Like a Charm

by Karin Slaughter

  Lamar had actually killed Benjamin, just like he said he would. I went to my room and sat on the edge of the bed with my hands in front of me. I wondered what I should do. What are you supposed to do when someone kills someone? I felt like I should pray or visit his grave or do something solemn.

  Then, right around seven thirty there was a knock at the door. 'Mom,' I heard Jean say, 'it's the police.'

  My mother went into the living room, and I walked in behind her.

  They were the same two plainclothes detectives I had seen earlier.

  'Good evening, ma'am,' the older one said. 'I'm Detective Alta, and this is Assistant Detective Claridge. We were wondering if we could have a few words with your son.'

  The older detective had short grey hair and a polyester blue blazer. The younger one, I'll never forget, had hair that was completely white.

  'Of course,' she said. 'Please. Come in.'

  My father reclined in his vinyl easy chair in front of the television. He turned the volume down with the remote control.

  The police detectives nodded to him and sat down on the couch.

  'Can I get you some coffee?' my mother asked in her idiotic June Cleever voice. 'A soda perhaps?'

  'Thank you for offering,' the older detective said. 'But we're just fine.'

  I stood in front of the coffee table.

  'And how are you?' the detective asked.

  'Me?'

  'Yes.'

  I looked at my Adidas. 'Fine.'

  'The boy who lives next door,' he said. 'Are you friends with him?'

  'Lamar?'

  'Yes, Lamar Duncan.'

  I had breathed out, I think, but for some reason I couldn't breathe in.

  The detective said, 'Is he a friend of yours?'

  I looked at my mother.

  'They're friends,' she said. 'Lamar gave him an ant farm.'

  'An ant farm?'

  'For his birthday.'

  'Is Lamar a nice boy?' the detective asked me.

  'He's nice,' I managed to say.

  'Does he . . . does he pick on other kids sometimes?' The detective came forward off the couch, almost crouching on the floor.

  I couldn't think of a response. My face was on fire. I kept thinking of Benjamin. I kept imagining him naked on a stretcher in a hospital somewhere. The freckled skin, the long black hair.

  'Tell the truth,' my mother said.

  'We pick on him.'

  'What's that?' the detective asked quietly.

  'We pick on Lamar. Benjamin does mostly.'

  'I see.' The detective put a hand over his mouth and his eyes closed for a moment. He cleared his throat, then slapped his legs. 'All right then.' He smiled a thin smile.

  'One day Lamar said he would kill Benjamin,' I blurted.

  'Lamar said that?'

  'Yes, sir.' I never said sir. I don't even know where I got it.

  There was snot coming out of my nose. I wiped it away.

  'What is Benjamin's last name?'

  'Herman,' I said.

  'Why don't you go to your room now?' my father said. It was the first thing my father had said to me in weeks.

  I turned to look at him. I knew from one look that I was going to get it later.

  I hadn't bothered to open the ant farm yet, and in my room I ran my hands over the box, tracing the words with my fingers. ANT FARM! The fun, scientific way to learn about the insect kingdom! I kept picturing Benjamin without his Judas Priest T-shirt on for once, lying naked on a steel examining table like the victims in an episode of Columbo. I opened the ant farm box and started flipping through the booklet that came with it. There were line drawings that showed all the different types of ants in the colony. There was the queen, the worker ants, or drones, the nursing ants that took care of the larvae.

  My parents restricted me to my room that whole next day, only allowing me to come downstairs for a baloney sandwich at lunch and, later, a TV dinner. The entire neighbourhood was talking about Lamar, I could feel it. On the one hand I was dying to get out there, to find out exactly what had happened. On the other, I was absorbed by Lamar's ant farm booklet. There was an ad on the back for other kits from the same company; there was a chemistry set, a microscope, a junior electrician's set . . . the fun, scientific learning series. I kept staring at it, thinking of all the things there were to know, and of how I didn't know a fucking thing.

  The following morning I saw Lamar through my bedroom window. He had his legs folded under him and was sitting near the chain-link fence that separated our yards and was tearing blades of grass into smaller and smaller pieces and then throwing them up in the air while making soft, slo-mo exploding noises. I snuck downstairs and slipped through the kitchen door.

