Hearts & Other Body Parts

by Ira Bloom

  “I feel silly doing this.” Esme sat cross-legged on the bed, shuffling the deck. It was a new deck, and the artwork was nothing special. Katy had inherited Aunt Becky’s deck, which was centuries old with particularly beautiful and grotesque hand-painted artwork. Ronnie had Grandma Sophie’s tarot cards, which had been in the family for half a dozen generations at least. “These cards are always cold, for me. I wish I could use Katy’s deck.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kasha said, stretching out on the pillow. “You have a demon familiar now.”

  There were a million ways to deal tarot, but Esme preferred the way her mother had taught her. It was the old family method, passed down from witch to witch, through generations of Proctors, the maternal family line, and now Silvers. Four cards to the four directions, east for air, south for fire, west for water, and north for earth. Then she reshuffled the deck and placed it in the center, for spirit. She invoked the spirit for her answers, and flipped the card.

  “Death,” Kasha noted. “Does that answer your question?”

  Esme stifled a yawn. “Uh, no. I was thinking about Zack, actually,” she confessed sheepishly.

  “And you drew the Death card,” the cat noted. “Sounds like a great guy.”

  “I just forgot to ask the question. And anyway, Death isn’t always bad. It could mean a transition.” She mucked the deck, shuffled, and dealt the cards out again. She closed her eyes and invoked the spirit, one hand on the deck in the middle of the four cards. “Spirit, I want to know what Zack’s favorite soccer team is,” she intoned. Then she flipped the card.

  “The Devil,” Kasha observed.

  Esme opened her eyes. She’d just drawn the two worst cards in the deck, one after the other. Talk about ominous. “Wait,” she said, excited, hopping up from the bed. She ran to her computer and typed in a URL furiously. “Aha! Manchester United! The Red Devils!”

  “Can I catch a ride downtown with you?” Veronica asked, the next Sunday.

  Esme started, caught off guard. She’d been sneaking out the cellar door to avoid running into her sisters, but Ronnie was a step ahead of her.

  “I, uh … wasn’t going downtown,” Esme lied.

  Veronica stood in front of her, hands on hips, glaring accusingly through her sunglasses. “Where were you headed?”

  “The library,” Esme improvised. It was in town, but not downtown.

  “So drop me on Main, if you can’t drive two blocks out of your way for your own sister.”

  On the way into town, Veronica slunk back into her seat, put her feet up on the dash, and fiddled with her smartphone. The car was a four-wheel-drive Subaru station wagon with more than 150,000 miles on it. It still ran well. Veronica was wearing strappy wedge sandals with four-inch heels that made her legs look a mile long. Her crop pants showed just enough calf. “Did you hear about Sandy Hardesty?”

  “Yeah, she hasn’t been in school. Disappeared off the face of the earth, I heard.”

  “The police are looking for her,” Veronica said. “I heard they called Logan in for questioning. Her parents are really worried.”

  “Logan’s a creep, but he wouldn’t do anything bad to his girlfriend.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Veronica reminded her. “And another girl disappeared, a barista at Starbucks.”

  “Miss Edwards? My history teacher? Just vanished, a few weeks ago. She didn’t even call in, the school nurse was saying.”

  “Really,” Veronica said. “I never heard about that. Can you drop me at the drug store? I need school supplies.” She returned her attention to her phone, turning the ringer all the way down. She slipped the phone into the door pocket, behind some maps.

  Esme crossed the bridge and caught the light at Main, cutting left. She wheeled into the parking lot of the drug store. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be, you got a way home?”

  Veronica opened the door and slid out. “I’ll manage, but let me call you when I’m done, maybe you can give me a ride, if you’re ready.” She started to close the door.

  “Ronnie!” Esme called out. Veronica turned. “If a weird-looking guy offers you candy and wants you to get in his car, you know what to do, right?”

  “Get you a Snickers?”

  “No, seriously. Be careful, okay?” Esme gave her sister a stern look before driving off.

