Another Little Piece (23 page)

Quickly, I shove the odd bits back into the box in large fistfuls. One paper eludes me—a movie ticket stub from years ago, probably one of the last ones I saved before I decided that kind of junk wasn’t worth keeping. Or maybe I saved this one, despite thinking that, because I wanted to remember.

Tommy and I went together. Just the two of us off to an early Saturday-morning matinee. We’d wanted to get away from Mom, and ended up seeing Disney’s
Pinocchio
, even though we were too old for cartoons. We both remembered seeing it at a drive-in, when we were still little enough to watch the movie without worrying about how much Mom was drinking and whether she would get loud or sick or angry. A long time ago.

“Good movie?” Franky plucks the stub from my fingers and holds out a cigarette to put in its place.

“You forgot to open the window,” I say, once again crossing the room away from him. With a grunt I yank it open and lean out, taking a long drag of my cigarette. “It was okay,” I finally answer his question, as he joins me. “Everybody makes it like the whole movie is about his nose growing. Like it’s a story about not lying. But that’s a small part of it.”

“And what’s the bigger part?” Franky peers at me intently, like the question is a test.

I shrug, make a joke. “I don’t know. What to do if you get trapped inside a whale.”

Franky laughs, and smoke billows from his mouth.

“Kinda dark and scary for kids,” I say as I flick the ticket stub out the window. The wind catches it, carrying it away.

“Nothing’s scary for kids. They don’t know enough to be scared.”

“Hmmm,” I say, not agreeing or disagreeing.

Franky smokes fast, sucking hard on his cigarette, quickly reducing it to ashes. I like to savor mine. As he tosses his butt out the window into the weedy garden below, he turns to me. “I’m not going back to school next month.”

I almost drop my cigarette in surprise. “What? Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want to be with you. Forever. Starting now.”

He has that intense look again. I focus on the red tip of my cigarette instead. “I don’t believe in forever.”

His fingers close over my cigarette’s hot tip, extinguishing it. “Okay, then how long will you give me?”

My stomach clenches. I want to move away, but his hand locks around my wrist, holding me there. Letting my finished cigarette fall, I force a little shrug. “My plan is to leave this town the minute I turn eighteen, and not a second later. So that gives you exactly one year, three months, and nine days with me.”

“Eighteen.” Franky nods, dead serious. “I’ll take it. Our love is endless until then.”

“Hey, wait.” I make myself laugh. “I didn’t say love. I’ll share my stolen cigarettes with you, and maybe a little bit more.”

His fingers tighten, and I wince, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “So you don’t believe in forever, but you believe in stealing. I bet you don’t believe in love either, but you do believe in lust.”

“I’m a modern woman.” The words come out wobbly, not confident like I want. I feel like a child, small and frightened.

Franky releases me, and then his hand is soft and concerned against my cheek. “You’re all white, Anna. What’s wrong? You afraid of something?”

You. I’m afraid of you.
But I don’t say it, because he looks so sincere, and I wonder if I imagined it. Katie once accused me of being afraid to love. Maybe she was right. I look at Franky and think that I could love him. That maybe I already do. He’s exciting and dangerous but familiar and comforting all at the same time. And he loves me, and I keep pushing him away. Taking a deep breath, I let him in. Just a little.

“I’m afraid of being stuck here, like my mom.”

He gathers me close, but it isn’t pushy this time. His arms hold me loosely. I could easily get free, but now I don’t want to. “I won’t let that happen to you, Anna. You’ll never be stuck anywhere if you stick with me.”

“Okay,” I whisper into his shirt.

Then we kiss, and I think that maybe this really is love.

Franky leans away slightly, and reaching into his pants pocket produces an old-fashioned razor. The kind a barber would use.

“Hey, that’s my dad’s,” I protest, recognizing it.

Dad keeps it on top of his dresser along with his collection of silver dollars. Both have to do with his father, who worked as a barber his whole life, just like his father and grandfather before him. My grandfather wasn’t working to make another barber. His son would go to college and become successful. The blade was a gift from him on the day of my father’s high school graduation, to remind Dad where he came from. The silver dollars were to show him where he was going—to the rich world of banking.

