Spiral (7 page)

But still, I wonder,
Could that really happen? Or are those ladies just being old and catty?

My phone buzzes with a new text message in my pocket. I check it quickly, and it’s my friend, Josh.

I open the message, grateful for the distraction. Maybe he’s throwing a party I can escape to. Then, my stomach drops. “Did I just c u on TV?”

TV? I’m on TV?
I want to turn one on, but then I stop. Cherie’s sitting right next to the one in the living room. Mom’s rule echoes loudly in my head. I rush upstairs to my laptop, closing the door to my room soundlessly. When I do a quick online search of Cherie Belle, the first few links are to news reports about the funeral. Sure enough, Channel 5 has posted video coverage of all of us standing in the cemetery. I see myself, which is weird, because I’m watching myself react in a moment that I still remember clearly. I note with a small amount of pride that I’m taller than Caz Farrell, and I’m a little bigger, too.

A knock on my door yanks me from my daze. “One second!”

“Your mom is looking for you,” Claudia calls from the other side.

My pulse pounds. “Tell her I’ll be right there.” I close my laptop before my mom can catch me completely breaking one of her only rules about this whole mess and head back downstairs.

I take out my phone and am about to reply “Yes” to Josh, but I stop, my thumb hovering over the send button. I look up and see Cherie, who sits stoically beside an old woman and nods with a somber frown as the lady rattles on about what great people her parents were.

Looking back at my phone, guilt gnaws at me. I promised my mom I wouldn’t talk about this with anyone, and I don’t want to tell anyone what is happening anyway. I don’t want the questions that will follow, and I don’t want the phone calls harassing me for information. Even more, I don’t want to be just another person putting her private life on display.

Instead of hitting send, I hold the power button down until the phone turns off.

I dodge Cherie for the rest of the night, which is hard to do now that she’s staying in our basement for the week. I know I’m supposed to be supportive and helpful, so I work overtime to do little chores around the house and keep Britney and Brenton occupied, which keeps me from crossing Cherie’s path too often.

As one day passes into the next, however, she begins to surface more. I run into her the next evening after Shiva when I go scrounging for leftovers. She’s in the kitchen, sitting in silence with Danika at our dining table.

I feel compelled to ask, “How are you? Do you need anything?”

Danika gives me the stink eye, as if to say,
“Back off, kissing up to her is my job.”
I try to pretend she’s not the world’s biggest bitch.

Cherie whispers, “No, thank you, Jack,” and a sad smile follows. I like when she says my name, and I’d give anything to take the hurt out of her voice when she says it.

On Wednesday morning, Mom comes in my room and closes the door like she’s about to tell me a secret.

“Jack, honey?”

I don’t open my eyes, but I turn over when she sits down and shakes me gently.

“What, Mom?” I look at the clock. 8:00 AM. This clock had better be three hours slow.

“Honey, wake up a second; I need a favor from you,” she says. Whenever she starts off like that, I know it’s not just a favor. When Mom wants something simple, she just tells me to do it.
“I need a favor from you”
is code for a whole day of babysitting or a list of chores.

I still refuse to open my eyes. “What?”

“We have to take Danika to the airport and meet Jim’s parents at the lawyer’s office.”

I groan. I already know where this is going.

Mom rattles on. “Chloe and Claudia are going to the mall with some friends, and I’m sending Brenton to Raine Johnson’s house for a sleepover. I don’t want him to have to sit through another Shiva – ”

“Mom, what’s the favor?” I just want her to stop talking; she’s giving me a headache.

She hesitates. “Well, I need you to keep an eye on Britney, and I was hoping you’d help me with Cherie.”

I lift my head. “Cherie?”

Mom leans in to confide, “She’s not eating. I’m a little worried. Danika said something about her being a vegan, so I don’t know. Maybe we don’t have anything here for her to eat. Would you take her to the store for some groceries?” She sees my eyes roll back into my head, and she hurries to say, “I’ll leave some cash for you to get a few things you like, too.”

I’m about to protest, but then I think better of it. I weigh the con of being alone with a teary – eyed Cherie with the pro of a chance to eat frozen foods and not get a lecture about preservatives. Mom’s good. She knows my weak spots.

