Chapter Text
It's snowing outside, all soft and fluffy like a cartoon, and Van feels hollow.
The house is empty, and clean for the first time in weeks. She spent the morning hauling bags full of beer bottles to the curb, cleaning out the fridge, and scrubbing unidentifiable stains off of the bathroom tile. Now, every trace of Vicky Palmer's self-destruction is gone. With every conceivable chore crossed off Van's list, there's nothing to do but kill time.
It's Christmas Eve. Her mom’s on a bender in Jersey City, and she can’t bring herself to intrude on the Turners and their happiness. So she resigns herself to spending a quiet holiday watching Home Alone for the umpteenth time and trying not to feel achy about a mom who would do anything to come home to her kid.
She’s about to plop down in front of the TV and do just that when the phone rings.
Might be the power company. Might be that fucking social worker again. Might be Nat, but Nat doesn't really call her up just because anymore, not since all the shit with her dad.
Van bites her lip and picks up the receiver after three rings.
"Palmer residence," she says, all nice and formal, just in case it is the social worker with her blonde updo and fake compassion.
The caller answers.
"My parents are gone for Christmas," Lottie says. "Want to hang out?"
Lottie's house is a strange fusion of gothic manor and obnoxious McMansion, history and modernity Frankenstein-ed together into a patchwork of ostentatious opulence. Van's been here more times than she can count, but she's never quite gotten used to its countless rooms and sprawling grounds and goddamn basement movie theater. More unnerving than the insane wealth of the place is the feeling she gets being here. There's a coldness to this place. An invisible layer of frost covers the expensive furniture, the antique rugs, the genuine Vermeer above the fireplace. It's like a model home. Attractive but sterile. Lifeless.
Lottie leads Van to a guest bedroom on the third floor, giving an awkward sweeping gesture like an inexperienced valet.
"You can, uh, put your clothes and things in there," Lottie says. "It's clean. Amelia just changed the sheets."
"Cool," Van says, chucking her duffel bag through the doorway. It lands with a soft but satisfying thud on the carpet. "Hey, thanks for letting me stick around. I know it's weird—"
"I offered, it's not weird," Lottie says. "I'm just...glad somebody's here. This house is so fucking big. It feels wrong for it to be empty, you know?"
Van nods. She wonders if the size of a place makes the emptiness better or worse. Emptiness in the Palmer house is a thick, suffocating thing, like smoke. Here, it's like all the air's been ripped away, leaving nothing but breathless cold.
"So," Van says, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans, "wanna play Mortal Kombat?"
Ten minutes later, Van's lounging on the couch while Lottie boots up her SNES. She remembers Taissa's mom ranting about this game the other day, how awful it is to expose young people to that kind of violence. Tai rolled her eyes and smirked at Van while her parents debated whether or not today's youth are being desensitized by movies and video games. Honestly, though, this game's never bothered Van. Watching a dude's spine get ripped out is kind of shocking the first time, sure, but the over-the-top gore and the corny pixellated blood and guts have a B-movie charm that keeps her entertained even as Lottie kicks her ass, every single time.
Maybe she's one of those desensitized youths Mrs. Turner was worried about.
"Okay, this is, like, actual bullshit," Van says as Sub-Zero pummels Raiden into a lightly frozen pulp. "How are you so fast?"
"You tell me," Lottie says with a smirk. "Aren't goalies supposed to have good reflexes?"
"Maybe I'm just letting you win, you don't know."
"Uh huh," Lottie says as Sub-Zero finishes the fight with an uppercut to the chin. Raiden is left swaying in place. Van can practically see cartoon birds circling his head.
"FINISH HIM," cries the announcer.
Van puts her chin in her hands and bats her lashes.
"Have pity on a poor, downtrodden girl?" she asks, making her voice as obnoxiously syrupy as possible. Lottie looks at her with false sympathy for a moment or two, her head cocking to one side like a puppy. Then:
"Nah."
