“That’s an awful lot to lay on her, Grandpa,” Tanner says. “She’s just a kid.”
Felix laughs. “Then I’ll shut up. Ignore me. I’m just a blathering old fart.”
I keep my head down. I don’t want to cry at the table in front of these people so I fill my mouth with the salty meat. I slide my fingers under my thighs to keep them from trembling, listen to everyone chatter. I am so empty inside, so ravenous for something that I feel like I could eat for days and not fill myself.
Later, in my single bed in the quiet room, the window cracked open just a little to the luminous sky, the cool air on my face, I do think about momentous. Was my father my first momentous? He was there, and then he wasn’t, and I wasn’t supposed to ask about him or cry, or be anything, really, because my mother was so upset.
Maybe Ellis was a puzzle piece, a big and momentously beautiful one that I knocked out of the puzzle box. I’m not sure what Riley was yet. Maybe he was part of the assembling, too? And I’m still not done?
I’m so unwhole. I don’t know where all the pieces of me are, how to fit them together, how to make them stick. Or if I even can.
After a week, my fog lifts a little bit. I still sleep a lot, and I’m so tired, but walking doesn’t hurt as much, and it doesn’t seem like we’re going anywhere soon, so I start investigating Felix’s house, which is complicated and rambling. From the front, it appears small and square, but once you’re inside, it spreads out in several directions at once, its complex nature hidden by cottonwoods and octopuslike cane chollas. (That’s what the tiny book Linus gives me says they are. I take it with me when I walk outside. It distracts me to do simple things, like put a name to a plant.)
There are several bedrooms, all with plain beds and simple wooden dressers. Patterned wool blankets are folded neatly and placed at the foot of each bed. The main room is enormous, with dark, heavy beams crisscrossing the ceiling, like the bones of a skeleton, which Tanner tells me are called vigas, and there’s an enormous stone fireplace against one wall. Devvie keeps it lit on the cooler nights and it’s there that I like to sit, close to its warmth.
Felix has one room for just books, another with only records and a stereo and a slanted, forlorn piano in the center. The kitchen is at the back of the house, off a deck that looks out into the rolling, dark hills. The stable is down the slope, surrounded by coyote fencing.
The studio, Linus tells me, was built with something called genius grant money many years ago. It adjoins the back of the house, rising barnlike over the hills. At night, the coyotes come out, howling, wandering. Felix points out low-flying hawks to me during the day, their forms swooping over the cottonwoods in dark arcs. They cook together, Linus and Tanner and Felix: large, sumptuous meals of fruits and meats, breads and cheeses, papery spinach salads with walnuts and salty feta cheese.
“You know,” Felix says to me one morning, spooning blueberries onto my plate at breakfast. “I don’t want you to think I’m some old workhorse, slaving away every day at my paints and pictures. Sometimes I don’t do any work at all in my studio! I just sit. Listen to music. Page through my books. Maybe write down something I remember. Maybe write a letter.”
He pours more coffee into his cup. “Sometimes not working can be work, just more gently. It’s important to just be, Charlie, every once in a while.”
My feet keep getting better. The cuts and gouges heal up nicely, though they’re still tender. Tanner takes off my arm bandages and lets me see the new slashes, the new rivers. I feel hesitantly over the fresh lines on my stomach, but I don’t look down.
I didn’t go too deep, he says; I didn’t need stitches. “Let’s think of that as a good thing.” He drops the old bandages in the trash, unfurls a fresh roll of gauze.
One night while Felix is opening another bottle of wine, Linus calls me over to a tiny laptop set up on the kitchen table. It’s been two weeks now and I’ve noticed that Linus disappears with the laptop every night after dinner for an hour. Tanner said she was talking to her kids over Skype.
All I could say was “Oh.” I didn’t even know she had children. Or I guess she must have told me, but I wasn’t listening. Ashamed, I realized I had never really asked Linus anything about her life, or her problems with drinking, because I was so consumed with Riley.
Linus points to the screen. I squint. It’s a newspaper article, with a photo of artwork on a wall. My artwork. Manny and Karen and Hector and Leonard. It’s dated two days after the art show.
