Every Little Piece of Me

by Amy Jones

  “Now who’s the hypocrite?” asked Val. “What happened to your whole ‘I would rather sleep in a bathtub full of ferrets than be some airheaded attention whore.’”

  Eden’s thumb hovered just outside her mouth. “I don’t want to be an attention whore,” she said. “That sounds bad.”

  “It is bad,” Ava said. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. This could be fun, like a game. Every day is a game of pretending.”

  Eden stared at her, eyes wide. “What are we pretending to be?” she asked.

  “Reality television stars,” Ava said.

  Later that night, Ava lay in her new bed under a musty antique quilt that David promised they would replace as soon as they could go into town and thought about the show. Even to her, it seemed doomed to fail, with its hokey name and cheesy premise that so obviously pandered to the lowest common denominator, the very bottom of the barrel of American taste. She wondered if Antonio felt the same way. Was this part of his life’s plan? Had he ever had any kind of artistic integrity? Or had he always been a pathetic sellout? Either way, he clearly had no idea what he was doing.

  “Ava?”

  She turned to find Eden standing in the doorway. “What’s the matter?” she asked, sitting up and flicking on the light.

  “I know you said we were only pretending.” She paused, her thumb twitching beside her. “But I’m scared. What if everyone hates me?”

  Ava reached an arm out. “Come here.” Eden padded across the room and climbed onto the bed. From somewhere deep within the bones of the house, there was a repetitive clanging that quickly sped up to a vibration before fading away, leaving nothing but a hollow, horrifying silence.

  “What was that?” Eden asked.

  “Just the house. Old houses make noise.” Even though it was June, the house was cold, and she adjusted the quilt over her feet. “New houses too, probably. In New York there was so much other noise we didn’t hear them.”

  “Remember the guy with the stereo on his bike who rode by every morning singing ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’?”

  “Of course. That’s how I knew it was time to leave for school.” Ava tilted her head back and started singing the chorus. Eden joined in at the end, belting out “with somebody who loves me!” When they stopped, the room echoed with the absence of their voices. Outside, a dog howled.

  “I miss New York,” Eden whispered.

  “Me too, Edie.”

  Eden’s eyes were wide in the dark. “Tell me the California story.”

  Ava smiled. “Okay. But then you have to go to bed.” She pulled Eden into her, and her sister lay her head on Ava’s shoulder. “You probably don’t remember this, but when we were very little, we lived in a rusty orange van on the side of the highway in California. All the people who lived in the town knew us as ‘the kids in the van,’ and in the mornings they would bring us things on their way to town.”

  “What kind of things?” Eden asked, the way she always did.

  “Things like mittens, or leftover Easter candy, or flowers they’d picked at the side of the road. Sometimes during the day we’d walk along the edge of the highway and collect the garbage that people threw out of their car windows. The people driving by would throw their garbage right at us, which actually made it easier. We filled bags of garbage and took them to the gas station at the turnoff, where the man who pumped the gas would give us sandwiches in exchange for picking up the garbage. The sandwiches were good but usually smelled like gas, like the man’s hands.”

  “Why didn’t we stay there?”

  “The mayor thought it was bad for the town to have kids living in a van by the side of the road, and one night they towed the van over to the next town while we were all asleep. But that town’s mayor didn’t want us either, so he towed us to the next town. This went on for months, with all the mayors towing us to the next town in the middle of the night, all the way across the country, until one morning we woke up and we were in New York City, in front of Dad and Papa’s apartment.

  “And what did Dad and Papa do?” Eden whispered.

  “They came outside and Dad said, ‘It’s just like in my dream,’ and Papa said, ‘These children belong to us now, these are our children.’”

  “Avalon and Valhalla and Eden,” Eden said, closing her eyes. “Our little piece of paradise. No matter where we are.”

