The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (21 page)

“Again,
” I say, leaning back and dragging my fingers through the water.

“Mercy Louis, I love you so much, it might up and give me a heart attack.”

The symphony of crickets, the croaking bass notes of the bullfrogs, his words transformed from a sound into an object that catches in my throat, drops into my chest.

“I love you, too,” I whisper. The words feel right on my tongue, round and declarative and perfect, crumbling into sweetness like one of Sylvie's pecan sandies. He beams.

“How was the ball?” he asks.

I sigh. “It was awful. Just awful.”

“Because of us?”

“At first, yeah, but then it was other stuff. Annie seems so fragile, and the way she
needs
me . . . it's a lot to deal with.”

“She went the whole summer without you, and now all of a sudden she needs you again?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It's like she wants me to be her watchdog.” I lean in to him and let myself go soft.

“Sounds like you get a lot out of the bargain.”

“Sarcasm doesn't become you, Mr. Salter.” I run my hand along the knob of his anklebone, feel the soft elevation of veins there. “And then I saw Coach, and whenever she's around, I just feel so . . . never mind. I shouldn't complain, not after all she's done for me.”

“That woman scares the crap out of me,” he says. “I can't imagine what it's like playing for her.”

“She's been like a mother to me,” I say. “I don't know where I'd be without her and Maw Maw . . .” My voice cracks; I swallow hard, pinch the skin of my inner arm. “If you had any idea what my real mother was like . . .”

I cover my face with my hands, ashamed. Travis folds me into his arms. My hiccupping breath, his shushing, two more sounds in this loud, living night. “Baby baby baby,
”
he whispers. “It's all right, it'll be okay.”

But how can you be sure?
I want to demand.
You don't know the truth of my life, you don't know anything about me, really.

Once I calm down, he asks me what's wrong, and I say can we talk about it some other time. He nods because he's gentle like that, and also because I've scared him with my tears, I can tell by the graveness of his expression.

We're at the place where the bayou meets the Sabine River, so he cuts the motor and we drift for a spell in the open water, the moon visible now that we're out from beneath the trees.

“Tell me another story,” he says. The boat moves with the water's gentle ripples, the cadence slow like a poem we're living inside. Travis moves to the opposite end of the boat, sets his feet on the wooden slat where I sit. I rest a hand on the thin ankle tucked inside his oversize sneaker. His ankle is rough with hair, and I think how personal it is to rest my hand there, on skin no one else touches.

“I'm tired of stories,” I say. “You never know what's true or not.”

Moon shadow plays on his face. His eyes are closed, his breathing steady. From somewhere farther up the river's mouth, the splash of a fish. I kneel in the bottom of the boat and move carefully to his side—I don't want to send us into the river reeds tickling the bottom of the boat. Burrowing into the warmth of him, I rest my head on his chest. He's put on cologne, a familiar smell I've come to love. He kisses me, and for a minute, we've escaped everything, Maw Maw and Annie and Coach and Charmaine; we float on the river, an island of us.

“Okay,” he says. “You want happy?”

“After tonight?” I sigh. “I really do.”

“You want fun?”

His enthusiasm is catching; I nod. Yes, yes. I want happy and fun. To think it was this easy all along: he offers, I accept.

“Smart girl.” He reaches out and touches my cheek. “I know a place.” We row for a while, passing beneath a stretch of highway where shadowy figures by the pylons cast lines in the darkness. Music echoes faintly across the water. Soon a small structure becomes visible through the trees, bathed in the light of dozens of neon signs advertising Lone Star and Shiner and Miller Lite. As we get closer, I see a small illuminated blue and white sign that reads
RODAIR CLUB
. Of course I've heard of it, the place is legendary. And there's no way I'm supposed to be here, a dance hall on a Saturday night, where people two-step and make out and drink beer.

“What you hear is Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys,” Travis says. “Wish I could play the squeeze box like those guys. For dancing? Oooh, mama.”

“I've never danced,” I say, my nerves alight with the danger.

He looks at me, eyes wide with astonishment. “And you call yourself Cajun?” He hoots. “Girl, they're going to revoke your membership.”

I shrug. “Maw Maw doesn't allow it.”

