Girl in Pieces (16 page)

I listen with my eyes closed, toes pushing into the sandy ground. The bass player frets and shifts, unsure of his fingers; the drummer is playing out of time. The singer is frustrated with everyone's awkwardness. His voice cracks as he tries to hit notes, match the bridge. The band stops abruptly, the bass slyly petering out; the singer barks
one two three
and they leap in again, scrabbling to find each other in the noise. It makes me miss Mikey even more; he was always taking me and Ellis to see his band friends rehearse in garages and basements. It felt electric and real, watching a guy try to figure out a chord over and over, or a girl pounding away at the drums. Ellis always got bored pretty quickly and would take out her phone, but watching and listening as something was created could feed me for days.

In time, fingers and voices come together, the music happens; the song inside the music awakens.

Oh I don't want to be

your charity case

I just want you to see

my for-real face

Can you do that for me?

It'll take a minute or three

Oh, can you do that for me?

The faces of the day run through my brain, setting themselves up like dominos: the game-playing men, the punks with liquid eyes and chapped lips on the Dairy Queen benches, Riley at the coffeehouse, with his smeary apron and who-cares attitude.

At Creeley, we would be gathered in Rec at this time of night, a rustling scrum of girls with iPods and approved novels. I miss Louisa. Who is she talking to tonight, in the dark, in our room? Have I already been replaced?

The sound of my charcoal on the paper is like a dog quietly working at a door, its nails methodic and insistent.

My father's face comes slowly as I draw. The shape of his large, dark eyes, his sand-colored hair. The shoulder bones I could feel through his T-shirt when I climbed on his lap. I wish I could remember the sound of his voice, but I can't.

Sometimes he wouldn't let me in the room where he rocked in the chair and so I sat outside with our rust-colored dog, burying my face in his fur, listening to Van Morrison through the door.

I wish I could remember what happened to our dog. One day he was there and then one day he wasn't. Just like my father.

Where his teeth should be, I give him tiny, tiny pill bottles. I regret it instantly. It looks awkward and wrong.

He was smoke and despair. He had dark almond eyes that were kind. But when I looked closer, I saw something else, something quivering in the background.

Riley at the coffeehouse has those eyes, too. Just the thought of him makes my body flood with scary warmth.

When I sleep that night, though, I push thoughts of Riley away: it's Mikey's smell on the pillow and blanket that comforts me, like a promise, a tangible good thing that will happen soon. I fit myself against his blanket like it's his body, filling my lungs with the scent of his sweat, the oils from his skin. I hold him to me as closely as I can. I can't let him go.

I stand across the street from the coffeehouse for a good ten minutes. I've been up since four a.m., even though I found a little travel alarm clock in Mikey's trunk and set it for five, drawing and working up my nerve to come here. It's almost six a.m. and Fourth Avenue is starting to liven up, stores rolling up gates, people lugging tables out onto the sidewalk.

The neon
TRUE GRIT
sign is lopsided, the
U
blinking on and off.

I cross the street, taking deep breaths. Just as I'm about to knock on the heavy front door to the coffeehouse, the green screen door a few feet down pops open, the one Riley emerged from yesterday.

And there he is, already smoking. And smiling.

“Strange Girl,” he says amiably. “This is the first day of the rest of your life. Welcome. Come in.”

A woman with pink fox-tipped hair rides up on a blue bicycle. She looks at us curiously. She's older, blocky, in a torn sweatshirt and long tasseled skirt.

“What's up, R? What's going on?” She smiles at me nicely as she locks her bike to the rack.

“Temporary disher, Linus. Hey,” he says, looking down at me. “I don't believe I actually know your name, Strange Girl.”

“It's Charlie,” I say quietly. “Charlie Davis.”

He holds out his hand. “Well, it's excellent to meet you, Charlie Charlie Davis. I'm Riley Riley West.”

I hesitate, but then I take his hand. It's warm. I haven't touched anyone nicely since I petted Louisa's hair. My body floods with a sudden warmth and I pull my hand away.

“Right,” he says cheerily. “Back to the matter at hand, yes? Dirty dishes, coffee, ungrateful peons, and the long slow march to death.”

Linus laughs.

