Furious (16 page)

“Not in those Versace ruby slippers she didn’t,” Raymond interjects.

Alix stares at the front door. “No way.”

“Way. Believe it. Let’s go to my room.”

“Where’s Ambrosia?” I ask.

“Got a text this morning. Apologies all around. Guess it’s just us today.” Stephanie grabs a couple of apples and a jar of peanut butter from the kitchen. We follow her up the stairs and she introduces us to her room by saying, “My parents hate how I decorated it, of course. But it’s my room. I’ll live the way I want.”

It’s a whole different world in there. Beige carpet, old but still clean. A single mattress on the floor with a pretty piece of yellow cloth, probably from India, laid over it as a bedspread. There are posters of famous activists on the wall—Jane Goodall, the Dalai Lama, and the girl who changed her middle name to “Butterfly,” who’s pictured hugging a tree. Stephanie resembles her, and when I point that out she brightens. “Really?”

In a corner, a philodendron plant has been trained to climb a string and is spreading its big green leaves against the ceiling. Alix whistles when she checks out Stephanie’s walk-in closet. It’s huge. I’ve lived in bedrooms smaller than that. But there are hardly any clothes in it. Stephanie rarely buys anything until she’s worn out whatever she already owns, and even then she hits the resale and import stores.

I plop down in a corner, lean my back against the wall, cross my legs in front of me. Raymond sits next to me and Alix takes the mattress, tucking her hands behind her head like she’s in a hammock. To be truthful, if I had a lot of money like Stephanie’s family does, this is not how I would decorate my room. I’d be more in the School of Ambrosia Home Décor. I’d buy beautiful things—down comforters and cut-glass lamps and … but I do understand this simple taste from Stephanie’s perspective.

“So what happened?” I ask. “To your mom, I mean. What changed her?”

“They cut down the tree she was trying to save.”

“That sucks,” Alix says.

Stephanie clears off a spot on her desk for the peanut butter and apples. She opens her Swiss army knife. “Not according to my mom. She says that was the best lesson of her life. It taught her that things don’t change, so why try? Why go against the grain? Why not devote your life to making yourself happy?”

She cuts the apple in half with a hard, solid chop. “She says I’m going through a phase and that I’ll grow out of it the same way she did. But it’s not a phase. I’ll never become cynical and selfish like her.” As she continues talking, she cuts each half of the apple in half and then in half again, and I wonder if she’ll keep going until it’s minced into a thousand pieces.

“Whoa,” Raymond says. “Take it easy with that knife, samurai master.”

Stephanie gives an uncomfortable laugh and divvies up the small pieces. She starts over with a new apple, makes four even cuts, smears them with peanut butter, and passes them around. While we eat, I wonder if the others are thinking what I’m thinking: Stephanie’s mom belongs on our to-do list. We wouldn’t hurt her, of course. We would make her see how much she’s hurting the land and the air by all the overdevelopment in town. Plus, she’s hurting Stephanie. We could show her that, and I bet that she’d even thank us in the long run. It would make things so much better for everyone. Stephanie deserves a mom who understands and supports her passions. That’s only fair. That’s the way a mom and daughter should be. A team. We would make that happen.

I think Alix is going to suggest exactly that, because she shifts with agitation. But it’s only to get her cell phone that’s vibrating in her back pocket. She checks the info about the incoming call.

“Shit,” she says. She answers by shouting into the receiver: “What?” Then: “Oh, it’s you. He can’t even call himself. He makes you do it.”

She listens, shaking her head in disgust until she’s too worked up to sit still. She hits Speaker, tosses the phone onto the mattress, and paces, glaring at the voice that fills the room.

“Honey, you know how much your daddy loves you. You’re the apple of his eye.”

Alix gives the phone the finger.

“And Simon, too—your dad adores him.”

“Screw you,” Alix mutters. Then loud enough to carry to the phone: “If Dwayne adores him so much, why doesn’t he ever see him?”

“Oh honey, you know your daddy. He has the best intentions, but he’s got so many health issues, poor guy.”

“He’s got drunk and stoned
issues
.”

“Is that a nice thing for a daughter to say about her father? His back went out today. The pain! That’s why he didn’t call you himself.”

“Listen! What’s your name again?”

“Tabitha. You know that.”

“I get Dwayne’s girlfriends mixed up. They come and go so fast.”

