by James Snyder
THE BEAUTIFUL-UGLY
James Snyder
Book One of THE BEAUTIFUL-UGLY TRILOGY
Copyright 2014 James Snyder
All Rights Reserved
http://jamessnyder.net
License Notes
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Richard K. Green @ www.richardkgreen.com
For Them
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Forever Lost
Chapter 2: Drop-house
Chapter 3: Saying Good Bye
Chapter 4: Pilgrims Mercy
Chapter 5: The School
Chapter 6: The Special
Chapter 7: The Interview
Chapter 8: Churn
Chapter 9: A Special Day
Chapter 10: Fostering Out
Chapter 11: Her New Family
Chapter 12: Learning to Pray
Chapter 13: The Choice
Chapter 14: Losing the Faith
Chapter 15: The Way It All Ended
Chapter 1
Forever Lost
The moment she felt her consciousness seeping back inside her, she knew where she was. She didn’t have to look. Or listen. No one had to come whisper in her ear. She could smell it that far out, returning. Something she had learned near the very beginning, or at least after the first year or so: When you wake up, don’t move so much as an eye muscle. Smell first. Quietly. That is, don’t sniff. Don’t dare flare a nostril they might see. Just let the odors come to you, as they always do. Establish your surroundings. Your boundaries. Then, if it passes the smell test, you can take a peek. So she lay there, motionless, and let it come inside her…those smells…the rancid, rotten-cabbage attempts at sterility…the blood-and-pus-soaked gauze…the metallic, needle-sharp tinge of stainless steel…the stagnant, stifling, incredibly compressed air of depression, threatening to crush and blow apart her skull all at once…and, of course, (at least according to some funny-at-the-time name-game she’d overheard somewhere) that noxious chemical war between Sergeant Shit and Private Piss and those two ranked and spiffy overachievers, Captain Clorox and Lieutenant Lysol. This was an easy one. Just another cashew clinic, she realized. Another psych ward was all.
And she opened her eyes.
*
In the beginning, it was the Quiet Room they kept her. Or, at least, their version. She knew that. Where she could be alone, away from the others, while they admired their latest freaky-deaky on display.
The Quiet Room.
But like those other rooms, she could still hear the yelling and screaming and the strange mix of voices beyond the walls, so she didn’t think it was that quiet. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t talk with them at all, in fact. She lay on the bed, or she sat in the chair they placed her, as they came and did what they always did.
Someone—one of the nurses—waved a hand before her face, and she blinked.
“Well, at least she’s not catatonic,” the nurse said.
Someone else said, “I guess she just doesn’t want to talk with us.”
She didn’t. She knew who they were. And she knew they wouldn’t do anything, except talk. But now she was through talking. Besides, she was tired now, so tired she didn’t know what, except that she wanted to be alone. So she sat there, seeing them come and go, but not ever looking at them, their eyes, like they wanted, and never saying a word.
They called her Sleeping Beauty, trying to ingratiate themselves. Trying to make her react—some way, anyway.
As she stared out somewhere beyond them, at that faint, red-pulsing light—fading away and returning—just above the steel-door entrance.
*
After what seemed like a week, they removed the restraints and replaced the major dressings, binding her sutured wrists with minor ones. She was healing. She was getting better now.
Then one day he came and sat beside her. He had a clipboard and a bedside smile.
“I was wondering if we might have a conversation.”
Oh, you mean one different from those thousand-and-one previous conversations I’ve had?
He sat there, waiting.
OK then—where would you like me to begin? Perhaps, when I was six—that would be, let’s see, ten or so years ago—when my parents were burned to death in their old gray Toyota somewhere down on Highway 1? Or maybe those hot-drops the courts first placed me with that took turns probing and examining my so young, so previously unavailable body, until I just couldn’t help myself and ran away? Or maybe that trailer-trash rapist you stuck me with on that rainy night that—on second thought, Doc, I really don’t feel like having another conversation right now. I really don’t.
“I think it would help if we talked.”
That’s not what she was thinking. What she was thinking was, she wished there was some way she could take all these soul-searching, so-called care-givers—every psychiatrist and psychologist and psychotherapist and counselor and social worker and know-better-than-thou government lawyer that had ever put her through their maddeningly invasive, mind-numbing routines—and make them actually hear themselves.
“Perhaps it would help if we went back to the beginning,” he said. “The very beginning and work forward from there. Why don’t we start there and see where it leads us, hmmm?”
She lay there, still ignoring him—actually, blocking him entirely out of her mind, and turning off his switch—but doing that. That is, for just a mind-flashing moment or so, going back to the beginning. The very beginning…
When she was six. And loved raspberry sherbet. And catching fireflies, which she called magic bugs then, racing after them through the twilight, seeing their cool, red-sherbet tummies blinking teasingly on and off around her, as she snapped them up inside her peanut-butter jar. Then her brother Eric, who was nine, three years older than herself, and who thought he knew everything, told her they weren’t magic bugs at all. They were just winged beetles. And the glow was just a chemical reaction called bio-something-or-other. But she didn’t care. If she wanted them to be magic, then they were, that’s all. They were magic just like the taste of raspberry sherbet was magic. And why couldn’t Eric understand that? Why?
