by Kristen Mae
Red Water
A Novel
Kristen Mae
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
A LETTER FROM KRISTEN
Sneak Peek from Beyond the Break
A FREE Short Story from Kristen Mae
Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2017 by Tritone Literary Publishers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.
[email protected]
Originally published in 2017 by Tritone Literary Publishers
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9975418-2-3
For my husband,
who has no idea what the heck I’m writing about
but keeps the kids occupied anyway
Prologue
I’m about eight, I think, which would make Liza six, so I doubt she shares this memory, but anyway… So I’m sitting at my place at the dining table, eating dinner with my family. I don’t remember what we’re eating, though it’s probably shit on a shingle, a simple meal my mom always cooked: a can of cream of mushroom soup dumped over sautéed ground beef, onions, and mushrooms. Liza and I used to love when Mom cooked this because it meant we got to say “shit.”
So in this memory I’m sitting at the table, on the long side of the rectangle, and Liza is to my left at the far end of the table, at the head. I don’t know why she sits so disconnected from the rest of the family, but she always did; that’s just how it was. My dad is to my right, at the other head, in a special chair different from the rest of ours, with thick cushions and sturdy arms. And my mom is across from me.
Behind me is a large, curtainless window, and on the other side of that is darkness. I am usually terrified of the window at night, how the blackness gleams like polished volcanic rock, pulsing with dark secrets. Anyone could be standing out there looking in on us, and we would never know. A bad guy might crouch on the other side of the glass, pointing a gun right at our house, and just for fun, shoot me while I’m on my way to the kitchen for a cup of water. A kidnapper could be out there, waiting for the perfect moment to smash the glass and snatch us. I don’t understand why my parents won’t cover the window with curtains or blinds the way other people do.
But in this particular memory, even though it is night, I’m not worried about what might be on the other side of the window. Someone has just told a joke—I’m not sure who—and the four of us are laughing to the point of snorting, sliding off the sides of our chairs, almost choking on our food. My mom sways in her seat and her face is so red it’s like she’s embarrassed to be happy, her long dark hair a swinging curtain trying to hide her rosy cheeks. My father’s eyes twinkle with merriment.
At the far end of the table, Liza’s little blonde head is bouncing in a way that tells me she’s kicking her legs under the tabletop, her tiny body gone delirious with joy. The love in the room is expanding and contracting in time with my lungs, and I can almost believe that the universe was predestined to align in precisely this happy way. My chest just might explode from so much happiness.
“No one else has this, you know,” I say, still smiling but quite serious now.
My parents stop laughing and look at me with expectant smiles. Liza stops swinging her legs—I can tell because her head isn’t bobbing anymore.
“Think about it.” I set down my fork. “Brianna’s parents are getting a divorce. Rachel’s parents hate each other. Kyla screams at her mom and dad, and they just let her. Isn’t it amazing, how happy we are?”
“It’s true,” says Liza in her mousy voice. “We’re the perfect family.”
“Yes,” I say. “We really are.”
Mom is smiling. There are tears in her eyes.
My dad swallows a bite of food and nods, setting his solemn gaze on each of us in turn. “We’re very blessed. We should never, ever take it for granted.”
“I’m so happy I wanna scream,” Liza squeaks. She hugs her arms around herself, and she’s bouncing again, her little legs pumping furiously beneath the table.
I am proud, not just that I have a perfect family, but that I am wise enough to see it. I feel very grown up to have pointed out our good fortune. I am not like other children who take everything for granted.
But what I don’t know, what I cannot possibly know because I am only eight for Christ’s sake, is that my father, with intent and forethought nourished by an untainted evil my young brain cannot begin to contemplate, has already begun the process of killing my mother.
I should have known.
I should have known, because he was trying to kill me too.
Chapter One
It is the kind of scorching summer day that lies to you, tricks you into seeing puddles shimmering on bone-dry sidewalks. The kind where the sun, shining with what should be optimism, will settle its weight upon your chest like a six hundred-pound man oblivious of his size and power, and suffocate you. At least, that’s what it feels like to me.
I’m sitting on a bench at the corner of an oak-shaded street in old downtown Sarasota, cello between my knees, sweat seeping through my whisper-thin tank top. For over two hours I’ve been here, performing every tune I’ve ever memorized for anyone willing to endure the heat long enough to listen. Not many can, but today there were enough. I’ve still banked more per hour than I would have as a cashier or waitress or in some other low-wage job befitting an eighteen-year-old high school grad. Busking is my bread and butter. Well…our bread and butter. Mine and Liza’s and Aunt Bonnie’s.
