Slice Of Cherry (25 page)

“I’m not surprised you’d pick a guy like Ilan. You’re a lot alike. Ilan pushed Gabe down a flight of stairs once; did you know that? His own brother. Broke both his legs and put him in traction for almost three months.”

“How’s that make him like
me
?”

Fancy remembered how creepy Gabriel had behaved with the severed head and with the girl he’d given CPR to and found that she wasn’t at all surprised that Ilan would break Gabriel’s legs;
she
wanted to break his legs. Kit was the only one who didn’t seem to have seen Gabriel’s true colors. “How’s that make him like
me
?”

“Just seems like something you’d do. To me. You always hurt the one you love. Who loves me more than you?”

“How do you know that about Gabriel?”

“I told you we have a class together. Sometimes we talk.”

Kit stopped her playacting and began to fiddle with the tea set.

Fancy couldn’t help but notice how her sister, who had always been able to look her in the eye, now seemed unable to. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” The words were so soft, Fancy could barely hear herself saying them. “If you were seeing him?”

“So you could put me in traction too? I don’t think so.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you like that,” Fancy said over the skiphiss of the phonograph, the sound of finality. Fancy was sure that skip-hiss was what everyone would hear at the end of the world. “You’re the one who hurts me, always abandoning me for other people. You’re the one—”

Kit kissed Fancy on the mouth, knocking over the teacup. She kissed her cheek and then her ear. “I love you. Do you know that?”

“I know,” Fancy said as Kit squeezed her tight.

“That’s the only thing that matters,” Kit was whispering. “Please remember that.” Kit whispered in Fancy’s ear for a long time.

Anything to avoid looking her in the eye.

In art class their assignment was to paint a childhood memory. Fancy had painted a whiskered catfish. She looked at that catfish and remembered the first time Daddy had taken her and Kit fishing on the Sabine River, how cool it had been to look over the water clear into Louisiana, and how patient Daddy had been with her and Kit, helping them thread their hooks and telling them fairy stories to keep them from noticing how long
it took the fish to bite. The catfish represented all of that to Fancy, but Mr. Hofstram didn’t get it.

“What is this hideousness supposed to represent?” he exclaimed, dabbing his face with a hankie.

“A fish.”

“A fish!” Mr. Hofstram yelled, his hankie over his nose as though her painting smelled. “What are all those angles? There should be three dimensions. Three! Not twelve.”

“I draw what I see, sir,” she said, resisting the urge to skewer Mr. Hofstram with the business end of her paintbrush. “It ain’t my fault you don’t get it.”

“It
is
your fault. An artist’s job is to
make
people get it.”

“I’m not an artist.”

“You’ll get no argument from me, madam.” Fancy ignored the tittering of the other students as Mr. Hofstram turned his attention to Ilan’s work.

Ilan had used oil paint, which gave his work the wet reality of a photograph. A crime-scene photograph—he’d painted the inside of Fancy’s cellar. It gave Fancy a slight chill that he’d gotten so many details right, flawlessly recreating what it had looked like three years ago: the tall metal shelving unit, the cot, even Daddy’s mirror that once hung on the wall—
because of the blood that had been smeared on it, the deputies had taken it away as evidence. The dense grayness of the room itself had been exaggerated so that the room appeared to have been created from heavy fog.

In contrast Mr. Turner’s body was almost clinical in its depiction, strewn about in naked, bloodless pieces like a disassembled cadaver. Mr. Turner’s head sat high on the metal shelf, one of his muscular arms lay across the cot, and both his legs, like dark, hairy drumsticks, had been propped carelessly against the wall. In one shadowy corner of the cellar curled something that could have been a mouse . . . or a penis.

Mr. Turner’s head, though severed, didn’t wear an expression of death but of awareness, pulsing with life as he stared out of the picture, his expression both beautiful and horrified— beautiful because all the Turner men were beautiful and horrified because, despite the bonesaws bleeding in the middle of the floor below Mr. Turner’s head, he didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.

Even though Ilan had taken liberties in his painting—only Mr. Turner’s severed arm had been found in the cellar—Mr. Hofstram didn’t have to ask what memory it represented. Everyone knew what had happened to Ilan’s father, and
enough had been written about the Bonesaw Killer’s infamous cellar that even people who had never seen it could describe it.

