Slice Of Cherry (29 page)

“No. I popped in on Lynne one night, and she made me swear not to do it again. But you were looking in on
me
, so . . . You won’t tell Lynne, will you?”

“No, she hates it when we talk about you.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Kinda. You messed everything up when you got caught. You messed all of us up.”

He nodded. He didn’t have the hardened look of an inmate, wasn’t wild and unkempt. Even in his mug shot he’d looked serene and caring, the way Jesus would look in a mug shot.

“What I did,” he said, “had nothing to do with how I feel about you and Kit. And Lynne. I love you.”

“So what? You think you can just say ‘I love you’ and make everything okay?
Nothing’s
okay.”

“Nothing was ever okay. We are who we are, Fancy. Nothing can change that. But if there’s enough love, sometimes you can ignore how . . . tumorous the rest of the world is.”

“I must not have enough, then. Cuz I
clearly
see that everything sucks.”

She threw a rock at the water ball and burst it. There was only the rain and silence. And loneliness.

K
IT TOLD ME
I
SUCKED AT BEING A REAL GIRL. SHE SAID FAKE GIRLS WERE EASY TO SPOT BECAUSE THEY COULDN’T SAY
I
LOVE YOU. EVERY TIME
I
TRIED TO SAY IT, MY JAW FELL OFF.

Friday, after Mr. Hofstram dismissed them from class, Fancy found herself walking with Ilan. Not with him, exactly, but it was so easy to fall into stride with him. And so when he stopped before the entrance doors in the lobby of the Standard, she stopped too. And waited.

He was unhappy with her. He hadn’t put his arm on the back of her chair during class; he hadn’t even spoken to her. He’d wanted to, though, she knew. He’d kept opening his mouth to say something, but then he would snap it closed and just sit there glowering at his easel.

But now in the lobby he spoke:

“What did you do to Tony?”

“Who?”

“Tony Castle. Don’t play dumb. He disappeared right after I told you about him.”

“Oh. Him.” Through the porthole-shaped windows on the entrance doors Fancy could see the street, see the bench out front, where a group of tweens sat, probably waiting for their ride. Sitting where days before there had been a mess of blood. And that was how it went: You cleaned up the mess and you moved on.

“Did you visit him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Cuz of what I said about not liking him?”

“No. Because he was an asshole. And I don’t use the word lightly. He’s in the happy place now.”

“How can you say that? How can you tell me that?”

She found it strange that he seemed more upset that she’d confessed to it than that she’d done it.

Boys were weird.

“I saw how you were with the dogs. The way you kept yourself safe. You decided you would be, and so you were.
You have to be strong to bend the world to your will, even a made-up world. Anybody that strong wouldn’t be afraid of the truth.”

He waited until a group passed through the doors, and out of the building into the bright afternoon before saying, “I wanna see Tony. Will you take me to him?”

“Fine. But only because I’m bored. Not because I wanna hang out with you.”

He pushed through the doors, and Fancy went with him, marveling again at how easily they fell into step with each other.

The happy place looked especially pretty today. Fancy stood with Ilan on the platform, admiring the view. Jewel-colored birds twittered in the trees; the grass was spit-polished to a high gleam; the flamingos were gone, but fluffy pink rabbits had taken their place and bounded playfully around the stone circles. It was nothing like the way it had been when he’d come before. But Fancy might as well have brought him to a vacant lot. All of his attention was focused on the guitar in his hands, a thick wooden instrument with a black signature scrawled along the body.

“This was Tony’s,” he said. “He loved this thing. He got frigging Prince to autograph it. Tony gave it to me and asked me to keep it safe for him. He knew that if his dad found it, he’d pawn it or lose it in a bet or something. Every time he missed rehearsals or pissed off a bandmate or showed up to gigs so high he’d fall off the stage, I’d look at this thing and decide to give him one more chance. Tony didn’t have anyone to keep him safe.”

He gave Fancy a look like he wanted her to respond. But she had nothing to say. Tony’s home life didn’t interest her.

He turned away from her like she was the uninteresting one. “So where’d you bury him?”

She pointed to a tree growing in one of the stone circles.

“Under that tree?”

“He is the tree.”

