“Aha. A boyfriend.”
I shake my head.
“Dog died.”
Shake.
“Grandma sick.”
Shake again.
Dr. Scaliteri scowls.
“Then whatever it is, it can’t possibly be as important as the Italian Concerto. Now let’s get to work.”
We work for three and a half hell-bent hours, until the keys are literally smeared with blood and my mind has been bleached to a glorious blankness, a lunar eclipse of the soul. The music is a castle I conjure around myself, a fortress of notes no feeling can storm. Inside it, I am powerful. I wield my own skill like a sword.
When I’m getting ready to leave, Dr. Scaliteri looks at me sternly.
“You cannot have distractions, Kiri. Piano must come first. Whoever this boy is”—she narrows her eyes—“you tell him not to call until August.”
The powerful feeling lasts all the way home. But the badness from this morning comes back when I walk in my front door, like a hornet that was waiting all day to sting me. The can of soup I heat up for dinner burns. I bang my shin on the coffee table. When I unload the dishwasher, I drop a plate, and although it doesn’t shatter, a crack spreads across it like a vindictive grin, and I don’t know whether to put it in the cupboard or throw it out. Everything feels an inch out of place, just enough to make me clumsy. The garbage bag in Sukey’s room is a boulder someone heaved into the pond of our house, disturbing the pebbly bottom and making the water rise to lick the banked canoes.
I can’t open it.
I won’t open it.
I go to bed early in an attempt to escape.
But when I’ve been lying there for forty-five minutes wide awake, I finally get up and pad down the hall to Sukey’s room.
Hi, Sukey, I think, walking to the bed and laying my hand on the garbage bag. It’s good to see you.
I slowly tear the trash bag open.
Sukey had an accident.
What I want to ask my mom is, who calls getting stabbed to death an accident?
The hole in the bag widens until its contents start spilling out. I watch while a portrait of Sukey takes shape before my eyes.
There are some things I recognize:
-paintbrushes with red and black paint dried onto their tips;
-a little glass jar of turpentine;
-pencils and pens;
-the pair of high-heeled silver shoes she wore at her art opening;
-a half-finished tube of vanilla-scented hand cream;
-empty CD cases: Nevermind, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness;
-a mug that says BLACK CAT ART SUPPLY;
-one of the ceramic frogs that used to sit on her windowsill at home, now chipped;
-a little kid’s painting of daisies that I recognize as mine;
-a bag of glass paint jars with their lids stuck shut.
And some things I don’t recognize:
-a rumpled denim jacket with silver hearts Bedazzled around the cuffs;
-a plastic purple brush;
-a cheap digital alarm clock;
-a short leather skirt with beaded fringe;
-a sparkly pink tube top;
-Zig-Zag rolling papers;
-a picture frame with no picture;
-an empty lighter;
-a small wooden carving of a bear.
And there are things that scare me:
-empty orange pill bottles of all different sizes;
-a weirdly stiff and bunched-up quilt I slowly realize is covered in dried blood;
-an unbent paper clip with a curiously blackened tip.
chapter fifteen
That night, I don’t go back to bed at all. I lay out Sukey’s things like holy artifacts. I can’t stop looking at them. I can’t stop touching them. I can’t leave them alone. I move from object to object like a paleontologist inspecting fossils, the same way I moved around her old bedroom touching everything I could find on the night Mom and Dad told us she died.
I try on the denim jacket with the silver hearts. It smells a little rancid, like french fry grease, probably from being buried under the trash in Doug’s closet for so long. I want so much for it to smell like Sukey that I bury my nose in the sleeve again and again, but there’s no trace of her cigarette smoke or her perfume.
I run the purple brush through my hair.
I plug in the alarm clock.
I buckle on the silver shoes and take an exploratory stroll around the room. They fit, which surprises me, and I stand there, teetering, feeling my legs lengthen like a stretched piece of gum.
I lay out the leather skirt and sparkly pink tube top on the bed and imagine Sukey wearing them. The skirt has a small yellow splatter of paint on the front. Somehow, that splatter reassures me, like at least some things didn’t change after she moved into the Imperial.