“Hush,” Franky says, snapping it open, and for some reason I do. My father never lets Tommy or me near the razor. He keeps it sharp and oiled the way his father would’ve. When we were little he told us it would take our fingers right off.

Now Franky holds out his wrist and with a flick of the blade slices right across one bright blue vein. For an instant nothing happens, as if his blood has been as taken by surprise as me. Then it gushes out, spilling down into his cupped hand.

“This is me making a promise,” Franky says, and then he holds the razor out. “Will you promise too?”

I don’t take the razor. Instead I reach for the bedsheet or paper or something to stanch the flow of blood. “Are you crazy? You’re bleeding everywhere.” My hand closes on one of my old T-shirts and I push it toward Franky, but he jerks his hand away.

“You promise, too, and then I’ll stop the blood.”

It is half threat, half dare, and totally crazy. I want to scream at him to get out, but without him I will have to get through the rest of the summer in my bedroom alone listening to my mom getting wasted downstairs. It’s just a little blood, I tell myself, nothing much worse than the blood sisters’ oath Katie and I took as children. And look at how well that stuck.

“Fine, I promise.” The razor is heavier than I expected, and as it slices through my skin it hurts no more than a paper cut. Then the blood begins to flow and it burns. Franky brings our wrists together and wraps my old T-shirt around, binding us.

“Now we share the same blood again. And forever after,” Franky says, his eyes intense.

Nothing is forever, I think, but the ridiculousness of this whole situation hits me, and instead I start to laugh.

“Sure,” I say. “Forever and ever and ever and ever.”

MONOPOLY MONEY

The mom’s eyelashes were gone, set free by her constantly plucking fingers. Propped up against pillows, she sat in the center of her and the dad’s huge bed, looking tiny and tired. But when she held her arms out in a silent demand for a hug, I dived straight into them without hesitation. If she had lost any strength, I couldn’t detect it. Her hug was a bubble that held me suspended in space, safe.

In that one moment I was found, and more lost than ever.

“Oh, sweetie, I missed you so much,” the mom said, slowly loosening her hold, even while I still gripped her tightly.

“I was worried,” I said. It was true, more than I had even realized. A part of me had worried that I would never see her again.

“Oh, sweetie,” the mom said, and her eyes looked past my shoulder to where the dad stood. “Your father wanted to bring you, but I—I didn’t want it to be too scary for you. Especially after you’d just been in a hospital yourself. And they kept telling me I’d go home soon, but I think we had different definitions of soon, because I thought it meant a few hours and they seemed to believe it meant a few days.”

“It’s okay,” I said, but my voice was small and hurt.

The mom swept her fingers across my forehead, and I couldn’t help but lean into her once more. I wanted to tell her how I just woke from a terrible dream. Curling up beneath the sheets, I had thought that I would dream of Franky and Anna. The memory of them had grabbed me after I’d walked into the house. Instead, I’d had a normal nightmare. Well, maybe not normal.

I was Pinocchio, a girl version of him. I still had my puppet strings, though, and I was tangled in them. The more I struggled to get free, the more twisted and trapped I became. Finally, I simply lay there, crying, “I’m a real girl. I’m a real girl.” Every time I said it, my nose grew longer, until it went from being a twig to an entire tree with separate branches that all grew up from my nose. A different girl sat on every branch, and each one held an apple plucked from the tree. Bright red apples that dripped blood. I recognized each girl, could’ve called them all by name. Except I couldn’t say anything, because I was underground, twisted into the roots of that horrible tree.

When the dad had gently shaken me awake, I’d jerked away, thinking he was part of the tree. “Annaliese, it’s me. Sorry to wake you, but I wanted to let you know we’re home. Took us a little longer than we expected to get checked out of the hospital. You have fun with Gwen last night?”

It had taken me a moment to pull out of the dream—the nightmare—and make sense of the dad’s words. Even then all I could manage was a trembling “Uh-huh.”