“Interesting approach to the afterlife, Ilan,” Mr. Hofstram murmured, with none of the contempt he used whenever he had to address Fancy. “To put him in that cellar in pieces instead of on a cloud somewhere.”

“In heaven? I don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Art as therapy. You might try putting him on a cloud. It might make you feel better.” Mr. Hofstram moved on to the next pair of students, circling them like they were a large fairy ring. Maybe he’d circle one too many times and disappear through a door.

“Maybe I don’t wanna feel better.” When Fancy tore her eyes from Ilan’s father it was to find Ilan staring at her, a streak of red on his cheek like war paint. But his expression had nothing of the warrior about it. He looked young and sad. “I’m not afraid of pain. Are you?”

When Fancy didn’t answer, he said, “I know you can talk. You talked to me at Cherry Glade, remember?” When Fancy still didn’t answer, he took her hand, and with his red paint-brush he wrote
please
into her palm.

Fancy looked at the word a long time, frankly stunned by
his boldness in even touching her, let alone begging for favors. She closed her hand over the word as if it were alive and fragile. “How do you know what our cellar looks like?”

“Photos.”

“Death ain’t really like that,” she told him. “Beautiful like that.”

“What
is
it like?” Ilan asked, giving her a sly look. “A dance contest or a tea party? A boxing match? Seems to me like you don’t wanna face the reality of death any more than I do.”

“You don’t know what I want. I don’t know what people are saying about me, but don’t get to thinking you know me.”

“I do know you, Fancy. All about you. The problem is, you don’t know about me.”

Fancy’s day was made even more unnerving when Kit didn’t show up to read the letters. The ringing bell brought Fancy racing to the front door, until she realized Kit wouldn’t be ringing the bell like some stranger.

When she peeped out, she saw that it was only Ilan and opened the door.

“You know you got a fruit basket out here?” The smell of rain was on the wind.

He picked it up off the porch, a giant thing almost taller than Fancy. It was addressed to her and Kit from Doyle and his godmother. Ilan stepped past her into the house.

“Wait—”

“Where do you want me to set it?”

“I can carry a fruit basket.”

“Just being helpful.” He set it on the coffee table. He wore black wristbands wrapped in silver chain, like he’d broken loose from a dungeon. Fancy was sure that if she chained him, he wouldn’t break free.

“So what’s up?”

“Nothing.”

It was too dark, so she opened the shutters to brighten the room. Ilan followed her as she went from window to window, reminding her of one of the velvet tigers on the wall, stalking her, circling her, and looking her over in a way she couldn’t hide from. In a way that made
her
feel chained.

“You alone?”

“Madda’s here.” He wasn’t even that tall, but he seemed to take up too much space. She was embarrassed suddenly by the ripe-rotten smell of blue statice, which Madda liked to decorate the house with because the flowers “died so beautifully.” It
was especially embarrassing because Ilan smelled so nice, like sweet clover and paint.

He stopped in front of her. She could see the pulse beat in his throat. “Is it okay that I’m here? Your ma has all these notions of what kinda stuff you’re ready for. Maybe you ain’t ready to be alone in the house with a boy.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Unsupervised,” he amended.

His lips looked slightly moist, as though he had licked them recently, but she didn’t remember seeing his tongue. She would have remembered that.

“I’m not five.”

“Then why are you dressed like that? In that teeny dress? Don’t you have anything that fits? The straps are cutting into your shoulders, probably cutting off your circulation.”

“Are not.” They were, sort of. He illustrated by trying to wiggle his finger under her strap, but he couldn’t.

Fancy moved away from his hand and sat in the wicker chair.

“If I cut that dress off you, I’d be doing you a favor.” He pulled up an ottoman and sat in front of her, determined to crowd her. “Saving you from gangrene or something.”

“I’m not scared of you. It’s funny you think I would be.”

“Is that the problem? You think I’m holding a grudge? Looking to hurt you? What happened between our families . . . I don’t blame you.”

“That’s what you told Madda. That you don’t blame her.”

“I don’t even blame your pop. I tried that. It didn’t bring ’em back, you know?”

“Anybody did to my family what Daddy did to yours, I’d kill ’em. Or die trying.”