I roll a joint with one of the Zig-Zag papers and smoke it, sitting on the bed. After I smoke the joint, I question the ceramic frog. He, surely, must have some comment to make about what happened, some amphibian complaint.
Mister Frog, you have been with Sukey for so long. Did you see what happened? Did you try to stop it?
I talk to the frog for a good long time. All he does is gaze at me with dumb froggy eyes. I shake him and speak severely.
Mister Frog, we have ways of making of you talk.
When I get tired of the frog, I pick up the wooden bear. It’s small and light, carved out of a pale blond wood, a scrap of pine or maple. It has pointy little bear ears and a doglike snout, and one of its paws has just snatched an oblong shard of a salmon. It fits in my hand like a toy. Hey, little bear, I think, stroking its sleek wooden back. It’s okay.
When I turn it over in my hand to look at it more closely, I realize there’s an inscription scratched on the underside with a knife or the sharp tip of a nail: FOR SUKY. FROM DOUG.
I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for sad things, I guess. I hug the bear in my hands and cry and cry.
By the time I get to the scary things, it’s well past four. The light on the ceiling buzzes faintly, as if to complain about being left on for so long. I’m still wearing Sukey’s silver shoes. I imagine they’ll bring Sukey back if I click their heels together three times, but when I try it, nothing happens. I pick up an empty pill bottle and gaze at the ruined label. The paper is rippled as if it got wet, and some of the letters have been completely rubbed off. The part I can read says 300 MG BY MOUTH, but 300 milligrams of what? I pore over the other bottles: Percocet, Demerol, Oxycodone. They’re not Sukey’s, they can’t be Sukey’s, but why are they in the bag?
I put them down and pick up the bloody quilt. It’s stiff and bunched. I pull it apart, smoothing it out with my hands. The bloody parts look like invasions of bacteria in a petri dish, billowing clouds of black. Underneath, I can make out the scraps of flowered cotton and blue corduroy. The quilt is a horror, a nightmare in my arms, but all I can think about is how much the blood looks like paint—something knocked over and spilled by a clumsy elbow. An accident. I bundle it up carefully and slip it back into the bag, leaving everything else on the frilly bedspread.
I mean to go back to bed then. I really do. But not before touching each object one last time.
When the sun comes up at five, I am twisting the paper clip in my fingers. I am using its burnt tip to spell her name on the back of my hand.
chapter sixteen
“You seem happy today,” says Lukas.
Lukas and I are walking down West Broadway on our way to a party at Kelsey Bartlett’s house. Or rather, Lukas is walking. I am hopping along beside him, tugging leaves and petals off every tree we pass. I felt a crazy burst of energy when I saw him waiting for me on the corner in front of the supermarket, and everything from last night seemed to slip off my shouldres like a heavy backpack. My body’s a little achy from not sleeping, but instead of feeling exhausted, I’m wired. The evening air smells like a pair of old jeans baking on a clothesline, and the sky is
the color of a squeezed peach. I tuck a blossom behind Lukas’s ear.
“I was up all night.”
“Why?”
“I opened the bag.”
“Oh.”
He gives me a half-worried, half-encouraging glance, as if he’s afraid to ask what was inside. We’re walking down the Greek block, past the little grocery store with its shelves of canned olives and tahini. A woman in a green dress pushes the door open, and the sudden whiff of baking pita bread reminds me I haven’t eaten yet today. Lukas notices the blossom and bats it off.
“Want to know what was in the bag?”
I start to list the objects in no particular order. Lukas stops me when I get to the bloody quilt.
“I don’t think I can listen to this.”
I blink at him.
“Why not?”
“It’s horrible! He gave you a bloody quilt? That’s sick.”
I have to admit I hadn’t thought of it that way.
“He didn’t seem like a sicko.”
“Are you kidding me? He gave you a bloody murder-quilt he kept in his closet for five years.”
I shrug and do a pirouette on the sidewalk. I know I’m acting strangely for someone who spent all night sifting through a bag of pill bottles and rancid clothes, but that’s precisely the reason Lukas’s presence is making me so batty with joy. I poke him.
