Cygnet

by Season Butler

  “You wouldn’t talk to your father like that anyway, would you?”

  That has to be Lolly, the way everything she says is a question and an assumption and an instruction, but her voice is a lot like my mother’s and I wonder if it’s also a lot like mine, so I say, “Which one of you does my voice sound like? When I talk, when I say things out loud, does my voice sound like yours? Or yours?”

  “It’s like mine. You take after me exactly.”

  “No, I think she’s equally dissimilar from both of us.”

  And they start to argue again, not looking at me but facing each other, and I try to listen to the fan noises and the seagulls screaming and barking on the rocks outside. I touch my knee to the oven door and the heat makes their voices quieter, so I hold it there until my body yanks itself away from the hurt and I pant a little and my mother turns to me again and says, “Daydreaming over a hot oven. That girl of mine, so capable but she never pays enough attention.”

  Then Lolly adds, “Children need structure,” and they’re at it again, and I’m still panting and I think I’m weirdly smiling, and I place the chicken on the cutting board on the counter, pull the left leg outward with my left hand, and strike down at the hip joint with my right.

  I hear my mother say, “You’ll never get through it if you act like you’re doing a playground hand-clap game. Again. With intention this time.”

  I nod at her and try again, really pushing with my shoulder with proper follow-through. This time the leg pops out of joint properly. I wiggle it, push the bone up, and run my finger over the ball at the end of the socket. It’s pearly and satisfyingly smooth. Before my mother can get on my case for spacing out again, I turn the chicken around and do the other leg. I can feel my mother smiling. She’s here; she’s on her way.

  I tuck some tarragon inside the cavity, under the breast skin, inside the legs and wings, take my length of dental floss and start to truss the chicken. Under the bishop’s nose, looping around the ankles, pulling the legs tight, elevating the breast, then around the sides, past the thighs, tying it in a square knot under the neck.

  “See, Mom? See what she can do?”

  “Great, Bella. Now maybe your child can get a job in a chicken-trussing factory. That’s really some future you’ve given her.”

  I put it in a roasting pan and put the pan in the oven while my mother’s and grandmother’s voices get louder and louder, their blaming and cheap shots turning into gibberish. When I look at them they’re a blur, their voices become pressure like each one is stamping on one of my temples, trying to hurt each other through my body. And I press my hands against my ears but it doesn’t keep the noise out and doesn’t make the pain stop and I’m so dizzy I could throw up, so I try to stop the spinning by fixing my eyes on something static in front of me, reaching out to grab something still to keep my body and my brain from spinning anymore and puking out the nothing that’s burning a hole in my stomach, and the first thing, the closest thing, is the heavy wooden knife block. I steady myself on it with both hands, and then pull the chef’s knife out of its slot.

  It’s the kind of thing you have to do in one breath. Hard, like you mean it. With intention. The heel of the knife cracks through my jeans and half an inch or so into my thigh, and soon blood pours out, thick and generous. The ghosts of my mother and grandmother are quiet. I hear the waves roar at the rocks outside. I wail back at the waves. I hear them again when I breathe in and wail back louder. My face streams salt water and I scream and shake and it almost feels like the sea and me are evenly matched.

  I’m on the floor somehow. So’s the knife. If you don’t look after knives properly they go dull. You shouldn’t leave them lying around. I can’t just leave knives lying around like this. I pull myself up. It’s hard, though. I don’t want to get up. I have to wipe my eyes a few times. I reach down and pick up the knife. My jeans are all stained on the right side. I wonder for a second if I’m still bleeding. Not that I care, really. I’m just curious.

  It’s hard to turn on the faucet to wash the knife. It’s another one-breath job. Even with rubber gloves on it’s too much for me right now, and the crying starts all over again. It’s not so bad this time, probably because I’m crying over something real—the pain in my throbbing leg.

  I dry the knife and put it back into the block, and then slide down, pressing my back against the cabinets on my way back to the floor. It’s like someone rubbing my back. Almost. And the thought is so pathetic that before I know it I’m streaming again.

  * * *

  My mother’s underwater. She’s drowning. She’s screaming because she’s drowning. I must be underwater too because I can hear her. But it’s dark. I turn around and around and the water is the noise and I can’t breathe.

