I’ll be right back, I tell her, but she still won’t let go, her grip tightening, her eyes glued to mine (knowing, even before I do). I have to pry her fingers away.
Finally loose, I take a step back and stare at her, rubbing my hand. Then I turn without a word and cross the square, zig-zagging through the crowd of dancers and onlookers (nearly colliding with a kid doing skate-boarding tricks by the foot of the monument).
By the time I reach the vendor a line has formed. I stand behind an elderly couple and their grandchildren. The little girl has a painted face and won’t hold hands with her brother. I try to find Regan beyond the crowd but a group of teenagers lines up behind me, blocking my view.
Hey, don’t I know you? asks a boy with a piercing in his cheek. He cocks his head to one side as he considers me.
I shake my head.
Yeah, he says, you’re that chick, the one everybody knows. He snaps his fingers (snap). You’re that Regan chick, he says and his friends murmur their ascent.
No, I say, turning to face him so abruptly that he jumps back. I’m not Regan, I say steadily. You’ve got the wrong girl.
I step out of line, relinquishing my place.
Sorry, the boy says, my mistake. He and his friends erupt into giggles as I turn away. (And here, in this moment, the decision is made, as I turn towards the sidewalk, instead of the square, as I turn my back on Regan, the laughter of the teenagers in my ears. This is the end).
I start walking down the sidewalk, not yet realizing what I’m doing, the cars gliding by on my left, the last of the vendors setting up on my right. I keep my eyes on my feet (thinking of Regan’s face, only her face, as it used to be, as I loved it). I wait until the fields open up beside me before I break into a run.
(Yet now, years later, when I think back on those tumultuous months in The Apartments, amongst the aging furniture and gaping doorways, it isn’t me I remember. Of myself at that age I can recall very little, my few memories blurry and diluted, my own face blotted out by another crystal clear image. It’s she who comes back to me in daydreams and nightmares, wisps of her trailing after me through my days, haunting me. I remember nothing else; nothing but her hair flying in the wind, her eyes crinkling in a grin, her voice echoing through a room, calling me.
I remember nothing but Regan.)
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
CONTENTS
EXCERPT FROM THE GRIMLY QUEEN
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
The Grimly Queen Page 8