Текст книги "Cam Girl"
Автор книги: Leah Raeder
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
“What am I, the royal cook?”
“No, goofus. You’re the prince. Put it on.”
Only your best fucking friend will tie an apron cape around her shoulders and pretend to be your Disney prince.
“Let us survey my lands,” I said, strolling back to the chair. “Please roll the throne to my viewing tower.”
From the roof of the parking garage you could see clear to the Atlantic. It was freezing, a hard, metallic cold that seemed to make the air ring. My breath flew away in scraps of pale tulle. Midwinter in Maine is hell. Dante’s Hell, Ninth Circle style. Ocean infused the air, salt and grit studding the breeze with a million tiny barbs. Might as well have left the blanket indoors. I used to think of myself as tough, born in a blizzard and raised on the West Side of Chicago, but I wasn’t prepared for this sheer brutality, the way each day hit you like a kick in the teeth.
Ellis took out her vaping pen and I savored the warm steam she exhaled, the scent of sage and mint.
“What happened to the car?” I said.
“Insurance covered it.”
“Did you pick out a new one?”
“No.”
I pulled the hospital blanket tighter around my shoulders. “What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t want a new one. I don’t want anything.”
“Why not?”
Her fingers combed through my hair, grazed the nape of my neck. I shivered harder than I had at the cold. “Let’s not talk about that. Let’s just be happy tonight.”
It was right there. This thing we were skating around, the thin, fragile ice at the center of a dark pond. I could ask her. I could push us both into the black.
Instead I said, “This is our fifth New Year’s together.”
Elle sat on the stone coping of the roof. Her smile was distant, sad. “Which was your favorite?”
“The first.”
The smile wilted. “Are you sure you don’t have a brain injury?”
“What’s wrong with year one?”
“The furnace broke down. We covered the windows with garbage bags to trap the heat.”
“Then we made the best fucking pillow fort anyone’s ever made.”
“Okay, the fort was kind of awesome.”
“You kept trying to calculate the load-bearing capacity of our couch pillows.” I laughed. “Such a nerd. You got shitfaced on lemon drops.”
Elle gave a prim toss of her head, the fake cape crackling. “I didn’t know vodka could taste like candy.”
“Remember getting all handsy with me?”
“I did not!”
“You so did. God, you were so pure before we met. And now look at you.” I smirked up at her, a bit meanly. “Prince Ellis, the fallen. Getting drunk at parties. Hooking up in bathrooms.”
My toes brushed the rim of that dark heart in the proverbial pond. Elle felt us teetering near the edge, too.
“Remember?” I said. “At the party, before the accident?”
“No,” she whispered.
“But you remember wanting to go back to Chicago. I know you do, Elle. Because you still want to go. You don’t really want to be here.”
We stared at each other through a haze of breath and steam. From far away came a soft roar, like the ocean rising. As I looked up at her, the wind tousling her short hair and that silly cape till she seemed almost regal, I didn’t see my best friend but some gamine tomboy prince. Someone I could run away with.
Someone I already had.
My right shoulder jerked suddenly, playing a muscle memory: gripping a drawing pencil, pushing it against paper. Capturing this moment. But it was only memory. My arm remained straitjacketed, a wire of pain twisting around the bone.
“You were right,” I said. “I’m an asshole. You’re better off leaving.”
Ellis sighed, a wall of white cloud cutting us off for a moment. “I’m not leaving when you’re hurt.”
“Don’t stay out of pity.”
“It’s not pity. It’s because you’re the most important person in my life. Even if it’s not mutual.”
“What, the nurse? You’re mad I wouldn’t say some arbitrary word in front of some random woman?”
“There you go again. Making me sound petty and unreasonable because I—”
She fell silent as the faraway roar rose higher, and a haunting scream pierced it. I stood and a streamer of light rolled across the sky. At its apex it burst into a red chrysanthemum, a hundred fiery petals falling into the ocean. Fireworks.
“It’s midnight,” I said. Elle’s eyes lowered, watching my mouth and then drifting back up. I went warm all over, little threads of heat shooting out to my fingertips, my lips. “If you start this new year with me, we’ll be stuck together.”
