MORTAL COILS (3 page)

Fiona
brushed back her hair, hooking it over her ear. “I want to travel,” she said in
a faraway voice. “Go to Athens or Tibet . . . actually see at least one of the
places we’ve read about.”

His
sister had the right idea. He turned the same fantasy over in his head every
day: running far away. Where would they go? And more important, how could they
ever defy Grandmother?

He
and Fiona might as well have been corked inside a bottle, sailing nowhere on a
tiny balsa-wood ship.

“Could
be worse.” Fiona nodded ahead at the entrance to an alley. “We could be like
your friend there.”

From
the shadows in the alley, a pair of worn sneakers missing their laces protruded
onto the sidewalk. Holes in their soles revealed bare feet inside.

“He’s
not my friend,” Eliot muttered. “He’s just some guy.”

Fiona
increased her pace as they neared the shoes.

The
sneakers were attached to tattered jeans and a tangle of gray rags that might
once have been a trench coat.

They
saw this old man every day on their way to work. Sometimes he huddled on
different corners or like today sat in the shadows. And while his location
changed . . . his smell never did: a combination of sardines, body odor, and
burnt matches.

Eliot
slowed to a halt.

The
old man’s face squinted up at him, his leathery skin contorting into a mass of
deep laugh lines and white scars. His lips parted into a greasy smile; he
leaned forward and held out an Angels’ baseball cap. A piece of cardboard
jammed into the brim had the word VET printed on it.

Eliot
held up his hand. “Sorry I don’t . . .”

His
words trailed off as he saw a kidney-shaped object tucked behind the man. A
violin.

Eliot
could almost feel the waves of sound resonating off it, almost taste the notes,
sweet and wavering, oscillating through his skull. He wanted to touch it—even
though he’d never played any instrument before.

The
old man followed Eliot’s stare, and his smile brightened, revealing yellowed
teeth thick with saliva.

He
pulled the violin into his lap and ran his thumb over the chipped fingerboard .
. . for all the good it would do. All the strings were missing.

The
music in Eliot’s head screeched to a halt.

He
would have given anything to hear him play.

The
man’s smile vanished and he set his cap over the violin.

Eliot
bit his upper lip, unrolled his lunch bag, and fished out the two quarters.

Fiona
stopped, watching him. She set her hands on her hips and shook her head.

Eliot
didn’t care what his sister thought; the money was his to spend any way he
wanted.

“You
should buy a few strings,” Eliot whispered to the old man. “I bet you could
make more money if you played a little.” He dropped the quarters into the cap.

The
man grasped the coins, rubbed them together, gazed lovingly at the violin . . .
and then back up to Eliot. He said nothing, but his dull blue eyes brimmed with
tears.

2

CHOCOLATE
HEART

Fiona
couldn’t believe her brother. She watched him drop his quarters in the bum’s
baseball cap. Only ten minutes older than Eliot, she sometimes felt it might as
well be ten years. How could he be such a little boy?

She
stalked back to extricate him, before he gave his lunch away, too.

The
old man looked from Eliot to her and his gaze hardened.

He
glanced her over. It wasn’t the way boys sometimes looked at her. “Elevator
eyes” she had heard other girls call it. This was more as if he could see past
her skin, right down to her bones.

She
could smell him now, too: sardines, a month of curdled body odor, and smoke.

The
stench aside, there was a magnetic repulsion, too. She just wanted to get as
far away from the old man as she could. He gave her the creeps.

She
grabbed Eliot’s hand, which was uncharacteristically ice-cold.

“Come
on,” she whispered. “We’re going to be late.” She jerked him toward her.

“Yeah,”
he said, still looking back at the old man.

They
fell into their hurry-up stride.

“You
might as well have tossed your money down the storm drain,” she said. “That guy
can’t even play. Probably found that violin in the trash.”

“Sure
he can play,” Eliot muttered, and rubbed his hand. “I bet he’s good, too.”

Eliot
was too nice sometimes, and people like that bum took advantage of him. For a
moment she considered turning around and getting his money back. But maybe it
would be better if Eliot learned that not everyone operated by Grandmother’s
106 rules. At fifty cents, it would be a lesson learned cheaply.

He
had that dopey look on his face whenever he talked about music. Fiona knew
better than to lecture Eliot about RULE 34—you might as well talk to a trash
can about aesthetics, or a brick wall about aerodynamics.

She
wondered what life would be like without having to look after him. Eliot was
always trying to find ways around the rules, and getting them both into
trouble.

Like
it or not, though, he was her brother—like a third, mutated arm growing from
the middle of her chest—he was annoying, but she couldn’t quite bring herself
to cut him off.

“Cee
told me you were adopted,” she told him. “I saw the birth certificate. It said,
‘Eliot Post. Sarcoptes scabiei.’”

This
was a microscopic mite that caused scabies, whose symptoms included pimplelike
irritations and intense itching.

Eliot
scratched his head. “Got to get your nose out of the medical books. I’ve read
them all, too. Are you losing your touch? A dose maybe of Mycobacterium
leprae?”

