to do to Carrie were both horrific acts. But what Daphne had considered
doing to Jamison was just as horrific.

Tonight,
she hadn’t plotted a murder. But then she’d stood there behind him, and she’d
thought about it. For a minute, or even longer, she’d thought about pushing him
to his death.

How
could she come back from that?

How
could she be loved after that?

She
turned down the hill onto Laurel Canyon and rode the curves until she reached
the turn onto Sandy’s street. His driveway gates were open, and she saw
multiple cars in front of his house. Timmy’s Audi wagon. Sandy’s Aston Martin.
And another car she didn’t recognize, a Camry, she thought, with someone
sitting in the driver’s seat talking on the phone.

She
pulled into the driveway, but she continued down to the garage. She parked in
front of the second bay, blocking in Marlon’s car-in-progress. By the time she
got out of her car, Greta was strolling up to her.

Daphne
threw her arms around Greta, and Greta threw her arms around Daphne, and for a
moment, everything felt right.

“Where’s
Jamison?” Greta asked.

“How
did you know?”

“Long
story, and I’ll tell you later.”

“I
almost killed him.” Reality crashing into her. “He stood on a cliff-side, and I
almost pushed him off.”

“What
do you mean almost?”

“I
thought about doing it. I stood behind him and thought about it.”

Greta
looked at Daphne with consideration. “But that wasn’t your plan tonight, was
it.”

Greta’s
words weren’t a question.

“No,”
Daphne said. “Pushing him wasn’t my plan.”

Daphne
explained her plan to Greta, every detail, how she’d convinced Jamison to put
his phone next to hers in the cup-holder, how she’d left him there on that
dark, lonely road. How she’d called the police to come find him and the stash
of cocaine she was certain he had, because, according to Sandy, he always had
one.

“You
should have taken his shoes too,” Greta said. “Then it would have been perfect
retribution.”

“You
are not helping.” Daphne smiled.

“Where
were you going to go, after?”

“I
don’t know. I brought enough stuff to keep me going for a while without having
to spend much money except for food and a place to sleep.”

Daphne
turned from Greta then, unable to face the friend she’d almost abandoned. She
stared at Sandy’s small forest.

But
Greta knew what Daphne was thinking. Of course she did. Greta always knew. It
was why Daphne loved her.

“Why
leave, Daphne? I need you.”

“I
did a cost-benefit analysis. And the costs of having me around just seemed too
high.”

“Miranda
told me how you blamed yourself for the car wreck. I think she called you, let
me get this right, an ‘arrogant asshole.’”

“Of
course I blame myself! Dan only invited Carrie to that party because of me.”

“That
might be part of the reason, but it wasn’t the only reason. She is kind of
hot.”

“You
know what I mean, Greta. You of all people. By introducing Carrie to Dan, I
pushed her in front of a moving bus.”

“No.”
Greta sounded annoyed, even angry. “No. You do not understand the basic laws of
cause and effect.”

“Sure
I do.”

“And
your lack of understanding is making you hurt everyone—and I mean everyone—who
cares about you.”

Daphne
leaned against her car, stifling an eye roll.

Greta
glared at her. “You think that you do one small thing, like introduce two
humans to each other, and then, because of that one small thing, those humans
are doomed. Right? Isn’t that what you think?”

“Yes.”
That was exactly what she thought.

“But
there are too many variables. Too much life for that kind of strict
determinism.”

Daphne
chewed her thumbnail. “I see what you’re saying. But I’m not sure I believe
you.”

“This
is how chaos works, Daphne. Say you are indeed an initial condition, fine. The
effects that come after you can’t be linear. Lightning doesn’t travel in a
straight line.”

“No.
It just follows me around.”

“But
it doesn’t. You introduced Carrie to Dan, but after that, what happened was out
of your hands.”

“Bad
things keep happening to people I love, Greta. You can’t deny that.”

“What
you’re saying is that you deserve to be alone.” Greta grabbed hold of Daphne’s
shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “You’re looking for a reason to punish yourself.”

Daphne
nodded. Greta’s words made sense. “I think I am. I drove my family away. I
nearly drove you away. I drove Marlon away.” She laughed, but even to her own
ears the laughter sounded broken. “Every time I slept with another guy, I think
I was hoping Dan would find out, and I would drive him away too.”

“But
why, Daphne? So many people love you. So many people want to love you.”

“I
told Marlon about what my father did to me.”

Greta’s
mouth rounded into a silent O.

“I
think something broke in me when I was a kid that never quite healed.”

Daphne
had told her childhood secret to Greta back when they were in college, the
horrible thing her father had done to her, the no-longer-secret event that had
driven her mother and sisters from her.

The
event that, perhaps, had damaged Daphne more than she’d thought it had. When a
guest at her father’s motel had ripped her child’s body in half and how her
father had let him. Maybe she was still ripped in half.

What
was a girl’s body worth? Five hundred dollars? A thousand? More? Or was it
worth nothing?

Did
she deserve to suffer? Perhaps. But Carrie didn’t. All of the Carries, the
Gretas. They didn’t.

Why
had Daphne chosen to move to a place and to work in an industry where a woman’s
body was forever in a transaction? She could never escape. No wonder she was
the source of so much chaos. She didn’t even realize how much pain she carried
in her all the time. How much that pain drove her.

“I
can’t go in that house,” Daphne whispered.

“Why
not?” Greta asked. “Everyone is waiting for you. Everyone helped find you. They
were worried because they care.”

“It’s
not enough.” It wasn’t. She was too broken to be in their perfect world. She
thought of Greta and Timmy standing under their arbor yesterday, the perfect
handmade arbor draped in jasmine. And thinking of the arbor made her think of
Marlon and Carrie.

There
was no way she was going into the house.

“Fine,”
Greta said. “It’s your call. Can I come visit you on your deserted island?”

“You’ll
let me go?”

“You’re
a grown-up. I just want to know if I can visit. Timmy thinks we should have
kids, and I thought you might like to see them.”

“You
want to have kids?” Daphne asked, incredulous.

“Not
right now. In a couple of years. Before I’m thirty. I’m reading the science on
it.”

Of
course Greta was reading the science on it. For a split second, thinking of
Greta with kids, Daphne felt overjoyed. Daphne would be the perfect aunt.

And
then it hit her. “You’re tricking me.”

“I’m
not lying to you.”

“But
you’re throwing in my face what I’ll miss if I leave.”

“Of
course I am. I don’t want you to leave. But,” Greta said, not allowing Daphne
to interrupt, “there’s more to it than that. I wanted to show where your
conceited idea that you are the source of all the bad things goes awry in yet another
way.”

“Miranda
called me conceited too.”

“She’s
not wrong.”

“She
was really annoyed with me.”

“I
like her even more now than I did in college.”

“Well,
you’ve both changed a lot.”

Greta
smiled. “Let’s say you do have some super power and can somehow determine the
outcome of human relationships. Which you can’t. But let’s say you can. That
means every outcome that occurs based on you setting things in motion is your
fault, right? Isn’t that what you’re saying?”

“Yes?
I think?” Greta made it sound so ridiculous.

“Bananas.
But we’ll go with it. Here’s the thing, though. Why are you only taking the
blame for the bad things that happen?”

“Because
bad things keep happening?” Daphne said, uncertain.

“This
is where what you are saying is making me fucking crazy!” Greta poked Daphne in
the chest. “You want to have it both ways. The bad things are your fault. The
good things just happen for no reason.”