She considered her explanation to Adam, how she got the tattoo without money or her mother’s consent, and quickly decided she owed him nothing. She had never agreed to be exclusive and him saying, “I love you” didn’t obligate her.
She snuffed the joint on the ash-stained crate Lance used as a nightstand and sat up, the threadbare carpet scratching her bare feet.
“F.M.L.,” she said turning on the top light of the tree lamp.
She pulled on a pair of thigh-high argyle socks and tall leather boots that just about covered them. The zipper caught at the inside of her right calf and she sucked in a hissing breath through her teeth. “Shhh…”
Lance twitched and rolled over. His back was scratched from shoulder to hip and there were tiny specks of dried blood on the sheet beneath him. She checked in the mirror for marks of her own—wrists, neck, back: all clear.
“Sleep tight,” she whispered and put on his Iron Maiden tee-shirt, a micro mini, and his coat that reeked of stale smoke and patchouli.
She wanted a hot shower now more than ever. It had been days of cold ones, and unless her mother reinstated the electricity, tomorrow would be no different. She picked up his car keys and her cell phone off the dresser and went outside to dial.
“Brea, it’s me.”
“Harmony? It’s two-thirty in the morning.” Her voice was distant and groggy.
“Your phone on vibrate?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. You didn’t wake her.”
Joan, Brea’s mother, was a notoriously light sleeper.
“Good. Grab your case and meet me out front in fifteen.”
“Wh…”
She hung up before Brea had the chance to say “no” and climbed into the driver’s seat of Lance’s old Grand Prix. The cool leather seat felt good against the post-coital soreness and she let out a relieved sigh.
The shellacked wood of the old Ouija board on the passenger’s seat next to her gleamed in the streetlight.
She took an unopened pack of menthols from the glove compartment and lit one, pulling up to the first stop sign before turning on the headlights and blasting the death metal as loud as she could stand it. The right rear speaker was blown and hummed like angry bees. A fat man, one of her mother’s regulars, looked up at the sound, his knuckles raised to bang on the trailer door.
“Maybe now she’ll pay the bill,” Harmony said and pulled on to Route 32, keeping an eye on the rearview for cops.
9.
Brea groaned, rolled out of bed, and stuffed two pillows under the comforter as a decoy. Her reflection in the full-length mirror looked too tired to be familiar. Bruise-like half circles underlined her slate blue eyes and her hair stood on end.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this again.”
This was the second time in a week that Harmony had her sneaking out of the house and she wasn’t up to another hike; five miles in darkness, her feet so cold they felt frostbitten. No, thank you. Words she hadn’t said to Harmony in ten years of friendship no matter how much her mother wanted her to.
She put on a pair of Capri-length sweatpants and a hoodie and felt between her box spring and mattress for the art portfolio and charcoal tin she used to do the gravestone rubbings they called “rubs”. She leaned the stiff leather bag against her bed frame and tucked in the loose pages spilling from the strained zipper.
They had been going to Oakwood Cemetery for the past two years and she’d collected almost every headstone, some of the older ones twice. The old keystone style was her favorite.
Her cell phone vibrated in her sweatshirt pocket and she jumped. It was a text message from Harmony that said she was outside. Brea pressed her face to the window and saw the unfamiliar car parked curbside.
“Oh, no.”
Harmony clicked on the dim dome light and waved from the driver’s seat. The look on her face said trouble.
“What did you do now, Harmony?”
Brea rolled her eyes and adjusted the long portfolio strap so it rested diagonal across her chest. She lifted her bedroom window so as not to wake her mother and stepped out barefoot on the roof. Shoes would be slippery. She pushed the screen back in place and shook the loose shingle gravel from her numbing feet. The strap of her bag cut into her shoulder as she swung over the guttered ledge to a knotty Oak branch overhanging the roof, and down to the grass where she put on her flip-flops.
Harmony waved frantically as if to say, “hurry up” which only made Brea more nervous.
