Paint My Body Red

by Heidi R. Kling

  Per usual, Anna fusses over my father, wiping the corner of his mouth with a strawberry printed towel, murmuring in his ear in a soothing voice.

  “Your dad wants to know if you had a good day today,” Anna says to me.

  “Sure,” I say. I shrug like Jake in the Jeep.

  Dad is slurping green liquid from a straw and stops. He mutters, “You okay?” I’m surprised I understand him.

  I might be a disaster, but he’s the one sitting in the wheelchair drinking from a straw. I need to get over myself. Think about the past only when I’m writing it. Focusing on the now is better.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “What do you do out in that old barn?” Anna asks.

  I almost spit out my milk. “Barn?” Was she spying on me?

  “Sure. I see you head over there all the time. What’s in there?”

  She’s like Jake—direct voice, direct words, and direct eye contact. She doesn’t mean anything more than she says, and she asks what she wants to know.

  They’re both looking at me now.

  It’s not fair, even slightly, and I damn Jake for ditching me, even though logically he didn’t ditch me at all. He never invited me into his world, I just showed up at his door.

  Anna hands me a glass of water, and I take a sip. “Some things from when Dad and I were in this club together. Indian Princesses. Remember that, Dad?”

  He sort of smiles. “He does,” Anna says. I want to press a button that will shoot her down a trap, and have Mom pop back up to make Dad’s head tilt straight on his neck again, fill out those baggy sweatpants with strong muscle, make him smile like before, wide and real.

  “I found my old headdress. And some of my rocks and fool’s gold.” And my old journal where I’m burying my secrets.

  He mutters something and Anna says, “He’s never let anyone up in that old loft except you.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I like spending time up there.”

  We’re all quiet for a bit. Then, Anna excuses herself and my father. She has to help him use the restroom.

  “Goodnight, Daddy,” I say.

  His eyes meet mine and it’s so painful that I tear mine away.

  The next thing I know I’m holding a flashlight and running through the ranch in the dark and scrambling up that old ladder because I have something to say, and if I don’t say it this second, I’ll explode.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Then

  After she received her rejection letter to her number one school of choice, Snarky Elena, frenemy #1, killed herself, leaving a suicide note…of the grisliest proportions.

  She took the kitchen scissors to a Harvard pendant, thrashing it like a black bear would a salmon, and then slit her wrists with the same scissors in the bathtub.

  When her mother got home from the farmer’s market with bundles of organic produce, she found slivers of crimson felt spread across her kitchen counters, on her imported tile floor. The water in the stainless steel sink was running; a glop of drippy inked paper clogged the drain. Molted and in the consistency of kindergarten glue, the only sentence she could still make out was, “Unfortunately, we don’t have a spot for you this year.”

  Elena didn’t cut herself deeply enough, because she wasn’t even close to dying. So, blood dripping from her wrists, and dressed only in a Harvard sweatshirt, she walked to the tracks two blocks from her house and stood there until the same train that ran over Cornell a month before ended her life.

  Elena’s suicide was more dramatic and gruesome than Golden Boy’s.

  It was as disturbing as it was surreal. Like it was happening to someone in Paris or in Toyko or in an independent movie, because it couldn’t be happening again at my school. It couldn’t be someone I knew. No. It couldn’t be someone I disliked.

  Guilt and confusion and shock consumed me. I watched it all unfold like it was happening to someone else. But not Lucy. She was devastated. Cried uncontrollably for days and days. Nothing helped. And since she knew I never liked Elena, there was nothing I could do or say to make her feel better. She was a nice person? She wasn’t. I’m sure she didn’t mean to ruin her parents’ life? She did. I’m sure she could take it back if she could? I knew she wouldn’t. I was angry with her. Angry with her for hurting the people who loved her. I was useless for comfort.