And off goes Raiden's head, his spinal column dragged along for the ride like the string to the world's most fucked-up balloon.
"FATALITY."
That night, after a healthy dinner of mac-and-cheese and dubious scotch (Lottie apparently insisted that the staff go home early during the holidays), the two girls microwave some popcorn and head into the basement theater. For a literal hole in the ground, it's got a kind of grandeur to it. There are vintage movie posters, lit from below, lining the dark brick walls. The seats are plush and scarlet. The projector is designed to look like an old-fashioned phantoscope, though Van suspects it's actually much more modern.
Lottie puts on Christmas Vacation and flops into the seat next to Van, looking oddly tired for a day of doing nothing but playing video games and trading soccer gossip. There's a heaviness to Lottie sometimes. Something in the way she just stares off into space when she thinks no one is looking. She's got that faraway look now, as the Griswolds fight fate and god and their own bad decisions in the name of a fun old-fashioned family Christmas. Van tries to think of something to say, to call her back.
"Okay, super weird question," she says at last. "Do you think the daughter looks like Natalie?"
Lottie blinks.
"Our Natalie?"
"No, Natalie of Serbia," Van says. "Yes, our Natalie."
"Okay, okay, point taken," Lottie says, holding up her hands. Then she squints up at the movie. "You really think so?"
"Yeah," Van says. "I mean, sure, Nat wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit, but, like, the attitude? The voice? The vibe? That's Nat, for sure."
Lottie hums noncommittally, looking intently at the screen.
"I don't know," she says. "I don't see it."
"Maybe it's just me," Van says.
They're quiet for a while, until Chevy Chase is careening down the hillside and into a Walmart parking lot.
"God, remember when we were, like, twelve, and we tried to go sledding on that super steep hill by the middle school?" Van asks.
Lottie chuckles.
"Oh, Jesus," she says, "that was ridiculous. I thought for sure you were gonna die."
"Nah, dude, I'm invincible. I didn't even break a bone."
In retrospect, Van's still baffled she walked away from that day with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. Upon hearing that Lottie had never gone sledding, Van had practically dragged her out to the hill. They spent the afternoon plowing through the grey, slushy snow on a splintery toboggan Van had scored from a friend of a friend. Lottie was scared at first, clutching Van's waist and, Van suspected, mentally reciting half-remembered prayers she'd picked up from Laura Lee. By the fourth trip down, though, Lottie relaxed enough to let out a whoop of delight as they skidded over the frozen ground. Of course, that was the same trip that Van misjudged a turn and sent herself tumbling into a ditch just as Lottie bailed, so maybe Lottie was back to square one by the end. But they walked away laughing, fingers stiff and noses pink, and Amelia made them hot chocolate when they got back to Lottie's.
Lottie was so little then. She hit puberty late, turning into a giant out of nowhere the summer before freshman year. Before that, she was pint sized, one of the smallest girls in the grade. Something about her, the way she curled up on herself in the cafeteria and homeroom, awakened something doglike in Van. Something protective, and loyal, and desperately affectionate. Even now, with Lottie tall and poised and nearly grown, Van finds herself sticking close, ears pricked for anything that could unravel her.
"It was fun," Van says quietly. "Near-death experiences aside."
"Yeah, I'd love if we didn't have any more of those," Lottie says. "But, yeah. It was fun. God, I was scared of everything as a kid. Thanks for making me go out and do things."
"No problem," Van says. "Maybe I could make it a gig. Van Palmer: Unlicensed Aversion Therapist. Will work for snacks."
They're quiet for the rest of the movie. Van makes it her mission to eat every last kernel of popcorn, scraping the last crumbs from the bottom of the bowl and licking the butter from her fingers. By the time the credits are rolling, she's drowsy with booze and the velvet dark of the cinema. Lottie leads her to the guest bedroom again. She hesitates at the door while Van rifles through her duffel bag.
Van looks up. Lottie is fiddling with her fingers, looking at the floor.
"Lot? What's up?"
