Beautiful Dead

by Eden Maguire

  “Kim Reiss called,” Laura told me when I threw my keys down on the foyer table and went into the kitchen. “She brought your appointment time forward to four thirty Monday afternoon.”

  “Do I have to go?” I groaned. “You have to know you’re throwing away your hard-earned cash.”

  Laura had paid for six sessions of therapy up front and no way would she let me wriggle out of Monday. “I believe it’s helping you come through the trauma,” she insisted.

  “Really? How can you tell?”

  Laura gave me coffee. “You don’t lie on your bed all day like you did right after the event.”

  As in, right after Phoenix died. Thump went my heart and I almost veered back out of control. I’d just left my Beautiful Dead boyfriend on Foxton Ridge with a distance between us and anxiety gnawing at my insides.

  Maybe Laura caught the look of pain in my eyes and her voice turned gentle. “You’ve started to go out more, Darina. And you give me a hard time, like you always used to—like you’re doing right now!”

  “OK, I’ll see Kim,” I agreed, because it mattered to Laura. But, most of all, I agreed because it took attention away from what I was really doing.

  On Sunday I got up early and headed to Logan’s place. “You look like you didn’t sleep,” Logan told me before I set foot through the kitchen door. His dad was still in bed. Logan was cooking himself eggs and bacon.

  “Thanks,” I told him, taking a glance in the hallway mirror. There were dark circles under my eyes, not helped by the smoky eyeliner and mascara I never left home without.

  “Do you want something to eat?”

  “No. Thanks.” I sat at the table, accepted a glass of orange juice, then plunged right in. “Tell me about your afterschool guitar classes with Frank Taylor.”

  Blue bacon smoke rose from the pan. Logan liked it crispy. “You want to improve your guitar?” he asked. “I can teach you.”

  “Sure, I want to improve,” I lied. “But I want to learn from a good teacher, Logan. I hear Mr. Taylor is in that category.”

  I’d lain awake all night, thinking of ways to get more facts on Arizona so I could move forward. Usually there would be friends I could go to and they would lead me to a whole network of information about who she hung out with, where she went on a regular basis, any secrets she might have kept. But Arizona had been so not the type to make close friendships, so that avenue was closed. Which left me with getting closer to her parents and the possibility of finding out more through them. So you see why I was quizzing Logan over his guitar lessons. And I was totally using my old friend, I admit. But no way could I tell him the real reason for my interest.

  “Frank Taylor teaches Spanish guitar,” Logan explained. “You sure you don’t want some bacon?”

  “Sure. Classical Spanish guitar is what I’m interested in. I already play electric—Jonas taught me, remember?”

  “So why don’t you let me teach you Spanish?” Logan wouldn’t let this drop. “That way we get to spend time together.”

  That’s why not, I thought. Logan was like one of those barnacle sea creatures that clamp themselves to the side of a boat. Sailors have to scrape them off. A year ago I wouldn’t have said this about him. Back then, Phoenix hadn’t come into my life.

  “Does Frank Taylor do his private coaching from the music college where he teaches?”

  “No, I go to his house.” Logan made short work of his breakfast. “Every Tuesday at six p.m. You should see it, Darina. I mean, compared with this place, even with your place, it’s a palace. They took pictures of it for Mountain Living after Mrs. Taylor brought in a decorator for a whole year. She had the entire place redesigned.”

  “I know, I know. So you go to his house,” I repeated. Good. My mind was made up. “Thanks, Logan,” I said, standing up and sneaking his last piece of bacon off his plate as I left. “I’ll call there after lunch.”

  Frank Taylor definitely didn’t need the money, so it must have been pure love of the guitar that made him sell his musical knowledge for a down-market twenty-five dollars an hour.

  I drove to Westra and pulled up outside the electronic gates of 2850 North 22nd Street. The Taylor house stood in a big expanse of lawn. It was built Dutch style with curved gables and low roofs, and a fancy carved porch on two sides. A gardener tended the flower beds, so I called to him. “Is Frank Taylor in?”