  I went to the funeral with Ty who, ironically, was asked to sing. Before our eyes, the boy Elena coined the “devil” transformed into an angel. He had a luminous, edgy voice, and the limply confident presence of a budding rock star. Before that moment, I’d only heard him in the shower, and that was skewed by water. I shouldn’t be pausing in the hallway to admire my stepbrother’s throaty songbird sound, anyway, so I never paused too long.

  Everyone was always telling him he looked like one, though—a rock god—with his moody demeanor, affinity for illegal drugs, and general shitty attitude. He enjoyed egging them on. Last week he showed me the sleeve of tattoos he got in Santa Cruz—an upside down angel falling from heaven with a sword in its side. At the time I didn’t realize how prophetic it was. It was chilling to know the image hiding underneath the button-down shirt at Elena’s funeral.

  That day, sitting in the church after what I’d said to Elena a few weeks before, I felt guilty as hell. Could I have contributed to her decision somehow? Why on earth would she kill herself over a college acceptance?

  Elena and Luce were right.

  I didn’t get it.

  It was as inexplicable a thought process as killing yourself over accidentally getting the wrong order at a restaurant, and in such a violent, “fuck you” way, too. Slicing up her wrists, slicing up the Harvard pennants. She knew she’d be found on the tracks in only her underwear and a thrashed sweatshirt bearing her parents’ dream for her.

  It was downright chilling. Nobody else felt the way I did, though, so I kept my thoughts close to my chest. Everyone else was uttering the usual things: she was “depressed”, etc. I don’t know though. I think she was angry. Angry and without any outlets to voice just how very angry she was at life, at her parents, at her circumstances. It was tragic, and it was horribly disturbing.

  Luce again told me I just didn’t get it. Ty did, too. “You want to be a writer,” Luce said. “It doesn’t matter what school you go to.”

  That hurt, but she had a point. I applied to only small liberal arts colleges with writing programs, and I didn’t much care which one I got into. That was the truth of me. Maybe I lacked ambition? I don’t know. I didn’t push her on it. I didn’t defend myself. How could I? Her friend had just died. But I could not understand Elena’s truth.

  I slunk down in the hard-backed pew and studied the hymnals while the priest talked, and before my brother was asked to take the stage.

  Ty wasn’t friends with Elena. But his father knew her parents.

  When Ty stood up to sing “Hallelujah,” the one that makes even the hardened among us burst into chills, a calm washed over me akin to sinking into a bubble bath. Ty transcended Ty then, and I couldn’t help but think, You were wrong about him, Elena. Can you hear him singing at your funeral? Hitting all the notes beautifully? How Could He Hurt a Girl? No, not this boy with the voice of an angel. It made me open my heart to him and close it once and for all for her.

  He was nice to me. She treated me like shit.

  She was dead. He was alive. Very much alive.

  A dead girl warned me. She warned me, and I didn’t listen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Now

  I jerk awake, sweaty, screaming.

  I see Elena’s eyes judging me. Calling Ty the devil, and coining me the same. I see Ty with horns. With smoke coming from his nose and hooves as he shifts into one of Jake’s killer bison, charging me, and throwing me into the air, while Lucy looks on sobbing.

  I can’t sleep in the dark, not anymore, so the hall light illuminates the sleeping violets on my walls, creating creepy shadows and images. I shudder, burying myself farther under the c
overs, but it doesn’t help. I’m chilled to the bone.

  When my heart rate slows with deep, steady breaths, I wander into the kitchen and open the fridge. White light pools onto the dark floor.

  The house is still and quiet. No hum of Dad’s machines, no pitter-patter of Anna going about her business.

  I look at the phone, and in my nightmare it rings. Not just a ring, but a shrill warning of an approaching train. Head beams flood the tracks, and he screams and I scream because I’m too late. I’m always too late.

  I wake up sobbing alone in my room. Again sweating and chilled to the bone, but this time I’m actually awake.

  This happens night after night after night.

  A never-ending nightmare I’m afraid I’ll never wake up from. And it’s getting harder to keep the nightmares separate from reality.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The weekend drags on and on.

