a beer.
“It’s probably safe to talk,” Kelly says. “That guy has his overalls turned up too loud to hear you.”
Max turns back to his sister, his face a mask of seriousness, and he leans across the table. “Okay,” he says, practically at a whisper, leaving Kelly no choice but to lean forward too, her exposed elbows sticking to the patches of dried beer on the table. “The other day, I went to see Land Without Water. They’re playing it at the Movies on Exchange again. They always play it the week before Day Without Water. Anyway, I stayed afterward and watched the credits roll. I watched them closely as they went through all the acknowledgments, thanking the locals here in Portland. It was mostly the director’s family, businesses, things like that. But then, near the very end, I saw it: Evelyn Anderson.” He widens his eyes and jabs his head toward her a bit, as though ready to respond to her shock by saying, I know! Crazy, right?
But no shock comes; Kelly feels decidedly unshocked. “How does that—did I miss something?”
“That’s her,” Max says, “thanked at the end of the film.”
“But her last name was Romanoff, right?”
Max nods. “Yes, but Anderson was her stage name. Her artistic name. She always went by Anderson. Evelyn Anderson. And her name was there. She was there. Thanked.”
Kelly notices that Max is still clenching that fork, though it seems suddenly less likely that he means to jab out his sister’s eye with it and more likely that he plans to jab out his own. “Anderson isn’t exactly the world’s least common name,” Kelly says. “Isn’t it possible there’s another Evelyn in Portland—or, hell, anywhere—that had something to do with the movie?”
“No.” Max shakes his head like a boss shooting down a poor suggestion. “It’s her.”
“Is she mentioned in that book you’re reading?”
“No,” Max says. “I’ve read it three and a half times now, trying to find some mention—even something oblique—but I can’t find anything.”
“So then?”
“So nothing. That doesn’t mean anything. Just because she isn’t mentioned in the book doesn’t mean I’m wrong about her being involved.”
“But if you guys hung out every day and yakked about movies all the time, wouldn’t she have said something?”
Max shrugs. “All I know is, she had something to do with Land Without Water. I don’t know what yet. But this is what the cops aren’t thinking about. They don’t know this yet. And I’m going to figure it out.” Max’s voice accelerates; Kelly hasn’t heard him say so much in one go since she left home. “Because if she was involved in the film, and then she just happens to go missing right before Day Without Water, right when the Movies on Exchange is playing Land Without Water again, right after she goes to see it, right when Penelope Hayward is back in town—that’s just too much. You’re going to tell me it’s a coincidence?”
“Wait.” At the sound of Penelope Hayward’s name, Kelly feels a rush of air against her face, against her exposed wrists lying flat on the table; each hair on her skin rises as though preparing to ask a question. “Penelope’s here?” The physical sensation of this surprises her, makes something flail in her abdomen, makes her sort of want to jump up right here, right now, and go find her. Even the beer-smell in this joint—nauseatingly sweet and hanging like humid air—vanishes, leaving for Kelly only a name: Penelope Hayward.
See, this is the third thing Kelly knows about Land Without Water: that it stars her best friend from high school, who even back then acted the part of prim prima donna so well that Kelly just knew, even though she never would’ve admitted it years ago, that her friend was going to charm her way into some venal industry. Not that their teenage years weren’t fun in many ways, and when Kelly drove into town earlier today, as she saw her ghosts everywhere, she saw as many ghosts of Penelope as she did of her brother or her mother. (Didn’t she even drive by the North Street apartment of Mrs. Hodgkins, the Deering High School English teacher into whose lawn Kelly and Penelope once drove a hundred plastic forks after receiving a paltry C-plus on their White Noise presentation?) But since Penelope got famous—not A-list famous, mind you, because she’s a minor movie star, the colead in half a dozen soul-crushing rom coms but not necessarily bankrolling stuff on her own, not yet at that point of true success, and maybe will never get there if she keeps making the kinds of moronic movies she makes, just fucking batting her fucking eyelashes and pouting for the camera and whatever the hell else—where was Kelly’s mind again? Oh yes, ever since Penelope got famous, Kelly hasn’t mentioned her old friend much—in fact, she never talked about her in Arizona—but back in Portland, their broken friendship feels like an inescapable fact of Kelly’s life, a scar down her face that she hopes nobody asks her about. Yet somehow, the notion that Penelope might be back in town had never occurred to Kelly, not even as a fantasy on her long drive out here; why would it have?
“Penelope,” Kelly says. “Like, she’s here here?”
“She comes every year for Day Without Water,” Max tells her.
“So she’s in town right now?” On the last two words, Kelly pokes her index finger into the tabletop.
“She’s here. And you know what?” Max leans forward. “I would love to talk to her. And you can make it happen.”
“Um. No. I’m not really sure I can make anything happen—”
“No, no, it’s perfect. Tomorrow morning, she’s doing a breakfast thing for charity. You and me, we can show up, we can go, you can talk to her. I only want a couple minutes, okay? I just want to ask her a few questions about Evelyn and Land Without Water.”
Kelly shakes her head. It sounds like a disaster. Kelly and Max just showing up and hoping that somebody in Penelope-the-(minor)-star’s entourage—because God knows she’s going to have one—will grant them access to her? A long shot at best. She opens her mouth and feels the warmth from the bar’s heater on her teeth, smells all the dust burning in the vents—a smell that exists nowhere in Arizona like it exists here.
What an embarrassment that would be, seeing Penelope again, towing along her drooling brother, desperation thick on his skin the way dogs and salesmen can smell. Watching how her brother leans forward, his eyes wide, his cheeks red, the blood in him finally boiling over, she understands that he has hit his final punch line—the reason he wanted to eat with her, the opportunity he began taking advantage of as soon as he saw his sister back in town. Turns out Max wants something from Kelly too.
“Is this why you wanted to have dinner with me?” Kelly folds her arms across her chest. “To ask me about Penelope?”
Max shrugs. “Not the only reason. But we could go tomorrow. Will you go with me tomorrow?”
“Can I stay at the apartment tonight?”
“Tonight?” He grimaces.
“Yes, the apartment I grew up in. That I technically have every right to still be in.” Then, to milk it a bit, she says: “So we can get up early. And see Penelope.”
Max regards her with the unease of a man who has discovered a letter from his wife’s lover, as if one night with his sister will cleave his life into two epochs: before and after.
“I don’t care about—” What ridiculous roommate name did Max give her? Thadeus? Tobias? Whatever the name, Kelly forgets, so instead of asking, she waves her hand in the air. “Whatever, I don’t need my room. Do you have a couch? Something else?”
“Okay, okay,” he says. Sighs. “Yes, you can stay. But we have to go. Penelope’s event starts at eleven. We need to be there early.”
“Fine.”
“Good.” He leans back. “And I’ll get to talk to her. I’ll get to ask her