by Kim Savage
Ben’s stomach hardened as a thought occurred to him. “Are you saying you don’t want to hear any of this?”
“Are you a man, Benny?”
“What does that mean?”
“What it sounds like. A man sticks to his course. Doesn’t change it when things get rough, or when people try to throw stuff at him that’s gonna get in his way.”
Ben heard Mr. Falso’s voice in his head, talking about pulleys and clamps and footholds, and retreating when you’ve gone too far. His anger stirred.
“If they know you’re fighting it, they’re gonna watch to see if you take it. Even if they’re not the suspicious types, the doctor’s gonna tell them they have to.” Kyle’s voice dropped an octave. “This is what you’re gonna do. Use your tongue and push it down so that it’s between your bottom lip and your teeth. When you leave for school, you can pick it out and toss it, preferably somewhere outside, in the grass or a bush. Some of it will have melted against your gums. Make sure you got a water bottle with you and swish some water around in your mouth, then spit it out. Even a little can have an effect: you gotta get the residue out.”
“Okay.”
“Have you spoken with anyone else about this?”
“The Zoloft?”
“Mr. Cillo’s grabby hands.”
Ben thought of his parents, with their logic and their worry and their tent-hugs. And their barely hidden distrust of Frank Cillo. “Not to anyone who will repeat it.”
“Good. Stop talking about it. You need to catch the old man completely off guard. When you confront him, you’ll know by his pure reaction whether or not he’s telling the truth.”
“What if he tries to, you know? What if he slugs me or something?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of? Or are you afraid of what you might do?”
Ben winced. How had Kyle known how much rage he felt toward Mr. Cillo? That he wasn’t afraid of the man’s hammy fists or his Popeye arms, or the fact that he used to box, knuckles scarred and the nose to prove it. That this skinny kid, the son of a disgraced accountant, had become so convinced that Mr. Cillo had driven his daughters to suicide that he fantasized about pummeling him? Did Kyle know that his hate for Mr. Cillo had started before, for cloistering his perfect daughter, the girl next door, who should have been so easy to reach, but might as well have lived on the moon?
This was a town better off with no old men.
“Afraid of what I might do,” Ben replied.
“Then you can’t take the pills,” Kyle said firmly. “You need every ounce of smarts and strength you can get.”
Kyle was far from stoned. Ben let his rage ebb away, let the calm rationality of Kyle’s voice settle him. With his hot cheek cool against the granite, Ben studied Kyle, whose hair fell away, leaving his misshapen ear exposed. It was funny. Usually when Ben talked to Kyle, he had to make eye contact, let Kyle watch his lips while he overenunciated everything.
“You hear me, Ben? Don’t do it.”
“I won’t take the pills,” Ben said, his voice husky.
“Glad I was able to help. And I won’t even charge you for the session.” Kyle popped a piece of grass in his mouth, chewing up at the sky, his jaw working happily.
Ben knew what was different: Kyle was hearing him fine. He rose too quickly, about to say as much, and everything went awash in white. Ben gripped the sides of the bench as his eyes cleared, and his fingers slipped into ridges of etching. The letters felt sharp and new. He brushed his fingers over them, the curve of a C, the long, tall l’s, the unmistakable o. Ben leaned over the side and snapped up. The grass between him and Kyle was lush and brighter than the rest, with seams traveling south in neat rows.
Fresh sod covered the urns that contained the ashes of two sisters.
Ben choked out the words. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Kyle plucked the blade from his lips and tossed it to the side. He gathered up his legs crisscross like a gangly Buddha. He smiled. “Chill, bro.”
Ben scrambled off the bench as though it was burning hot. He paced. “Why. Are. We. Here?”
“You need to relax.”
“I will not relax!” Ben threw up his hands. “You—led me here. You didn’t even say anything. I shouldn’t have been lying on that bench; it’s disrespectful!”
Kyle waggled his hair at the ground like a dog. “You couldn’t be more wrong. See, the girls touched people in different ways. When Mira touched you through those scraps of paper she left behind, she gave you what you needed. A kind of spark that made you restless, gave you purpose. Something to believe in. Me, I got healing.” Kyle’s lips curled up and his nose dipped down. “And it keeps getting better and better, the more I stay close to them.”
