Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) (17 page)

“Well,” said the female anchor, an Asian woman in her forties, as the camera returned to the two-shot, “it seems a long way from Kate Upton to terrorists.”

“Does it?” said the male anchor, a man in his fifties, merriment circling his mouth.

“Paul.”

The male anchor made an attempt at seriousness, speaking to the camera. “Police have asked anyone who was in Times Square Christmas Eve between 7:30 and 9:30, and who saw anything suspicious, to please call this number. Also . . .”

The image over the anchorwoman’s shoulder flew to full screen.

“. . . anyone with knowledge of any of these three suspects caught by various security cameras should also call.”

He described the blurry photos. “A Caucasian woman, twenty five to thirty-five, five-three to five-six, brown hair, wearing a dark green or charcoal jacket.”

The frame changed. “An African American man, thirty-five to forty-five, possibly six feet or taller, wearing an embroidered brown dashiki pant suit . . .”

The frame cut once more. “And an albino woman, also thirty-five to forty-five, although possibly younger, five-six or so, white hair, wearing dark clothing.”

“Shit.” The photo, a high-angle shot from above, could have been me, was probably me. My face had betrayed me again.

He shuffled papers. “When we come back . . .”

I switched off the TV but my reflection stared back from the vacated screen. “Shit!” There, hanging on the wall, was my friggin’ reflection in my framed diploma, its smug inviolability leering back at me. I went over to it and hurled the friggin’ thing across the room, where it hit the front door and splintered, spraying the floor with crystals and shards. It felt good!

Rage overtook me. Storming across my
fucking impeccable little space
, I pulled the small tube TV with me, off the counter, out of its socket, releasing a muffled implosion as it hit the floor. Success! Turning to the large plate glass window and,
again,
my reflection, I picked up a kitchen stool and, with more strength than I knew I had, heaved the friggin’ stool at the floor-to-ceiling window. It refused to shatter, barely budged, it mocked me.

I collected the stool again. Thinking of all the abuses my face had engendered, I rammed that damn stool hard against the window. Pain blossomed through my ribs and drove me back to the floor. I slid across like a child playing water Twister, my palms and face drawing daggers of glass. But as I closed my eyes, that friggin’ window: nothing, nothing but a little crackle!

***

Lying on the floor of splintered glass, looking up at the array of blues that met New York’s silver and gray skyline, I was oddly peaceful, like lying in the Bemidji sunshine, on that grassy hillside. No need to move, no need to struggle.

Like Papa Karl in the hospital, in his vegetative state, following the rail yard accident. I held on to him —no one else cared to— and those few hours each week cradling his powerless hand . . . somehow he knew I was there, and being there with him made his slow journey to the sky more —more orderly. More complete. Unconditional. No need to struggle. Like the Kris Kristofferson song Lyle sang,
nothing left to lose
.

Perhaps the building or its inhabitants had released me.

Something poked into my waist. I reached into my pant pocket. Not glass, a piece of thin, stiff cardboard. I turned it over: Nan’s phone number.

Nan’s touch, her pitch-black hair, trailing along my cheek. Most of all, those jade eyes, those generous natural pools drawing me in to that stunning face, that perfect skin, those miraculous genes. Nan. And her husband. Spectacular too? DNA worthy of my search?

Perhaps the answers lay in my bloody hand, shards of crystal rising out of it. Disappearing for a while seemed like a good idea.
What did I have to lose?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Down five steps from street level, I arrived at Nan’s apartment with nothing more than my laptop and genetics textbook in hand. I rang the bell marked only as “Basement.” Nan came immediately to the door, arms and eyes wide open, like she was ready to assimilate me. “Welcome, sweet Eunis,” she said before I stepped closer and she noticed the remnants of my recent encounters with glass. “Oh no, come in. It’s worse than you said.”

She snuck a look to the street and closed the door. She stroked my shoulders and made me sit on the wide burgundy sofa while she rounded up medical supplies.

“I’m fine,” I called to her.

“I’m sure you are,” she called back. “But we’re going to take care of you anyway.”

The apartment was dark despite the glorious sunshine outside. Larger than one would expect in the city, it had a grand L-shaped room rolling out in almost every direction, minimized only by its low nineteenth-century hammered-tin ceiling.