“He has a three-legged cat. I trust a man with a three-legged cat.”
“I thought you said he was smelly, obnoxious, and too drunk to walk.”
“Goes with the territory.”
“You do need some sleep.”
I pluck a daisy from someone’s front yard and stick it, boutonniere-like, in the pocket of Lukas’s shirt. It rides there for half a block like a puppy with its head out a car window before tumbling out and doing a face-plant on Kelsey’s front step.
Kelsey Bartlett lives in one of those houses that doesn’t look like much from the outside, but once you go in it’s all black leather couches and hardwood floors and a curiously invisible sound system that even plays music in the bathroom when you’re going pee. There aren’t many people there when we show up, just a few girls sitting on the couch eating celery sticks and ranch dip. When we walk in, Kelsey swoops over to greet us, wearing a purple halter dress and those stupid forty-dollar flip-flops all the girls at our school are wearing this year. Lukas’s face perks up when she appears, like he’s relieved to see someone who won’t talk his ear off about her murder scene evidence collection.
“Welcome, welcome,” gushes Kelsey. “I’m so glad you guys showed up. I haven’t seen you in forever, Kiri. How’s it going?”
Even though I secretly think Kelsey’s kind of a ditz, I give her a big smile.
“Fine. My practice schedule is positively murderous.”
Lukas shoots me a look, but Kelsey doesn’t notice. She makes a little face and pulls me into a hug.
“Crazy piano girl. I don’t know how you do it.”
Kelsey and Lukas start chatting about which bands they’re going to see at IndieFest this year. I try to join in, but I’ve been too busy to look at the lineup, and I probably won’t have time to go anyway. After a few minutes I wander away to see who else is here. I say hi to my friend Angela, who’s in the middle of telling a story to this girl Rhett whose dad owns the Cactus Club.
“Hey, Kiri,” says Angela, sipping her Sprite. “So anyway, he came back again yesterday, and this time he brought his friend. . . .”
I listen as Angela shares the breaking news about the latest additions to her pervert collection. Highlights at six:
-her forty-year-old manager at the snack bar has a crush on her;
-her old boyfriend from middle school wants to get back together;
-Pete Vozt texted her a picture of his schlong.
I peel away from Rhett and Angela and go say hi to the orchestra kids, who are entertaining themselves by playing Chubby Bunny with the cherry tomatoes. There’s no room on the couch, so I plunk myself down on Bryan Kravchenko’s lap. He groans and tries to push me off.
“Get off me, yo!”
Instead I lean back and try to crush him against the couch.
“Help! Get her off me! She’s crazy!”
I finally get off when he elbows me in the ribs. They start talking about a TV show and I get restless again, so I mill around the house, stealing chips off people’s plates. Somebody sets up Guitar Hero and everyone clusters around the TV to watch.
All of a sudden, I feel incredibly bored.
This party is stupid.
There’s nothing happening.
Everyone’s just flirting and posing and trying to look cool. There’s no greater meaning here. No beauty. Sukey was stabbed to death, and I’m supposed to stand here watching fools play Guitar Hero?
A hum of anxiety is building in my chest like a swarm of wasps. I should do something. I should make some signal to let Sukey know I’m with her. I can’t just stand here.
I make another useless circle of the living room and go outside to the deck, where there’s a hot tub, tiki torches, and a barbecue the size of a tank. The lid of the hot tub is off, and the water is steaming quietly into the night. It looks so warm and peaceful, I walk right over and dunk my arm in.
Kelsey’s dad is manning the grill.
“Go ahead,” he says when he sees me. “You can be the first one in.”
The suggestion is too tantalizing to resist.
I can see my reflection wobbling on the surface of the water like the film of edible ink on a Your-Photo-on-a-Cake. I slip my feet out of my sandals, swing my first leg over the edge, and the water swallows up my leg all the way to the hem of my shorts. I swing my other leg in and stand there like a stork in the middle of the warm, bubbling water. Inside the house, a group of guys has just shown up: I can see a flock of wide-brimmed caps moving toward the chip bowls on the kitchen counter. A pair of celery girls squeak open the sliding glass door and come onto the deck to gawk at me.