He studied me for a long minute as I packed my mouth full of breath strips from my bedside supply, but in the end he only said, “Your mom’s in bed and she’s gonna have to take it easy for a while. Okay?” I nodded. “She really wants to see you, so when you wake up, you can go on in.”

I sat up. “I’m awake.” Really I didn’t feel fully awake until the mom’s arms were wrapped around me. They should have reminded me of the strings, tying me up. But the opposite was true. I didn’t have to tell her I was a real girl—she already believed it.

“I hope you didn’t think we forgot about your birthday tomorrow,” the mom said now.

I didn’t want to talk about that. Couldn’t talk about that. “Why were you in the hospital?” I demanded instead. “Why won’t you tell me?”

The mom and the dad exchanged another look. They both looked guilty. Caught.

“It’s nothing bad,” the dad said, sitting on the other side of the bed, next to the mom.

“Good news actually,” the mom agreed.

I said nothing, waiting.

The mom nodded to the dad, as if giving him permission to speak. He shook his head. It was almost funny, the way they both didn’t want to say it. Finally I took pity on them.

“You’re pregnant, right?”

The looks of surprise on their faces. As if there were all that many medical problems that could be classified as good news. Also, her hand was pressed against her stomach, cupped gently, as if holding on to something precious and hidden.

The mom recovered first. “We found out a few weeks before we got the call about you. It was like two miracles at once, but we weren’t sure how you . . .” The mom turned to the dad, uncertain. He tried to help her out.

“You’d always told us that you wanted a little brother or sister.”

“That’s true,” the mom said, nodding. “But we didn’t want to spring it on you. Everyone said you needed to slowly ease back into your old life. So we were waiting for the right time, but then I thought I was miscarrying and I didn’t want to tell you and upset you, if the baby was lost.”

The mom choked up and the dad grabbed hold of her hand.

“The baby’s fine,” he said. Then he grinned, looking happier than I’d ever seen the dad before. “Babies actually. We’re having twins.” Through her tears the mom smiled too.

“Oh, wow, that’s great.” I said the words. I pushed my lips into a smile. I even clapped my hands, like a seal performing a trick for a piece of fish.

And it was great. Tomorrow was my deadline. Eighteen. The cut-off Anna had chosen. Then Annaliese would disappear from their lives once more. But this time they would have a replacement. Two of them, instead of one impostor.

A part of me hated those little unborn babies. She’d lost her eyelashes worrying about them. One for each eye.

“Your mom has to stay on bed rest until they’re born,” the dad said.

“Yes,” the mom groaned. “And it’s already driving me crazy.”

“Well, Annaliese and I will keep you entertained, won’t we?” The dad looked to me as if we were coconspirators.

I agreed, and to show the mom we meant it, the dad produced a pile of dusty board games from the closet. We played Scrabble and then Monopoly, laughing as the pieces slid off the board anytime one of us shifted on the bed. If the silences sometimes felt strained and the laughter forced, none of us mentioned it. We were all determined to play at being the perfect happy family together.

Maybe they did it for the same reason as me—they just so badly wanted it to be true.

FAMILY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

They sang happy birthday

and as I blew out

sixteen candles

I made my wish

that this year

will be different,

that this year

everything will change,

and that next year

when I blow out

seventeen candles

I’ll be such a

crazy sexy cool

new kind of girl

that no one will

even know that it’s . . .

only me.

—ARG

CAUGHT

“If the poor doctor hadn’t taken pity on me and finally used the forceps to pull you out, your birthday would’ve been tomorrow instead of today. As it is, you were born at eleven fifty-three p.m. You just made the cutoff.”

This was what the mom told me Monday morning when I went in to see her before leaving for school. I found myself wishing the doctor had been a bit less accommodating and given me one more day in the womb. Perhaps I was as unready to leave then, as now.

On the way to school, the dad gave me a different kind of birthday message.