  'Hey,' I whispered.

  He didn't turn around.

  'Lamar,' I said a little louder.

  He barely looked up.

  'What happened?'

  He shrugged.

  'Are you in trouble?'

  He started moving funny, his whole body kind of shaking. I took that as a yes.

  'What did you do?'

  'They didn't tell you?'

  'Who?'

  'The police.'

  'They just asked if we were friends.'

  He nodded.

  'Did you kill Benjamin?'

  He threw a few blades of grass into the air. 'I killed Anthony.'

  I had leaned my arms over the fence and had been rocking the whole thing back and forth. Now I stopped. 'Anthony?'

  'Yup.'

  'Why?'

  He tore a handful of grass into tiny pieces, then scattered them, his arms beating like wings. 'I don't know.'

  'What do you mean, you don't know?'

  'I mean, I don't know.'

  'Was it an accident?'

  'No.'

  'Did he fall down and hit his head –'

  'No.'

  '– on a rock or something?'

  'I pushed a piece of wire into his neck.'

  I imagined it, the sharp end of an old broken wire hanger going into the soft part of Anthony's neck. 'And then what happened?' Involuntarily, I touched my own neck.

  'He started to bleed.' Lamar turned to look at me. 'Really fast. It was like all the blood in his body came out at once.'

  Oh, man.

  'Where was it?' I said. 'I mean, exactly.'

  'By the dumpsters,' he answered. 'Right between them.'

  It was late afternoon, and there was an almost imperceptible coolness in the air. Autumn was weeks away, but I could feel its approach, like an aeroplane about to land.

  'Are you going to go to jail?'

  He thought for a minute. 'First I'm going to go stay with my grandmother, and then there's going to be court.' Lamar threw some grass into the air. 'And then they'll send me to jail, I guess.' Then he looked up at me. 'Where's Benjamin?'

  I shrugged. 'I haven't been hanging out with Benjamin.'

  'Why not?'

  'Why Anthony?' I pictured that kid, his fat stomach, the way his eyebrows looked like two caterpillars crawling across his face. 'Why didn't you kill Benjamin?' I said, and then more softly, 'Or me?'

  Lamar started shaking his head back and forth, not like he was saying no, more like he was getting ready for something, like he was about to break into a run. 'I wouldn't kill you guys,' he said. 'You and Benjamin . . . you guys are my best friends.'

  Then autumn came just like I knew it would, and then the winter, and the next spring, and so on. There was a trial. At first there was a subpoena for me to go and tell them about what Anthony had said that day on the god-rock, about Lamar threatening to kill Benjamin, but then they said I didn't have to, after all. I never really hung out with Benjamin much after that. We kind of went in different directions. Lamar's family stayed just as they were, only Lamar wasn't there anymore. He went to live with his grandmother, and then was put into a state facility for young people who've committed dangerous crimes. I finished junior high, and then high school, and then, if
you can believe it, I was accepted to college on a partial swimming scholarship. After the whole thing with Lamar, my parents tried to get me into sports, thinking it would keep me out of trouble, and swimming was the only physical activity I could stand. I spent my whole first semester of college swimming and reading. I had a talent for the butterfly, it turned out. I was no superstar, believe me, but I placed third in the 500 metres a couple of times. And sometimes when I was swimming I would start to think of Lamar and how he thought we were his friends and I would stop, and I would have to get out of the pool and tell the coach I had a cramp.

  Anyway, when I came back for that first winter break my parents picked me up at the airport and drove me home. I saw him there, standing in the window. Lamar. Jesus. He was a lot older now, and taller. But he was still skinny. He was still the same old Lamar. He had his chest out and his fingers were kind of moving around in front of him, the way he had stood there when he was a kid and we were all playing in the yard, and he was watching. He had that faraway look. I couldn't tell if he saw me, because his eyes didn't move.

  I went upstairs and when I was unpacking I came across that charm bracelet, the one I had stolen from him when we were just kids. It was just sitting there in the back of a drawer. I hadn't looked at it in so long, and I noticed the little charms it had: the little train engine, the tiger, the sax, ballet slippers, monkey. One of the charms was an angel, one of those angels down on its knees with its hands pressed together in prayer. For some reason I thought of Lamar sitting that way that day in the backyard, tossing handfuls of grass in the air and telling me so matter-of-fact how he had killed Anthony.