“Omigod, Kiri, are you really getting in?”
“I am in.”
And oh how brightly doth the first stars shine in the waning nectarine of the sky. This is real. This is like one of Sukey’s paintings. Now if only Lukas would come out here and dance with me and the celery girls would go back inside with their tanned legs and big teeth. I scrape the surface of the water with my fingers. The celery girls squeal.
“But your clothes are going to get wet. Where’s your bathing suit?”
I ignore them and turn around in a slow circle, feeling the hot jets of water whooshing against my legs. Little white petals are falling from a Japanese cherry tree and landing on the water. Little bubbles are crowning the hairs on my legs. I am the Lady of the Lake. Suck it, bitches.
“Are you just going to spin around in circles and not say anything?”
I reach up, plug my nostrils, and submerge, submarine-style, until their voices are nothing but warbling squeaks above the surface of the water.
When I come up again, the celery girls are still standing there, now joined on the deck by a half-dozen more gawking girls and a handful of lumbering Ball-Cap Orangutans that start hooting and taking pictures on their cell phones when I emerge soaking wet.
I take a quick bow, step out of the hot tub, push through my crowd of admirers, and go inside, trailing wet footprints across the kitchen floor. My random act of beauty accomplished, I make a unilateral decision to grab Lukas and bust out of here.
Lukas is still talking to Kelsey, whom I suddenly can’t stand with a level of not-standingness so powerful I can hardly restrain it from leaping out of my throat like one of those snakes-in-a-can. She’s telling Lukas about how much she loves waterskiing, her voice high and whiny-sounding. I wedge myself between them. “Lukas? D’you want to go?”
“Oh, hey, Kiri.”
Lukas is holding a can of soda with beads of condensation on the outside. I can smell the chemical tang of the fake lemon when he takes a sip. I not so
much ignore Kelsey as fail to see any point in acknowledging her existence for the second time in a single evening. Kelsey looks down at my dripping clothes.
“Ooh, looks like someone found the hot tub. I can lend you a swimsuit, babe.”
I sort of nod at Kelsey, but my eyes are locked on Lukas. “Hey, Lukas? Lukas. Are you ready to go?”
The wired feeling that started when I left my house has grown into a thrumming, crackling, electrical field. I want to kiss Lukas. I want to dance down the street. There’s a reason people get drunk after funerals, and I suddenly know what it is: the flip side of sadness is a dark, devouring joy, a life that demands to be fed.
“Lukas—”
Do Lukas and Kelsey exchange a look? Was that a look? Bitch, don’t exchange a look with my future boyfriend!
Lukas rocks on his heels. “Actually, I was just about to get a burger.”
Kelsey licks her lips in what I cannot help but interpret as a lecherous fashion. “Mmm,” she says, looking me square in the eye. “Think I will too.”
I cast Lukas an urgent look, but it bounces right off him. He gives me a strained smile and turns around to go outside to the barbecue. Kelsey follows him, waving over her shoulder at me.
“Bye, Kiri. Sorry you had to leave so early!”
On the walk home from Kelsey’s, a car full of college boys slows down and follows me for an entire block, whistling at me and shouting, “Where’s the wet T-shirt contest?” I give them the finger, but they just laugh, and when I duck into the corner store to escape them, the cashier shoos me back out again for dripping water on the floor. As I hurry down the street, my wet clothes cling to my skin, clammy and uncomfortable. When I get home, I flick on all the lights, but the artificial brightness only emphasizes how big and empty the house is.
I make a beeline for my bedroom and paw through the heap of clothing on my floor, looking for something clean to wear. I haven’t done laundry in the two weeks since Mom and Dad left, and all my shirts are sour and wrinkled. I pull on an old tank top and go downstairs to make something to eat, but the carrots and broccoli have gone limp and rubbery and the bread is blooming with mold. I stand over the compost bin tossing everything out, my heart fluttering with something like panic.
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