The room was festooned in Utrecht velvet and thick fabrics, the sort Momma coveted but could never afford.

“What d’ya think?” Nan arrived with an aluminum bowl of warm water and a washcloth. She sat on the settee opposite me.

“Pretty big.”

“I know, we’re lucky. We have supporters.”

“Supporters? You mean benefactors?”

“Sure.” Nan started to say more but stopped.

I didn’t pry. Watching her beauty, I was hopeful. “Thank you so much for having me here. Just for a few days.”

“Well, we’ll see.” She attended to my cuts and a few remaining splinters, carefully picking each one out, dropping them all into a large cobalt blue ashtray, and running the warm washcloth over my face in comforting circles. I shut my eyes. Whatever residual rage I may have had was washed away. I had no desire to open my eyes. Her touch was better than the cold on my skin, which had been my only option since Harold’s death.
Go away, Harold
.

Next, she tenderly manipulated my palms, then a finger at a time. I reopened my eyes, made sure I wasn’t dreaming. I soaked up the splendor of the apartment —scrollwork and mahogany and braided sashes framing the archway into the dining room. Muscular framed, deep-cushioned chairs embroidered in indigo and saffron. A side table covered in scarlet taffeta. I’d never seen a room like it except in drawings and a few old photographs.

“It’s beautiful.”
A palace
.

Nan paused, a consoling smile. “I’m glad you like it. It’s your new home.”

“Well, for a few days anyhow. Till I figure out what to do.”
Till things cool down.
“I’m very grateful, of course, but why are you being so kind? You hardly know me.”

“Do I have to know you to be kind? Did you know that man, the one you brought to the hospital?”

“No, not really.”

“So?”

My hand went to my heart. “You’re very beautiful.”

She smiled and bowed her head. “Besides, I’m sure you’ll find a way to thank us.”

I couldn’t imagine what I could do for her or her husband that would repay such generosity.

After Nan showed me to my room and I told her it was the biggest I’d ever seen, she assured me that she and Levi each had their own room —puzzling me— and that each had an equally large bed. “We spend so much time in it, might as well have room to roam, right? Closets are a bit small, though.”

Cream and crimson swag framed my bed, a bed fit for royalty. I was entranced.

“We can find you more space if the closet is a problem,” she offered.

In leaving The Octagon hastily I hadn’t considered packing clothes, but Nan pointed out that we were not that different in size. “I have plenty of clothes for you to wear.”

It was true although I worried I had a bit more breast and thigh than she.

“Perhaps I’ll go tomorrow.” But the thought of returning to the Octagon hellhole —though fashionable, modern, luxurious— was abhorrent and perhaps risky with the cops poking around. I’d probably be locked out anyway. Besides, The Octagon wasn’t luxurious like Nan and Levi’s, it wasn’t elegant. And it didn’t offer friendship.

***

Levi didn’t come home after work.

“He had to go out of town,” said Nan, though earlier she said the three of us would have dinner together at the apartment.

“What does he do?”

She set a plate of linguine in front of me. “I hope pasta and clams is okay with you. I shoulda asked. One of Levi’s favorites.”

“I’m not used to anyone making anything for me. Yes, it’s fine —more than fine— and in the future let me help.”

“Once you settle in, but right now you need to heal. You’ve been through a lot.”

Being cared for! Even Harold hadn’t gone to those extremes. There I was, sitting at a real dining room table, having a real conversation. Not with some broken person but with a strikingly exotic, bright woman. Great genes. “Do you have a picture of him?” I scanned the tabletops, shelves and walls for a clue.

“Who?”

“Levi.”

“No, I keep him here.” She pointed to her head.

Not in her heart?
“It must be tough him having to travel so much.”

“It works okay for us. Everyone needs a little space, don’t ya think?
Space to study.”

“Study! What do you like to study?”

“People.” She poured us both a glass of wine.

“Me too. Have you ever considered . . .”
Careful!
“. . . people’s genes?”

“No, not particularly.” She yawned.

“So what does he do?”

“Who?”

“Levi.”

“Oh . . . Levi . . . He’s sort of a goodwill ambassador.” Nan took a moment, then spoke carefully. “He’s a distributor.  Sort of a salesman, I guess, but more like he smoothes the way, an advance man.”