"You, uh...I mean, it's up to you," Lottie says, hesitating. "But you can crash in my room if you want. If that's not weird."
"Why would it be weird?" Van asks. "We used to do sleepovers and shit all the time."
Sophomore year, the JV Yellowjackets congregated in the Matthews' living room, turning it into a sweaty barracks of long-limbed, pizza-faced teenagers watching ET (Laura Lee had vetoed Beetlejuice, claiming it was Satanic) and playing Truth-or-Dare. Lottie chose truth exactly once. Nat asked her what the weirdest shit she'd done overseas was, and Lottie launched into a baffling story about a day-trip to Venice gone wrong. Van can't remember the specifics, but she's pretty sure it involved a stained-glass bong, a stolen gondola, a near-drowning, four or five different misdemeanors, and a strongly worded letter from someone in the Vatican. By the end of the story, everyone was as confused as they were entertained, and Lottie was the woman of the hour.
Van, meanwhile, chose dare every time, drinking an entire glass of rum in one gulp and kissing Jackie Taylor full on the mouth. Van and Jackie laughed it off, Van swallowing a tiny bead of hurt when Jackie kept going on about how weird it was to kiss a girl, but Shauna and Tai had been weird for the rest of the night. Shauna sulked, doing that thing where she stares all longingly at Jackie and thinks she's being even remotely subtle. Taissa barely talked to Van the rest of the night, and Van was worried for a bit that Tai might be secretly homophobic or something. A few days later, something clicked into place. Van realized, with a tiny pang of hope, that Taissa wasn't disgusted. She was jealous.
There'd been a few sleepovers after that one, but as time wore on, less and less people would show up, and the nights would get shorter and quieter. Nat stopped going, and then Mari, and then Tai. Van stopped attending shortly thereafter, feeling dumb and kiddish for clinging onto the sleepovers for as long as she did.
Now, picturing Lottie, alone in the dark in this mausoleum of a house, Van wishes she'd stuck around just a bit longer.
"I've got a blow-up mattress," Lottie says. "I think it's in the basement."
Said blow-up mattress is covered in about eight layers of dust and it smells like mothballs and neglect, but it's still softer than Van's bed at home. She rests at the foot of Lottie's massive canopy bed, staring up at the cream white ceiling. Lottie turns off the light, and they lie there in shadowy silence for a moment or two.
Then:
"Van?"
"Yeah, Lot?"
"Thank you. For coming over."
"You invited me, dork," Van says. "But no problem. Thank you for having me here."
Lottie's quiet after that. Minutes later, her breathing evens out. Van falls asleep not long after.
Van's sitting by the window, watching tiny, shapeless snowflakes tumble to the ground, as Lottie starts to stir.
"Merry Christmas," Van says.
"M'Chrsms," Lottie mumbles into her pillow. "Ugh. I keep forgetting you're a morning person."
"Dude, it's almost ten," Van says. "Please tell me that's not early for you."
"I need my beauty sleep, Palmer," Lottie grumbles. "Not all of us can be effortlessly hot."
"Mm, yeah, I keep forgetting the rest of you gotta work for it," Van says. She flexes. "Guess I'm just blessed."
Lottie smirks and rolls her eyes.
"Yeah, whatever. There's pancake mix and stuff in the fridge if you want to make something. There's also just, like, cereal. Help yourself. I'll be down in a bit."
"Uh huh," Van says. "You gonna go back to sleep?"
"Maybe," Lottie mumbles. Her eyelids are already drooping.
"Yeah, well, set an alarm or something, or I'm eating your pancakes," Van tells her as she makes her way out of the bedroom.
Like many things in Lottie's house, the kitchen looks decidedly different when it's not crowded with teenagers smoking weed and making out on every available surface. It's pristine, all white wood and marble countertops. There's a stainless steel sink and a sleek modern fridge and a coffee maker that costs more than Van's entire house. Van opens the cabinet and stares in bewilderment at the glut of foodstuffs. There are jars of spices she's never even heard of. There are multiple varieties of quinoa. On the top shelf, there are gourmet chocolates shipped in from some hamlet in Belgium.
