Slice Of Cherry (22 page)

“I know it’s okay. Remember what Madda said? The thing Big Mama could do? What Cherry herself could do? Me! I can do that. Did you see that? I settled a corpse. I laid her to rest.” Simple amazement overcame her giggling fit. “I did it. I mean, I’m about to. As soon as I tell her mother. Damn. I didn’t ask what her name was.”

“Greenley.” The ghostly voice seeped from the ground.

Fancy shot to her feet and would have taken off except that Kit stayed on the ground and laughed.

“She’s dead, remember? She can’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Kit untied the ribbon she’d put in her sister’s hair and then drove a sharpened twig into the ground.

“Why did those bones grab you?” Fancy asked, her black hair floating willy-nilly about her face. She felt willy-nilly too, as though Kit had undone some stabilizing cord between them. “I walked over that same spot and nothing grabbed me.”

Kit tied the ribbon around the stick in a jaunty bow. “You can see things in glasses of water and I can’t. Same thing.” She pulled her sister along the path, her hand gritty with dust and dirt. They left the beribboned twig behind like a girly grave marker.

“Why’re you grinning like that?” asked Fancy, skipping to keep up with Kit’s loping stride.

“Cuz I’m not useless.”

“Who said you were?”

“And cuz I can do something you can’t.”

Fancy stopped skipping. “You don’t have to be all happy about it.”

“Sorry!” cried Kit.

Happily.

*   *   *

That afternoon the sisters went to the square where Amelia Dandridge lived—St. Teresa Avenue to be precise. On the corner of St. Teresa and Third, a boy running a dark peach juice stand called out, “You girls need luck?” The dark peaches that grew downsquare were notoriously lucky, so dark peach juice was always popular. The boy wore an Uncle Sam hat and had a crowd of people lined up, waiting in the hot sun.

The juice was warm and almost medicinally sweet, but dark peach juice wasn’t popular because of its taste. Porterenes didn’t believe in magic, but they believed in having all the good luck they could get.

Kit stopped before the stand and smiled at the boy. “What do you say, Fancy?”

Fancy shrugged and rolled her eyes, knowing that Kit wouldn’t have felt so in need of luck had the boy not been cute.

“Fancy?” said the boy, handing out plastic cups of pale golden liquid with one hand and snatching dollars with the other. “And Kit? The Cordelle sisters?”

The crowd of people stilled and stared. “Yeah?” Kit said as the sisters braced themselves for an attack.

“Y’all need more than luck,” he said solemnly, handing the sisters their drinks. “Y’all need a miracle. Your old man’s toast. Too bad he couldn’t be more like y’all.”

Kit, who had been on the verge of exploding, was shocked out of her anger. “Like
us
?”

“We heard about Mason,” one of the waiting customers told her. “And Selie.”

“You know Selenicera?”

“She took ballet with my kid until Datura . . .”

“Went apeshit?” Kit suggested. She exchanged a look with Fancy, who couldn’t believe that instead of screaming for the cops, everyone was
smiling
at them.

“On the house, ladies,” said the peach juice boy after the sisters drank up. “With any luck you’ll find out you were adopted.”

“With any luck,” said Kit, “you’ll realize you’re an asshole. That way strangers won’t have to constantly point it out to you. Thanks for the drink!”

They walked their bikes down St. Teresa, past the cathedral of the same name where a couple of Blue Sisters conversed on the steps in their grayish-blue habits. “You wanna go back and get him?” Fancy said under her voice as they passed the sisters.

Kit frowned. “What for?”

“For saying that about Daddy. We could take him to the happy place. Really put the fear of God into him.”

“Fuck him.”

Fancy glanced back nervously at the sisters, but they didn’t seem to have heard. “You almost killed a little girl for less reason than he just gave you.”

“I can’t show up at a stranger’s house covered in blood—I wasn’t raised in a barn.” Kit was distracted, searching the house numbers for 824. “Besides, it’s like you said: If we went after every rude person, we’d have to go after everybody in town.”

“I say a lot of stuff you never listen to.” “Well, I’m listening now.” A group of kids raced by, waving tiny American flags and sparklers. “After I do this thing with Amelia, you wanna go to Fountain Square?”

“What for?”

