I opened the icebox and leaned into the cool air.
“Don’t stand there like you’re stupid; pick something and close the door.”
I took the milk and poured myself a glass.
“You feeling all right?”
I acted like Brady Bunch Cindy. “I feel great,” I cheered.
She started scrubbing the window again to let in all the bright.
I set the empty glass in the sink. “I think I’ll just get a head start on my seventh grade reading. Didn’t Mrs. Mallory send home a list? Yep, I’m going to go get started on my reading.”
My mother’s yellow hand kept polishing the glass. I thought she might stop but she didn’t. When I walked out of the kitchen each room got warmer and warmer until when I got upstairs I thought maybe I had a fever.
Almost right away my mom came into the room. She didn’t knock; she just came in and put her hand on my forehead. It was clammy from the plastic gloves she’d been wearing.
“Your stomach hurt?”
I shook my head.
“Your throat all right?”
I nodded.
“You need to talk?”
I thought of telling her about the burned girl and I thought of telling her about what I did but I wasn’t sure she’d understand.
“You ever need to talk, we can talk, all right?”
Then she started talking about Mazie. When it seemed like she was winding down I said, “Gram says Mazie’s a flower now.”
Her eyes got small, her mouth got hard, even the cabbages squinted at me in disgust. “Mazie ain’t no flower,” her words chopped the air.
“Okay, Mom.”
* * * *
The girl made of fire never asked what my name was, right from the start she knew. “Hey, Kid,” she said, and when I didn’t answer, “Hey, Laurel, I’m talking to you. What are you, some kind of freak?”
I was standing outside the funeral home. It was a gray day. Water was hanging in the sky. Everyone came in all wet like it was raining but it wasn’t. I was on the porch not thinking about Mazie when all of a sudden this girl showed up on the cracked sidewalk, with her ratty hair and fire scars, talking to me all rude.
“Ain’t you supposed to be somewhere?” I asked. “Ain’t you got folks looking for you?”
Her mouth dropped open. She pointed at her dirty t-shirt and said, “What? You seen someone looking for me?” She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and smirked. “I don’t think so.” Then she started throwing stones, aiming for my heart. I picked up one and threw it back. She ducked, but I missed by a lot.
A car parked across the street. Mr. and Mrs. Swenson and all three of the Swenson kids got out: Mickey, Mikey, and Mary dressed to match. When Mrs. Swenson saw me, her face crumpled up like a wad of tissue. I wondered if the burned girl would throw stones at the Swensons but I didn’t wait to find out. I escaped into the funeral parlor where it was warm and sweet and strange. Someone patted me on the head. My mom was sitting with her hands in her lap. Church ladies stood touching her to keep her from floating away.
* * * *
My Mom was sitting on Mazie’s bed, saying my name.
“You have to stop this,” she said in a straight voice.
“What?”
“You are a healthy child. You don’t got whatever Mazie had, all right? That was just a freak accident. Doctor Brunner said. So quit acting like you are on death’s door. You gotta cry, cry, but no more sleeping all day.”
“But, Mom—”
“From now on I want you playing outside ‘less it’s raining. Even then you can get a little wet once in a while, long as it’s not lightning. This house is off limits between nine and five, you hear?”
I opened my mouth but she continued. “I know you got your reasons, but I am telling you this for your own good. Now, git.” She nodded. “You heard me,” she said, rubbing her hand on Mazie’s bedspread.
The girl was sitting on my back step like she was expecting me. She draped her bony arm over my shoulder. Close, she smelled bad. “Come on,” she said.
I tried to pull away.
She smiled cinnamon freckles and crooked teeth as she led me past the dry bird bath and our weed garden. Cicadas screamed from dark pine branches. They sounded like metal. Her bony arm on my shoulder got heavier and heavier. She was talking but I wasn’t listening. We walked past the plumbing store, the post office, and the foundry. Greasy men sat on the lawn smoking. They watched us with stone eyes. We walked past the Catholic Church where blackbirds pecked at the cross. Mrs. Wydinki was working in her garden and didn’t answer when I said hi. She was wearing a giant hat that made her face a shadow. She was cutting flowers from their stems with a large shears.
“Don’t talk to her, else she’ll cut your head off.”
I glanced back at Mrs. Wydinki slicing roses like an assassin.
“Where we going, anyway?”
“Kingdom by the Sea.” Her breath was sour.
“There’s no sea around here,” I said.
“You ever seen a mermaid?”
I shook my head.
“Before we moved we lived right on the beach. We used to make sand castles and we had picnics. After they got married everything was supposed to be nice.” She shrugged. I used the opportunity to release myself from her arm. We stood in front of a tavern. It had a sign with a picture of a mermaid on it. She had big round breasts and long blonde hair. She was holding a book just above her green tail. The title of the book wasKingdom by the Sea.
“That’s my mom. From before.”
She was pointing at the sign but I looked at the burns on her arms.