He looked more closely and saw that instead of leaves the tree was covered in mini people, who were dewy and all looked alike, like clones.

“Tony?” He gaped at Fancy. “What did you do to him?”

“I buried him, and he grew into a tree,” said Fancy, as though repeating it for the millionth time.

The mini Tonys were nude and cute and hung from the
tree like fruit. Fancy had read somewhere that in China people grew pears in the shape of Buddha. The Tonys were like that, only alive, blinking their starry eyes and kicking their wee legs.

Ilan stepped beneath the tree and plucked one of the Tonys, and it wailed so sharply that he dropped it like a hot coal. The Tony hit the ground and rolled onto its back, then stilled, legs and arms curled up like a dead spider.

Fancy kicked it away and sat down on the dark, rich soil, and after a slight hesitation Ilan sat next to her. He played something slow and sad on the guitar, his hands trembling.

“Play something I know.”

“I’m playing Tony’s favorite song,” he snapped, not looking up from the guitar strings. “You mind if I play Tony’s favorite song at his own fucking funeral?”

“Is that what this is?”

“It’s the only one he’ll ever have.” Ilan continued playing, and as he did, the Tonys began to sing.

Ilan gazed openmouthed at the fruit above him, at the sweet tone issuing from their throats. As they sang, the happy-place people came into the garden wearing their best funeral garb. Fancy waved them closer, and they circled the tree and wept for a boy they’d never met. It was all fake, just as fake as
when they’d stood and cried for Kit, but Ilan seemed to like all the fuss. Seemed to need it.

“I can’t help who I am,” she told him, feeling the need to explain. “I try to keep it in check. I try real hard. But sometimes I fail. I know he was your friend, but . . .”

“He wasn’t my friend. You’re right; he was an asshole. The worst thing about Tony dying is that people’ll be like, ‘I knew he’d come to a sorry end one day.’ Because he was wild. Because his dad is a gambler and on drugs. People have this attitude . . . like they can’t stand anyone to come out of a bad situation and survive it.”

“People say that about me and Kit all the time. That it would be better for us to have never been born than to have a serial killer for a father. There’s worse things to have, I guess.”

“Like morals?” He came to the end of the song, and though the Tonys stopped singing, the weeping continued.

Fancy said, “Morals complicate things.” She snapped her fingers, and the weeping ended abruptly, as if switched off. “You may leave,” she told the mourners.

They dispersed through the hedges, but two people remained behind—Franken and a woman with shiny hair and the long, unsturdy legs of a colt. Franken no longer had scars;
his skin was as whole and fresh as it had been when the sisters first met him. He was quite handsome. Annoyingly handsome.

“What happened to your scars?” said Fancy with unnecessary force. People were looking good when they were supposed to be hideous, mourning the death of an asshole when they should have been celebrating. Everything was topsy-turvy.

Franken looked nervous. “After Kit died, I felt like I needed a new start. So I got a new skin from the godfather tree.”

He pointed at a tree a few yards from where she sat: thick and squat with pale, skinlike leaves and fruit that looked like golden eyes. “Everybody’s gotta fly the coop sometime, right?”

Fancy winced, wondering if people would be throwing those words back in her face for the rest of her life.

“I figured you wouldn’t care,” Franken continued.

“I
don’t
care.”

He brushed his hand across the smooth skin of his face. “I could take it off.”

“I said”—Fancy clenched her fists—“I don’t care.”

The woman with him put her hand on Franken protectively, as if Fancy couldn’t wipe the both of them out of existence just by snapping her fingers.

“This is Gloria.”

“Nice to see you again.” The woman smiled at Fancy.

“Again?” Her voice sounded familiar.

“I remember you from the woods. Where’s your sister?”

“She’s busy.
Sinning
.”

“Too bad. I wanted to thank her for sending me here. To paradise.”

“
This
is paradise?” said Ilan, as though the idea that people might actually enjoy the happy place were ridiculous.

“It is for me,” said Gloria. “Especially after the last place. I was kidnapped. By some guy. He kept me in a cellar for two years. Never once told me his name.” Like that had been the worst part.

“The cellar she was kept in was way worse than mine,” said Franken apologetically, as though to spare Fancy’s feelings.