  The old, skinny guy came to the gate and shot me a suspicious look. “Who’s asking?”

  “I want to take guitar classes,” I said, without answering directly. Who was this guy, anyway?

  “That’s OK, Peter.” A tall figure walked down the drive toward us. I would put him at sixty years of age at least, and was surprised when he opened the gate and offered to shake my hand. “I’m Frank Taylor,” he told me.

  Wow, so Arizona’s father was a senior citizen! His shoulders were stooped, and his gray eyes were set deep and surrounded by wrinkles.

  “How did you know I give guitar classes?”

  “A friend of mine—Logan Lavelle—told me.”

  “Yes, Logan’s a good kid. He plays with solid technique but without much flair,” Frank let me know. “So come into the house—er…?”

  “Darina.” I followed him up the driveway. “I knew Arizona. We were classmates.” Better get that out in the open, I thought.

  “She never spoke of you,” he informed me stiffly. He held the door open for me. “Come in.”

  I stood in a foyer bigger than my entire house. The style was a mix of traditional and contemporary—polished wood and brushed steel surfaces combined, leather sofas big enough to seat a whole basketball team set against neutral beige walls.

  “Allyson, this is Darina,” Frank told the woman who stepped out of an inner room. “She’s the same age as Arizona would have been.”

  A shiver ran through me—for a second I thought I was looking at Arizona’s older sister. But then I took in the tooperfect, sleek blond hair, the careful makeup, and the frozen forehead with no frown lines and decided, no—Allyson Taylor must be Arizona’s mom. If I had Frank down as sixty, his wife could be no more than thirty-five.

  “Hello, Darina.” Allyson couldn’t have been less interested. She walked past me and her husband, right out the front door. “Frank, I’m at the studio if you need me.”

  “Where else?” He gave an exasperated shrug. “My wife works at a twenty-four-hour news channel,” he explained. “Come rain or shine, tornado or hurricane, that’s where you’ll find her.”

  I felt this was too much information, so I focused on the instruments as he led me into a room that was obviously his music space. Half a dozen guitars stood to attention against one wall. There were keyboards and computers, monitors and sound systems of every kind.

  “Are you a total novice, Darina, or do you have some musical knowledge?” Frank asked, sitting behind a desk like an attorney in a court of law.

  “I play a little.”

  He handed me the nearest acoustic guitar. “Show me.”

  I knew a James Taylor song that my dad taught me when I was ten years old, so I made a random choice, told Frank where I learned it, then fumbled through.

  “Like you said—you play a little. Do you know anything else?”

  “Some of the tracks from the Johnny Cash album at Folsom Prison.” How had I gotten myself into this? I was so embarrassed.

  “No classical? Your dad didn’t teach you to play like Segovia?”

  Was Arizona’s father making fun of me? I checked his expression and saw no sign of a sense of humor.

  Frank Taylor leaned back in his chair. “So, Darina, why did you really come to the house?”

  It seemed the Taylors were used to people snooping. After the Mountain Living feature they’d had a crowd of two-bit journalists beating a path to their door to take more pictures for their magazines. Then after the Arizona tragedy, her so-called friends crawled out of the woodwork—rubberneckers wanting to be close to the action. Or so Mr. Taylor told
me, and he’d right away put me into this category. “If you hadn’t mentioned Logan, I wouldn’t even have let you through the door,” he added.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  He stood and led me briskly back to the hallway, nearly causing me to trip over a designer settee. “I do—I did know Arizona. We were friends.”

  Frank Taylor was out of patience. “Like I said—she never talked about you. You never came here before today. Arizona’s been dead almost a year and there’s nothing more for you to find out, so I’m asking you to leave.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You haven’t,” he told me calmly as he opened the door and showed me out.

  The door clicked and I faced the long walk down the drive.

  That went really well, I told myself, looking out for Peter the gardener and expecting another dose of humiliation. Peter wasn’t around, but there was someone sitting in a summerhouse in the middle of the lawn—a boy stooped over a large pad of paper on his knee, so busy with his pencil that he didn’t notice me.

