He pops his phone into the cup holder and shoots the car onto the highway, just missing a yellow cab. He slams on his brakes and hits his horn, insults the taxi driver, and then crosses three lanes in one go. Nauseated, I lower the window and stare out at the crackling blue city looming in the distance.
My bag is on my knees. I don’t shift it to my feet. Instead, I pull it closer to me, because it smells like home, like fabric softener, like Mom. Aster never liked our mother. She reproached her everything: our lack of money, of clothes, of food. But it wasn’t Mom’s fault. She tried her best. Her fingers bled from trying her best.
I caress the wine-colored spot along the seam; a drop of dried blood Mom never had time to wash off.
Chapter Three
Aster
When Ivy left, it hit me that I wouldn’t see her for ten days. Ten! I’ve never been apart from my sister for that long. I must look really glum because a woman with red dreadlocks keeps staring at me in the cafeteria. In the past two days, no one has bothered talking to me…which is fine. I don’t feel chatty. Besides, there’s no point in making friends. I’ll be gone soon.
Dreadlocks chews her food and gawks. Frankly, it’s annoying. For a moment, I pretend she’s not there, but it becomes unbearable. I’m about to go off on her when I hear my name called out.
“Aster Redd, you got a visitor.”
A visitor? I wipe the surprise off my face before Dreadlocks can spot it. Why wouldn’t I have visitors? I know people. I quickly grab my tray, dump the half-eaten contents, and set it on the shelving. Then I stride through the metal detector and past the guard who’s holding the door open for me. I imagine I’m going through a portal that will lead me out of here, but I end up in a sterile corridor irradiated by zinging strips of too-bright neon.
Through the glass door of the visitation area, I can make out Josh’s familiar broad shoulders. When the guard buzzes me through the door, I hurry to where he’s sitting and plop down. He’s dressed in his police uniform and sports dark circles beneath his green eyes.
“Hi,” I say, my voice a little airy from the thrill of seeing him. Even though we’re no longer together, I can’t help my heart from beating faster in his presence. I’ve loved him since we were five and have never stopped, not even after the awful morning six months ago…not even after we decided to take a break from each other.
“Hey.” He scans my face. It practically feels as though he’s touching it.
I shiver. His hands were always so soft, so much softer than mine. Then again, at the pizzeria where I serve and do the dishes, I have my hands in water half the day.
“The chief okayed my involvement.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
“Look”—he takes the little notepad peeking out of his shirt pocket and the tiny ballpoint pen hooked into the spiral binding. It’s the one I bought him when we were still together. The ink tip comes out when you shake it—“I really don’t feel like you’re telling me everything, so let’s go over this again.”
“But I—”
“Just humor me.”
“Fine.” I look down at the chipped edge of the table. “I was counting up tips when this guy walked in to pick up his takeout. Everyone had left.”
“You mean all the customers?”
“I mean everyone. I was in charge of locking up.”
“What did he order?”
I fling my gaze back up to his. “A pepperoni pizza.”
His eyes hover over mine. “I dropped by the pizzeria and asked Abby for a receipt. She didn’t find anything. Not even a credit card slip.”
“He paid cash.”
“What about the receipt?”
“It must be there. She must not have looked well.”
Josh rubs the back of his short brown hair. “So he bought a pepperoni pizza…then what?”
“As he was paying, I thought I recognized him from somewhere. It took me a second to realize it was from that file you keep on your desk.”
He sighs and it resonates deep inside his chest. “Which you shouldn’t have seen.”
“But I did. He was a wanted criminal.”
“Granted, but you’re not a detective, Aster.”
“I know, but he was right there.”
“You should’ve called me.”
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Aster,” he growls.
“Okay, fine. I didn’t. But that’s only because he was getting into his car. So I locked up fast and got into mine. My cell phone didn’t have any more battery.”
Josh fixes me so intensely that I fold my arms in front of my chest.
“I got him. Isn’t that what matters?” I ask.
“He was wanted alive.”
“He tried to yank me out of the car. I reacted.” My heart’s beating faster, pumping blood that feels like fire through my body. “I didn’t think I’d killed him. It was an accident.”
“Was it?” he whispers loudly.
“Yes! I’m not a murderer, Josh.”
He fixes me as though trying to x-ray my scalp to peer inside my mind. “I got an anonymous tip.”
“An anonymous tip?”
He nods and leans his muscular forearms onto the fake wood table. Josh spends equal time at the gym and at work. For the longest time, I thought he would become a sports coach instead of an officer. “Someone saw you that night. They called in to say a small Honda had a large, bloodied crack in the windshield, and the girl at the wheel was nervous and apparently cold. Covered in some blanket.”
“I admitted I hit a man. And I’m allowed to have been cold. I was in shock.”
“What did the blanket look like?”
“I don’t know. Blue.”
“He said it was multi-colored.”
“It was dark out. He couldn’t have seen.”
“Was it one of Ivy’s quilts?”
I shake my head.
“Where’s the blanket now?”
“Probably still in my car.”
“It wasn’t. I checked.”
