What seemed to feed the rumor was that the company had paid all of Dennis’s medical bills. But why shouldn’t they? Dennis had been an intern there when he got sick.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Missus Graham told Claire after she answered her knock at the door, “but Heather’s already left for school. She didn’t think you’d be going today.”
Why would she think that?
“It’s no big deal,” Claire said, turning and heading back down the Pepto-Bismol-colored steps.
She ran into Deirdre on the next block over. Dee’s face was red and she sounded out of breath. She also looked surprised to see Claire. “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Look, my arm’s all better!”
Dee gave her a confused look.
“Sorry,” Claire said. “I forgot to tell you. The day the mugger attacked me, he scratched my arm and it got infected, but it’s all better now.”
Dee pulled Claire’s arm up and stared at it for a moment. Then she yanked Claire’s other sleeve and compared the arms. She looked puzzled. Pleased, of course, but puzzled.
“I don’t see anything.”
Claire shrugged.
“Speaking of the mugging,” Dee said. She stared at Claire’s arms a moment longer, almost distractedly, then finally let them drop. Her face was etched with worry. “It’s happened again. I got another message.”
For a moment Claire had no idea what Dee was talking about. Then it hit her: her phone; she was supposed to have called the police to report it missing. Damn it! Her parents were going to kill her if they got a huge bill.
“Claire, did you—”
“Sorry, Dee. I forgot. I was sick all weekend. I haven’t been myself. But I’m all better now.”
“Yeah, well…maybe you should’ve stayed home today, too. You look like death warmed over.” She looked down at the arm again, shaking her head and frowning.
“I’m fine. And I’m obviously alive and kicking. Now, what’d the message say this time?”
“It was another warning.”
“Let me guess: Pay ransom or else I’ll dump your phone into the river?” Claire snorted. Why was she feeling so snarky all of a sudden?
Dee scrolled through her messages, then held the phone up so Claire could read the screen.
She looked up sharply. “Trevor? But…how do they even know about him? And what the hell does that mean, ‘vengeance’?” Her eyes widened suddenly and her hand shot to her mouth. “Do you think whoever mugged me was at the funeral? Maybe they followed me home from The Hut last Thursday.” She gasped.
“A stalker? I doubt that. Why would anyone want to hurt you? Except for maybe an ex-boyfriend or two. Or…ten.”
“Screw you, Dee.”
“Sorry.”
“Shit. You’re right, as usual, Dee. I should’ve listened to you and called the police.”
Deirdre gave her a smug look, but then quickly erased it from her face. “Oh, so now it’s suddenly a big deal. Before, when it was about me, you were like It’s no big deal. But now that it’s about Trevor you get all upset!”
“Of course I’m upset! I was upset before, it’s just that I was sick! Look, I have to tell the police about this.”
“Now? You can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Uh, school, silly bones. We’re already going to be late.”
Claire frowned. “Fine. I’ll go after school, then.”
And she would have, except by then she was already dead.
‡ ‡ ‡
“Mrs. Fontaine?”
Yes?
“Is this Claire Fontaine’s mother?”
Yes. Who is this, please?
Claire closed her eyes when the nurse looked over at her, worry etching deep lines in her face.
“This is Helen Dunn, the nurse at Claire’s school. No, she’s…okay, but she passed out in phys-ed this morning and she says she’s not feeling very good. To be honest, she doesn’t look too good, either. She says she hasn’t eaten anything in a couple days. Do you know if that’s true? Um hmmm. Is she…? Not anorexic? Are you sure?”
No, I’m not anorexic! Claire screamed inside her head.
What had happened had been totally embarrassing, fainting like that during soccer. She was certain the internet was already buzzing with cell phone pictures and video of the episode by now, but she didn’t care. And that was the strange thing about it: she honestly didn’t care.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Well, then maybe she’s dehydrated,” Nurse Dunn was saying. “Yes, circles under her eyes; pale, dry skin. No. She doesn’t feel hot. In fact… I tried to take her temperature, but my thermometer wasn’t working, I guess. But just by feel, I can say with some certainty that she doesn’t have a fever. She felt quite…cool to my touch. Cold even. Oh, and she said she threw up last Friday… You didn’t know that?”
The nurse glanced over at Claire, then turned her back to whisper into the phone. Despite being on the other side of the room, Claire could hear her perfectly well. In fact, she could even hear her mother speaking on the other end of the line, which seemed a bit strange. Maybe the nurse was hard of hearing and had the receiver volume turned all the way up.
Come to think of it, everything seemed louder. And brighter.
“I asked her,” the nurse whispered, “if she might be pregnant. She insists she isn’t, but… Do you know if your daughter is sexually active?”
Claire felt her anger rising. It’s none of her damn business! Yes, her parents knew she’d had sex. They didn’t like it, but they trusted her to be responsible, and she was. There was no way in hell she could be preggers.
Unless…
No! Of course not!
She could hear her mother groaning on the other end of the line.
