The Butterfly Clues (27 page)

Jeremy looks to my mother at the top of the stairs. “Hi, Mrs. Marin. I’m Jeremy, Lo’s, um, study partner.” He lifts the folder in his hands toward her. “I brought her work over.”

“Hmmm.” Her eyes are thin slits. “Come up here,” Mom says to me, mouth twitching. I walk up the stairs, remembering the on-sale sponges in my coat pocket, the duck umbrella lying on my bedroom floor; they haven’t been placed yet. That’s why everything is going wrong, spinning out of control. I’m suddenly so overwhelmed that I hardly notice Jeremy has followed behind me up the stairs, still clutching the folder of homework in his hands.

I don’t want him to see Mom, her eternally coffee-stained, sick smelling pajamas; her stringy, greasy, wild hair. I don’t want him to know how we’ve all let ourselves die here, how we’ve been buried.

“Mom—Jeremy. Jeremy—Mom.” I say it again, twice, beneath my breath:
Mom-Jeremy-Jeremy-Mom; Mom-Jeremy-Jeremy-Mom
, horrified that he might hear but pleased by its symmetry.

“Does your friend know about all your little habits, Lo?” Mom asks. I look away, burning all over, feel a lump growing in my throat. “Well, it’s just who you are, honey, and I don’t see how anyone could miss them, right?” She laughs a little; she somehow thinks she’s being funny.

I shoot a fast glance at Jeremy. His face is burning right alongside mine.

She smiles. “So,
this
is who you’ve been sneaking around with, Lo?” Her voice is playful, gossipy.

My head is burning so hot, I think I might burst into flame. “No, Mom,” I say—when, suddenly, her eyebrows slip back downward, curving inward like a collapsed drawbridge, and I know she’s crossed over, back into nowhere land.

“Well, you didn’t have to lie about it. That’s the worst part, Lo. All the lying.” She forces a streak of wild hair behind her ear and turns abruptly, floating back into her room. The TV turns back on:
“One hundred percent of mothers agree, Dew-Gone is better than other mildew removers!”

I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth, nine times, nine times, six times. “I’m sorry about that,” I say, forcing my hands to remain still. “Thanks for the homework. That was really nice of you, Jeremy. I didn’t think anyone ever noticed when I missed school… .”

Looking up briefly, I examine his face: he doesn’t look freaked out by Mom at all. Instead, he looks serious, determined, kind; I imagine this is how he looks when he’s running, as he wins, like, every meet. I wonder how often Keri watches him. I wonder if he’s ever noticed her in the crowd as the track stretches before him, long and dark and endless. “Lo,” he says, huskily, interrupting my thought. “I … always notice when you miss school. You were gone for almost a month last year. I was worried you weren’t ever coming back.” His big blue Vans are pigeon-toed into each other, the right knocking softly into the left. He clears his throat. “And, to be honest, the homework stuff was just an excuse, to come see you.” He rocks forward in his Vans, catching my eyes. His are wide, crystal blue. “I think you already know this, but, I … I don’t know anyone else like you.”

“Jeremy—” I step back. I tug at a loose thread on my left sleeve, search for one on the right. “I think you’re great. I think you’re really, really nice.”

“I think
you’re
really great, I’ve thought that since—”

I cut him off. “But, Jeremy—you’re cool. And I’m, I’m… . not right. For you.”

I find a new thread on the left, pull it free. Search for another on the right. And one more, left and right, to make it three on each side. Better. Jeremy frowns, puts his hands in the pockets of his gray skinny jeans and rocks back on his heels.

“I think … you should try and date someone more …” I clear my throat. “Someone like Keri Ram. That type. Someone who’s good at things and pretty and, you know,
normal
.”

He looks at me, totally confused. “Lo—but I like
y
—”

I interrupt him again. “Someone more your
speed
. Someone who’s excited about things. Someone who wears nice clothes and—and has a professional haircut.” The more
I
think about it— the two of them, side by side, his red hair and her auburn; their straight, little ski-slope button noses; his calm alongside her cool—the better I feel, the more I know it just makes
sense
. Like seeing the Olivetti beside the Smith Corona. They match. They belong together.

“A professional haircut?” Jeremy shakes his head. “Look, I don’t even know Keri Ram—”

“I’m not saying it has to be her. It could be anyone. Anyone besides … me.” My fingers fly to my thigh, start tapping.

