Such a Pretty Girl (3 page)

I
hesitate, heart pounding, and when he doesn’t follow, hurry around the blind side of the condo. We have the last unit next to the Dumpster court.

Bad things are happening. It’s not my imagination and it’s not paranoia. It’s real. My gut hasn’t stopped roiling since he got here, and it’s not because of the past. I know every inch of what’s done; what scares me is what
he
seems to know is coming.

I think of my mother throwing that fit and flouncing off, expecting my father to follow and comfort her in the privacy of her boudoir. He didn’t, though, at least not in the moment that mattered, and that’s not good.

I need to move so I run past Andy’s mother’s creaky, ancient Cadillac squatting like a broad-hipped hussy in all her Civil War-esque mottled blue and primer-gray glory. The condo association hates this car, claims its presence negatively affects the quality of life here at Cambridge Oaks, and has been searching for a way to ban it from the complex, but just like the Dumpster lid, the car thwarts them. It’s inspected, registered, and insured, and there are no ordinances—yet—prohibiting ugly vehicles from parking amidst glossy ones.

What they don’t know—and don’t seem to care about—is that Ms. Mues has a valid reason for driving a clunker. It’s the perfect nosy-neighbor repellant. Everyone ignores her because at Cambridge Oaks, the only thing worse than the presence of a junk car is the possibility of someone noticing you talking to its owner.

Andy opens the door as I reach the top of his back steps.

The porch light burned out over a year ago on the day they moved in, Andy arriving on a stretcher, fresh from graduating Estertown High and becoming a tragic statistic. His mother told me she took the sudden darkness as a sign from Jesus and will not go against His will by lighting a path He’s seen fit to cast into shadows.

Andy’s mother worships Jesus the way Memphis worships Elvis.

“I saw,” Andy says. His pupils are black wells rimmed with irises the color of walnut shells and his skin is moon-pale because he rarely leaves the house. He scans my face and backs up to let me in.

“I know,” I say, slipping into the dark, smoky kitchen. Scented candles and patchouli incense flicker in a dozen places. “I need to take a shower. Bad.”

“Go for it,” he says, as if this is a perfectly normal request. “Just move all the stuff out of the way.”

“Thanks.” I slip past him and down the shadowy hall. Ms. Mues’s bedroom is opposite the bathroom, but it’s Friday and her door is shut, so I don’t bother her.

Andy’s bathroom has the same layout as ours, but that’s where the similarity ends. Instead of fluffy white towels, marble tiles, and a whirlpool tub, their bathroom has worn green carpet and a fish shower curtain hanging crooked off the rod. But it’s clean and there’s patchouli soap, so I move the chair out of the tub, undress, and spend a grateful five minutes scrubbing the feel of my father’s fingers off my skin.

I count the wall tiles as I dry off, first absently and then with growing concern. The numbers are unsettling, with blocks of four leaving a row of strays totaling one horizontally or seven vertically.

One is the primary number from which all others grow. It’s an upsurge of power and the beginning of all things. One is the first day of the week. One is the loneliest number.

Seven, on the other hand, is the number of completion. Seven deadly sins, seven virtues, seven vices. On the seventh day, God rested.

The odd numbers disturb me, so I stuff my towel in the hamper and return to the kitchen.

Andy turns from watching out the back door window. “All clear.”

“Good.” I head for the smoldering incense and cup my hands, pulling the rich, earthy scent over me four times. I’m not self-conscious about it; Andy knows almost all of me, has explored my private places and tended my bruises. There’s little I could do to drive him away. “Want to order a pizza? I’ll buy.”

“It’s Friday,” he reminds me, flipping his braid back over his shoulder. “There are two slices left from yesterday. I’ll warm them up for you.” He motions me into a seat and rolls his wheelchair to the fridge.

I sit in my regular spot and watch as he removes a paper plate from the lowest shelf. I’ll be the only one eating tonight; Friday is fasting day and Ms. Mues allows nothing but wounded souls and spirits to enter her home while she and Andy undergo purification. I light a cigarette and blow rings that dissolve upon impact with the incense smoke. “So what do you think?” I ask.