  “No matter where we are.” Ava felt Eden’s body relax into sleep against her. She closed her eyes, but she knew sleep was not going to come, so she lay there listening to the house creak and groan until the sun rose in the east to once again lose its battle with the fog.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, Antonio set up the camera in Ava’s room for her first Gin Harbour confessional. She sat cross-legged on her bed, the camera in front of her on a tripod, while Antonio positioned himself off to the side on a folding chair, prompting her, although all his questions would be cut out in post-production. The whole thing made Ava cringe—the deception of her being alone, of divulging her deepest secrets. She couldn’t even talk to her old friends anymore. What made him think she was going to talk to all of America?

  Antonio sat with legs spread wide in the chair. “What do you like about Gin Harbour?” he asked, leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees, a priest preparing to absolve her.

  “My favourite thing about Gin Harbour is all the vampires,” Ava said, staring directly into the camera. “And, like, how they’re not trying to be all attractive like those fake Twilight vampires, you know? They’re not ashamed of their bloody fangs and pale skin and having to bite people and stuff. They don’t want to be normal. They just, like, own it.”

  “Okay, Ava,” Antonio said, sighing as he leaned back. “Have you made any friends yet?”

  “I don’t really know how to make friends with a vampire. I mean, what movies do vampires even watch, you know? Do they like horror films? Or is that offensive? What if you’re a vampire and everyone thinks you want to watch horror movies, when in reality you want to watch, like, High School Musical or something?” Ava cupped her hand to her mouth. “I’m actually thinking about becoming a vampire,” she said in a loud whisper.

  Antonio reached over and switched the camera off. He studied her face. “Is this really what you want to say, Ava?” he asked. “Is this really what you want the world to think you are?”

  “I don’t care,” she said, pulling on a loose thread in her quilt. “Besides, how do you think I’m going to make friends anyway? I’m not even allowed to leave the house.”

  “You know, we can replace you,” Antonio said as he began dismantling the camera. “We could have your character go off to tend to a sick aunt or something. Or maybe boarding school. Then we could hire someone more camera-friendly to play you.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously? Is that an option? Because sign me up.”

  “Sorry, kiddo. For some reason, you’re the only actress the network wants in the role.”

  “The role. Ha.” The thread grew longer as she pulled, and she imagined the entire quilt unravelling beneath her, along with the bed, the floorboards, the house. Maybe if she pulled on it long enough, there would be nothing left of the world but a pile of thread.

  “Sure, it’s a role. You’re an actress, and you’re playing the part of Avalon Hart.” He zipped up the camera bag and slung it over his shoulder, grabbing the tripod in his other hand. “Ava, I’ve been doing this a long time. Trust me when I say, if you think about it that way, things are going to be a lot easier for you.”

  “What, that I’m an actress named Avalon Hart playing the role of Avalon Hart?”

  “It’s the part you were born to play.” He gave her a mock salute and left the room.

  The thread ripped off in her hand.

  * * *

  —

  Finally, on day five, the sun came out. “Oh, you miraculous wonder!” Ava yelled from her bed. “You big, beautiful ball of plasma! Bestow your light
and heat upon us!” She raced down the stairs, sliding to a halt in front of the door, where David stood, drinking a cup of coffee.

  “Hello, young miss,” he said, smiling at her. “And where do you think you are going?”

  “Outside,” Ava said, hoping that if she said it confidently enough he’d just let her go.

  No such luck. “You most certainly are not.”

  Ava groaned loudly. “I can’t even go on the deck?” She was aware of how whiny her voice sounded, but she didn’t care. “I’m dying of vitamin D deficiency!”

  David shrugged and took another sip of his coffee. “There’s a screened-in porch off the kitchen, you’ll probably get some sun there.”

  “This is torture!” David patted her on the shoulder but didn’t say anything. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure this violates the Geneva Convention!” She could see David’s head shaking as he retreated into the dining room. “I hope this is getting filmed! I hope the world finds out that you’re keeping your children prisoner!”

  For the next hour Ava paced around the house like a caged lion, restless and annoyed. She went into the porch and pressed her face against the screen, trying to breathe in the fresh air, feeling the mesh digging into her skin. She felt so out of place here. She was sure she would never get used to the noises, the odd angles of the hallways, the slope of the walls. Every night she dreamed of their old apartment, and would wake with a start, wondering where she was, her body heavy with the ache of missing—her home, her city, her friends, her life. She would murder someone for one more minute in Central Park. She would die for a strawberry basil gelato.

