MORTAL COILS (31 page)

Eliot
cleared his throat. “Seems fine to me. Anyone’s better than Mike.”

Fiona
stiffened. “I guess so.” A crash of dishes came from the party room. “I better
go. Try not to drown yourself, okay?”

“Yeah.”
Eliot failed to think of a quip back. He was too busy counting people in the
dining room. Every table was full. Extra chairs had been brought out from
storage—all of which meant more dirty dishes.

He
pushed through the doors into the kitchen.

Johnny
stood before the stove—all burners lit—explaining to a new assistant how to fry
up the chicken parmigianas. Johnny wore a white chef’s uniform and looked like
a pro.

“Hey,
amigo.” Johnny gave Eliot a little wave. “Business is good today, huh?”

The
kitchen had been changed. The deep fryer was gone. A rack of copper pans,
steamers, and kettles hung over the stoves. Everything was sparkling clean . .
. except the washing sink in the back.

Eliot’s
gaze drifted over the unassailable peaks of filthy dishes and scorched pots.

“Anyone
say how Mike is doing?” Eliot asked.

Johnny’s
face contorted as if he had never heard of Mike before, then recognition
dawned. “Oh, he’s fine, but out for the summer. But, hey, we got a new boss
lady and owner. They’re going to remodel the entire kitchen.”

“That’s
wonderful.” Eliot worked up a smile, but he felt ill as he approached the same
chipped porcelain sink he’d washed dishes at for the last year.

He
sighed, donned his apron and rubber gloves, and plunged in. Hard work is the
cornerstone of character, Grandmother had always told them.

Hot
water and soap sloshed together into a lake of suds. All Eliot could see,
though, was Julie Marks’s snow-white face and the lacy cuffs of her dress.

He
wanted to dream up adventures of them sailing a clipper on the blood-warm Java
Sea. Sometimes his daydreams were the only thing that kept him sane—but there
were too many other things he had to think about.

Like
a family that might kill him and Fiona if they failed to pass some heroic
tests.

And
more immediate: there were a half ton of dishes to clean.

He
was worried, scared, and more than a little annoyed that he was literally up to
his elbows in filth. Eliot’s hands angrily tapped on the side of the basin.
That nursery rhyme tune was right at his fingertips.

There
was only one thing to do: he grabbed a dish. Scrubbing and tapping and humming
away, he got the plate clean in no time.

One
down and a few hundred to go. He’d have to pick up the pace.

He
thrummed a staccato beat and imagined the music in his head jump in tempo. The
water splashed in response.

As
Eliot worked, he watched the patterns in the soapsuds. Bubbles coalesced into
dozens of tiny hands, some waved hello or good-bye, but most postured rude
gestures. He kept washing, rinsing, and then grabbing the next dish. He made
the music go faster and saw in the suds flocks of white crows, disembodied
smiles, and tiny, swirling galaxies of bubbles.

He
sensed someone behind him.

“I
know you’re busy . . . it’s Eliot, right?” Julie Marks’s voice was at his
shoulder. Her breath tickled the back of his neck.

“Ah-huh,”
Eliot murmured. He wanted to turn and talk, but the music kept him going; he
couldn’t drop the beat.

“There
are going to be a few changes around here. All for the better, and I wanted to
talk to you about them. Later maybe?”

“Sure.
Maybe.”

“How
about now?” Her voice was no longer honey-sweet.

Eliot
kept washing. “Later . . .”

He
was just echoing her words. He hadn’t meant that as an insult, but it did sound
that way.

The
presence at his shoulder left; only her perfume lingered.

He
felt bad, but he couldn’t stop. He focused, and the music settled to a
standstill in his mind.

But
it was there still . . . waiting. It was as if he weren’t standing in front of
a sink, but a conductor’s stand, and a hundred musicians were poised in anticipation
of his commands. Eliot didn’t dare keep them all idle.

He
moved his hands, splashed into the water, and waved dish and sponge as if they
were batons. French horns blared and rows of cello swelled to life. Harps and
kettledrums then joined.

Eliot
whipped the nursery rhyme into a full symphony, twisting and turning the melody
and making it his. It wasn’t as good as the old man’s solo performance. He was
a master of his craft and Eliot was just beginning, but this was a start.

Fiona
came and spoke to him, wanting to talk about Grandmother and the others.

He
said something in response—he wasn’t even sure what—and after a while, she went
away.

She
was in another world for all he cared.

His
eyes locked upon the water and the vibrations that bounced and rebounded off
the walls of the basin. They made crisscrossing patterns, lines of force,
threads of destiny that overlapped to make a tapestry. This was the big
picture. His life set before him with all its possibilities: triumphs, dead
ends, his birth, and his death. It was all there.