After today I should have enough money for the gas I need to make the few hours’ drive to college in my beat-up Honda Civic. I slept with a grungy-looking mechanic in exchange for the car, and I’m not as ashamed of that as I think I’m supposed to be. A person can only play cello in the boiling street for so many hours, and I don’t have lovely, middle class parents with whom I can strike a deal to split the cost of a reliable midsize. If necessity is the mother of invention, then she is also the mother of opportunistic motherfuckers.
I finish the final chord of Bach’s G Major Allemande, and a white dude in his early twenties—ripped jeans and thick, swaying
dreads—steps forward and throws a few bucks into my open case. “Keep on keepin’ on, little sister,” he says, then shoves his hands in his pockets and drifts off toward the train tracks, almost hovering over the undulating waves of heat, like a hippie Jesus.
I brush sweat from my brow and bend to count the money in my open case: thirty-three dollars and a pile of loose change I don’t bother to add up. Along with the rest of the week’s earnings in my pocket, which I know better than to leave lying around the trailer for Aunt Bonnie to swipe, I have a hundred and sixty-two dollars. There was more last week, but I needed to buy clothes and books for school and pay my car insurance.
Still, it’s enough.
The grocery store is busier than usual, even for a Saturday. With my cello case strapped to my back like a turtle shell, I hurry through the aisles, tossing boxes of cereal and other nonperishables into the cart, avoiding eye contact with shoppers and stock boys. Grocery stores make me twitchy. There’s something about knowing how much of that food will end up in the dumpsters out back, or maybe it’s the noise of the bumping metal carts and tantruming children, or the way the employees always greet me even though I’ve made it clear with my downcast eyes that I don’t want to talk to anyone—the whole thing makes me want to shrink backward into my cello case as if I were a real turtle, all cozy and hidden and safe. But then I wouldn’t be able to function at all.
I push my cart into the checkout and toss a few Slim Jims on the belt with the other items. Ahead of me, a young woman in cutoffs and a ribbed tank top swipes her card as the bagger loads her groceries into her cart. Her daughter coos around her pacifier, her chubby baby legs dangling from the seat of the cart. Next to them, two little boys, maybe five and seven, stare hungry-eyed at the wall of candy, chips, and magazines that hedge the checkout lane. The littler boy lifts his hand in slow motion, aiming for a pack of Starburst, but the older one, without speaking and without taking his eyes off a bag of Cheetos, reaches out in the same slow motion and presses his brother’s arm back down, away from temptation.
I grab a magazine to flip through, careful to angle myself in the aisle so as not to knock a shelf over with my cello-case-turtle-shell. Over top of the magazine, I see the younger boy turn and stare up at me with huge, round eyes. I wink at him.
“—possible it’s the system, ma’am.” The cashier. He sounds around my age, but I don’t look at him directly. I might know him from school. People from school are not generally friendly with me.
“It’s…no, I’m so sorry,” the woman says. “We were supposed to get a deposit today. It must not have come through yet. I can put everything back.” There is a tremor in her voice.
I keep my eyes fixed on my magazine.
The cashier says with a kind, patient tone: “It’s no problem, ma’am. We can return the items for you.”
“I’m so embarrassed.”
“It happens, ma’am.” He’s been trained to say these things. To accommodate. To diffuse.
I peek at the little boys again. Their gazes remain on that awful, teasing wall of chips and candy, though I think they must be aware of the scene behind them.
I put the magazine back on the rack. The young mother’s wallet is still resting against the card swiper, her hands hesitating over the little zippered pouch as if doing so might allow some solution to present itself, poof, like magic. She’s nervous, licking her lips, her chest rising and falling with labored breaths. My own breathing shallows as I watch her.
Her total is visible from here, lit on the display in neon green digits: a hundred and eighteen dollars and twenty cents. I have a hundred and sixty-two dollars in my pocket. Forty-three would be enough to buy the few things in my cart, food I intend to leave for Liza and Aunt Bonnie before I depart for school.
I reach across the belt and scoop up the Slim Jims, put them back. I can play in the street again tonight and maybe at lunchtime tomorrow. Maybe I can drive to school in the afternoon instead of in the morning like I planned.
The woman tucks her wallet back into her purse, her eyes brimming with tears she must be trying hard to keep back.
I pull the wad of money from my pocket and flip through it. The woman is lifting her little girl out of the cart now, fumbling because of how much her hands are shaking.
“Hang on,” I say. I’m not sure how to phrase my offering; I don’t want to embarrass her further. I’m counting as quickly as I can, keeping the bills low, trying not to draw attention.
She turns and looks at me, her daughter half-in, half-out of the cart.
I slide a thick stack of fives and ones toward the cashier. That oughta do it.
“Oh, no,” the woman says, plunking her daughter back down in the cart. “No, please, you don’t have to do that. You’re just a kid!”
