As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (13 page)

Salty sweat ran into Lumikki’s eyes, making them sting. She tried to blink it away, but finally had to squeeze her eyes shut tight. She didn’t need to see. She knew her opponent’s face all too well.

You’re. Never. Getting. Up. Again.

“Excellent! Now the same on the left side. You already know this combination. Go all out right from the start, everyone.”

Lumikki took a couple of extra sidesteps to her sweat towel and used it to quickly dry off her eyes and forehead. Then the pounding music again filled the gym where about forty young women, a couple of middle-aged women, and three men began moving through the same synchronized pattern of steps and strikes like parts in a finely tuned machine. This was Body Combat class.

Lumikki glanced at the large mirrors on the walls to make sure she was crouched low enough and her fists were up high enough to block her face, which was red from exertion. Diagonally behind her, a girl in a green shirt and pigtails glanced at Lumikki to copy her form.
Go right ahead and look.
Lumikki knew she was one of the best in the group. She put a hundred percent into every movement. She had the technique down.

Or the choreography, rather. Because in the end, that’s all this was. A series of movements performed in time to bouncy
pop songs with a dash of martial arts thrown in. Simple enough steps for anyone to follow as they sweated their cellulite away, fighting imaginary opponents while the instructor yelled directions and encouragement. Only a couple of degrees more aggressive than aerobics.

Lumikki liked Body Combat anyway. You worked up a sweat, your muscles got toned, and getting into the right frame of mind was easy for her. She didn’t want to practice a real martial art or boxing. She already knew perfectly well what it felt like to sink her fist into another person’s stomach. She knew how blood erupted from a nose and how strangely warm it felt on her skin. Like half-cooled homemade jelly or jam. She didn’t want a real, living target for her attacks. She still remembered all too well what hitting a real person felt like, even though more than two years had already passed. The blue Nordic dusk of that afternoon in the schoolyard was burned into her memory. Whenever it crossed her mind, she tasted acid in her mouth and smelled the sweet scent of perfume in her nose. The fragrance contained roses, vanilla, and a hint of sandalwood.

The song had changed, now something about rain falling down, but the pace remained frenetic.

Lumikki didn’t need rain to drench her black tank top. It was soaked through with perspiration as it was.

After class, she sat in the dressing room, allowing her breathing to level off as she unwound the wraps from her hands. In addition to supporting her wrists, they also absorbed sweat. But more than anything, they were part of the game, props for a role, a way for good little schoolgirls like her to
imagine they were something else. Attitude wraps, some people called them—some in jest, some more enthusiastically.

“This new program is good. More intense than the old one.”

Lumikki glanced at the person addressing her. The girl, who looked a couple of years older, was sitting at the other end of the bench, unwrapping her own wrists and clearly directing her words at Lumikki. Long red hair in a high ponytail. Face and arms dotted with freckles. Loose black trousers and a tight black top, the same Body Combat uniform Lumikki had on. She had seen the girl in class and around the gym lots of times. And she knew the girl had seen her too. Lumikki had noticed her watching her movements. And not just her movements, but also the curve of her body, the shape of her muscles. She had sensed that the girl would talk to her at some point.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” Lumikki replied.

With a relaxed, natural motion, the redhead slid over to sit next to Lumikki. Calvin Klein One and grapefruit-scented shower gel struggled for dominance beneath the smell of her sweat. A tight bicep rounded as the girl continued removing her wrist wraps. Just at her bicep, seven freckles almost formed the constellation Gemini.

Memories forced themselves on Lumikki. There was another person who wore CK One. Who had a tattoo of Gemini on their neck. How it had felt to press her lips to the skin of that neck and place feather-soft kisses along the stars. To let her mouth linger when it reached Castor. To know that, somewhere around Pollux, the owner of the tattoo would no
longer be able to resist turning, trapping Lumikki’s wrists and kissing her on the lips.

