Paper Tigers (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

Using the back of her left hand, Alison gauged the temperature in her shower, turning the knob until the water ran lukewarm. The rings rattled across the bar as she pulled the curtain closed, closing herself off in a dark cocoon, untouchable by either the sunlight, blocked by a window darkening blind, or the room's solitary 25-watt bulb. She put her face into the spray, turning so the water ran down her left side, and kept still for a long time with her palms pressed against the tiled wall. Dark hair hung over her forehead and clung to her cheek, the one-sided ripples mimicking the folds of the shower curtain. A few wispy strands partially concealed the reconstructed ear on her right side. When she was

whole

younger, she wore it halfway down her back; now the hair on her left side barely skimmed the top of her shoulder. Moving out of the spray, she grabbed for the shampoo, her skin pulling uncomfortably with the movement. A dark image of her slippery red insides coiled on the white of the tub played through her mind then danced away, a grim little fairy tale of illusory horror. After she turned off the water, she parted her hair on the left with her fingers and flipped it over, hiding some of the scar tissue on the right side of her scalp. A grim comb-over trick a nurse once showed her. A trick used by many, she'd said. Alison tugged a few of the strands forward in Veronica Lake fashion and slid the shower curtain open, neither a Hollywood starlet exiting a limousine nor a butterfly escaping the chrysalis in a drapery of color, but a morbid grotesquerie climbing up from the
depths of hell. An open set of shelves hung on the wall in place of a mirror, sparing her the sight.

Maybe it was time to replace the mirror; maybe it would help. She ran her finger across scar tissue and exhaled softly. No, she wasn't ready for that yet.

She patted her skin dry, applied lotion, slipped on a pair of pajamas and exited the bathroom in a wreath of steam.

Thump.

She stood immobile. Heard the thump again. Cold droplets ran from her hair down onto her forehead and the back of her neck, cold until they met scar tissue, but she made no move to wipe them away. She stood with her arms slack and her head tilted to one side. A neighbor's voice, muffled through the walls, filtered through the quiet then dwindled away.

She crept to the top of the stairs on tiptoe. The furnace kicked on, sending out a whoosh of warm air through the vents, and she squeaked in surprise.

“Mom?”

The furnace responded with another push of air. With slow steps, she descended the staircase, her breath a tight knot inside her chest; when she hit the landing, she stopped and sniffed the air. Tobacco?

“George?”

Laughter spilled from her lips. George, long dead and captured in a photographic capsule of time, was merely a paper man in a paper world, tigers not included. The living room appeared as it always did—sofa with a fleece throw draped across one arm, two standing lamps, a coffee table made of dark wood, a small television in one corner, and in the opposite, half-hiding the slate hearth from the walled-up fireplace, a bookcase with various hardcover and paperback novels. Next to that, a fire extinguisher, one of four in the house, hung from a waist-high bracket on the wall. Her eyes flickered over everything once, twice, and snapped back to the coffee
table, occupied by a half-empty glass of water. Before her shower, the photo album sat next to the mug with its cover closed. Now the album rested on the floor next to the table, its cover open and George's picture exposed.

She checked the front door lock, but the dead bolt held fast and secure. The front windows were also locked; same for the back windows, the kitchen door, and the door leading into the basement. She remembered setting the album down on the corner of the table, far enough from the edge to keep it from toppling over. She picked up the album, resting her right palm flat on George's face. One of his eyes peeked out from the space where her pinkie and ring finger should be. Sudden pins and needles tingled from her palm to the tips of her fingers, and she dropped the album on the table, waving her hand in the air until the feeling vanished.

She headed for the kitchen, water glass in hand, pajama pants swishing around her ankles. Ice cubes clinked and splashed as she dropped them into her glass one by one. Slivers of melting ice stuck to her fingertips, cold and stinging; she wiped them away on a dishtowel softened to the texture of a baby blanket by many tumbles in the dryer and turned the faucet on. Stepping back from the sink, she picked up the towel again. Underneath the skin of her left hand (all finger-piggies present and accounted for, as useless as the three on her right hand), the blanket was a not-thing, held but not felt; in her right, the velvety fabric, far too real and smooth for an illusion of memory, slipped and slid across her patchwork skin.

She tossed the towel on the counter, stuck her right hand under the faucet, and shivered. Laughing out loud, she trailed her wet fingers along the edge of the sink, the stainless steel cool beneath her touch. Forgotten, the water rushed and splashed from the tap, sending droplets up and out. She extended her arms and ran both hands along the counter; one hand met nothing at all, the other met old tile and rough grout. At counter's end, she slid her hands back up and
down again, the scars on her face tugging as her lips stretched into a distorted smile. Her hands crept back up and the sensation stopped. No pins and needles, no fading away, but an abrupt cessation, all the feeling severed as sure as a limb cut off by an axe-wielding movie villain. Minus the theatrical screaming and fake blood, of course.

She turned the water off, her movements clumsy.

Phantom, phantom, it fooled you again. Stupid, gullible, ruined girl.

The children ran in circles in the yard, the summer sky bright and clear overhead. Helen watched them with a smile on her face, one hand up to cover the birthmark. She didn't even know she did it and he couldn't bring himself to tell her. He liked the birthmark. It made her a little more real, a little more human—

The phone rang with a shrill pitch, shattering Alison's daydream into pieces.

After their hellos, her mother said, “I'm getting ready to run out to the store to get some Do you need anything?”