We walk through the green door, which Riley says is the employee entrance. There is a gray, industrial-looking punch clock on the wall and slots jammed with time cards. Linus heads to the front and in a few minutes, I hear the grinding of coffee beans and the air begins to smell thick, almost sweet, from the smell of fresh coffee brewing.

Riley shows me how to load the dishwasher, what buttons to press, where the dish trays are stacked, where to rinse and store the bus tubs. The dish and kitchen area is steamy and hot, the floor mats slick with soapy water and slimy food scraps. The sink is filled with pots, pans, crusted dishes. Riley frowns. “Those girls didn't do a great job of cleaning up last night, I guess.”

Linus slips past us to get something from the grill area. “Welcome to the madhouse, kid,” she says, smiling, and lopes back to the front counter. She starts fussing with CDs.

Riley tosses me a grimy apron and begins slicing bell peppers and onions, flinging them into a stainless steel bin. I pull the apron over my head and try to tie it in back. It's too big, so I have to loop the strings around and tie it in front.

From the corner of my eye, I see Riley pause as he waits for whatever Linus is going to put on. She presses a button and there it is,
Astral Weeks
, plaintive and sad. He nods to himself, as though he approves, and starts dropping bread on the grill.

I turn back to the sink, staring at the piles of dishes and pots. I turn on the water.
This is what you came here for,
I tell myself.
Here you are. Work.

In an hour or so, Linus unlocks the front door. We don't have long to wait before people begin to show up, a hive of voices and cigarette smoke. Some of them nod at me, but mostly they just talk to Riley and Linus. I don't mind. I've never minded listening. I'm better at that than talking, anyway.

I spend the morning loading dishes into the washer, waiting, yanking the rack and restacking in the cook and wait areas. To restack in the cook area, I have to walk behind Riley and reach up to the shelves. The cook station is small and opens onto the dish area. There's a grill, fry pit, oven, two-door stainless steel refrigerator, the cutting board counter, and a small island.

From listening to Riley talk to the waitpeople, I learn what meager food True Grit serves and who works there. A lot of them seem to be in bands or in school. The sturdy, crackling whir of the espresso machine is always in the background. I'm getting thirsty, but I'm afraid to ask for anything. Do you have to pay for drinks here? I didn't bring any money. Everything Ellis and I made has to be spent on a place to live. When I think no one's looking, I take a glass and drink from the sink tap. Pretty soon, though, my stomach starts rumbling, and having to scrape leftover food into the garbage gets pretty painful. I think about snagging some uneaten halves of sandwiches and mentally make a note to figure out where to hide them.

Once, when I return with more dishes and silverware, Riley's not cooking. He's looking at me intently, which makes my skin prickle with embarrassment.

“Where you from, Strange Girl?”

“Minnesota,” I answer warily. I scooch by him to put some dishes on the rack above his shoulder. He doesn't make room for me, so my back brushes against the front of his body.

“Oh. Interesting. Minnie-So-Tah. You betcha. I played the Seventh Street Entry once. You ever go there?”

I shake my head. The punks had called him semifamous. The 7th Street Entry is a club where cool bands play in downtown Minneapolis. Is…
was
…Riley in a band?

“You moved out here for a boy, I bet, huh?” He smiles wickedly.

“I did not,” I say, my voice flaring with anger.
Not really,
I think.
Maybe. Yes?
“What's it to you?”

“You're kind of a strange one, you know that?”

I'm quiet. His attention is freaking me out. I can't tell if he's being nice in a real way, or trying to bait me. You can't tell with people sometimes. Finally, I sputter, “Whatever.”

“You can feel free to talk me up, Strange Girl. I don't bite, you know.”

Linus sticks an order slip on the pulley. “Not right
now,
you don't.”

Riley tosses a crust of bread at her and she ducks.

At four-thirty Riley says I can go. I take off my apron and run it through the dishwasher, just like he showed me. I'm sweaty in my long-sleeved T-shirt and push up my sleeves to cool off.

Riley is about to hand me some cash when he says, “Whoa, whoa, now, hey. What's up with that?” I look down, horrified, and quickly yank my sleeves down over my arms.

“Nothing,” I mumble. “Just cat scratches.” I grab the money and stuff it into the pocket of my overalls.

