Slice Of Cherry (3 page)

Thanks to Kit, the prowler was now covered in so many stitches that she had laughingly renamed him, like a pet. Kit cared for him like a pet too, feeding him, cleaning up his filth. Franken seemed to flourish under her care and rarely screamed anymore, even when she cut him.

Fancy admired her sister’s knife skills and wondered
whether Kit had always been so adept or if her time with her cellar playmate had honed her abilities. Fancy herself had developed such first-rate suturing techniques that she could probably get a job at a hospital. She wished Kit would leave Franken alone, though. It was stupid to constantly slice up a guy you were never going to kill. It just created a lot of blood that had to be cleaned up, and Fancy had enough chores to do.

“Don’t gimme that face,” said Kit. She dumped all the fruit into a bowl and handed it to Fancy. “You’re the one who wanted to keep him alive.”

“Keep him alive, not keep him
forever
. We spend half the day fooling with him. We never hang out anymore.”

“We always hang out,” said Kit, keeping watch over the bacon and eggs. “Sometimes we hang out on a train, sometimes we hang out on a plane. We often hang out in the sun, and sometimes even in the rain.”

“Not at Bony Creek,” said Fancy, ignoring her sister’s poetic exaggerations. “Not since school let out. I wanna look for fairy rings.”

Kit actually laughed at her. “You don’t still believe in that stuff, do you? That’s just make-believe.”

“Doors aren’t make-believe.” And they weren’t. It wasn’t
a coincidence that Portero meant “doorkeeper.” Portero was full of doors, and not all of them had four sides and a doorknob. Many were much more subtle than that, and sometimes people would pass through one not realizing what it was and end up on a desert with four moons and purple sand and creatures that thought human beings tasted like chicken. “People disappear through doors all the time.”

“I know that, but not through
fairy
doors. Fairy rings are just mushrooms, Fancy. I can’t believe you’d rather play with mushrooms than a real-life boy in our cellar.”

Kit had become disturbingly boy crazy over the past year. She pranced around in tight T-shirts and leggings that instead of emphasizing her skinniness showed off her curves, slight though they were. She wore lipstick and nail polish and rubbed blackberry-scented cream into her skin and hair, as if she wanted some boy to mistake her for a pie and eat her.

“It ain’t about the mushrooms,” Fancy said, setting the fruit bowl on the table. “It’s about the doorway inside the mushrooms. Wouldn’t it be neat if—” Fancy froze, realizing she’d set a place for Daddy, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She lifted the plate she’d set for him and caught a flash of his face on the porcelain surface, but she couldn’t hold on to the image.

“What’re you looking at?” Kit was watching her closely.

“Nothing.” Fancy thought briefly about telling Kit that she’d seen Daddy, even if only for a second, but decided against it. Kit would only get upset, and if she got too upset, she might take it out on Franken. “I’ll figure out how to open a fairy door one day. And just cuz something’s a fairy tale doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Fancy cleared away the extra setting. “And Franken won’t be ‘real-life’ much longer. Not if you don’t stop cutting him so much. At least give him time to heal. He’ll get infected otherwise.”

“I
should
be more careful with him. Do you know what he said yesterday?” Kit emptied the bacon and eggs onto a serving dish, her eyes dreamy and faraway. “He said, ‘The cellar is brighter with you here. You radiate light.’” She held the metal serving spoon to her face and smiled at her reflection. “‘You radiate light.’ Isn’t that pretty?”

“Gorgeous.” Fancy bumped Kit with her hip as she passed by to set the eggs and bacon on the table. “But he’d say anything to get you to stop cutting on him.”

Kit gripped the spoon to her chest and swooned against the counter. “You don’t mean to say you think he was lying?”

“Yup.”

Kit unswooned and glared at her sister. “You know, you could at least humor me, for Christ’s sake.”

“Boys always lie.” Fancy shrugged. “The sooner you face that, the better.”

“How would you know?” Kit threw the spoon at her, but Fancy, used to Kit’s moods, caught it without even looking and set it gently on the table.

“Yeah, Fancy, how
would
you know?”

The sisters jumped as Madda kicked the back door shut behind her, her arms full of groceries from Alcide’s Cajun Market. She was wearing her black work Dickies with her name, Lynne, stitched over her bosom. She looked sweaty and tired and happy to be home.

