Weird Girl (19 page)

Next, she did San Diego, which wasn’t nearly as long, and
followed that with Sacramento. Although it was closest, geographically
speaking, Cleo assumed that Jackson would be long past it by now, a full week
after his escape from Harper Valley.

The next day, she started on the Los Angeles telephone
directory, which was actually a two volume set. It took her a full week to get
through it all, although she did pad the list a bit with addresses for various
Hollywood stars, as well as the location of Shirley Temple’s star on the Walk
of Fame and every synagogue in town (hey, they’d asked for all the Temples).

She had saved San Francisco for last because she knew in her
gut that Jackson was there, and she wanted to give him the best fighting chance
to settle in before Virginia started kicking down doors. Still, she made her
list, because there was no way to get out of it. But when she came to a yellow
pages ad for an upscale hotel that claimed to have “Live Jazz Every Nite!”, she
left it off the list, just in case.

22

As spring semester waxed and waned, Blue had to take over as
Interim Director in Ms. Adams’ absence. She cancelled the annual dance and
posted a campus-wide curfew of 9pm (it was just too difficult to keep track of
everyone
and
keep up with the paperwork). Once, Cleo walked in on Blue
having a phone conversation (on speaker) with a very crazed-sounding woman. As
soon as the lady bellowed, “Because I am not a fucking Jew!”, Cleo knew that
Virginia Adams was working her way through the L.A. list. It was early May
before the headmistress of Harper Valley returned to her post, empty-handed and
more than half insane.

This was also the last two weeks of Cleo’s work-study at the
school. Not only had she gotten bolder with the psychological warfare around
campus, like stealing the WD-40 from the library so that all of the carts
squeaked. Ms. Shale tased people regularly now. One unfortunate girl had gotten
it so many times that she now seemed to have permanent shakes. Her friends kept
their distance at meals because she ended up throwing more milk in a two foot
radius of her body than she actually got in her mouth. Cleo had affectionately
nicknamed her “Twitchy.”

Cleo also started pushing the limits with Blue, asking her
questions about her past every time they met.

“So…did you used to be a mechanic?”

“How about a balloonist?”

“Were you a clown in the circus?”

“I know—you were a synchronized swimmer in the Olympics!
Gosh, that bald head must have come in handy. Very hydrodynamic and stuff.”

In reality, Cleo knew everything about Blue’s past (plus
some really personal stuff like, you know, what her nipples looked like). That
was a file that she had read through twice. But Blue didn’t know this. She also
didn’t adapt well to the question game. Every time Cleo asked one, Blue would
just glare and walk away.

Cleo was almost sad to leave work for the last time. She no
longer had a reason to break into the basement, but just sitting in the
building made her feel powerful.

But something else made her feel even more powerful. It
happened the day that she walked into Virginia Adams’ office unannounced, sat
down in a leather chair, and announced, “I know what you’ve got in the basement.”

The expression on the woman’s face was priceless. Then, it
changed to a sneer and Ms. Adams retorted, “Run along, little girl. I’ve got
work to do.”

“Like track down Jackson,” asked Cleo, thoroughly enjoying
the way that the woman’s jaw dropped. But Cleo wasn’t done. “Because I know
where Jackson is. And I know about the diamonds. I know a lot of things,
actually, like who you are, and who Blue is, and what this place is, and what
you’re holding over these people’s heads.” She smiled with the confidence of a
ten-year old who holds all the cards, but who is still too naïve to contemplate
what a crazy woman might do to a child who threatens her empire.

Ms. Adams stood up, walked around the desk, and closed the
pocket doors, locking them before turning around. Cleo clasped her hands in her
lap and waited. Finally, the woman spoke.

“What exactly are you planning to do about it?” she asked.

“It depends on whether or not you give me what I want,” Cleo
retorted.

“And that would be…?” Virginia asked as she came back around
to her leather office chair to sit down.

“Well, first I want a diploma,” Cleo began, but an upraised
hand on the opposite side of the desk stopped her.