“Come on,” she opened the tavern door. “Hurry up. They don’t like the light.”
The dark smelled of alcohol and smoke. She stuck her fingers in a bowl on the bar. “Here,” she said, and dropped peanuts into my hand. The music pounded in my ears. My dad sat at the bar. Next to him sat a lady with black lines around her eyes and bright red lips like one of Mrs. Wydinki’s blood roses. She was smoking a cigarette. There were some people sitting in a booth, and some men with loud voices playing pool in the back. The bartender said something low to the woman with rose lips and she cackled.
“You checked on my mom?”
The bartender shook his head.
She took me all the way to the back. I followed her up the crooked steps. She bent down and reached under the dirty mat for a key. An old couch squatted over a gold rug made out of yarn shaped like fat worms. The windows were small, closed and gray. A wheelchair was folded up against the wall, like a giant squashed bug.
“Mom! Hey, Mom!”
She walked to a closed door and opened it. I could see the edge of a bed. From the bed came murmuring.
“My friend,” I heard her say.
The murmuring mumbled. I leaned over to get a better look but I couldn’t see much. I heard her say, “I told you I made a friend.” Again there was that strange murmuring. She came out and shut the door behind her. Firm. “Well. Now you know,” she said. “You gonna eat those nuts?”
I opened my fingers. She grabbed the peanuts and tossed them back. There was a refrigerator next to the sink, behind the couch. She opened it and shut it fast. A sour smell hung in the air.
“Where’s your room?” I asked.
The voice in the bedroom hollered. It made no sense. It sounded like cicadas. We left fast. Down the wooden stairs, past the cackling woman and my dad who stared into his empty glass. When we walked out into the sunshine it felt like we made a great escape. We ran until my side hurt. I think she could have kept on running. I think she ran a lot. She took my hand. Smiled her crooked teeth. She wasn’t even breathing fast. Her breath smelled like peanuts. We walked together. I tried not to step on the cracks but she didn’t seem to notice. She stepped on several. We were too old for that baby game, anyway.
* * * *
Summer days made of dandelions, sky, scent of green, pesty flies, mosquitoes, hoses, sprinklers, bubbles, s
creaming, laughing, running, holding hands—not caring when the teenage boys drove by in their souped-up cars and called us homos. At first I didn’t like the smell of her breath. Or the way her bones felt, heavy and sharp when she draped an arm over my shoulder. Or the way she laughed, her mouth wide open, her eyes always watching. But I got used to her. Sometimes we’d sit on the porch and she’d tell me stories about when it was just the two of them and they lived by the sea with mermaids, flying fish, and shooting stars. (“Did you ever eat seaweed? I have.”) I liked the way her name felt on my tongue. Annabel. Like rolling marbles in my mouth. Only sweet.
“Annabel, can you come?” I’d stand outside the door at the top of the stairs. Below me the bar would hum with juke music and the drift of voices.
“Who is it?” she’d say. Like there was a line of visitors at the door.
“It’s me. Can I come in?”
She had instructed me, one knock, then wait. “If I’m home, I’ll hear you. Otherwise you don’t gotta talk to no one. Just see if I answer. Give me a minute. If I don’t answer, come back later.”
I’d go to the playground. Swing in the rusty air. Sometimes I’d think about Mazie and what I did to her. There was no taking it back. Nothing to be done about it. I would never do anything like it again, I promised, and kept that promise for a long time. Sometimes I’d just sit there, dragging my shoes in the dirt while the sun hated me with its big hot eye.
“What took you so long?” she’d say. We’d run down the stairs like we were being chased by monsters. Grab a handful of nuts. The bartender ignored us. Sometimes my dad was there. “Hey, pops,” I’d say. I didn’t say boo to the cackling woman even when she spoke to me. I hated her big red lips like she’d eaten someone alive. We’d walk into the bright sunshine, Annabel draping her heavy arm over my shoulder. After a while I liked the weight of her. It made me feel like I mattered.
“Come on, I wanna show you somethin’.”
She showed me the tree shaped like a skeleton (“You should see it in the dark,” she said. “It will terrify you.”), the ghost trapped in the church window (“Can you see her? Can you?”), the rock shaped like an angel. (“At night she comes alive. She flies all over. Grants wishes and shit.”)
“Angels don’t grant wishes. You’re confusing them with fairies.”
“Come on.”
We slid down the hill and made scraped knees and bloodied palms. The highway whipped past on the other side. She whispered into the rock. Then she waited for me. I didn’t wanna do it. “Just try,” she said. “When did you get to be so godless?” I leaned against the rock and whispered. A car honked. I looked at Annabel. “What you wish for?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Come on, you can tell me.” Her voice flat. Mean. “We’re best friends.”
“Shut up. You know how it works.”
She smiled. Her heavy arm draped over my shoulder. She leaned close.
“Come on,” I said. “Race you up the hill.”