“To hang out, dummy. It’s the Fourth of July.” When Fancy just stared, dumbstruck, Kit huffed, “Forget I said anything.”

Kit stopped at a row house that had been converted to apartments. When Fancy tried to follow Kit up the stoop, Kit put up her hand.

“You should go on home.”

“It’s too hot for jokes, Kit. Let’s get this over with so we can leave.”

“It’s over right now, Fancy, for you.”

Kit was wearing Madda’s
my way or the highway
expression, and that’s how Fancy knew she was serious. “Why do you wanna send me away?”

“You freak people out, Fancy,” she said in the reluctant tone used to inform someone she had bad breath. “The way you sit all quiet, hating everybody. I can put Amelia at ease a lot easier without you there
looking
at her.”

“But we do everything together! You came to the happy place with me.”

“Because you
asked
me to. Now I’m asking you to go home.”

“Why wait until I’m all the way out here to say that?”

“I didn’t wanna hurt your feelings.” “But now it’s okay?”

Kit turned her back and went into the building. Didn’t even apologize, didn’t even pretend to feel bad about ditching her own sister. That Kit could care about a stranger’s feelings over her own blew Fancy’s mind.

“Fine. Don’t include me. See if I care.” As soon as the door closed behind Kit, Fancy yelled. “And don’t say ‘fuck’!”

K
IT WAS RUNNING AHEAD OF ME THROUGH THE WOODS ON A PATH MADE OF PINK GLASS.
I
TRIED TO KEEP UP BUT MY LEGS WEREN’T
A
S SWIFT AS HERS AND THE GLASS BROKE UNDER THE WEIGHT OF MY FEET, BLOODYING THEM, BUT
K
IT STILL WOULDN’T SLOW DOWN.
W
HEN
I
FELL, THE GLASS SHATTERED ALL AROUND ME AND CUT ME INTO SEVENTEEN PIECES.

Madda was so thrilled that Kit was carrying on the family tradition of settling the dead that she made her special red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. To Fancy it tasted like creek mud.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Madda said, finally noticing her. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s always quiet,” said Kit.

“Quiet
er
.” Madda put her palm against Fancy’s forehead. “Are you sick?”

Fancy nodded and let Madda put her to bed.

Kit came in some time later and sat next to Fancy in the dark.

“You woulda been bored. Amelia just cried a lot and hugged me. It was all very emotional and tragic—you woulda hated it.”

“I hate
you
. I’m sick with it. I’m gone die in this bed hating you. Just like Uncle Miles.”

“Uncle Miles died of the flu, not hate. Stupid girl. You won’t die. You’re way too evil and ornery, but if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll watch over you.”

“All night?”

“I’ll be here.” Kit climbed into bed with her and pulled her close, rubbing her back in slow circles.

Fancy fell asleep listening to Kit’s heartbeat. Her dreams were strange and blackberry scented, and every time she woke up, Kit was there, watching her.

But the next day, Kit was gone. Fancy opened her eyes to late-morning sunshine and two notes on the nightstand:

And:

Exciting
?

Fancy rolled out of bed and looked into the vanity mirror and saw Kit riding her bike, face turned up to the sun, a smile on her face like she was happy. Even without Fancy by her side she was happy. Fancy got dressed and left the house. If Kit wanted to be happy without her, she’d find a way to be happy without Kit.

Fancy rode her bike into the square and stopped at the music store, secretly hoping to see Kit there, but Kit was nowhere in sight. Fancy rifled listlessly through scratched vinyl records.

“Hey, Fancy.”

It was the shop owner, an older lady with wavy hair, a hippy skirt, and rings on her toes. Kit knew her name, but Fancy didn’t—she’d never paid attention. “Someone donated a bunch of Louis Armstrong LPs, if you’re interested.”

Fancy went to where the shop owner was pointing.

“Is it true that you went mute after Guthrie was put away?”

The shop owner was watching her, but Fancy didn’t mind— she had a nice face and weird taste in music, which Fancy always appreciated. Fancy gave her a scornful look.

The shop owner laughed. “People have lots of theories, don’t they? Do you get hate mail?”

Fancy looked up, surprised.

“So do I. I was married ten years to a child molester, and no one believes that I didn’t somehow know that he was hurting children. He does the crime; I get all the hate. They always take it out on the wrong person. All the sympathy gets used up on the victims, and so there’s never any left over for innocent bystanders.”