“I resent that. We’re engaged. Practically.”

Alix puffs her cheeks, letting her lips vibrate noisily as she releases the breath. “Dwayne’s bailing on his promise to take Simon to the boardwalk today. Tell Mr. Sensitive I’ll take Simon myself.”

“Oh, you are such a sweetheart. Next week. He promises—”

Alix presses the Off button and explains to us: “Gotta go. The kid is gonna be crushed.”

Raymond stands, brushes some lint off his pants. “We’ll go with you. I must meet this Simon. Besides, I love roller coasters.”

*   *   *

Alix, her mom, and Simon live in the Sleep Tight, an old beach motel with blinking neon that’s been converted into one- and two-bedroom apartments. You’d think that a place that’s walking distance to the beach and has a great view of the boardwalk rides, where you can hear waves crashing and sea lions barking and ride your bike to the best surf spot in the state, would be where everyone wants to live. But the motel sits in the middle of the Flats, the part of town with a reputation for crime, drugs, and gangs.

“My parents have been trying for years to get permits to bulldoze the whole area to put up expensive homes and hotels,” Stephanie says as we pull into the parking lot. One of the letters in the sign has burned out, so it says
S EEP TIGHT.

Alix shuts off the engine. “What would happen then to the people who’ve lived here all their lives? Like me? I know what most people think of the Flats. You can’t walk through without being robbed, raped, and murdered all at once by some drug addict. But it’s not like that. The neighborhood’s kinda tight.”

A homeless person with his stuff in a shopping cart walks by and calls hello to Alix by name. Two little kids are playing outside door number five, and they show us their drawings.

“This is me, us. Number seven.” Before Alix even turns the key in the lock, the door flies open and a pair of arms wrap around her waist.

“Happy, happy, happy!”

Obviously this is Simon. He’s as tall and wide as a full-grown man, but his voice is high-pitched and full of giggles. He’s dressed in clean jeans, a flannel shirt, and a Boy Scout neckerchief. He’s holding the six-in-one gadget that Pox got him as a peace offering.

“Whoa, big guy. Glad to see you, too,” Alix says. Then to us: “He’s obsessed with his neckerchief and roller coasters.”

“My kind of guy,” Raymond says.

Simon turns to the sound of the voice and his eyes grow wide like he’s taking a deep breath through them. “A dude!” He swirls his big frame and wraps his arms around Raymond in a full-press hug.

“Oh yeah, he’s also obsessed with dudes. He’s with my mom and me so much. And his teacher at school is a lady. That’s why when
you-know-who
flakes out, it does a number on him. If we didn’t come, he’d spend Sunday all day alone in this friggin’ room.” To Simon: “And that wouldn’t be fair, would it, big guy?” To Raymond: “You still breathing okay in there?”

Raymond peeks out from a corner of Simon’s big squeeze. “I am honored to be a dude.”

Stephanie sits on the couch, moving aside a couple of pillows and a folded-up comforter. The living room must double as Alix’s bedroom. Even I don’t have to sleep on a couch. Even I get to close a door behind me for privacy. I look around. “Where’s your mom?”

Alix coaxes Simon to let go of Raymond for a minute by dangling the promise of an awesome roller-coaster ride. Together the three of them set off on a search around the room for Simon’s shoes. “My mom’s working. She’s always working. It’s not easy for her. Mom’s okay, except for her totally crappy taste in a father for her kids.”

Sneakers found. Simon holds one up to Raymond’s face like it’s a trophy. “You like my new shoes?”

Raymond makes a big deal over checking it out, turns it upside down, squints inside, holds it to his ear like he can hear the ocean. “Size twelve. My favorite flavor.”

This sends Simon into a fit of laughter. We’re all laughing as we leave the apartment, say bye to the little girls who are coloring, and head across the levee toward the boardwalk. You can hear the excited screams of roller coaster riders from blocks away. Simon won’t let go of Raymond’s hand.

“Too slow!” he says, and pulls Raymond ahead of the group. As they pass us, I hear Raymond say, “Cotton candy? Now you’re talking my language!”

We walk another block, turn the corner, and that’s when Alix comes to a sudden stop. She freezes there, arms hanging at her sides but with her fists bunched. She blinks once, twice, as if she’s trying to clear away a film from her eyes to make sure she’s seeing what she thinks she’s seeing.

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?” Stephanie asks.