“A diploma?” asked Ms. Adams incredulously. “What?”

Calmly, Cleo continued, “I want a diploma, signed by you,
designating me as a graduate of the Harper Valley School for Girls, dated June
4
^th
of this year. I want to walk at graduation. I want to be done
with this place.” She raised an eyebrow and waited for a response, but all the
other woman did was nod and gesture for her to continue.

“I also want A's on all of my final exams. I’ll still go to
class, but I’m not taking the finals. Too stressful.” After a brief hesitation,
Ms. Adams nodded.

“And, I want your perfume,” concluded Cleo, grinning
brilliantly. “But it had better be a full bottle.”

“Ummm…why?” asked the woman.

“Because I want it,” said Cleo stubbornly. “After all, a
piece of paper, a doctored grade sheet, and a bottle of perfume are a small
price to pay for my silence, wouldn’t you agree?”

Ms. Adams stared her down, but lost. “Fine,” she said. “But
you promise that you won’t tell your parents, or anyone else for that matter,
about the school?”

“I promise,” said Cleo.

And it was settled. In less than a month, Cleo was tripping
over a too-large graduation gown, picking tassel out of her teeth, and looking
for her parents in the crowd. They weren’t there. But Blue was.

“Let’s take a little walk,” said the Amazon. Her 1950s
full-skirted dress was the exact shade of her eyes, which should have been
pretty, but was very disconcerting with her bald, tattooed skull.

When they were some distance from the other graduates, Blue
spoke. “So, Virginia tells me that you’re privy to a few of our secrets.”

Cleo didn’t respond, so Blue continued. “Rumor has it that
you know where Jackson is. You’ve made it. You’ve graduated. Why don’t you tell
me where he is?”

Cleo pretended to consider. “Nope,” she said finally.

Blue pressed her lips into a thin line. “But you’re going to
tell me where the diamonds are, right?”

“Ummm…nope,” said Cleo. Before she could blink, Blue had her
pressed up against a tree, a massive, but well-manicured hand around her
throat.

SWIK
. It was the only warning Blue had before the
cold tip of a switchblade was pressed just underneath her armpit, angled into
the side of one (giant) breast. They both froze, but Blue finally relaxed her
grip and stepped back. She loved her boobs, and not even loyalty to Virginia
would cause her to jeopardize them. Implants were expensive.

Having gained the upper hand, Cleo couldn’t help but gloat.
“Idiot. Why would he tell me where the stupid diamonds are? I’m ten! Anyway,
Blue, or should I call you Shelby…?”

Once again, Blue’s hand was around Cleo’s throat, but not as
tightly this time. When the woman spoke it was barely above a whisper. “You
wanna know about me? Let’s play a little game. I’ll tell you three things,
Cleo, two of which are true. Are you ready? Number one: I can crack a walnut
between my thighs. Number two: I can knot a cherry stem with my tongue. And
number three: if you mess with my new life, I will fucking make you disappear.
You work it out.” And then she walked away.

Cleo coughed once, and then called after her. “It’s the
cherry thing, right? And then what other one? Gosh, I can’t quite get it. Can I
get a hint?” Blue flipped her the bird and disappeared into the crowd.

***

Blue’s real history was this: Her real name was Shelby Lynn
Parker, and she had been one of the highest-paid burlesque performers in Atlantic City when a tall, dark, and handsome had started tossing good money at her for
“private performances.” Eventually, she had moved into his penthouse, where she
performed for him every night. But, he talked in his sleep, and she heard more
than she should about his business life. And when an earnest, wholesome-looking
guy had started bumping into her here and there, and eventually talked her into
going out for coffee, Shelby Lynn accidentally blurted out something about an
upcoming drug deal. Surprisingly, the guy didn’t look nearly as wholesome when
he was handcuffing her boyfriend against the trunk of his limo. Not surprisingly,
the boyfriend had been more than a little upset. With nothing more than the
clothes on her back and the cash in her purse, Shelby Lynn had run.

