Mostly Dead Things

by Kristen Arnett

  “You wanna grab some red wine? I think there’s a bottle of something in the cabinet.” She pointed with the rolling pin. A bit of raw chicken was stuck to the end and flung off onto the floor.

  “I’m gonna throw those apples out.”

  “Leave them. Lolee does like them.”

  That memory of the apple made me feel strange, as if time were slipping past in an oily ooze. I tried to remember what I’d felt at the time; I’d been angry because I sat on the couch and the pieces of apple had stuck to my pants. I’d yelled at Lolee until she cried. Then she’d tried to wash the pieces in the sink, assembling them into an apple shape before slipping them back inside the fridge. She’d written us all apology notes, drawing us as a stick-figure family. Our smiles were so big they’d outsized the circular faces. She’d even included Sir Charles in the drawings. Brynn had already been gone for a year, and Lolee had stopped putting her in any of the family art she created. I’d looked at that apology note and been so sad I thought my chest might cave in. It seemed I was the only one who remembered Brynn.

  I unearthed a bottle of merlot left over from the ill-fated party. I uncorked it and took a whiff, grimacing at the vinegar smell. My mother was still bent over the bird, deboning it, yanking at the thigh.

  Her back was turned to me as she peeled out the rib cage. I set the bottle of wine down beside the invitation, looking at the gallery’s name and Lucinda’s name next to it. Spun it in a circle until all the writing was upside down, then right side up, then upside down again. Lucinda’s name in a loop until none of the letters looked real anymore.

  “Do you know how that fire started?” I asked, pushing the card back and forth along the counter. It made a swishing sound along the Formica.

  “I think you know who did it.”

  “Oh God,” I said, picking up the bottle of wine. “You want some of this?”

  “Yes, please.” She yanked out the wings and flipped the bird over again. I watched her pound at the flesh with the rolling pin, muscles and tendons lining strong down her forearms.

  I took a drink from the neck of the bottle. The opening was gunked and left grime on my tongue. “So Lucinda did that? To her own gallery?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Her and her Donna. Probably.”

  I took another swig, then wiped the lip and pulled a couple of clean coffee mugs from the drainer in the sink, doling out half the bottle in one go. I handed one to my mother, who immediately took two long swallows.

  “She told you about it?” I said. “About her and her wife. Needing the money.”

  “I didn’t have to ask.” My mother took another sip and then held the mug out to me, dangling it from her chicken-slippery fingers. I filled it up again and drank some more of my own. “I also don’t think she was married anymore. Or at least she didn’t want to be.”

  She stuffed the insides of the chicken with the spinach leaves and little pinches of salt and pepper. The cheese she’d already shredded in a pile next to the big bowl of bread crumbs.

  “She sent me some money. After.”

  “Money from what?” I knew the investigation into the fire was still ongoing. I wasn’t sure what would happen, if anyone would be prosecuted. “Insurance? How could they possibly pay out that quick?”

  “Advance against a claim. Your father looked into that once for our shop. Just in case anything . . . happened.”

  That was news to me. But hey, I learned new things about my family all the time. Daily reminders that none of us were who we thought we were. God only knew what I’d have uncovered in a month’s time. Or a year’s.

  “Aren’t you mad? She destroyed all your work.”

  “I was. At first.” She sucked in her lip for a second, then blew out. “But then again it wasn’t really about keeping those things. It was about making them in the first place.”

  “Still.”

  “She destroyed her things too.”

  We were both quiet for a while, my mother stuffing in the bits of fatty bacon, rolling up the chicken and pressing it back down against a baking tray that was older than me. “Come help me tie these up, then we’ll throw them in the oven.”

  Pushing down against the raw flesh, she tied the string twice around the flattened rolls, knotting it in loopy bows over my fingers. It reminded me of tying my shoes. Of my father teaching me, of me teaching Bastien. I didn’t know who’d taught Lolee. Maybe she’d taught herself.