Linus raps me on the skull. “Look, dummy. It’s a review of the gallery show. Listen.” She reads from the review, which sounds nice enough, if a little snarky; the writer uses a lot of words I don’t understand; I wonder why they just can’t say if they liked anything or not. I catch some of what Linus is saying: …seemingly caught adrift amid the digi-heavy and Technicolor nostalgia is a series of charcoal portraits…revealingly sympathetic…classical quirk….
“I think they liked your drawings, Charlie!” Linus nudges me in the hip. Her breath is fragrant with honey and green tea. Felix wanders over, waving a finger at Linus. “Click there, click there,” he says. Linus clicks; the screen fills with the faces of Hector and Karen, Leonard with his sorrowful eyes and hopeful mouth.
Felix says simply, “Very nice. Very strong line, my dear.” He removes his glasses. “But you don’t feel it.”
I shake my head, surprised. How can he say I didn’t feel it? I liked all of them and I worked hard. I wish I could answer out loud, but my words are still buried.
“It’s all there, dear. Attention to detail. Beautiful gestural moments.” He looks right in my eyes. “But you don’t love this kind of drawing. Or, at least, have a complicated passion for it. You need one or the other. Ambivalence is not a friend to art.”
Felix pats my cheek. “You have your skill, Charlotte. Now give your skill an emotion.” He wanders back to the wine bottle. “I have a room you can use,” he calls to me. “Devvie will get it ready for you tomorrow.”
Linus nods. “We aren’t going anywhere for a while. True Grit’s closed for God knows how long. Riley stole a hell of a lot of money, you know; people haven’t been paid. Might as well enjoy ourselves.”
In my small, tidy room, I lie on the bed, heart thumping, mind whirring. What did Felix mean, an emotion? I worked so hard on those pieces, looked at all the books in the library, did everything the drawing manual said, practiced and practiced. Isn’t that what you do as an artist? I think back to Tony’s gallery show, when Ariel asked me to come to her drawing workshop. Ariel said I would never get anywhere unless I examined myself. Made myself my subject. I choke back a laugh. What does Felix want me to do, draw myself ? No one is going to want to see that, a girl with split skin and a sad face.
I press my face against the wall. I can hear them out on the back deck, listening to a soulful singer on the record player, voices mingling with the intermittent cries from the dark desert. I have nothing now. Not Riley, not Mikey, not Ellis, not my drawing. I suck in my breath, try to stem a fresh wave of sobs. I’m so tired, again. Tired of trying. My nose leaks; my eyes throb with the effort of holding tears back. I curl up, clutching my knees to my chest. I miss Riley so much, even though I know how wrong it is: his smoky, liquidy smell is ingrained in my memory; my fingertips ache when I imagine the velvety slope of his back; my heart catapults in my chest.
I rock back and forth on the bed. My mind fills with the bathroom down the hall with its box of razor blades under the sink. The kitchen with its slinky promise of knives. I uncurl myself, force myself to feel around my body, count off the scars and bandages, the sheer accumulation of my own damage.
There is nothing else I can do to myself.
Louisa comes to me then, an image out of nowhere: on fire, her fine hair rising in flame, skin melting off like butter.
I sit up so fast tape pops on my stomach. I press it back into place, wincing at the pain. My backpack’s in the closet. I drop to my knees, digging inside. It’s th
e only thing Wendy didn’t destroy.
Louisa’s composition books are still tightly bound. I work at the tape with my fingers.
The first page of the first book begins, in small, neat black script: A girl’s life is the worst life in the world. A girl’s life is: you are born, you bleed, you burn.
Louisa’s words hurt, but they are true, they ring through me. I read everything that night, each book. I can’t stop.
It’s early morning and I haven’t slept yet, Louisa’s words still electric inside me. Cutting is a fence you build upon your own body to keep people out but then you cry to be touched. But the fence is barbed. What then? When I pull myself out of bed Linus tells me that Felix is letting me work in one of the empty bedrooms, the smallest one. Devvie and Tanner move a tall table, a stool, and boxes of supplies—pads, pencils, inks, pens, and paints—into the room for me. Devvie is an angular girl with a penchant for flannel shirts and track pants. She is something called ABD at New York University.
