The Fall of January Cooper Read online

  I pushed the water across the table towards her. "Drink that. Take off your shoes."

  "I don't want water. I want you."

  "You've got to cut it out."

  She reached for me. I backed away from her.

  "Don't leave, please. Just stay with me. Just for a second. Can't we pretend?" She grabbed my wrist tightly. You never would think of Vanessa as strong, but her hands were; her fingertips would leave bruises, and I let her keep digging her nails into my skin.

  Her pupils were blown. I didn't know what from. I could only keep an eye on her. I couldn't stop her from following her friends into the bathroom. She'd been hanging out with the wrong people—girls who got too skinny too fast and guys who kept odd hours and never stopped grinding their teeth. All of them were hopped up on something. Vanessa hadn't always been like this. It was my fault she had gotten this way, and now I couldn't stop her.

  I shouldn't have blamed her for being like this, but I did.

  "You have to cut this shit out, Vanessa," I said softly.

  "I want to remember him," she whispered. "Why won't you let me?"

  I shook my head in disbelief. "Drink the water, sleep it off."

  She started to cry harder. I didn't watch. I turned to the door and I could see her there, sobbing. "Lock up tonight, okay?"

  She said nothing.

  "Vanessa," I said loudly. "Lock up tonight, okay?"

  "Just fuck off, Christian."

  "Once you tell me you'll lock up."

  "Fine!" she shrieked. "Get out."

  I could do that for her, at least. I could get out. I could stand in the hallway and hear her crying through the door and I could walk away.

  No matter how badly fucked up she got. No matter how responsible I was. I could walk away.

  Ask anyone. It's what I do.

  January

  The clock ticked loudly. It was now 4:45. Tyler was forty-five minutes late. I'd told everyone fifteen minutes ago that I was sure he was on his way and that he would definitely be here.

  Definitely.

  But now that I'd sent him forty-five texts, I'd decided he was probably dead.

  Nobody was being very sympathetic to me, though, even though obviously my fiancé had died.

  My father tapped his fingernails on the hardwood table at the lawyer's office. “January, as Mr. Snow appears to have missed the meeting and Mr. Gregory—” he nodded severely at the attorney to his right— "charges by the hour. I suggest we begin without him."

  "Just, relax, Dad," I said. I lifted my iPhone off the table and texted Tyler again:

  R U DEAD?

  Mr. Gregory shrugged. "We can wait until five. I don’t mind."

  Mr. Gregory was on level 214 on Candy Crush. That was staggering.

  “Obviously, you don’t mind,” my father said dryly.

  “How much do you charge an hour?” I asked curiously. I bet I could get some nice shoes charging $600 an hour to play Candy Crush. Maybe I should think about law school.

  My mother pulled out her Swiss-imported topcoat polish. "Maybe he had one of those little races." She shook the bottle and carefully untwisted the top.

  "Tyler is injured," I said. "I told you that."

  "January is marrying an athlete,” my mother said to her nails. Her pinkie, specifically, which she painted in careful, even strokes.

  "I mean, he drives a car, Darlene. Athlete is an exaggeration," my father said.

  “NASCAR is a sport, Dad.”

  "It's very déclassé whatever you call it," my mother said calmly, like she was remarking on the weather. “Mr. Gregory, do you have any refreshments?”

  “Darlene, calm down.”

  “Richard,” she said. “It’s five o’clock.”

  “It’s four forty-five.”

  “Well, I have a martini at four forty-five. Mr. Gregory, do you mind?”

  Mr. Gregory took a breath. “One second, this is a timed level.” He moved his fingers frantically. “GODDDAMNIT.”

  He exhaled and dropped the phone to the table in defeat.

  “Oh, dear,” my mother said. “Shaken, please? With olives?”

  “Darlene.”

  “I’ve been reading this book, The Power of Habit. And it’s about the power of your habits. And one of my habits, Richard, is a martini at 4:45. It’s powerful.”

  “That’s completely illogical,” my dad said.

  “I think it’s logical,” I said, just to bother him.

  He looked at me like nobody asked you.