  I heard a door on the side of the main house open and Peter the gardener’s voice. “Raven, where are you?”

  The boy raised his head and, in what looked like an overreaction to the hired help’s question, stepped out of the summerhouse to make a run for it. He was maybe nine years old, with Arizona’s dark coloring and skinny build, but without any of the Taylor confidence—totally the opposite, in fact. He seemed scared, disoriented, not sure which way to run. He dropped his pad and paper on the lawn so I hurried across to pick it up for him.

  “Here,” I said, offering it back.

  I caught a glimpse of the line drawing he’d been making—a detailed, realistic representation of the big house, everything perfectly to scale, drawn freely as if the pencil had never left the paper.

  “Raven, I warned you not to leave the house.” Peter appeared round the side of the building. He saw me with the boy and walked sternly toward us.

  “Take your drawing,” I urged, pressing it into Raven’s hands. “It’s beautiful.”

  My words didn’t get through the deer-in-a-headlight look. He crumpled the drawing and stuffed it into my jacket pocket.

  “Come with me, Raven,” Peter said firmly. “Your dad was asking where you were.”

  “It was so totally weird,” I told Kim Reiss the next day. “I didn’t even realize that Arizona had a brother.”

  “Did you know her well?” My therapist seemed more interested in my relationship with Arizona than the mysterious Raven.

  “Nobody knew Arizona. She liked it that way. But even Arizona would let people know she had a brother, you’d think.”

  “Why does it bother you so much?”

  “The kid was scared. It felt like they were trying to keep him hidden away, and that’s not right.”

  Kim didn’t take her gaze off my face, like she was reading a road map, tracing the direction of my emotions and thoughts. “Maybe they have their reasons.”

  “And then there’s this.” I pulled the crumpled drawing from my pocket. “It’s the Taylors’ house, accurate down to every last pane of glass.”

  The piece of paper drew Kim’s attention. She nodded, then handed it back. “I wonder if Raven lives at home the whole time, or if he’s away at school.”

  “Even so—why the big secret?” It had bothered me all night and right through my school day. “And how come the house has been cleared of Arizona memorabilia? I didn’t see any photographs of her, and there were none of her things lying around. It was like she never existed.”

  “Maybe it hurts too much to have reminders on view. We can’t judge the Taylors for that.” Kim glanced at her watch. “Darina, we’ve spent a quarter of our time on Arizona’s situation and I was wondering if there were other topics you’d like to cover.”

  “Where do I begin?” I said with a grimace.

  “How are things between you and Laura?”

  “The same. She stresses, I back away. End of story.”

  “And your friend Logan?”

  “Ditto.”

  “And how are you handling your emotions over the loss of Phoenix?”

  “I get through the day,” I muttered. In the early sessions with Kim I’d spilled my guts—how I still saw Phoenix everywhere: in school, in town, every place I looked. She told me it was a normal part of grieving. She didn’t get it, of course—I meant I literally saw my Beautiful Dead boyfriend, materializing out of nowhere. That was before I learned I had to keep their secret and carry the weight of it around with me every living moment. So these days, whenever the topic came up, along came the rush of beating wings—Hunter’s warning to stay silent. It was happening now—the flurry of wings about to suffocate me if I opened up to my therapist.

  “You know something,” I said, standing up with a sudden jerk and making my chair rock onto its back legs. “I’m through here.”

  Kim’s eyes registered mild surprise. “You want to leave? Our session isn’t finished yet.”

  “It is,” I argued. “I only come because Laura set it up. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  The surprise smoothed out and was replaced by a calm, professional expression. “I hear you, Darina. I’m sorry you feel this way.”

  “It doesn’t help,” I cried. “Talking about Phoenix is too painful—you wouldn’t understand.”

  Kim stood up too. “Leave if you need to,” she said quietly. “But my door’s always open.”

  “Thanks,” I told her as the wings died down. I was out of there, period. And I wouldn’t be back.

  Which was a pity, because I really liked Kim Reiss. She and I talked the same language and she didn’t put any pressure on me. I could have gotten used to sharing with her.