The room smells musty. Outside, the horse nickers. Tanner takes him out for a ride every morning at this time. I sit on the floor, dirt and dust sticking to the backs of my calves.
Felix said to do something I loved. Or felt complicated passion for. Ariel said to use myself. Louisa gave me the story of her life. A drunk and a drunk met and they made a mess: me. I was born with a broken heart.
I trace the scars on my legs, feel up under my shirt at the years of cuts healed and unhealed. It is all I am, now, these lines and burns, the moments behind them. A girl is born.
In the musty room, I select a sketchbook with thick, creamy paper, and dark pens. Using a ruler, I begin a frame on one piece of paper, testing the flow of the black pen, its feel in my fingers. It works like water over the paper, no pushing like with charcoal. On another piece of paper, I sketch, lightly, testing myself, testing the images that appear.
A girl is born. I start with myself: a girl with clumpy hair in a yellowy, fuzzy cardigan on the first day of a new school, all her scars hidden under the sweater and her jeans. What a sad girl she is, mouth clamped shut, eyes burning, a force field of anger and fear vibrating inside her. She watches the other kids, how easily they move around each other, laughing, adjusting headphones, whispering. She wants to say My father is in the river down the street but she says nothing. She meets a beautiful girl with wild purple hair and white, white skin. The beautiful, momentous girl smells sweet and creamy, like face powder and too much black eyeliner.
The beautiful, momentous girl is fucking angelic.
Louisa wrote, Each aberration of my skin is a song. Press your mouth against me. You will hear so much singing.
I draw and lose the hours.
As the story progresses, the character of Charlie loses more clothing, piece by piece, her pale young woman’s flesh taking on more and more damage as the arc unfolds. I fall asleep on my arms on the table. I wake and resume the story. I am no good at talking, no good at making the right words reel from my brain to my mouth and out, but I’m good at this, my pictures and the words I can write. I’m good at this.
This is what Felix meant. What you do should fly through your blood, carrying you somewhere.
My fingers begin to cramp, and I need some space, and air. I leave the house quietly. I walk for a long time in the desert, finding a shaded spot under a cottonwood to rest, balancing one of Louisa’s books on my knees. It’s quiet and empty and full out here, in the desert, all at once. I burrow deep into Tanner’s fleece.
Louisa wrote, People should know about us. Girls who write their pain on their bodies.
I read and reread her life slowly. It’s difficult and it hurts, but she gave me her words and her story, every bloody bit of it.
No one bothers me. No one comes to ask what I’m doing. When I’m hungry, I go to the kitchen and make a sandwich, fill a glass of water, return to the room, and keep drawing the comic.
—
I think it takes three days, maybe four, I can’t tell, I don’t know, but at some point, I just have a feeling, something clear and final that says: Finished. For now, finished.
I gently gather all my papers and put them in order, place them in a tidy pile on the tall table, clean up the pens, dump the pencil shavings in the basket under the window.
Everything Casper wanted me to say I’ve drawn instead.
I have a voice. I have a place for my voice.
I look down at the sloppy, too-big sweatpants Linus gave me, the waistband rolled down three times, and the giant NYU T-shirt Devvie loaned me. I think of my overalls back in the wrecked and bloody apartment, my long jersey shirts, the clompy black boots. It’s time for different things. It’s time for me to speak again.
I strip off the borrowed clothes, shivering in the cool air from the open window. I wrap a gray wool blanket around myself and leave the room, quietly slipping out the back door. I sit on the steps for a long time, in the fresh cold, listening to the desert unfold around me, its chirps and squeaks and howls, listening to the sounds of Felix murmuring inside, Linus and Tanner squabbling over cards.
It sounds like home, all of it.
A few days later, when it’s time to leave, Felix hugs each of us, even me. I shrink from his touch at first and then, consciously, force myself to relax. He rubs my back with his sturdy hands. He kisses my forehead. Linus and Tanner pack the car; Devvie has made several sandwiches for us, arranged a bag of fruit and cheeses, though I suspect Tanner will want to stop for salty treats.
I adjust the waistband of my skirt. It’s army green, cotton, falling just above my knees, four dollars at the Value-Thrift in Santa Fe. I look down at my plain black sneakers, the Santa Fe High School Raiders T-shirt, short-sleeved and light brown, the scars on my legs. What was it Blue said? Who gives a shit.
