Betwixt (14 page)

It was her dirty feet.

Her dirty feet and the sticks in her hair and the slashes of mud on her ankles and calves, the tiny red pricks, as if she
had been running through —

She placed a hand around her brow and looked down. The dark wood of the table opened up and Morgan let herself sink into it.

“Morgue? Morgue?”

She looked up. She had sunk halfway into her chair. The long black hair she had brushed minutes earlier trailed through the
syrup on her plate. K.A. cleared a strand from her face.

“Where’d you go?”

Where had she gone? When would she go there again?

“I didn’t —”

K.A. furrowed his brow. “You were sleepwalking last night, weren’t you?”

She shook her head and opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

He put down the fork he was holding and cupped his sister’s hand in his own. “How long has it been? God” — he winced — “six
years?”

Morgan took her hand away and dragged a piece of pancake through a pool of syrup.

“Five,” she replied. “And I didn’t sleepwalk last night. I was drunk. I blacked out.” She stared at her brother. “Look. I’m
home, aren’t I? I went to a
bar,
K.A. I left the party and went to a bar. I got plastered, okay?
My name is Morgan and I’m an alcoholic.
Okay? Then I walked home.” She set her fork down and pushed her plate away. “Barefoot.”

K.A. frowned. “Look. Something happened last night and you’re not telling me what …”

Morgan tucked a stray lock of hair behind an ear, her ever-present nervous habit, though she knew how ridiculous she must
have seemed. Had she even gotten all the sticks out? She pulled her feet under the chair. She remembered mornings like this
years ago, when their father was with them, when she was sleepwalking almost every night, so often that her mother and father
kept watch over her in turns. She’d hear them fighting in the
morning about how much sleep they’d gotten. Phil Jr. had always wanted to take her to see a psychiatrist — “It’s not normal,”
he’d said — but Yvonne never let him. “She’s just got a lot of energy,” she’d argued. “She’ll grow out of it.”

Grow out of it she did. Not because she got older. She grew out of it because one night she woke up on one of her walks. She
was twelve. It was dark — the deepest, blackest dark she’d ever seen — and she was in the middle of the forest. The place
Morgan was more terrified of than anything.

She was standing over something. She couldn’t tell what it was, so she picked it up. It was warm, soft, wet —
gross
— but she made herself carry it to a place where the trees were sparse and the moonlight filtered through. She saw that it
was a little animal. A rabbit, she figured, though she couldn’t be sure. Its skin had been stripped from its body. All that
was left was a bloody carcass: lidless eyes; lipless mouth, snarling. When she dropped it she saw that there was blood on
her hands, and she told herself that it had gotten there when she picked the animal up. Later that night, though, in the shower,
she had to use a file to dig the scarlet flesh out from under her nails.

From then on Morgan stayed awake at night. She’d drink coffee, study. Her grades had always been good, but after seventh grade
they were perfect. For a full year she went to sleep when the birds started chirping; she’d sleep just a few hours before
school started, until she was convinced she’d broken the
habit of sleepwalking. They let her come to school late because of her “sleep disorder,” though Yvonne would never admit her
daughter had an actual problem.

She could hear her mother’s voice now, explaining to the school counselor: “She’s just got a lot of energy.”

Now Morgan was looking down at her dirty feet. Red scratches embroidered both ankles; one big welt embossed her right calf.
Although she had just eaten, her stomach felt empty.

She got up from the table. “Listen, I’ve got work to do today. I’m on at the Krak this afternoon and I’d better do the dishes
—”

“Morgue.” K.A. stood. “Don’t worry about the dishes. Listen, maybe we should tell Mom. I don’t think we should just let this
go. I don’t want this to start again —”

“I
told
you. I’m
not
sleepwalking. I was drunk, I walked home, I stopped at a bar along the way. And you definitely do
not
need to tell Mom.” She paused, shaking her head. “Anyway, according to Coach Gonzalez, you shouldn’t have been within a mile
of that party last night. You have soccer camp in two weeks. Drinking will get you kicked off the team, Kaka. So I wouldn’t
be telling too many people — especially Yackity-yack Yvonne — about how big sister got trashed at a party little brother was
not supposed to be at.” She picked up her plate and lifted her chin. “Don’t you think?”

K.A. sat down and set his jaw, crossing his arms over his chest. He was used to Morgan bullying him. “Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s what I thought.” She started clearing the plates like her mother usually did, stacking them in her arms. Their weight
felt good. “Now let’s move on. I think I’ve got some apologizing to do to Ondine. She’s probably worried —”

“Uh,
yeah.
You were a real bitch last night.”

Morgan flicked her hair over a shoulder. “I’ll deal with that.”

“And Neve? You were really mean to her, too.”

“Of course.” Neve’s china-doll face popped up in front of her and she felt like slamming it down again.
The little maggot.
“I’ll apologize to Neve. Neve’s my friend.”

She picked up the last of the dishes and headed into the kitchen, feeling better, clearer, more in control.

“Listen,” she called out, “don’t worry about me. And don’t worry about the dishes, I’ll take care of them.” She poked her
head past the doorway. K.A. was sitting at the table, his arms still crossed, eyes down. “Thanks for the p-cakes, Kaka.”

He didn’t look up. “Yeah, whatever.”

Morgan frowned and returned to the kitchen. She’d deal with him — and Ondine and Neve — later. Right now she needed to get
her head straight. She needed to figure out how long she’d been gone last night. What had happened after she walked out. Why
she had left. How long she had been in the woods.