  When you’re a giant ugly freak, you wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom and brush your giant ugly teeth. Then you go to your closet and get out your giant ugly clothes that you bought at the big and morbidly obese store in the city because they’re the only clothes that fit on your giant ugly body. And you’re grateful. Because at least you’re alive.

  When you’re a giant ugly freak, people stare at you and whisper to each other, and you pretend they’re not talking about you and try to keep up a cheery disposition and be a good person and not let people piss you off. And when they ask you how the weather is up there, you don’t tell them that it’s cloudy with a chance of getting their lights punched out. And worse than the rude people are the ones who look at you with pity and say positive, affirming things. As if you had cancer or something.

  Norm wished people would stop trying to cheer him up. He was fine. Though he did indulge in the occasional blue mood. Cynical depression: a pervasive ennui affected by an inability to lie to oneself convincingly. Esme had loved that line. She so got him.

  Norman was happy to be cancer free, happy to have friends. Granted, they were not the kind of friends a boy with his IQ would normally hang out with. But when you’re a giant ugly freak, you don’t get many choices. You don’t let yourself think about stuff you can’t have, like nice clothes. Or friends you could have an intelligent conversation with. Or a girlfriend. You don’t think about Esmeralda Silver, and the way her hair smells and how the bridge of her nose wrinkles up when you make her laugh. Or what it would be like … but you don’t let yourself think of those things. You’re grateful for what you have. And when your friend asks you to come to his house on a Sunday to help him get an engine out of the junker car he’s restoring in the garage, you go and lend a hand. Because that’s what friends are for.

  “You ready, Norm?” Wilson asked from underneath the car.

  “Yeah,” Norm said. “Did you disconnect all the bolts?”

  “Yeah, that was the last one,” Wilson replied. “Engine and transmission mounts are all shot, that’s another hundred bucks.”

  Wilson’s dad had bought the car five years earlier, a rag-top ’67 Mustang, to restore with his son. It was supposed to be a present for his sixteenth birthday, but that was before the divorce. Sixteen had come and gone, and Wilson was still riding his bicycle to school. Wilson’s dad couldn’t afford to buy parts. Alimony was expensive. Wilson was always complaining about the cost of all the parts he needed. So he skimped on some expenses. Like a shop crane.

  “How much did you say this weighed?” Norman asked.

  “Five hundred pounds,” Nick replied.

  “Plus the trannie,” Wilson reminded him.

  “Six fifty, tops,” Nick said. “Just be glad he doesn’t have the big block.”

  “We’ll help,” Wilson promised, scooching out from under the car.

  “No, I got it. It’s just a little awkward, is all.”

  It was tight, squeezing his thick arms around the engine, but Norm was able to get a grip and heave. He had to angle it out because of the transmission. He was carrying the engine across the garage to the engine stand when Jackson Gartner drove his large black pickup into the driveway. Danny Long and Logan Rehnquist jumped out.

  “Damn, Frankenstein, my dad’s got a half dozen shop cranes you could borrow,” Danny said. He grabbed the front of the engine and helped Norman muscle it onto the stand. “Not like that, face it around the other way. Wilson, you idiot, why didn’tcha disconnect the trannie first?”

  “Didn’t have the tools,” he mumbled.

  “Come on, Danny,” Logan demanded. “We don’t have time for this.” He ad
dressed Norm, Nick, and Wilson: “You guys seen Zack anywhere?”

  Norman wiped his face with a relatively clean shop rag. “Zack?” He shrugged.

  “We don’t hang out in the same circles,” Wilson said.

  “Well if you see him, we’re looking for him.”

  “Sure, no prob,” Wilson replied. “What’re ya lookin’ for him for?”

  Jackson Gartner had a stack of flyers in his hand. He peeled off a page and handed it to Nick. “Town’s organizing a search party for Sandy.”

  Norm read the flyer. “It’s today. Shouldn’t you guys be out looking?”

  “I wanna ask Zack some questions,” Logan said. “He’s the last one to see her.”

  “They’re meeting up at Miller’s Field,” Norman read. “An hour ago. Where’s that?”

  “Halfway to Mason’s Crossing,” Danny said. “That’s where they found her car.”