For a while, she rode with a biker gang in Illinois,
figuring that nobody would look for her among tattoos, leather, and roaring
engines. One of the guys had dropped a lame pickup line at a truck stop the
night after she left Jersey, and everyone, including Shelby, was shocked when
she batted her eyelashes and pulled him into the bathroom for a little more
than Seven Minutes in Heaven. She left town on the back of his bike, and stayed
with the group for ten months, during which she shaved her head and started
getting tattoos. She had refused to tell him her name that first night, so from
that point forward, he just called her Blue, because she had Paul Newman eyes.

When the biker was arrested for petty theft, Blue took his
Harley and rode to Texas, where she got a job stripping and waitressing in a
Western-themed club. One night, a woman came in for a beer, and Blue happened
to be the one to bring it to her. The bar was slow, so the two women fell into
easy conversation. “I’m Virginia,” she said as she got up to leave. She came
back every night for two weeks, and the women quickly became best friends. One
night, she got Blue very drunk, drunk enough to talk about her past. But rather
than judge, Virginia started plotting.

She had just taken her ex-husband to the cleaners in a
divorce, and she was looking to start a new business with the money. She liked the
idea of independence. She also liked the idea of helping Blue, and others in
similar circumstances. So Blue and Virginia Adams moved to California,
advertised through very selective channels, and acquired enough clients to open
Harper Valley School for Girls. Virginia was in charge. Blue was First
Lieutenant. They split the fees 70/30. Virginia interviewed and selected
clients. Blue compiled the evidence files and hid them in the basement. She was
a whiz with computers, so any photograph from any point in a client’s past
would eventually end up in Blue’s files. And they ruthlessly blackmailed every
single one of them.

Neither woman really saw Cleo as a threat, which is why they
didn’t do anything but wave goodbye as Vera’s car rolled down the driveway and
away from Harper Valley forever. It might have been different if they had known
about Cleo copying the files. Or the half a million dollars that were wrapped
up in a coat in the middle of Cleo’s suitcase. For today, though, Virginia and Blue simply counted their blessings, the largest one being that Cleomella St.
James was never going to cause problems for them ever again.

23

Vera kept up animated conversation the entire way back to
the house, and while Cleo had missed Vera, she also kind of missed Jackson’s solid silence. Some people need to learn to take a breath every now and then.
Jeez.

The house was empty when they arrived. Cleo waited for her
parents to jump out and yell “Surprise!” to signal the start of the graduation
party. After all, it’s not every day that your daughter graduates high school
before her eleventh birthday. In the absence of jumping parents, Cleo looked
back over her shoulder at Vera, who was acting nervous and not making eye
contact.

“Are Mom and Dad upstairs?” asked Cleo, her foot already on
the bottom step.

“Umm…no, dear.” Vera cleared her throat mightily before
continuing. “You see, your parents, well…I’m sure if they had known you were
graduating, they would be here with bells and whistles, but you see, it was
fairly sudden. We only found out two weeks ago that you would be getting your
diploma today, and, well…they’re not here.”

“Where exactly are they?” asked Cleo icily.

“I think maybe Australia. Or New Zealand, or one of those
places.” Vera waved her hand in the air and wrinkled her nose.

“Doing what?” said Cleo.

“Oh, you know your parents. They’re bonding with natives and
smoking strange plants. Well, maybe you don’t know. They haven’t done something
like this since before you and your sister were born,” said Vera.

“When are they coming back?” said Cleo, still standing on
the bottom stair.

Vera looked upward at some invisible calendar. “Well…they
didn’t say, really.”

So Cleo’s homecoming involved no fanfare whatsoever, aside
from the meal that she shared with Vera and the gardeners. Her room hadn’t been
touched since Christmas break, so Vera helped her change the sheets and switch
out her heavy duvet for a lighter coverlet before tucking her in and kissing
her on the forehead. Cleo lay awake all night thinking about her future, which
was what you were supposed to do the minute you graduated from high school.
Generally, the choices were college, marriage, or work. Being ten years old
sort of narrowed down the field. She was too young to get a job, too young for
marriage (and totally without interest in it), which left college. The problem
was that Cleo was kind of burned out on school at the moment, and felt that a
hiatus of indeterminate length might be good for her. Therefore, Cleo, like
millions of lost high school graduates around the world, decided to live with
her parents until she had things figured out. The bonus was that she could
legitimately do this for at least a decade without it seeming remotely creepy
or lazy.