She poured the lemony soap out —
clean, clean
— and started wiping the dishes, silverware first, then glasses. Then plates. She liked the feeling of the warm water running
over her hands, but she was still angry. She wanted to do something, make something change. Why now? Why the sleepwalking
again? Morgan let her eyes roam around the room, looking for an answer. They lit on a band of knives, hanging on a magnetized
strip above the sink, like a column of fat medieval soldiers in a line. A vision of that old movie
Carrie
flitted through her mind. What if they came at her? Realistically Morgan knew they wouldn’t, and anyway, she’d prefer them
to be aiming at Moth, the disgusting creep. Shaming her like that. She pictured his face, terrified, as a phalanx of knives
sailed toward his head. It made her feel better. If she could just … if she could just have a little more control —

She found herself whispering while she moved the plates back and forth under the stream of water.
“Move move move
—
”

Nothing did, of course. Not the slightest. She tried speaking it quickly, like a machine. She tried slowing it down. She tried
saying please. Finally she just screamed.

“Move, you motherfuckers!
Move!
”

“What?” K.A. called from the living room, the sounds of Spanish
fútbol
in the background. “Morgue, you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just trying to scrub a pan.”

How long had it been since she’d cried? All she could manage were the same dry heaves. She felt ashamed and powerless — a
powerlessness made worse by the memory of the night before.

Abruptly she turned from the sink.
Fuck him. Fuck Moth. And fuck Ondine.
Past the dining room table she walked, swiping her keys up, then putting on her jacket.

“I’m going to the store,” she called back. “I need to get some soap.”

What she needed to do was find Moth. She’d feel better once she’d seen him.

She slammed the door behind her, and whether from the force of the door or something more sinister, the knives, the entire
phalanx of them, clattered into the sink.

“T
HAT JERK
!”

It was the first thing Ondine managed to think the morning after her party. Even before she fully woke up, James Motherwell’s
jade eyes crowded her thoughts, along with his voice, reedy, overconfident:
I never fly to a light that’s not lit.
What was his problem? He talked like a comic book character.
Moth.
He disgusted her. Greasy hair. Flavor Saver. She sat up and got her bearings. Somewhere downstairs music was playing — the
Flame. Again.
Orange wings — white wings — blue wings — green. Filaments of fire — unspoken and unseen.

God, she was so sick of that band.

Though Ondine knew all the words to every song on their first collection,
Fly,
something about the voice of their kittenish, spacey lead singer made her feel cold.

Her eyes drifted to the other side of the bed. It was rumpled, the pillow slept on. Who had put her there? Who had slept next
to her? She knew she had fallen asleep on the landing last night. She was even in the same clothes — black T-shirt, jeans
— she’d worn the night before, but someone had taken her lace-up black sandals off and, she realized as she ran her hands
over her shoulder-length braids, untied her red scarf. She put her hand to her ears. Who had taken off her earrings?

Another name popped into her head.

She sniffed at her tank top, expecting the reek of cigarette smoke with a nice undercurrent of dried sweat, but instead smelled
Trish’s fabric softener, as if the shirt had just come out of the dryer.
Huh,
Ondine thought.
Well, at least I don’t stink.

Again she heard the music from below. Though the singing irritated her — it seemed so aggressive, taunting her, boring into
her head like some insidious worm — she couldn’t help but hum along.
I will make you happy. You will rue the day. You and I became one. A stranger and a twin.

Shaking off the last bit of drowsiness, she headed downstairs.

“Nix!” she called out from the landing. The silence that greeted her made her feel less confident. “Nix?”

She scanned the living room below. He wasn’t there, nor were the kids who had passed out the night before. In fact, nothing
was in the living room — no backwash cups, no cigarette butts, no empties. No Jackson Pollock painting of red-wine stains,
no ashtrays. Everything had been cleaned up and was exactly the way it had been when Trish, Ralph, and Max left the day before.

It was as if the party had never happened.

Ondine was trying to figure out how she’d slept through the vacuum cleaner, when the phone rang. Considering most of her friends
called her cell, Ondine knew it was Trish or Ralph. She thought about the cops and felt her stomach flip-flop as she ran down
the stairs.

“Hello?”

“Ondine, honey!” Ralph Mason’s voice was warm and crackly over the unsteady line. Ondine could tell he was in the car, driving.
She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It read eleven. They must have reached the Midwest, she reckoned.

“Dad! Where are you?”

“We just got out of Nebraska. Jesus, that’s a big state. We
didn’t have cell service forever, and then we hit Omaha. You wouldn’t think Midwesterners drive like bats out of hell, but
they do. But things have calmed down, and I wanted to call and make sure your first night went okay, before we disappear into
another dead zone.” He paused. “Miss us, baby?” Ralph chuckled and Ondine could hear the wind over his voice. She imagined
clean Midwestern air streaming in through the open windows.

She laughed. “Yeah, Dad. I do. I miss you a lot. Is everything … okay?”

“Okay?” He pulled away from the phone. “Trish, hon, is everything okay?” She heard a distant “Sure is,” and then it was Ralph’s
voice again. “Well, yeah, honey, everything is fine except for the fact that we haven’t seen anything much higher than a Jesus
Saves billboard in a day and a half and we miss our only daughter and Ivy crapped in the car twice. Other than that, everything
is fine. But you? You okay, hon?”

“Oh yeah.” Ondine found a confident note and turned it up. “All good.”

“
All good,
” her father repeated. “What’d you do last night?”

She looked around at what she hadn’t noticed before. A clean kitchen. No. Spotless. Hospital clean. Her voice raised its pitch.
“Hung out with Morgan D’Amici?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s all.”

“Good. Sounds good.” Ralph’s voice had gotten patchy. “Listen, sweetheart. We’re headed into the cornfields now, so we’re
probably going to get cut off. We just wanted to tell you we love you and we’re thinking of you and we’ll call when we get
to the hotel tonight. Okay, hon?”

“Okay, Dad —”

“Everything all right?”