  “Mr. Gregory, my martini?” my mother said, with an encouraging smile.

  Mr. Gregory gave her a strange look and got up from the chair. He walked to the door of the conference room, opened the door, and shouted down the hallway. “INTERN! I NEED A MARTINI, SHAKEN WITH OLIVES ASAP IN CONFERENCE ROOM B.”

  I cringed and decided I was never going to law school.

  "Let's just start before I get annoyed,” my father said.

  I glared at him. "Like you aren't annoyed already."

  Mr. Gregory sighed and put away his cell phone. "If you're sure."

  "I am," my father said coldly.

  "So....what are we doing again?" Mr. Gregory asked. "Prenup. Right. Right. Right. And there’s no groom?” He looked at me.

  “There’s obviously a groom. He’s just not here right now,” I said through gritted teeth.

  "Essentially, I want to be sure that January's trust fund will not be considered mutual property."

  I narrowed my eyes at my father.

  "The same goes for her horses. And the properties and the art and the jewelry.”

  He cocked his head, like he was thinking of more things of his he was afraid Tyler would steal if we ever broke up.

  “And then we want to be sure that, in the case of divorce, Mr. Snow will have no parental rights." My father cocked his head. "Also, January will keep her name, and they will mutually agree upon whether it should be Snow-Cooper or Cooper-Snow when they have children, if they have children before they divorce."

  "We're not getting divorced."

  "Well, darling, this is an agreement in case you do get divorced, so you're going to have to pretend," he said sarcastically.

  "I'm sure that won't ever happen."

  "You were also sure he would be here forty-five minutes ago."

  He could be incredibly childish, my father.

  "I don't care for hyphenated names," my mother said, blowing on her nails. “They're too clunky. Why don't we just keep Cooper? Snow sounds a little, you know, too much like cocaine.”

  "What are you even talking about, Mom?" I demanded.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Tyler.

  Thank God.

  “COME IN,” Mr. Gregory bellowed. A mousy intern stuck his head in, trembling. “I have…a martini?”

  “Yeah, for the lady,” Mr. Gregory said.

  Tyler had better be dead. Really. Or else I was going to kill him.

  “I thought that’s what the kids called cocaine,” my mother said. “Snow?” She said. “Ice? What do they call it, Richard?”

  “I’m really not up to speed on cocaine, Darlene.”

  “Blow,” Mr. Gregory said, with a knowing nod. “Definitely Blow. Or C dust.”

  My father and I both cocked our heads and stared at him.

  “Blow! That’s it,” my mother took a sip of her martini, pleased. “Anyway, you can’t have your children named after a street drug.”

  “The point is, the kids are going to have her last name,” my father said.

  “Tyler will never agree to that," I said.

  "Well, those are the terms,” my father said, nodding. He pointed at Mr. Gregory. “Put all that in there.”

  “Yep,” Mr. Gregory said, looking balefully at the clock.

  "Those are your terms. This is my wedding," I said. "And I think I want to change my name."

  My father laughed for a long, awkward thirty seconds before clearing his voice and taking a s
ip of his water.

  "What exactly is so funny?" I demanded.

  “You’d like to change your name?”

  “Yes, I would. I think it’s nice. I think it’s nice to have one family unit.”

  He smiled. “Let me just get this straight. You’d like to change your name to January Snow?”

  So, maybe I hadn’t exactly thought that one through.

  I gritted my teeth and texted Tyler:

  SO FAR U HAVE GIVEN UP PARENTAL RIGHTS AND I'M NOT TAKING YOUR NAME. LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS. THX.

  "Fine. But he’s not going to want to name anyone Cooper. Just FYI.”

  "Let's actually make sure January names all the children."

  "Seriously? Are you even allowed to put that in a prenup?”

  “No,” Mr. Gregory said, doodling on a legal pad. "I don't think so."

  "I don't want a grandchild named Chevrolet," he said.

  "He wouldn't name a child Chevrolet,” I said.

  "He named his dog Jiffy Lube,” my father said acidly.