Had that really been just the summer before? It felt like a hundred years ago.

Lumikki grabbed her water bottle and took a long swig. The girl was clearly waiting for her to say something, to give some sign that moving closer had been a good idea. To take a little initiative. Lumikki saw too well where it would lead. To more conversations, more smiles, a cautious invitation to coffee, and then, inevitably, to a situation in which she would have to be cruel.

It isn’t you, it’s me.

Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Let’s just be friends.

And both of them would know that would mean doing their best to avoid each other from that point on.

And Lumikki would never be able to explain that they were only in that situation because the girl’s perfume had reminded Lumikki of someone else, and that was why they couldn’t go on. She couldn’t be honest. She would have to lie from the outset, and that would only lead to embarrassment, halfhearted regret, blunted vexation.

So pointless. Lumikki decided to save them both that time, to save the girl’s feelings, and just continued drinking her water. The silence crossed over into awkwardness. The girl shifted uncomfortably and brushed some stray hairs back.

“Okay. See you later,” she said.

Lumikki raised one hand slightly in farewell. Grabbing her gym bag, the girl moved to another spot in the dressing room
so they couldn’t see each other. Lumikki quietly released the air from her lungs. The euphoric feeling she’d had after Body Combat was gone. Her skimpy workout clothes were plastered cold against her skin.

The last song from class was stuck in her head—the surrender. In some things, she preferred to surrender than to fight. Sometimes that was better for everyone.

Lumikki had the sauna to herself for once. Instead of throwing any water on the rocks right away, she let the warmth return to her skin, beads of sweat forming again, running from her neck down along her spine. Memories from the summer and fall struggled to the surface along with the perspiration, although she tried to tell them this wasn’t a good time. There was never a good time for regret and longing. Latching on to her, they clenched her stomach tight and forced her back to bend.

Light blue eyes looking straight into her own. Then quickly away. Somewhere away.

“It’s better if we don’t see each other anymore.”

“Anymore ever?”

“At least for a little while. You get that I want to work through this alone, right? I just can’t be with you right now. And it wouldn’t be fair to you to make you put up with me.”

Lumikki had wanted to scream. What right did anyone else have to say what the limits of her endurance were, or decide what was fair to her or not? Lumikki knew how to take care of herself. What had infuriated her was how casually she had been shut out of this other person’s life and challenges. As if she was a fragile little kid who needed protecting.
Lumikki had felt like hissing back that she had been through much worse and didn’t need to be kept in Bubble Wrap.

She had realized that shouting wasn’t going to help anything, though. Those beautiful blue eyes had made their decision. Lumikki’s role was just to accept it. That was what the script said she did in this scene.

“What does ‘a little while’ mean? I can still call you, right?”

Lumikki had detested the high-pitched pleading in her voice. She had felt a lump of tears growing in her throat and knew she wouldn’t be able to get it out. Years had passed since she’d lost the ability to cry. Last summer, she thought maybe she’d find it again, but during that conversation, she’d realized that she’d just have to live with that lump, to swallow it and hope it would disappear on its own at some point.

No calls, no e-mails, no Facebook messages, no letters, no Morse code with a flashlight during the dark hours of the night, no smoke signals blown with steaming breath on a chilly autumn night, no burning thoughts so intense that they could penetrate fog and walls and doors. Nothing. Complete silence. It was as if the whole person had disappeared from the face of the earth. Or, at least, disappeared from Lumikki’s life in one swift stroke. Just as unexpectedly and presumptuously as they’d come.

Lumikki remembered that day in May. The startlingly bright sunshine and the temperature stealing like a thief past seventy degrees for the first time all year. She was walking downtown with too many layers on. On the shore by the rapids, she took off her jacket and sat down on a bench to watch
the dark water flowing by and feel the warmth of the sun on her face. It occurred to her that the moment would be perfect if she was eating her first ice cream cone of the season. Fortunately, an ice cream stand was right there next to her. Lumikki swung her jacket over her shoulder and went to stand at the end of the long line. Plenty of other people were craving their first cold treat too.