Of course her mother agreed with Eric. Her mother was a researcher in a laboratory. She was smart like Eric. And the two of them would sit side-by-side on the sofa, watching the science programs on television, and discuss them afterward. And when she went to her once and asked her—couldn’t they be magic bugs, if she wanted them to be?—her mother only smiled and said, of course, sweetheart, of course they can, and hugged her. But she knew. She knew her mother thought they were winged beetles, just like Eric, and was only being polite.
But her father was more like her. And when he’d say, “Hey, brat, let’s go over to the park and catch some magic bugs.” She believed him. She really believed he thought they were magic, as she did, and that made running after them through the near-dark and catching them inside their peanut-butter jars even more fun.
Of course he always made her release them, after she watched them glowing inside the jar for a while. And once, when she caught one in her hand and wrote the first letter of her name: C, for Connelly, on her other hand, he told her, “You know, brat, that’s how they find each other in the dark, blinking on and off like that, and how they find their way back home. And if you remove the glow from their tummies, they’ll be lost, forever, in the dark. They’ll never find their way home then.”
She remembered that then, waiting outside in the dark on Mrs. Bagleresi’s balcony, when she saw the firefly.
Earlier in the afternoon, when Mrs. Bagleresi had her tea, she called her and Eric to the kitchen table for milk and cookies. Then Connelly went back to the balcony to wait. Her parents always came to pick them up not long after their snack, and so she read her book and waited, as the shadows drew long across the balcony, and the light faded.
Twice she had stood and gone over to the balcony railing to peer down the street, looking for their car. Then came the dusk and the evening dark when she saw the firefly glowing on Mrs. Bagleresi’s railing; and, frustrated, she went there and grabbed it up in her hand. She carefully touched her right index finger on the tummy, removing just a little of the magic dust, before releasing it to fly away. Then she stood there, looking out over the San Francisco skyline, and raised her finger, the pale red glow (as she made her wish) showing them both the way home.
Car lights approached. She leaned over the railing and watched until the lights were there below her, before the apartment building.
But it was a police car, instead.
She watched as two policemen and a woman got out of the car and came inside their building.
Connelly went and sat down again, waiting, until she heard the strange voices inside the apartment. She wiped the magic dust off her finger onto her shorts.
Before long, Mrs. Bagleresi came to the balcony door and said, “Connelly dear, you need to gather your things.”
She looked up. “Where’re mommy and daddy?”
Mrs. Bagleresi’s face looked different. “You need to gather your things, darling. You must hurry.”
She sat there, unsure.
“Hurry, dear—they’re waiting for you.”
She didn’t know what to do. Who was waiting for her? Who?
She followed Mrs. Bagleresi inside and saw them—the two policemen and the lady, standing there.
Now everything seemed a blur to her. She and Eric were gathering their things, glancing at each other. She wanted to say something to him but she was afraid. Everyone was standing there, unsmiling, watching them moving about as if they had done something wrong. She was so confused. And she was afraid. By the time she had everything tucked inside her backpack, and was lifting it on her shoulders, she began to cry. She cried quietly, hoping no one would notice. That’s when the strange lady came and put her arms around her. She looked young. Younger even than her mother.
“Connelly, my name’s Melissa. We’re going to go someplace and talk, all right?”
Her parents had always told her never to talk or go with strangers. But Mrs. Bagleresi was letting them go. And policemen were different, she remembered. She could go with policemen, her parents had told her.
At the elevator Mrs. Bagleresi said, “Good-bye, children. I want you—”
And she stopped, suddenly covering her mouth with her hand and turning away, hurrying back inside her apartment and shutting the door, as the elevator door opened.
*
That was the first time she had ever ridden in a police car. It was funny. There was a kind of plastic wall between the three of them, sitting in the back seat, and the two policemen in the front. And a lady kept talking over the radio very quickly in a low voice she couldn’t understand. But she didn’t care. She didn’t understand anything that was happening, and so she just leaned against Eric, and he didn’t try to push her away this time, or tell her to leave him alone. In fact, he didn’t seem to even notice her leaning there. No one said a word while they were driving, and so she sat there, leaning against her brother and listening to lady saying things over the radio she couldn’t understand.
*
When they arrived Connelly saw a big building with small lighted windows. She wondered where they were. Everything seemed to be happening in a hurry. Suddenly the policemen were gone, and Melissa took them inside and told them to sit down on one of the benches there. Then she left them, going into another room and shutting the door.
Connelly sat there beside her brother, looking around. It was a big room.