“I’m not innocent,” said Fancy without thinking, moved by the shop owner’s lurid confession. “Maybe that’s why they hate us. For reminding them that innocence is just an illusion, and that if you scratch the surface, we’re dark and maggoty all the way down to the bone. We’re animals, and we’re guilty— every one of us.”

Fancy brought a record up to the counter—Louis Armstrong’s version of “On the Sunny Side of the Street”—but the shop owner wouldn’t take her money.

“On the house. Isn’t your sister gone meet you?” She looked out of the shop door as if a line of beasties were waiting out on the sidewalk for Fancy to exit. “You shouldn’t go around alone.”

Fancy wished there were beasties. “I don’t care if I get eaten.”

“Kit would care,” said the shop owner, as if she knew anything about Kit’s feelings. “Did y’all have a fight?”

Fancy shrugged.

“It’s okay to fight, honey.” She grabbed a bag for Fancy’s record. “If you don’t fight, you never realize how much the people you love mean to you. She’ll come to her senses. You come back soon, huh? It’s nice to talk to someone who appreciates the joys of utter despair.”

Fancy thought about this. “Okay.”

She left the store, marveling at how easy that had been, how almost natural to walk away from an encounter with someone without wanting to hurt or maim.

How strange.

When Fancy got home, Kit was sitting at the piano, playing softly and singing into the phone cradled between her face and shoulder. Fancy recognized the song—they had the record in the crate beneath the phonograph. “I Wanna Be Loved by You” by Helen Kane.

Kit sang it giggling into the phone, but then the words took on a deep meaning, her voice full of longing. When Kit saw Fancy glaring at her, though, she straightened, nearly dropping the phone. “Uh, I’ll call you back.”

Kit stood, put the phone in the charger, and followed
Fancy into the sleeping porch. “Hey. Where you been?”

Fancy raised the bag with her record inside. “What about you? You find something exciting to do?”

“Not really.”

“Who was that on the phone?”

Kit sat at the tea table. “Nobody.”

“You were singing to nobody?” Fancy put her new Louis Armstrong on the phonograph and decided to smash the Helen Kane record later.

“I wasn’t singing
to
him. I was just . . . singing.”

Kit could barely look Fancy in the eye. “Let’s read the mail.”

“Slim pickings today.” Fancy skimmed the letters, disappointed. There was still hate mail, although they didn’t get nearly as much as they’d used to. But no one had written to them for help, at least not the kind of help the sisters were offering.

“Just means ain’t that many people who aim to see someone dead. At least not today.”

“I’m really sorry for not letting you come with me to Amelia’s.”

“Here’s one,” said Fancy, as though Kit hadn’t spoken.

“‘Dear sisters, I think there’s a monster stalking me. It’s green and feathery and has long red teeth. I’m scared to go outside anymore. Could you help me?’”

“It’s just, you get so weird whenever I pay attention to other people.” Kit was staring at the tea set as though she’d never seen it before, as though she had been taken over by a replicant.

Fancy wrote, “Sorry, Gayle.
Human
monsters we understand.
Monster
monsters are out of our league. Be safe, and good luck not getting eaten.”

Kit stroked Fancy’s hair, petting her as though she were a cat. Though Fancy tolerated this, she wasn’t anywhere close to purring.

“There’s gone come a time when I meet somebody and you won’t be able to just whisk him away to la-la land—”

“It’s the
happy place
. It was. I’m not happy anymore.”

Kit stopped touching her. “I’m sorry.”

“You apologize so much about so many different things that the words don’t even make sense anymore.”

“What do you want me to s—”

A knock sounded at the door. The sisters regarded each other quizzically—the Cordelles rarely received visitors.

They answered the door and found a little boy, about eight years old, standing on the front porch. He was dressed in fall clothes—long-sleeved shirt and pants—so of course he was monumentally sweaty and breathing sharply as if he had run all the way to their door.

“I’m Doyle. You sent me a letter.”

Kit stepped forward. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He had thick, dark eyebrows that made him look fierce. “I want you to kill somebody for me.”

“I guess I spoke too soon,” Kit said to Fancy as she waved the boy inside and led him to their sleeping porch, where she sat him at the tea table.