“Mira touched you?” sputtered Ben.
“Not Mira,” said Kyle. “Francesca.”
* * *
If something went wrong, Ben would press nine to speed-dial Kyle’s number.
He hooked his thumbs under his backpack straps. In the front pocket was the original envelope containing the notes that Mira had left him, along with a nunchaku, which Ben didn’t know how to use, but a baseball bat wouldn’t fit in the pack, and the nunchaku fit nicely, and he had nothing else. Since his old phone was prone to dying fast, he’d bought an old-school tape recorder with a prominent button he could feel deep in his bag, and little tapes behind a plastic window that would whir quietly, recording Mr. Cillo’s confession.
Ben had written and memorized a script meant to catch Mr. Cillo off guard, like Kyle advised. Enough questions to make it clear to Mr. Cillo that Ben knew his dirty little secret, without saying it outright. Ben would know by the look on the man’s face. He would pretend to be selling lacrosse calendars. Only costs a dollar, sir! Gets you coupons to the carwash, dry cleaners, you name it! Support the team! The final touch was a money bag stuffed under his arm.
Ben waited until after six thirty on Thursday night. He was sure his parents would never leave for their respective meetings, first his father, running out the door gripping a chicken sausage wrapped in oily paper towels in his hand, then his mother, forgetting her coat, then keys. He even let her drop him off at the indoor turf field, making excuses about feeling sick before Coach Taylor could stop him, and jogged home. As he rounded the bend, he saw his dark house, then the Cillos’, lit from the inside like a pumpkin, with the old white Chevy Lumina parked in the driveway. He yanked the prepacked backpack from its hiding place in the rhododendron bush at the front of his own house. Dumped his lax stick, gloves, and helmet inside the front door but kept his chest pads and shirt on, figuring it gave him cred with a guy like Mr. Cillo. Lacrosse in November? Why, yes, Mr. Cillo, the best players play year-round! What, they didn’t have lacrosse when you were a boy? Not my dad either, not that he’s that much younger than you, ’course he wasn’t the high school athlete that you were, Mr. Cillo. I’ve heard the stories …
Ben stopped the chattering in his brain. He cleared his throat and rang the doorbell with a jab, checking his shadowy reflection in the glass. It was a good call to wear his uniform. It made him seem more innocent, a reminder that he was still a boy, no matter what foul accusations came from his lips. Besides, his chest pads might serve as some kind of protection, if things got rough. But really, Ben knew that his uniform bulked him up, and he wanted that bulk when he faced his enemy. He studied the Lumina, as though it had been an earlier trick of light. He pressed the doorbell, longer this time, and shifted from foot to foot. It got dark early now, and he was cold in shorts. He tried to remember how long his parents’ meetings were. Was it his father who’d be home by nine, or his mother? He had no time for things to go wrong.
Ben glanced over his shoulder at Piggy’s house. The Winnebago sat in the driveway like an aluminum-sided whale. Piggy would still be at lacrosse for another forty-five minutes, and his mother would be sacked out with the rest of his overweight family in front of the TV, except Mr. Pignataro, who rarely left his Gentlemen’s Club, not
even to sleep sometimes, according to his son.
Ben noted how easily thoughts of others crowded his head when the one person he should be focused on was Mira. He bit his lip and knocked on the door, a fast rap that meant business. The door gave a little. Ben spread his hand flat against it and pushed. It creaked open.
“Hello?” Ben called into the same living room his own front door opened into. Every light was on: the flush overhead oval, the lamp above the Barcalounger, the matching table lamps bookending the couch and trimmed in velvet brocade. Even the tiny stained-glass lights behind the windows painted on the velvet picture on the wall. Mr. Cillo had been taking his meals on a chair in front of the flat-screen TV, given the crumpled napkins, empty glasses, and crumbs on the table beside.
