Wax (23 page)

Poppy read aloud:

“AND NOW THEY HAVE GONE AND DONE SOMETHING TRULY REGRETTABLE. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS​—​ALL I KNOW IS THAT THEY HAVE BEEN GIVING ME PHOTOS OF TOWNSPEOPLE, I ASSUME, AND FORCING ME TO SCULPT THEIR LIKENESSES. MY GUESS IS THAT THEIR DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR HAVE REACHED NEW HEIGHTS, THAT THEY WISH TO INFILTRATE MORE PEOPLE IN THE TOWN AND TO SOMEHOW BUILD UP THEIR FACTORY PROFITS IN THE PROCESS. WHICH IS WHY I AM DOING SOMETHING I SHOULD HAVE DONE MANY, MANY YEARS AGO​—​BURN DOWN MY STUDIO AND END MY UNNATURALLY LONG LIFE, THEREBY TAKING AWAY THE CHANDLERS' ABILITY TO CONTINUE THEIR REIGN OF TERROR. SOME DAMAGE IS DONE​—​I CANNOT TAKE BACK THE HOLLOWS I HAVE ALREADY SCULPTED​—​BUT PERHAPS IF THIS CANDLE FINDS ITS WAY INTO THE RIGHT HANDS, THEY CAN STILL BE STOPPED.”

“Are we the right hands?” Dud asked.

Poppy had gone pale.

“I guess we'll have to be.” She swallowed and lifted a limp fist into the air. “Go Team Wax.”

16

ON THE DRIVE HOME, THE THOUGHTS SWIRLED AND TORNADOED,
jumped and bucked, but they always landed on the same conclusion:
Keep it together, Palladino.

That, more than anything, had to remain her strategy. No matter how much she knew, no matter what she suspected, she could not let on a thing. Not to the authorities, not to the Chandlers, not even to her parents.

After giving Dud a quick lesson on what he should say if her parents asked how school had gone, she parked Clementine in the driveway, took the key out of the ignition, and placed her head on the steering wheel.

“Now what?” asked Dud.

“Now we unload you from the back seat.”

As quietly as possible, they removed Wax Dud II from the car. Poppy decided to store it in the gardening shed in the backyard; winter was on its way, so there wasn't much of a chance that her parents would be looking in there anytime soon.

Wax Crawford, on the other hand, was to stay in the trunk. Possibly forever.

Poppy clicked the shed's padlock shut and warily eyed the kitchen window. “Now we attempt dinner.”

∗ ∗ ∗

A change was taking place in the Palladino household. The stained wooden tray tables had been relegated to the basement. Trivets had been unearthed for the first time in years. And Poppy was flabbergasted to find her family seated at the dining room table when she and Dud walked in, her father at the head, carving a blob of fake meat. “Hello, family!” he crowed. “It's Tofurky time!”

“Good God, what is happening in here?” Poppy asked.

“We decided,” her mother said, passing Owen a bowl of carrots, “that it's time for us to start acting a little more civilized. Dr. Steve says that children who eat together with their families at the table accrue fifty percent more healthful benefits than those who don't.”

Poppy let her backpack slide to the floor while Dud took a seat next to Owen. “And you're sure this has nothing to do with being embarrassed about our shabby lives in front of our new guest?”

“It has nothing to do with embarrassment,” her father said, a point Poppy had to concede. She'd seen photos of her parents from the 1980s and concluded that humiliation was not something with which they had ever concerned themselves. “Besides,” he went on, “I'll bet Dud eats together with his family on a boat or at the fire pit, or standing over the innards of a wildebeest. Isn't that right, Dud?”

Dud looked up from his salad, an alfalfa sprout hanging from his lip. “What's a boat?”

“We
do
eat together,” Poppy jumped in. “With the added bonus of television. What about Dr. Steve?”

“Well, if you'll recall, Poppy, our television exploded. And I'm sure Dr. Steve can survive without us.”

“Dad. We are his
only friends.
”

“Dud!” Mrs. Palladino interjected. “How was school today?”

Clearly rattled by the question despite the training Poppy had given him, Dud opted to deflect. “This food is delicious!”

