Anybody in the audience a slurper?
Well, you know what I mean; it’s a way of eating that once you start you just can’t break. Probably because it makes eating more fun. I find that if I make a little noise when I eat, the food tastes better.
When Ruby ate, she was silent. You couldn’t even hear her chewing. Needless to say we weren’t the ideal match at the supper table. There she’d sit carefully nibbling some curry or other that she’d spent at least an hour on, while I uncontrollably slurped. She flinched with my every forkful. When we had soup, things really got bad.
“Orphea, please make less noise. This isn’t a barnyard.”
Or else she’d say something less direct like: “What are little girls made of?”
That was my cue to close my mouth when I chewed.
“Sugar and spice and everything nice,” she’d answer for me.
I’d stop slurping and take very small sips of my soup. That’s what “everything nice” meant—small sips. But it was no use; two minutes later, I’d slurp. She was such a good cook, all I could think of was tasting. Forget the manners.
Pretty soon, Ruby didn’t sit down with me. She waited to eat something quick with Rupert. So unless I was at Lissa’s, I dined alone, slurping everything from French toast to mashed potatoes.
My table manners were only one of the things about me that Ruby found irritating. You can’t blame her, I guess. She didn’t ask to be my new mother.
Lissa’s parents, on the other hand, had picked her out. She was adopted. And she was an expert at doing just the right thing. Her mom would order outfits for her out of clothes catalogs without even asking Lissa’s opinion—some ghastly checked shorts ensemble, for instance—and Lissa would oooh and ahh as if she adored it. Then she’d actually put the thing on and wear it to school.
“Why don’t you ask your mom to let you pick out your own clothes?”
“That would ruin her fun.”
“What about your fun? That outfit is geeky.”
“Who cares?” That was courageous, believe me. In the place we went to school, people were scrutinized down to the toenail. If you lacked the right handbag, you could be ostracized; forget about growing your armpits, which is something I was secretly into. But Lissa would wear these Mom-picked outfits and hold her head high. The funny thing is that she could pull it off, because she was so gorgeous. But in her entire sixteen years, Lissa never once said no to her parents, about anything. I know that for a fact. Could be because of Annie, her older sister. Annie was her mom and dad’s biological child. At the age of fifteen, she stole one of the family televisions to pawn for a bus ticket. The police had to bring her back. Lissa told me about a fight at dinner one evening, when her sister threw a fork at their dad and nearly put his eye out. Shortly after that, Annie ran away again, leaving behind all her stuff, and that time she didn’t come back.… So, Lissa had to be the good one. But don’t get me wrong—she was still her own person. She just managed to say yes to her parents about everything while doing precisely what she wanted to at the same time. She had a snake tattooed on her ankle that they never even knew about. I don’t know how she hid it; she must have worn socks at the lake when she went swimming. When she got the tattoo, I went with her. The guy at the tattoo parlor asked for ID and Lissa gave them an old one that had belonged to Annie. Somehow it worked.
In high school, Lissa’s paintings changed. She got into flowers, massive, fleshy flowers in psychedelic colors. A three-foot-high sunflower of hers won first place in the school art competition. The art teacher told Lissa that the painting was like Van Gogh. Lissa smiled politely when she heard that, but she wasn’t pleased.
“I want to be like Georgia O’Keeffe,” she said. “Lascivious.” No mention of Picasso. I’ll never forget a rose that she did—huge and velvety. But my favorite will always be the leaf she painted for me when we were twelve.
Let me take a breath.
After she peeled away in the van, I kept myself barricaded inside. I lost track of time. Three hours might have passed. I stayed huddled on the floor in front of my dresser, hunkered down for the next attack. I was scared to go downstairs. I didn’t know what to do. Then the phone rang. I held my breath. I was sure it was Lissa on the line. She would have been worried about me; probably afraid that Rupert had killed me. Ruby had tried to protect me. Maybe if she answered she’d call me to the phone. But she didn’t.
After that, silence. Or rather what I heard was a lack of noise, as if I were in the center of a vacuum. I hugged my knees and buried my head. The blood I’d tasted earlier had been coming from the side of my eye. When Rupert had struck me, I’d been cut somehow, maybe by his wedding ring.
I wanted Nadine so much in that moment. I wanted her to pick up my whole room with me in it and toss it out of the window onto a gliding cloud that would take me and Lissa straight to a different world where it was no big deal for girls to French kiss. A world where people would let each other be who they are and mind their own business and concentrate on doing kind deeds or making poems and paintings or finding a cure for brain hemorrhages.
Finally, I stood up and began pushing the furniture away from my door. My mouth was dry as cotton and my legs were shaking. I had to call Lissa. One of the many weird features of life with Rupert and Ruby was that there was no phone above the first floor. And I wasn’t permitted a cell phone. If I couldn’t get to the phone downstairs, I decided, I’d go to Lissa’s house instead. If Rupert tried to stop me, I’d fight my way out.