“Then someone took it out. Why is this even important? Troy Mann is what’s important.”
He smacks his palms against the table, which makes me jump. It also makes the guard in the corner stop picking at his cuticles to stare at us. The sound reminds me of my mother’s palm colliding with my face, leaving a glaring red imprint that would begin fading just in time for the next slap. “That’s not the point, Aster. You can’t go around killing people.”
My saliva suddenly feels like plaster, thick and dry. “But he was yelling at me. He tried to strangle me.”
“You should’ve driven away,” he says, his tone more sad than angry.
“I would’ve lost him, Josh.”
“I’d rather you lost him. Instead, I—we—might lose you, Aster.”
“I’m right here,” I say, wrapping my hands around his.
“No touching,” the guard snaps.
I glare at him, but let go.
“What happened after you hit him?” Josh asks.
“I drove off.” I smelled the blood through the shattered windshield. “I threw up, so I went home to take a shower.” I swallow. “You know me, I hate blood. Especially since…” I don’t mention the awful morning. Josh was there. He remembers.
He shakes the small pen. The ink tip slides back in. He shakes it again. It slides back out. He does this several more times before asking, “You didn’t take anything from the crime scene, did you?”
I shoot my gaze downward. “No,” I say, peering down at my cracked nails. They’re all so short. Except the one on my right pinky. That one is long and sharp. It’s the only one that never breaks. The one on my left hand is torn off like the others. My pinky nails are like Ivy and me—one’s stronger than the other.
“The police report states there was dirt underneath your nails.”
I ball my hands and burrow them underneath my armpit. “My keys fe
ll in the potted plant by the door, because my hands were shaking. I had to dig them out.”
He eyes me in silence. “Aster…”
His voice is so soft I’m expecting him to tell me he loves me, reassure me that he’s going to get me out, that—
“Tell me the truth.”
“That’s what I’m doing!”
“I know you well enough to know when you’re lying, and you’re lying. I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”
“You never believe me anyway,” I say. My vision is clouding. “You didn’t believe me that morning in the park and you don’t believe me now.” Josh’s face wobbles. The entire room wobbles. There are two, three, four guards. An optical illusion. “This conversation’s over.” I’m about to stand, but Josh grabs my arm and squeezes it.
“It’s not over.”
“Take your hands off me,” I say coolly, since the guard is suddenly totally useless.
“Aster, please…” His voice has dropped to a whisper. “Please…stay. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Thanks for making them approve the TV channel.”
His overly tanned forehead scrunches up again. He’s going to have skin cancer someday and he’ll deserve it.
I shrug his hand off. Accompanied by the guard, I leave and count the number of footsteps it takes to reach the dayroom and the little screen that will make the next few days bearable.
Chapter Four
Ivy
I haven’t been sleeping much since Aster entered the Indiana Department of Correction, so I doze off in the back of the sedan, which makes me miss my first glimpse of the city. When I wake up, I don’t feel rested, but I don’t feel as horrid as I’ve felt this past week.
I take in Manhattan. The waning sun softens the sharp edges of the buildings. Gray, white, beige, glass, and metal collide in a lovely, linear landscape. I snap a mental picture of everything to reproduce with fabric when I get home…or maybe on the show.
The car lurches to a stop at a red light. Danny spins around. “Oh, you’re not sleeping! I was worried I was going to have to wake you. I hate interrupting someone’s peace. Although you didn’t sound too peaceful.”
I frown.
“You were mumbling all these things.”
“Like what?”
“I couldn’t understand much. Heard the words man and quilt a couple times.”
I concentrate on the outside world to forget my inside world.
“Must be the stress from the competition,” he says when I don’t speak for a long time.
“Yeah.”
When we pull up, there are swarms of people with flailing arms and smartphones propped in the air.
“Ready, sweets?”
“Ready.”
He smiles and hops out his door to open mine. “I got your back.” He extends one arm.
“I’m good,” I tell him, pushing out of the car, but he keeps his arm over me anyway. The stench of wool and perspiration prickles my nostrils.
I hear my name. It’s being screamed left and right. I also hear number eight hollered. I raise my eyes and get lost in the grand stone building before me. Voices and street noise die away. It’s just me and the block-long museum I’ve longed to visit since my early teens.
“My wife just saw us on the news,” the driver says, pocketing his phone. “She’d like an autograph. Can you do me the honor?” He already has a pen and a dollar bill out.
As we push into the museum, I sign my name across the creased green and white paper.
“Break a leg, Eight.”
And then he leaves through the revolving doors and I’m alone in the mammoth entrance, underneath a row of carved columns holding up a mezzanine. I step further inside, looking up and around like Charlie when he entered Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The walls stretch up neck-breakingly high, vaulting together into giant arches and wrapping around magnificent skylights. The octagonal desk at the center of the space has been turned into a giant vase enclosing a landscaped mound of orchids, peonies, and calla lilies.
“Thought you’d never make it.” A woman in jeans, a black tee, and a headpiece is standing right in front of me.
I didn’t hear her approach.
