Beautiful Sorrows (8 page)

SHOW YOUR BONES

She stopped eating at nineteen. One day she simply pushed her plate away, and got up from her lonely dinner table outside in the sun. That was that. Her father never noticed, not with her girlhood friends parading in and out of the mansion. She would listen to the squeaking of springs at night and wish that she could throw up. Sometimes, with a little help, she did.

Some days she would take an orange from the concerned cook and walk with it to the pond in the middle of the gardens. She would peel it and sniff at the rind, watching the juice run down her arm before tossing it to the goldfish. Her hair thinned and began to fall out; she cropped it short in a sophisticated hairstyle that, after being published in the magazines, had hordes of others flocking to the salons to achieve the same effect. When her skin blanched, she left it, not attempting to tint it with colored plaster and caked crayons like other women. “Beautiful,” they breathed, and in the next issue of
Beauty Magazine
, tender, pale faces gazed alluringly at the camera.

When her collarbones and hipbones jutted out, instantly the world began to diet, coveting that brittle look. “Gorgeous,” her father grinned, and winked, before leading a hungry girl with carefully tousled short hair upstairs to his room.

Sometimes she ate a little bit of grass or thorns from the garden plants, or she chewed on a handful of garden dirt for the nutrients. Mostly she just sat at the edge of the pond, dangling her bare white legs in the water and thinking quietly about anything but food. It wasn’t at all hard.

“You’re breathtaking, Sweetie,” her father said one day, admiring her cheekbones and translucent skin. “Just like your mother.”

That night, she heard him crying upstairs, and it took him two hours before he went out searching for his woman. She was left alone in the garden once again, holding handfuls of dark earth. She cupped her hands together like she was bearing the world between them, the moon glistening and reflecting on the grains of mica and quartz. She stared at it for a long time, her lips nibbling at the air just above it, before letting it all slip through her fingers.

She wiped her hands on her white dress and walked away.

THE ABCs OF MURDER

I got really tired of murdering Billy Cords.

I know how that sounds, but I can’t help it. I’m a peaceful guy at heart, and the constant scheming and planning and carrying out murder after murder was really getting to me. To be honest, I’d rather be playing basketball. And I hate basketball.

Besides, Billy was my best friend, a fact that he kept bringing up.

“Hey, loser,” he said, popping up at the foot of my bed one evening. I sat up, clutching my bed sheet and screaming. This was most likely because we had buried Billy two days earlier.

“Cripes, Jake, knock it off.” He covered his ears and bared his teeth. This was such a Billy move that it only made me scream harder. I heard pounding feet come tearing down the hall. Billy sighed and slid under my bed. My father flew into the room, wearing his boxers and wielding a golf club like a weapon. The way that my father played, that was most likely the case.

“What’s wrong?” He sidled up to the window and peeked outside. I had stopped screaming and was hunched over, openmouthed. My dad looked at me.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, son.” I winced. That line was so clichéd, I was embarrassed. Under the bed I heard a muffled snerk. Billy was trying his best to keep himself under control.

“Dad, it was Billy. I saw Billy, he was right at the foot of my bed and—”

Dad sat down, and his face was sad. He ran his hand over his balding head.

“Jake,” he said, and didn’t seem to know what to say after that. I looked at him, waiting. I heard Billy squirm under the bed a bit and I felt the same way. Dad had acted like this when Mom died, and it was awkward enough the first time.

My father swooped me into his arms for a punishing hug. I struggled, but he held me fast and used his chin to hold my shoulder in place. “I love you, son,” he said with feeling, and hugged me even tighter. I let myself go loose in his grip. Kinda like playing dead, but a little bit smarter.

“I...love you too, Dad,” I said. My eyes narrowed as I heard another giggle from Billy, but I was sure that Dad didn’t pick up on it. On account of his sobbing.

“I don’t know what to do for you, boy. Losing Billy. You’re going to see him everywhere, that’s the way of it. Behind corners and in crowds and picking green olives out at the grocery store. But he’s gone, and you’re going to have to accept it, although you can talk to him whenever you’re lonely and...”