  Norm looked at Nick, then at Wilson. “You guys want to go look?”

  “Nah, it’s too late,” Wilson said. “You gotta be there on time.”

  “If you see him, call us,” Logan reminded as the three returned to Jackson’s truck.

  There wasn’t much to do on the Mustang except stand around and look at the engine and listen to Wilson reiterate how much all the parts were going to cost him and how long it would take to get the money. At about noon, Wilson’s mom served the boys hot dogs and chips and iced tea in the backyard.

  “Wow, too bad about Sandy,” Nick said, taking a hot dog. He slathered on mustard and ketchup from the squeeze bottles. “Do you think Zack knows anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Norm said, grabbing two hot dogs in one hand. “The guy creeps me out, but what would he have done with her? Kill her? I don’t know if I’m ready to accuse him of that.”

  “I saw him all over school with Sandy,” Wilson said.

  “I see him all over school with a lot of girls,” Nick reasoned. “All three of the Silver sisters. That’s gotta piss you off, doesn’t it, Norm?”

  “You and Esme,” Wilson added. “You like her, don’t you?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “As long as you’re fantasizing about girls you can’t have, you might as well fantasize about Veronica,” Nick suggested.

  “Naw, she doesn’t do it for me,” Wilson said. “I like a girl with … you know, like Sandy.”

  “ ‘Orchestra and balcony,’ ” Nick said.

  “Huh?” Wilson stared at his friend.

  Nick sang: “ ‘What they want is whatcha see … ’ ” He looked back and forth between the two blank expressions. “It’s from A Chorus Line. Balcony, that’s the breasts. And orchestra—”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Norm interrupted. Boy talk. Here he was in the thick of it. Objectifying girls for their physical attributes. It always made him a little uncomfortable.

  “Well you can have all the Sandys,” Nick allowed. “I’ll take Veronica Silver any day. Every boy wants to be her, every girl wants to date her.” Nick looked up from his glazed reverie a moment later to find Norm and Wilson staring at him with complete incomprehension. “Oh yeah,” Nick said. “Reverse that.”

  Veronica stood in the parking lot of the Rite Aid, watching Esme drive away. She removed Katy’s phone from her handbag and entered the security code. Katy was easy to hack, with a little talent and an old Ouija board. She opened up the tracking app and set it to track her phone. Esme was headed south on Main Street. The library was north. Three blocks, five. Main Street came to a T at Hampstead. Esme turned right, toward the junior college. After five blocks, the car stopped, near the corner. Veronica waited a few more minutes. Esme was definitely parked, in front of the coffee shop. Ronnie slung her bag higher on her shoulder and headed for Main Street. It was a ten-minute walk, fifteen at most.

  Zack rose, smiling, when Esme arrived at the coffee shop. He kissed her on the cheek and gave her a hug, looking at her with his head tilted. “I can’t decide if I liked you better with the glasses or now. Both, I guess.” Then he held her chair out for her. “I’ll get us some coffee, what’ll ya have, luv?”

  “Grande Guatemalan,” she answered, and he went off to order. He’d called her “love.” Just an expression, of course, but still … She slipped her laptop out of the carrying case, opened it on the table, and powered it up. She’d taken care to recharge the battery before leaving the house, but she had the cord just in case. She looked around to see if there was an outlet handy.

  Esme watched Zack from behind, which was almost as good as from in front. The coffee shop was nearly deserted. Football game at the college. Zack was wearing tight black jeans and his boots and a Red Devils sports jacket and a bowler hat.

  “One Guatemalan, for the lady,” Zack said on returning. “I got one for m’self as well. Figured you knew what you were on about.”

  “I like the coffee here better.” She did, in fact, and the privacy. “It’s shade grown, organic, and fair trade. I try to avoid exploitation in my cup of joe.”

  “I love your Yankee slang,” he said. “And that you care about things like that. Fair trade, and all. And the Red Devils, of course.”

  She blushed. “Yeah, how crazy is that, we both like the same football team?”

