I wake up on Andy's couch the next morning with a pounding headache. I'm wearing a shirt that isn't mine and a pair of dress slacks, and one of my socks is missing. Also, there's someone tugging on my hair. When I crack open my sleep-crusted eyelids, I see it's a pudgy child with Cheerios in her red hair. Little gremlin.
"Spiky," the gremlin says.
I pull the blankets over my head and roll to the other side of the couch. The AC unit whines as it pumps lukewarm air into the house, carrying with it the distant sounds of a TV talk show and a basketball bouncing on the pavement outside. "Kindly fuck off." My mouth tastes like the bottom of a bottle of tequila, and I think I'm sweating pure alcohol. I would pray for death but I'm pretty sure I'm already in hell.
The gremlin eyes me warily. "What does 'fuck' mean?"
"Uh... it's a bad word that you shouldn't say, like shit. Or damn."
"Shit," she says thoughtfully.
I nod. "Exactly."
The floorboards creak and Andy Hill slouches unceremoniously into the living room, wearing a faded Rascals t-shirt and a pair of grungy sweatpants. There's still glitter on her cheeks, but her smudged mascara and blood-shot eyes ruin the glamour of her look. "You'd better not be teaching my cousin swear words, Ronan Lockwood, or I'll have hell to pay from Joyce."
"What does 'hell' mean?" the gremlin asks, chewing on a strand of her red hair.
"It means I'll buy you ice-cream if you don't tell your aunt," Andy replies sweetly. "How does that sound, Annabel? I can also rent all of the Starwars movies from the library."
"You know I like Star Trek better!" The gremlin -- or Annabel, I guess -- sticks her tongue out at Andy and runs upstairs, shouting her new favorite swear words at the top of her lungs. A few seconds later, I hear a woman shout indignantly, "Andrea Hill!"
Andy pinches the bridge of her nose. "Thanks for that, Ronan."
"What? It's free speech."
Andy rips away my blankets, tossing them into a pile on the ground. I glare at her. She glares back. Thirty seconds into our silent staring-contest, she relents and says, "Okay, asshole, you win. Talia just woke up. She wants to go to the library."
"What time is it?"
"Two in the afternoon."
I let out a string of curses that would make Andy's gremlin cousin proud. "I'm not going to the library on a Sunday afternoon."
"It's a Monday afternoon, and yes you are. You agreed to this last night."
"I can't be held accountable for the things I say while drunk!"
Andy rolls her eyes. "I know it's stereotypical to call a gay guy a drama queen, but seriously, you are such a drama queen. Go drink some water and brush your teeth."
"Excuse me?" I'm so flustered and hungover, I don't know what else to say. I might actually be blushing. (Did I tell Andy about my thing with James? Even worse, did I tell her about my thing with Jesse? How drunk was I last night?) "I don't --"
"Drink some water," Andy says slowly, like she's talking to a child. "And please brush your teeth. You have horrible morning breath, and you smell like a frat house carpet."
"That's not -- I'm not --" I'm spluttering now, and to make things more embarrassing, Andy is staring at me like I've completely lost my mind. Finally, I give up trying to form a coherent sentence and demand, "What is your problem?"
Andy's eyes widen. "Oh, shit. I thought everyone knew."
"Well, they don't," I say tightly. "So I'd appreciate it if you don't tell our friends."
"Don't tell them that you have horrible morning breath?"
"That's not what I meant."
"I won't tell anyone. Really. Cross my heart and hope to die." Andy drags me off the couch, wrinkling her nose at my t-shirt. Or her t-shirt. I'm not exactly sure why I decided to switch up my wardrobe last night. "Ah, I forgot I loaned you my Stevie Nicks shirt. Your suit is in the wash, by the way. Talia may have spilled ranch dressing on it."
"Accidentally?"
"Maybe. It was hard to tell." Andy flicks a dust bunny off my shoulder. Her forehead creases like she's trying not to ask for the shirt back, even though she clearly has a thing for Stevie. "You drank a lot last night. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Okay? Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"Well, we found you wandering around town in a three-piece suit, already drunk, and looking like Becca and Finn just kicked you out of their band. I know I would be upset if my two closest friends got together behind my back."
"They're not together," I say instinctively. "It's complicated."