“No, I'm good. I have a delivery coming tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

Alison flipped open George's album and picked at the corner of his photo with her thumbnail hard enough to make a tiny
snick-snick
sound, but not hard enough to tear the paper. “Yes, I'm sure.”

“I was thinking of stopping by the bakery, too.”

Alison rested her hand on George's face. “You are evil. You know that?” Pins and needles radiated through her hand. She gave it a shake.

Her mother laughed. “Sugar cookies, maybe?”

The sensation receded. Alison lowered her hand again. “The last time you brought me those, I ate them all in a day.”

And sat in a sugar-induced stupor, afraid to move, afraid the expanding
fat, albeit imaginary, would push the scars to their breaking point.

“So is that a no?”

The paper warmed underneath the skin of her hand. She frowned and pressed her palm flat, splaying her fingers. Warmth spread to her fingertips. She took her hand off the album and turned it palm-up.

“Alison?”

The skin, with its crisscross pattern of pink and red flesh—a macabre pie crust holding in the bones and gore—tingled. She held it against her left cheek and gasped at the heat.

“Alison?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything's fine. I, I almost dropped the phone, that's all.”

“Okay, so do you want me to pick some up for you?”

Alison ran her hand against her sleeve. The fleece of her pajama top rubbed smooth against her skin. “Sure, that sounds good.” She traced her fingers over the sofa cushion; the pattern in the fabric sprang to life beneath her fingertips.

It was real, not phantom. She didn't care what the doctor said. This was real.

“Okay, then. I'll bring them over when I'm done shopping.”

She ran a throw pillow's silken tassel between her index finger and thumb. “Okay, thank you.”

“Then I'll see you in a bit. I love you, babygirl.”

“Love you, too.”

She tossed the phone aside and set George's album on the table. Ignoring the strange heat still pulsing in her palm, she circled the room, trailing her fingers across everything she came in contact with—the bead fringe on the lampshade, which gave off a musical tinkle, the hard edges of her television, the smooth screen with a thin layer of dust that came off on her skin in streaks of grey, the pitted
plaster walls, the many small holes filled in with putty and painted over again and again by the previous owners. When she touched the blinds covering the window, outlining the honeycomb shape designed to hold out the light and keep in the shade, tears burned in her eye.

She ran her right hand across the photo albums' spines. The textures mixed and mingled—slick vinyl, velvet worn smooth, rough burlap with its crosshatch pattern, leather torn with time and many hands, and then nothing at all. She shook her hand. No pins and needles. No heat. A corpse hand, dead and lifeless, the blood inside little more than a lie.

Did you think it would stay? It's your imagination anyway.

“It was real,” she said.

Lie to yourself all you want, but touch something now. Go ahead and tell me what you feel.

Alison cupped hands over ears, but the voice wouldn't stop.

You want to be whole, you want to be real, but you're not. Even if your stupid hands learned to feel again, it wouldn't make you anything but what you are, Monstergirl.

Alison paced back and forth, her breath slow and even as she searched for the white calm buried under the hurt. Inside her private war, time slipped and slid away, and when her mother knocked on the door, she forced a half-smile.

In addition to the bag with the bakery's swirling logo, her mother carried a shopping bag and two plastic grocery bags nearly filled to bursting. Alison nudged the photo album aside to make room for the bags, and as her right hand whisked George's picture, pins and needles crawled under the skin again. She curled her fingers in then out, gave them a quick shake, and the tingle diminished.

“Mom, I told you, my groceries are coming tomorrow. You didn't need to get anything for me.”

Her mother shrugged. “I picked up a few things I thought you
might like. Here, this one has perishables. The other bag doesn't. The shopping bag has books in it I've been meaning to bring over.”

Alison took the bag from her mother and held it with both hands. The handle slid across the skin of her right hand with a cold kiss of plastic; on the left, the expected nothing. She tipped her head to one side. Her mother's voice lifted in the air, the words a gentle susurration. Alison shifted the bag to her left hand and ran her fingers over the surface, shivering at the chill from the contents within.

“Alison,” her mother said, touching her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

Alison blinked, and smiled again, wider than the careful and not quite grotesque half-smile. “No, not exactly. In the past few days, I've had some feeling come and go in my right hand, and it happened again. I can feel the bag. And the ice cream inside.”

Her mother smiled back, but the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes didn't crease. She opened her mouth, clamped it shut, and tucked Alison's hair behind her ear.

“I know you don't believe me,” Alison said. “It's okay. But I know what I feel. It isn't my imagination. Not this time.”

“I know it's all still hard for you. Maybe you could come over this weekend or next weekend and stay for a few days at the house. A change of scenery might do you some good.”

Alison's fingers dug into the bag.

“I have plenty of room at the house, you know. You could stay in the guest room and you could even bring some of your photo albums.” Her mother laughed. “Except for the smelly one.”

“No. I appreciate the offer, Mom, but I'd rather stay here in my house.”

“If it's the, the mirrors you're worried about, I can easily cover them up.”

“It's not the mirrors. I want to stay here, okay?” She hoisted the bag. “I should put this stuff away.”

Her mother gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I didn't mean to upset you. I wish I could stay and talk more, but I'm going over to Nancy's house tonight. You remember her, right?”

Alison ran her finger along the bag. “Sure. Miss Nancy from the neighborhood. The one who used to yell at us if we stepped one foot on her lawn.”

“Yes, she did, didn't she?” She patted Alison's arm. “You would call me if you needed something right? Even if you just wanted to talk. You know I'm here whenever you need me.”

Alison bit the inside of her left cheek. “Mm-hmm, I know.”