“You were kidnapped and tortured too?” Gloria exclaimed. “We have so much in common! I mean, it’s really amazing. I was glad when my guy killed me, because I thought now I can finally be free, but that wasn’t what death was like for me. I still felt trapped. I think it was being in those woods, all the roots twining around my bones, like shackles. I’m from the Panhandle, and I’m just not used to being hemmed in by all those trees. But now I’m free.” She turned to Fancy. “Thanks to
your sister. I never thought I’d owe my life to a psycho.”

“She wasn’t that bad,” said Franken, loyal to the end. “She let me go.”

“
I
let you go. If I had left it up to Kit, you’d be buried under our front porch!”

They backed away from Fancy’s outburst, clutching each other like frightened children.

“So leave!”

They fled so quickly Fancy could almost see the smoke churning up from their feet.

“You tortured that guy?” said Ilan.
He
didn’t look ready to flee. He’d already proven himself to be more fight than flight.

“We barely even touched him.” Seeing him unafraid and waiting for her to talk to him calmed her down.

“You tortured him and then set him free.” Now that he was paying attention to her instead of that guitar, she almost wished he weren’t. He had such an intense gaze, like light concentrated through a magnifying glass. “Why couldn’t you have done that to Tony? You could have at least thought of me and my band. You could have at least waited until I found a replacement. Now
I’m
gonna have to be the front man, and I’m not half as good as Tony.”

“You’re a hundred times better than him,” she said, refusing to believe that Tony could be better than Ilan at anything. “I’m not sorry I killed him,” she said, and then whispered, “but I’d take it back if I could.”

“That’s the thing about killing,” he said. “It can’t be undone. Even if you could take it back, why waste it on Tony when you could bring back my pop?” He smiled, but it was so full of pain she had to look away. “Now
that
would be useful.”

“Kit is the one who can raise the dead, but even she can’t bring them back to life.” She thought of Gloria. “At least, not in the real world.”

“If I had the power to resurrect, I’d use it on you.” Now he was the one whispering. “There’s an important part of you that’s dead: the part that cares.” He brushed the back of his hand over her breast, over her heart. His fingers shook in time to her heartbeat.

Fancy couldn’t believe he was touching her like that. Couldn’t believe she was letting him.

“I’d give just about anything if I could make you care,” he said. “Especially about me.”

Under his touch something sparked.

K
IT WAS PAINTING MY TOENAILS WITH SOMEONE’S BLOOD
— I
COULDN’T TELL WHOSE—AND DESCRIBING THIS WEIRD SEXUAL POSITION THAT SHE LIKES.
K
IT TOLD ME THAT THE TRICK WAS TO PUT YOUR HEAD ON BACKWARD.
L
IKE THIS, SHE SAID AND CRANKED MY HEAD AROUND TO THE BACK.
T
HAT’S WHEN
I
SAW
I
LAN SITTING BEHIND ME IN THE WINDOW.
I
ASKED HIM WHAT HE THOUGHT HE WAS DOING IN MY HOUSE AND HE SAID,
I’
M HERE TO HELP YOU GET YOUR HEAD ON STRAIGHT.
T
HEN HE UNZIPPED HIS JEANS.

Fancy woke up Saturday afternoon, sweating, her hand sore because she was squeezing the pencil she used to write her dreams and it had snapped in half. The broken points left red marks in her palm. She sat up and read what she’d written, as she always did after awakening. She looked wildly about the room, half expecting Ilan to be watching her through the screens, half annoyed that he wasn’t.

Fancy kicked free of the linens and went into Madda’s room. The window air conditioner was at full blast, and it felt like the inside of an igloo. Fancy hurried into Madda’s bed. Madda rolled over and looked at her sleepily.

“What’s wrong?”

Fancy cuddled next to her. “It’s too hot in our room.”

“I thought you girls thrived in the heat.”

“Kit’s not there.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She never talks to me anymore. Not now that she’s got her precious
Gabriel
.”

“You’ll get a boyfriend too.”

“I don’t
want
one. How could she want one?”

“Don’t be such a little girl, Fancy. You can’t be everything to Kit.”

“I used to be.”

“Things change.”