"Tell me about it." Andy studies my face, and the concern in her honey-brown eyes makes my chest ache in a way I don't understand. (I'm just going to blame it on the hangover.) "You know I was joking earlier, right? I would never out you. I know how shitty it feels when other people try to label you, and I know that you probably don't want to talk about it, but if you ever change your mind, I'm here. I'm sure that sounds cheesy as hell, but it's true."
"You can be my gay Ariadne," I say, attempting a wry smile.
"I'll try my best to lead you out of the labyrinth." Andy frowns at my shirt again. "I don't know why I gave you Stevie. You deserve at least the B-52's."
"Rock, rock, rock lobster," I sing, and my voice is so hoarse and out of tune that Andy actually bursts into laughter, and the tension from earlier fades away.
"C'mon, I'll give you the grand tour," Andy says, helping me off the couch. We wind our way through the maze of clutter, tripping over mounds of Lego's and Lincoln Logs and a hissing tabby cat. There's an old man sleeping in the den (Angie pokes him to prove he isn't dead) and a scattering of cousins in the kitchen and dining room.
Oliver is playing Solitaire on the floor of his bedroom, which is about as depressing as it sounds. I grimace as he slams the door shut in Andy's face. My memory from last night is hazy, but there's no way I could forget Oliver's doomed crush on Talia.
Andy scowls at the "enter at your own peril" sign on his door. "When I tried to talk to him yesterday, he turned off his hearing aid and closed his eyes. Can you believe that? My entire family is conspiring against me."
I don't comment on that. One of my life rules is to not get involved in sibling rivalries.
My eyes flit from the discount furniture to the peeling floral wallpaper, taking in the outdated wood paneling and grass-green carpets that haven't been washed in years. I want to ask Andy why her house is so messy, but something tells me she might not appreciate the question. If I had to look after my extended family (half of which still live in China, and act like we don't exist) my apartment would probably be falling apart too.
"What do your parents do for a living?" I ask as we climb the stairs to the third floor.
"Well, before my dad got arrested for being a total douche-bag, he worked at the auto repair shop. Turns out his boss didn't appreciate forged checks." Andy guides me around a corner, past a wall decorated with crayon scribbles and furniture dents. "My mom was a trapeze artist in Vegas. Dad met her at a show, they did the whole shotgun-wedding thing, and the rest is history. Then mom died in a car crash and dad got married to Joyce."
Andy nudges open a door decorated with flower petals and party streamers. There isn't an inch of empty wall space in her bedroom. Everything is plastered with band posters, Polaroid photos, and magazine clippings; the desk is overflowing with markers and craft supplies, and there's a life-size cardboard cutout of Anne Donovan in the corner. It's gaudy and crowded and overwhelming, and I can tell that's exactly what Andy wanted.
Talia is sprawled on the bed, leafing through Andy's middle school yearbook. "You're so cute in this picture. I can't believe you had bangs!"
"Forget you ever saw that," Andy says, swiping the book out of her hands. She chucks it into a pile of dirty laundry on the other side of the room. "So, what's the plan? I can drive us to the library, but we need to ask for permission to access the public archives."
Talia props herself up on a tasseled pillow. Her braids are a tangle of ribbons and dark hair, and there's traces of glitter dusted across her brown skin. "I've been thinking about what Ronan said last night. Rachel Clairvaux wants something from Dusty Valley, and she's not going to stop buying properties until she gets it. Her choices aren't random. She wanted the old church for a reason, just like she wanted Floyd Murphy's ranch --"
"Floyd is selling the ranch?" I ask.
"No way," Andy says. "Finn heard him talking on the phone about Rachel. Floyd said he didn't want to get mixed up in her nonsense."
"What if he changes his mind? Floyd can't sell the ranch. Rachel would tear it down and build a casino or a mountain resort with her name in neon letters. She doesn't give a damn about the land. She'll burn it to the ground."
"I don't think Floyd is going to change his mind," Andy says reassuringly.
"Yeah, he's not a pushover. Unlike some people." Talia gives me a skeptical look. "I thought you didn't care if Rachel turned the town into a knockoff Reno. In fact, I remember you saying that Leigh Real Estate could 'sell our precious town to the highest bidder'."
"I don't care about the ranch. I'm just tired of Rachel acting like she owns the place."
"It's okay to be worried about your friends, you know. You don't have to lie about it."
"Why would I be worried about Finn?"
Talia rolls her eyes. "Whatever."
"Whatever!"