“I never wanted to go. But you won’t give me a reason to stay.”
“I’m your reason. Like you’re mine.” I brushed her cheek. “Everything’s new tonight. Let’s be new, too.”
Our breath hung silkily in the space between us, a ghostly tissue spanning mouth to mouth. Something made from the two of us, knitting us together. Overhead another firework burst and then another, electric blue, shocking purple, as I leaned in to close this space, to share one breath.
And then my fucking phone rang.
I stepped back, dizzy. Sat in the wheelchair and glared at the screen. “Shit. Guess who?”
Ellis laughed nervously. “Tu mamá.”
“Let’s go before she melts down Maine.”
We avoided each other’s eyes on the elevator. But she traced my jawline with one finger, and I took that hand and pressed it to my mouth, brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
“Happy New Year, my prince.”
Her hand stayed on my shoulder the whole way back.
My mom met us in the room in full español mode. “Letting your beloved mother leave without a good-bye? What if the plane crashes?”
I responded in Spanish, too. “Planes are safer than cars. And that’s really tasteless when we were just in an accident. Please speak English in front of Ellis.”
“She understands more than you think.” Mamá gave me a strange look. “As do I.”
I got out of the chair, shaking the tiara from my head. “So you’re going home?”
“I booked an early flight from Boston. I have to be at work tomorrow.”
“Well, thanks for dropping by.”
“Vada.” My mother touched my arm as I headed for the bed. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
Elle watched us with big unblinking eyes, probably not parsing more than every fifth word. But the name of that city alarmed her.
“I can’t, Mamá.”
“This is serious. You’re not playing house anymore. You’ll need months of further care.”
My jaw tightened. “ ‘Playing house’?”
“Transfer to a college back home. Ari’s fiancé will help us pay.”
“Do you even understand how grad school works? I can’t transfer. I’d have to start over.” I snatched the tiara again and crushed it with my good hand. “And I’m not taking money from some stranger.”
“Your future brother-in-law.”
“I’ve heard that before.” To Elle I said, in English, “She wants me to come home.”
“Maybe you should, Vada.”
I gaped. “You’re taking her side?”
“Do you know what kind of physical therapy you’ll need?”
My meds were wearing off, pain rumbling in the marrow. Soon there would be lightning jags lancing along my nerves. I pretended the tension in my body was all anger.
“No, I don’t. I’ve been trying not to focus on the nightmare ahead of me. I’ve been trying to stay fucking positive.”
Ellis raised an eyebrow, and I heard how ridiculous I sounded and almost laughed. She always brought me back to earth.
“I’m staying,” I told my mother, still in English. “My life is here now. My school, my friends.” I swallowed. “And Elle is here. I won’t leave her.”
“I made a reservation for her, too.”
Now we both gaped.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bergen, but I can’t—”
“Unbelievable,” I interrupted. “Still controlling my life. Thinking you know better. My choices are never good enough for you, Mamá. I’m never good enough.”
“I won’t hold this against you,” she said icily. “You’re in pain, and upset. Let’s go home.”
“I am home.”
I half shouted it. Because I couldn’t explain, not in words. Only with lines on paper, tides of color. This place, this new life we’d started, away from my mother’s meddling and Elle’s awful parents, where we could finally be our real selves—this was home. This was ours.
In the last painting I started before the crash, two silhouettes ran into the night ocean. The water was so thick with stars it looked like liquid glitter. Spray kicked up from their heels, shimmering trails of galaxies. Rising on the horizon, instead of the moon, was Earth: a deep-blue pearl wrapped in tatters of white mist. One silhouette’s hair was long and the other’s short, but nothing else indicated what they were—young or old, girls or boys. One pulled the other onward by the hand, but a trick of perspective made it different each time you looked: Sometimes the long-haired one was leading, sometimes the other. Sometimes, as you looked, it switched right before your eyes. The only certainty was that they were going in together.
(—Bergen, Vada. Follow Me into Forever. Unfinished; oil on canvas.)
My mother’s gaze flicked between me and Elle.
“What is really going on here?” she said in a hushed voice. “Is there something I should know?”
“No. I told you. I’m still in school. I have a life here.”
