Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

neighborhood. Mandy knew her pretty well.”
    “I thought Des Moines was supposed to be a safe place.”
    “Yeah, well, so did I. My mom is completely freaked out. She probably thinks I’m being strangled right now. I just try to stay calm and think about it logically. Are there even CD players in hotel rooms? How was Josh planning to play whatever music he was getting from the car?”
    “Who’s Josh?”
    “Missy’s boyfriend.”
    “Right,” I said, noticing a new strictness in my voice. I was mostly sober again. “Maybe he had a portable boom box. Or else he was planning that they’d end up lying in bed together sharing headphones.”
    “Something’s fishy. If it was their first big night, and he was so concerned about the music, I’m pretty sure he would’ve prepared something beforehand.”
    “Don’t forget that they went to a movie earlier that night. If he wanted to have everything ready and waiting, he would’ve had to check in in the middle of the day.”
    “Which would’ve been impossible because he was working at the hardware store.”
    “Exactly,” I said.
    “I heard something on the radio the other day that someone might have seen him out in the parking lot talking with Josh. That’s the strange part, if it’s true. Personally, I don’t think the cops are even sure it wasn’t Josh who killed her. They could be pretending it’s Nicholas, while the whole time they’re secretly building their case against Josh. Maybe Nicholas was the first to find Missy’s dead body, and he was so destroyed by it that he fled for the woods, or some crowded city, or wherever he went.”
    “They’ll catch him,” I told her, trying to build the conversation back up. “You can’t get away with murder these days.”
    “Or maybe Nicholas disappeared because Nicholas is dead,” she said, smirking and throwing her hands up at all of our various conjectures. “The main question for me is how do I know you’re not the strangler?”
    “You don’t,” I said.
    “You really didn’t hear anything?”
    “No. But I haven’t eliminated my brother as a suspect. He got up at least once to go to the bathroom.”
    “That’s some luck for your first night in Des Moines.”
    “That’s what the detective said. He kept asking me all these questions about what I heard. All I kept thinking was, Jesus, what did everyone else hear? Was she screaming for help? While I was up there, snoring? Actually, I don’t snore, but my brother and father, they can really snore.”
    “I’ll tell you what I would’ve done. I would’ve hopped into the family wagon and hauled ass back to Davenport.”
    “That would’ve been the smart thing to do.”
    “But not the fighting Flynns,” she said, raising a proud finger in the air.
    “Nope. We’re gonna to stick it out, see what happens to us down here in Des Moines.”
    “I wouldn’t call it DEE-moyn ,” she said, hitting the brakes. “But I guess I’m glad you’re sticking it out. This is your house here, right?”
    I thanked her and said good night, not realizing until then that we’d already passed my house, that Emily had employed the cul-de-sac at the end of my block in order to more perfectly time our arrival with the lighthearted conclusion to our conversation.
    “See you Monday,” she said.
    “See you,” I said, stepping out and trudging my way up the driveway, wondering for the hundredth time why they hadn’t flattened our lot like the rest of the lots on the block.

Five
    While this account contains no shortage of scandals that for plot purposes I would be mistaken to withhold, I choose this moment to reveal one peripheral disgrace for the simple reason of its psychological effect on our heroine, Emily Schell. But first a scrap of context concerning the weeks following my introduction to Smitty, Tino, Hadley, Ashley, and Lauren. 1 Even today I can hardly flick a cigarette out the window without recalling that first string of weekend nights driving circles