“What about prom? You were on the court last year, so I know for a fact you were there.”

“You know those are dances in name only.”

He exhales loudly,
shhhhhiii.
His mouth is crookedy; I want to kiss it, so I do. Drawing back, I tell him I don't even like to dance, so why make a fuss about it?

“Ah, but how can you know you don't like it if you've never
done
it?” He's proud of his point, punctuates it by jabbing his finger in my direction.

“Look, it is what it is.”

“First time for everything,” he says. “Come on. Good Cajun music. The best. Ms. Boudreaux would have to approve of that. I'll give you some time to think it over. Here.”

He takes two Tupperware containers from the plastic bag he brought on board. Inside, there's leftover boudin and fried crawdads, their skins blistery with cayenne. We eat greedily, and when we kiss, our lips burn with the pepper. From inside, the accordion wheezes, and I can hear boot heels stomping the floor, the occasional whoop from the crowd. Past the open front door, bodies spin by, whirling flashes of color.

“All right,” I say, licking the last of the peppery grease from my fingers. “Take me dancing.” Across the parking lot we walk, hand in hand, our feet crunching the oyster-shell gravel. On the outside, the place is shabby, like it's been cobbled together from scrap lumber. Inside, it's warmth and noise. Women in red lipstick, their hair teased up and shining, dance with men in Wranglers and pointy boots. The room smells of sour beer and fried things. Behind an ancient cash register, a woman with hair straight out of the sixties rings people up. Though we are on the wrong side of twenty-one, nobody gives us a second look; I don't see anyone from school, and people from church would never come here.

On the dance floor, another woman, head tilted back with laughter that can be heard over the sounds of the band, wears silver moccasins, and when she dances, her feet are a lightning blur. The men corkscrew their hips, shuffle their feet, twirl the women, the whole place so alive with movement, I can't help but tap my foot. The jumble of voices joke-telling, gossiping, cursing, promising, flirting. A man with a dimpled chin croons in plaintive French, the music pure heartbreak, and for a minute, I think of Maw Maw telling stories, I can conjure her pauses, the precise way she stresses a word. But because tonight my instructions are to
have fun,
I bury the thought.

Before I have time to protest, Travis grabs my hand and pulls me onto the floor, where the crowd parts momentarily before swallowing us into its circle. I have no idea what I'm doing, but it's of no consequence because Travis has good rhythm and, with a focused look, establishes us in a simple two-step,
one-two-two, one-two-two,
a hand at my waist, the other clasping mine tight, his sandy hair flopping with each step, the pearl buttons on his shirt glinting under the lights. We spin around and around the floor. Sometimes he lifts me clean off it, and I can't help myself, I laugh and laugh; something about moving like this, encircled by his arms, hair flying, turns me into one of the people whooping,
whooooo,
my cry melting into the crowd. In this moment I'm more in love with Travis than ever, and I wonder if what he said is true, if it's possible to die of love. It feels like a crashing wave and I'm tumbling around inside.

It's almost criminal when the band pauses to tune up fiddles and banjos and guitars and sip bourbon before moving on to the next song, their faces shiny with sweat. Slowly, we come down from our high, grinning like maniacs.

“See what you been missing, Louis?” he says before leaning in for a quick kiss.

“Good Lord,” I say. “It's almost better than basketball.”

“You want a beer?” he asks.

Because this is a night for new things, I nod, my whole body tingling. He returns with two icy cans of Lone Star, already popped, and we cheers before tilting them back and glugging, the liquid bubbly down my throat, my brain frozen by its cold. I wait for the roof to blow off the club, the hand of the Almighty swooping in to shake some sense into me, but nothing happens. I know it doesn't work that way; He's not a babysitter, like Annie wants me to be. He gave us free will, and the rest is up to us. But why make being good so hard? Why make a beer so delicious? Why make sex so very
very
? Forgive me, Lord, but it seems mean.

Soon the music starts up and we're off again, my head foggy from the beer, the lights bleeding together in a pleasing blur. We stay for hours. When the club closes, we pour out into the parking lot with the rest of the diehards, where we stare at the star-bright August sky. Necks craned upward, we try and fail to identify constellations, collapsing into each other with laughter, and I feel simultaneously that our lives will go on forever and that we will never be able to re-create this feeling ever again; it is too perfect.