  This must be what rehab is like. Eat, sleep, write, repeat—all soaked in an anxious, unbearable quiet.

  After choking down three square meals, and playing a few rounds of a chess game on the computer, alone as always, Dad goes off to take his nap, and I wander around the property alone.

  Small, rustic—and now rather decrepit—cabins nestle behind the ranch—where the guests used to stay. I assume one of which is where Jake lives, but there is no sign of his Jeep. I want to peek in the windows, but in case he’s home I don’t want him to call the sheriff on his boss’s crazy daughter, or worse, shoot me thinking I’m an intruder. This is the Wild West after all. People carry guns here the way they carry yoga mats at home.

  On the way back to the house, I stop at the stables and watch this gorgeous, skittish horse loping around the corral like a swarm of bees is chasing it. It looks at me with wild, threatening eyes. “Easy,” I say, “I get it. You want to be alone.”

  Eventually, I wander back up to the silent house, which smells like dust and the leftover roasted turkey we had for lunch. Bored and antsy, I scrounge around Dad’s kitchen. I spot a bowl of apples.

  Hmm.

  I grab one and head back to the corral.

  The horse is still at it. Loping, scratching, neighing into the hot afternoon air. “What is your deal?” I ask.

  Still loping around, the horse stops, scratching at the dust and glaring at me.

  I hold out the gift. “Apple?” I ask, with a generous head tilt. “I come in peace. Want it?”

  She hoofs at the dirt, her eyes all rage and fire. She reminds me of Ty when I asked him about that girl, when he called Elena a bitch—so mad at the world, he was even angry with the dead. What had happened to this beautiful horse to piss her off so badly? I had no doubt that if I wasn’t behind this fence, she’d trample me and likely enjoy it.

  “Here,” I say. “Take it.”

  She won’t give an inch.

  “Fine. I get that, too.” So I toss it into the corral and it rolls until coming to a dust puff stop in the center of the ring. She eyes it but doesn’t approach it or sniff it out until I understand that I’m way up in her personal space and take a few steps back. Still she doesn’t budge. “Fine. You hate me. I get that, too. But you should still take the apple. An apple is an apple no matter who gives it to you.”

  Her ear twitches like she understands.

  I head up to the porch and plop down into the swing. The hard wood doesn’t hurt my butt as badly now that I put some meat back on it with Anna’s cooking.

  I swing gently on the porch, watching the stubborn horse inch toward the apple like it’s a grenade she expects to go off.

  I smile when she finally takes it.

  She chomps at it, nuzzling it with her nose and then flings it through the air before scooping it up again.

  Hilarious.

  I swing back and forth languidly, watching this fascinating creature. When Jake gets back, I’ll ask about her. Why she’s here, and most importantly, what’s got her so pissed off at the world?

  She smacks around the apple for a while, getting some nibbles before what looks like swallowing it whole. “Well played,” I say, waving from the deck.

  She snorts and turns away, which amuses me. Goofing around with this horse is the highlight of my weekend, by a lot. Finally, when the sweat is pooling in my bra—it’s got to be at least 98 in the shade—I retreat back into the cool dark house, down the cool dark, hallways.

  Back in my room, I flip open my laptop and stare at the blank screen for what seems like hours.

  It’s funny, when I write in that old diary the words just flow, but like the horse and that apple, this screen and I can’t find a way to get along.

  After a while I give up—nothing about the internet interests me anymore, not Facebook, not Twitter, none of it. I don’t want to know what the kids at home are up to. And I don’t care about celebrities and their bad grammar tweets. Besides, even if I did care, Dad’s service is so batshit bad, it would barely come in anyway.

  So I take all the clothes out of my suitcase, lay them on the lacy quilt on my bed, refold them, and then, instead of placing them in the drawers like a normal person would, place them back neatly in my suitcase. I’m not ready to make this ranch home again. The idea of a quick stay, a vacation, is more settling on my nerves. If I have to leave in a split second, I can.

