Look

by Zan Romanoff

  “This is nice,” Lulu says. “The view.”

  “It’s why my parents bought the place,” Cass says. “My mom hates that we’re so high up—makes walking anywhere a pain—but she couldn’t say no to this.”

  “Where are they?” Lulu asks. “Your parents.”

  “Mom’s in her office, upstairs,” Cass says. “Dad’s probably still at work? Don’t worry, you won’t have to do some awkward meet-the-parents thing. They stay out of our way, pretty much, which is nice.”

  A silence falls between them. Lulu breathes in the air, sweet with desert plants—sage, she thinks, and something else she doesn’t recognize—and tries not to think about whether she’s chewing too loudly.

  “It’s kind of random that Dylan wanted to watch this now,” she says when she’s swallowed. “Does he know Ryan?”

  “Nah. We haven’t been friends for that long. It’s always weird to remember that.”

  “Yeah, I was wondering.”

  “About me and Ryan?”

  “About, why—about how—you guys both seem like you’re, I don’t know—”

  “We don’t make friends easily,” Cass says. “We’re the same that way.”

  “How did it happen, then, I guess?”

  “We were in English together freshman year. We were both new to Lowell—I mean, he knew people, kind of, because he’d grown up here, but we were both new. He was nice to me.” She smiles. “I know. It’s hard to imagine, right?”

  “He’s not that bad.”

  “He’s not easy. Not for most people. I don’t know. He’s always been easy with me.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Cass is gazing off into the distance. Her eyes are unfocused, and her voice is soft. “I think Ryan is scared of people,” she says. “He grew up in this weird, isolated world, all private tutors and his parents terrorizing him about not getting kidnapped or used, or—I don’t think he really understands how to make friends, or play the kinds of games people play at these schools.”

  These schools are the waters Lulu’s been swimming in her whole life. She knows what Cass means, kind of, but then not really. Isn’t this how everyone is?

  “I don’t either,” Cass says. “It wasn’t like that—high stakes like that—where I went to middle school, in Santa Cruz.”

  He likes you because you’re innocent, Lulu thinks. But also, He likes you because he thinks he can manipulate you. Which is ungenerous. There’s plenty about Cass to like. She knows that way, way too well.

  “Anyway,” Cass says. It’s clear she’s had enough of that subject. “I mentioned Bluebeard to Dylan at the end of this summer, and he got kind of obsessed. He’s majoring in film, so now he’s thinking he’s going to write his thesis on it or something.”

  “I’ve actually been looking into it too,” Lulu admits. “After Ryan mentioned it to me that first time, I got curious. You know. About the legacy. And”—she pauses, makes sure she sounds a little overdramatic—“the curse.”

  Cass rolls her eyes. “It’s not a curse,” she says. “It’s just a thing that happened.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A curse keeps happening. It stays alive in a place. You’ve been to The Hotel. Does it seem like it has ghosts to you?”

  “Not angry ones.”

  “Exactly.”

  * * *

  Dylan projects Bluebeard onto a sheet in the backyard. He’s dragged a couch out from inside, which Cass and Lulu claim for themselves, a couple of sleeping bags wrapped around them to ward off the night’s sharp chill.

  It’s very weird watching a silent movie: For one thing, Lulu can’t look at her phone if she wants to keep up with the dialogue. And then the city becomes the film’s soundtrack: helicopters buzzing by overhead and the distant wail of sirens, the rumble of traffic, music from a neighbor’s party drifting by.

  The plot of the film is fairly straightforward. Connie Wilmott plays Katherine, a small-town girl whose small town is bankrolled by a man with a presumably blue beard—in this version, everyone calls him Barbaro. He’s been married three times, always to girls from outside the town; all three of those wives have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The people in the town are suspicious, but they know better than to ask questions.