Back in the boat, we drift far out into the water until the lights of the Rodair are no longer visible. Quietly, gently, for we are exhausted, Travis works over my neck, the cayenne on his tongue making my skin tingle. He unhooks my bra, pulls my shirt over my head, and looks at me. Carefully, he takes my nipple into his mouth, first one, then the next, and my body becomes flame, orange and dancing.

When we dock the boat out back of the stilt house, it's nearly three o'clock in the morning, the moon no longer jaundiced and sultry through the trees but white and high over the water. Travis gives me a leg up onto the balcony and, still wobbly from the beer, I hoist myself the rest of the way—it takes me three tries to get a toehold, grunting and grimacing all the while. Below me, I hear Travis laugh. Peering down at him, I raise my finger to my lips,
hush,
and shoo him away. He takes off running.

Though I don't want the night to end, I know I can't maintain this elation even if I try. Better to go to bed with the evening fizzing in my blood, the memories—for they are already that, memories—still dazzling. I turn to go inside.

And there is Maw Maw, ghostly behind the glass door in her long white nightgown, her eyes, nostrils, and mouth black holes in her pale face. The night swallows my scream.

“Do it,” she says. “Do it this instant!”

I'm kneeling in front of the toilet, toothbrush in hand, the tile floor hard against my bare knees.

“Purge yourself, or I'll do it for you.” The sobs come hard, tears and mucus pooling in my throat, a headache building behind my eyes under the bathroom's harsh dressing room bulbs. Moving behind me, she grabs my hair. “Have you forgotten what you come from, girl?” Gives a yank. “Easiest thing the devil ever did to gain a soul was give a person the demon alcohol, 'cause it does his job for him.” She nudges my hand so that the tip of the toothbrush handle touches my lips. “Have the nerve to come home
chockay
like this, then you got to be willing to right a wrong. Now do it.”

This is how the night ends, me with my head in a toilet bowl, heaving up what remains of the three Lone Stars and the boudin, the smells of bleach and vomit in my nose.

“Who were you with?” she asks.

“Annie,” I gasp. “I was with Annie.”

She leaves before I finish gagging myself. I do it again, and a third time, just to be sure I've gotten it all out, this sin that comes in rivers of sick.

T
HE FIRST DAY
of school arrives in a blaze of stultifying heat that bubbles the tarred streets. It is nothing if not anticlimactic. Illa parks in the same assigned spot in the student lot, enters through the same double doors, passes the same tittering clusters of freshmen girls. Okay, maybe the girls are technically different, these ones fresh out of middle school, but they ignore Illa as handily as the last batch. The worst sameness of all is that Annie and Mercy are friends again; Illa could tell by watching them at the Purity Ball, their closeness in evidence through the conspiratorial looks and gestures and touches that have always defined them.

Whatever spark of hope Illa had that this year would be different is now extinguished. How can she compete with Annie Putnam, dark goddess, destroyer of mortal girls? Illa spends the rest of the day stewing over the fact that these hallways that had seemed so full of promise over the summer are now filled with people who don't give a damn for her dreams, people who don't need her other than to serve them—to take their homecoming and prom photos for the newspaper, to bring them water bottles and towels when they get subbed out. Senior year, she knows, is merely the fourth out of four required to earn her high school degree, and it will be made up of 180 days more or less like this one, which is to say, dull as dirt. Droopily, she makes her way from class to class, her whole body a resigned sigh.

The day would have been a complete wash if Illa hadn't run into Lennox in the parking lot after school, reflective aviators perched on his nose, curly hair teased up in a 'fro.

“Hey,” he says. “A bunch of us are going to hit up the Death of Summer party at the Hotel Sabine tonight. Want to come? It's supposed to be crazy.”

“And I look like someone to whom
crazy
would appeal?” Illa says.

“Come on, I know you're one of those chicks with a secret identity. You're, like, a burlesque dancer or a raver or an international chess champion on the side. Anyone who appears to be as straight as you always has a side gig.” He grins.