Ben fingered the straps of his backpack as he took careful footsteps around the living room. “Mr. Cillo? It’s Ben Lattanzi, next door! The door was open! Anybody home?” He cringed at anybody since nobody besides Mr. Cillo lived there anymore. Then he checked himself, remembering this was no time to get soft. His eyes caught a set of two brass frames on the mantel, eight-by-ten school photos taken the year before. Francesca had tipped her chin down—had probably been told to by the photographer, Ben thought—and the result was pure mockery. Her eyes nearly twinkled, a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me stare down her nose that made Ben’s belly twist. He blinked hard and looked to Mira next. The photographer had done that thing only school photographers and morgue beauticians were capable of: he’d made her look like someone else entirely. Her face was frozen in a fake smile, her eyes fixed on some unseen object. These were not the hot Cillo sisters anyone thought of, and he was struck by the fact that they seemed to have ruined their pictures deliberately.
Ben stepped backward and landed on a rubber cat toy. It squeaked, and he jumped, stumbling over a pair of worn wing tips, the source of a tangy funk that repelled Ben in its intimacy.
Ben shoved a bent finger under his nose. “Mr. Cillo?!” His voice reverberated through the house. He waited, still and listening, for a bathroom flush, a footfall, a snore. The silence was heavy and complete. Ben relaxed his shoulders. Mr. Cillo was somewhere without his car—with a drinking buddy, probably.
The longing came on hard, to see and touch everything from the girls’ final days. The weird stuff they wore during the last days anyone saw them: Francesca’s shapeless hand-me-down dresses, Mira’s ratty knit hat. He could walk right up into their bedrooms and look in their drawers. Mira had brought him here sure as if she had dragged him through the front door by his wrist. The notes had done that; Ben had the proof right in his backpack, should he get caught. Ben gazed out the window. With every light on, Piggy didn’t need his Winnebago perch to see Ben. Anyone driving down the street, walking a dog, even a teenage boy looking out his bedroom window could see him standing in the middle of the Cillos’ living room. Ben moved away from the window to the edge of the couch he knew well. A thrill ran through him in a detached way, like a history buff seeing the blood-stained pillow from Abraham Lincoln’s death bed for the first time. Ben ran his hand over the back of the couch, imagining he might find a strand of blond hair. He looked through the window again, up to his own bedroom, dark but for the faint blue glow of his computer.
Ben shivered. Living in this house was like living in a fishbowl. He and Mira could have gotten caught so easily.
It’d been December, and they’d planned it for weeks, when Francesca would be working late at the rectory on an Advent food drive, and Mr. Cillo would be at his club. Ben had lied to his parents about hanging at Eddie’s (a walkable distance being critical) then ducked into the Cillos’ backyard, where Mira had let him in the back door. They’d kept the lights off, in case Ben’s parents looked out their side living room window. Ben, in a low voice pretending to be his father: “Carla, tell Benvenuto to get off Mira Cillo!” which Mira met with silence. Her single-minded seriousness that night only drove Ben more mad. They’d dropped to their knees on the floor, right where he stood, in front of the couch. Mira undid Ben’s fly with surprising deftness and pushed him backward. Mira’s sharp knee on Ben’s thigh, holding him down. In the half-dark, her eyes carried depths that Ben had never seen, and he wanted to touch every part of her at once. Mira’s mouth slammed his, her muscled tongue pressing hard, stealing his breath, then breathing her own life force down his throat and into his lungs. Ben’s lips bruised, and she moved lower, biting his throat. Her eyes met his, and she rose above him again, shapeshifting into something urgent and furious. Ben’s blood swelled to meet hers, but he was aware that it was deficient. She had been cooking in her own want for so long, a want that Ben understood, but could never match.
Tonight there would be no fade to black. Here again, in front of that same couch, Ben would remember every part—mouth neck arms stomach waist back hips thighs inside—every part remembered.
After, they lay stuck together, their parts fitted perfectly, Mira gazing up, making sure Ben was real. Once, she made a small, upset noise, raising on an elbow and blowing softly on his throat where she’d left a mark.
He owed Mira her truth. No one could stop him.
It came without warning, the sudden whine of bald tires turning hard. The driver had spotted Mr. Cillo’s driveway late. Ben’s bowels dropped to the floor. Car door slams were followed by men calling to each other, the words indistinct and loud: drunk. Ben could be spotted plainly if Mr. Cillo looked through his own living room window. Ben turned to take the stairs, knocking the backpack off his shoulder. He stooped to pick it up. As he raised his eyes, he saw the note, pinned to the underside of the couch near where they’d made love. White-winged and folded, waiting to be set free.