Andy puts the pizza in the microwave. He turns to face me and his eyes blur with sorrow. He grips the Jim Beam bottle tucked into the V of his groin, lifts it, and drinks.

Now I know it’s going to be bad.

He wedges the bottle back between his thighs and rolls toward me. Stops when we’re knee to knee and takes my free hand. Bows his head, murmurs a soft prayer. Releases me and sits back. “Your father’s not reformed or repentant, Mer. He’s
eager.
He’s gone without for three years and he’s hungrier now than he was before.” His bare shoulders twitch and goose bumps pox his skin. “Sooner or later he’s gonna want to get off and not with your mom, you know? He hardly even looked at her. It’s all about you.”

I nod, vaguely nauseous, and draw on my cigarette. Burn my lips on the close heat and stub the filter out in the ashtray. “He says he loves me. I was hoping I’d be too old for him now. I mean, I look different, I smell different…but when he called me Chirp, I knew.” I light a second cigarette. “It’s not over. He said we should forgive and get on with our lives, like I’m partly to blame! And then he tries to lay a guilt trip on me by telling me it hurt because I wouldn’t go see him in prison.” I jerk my fist and the smoke trail arcs. “I felt like saying, ‘Good, I’m glad it hurt. I hope it kills you.’ But I didn’t because he was smiling, Andy. He was enjoying it.”

The spokes in Andy’s wheelchair twinkle as he crosses the kitchen and brings me my pizza. “What did your mother say?”

“She’s useless,” I say, sprinkling salt from the three holes bored in the top of the Virgin Mary’s head on the slices. Joseph is pepper, less generous with only two holes. The ceramic figures do double work as Ms. Mues uses them in her mantelpiece manger scene at Christmas. I’ve never had the heart to tell her that five is the number of uncertainty.

Andy sets a paper cup of tap water down by my napkin.

“Thank you. I can’t count on her at all,” I say, chewing each bite eight times. “At least your mother
did
something when she found out. Mine won’t even acknowledge it. She keeps calling it a mistake, like it was nothing more than taking a wrong turn somewhere. She’s acting like everything’s fine and nothing ever happened, like all this time my father’s been off on some business trip instead of locked up in prison. I hate it.”

“I thought you guys were getting a new social worker,” Andy says, taking the plate as I gnaw the last of the sauce from the crusts.

“We’re supposed to meet with someone next week, but you know what a joke that is. They’ll read the history and go over the same stuff, ask me if everything’s okay—”

“Yeah, right in front of your parents, so what’re you supposed to say? ‘No, get this sick bastard out of my house before he starts again’?” Andy snorts. “And why do you even have to
say
it? I mean, c’mon, they already know he’s an equal opportunity molester, it’s all in the file; you, the boys….”

“Actually, I found some psych stuff online about crossover offending. Going after any kid that moves no matter if it’s a boy or a girl, I mean.” I grimace and wipe my mouth. “How bad is it that there’s actually an official category for guys like him? I mean, how many are there anyway?” I rise and throw my napkin in the garbage. “All I can say is they chose to let him out in three instead of nine and if anything happens to me, I swear it’s on them.”

Three, the number of growth and expansion, the result of one and two.

Three strikes. Three is a crowd.

“All right,” Andy says quietly. “Come on.”

I follow him out of the kitchen and back down the hallway. The light’s off and won’t be turned on again until after midnight, but I’ve walked this route a hundred times, counting my steps and the whispery, whirring revolutions of Andy’s wheels.

And I wonder, not for the first time, how Ms. Mues can dwell in darkness fifty-two times a year and still see so clearly while my own mother, a creature of sunlight and shine, sees nothing at all.

We crowd into the bathroom to wash our hands. Close the door so as not to disturb his mother, who is still secluded in her bedroom, communing with Jesus and anyone else who decides to show up.