  I spent the rest of Kim’s hour drinking Coke in a small diner out in the Centennial area of town, trying to convince myself not to go back out to Foxton until I’d discovered something useful for Arizona. Go home, I told myself. Get some sleep. Try again tomorrow.

  But I felt the pull of the place, especially when I pictured Phoenix walking that ridge, standing guard against snooping construction workers or any unwary hunting parties heading their way. I had an issue with him and we needed to talk it through.

  Go home, Darina! I insisted. What good will it do to drive out there in the dark?

  It was the roar of motorcycle engines that drew me back into the present as a flotilla of Harleys sailed into the parking lot. I recognized Brandon Rohr, Phoenix’s older brother, at the head of the group, and a couple of the other riders as guys who’d been at Bob Jonson’s wake.

  They dismounted from their bikes and strode into the diner, boots clunking, leather jackets creaking. For a while I thought Brandon wasn’t going to say hi but then he came and sat down at my table.

  One guy from the gang went up to the counter to order food. Like Brandon, he was in his early twenties—with Brandon’s machismo and then some.

  “Hey, Darina.” Brandon took his time to unzip his studded jacket and sling it over the back of his chair. “How do you like your car?”

  “Cool.” It was a pity I hadn’t finished my Coke and moved off five minutes earlier. Now I was tied into a conversation I didn’t want to have with Phoenix’s brother.

  “Hey, Kyle, meet Phoenix’s girl. Darina, this is Kyle Keppler.” Brandon introduced his buddy at the counter. “What do you know—talking with her is like getting blood from a stone.”

  “Hey,” Kyle grunted without even turning to face me.

  Brandon was on a roll. “I find Darina the best convertible around and all the girl gives me is one lousy word—cool.” He leaned across the aisle to draw in a couple of the other guys. “Byram, Aron—meet Darina.”

  I recognized Byram as the older rider who’d been kind to Zoey at Bob Jonson’s wake. “Stick with Brandon—he’ll take good care of you,” he’d advised me.

  I was practically drowning in male hormone. And, as usual, the physical co
nnection between Phoenix and his older brother overwhelmed me. It was the same gene pool that had given them their height and broad shoulders, their dark hair and crooked smile.

  I had a love-hate thing going with Brandon Rohr, and I always would. I loved him for the fact that he was Phoenix’s brother, hated him because he led the fight where Phoenix was killed. I would bet good money that it had been Brandon’s reputation that set up bad feelings between the gangs in the first place. Not that I had any proof—only a mass of conflicting information and my own suspicious mind. So, even though Brandon was finding me cars and taking care of me because Phoenix asked him to with his dying breath, it was more hate than love if I’m honest.

  “You wouldn’t know it, Darina,” Brandon said, putting his arm along the back of Kyle’s chair as Kyle sat down next to him, “but you and my buddy here have something in common.”

  I doubted that, and the look on my face told them so.

  “Hear me out,” Brandon insisted, keeping me firmly on the hook. “The thing you share is—you both lost someone close to you.”

  I looked down at the table, trying to block out his voice.

  “You lost Phoenix; Kyle lost Arizona.”

  I looked up with a start. “You mean…” Kyle was a million miles from Arizona’s refined type—he was beefedup, blond-haired, and, like I said, twenty-plus. His fingernails were chewed. “No way.”

  “You bet,” Brandon said. “It’s a year and Kyle’s still secretly broken up over her. They were together longer than you and my brother, for Christ’s sake.”

  So now there was a boyfriend and a brother I didn’t know about. Thanks, Arizona!

  It was getting late, but I left the diner and drove out to Foxton anyway. The first stars appeared in the sky, along with a new moon over the neon cross on Turkey Shoot Ridge. By the time I reached the end of the road and set off on foot toward the water tower hidden among the aspens, I couldn’t even see where I was putting my feet.

  “Shoot!” I tripped against a rock and scraped my shin. Next time, wear jeans, I reminded myself. A short skirt didn’t cut it in these conditions, neither did pointy shoes. And bring a flashlight, I added.