“God, I’m coming.” Cigarette smoke rolled out of the passenger’s side door like fog. Brea coughed and put on her seatbelt. She didn’t even ask whose car it was. Wherever it came from, she didn’t want to know.
Harmony lit the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth off the butt of the previous one. “Dragon Lady sleeping?” She reached across the seat for a hug.
Brea turned her head away and tried not to breathe as she hugged her, cracking the window an inch afterwards and sucking in the cold, clean air. She looked up at her mother’s darkened bedroom window and shrugged. “Looks like it.”
“Good.” Harmony peeled the wrap off her tattoo. “We need to talk.”
* * * * *
There was a thickness, a heavy presence around them as they climbed through the bend in Orchard View Cemetery’s locked gate. The waxing moon gleamed across the rain-soaked ground. The only other light was the eternal flame flickering in the distance.
“So what’s with the tattoo?” Brea asked. “Your mother’s going to have your head.”
Harmony ducked through the gate, twisting her bag through behind her. “No, that’d be your mother and she’d march you right to confession. My mother won’t even notice.”
“Well, how’d you get it? I mean, you’re not eighteen and I’m sure Charity didn’t give you written permission.”
“You know Lance, right?”
“Lance, from Needles Ink? The drug dealing, walking felony?” Harmony’s smile widened. “Oh, you didn’t.” Harmony laughed. “And that’s his car? Tell me you got permission to take it.”
“Fine. I got permission.”
The mud rose over the top of Brea’s flip-flops and rubbed her ice cold feet raw. She wished she had put on socks and sneakers and had a bad feeling that Harmony was lying for her benefit. “Oh this is bad,” she said louder than she intended.
“Actually, he was not bad at all,” Harmony said, pleased. “That boy has a hell of a grip.” She clenched her throat for effect.
“TMI, Harmony. TMI. What about Adam?”
“What about him? He has no idea.” Harmony’s heavy boots sank in the marshy grass past the yellow stitching. “Besides,” she said, scraping the clumps of mud off with a stick, “they don’t run in the same circles. How would he find out?”
Brea stepped out of her shoes and continued barefoot as they reached the far corner of the cemetery. “You know, this is the worst possible night to be doing this.”
“Says the girl in the bare feet. You’re supposed to be the smart one?”
Brea rinsed her flip flops in a shallow puddle and put them in the outside pocket of her bag. She held a black pen light between her teeth casting its glow on one of the older headstones. “Here hold this,” she said the best she could with her mouth full. She gave Harmony her bag and waited for her to find the old tee shirt she used to dry and dust the stone.
“You sure you don’t have this one?” Harmony handed her the wad of stained white cotton.
“I’m sure.”
Brea gently patted the face of the old headstone, careful not to crumble the already fragile granite. She taped a length of white butcher’s paper to the face and made sure it was even. The really old stones were her favorite, but careless vandals had gotten rubbings banned at Oakwood, so she could only do them at night. She took a squared-off piece of artist’s charcoal and gently rubbed along the face of the stone. Her fingertips were so cold that the vibrations hurt.
“I don’t want to sound ungratef
ul for the kidnapping, but if you wanted to gloat about screwing Lance or your new tattoo, couldn’t it wait until the morning? And then maybe someplace where I won’t get frostbite or hypothermia?”
Harmony stripped off Lance’s oversized coat and laid it liner side up on the driest patch of grass she could find.
Brea darkened the details of her rub and, satisfied with the work, slid the tracing inside her portfolio next to the others.
“When you’re done,” Harmony said, “come here a minute.”
She wrestled the Ouija board and planchette from her bag and set it up on the jacket.
Brea looked up from her portfolio and her breath caught. She dug her toes into the mud and the surface roots of weeds that she briefly imagined were the tendons and sinew of some half-rotten soul. “I don’t want anything to do with that thing, Harmony.”