Fancy felt the same grateful thrill to see her mother that she always felt, as though Madda had somehow been tricked into caring for them and any minute would realize the truth and flee. However, there was no mistaking the sisters’ maternity; Madda shared their looks: the whisky eyes and ballerina necks, the Cadbury-smooth skin and rolling gait that made a dance of every step. Once Madda’s hair had been swingingly long like Fancy’s, but working all night at the factory had robbed her of the time and energy needed to maintain such
vanities, and so she’d shaved her head. That was Madda’s way: When something became inconvenient, she scrapped it.

“Y’all got any boyfriends I don’t know about?” she asked, grinning.

“Puke,” said Fancy as she dropped into her chair at the table. “Not me,” said Kit, when Madda looked at her. “To my eternal shame.” She took one of the grocery bags and helped put the food away.

“It’s not shameful,” Fancy exclaimed, watching them work. “Virgins automatically go to heaven.”

“Heaven schmeaven. I don’t wanna get saved that bad.”

Madda smacked the back of Kit’s head on the way to the bread box. “Don’t talk like that. And if you want a boyfriend, go out there and get one. How you expect to meet anybody if you never leave the house?”

Since it was Friday, Madda gave the sisters their allowance— a generous one since they took care of the house and did most of the cooking and all the chores. It paid not to inconvenience Madda.

When Kit squeezed into Fancy’s chair, butting her with her sharp hip bones, Fancy gave Kit her share of their allowance for safekeeping.

Kit fanned the money. “You keep paying us like this,” she said as Madda joined them at the table, “we gone fly away in a private jet, and you won’t ever see us again.”

“Everybody flies the coop sometime. Kit, sit in your own chair.”

When they were settled properly around the table, Madda said, “I’m fixing to be dead to the world in a short while, so I wanna remind y’all to get new dresses. Especially you,” she added, shooing Fancy away from her plate. “I swear there ain’t one thing in that closet of yours that fits anymore.”

“Why we need new dresses?” said Fancy, her mouth full of Madda’s bacon.

Madda smoothed Fancy’s hair away from her mouth, where she’d crammed it in along with the bacon. “For Juneteenth. You’re fifteen now—more than old enough to participate.”

The bacon stuck in Fancy’s throat.

Kit, seeing Fancy’s distress, said, “I been old enough for two years, but you never made
me
go.”

“You would’ve gone without Fancy?”

“Of course not!”

Madda spread her hands as if to say
there you go
, and then proceeded as if the matter had been settled. “So new dresses. Something real nice for the bottle ceremony.”

Dresses? Ceremonies?
Socializing?
Fancy said, “I don’t wanna go to Cherry Glade.”

“Why not?” Madda asked, though she sounded as if she had been expecting Fancy’s reaction.

Fancy exchanged a helpless look with Kit, who answered for her. “Same reason
I
don’t wanna go. We hate it when people
look
at us and
say
things. Forget that. Summer vacation means we don’t have to put up with other people’s crap.”

Madda said, “Everybody goes to Cherry Glade on Juneteenth.”

“But—”

“And that’s that.” Like Kit, when Madda made up her mind, it stayed made up—only more so. “I know how shy you girls are,” she said gently, “but Juneteenth means something, especially in our family. You girls are direct descendants of Cherry du Haven. She—”

“We know, we know,” said Kit. The sisters had heard the Cherry du Haven bit of trivia a million times. “Once upon a time there lived a famous slave who died and then came back as a ghost or whatever to grant wishes for all the good black children in town.” She tapped Fancy on the head with an imaginary wand. “Bippety, boppety, boo!”

Madda scraped her spoon against her plate, annoyed. “One of these days, you girls are gone wish y’all had paid more attention to the family history. Cherry was
special
. She passed that on through the years, maybe even to y’all. Big Mama used to tell me all these stories about—”

Kit pretended to snore, and Madda finally gave up. On any other day Kit would have been interested, but Fancy guessed that her sister wanted to win at least one battle.

Fancy made herself calm down. It was just one day, and they had plenty of time to mentally prepare to be around so many people. Just one day, and then they could have the rest of the summer to themselves.

“What’re y’all planning today?” Madda asked Fancy.

“We’re going to Bony Creek.” She shot a defiant look at Kit. “After breakfast.”

“Not right after,” Kit shot back. “Maybe later in the day.”

“Y’all know to be careful?” said Madda. “There’s cacklers roaming the woods. Used to be they all stayed around the dark park.” Madda shook her head. “These days they’re just making themselves at home all over town.”