  "It’s just Jiffy. And that was for a sponsorship. And also a dog. We have a dog named Rocket.”

  “Rocco. My dog is named Rocco,” my mother said.

  “Whatever.”

  My father raised his eyebrows. "I'm trying to protect your interests here."

  "You're trying to scare him off,” I said.

  "Like I said, I'm protecting your interests."

  My mom sighed. “Why are you even marrying this person again? You’re only nineteen. You have all the time in the world to marry someone we like.”

  “I’m twenty-one.”

  She waved her hand. “You don’t even have a college degree. People will think you’re pregnant. It’s tacky.”

  My father smiled impassively.

  “You want to freak him out,” I said to my father.

  “January, if I wanted to freak Tyler Snow out, I would not do it in writing,” he said.

  “I’m marrying him.”

  “You’re only marrying him to bother me,” he said dismissively. “He’s stupid, uneducated, uninteresting—”

  “Grew up in a trailer park,” my mother chimed in.

  “He grew up in a normal apartment complex.”

  “Ha! Apartments!” my mother said to nobody in particular. My mother actually did grow up in a trailer park, which is why she thought she could get away with looking down on them.

  “She’s drunk. You’re drunk. I’m not signing that,” I said.

  “Well, yes, I’m sure Mr. Snow’s attorneys would like to review it first,” Mr. Gregory said, looking down at the notes sketched on his legal pad.

  "Can I see that?" I asked my mother, holding out my hand for the nail polish. I needed something to do with my fingers apart from digging them into my palms.

  "This is not a nail salon. It smells toxic in here."

  "It's got real varnish in it," my mother said with a broad smile. "Like the stuff they put on wood."

  "That is actually toxic. January, I don't think you can spare the brain cells on poisonous fumes," my father said.

  "It's her nail polish." I said. “And I happen to go to Harvard.”

  The lawyer cleared his throat. “So, let me get this straight. All of January’s assets will remain separate?”

  My father nodded.

  “You want him to sign away his parental rights should they divorce?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t think that’s reasonable,” I said.

  “Shh…” my father said. “And she keeps her name.”

  “That doesn’t need to go in the prenup,” Mr. Gregory said.

  “I think it should.”

  “O-kay,” Mr. Gregory said. He scratched that down on the notepad.

  He looked at the list. “What about assets after they get married?”

  “They can share them evenly,” my father said

  “Riiight,” Mr. Gregory said, like that would never happen.

  “You know I’m the one marrying him, right? You’re not marrying Tyler. I am. Me. January.”

  “I’m aware.” My father glanced at the clock. “And it’s four fifty-nine, Mr. Gregory. So we’ll take our leave now.”

  “Oh, you sure about that, we can talk about…”

  “Come on, now,” my dad said, snapping his fingers. “Darlene, finish the drink, let’s go.”

  My mother knocked it back easily and left the empty glass on the table. I stormed out ahead of them.

  “That was ridiculous,” I said in the elevator.

  “That your fiancé didn’t show up to discuss legal arrangements for your marriage? I couldn’t agree more,” my father said.

  “Ugh,” I said. I hit the L button twice, infuriated by the elevator’s slow crawl to the ground floor. “I cannot even. I just can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  The doors opened and I bolted from the elevator through the marble lobby and into the parking lot.

  I didn’t ride back to the house with them. I said I had to do errands before I finished packing for school.

  Errands like fucking murdering Tyler Snow.

  And buying tequila and margarita mix and maybe a new pair of alligator anything because fuck Richard and Darlene Cooper, fuck Tyler Snow, fuck Mr. Fucking Gregory, and fuck getting married.

  I was still incoherent with rage when the police officer pulled me over in Tyler’s stupid gated neighborhood.

  “Ma’am, do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

  “I don’t, actually,” I said. I was too busy deciding what I should drink when I got home and whether I should kill my fiancé or just castrate him.

  “52 miles per hour.”

  “Oh.”

  “This is a residential neighborhood.”

  “Well, I knew that,” I said.

  “License and registration.”

  I handed him my license. “I don’t know where the registration is.”

  “Most people keep it in the glove compartment.