“You get mad. You get violent. But nothing changes.”

“You one of those goody-goody types?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe. You like goody-goody types?”

“No. I don’t like anybody except my family.”

“Even your dad? Even after what he did?”

“Everybody does bad things. What’s that got to do with love?”

“Now who’s goody-goody?”

“Why’re you in my house?”

“To pay back the money for the amp.” He stood and dug in his back pocket. She caught a flash of his lower stomach. He had an outie. “Frigging Tony destroyed it in a tantrum. I weaseled it out of Gabe, where the money came from.”

“Amp?” She stared at the crisp folded bills he held out to her.

“We needed a new amp so we could audition for the battle of the bands, and we only just got paid today, so thanks.” He pushed the money into her hand when she wouldn’t take it and sat back down. “I woulda given it to you in class, but I figured it’d be easier for you to talk to me if nobody was around.”

Fancy took the money with fingers that felt numb. Counted it. Two hundred dollars. Exactly what had been missing from the treasure chest. Maybe her dress
was
cutting off her circulation— she felt dizzy.

“Kit’s cool for helping us out like that. I told her she should be in charge of the band’s finances.”

“You . . . see her?”

“Gabe brings her by the house most days after her music class. It’s always weird to see her without you. Even now. Y’all have such a stranglehold on each other usually. I told Miz Lynne those classes’d be a help.”

“
You
told Madda?”

“I didn’t
tell
her, like I’m her boss. She was asking about classes, and I told her about the ones me and Gabe are taking. Y’all got it easy, though. We take three each, plus we have to
work. The band’s the only thing I got to look forward to. That and art class.”

“Where’s Kit now?” She could barely hear herself speak over the roaring in her ears. “At your house?”

“Probably. You okay?”

“I wanna go to your house.”

“Fancy.” His voice compelled her to look in his eyes. He was worried about her. “Is something wrong?”

He ought to be worried about his brother.

“Let’s go.”

The ride to Ilan’s house downsquare was awkward. Ilan tried to make conversation, but Fancy blasted the radio to shut him up. She had to concentrate on filling her mind with hope. Hope that Kit’s only interest in Gabriel was how to kill him and not get caught.

The Turners lived with their grandpa in a shotgun shack down the street from St. Michael’s Church. They entered to find Ilan’s grandpa dozing on the couch in front of the TV. He mumbled something about “devil’s music” as Ilan walked past, but both Ilan and Fancy ignored him. Ilan led her to the back of the house, through room after room, until she heard Kit laughing behind a door.

When Ilan opened it, Fancy saw Kit and Gabriel lying together on a fuzzy brown coverlet, so caught up in each other they didn’t notice Fancy and Ilan.

Kit was laughing as Gabriel made smacking sounds against her neck and telling him she had to go, but not seeming in any big hurry to actually do so.

Fancy looked away from Kit’s expression. The mirror on the wall behind her, above the dresser, showed her the happy place. But it wasn’t soothing her.

“Gimme twenty more kisses and I’ll let you go.”

“Twenty? Where?”

“Lady’s choice.”

“Your spleen.”

Fancy looked back at her sister, hopeful.

“Huh?”

“Your liver. Your thyroid glands. I think about it all the time, opening you up and kissing you on the inside.”

“You are inside. Right here.” He touched his heart.

“I love you.” She kissed his mouth. His cheek. His ear. Fancy stormed into the room, hooked her arm around Kit’s neck, and dragged her from beneath Gabriel. She felt like she was outside her own body watching the arm around her
sister’s neck tighten. She had just wanted to get Kit away from Gabriel, but now she was afraid to let go. What if Kit ran back to him?

Gabriel scrambled off the bed. “Don’t be mad at her, Fancy. I’m the one—”

“Don’t talk to me like you know me!”

Kit clawed at the arm Fancy had at her throat, leaving long, red scratches that Fancy didn’t feel. Her veins felt full of Novocain.

Gabriel’s hair, normally corralled into artistic squiggles, was free and sprouting all over his head in black crinkles. He looked like a clown. A clown with his fly undone.

Kit got her feet under her and broke free of Fancy’s hold, pushing her back into the wall. “Fancy, calm down.”

“I am calm.”