“A new record for low. Even for him.”

We follow the line of her vision across the street to the front door of a nasty-looking bar called the High Dive. Country-rock blasts out of it. Two people just stepped outside.

“Hahahahahahaha,” the guy laughs. He is short and square with long hair in a graying ponytail.

“Hehehehehehe,” the lady laughs back.

“Yo, shithead!” Alix yells.

The couple look over. The man’s upper lip curls and I bet he’s picturing himself charging across the street and getting in the face of whoever dared cross him. But the woman puts her hand on his shoulder to hold him back. She squints hard. Quickly she leans in and whispers to the man, whose whole body jolts upright and then slumps. I can see him reminding himself of something. He puts his hand on his lower back. With his face wincing in pain, he raises his hand and waves limply in our direction. As an actor he’s truly pathetic.

Dwayne. Her dad. The shithead.

Alix chews at her lower lip, and I feel a pull to do the same on mine. I bite down hard and taste a pinpoint of blood. I take in her anger like it’s a living, breathing thing, a virus that’s entering my body through my mouth, my nose and eyes. I start to sweat. She sounds the first note. I sing. My vision blurs, and I know that Stephanie, too, feels her muscles pulsing, her bones vibrating, the world of the bar and the boardwalk, the ground beneath us coming undone.

Alix’s rage is our guide, our rope and ladder. We enter a space, but this is not deep enough, so we plunge even deeper—deeper than we’ve ever been, much deeper than with Pox and the others. We don’t hold back. Why hold back? On the way down we break things apart, rip and tear, until we burrow into the nucleus of something dark and dank.

We present Dwayne with our true face—not just the terror of three, but we fracture into a million furious fractals that are smaller than no-see-’em bugs and we are everywhere. We swarm, hissing in a million undeniable, inescapable voices of torment:

You’re worthless.

You’re a coward.

Your life is meaningless and hopeless.

Worthless, meaningless, hopeless.

Worthless, meaningless, hopeless.

Far away I hear shouting, but I push it aside. Let them shout.

Off in the distance I hear sirens. Let them tear the silence apart.

I hear “Stop!”

I hear my wronged sister Alecto urging: “Don’t stop!”

Another voice: “Stop!”

“Don’t stop!”

“Meg! Stop!”

This last voice somehow reaches in and loosens my grip like my fingers are being pried from around someone’s throat. “Enough! Meg, that’s enough!”

I have to fight hard to clear my head and come back into ordinary consciousness, and when I do I’m blinking into the terrified face of Raymond, who’s shaking me by the shoulders. “Meg! Stop!” Simon is sobbing, his neckerchief is wet, and his arms are wrapped around his sister’s waist, begging her, “Come back!”

Alix, glassy-eyed, rigid, empty. Stephanie, pale and shivering.

Across the street there’s chaos. I see a cluster of police cars and people being questioned. There’s an ambulance, and two paramedics lift someone—I look closer; it’s Dwayne—onto a stretcher. His girlfriend glances at us, bewildered and scared, and quickly turns away.

Alix is slowing coming back to life,
this
life, the ordinary life. She gives Simon a sisterly rub on the top of his head. “All’s okay, big guy. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you left! You were gone,” Simon insists. “And Daddy! The car hit him.”

I pull Raymond close and whisper: “Did anybody see us? Does anybody…”

“Drunk.” Raymond takes a step back from me, like I smell bad. “He started wobbling. Talking crazy. They assume he was so drunk that he accidentally walked in front of that car.”

I have a sick, panicked feeling and an awful thought. “He’s … Is he…? He’s not…” I try to ask.

Raymond gives me a push, a real shove, nothing friendly about it. I’ve never seen him so upset. “No, Meg, he’s not dead. Not this time. But I don’t know what would have happened if I couldn’t reach you.”

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I—”

“Why are you sorry?” Alix interrupts. “Dwayne’s the one who lied.”

She has Simon by the hand, and he’s pulling at it, perplexed about the situation and where his loyalties should be. With his dad, being put into an ambulance? With his new best dude friend or his beloved sister, who are yelling at each other? I motion for Stephanie to distract Simon, and she takes him aside.

Raymond waits until Simon is out of earshot before unleashing his anger. “Just because your dad happens to be one of the biggest nitwidiots who ever walked the planet doesn’t mean he should be roadkill two blocks from the boardwalk.”