“I received a very strange anonymous voice mail last night, saying that you’ve been spending some quality time with the boy next door. I also called Gwen’s mom this morning to thank her for letting you stay over there the other night.”

I was caught. Totally caught. And even though I knew it didn’t really matter—it wasn’t like it would make a difference if he grounded me after I was gone—I still tried to cover. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. After you called I was so tired, I decided to stay home.”

The dad said nothing, just put on his signal to turn in to the school. It was a damning silence. As we pulled up to the curb in front of the building, the dad sighed. “Okay, Annaliese. Today is your birthday so you get a pass. But tomorrow I want the truth.”

I could have just agreed and run away, but I couldn’t resist pushing back. “And what about Mom? Does she want the truth too?” He hadn’t told her, I’d bet anything. She would be too upset, and that wouldn’t be good for her or the second-chance babies.

The dad’s hand slammed down on the middle console. I’d never seen the dad mad before, but now he was pissed. At me. “Annaliese, I expect you to be a better person than this. I understand and I appreciate that you’ve been through a lot. But that is no reason to behave this way. Do you understand me?”

Face burning, I nodded.

“Good. Tomorrow all three of us will discuss this.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, fumbling for the door handle, feeling horrible and caught in my tangle of lies. As I slid out, the dad grabbed hold of my hand. I froze, afraid of what else he might say.

“Anni, I’m sorry for getting upset,” he said, surprising me so much that I turned to meet his eyes. All the tension and anger were gone, and he looked almost chagrined, as if his anger had caught him unaware too. “I don’t want to ruin your birthday. It’s not every day you turn eighteen.”

My smile wobbled along with my voice. “No, it’s not.” He squeezed my hand, and I squeezed his back. “Thanks.”

Quickly, I climbed out and swung the door shut behind me, not wanting any more anger, any more understanding, and definitely no more
happy birthday
s.

Keeping my head down, I hurried toward the front doors. The only reason I was even bothering with school was to find Eric—quickly. I needed to know exactly what was supposed to happen today.

“Hey, Birthday Girl!” Gwen called, waving as she trotted across the parking lot.

I was ready to blow her off, not wanting to waste the time, but I remembered her trip to Ohio with Annaliese. And our moment of laughter in the hallway. She’d been Annaliese’s friend, and now she was sort of mine too.

“Hey,” I said, waiting for her to catch up.

“How was your looonngg weekend, you skipper, you?” Gwen asked as we walked into school together.

“Weird,” I answered, scanning the hall for Eric.

“Well, mine was just boring. So entertain me with the weird.”

“Well,” I said, uncertain whether to say what I was about to say. “I think I might’ve remembered something.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!” Several people turned to look at Gwen’s enthusiastic outburst. She didn’t even notice; all of her attention was focused squarely on me. “So tell me. Tell me!”

I wavered a moment longer and then let the words come out in a rush. “It’s kind of random, but did we go on a road trip to Ohio together?”

Gwen’s normally bouncy walk flattened out. She kept moving forward, but it was as if her feet were dragging against the floor now. “Yeah, we did,” she answered cautiously, looking straight ahead.

I pretended not to notice her sudden change in behavior. “And did we have a fight too?”

Clutching my arm, Gwen propelled us into an empty classroom. Once there, she released me as if her hand was burning. Noticeably agitated, she walked several paces away before turning to meet my gaze. “What exactly did you remember, Annaliese?”

I gulped, feeling the hot coffee spilling over me, forgetting that the memory wasn’t even mine. “I remembered that I was sorry. That I hadn’t been a very good friend, and that I wished I’d been better.” My shoulders lifted in a helpless little shrug. “That’s all.”

Gwen stared, her eyes wide, her lips trembling. For a second I could see tears threatening, and funny enough, I felt like a few of mine might escape too, but then she got a hold of herself. “Well, that’s a great sign that you’re having real memories and not those strange fantasies we talked about before. It’s a breakthrough.” She made a big show of looking at the clock on the wall, but she stared at it for too long, as if she’d forgotten how to tell time.

