MORTAL COILS (12 page)

The
old man looked up at them. His smile grew. The tempo of his tune increased.

The
notes danced on the edges of her memory: a nursery rhyme. That was impossible
because there were no nursery rhymes in Grandmother’s house. This was older,
though, before Grandmother. A tune someone had murmured to her when she was a
baby.

Sleep,
little baby, dance in your dreams, flowers and sunshine float down a stream.

The
chill bumps on her arm were pebble hard. The music was the beat of her heart,
the pulse of her blood; it made her sway; she tapped one foot.

Fiona
smelled roses and freshly turned earth. She saw herself dancing around a
whitewashed pole, colored ribbons about her, other children all laughing,
singing, prancing round and round a maypole in an endless spiral.6, 7

6.
One legend regarding the Children’s Crusade of 1212 is of a German shepherd boy
having a vision of Jesus dancing around a maypole. This led the boy to inspire
thousands of other children to march to the Mediterranean, where they believed
the sea would part and they would journey to the Holy Land. When the sea failed
to part, many children, without guidance or provisions, were subsequently sold
into slavery by Roman traders. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century,
Volume 2: Divine Inspirations, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

7.
“Round and round the pole we go / dancing to a seraphim’s song / with angled
harp and bended bow / a merry tune and we skip and sow.” Nursery rhyme from
Father Sildas Pious, Mythica Improbiba (translated version), c. thirteenth
century.

The
air was a blur around her and the alley melted away as watercolors in a
rainstorm.

She
distantly felt her hand slip off Eliot’s shoulder.

The
only things that remained in focus were the violin strings, but even those were
a smear—plucked so fast they were a haze of vibrations.

She
took a deep breath, half inhalation, half sigh . . . and caught the scent of
sardines, perspiration, and sulfurous burnt matches. Unclean was the word that
rose to the forefront of her fading conscious mind.

And
as she watched the vibrations fill her vision, another word came to her: chaos.

Even
more than the thought of the unwashed old man, the thought of chaos,
never-ending turmoil, strife, out of control and wild, washing her away . . .
for a reason she couldn’t articulate, it made her mad.

She
glared at the strings, focused on just one, as if she stared hard enough—like
Grandmother—she could stop this out-of-control feeling.

With
a twang, the string snapped.

The
old man’s hand flew from his violin, and he sucked the index finger.

After
a second, he withdrew the finger and she saw blood welling where the string had
cut.

The
old man looked at Eliot, then Fiona, still smiling, and said, “Well, I’ll be
damned.”

His
voice was a rich and resonant alto. It wasn’t what Fiona expected from someone
who looked so shabby.

“That
was great,” Eliot breathed.

The
man nodded at Eliot and took a little bow. He reached into the folds of his
ragged coat and withdrew a wax-paper envelope. Inside were coiled strings. He
gestured to the package like a stage magician, then smoothed one hand over the
wood of his battered violin.

Fiona
tapped her brother’s shoulder and gently pulled him back. To the old man she
said, “We have to get work . . . thanks.” Her icy tone, however, effectively
communicated that “thanks” was the last thing she meant.

The
bum’s smile faded a bit. He bowed again to them and started unwinding the
broken string from the pegbox.

“Come
on.” Fiona pulled on Eliot.

Her
brother whirled around and his eyes narrowed.

“If
we’re late two days in a row,” she said, “Mike’s really going to lose it.”

Eliot’s
expression of annoyance melted into one of concern. “Yeah.” He glanced back at
the old man and waved. The man’s full smile returned.

“Wasn’t
that the coolest thing?” Eliot whispered to her.

“No,”
she flatly replied. “It was kind of creepy.”

Fiona
did, however, begin to understand Eliot’s fascination with music. It had taken
her someplace else. Would it have been so bad if Grandmother let Eliot have a
stupid radio? Or was she right? Would it have been too much of a distraction?

They
hurried around the corner and found every parking spot near the intersection of
Midway and Vine occupied with gleaming SUVs and Mercedes convertibles.

Tourists.
Ringo’s was going to be packed.

They
crossed the street and ran up the stairs to the Pizza Palace.

Eliot
held the door open and a blast of air-conditioning hit her. She shivered.

Mike
was at the cashier’s counter. He had just handed off a party of four to Linda
to seat. He took one look at Eliot and Fiona and the color drained from his
face.

“You’ve
got to be kidding,” he said. “Today’s the start of the pinot noir festival in
Napa—the place is jam-packed, and you two decide it’s time to raid the Goodwill
Dumpster for their costume rejects?”

Fiona
flushed so hard that even in the air-conditioning she started to sweat again.

Eliot
stepped forward to defend them. “Hey, don’t—”

“The
squirt,” Mike said, cutting Eliot off, “can dress like whatever freak he wants
to. But you.” He looked Fiona over, disbelieving. “Wear that and everyone’s
going to lose their appetite.”

