State of Grace (21 page)

“Poppers?” he asked.

Douglas reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag with a perforated sheet of what looked like Daffy Duck stickers. “Better than that.”

“Holy shit!” Roger grabbed the bag. “Seriously?”

I leaned in to see the bag more closely.

“I don't get it. Stickers?”

Roger laughed and handed the bag back to Douglas. “Those aren't stickers,” he said. “What this fine specimen of manhood brought us tonight is LSD.”

“LSD like acid, LSD?” I looked up at Douglas for confirmation.

“Yes ma'am.” He grinned. “Just put one of these on your tongue and enjoy the ride.”

Roger pretended to fan himself. “Some men bring flowers or chocolates, but not this one.” He slapped Douglas' broad chest. “Let's do it.”

“Are you crazy?” I knew I sounded like an old woman, but I didn't care. “Roger, that's against the law.”

“Law, smaw.” Roger rolled his eyes. “You need to loosen up.”

Douglas opened the bag, removed the sheet, and tore off a couple of squares. He handed one to Roger and one to me before putting the sheet back into the baggie and sticking it in his pocket.

“You realize you just wasted a good hit, right?” Roger looked at me. “She'll never do it.”

Everything about the evening and the way Roger was treating me so he could impress Douglas was making me angry. I stared at the tiny square in my hand.

“What will it do?”

Douglas grinned. “It will open up your mind.” He looked at
Roger for confirmation. “Everything will feel so intense and real. It's this intellectually stimulating experience that's just consciousness-altering. It makes the unreal real, and the real . . . really, really real.” He placed his own square on his tongue and let it dissolve.

I wondered, suddenly, if he had washed his hands after going to the bathroom.

“
Throw it on the floor.
” Grace's voice cut through the noise of the music. “
Just say ‘no.'
”

I stared at the square of paper in my palm and then looked back at Roger. His expression had gone from playful to serious.

“Actually, I don't think you should do it. I don't think you would enjoy it.”

“Are you saying I can't handle it?” I asked indignantly. Douglas looked uncomfortable and began to scan the bar for an escape from this mini-drama.

“No,” Roger said. “It's just that it can really mess you up if you're not in a good space.” He glanced at Douglas, who gestured toward the dance floor, and smiled in a “just a second” sort of way and then returned his gaze to me. “Listen, this was a bad idea. You didn't even want to come out and now, well . . .” He glanced longingly at Douglas who was edging away from us. “How about you take my car and head home. I'll just have Douglas give me a ride.”

“Roger, I can't leave you here.” I looked at Douglas, who was swiveling his shoulders in time to the music. “You don't even know this guy. I can't just take your car and go.”

“Believe me, I know him plenty well and I was planning on letting you take the car home anyway. Besides, I'm not sure you'd really have that much fun. I have a feeling things are going to get a little . . . ummm . . . raunchy.”

“But—” I protested.

“Please.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his car keys, and pressed them into my hand. “I'll call you tomorrow afternoon,” he said, already turning to Douglas and smiling widely. “Okay, handsome, let's go.”

The two disappeared into the crowd.

“Asshole,” I muttered to myself. I took a swallow of my beer
and considered the situation. I had no desire to stay—especially if Roger was going to be completely absorbed with his new boy toy. I set the bottle on a nearby table and began to make my way toward the door.

I didn't usually go out at night by myself and was unprepared for the feeling of being completely exposed as I stepped into the darkness. Roger had parked close to the bar and I could see the car from where I stood. It hadn't seemed all that far away when we went in, but now that I was alone, it looked like an impossible distance. In the doorway, men laughed and flirted and smoked.

“Well, at least there will be witnesses,” I murmured. “And maybe one of them will help me if something happens.”

Remembering something I had read in the self-defense information Detective Sanchez had given Adelle, I fished my house keys out of my jeans pocket and stuck them carefully between the fingers of my left hand so that when I curled it into a fist, I looked like some sort of Transformer. Between the thumb and forefinger of my other hand, I grasped the key to Roger's car so I could open the door without having to fumble to find it.

“You can do this,” I told myself as I took a deep breath and forced myself to walk. It was all I could do not to run the fifty yards to the car. My heart pounded in my throat as I took measured steps, careful to stay in the middle of the street, until I reached the car. Behind me I could hear the men in the doorway laughing. It was strangely reassuring.

“You can do this,” I said again, softly, and then felt the familiar tingle of Grace's presence. She didn't speak, but I could tell she was there.