“I never heard that term before.”

“Yeah, well, he goes ahead to see that things go smoothly. He coordinates.” Her fingernails clicked on the tabletop.

I was asking too many questions but I had to ask one more. “What does he distribute?”

Nan picked up her fork, twirled her linguine and slowly sucked it in, licking her generous lips in conclusion. “Films. Documentaries.” She looked over me, uninterested, around the room.

“Oh.”
Enough questions
. I started on my linguine. “I’d like to see one sometime.”

She returned to me. “Yes, I’m sure you will.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The next morning imprints of my dreams swam with me in the imperial bed: men and women of all sizes and colors moving over and under each other. I’d had a few erotic dreams before but none so vivid. I ran my hands over my belly before deciding I should get up and make a plan for myself.

Nan had already left for the hospital, as she said she would, so I slipped on the kimono she left for me, a silky pink three-quarter-length robe that caressed my every move down the maze-like hallway, through the living room and dining room to the kitchen. There I found a carafe of coffee brewing and Nan’s note reminding me to make myself comfortable. She’d return in the early evening.

Is it silly to say I felt . . . regal? And when had I ever been able to say that? Everything in the apartment, the dimmed lighting, the sumptuous furniture, the venerable carpeting, the subdued colors, even the smell of aged wood, made me comfortable. In some ways the place felt incongruent with Nan, and perhaps it was Levi’s design touch. But the courtly beauty matched Nan’s and her supreme claim to sit at the head of it.

It was an underground palace. And it made me comfortable. Make note, I thought, comfort could be a universal quality of beauty. Did it have that effect on everyone?

The kitchen was not as posh as the rest nor as spacious, and like most of the apartment, it lacked windows. The floors appeared to be antique ship grates of dark mahogany, varnished and shiny and placed side-by-side, wall-to-wall encased in a clear thin lacquered surface. The way every kitchen object was hooked or locked down or put away, gave it the feel of a ship’s galley.

Time to explore. Rather than retrace my steps, I passed to the other door at the end of the kitchen, into a smaller, darker hallway. I fumbled for a light switch, only to bang against one locked door on my left. Slowly, I slid to the next available sliver of light coming from under a door.

Maybe it was the coffee, maybe it was the new possibilities this environment offered, but I giggled. A rush of optimism. ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ said Momma. ‘It will cause you pain.’ But after all
,
Nan said to make myself comfortable, and it was best to understand my coordinates.

The handle turned, opening to a small dark turquoise room with a spacious bed, covered in a violet quilted comforter and large magenta pillows. The bed filled almost every inch of the room. A small round window —a porthole really— hung over the bed and reflected meager light onto the immense mirror opposite it. If I’d taken two steps into the room I’d have been onto the bed, and I was tempted —it was that inviting. But I was a visitor.

In addition to the enormous mirror reflecting the bed and me, which I avoided, I saw a tiny bathroom and a small cluster of photographs on the wall, framed in weathered life preservers, the vessel’s name obliterated by sun, salt and sand. At first the photos appeared to be landscapes, perhaps of desert dunes, a place where a ship might find itself aground. But on closer review they may have been the lines and curves of human bodies.

“Wow.” I wasn’t sure what to make of the space. Small tremors began in my chest,
someone crying perhaps. And laughter.

As the energy built, I withdrew, absorbing one last delectable round. It reminded me of cotton candy, which reminded me of Harold’s unshakable preference for bright pastel shirts.
The Cotton Candy Room
, I named it, though it could easily have been called The Shipwreck Room.

The room's door clicked shut and I slid my hands along the wall to the end. Coolness streamed past my palms and fingertips into yet another larger hallway, and I found a switch that revealed brown tongue and groove walls created out of salvaged ship doors, some with their own portholes. I peered through one but there was nothing but blackness.

These walls were hung with nautical rope bumpers and primitive wooden and clay masks —African, I guessed. The mouths grinned and inhaled. The eyes opened wide in voracity or closed in ecstasy. Occasionally a tongue protruded in search of taste. I fell deeper and deeper into the ship’s magic.

Halfway down this hall on the right were two functioning doors. The first was locked but the second I entered easily. Completely dark until I found the switch, light illuminated an ornate metal and stained glass lantern with arabesque apertures suspended above another immense bed, the biggest one I’d ever seen anywhere. Bigger even than the custom-made bed in the magazine spotlighting Kim Kardashian. Or was it Paris Hilton?

