The Butterfly Clues (11 page)

I stay upstairs, arranging, rearranging, as the sun disappears behind the trees and my room grows dark. I’m moving the Italian glass medallions to the second shelf above my desk, one by one, when I hear the garage door groan open and close, the back door click and twist and shut downstairs. Dad’s briefcase clunks onto the floor. By the time every medallion has been rearranged, three-inch spaces measured precisely between them, there are new sounds, new smells: banging and clanking from the kitchen; flour and butter and warm things stewing. I’m sure I’m either dreaming, or I’m smelling something from the neighbor’s house that’s just so powerfully good-smelling that it
seems
like it’s coming from our kitchen. My parents don’t cook—haven’t cooked since Oren died. It’s take-out or cold sandwiches every single night. Mom doesn’t really eat, anyway, and Dad’s usually not home before ten. I must be hallucinating.

I let the good smells of an imaginary dinner weave around me, calm me, when something Flynt had said, in his low, soft voice, pops into my head:
Unless you’re a client or carrying a cocktail, they’re not interested.
I’m pretty sure he just wanted to shut me up after I’d asked him about Tens, but
—
I realize, sitting up in bed and throwing my blackbird-patterned comforter off my chest as something akin to lightning jolts through me—maybe it’s not impossible. Just because Flynt says that’s the
only
way, doesn’t mean there’s
no
way to get them to talk to me.

I’ve just got to be carrying a cocktail.

I sprint downstairs to get the makeup Mom keeps in the bathroom near the kitchen. When she used to go out, in every house we’ve ever lived, she’d always get ready in the downstairs bathroom because she said it had the perfect “evening” lighting— slightly dimmer than the other rooms, more flattering, more “movie star.” I remember standing behind her as a kid, watching her; she’d dust her cheeks with rose-colored blush flecked with tiny sparkles, so her skin looked like it was made of diamonds. After she left—usually with my father, arm in arm, headed to a dinner—and Oren, as babysitter, was fixated on baseball on TV or playing guitar, badly, in the basement—I’d sneak some of the diamond-blush and put it all over my face and arms, prancing around the house, sparkling, pretending I was a fairy.

Before I reach the bathroom, I see the kitchen light on and my dad standing there bent over the stove, his broad back in a white undershirt and his silky black work pants. It wasn’t imaginary dinner after all.

“Lind? That you?” he calls—clearly hoping it’s my mother— hoping the dinner he’s cooking will rouse her, at least for a few minutes, from her deep black hole.

“No, Dad. It’s me.”

A pause. “Lo?”

Who else would it be?
I think, but don’t say. “Yes. Lo.”

“Dinner’s ready in a minute.”

It’s heartbreaking, seeing my dad stirring things in his undershirt, seeing cutting knives and vegetables laid out on the kitchen counter (all in the wrong order, the colors all mixed), watching him wipe his pale hands on the dandelion-print towel hanging from the oven that Mom used to put out around Easter. He used to make us elaborate gourmet meals, every Friday night. We’d all wear dress-up clothes to the kitchen table like we were at a fancy restaurant, and Mom and Dad would let Oren and me take sips of wine, like families do in Europe. Seeing him, now, makes me half believe that things might be normal again. Even for a night. Maybe Mom will emerge. Maybe we’ll light a fire together after dinner and I’ll tell them everything. And then, they’ll make it all better, like parents are supposed to do.

“I—I’m not really hungry,” I tell him, which is true.

He turns around, looking crestfallen. “I made linguini with pesto. You like pesto, right?”

I hate pesto, actually. It’s not the taste I mind, it’s the texture, and the way it sticks to my tongue like green sand. But I force myself to smile. “Pesto sounds really good.”

“Have a seat then, hon.” He gestures to the table. He has set up three placemats, as though he is still hoping that Mom will come downstairs. Oren’s chair is missing. My dad must have taken it away from the table at some point, moved it to the basement, so it would not stare at us every time we passed it, confronting us with its emptiness.

I sit down as Dad serves pesto-drenched noodles and peas onto my plate, and then onto his own. Green. All green against white. He scoops a dollop of food onto a third plate and places it at the other end of the table, plunking forks down as well, each one clattering too loudly.

“So, how’s school going?” he asks, taking his seat.