  I threw the charm bracelet out the window.

  I remembered the feeling of my fist hitting Lamar's arm, knuckles in his flesh, and I remembered one particular Saturday morning – we must have been around nine or ten – when Lamar just lay down.

  'Go ahead,' he said. 'I don't care anymore. I don't care what you do to me.'

  Benjamin stood over him with his angry black hair and his mean freckles and his hands on his hips. 'What do you mean?' he said. 'Aren't you going to dance around like a scared little John Travolta?'

  'Why should I?' Lamar said smiling. 'You'll just catch me.'

  Fat Anthony chuckled, his stomach jiggling.

  Benjamin was confused, grabbing a handful of his own hair. 'Where do you want me to hit you?'

  'It doesn't matter.' Lamar was defiant. He presented his bruised arm to Benjamin like a prize.

  'I've been punching his arm,' I told Benjamin helpfully.

  'Yeah,' Anthony said, 'hit his arm.'

  'I don't know.' Benjamin tossed it off like he was turning down a dessert: 'I don't think I want to punch Lamar right now.'

  Still on the ground, Lamar rolled his eyes. 'Just get it over with.'

  'Yeah,' I said. 'Punch him.'

  Benjamin started to walk away, and Lamar rose to his feet, lifting himself up with that sideways smile on his face, the same smile he would wear a couple of years later when he gave me that ant farm.

  'Benjamin,' I said, 'what are you—'

  Suddenly Benjamin turned round. 'I'll tell you,' he said, hitting Lamar to the rhythm of his words, 'when' – punch – 'I will beat' – punch – 'the crap' – punch – 'out of you' – punch, punch. And he wailed on Lamar, fists like pistons, his face full of hate, punching his message home, and my own hate was in there with each and every punch – worse, because I was standing beside Benjamin, me and fat Anthony, standing there smiling idiotically, laughing and grinning and enjoying every second of it.

  And goddamn it if Lamar – it still kills me to think of this – if Lamar wasn't smiling, too.

  Man, the things we did to that kid.

  THE EASTLAKE

  SCHOOL

  Jerrilyn Farmer

  'Fix Mommy a drink, Megan.'

  My mom. She works so hard. She gets stressed. I looked at the kitchen clock. Four p.m. 'Do you want to wait a little?'

  'I'm dying here, pumpkin. Be a good girl.' My mom put her keyring down on the counter, the keys sounding all jangly upset.

  Our house has just been redone, by a quality architect, my mom says, but I'm still getting used to it. I tugged hard on the vacuum-seal of the built-in refrigerator to open the door. Arctic-Circle-type air rushed out as I grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke.

  'That's good,' she said. 'Why is your hair in your face?'

  I got out a crystal glass, tall and delicate, the kind Mom likes, and filled it with cubes. The Diet Coke splashed in, stopping at about three-quarters full.

  I looked up and noticed my mother's lipstick was smudged almost completely off.

  She must have read my mind or something. Maybe seen where I was looking. Her hand flew to her face. 'My lipstick?'

  My mother looks like a movie star. She's blonde and gorgeous. She has perfect skin, the perfect tan. She has a great figure. Incredible, actually. She's skinnier than any of my friends. She's really amazing, my mom.

  I went to the cabinet and found the bottle of Barbados Rum. I poured a lot in. Mom likes it that way.

  By then my mom had opened her little purse and found her little compact. She got very still, looking in that little mirror. 'I don't have on one single trace of lipstick.' Her voice had that stunned sound you hear when a guy in a movie suddenly notices the sky is filled with alien spaceships.

  I handed her the drink, setting it down on the counter in front of her on a fabric cocktail napkin that matched the lemon yellow of the tiles. Neat. Not one drop spilled. Mom needed a pick-me-up every afternoon. It was my job to fix it. She'd start drinking rum and Diet Cokes about four thirty every school day and keep on drinking until just before Daddy came home from the firm.

  'Aren't you interested in where I've been?' my mom asked. I have learned to decipher what my mom says as she twists her mouth in the application of lipstick. She quickly capped the tube and looked at me.

