The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Three (92 page)

"Nothing, nothing, nothing is going on! I can't talk about this right now. Can I have some Advil? What's wrong with my foot?"

Her mother said, "You sliced up your tendon. You would have bled to death in the parking lot if Cabell Meadows hadn't called 911. And not even a baby aspirin until you tell me the truth. Did that boy give you alcohol?"

"Nothing is going on and I'm telling you the truth! I just like him, okay? He saved my life. And I didn't know I was drinking alcohol. I thought I was drinking Coke, okay? Somebody must've put something in it. Not Cabell. You can ground me if you want. But stop asking me about Cabell Meadows. Okay? This is so embarrassing. I wish I were dead." At which point Clementine forced a couple of tears from her eyes. It wasn't hard.

Her mother went away. She came back with ginger ale and three Advil. She said, "Dancy has asked me to pass on how much she appreciates you ruining her wedding. Not to mention ruining Cabell's rented tuxedo. They've tried everything but they don't think they can get the blood out. And Clementine? Here's something to think about. Every time you and Cabell meet up, you almost die. Does that sound like a healthy relationship to you?"

"Every time we meet up he saves my life," Clementine said.

Her mother said, "Clementine. He's nothing special. He's just some boy."

DARLINGSEA: u saved my life again

TRUEBALOO: dont mention it

DARLINGSEA
: you saved my life 2X now. u didnt take advantage. u know, even tho I was drunk and obnoxious and sed that u were gay. ;)

TRUEBALOO: clementine, its ok. really dont mention it. ok?

DARLINGSEA: your not, right? i mean your not gay r u? even if your not im sorry about the tux. did the blood come out?

TRUEBALOO: not last time i checked

TRUEBALOO: dont worry about the tux

DARLINGSEA: my dress got ruined 2. mom found out how much it cost & shes madder about that than me being drunk

TRUEBALOO: hope your foot is ok

DARLINGSEA: its fine

DARLINGSEA:
so i know your all busy with classes but i just wanted to say thanx. for being a gentleman when i was a total idiot & for saving my life

DARLINGSEA:
also can i ask u some things about chapel hill? because im thinking about applying. mrs padlow in ap chemistry talks about u all the time & chapel hill

DARLINGSEA:
she went there

DARLINGSEA:
she said she saw your picture in the paper from the lab animal protests & i think thats so cool, that your doing something

TRUEBALOO:
tell mrs p hey for me

DARLINGSEA:
so r u coming home when dancy has the baby? she says i can watch if i want but i dont think mom will let me

TRUEBALOO:
maybe

TRUEBALOO
: look, c, gotta run, got lab, stay off the booze, okay

"What are you reading?" someone says.

Lee looks up. It's Parci. "Just some book. You know."

"Is it good?" Parci says.

"I don't know. It's a love story. Kind of."

"Then I wouldn't like it," Parci says. "I like stories about animals. Do you have a boyfriend? Because Czigany isn't allowed to date. Neither am I."

"Your parents are kind of strict," Lee says. "There's this boy I run into sometimes when I buy comic books. He asked me out to the movies once, but it was a horror movie. I don't like horror movies."

Parci says, "Nobody found any arrowheads. Just a dead vole. So is this Czigany's Ordeal?"

Czigany and the others are back up in the barn. Probably Dodo is showing them how to make cheese. Or pipe bombs. Lee can hear them shouting and laughing.

"This is the part of the Ordeal that I'm in charge of," Lee says, evading Parci's question as gracefully as she can.

"I thought it would be something really embarrassing. Or dangerous. Or disgusting. Not that this isn't kind of awesome." But Parci sounds almost disappointed. "Everybody in my grade talks all the time about the Ordeal. How scared they are. But you can tell they're really into it."

"It's just this tradition," Lee says. "Girls' schools have all kinds of weird traditions. Normally you have your Ordeal when you're a freshman—you know, a rite of passage or something. But we think Czigany is great, and so a couple of weeks ago we asked her if she wanted one because otherwise you don't really fit in. You'll see. When your class goes through their Ordeals."

"We won't be here," Parci says. "We have to move a lot."