After a moment of fumbling, Van finds a box of surprisingly normal pancake mix and gets to work. She takes two storybook-perfect eggs from the fridge and cracks them in a bowl. Lottie shuffles into the kitchen as Van's reaching for a whisk. She yawns.
"Need a hand?" Lottie asks, her voice all soft and fuzzy with sleep.
"Sure," Van says, "wanna heat up some oil?"
Lottie nods, making her way over to the stove while Van mixes the ingredients together. She moves the whisk in swift circles, trying to think of the last time she had breakfast.
They work in companionable silence for a few moments before Lottie talks through a particularly big yawn.
"You know what's weird? I don't think I've ever cooked before."
"Really?" Van asks. "Like, never?"
"Uh...no," Lottie says. "I mean, we have, like...a staff. And, like, microwaving stuff doesn't count, you know?"
"Aw, Lot!" Van says. "Am I your culinary cherry?"
Lottie snorts.
"You're nasty, Palmer."
"I'm a wordsmith."
Another beat of silence passes. After a while, Van starts to smell the first faint coils of smoke.
"Uh, Van?" Lottie asks, her voice thin.
"Yeah?"
"How hot is the oil supposed to get?"
Van turns to answer and finds Lottie flinching away from the skillet, which cradles a white-hot flame. Smoke billows into the room.
"Not that hot," Van tells her, scrambling for the cabinets. "Turn off the burner," she calls, relaxing just a hair when she hears the click of the dial. She opens door after door, finding everything under the goddamn culinary sun except the thing she's looking for.
"Lottie, where's your baking soda?" she calls over her shoulder.
"Fuck, hang on, I'll take care of it!"
"What?" Van asks, wheeling around. Lottie's filled a glass with tap water and is running back toward the stove.
"Oh shit, Lot, wait—"
For a moment, Lottie is a wayward ball, hurtling toward the bottom-right corner of the goal. Van dives, knocking the two of them to the floor with a grunt and the sound of breaking glass. Lottie rolls onto her back, stunned.
"What the fuck—"
"Sorry, Lot," Van breathes as she stands, turning to flit through more cabinets until she finally finds the baking soda and a metal lid. She pours the whole box onto the flames, slamming the lid onto the skillet when the fire still struggles for life. After a few tense seconds, she backs away from the stove and throws open a window to let out the smoke. She turns to find Lottie sheepishly scooping up the shards of her water glass. The sight makes her chest ache. She grabs a couple paper towels and kneels in front of Lottie.
"Here, I'll take the glass," she says. "Don't want you cutting up your hands."
Lottie looks unfathomably embarrassed.
"You're, uh, not supposed to put water on those fires, are you?"
"Nope."
Lottie passes Van the shards and buries her face in her hands. Van throws out the glass, then squeezes Lottie's shoulder.
"Hey, it's no big deal. That shit happens all the time." She coughs. "Hey, tell ya what, how about we go somewhere while the smoke clears out?"
Lottie looks up at her.
"Did you have something in mind?"
"Honestly?" Van says. "I've been fucking dying to see Jumanji."
By the time they've cleaned up the kitchen and made themselves halfway presentable, the sky is the robin's-egg blue of early afternoon. They make it to a two o'clock showing, and Van instinctively leads them into the back, a collection of shadowy seats she's come to think of as her and Tai's. She can't remember the last time she went out to a movie with Lottie. They spend so much time together, at soccer and parties and the section of the cafeteria that's become unofficial Yellowjackets territory. But days like this, just the two of them baking and going to the movies with no one else around, are so rare now that it's hard to remember what it was like before.
On the screen, two kids sit down to play what's clearly a cursed board game, not that either of them seem to care. Lottie gets a soft look on her face, and Van wonders if she's thinking back to the first time they really interacted. They were seven, Lottie having just transferred in from some fancy-ass private school. Outside the school, a thunderstorm raged, the black sky screaming as lightning burned across it. Rain buffeted the tiny playground, the wind driving the basketball nets into a frenetic dance. Their teacher told them to take recess indoors. The other kids brought out jacks and cards, and Van sulked in the corner, mourning the soccer ball sinking in the mud just outside.