When I reached the car, I slipped the key into the lock and pulled open the door. The dome light illuminated the interior and I looked in the backseat. It was empty. Quickly, I climbed into the driver's seat, pulled the door shut behind me, and used my elbow to lock the door. I breathed heavily and gripped the steering wheel. I had done it. I had walked to the car in the dark on my own—and nothing bad had happened.

I grinned as I put the key in the ignition and started the car.
I had done it. I had taken on the night and had won—or, at least, hadn't lost. It was a small triumph, but one that made me suddenly hopeful. It felt as if it were the beginning of something significant and despite the temperature, I rolled down the window. The cold night air was refreshing after the hot club, the smoke machine, and fifty different brands of cologne.

When I got home, I immediately undressed and showered, scrubbing vigorously to remove the smell of the bar from my skin and hair and then used towels to pick up the smelly clothes I had worn. As I tossed them into my dirty clothes basket, coins and dollar bills fell from the pockets.

I bent to pick them up, and saw again the small square with the image of Daffy Duck. Carefully, without touching the ink, I turned it over and examined it. It seemed harmless enough. And then I thought about what Douglas had said, about how it opened up your mind and expanded consciousness. I turned to look at the blank paper tacked onto my wall. Trying to paint hadn't worked before, but maybe I simply needed something to kick-start the process. I looked down at the paper in my hand and wondered again what germs might be on it.

“Don't.”

The word came like the crack of a ball striking a baseball bat. But this time, it sounded as if it had come from outside my head. I looked around the room.

“Grace?”

The room was silent—so silent I could hear the steady drip, drip, drip of the faucet in the bathroom.

I looked back down at the tab of LSD. It was dangerous. But everything was dangerous. I swallowed and, before I could change my mind, closed my eyes and pressed the piece of paper to my tongue.

Chapter 18

Eight hours later, I stood against the wall and stared blearily around my bedroom. Smears of paint stained the walls, the door handles, the dresser, and virtually everything else. All of my clothes had been pulled from the closet and were pushed up against the underside of my mattress. My head hurt and my mouth felt dry and metallic. My sheets and bedspread were a mess of paint and paper and pencils and pens. Scattered around the room were large squares of paper with dabs and smears of paint. Several “paintings” were lined up against the wall.

Through the haze of a headache, I struggled to recall the events of the previous night. I remembered that after letting the tab of LSD dissolve on my tongue, I had grabbed the Depeche Mode mix CD borrowed from Roger, put it in my boom box, and hit Play. I waited until the music started before approaching the paper tacked onto my wall. I stared at it, willing whatever muse was supposed to inspire me to appear. Nothing came to me, so I grabbed several of the tubes of paint and squeezed some onto the palette. Next, I picked up one of the brushes and smeared it into the globs of color.

“Just . . . go with it,” I had murmured. “Start small.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and was immediately rewarded with the image of a spiral. Tentatively, I began to play with the green and yellow and white paints, mixing them into a limey shade of green. As I began to cover the whole of the paper, I felt the first tingling of something. I remembered glancing at the clock. Exactly, I noted, thirty minutes after I had held Daffy to my tongue.

Until that first tingle, I had been convinced that nothing was
happening and even laughed at the thought of Roger and Douglas dancing at the club and wondering why they weren't feeling anything. But then I felt the tingle and I knew something was about to happen—something bigger than myself. I closed my eyes and held my breath for what seemed like forever. Finally, I exhaled and was almost knocked to my knees by an intense rush of something that felt like being sucked through a straw. I was euphoric . . . powerful. I looked at my green background and realized with sudden insight that it would be wasted on a spiral. I heard myself speaking aloud as I did when I had had too much to drink. But unlike with alcohol, I didn't feel impaired. Quite the opposite. I felt immeasurably in control. My words were power manifested.

“I can see it so clearly,” I said. “So clearly. I'm going to draw. No, paint. I'm going to paint and I'm . . . you . . . it's all so . . . I need more.”

It was as if I was talking to another part of myself—a part that was creative and less controlled than the persona I allowed most people to see. My halves rushed together in a bone-jarring whole. I was . . . complete. I began to paint black skeletons of trees in the winter. No leaves, just trunks and branches and a tree house. “Ah,” I said to myself and to the paper, “I know what this is. I know where this is!”

“Where is it?”
a voice asked.

I spun around, startled, expecting to see Adelle. Instead, I found myself looking down at Grace, still eleven years old and angular. I felt as if the top of my head had popped off and my brains were exposed. But for some reason, I didn't mind. Grace was here—not just in a dream, but in reality. She looked both the same and very different from how I remembered her. Had she changed, I wondered, or had I?

“Grace. You're here. Why?”

“You're going to need me.”
Her tone was matter-of-fact. She looked around the room.
“What are you doing?”