  Looping the string, my mother tied while I helped knot. There were two rolls for each of us: Lolee, Bastien, my mother, Milo, and myself. There’d be a big pitcher of tea and there’d be bread and there’d be a salad that nobody ate but my mother. The same, the same. Even when things changed, everything still went back to equilibrium.

  “You’ve been seeing her, haven’t you?”

  I pulled my finger from the last roll too quick and the insides spilled on the baking sheet. Bits of cheese and bacon coated a fragile leaf of spinach. She took my hand and pushed it down again, rolling the insides back up neatly.

  “Does everyone in this family know my personal business?”

  Tie, loop. The rolls pressed together like a savory gift. “Did you think you were being sneaky? You’re not great at hiding, Jessa.”

  She put them in the oven and we both washed our hands clean of chicken guts, scrubbing the outsides of our mugs. I poured the last of the wine, splitting it evenly between us. My mother’s lips were already stained with the purple kiss of it.

  She called for Lolee and Bastien to set the table. They trooped in from the porch and took Tupperware from the cabinet, cups we’d had since I was a little kid. They poured the pitcher of tea, ice cracking in the still-warm liquid, and grabbed bowls and plates along with fistfuls of silverware. Milo came in from the living room and leaned into the open fridge, scrounging for leftovers even though we were just about to eat.

  “You finish off that wine?”

  “Course we did.” I reached in behind him and took out the plastic bag of withering apples. I waited until my mother left to get a clean tablecloth and chucked the whole mess of them into the garbage.

  “Good riddance,” Milo said, gnawing a hunk of cheese. “Those are awful.”

  STRIX VARIA—BARRED OWL

  One last, good memory:

  We caught a baby owl that kept jumping from its nest. The mother had built it into the eaves at the back of our house, a small, cramped space stuffed with pine needles and bits of bark.

  They’re called leapers when they keep jumping. My father cradled the fluffy lump to his chest. Damn thing has too much energy. Doesn’t know he’s nocturnal.

  After we’d called animal control, he and I sat in the backyard with the bird secreted in an Igloo cooler between us. We drank Arnold Palmers, heavy on the lemonade. I gave the owl baby little bits of grasshoppers I’d killed, a recent blight on the pink and white azalea bushes. The bird gulped legs, a head, meaty bits of a fatty torso.

  Let’s call him Oscar. That’s a good name for an owl. I stroked its round head with a fingertip. The head was the size of a golf ball and very soft.

  You shouldn’t name wild animals. They’re not pets. My father frowned and put the lid on the cooler, leaving just enough room for the baby to breathe.

  Mites appeared once animal control took the bird. Everything itched: tiny, barely visible dots that crawled into my eyes and hair, tickling the insides of my ears until I thought I’d go crazy trying not to scratch at myself.

  My mother had to scrub down everything. She made us strip out on the porch before letting us back inside the house. She boiled our clothes in a vat on the stove, wouldn’t even consider putting them into the washing machine. I stood in the backyard, shivering in my underpants.

  Milo watched from the safety of the house, pressing his mouth against the sliding glass door and blowing wet air. His tongue left behind heart-shaped spots. When Milo wasn’t looking, our dad smacked a hand against the glass. It scared Milo so badly he fell backwa
rd and landed on his ass in the middle of the living room rug.

  It was so funny I thought I’d never stop laughing.

  14

  I went to the mall to buy a new shirt because I didn’t want to look like myself when I saw Lucinda.

  I picked my way along the edges of the first store I recognized as I watched more experienced shoppers navigate the aisles, hangers dangling from fingertips, purses stuffed beneath their arms or shoved up onto their shoulders. Two girls near the back tried on tops over their clothes. One pocketed a silvery nail polish. She had bleached hair with dark roots and a fuck you expression that reminded me so much of Brynn. She caught my eye, staring hard until I turned away, embarrassed. The shirt I picked was blue and long-sleeved. It wasn’t on sale and I refused to try it on in the dressing room. I went home and left it in a bag on the floor.