A couple minutes into the indoor recess, Lottie slunk over to her, a box of Sorry! in her hand.
"Amelia plays this with me sometimes," she mumbled. "When it rains."
Van had never played before, but the rules were simple enough. Simple enough that, after the first round, they got bored and started making up rules. By the time they were on game five, the game now included a deck of cards, a handful of pilfered Monopoly money, and two improvised dance routines. They couldn't finish that last game, overcome with gut-twisting laughter as the bell rang.
After school, Lottie invited Van home, blushing as Van wandered slack-jawed through the sprawling house. They played soccer and Guess Who and hide-and-seek. Back at her own home, Van raved to her parents about her new best friend. Her mother gave her a glassy-eyed smile and a "that's nice, Vanessa," and her father got a funny look on his face and said nothing at all.
Still, they didn't stop her from going over to Lottie's every week or so. The two of them romped through the empty halls and splashed each other in the pool when the weather got warm. Van never once saw Lottie's parents, but she never thought to ask about them. Her own dad was gone more and more those days; absent from her games, coming home at odd hours, saying little to her mom and even less to her. Parents, she concluded, were all very busy.
She snaps out of her reverie just in time to watch one of the kids get sucked into the game, and the other get swarmed by a massive flock of bats. The scene, and everything that follows, is so unabashedly absurd that the whole thing somehow works.
"You think you'd make it if you had to rough it in the jungle?" Van asks mildly as they file into the lobby. Lottie laughs.
"With that many bugs? No fucking way."
After, they grab pepperoni slices and garlic bread at a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint that's somehow open for the holiday. Van dunks her slice of garlic bread in piping hot marinara sauce before popping it into her mouth, savoring the concert of tomato, garlic, onion and cheese. Lottie eats slowly, as if trying to etch every bite into her long-term memory.
"So," Van says, "apart from some light arson, I'd say this Christmas was a rousing success."
"Is it arson if it's unintentional?" Lottie asks. Van shrugs.
"Arson sounds cooler than breakfast accident."
Lottie shakes her head.
"I can't believe I nearly burned down my own house," she says.
"It's Betty Crocker's fault, if you think about it," Van replies.
"You're right. Fuck Betty Crocker."
"You're so brave for saying it."
They tear back into their meal. Van is trying to identify the Blink 182 song playing over the speakers when Lottie reaches into her bag and pulls out a small box wrapped in tissue paper.
"I know we said no presents, 'cause this whole hangout thing was so last-minute," she says, "but since we're all going off to college pretty soon, I wanted to give you something to remember me by."
College. Van swallows hard, trying to smother memories of her mother sneering at the scholarship applications on the table, asking what Van would even do with some worthless fucking film degree.
"Thanks," Van says as she starts to tear open the paper, "but I do owe you one. Don't let me forget."
In the box is a chunky ring, made, Van realizes with a start, from actual silver.
"Damn, Lot," she says. "I'd say 'take me out to dinner first', but..." She gestures to the few remaining scraps of food on the dingy table.
"You like it?" Lottie asks.
"Dude, it rules," Van says, sliding the ring onto her right middle finger. "Now I can flip the bird in style."
The ring fits perfectly, lover-snug around her finger, as if it had been wrought for her and her alone.
(Years later, Van would find the ring at the bottom of a long-forgotten duffel bag, gathering dust in the back of her closet. She wouldn't be able to say what possessed her to put it on. The ring would still fit perfectly, as if it had anticipated all the ways that time would shape her flesh and bone. She would wear the ring each day from then on, the image of Lottie's kind young face swimming just below the surface of her consciousness. The quiet, clutching guilt that would settle in her chest each time she'd look at the ring would feel almost like justice.)