“We got to get going. The show starts in an hour. Follow me. Number Eight’s in the building, Jeb.” I don’t see anyone else around, so I assume she’s speaking into her mic. When we arrive in front of an elevator, she says, “I’m Cara, your assistant.” The doors open and we step in, and then they close and we’re whisked away from the beautiful lobby. “You’ll be on the third floor throughout most of the competition. The other floors are off limits, unless you’re escorted there. Receptions and events will take place in the Temple Room. I’ll be accompanying you everywhere.” She pushes her short, bottle-blonde hair behind her ear to clear her mouthpiece. Her roots are shockingly black.
The elevator pings and the doors open. Cara goes right. I follow. We continue down a short hallway toward an open doorway. The walls inside the vast room are wainscoted wood with a repetition of pale rectangular patches at eye level—probably where paintings were hung.
“They removed the artwork for insurance reasons,” she explains when she notices me studying the walls. “Your prep table’s over there. Number eight.”
There are eight stations with the same three-sided mirrors adorned with round light bulbs. The numbers stick out above the top of the mirrors, large and gold—impossible to miss. People are milling around. Most are dressed casually and sport the same headpieces as my assistant, though I spot some sitting in front of the vanities—other contestants. Two of them turn to glance at me. The third doesn’t turn, but his eyes follow me in the mirror. In spite of the light shining into them, they’re dark, practically black.
“Over here will be your living quarters,” Cara is saying.
We weave out of the room into a contiguous one. A long band of beige fabric stretches from floor to ceiling, spanning the entire width of the stripped gallery. We penetrate a flap in the middle. It’s a tent, but not just any tent—it’s something out of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The entrance is paved with a forest of potted trees strung up with twinkling lights. There’s a white oval table on one side of the garden, and a living area made up of a long couch and plush armchairs on the other.
I trail after Cara down a grassy corridor lined with the same lit trees. Every fifteen feet or so, there’s a zippered flap with a large number painted in silver. Number eight’s the last one.
“Your room,” Cara announces, unzipping the entrance.
We leave the garden theme behind, and enter a luxurious bedroom. It’s hard to believe we’re still in a tent, what with the hardwood floors, the velvet upholstered headboard, the king-size bed, and the mirrored bathroom in the back.
I must look awed, because Cara smirks. “Nice, huh?”
I nod.
“Okay…so before I go, I need your cell phone and any other electronic devices you might’ve brought with you.”
I dig my phone from the front pocket of my duffle and give it to her.
“Nothing else?” she asks, brows drawing together over her large brown eyes.
“Can’t afford anything else”—I give her a wide smile—“yet.”
“You can unpack later.” She eyes my bag. “Your stylists are waiting by your station. Go out in a bathrobe and slippers.” She juts her chin to the bathroom wall where a white robe is hanging. “I’ll pick you up and take you to the venue as soon as you’re ready. See you in a few.”
The second she vanishes, I drop my bag on the bed and sprawl out on the comforter. The duvet is so soft, it molds around my body. I don’t want to move; it’s heaven.
A shrill, “All contestants to the dressing room!” echoes from a concealed speaker. I pry myself off the bed, wondering if someone saw me, but the zipper is shut tight and there are no cameras on the cloth ceiling—at least none that are apparent. It was probably an announcement meant for everyone. I k
ick off my sneakers and strip. And then I look at the mess, and it reminds me of Aster, and I don’t want to be reminded of her right now, so I fold everything up and place it neatly on the wooden bench at the foot of the bed.
As I wait for the shower to heat up, I tie my hair up. In the mirror over the sink, I see Aster staring back at me with her haunted blue eyes. I fling the door of the shower open to allow the steam out. When it has completely blurred my reflection, I step inside and breathe. It feels like breathing fire and yet it’s the freshest breath of air I’ve had since leaving Indiana.
Too soon, I get out and dry myself in the honeycomb bathrobe that is softer than cashmere. I wonder if I’ll get to take it home. The number eight is stitched on the breast pocket in silver thread. The slippers are fuzzy and thin-soled. They fit a little big, but stay put. Casting one last glance around, I return to the grassy hallway and retrace my steps to the makeup room.
“About time,” a woman with black hair all the way down to her waist says. “I’ll be your makeup artist for the duration of the show. Amy, get your ass over here. We have thirty minutes left to get her ready!”
A twenty-something girl with pink hair and extra-wide hips scampers over with an apron full of pins and brushes. “Hi,” she says, smiling warmly.
“Get to work,” the makeup artist tells her as she wipes my face with a damp cotton disc.
Amy’s smile evaporates. In silence, she yanks my hair, while the other one stabs at my face with brushes and pencils.
“Is this the first time you’ve worked this competition?” I ask.
“Look up,” the makeup artist says. I still don’t know her name. Then she adds, “I’ve been here since the beginning. I was assigned to the past two winners.”
“Wow,” Amy whispers.
“I only work with winners,” she adds, looking straight at my reflection. “Let’s hope you won’t break my streak, Eight.”
“I have every intention of winning.”
Amy pulls on my hair as she brushes it, bringing moisture to my eyes. “This is my first time.”
The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) Page 2