Fireworks: A Holiday Bad Boy Romance (32 page)

I wondered if she
had researched it before she did it. I should have looked on her computer in
her dorm room. Sienna probably looked up a dozen case studies the moment the
thought of suicide crossed her mind.

And still, she did
it. The thought made me dizzy, and I let myself slip to the floor.

I leaned back
against her bed and felt the sharp edge of something stick me in the back.
Reaching under her bed, I pulled out a photograph album she had made her senior
year of high school. I opened it up, welcoming the sweet relief that happy
memories brought.

The first picture
was Sienna leading the cheerleader charge onto the football field. Except it
was not her red-lipped smile or glowing golden hair that caught my attention.
In the far background was a tall blond boy leaning on the fence next to a
gangly girl with long wavy hair.

Owen Redd liked to
watch the football games from the sidelines instead of the stands. He liked
chatting with people more than yelling silly epithets at the field. One time,
Sienna had begged me to bring her a different pair of shoes, and I had bumped
into Owen at the fence.

Instead of
football scores and finals, we talked about
Halo
and
Assassin's Creed
. He didn't laugh
when I asked questions about strategy. Instead, he explained in detail the
successful maneuvers he had done.

Sienna laughed
when she found us. "Aren't you two the perfect pair? Too bad Redd looks
better on me."

She knew. Sienna
knew that night at the football game that I had the most helpless crush on
Owen. I could still feel the thrill of his hand accidentally brushing mine as
he described good sequences.

I never understood
why they were together. Sienna was more annoyed than enamored by most things
that Owen loved. He mocked her cheerleading. And I remembered when she got him
voted prom king, he was so irritated that he brought her home and left without
saying goodbye.

At the thought of
goodbye, I slammed the photograph album shut. How could I say goodbye to my
sister?

#

It
was easy to pretend I was still in high school. The house was quiet when I
emerged from Sienna's room. It could have been any one of hundreds of nights
when our mother had retreated to her room, my father had shut himself in his
office, and Sienna was out. She was always busy, always doing something.

The only one that
was ever around was our cook. I found her in the kitchen looking the same as
she had for decades: a white shirt, black pants, and a red apron. Her riotous
black curly hair was secured in a prim bun and blue eyes sparkled as she sang.

"No one told
you," I said, the weight pushing me back onto a stool.

"I sing when
I'm sad, too," the cook told me. "It helps. Wanna try?"

"You know I
can't carry a tune. Sienna is – was the singer."

The cook put down
her red spatula and propped her fists on her hips. "You know you never
have to refer to her in the past tense, don't you? Sienna’s memory is just as
alive as anyone else outside this room if we talk about her."

"I don't feel
like talking, Charlotte," I said.

"And you
don't feel like singing. How about baking?" Charlotte asked.

I smiled. I loved
to bake. It did not hurt that it was the one thing I did better than Sienna.

Sienna had come
home from a cheerleading meeting one year and announced an impressive list of
things she was going to personally bake for their fundraiser. After two minutes
of baking, in which flour got in her hair, she crushed a raw egg in her hands,
and the top fell off the ground cinnamon, she declared that baking was a waste
of time.

That night,
Charlotte taught me to bake the easiest, silkiest, and best buttery sugar
cookies. We decorated them with a light lemon frosting and glittery sprinkles.
Of course, Sienna took all the credit and they sold out in minutes.

"We're going
to need a good dessert table for the, ah, for the guests," Charlotte said.

I nodded, my voice
gone again. She meant we needed desserts for the reception that would
invariably follow the funeral. Still, Charlotte's practicality was comforting
as I settled into the regular routine of the sugar cookie recipe.

"It doesn't
feel real. She should come in the door at any moment," I said as the first
batch of cookies went in the oven.

"You'll look
for her for a long time. Nothing wrong with that."

Her calm
acceptance of my feelings made it possible for me to think outside of the warm
and comforting kitchen. It registered that I had seen the door to my father's
office standing open and I wondered where he went. I had ten minutes before the
first batch was done.

"Have you
seen my father?" I asked.

Charlotte shook
her head. "He asked for chicken dumpling soup when I came in and then he
disappeared."

I went to peer in
the door of his office. The lights were off, but I could see his outline
propped in a chair. He stared out the window, a glass of whiskey suspended in
the air halfway to his mouth.

"Daddy?"
I asked.

He jumped as if a
gunshot had reported in the wood-paneled confines of his office. "Quinn,
Jesus Christ, you scared me. What are you doing creeping around?"

"You're the
one sitting in the dark."

He grumbled and
turned on the lamp next to him. His eyes were red and puffy but dry as he
scowled at me. "How's your mother?"

"I don't
know, she's still upstairs," I said. "How are you?"

"Probably a
good idea. She needs to rest. I'm tired. Exhausted. You might not think it’s a
big deal to drive from Vegas to L.A. all the time for school, but it takes a
toll," he said. Finally, he noticed the glass of whiskey and took a long
sip.

"Speaking of
L.A., I should call school," I said.

"Your advisor
spoke to all your professors. The funeral is in two days. You can stay with us
until it’s over," my father said.

"The
funeral?" I asked. A sour taste filled my mouth at the word.

"Yes, I have
a friend at the Walton's Funeral Home, he's the director. Making all the
arrangements. Viewing, service, reception, it will all be here. Cook knows the
rest."

"It just
seems so, I don't know, so fast," I said.

My father snorted.
"What did you expect, Quinn? Decisions had to be made. Not everyone can go
through life wavering like you do."