  And then, for just a second, it isn’t water or screaming. It’s the phone. I scramble onto my feet and lunge for the receiver. It’s hard to speak at first but I force two “hellos” down into the mouthpiece. I don’t understand the noise that comes back. And then I realize it’s the dial tone. It’s not my mother—it’s not even the phone. The oven timer. Dinner’s ready. I take the food-formerly-known-as-Calvin out of the oven and I burn my thumb on the pan. The pain is that strange, nearly numb pain, an un-hurt. I mean, the hurt makes me feel a little better, more awake, less worried. I start to feel a sense of where I am, what time it is. The clock on the microwave says 7:15. The last boat has come and gone. I cover the chicken with foil to let the meat rest for twenty minutes. How am I going to eat all this food before it goes bad?

  What a shame.

  Twenty minutes to kill.

  I should feel lucky. Mrs. Tyburn gave me a job that almost pays the bills and other than that I don’t have anywhere I have to be. I can choose the way I spend my days off. I can be alone whenever I want. I have a place to sleep. I have food. I have Rose. But someday soon I’ll have to go.

  My leg throbs. I’m going to have to throw these jeans out. But the bleeding stopped while I was passed out on the kitchen floor. Things could be worse.

  The last boat to Appledore has come and gone and no one came for me. I could turn on the TV and pretend I’m not alone, curl up and try to keep my mind blank until I manage to sleep. But that’s hours away. And even though I feel like toxic waste, I want to go out. Rose never invites me; I don’t want to miss it. If I’m going to go to the tavern, I have to get my shit together. No one’s going to come along and rub my back and say, There, there, poor baby. Not today.

  The Valium fug is wearing off and I’m getting a grip on my body again. The sunset cuts in through the open windows in reds and oranges. I open and close my hands in this weird, compulsive way, and it’s almost like I’m a boxer. There’s a determined bounce in my walk as I pace the few clutter-free patches of living-room floor and make my way upstairs. The sea could come pounding in and I’d be able to fight it off. Nick can “accidentally” switch on the sprinklers while I’m working in the garden on a chilly afternoon, and sneer and stare to keep me out of the tavern and the chapel, but this is my house. It may be your island, and I might be forty-eight years off the basic entry requirement, but this house is mine. I carry the debt and no one can make me leave until I’m good and ready.

  Even with the big, internal pep talk, I hesitate at Lolly’s door, hugging my laptop to my chest like a shivering waif peering into a bakery window. If I keep playing the waif, though, I’ll never get anywhere. I catch myself, leave the starving kid on the cobblestones, and go in to get what I need. I put on a CD—one of Lolly’s, some French guy called Jacques Brel—and look for something to wear.

  Rose told me to meet her at sundown, which is any minute now. Fashionably late—that’s what I’ll say if she’s mad. I settle on a dress, knee-length and brown with white and yellow flowers. I actually look okay, a throwback to that granny look from the nineties. Once I’m dressed I almost leave the closet door open, just to be bad, but can’t quite let myself. I take the stupid Post-it off, though, and flush it down the
toilet along with the Post-it from the bathroom that says not to put anything in the toilet other than “what it was built for.” So there.

  Even though I’m probably already late, two more minutes to check my email won’t hurt. Spam, circulars, nothing in my inbox that actually has my name on it. Bank balance hovering stubbornly at the not enough level. I decide to take a quick peek at the back end of Nick’s operating system, and I delete the script that’s been making his browser blurry. It was an infantile trick anyway. Then I check his online banking. He’s not getting off the hook entirely. One of his monthly direct debits is a donation to the Christian Children’s Fund, so I make a duplicate payment to go out next week. Into my Bitcoin wallet, of course—I wouldn’t be stupid enough to use my cash account. The bank will cover the mistake, so it isn’t really stealing, not from anyone but the bank. And it’s pretty much their fault the kids are poor in the first place. It’ll get me where I’m going—once I figure out where that is. If I need any more, I’ve got all his keystrokes. By the time he notices, I’ll be long gone.

