Duckling Ugly (11 page)

“C…C…Cara.”

“We’ve got to get you inside!”

I looked around. The nearest structure was the greenhouse, its back entrance just about fifty yards away. I tried to lift her, but she was too heavy. In the end, I had to drag her across the hill by her armpits. I pulled open the door of the greenhouse, and was laid low by a stench more awful than anything I could remember. Miss Leticia groaned, then grinned. I pulled her over the threshold, and we collapsed in a bed of begonias.

That smell—it was like the horrible stench of meat left to rot in the hot, hot sun. A smell like my roadkill room, only ten times worse, and there were flies everywhere.

“It bloomed,” Miss Leticia said weakly. “It finally bloomed.”

There, just a few feet away from us, I could see the corpse flower’s huge bloom. It had the shape of a teacup, but three feet wide and four feet high, surrounding that six-foot stalk.

Flies buzzed over the brim, in and out, in and out, pollinating the hideous thing.

Now it was complete. Now everything in the world had gone rancid.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said.

“We’ve got to get you help.”

“No help. No help. Already got my wish,” she said. Her arm fluttered slightly. I took her hand. “The good Lord saw fit to keep me where I want to be. I got a plot waiting on the south side of the hill. It’s good there. It’s good.”

I wanted to tell her to hold on. I wanted to tell her she’d come
through, but it would have been a lie. “Please don’t go,” I begged, even though I knew I was being selfish. Because I needed her. She must have known what I was thinking, because tears came to her clouded eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I promised I would be here to see your destiny.” She gripped my hand with the last of her strength. “Go find it,” she said. “You go find the answers.”

She didn’t go limp. She didn’t even loosen her grip. But in a moment her eyes, as lifeless as they had seemed before, became truly glazed with the emptiness of death, and I knew she was gone. I rolled her gently onto her back, closed her eyelids, and folded her hands over her chest. Then I tore two massive petals from her beloved corpse flower and covered her body.

I cried for her. They say when you cry for the dead, you’re really crying for yourself, and maybe partly I was. My life had become one betrayal after another. Gerardo, Marshall, my parents. Now fate itself had stolen the only person in my life who hadn’t betrayed me. I was alone now—really alone—and in that dark lonely moment, I dared to tempt fate. Not just tempt it, but challenge it.

The lights of the greenhouse were reflected in its many windows. At night, in the rain, you couldn’t see anything beyond the glass. I pushed aside the big rhododendron and fern leaves until I caught my own gaze in the glass: my rain-drenched hair, my sagging gown, my awful cheeks and chin and teeth, all reflected painfully back at me.

Then that glass did what nature told it to. It shattered—and not just the window in front of me: It began a chain reaction around the entire greenhouse. One pane after another crackled and blew out, until the air was white with falling crystal, jabbing the plants and ground, piercing my dress, my skin.

And I screamed, not out of physical pain, but a pain much deeper, and much greater.

When it was done, the greenhouse was nothing but a skeleton. All that remained was the iron frame and the shredded fragments of plants.

I could have crumbled, too. God knows I wanted to. Just fall into a heap until they found me there.

But it’s in those moments when your world falls apart that you discover what you truly are made of. And I was not made of broken glass.

One by one, I pulled the shards from my arms and shoulders and scalp, dropping them on the ground. Then I walked out of that place, got into the Chevy my father had so unwittingly provided me, and left town.

I
had no money, I had no destination, but that didn’t matter. When your only desire is to leave, any direction you take is the right one, as long as you don’t turn around. I was still bleeding from the greenhouse glass, but I made myself believe it didn’t matter. I would close the wounds with the sheer force of my will.

My life as I knew it was gone. It was now a blank page—that white void waiting to be carved into a new form by brush and ink. Who I would be was still a mystery, and in that car, in transit between a horrible past and an unknown future, I felt the terror and excitement of a babe at the moment of its birth.

A powerful sense of determination overtook me. Maybe it was just shock and loss of blood, or maybe it was something else. It felt magical—like a string was wrapped around my soul and pulling me forward, and if I didn’t stomp on that accelerator, heading down those country roads to God knows where, that string would have pulled me right through the windshield to wherever it wanted me to go.

Like I said, any direction would have been fine, as long as it
took me away from Flock’s Rest—but I wasn’t going in just any old direction, was I? I realized that pretty quick.

I was heading northwest. And this time, for the first time, I didn’t resist the pull.

There were few cars out on a night like this, and with every mile I put between me and Flock’s Rest, I began to feel my spirits lift.

Every few miles on that rain-drenched highway, I saw reminders of what I was leaving behind that made me kick up the rpm and push the Chevy harder. It was those signs by the side of the road, blooming in my headlights. Those old faded billboards advertising my father’s cars.