“Fine,” I say. We sit in silence for a moment as he starts eating. I stare. It’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to do this.

Finally, he breaks the silence. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much, Lo. I’ve got to figure out how to handle this damn company I’m working with right now. Trying to pull the wool over the city’s eyes … industrial chemicals shipping. It’s disgusting, really. This guy thinks he’s a hot-shot … thirty years old and already a big-time CEO … trying to get away with this sneaky real estate bullshit.”

When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. “Anyway, I want you to know, I’m trying, Lo. You know that, right? Your mother and I—we’re doing the best we can. I left work early tonight to spend time with you.”

“I know. Seven thirty. So early.” The words feel huge in my throat. The peas look grossly disordered on the plate, the pasta a tangled mess.

“And I’m going to try to be around here a lot more.” He picks up his fork again. “By the way, I saw a garbage bag in the yard on my way in tonight. Were you cleaning your room like we talked about?”

The dead cat. He must have seen it, before I buried it.

“You didn’t go in there, did you? To my room?” I ask quietly, patiently dividing the peas across my plate. Three even groupings. Seven peas per group. Not as good as nine but not terrible. Not the worst. “Because that’s really
my
space, Dad, and I don’t like anyone to—”

“Relax,” he tells me. “I haven’t gone into your room. But I
know
I asked you to clear away some of your junk over six months ago, and I just want to make sure you’re on top of it, honey.” He glances over at my plate and sighs. “Stop moving your food around and just eat it, okay, Lo? You used to love peas.”

But I’m working and his voice is a low mumble I can barely make out. There’s still this hideous
pile
in the center of the plate. I cannot rest until each pea is given a proper home on one edge of my plate. Three options. Six peas left to administer. Five peas left. Four. Three.

Dad watches me out of the corner of his eye as we sit there for a while in silence; the only sound is the clinking of his fork against his plate and the spreading, rearranging, mashing sound of mine.

I count each group of peas, confirming their symmetry.
One, two, three, four—

But Dad interrupts. “Lo. I
told
you to stop
doing
that.” So, I have to start again, hands beginning to shake.
One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three—
“Lo. Look at me. Please. Have you been taking your medication? Lo? Answer me.”
—
again: start over, face burning, body bubbling over, a mix of rage and shame. He doesn’t understand—I don’t want to be like Mom—cripplingly numb, blank headed. I’d rather this. Groups. Order. Systems. Patterns. Safe safe safe. He shoots his hand forward, trying to grab my fork. I yelp, pulling it away from him, beginning again as I have to begin.

Group one:
One, two, three, four, five, six.

He’s glaring at me; I keep going.

“Eat your
goddamn
dinner, Penelope.”

No
—
no choice. Can’t stop. Group two:
one, two, three, four, five, six
. Group three:
one, two, three, four, five, six
.

I breathe, deep. Finished. Done. Each group even, a perfect amassment of color and form and figure.

I press my palms hard onto the edge of the table as I scoot out my chair and stand up. My dad is staring at me with that look he gets, the horrified look, like I’m a mutant animal in a cage. “Sit back down, Penelope. We are going to have dinner like a normal
—
”

“I’m not hungry.” I repeat, stepping quickly from the table, hands clenched into tight fists. “I hate pesto. I’ve always hated pesto.” I go into the hallway and torpedo into the bathroom. I close the door and lock it, half expecting for my dad to come banging on the door, demanding that I sit down again. But he doesn’t. A minute later I hear footsteps pass by the bathroom. Then his study door opens and closes.

I exhale three times and count three spaces between breaths. Time to go.

I find my mom’s makeup bag wedged between facial moisturizers and two three-bottled rows of nail polish in a basket to the left of the sink, a thick layer of dust covering everything. I jog the dust off the bag and then just hold it for a minute, stare at it. From the corner of my eye, the Ghost of Mother Past sits in her queenly bedroom chair in front of the mirror, glittering there in the evening light.

I exit the bathroom and creep quietly upstairs to my room, moving a cluster of antique silverware; disembodied china doll heads, hands, feet; a tall stack of crumbling photographs of other people’s families and dogs and vacations, carefully, against the foot of my desk. When I finish and there’s room, I sit at my antique, cherry wood wardrobe and stare into the big, oblong mirror.