  Behind her, a local girl named Lynn or Lindsay or Lucy was loading dishes into the industrial-sized dishwasher, leaving three plates and two forks for Bryce to add in later—anything B&B-related done onscreen was also done off-screen by someone who actually knew how to do it. And even though they hadn’t started officially filming, Javier was walking around trying to capture some candid moments. Ava had become adept at avoiding him, hiding in all the shadowy corners of the B&B, making sure there wasn’t any footage of her. She knew she couldn’t hide forever, but she was going to damn well try.

  “Hey,” Ava said to Laura or Lauren or Lola, who turned to her, wide-eyed and startled. “Where can you get gelato around here?”

  “You mean…like ice cream?” the girl asked. “There’s some in the freezer. Vanilla, I think, or maybe Neapolitan.” She paused. “Do you want me to get you some?”

  “No. Thanks, but that’s not what I want.” She didn’t know what she wanted. Except that no matter how hard she tried, it would never be this.

  Just then, Bryce walked into the kitchen, his arms full of clothes. “Hey,” Ava said brightly. “Want to go get a gelato?”

  “Honey, we’re in crisis mode here,” Bryce said, dumping the clothes on the table. He stared down at the pile, his lips pinched into a thin line. “My blue jacket is ripped and it’s going to completely throw off the continuity. This is a disaster.”

  “Come on,” Ava said. “We’ve been trapped in this house for days. Did you know we’ve been in Gin Harbour for almost a week and we haven’t even seen the ocean yet?”

  “The ocean is overrated.” He opened the back door. “Antonio, I need you, sweetheart! Where are you?”

  Ava picked up the blue jacket and examined it. “It looks okay to me,” she said.

  “That’s my other blue jacket. I’m hoping it’s similar enough. Where’s Antonio? Antonio!”

  “Antonio’s dead,” Ava said somberly. “I killed him and buried his body in the backyard. Don’t worry, I set his camera up next to it to catch any animals that try to dig him up. I’m hoping to pitch a new reality show called Who Stole Antonio’s Femur.”

  Bryce snatched the jacket out of her hands. His face was tight, as tight as she had ever seen it. Apparently, all the space and salt air were doing nothing for him. “Ava, I appreciate this Wednesday Addams vibe you’ve got going on here, but didn’t you hear me?” He shook the jacket in front of her face. “I am trying to avert disaster here.”

  She swatted his hand away, sending the jacket flying across the room. “And I am trying to maintain my sanity!” she yelled.

  Silence filled the kitchen, and regret started a long, slow crawl up Ava’s limbs. But Bryce put his hand on her shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “You know what? You’re right.”

  “I am?” Ava slumped into him, and he wrapped an arm around her. “I mean, I am.”

  “What is all this yelling?” David asked, coming in through the doorway, followed by Val and Eden. “Ava, are you trying to swindle Papa into letting you go outside?”

  “David,” Bryce said quietly. “We have to let them go outside. This is crazy.”

  Ava blinked up at him, her head still pressed up against Bryce’s side. She felt an understanding pass between her dads. Finally, David sighed. “To the outside!” he proclaimed, sweeping his arm out and bowing deeply. Eden squealed in delight, and she and Val ran for the door. Ava heard Bryce’s heart beat quicker in his chest, his muscles tensing through his shirt. She tilted her head upward to face him.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  They took the van, David driving, with Bryce in the front seat next to him, the three kids in the back. None of them knew where they were going, but they followed the coastline until Bryce spotted a sign that said BEACH and then they turned off, bumping along gravel until the road ended near a tiny strip of sand abutted by a tumble of jagged rocks. It wasn’t the kind of beach Ava was expecting, but the three of them scrambled out of the van like prisoners into the light and raced for the edge of the water, their skin prickling from the salty air, still chilly even though it was June.