  “And I never mentioned that I was from Manchester area,” he noted, puzzling over the coincidence. “How did you end up a fan of Manchester United?”

  “Oh, you know,” she demurred. “I played when I was a girl. Girls’ soccer league. So I always liked it. But American soccer is, uh … ”

  “I know. Rubbish.”

  “Yeah, so I started watching European football on the Internet. You played, right?”

  “I was a striker. Star of me school team,” he declared with pride.

  “I’ll bet. Anyway, I couldn’t understand the announcers, so eventually I just stuck with English games. I love the slang terms—you’ll have to explain them to me I guess.”

  “My pleasure. So, what did you bring? I can’t thank you enough for this, we don’t have Internet at our house, Dad’s so old-fashioned.”

  “Manchester versus Arsenal, last week,” she said, as if it was nothing at all. Though it was huge, she knew. Stick with me, baby, there’s more where that came from.

  “I bloody love you, you’re brill.” He hugged her with shocking strength, and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m chuffed, have you watched it yet?”

  “No,” she said, tingling from the kiss. Six times. “I was waiting to see it with you.” She’d memorized some of the Arsenal team’s players by the numbers on their jerseys.

  “You’re the best. But I’ll be totally gutted if they lose, I have to warn you. Bloody Islington. I hate them more than Chelsea.”

  “Me too,” she agreed, caught up in his pleasure. Garcia, the new striker, would score the winning point just under the wire, but Zack was in for a rough time, it was a nail-biter. Don’t worry, Zack, I’ll be there to comfort you.

  “Listen, you said you’d downloaded it, would you like to watch it at me house? No worries, Dad’s there, if we need a chaperone.”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.” Esme tried not to appear too eager.

  “Do you need to call somebody? You said you had to sneak out to meet me,” he reminded her.

  “It’s really not anybody else’s business where I go or who I meet,” she asserted. “But you know … Katy. I guess she has a thing for you. You probably noticed.”

  “I wouldn’t want to cause any problems between you and your sister,” he said, “but Katy and I are just friends. She’s a great kid, that one.”

  “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Listen, let’s take my car.”

  The two finished their coffees and started to pack up their gear, rising. The door opened and a girl walked in. Esme went into panic mode. Veronica. This was no coincidence.

  “Hey, big sister,” Veronica said, giving Esme a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I thought you were going to the libra
ry. I wanted coffee and I remembered you telling me about this place.”

  Zack watched the two, beaming. “Hello, Veronica, lovely to see you again.”

  When Zack looked at Veronica, his face lit up. Even through his heavily tinted sunglasses, Esme noted the dilation of the eyes, the brows raised in focus. Zack was interested in Ronnie. With her hair, her makeup, her clothes, and the poise of her slim, graceful figure, Ronnie had never been more attractive. In her heels, the height advantage gave her an air of maturity. Zack had been totally into Esme not a moment before; suddenly she felt invisible next to her dazzling kid sister.

  “Hey, Zack,” Ronnie said, as if she didn’t care. But she was sending him signals. There was an enigmatic smile there, pure flirtation at the highest level of execution.

  “Esme and I were just headed to me house to watch a football game on her computer,” he mentioned. “Do you like football? We can all watch together.”

  She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “American football? Those nasty sweaty guys with all the padding? I’ll pass. I like soccer. Those men with their sexy legs get me hot.”

  “That’s what I mean,” he said, brimming with magnetism. “I’m from England, remember?”

  She giggled and put her hand on his upper arm. “Oh, right. Well, in that case … ”

  “Shall we, then, ladies?” Zack said, facing the door and offering an arm to each sister.

  Outside the coffee shop, the three stood beneath an old hawthorn tree, bare of leaves. It was mid-November, and the sun was weak, but there was no cloud cover. Esme considered Zack’s condition. “We should get you out of the sun,” she suggested, and he gave her a hug. It made her feel a little better. Zack was such a likeable fellow, you couldn’t fault him for liking your sister. He had good taste, at least.

  “Do your parents know you’re going to be late?” he asked, looking at his watch. “It could be a long game.”