Maybe Cherie won’t be so bad. We’ll be out in public. She’ll be too proud to cry or anything. She might be nasty to someone, but that’s okay, as long as it’s not me. I can deal a little better with Mean Cherie than Sad Cherie.

“Okay,” I concede. She tousles my hair, and I jerk my head away. She laughs and bends to give me a kiss. Her strong, going-to-something-important perfume envelopes me.

“Thank you, sweetie. I knew I could count on you,” she whispers. “I told her you’d be ready in an hour, so try to get up soon, okay?”

“What?!”

But she’s out of the room and the door is closing behind her, and I have no choice other than to get out of bed.

I should have known that gathering Britney and setting up her car seat would be easier than rounding up Miss Belle, who is thirty minutes late for our supermarket appointment. I use the first ten minutes to really clean up the inside of my car, kind of spruce it up a little extra for the occasion. Then I have to play a spelling game with Britney for the next twenty minutes to avoid honking the horn.

“Spell…snow.”

“S. N. O.”

“W. Snow has a w at the end. It’s a tricky word.” I sigh and throw my head back against the headrest. “Spell tree.”

Give Cherie time. Don’t be a jerk,
I remind myself. I try to remember that she’s not one of the twins, and that she has the potential at any time to run into people wanting to take her picture. She wants to look good. Hell, even I made sure to put jeans on instead of my sweatpants today.

When she finally does emerge from the house, I can sort of see why my mom’s worried. Her cheekbones are a little more prominent, her skin is paler, and the bones of her hands and wrists stick out. The rest of her is covered by heavy, layered sweaters, a scarf, and big sunglasses. Her legs look like the heels she’s wearing: long and impossibly skinny. She sways a little when stepping down off of the porch, and she has to grab the banister for support, as if walking makes her dizzy. This girl definitely needs to eat.

I get out and shuffle to the passenger side to open her door for her, a gentleman’s move that always earned me bonus points with girls in the past. Cherie, so used to being chauffeured, merely murmurs a thank you and slides into the front seat as if my chivalry is no big deal.

“Cherie!” Britney cries out. I think she loves her as much as Brenton does, but for different reasons. Cherie is a princess in Britney’s mind; one with pretty makeup and fancy clothes that she might let Britney play dress-up in.

And she’s a star on TV. That never hurts.

“Hey sweetie pie,” Cherie coos, turning in her seat. “What a pretty braid! Who did your hair?”

“Chloe.” Britney grins and bats her eyelashes. I try not to groan audibly.

Cherie turns and puts her seat belt on, saying, “Your sister has the most gorgeous eyes. Who has blue eyes in your family?”

I stiffen and busy myself with pulling out of the driveway. I hate having to talk about my father. “Our dad.”

She nods. “Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting about him. Where does he live?”

I almost have to clear my throat to answer. “I don’t know.”

From the corner of my eye, I can see her nose scrunch as if she doesn’t understand this. I can tell she is going to ask more questions, so I change gears instead.

“Got a list of food you want to buy?”

She waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, no, I didn’t make a list. I really don’t want anything; this is very nice of Eva and all, but I just don’t have the stomach to eat anything right now.”

“You’ll have to eat eventually,” I say, and I hate myself immediately for it when her face falls. I may as well have said,
“You’ll have to get over their deaths eventually.”
We silently agree to drop each other’s uncomfortable conversations.

“This car is nice,” she says, but she says it in a way that should have the phrase, “for a high school kid,” attached to the end.

Still, the compliment makes me beam on the inside. There’s nothing I’m more proud of than my car, not even my football trophies. I spent a lot of time lifeguarding last summer to earn this car, and it means a lot that she would pay it a compliment.

“Thanks. Do you have a car back in California?”

She nods. “I have a couple, but they’re in my parents’ names. Probably have to give them back now. Whatever; it doesn’t matter anyway. I haven’t gotten a license yet. Haven’t had the time to take the test.”

This is abhorrent to me. How does someone not have the time to take the most important test of their life? “So why do you have cars?”

She shrugs, and the answer is implied, hanging heavily in the air over my head.
She’s rich and famous, dummy! She probably owns monkeys that she doesn’t need, too.

