Nicolette
My car engine sputtered to silence; a mechanical representation of the death my career currently faced. The rusty road sign towered above me, offering little consolation.
Welcome to Godot, WV
We’re what you’ve been waiting for!
A deranged Big Boy cartoon with a miner’s helmet gave an exaggerated wink and thumbs up with a pickaxe over his shoulder on one side. I cringed at the other side featuring a female cartoon resembling a gratuitously endowed Olive Oyl holding out a pie with a salacious grin.
If my journalism career wasn't dangling by a frayed thread, jeopardizing my life’s work, I wouldn’t be caught dead back in this town. A town that clearly hadn’t changed a bit in the dozen years since I’d left at seventeen. I had been so anxious to leave my backwoods hometown that I left the summer before my senior year, jetting off to New York to enroll in an early degree program so I could start an internship at the Independent American News Network upon graduation.
The vibration of my phone cut through the oppressive mediocrity of the landscape in front of me.
“Hey, Mel,” I answered. “Please tell me you’re calling to let me know you found me any other assignment?”
She chuckled into the phone. “Sorry, hon. I’m calling to make sure that old Caddy didn’t crap out on you halfway through Pennsylvania.”
With a sigh, I narrowed my eyes at the patriarchal cartoons, their antiquated eyes mocking me from the billboard. “Yeah... I’m here.”
“I’m going to level with you. When I dropped your name to the producers, they were hesitant. Your body of work is strong, there’s no doubt. But they’re wary after the most recent... noise.”
“No, I understand,” I said quickly. “And I appreciate you going to bat for me.” I punctuated my response, so she knew I didn’t need to be reminded of my recent noise.
Melody worked for Athena Studios, the company behind the hit docuseries Beyond Bizarre: Real Weird Real Stories. When she gave me the assignment that would send me back to Godot, the only thing that poked through the impending sense of dread was the shred of hope I could resurrect my recently marred career. From a journalistic integrity standpoint, the docuseries was drivel. But it was popular drivel. And the same producers had hands in some legitimate documentary studios.
“You built a strong following in Easton,” she said. “It’s a big city and you covered some real topics in your podcast. The studio was impressed with the content… But they don’t exactly hire off YouTube followers. You need a home run here, kiddo.”
My cheeks burned at the reductive summary of how I’d spent the last seven years. I opened my mouth to argue, but snapped it shut. Melody was sticking her neck out for me. I knew she took me seriously. It was her bosses I had to convince.
“This could open a lot of doors, Nicolette. No one has gotten through to Riot Asher in over ten years.”
“And you think I can?” I asked.
“If anyone can, it’s you. Put on that high school sweetheart smile and get him to open up. The guy must have a side to this story.”
She made it sound so easy.
Nausea crept up my throat. I’d heard about Grace Asher’s murder. I already moved to New York, but it had made national news because of how goddamn bizarre it really was.
When Riot Asher confessed to killing his mother, it stunned everyone. A murder hadn’t occurred in Godot in decades.
He was only a year older than me in school, but I don’t think I’d spoken five words to Riot Asher during the eight years I spent in this town. Despite living in Godot since nine years old, I never felt a part of the community. My affinity for asking questions was frowned upon. I’d kept to myself and never looked back once my bags were packed.
I was an outsider now. And Godot didn’t like outsiders.
“What if I can’t get him to talk?” I asked.
“You? The Bloodhound of New England? Can’t get someone to talk?” I almost smiled at the old nickname.
“Okay, what if he talks and his story is the same as his statement? He’s never strayed from it.”
“We don’t need him to change the story. We need a psychological portrait. Was he really a golden boy who snapped under the immense pressure of collegiate expectations? Or was he a silent predator all along?” She paused. “Or was Mama Asher a bible-thumping bigot who beat her sons into loving the Lord until finally the youngest snapped?” I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Oh, I like that angle. Go for that one.”
I frowned. “You know that’s not how it works. You collect the facts. Gather the empirical data. Then piece together motives and a narrative.”