  The storefront had been converted and the gallery was complete. That morning, my mother had been moving her finished pieces from the shop next door, directing the movers up into the recently renovated display space. New lighting had been installed. The cases had been cleaned out, the dead cat removed and buried beneath a patch of weeds in the back lot. I had finished the piece I’d been working on and was fiddling with it, posing the birds in different displays. Finding minute problems that I could hover over and pick at, opening up again and again like tiny scabs.

  “You need to talk to Lucinda,” my mother had said, packing up the last of her stuff into a cardboard box. She reminded me of a kid finally leaving for college. None of her children had gone away to school.

  “I know. I’ll do it.”

  “When? Today?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Today,” she’d said, and swept out of the room. The tail end of her dress had brushed a dust ball from the corner. I’d picked it up and stuffed it in the trash.

  And then I’d gone home and realized I had nothing nice to wear. Hence the new shirt. I had bought it and afterward felt stupid as hell about it. I hadn’t seen or heard from Lucinda in months. There was no reason to think that anything would happen, and I didn’t expect it to; but I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her in something old and gross. So I put on the shirt and I brushed out my braid. I let my hair fall around my face and back, a protective curtain. A swath of me to protect myself from the world.

  The street where she lived wasn’t far from my parents’ home. My mother gave me the address. It was a quiet residential area, set against a slip of woods near the lake. It was a condominium complex I recognized from high school. We’d gone to a party at one of them and Brynn had blacked out in the bathroom after drinking too much gin. Milo had to carry her out to the car.

  Lucinda’s condo was number four. I knocked, looking at the clean brick exterior, marred only by the spiderwebs plugging up the corners of the door. I wasn’t sure if she’d be home. I hadn’t wanted to try calling, nervous that if I heard her voice beforehand, I’d chicken out of driving over. So I waited. I hoped for a second that she wouldn’t be there, but realized I’d only have to come back again, which seemed even worse.

  It opened quicker than I wanted. She wore a bathrobe, a pink terry-cloth thing that looked like it was from Victoria’s Secret. I’d brought a Publix bag with me, and the stuff inside banged against my waist.

  “Hey,” I said stupidly, after we’d stared at each other for several long, awkward moments. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Give me a minute.” She shut the door in my face.

  A minute turned into fifteen. I contemplated knocking again, or sitting down on the curb, but worried one of her neighbors would think I was a Jehovah’s Witness or selling magazines. So I just stood there like an idiot, hands stuffed into my back pockets.

  Something crawled across my neck. I leaned forward and scrubbed wildly at my hair and screeched. My elbow knocked into the door and pushed it open a few inches. Once I was sure there wasn’t a spider crawling into my cleavage, I went inside.

  Lucinda sat at the kitchen counter. Her hair was piled on top of her head and one bare leg dangled through the slit in her robe. I sat down next to her in one of the tall chairs. My legs hung gracelessly and banged against the counter in front of me. They were stools for tall people.

  “You look like a scared kid,” she said. She was drinking whiskey out of a short glass. One giant square of ice sat in the middle of it, like a frozen island.

  “Do you have a mold to make those?”

  “Is that what you came here to talk about? Ice?”

  A clock over the mantel ticked loudly. Its golden arms swung back and forth inside its body. There was a shelf against the far wall that held a lot of sculptures. The posters from her office were hanging at either side of the living room.

  “I don’t know how to start,” I said. “I’m bad at this.”

  “That’s something.” Finishing the drink, she got up for another. “You want one?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Have a drink.” She poured a couple of inches into her own glass, then brought it back over to the counter and slid it in front of me. I looked down at the liquid, swirling over the giant ice cube.

  “It’s like an iceberg.” I took a small sip and let it sit at the back of my throat for a minute. “Does it make it taste better? The special ice?”

  She took it back, put her lips where mine had been. “It tastes better now,” she said. We took turns sipping from the drink until it was gone. My nerves calmed a little, but I still felt electrified, like I’d rubbed my shoes against a carpet and at any moment I might touch a piece of metal and shock the both of us.