“I should go,” Ellis said. “I’ll give you two some priv—”
I gripped her shoulder, firmly. “Stay.”
My mother watched us, her eyes glinting with sharp thoughts.
“Chiquita, tell her to come home.”
Ellis bit her lip.
“Don’t drag her into it,” I said. “Just let me live my life, Mamá.”
“What kind of life?”
“My own.”
“Your own. I see.” She breathed deeply through her nose. “A life you have to hide from your mother. From everybody. What kind of life is that?”
“Don’t you dare judge me.” Ellis put a hand on my spine, stroked softly, soothingly, and my fury fell but my voice remained bitter. “You know why I keep things from you? Because everything I do is wrong in your eyes. I’m not perfect like Ariana. I’m the black sheep. The fuckup. The disappointment.”
My mother stood to her full height. Her voice struck like a slap. “I’ve never been disappointed in you. If I have high expectations, it’s because I would expect no less from myself. The world looks down on you, expects nothing from you because of the color of your skin and your mother’s family name. They don’t want you to fail. They want you to not even try. If you try, you will never disappoint me.”
At that moment I wanted nothing more than to grab Elle’s hand. “There are things about me that would disappoint you. Things I can’t change.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not having this discussion now.”
Mamá snorted. “You’ve made mistakes? Who hasn’t? I never liked the boys you chose, but I never stopped you from seeing them. I still run into Raoul. He asks about—”
“I’m not talking about fucking Raoul.”
Her gaze refocused, cold sun burning suddenly through fog. “You think I don’t know what you’re talking about? Do you really think I’m that blind?”
Elle’s hand left the small of my back, but I sensed her heart smashing hard, inches behind mine.
“Why do you hide this from me? Both of you, why? Chiquita, I have known you as long as mija has. I love you like my own blood.”
“Leave her out of it,” I snapped.
“You think I don’t understand? You spend all your time together, alone. It is one thing to be best friends, but the lines are becoming blurred. Come home. Be around other people. You’ll grow out of it. It’s not healthy, what you’re doing. Either of you.”
“Stop, Mamá. Just stop.” I moved away from Ellis. If I was taking arrows to the chest, I didn’t want one piercing me and hitting her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whose fault is that? This is the first time you’ve spoken to me in months.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“You are ashamed.”
“Because of you. You taught me shame. You always said making art was pointless. You spent all that money on my stupid Confirmation dress instead of buying me some cheap paint like I begged for. You’re pushing me to get married before I finish school. That’s not me. I don’t want to relive your fucking life for you and fix your mistakes. I want to live my own.”
Mamá’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. I’d gone too far.
“Vada,” Ellis said. “I’ll just go, okay? You should talk. Without me here.”
“I have nothing else to say to her.”
My mother’s eyes ricocheted between us. I expected wrath, but instead she said, quietly, “There is a seat waiting for each of you, mijas queridas.”
My beloved daughters.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bergen,” Elle said.
“Take care of her, chiquita.”
Then she kissed our cheeks and was gone.
I reeled backward into a chair, as if some great weight had just vanished and I’d lost my balance.
“Vada.” Ellis tugged my arm, startlingly rough. “Go after her.”
“Why?”
“Tell her you love her.”
My jaw clenched. “She knows.”
“What if you never see her again? What if those were the last words she hears?”
I have nothing else to say to her.
I caught my mother at the elevator doors. She heard my footsteps, or sensed me. When she whirled around I crashed into her chest and she seized me in strong arms. My injured one was crushed between us, but I didn’t care.
“Te quiero,” I mumbled into her shoulder. “Te quiero, Mamá. Y yo también la amo.”
She held me for a long, long time. The elevator dinged and shuttled past over and over. She didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure how to take that. But when she finally left, I knew my last words had come straight from my heart.
I love you, I’d said. I love you, Mom. And I love her, too.
Querer. Amar.
Two different words. Two different loves.
Her hands.
I obsessed over them. Drew them in all their moods. Deft and nervous, fluttering quick as the flick of birds’ wings, her fingers a blur of white feathers—or slow and tantalizing as they lifted my shirt, unhooked my bra, brushed the skin over my hammering heart. With one nail she’d trace the knot of fire in my chest to the place it came undone just below my navel. I sketched her hands a thousand times in my notebooks, and in my dreams her hands sketched my skin a thousand more.