I kinda tuned out, then. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate my dad and this unusual display of affection, but come on. Plus my dead best friend was getting all restless under the bed. He didn’t have an awful lot of patience. ADD, practically. I knew it was time for this craziness to end.

“Boy, Dad, thanks a lot,” I interrupted, and then I faked a big, jaw-cracking yawn. “And I sure am tired. Big test tomorrow, and all that.” I smiled sweetly. A bit too sweetly, actually, but Dad was relieved enough to cut his parenting short.

“Sleep well, son,” he said, and hovered his face around my head for an instant. I was afraid that he was going to go in for a kiss like I was ten years old or something, but instead he just mussed up my hair and left the room, taking the golf club with him.

“That was close,” Billy said, sliding out from under my bed.

I just stared at him.

“What?” he said.

“What do you mean
what
? You’re dead!” I climbed out of bed and smacked his arm. There was a little resistance there, but not much, and my hand went all of the way through pretty easily.

“Ow!” Billy yowled, jerking his arm away.

“What, that hurt?” I asked. A little hopefully, I had to admit. If he was going to scare me so bad, then he at least ought to get a slap out of it. It’s just the way our relationship always went.

“Nah, it doesn’t hurt. Just kidding ya. Hey, Jake,” he said, and suddenly his brown eyes were very serious. “I need your help with something. As you can see, something’s not right.”

“What do you need?” It was a simple question, but I wasn’t prepared for the answer or the look on his face when he answered.

“I need you to kill me.”

—

“I can’t do this,” I told him the next morning. We were standing behind my house. I was holding the wood axe in my hand like it had been dipped in poison. Something gross and acidic was in my mouth. This was so uncool.

“Dude, I told you I can’t feel anything,” Billy said. He was sounding ticked off. “Just do it already!” He closed his eyes and turned his face away.

“Billy,” I said. I was speaking very calmly so that he could understand me. I heard that’s what you’re supposed to do with crazy people. “I don’t want to kill you in the first place. I mean, what’s so bad about being a ghost? I know,” I said when he angrily opened his mouth, “you said it’s boring and you feel like you’re not in the right place, but come on! Killing you with an axe? An axe!”

I pointed at the axe with my other hand. Billy didn’t look impressed.

“Look, just do it. I can’t explain it, but I just need to die, okay? Be a pal.”

I sighed and squinched my eyes shut. “You so owe me,” I said. I peeked through one eye to make sure that the axe blade would land squarely in his heart, and then I swung with all of my might.

Billy made a strangled gasping sound and then fell to the ground. He disappeared. I left the axe where it was and ran into the bushes, vomiting. It was the worst day of my life.

At least it was until nightfall, when Billy popped over my bed again.

“Didn’t work,” he said. He shook his head. “We’ll have to find another way to do it.”

“Billy!” I kept running my hands over where the axe had hit him, but there wasn’t a mark, just that same resistance before my hands passed through.

“Dude, you can never ask me to do that again.” My hands were shaking. “Do you know what it’s like to kill somebody? It’s the sickest, heaviest, most repulsive...”

He merely looked at me. “I’m already dead. For the most part. And we’re going to try again tomorrow. I need your help, Jake.”

So we did.

—

Nothing worked. We tried poison, guns, knives. I pushed him off of buildings, ran over him with cars and set him on fire. That one almost burned down the shed.

“This sucks,” I said, after my father berated me for “acting out.” “Dad totally thinks I’m an arsonist. He’s getting creeped out seeing me parade in and out of the house with all sorts of different weapons. Obviously this isn’t working.”

“What about that wrench?” Billy said, perking up. “What if you just, you know, crack me over the head a good one? Think that will work?”

“It’s worth a try,” I sighed, and
thonked
Billy as hard as I could right over his eye. He jerked, fell backwards, and faded away. I wasn’t at all surprised to see him sitting on my bed after I came up from dinner.

“Not wrenches, either.” He cursed. “This is taking too long. It’s been weeks already.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, and he opened his eyes wide. “Man, it’s giving me nightmares! It’s changing the way I’m seeing things, you know. I’m always looking around, wondering exactly how I should go about murdering you. It gets old.” I flopped on the bed, and Billy was quiet for a minute. Which was unusual for him.