Poppy's mother gave him a confused yet pleased smile. “Thank you, Dud! It's because I put the love in.”

Poppy came to his aid. “Here are the exchange-student forms, by the way,” she said, grabbing the packet from her bag and holding it up so that everyone could get a good look at her ruse. “Where do you want them?”

“Oh,” her mother said, distaste for paperwork already flitting across her face. “In that box over there.”

Poppy gladly dropped the folder into the box, knowing full well that it wouldn't be touched for at least a fortnight. Meanwhile, the question train had roared back to life once more. “I'm curious too, Dud,” said Poppy's father. “How was your first day at school?”

He couldn't avoid it any longer. Dud methodically put down his fork, placed his hands in his lap, and looked at his plate. “School was fine,” he said in a monotone. “I read a poem in English, sang a song in music, and drew a banana in math.”

“Parabola,” Poppy hissed.

“Para . . . banabola.”

Dammit.
He'd gotten it right when they rehearsed in the car. Poppy tensed up, but her parents didn't seem to notice his mistake. “That sounds nice,” her mother said. Maybe she didn't know what a parabola was either. “And there were no problems getting you signed up for classes?”

“Nope, they squeezed him in,” Poppy said.

“And what's your favorite class so far, Dud?”

He snuck a wry look at Poppy. “Art.”

“No wonder.” Her father gestured at the small army of wax figures he'd arranged on the kitchen counter, like an off-season nativity. “You're a born artiste!”

Dud beamed.

Poppy choked down her carrots.

Owen decorated his face with Tofurky.

After dinner, Dud announced that he was going upstairs to “MAKE HOMEWORK,” which sounded so fishy that even Owen raised an eyebrow, but the adults in the household didn't suspect a thing. “It's amazing how well he's already assimilating,” Poppy's mom confided to her as they washed the dishes. “It must be such culture shock for the poor thing. Do the other kids at school like him?”

“I have not heard any complaints.”

“Of course not. What a fuzzy little sweetheart! I only hope no one takes advantage of him because he's different. With all the garbage
you've
had go to through​—”

“Mom.”

“I'm just saying, honey. Lots of bullies at that school. I'd keep an eye on him if I were you.”

“He'll be fine.”

“You're probably right. I'm sure the ladies are flocking already.”

“Mmm.”

Poppy's mom threw down her dishrag and leaned in to inspect her daughter's face. “You just turned beet red.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Yes, you did.”

“It's the hot water, Mom.”

“You like him.”

“I do
not.
”

“You realize that this is a tricky pickle, right? You're living in the same house together. That could be a problem.”

“It will not be a problem, because I do not like him.”

“Like who?” her father said, breezing into the kitchen.

“Poppy likes Dud,” her mother said.

“Mom!
I do not!
”

“Ooh,” her father said, wincing. “That's a tricky pickle.”

Poppy dropped the dish she was washing into the sink, sending a spray of water onto the floor. “You guys need to stop. It's not a problem. It's not a pickle. Because
I. Don't. Like. Him.
”

Her parents exchanged knowing glances. “We said the same thing to our parents when we met.”

“That's because you guys were freaks and losers and hopelessly devoted to each other's acid-washed jeans. I, on the other hand, am disencumbered by the mind-fogging drug of lust. I am focused on getting into college. I am focused on not causing myself any more trouble or ‘tricky pickles' than I already have this year. Why on earth would I add another potential calamity to the list?”

They nodded. They gave her sympathetic looks. Then her father leaned into her mother and said in a stage whisper, “The lady doth protest too much.”

“Dad!”

“Love isn't a calamity, sweetie,” her mother said. “It's a wonderful thing. But maybe put it on hold while you're living in the same house. Once he goes back home, you two can stay in touch through the Internet, and then you can go visit him in Africa. Or maybe he'll come here for college and you can hook up then!”

“She means get back in touch,” her father said. “Not
hook up,
hook up.”

“Right,” said her mother. “Although hey, once you're living in a dorm, it's not like we can stop you. Remember Walsh Hall? My goodness, the noises we heard. The noises we
made.
”

Poppy recoiled. “You have to stop talking.”