New Year’s morning I woke in a wash of watery blue light. Ellis sprawled awkwardly in an armchair, one coltish leg flung across the floor. My shoulder shifted in small, abortive orbits, drawing her in my head. Miming the movements hurt but I didn’t stop. Here’s the truth: every line you agonize over is etched into your memory. Onlookers see the finished result, polished and prettified, but all the artist remembers is the labor. The grueling, gloriously bloody becoming.
“What are you looking at?” Elle said, catching me staring.
“Nothing.”
The sky turned shades of cold metal, tin and zinc, and when she wheeled me outside into the thick stillness we both glanced up, searching for the first snowflakes. A pinprick of ice touched my tongue. When I lowered my head, Ellis was watching me with a wistful expression.
“What are you looking at?” I said.
“You.” She shrugged shyly. “It’s just nice to see you happy.”
Something warm ran down my spine, a droplet of sun.
The hospital garden looked spray-painted with winter, a silver powdercoat of frost laying atop everything. Other patients passed with their attendants, smiling benignly. We meandered down stone paths lined with witch hazel. I plucked a frond, idly broke off the ice whiskers. Ellis knelt suddenly before a bank of snowdrops.
“Oh my god,” she said.
“What?”
“This. Doesn’t it belong to you?”
She turned on her heel and held it up in both hands: a crown of woven witch hazel, spidery threads of red and gold, with snowdrops tucked into the braids like gems.
My mouth hung open. “Ellis.”
She rose to set it on my head. I grabbed the dangling end of her scarf.
“When did you do this?” I breathed.
“It was stolen long ago, Your Highness. We’ve been searching for many years. What a great irony, to find it here in our own kingdom.”
I laughed, a little wildly. “You are so ridiculous. I love you.”
She was trying not to laugh, too, and she blushed and lowered her eyes. My bashful prince.
Something hot stung my cheek.
“Oh, no. Vada. Don’t.”
Great. I was totally crying.
“I’m just—this is really nice,” I said. “Being happy again.”
With you.
I scrubbed my tears on her scarf, which earned a laugh. We got up to walk. Ellis hovered at my side and after a while I took her hand, walking close and slow, arm in arm. We circled a pond where thin glass leaves of ice floated atop dark water. On a bench across from us, a man in a beanie watched. Instinctively I turned around.
“What’s wrong?” Ellis said.
“Let’s go this way.”
We walked into a copse of spruce, the air spiced with balsam and menthol. The path bent and the civilized world disappeared and for a moment, we could’ve been in some forest deep in the heart of Maine, utterly lost. I started to relax, wrapped my arm around Elle’s waist. Then I heard footsteps crunching up the path.
I stepped away from her. “Want to head back? I’m kinda tired.”
“Okay.”
When she reached for my hand again I drifted a step farther off.
“Vada, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you avoiding people?”
“Just look at me.” I gestured at my ragged ponytail, the goofy crown, the wrinkled pajamas. “I’m not fit to be seen in public.”
“You’re not fit to be seen?” She moved closer, grasped my hand. “Or this isn’t?”
Again, instinct: I recoiled, shook her off.
Then immediately did a double take and said, “Ellis, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
But she was already stalking down the path, leaving.
“Fuck,” I growled.
She must have taken off running, because by the time I got out of the trees she was nowhere in sight. Fucking track star. No way could I catch up.
I trudged back to the wheelchair and tried to push it one-handed, but it kept veering off into the snow. So I started kicking it instead, which was a lot more satisfying.
Goddammit, Ellis. What did you expect?
Seeing my mom always put me in a bad headspace. Seeing the way other people saw us. When it was just us in our little fantasy world it was fine, but Mamá had to remind me how childish and unhealthy it was.
The lines are becoming blurred.
Come home. Be around other people.
You’ll grow out of it.
Like we were kids playing make-believe.
I ripped the crown from my head, but I couldn’t shred it with one hand. So I pressed it to my mouth to hold in a sob, because fuck emotional stability, apparently.
“Excuse me,” a man said.