“Illa Stark, PI,” she says. “You found me out.”

“Seriously, though, you coming to the party?”

“Sure,” she says. “Is this thing really in the Hotel Sabine?”

The hotel closed after the explosion, when layoffs and sanctions brought business to a standstill. Now all the windows are busted out, the rooms transformed into terrariums by the flora that took root in the molding carpet.

“Yup, nine o'clock. It'll be like
The Shining,
ghosts mixing drinks, all kinds of spooky stuff.”

“All work and no play, et cetera,” Illa says.

“Let's hope no one goes murderously batshit.”

On the way home, she cranks the radio; it doesn't matter what's on so long as it's loud. Is it possible to break your face smiling? Briefly, she considers stopping in the Shop 'n Save to buy one of those black spiral date books, just so she can write down the date and time of the party. Finally, she has somewhere to be. Maybe senior year won't be so terrible after all.

THAT NIGHT ILLA
finds herself wondering, how does one get ready for a party? Not a stupid Purity Ball, where all the girls dress like cream puffs, but a
real
party. What do girls wear? It's not as if she has any girlie outfits to choose from, but she wants to be prepared for just how out of place she'll look in her Rocky Mountains and boots.

She studies her face in the mirror and decides that while she'd call herself passable before pretty, hers is not a face to be ashamed of: large brown eyes intersected by the straight bridge of a pointy nose that is counterbalanced by a wide mouth built of thin lips, all set in a round face like a child might draw atop the stick figures in her first family portrait. On many occasions she has compared herself unfavorably to an owl startled from its perch, comforting herself with the knowledge that owls appear both wise and ferocious, that they are birds of prey. She'd like to claim the owl as some kind of totem animal, but she knows that in truth, she's more field sparrow than owl.

Illa searches under Mama's sink for makeup. She's heard people remark on the mysterious transformations, both good and bad, undergone by girls over the summer, so maybe this is the night she will convince the jury of her peers that she has emerged from summer's fire smelted into someone interesting.

There beneath the pipes is a trove of dusty fragrance bottles and old lipsticks that smell of wax, accoutrements that speak of a hopeful femininity that neither she nor her mother practice. As Illa roots among the discarded compacts and stubby eyeliner pencils and half-empty blush pots, she realizes she has no idea what she's looking for, just a collection of words and vague notions picked up from paging through women's magazines at the doctor's office:
foundation smoky eye bold lip neutral palette.

Eventually, she settles on a tube of plum-colored lipstick that looks brand new. As she presses it to her lips, she wonders for what occasion Mama purchased it originally. What secret desires made her lift that vivid shade from the drugstore shelf? Clumsily, Illa fills in her lower lip, then her Cupid's bow. Using a square of toilet paper, she does some damage control and then assesses herself in the mirror. The color makes her look older and happier. Does she appear to be someone capable of having fun, but not a dangerous amount? That's a quality Mercy probably looks for in a friend.

“You look nice,” Mama says when Illa arrives downstairs. The television is on low, a sitcom with bad lighting. “You want me to do some eye makeup on you? Got to get gussied proper for a party. I used to be real good at eyes. When we went out dancing, all my girlfriends made me do theirs.”

It's a peace offering, the most Mama has said to her since the binge episode.

“Sure,” Illa replies.

“Let me get my gear,” Mama says excitedly, wheeling to her bedroom and returning with a fistful of supplies. “Here, sit.” She points to the dining chair and Illa takes a seat. “How about a dramatic eye with black liner? That was always my go-to. Can't go wrong with a classic.”

“Whatever you think,” Illa says. If it's horrible, she can always wipe it off in the car. Mama tells her to close her eyes, and she does, feeling her mother's fingertips skim her hairline and eyebrows like she's readying a canvas. The snap of plastic shadow containers opening, Mama's careful breathing as she leans close to Illa in order to get the right angle, the makeup brush dabbing against her skin in short, sure strokes. There's something luxurious about having another person touch your face, Illa thinks. She feels coddled, fussed over, for the first time in so long. It reminds her of when she was a little girl sick with a cold, tucked under blankets, Mama stroking her hair, kissing her hot forehead. Though Illa wants to follow up about Charmaine, she knows it would ruin the moment, so she holds her tongue. It's been so long since she and Mama have been together in a room like this, actually enjoying each other's company.