“Does this mean . . ” Jeremy inhales. “Is that a no to prom, then?” There’s a genuine ache in his voice.

My stomach sinks.

“I—I need to go to the bathroom. Stay here, okay?” I need to wash my hands. I need to be alone.

Jeremy runs a hand through his hair, so it sticks up in spikes. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay.”

I wash my face, three times. The gurgle of the sink, the water pounding against the pewter basin, comforts me. Wash my hands nine times. Nine seconds per wash. Flip my bangs back and forth across my forehead.

When I open the door, calm enough to emerge again, Jeremy’s not in the hallway. I glance to Mom’s door—still shut, her mutterings a muffled soundtrack from within. An awful feeling starts knotting at my stomach, and I whip my head around to the other side of the hall. To Oren’s room. The door is wide open.

My whole body goes cold.

My feet draw me forward. The rest of my body is stone. Jeremy turns to me from inside, holding a record in his hands. Oren’s record. I stand shaking at the threshold—can’t go in—not enough
tap tap tap, banana
s in the world. Not allowed in. Oren hasn’t said I could come in, and never will again.

Jeremy’s voice rings, tinny, from within. “Rust Never Sleeps!
So
awesome. Is this your brother’s room? Man. I didn’t even know you
had
a brother.”

Jeremy’s hands. All over his things. All over my brother’s things.

My organs drop straight to my feet. My head is dark. My jaw rocks open.

I’m frozen, shaking. “Get out,” I manage to whisper.

“What?” Jeremy says, eyes crinkling, looking suddenly uncertain. He puts the record back—stacks it haphazardly in the wrong place.
Oren will freak.
“What—what’s wrong?”

“Leave
.
”
I might fall. I might melt. I might spontaneously combust. “Please.”

“What’s—what’s wrong?” He steps cautiously toward me. “Was I not supposed to be in here or something? Your brother’s weird about that stuff?”

No. No. No. He doesn’t
get
it.

“Get out.” Now my voice is strangled, a moan. “You have to get out.” I can’t speak; my body shakes; I’m swallowing back tears so hard my throat starts to clench and unclench. I curl against the wall, trying to steady myself, trying to keep down the scream inside my body.

“Oh God. Look, I’m sorry. I—I had no idea… . I’m leaving, okay?” He pushes past me into the hall. He hesitates next to me, but I can’t look at him, can’t even feel him next to me.

“Sorry,” he whispers again. Then, he pounds down the stairs, and a second later I hear the front door click shut.

CHAPTER 24

Oren’s open doorway gapes at me like a wound as I dash past it, unable to look in again. I take the stairs to the attic two at a time, missing once, going back to the landing and starting again. Back in my room, everything is wrong again.

He knows. He knows everything—about my house, my habits, my not-family. Soon other people will know. I’ll never be able to go to school again.

I pull everything from the north wall. Three inches higher. Three inches more.

Oren’s face emerges between the keys of the Olivetti. His teeth: the only thing left after his skin melted off in that apartment where he died, all alone.

I grab Sapphire’s journals from the stack beside my bed, stuff them with her bustier into a box in my closet, already overflowing with things, bury that beneath a stack of other, heavier boxes.

One final thing: the butterfly. Eternal anchor of my left coat pocket, unrelenting imbalancer. I squeeze my fingers around it like I might snuff out its life in the hot crease of my palm.

I place her butterfly figurine and its folded wings high above me to float upon the uppermost shelf in my room. The shelf full of dust, the shelf of lost, the shelf of surrender. Where I’ll never have to see it again.

Where it will flutter away, disappear, disintegrate. Alone.

Diiiing-donnnnng
The doorbell rings again.

It must be Jeremy. He left something, or he’s returned, demanding an explanation.

Diiiing-donnnnng
Mom will start howling for me if I don’t get it.

I crawl away, down all those steps, shuddering when I pass Oren’s room, holding my breath, the way we used to do when we passed the graveyard.

I plant myself at the landing of the stairs, call to the door: “Go away, Jeremy.
Please!
”

A slight pause, and then: “Ms. Marin—this is Officer Gardner, from the Cleveland Police Department.” A woman’s voice, gentle, un-cop-like.

I freeze.