“We should get going,” I said softly. “The bell’s gonna ring soon.”

“Yeah,” Gwen agreed. She didn’t move, though, and I waited with her. Then all at once she flung herself at me and wrapped me in a shaky hug. It was so quick, I had only a second to hug her back before she was heading out the door.

I followed her to the hallway, and we fell into the flow of students. A minute later the bell rang and we split off in different directions with a promise to see each other at lunch. But I didn’t go to homeroom. Following an instinct that I was learning to listen to, I went to the bathroom near the cafeteria, the same one where Eric had once trapped me. As if my wish had made him appear, when I swung the door open he stood in front of the mirror, frowning at his reflection.

“I’ll be glad to see the end of this face,” he said, not even turning to look at me.

“And when will that be?” I hated having to ask him questions, being at his mercy.

He smiled. He knew it too.

“Soon.” From his back pocket he produced a note folded into a neat little triangle and flicked it toward me. It bounced off my chest and onto the floor.

I nudged it with the toe of my shoe, as if it were radioactive. “What is it?”

“A note from Lacey. Telling you where to meet her tonight. And thanking you for all your help and boy advice. You two have really bonded over email.”

“No.” My shrill voice echoed off the bathroom walls, mocking me as I heard the uncertainty in that one word.

“Your mouth says no, but I think the hunger is gonna say yes.” Eric laughed. “And once you accept that, you’ll be a good girl and go to Lacey.”

“No.” I said it louder this time. He ignored me.

“She’s just up the road at Buffalo State. Tomorrow she—well, by then you—will go home to Oklahoma. She’s on a school trip, by the way, so you’ll get to take a bus. I bet that will be fun for you. And while you’re making new friends, I’ll shed this fat kid and tie up a few other loose ends before meeting you down south. After that the only thing left is for us to fall in love all over again.”

He held his arms out, as if I would run into them.

Instead, I picked the note up off the floor. Dropping it into the sink, I turned the water on and let it pour over the paper until it was limp and soggy. Then, using my fingernails, I shredded it to bits. This still wasn’t enough. Carrying it into a stall, I scraped it off my hands into the toilet bowl. I flushed three times so that every last bit was washed away.

Eric lounged against the sink, watching me with a smirk. “You think that means something? You’ll find her anyway. The hunger will take you to her. You already found her once. The only difference is that this time you’ll know what to do.”

I sagged against the stall door, defeated. He was right. The gentle tug that I’d once followed to Lacey’s door was gone, replaced by something much stronger and more insistent. It was becoming painful not to give in and follow it.

“And what if I don’t?”

“If you don’t go to Lacey?” Eric shook his head. “Then I won’t want to be near you when the hunger takes over, ’cause it won’t be pretty. And anyone who is in the same room—they probably won’t survive it either.”

I shuddered, but it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t a shudder of repulsion. It was excitement. I could feel the hunger, like a snake curled up at my center, slowly unwinding and stretching out toward the picture Eric painted.

I tried to swallow the hunger back down, at the same time the green tiles of the bathroom walls went gray. “No,” I gasped, grabbing hold of the sink, anything to hold on to the now. It was no use. The past had a hunger of its own that sucked me in and swallowed me whole.

FIRE

I am in the belly of the whale, building a fire to make him sneeze.

No, that’s not right.

Where am I? Who am I? I used to tell myself I was Anna, no matter what. Lately, it doesn’t seem to matter as much. Or does it matter more?

I push my sticky lips apart, seeking moisture but tasting gas. With effort, I force my sticky eyelids open. A dark shape hovers above me. I bat at it, and it swings, hinges squeaking softly. Back and forth. My fingers grip the grass beneath me. I know where I am.

Home.

Or what was once my home. My family. Mom. Dad. Tommy. It’s been three years and almost four girls, but still I thought I could go home again. Just climb into my old bed and tell them I was their daughter. Never mind I didn’t look the same.