“We're human beings too, Pops!”

“For the love of God.
Cease and desist.
”

Owen wandered in and looked at the puddle of dishwater on the floor. “What's going on?” he asked his parents.

“Poppy likes Dud,” they said in unison.

Owen frowned. He looked at his parents. Then he looked at Poppy.

“I thought you were saving yourself for Mr. Crawford.”

“Oh my God OH MY GOD.”

∗ ∗ ∗

As she stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs, Poppy was sure that every drop of blood in her body had been redirected to her face. She made a beeline for the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and proceeded to splash cold water on her cheeks until she'd returned to a conventional color.

“Poppy?”

“Gah!”

She flung herself backwards into the towel rack as Dud poked his head through the door. “Sorry to scare you,” he said. “I wanted to ask what a Tofurky is.”

“It's . . .” The best definition Poppy's addled brain could come up with was
a fake bird made out of beans
, but that didn't really clarify anything. “It's complicated,” she said, rubbing her temples.

“Are you okay?” he asked, deeply concerned. “You look sad. Is it because those people took your notebook?”

“Yes. Among a lot of other things.”

“Do I make you sad?”

“Not exactly. No.”

“If I don't make you sad, do I make you happy?”

But Poppy had fallen too deep into her labyrinth of thoughts, rehashing all the things that had been yelled across the kitchen. She knew that as a girl of a certain age and a certain cocktail of hormones, any of her encounters with the opposite sex would be construed by her parents as experiments in wooing​—​and the more she denied it, the less they'd believe her.

But she really
didn't
like Dud. Not in that way, at least. She liked him as a friend, as a confidant, as an adopted exchange-student brother.

As her only partner on Team Wax.

Dud gently raised his finger to the edge of her hairline. “What's this?”

Poppy looked at their reflections in the bathroom mirror. “Oh. That's a scar.”

“You have a scar too? Did someone carve their initials in you too?” he asked, poking apart her hair to see better.

“No,” she said, pushing him away with a laugh. “It's not that kind of scar.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “The other night you said a scar is ‘a mark that's left over after you get hurt, once the wound has healed.' How did you get hurt?”

Poppy propped her elbows on the bathroom counter and played with the toothpaste tube. “It's a long story. One that involves my dreams being crushed. And it pales in comparison with the buffet of disasters we now find in front of us, so trust me, it's not a big deal.”

“Dream crushing sounds like a big deal.”

Her thumbs sank deeper into the smooth plastic of the tube.

“Do you need to talk through your feelings?” he persisted.

Poppy sighed.

“It happened during a talent contest,” she relented. “I sang. I danced. I was on TV.”

He gasped. “Like Dr. Steve?”

“Yes. Without the medical quackery, but yes. I was on TV, and I fell and hit my head, and I bled all over the damn place, and it was humiliating, and it pretty much demolished my chances of ever making it to Broadway.”

“Why?”

“Because! That image of me covered in blood and singing like a psychopath is all people are ever going to see.” She did not want to get into this. She did not want to keep talking. “They won't look any deeper than that. They won't see me for my talent​—​if I had any to begin with. If I get cast in anything, it won't be because I earned it. It'll be because I'm a novelty, a gimmick they can splash onto billboards. Come see the freak! Hogwash, live and in the flesh! Twenty million hits on YouTube can't be wrong!” She angrily flung the toothpaste onto the counter. “That's not what I want. I don't want to build a career on a foundation of pity. I don't want to be a joke.”

Dud put his hands on her shoulders. “There, there,” he said, just like Dr. Steve. “It'll be okay.”

“Honestly, Dud? I don't think it will. I think I blew it.” She swallowed, but the growing lump in her throat didn't go away. “And you know what the worst part is? Let's say I really did screw my chances of pursuing a career in theater. Fine. I mean, it would suck​—​it would hard-core, flat-out
suck
—​but I would accept it and move on. But move on to what? What else could I do? It's the only thing I've ever been good at, the only thing I've ever loved.” She heaved a limp shrug. “I'd be lost.”

Dud's eyes were worried. “
That's
not a healthful benefit.”