“Here it is,” I announce, pulling into the parking lot of our local shopping plaza. I look in my rearview mirror at a car that is
thisclose
to hitting my bumper. “What the hell? Why is this guy on my –”

Cherie takes one glance back and mutters, “Dirterazzi,” as if she’s bored by the word. “I guess they finally found your house. I thought I saw them following you when we pulled out of your road.”

“Jesus,” I murmur, turning around to see not one, but two beat-up sedans pulling into spaces near me.

“It’ll be fine,” she sighs as I put the car in park. “You take care of Britney while I give them a quick statement.”

I marvel at her boldness as she throws open the car door and steps out elegantly. The photographers are out of their cars faster than spitballs from a straw, and they have no hesitation in approaching. I do what I can to pretend they’re not five feet away, snapping with their cameras, while I reach into the backseat and unbuckle Britney.

In the background, I hear Cherie spinning the same comments Betsy and her other handlers have prepared and rehearsed with her. “…deeply saddened by…respect my privacy at this time…so fortunate for the support of…”

Britney is quiet as she watches this spectacle and twists a blond curl around her finger while she waits beside me. I hold her hand a little tighter, but it may be for my own comfort rather than hers. My stomach is doing little flips and flops just in anticipation of those cameras turning on me.

Cherie walks over to us, her camera-ready smile fading, and Britney reaches out to her with her free hand. Cherie extends her own out and sways from the suddenness of her own movements. Her heel catches in a crack in the ground, and she cries out. Her body begins to fly backward as she tries to right herself.

Immediately, my football reflexes snap to attention. Before she falls over, I catch her in midair against my forearm and grab her wrist, like I’ve dipped her after a dance. Britney bursts into a fit of giggles.

“Oh, God!” Cherie grasps at the sleeves of my jacket for dear life. Her wide, surprised eyes trap mine and hold them hostage.

I stare at her, entranced. “Are you okay?” I whisper.

She’s breathless. “I think so.” I am frozen in the moment, so close to her I can see the flecks of gold shimmer in her lip gloss. I suddenly can’t look anywhere but her mouth. My mind is racing faster than my pulse. I hear the click of a camera, and it jerks me out of my stupor.

“Smooth, Jack! Great shot.”

“Good catch, man! Hey, Cherie, you should keep him around!”

“Yeah, you two look good together.”

Suddenly, the cameramen are on top of us, snapping frantically, and Cherie is scurrying to find her footing. I tuck Britney out of the camera’s view and cast them a dirty look. My cheeks burn.

I want to tell them to get lost, but my tongue is numb. All I can do is tilt my head toward the supermarket. Cherie follows obediently, one hand still gripping the sleeve of my jacket while we walk. Britney leaves my side like I’m yesterday’s news and takes her new idol’s free hand.

I send the girls inside and grab a shopping cart, stealing a glance over my shoulder as the photographers compare their stills of us. I can’t help but wonder what Cherie and I look like together.

Supermarket shopping without a list is hard, but following someone as slow and distractible as Cherie is nearly impossible. I have a clear goal: frozen pizza and chips, and I find my stuff in less than three minutes. But Cherie parades up and down each aisle, wondering where things are, texting, examining the firmness of fruit, reading nutrition labels. It’s torture.

To add salt to the wound, we end up with four items by the time we get on line. I set a box of expensive granola bars, apples, Doritos and pizza on the conveyor belt. When Britney begs for a bag of Skittles, I don’t think twice and add two bags of the candy to our sad bounty.

I don’t want this to be my fault, so I ask one last time, “Are you sure this is all you want? Is there any other fruit you want to buy? You looked at a lot of fruit.”

“I’m good,” Cherie says quietly. She seems distracted again, but this time she’s staring past the cashier to the massive windows. The cashier gives her a double-take, and then she looks around to see if any of her co-workers realize they are in the presence of greatness. Cherie doesn’t notice the woman’s sudden interest in her and stares forward, her eyes glazed.

Cherie had faded in and out the entire time we shopped, so I don’t pay attention to her. I don’t follow her gaze, and instead I proceed to pay the cashier. Britney asks to carry the grocery bag, and I fiddle with her coat to make sure it’s zipped. We’re immersed in our own worlds, our normal routines. I wish that for just a second I had noticed the growing media storm outside.