“I'm expanding my consciousness. I'm exorcising my demons.”

She shrugged and nodded in the slow, solemn way I had forgotten she had. My scalp tingled and I grinned.

“I'm . . . you . . . this!” I gestured at the painting on the wall.
“This is ours!” I turned back to the painting and squinted. I tried desperately to focus, but found that my train of thought was disrupted and I really couldn't concentrate on anything long enough to complete the task. I felt her disapproval.

“I know,” I said quickly, apologetically. “I need to focus. Detail. I'll do detail.”

Grace watched as I crouched on the floor over a fresh piece of paper. I focused on the paper and began to paint with purpose. “You probably can't see it.” I gestured at the images I was creating. “You're dead. But I can and this is so very vivid. This green, it's not just green, it's the most
intense
green I've ever seen. The lines are there. I just need to follow the sweep and curve of the lines that are there. Did you know that? That pictures are already in the paper? They absolutely are. We just have to coax them out. And that's what I'm doing now. With my hand . . . and this brush. All of my consciousness is located in my hand. It's so powerful.”

Grace moved to stand behind me. I felt her peering over my shoulder at the face I was painting. Rendered in red and black, the face on the paper had one eye that was obscured with hair. The other stared blankly ahead. The image rippled under my gaze. It was all wrong. In the background, my mind registered “Stripped” playing on the CD player. I pushed the paper away and attacked a fresh sheet.

“I need clarity. I need focus—to just focus on one part. Just one.”

I looked up at her face, grabbed a new sheet of paper, and then began to draw her eye complete with eyelashes. It looked like a cross between a Picasso and a second grader's rendering of the sun. I compared it to her face.

“It's not very good, I know,” I babbled. “But I'm not an artist. I'm studying business.”

Grace laughed.
“You have no interest in business. I've often wondered why you try to shove yourself into that box. Remember how you used to draw? And read? You're too creative to study business.”
She looked at the drawing.
“Although, if that's any indication of your work, maybe you should stick to business.”

“I know! I know.” I jumped up and began to pace back and forth. I could do better. I
knew
it. I felt the need to convince her—to prove my worth. “I'll try again,” I announced resolutely. “I'll do it again. This one will be good. I know it will.”

I sat back down, pushed the paper to the side, and grabbed a fresh sheet. Suddenly, my perception changed and it was as if I had a three-dimensional view of the scene. I was me, participating. But I was also omnipresent—an energy somewhere in the vicinity of the ceiling, watching what was happening below. I could see myself and Grace—how we moved, our interaction. I picked up the green tube of paint and squeezed from the middle, squirting out more paint. I stared at it, mesmerized. It seemed to glow with energy and life. I felt an overwhelming desire to eat it.

“Well, are you just going to sit there?”
Grace's voice broke into my contemplation.

Using bold strokes, I created an outline of an eye. It looked more like an Egyptian symbol than Grace's actual eye, but I grinned in appreciation.

“It's beautiful.” I laughed in delight. And then I saw the ant skitter across the floor.

“Oh my god, Grace.” I backpedaled into the corner. “It was an ant. Did you see it? An ant—like the ones that live inside you.”

Grace laughed and her eyes became hollow holes that melted down her face like candles left to burn themselves out. I blinked. What in the hell was happening?

“I can hear what you're thinking, Birdie. Nothing you think now or ever is your own.”

Suddenly, the room seemed to bend and I felt the movement of time as if it were one of my spirals. The past, the present, and the future were connected to each other even though they happened separately, just like points on a spiral that are adjacent to each other on a two dimensional plane but are separated down the length of the spiral itself. I blinked several times. My hearing was almost painfully acute.

“I can hear my hair growing,” I mumbled. “It's life growing out of my body.”

“You should draw your hair,”
suggested Grace with a wicked, eyeless grin.
“Draw it growing.”

“You're right.” I crawled out of the corner and over to the paper. I looked around and saw the earlier paintings I had scattered around the room. The eye with the rudimentary eyelashes sprang to life, jumped off the paper, and skittered on its centipede legs to safety under my bed.

“Shit. I'm going to draw my hair growing,” I announced to Grace. “No, no,
your
hair growing. I'm going to paint that.”

I squirted paint directly onto the paper and then blended it with my brush. Colors smeared together in swirls and trails. It was a deconstructed face, as seen through a prism. It was Grace's face, but also, not. The result was a supernatural creature with hair and bursts of light behind it. It was magical, I decided, and so I began to hum as I worked. The only song I could think of, though, was far from magical.

“I rode through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to get out of the rain,” I intoned tunelessly over and over. Finally I sat back on my heels.

“Done.” I repeated it for emphasis. “Done.”