“It’s cool,” I say, waving my hand dismissively. “My parents won’t even miss it. I swear.” I raise my eyebrows and shrug in a “golly gee, I can’t help it that I’m rich” sort of way.
She opens her mouth as if to protest again, but she’s stuck. The groceries are already in her cart, already rung up, and her children need to be fed. The cashier’s gaze darts between me and her. Another customer pulls his cart up behind me and begins loading items onto the belt. He throws us an uneasy glance as if worried we’ll hold him up.
Finally, the woman’s shoulders sag. “Thank you. Just…thank you. This is so embarrassing.” She puts the back of her hand against her mouth as if to stop a well of emotion from rolling out.
My heart is doing funny things in my chest. I can’t look at her anymore. I push the stack of bills a little closer to the cashier, and he takes the money, deposits it into the drawer, and prints the woman’s receipt.
The young mother pushes her cart out of the store, the two little boys trailing like ducklings behind her. In my peripheral vision I see her turn and look back at me once more, but I focus hard on the cashier’s hands as he slides my items across the scanner. I won’t be that person who gazes longingly after my charity case, eager to bathe in her gratitude.
I’ve been that charity case enough times to know better.
* * *
I draw a slow breath and glare at Liza with as much condescension as I can muster. I’m so pissed that my ears are hot. “How is this happening again?” And on a day I’ve had yet another compulsive attack of conscience and unloaded a pile of money on a complete stranger. Fuck.
Liza gulps but stands her ground, her blue eyes blazing. She’s clutching a copy of The Great Gatsby to her chest as if classic literature will protect her, and her long, dirty blond hair, normally swinging free around her shoulders, is bound in a knot on top of her head. “It’s not my fault, Malory. Jessie said her mom treated—”
“Jessie’s mom does not know how to treat for lice. We have established this ad nauseum.” My scalp is already itching. I ball my fingers into fists, willing the crawly feeling back into my imagination. I need to sit—my legs have that hollow, scraped-out feeling, like someone stole my muscles—but I force myself away from our battered plaid couch. It looks like the perfect place for a colony of parasites to take up residence. What if I infect it? What if it infects me?
Liza tosses her book on the couch and sits in the exact spot I was just eyeballing with disgust. “She’s my best friend. How can I not—”
“Classes start Tuesday.” I pace the raggedy shag carpet of our tiny living room and push at my cuticles with my thumbs. “I’m supposed to drive over tomorrow. What if I pass it to my roommate? I’ll be in a dorm, an enclosed building with three hundred other students…”
A colorful scene pops into my head: I’m surrounded by a gaggle of beautiful, confident, wealthy new girlfriends who have, beyond all logic, accepted me into their tight-knit group. They’ve invited me to a party, shared their clothes with me, and are giving me a makeover while fawning over my mass of shiny black hair…which is crawling with lice. And then they see the bugs wriggling between my hair follicles and turn on me, shrink from me, point
at me—poor, lice-infested white trash girl.
I hate myself for seeing this in my head. I hate that my brain tortures me with such pathetic schoolgirl paranoias. A gust of wind whips up against the side of Aunt Bonnie’s trailer, and the corrugated metal creaks and groans, a harsh, grating sound that makes me shiver.
Liza doesn’t seem to notice. “Malory, you probably don’t even have it. I’m sure I’m the only—”
“You know we still have to do the whole damn trailer. For the third fucking time.”
She squeezes her hands between her knees. “I know. I mean, I know it’s…bad. But we have time. I’ll help you… We can fix this.” She looks on the verge of tears now—her lips are trembling. She’s wringing her fingers. Scratching her fucking head, for Christ’s sake.
I finally let my hands fly to my scalp so I can give myself a good scraping too. I scratch furiously, forcing my sleek hair into jungle-girl tangles, not caring that I look insane since it’s only Liza, and Liza already knows I’m nuts. “This is the worst. I hate this! I fucking hate being poor!”
The concern melts off Liza’s face, replaced with a look that tells me she thinks I’m being dense. “First of all, Malory, rich people get lice just as easy as poor people.”
I stare at her, waiting for what I know will come next.
“And second of all, you know goddamn well that this is not ‘the worst.’”
The hollow place inside me yawns open, stretches into a gaping cavern the way it sometimes does. In the corner, the window AC unit jerks to life with a bang and a rattle, and Liza and I both jump even though we ought to be used to the sound by now.
“At least you get to leave, Miss Valedictorian.”
I force my face to remain impassive, but inwardly, I flinch. It’s true: I am abandoning her here.
“And, you know…” She stands and picks her purse up off the peeling side table. “I could have just not told you. I could have waited until after you left to do the treatment.”