  Barbaro owns the local factory, and the bank. When Katherine’s father falls into debt, he invites Barbaro over for dinner in order to slyly introduce him to his beautiful daughters, Katherine and her sister, Anna. Barbaro takes the bait; he forgives the debts in exchange for permission to marry Katherine.

  Who is, understandably, not pleased.

  She’s taken to his house on a hill; she’s given the run of the place, and keys to every room. There’s one she can’t enter, he tells her. There’s a door she has the key to, but which she must never open.

  For months, Katherine does as she’s told. She comes to love the house, which is beautiful. She comes to a grudging respect for her husband, who does what he can to care for her. He seems like he might not be such an evil man.

  Maybe that’s why she looks, Lulu thinks. She can feel herself starting to trust him, and the animal part of her brain knows that she’s wrong to do it. He’s tame, maybe, but he is not safe.

  Katherine opens the door she’s never supposed to open. She sees the bodies of all the women he’s loved before, bloodied, lifeless, hung on display.

  She opens her mouth. There’s silence where her scream should be.

  She drops the key. Its gets stained with blood that won’t scrub off. Barbaro comes home and sees it. He has his hands at her throat.

  Katherine’s sister is knocking on the door.

  Barbaro lets her go. He’s a patient man; he’ll kill her after her sister visits. He’ll let her dangle, helpless, and enjoy watching her squirm.

  Anna is smart, though. She recognizes the terror on Katherine’s face. She convinces Barbaro that she and Katherine need to be left alone, that they have some intimate sisterly business to attend to. They escape out a side door, and down the hill.

  They go to the police—and find Barbaro at the station waiting for them. Of course the cops, partially funded by Barbaro’s generosity, are all too happy to send his wife home with him again. She’s being hysterical over nothing, he told them, and they had no reason not to believe him.

  All seems lost, until the lovely Anna convinces the chief of police to go up to the house with her. They arrive to find Katherine tied to a chair in the secret room, and Barbaro sharpening his knife.

  When the film ends, one of Dylan’s friends lets out a long, low whistle. “Dude,” he says, impressed, “that was fucked up.”

  “You didn’t know the story?” another one asks. “It’s, like, a famous fairy tale.”

  “Not really into fairy tales,” the first one says. Everyone laughs.

  “It’s not really a fairy tale,” Cass says quietly.

  Dylan turns around in his seat. “It’s from a collection called The Complete Fairy Tales,” he says. “Charles Perrault. Look it up, little sister.”

  The attention of the boys shifts away from them.

  “What is it, then?” Lulu asks Cass. “If it’s not a fairy tale.”

  “A myth,” Cass says. “It’s like the thing at The Hotel that I was talking about—about what happens to beautiful women. All these stories are the same story. Violence and silence and fear. There are no fairies. There’s not even any magic.”

  Lulu feels a small shiver go through her. “Guess I’m safe, then, at least,” she says, trying to make a joke.

  Cass’s mouth curls up at one corner. She gives Lulu a look that Lulu can’t quite read. “I’m cold. Do you want to go up to my room?” she asks.

  Lulu does.

  It’s smaller than she would have expected, with a handful of vintage airline posters on the walls. The
floor is littered with clothes, and the bed is covered by a colorful quilt. It looks so cozy. It’s a very tempting place to get comfortable, Lulu thinks, and settles herself in the desk chair. Cass flops dramatically onto the bed.

  “I hate watching movies with film majors,” she says. “They always think they know everything about everything. Like just because they’ve sat in more classes than I have, they understand everything better than I can.”

  “I don’t know,” Lulu says. “At least it beats what would have happened if we’d watched it with my dude friends. Or, I mean, they never would have sat all the way through that, but if we’d tricked them into the first ten minutes. They would just have been pissed there weren’t any explosions, or tits.”

  “So all men are exhausting,” Cass says. “I don’t know why you put up with them, honestly.”

  At least now Lulu is sure of what Cass means when she says stuff like this—even if she doesn’t know what it means about things between the two of them. “I don’t always,” Lulu reminds her.