Riley murmurs, “I hope you get rid of that cat. That's a fucking horrible cat, Strange Girl.” I can feel his eyes on me, but I don't look at his face. That's it. I'm out. No way he'll let me work here now.

“Absolutely,” I answer, flustered. “Today. Right now, as a matter of fact.” I walk quickly to the back door.

He shouts, “Come back tomorrow at six a.m. and talk to Julie. I'll put in a good word for you!”

Grateful and surprised, I look back. I can come back another day, which means maybe another day after that. I smile, even though I don't mean to, and he kind of laughs at me before turning back to the grill.

I'm achy and tired. The smell of wet food clings to my clothes and skin, but I have money in my pocket and more work tomorrow. I buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter at the Food Conspiracy co-op across the street.

Back in Mikey's garage, I lie in bed as the light fades outside, my body filmed over with dried sweat, old food, and soapy water. It feels good to rest after being on my feet all day, lifting heavy bus tubs and dish trays. I slowly eat one peanut butter sandwich, then another. The first day of work wasn't so bad. The people seemed okay. Riley seems nice enough, and plenty cute. It's something, anyway. When I finish the second sandwich, I start the rickety shower and strip. The water is cold on my body and I shiver. I look around. No shampoo or soap. I take care not to look at myself too closely, but it doesn't work, and I see flashes of the damage on my thighs. My stomach sinks.

I'm Frankenstein. I'm the Scarred Girl.

I tilt my face up toward the spray and suddenly the water switches to hot, hot, all at once. I pretend that sudden sting of heat is why I'm crying.

Mikey's screen door slamming shut wakes me. I sit up and rub my face slowly.

I dressed in just a T-shirt and underwear after the shower. I must have dozed off, tired from my long day at True Grit. I scramble for my overalls, turning around so Ariel can't see the scars on my thighs. I'm sore from all the lifting I did today. I haven't used my muscles so much in months.

Ariel is bent down, flipping through my sketchbook, making a sound like a hungry bee. She pauses on the sketch of my father. I'm protective of my drawings, and him, so I pull the book away, pressing it to my chest. She shrugs, standing up.

“Prescription bottles. Interesting choice, but too distracting. In portraiture, it's the eyes that explain the person, that give us our window. If you put the whole story in his teeth by making them pill bottles, it's too easy for us. You just gave us the ending to the story. Why would we stick around? We need to move over the whole face, we need time to think. You understand?”

Move over the whole face, time to think
. Before I can ask what she means, she says briskly, “Come. Let's have breakfast. I love breakfast for dinner, don't you? I bet you're starving.”

I slip a hoodie on and pull on my boots hastily. I'm not going to turn down free dinner. Even though I ate before my shower, I'm hungry again. I guess I have a lot of space to fill inside. My mouth waters as we cross the yard. I look up. The stars are perfect pinpricks of white.

Her house is airy and comfortable. The cement floors are painted with large blue and black circles. It's like stepping on bruised bubbles, which is kind of cool, and I like it.

I've never been in a house that had so many paintings and it takes my breath away. Ariel's cream-colored living room walls are slathered with large, blackish paintings. Some of them have slanted strips of light cutting through the darkness, like light from beneath closed doors or up through the branches of tall, old trees. Some of them are just different shades of darkness. Some of the paint is so thickly applied, it rises off the canvas like minuscule mountains. My fingers itch to touch them but I'm afraid to ask if I can. Everywhere I look, there is something to see, and I love it.

Ariel stands in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me. “You can touch gently.”

I do, very carefully laying a finger on the tiny hill of one particularly dark painting. It feels, strangely enough, cool to the touch, and very firm, almost like a healed, raised scar.

Ariel says, “What are you thinking, Charlie? Speak. I always tell my students that whatever they feel about art, it is true, because it is true to
their
experience, not mine.”

“I'm not sure…I don't know how to say it.” The words bubble inside me, but I'm not sure how to arrange them. I don't want to sound dumb. I don't want to
be
dumb
.

“Just try. My ears, they are as big as an elephant's.”

I step back. The paintings are so large and dark, except for those tiny sprays of light. “They make me…they make me think of being stuck somewhere? I don't know, like weighted down, but then these little patches…” I falter. I sound stupid. And looking at so much darkness is kind of pulling at something inside me, because, I think, only a very sad person could have done these paintings and what would have made Ariel so sad?