“Your mother’s coming to pick you up,” the nurse said, startling her.
“Sorry?”
“Let me have your arm.”
“My arm?”
“I’ll take your blood pressure while we’re waiting.”
Claire nodded and began to lift her left arm before remembering it was the one that had been scratched. Even though it looked perfectly fine, it still felt strangely numb and stiff. She’d thought it was getting better.
Maybe I’ve had a heart attack. She remembered once hearing something about how some heart attack sufferers had pain or numbness down their left arm. She held her right arm out instead, and thought, I’m too young to have a heart attack.
“Is this new, Claire?” Miss Dunn asked. “This cut here beneath your elbow? It looks fresh. Maybe when you fainted out on the field?”
It looked just like the other one had right after she’d gotten it. She lifted her left arm. The skin there was clear, unblemished. But, no, they weren’t identical, after all. The first scratch had been deeper than this one was. The edges of the new scratch were puckered, but not purple. It had apparently bled very little, and it didn’t seem to hurt at all. Claire shook her head. Miss Dunn tsked while she wrapped a bandage around it. When she was done, she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around the whole thing and pumped it up.
“That hurt?”
Claire shrugged. “No.” In fact, it didn’t feel like anything.
After placing her stethoscope in her ears, Miss Dunn opened the valve to begin releasing air.
She repeated the process twice more, each time furrowing her brow deeper and deeper. She muttered something and went digging in her desk.
“Nothing’s working today,” she grumbled, reaching for Claire’s wrist instead. “I’m sure you’re fine. Just sit tight and wait for your mom.” But after a moment, the look on her face grew even more troubled.
No, Claire thought to herself, not troubled. Miss Dunn looked absolutely terrified.
She was thankful when the nurse finally left her alone again. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Her lids felt dry and sandy, and the light in here was so damn bright and was getting brighter by the minute.
“You’re not purging again, are you?” she asked, and Claire turned her head and gave her mother a wicked frown.
“Don’t you mean am I pregnant?”
“Are you?”
Claire huffed, shaking her head dismissively at the window before turning back.
Mrs. Fontaine blinked slowly, almost calculatingly. “I’ll drop you off at home, but then I have to get back to work.” She kept quiet after that.
She made Claire drink a glass of Gatorade before letting her climb up the stairs to her room. The muffled sound of the car backing down the driveway came to Claire as she lay on the bed with her arm draped across her face, but about a half hour later, her stomach rebelled and the Gatorade came gushing back out. She’d only barely made it to the toilet this time—missing the bowl just a little and splashing the bright red liquid, darker now and thicker with old bile and stomach acid, over the side. But she felt a lot better afterward. At least some of the drink had gotten into her bloodstream.
She crawled back to bed and lay down again, but as tired as she was, sleep teased her, staying just out of her reach. Restless and anxious for some unknown reason, she sat up. Then, remembering the nurse’s look when she’d tried to take her pulse, Claire decided to check it herself. She knew if she was dehydrated, or had an infection, her pulse would be racing. But no matter where she checked—her wrist, her neck, her hand over her chest—she could not find a single beat.
What the hell is going on?
No pulse, no heartbeat. She remembered the nurse’s frustration: no temperature, no blood pressure.
I’m dreaming.
That had to be it. In her dream, she stood up and walked to the mirror. Her eyes had sunken even further in their sockets, and her skin had an even deeper pallor to it. Her hair was a mess. She knew her heart should be racing in panic right about now, but it wasn’t. She felt calm, at peace.
She pinched herself—hard—but there was no pain. So, she really was asleep and dreaming.
Except she knew she wasn’t.
The truth stole into her mind like a midnight fog: she was dead.
No! That’s crazy.
She reached up and, before she realized what she was doing, she had torn a long gash into her face. The skin on her cheek opened up, but it didn’t bleed. She spent a moment inspecting it with almost clinical detachment, pulling apart the edges and poking around inside with a number two pencil. There was no pain. She found it more fascinating than frightful. She almost laughed when she found she could stick her finger all the way into the wound, straight through it and into her mouth. She poked her tongue out and wiggled it, and this time she really did laugh. She pushed her finger between the muscle until her nail reached her cheekbone. She pulled on the muscle; it came away like rubber. The bone underneath was smooth and hard, and it glistened a dull pink. But it still didn’t bleed.
This is insane! her mind screamed.
And yet the scream sounded as if it was a million miles away. Like an echo of a scream coming in a dream she’d had long ago. Then, another memory, this one from much more recently. She bent down and dug around inside her backpack until she found the medicine Heather had given her. She read the prescription label—nothing unusual about it—then peeled it away.
For research use only. Not for use in human diagnostics or therapeutics.
The company’s logo was clear in one corner.
She popped open the bottle, flicked out a couple of the pills, then dry-swallowed them (and hoped they stayed down). Finally, she squeezed a dab of the ointment onto her new wound. Almost immediately, the edges began to draw together. The pale tone of her skin began to turn a healthy pink. She almost put the tube away, but then, thinking better of it, she began to slather her entire body with it, beginning with the rest of her face.