“Stop it. It’s nothing.” Harmony lit three black candles on a nearby headstone and set her fingers on the planchette’s edge
“It’s not nothing.” Brea stuffed her shaking hands into her sweatshirt pocket. “You tell me about the things Tom does to you and you expect me to use that thing willingly? No, thank you.”
Harmony lit her cigarette off one of the candles. “You know what? Your mother’s turned you into a real chicken shit.”
Brea felt like she was about to be sick. “If anyone scared me off that thing it was you.”
“Come on, Brea. Do this with me, please? It’ll be fine. I promise.” She drew an “x” over her heart with her finger and smiled innocently.
“I’d really rather not.”
“Buck-buck-bgawk.”
“Fine.” Brea set her portfolio on top of a large, flat monument and sat Indian-style on the coat.
Harmony snuffed out the remaining half of her cigarette and put her hands on the planchette.
Brea’s hands were shaking so bad that she knocked Harmony’s off the planchette.
“Easy, Goliath.” Harmony laughed. A sudden gust of wind extinguished the candles. “Ah, shit.” She fumbled through her bag for her lighter and a thick tree branch snapped in the distance.
Brea screamed and covered her mouth.
“Freeze, right there.” A white light blinded them.
“Harmony, what’s going on?” Brea whispered.
“Is that Brea Miller?” asked a second, familiar male voice “Jim’s going to love this.”
The flashlight lowered and she saw Mike and Pat’s faces. They were officers in her uncle’s precinct that she’d known her whole life. It took them only about a second to figure out what was happening.
Brea thought about her mother, how she didn’t know she’d been sneaking out, and how insane she was going to be when she found out. Panic set in and the world started spinning.
“Harmony Wolcott, you are under arrest for auto theft.” Mike lifted Harmony up by the crook of her elbow and cuffed her hands behind her back. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”
Brea teetered, half-dazed and disbelieving, listening to Harmony being read her Miranda rights.
“Do you understand each of these rights as I’ve read them to you?”
Harmony puffed out her chest and lifted her chin. “Yeah. I get it.”
It wasn’t her first time being arrested.
Brea was in awe of her cool. She took a series of long, deep breaths and leaned on the Riley monument until the worst of the lightheadedness passed.
Pat and Mike watched and waited.
“Brea, I have to ask you to come with us.” Pat ran his hand through his thinning gray hair and grimaced.
She knew he’d let her go if it was up to him, but Mike wouldn’t let him take “no” for an answer so she had little choice but to agree to go with them. Besides, she didn’t want to walk home, and even if she did, her uncle would have called her mother before she even hit the front door. It was better to face her mother in a public place and under police protection.
“Grab my stuff,” Harmony said to Brea as Mike led her away.
Brea put the board in the bag, picked up her portfolio, folded the muddy coat inside out over her arm, and followed Pat to the small parking lot where Lance’s Grand Prix was already on a flat bed headed for the impound.
Mike loaded Harmony into the back of his own car, ducking her head so she didn’t hit it. She pulled away from him and got in by herself.
Brea watched Mike close the door and looked at Pat. “I don’t have to ride in the back, do I?”
Pat shook his head and opened the passenger’s side door; a courtesy, she knew.
The silence in the car was more unnerving than the arrest. The anticipation was killing her. “Did she really steal the car?” She nestled the bags and coat between her feet.
“Probably better we don’t talk about that.” He picked up the radio to call the station.
10.
The security cameras followed the cruisers through the razor wire gate into the well-lit lot of the county lock-up and police station.
Pat waited for Mike to get Harmony past the metal detector, the preliminary searches, and into the holding room before bringing Brea in. Harmony was silent, unshaken, cuffed and defiant. Brea wondered how she could be so strong when she, the innocent one, was scared shitless.
The police station was one big room with several plainly furnished offices on the outskirts; one of which belonged to her Uncle Jim. The main room was full of enough late-night drunks, addicts, and domestic abuse victims to keep the several armed officers transporting combatant collars busy.