I jumped. Beanie Guy stood beside me. Blond scruff, broad-shouldered. Ruggedly handsome. Fortyish.
“Need some help?”
For a bizarre moment I thought he was talking about the crown. I looked pitifully at the chair.
“Oh. No. Thanks.”
“Please,” he said, cracking a smile. “I won’t make you sit. But let me help.”
I really just wanted him to go away, but if I tried to tell him off I might burst into tears. Then he’d definitely go all Good Samaritan.
“Whatever,” I said.
He kept pace with me on the path back. I clutched the crown in a fist, and he glanced at it.
“Is she your girlfriend?” he said. “The redhead?”
I almost tripped. “What?”
“I saw you together. You looked happy.”
My fist furled tighter. Then I tossed the mangled vines into the snow. “She’s a friend. Not that it’s any of your business. Are you a patient?”
“No. My son was.”
“Oh.”
We walked in silence another half minute. I felt his eyes on me. Too avid, too interested.
“Was?” I said.
“He passed away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” The man’s eyes defocused. “It’s comforting, to see other people his age. Reminds me that life goes on.”
Beanie Guy was making me feel like a sublime shitheel. “What happened to your son?”
“He was in a car accident.”
I stumbled.
The man caught me, carefully avoiding my injured arm. The large hand on my hip made my skin crawl.
“I’m okay,” I said, not looking at his face.
“You’re Vada, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer. I stopped moving, stared at the ground. My vision swam, too bright, weirdly pixelated.
“Do you know who I am?” the man said.
I made myself look at him. “Your son was the other driver.”
He nodded. No emotion in his face, just that avid intensity. “My name is Max.”
“I’m really, really sorry—”
Max clapped a hand on my shoulder. The good one, but it jolted my whole body and pain jittered up my spine. “It’s okay, Vada. It was an accident. Not your fault.” The hand on my shoulder tightened like a pincer. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
“Why?”
He let go with a rueful smile. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to talk without Ellis around.”
Max said our names fluently, familiarly. As if he’d been saying them to himself, night after night, like a litany.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking without—”
“You were driving, right?”
My mind raced. This wasn’t a cop. Just the father of a dead kid. He seemed . . . sad. Merely sad, lonely, desperate to connect to some part of his son’s final moments.
Jesus, some kid was dead, some kid my age.
“Yes,” I said. “I was.”
“The police said you were sober. It was nice of you to be the designated driver for your . . . friend.”
A chill cascaded down my back.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, edging away. “For your loss. But I really need to go. I’m sorry.”
Max didn’t stop me. He stood still in the winter garden, watching me backpedal and turn and run.
VADA: where the fuck are you?
VADA: all your shit’s gone from my room
ELLIS: In a cab.
VADA: bailing on me again
ELLIS: I just need some space. To think.
ELLIS: I’m not leaving.
VADA: I met Max
ELLIS: . . .
ELLIS: What did he say?
VADA: he said it’s okay we killed his kid
VADA: which maybe you should’ve fucking told me
VADA: before I learned it from the dead kid’s dad
ELLIS: I thought you knew. You were lucid that night.
VADA: I’ve been blocking out a traumatic event, Elle
VADA: did you not recognize the signs?
ELLIS: I thought you just didn’t want to talk about it. I was trying to distract you.
VADA: telling me I killed a human being is a bit higher up the priority chain than playing make-believe
VADA: god
VADA: you’re so
VADA: fuck
ELLIS: I’m so what?
VADA: what did you tell him?
VADA: he asked all sorts of questions
ELLIS: Like what?
VADA: like what the nature of our relationship is and shit
ELLIS: What did you tell him?
VADA: nothing
VADA: I don’t tell strangers our personal business
ELLIS: Of course. God forbid you tell anybody the truth.
VADA: oh fucking stop
VADA: this is so not the time
ELLIS: I didn’t tell him anything, either. He scared me.
VADA: he scared me, too
ELLIS: Where is he now?
VADA: lurking around the hospital like some fucking ghoul
VADA: probably stalking me
ELLIS: You’ll be out soon.
ELLIS: You’re almost ready for outpatient.
VADA: and then where?