She won. Of course. When I got to the top, I had a stitch. She walked ahead. Like she didn’t care. I looked back at the stone angel. Hunched there. A creature ready for the kill.
* * * *
Here we are in summer. Here we are behind glass. I have only this one photograph of us. Me and Annabel framed in my backyard. Behind us stands the dry bird bath, the scraggled weeds, but what I see is my mother, standing there in her cabbage frowning apron, pretending she loves me. “Let me take your picture,” she said. Annabel holds me close. I like the shape of her at my side. My mother lowers the camera. She stares at us. I am the happiest I have ever been. It is summer and the sun is good. Mazie is still dead, but I forget about her sometimes.
“Laurel,” my mother says, her voice sudden.
“What?” we both say. As if we are one.
My mother looks at our two heads. “Laurel can’t play any more today.” Annabel and I look at each other. Shocked. My mother hasn’t wanted me all summer. She holds her hand out. “Come along,” she says, pulling me away. I trot beside her like I am six. I look back at Annabel who stands next to the dry bird bath.
“See you tomorrow,” I call. She nods. Slowly.
“Not tomorrow,” my mother says, pulling me along. Squeezing my hand. My mother opens the door to the forbidden house. Smiles at me like a television commercial, but the words are sharp. “Look at you.” She bites her lip. Changes her voice. “You need a bra.” The sun shines bright through the clean kitchen windows. The house smells like soap and bread. “I know! You can help with the ironing!” She says it like it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.
The house is hot. The iron steam reminds me of dreams. I make sharp neat corners. Annabel, I think. I like the round shape of her name. I like the shape of her next to me. Annabel, Annabel, Annabel. Like the angel trapped in the rock, I am trapped in this house. If someone saw me from a distance, would they know what I am?
What is Annabel doing now? She is standing at the kitchen window staring at me. I blow her a kiss. Her smile opens her face.
“What’s that smell? I smell burning.” My mother comes into the room. Annabel runs. My mother’s head turns toward the window and then to me. “What are you doing?” she says.
My brain gets stuck on Annabel. Annabel, Annabel, Annabel.
My mother lifts up the iron to reveal the brown stain on her blouse. She fires me on the spot.
“Can I go back outside? ‘Cause Annabel—”
“No. Go to your room.”
I walk through the fever rooms to my bedroom. I lay down on my bed and close my eyes. Imagine Annabel beside me. It isn’t long before Mazie comes. “You won’t get away with what you done,” she whispers, her cold lips close.
“I didn’t do nothing,” I say.
“I’m going to set you on fire.”
I sit up straight. My heart beating. My skin hot. Alone, of course. There’s Mazie’s empty bed. There’s the window and summer. I shiver in the heat. I imagine Annabel beside me. Hot as a match, her gold eyes burning.
When I see her again, almost a week later, she wraps her skinny muscled arms around me. Squeezes tight. “Oh, I missed you, baby,” she says. Not mean at all. “Come on, I wanna show you something.”
It is hot. So hot that steam rises from the road like snakes from hell. So hot our hands are sticky. The souped-up car passes us. Boys lean out the window, “Homos,” they shout. Honking the horn. We walk past the electric poles with pictures of Sally tacked up. Lost Dog. Reward! I wonder what it would be like to make a sign like that for Mazie. A little kid idea.
Blue-bottle flies buzz at us. “Like we are either flowers or full of shit,” Annabel says, and laughs.
She takes me to a small hill covered in dirt, fresh turned where we lay down. “Hey,” I say, “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” I touch a burn spot and then another. Each place I touch is cold. Her blonde hair blazes in the sun.
“I’m going to tell you something vital,” she says. “Remember how my mom is a mermaid? Well my dad was too but he couldn’t take it no more and went back to the ocean. Then my mom married the bartender.” (That guy? I say. She nods solemnly. Guess what? My dad is the one I call pops. I figured, she says. He wasn’t always like that, I say. Here’s the thing, she says. None of us are.) “My mom couldn’t change back into a mermaid no more after the fire. That’s why we moved here, far from the ocean, ‘cause it disturbed her to be near it. She ain’t never forgived me, and she ain’t never will. That’s why they do things to me.” (What things? I ask but she just keeps talking.) “There ain’t nothing I can do about it. You gotta promise me, all right? Promise you’ll tell someone. Not your dad. Someone more like your mother. She knows something ain’t right about me, you gotta tell her what it is. You gotta tell her what they done to me.”
What did they do? I mean to ask but my mind is stuck on Mazie rotting underground and I stare into Annabel’s yellow eyes, which, I only just realize, remind me of Ma
zie. Maybe, I think, just maybe you are the devil after all. Sometimes my mind thinks things I have no control over. Sometimes my body does things all on its own.
“Come on,” I say. Annabel sits up, blinking like she’s surprised. Her hair is knotted with sticks and weeds. I start untangling them. “It’s ok, baby,” I whisper. We tiptoe through the forest.
Poe - [Anthology] Page 19