“Okay, now open.” Mama leans back to examine her handiwork, nodding her approval. “Now for liner and mascara.”

On the TV, a beautiful brunette brings a beer to a disheveled guy sitting on a couch, then says something with a smirk. With the volume this low, their voices are subaqueous, indistinct. The laugh track bleats on.

“Don't go crazy, I don't want to look like I'm trying too hard.”

“Oh, honey, your mama knows makeup. Look up,” she orders, running a pencil along Illa's lower lid, smudging the top outer corner with the edge of her thumb. “That's always the thing, making it look easy-breezy, even if you spent an hour in front of the mirror.” She unscrews the top of the mascara, plunges it in and out of the tube, then rubs the brush against the tube's edge to wipe off the excess. “Look down.”

It tickles a little as Mama tugs the brush along Illa's lashes, and she giggles. Mama giggles, too, before admonishing Illa to
hold still, for Pete's sake, or I'm going to put your eye out.
After fiddling with the finished product a minute, she sends Illa to the bathroom to judge the results. Expecting the worst, Illa is astonished to see that she looks pretty and even a touch mysterious.

“I love it!” Illa calls, leaning close to the mirror to examine this unfamiliar face. No response, just the sound of the TV turned up loud. Walking back into the kitchen, Illa says, “It's . . . just, wow.” But Mama holds up her hand for quiet. She's staring at the television, where a reporter stands in front of the Market Basket, gesticulating.

“They found something in the woods,” Mama says without taking her eyes off the screen. “A Port Sabine High School football sweatshirt. The blood's a match to the baby.” She looks at Illa. “Chief McKinney says they'll focus the investigation on the school now.”

SINCE THE EXODUS
out of Port Sabine following the explosion, the warehouses, gambling halls, and saloons erected downtown during the boom stand empty, stripped of raw materials—bricks and windowpanes, copper piping and roof tiles. From this graveyard of buildings, the Hotel Sabine rises thirteen stories, its pocked facade like a relic of some war-torn place, the once manicured grounds now wild with weeds. Illa hears about petty crimes committed in the blighted hotel—arson and drug deals, homeless people arrested for vagrancy.

From the front, all the windows are dark, and briefly, she wonders if Lennox has played a prank on her. But as she pulls her car around back, she sees light flickering behind a dark sheet that billows from a fifth-floor window, hears a pulsing bass line. Grabbing her camera off the passenger seat, she gets out and walks quickly to the door. She feels like a radical going to some underground meeting. Someone has put a Mexican saint candle just inside the front door, which is propped open by a rubber flip-flop. Illa hesitates at the threshold. Across the street, the canal leading to the bay ripples in the muddy light of the rising moon. She's glad she decided to bring her camera along. If no one talks to her, she can avoid feeling like a doof by hiding behind it.

The stairwell is bathed in darkness. Clutching the cold metal railing for guidance, she huffs up the five flights of stairs. On the landing of the fifth floor, another saint candle glows, and when she opens the door, the hallway blazes with dozens more. The music is loud now, some shouty hip-hop song. The party occupies a large ballroom, revelers' shadows moving against the white walls. From the doorway, she looks for Lennox or Mercy. At this distance she can't distinguish faces, so she shoulders her way in, happy for the flanking bodies and candlelight. The room smells earthy, like the forest after a rain, a breeze fluttering the bottom edge of the bedsheet pinned over the room's only window. There are clusters of beach chairs scattered throughout the room.

“Here!” someone shouts above the din, thrusting a cold beer into her hand. She pops the top, takes a sip; it's bitter, cheap-tasting, but she drinks it down. Immediately, she feels safer, like she could float here anonymously for hours, drinking and swaying to the music. It's strange to see her classmates out of context like this, ungoverned by the school bell's directives or Mr. Long's surveillance. There's Travis Salter, Port Sabine High's resident beatnik poet, his guitar propped next to him. It surprises Illa to see Tiffany Barnes, her dirty-blond hair curled stiffly into twee ringlets.