"So, it's decided then," Andy says, clapping her hands. "Let's go to the library and search for Rachel's deepest, darkest secrets."
***
The Dusty Valley Public Library is a two-room building with more dust bunnies than books. When Andy asks about the archives, the ancient librarian just waves her acrylic claws at the rows of slumping shelves before returning to her Sudoku. She looks like she'd been sitting in the same spot, working on the same puzzle, for the last thirty years.
It must be a busy day, because there are three other people in the library: an old lady practicing her cross-stitch, a yawning clerk flipping through a worn copy of War and Peace, and a younger kid clacking away on a Macintosh. The old lady hums Sinatra as she jabs her needle through the words home is where the heart is. I made a face behind her back, earning an elbow to the ribs from Andy.
We wander through Romance and Sci-Fi until arriving at the public archives, a disorganized collection of binders and loose papers stuffed at random into the shelves. Andy and Talia spread the building records out on the table, while I crack open the window and light a cigarette, trying to smoke away my pulsating headache.
"Look at this," Talia says, after hours of scouring land deeds and family lineages with no success. She shows us a brittle leather-bound book, titled The Legend of Dusty Valley. "I think it's about the conquistador's lost gold."
"Forty-niner," Andy corrects. "Why would a Spanish conquistador be wandering around the Mojave with a bag of gold?"
"Maybe he didn't want the other bastard colonizers to find it."
Andy reaches for the book and flips to a random page. "The church burned down in the drought of 1862. I was only eight years-old at the time, but I can still picture the flames in my mind, clawing at the walls like a pack of starving coyotes." She skims the next few pages. "It's a memoir, I think, written by the town's first librarian. Mary Sawyer."
Even though I've been pretending not to care all morning, I can't resist looking over Andy's shoulder as she continues. "For years, the town had whispered about Weeping John's gold, and the legend that surrounded the lost treasure. In some iterations, John won the gold during the Mexican-American war in Texas, while in others, he struck it rich in the Black Hills. The stories shared a similar ending: John wanted to hide his fortune in the desert, but got lost and didn't make it out. Some of the locals say they can still hear his cries of despair..."
I snort, and Andy shoots me a dirty look.
"Many of the older residents swore that John buried his gold under the church, but after the building burned down, there was no evidence of the treasure. My father, who lived in Dusty Valley when it was a two horse town, claimed that John became paranoid of the other residents and stored the gold in a cavern --"
"Tavern," I interrupt.
Andy raises an eyebrow. "Are you going to be this annoying the entire time?"
"It's supposed to say 'tavern', not cavern. You're reading it wrong." I gesture to the smudged letter, which could be a t or a c or even an e. "Trust me, my handwriting is shit. I know how to decipher old books."
"He's got a point," Talia admits. "I'd rather hide my gold in a tavern than in some random cave in the desert."
"Let me finish. John left town later that day to meet with a business partner. He never returned, taking the secret of the lost gold to his grave." Andy glances through the next few pages. "That's it. She doesn't mention the cavern -- or the tavern -- again."
"What about the church?"
Andy flicks impatiently through the pages. "Nothing much, just that it was built in the early nineteenth century. It was one of the original town buildings."
"An original..." It's a miracle that I'm able to put the pieces together with my debilitating hangover. I leap off the windowsill and search through the pile of papers until I find what I'm looking for -- the town map from 1847. "Look. Here's Bodie House." I jab my finger at a second location. "Here's the Murphy Ranch." There are other familiar names on the map: an inn on Route 40, the regional bank, and a cluster of houses near the south end of town. "Rachel is buying up all of the original properties," I say, feeling a little lightheaded from my discovery. "That's why she turned the old church into a casino, and forced all those people to move to Lourdes Park. She wants to own the town."
"Abram's tavern," Talia exclaims, circling a boxy building on Main Street. "This might be what Mary Sawyer was talking about in her book. It's one of the originals, so it should've existed when John buried his gold."
"Is the building still standing?"
"I think so. A lot of the Main Street shops are built on old foundations. If my sense of direction is correct, then the tavern should be somewhere between the PayLess and the ice cream parlor."
Andy points to one of the houses on the map. It's only then that I realize she's pale and trembling. "This is where I live," she says softly. "347 Alta Vista."
Talia and I exchange a look, and I can tell she's thinking the same thing as me.
"We're going to have a problem."