As she waited in line, Lumikki wondered whether she should get licorice or lemon. Licorice was her default choice. And it was good. But the lemon was also appealing. Maybe it was the May light and the sun promising a long summer of stifling heat. When her turn came, she still hadn’t made up her mind yet.

Light blue eyes measured Lumikki as she opened her mouth to order. The ice cream seller was faster though.

“Don’t say anything. Let me guess. You don’t want chocolate or strawberry. And definitely not vanilla. You aren’t interested in that caramel fudge stuff or any of the new flavors that you mostly think are just a way to scam the stupid and the curious. You’re a licorice girl. It’s obvious from a mile away.”

The light blue eyes narrowed a touch and then refocused.

“But right now, what you want is lemon. Because it isn’t really spring anymore, but it also isn’t quite summer yet. You want something sour and yellow. May sun ice cream.”

Lumikki was speechless.

“You’ll have one scoop, but you don’t want a waffle cone because you think they taste like sweetened cardboard. So I’ll put it in a little cup.”

The ice cream seller turned to fill the order. Suddenly, Lumikki was unbearably hot. She would have been hot even if she’d stripped down to her underwear right then and there. He took so long. The awkward moment stretched out. Lumikki still hadn’t been able to say anything. Finally, the boy turned and handed Lumikki a paper napkin and a bowl of ice cream. When Lumikki started digging in her pocket for money, a smile flashed in the light blue eyes.

“Don’t worry about it. My treat.”

Lumikki managed to splutter something resembling a thank-you and then spun on her heels with burning cheeks. She felt like she’d just been X-rayed. The feeling was extremely uncomfortable and also strangely tingly. When she returned to her bench by the rapids, she noticed something written on the napkin.

“Call. You know you want to.” And a phone number.

Lumikki shook her head.
Presumptuous,
she thought.
And probably a jerk.
That night, she dialed the number with sweaty palms.

Selfish jerk. Pathetic coward. Good-for-nothing quitter. No matter how many times Lumikki repeated those words through the slow, endless hours lying awake at night after their breakup, they never turned true. She had loved a jerk, a coward, a quitter. She had understood his decision even though she didn’t want to understand. She had waited and hoped, hoped and waited, jumping every time the telephone rang, sitting at her window looking down on the street, imagining she saw that familiar gait. She made strong black coffee
in the middle of the night since she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. The pungent smell of the coffee was comforting, wrapping around her like a warm blanket. She drank the coffee too hot on purpose, trying to dissolve the lump in her throat.

Over weeks and months, the lump shrank and the longing eased into the background. She willfully gave up on hope. It wasn’t any use. They’d probably never see each other again.

Lumikki began throwing water on the rocks in the sauna, dumping more and more until the stove stopped answering with an angry hiss. Hot steam painfully struck her upper back and neck. Lumikki straightened her back and felt the clenching in her stomach relent. Her eyes stinging, she wiped them with her hand. It was sweat, just sweat.

That evening, Lumikki stared at the white wall of her apartment and thought about the painting she was working on in art class. She wasn’t a particularly gifted painter or illustrator, although she did love visual arts. She didn’t hold out any hope of ever becoming more than a capable amateur. She took art classes just for fun, enjoying the chance to play and relax by making pictures. She doubted that later in life she’d have access to free paints, canvases, and a studio like the school offered.

Black, black, black. The surface had already been covered, but Lumikki had wanted even more black, more texture, cracks and crevices so the painting wouldn’t just be two-dimensional. Once she had enough layers, she laid the canvas
out on the studio floor on top of some newspaper, and, climbing onto a chair, began dripping red paint onto it. The drops of paint splashed against the black like red drops of rain, like drops of blood.

Lumikki had almost finished it today.

And now she knew the painting’s title too.
Girlfriends
.