  “Riiiight,” I said. “Well, there’s just a lot of mail in the glove compartment.”

  He glanced at my driver’s license, frowning. “Ah! January Cooper! Of course.”

  I smiled. "How are you, officer?"

  “Yup. Yup. I know your dad. We go way back.”

  “I bet.”

  “Richard’s an old friend. I’ll let this slide,” he smiled. “Tell him Jim Colburn says hello.”

  “I'll do that."

  “Drive safe, sweetheart."

  I smiled as sweetly as I could until he turned his back and then I gunned it to Tyler’s house.

  Tyler’s monstrously tacky mansion was supposed to look like a French castle, but it looked like the set for a celebrity rehab reality show. I gunned my Range Rover up the driveway, suppressing the urge to off-road through his boxwoods, which he’d landscaped into miniature Sprint Cups.

  I wondered if they were an improvement over the tiny boxwoods pruned into his initials that he'd had before. I knew his sister was responsible for the décor, but you'd think he'd have the common sense to not monogram his driveway. I mean, Jesus, how was he going to sell this thing?

  Fucking Tyler.

  I got out of my car and tripped up his ridiculous steps. My mother was right. He was tacky. And not coming to the lawyer’s office was tacky. And marrying him was going to be tacky. And the trophy-shaped shrubbery was beyond tacky. And being named January Snow was just a fucking disaster.

  I rang the doorbell repeatedly. Over and over and then I tried the door which was locked.

  “I HAVE A GUN!” I heard Tyler’s sister, Angelica, screech.

  “It’s January. Let me in!” I shouted.

  Angelica opened the door, keeping it chained shut. She poked her twitching nose through the crack in the door like a hungry mouse.

  “Are you kidding me, Angelica? Let me in.”

  “Tyler’s not here,” she whined.

  “Where is he?”

&nb
sp; “He said to tell you he had an important meeting.”

  “Does he have an important meeting? Or did he just tell you to tell me that he had an important meeting?”

  “I don’t know, January. You shouldn’t ring the doorbell that many times. It’s rude.”

  “If he’s in there, I’m going to fucking murder him,” I said.

  “HE SAID TO TELL YOU HE HAD A MEETING,” Angelica shrieked at me. She waved her pink pistol in the air like a drunk cowgirl and slammed the door.

  What an absolute lunatic.

  I called Tyler again. Straight to voicemail. I growled at the tone and hung up the phone, stomped to my car, and spun off into the city for a pair of shoes and a bottle of Patron.

  At least I could still count on Jimmy Choo.

  I kicked off my shoes when I got home and dropped my shopping bags on the floor. “Hello!” I shouted in the marble hallway. “Dad! I need help!”

  Lugging four bags from Saks and a bottle of tequila, I barely managed to make my way through the foyer, past the living room, and into the lounge, where I heard the television.

  My mother and father were sitting on the brocade couch. They weren’t talking over the TV, just listening. It was ESPN.

  And it was Tyler.

  “…arrested for possession of cocaine outside of a Dallas-area strip club at three-thirty this afternoon…Snow’s agent said the driver would be heading to rehab….”

  “What. The. Hell.”

  “You cannot marry this person, January,” my father said clinically. “He’s a drug addict.”

  “Turn up the volume,” I said urgently as they showed Tyler being arrested, along with two trashy-looking strippers. “Oh my fucking God. Did he cheat on me?”

  “I just knew that boy had something to do with cocaine,” my mother said. “Didn’t I tell you that, Richard? Snow. Blow. It's all the same to me."

  “January,” my father said sharply. “You’re not going to marry him. Right? Tell me that you’re watching this and you’re thinking marrying him is a terrible idea.”

  I just gaped at the flat screen television and spluttered.

  I had three margaritas that night, made guacamole with too much hot sauce, and friended a bunch of the new freshmen on the Harvard lacrosse team on Facebook.

  Adorable. Adorable. Adorable. Friend. Friend. Friend. I paused on the picture of some hideously unfortunate creature, possibly a goalie. Who was I to judge? Friend.