Whoosh—
I slide the blush brush back and forth across my cheeks, watching them grow rosier and rosier, the thick fist of bristles stinging a little. They’ve grown stiff from lack of use. I am filled, now, with a jittery excitement. I can hardly keep still enough to rub foundation into my face evenly, or to draw the eyeliner pencil—a dusky, deep blue-black—around the border of my eyes. My hands are shaking like plucked rubber bands.

My face in the mirror, heavy with makeup, doesn’t even look like my face anymore. I look
older,
like I’m seeing myself in the future, and if I passed this future-version of myself on the street, I’d think she was in college, at least.

An odd rush of satisfaction hits my body like a sugar high—I didn’t realize it was so easy to become someone else. To shelve myself away, in a kind of dark distant storage, and then emerge— new—a cakey, sparkling, womanly apparition.

I look at this new girl’s unblemished, even-toned skin—she has no scars. And then, in a blink, the apparition fades away. It’s just me again. Scarred and plain. It occurs to me that I’m lying to my parents and sneaking out to a club when I’m supposed to be studying, almost like a Normal Teenager.

The irony of it makes me laugh out loud, and I clap my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound. Don’t want Dad to think I’m any crazier than he already does.

I step away from the vanity for a final survey of my room as new jitters creep through my body, my fingers ticking madly into my fists—and it’s a good thing I do, because I notice immediately that the stone wolves need to be moved five inches to the right, all nine of them; I need to reach them in three big steps, or in twenty-seven very small steps to prevent getting caught tonight. I get there in three big ones, rearrange them quickly, then take twenty-seven tiny steps back to my purse and do a final survey over my little kingdom. In order. Ready to leave the safety of my warm cocoon and spin outwards, new. Sort of.

Quickly: I remove the crumpled piece of paper at the bottom of my Converse and place it in the heel of a pair of mom’s old heels. I’ll wear them tonight, to blend in. Finally, I press my hand against the horse pendant, resting on my chest, and feel for the crumpled piece of paper in the bottom of my shoe, for Sapphire’s butterfly in the pocket of my coat. I grab a purse from the arm of my desk chair, shove my wallet inside of it.
All systems go.
I reach my bedroom door in nine medium-size steps and creep downstairs, my heart thudding noisily. There is a thin sliver of light creeping into the hallway from my dad’s study; otherwise, everything is dark. I grab some stale Cheetos from an open bag in the pantry, suddenly starving.

I
tap tap tap, banana
, open the front door, pausing for a second as I stand, sandwiched between warmth and frost: in the darkness, the killer could be waiting.

I hesitate for another second before sliding outside into the frosty air, clicking the door shut quietly behind me.

CHAPTER 9

“A cocktail waitress? You’ve got to dance, too. You know that, right? Not your average everyday drinks-and-dinner kind of thing here,” says the manager of Tens: a short paunchy man with a thick golden mustache and forest green sport coat. He has taken my coat and draped it lazily on a hook by the door, and now he’s sizing me up. He quickly glances between my face and chest, seeming to peer, X-ray vision–style, through my black skirt (the shortest I had), purple spaghetti-strapped tank-top (the smallest I had), thin, knit shrug covering my shoulders, and Mom’s old patent leather heels from the eighties that I used to play dress-up in (the only pair in my closet that were remotely right). I’m trying to pretend this isn’t happening without letting on that I think he’s kind of creepy.

I push my bangs to the side, back and forth, three times, and then plant my hands against the sides of my thighs and stare straight ahead. I need to seem fearless. I need to do more than
seem,
I need to
be
.

I stare into the crowd—the profile of a man sitting close to the stage looks very familiar—greasy hair tucked under a ratty old cap, leathery skin.
Mario.
But, seconds later, he takes the hat off to wipe his forehead, and I see his hair is muddy brown, not Mario’s dyed shock of red. He’s just another greasy middle-aged man, a pack of Winstons peaking out of his shirt pocket. My heart skips wildly in my chest.

I try to hide my hands behind my back, tapping. Nine, nine, six. Nine, nine, six. Nine, nine, six. “I love dancing,” I say, smiling, flashing him rows of white teeth between painted lips.