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“What did you do to your car?”
Silence.
“I said, what did you do to your car? Answer me.”
“I didn’t do—”
“You think it’s cute? You think it’s funny?”
“Dad, I didn’t—”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear a goddamn word of it. In fact, that’s what you’re going to do next. After you finish cleaning up this mess, you’re going to come downstairs and clean that up too. I’m tired of this act of yours. I’m tired of this black parade you throw yourself—”
“It won’t come off, Dad.”
“I didn’t tell you to talk yet. And you better damn well hope it comes off, because I’m not paying for it to be fixed, and you’re not driving that piece of crap around like that. I told you he couldn’t keep a car, Darcy. I told you he—”
Varen stood, leaving the cartons. “It’s my car. I bought it myself. Bruce cosigned, not you. Or have you been too drunk to remember?”
“Varen.” The woman’s voice. “Just stop it, both of you.”
“That’s it. You know what? You’re not keeping that pile of junk. You can just ride the damn bus to school, since you can’t seem to get a clue. It’s not sitting in front of my house like that. And since it’s your car and you paid for it, you can pay to have it towed, too. Better yet, call up Bruce and have him tow it off! I’ll call him up myself—and that’s another thing, I don’t want you back at that bookshop anymore, do you hear me? I’m tired of that invalid undermining me. I can find plenty of work for you to do here. No more. Is that clear?”
“Whatever.”
The man’s arm shot out, viper fast, snatching Varen’s sleeve in a tight grip.
Isobel pressed one hand flat against the inside of the closet door, ready to push through, but she willed herself to remain, her fingers curling to grip the slats, knowing that it would only get worse if his dad found out she was there.
“When are you going to wake up?” the man shouted, shaking Varen, his voice booming again, something about his son’s apathy infuriating him more than his defiance. He let go, flinging Varen back. He stumbled but caught himself against the wall, his head down.
“Look’t you, you screwup,” he muttered, his words streaming together, bleeding into one another. The hard heels of his dress shoes snapped on the floorboards as he walked past the closet door. Isobel swiveled her head as he passed. She heard a drawer from Varen’s desk scrape open and saw it hit the floor with a crack, papers spilling. Another drawer joined the first, followed by the overturned contents of a third. Bound portfolios and poems scattered, pens fleeing across the floor. Varen’s dad kicked one polished shoe through the rubble. “Look’t this waste of time. God, you’re just like your mother. Gonna be a screwup scooping ice cream for the rest of your goddamned life if you don’t clean up your act.”
His dad sighed, and his voice sounded tired now. Spent. He held his open hands over the mess of writing and blank papers waiting to be filled, as though there was no answer for it.
“Joe, that’s enough,” the woman whispered. “He said he’d clean it up. Come downstairs.”
Isobel crouched low, peering up through the slats.
She saw the woman enter the room, though her face remained obscured. She saw her reach out an arm, long, slender, and tanned, her delicate wrist encircled by a glittering bracelet.
She touched the man’s shoulder.
“Better clean it up,” he stammered, “’cause I’ll be back up here t’ check.”
The woman, Varen’s stepmother, pulled his father from the room. Isobel shut her eyes. Slowly she rose, clutching the Poe book to her chest. She heard the sound of stumbling. A curse.
The door slammed.
In an instant, whispers filled the room—ten people hissing and talking at once.
Her eyes flew open. On the floor just outside, she saw the light dim and then grow bright again, as though the chandelier over Varen’s bed swayed on its chain. The echo of footsteps on the stairs grew distant and distorted, as though coming from somewhere far away and deep underwater. Shapeless shadows flitted over the floor and across the closet door, throwing Isobel into moments of complete darkness.
Somewhere in the room, Slipper yowled.
29
Driven