The
music was there with him, blasting chords and harmonies, choirs of voices and
clashing percussion, up and down the scales, a thundering mix of divine and
diabolical.

It
was out of control . . . but that was part of the wonder of the piece. It was
like weather—sometimes a breeze, sometimes a hurricane.

The
tempo slowed and the last note wavered and died.

Dripping
with sweat, Eliot lifted his pruney hands from the water and looked up.

Every
dish and pot was cleaned and dried and stacked.

But
more than that: the plates at Ringo’s were glazed stoneware that had been
scratched dull over the years. These plates, though, were as reflective as if
they’d just been removed from a kiln. And the pots—dull and battered before—now
shone like the chrome grille of Uncle Henry’s limousine.

His
fingers started tapping again.

Eliot
willed them to stop.

Julie,
the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen, had come and talked to him—and he had
ignored her. He added this to the list of stupid things he’d done in the last
few days.

Fiona
had wanted to talk, too. He couldn’t even remember what she had said. But they
had to talk about things that were life-and-death important.

Eliot
looked at the water: it was gray and still. There were no longer stars and
lines of force. Had it all been a daydream?

He
looked at his “conductor” hands and then balled them into fists.

He
believed he had been in control of the music . . . but maybe it had been the
other way around. Maybe the music had been controlling him.

Eliot
wondered about Grandmother’s RULE 34. He’d thought her forbidding music was
arbitrary or meant to keep him focused on homework. Was there more to it? Was
it possible music, for him, might somehow be dangerous?

22

SECRET
ADMIRER

Let’s
talk,” Fiona whispered.

Eliot
washed dishes and said nothing. He’d plowed through half of the piles in front
of him. Fiona had never realized that Ringo’s had that many plates. But they
had much more important things to talk about than clean dishes.

“Shift
is almost over,” she said. “I never got my break, thanks to our new manager.
Take yours now and we can get a plan together for tonight.”

“Uh-huh.”
Eliot’s hands flashed underwater, suds danced on the surface, and he remained
at the sink.

Fiona
waited and glanced over at Johnny and his new assistant. They were busy, too,
but a weird kind of busy. They artistically arranged food on dishes, tossed
pizzas, shook copper pots over the flames, moving together as if they were
dancing to music. She couldn’t hear anything, though.

She
nudged Eliot. “Come on.”

“Later,”
he murmured, and kept washing.

Okay,
so she deserved a little cold shoulder for giving him a hard time about that
stupid violin, but this was silly. They had real issues to sort out: namely,
these family tests. What was he thinking? Was he that much a baby that he was
going to hold a grudge and get them killed?

Julie
Marks sashayed into the kitchen. Under one arm she had a square box the size of
a medium pizza.

Fiona
disliked this new boss. The girl looked as fresh as she had this morning after
hosting all afternoon as well as helping her and Linda wait and bus the tables.

Johnny
and the new guy looked up, smiled, and waved at Julie. Why were all the guys
treating her like some queen bee? She wasn’t that pretty. Was it the Southern
accent?

Julie
moved to the sink. “I know you’re busy . . . it’s Eliot, right?”

“Ah-huh,”
he murmured, and continued working, not even turning around.

Why
was he acting like such a jerk? Eliot was shy—but this was way beyond simple
bashfulness.

Julie
tried again to engage Eliot, but he just mumbled a halfhearted reply, totally
absorbed in washing the dishes.

A
shadow crossed Julie’s porcelain features, and a flicker of anger smoldered in
her eyes . . . but this vanished as quickly as it had come. She turned to
Fiona. “You did great today, honey. A few broken dishes and misorders—but
that’s to be expected first time out. You really came through for me. Thanks.”

She
handed Fiona an envelope.

Fiona
looked inside: there were five-dollar bills, a ten, and a twenty.

“Your
share of the tips,” Julie explained. “Easy money from happy tourists.”

Their
paychecks had always been sent by mail and deposited by Grandmother into a
college fund. Fiona never had cash of her own. She ran a finger over the bills,
wondering what to do with them.

“Oh,
almost forgot.” Julie handed the box under her arm to Fiona. “Delivery truck
dropped this off for you.”

Fiona
took it. International customs stamps plastered the box.

“See
you tomorrow,” Julie said. “Eliot, honey?”

He
washed, oblivious to the world.

Julie
glared at the back of his head, then tromped out of the kitchen.

Well,
Eliot could be rude to everyone and keep scrubbing dishes until tomorrow if
that’s what he wanted.

Fiona
took her package into the women’s changing room. She had the place to herself;
Linda had already left.

She
set her box down. A card was in the plastic wrapping. She hesitated, her
fingers on the plastic, feeling static electricity crawl across her skin, then
she cautiously slid out the card.

It
read:

   
To my dearest Fiona,

   
My heart is full for the loveliest creature that walks the earth.

Worshipfully,