Linus took me shopping and automatically walked us to the denim section of the store and started sifting through hangers of jeans and overalls, thinking that was what I’d like. I left her there and wandered around. When she found me, my arms were full of plain cotton skirts and T-shirts and one pilled black cardigan with shiny silver buttons. I shook my head at her arms full of overalls and said, “Not anymore.” She raised her eyebrows, smiled, and took them back to the rack.
Felix says, “Did you know, Charlotte, that there is a whole, interesting history of self-mortification?”
I stare at him, unsure of the word, but then I think I understand.
He nods. “It’s true, my dear. Some people used it as a way to get closer to God.” He raises his chin to me. “Are you trying to get closer to God, Charlotte?”
I shake my head. “Fuck no,” I say. Felix laughs and helps me into the car.
Linus starts the car and we drive, but she stops just where we should turn onto the road, looking in the rearview mirror. I turn around. Felix is lumbering down the gravel, his fuzzy slippers raising rivulets of dust. He bends down by my window, out of breath, motions for me to lean closer.
In my ear, he whispers, “You be you, Charlotte. You be you.”
In Albuquerque, Tanner takes the backseat, falls asleep. Linus shoves the bag of pork rinds in my direction. I pour some into the palm of my hand.
“Linus,” I say softly. “Why are you helping me? You don’t even know me, and I’ve been so selfish. Like, I’ve never even asked you anything about yourself. And I’m sorry. That was shitty.” I take a breath. It’s what I wanted to say.
Her cheek is fat with food, like a squirrel’s. She swallows. “I drank my kids away from me. All those years I spent trying to get sober, they stayed with their dad and they didn’t want to see me, and rightly so. I did some truly horrible things that still make me want to puke with shame when I think about them.”
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Life without a mom is pretty shitty. They’re mad. They’re coming around, but real slow. They’re good kids, though, which makes me think they had some kindness along the way, little kick starts of help and love. So that’s what I’m doing.
That’s why I’m helping you. I don’t know the story of your mom, but I have to believe she’s hoping somebody is looking out for you.”
I crush the rinds in my hand, lick the pebbles from my palm. “My mother doesn’t think like that.”
Linus is quiet for a long time before she answers.
“Yes. She does. Someday? If you decide to have kids, you’ll know what I mean. And it’ll knock you damn flat on your ass.”
It’s late when Linus drops me off in front of the building. The street is quiet, the liquor store closed for the night. I shut my eyes when we passed Twelfth Street. I didn’t want to risk looking out and seeing his robin’s-egg-blue house.
The foyer light is dim, but the first thing I notice is that the railing and floor have been repainted a light peach color; the entry door is a fresh, crisp white. The hallway smells like lilacs, clean; the walls have been painted a quiet, light blue. I approach the door to my apartment. I can hear music from the room and my heart sinks. Leonard must have already rented the apartment. Did he save any of my things? Maybe he put them in boxes in the basement. But where’s Blue? And where am I supposed to go? My heart starts to beat very fast. As I turn to go, the door inches open.
The bruises on Blue’s face are fading, but the ring around her eye is still swollen and purple-yellow. There are red lines with small dots left over from the stitches.
Blue breathes in relief. “Charlie. I’m so glad to see you.” She opens the door wider. “Are you talking? Are you okay? I thought you might go back to being quiet for a while.”
The room is neat as a pin, no more ashtrays, and there is a new, plain wood dresser to hold Blue’s clothes. The linoleum has been ripped up and the wood beneath it sanded and painted a rose color. I realize that the linoleum would have been soiled from my blood; I feel a surge of guilt. Blue bends to run a hand across the wood. “Fir,” she says softly. My slashed futon has been replaced with a double bed covered with a fluffy, inviting comforter. Blue has installed plain metal shelves in the kitchen and filled them with stacks of pink dishes and cups, jars of sauces and jams, cans of food, crackers. Another thick shelf sports a microwave. A shower curtain with a map of the world hangs from the ceiling around the tub. A cloth curtain with irises surrounds the toilet.
Girl in Pieces Page 28