When she was done, she went back to her bed and sat down. She checked for a pulse. She waited like that for a long time, finger over the soft spot on her wrist. Finally it came, weak at first, then growing stronger.
When the phone rang at three-thirty, she let it go to message. She knew who it was: Dee.
At five, she got up and went back to the mirror. The circles beneath her eyes were gone. The scratch was gone. Her skin had assumed a much healthier pallor. She could feel the pounding of her reborn heart beneath her breast. She took a breath.
It was time to tie up loose ends.
‡ ‡ ‡
She didn’t know if Trevor would be at The Hut. Call it a woman’s intuition. Call it supernatural. But when she arrived there, he was.
“I was hoping you’d show up,” he said when she walked in.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
His smile faltered. “I heard about what happened in school this morning.” He searched her face, but she knew the only thing he’d see there was her pure, flawless skin, shining in all its unnatural radiance. “Are you okay, Claire?”
“Who are you and where did you come from?” She grasped his hand, expecting it to be just as cool as hers, and was surprised to find it warm. The heat infused her. He pulled her over to a booth.
She asked, “Would you like me if I was ugly?”
Something crossed his face, and he laughed uncertainly. “What do you… What are you talking about? You’re gorgeous. You’ll never be ugly.”
She smiled thinly. “But beauty is fleeting.”
He held her face in his hands. “Maybe. Which is why we have to enjoy it while we can, right?”
“That seems shallow.”
You should know.
He leaned away from her, pushed his uneaten froyo from him and closer to her. “Sorry, it’s mostly melted. I’m not hungry.”
Claire shrugged, not surprised that he wasn’t eating. “I’m not hungry, either.” She realized she’d never be hungry again—in fact, just the idea of food made her stomach churn—and it saddened her in a disaffected sort of way. All the wonderful foods she’d once enjoyed, they meant nothing to her now.
But she still had her beauty. As long as she had the medicine, she’d be able to have her beauty.
They went instead to the movies and found one that had just started and even though she couldn’t remember the name of the film two minutes after they bought tickets, she knew it didn’t matter. They went into the darkened theater and found seats near the back and held each other’s hands and stared at the screen as their unseeing eyes found only each other.
She felt him lean over and his lips brushed her ear and a shudder passed through her, a real shudder in her otherwise unfeeling body, and the electricity from that touch spread through her as fast as light, as full as sound. It was warm and resonant.
“I can’t wait for the senior dance,” he told her. “It’s corny, I know, but I never imagined I’d ever have a chance with someone as perfect as you, Claire.” He paused, and she could feel his breath on her cheek, on her neck, and she closed her eyes. “From the moment I first saw you—
“In The Hut?”
He paused. “I feel like I’ve known you much longer.” He shook his head and laughed. “I’m full of corniness today, aren’t I? But from the moment I saw you, I knew I had to do whatever I could to make you mine. I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way.”
“That’s skull-diggery,” Claire murmured, contentedly.
“Excuse me?”
“Shhh,” she purred, and they went back to looking at the moving, but not watching it.
“I love you, Dennis,” Claire whispered
sometime later. She wasn’t sure he’d heard her.
“I love you, too, Claire.”
And then she knew. Her eyes flew open and she knew. She pulled away.
“Claire?” Trevor asked as she struggled to get up out of her seat. The film was still playing and she felt stiff and achy. Her stomach was doing all sorts of flippity-flops—probably from the smell of Trevor’s popcorn—Dennis’s popcorn. He hadn’t touched it. “Claire, where are you going?”
“To pee,” she told him in a mild panic. But after the theater door closed quietly behind her, she headed away from the ladies’ room and toward the front door.
To Heather’s house.
‡ ‡ ‡
“I know about Dennis.”
The look on Heather’s face was unreadable.
“I know what you did to him. And now you’ve done it to me.”
After a few seconds, Heather pulled the door open and stood back. “You better come in.”
She led Claire down the darkened front hallway toward the back of the house, then down the steps from the kitchen and into the cellar.
“Sit down,” Heather said.
Tucked in a corner of the unfinished basement was a workbench, a refrigerator, a long, low cabinet. The doors were closed and Claire wondered dully what they might hold. Heather gestured to a folding chair leaning against the far wall.
Claire crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. She didn’t feel like sitting. “I left Dennis at the movie theater,” she said.
In the meager light of the single bulb dangling from the ceiling, Heather’s face took on a yellow, waxy sheen. Claire could only imagine how bad her own face must be looking, since she’d left her medicine at home. She could feel the familiar achiness returning, the skin starting to strain against its microscopic seams. The scratches on her arms were beginning to reappear.
“First off,” Heather said, her voice hard and unforgiving, “Dennis is dead.”
Flawless, a Claire Fontaine novella Page 6