I picked up a shoe. If Rupert made a move to touch me again, I vowed to whack him in his teeth. That man loved his teeth. I pushed the bed away and cracked the door open. Rupert and Ruby were climbing the stairs.
“Come out, Orphea,” my brother said. He sounded more grim than angry. He even sounded a little sorry.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Ruby. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“You’d better not. I’ll call the police!”
Rupert pushed the door open the rest of the way. They stood facing me.
“Move!” I tried to brush past them.
Rupert stopped me. “Don’t go to Lissa’s.”
“I’ll go where I please. Get out of my way.”
“We have something to tell you,” Ruby said timidly. She peered at my face. “Your poor eye …”
“Yeah! And who did that?”
Rupert cleared his throat. “I lost my temper.”
“I’ll say.”
Ruby stepped closer. “Lissa’s father just phoned.”
“I hope she told him what Rupert did.”
“I don’t think so. You see, something bad happened.”
“What could be worse than being beat almost senseless by your own brother?”
“Shut up and listen,” snapped Rupert.
“Say what you have to say and let me out of here!”
Ruby touched my arm. “Lissa’s spleen was ruptured.”
“Her spleen?”
“The van skidded. An ambulance came—”
I felt a sick feeling inside. “Is she in the hospital? I have to see her.”
“You can’t. She’s dead.”
You made a portrait for my wall
Green
The inside of a leaf was all
Green
You wrapped me in a rainbow, girl
There was no springtime in my world
Until that green
Too new to pay the price
Our love became a vice
Sticks and stones may break my bones
Yet into the prism of your eye, I climb
To be a color so divine
To be your leaf
Green
UNACCEPTABLE
Dead?
Put yourself in my place—
No way—
I screamed in Rupert’s face.
“Fuck you! Liar!”
“No need—”
“You’re making it up!”
“Her father�
��”
“Fuck you!”
Ruby ran across the room with her hands over her ears. “That filthy word!”
“ ‘Fuck you’ is a phrase, you mouse-eyed no-mother. A paper bag you could punch through. It’s not a belt, not a whip, not your husband’s fist that landed in my face. It’s a phrase! So, fuck you!”
Rupert grabbed me by the collar and slapped me.
“I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now I see that you are incorrigible. Your friend just died and you’re cursing at your mother.”
“My friend didn’t die! She’s not my mother!”
“We don’t have your kind of people in our family. Thank your lucky stars that we’re willing to forgive you.”
“Forgive me!”
“To forget what I saw. It’s unacceptable! But I’m willing to forget, now that she’s dead.”
“Stop saying that! You asshole! I hate you!”
“Calm down, Orphea,” Ruby said. “We’re trying to be understanding. Lissa is—”
“I don’t believe you!”
“Time out, Miss Tough-guy. Don’t you scream at Ruby again! You and your friend acted like sluts. Don’t think I didn’t tell her—”
“What did you tell her?”
“Not to come back! Now, I’m sorry she died, but that’s not my fault. And it doesn’t give you the right—”
I fell on my knees and began to cry. Then, without warning, I threw up.
Rupert jumped out of the way. Ruby brought me a towel. I cleaned my face. I felt like the towel, soaked with vomit.
“Where is she?”
“Open Arms, I suppose,” said Ruby. She looked worried. She was standing over me. Her voice sounded like an echo chamber. “Her folks will let us know the details. Want me to put something on your eye?”
“Don’t—”
Rupert knelt down beside me. “What happened today is between these four walls.” He leaned closer. “You don’t have to worry. Hear me?”
What was he talking about?
He stood up. “Now get a grip on yourself.”
They left me standing in the middle of my room. It was as if I were alone in the universe and the only center I had to hold on to was myself. And myself was petrified. Terrified. I wasn’t crying anymore. I was waiting, while a tape inside my head kept saying that it couldn’t be true; that Rupert and Ruby had made the whole thing up, which was incredibly vicious even for them. How could she be dead, when only this morning I had felt her breath on the back of my neck?
I opened my mouth and screamed. And I was sobbing into the quilt and pillow, seeing her face, drawing in ragged breaths of her fragrance, lemons, peanut butter, patchouli. My cheek fell upon a hard thing in the sheets, one of her earrings, a small gold hoop with an orange stone. I’m wearing it in my ear tonight, see? One of her striped socks appeared at the foot of the mattress. I cried until my sobs came up in dry heaves.
Suddenly my arms and legs began to move without me, as I threw on more clothes, a sweatshirt, my pink scarf, my red bandana, jeans. The T-shirt I had been sleeping in was torn and covered with dry blood. I ripped it off my body. I thrashed across the room, crazily getting ready—for what? Only my arms and legs knew, and my hands, which deftly creased the red bandana and laid it across my forehead above the cut on my eye, and quickly made a knot at the back of my head, above the nape of my neck. Why was I getting dressed up? Was I dressed up? I opened the door to my room and raced down the stairs, heedless of falling, not anticipating in my mind the number of steps in my stride. Almost as if I were flying, down and onto the carpet and out the wooden door. Then I was slipping on the sidewalk. My sneakers were soaked and I’d forgotten my own socks, though I had Lissa’s in my pocket.