***

The next morning, she rushed through breakfast, gave Juniper
a good belly rub and Gally an extra cricket, and called a taxi. There was a bit
of spring in her step today, and she looked forward to filling Santo in on all
that had happened at school. Unfortunately, Santo was not at home. In fact, it
looked like he hadn’t been there for quite some time.

She told the driver to wait while she picked her way through
waist-high weeds to the sagging wooden steps, where several months’ worth of mail
had overflowed from his wall-mounted metal box and nearly disintegrated from
exposure to the weather. She knocked for several minutes, aware that the taxi
driver was getting antsy, but no one answered. As she turned to leave, a blue
envelope, partially faded from the harsh California sunshine, caught her eye.
It was wedged between the window glass and frame to the left of the trailer’s
front door, and barely legible was the name Cleo scrawled in faded black ink.
It was a letter from Santo.

Cleo,

I have to go away for a while. I did something stupid, and
it might be two years before I can come back. Take anything you want. At least
I’ll know the looters didn’t take everything. I didn’t leave you a key, but I
trust you can let yourself in (haha). Take care of yourself.

Santo

p.s. And if you ever crash a Jewish wedding, be sure to
act Jewish for a while before you slip out the back with the Waterford
punchbowl. Also make sure that it’s not a Jewish cop wedding.

Cleo wanted to cry. First Jackson. Then her parents. Now
Santo. Cleo’s social circle was dwindling fast. She told the taxi driver to
come back in two hours, waited for him to bump and rattle down the driveway,
and then she broke into Santo’s house.

It smelled musty and un-lived in. She cleaned out the
refrigerator and took out the trash. Then she climbed into Santo’s aging
recliner and just…sat. Absorbing the essence of Santo. It was strangely
comforting to be in someone else’s home, alone. She imagined what Santo would
be doing right now if he was here. Probably dancing, she decided, so she got up
and put his favorite CD in the stereo, cranked up the volume, and boogied
without inhibition. Then she plundered, more thoroughly than she ever had
before. It felt wrong to take Santo’s things, knowing that he would be back
(eventually), but she did select a few souvenirs—his favorite nail polish, a
cherry red lipstick, a rabbit fur pillow, and a purple satin bathrobe with an
ornate
L
monogram. Oh, and a wad of cash that she found in a dirty
tennis shoe—around $2000. Hey, it was better than letting the looters get it.

When she got home, she went straight up to her room, where
she discovered Vera in the middle of unpacking the suitcase from school. As the
woman lifted out the rolled up coat, Cleo shouted “NO!” and leapt toward her,
accidentally tripping over a pair of shoes that Vera had planned to take
downstairs for a polish. She face-planted on the ancient Persian rug, skinning
her chin and sending a century of dust up her nose. Vera instantly dropped the
coat back into the suitcase to help her up. When the woman rushed downstairs
for some alcohol and cotton balls, Cleo hobbled over to the bed and started
shoving cash under her mattress. The last stack of hundreds was still in Cleo’s
hand when Vera got back, so she quickly whipped around, hiding it behind her
back and gently sliding it into her waistband. A moment later, as Vera applied
the astringent, causing Cleo to wince and jerk back involuntarily, the cool
stack of cash slipped entirely into the back of Cleo’s underwear, startling her
to the point that she did a weird wiggle dance before forcing herself to smile
at Vera and allow the first aid to continue. It was difficult not to giggle at
the prospect of having ten thousand dollars in her panties.  

As soon as Vera had gone back downstairs, Cleo took the cash
and hid it with the rest. She would find a better hiding place later. For now,
she had some people to visit.