"Sienna was
decisive. She kinda proved quick decisions aren't always the best, didn't
she?" I could not take the angry words back.

He shifted in his
leather chair and refused to look at me again. "Check on your mother
before dinner," he said and turned the light off.

I retreated back
to the kitchen, and Charlotte took one look at my face and folded me into a
tight hug. "He's just grieving. Anything that comes out of his mouth the
next few months is pure rubbish."

"I, I accused
her of being rash. I actually joked about where her quick decision-making got
her. It was awful," I said.

"No one can
know what went through her head. Sienna always had her mind made up and
wouldn't let anyone change it. A trait I'm happy you did not inherit from your
mother."

Charlotte and my
mother had a long-standing habit of arguing over recipes. Though my mother did
not cook, she clung fast to a few beliefs of how things should be done and
would not hear reason.

"Everyone
always says Sienna is just like my mother."

"It never
bothered you before," Charlotte said.

"What bothers
me now are the ways they are the same. The big mood swings and the
perfectionism. It’s just not that healthy," I said. My voice was low; they
were words that felt dangerous to say out loud.

"What's wrong
with perfectionism?" my father asked from the doorway. "Do I smell
something burning?"

I ran for the oven
and pulled the sugar cookies out just before the edges burned. "Nothing is
ever perfect and people who strive for it end up stressing themselves out over
something they can never achieve."

"Your sister
achieved plenty," my father said too loudly.

I could not take
anymore. "And what about the mood swings? Are you going to tell me it’s
perfectly healthy to be so depressed you stay in bed behind black-out curtains
for a whole day only to emerge ready to go out for cocktails?"

"And now,
we're talking about your mother," my father said. "Your arguments
always segue, like your entire life is full of segues. Next you'll be telling
me that you want to quit nursing and join the circus, right?"

"Sienna is –
was just like Mother. She would refuse to come out of her dorm room for days. I
used to have to bring her food. Then suddenly, I would run into her at the
cafeteria. She would be bright and smiley and act as if nothing at all had ever
been wrong. That's not right."

"They are
passionate, they know what they want, and they strive to make it perfect. I
don't see anything wrong with that. Sure, they both take disappointments hard,
but it just shows how much they care," my father said.

"Just once, I
want to hear you admit it is not normal," I said. "And don't even use
your lawyer arguments on me. Normal is not postponing Christmas because Mother
has locked herself in the closet. Normal is not you breaking down the closet
door with a metal baseball bat because she hasn't said anything through the
door for two hours. Normal is not a smart, popular, college girl at the top of
her pre-med class suddenly slitting her wrists and bleeding to death in a
bathtub!"

I looked across
the kitchen island at Charlotte. We had stood here and had the exact same
conversation over and over again. Friends had offered contact information for
doctors and psychologists, given my father books, and invited my mother to
meetings. My parents always insisted she was fine.

Now, Sienna would
never be fine again and my father still could not face the facts.
"Something must have happened to make Sienna do what she did. When I found
out who made her feel that way, there will be hell to pay. I bet it was that
boyfriend of hers, Owen. She was always complaining that he refused to get a
real job or do anything with himself."

I thought of Owen
on the front cover of the gaming magazine. My father would never understand.
"Speaking of Owen, have you called him?"

"Why would I
call him?"

"Daddy, he
needs to know! He doesn't go to UCLA. What if no one on campus had his contact
information? What if they didn't think to get a hold of him? He might not even
know Sienna is dead," I said.

"Maybe he's
the one that drove her to it."

Charlotte sucked
in air between her teeth, a sharp sound of disapproval. Even my father had to
admit that was too harsh.

He shrugged in
deference to Charlotte. "I never liked him for Sienna. They were not a
good match. He was going nowhere and trying to hold her back."

"That doesn't
mean he doesn't deserve to know," I argued. "Sienna loved him."

"Sienna
didn't love him," my father countered. "She thought he looked good in
pictures. I never heard one conversation where they ever agreed. They argued
before every date."

"Only because
they always did what Sienna wanted," I said.

"Right,
exactly. A man needs to have a little bit more of a backbone, don't you
think?" my father said.

"Enough
backbone to make a phone call," I said.

Charlotte bit her
lip to stop a bubbling laugh. My father scowled but a short sparkle of
admiration lit his eyes. I had no idea where the sharp backtalk was coming
from, but I hoped it could yield results.

"I raised two
daughters. I wouldn't know the first thing about having a man-to-man chat with
your sister's boyfriend. What if he cries?" my father said. He went to the
side cupboard and poured himself another glass of whiskey. "How about you
call him and I won't ground you for sass?"

"You can't
ground college students."

My father shrugged
again and walked out without another word.

"Don't
worry," Charlotte said. "I'll finish the sugar cookies. You have a
phone call to make."

I went up to my
room and paced around, turning on every light. Sienna had once told me the
secret to phone interviews was to talk while you looked in the mirror. She said
it made you sound more natural, more relaxed, like it was a normal conversation
with another human instead of disembodied voices.

I brushed my hair,
pinched a little pink into my cheeks, and put on a light layer of lipstick. I
couldn't talk to Owen looking like a grief-stricken zombie urchin – if I could
manage to talk to him at all.

We used to talk on
the phone in high school, quick chats before I handed the phone to Sienna, but
later calls about video games. Sometimes, Owen called to ask my opinion about
certain games or to talk through a new strategy. The calls kept up through
college, so I had his number in my phone.