Andy works well in the dark. His soapy hands move gently over my skin, up and down between my fingers, around my wrists. He doesn’t talk while he cleanses, but I can hear him breathing.

We’re not afraid of the dark. Our nightmares were born on sultry, summer afternoons. I was three when my father, Estertown’s middle school gym teacher and favorite softball coach, left my mother and moved in on the other side of town with Paula Mues Beecher, a widow with a sad, shy seven-year-old son.

I don’t remember those days.

Andy does, vividly. For him it was the beginning of the end.

“Done,” he says and rinses my hands with warm water.

“Thank you,” I say and lean slowly, blindly into the abyss. Our noses bump, shift, and accommodate. I can feel his goatee and his smile against my lips.

His arms circle my waist. I pick up his bottle and ease down onto his lap.

We roll to his bedroom.

A
ndy’s room smells like a fresh grave in June.

He burns the same patchouli candles as his mother, but in this shadowy space their scent mingles with the sweet musk of damask roses and makes me think of sun-warmed petals scattered by mourners to honor a passing.

There are no live flowers in Andy’s house and there haven’t been for as long as I’ve known him. The rose scent has no foundation and no traceable source. It doesn’t increase or decrease. It just is.

The Mueses accept it without question and believe it’s a gift of benevolent grace.

I have no blind faith, no one to thank for mysterious gifts, so sometimes I crawl around, sniffing the floor vents and searching for hidden plug-in fresheners.

There never are any, of course.

I climb off Andy’s bony legs and place the bottle on his nightstand next to the sturdy, oaken Madonna icon. She looms three feet tall, a testament to devotion, and gazes at me in mute radiance, hands gently clasped and lips curved in a beatific smile.

Ms. Mues is certain that one day the Holy Mother’s serene eyes will weep shimmering oil tears and, in her infinite mercy, will bestow a long-awaited miracle on Andy. She believes his recovery will occur via a victim soul, a pious individual chosen by the divine to absorb and endure the pain and suffering of others.

I listen carefully and because I like Ms. Mues, I don’t point out that Andy feels no pain from his paralysis or that my definition of mercy does not include picking specific humans to be clearinghouses for all sorts of mortal agonies.

Ms. Mues must read it in my eyes, though, because she laughs and tells me not to worry, that God works in mysterious ways. How else would I explain this condo going vacant right after Andy’s accident and in time for them to rent, or our deep and immediate bond, if it wasn’t all a part of some grander plan?

I don’t know. I could mention that my old friend Azzah’s family, the previous tenants, were evicted for cramming too much exuberant, extended family into the two-bedroom condo and not being savvy enough to be quiet about it, but that still doesn’t account for what happened when Andy and I first saw each other….

I sit on the curb, the June sun baking my brain, a disposable lighter in hand and a pile of notes at my feet. The notes have come once a week, every week, for almost two years now, tucked inside the letters addressed to my mother, all bearing the same New Jersey State Prison return address. Every week after my mother devours her letter she reads mine and then hands it over, waiting for me to read it. Every week I take it into my room and throw it in the gray storage tub I keep in the back of the closet.

And once a year on the anniversary date, while my mother is off designing window displays, I gather those unread notes and pile them on the pavement near the Dumpster.

Then I light them and watch them burn.

I flick the lighter, lower my hand, and touch the first note. It blackens and crumbles in on itself, igniting the page beneath.

A transport ambulance followed by an enormous old Cadillac cruises slowly around the bend and heads for our lot. The ambulance stops at the curb in front of the empty condo and two EMS guys get out. They leave the engine running and the faint strains of Los Lonely Boys’ “Heaven” in their wake. They glance at me, at the crackling flames at my feet, and exchange speaking looks.

I avert my gaze and watch as the Cadillac creeps into a parking spot. When I look back, the EMS techs have rounded the ambulance and opened the rear doors. One guy climbs in; the other begins pulling out the stretcher.