“Hello? Ms. Marin?” She knocks again, lightly. My breath catches in my throat; I creep to the door, open it tentatively.

Officer Gardner smiles softly at me. She’s prettier than cops are supposed to be, with wavy black hair pulled into a messy bun and big, round eyes, so dark brown they almost look black. “Penelope?” she asks, pulling out her badge, blowing a loose wave of hair from her face. “I’m Officer Gardner. You can call me Lucile, though, if you’d like.” Her cheeks are round like apples.

My jaw goes tight, chest rigid. “Is there—is there a problem?” I squeak out. My tongue feels loose and hot in my mouth. They’ve figured it out: the stealing. The fact that I broke into Sapphire’s house.

“Are your parents home?”

“No,” I lie, staring at the rip in my right sock. “At work.”

“Well,” she says, scratching at her right ear which makes me need to scratch at my left, and then my right, and then both, two more times, quickly, wishing the
urge
away. “Would it still be alright if I asked you some questions?”

I stand there dumbly for a second.

“Don’t worry, Penelope,” she says softly. “You’re not in trouble. I just have a few questions about Sapphire, okay?”

I turn around quickly, pretending to be checking on something, and
tap tap tap, banana
before uttering a relieved yes and motioning her inside. I pray that Mom is asleep by now, or has been sucked in by the television.

I lead Officer Lucile Gardner through the sepia-lit hallway and into the living room. I sit in the middle of the couch so she won’t try to sit next to me, and she takes a seat in the big overstuffed leather chair, the one Oren made Dad buy one Christmas.

Officer Lucile Gardner folds her hands over her knees, uncrossed, planted firmly on the carpeted floor. “I overheard some of your conversation with Officers Pike and Graham, and I also heard how they dismissed you, and why.” She tries to catch my eye, but I avoid looking at her. “As you know, we’ve already arrested someone in connection with the murder, but I’m not convinced … I’m not convinced.”

“Why not?” My head feels numb; my words sound loose and echoey.

“Sometimes … how do I put this? Cleveland sees a lot of homicides. And there’s a lot of pressure on the department to get someone booked, to sign, seal, and deliver. Do you see what I’m saying?”

I don’t respond. She rubs her forehead. “Let me start over. Look, everybody likes an open-and-shut case. It makes everyone happy. And some cases are open-and-shut. But in this case …” She clears her throat, slides her hands down to her knees. “I think that some significant details have been ignored. You asked something at the station that piqued my interest. You asked if anyone had found any lipstick on her when she died. Why did that detail in particular jump out at you?”

I shrug, settle deeper into the couch. “Don’t know.”

Her brown-black eyes widen. She leans forward slightly in Oren’s favorite chair. “Penelope, I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

I stare back at her dully. I feel nothing. A great swathe of gray. “Look, I don’t remember what I said,” I lie. “She’s dead. I don’t really see the point in trying to figure out why anymore. Nothing we do is going to bring her back.”

Officer Lucile Gardner’s round cheeks seem to deflate. “If you think like that, then, no,” she says, “Nothing will happen. Nothing will change.” She straightens up, balancing her palms flat on her knees, her arms twin straight lines. “But I’d still like to know
why
you asked about the lipstick. I’d like to know how you knew about it.”

I count the loose threads hanging from both of her sleeves— two on the left, one on the right. Separately—bad, but together,
good, right, safe
. Still, I can’t exactly explain to her that I was unable to
locate
the lipstick after breaking into Sapphire’s house and rifling through her things because that would involve divulging to a police officer that I’d broken into a murder victim’s house and rifled through her things. So, I shrug my shoulders up to my ears for three long seconds before saying: “I just thought she might have it on her, since it was apparently, like, her favorite possession.”

I can’t explain to her this, either: that I have all her favorite possessions; that I don’t want to part with them, that I
can’t
part with them. I cannot explain that what once was Sapphire, now belongs to us both. I can’t explain to her that if I did not have her butterfly, her horse pendant, she would be fully silenced, gone forever.

Officer Lucile Gardner steeples her hands upon the bridge of her thighs. “It
was
on her,” she begins. “But not in the way you think.”

Despite everything, my heart jumps in my chest. “What do you mean, not in the way I think?”

“When we found her body, there was a word written across her torso in lipstick.” She sighs heavily. “The detail was never released to the papers. That’s why I was so startled by what you said.”