Sliding the strap of her messenger bag over her head, she
went downstairs and called Juniper. They slipped through the hole in the fence
that she had used after Santo had kidnapped her. It was on the wrong side, but
at least it led to the woods. Juniper was ecstatic to be back in the forest,
and he kept bounding away and then running back to her at high speed, sometimes
with a dead bird or branch in his mouth. Cleo took her time, careful to remain
within sight of the fence until they had worked their way around to the other
side of the St. James fence. Then, they took their familiar path to the
Cannibal House. She expected to hear the sounds of playtime, but there was only
birdsong, punctuated periodically by a scampering squirrel or Juniper running.
The backyard of the brick house was overgrown, the trampoline sagged in the
middle, and the house itself seemed melancholy. No one was home.

The windows were too smudged to reveal much about the
interior of the house, except that the contents were still there, and it had
been left relatively clean. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no flies
buzzing around the kitchen. The carport was empty. It took Cleo under four
minutes to pick the lock on the back door (Santo had told her that most people
bought fancy front door locks, and didn’t bother to upgrade the back, so those
were usually easier).

It smelled like window cleaner. There was no bag in the
trash can. The refrigerator had been emptied of perishables. Cleo wandered from
room to room, looking for clues. In the first bedroom, which looked like it
probably belonged to the little boy, the top dresser drawer was open and
half-empty. In the master bedroom, someone had left a stack of paperwork from a
property rental company at the coast. So, they had rented a beach house for the
summer.

The cannibals had left her. Cleo was utterly alone in life,
except for the sporadic company of Vera, or maybe one of the gardeners at home.
But behind the sadness was an intriguing sensation. A little bit of adrenaline,
a slightly elevated heart rate—Cleo was excited. It was the same sensation that
she had felt in Ms. Adams’ office the first time that she had broken in, and
again this morning in Santo’s empty trailer, but here, as she recognized it,
the feeling was amplified. She was completely alone!

You can tell a lot about someone just by walking through
their home. Santo had told her this. So far, she had discovered that someone in
this family was capable of forethought—cleaning the house before going on
vacation so that they wouldn’t return to the stench of putrefaction. What else
could she learn about this family? Cleo returned to the kitchen and began
leisurely opening drawers and cabinets. She dug through closets, bounced on the
beds, sniffed ointments and cosmetics, plundered through the medicine cabinets
in both bathrooms, read a magazine in the ancient red leather recliner, and
perused the bookshelves and DVD cabinet. Finally, she sat on the sofa, her legs
crossed beneath her, and just…
existed
. It was comforting and thrilling
to be in someone else’s home without an invitation, without supervision, and
without anyone knowing about it.

Her solitude was shattered when Juniper suddenly jumped up
on the back door, scratching against the glass and barking for her to let him
in. It was so sudden, she almost peed. She had totally forgotten about him.
Looking out the back door at the lonely golden retriever, she noticed that it
had started to get dark. They had better be getting back to the house, especially
since the fence hole was farther away than it used to be. Cleo took one last
tour of the house and then very reluctantly exited through the rear, locking
the door behind her. As depressing as it was to leave, she was still energized
from the experience, and even jogged with Juniper part of the distance back,
stopping to play fetch with him a couple of times. They followed the fence,
slipped back through the hole, and trotted past the greenhouses, where he
promptly got distracted by a rabbit and abandoned her to give chase. She went
to her room to consolidate her thoughts (and her notes).

Cleo tried to tell herself that there was no reason to go
back, but the next morning, she dropped an apple and an orange into her bag and
stole through the gap in the fence, leaving Juniper behind this time. It was
like a drug, being in someone else’s house. She didn’t steal anything, didn’t
vandalize it or booby trap it. She just lived there for a few hours and went
home. This became Cleo’s summer pastime. Sometimes, she would take a book to
read. Occasionally, she would pull out one of the family’s board games and let
Waldorf beat her. But she was careful to leave no trace of her temporary
habitation.