Melody chuckled before clucking her tongue. “Your news world might’ve operated that way. But this is the entertainment business. We need streams.” I blew out a humiliating breath. “Plus, everyone loves a good redemption story. Look. I’ll mail you the treatment for the episode once it’s finished. We’ve got three storyline options for how to end it. We need you to paint us a picture of why he did it. And Nicolette?” She paused and I let the silence swell. “You get him to go on the record? I can’t tell you what doors that could open.”
I let the reality of that swirl around me.
“Okay… But really, Mel. Shoot me straight. If I can’t get a story out of him, what happens then?”
She hesitated and I could practically hear her chewing on her lip.
“Then you’ll need to come back with a bigger story to tell.”
***
White clapboard siding covered Jacob Maxwell’s quintessential southern farmhouse, which featured a sprawling wrap-around porch. The massive landscape beyond was immaculately manicured.
My eyes fell to a piece of lawn art peeking out of a bush next to the porch stairs. It looked like a bird made from recycled metal and it spun in the wind, making its limbs come alive. A faint chime emanated from inside it. A twinge of familiarity reminded me of similar pieces popping up all over the northeast coast.
Jacob came sweeping down the porch to greet me.
“Oh, Nicolette, how wonderful it is to see you! Look at you.” He appraised me for longer than necessary. “You’ve turned into quite the woman, haven’t you?”
“Good to see you, Jacob,” I muttered, pretending to root around for my bags.
“Oh, come now. You can still call me Uncle Jacob!”
I grimaced. I had never called him “uncle”. Even when he had married my Aunt Shirley shortly after her lung cancer diagnosis took a turn for the worst. It was same summer I got my driver’s license so I didn’t spend a ton of time getting to know him. My mother never cared for her brother-in-law. She called him an opportunist.
Still, he was the only quasi-family I had left in Godot since my parents retired and now spent their days traversing the country in a rehabbed camper van.
“That’s all you’ve got?” he asked when I hoisted a backpack over my shoulder.
“I’m not staying long...” I drifted off.
Shit. In my reluctance to come back, I never came up with a cover story for why I was here. I couldn’t very well waltz into town and allow Riot Asher to shut me out before I got close enough. I wondered if I’d recognize him. His dark hair had framed a soft baby face that featured brilliant blue eyes. He was a looker.
But he’d also been in prison for ten years. Who knew what that did to a person.
My laptop bag slid off my shoulder and hit the ground with a clunk.
“Oh, let me.” Jacob bent down to pick it up. He eyed the laptop. “I guess I should have warned you. I don’t get wireless internet out here.” He cocked his head and shrugged.
“You don’t have internet.” I wanted to cry on the inside. How was I supposed to get any research done?
“I have one of those desktops in the office upstairs. You’re welcome to use that!”
I blew a breath out. This was going to be a long couple weeks.
***
I tossed my backpack on the bed, scattering novelty throw pillows like dust bunnies before wandering into the computer room next door.
Once the dinosaur tech booted up, I opened a browser and shot off an email to Melody, giving her Jacob’s address to mail me the episode treatment.
I opened up the email I sent to myself containing all the news links I had found in my brief research on Riot Asher. Most of the articles were from ten or eleven years ago and the distant memory of the story came flooding back to me.
Golden boy and star quarterback, Riot Asher was ready to put Godot on the map when he won himself a full scholarship to play football at West Virginia State College. As a starting freshman, he led the team to an undefeated season. The night before the final homecoming game, he left campus, drove three hours back to Godot and stabbed his mother three times before burning her body.
To be fair, he lit the whole house on fire. Her body just happened to be in it.
That same iconic photo that had made front-page news in almost all major publications was still the first image to populate.
Riot knelt on his front lawn with his hands behind his head, his childhood home burning to the ground behind him. I don’t know who was smart enough to snap a photo of that, but by the next morning, that image was everywhere.
Outside that, I found nothing new published about Riot Asher in the last ten years and there were certainly no current photos. Plenty of follow-up articles with other townsfolk, but every single article ended the same way. Riot Asher did not respond to our requests for an interview.