Grace crept over and studied the painting.
“It's interesting, but it doesn't look like anything, really. It certainly doesn't look like me.”

“When did you become such a critic?” I waved my hands in front of my face. They seemed to melt and then reform and then melt again. I saw movement to my right and turned my head. It was a vine growing out of the floor and creeping along the wall. I lay back and watched, mesmerized, as it expanded and crept. Leaves, first tiny and then robust, grew from the tendrils followed by yellow, bell-shaped flowers. I thought I could smell honeysuckle and then the flowers withered and died, only to be replaced by enormous Venus flytraps that reared and snapped and wobbled on their stems. They smacked their whiskered lips. They wanted to eat me.

Grace began to sing.
“Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est.”

“No! Stop singing. I thought you were here to help me! Make them stop!”

“I'm here so you don't have to do this alone. But I can't stop it. Besides, none of this is real—it's all in your head. Even I am. I'm
dead—have been for years. You know the truth deep down.”

“Why are you so mean?”

“You try being dead.”

The Venus flytrap was still writhing, the blooms snapping in anticipation.

“No!” I rolled onto my side and faced the bed, my hands clasped tightly over my ears. The eye that had leapt from the page stared out at me from under the dust ruffle, blinking occasionally with its stringy, spindly lashes. My heart galloped as I lay there, eyes screwed shut from the horrors on both sides. Strong and throaty in the voice of a woman rather than a girl, the woman she would never become, I heard Grace call my name.

“Birdie.”
Her voice had the reassuring tones of a mother trying to calm and soothe a terrified child.
“Come here. Let me help you. You know you never should have done this alone. You should have had that little faggot friend of yours stay with you. As unstable as you are, this was a stupid idea.”

“I needed to.” My eyes were still squeezed shut. “I needed to get rid of all the
shit
that's in my
head!
”

She laughed.
“And you thought this would do it?'

“Yes!”

“Shhhhh. You'll wake your roommate, although maybe you won't. She's pretty used to your nightmares, isn't she? Did you know she's getting tired of you—and more than just a little freaked out? Between nightmares, your weird hours, and the fact that you're scared to leave the house, she thinks there's something wrong with you. And there is, isn't there? You know it deep down. You can say it's normal or make excuses, but we both know that in a lot of ways you're as dead as I am. Or wait, maybe you really did die, too, and this is your purgatory for not helping me—for abandoning me.”

“Shut up,” I said miserably. “I don't need some dead girl whose mother was a druggie telling me what is and isn't real. I don't need your help. I can do this on my own.”

“Fine.”
And with that, the entire room was silent—too silent. I rolled over, ready to apologize. But it was too late. There she was, lying just like she had in the woods. Back exposed. Pale skin. Smears of blood. One sock. I got to my feet and walked to where
she lay. One eye stared glassily at me. Dark green with thick lashes.

“Grace?” I squatted down and stared at her. Nothing moved. No tremor. No blink. “Grace, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Please. Don't do this.”

I tentatively reached out and touched her shoulder. She was cold, like meat in the refrigerator. I recoiled, but then forced myself to touch her again, to shake her gently. Nothing. And then I realized what I had to do. I would bring her back to life by capturing her image and then freeing her. I hurried back over to the pile of papers and grabbed a fresh sheet. My movements were deliberate. I squirted paint onto the palette.

“I can do this. I understand now.”

I began to paint. And what emerged was a violin on its side. No strings. No bow. Just the body. That's what it was, I realized. Grace, the stringless violin. I glanced over at her cold, still form. The green of the vine, which was again just a vine, caught my eye. I stood up to inspect it. I sniffed one of the blossoms. It smelled like cat urine. I wrinkled my nose and returned to my paper. But after a couple of strokes, I stopped. The smell from the flowers was making it impossible to breathe, let alone concentrate.

I strode to the window to let the cool night air pour in. I could hear a drunken rendition of “Margaritaville” coming from an intoxicated frat boy weaving down the street. I turned from the window and the painting again caught my eye.

“It needs another line.” I hurried back to the painting and carefully added a very deliberate line. I glanced at the clock. It was 5:02 a.m. I sniffed. The room still smelled like urine. I climbed to my feet and looked around the room for something to cover the odor. My gaze settled on the green perfume bottle on my dresser. It glowed with emerald intensity. I picked it up and pulled off the cap. It smelled deep and herby. The glass bottle throbbed in my hand and I stared, mesmerized. The bottle was breathing. We just didn't know it because we couldn't
see
. Suddenly, everything in my room was alive. I could feel the atoms and the energy that was holding everything together. I walked around the room touching things and watching them exist.