I told him I’d rather be dead than take another girl, and I was prepared for his fury. He surprised me, though. He tricked me. Smiled and told me it was okay. Took my hand and led me home, rang the doorbell for me when I was afraid. And he spoke, too, when I couldn’t figure out what to say. “We have information about your daughter.” Those were the magic words. We were in.

Oh God. What did he do?

Franky. It feels unfair to the memory of Franky to keep using his name, but that is where it started. Usually I try to call him nothing at all. Strip him of his name, the same way he took mine.

I scramble to my feet, but only make it to my hands and knees. My head bumps against the swing, and my clothes are wet and clinging and cold. Fire rages in the belly of the house, pushing out the windows, burning up everything inside.

And everyone.

He set the fire. That’s what Franky did. But not to kill them. They were already dead.

I killed them.

They invited us to have dinner with them, and with every bite of food the hunger got stronger. It made me nauseous. Gagging, I ran toward the bathroom, while Mom asked, “Is she okay?”

I didn’t make it to the bathroom. The hunger was tearing its way out of me, and I fell to the floor shaking with it. Franky must have known. He was already gone.

But Tommy. Mom. Dad. They gathered over me. Worried, wanting to help. As their hands reached down to gather me up, my teeth found them.

I tore them to pieces.

The hunger receded, and then Franky was there once more, drowning them in gasoline. I screamed that I wanted to burn too.

Sirens sound in the distance.

“Time to go.”

He has been here the whole time. Watching me. Waiting.

“No,” I say. I try again to stand. And fail again. So, I crawl. There’s still time; I can end this. End myself. Along with that thought comes the realization that even now, beneath the gasoline taste, there is the flavor of blood . . . and the hunger wants more.

“You’re soaked in gasoline, you know.” There is laughter in his voice.

I remember then. He laid me on my bed, in my old room. It all looked exactly the same. They had left it that way. I thought he was giving me back to them. Returning me to where I belonged, and I felt so grateful to him. I cried and thanked him as he left. But then he came back and lifted the red container over my head, and gasoline poured from the spout.

A window bursts, and the heat inside reaches toward me. I shrink from it, whimpering, scrambling away. Suddenly having a taste of what it means to burn, and not wanting it. Not to die that way. Not to die any way.

“I’m not afraid to die.” That’s what I’d told him. “Death would be better than living this way.”

I’d lied. When he lit the first match, I ran from the house, out into the cool night air.

He lifts me until I am upright and leaning on him. Arms wrapped around each other, we cross through the neighbors’ yards, toward the waiting car. I pretend he is pulling me away, that I would rather be inside that house ending this, instead of walking toward the next girl whose time to pay has arrived.

I could save that girl. Save her from me.

But I am clinging to him, desperate not to let the flames catch me.

No one will be saved tonight.

FEED

My head pounded and the smell of gas still seemed to taint every inhalation.

“Have a nice trip?” Eric sniggered.

I stared at him blindly, blinking stupidly as the last big missing piece fell into place.

I finally understood. I could feed the hunger—feed it with Lacey—and it would hibernate inside me once more. Until the next year and the next girl. But if it didn’t get that girl, then the snakelike hunger wouldn’t be inside me anymore. It would be me. A more monstrous and hungrier version of me.

Eric watched me, waiting for me to admit defeat, to realize there was no escape. Except even then, even knowing how bad it would get, I couldn’t let him win.

“I’m not taking Lacey.”

Something flashed in Eric’s eyes, and he rushed at me, knocking me into the stall. I tripped against the toilet and fell back into the corner, scraping my head against the toilet paper dispenser. Eric’s fingers found a fistful of my hair and twisted until I cried out.

“Listen to me,” he hissed, his sour breath hot on my face. “We’ve got a good thing going. You already fucked it up once; you’re not going to do it again.”

I should’ve been afraid, but Eric’s desperation was palpable, and instead of feeding my own, it did a funny thing. It made me feel powerful. We were tied together—the two of us together forever. That’s what Franky had said to Anna. He had made the decision to connect his fate to my choices. I could let the hunger consume him too. I could make him a monster. And he knew it.