She whispered, “What’s happened, Eric? Where’re mommy and daddy? Why didn’t they come get us?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his head turned away. She heard him sniff. “She’ll tell us, I guess.”
But he wouldn’t look at her. She kept trying to see his face, but he kept looking away, so she stopped. Next, Melissa came and took him away.
“I want to talk with your brother a minute, Connelly,” she said. “Just a minute, and then I’ll talk with you, all right?”
She watched them walking away hand in hand, disappearing inside another room. After they were gone she looked around the room again. There were desks and chairs, and no one else was there. She wondered where everyone was. Then she remembered it was night, Saturday night, and everyone was probably home. Next she remembered how early that morning her father had picked her up out of bed and carried her, still in her pajamas and slippers, to the elevator. Sleepily, she saw Eric standing there, holding mommy’s hand behind them, everyone riding the creaky, early morning elevator up one floor from their apartment to Mrs. Bagleresi’s.
Then she heard Mrs. Bagleresi at the door, whispering, “Oh, put her there on the couch. I’ve made the sheets up. Eric, you go sleep on the daybed. Would you like some coffee before you go?”
She had heard her mother say no thank you.
At the last moment were the familiar hugs and kisses. Even with her eyes closed she could smell the difference between them, leaning down near her face: her mommy smelling soft and sweet like lavender flowers; her daddy like the outside, like the wind on San Francisco Bay on a sunny day. He told her once that was just his aftershave.
Then they were gone, and she snuggled down into the sheets Mrs. Bagleresi had prepared for her and went back to sleep.
She looked up.
Melissa was standing there. “Will you come with me now, Connelly? You can bring your backpack with you.”
She stood up, shouldering her backpack, and took Melissa’s hand. They walked across the floor into the other room. This room was smaller, with a desk and chair, and there was a couch and stuffed chairs in the corner. She saw Eric sitting in one of the chairs. His face looked different now, surprised different, like Mrs. Bagleresi’s face earlier on the balcony.
Melissa said, “Connelly, would you sit down here on the couch with me.”
She pulled off her backpack and they sat down on the couch, and suddenly she was afraid again. She didn’t like being there. She didn’t like feeling how she was feeling and not knowing why.
Melissa was sitting beside her, their knees touching, and Connelly looked down to see the larger hands now holding her smaller ones. She heard Melissa’s voice say strangely, “I’m afraid your mother and father had an accident. They were coming home, driving up the coast road, when another car hit their car.”
She stopped.
“Oh,” Connelly heard herself say, and she felt her face twisting. “Are they hurt then?”
She saw Melissa look at Eric and then back at her. She was squeezing both her hands hard now. She said, almost whispering, “Connelly darling, they were both killed. When the other car hit their car it…it took away their lives.”
She didn’t know. She sat there and didn’t know. Her voice sounded squeaky, saying, “Where are they now? Can I go see them?”
“They were taken to a special place when people die,” Melissa said. “A man has to look at them and do a report, and then they have to be buried. When they’re buried you and Eric can be with them. You can say good-bye to them then. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Connelly?”
She didn’t. She didn’t want to understand. She wanted to think of something else. Once, she asked her mommy if she
could have a kitten, but she told her it wasn’t allowed.
“But Mrs. Bagleresi has Fifi,” she reminded her.
“That’s because Mrs. Bagleresi pays a deposit we can’t afford.”
She wasn’t sure the difference, but her mommy finally promised, “When we can afford a real house we’ll get you a kitty.”
“But when?”
“When we can afford it, Connelly,” she repeated. “When we have the money.”
“We don’t have any money?”
“Yes, enough to pay the rent and pay the bills and not starve. But not enough for a whole house. Not yet.”
She wasn’t sure what all that meant either, except that she couldn’t have her kitty then. Instead, she went to her bedroom and played with her doll, Priscilla, telling her: “No, Priscilla, you can’t have a kitten. You know very well we can’t afford it. We have to pay other things first, so stop asking me.”
She remembered waiting, allowing time for Priscilla to answer her, and then said, “No, you can’t have a puppy either. When we can afford a real house, then you can have a kitten. A black and white one that we’ll share.” She had waited, listening. “No, you can’t have your own kitten, because I have to take care of it. You can’t take care of it—you’re just a doll.” She waited again. “Well, you can cry if you want to, but it won’t do you any good.”
She had picked her doll up then, rocking her gently back and forth in her arms, humming.
Melissa said, “According to Mrs. Bagleresi, you don’t have any relatives nearby, is that right?”
Connelly saw that she was looking at Eric, but he only looked confused; afraid, even. Instead, she told her, “Our grandmother’s in the rest home. She has Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t remember anything, not even my daddy, who was her son.”
Now Melissa looked back at her. “But you have an uncle?”
She nodded. “Uncle Boyd. That’s mommy’s brother. He’s somewhere in the merchant marines. He goes all over the world. He likes to drink.”