There’s a body shape under the sheet.

I feel weird now, like some gross rubbernecker ogling an accident, so I quickly pour the last of my bottled water onto the fire’s charred remains and rise to leave.

As I do, the person on the stretcher comes into sight.

Pale, gaunt. Dark eyes shadowed beneath sleepy lids, gaze bleak. Brown hair cloaking his shoulders, a battered wooden cross on a leather thong around his neck.

He looks right at me.

The world blurs and a great rushing fills my ears. The pit of my stomach throbs, my skin tingles with immediate heat. Jesus, he’s beautiful. And his mouth is moving. What’s he saying? I don’t know, I can’t hear—

“Honey, are you all right? You look like you’re going to pass out.”

I draw a sharp breath and the world swoops back. A woman I’ve never seen before has me by the arm and is peering worriedly into my face. “I’m fine,” I stammer, mortified, not daring to look at the stretcher. “I think I got up too fast.” I step back and she releases me, but her grasp still pulses against my skin. “Thanks. I…I have to go.”

But somehow I don’t and instead find myself invited in, following this woman up the steps and through the back door as the bulb in the porch light pops, as the EMS guys wheel the stretcher across the lawn and into the condo through the sliding glass.

And somehow he and I end up alone together in the living room while the woman signs off on the transport. The heat is unbearable, the silence stifling. He fingers his cross, turns his face away, and I stand there sweating, searching for something to break this stalemate—

“You never answered my question,” he says, still without looking at me. “What were you burning when we pulled up?”

I shouldn’t tell him. I shouldn’t. He’ll think I’m pathetic. “Letters,” I hear myself say. “From someone I never want to see again for as long as I live.”

He looks at me now and in that raw heartbeat, something more passes between us, something fierce and too intense to be spoken. He nods, pulls himself up to a sitting position, and gestures to the end of the bed. “You might as well take a seat and—”

“Make yourself at home,” Andy says, closing and locking his door.

Smiling, I sink onto the bed and crawl up to the headboard. Light the incense, prop a pillow, and watch as he wheels to the media cabinet. Old scars zigzag his bare back and chest, intersecting like cross streets down his arms and along his hands. I’ve traveled them all from source to destination, committing his history to memory and learning him from the outside in.

“I want you to hear something,” he says, sticking a CD into the player. “All these years of looking and I finally found it on eBay for like five bucks. I can’t believe nobody else bid on it.” His braid has grown past the middle of his back and when he sweats, it sticks to the vinyl back of his chair. “You’re going to like it, Mer. Just give it a chance.”

The CD starts and it’s Dean Martin crooning “Little Green Apples.” I almost groan, but Andy looks so entranced that I hold back. He’s raved about this song forever, struggling to remember the lyrics, telling me how his late father had loved it, too, humming the few strains he could recall. This song is his personal, private soundtrack, the way “Heaven” has become mine, and the least I can do is keep an open mind.

Or maybe my response is completely selfish because I know that as the love song gentles Andy, he will, in turn, gentle me.

…Little green apples…

Andy smiles.

Dino’s voice can do in seconds what quarts of Jim Beam can’t do in days.

He hoists himself out of his chair and into bed beside me. His skin is parchment in the soft light and his eyes are hooded, black hollows. He unclips my overall straps and folds down the bib. Waits until I take off my shirt, then rests his head on my stomach and sighs. “God, what a voice. I wish I could sing.”

“I wish you could sing, too,” I tease, pleased by his sudden snort of laughter.

“Wise guy.” His coarse goatee moves against me with each word. “I love this song, Mer. No angst. No craziness. It just is what it is.”

“Corny,” I murmur, to keep him talking. I like the way his chin grazes my belly and his breath wisps across me like warm satin. Inhale. Exhale. The rhythm settles deep inside me and I shift my hips.

He runs a hand up my leg and nudges into the front of my baggy overalls, coming to rest on the low slope between my hipbones. “You were in my dream last night,” he says and kisses my belly button.