  Stir crazy, I wander around the house some more.

  It’s so quiet—eerily so. How long is Dad going to sleep?

  While I wait for him to wake up, I watch the horse some more. She looks up at me with a little less anger in her eyes. She liked the apple.

  When Dad wakes up, I ask him if he wants to play a few rounds of computer poker. We used to play regular poker all the time. He taught me all kinds of card games: Go Fish morphed to hearts morphed to pitch morphed to poker. I learned quickly, not only tricks of playing a hand well, but the usefulness of a poker face.

  Good thing this isn’t real money, kid, you’d be broke, he types.

  “Ha!” I say. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  You remember all my sayings, he types. I like that.

  “How could I forget?”

  As much as I enjoy our time together and appreciate the fact that Anna leaves me mostly alone to bond with Dad, by Sunday morning, I can’t take the quiet stillness of the ranch for another second.

  “Can I take the truck into town today?” I ask over breakfast of fried eggs, crunchy bacon—Dad must’ve told Anna I like mine well-done—home-fried potatoes, and thick white freshly baked toast with butter and strawberry jam (no wonder I’m packing on the pounds). I haven’t driven since I arrived. I feel like getting out, exploring town a bit on my own. Maybe I’ll wander into Jake who I haven’t seen since he left for rodeo Friday evening.

  Anna looks at Dad. He mumbles something to her.

  “I’ll be happy to take you,” Anna says. “I have to get some supplies anyhow. What are you looking for?”

  “Oh, it’s okay, I can drive myself. I’m looking for some new jeans maybe. A couple shirts? None of my things feel right here.”

  I’m wearing the sparkly Cowgirl shirt again. Anna glances down at it and back to my face. “That’s not from home now, is it?”

  I laugh. “No.”

  Dad smiles a bit, too.

  “The airport gift shop,” I confess, lamely, remembering the zombie state I was in when I arrived. Mentally I’m not feeling that much better, but just the fact that I have an appetite, am getting more sleep, and am physically healthy is going a long way.

  “Thought it looked familiar,” Anna says. “The color is good on you.”

  I’m not sure if she didn’t hear me say I’d like to drive myself or she just wanted to go into town, but she stays in group-activity mode, “We’ll stop at the boot depot and fit you for some real shoes. You might want to do some riding while you’re here and what you have on is not going to cut it.”

  Her eyebrow lifts as she glances down at my flip-flops. “Okay,” I say, thinking about the horse I
gave half of my apple to yesterday—and wondering if I can get up the nerve to ask Jake if I can ride her. “Who will take care of Dad while we’re gone?”

  “He’ll come along. We’ll take the van.”

  “Oh, good.”

  We can play poker on my phone on the way, he types.

  “Not a chance. I’ll need cash to pay for new boots,” I say. I’m forcing the light-hearted conversation. It’s still so unbearable for me to see him in this state, but if I act weird, it makes him more uncomfortable, which, in turn, makes me even more uncomfortable, and it’s a double-edged sword of awful.

  So when he types a smiley face on his computer, I lean over him and type a wink. Nothing says light-hearted more than an emoticon wink.

  It works. And soon, we’re on our way. The ranch has a van that is wheelchair equipped for Dad. I fumble around trying to appear useful as Anna gets him ready. He wheels himself down the ramp that is now outfitted on the porch.

  The day is gorgeous and spread out before us like a panoramic painting: blue sky as far as the eye can see, hawks soaring overhead, squirrels scampering over rocks, the air smelling of pine and clarity.

  It’s so quiet. All I can hear is the wind whistling through the trees. It will be nice to get into town and be around some people.

  Subconsciously, I glance down the driveway looking for Jake’s Jeep.

  “He won’t be back till Monday.”

  Caught.

  “Oh,” I say. “I wasn’t…”

  The brilliant mind reader kindly doesn’t challenge my lie. She knows I’m thinking about him, though, so I might as well ask. “Does he live in one of those cabins on the property?”