It had been an open-and-shut case. He confessed. Didn’t even get a lawyer until the court assigned him one to cut the plea deal.
The story went that his brother, Brennan, called upset because he and their mother had an argument.
Riot had been going to college for only a few months and getting Brennan’s call put him at the end of his rope. He drove home to confront them both. His mother was defensive and angry, and Riot snapped. It didn’t make total sense, but for over ten years he swore by every single detail of those events.
I considered my angles for approaching the assignment. I had never shied away from addressing my subjects head-on. Impulsive is what they had called me initially, but when that impulsiveness ended in truths no one had ever uncovered, my critics were quiet.
But Riot Asher was going to be different. The rumor mill was that he shut down every media outlet that tried to approach him. 20/20. Dateline. Even ESPN had made him offers for an exclusive special. But Riot Asher never let anyone get past the “Hi, my name is...”
No, as anti-media as Riot Asher was, I would have to work this differently.
“Hey!” Jacob’s voice jolted me out of my vortex. I jerked to face the door and accidentally closed out the entire browser.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself. It was going to take another twenty minutes for all those tabs to reload.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, but dinner will be ready in five minutes!”
I groaned at the blank screen. Wanting to protest, but not wanting to be rude, I pushed away from the desk and joined Jacob for dinner.
***
“So, Nicolette, what made you decide to leave Easton?” Jacob slurped pasta into his mouth, and I cringed at the little tendrils of spaghetti that slithered between his leathery lips.
“Oh, you know, just time for a change of scenery,” I said.
He paused, regarding my expression for a beat. “Not getting into any more trouble, are you?” His features darkened.
Fuck, had he heard about my latest noise?
My expression remained impassive. Jacob might have caught wind of it. The World Wide Web was a big place, but the fine people of Godot still believed the internet was for pedophiles and democrats.
“Oh, you know me.” I gave a phony laugh. “If trouble were a compass, I’d be the navigator.”
He cackled out loud as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“Any boyfriends to speak of?”
I would have laughed if my love life hadn’t been so pathetic.
“No, I haven’t exactly prioritized personal relationships,” I said, noting the bitter undertone in my own voice.
“Well, now that’s no way to find a husband.”
This time I did laugh. Because I knew he wasn’t kidding.
“I have a few more aspirations in life than becoming a wife,” I said, trying not to sound too bitter.
“Gosh, Nicolette, you were the youngest evening news anchor to ever make it on national television. How many more aspirations can you have?” Jacob laughed and shoved another forkful of pasta in his mouth.
A nostalgic yearning gurgled in my stomach at the memory of my early IANN success. The entire world had been at my disposal. I had travelled the globe. I’d presented breaking international stories and drawn TV ratings an independent news network could only dream of. I was the Bloodhound of New England.
And then I lost it.
All because it was the one time in my entire life I had prioritized a personal relationship. I jeopardized everything back then because I listened to my naïve heart instead of my head.
I never made that mistake ever again.
I didn’t dignify his question with an answer. Instead, I shoveled down three more bites of pasta before standing up.
“I’m going to get some work done then go to bed early. I appreciate you letting me stay.” I offered a polite smile.
“Please, Nicolette.” His smile held a weird expression. “The pleasure is all mine.”
***
I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed, eager to wash the day of travel off me. I could hear Jacob downstairs, blaring some war movie. He’d offered to watch something else if I wanted to join him but I declined.
Sitting down at the antique computer, I moved the mouse to wake it up. I opened the browser and went to History, hoping I could relaunch all the tabs I had had open.
My stomach lurched when I spotted it. My recent noise. Clear as day, scattered across Uncle-fucking-Jacob’s search history. Not just once. Not twice. But at least seven different searches and visits over the last two weeks.
Noise. I scoffed. What a great euphemism for an illegally taken sex tape of me that had been unapologetically released.
Shame. Embarrassment. Disgust. All of it rolled off me in waves. He’d been looking at it. Watching it. For weeks.
Jacob’s cackle from downstairs made me jump and I felt like I might throw up. My heart hammered in my throat.
Fuck this. Fuck him. And fuck this house.