Where am I going? My thoughts rambled. What just happened? This can’t be real.
But my feet knew where to go. They led me slipping through ten blocks of slush to Open Arms Funeral Home.
I will find you
Pebble in the snow
Needle hid in hay
Trembling drop in ocean’s spray
My feet will take me
I will touch you with frozen toes
Pricked finger
With parched tongue I will drink you
You are my sole elixir
SUNFLOWER
When I got to Open Arms, a lamp was burning in the window. There was no sign of Lissa’s parents. The door was unlocked. A statue of an angel hovered over the lobby. The place was like a velvet womb, red velvet drapes, red velvet chairs. My arms were yearning to hold Lissa. Somewhere, I was hoping that she wasn’t dead.
I tiptoed across the lobby and began wandering the corridors—not a soul in sight. But I heard someone humming a scratchy, nondescript tune. A door at the end of the corridor was partway open. The humming was coming from there. I walked to the door and slipped inside the room. A small woman with gray hair was stooped over an open coffin.
My legs buckled. The air was filled with the strong smell of chemicals. The woman turned around and glanced up at me. She wore thick glasses. In her hand was a small paintbrush. What could she possibly be painting?
“Are you all right, dear?” Her face was soft as dough.
“My friend …”
The woman stood up and motioned toward the coffin. “Are you the granddaughter? They told me that you might come.”
Totally confused at this point, I felt a thick lump rose in my throat. “Is that Lissa?”
“Lissa? No, this is Virginia.” She stepped away from the coffin to permit me a view.
I took a few steps forward and saw the face of an elderly woman, carefully powdered and rouged. Her top lip had lipstick; the bottom lip was pale. I sighed with relief.
“We’re not quite ready yet,” the attendant explained. I glanced again at the tiny brush and understood. She was the makeup artist.
“So Lissa Evans isn’t here? She’s not dead?”
The woman led me to a stool.
“She’s my friend. She’s only sixteen. Someone told me she died. It could be a mistake.”
“We’re expecting an Evans,” she said quietly.
I felt a stab of pain. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t have the details. Is there someone that I can call for you? Someone to drive you home?”
“No.” I stood up and peeked at the corpse. “Somebody’s grandma?”
“Ninety-five. Died at a party.”
A tear rolled down my cheek.
“Lissa never wore makeup. She wouldn’t like lipstick.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her. I’ll tell her you stopped by.… ”
After that I went to Icky’s. The diner had closed early on account of the weather. I knocked and Marilyn let me in. When I tried to explain what had happened, she and Icky didn’t understand at first.
“Were you driving?”
“I wasn’t in the car.”
“Then how were you in the accident?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You’re still in shock. She’s in shock, Icky. She must have been in the accident—look at her.”
They were confused by my cuts and bruises. And I guess I was in a state of shock.
“Lissa was driving. She was leaving my house. She was alone.”
“Is she okay?” That was Marilyn.
“Her spleen broke.”
Icky cracked his knuckles. “Poor girl. Where’d you get that fat lip, then?”
I lowered my eyes. “Rupert was mad at us.”
“Your brother did that?”
I began sobbing. “Don’t worry about me. Lissa is the one. Her spleen …”
“Where is she?” asked Marilyn. “In the hospital?”
“I went to see her body, but she wasn’t there.”
Icky’s face turned into itself, but Marilyn kind of exploded.
“Her body? Oh dear Lord, no! Oh, Orphea. Oh, Lissa.” She hugged me and the two of us were crying and Icky was pacing.
“Did that jerk brother of yours do something to cause Lissa to wreck?”
“She was by herself. It just happened. I haven’t talked to her parents. But I can’t tell them what was going on, anyway, because they don’t know.”
“Know what?” Marilyn asked.
“Lissa and I, well, we were making out.” I glanced away. “I don’t know what you think about something like that. We’d just figured out … our feelings … and then Rupert came into my room and Lissa ran out and …”
Icky put a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to explain your private stuff to us. I can’t believe your brother would give you a fat lip over something like that. I mean, he could have his opinions …”
“I’d better go. Lissa’s family might be calling. The whole thing might be a mistake. There isn’t a body.”
“Whoa—you’re not going yet. Marilyn is going to see to your face. When’s the last time you ate something?” He clenched his fist. “That brother of yours is some coward, beating up on children.”
Marilyn gave me some ice for my lip and cleaned the cut on my eye. I put on a pair of her socks. Icky made me sunny-side up eggs with jelly and toast. I stared at the plate.
“Sunflowers.”
“What is it, hon?” That was Marilyn.
“Sunflowers.” The egg yolks were bright yellow orbs. “If you stare long enough, the eggs turn into sunflowers. Don’t you see them?”
“It’s going to be okay, honey.” Icky was speaking. “Hold on.”
“I don’t know if I can.” My mind was a splitting fissure. I felt like I might fall in.
“Eat your sunflowers, kiddo. Come on.”
I couldn’t.
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