“Good or bad?” I say, watching him in the floor-to-ceiling tiled mirror across from the bed. There are thirty-two tiles in all, four across and eight down, and they provide an interesting angle; I see the ends of us before the beginnings. The soles of my feet are still dirty and dissolve into the shadows. Andy’s bare, bloodless feet tangle together in a heap.

“Well, it was definitely weird,” he says, dipping his fingers out of sight beneath my overalls. He hasn’t touched anything vital yet, but he’s close, and his voice grows husky with the knowledge. He tilts his head back to look at me and my breast blinds him. Smiling, he props himself up on an elbow, pulls his braid over his shoulder, and tugs off the band. “You were sitting on this stone wall—”

“Where?” I interrupt.

“I don’t know, but there were these funky flowers all around that smelled like cotton candy,” he says. “I was standing in the dark watching you, wondering why I was stuck inside while you were out there looking all golden, so I just decided the hell with it and walked out to meet you. I actually heard my own footsteps on the stones.” He glances at me. “You know what you said when I got there?”

I shake my head.

“You were reading a dictionary—”

“A
dictionary?
Oh, come on. I don’t even own a dictionary.”

“And you looked up and said,
‘Now
I get it,’ and closed the book.” His gaze holds a silent plea. “It was all so real. I mean, I was sweating and shaking and when I sat down next to you, the edge of the wall cut into the backs of my legs. It wasn’t a memory because I didn’t know you when I could still walk. Do you think it was a vision?”

I don’t know anything about visions and I’m pretty sure paraplegia can’t be reversed, so I don’t answer him, just lean forward and slip off my bra. It’s a B cup, black like the soles of my feet, like the anticipation in his eyes. Black lace via Victoria’s Secret and five minutes alone with my mother’s charge card.

“You know about victim souls, right?” Andy asks as I scooch back against the headboard and draw up my knees, giving him a wall to lean against while I brush out his soft, rippling hair.

“I know they’re supposed to be pious people—whatever that means—and that your mother wants to find one who’ll absorb your suffering and bless you with recovery,” I say, separating the silky strands and shivering as they drift across my bare skin. I stroke his hair, trace his scars. His accident-prone days are over. I pick up the brush on the nightstand.

“Right,” he says, watching me watch him in the mirror. “Well, there’s one out in Iowa. An old disabled guy who receives messages from the Virgin Mary. My mother’s going to make a pilgrimage out there.”

“That would be good for her,” I say.

“I’m going, too,” he says quietly.

I stop brushing. “To Iowa?”

“Yeah,” he says.

I gaze at our reflection, at my bare shoulders rising from behind my drawn-up knees, at the translucence of his skin and the tension tightening his features. “You’re going to Iowa.” Repeating it makes me want to hurt him. “When?”

“We leave on Sunday,” he says to the expressionless girl in the mirror.

“This Sunday? Like day-after-tomorrow Sunday?” I say, sitting up straight. “Why now? What’s the big rush?”

“My mother put my name on the waiting list over a year ago,” he says. “They finally called last night. We’ll have an hour with him on Monday and another one on Tuesday morning.” An odd, fleeting expression grips his features. They smooth again, but not before realization knuckles a cold fist into my stomach.

“You
want
to go,” I say and my hands scramble furiously, separating his hair into three thick strands and reweaving, yanking each over-under pass, jerking his head back again and again until his gaze in the mirror glazes with tears.

I stop, defeated by his acceptance of my punishment. “Andy.” I can’t say more. I haven’t begged for anything since Chirp’s thighs were yanked apart like a Thanksgiving wishbone.

“If I don’t take this appointment I’ll have to wait another year,” he says, shifting and pulling himself up alongside of me. He runs his hand down my spine and lingers at the small of my back. “I already asked.” He reaches past me for the bottle of Jim Beam and uncaps it. Drinks and coughs when he’s finished. “I know it’s bad timing, but I can’t wait anymore, Mer. Something’s got to give.”