That
was the strain of bacteria, also called Hansen’s bacillus, that caused leprosy.
Nice double entendre.

They
rounded the corner of Midway and Vine. Across the street was Sol Granda
Florists, perfumed by a hundred dozen roses and bushels of lavender. Fiona
wished someone would send her roses once in her life. Just once. Anyone.

Kitty-corner
from this was The Pink Rabbit, a health-food co-op and juice bar. A plywood
rabbit sat upright on the corner drinking from a plastic cup full of frothy
green liquid. Eliot loved to hang out there. Thursday afternoons was open mic,
where he pretended never to listen to the folksingers.

Opposite
the Rabbit squatted the Colonial columns of Ringo’s All American Pizza Palace.
It was supposed to look like a miniature version of the White House in
Washington, D.C. . . . only one of the wings was bare cinder block—a recent
addition that would one day house four lanes of bowling. Next to the
double-glass-door entrance was a mural of Uncle Sam with a red, white, and blue
bowling ball in one hand, and in the other a wedge of gooey pizza.

At
this junction, the smells from the three buildings collided: rose, lavender,
freshly pulped carrots and oranges, clove cigarettes, yeast, and pepperoni.

The
nexus of all these things that didn’t belong together, of course, was Ringo’s.
Pizza originally came from Naples, Italy. Bowling came from Germany or possibly
ancient Egypt. And the Colonial architecture drew much of its influence from
Renaissance style. This logically made it “All American.”

They
hesitated at the double glass doors.

Fiona
didn’t want to go in. More was wrong with Ringo’s than clashing styles, busing
tables, and washing dishes.

Behind
them, however, was the invisible hand of Grandmother pushing them onward. Work
is the cornerstone of character, she was always telling them.

They
had worked at Oakwood Apartments for Grandmother since Fiona could remember,
sweeping and polishing the miles of wood flooring. As soon as they turned
thirteen, Grandmother obtained work permits for them (Fiona suspected they were
forged) and found them jobs.

Fiona
made the first move, grabbing the handle and pulling it open for Eliot.

“Come
on,” she said. “It’s only a four-hour shift. We can do it.”

“Yeah.”
Eliot’s face screwed into a mask of worry. “It’ll be easy.”

He
moved through the doorway and Fiona stepped through with him. The
air-conditioning hit her like an arctic gale. It was always too cold in here.
She should have worn her sweater over this dress.

The
day manager, Mike, stood at the host’s podium, arms crossed over his chest.

“Five
minutes late,” he announced. “I’m going to dock an hour’s pay.”

Eliot
started to step forward, but she bumped him—a warning to keep his mouth shut.

They
weren’t late . . . even stopping for that bum, they had had fifteen minutes to
get here. The less said to Mike, however, the better. He’d start docking them
for other things they didn’t do.

Mike
Poole was back in Del Sombra for the summer. He was a sophomore at Berkeley. He
might have been handsome with a shock of silky red hair, and freckled forearms,
but his eyes held all the intelligence of a bovine’s and a glimmer of cruelty.

He
slipped a slender book under the podium’s calendar, but not before Fiona saw it
was Cliff’s Notes on Macbeth.

She’d
read her version of the play a dozen times.2

Fiona
could probably recite Macbeth to Mike if she had to and help him sound out the
big words.

“So
. . . Fiona.” Mike stepped around the podium. “Think over the hostess thing? I
could train you. It’d be easy.” He smiled and that evil-cow gaze dropped and
then traced up her length with elevator eyes. “You’d be great.”

Fiona
looked away, her shoulders hunched, and she felt her face heat. “Not so good
with people,” she whispered. “No. Thanks.”

“That’s
part of the training,” Mike cooed.

Next
to her, Eliot balled his hands into fists.

Fiona
stepped in front of her brother. “It’s okay,” she said. “Busing is fine. It’s
great.”

“Suit
yourself.” Mike snorted. “Someone on the night shift got sick, and they left
the party room for you.” Mike finally noticed Eliot and said, “Trash cans need
rinsing today, kid. Get to it before dishes. Make sure you use bleach.”

“No
problem,” Fiona said.

She
moved past Mike, and Eliot followed her into the dining room. In the back was
the separate party room, and to their left was the swinging door that led to
the kitchen.

She
felt Mike’s eyes locked on her backside and revised her estimation of them:
They weren’t cow eyes. That was unfair to bovines. He had the eyes of a rat.

Sunlight
flooded the dining room through picture windows. Five of the fifteen tables
already had lunchtime customers, people wearing the uniforms of wine-country
tourists: men in khaki slacks and loose silk shirts; the women in designer
jeans, sweaters, and sixteen pounds of gold jewelry.

The
place would be packed by eleven thirty, and Eliot and Fiona would be running to
get everything clean for the real crowds at noon.

Ringo’s
may have been a conglomeration of unlikely styles and questionable taste, but
situated on the most picturesque country artery between San