Kit said, “We can handle cacklers. One good kick to the head and they’re toast. Hi-ya!”

“Not just cacklers,” Madda continued, as Kit karate-skewered several strawberry and banana slices from the fruit bowl. “Wild hogs, too. And corpses.”

“Corpses?” Kit snorted. “What could they do, besides stink us to death?”

Madda was silent for so long the sisters stopped eating and stared at her. She said, “I guess y’all don’t have to worry about it, old as you are.”

“Worry about what?” asked Kit.

“Nothing.” Madda wiped her mouth. “Just boring family stuff. So.” She leaned back in her chair and gave her daughters a considering look that immediately put them on edge. “Y’all aim to spend the whole summer at Bony Creek?”

“And the music store,” said Kit. “We need some more records for our collection. They had this one record from 1910, and I hope hope hope it’s still there!”

“And the bookstore,” Fancy added, wondering why Madda was so interested in their summer activities. They always did the same things. “What else is there?”

“Classes.” Madda drew a deep breath. The kind you take before diving into deep and possibly shark-infested waters. “I signed y’all up for summer classes.”

Fancy had the strangest sensation that Madda had just spoken Chinese. She turned to Kit, but Kit looked just as bewildered as Fancy felt.

Kit said, “You did what?”

“I don’t mean for the two of you to sit around all summer watching grass grow. Not this year.”

Madda
was
speaking English, and yet Fancy still couldn’t process it. Kit, fortunately, was much quicker.

“Why would you put us in summer school when you know we passed everything?”

“I know how smart y’all are and how much you like science and . . . anatomy.” Madda knew about the jars in the sleeping porch and could never hide the disgust in her voice whenever she had to refer to the sisters’ love of dissecting animals. Of course, she thought they were doing the work for school and extra credit. She had no idea the dissections had been off the clock and unsupervised.

“I’m not talking about school,” she continued. “These are just fun little classes. Nothing heavy. You in music at Gracie”— Madda turned to Fancy—“and you in art at the Standard. It’s only three days a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

“You didn’t even put us in the same class?” Kit in a fury
wasn’t a pretty sight, but Madda held her ground, even when Kit screamed, “We’re not going!”

“Think of it as a cultural experience,” Madda continued, ignoring Kit’s outburst. “You won’t even be graded. And remember what you said, Kit. If you want a boyfriend, this is how you get one. You go where people are, and you mingle.”

“We don’t
want
to mingle.” Kit left her seat and once again sat with Fancy in her chair. “Not if it means being ripped from the side of my only sister!”

Madda huffed. “Stop being so dramatic; nobody’s trying to rip you apart.”

“Then why can’t we be in the same class?”

“This ain’t a discussion between me and you, Kit. This has already been decided. Classes start next Monday, but since Juneteenth’s on Monday, both your teachers said y’all can start Wednesday.”

“
Next
Wednesday?” Kit picked up the pitcher of orange juice and cocked back her arm.

“Christianne,” said Madda, her voice full of danger. “Throw my good pitcher, and I’m gone throw you right after it.”

Kit put the pitcher down.

“Look at me.” When Madda had Kit’s attention, she said,
“I love that you and Fancy are so close. But it’s okay to be close to other people, too.”

“There
are
no other people! Are there, Fancy?”

Fancy, who had been watching in stunned silence, said, “People?” as though she’d never heard of such a thing. “They’re like dolls. Plastic and shiny and fake.”

“Like if you took out their batteries,” Kit said, “they’d fall over.”

“Exactly! Who cares about people? It’s not like they matter.”

It was Madda’s turn to stare at her daughters in disbelief. “
Everybody
matters. People aren’t toys. You can’t just . . .” She trailed off, and looked away from whatever she saw in Kit and Fancy’s eyes. “The people in this town matter as much as you or me. And the sooner y’all learn that, the better.”

M
ADDA BROUGHT A YOUNG MAN HOME AND TOLD
K
IT AND ME THAT HE WOULD BE TAKING CARE OF US FROM NOW ON.
T
HE MAN CLIPPED A LEASH TO
K
IT’S NECK AND TOOK HER OUT FOR A WALK.
A
FEW MINUTES LATER
K
IT CAME BACK ALONE AND WHEN
M
ADDA ASKED HER WHAT HAPPENED,
K
IT GAVE HER THE LEASH WITH THE MAN’S SEVERED HAND DANGLING FROM THE END.