Brea covered her nose when she got a whiff of the homeless man being brought in behind her.
Pat did, too.
“God, you’re ripe,” said the arresting officer, a newbie whose name she didn’t know.
The homeless man spat at the officer and the young man, lacking experience and patience, yoked him up.
The smelly man broke free, swinging. “Keep your hands off of me you goddamned pig.”
Uncle Jim came from out of nowhere and wrestled the man to the ground.
“Uncle Jim…”
He looked up at Brea, bright red with exertion as he bore down on the struggling vagrant. “Get her out of here, Pat.”
Pat’s look of, Where would you like me to take her? only made him angrier.
“My office, Pat. Can you handle that?”
“Let’s go, Brea. You heard the man.”
Pat took Harmony’s things and handed them to Gina, the clerk, through the door in the bulletproof window. “You know which one is his, right?” Brea nodded. “Your mom’s on her way.”
“I figured. Uncle Jim call her?”
“Yep.”
“She seem mad?”
“He didn’t say, but…”
“Brea Miller,” her mother shouted over the melee.
Joan Miller wasn’t the type to be caught ugly. She was one of those “you never know who you’ll run into” types and tonight—this morning—was no exception. She looked like a centerfold from Better Homes and Gardens, if there was such a thing, in her pressed Banana Republic blouse and nicest dark blue jeans. Her red hair was styled in a loose French twist with curly tendrils framing her delicate and freshly made-up face. A gold cross dangled from the chain around her neck.
Pat opened his arms in greeting and headed in her direction. “You go to your uncle’s office,” he said to Brea out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ll try to calm down your mother.”
Brea held her portfolio behind her back and stayed close to the wall as she walked. Her mother didn’t approve of hanging out in cemeteries.
Lance plowed through the front door, raging.
“Now it’s a party,” Brea said.
Pat hugged Joan and spoke loud enough that Brea heard him trying to get her out of trouble. There was no way that was happening. Her mother was still screaming.
“No bull, Pat. Let me at her.”
“Joan, she really wasn’t the one…”
Har
mony kicked and thrashed loudly in the holding cell, pounding the glass with her fists. Lance was on the other side of the window shouting something about the fact that she drugged him.
Funny, Brea thought he only drugged himself.
“Mike, get him out of here.”
Mike pulled Lance away and directed Joan into Jim’s office where she and everyone else within earshot overheard Lance’s yarn about how Harmony stole his car—leaving out that he screwed and tattooed her first.
Jim’s office hadn’t changed in over twenty years and was a testament to his single, focused life. His unadorned metal desk was centered in the room, two chairs in front of it—his, behind. The walls were covered in various plaques of commendation and the only picture was of Brea and her mother from when Brea was three-years-old.
Brea tucked her portfolio behind her uncle’s desk and tried to come up with some explanation, any explanation that might lessen the impending punishment. “Mom, let me explain.” She stalled, keeping Pat strategically between her and her mother.
She wasn’t looking for an explanation and her otherwise china-white complexion grew quickly red. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to get a call at this hour of the morning that my daughter’s been arrested?”
“No, not arrested,” Pat said.
“Whatever. At the police station for pick-up?” She looked at Pat to see if he agreed with her terminology. “I told you Harmony is trouble, Brea. The kind of people she comes from…”
“Mom. That’s unfair. Her mother isn’t her fault. And she didn’t steal the car. He told her she could use it. This whole thing is bullshit.”
Joan looked at Pat, trying her best to ignore Brea's open use of profanity. "Are we done here?"
“We’ll finish this at home.” Her hand clamped around Brea’s bicep.
“But Mom, you can’t leave her here. She has no one to come get her.”
“She should’ve thought about that before she stole a car.”
“For the last time, she didn’t steal it.” Brea dug her muddy flip flops into the floor and pulled back in protest. “I’m not leaving without her.”
Dead Spell Page 3