Ten miles out, I saw my father’s smiling face. The billboard read
DEFIDO MOTORS: CLASSIC CARS FROM CLASSY TIMES.

Nineteen miles out, there he was again, the billboard showing him sitting on the roof of a used car, holding an American flag—as if buying used cars and patriotism were one and the same.
DEFIDO MOTORS TRIED & TRUE.

Twenty-seven miles out, a billboard featuring my momma in her pink Cadillac, pointy tail fins and all.
DEFIDO MOTORS, WHERE FINS STAND FOR STATUS.

I realized that the gravity was pulling me due west now. But there were no roads that went that way. Although I couldn’t see them, I knew what was west of me. The mountains. The nearest road that crossed them was miles away.

I was approaching the county line. Just a few more of my father’s old signs, and I’d be out of his sphere of influence for good. My gas tank was full. My mind was set. And nothing could stop me from escaping forever that hideous place “where fins stand for status.”

Even in my weakened state, I couldn’t help but get stuck on that phrase. It kept coming back to my mind.
DeFido Motors, Where Fins Stand for Status.

Find the answers…Where…fins…stand…

I slammed on the brakes so hard I fishtailed, and did a full one-eighty. I found myself facing the wrong way in the lane, with a truck bearing down on me.

I hit the accelerator and pulled off the road, landing in a ditch. The truck barely missed me, its blaring horn changing pitch as it swerved past.

Now my wheels spun in mud, and I knew there was no getting this car out of the ditch. Dizziness almost overtook me then. I clutched the steering wheel and closed my eyes until the feeling passed.

Then I got out of the car and headed back to the billboard on foot.

It was about a mile back. In the darkness, it looked completely black. Only in flashes of lightning could I see it now, and only for a second. My momma looked so happy in the picture, but that was a long time ago. Now the old billboard was falling victim to the elements. Another year or so, and a few more storms like this, and it would be down completely. One side leaned forward, the other side leaned back, the wood was pulling apart, and the paint had faded and peeled.

Find the answers…where fins stand…

Right behind the billboard was a narrow, weed-choked path leading through dense trees and up a hill into darkness. I took the path and headed off toward the mountains.

The rain turned to sleet, and although the cold numbed the
pain of my wounds, it also stole what little body heat I had left. I couldn’t feel my fingers, couldn’t feel my toes, could barely feel pain when I tripped and smashed my knee against a stone. I wanted to sleep more than anything, but I knew if I did, I’d die. It would be years before they found my body out here, if they ever found it at all. Resting was out of the question. The only thing to do was push forward, following the path, following the gravity until I reached its center.

I stumbled up one hill and down another, over and over, each hill steeper than the one before.

I can’t remember when I stopped walking. I don’t remember falling down. But I do remember the feeling of cold mud against my back. I do remember the stinging feeling of sleet hitting my eyes as I lay on the ground, making it hard to see anything.

Now I can sleep,
I thought.
Now I can sleep, and I’ll be fine.

And I do remember the angels looking down on me. Solemn faces and gray robes that must have been hiding their wings. They took me in their warm hands and lifted me up.

Finally, I closed my eyes, satisfied, because I knew they were taking me to my reward.

Y
ou can’t wake up and still think you’re dead.

No matter how strange your surroundings, there’s something about being made of flesh and bone that tells you instinctively you haven’t left it all behind. And so, when I opened my eyes to see a room with bright white walls and no windows, I knew I wasn’t in heaven—but I wasn’t anyplace on earth I knew, either. The light came from a large skylight above me, and through it I could see a clear blue sky. The rainstorm had passed.

“Good morning!”

I didn’t know anyone was beside me until I heard the voice. I turned to see him sitting there next to the bed. A boy. He wasn’t much older than me. He was clean-cut, had blond hair, a clear complexion, and pastel blue eyes. When he smiled I thought I recognized him, but knew I was wrong. His smile held no hint of deception; it was an honest smile, and I knew no one like that.

I sat up, expecting to feel weak, but I didn’t. I felt completely rested.

“Hi, I’m Aaron,” he said, and gently took my hand.

His clothes were white, and at first I figured this to be a
hospital—but the style of his clothes was not hospital-like at all. He wore an eggshell-white shirt, and an eggshell white vest. Even his pants were that same soft shade of white. It was such an odd combination, and yet it seemed so perfect, you might wonder why everyone didn’t dress like this.

Aaron was handsome. Truly so. Not in a Marshall Astor kind of way, but in a way that went beyond mere good looks. I was happy just to gaze at him, then I silently scolded myself for being so foolish. That’s when I realized where I’d seen him before.

“I…I’ve been dreaming about you!”

He smiled gently, as if this were no surprise to him. “You probably have lots of questions,” Aaron said.

I nodded.

“Well, come with me,” he said. “Time to find the answers.”