“So I meant to ask you, how are your college plans coming along?” Billy tried to sound disinterested, like it didn’t really matter. College scared the crap out of me, and he knew it. But it’s important to Dad, so it’s supposed to be important to me.

“Not so well, you know? I signed up to volunteer at the animal shelter, because it’ll look good on an application one day. I meant to spend some time out there lately, but I’ve been kinda busy.” If Billy felt guilty, he didn’t show it. And I didn’t want him to feel guilty, not really. I punched my pillow and Billy looked at me.

“What?” he asked. His eyebrows were arched.

“I don’t know. How about...” I went through the options in my head. “What if it has to be something from your house? Something symbolic or something. Could that be the case?”

Billy perked up. “It’s worth a try,” he said.

—

After school the next day I stopped off to visit Billy’s mom.

“Hi, Rose,” I said, hugging her when she opened the door. “How are you holding up?”

Rose’s eyes turned wet when she saw me, but her smile didn’t tremble at all. “Good,” she said, and hugged me back harder than I thought she had strength for. Billy slipped in through the bedroom window while Rose and I were talking. We weren’t sure if she’d be able to see him or not, but he didn’t want to take the chance.

“You want to go poke around in his room?” Rose offered after a while. “Spend time with Billy’s memory? If there’s something particularly special to you, feel free to have it. Just run it past me first, will you?”

“Sure thing, Rose,” I said, and grinned at her. Rose was good people. Even Billy thought so.

“Go on up, then,” she said. Then she looked me dead in the eye. “Sometimes I feel like Billy is still around. You ever get that feeling?”

I swallowed hard, but managed to answer in a clear voice. “That’s because he is. He’s right here.” I gestured vaguely upstairs and Rose smiled.

“You’re a good kid, Jakob. Always were. Always will be. You’re a credit to your mama, may she rest in peace.” She crossed herself with a finger bedecked in rings. Then she went into the kitchen, leaving me to search Billy’s room in private.

Billy was leaning by his bedroom door at the top of the stairs. He had been listening.

“Ever check in on your mom?” I asked him, shutting the door. He shook his head and used a sleeve to wipe his eyes. I pretended I was looking elsewhere. Friends do that.

“No,” he said finally. “It’s too hard.” He cleared his throat and began to go through his room, looking for something special and wonderful and mercifully deadly.

“How about this?” I asked, holding up a dragon pewter letter opener. It was shaped like a dagger and dreadfully tacky. We both thought it was pretty cool.

“Maybe. Throw it in the bag. We’ll try it later.” It was hard to hear his voice because he was rifling through the closet. He emerged and tossed a backpack at me. “Keep these,” he said. I knew what it was without looking. The bag had all of his Playstation games, and a couple of the old school NES cartridges. They were gold to me.

“Thanks!” I said, and Billy grinned.

“No problem.”

We put together a pretty good stash of murder weapons by the end. We were starting to get creative, using extension cords for hanging and trying to figure out how to electrocute him. I mean, we had to. We were struggling here. Murder for Hire we weren’t.

“So what was it like to die?” I asked him. I’d been dying (ha ha) to know, but hadn’t brought it up until now.

He stopped flipping through a magazine and stared out of the window.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t like I thought it would be.”

“What do you mean? Like you thought it would be? How would you know that?”

Billy started to grind his molars together, and suddenly I knew that I wouldn’t like what he was going to say. Suddenly the bag of video games seemed very interesting.

“When I went out driving that night, I was pretty freaked out. I mean, I was freaked out about graduation, you know. And college. Where I’d end up. I’m not as smart as you...”

He paused, on the verge of shouting. I was surprised at how angry he sounded. Surprised enough to look at him.

Billy took a deep breath and said much more calmly, “I’m not as smart as you. I didn’t think we’d end up at the same college. I was freaked about getting a job to put myself through school, wherever it is. And you know how I am with girls.”

I snorted. I couldn’t help it.

“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “And in college there’s school and jobs and girls. That’s pretty much it, yeah? So while I was driving, I had this thought. Very brief. I thought,
What if I
—”

“No,” I said. My eyes felt wide enough that they could fall out of my head. “Don’t say it. You didn’t.”