DARLINGSEA:
hey, cabell, dancys baby is really ugly. no kidding. first i thought all kids must be that ugly when theyre born, but my mom said lucinda larkin cleary is in her own special category

TRUEBALOO:
ha ha

DARLINGSEA:
u really need to come see her quick. shes got hair all over her body & she also had teeth

TRUEBALOO
: r u @ the hospital? tried to call but dancys phone is off

DARLINGSEA:
when she was born! & a big caul that your mom went & buried somewhere in the yard. last year in biology we read that when a fetus grows inside the mother its like it goes through different species on its way to being human

DARLINGSEA:
yeah im here in the waiting room

DARLINGSEA:
so maybe baby lucinda got stuck somewhere around the wolverine stage. just kidding! do you remember dancys wedding when i got completely wasted? how i asked if i looked like a mermaid because of my dress which is why i bought it in the first place

DARLINGSEA:
because it looked like something a mermaid would wear. but what i was wondering is do you think there really are mermaids? or vampires?

TRUEBALOO:
how is dancy? tell her im psyched to be an uncle

DARLINGSEA:
shes great shes on lots of drugs. i brought her this book

DARLINGSEA:
about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. it was kind of bad except i also kind of enjoyed it

DARLINGSEA:
anyway dont know if dancy told u, but im going out with a guy. hes got a widows peek just like a vampire might have

TRUEBALOO:
good for you, c

DARLINGSEA
: dancy says u have a serious girlfriend. so i didnt want u to think i still had some weird crush

DARLINGSEA:
on u

TRUEBALOO:
youre a sweet kid

DARLINGSEA:
bcause i did have a crush on u when i was 12 & u saved me from drowning

TRUEBALOO:
tell her i can't wait to see the new kid. next time u need your life saved u know where to find me ok?

Lee dog-ears the page and checks her cell phone. Time to get going. Time for part two of Czigany's Ordeal. But she doesn't move.

There are birds' nests tufted with goat hair and candy-bar wrappers discarded by broken-hearted archeologists, or relics, perhaps, of Lee's childhood, high in the spokes of the Ferris wheel. Trees crowd the pasture, guarding Peaceable Kingdom or else threatening it, Lee is never sure which. The air is scented with sweet meadow grass and the Christmas smell of the stands of pine. If only the Ferris wheel would turn again, down would come the birds' nests and up would go Lee, to be the queen of all she surveys: goats, pine trees, barn, pink house, arrowheads, Maureen on her way to the outhouse to pee one last time, Bad and Nikki escorting Parci and Czigany back to the van.

As if she really were queen, an official delegation—Aunt Dodo and the goats—is headed in Lee's direction. "Nice of you to come see me," Dodo hollers.

"Sorry," Lee says. "It's just that I wanted to get to the end of this story. And this is my favorite reading spot in the world. Sometimes I think the only time I'm ever completely happy is when I'm here. Or am I being melodramatic?"

"It's the only place I've ever been happy," Dodo says. "So remind me again. You'll be back in an hour or so?"

"Is that still okay?" Lee says.

"Just keep an eye on your friends. Caught Bad trying to sneak up on my Tennessee girls and make them faint. What kind of name is that anyway?"

"Her real name is Patricia. And I used to do that, too," Lee reminds her.

"When you were eight. Glad you're not eight anymore. You were a real punk." Dodo says this without a drop of fondness.

"So what am I now?" Lee says, teasing.

Dodo sighs. Gives Lee a hard look. "A monster. You and your friends, all of you. Pretty monsters. It's a stage all girls go through. If you're lucky you get through it without doing any permanent damage to yourself or anyone else. You sure you really want to do this to your friend? It's cruel, Lee. She'll be frightened. Parci, too."

"Parci made us bring her along," Lee says. "Parci's tough. We won't leave them alone for more than a few hours. All they have to do is stay put. And Nikki is going to go up the tree before they get there. So if they get loose and wander off, she can deal with it."

"Something bad happens to Czigany and Parci and it's back to prison for me," Dodo says. "Or if Nikki falls out of the tree. You ever think about that?"

"You think we shouldn't do it?"

Bad is gesturing for Lee to come on. Aunt Dodo is frowning down at her. "I'm not sure I'm the one to ask," she says finally. "I've made some terrible mistakes. Not the bank. I don't regret blowing up the bank. But I did some dumb things before that and goddess knows I did some dumb things afterwards, too. So now everything seems like it might be a mistake, which is why I don't leave Peaceable Kingdom very often. It's a long way back down the mountain if something goes wrong, Lee."

"Hey, Lee!" Bad yells. "Let's get this show on the road!"

"It'll be fine," Lee tells Dodo. "Bad and Maureen will kill me if I mess up the next part. That's the only thing I'm worried about."