  They all stopped short as their toes hit the water, which sent them scrambling back up the sandy embankment, Val falling backward onto his hands, Eden shrieking.

  “What was that?” Ava squeaked, the pain still radiating up her toes. “What the hell is with this water?”

  Behind them, David was doubled over, bellowing with laughter. Even Bryce was grinning. “That, my darling daughter, is the Atlantic Ocean,” he said. “And what you are feeling is the sting of about sixty degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “People swim in this?” Val asked, still sitting in the sand, rubbing his hands over his toes.

  “Who knew I raised such soft children?” He held on to Bryce’s shoulder as he slipped out of his own shoes, then gestured to Bryce, who cocked an eyebrow.

  “Most certainly not,” he said.

  David shook his head, bending over and rolling up the bottoms of his pants. He walked to the edge of the water and ploughed into it up to his knees, turning back to them and raising his arms. “You are all a huge disappointment to me!” he shouted, the water lapping against his shins.

  “And you’re a complete freak!” Ava shouted back.

  “It’s really too bad,” David said, reaching into the satchel hanging over his shoulder. “I guess I’m going to have to eat this tub of Finelli’s Gelato by myself.”

  “Finelli’s!” squealed Ava. “Where did you get that?”

  He smiled, then reached back into his bag and pulled out three plastic spoons. “I have my ways.”

  She looked at Val, who shrugged. “Okay, let’s do this. Come on, Edie,” Ava said. She hoisted her sister onto her back and the three of them ran back to the edge of the water, shrieking and giggling as they picked their way tentatively out to David, while Bryce watched from the shore, the sun keeping the fog bank at bay long enough for them to have this moment, here on the beach—this moment only for them.

  * * *

  In early July, the pilot premiered. They all watched it together, the Harts and Javier and Antonio and a few other members of the crew, all nervously bunched up in their tiny living room, spare and modern and far removed from the kitschy seafaring nostalgia of the rest of the B&B. Antonio had his Bluetooth in his ear, and was muttering softly to Bob and Tess, the network execs, as they waited
for the show to start. If this didn’t go well—well, Ava didn’t know what would happen. She had hoped it would fail, had been praying for it every night, but now she felt doubt creeping in. If the show tanked, would they really get to go back to New York? Or would they have to stay in Gin Harbour and actually run a B&B to make a living? And what would happen to her dads? She thought about Bryce in the car in New York, about the worry on his face, the way his eyes fell when he said the word wasted. She had wanted the show to fail so badly, she had forgotten that she didn’t want him to fail.

  “Home. What do you know, it is where the heart is,” she heard Eden’s voice say through the television screen, as melancholy string music began to swell.

  “Oh my god,” said Val

  “That’s me!” said Eden.

  Ava said nothing. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and watched as a girl who vaguely resembled her sat in a vaguely familiar restaurant and learned that she was going to be on television. She barely even recognized herself—were those her hunched shoulders, her pursed, thin lips, her lifeless eyes? Who was this girl with her hair falling limply, the baby fat of her chin doubling under her scowl? As she watched, something went soft in her stomach, expanding and mutating until she felt as though her body was pressing into all four corners of the room, an amorphous mountain of flesh suffocating everything and everyone around her.

  At the next commercial break, she stood up. “I can’t watch,” she said. “It’s too weird. I can’t do this.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Val, grabbing her hand and pulling her back down to the couch. “Don’t be an idiot. Just watch the stupid show.” But he didn’t let go, and Ava felt the vibrations from the nail flicking on his other hand travelling all the way up one arm and down the other.

  Off to the side, in her peripheral vision, a camera whirred quietly, the red light blinking as it watched her watching herself. Without even thinking about it, she felt her body react: her back straighten, her chin tilt upward, her eyes widen. That light she was sure would haunt her for the rest of her life, whether it was actually there or not—just outside of her vision, glowing steady and bright, an unblinking red eye following her every move. Reminding her that everyone was watching. She closed her eyes and prayed for the feeling to fade.