  'Sure.'

  'I know you've been depressed, darling. I know what it must feel like to be rejected by Eastlake.'

  My neck hurt. My wrist itched.

  'Honey?' My mom was so worried about me it made me feel awful.

  The Eastlake School. It was the most prestigious school in the Universe. It ran from grades seven through twelve. Not everyone can get in, though. They are famous for rejecting everybody. My application had been rejected and I have been working hard, hard, hard. At least three hours each and every night since kindergarten. And I get straight As. It doesn't matter to them. They get dozens of girls applying who get straight As. They get hundreds. Everyone around here wants their daughters to be Eastlake girls and Eastlake gets to choose. That's the way it is with the Eastlake School.

  'You've been very depressed, Megan, isn't that right?'

  My mom really didn't deserve all the trouble I brought. The arch in my left foot began aching pretty badly.

  'Well, your problems are solved. I just saw the Director of Admissions, Mrs Williams. She's agreed to move you up to the waiting list. See? And after Daddy talks to the Head of School, I'm sure they'll find a spot for you in their seventh grade class, after all.' My mother smiled a fresh-Chanel-lipstick smile and then raised her glass.

  I watched her drink. In a few seconds the glass wore the perfect outline of my mom's beautiful smile on its rim.

  The truth about my mother is she doesn't look old enough to have a twelve-year-old daughter. I'd heard people tell her that all my life, adding a year every time I'd had another birthday.

  'Did you hear what I said, Megan?'

  I guess I must be the most ungrateful teenager in America. Here my mother and father have been doing everything in their power to move me across the chessboard of my life towards their wonderful goals and I'm like some sort of imbecile pawn who doesn't even say thank you.

  'Thank you, Mom.'

  'You're more than welcome, honey.' She looked radiantly beautiful at that moment.

  'Do you think maybe the teachers there are kind o
f hard, Mom? Maybe . . .'

  'They'll love you at Eastlake. All the best girls go there. You'll have a wonderful time. You'll see. And look what I've brought you?'

  My mom opened her little purse and pulled out a jewellery store box. She opened the hinge and set the box before me.

  'Is this for me?'

  'Isn't it adorable. Try it on! We're celebrating you getting into Eastlake, silly. I found it at that cute antique store at the Plaza where they have all that funky old stuff and it just called out to me. It's got charms, see?'

  My mom is always super sweet like that. Always giving me gifts when I get down at heart. I don't have her cheery temperament. I don't have her naturally upbeat personality, so she gets me little gifts, she loves me so much.

  'Don't you adore it? Now why are you pulling so hard on your hair? That's got to hurt, Megan. Stop it, please.'

  I picked up the bracelet and let it dangle, clinking the charms together. One, a small gold puffy heart, glinted in the down-beam of the fancy recessed lights Mom had chosen with her decorator. I examined the heart more closely, noticing it had a tiny jewel, as Mom kept on talking about Eastlake and refilled her own glass.

  Along the edge of the heart I detected a fine seam. This was too cool. The puffy heart was a locket! I tried to prise my fingernail into the creased edge, but it just slipped off. It was no use. The locket was maybe welded shut. Totally stuck. And my fingernails are pathetic, really. My fault. I bite them – isn't that gross? Ugly nails. Ugly hands.

  Mom's voice: 'Honey, are you zoning out on me? I was talking about how you're going to have to do your part. Give Eastlake your best effort. You can do it.'

  'Mom . . .' I fiddled with the little heart, unable to open it, unwilling to let it alone.

  'Yes, dollface?'

  'Eastlake . . .'

  'Yes?'

  'It's a very tough school.'

  My mother held her drink between her two beautifully manicured hands and smiled. 'So you'll work harder.'

  You know how you can be fine one minute and then suddenly the next minute you find some dumb thing is happening, like tears are pouring out of your eyes? That's the sort of thing that happens to me all the time, lately. For no reason. And it began happening right then. Somehow, my face was just all wet. Lucky my hair was hanging down or my mom would have been really worried, wondering what was wrong with me now. I turned to get her more ice from the freezer and wiped my face with a dishtowel when she wasn't looking.