ELLIS: Home.
VADA: where the hell is that anymore?
ELLIS: With me.
VADA: god
VADA: I fucking killed somebody, Ellis
VADA: I killed a human being
VADA: oh my fucking god
ELLIS: It was an accident.
VADA: no it wasn’t
ELLIS: What?
VADA: don’t talk to Max
VADA: don’t talk to anyone
VADA: if the police question you, tell them what I told you
VADA: you got in the passenger seat
VADA: do you understand me, Elle?
ELLIS: It was me, wasn’t it?
ELLIS: You’re covering for me.
VADA: jesus
VADA: no
ELLIS: You are.
VADA: stop it
VADA: delete these messages when we’re done
VADA: don’t be stupid
VADA: you did nothing wrong
ELLIS: Why are you talking like this?
VADA: like what?
ELLIS: Like I’m guilty. Like you’re protecting me.
VADA: I am protecting you, Elle
VADA: from your own fucking naivete
VADA: you always say things without realizing how other people hear them
VADA: you don’t understand how the world works
ELLIS: Fuck you, Vada.
VADA: I’m not judging you
VADA: I’m just saying
ELLIS: You’re saying I’m a liability. I get it.
ELLIS: You think I’m some dumb, naive child.
VADA: will you stop with the martyrdom
ELLIS: I know you’re hiding something.
ELLIS: About the accident. Something I can’t remember.
VADA: what does it fucking matter?
ELLIS: Because I know it was me. I know it’s my fault.
VADA: jesus christ
VADA: you’re the prince of self-pity
VADA: you’d be happier if I HAD let you get behind the wheel drunk, wouldn’t you?
ELLIS: Didn’t you?
VADA: I’m not fighting about this
VADA: just keep your story straight
VADA: make sure it matches mine
VADA: and don’t fucking tell anybody our personal business
ELLIS: It’s the same fight. Over and over.
VADA: don’t even start
ELLIS: You don’t really want me here.
ELLIS: I embarrass you. Shame you.
VADA: will you stop?
VADA: this is about a fatal car accident
VADA: not some episode of our never-ending soap opera
ELLIS: No, it is about us. Everything comes back to that.
ELLIS: This wouldn’t have happened if things weren’t so messed-up between us.
ELLIS: If you’d just be honest with yourself. With me.
VADA: I’m as honest as I know how to be
ELLIS: You never stand up for us.
ELLIS: You let your mom walk all over you. That was your chance to tell her.
VADA: THAT’S when you wanted me to tell her?
ELLIS: You let her define it. You let her call it unhealthy.
ELLIS: You always let other people define what we are.
VADA: I don’t even fucking know what we are
VADA: how could I define it?
VADA: maybe it is kind of unhealthy
VADA: I don’t know
ELLIS: I’m so tired of this, Vada.
VADA: you’re tired?
VADA: what are you fucking tired of?
ELLIS: Being the cross you have to bear.
ELLIS: Sometimes I’m even tired of you.
VADA: you know what?
VADA: fine
VADA: fuck you
VADA: you want to be the martyr? be my guest
VADA: you’re better off without me
ELLIS: What are you saying?
VADA: what do you think I’m saying?
VADA: go home
VADA: stay the hell away from me
VADA: I killed somebody
VADA: I dragged our stupid drama into the real world and now someone’s dead because of it
VADA: I’m toxic
VADA: this has gone way too far
VADA: just stay away from me
VADA: go back to Chicago, or whatever
VADA: just leave me alone
ELLIS: You don’t mean this.
VADA: I mean it with all my fucking heart
VADA: I’m blocking your number
ELLIS: Vada, please.
ELLIS: Let’s talk this through.
VADA: there’s nothing to talk about
VADA: it’s the same fight over and over, just like you said
ELLIS: That doesn’t mean I want it to end.
VADA: that’s where we’re different, Elle
VADA: you’re the idealist and I’m the realist
VADA: this doesn’t work
VADA: you and me
VADA: we’re a fucking mess
ELLIS: Please don’t go.
VADA: I love you but I can’t do this anymore
VADA: it’s better this way
VADA: I’m sorry Ellis
VADA: I love you
VADA: bye