  “What’s that?” She pointed to the plastic grocery bag, which sat next to my chair on the floor. I leaned down to pick it up but couldn’t quite reach the handle. Lucinda caught it with her big toe and held it out to me that way—leg extended, skin smooth and beautiful. I took it from her and she left her foot there, on the edge of my seat. I swallowed, took out the two items, and laid them flat on the countertop for her to see.

  Lucinda dragged the invite in front of her. Unlike the ones she’d ordered for the gallery opening, these were simple and cheap. Printed on cardstock, bold font, with the Morton’s Taxidermy logo on the front. “I’m supposed to come to this?”

  “I’d like you to see the work.”

  “I thought you didn’t like that kind of work.”

  I shrugged, touched a fingertip to her toenail. It was shiny and lacquered red. “I haven’t known what I like for a very long time. Just now figuring it out.”

  “Why do you think I’d come?”

  “I know what happened.” I stroked up her leg. The skin was smooth, like satin. It was odd to feel skin so soft after dealing with furred pelts that made my own hands rough and cracked. “What you did. Or Donna, I guess. The gallery.”

  She shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “Are you going to get into trouble?”

  “Who knows. They’re still looking into things. But I don’t care.”

  She set down the card and picked up the other object, a tissue-wrapped ball closed with Scotch tape. “And what’s this?”

  I let her open it, waited for her to see and decide. Unwrapping it on the countertop, she held up the object. I’d brought her the carapace, the cicada shell so perfectly preserved.

  “Something else about cicadas. They live underground for most of their lives.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. They leave these shells when they first come out, the last time they molt as adults. But it takes them a really long time. They live mostly blind, coating themselves. Waiting to emerge.”

  She cupped the shell in her palm and let it roll there, back and forth, tilting it to see better in the light. Then she closed her fingers, pressing down hard, harder, until I heard the crunch. When she opened her hand again, the husk lay like shards of broken plastic.

  “Where’s Donna?” I asked.

  “Moved out.” She dusted her palm, and the shards fell down into the
carpet, dusty and inconsequential. “With the advance, I was able to buy out the condo. We could split everything. What we’d wanted.”

  I took her palm and licked the remnants. I felt her muscles give way, her arm moving to embrace me. I let her lead me to the bedroom, and this time I stayed with her the whole night. I wanted to. She didn’t even have to ask.

  As she hovered over me in the morning light, I watched her finger trace a line from my face down the naked center of my body. “Where’s your seam?” Finger tickling, searching. “Where do you crawl out?”

  I put her hand where I wanted. We kissed and she searched for the place where I’d break open. When she finally found it, my insides shook and all my skin felt replaced with something new. Lucinda stayed there with me, hand smoothing down my side, pulling me out of the wreck.

  We invited all our close friends and neighbors and put up a sign in the shop: free admission for the first day. My mother put Lolee in charge of greeting guests. She’d been stationed outside at a card table and sat in a little sequined dress my mother had sewn for her.

  While people milled around in front of the shop, we made lemonade in the gallon plastic jug and set up a stack of Solo cups. There was a cooler of beer and a couple of strawberry pies, one lemon meringue, and a peanut butter, for Milo, who loved peanut butter more than anybody I knew.

  Lolee sliced them up and set them out on plates with plastic forks stabbed into their backs. People parked over by the Dollar General and wandered over to talk and eat. We all had pie, standing next to the plate-glass window where my mother had set up her latest display.

  Though the temperature outside hovered in the mid-eighties, inside was frosted like a cake—spray-on snow and white cotton batting covered every surface. Glitter topped it all, little slivers of icy plastic that looked like bright diamond shards. In this winter wonderland sat Santa and Mrs. Claus. Two foxes, arctic and fluffy white. Except Mrs. Claus was wearing a teddy and propped up suggestively against a pillowy snowbank. Santa had his back turned to the window, his coat thrust wide open.