Ben raced up the stairs, note in fist. Like downstairs, the girls’ bedroom was inexplicably lit. He wished the room was dark—how could he hide in a lit room? He opened a closet stuffed with trendy clothes and shoes the girls had stopped wearing. Downstairs, the front door slammed. Ben couldn’t risk Mr. Cillo hearing his footsteps. He jammed himself in and sank to the floor, backpack behind, propping him upright. A boot heel dug into his thigh. Francesca’s, he thought, as he eased the closet door open a crack, like he’d found it. Though Ben felt sure Mr. Cillo never came in this room, the scene of his crime.
Except for the closet, the room was unnaturally orderly for any girl, even ones acting unnatural. It reminded Ben of a furniture store display, decorated with potpourri and generic art. He tried to distract himself by attaching objects to each of the girls, then considering how they might have used them. On the dresser, the plastic paddle brush he decided was Francesca’s was picked clean. He imagined her plucking at the tangle, dropping dark tumbleweeds of hair into the trash can. It seemed curious to Ben that a soon-to-be-dead girl would clean her brush for the next person when there was no next person. Under one twin bed, Ben spotted a paperback of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the same edition he’d been assigned in tenth grade: Mira’s. He imagined Mira slipping it under the bed the night they died, as Francesca shrugged on a sweater and told her to hurry. Pink Post-it notes fringed the top and sides. Ben wondered what passages Mira had marked important.
Clatter-crash! rang out from the kitchen below. Mr. Cillo was preparing canned something on the stovetop, and having a hard time. What would become of Ben if Mr. Cillo set the kitchen on fire and he couldn’t escape? Would the charred body in the closet become one more mystery surrounding this family where anyone young kills themselves before they grow old, and the old ones go on and on?
Mr. Cillo stumbled, followed by a squeak and a bang—the cat toy thrown against a wall. Ben wondered if he’d committed a crime, breaking and entering. After a while, the noises settled into a television drone that worried Ben more than swears and crashes. It could be hours before Mr. Cillo fell asleep, and then deeply enough that Ben could tiptoe past and out the front door, or the back, through the kitchen. He told himself it was a waiting game he could win as long as he didn’t panic. He nestled among the clothes in an
effort to get warm, and realized he was leaning against the collection of shapeless dresses that Francesca had taken to wearing. He wished there was something more of Mira in this room, objects that would remind him why he had pulled this stunt to begin with.
Eventually, he opened the note.
Francesca says it’s as though
he has a knife to her throat.
She is out of options.
End at the end.
And so he was coming to the end. He already knew the option that she—they—chose. And Mira wouldn’t have chosen it unless she was out of options, too.
Ben had trouble breathing. He leaned through the closet doorway for air. That’s when he saw the hat. It hung over the back of a chair, barely more than a slub of yarn, a knit thing that had sat sideways on Mira’s head starting around April, after the girls came back to school following Connie’s wake. Mira wore it no matter the temperature, no matter that winter was over and she hadn’t even worn it in the winter. When most of the girls who had something to show off (and even the ones who didn’t) began to expose knees and arms and backs, Mira covered up more. During those last weeks, in Semantics, Ben watched as she wound her bright hair around the widest part of her hand and stashed the bunched knot underneath the terrible thing. He had come to hate the hat, not only for hiding what most guys noticed first about Mira, but for marking her as sullen and weird, which it did better than if she’d dyed her hair black and tattooed a tear on her cheek. Ben remembered the day their Health teacher asked her to remove the hat—girls, snarky and jealous, said it was for fear of lice—and when class ended, she left it on the metal rails under her chair. Ben had waited until she was nearly out the door before he stood and walked over to it, poised to snatch it and stuff it in the boys’ room trash can, deep under piles of mealy paper towels. But Mira remembered and rushed back in, creating a standoff where for a moment, Ben thought she would speak to him. Instead, she turned red and her eyes widened, a look that he could neither tolerate nor place. Clutching the hat to her chest, she ran from the room.