Ariel is behind me now. “Go on,” she says quietly.

“Those little parts that stick off ? It seems like the darkness is almost trying to leave the whole thing, because the little light is back there, and it's turning its back on the light. That's stupid, I know.”

“No,” answers Ariel thoughtfully. “Not stupid, not stupid at all.” She walks away, back to the kitchen, and I follow her, relieved that I don't have to say any more about the painting, at least not right now.

Her glossy red kitchen table is laid out with an iridescent platter holding sliced strawberries, chunks of pineapple, scoops of scrambled egg, and red, soft-looking meat. “Chorizo,” she says. “You'll like it.”

I'm almost ashamed at how ravenous I am for real, cooked food. I calculate how much to put on my plate so it doesn't look like I'm being too greedy all at once.

The chorizo isn't hot so much as spicy; it has a strange, mashed-hot-dog quality that's slightly gross, so I eat some eggs instead. It's been a long time since I've eaten a real meal in someone's house. Maybe the last time was with Ellis and her parents, at their grainy dining room table, the one that leaned a little to the right.

The silverware is cool in my fingers, the plates sturdy and definite. I try to eat slowly, though I really do want to shove everything into my mouth at once.

Ariel takes a large mouthful of chorizo and egg and chews luxuriously.

“Where are your people? Your mama?”

I make a pile of strawberries and top them with a wedge of pineapple, like a little hat. I fill my mouth with food again so I don't have to answer Ariel.

“Maybe you think she doesn't care, but she does.” She turns a strawberry between her fingers. I can feel her watching me.

“Michael says you lost a friend. Your best friend. I'm so sorry.” She looks over at me. “How awful.”

It's unexpected, what she says, just like the fresh tears that suddenly well up in my eyes. I'm surprised Mikey told her about Ellis, but I don't know why. And I also feel weirdly betrayed that he did. Ellis was…is
mine.
“I don't want to talk about that right now,” I say quickly, jamming pineapple and strawberry into my mouth. I blink rapidly, hoping the tears stay put.

Ariel licks chorizo grease from her callused fingers and wipes each one with a napkin, dipping the edge of the fabric into her glass of ice water.

“Most girls your age, they're off to school, they fuck boys, they gain weight, they get some good grades, some bad grades. Lie to Mommy and Daddy. Pierce their tummies. Tramp stamps.” She smiles at me.

“That's not you, though, right? Michael says you didn't finish high school, so you can't go and study boys and fuck books.” She laughs at herself.

“I
did
finish,” I answer defensively through a mouthful of food. “Well, almost. Sort of. Soon.”

Ariel nibbles her pineapple. She regards me steadily, her eyes slightly enlarged by the lenses of her glasses. Then she makes a crackling, explosive sound low in her throat. “Boom!” She spreads her fingers. “You keep people inside you, that's what happens. Memories and regrets swallow you up, they get fat on the very marrow of your soul and then—”

I look over at her, startled by her strange words. Her face softens as she says, “And then, boom, you explode. Is that how you got those?” She gestures at my arms, safely hidden underneath the hoodie.

I fix my eyes on my plate. Boom.
Yes.

She smiles again. “How are you going to live this hard life, Charlotte?”

The sound of my full name makes me look up. Pinkish powder dusts Ariel's tan cheeks, minuscule lines of lipstick swim into the wrinkles above her mouth. I can't imagine ever being her age, how she got here, this airy house, her life. One day from now is hard enough for me to imagine. I don't know what to say.

She reaches across the table and brushes the scar on my forehead. Her fingertips are warm and for a second I relax, sinking into her touch. “You're just a baby,” she says quietly. “So young.”

I stand up, clumsily knocking into the table. She was getting too close, I was letting her. The food and her kindness made me sleepy and complacent.
Always be alert,
Evan would warn.
The fox has many disguises.

She sighs, squares her shoulders, and brushes crumbs from the table into her cupped palm. She raises her chin toward the back door: my invitation to leave.

On my way out, my hip bumps against a slim table. Something glittery peeks out from under a jumble of envelopes and circulars. I don't even hesitate before sliding it into the pocket of my overalls. Ariel has taken a little from me tonight and so I am taking a little of her.