  I shove a few dollars, some pot, and my cell phone into one of Lolly’s square, brown handbags. As it goes in, I check my phone—no missed calls. It makes me wonder if my parents still have this number. If I leave and they don’t have it, they’ll call the house phone. And if I’m not here . . .

  I go to the living room to change the outgoing message on Lolly’s answering machine. I hit record and after a couple of embarrassing false starts I get something down: You have reached (do I say my name? Lolly’s?) Erase. Violet Sadler cannot take your call right now (yeah, that’s a fucking understatement . . . ) Erase. Breathe. This isn’t rocket science. We cannot take your call, but please leave a message or, if your message is urgent, please call (pause—it’ll take them a second to find a pen) 603-555-4966. That’s six-oh-three, five-five-five, four-nine-six-six. Again, 603-555-4966.

  To double-check, I dial the landline from my cell. Hearing the ring startles a little scream out of me. It’s painful to hear, like a crying baby that I can’t pick up. Six rings, then there’s a click and the message plays. After the beep I say, Testing, just a test to check that this piece-of-shit twentieth-century technology is still operational . . . I can see the tape rolling, taking it down.

  The path around the house is narrow, and I press myself against the outside wall to keep as far as possible from the edge. It feels like I’m sneaking out, which helps, I think. I’m excited. I am.

  * * *

  It’s getting dark. The water on my left shows residue of the whole brilliant sunset thing. On my right the ocean reminds me of some sleazy guy’s hair, super-black and shiny at the tips with a slick, sweeping texture and a general not-quite-right-ness. Or a huge bucket of eels and leeches—slimy, sucking, biting monsters.

  The sky and the sea are twins, outsized, uninhabitable, changing all the time with the light. The sky plays nice, mostly, aloof and distant. The sea’s the dangerous one.

  I know it’s everybody’s dream to live by the water, but water’s horrible if you think about it. Like floods—whenever there are floods the sandbags piled up against the door don’t quite do the trick, and floodwater gets in, and somehow floodwater’s always contaminated with sewage and malaria and shit like that. So it gets through the sand (the sand must be in on it, a scheming old friend) and soaks into everything and starts to rot out your life from the inside. And pretty soon you’re up on the roof trying to attract a rescue. But the place you get rescued to is worse than the rotting place you left because people who’ve lost everything have a tendency to go crazy, and too many crazy people in one place is a war.

  Bang. Bang. The wind brings new blasts grumbling up from Duck. Even the ground has turned against me now.

  The lights coming from the first houses I encounter are comforting. I could really torture myself thinking about all these future scenarios. It’s fucked. But I don’t have to live in the future. When I can switch off my doom predictor, the present is actually okay. It’s a warm night with the noise of bugs in the grasses giving the air a nice texture. The water is still a couple of paces away from my door. And I’m an adult. Everything is under control.

  I almost walk right past the chapel, but turn back and decide to ring the bell.

  Ooo. Giddy and Milton are making out in one of the back pews.

  “Don’t mind me,” I singsong at them when they look up, faces flushed candy pink and plum brown.

  “Hi, hey. Hey, kid,” Giddy sputters. Milton whispers something in Giddy’s ear and she snorts a laugh as they get up to leave.

  I walk down the stone aisle and into the room where a gnarled, thick rope hangs in the center. It’s satisfyingly stuffy and old-smelling in here. I tug and the bell sways. The hammer’s dangling like a uvula and then it knocks against the side of the bell. Iron strikes metal with wince-making harshness that softens almost instantly and radiates out in all directions and envelops me. I ring it eighteen times, but I’m sure no one’s counting.

  Chapter Eleven

  The night is lacy around me. In the east the brighter stars are starting to poke through the inky blue. There are three in a row that I’ve always thought were Orion’s belt. I’m not sure if someone told me that or if I made it up. It reminds me of the Underground Railroad and all the escaped slaves making their way north, the way I’m going now. They read the stars like a map. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I would have been lost, and then discovered, tracked down, and dragged back to be made an example of. There’s one star that’s really big and bright; it’s either Venus or the International Space Station.