This
confirmed everything she had feared: her birthday dress really did look like a
bad Halloween costume, all wrapped in a bow to put the finishing touch on her
gift of humiliation.

She
hated being in this family—with their rules, handmade clothes, never going
anywhere. Tears blurred Fiona’s vision and made the pink satin of her dress
look like cotton candy.

“Wear
this.” Mike reached under the counter, grabbed a Ringo’s T-shirt, and threw it
to her. It hit her chest and fell to the floor.

She
knelt, blinking as fast as she could to get rid of her tears, and picked up the
shirt. An iron-on Uncle Sam smiled at her.

“I’ll
take it out of your paycheck,” Mike told her.

Eliot’s
hands clenched.

“Okay,”
Fiona whispered. “No problem.”

“And
get one of the big heavy aprons from Johnny,” Mike said, “to cover up the
rest.”

She
nodded and her gaze dropped to the slate floor, no longer able to look Mike in
the face. Her eyes and cheeks burned.

But
she couldn’t move. She didn’t want the dress to rustle satin over satin and
draw even more attention to it. And even if she could muffle the fabric, how
was she going to cross the dining room to the kitchen with all those people
watching her?

She
froze there. Mortified.

Mike
moved around the counter and grabbed her by the arm—his thumb digging into the
crook of her elbow. Electric pain lanced down her forearm.

“Come
on,” he growled. “Get—”

She
wrenched free of his grasp. That hurt even more, but she ignored the pain, her
head snapped up, and she stared him directly in the face.

“Don’t!”
she hissed through gritted teeth.

Her
humiliation had been a wounded animal, curled into a fetal ball . . . but it
had been provoked one too many times—and it uncoiled, rose up, and bared its
fangs.

She
sensed Eliot close at her side . . . ready to try to punch Mike in the nose. It
was good to know he was there for her when it counted.

Fiona
let her tears fall without blinking and continued to stare Mike down.

“Don’t,”
she whispered. It wasn’t a whisper of shame, but one of barely contained rage.
“Don’t ever touch me again.”

Mike’s
mouth opened, as if he were going to say something, but no words came out. He
slowly nodded, held up both hands in a “calm down” gesture, and slowly backed
away.

“Whatever,”
he breathed. “Just get that apron and get to work.”

But
he didn’t look away . . . somehow still caught in Fiona’s glare. He twitched
and his lips curled into a grimace, as if it hurt to remain there under her
withering gaze.

The
bell over the door jangled, and a couple entered.

She
blinked. The spell broke.

Mike
turned to the customers and his smile snapped into place. “Table for two?”

Fiona
took a deep breath. She turned, then she and Eliot marched through the dining
room to the kitchen.

If
anyone stared at her dress, snickered, or pointed, she didn’t see. Her eyes
were firmly fixed upon the floor again.

She
pushed through the swinging doors and examined her throbbing arm. Where Mike
had grabbed her, fingertip bruises dotted her skin.

“You
okay?” Eliot gently asked.

“Yeah.
Sure.” For the first time in her life she had felt like hitting someone other
than her brother. No . . . not just “felt like.” She would really have done it.

For
a split second Fiona had focused her hate to a white-hot intensity. For a
moment, she had wished that Mike Poole would never touch her, or anyone else,
ever again. She had wanted him dead.

8

MIKE’S
HAND

Eliot
stood before the vast double-basin sink, one side drained, one side filled with
murky water, suds floating on top like clouds.

This
job sucked.

But
Eliot was no quitter. He finished whatever he started, even if there was no way
of winning.

Working
at Ringo’s, though, wasn’t just another game—like a vocabulary insult or a race
down the stairs. Nothing was worth Mike’s abuse every day. He didn’t mind the
bullying so much; he could take it, but what Mike did to his sister . . .

Eliot
imagined plunging his boss’s head into the sink and giving him a good dunking .
. . drowning him.

He
inhaled, startled that his fantasy had turned so dark—more startled that it
gave him a real sense of satisfaction.

Eliot
sighed. At least the lunch shift was almost over.

He
gazed at the water and his fingers unconsciously tapped the basin. That
nursery-rhyme tune was still in his head. It played over and over and he
imagined shapes in the suds. A violin coalesced, then a smile, a flock of white
crows, and a hand. That hand reached out, and spinning slowly in the water, the
fingers grasped and closed about an unseen object . . . then the fingers writhed
in pain.

Johnny
called from across the kitchen, “Hey, you okay, amigo?”

Eliot
shook his head to clear the music. “Zoning out. Long shift.”

Johnny
dumped a bag of frozen wedge-cut potatoes into the deep fryer. Boiling grease
hissed and popped. He stepped back and lowered the splashguard, but not before
drops spattered the concrete floor. Johnny frowned at this. He kept the kitchen
antiseptic. He looked for a bucket and mop to immediately clean it up.