  “Oh?”

  “You saw the Flash.”

  “Plenty of girls kiss girls for a picture.”

  “It wasn’t for a picture,” Lulu says. “It’s— That’s why Owen and I broke up.”

  “Oh. Fuck.”

  “You really didn’t know?”

  “How would I have known? I joined Flash two days after I met you.”

  “Really?”

  Cass flushes pink. “I’d been thinking about it anyway,” she says. “But the truth is that Ryan mentioned to me that you were a big deal on it, and I got curious.”

  “You didn’t follow me.”

  “Well, then I got shy.”

  Lulu feels bold enough to say, “That is, unfortunately, very cute.”

  Cass makes a face. Then she says, “Can I ask about why you posted it? The video?”

  “It was an accident.” Lulu has never said any of these words out loud before to anyone but Owen. She hasn’t talked about it with anyone. “Posting it was. Owen and I were trying something out. Well, I had convinced him to try it. That video was only supposed to go to him.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.” Lulu looks up at the ceiling. “It’s fucked up, right?”

  “No, I mean—I’m sure it sucked—to be publicly, like, to have people see. And were you— Did people—”

  “I hadn’t ever talked about it. What I am. I still haven’t, really.”

  “You’re talking now.”

  Lulu knows that if she looks at Cass the game will be up. She keeps her eyes trained on the ceiling. “Part of the thing is that I don’t know what to call it. None of the words seems right. Like, technically, I’m bisexual. I’m, you know, as far as I know, I like both. But the word itself—I don’t know. I don’t like any of the words. Queer. Pan. They don’t feel like me. Like they’re mine.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that why you don’t—um. I was wondering why you didn’t tell me. When I asked about boys and stuff, you didn’t just say—you know.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” Cass reminds Lulu.

  “I wasn’t sure what I’d even say.”

  “Well, yeah. Same.”

  Lulu risks looking down again. Cass is staring at her feet.

  She says, “Bringing it up always feels dramatic. Like it’s this announcement I have to make up front. So I put it off sometimes. I just don’t . . . I don’t. But then I hadn’t told you, and we kept hanging out, and the longer it went on, the weirder it was to be like, By the way, I forgot to mention, I’m pretty much a lesbian.”

  “Well,” Lulu says. “Anyway. Now we both know.”

  “We do.”

  Lulu lets the silence settle for a minute before she says, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Sure of what?”

  “Yourself.”

  Cass throws her head back and laughs. “I am not,” she says, “sure of anything.” She runs a hand through her hair so that her curls rise and then fall again, a shower of sparks around her face.

  “It’s just that Ryan said something last night about, like, experimenting,” Lulu continues. “And I—I hate that word. I hate that idea, but isn’t that what I’m doing? Using other people to figure myself out?”

  If Cass can hear the warning threaded, desperate, through Lulu’s voice, she doesn’t let on.

  “That has nothing to do with being bisexual, I don’t think,” Cass says. “Or whatever word you choose. That’s just . . . being a person. Right?”

  Lulu feels like she’s going to snap in half. She doesn’t know how much of Cass’s kindness she can bear. “Are you this nice to everyone?” she asks.

  “No,” Cass says. “No. I am pretty much only this nice to you.”

  Breath moves through Lulu’s lungs: in, and then out again. “I’m glad—” she starts, but there’s no end to the sentence she can possibly say out loud. “I’m glad,” she says again. “I’m— Never mind.”

  “Are you glad we’re friends?” Cass asks.

  “Sure,” Lulu says. “Of course.”

  “I—” Cass stops too.

  Lulu would swear the air in this room is different from any air in any room she’s ever been in before. It feels too thin, too shaky, like there’s nothing at all that could possibly stop her from reaching out and touching Cass. There’s nothing between them except her own hesitation.

  And the possibility that Cass will say no.

  But Lulu can’t wait any longer. She’s run out of questions and she’s run out of answers. She’s run out of everything but this desire, which doesn’t seem to have an end.