"So don't," Dodo says, and gives Lee a hug. The goats all look surprised. Dodo isn't a hugger.

Bad has plugged in her iPod and is playing some yodelly crap. Czigany and Parci are blindfolded and Nikki has handcuffed the sisters wrist to wrist.

"We're going home now, right?" Czigany says.

"Home?" Nikki says. "What, no Ordeal?"

Czigany says, "Having to use an outhouse wasn't Ordeal enough?"

Parci says, "I think we need to go home. My ear is kind of achy?"

"Don't worry," Bad says. "We just have one stop first. Then home."

Clementine was seventeen when Cabell came home. He'd been kicked out of graduate school for breaking into a research lab in Durham and liberating the test animals. Dogs, monkeys, rats, and cats. Clementine watched it all on Fox, with her mother and Lucinda Larkin. "See that man?" Clementine said to Lucinda Larkin. "That's your uncle! He's sleeping in your basement!" The news anchor informed them that when security caught up with Cabell on the lawn of the research building, he'd had an octopus with him, sloshing around in a two-gallon bucket.

Lucinda Larkin didn't seem particularly impressed. She went on playing with Clementine's hair. Clementine's mother said, "Dancy looked fit to kill when she dropped Lucinda Larkin off. Said something about John's computer. Some e-mail account she's come across."

Clementine's mother and Dancy had become quite close despite the difference in their ages. Their favorite topics of conversation were their respective marriages, Clementine, and, of course, John Cleary.

"Lucky Cabell," Clementine said. "Hope he remembered his earplugs. And lucky me!" She squeezed Lucinda Larkin. "I get a slumber party with my favorite little girl."

When she drove Lucinda Larkin over the next afternoon to pick up a change of clothes, Dancy wasn't home. Cabell was napping on the couch in the basement.

"So what were you going to do with that octopus?" Clementine said.

"The octopus?" Cabell said. He had on a pair of old flannel pajamas and there was a duffel bag beside the couch. His hair had gotten long again. "I don't know. Elope with it, run off to the Gulf of Mexico?"

"You remember me, right?" Clementine said.

"How could I forget?" Cabell said. "What time is it?"

"Two," Clementine said. "Where's Dancy?"

"Uh, I think she said something about yoga," Cabell said. "She and John were up pretty late last night. You know, talking?"

"Those two sure like to talk," Clementine said.

Cabell smiled in the direction of Clementine's knee, where Lucinda Larkin was lurking. "I don't think she likes me."

"Dancy is raising her to hate all men," Clementine said. "To be their doom. Isn't that right, Lucinda Larkin?"

"Daddy's a bad man," Lucinda Larkin said.

Cabell said, "That's the first thing I've heard her say since I got here."

Clementine sat down on the floor opposite Cabell and pulled Lucinda Larkin into her lap. Lucinda Larkin held on hard, like any minute the airlock doors would open and she'd be sucked away into the blackness of the void. Clementine knew exactly how she felt. "Are they really making you sleep on that thing?"

Cabell pulled a T-shirt out of the duffel bag. "Yes. Why?"

"Because that couch used to belong to Uncle John's fraternity," Clementine said. "He bought it off them when he graduated because he'd gotten lucky on it so many times. Dancy tried to set it on fire last New Year's. Because it doesn't go with her décor, but Uncle John won't let her get rid of it."

Cabell said, "After all the, um,
talk
last night, I was afraid your uncle was going to come down and ask if there was room on the couch."

Clementine put her hands over Lucinda Larkin's ears. "Dancy's been sleeping on your niece's top bunk for at least a week. So you should be safe. Speaking of true love, are you still going out with that girl? The one Dancy told me about at Christmas? Because I have a boyfriend now, but it isn't serious. Not really. Lucinda Larkin, let go of my arm. You are going to leave bruises. Want a Coke, Cabell? If you don't want a Coke, I know where Dancy hides all the booze. So how are things, anyway?"

"I'll take a Coke," Cabell said. "And how things are, more or less, is I just got kicked out of a graduate-school program that I still owe at least eight thousand dollars' tuition on. I'm stuck living in the basement of my kid sister's house for the foreseeable future because my mother's yard is full of reporters. I can't even go down to the beach with my surfboard without running into a million people who've known me my whole life, who know all about my life, who want to tell me what I should do with my life. I'm pretty sure getting it on with some high-school kid isn't going to turn things around for me at this stage, if that's what you were so delicately offering. All I need is your mother chasing after me with a bread knife."