  Clouds are passing fast. Smaller ones meet and blob together. Their shadows play across the water as it creeps out forever to the east. One cloud is so fat and wet and swollen it looks like it’s about to puke. It slinks and flops over the moon with odd wispy tendrils dangling under it like a jellyfish.

  Going up to the Relic is a bit like walking into Lolly’s bedroom. I shouldn’t be here. I should wait for Rose outside. If I try to go in without her, I might just get thrown out right away.

  But then I’m just standing there at the bottom of the stairs staring up with my sad waif eyes. Helen and Nancy walk by and wave, but they keep looking back at me. I turn to walk up the wheelchair ramp, except my first step on it makes loads of noise, not that anyone’s listening, but it makes me feel self-conscious, so I take the stairs and pause again at the door. Maybe Rose is waiting for me inside. I mean, she did say to meet her at sunset, so I’m late, and why would she just be standing outside somewhere in the dark with the bugs biting when she could have gone inside? There’s a big brass thing in the center of the double doors shaped like a steering wheel—a boat one, not a car one. I’m not sure what to do with it. It doesn’t seem like I should turn it. And then I notice Lyall looking at me through the window. He raises his pencil-sharp eyebrows, and after maintaining a longish and pretty brutal stare he mouths pull. So the steering wheel thing is actually two decorative handles that part in the middle. Great; I’m the champion of the flawless first impression.

  The tavern is cool inside. Temperature-wise. Decor-wise, not so much. Fishing nets hang from a couple of the corners and over the bar, with plastic seaweed and fish stuck in them. I get that they’re going for irony, a self-aware kitsch, but come on. The fake treasure chest at the end of the bar, in front of the painting of mermaids with huge boobs basking on a rock, is, in my humble opinion, a little too tacky. But I like the dark wood of the bar and the green velvet on the chairs and stools.

  I lean against the bar, casual as hell, but behind my back I’m gripping it like I’m afraid gravity’s about to fail. I scan the booths. It’s much roomier in here than it looks from the outside. The blond Swans are sitting in a booth near the entrance with a bottle in an ice bucket. I wonder if the three of them ever do anything on their own. But it must be nice, having a little group. It must feel like always knowing where you are. They’re all really beautiful. I wonder if that’s a co
ndition for entry to their clique.

  Frances and Ernie are sitting together, both reading books. Ernie’s smoking a pipe. It smells like Christmas, which I guess is why they let him get away with smoking inside. Oh God, Gretchen will probably be here. I know she won’t tell Rose what a bitch I was this afternoon but I should say sorry anyway. Keep the peace.

  The blond Swans have stopped talking. I try to turn my body away from them and angle my head so I can look at them without looking like I’m looking at them. I need to see if they’re looking at me, if they’ve gone quiet because they’re whispering about me—wondering if they should say something, wondering what I’m doing here, and what I’m still doing here. But I’m not doing anything. I haven’t done anything wrong. Rose invited me. It’s not my fault.

  Shit, Frances looks up from her book and catches my eye. She waves, elbows Ernie, and he waves too. They’re smiling and they almost look like they want me to come over, but that must be wishful thinking, and in a few seconds they’re looking back down at their books. I just want to be somewhere on earth where I’m not seconds away from getting kicked out or moved on or beaten up or pushed around until I give up and slink away.

  Behind me someone clears their throat. It’s Lyall. I turn to find a silent question in his single lifted eyebrow and pursed lips.

  I’ve never actually been introduced to Lyall. He mostly sleeps during the day and spends his nights running the tavern. I’ve spotted him carrying a crate of lemons from Rose’s shop to the Relic, or just leaving the Psychedelicatessen as I cross the grass on my way in.

  Seeing him up close catches me off guard. He has a mustache that starts blond in the middle, just under his nose, and then gets gradually darker going along either side into a curl with a point at the end. The spike of black hair under his bottom lip is framed by a sharp goatee that makes the bottom of his face look like an old-timey weapon. When he blinks I can see a thick layer of black glitter covering his eyelids. Big, tree-branch smile lines next to his eyes spread out until the thin tips of all the lines reach his temples. He wears a big gold hoop in his right ear. His slick black hair is pulled into a skinny ponytail on the top of his head. His T-shirt says “Pirates Do It Better.”