  Lulu comes and sits next to Cass on the bed.

  Cass sits up.

  Lulu isn’t sure which of them leans in first, or faster. All she knows is that one minute she’s not kissing Cass. And then, she is.

  All she can think is: It feels like I’m falling apart. She’s been holding herself together against this particular temptation so carefully for so long that letting go of it is like letting go of everything, every cell in her body suddenly floating weightless and free. She expected it to feel violent or terrifying, but instead it’s like the world goes soft around her too.

  Lulu stops thinking about what she looks like, what it feels like to Cass when Cass touches her stomach and it’s folded slightly because she’s sitting down. All she feels is the pressure of a hand where she wants it. All she knows is twisting her fingers in the tangles of Cass’s bright, impossible hair and kissing her like she’s been wanting to since the minute they met.

  Cass’s hands are nervous, birds’ wings fluttering against Lulu’s face, her arms, her stomach, her back. Lulu tries to lean into her touch, but as soon as she finds it, it’s gone again. She wants to say something, but that would mean having to stop.

  Instead, she starts to press Cass back against the sheets.

  Cass’s breath hitches. She stills. “Oh,” she says. “Like this?”

  “Like that,” Lulu says. “If you want to.”

  “I do,” Cass says. “I want you to.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  NAOMI IS PUTTING away groceries when Lulu gets home, so she pokes her head into the kitchen and says, “Hey. I’m back.”

  “Cool,” Naomi says. “Mom’s still out.” She shuts the fridge and turns around to look at Lulu properly. Then she smirks. “Also,” she says. “Your shirt is on backward.”

  “Oh. Haha. Weird?” Lulu wills her hands to stay at her sides, not to betray her by reaching up to smooth her tangled hair or touch her swollen mouth. She can feel the ghost of Cass’s touch all over her. When she was leaving the house, she liked the idea of someone seeing it on her right away: just how wild she feels right now.

  She just di
dn’t think through who that someone would specifically be.

  “Please,” Naomi says. “I know you think I’m a prude, but you don’t actually think I’m a virgin, do you?”

  Lulu blanches at her sister saying virgin. Yech.

  “So who’s the rebound dude?”

  “It’s not—” Lulu’s mind does a series of calculations. Naomi saw the Sloane Flash. She asked to know things. It’s good to start practice talking about this if—if. Most of all, right now, it feels too fresh to lie about. Like Cass would know somehow, like she would sense Lulu lying, and feel betrayed. “—a dude,” Lulu finishes. “The um. The person, she isn’t a dude. She’s, you know, a girl.”

  “Oh.” Naomi considers this. “Rebound chick, I guess?”

  “I guess.”

  “That’s fun. Who is she? Do you liiiiiike her?”

  “Ugh. Naomi.”

  Naomi holds up her hands. “I’m just trying to engage with you,” she says, the air quotes she wants to be making around “engage with you” almost audible. “Since Mom isn’t around to do it. Oh, hey, does Mom know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Let’s try, what does Mom know?”

  “Not much.”

  Naomi makes a face at Lulu.

  Lulu relents. “I told you,” she says. “She and Dad didn’t see the video.”

  “You could have come out, though. Separately from that.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I’m not really into that whole”—Lulu waves her hands around helplessly—“extravaganza. Anyway, you didn’t think I would tell her and not you, did you?”

  Naomi shrugs.

  “Also, you think she would have known and not called you? God, you know she would flip her shit.”

  “You think so?”

  Now it’s Lulu’s turn to shrug. She hasn’t ever thought too deeply about it, but when she does, she’s never been able to figure out whether her mom would have a problem with her liking girls or not. Her mom’s not a homophobe or anything, but having a gay-ish daughter is different from having, like, a gay friend. As far as Lulu can tell, mostly what her mother wants for her to is to marry rich, the way she did. Lock in those community property assets early. Make sure you always know where the money’s coming from.