The room lacked any windows along its fabric-covered walls, a desert oven; heat that the other rooms did not emit. Against the backdrop of sand-colored fabric, the ceiling was hung with brilliant red, purple and brown material that splayed outward from the center to the four corners and down to the floor creating a Moroccan tent effect.

The heat. I considered loosening my robe, even throwing it off, but the wide bed distracted me again, with its dark blue patterned spread, and the brightly colored pillows of striped maroon, royal and plum scattered over it. The pervasive masculinity was inescapable. I was enticed to crawl upon this bed too,
to tumble with its beauty
, but again I thought better of it. I was a guest.

But I couldn’t leave. The room had such a powerful beauty —historic and Byzantine and virile— that I wasn’t sure if I was
thinking
its beauty or
feeling
it. Was it my eyes or my limbic system reacting to it? Were my enzymes, my biological molecules, being set in motion? I shook my head in wonder. I would need to ask Nan about this room. Or Levi.

There was but one small door along the left wall, a closet framed by copper-strapped lifeboat oars, and inside, a few men’s casual shirts, slacks and sports jackets. A violin case. On the shelf above sat bundled shrimp nets, a jar of small bird feathers and a distressed iron and wood brush of some sort. With rigid four-inch bristles it looked like a child’s miniature rake, probably for grooming a horse or scraping mud off shoes or perhaps some nautical function. I’d never seen anything like it, not even in the encyclopedia. I stepped on an ottoman to get a closer look. It gave off an iron smell, a kind of body odor, which from my studies I knew to be the result of human touch against the iron, so I didn’t reach for it.

Across the room, to the right of the bed was a door that connected to an unusually substantial bathroom. Sparse, nothing unusual except for a white ivory cup on the basin that might have been rather valuable; a very large oval soaking tub, which seemed to clog my ears as I got closer; and in the mirrored cabinet, where I did my best to avoid my reflection, some ibuprofen and a child’s plastic battleship-blue X-Men Wolverine comb, like something Lyle would have played with circa 1990. I returned it to the shelf. An odd collection. I cleared the obstruction from my ears and rinsed my hands, though I didn’t touch the towels; I air dried them then walked across the tiled, sand-colored floor, and out.

The place was
. . . intoxicating
, certainly erotic. I inhaled deeply. More to explore!

Yet another corner, this time to the right. I walked along the dimly lit hallway hung with floor-to-ceiling tapestries from an undetermined time period. The first: a mermaid beneath the ocean, seaweed flowing from her scalp, summoning wild-eyed sailors to jump from their ship and join her. The second: Poseidon or Neptune or Bythos, a king of the sea, half man and half fish with his mermaid queen.
I ran my fingers over the thick material then stepped back to take in the entire image. I longed to swim, to surrender to the rapture of the water.

As I looked more closely I saw the sea king’s genital erect and the sea queen seemingly offering her triangle to a small cluster of humans swimming after her. Below them on the ocean floor lay the bones and carcasses of those who had come before. And yet I was spellbound.

No judgment
.
Don’t be Momma
.

Quickly away from the tapestried hallway and back to my bedroom, I stood panting in the doorway and realized I’d gone in a circle. I collected myself. Cotton Candy Hallway to African Hallway to Tapestries Hallway. Three bedrooms including mine.
Mine!
Cotton Candy Room, Moroccan Room and mine. And possibly a fourth, the locked room around the corner from The Cotton Candy Room.

But en route to the living room I’d passed one other room on my left, and my overriding sense of the apartment was that it was
palatial and labyrinthian, like some great ship.

I followed the hallway from my bedroom and just before the living room I found a door marked “Cinema.” Locked.

So much room for two,
and
they were so generous to share it with me. Lodging on a ship! The best of both worlds and beauty everywhere! I had so many questions. They had gathered so many beautiful things. Where and why? But I had to measure my nosiness. I didn’t want to upset them. I didn’t want their generosity to be a burden. I didn’t want to be an unwelcomed guest. I’d never been a guest anywhere before.

I twirled the silk kimono left and right with delight.
Maybe, just maybe, my luck was changing
.