I rolled out of bed and hunched over the mirror. Last night’s makeup had gone south. I took my eye makeup off and then reapplied my lipstick, slowly, methodically.
“Take it easy with that thing,” Fleur advised.
I stuck my tongue out at her, and looked at my reflection. Gaudy me. The lipstick was too much. And it was too early in the morning.
Sarita swung her feet over the bunk and announced, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.” She said it as though she really had tried to commit suicide.
“My life is over,” I murmured. I was thinking about Nevermore and about my mother and how she wasn’t scared and she’d closed her eyes. Then I remembered where I was, and my admission felt like a slip. The concerned glances from Fleur and Sarita sent me rushing to protect myself. I camped it up. “My life left on the ten thirty bus.” I waved my hands around my body. “This that you see is but a hollow shell.”
Fleur groaned. “You two should be onstage.”
Sarita whispered, “Yes.” She held up her prayer rock and kissed it, then she tossed Roslyn’s shroud at me. “Here—you need this.”
“Ta.” I blotted my lipstick on the shroud and wedged it in the corner of the mirror.
Sarita opened her mouth and closed it, then opened it again. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” she repeated.
I threw my pillow at her. “Stop saying that!”
The three of us took sleepy steps toward the shower block. Anyone watching us would have thought that we were great friends. We stood languidly in the line. We were less guarded than other mornings, and chatted amiably, spontaneously, about nothing. Someone had forgotten her toothbrush. Someone else had forgotten to flush. The steam rose up from the showers and carried with it the scent of peach shampoo. The hot water supply was on the spaz. Someone kept dropping the soap. We shook water from our ears and put dry clothes on over wet legs. We raked our tangles with our fingers and when Roslyn blew the breakfast bugle we dashed across the plain. The order of the day was same-same, but for some reason everything felt different.
At breakfast the Honeyeaters were buzzing. Dylan scattered his town booty across the table. Bird cast me a meaningful look and patted one of his vest pockets. Fleur popped a lozenge. She pinched her throat and made a fruity “Me, may, ma, mo, mooo.” The twins dismissed their All-Bran and ripped into their chocolate. They passed the bar around. I hesitated when it came to me. I was waiting for Fleur to say something snide about comfort eating, but she was warbling away, oblivious. I took a piece. Dylan passed me a paper shopping bag. “This is yours.”
Inside it were the tools that would transform Sarita, and something else—a bamboo-covered book.
“What’s this for?” I opened the notebook. The first few pages had rough sketches of flowers on them. I looked from the pictures to Dylan. “It’s not—,” he started to say, then threw up his hands. “It’s just a book.”
“Um. Thanks.” The night before came back to me. Dylan’s hand on my thigh.
Sarita banged her cup on the table with a force that surprised us all. “Honeyeaters, I must have your attention.” She was sitting stiffly with her clipboard propped in front of her. “Honeyeaters, I am floor-managing the talent show. Thus far we have only two entrants. This is dire. I want to know: what are we going to do about it?”
“Sarita!” I grinned. “You’re so forceful!” Something had unleashed her big-balls sleep-talking voice. I liked it.
Sarita went pink. “Roslyn has agreed to let us spend The Word planning the shebang.” She checked her clipboard. “Craig and Fleur are singing, and Lisa and Laura are performing a liturgical dance. Who else?”
Bird put his hand up. “I could do birdcalls again.”
Ethan and Richard groaned.
“Brilliant.” Sarita wrote his name down.
“I could do a striptease,” I suggested.
There was a moment of silence and then the table erupted into laughter. Even Ethan and Richard joined in.
And then I was laughing too. I felt high and . . . unified. I didn’t have my bunker book with me. I wasn’t scoffing. I was participating.
“Oh, my goodness!” Sarita spluttered. “I don’t think that would go down very well with the parents.”
“It was a joke, Sarita.”
Dad and Norma. As far as they knew I was rappelling and canoeing and group-hugging and cultivating a hot chocolate/He Is Lord habit. I tried to scowl. I wanted to keep my anti in check, but a smile kept creeping back.
Craig moseyed over during the last wave of mirth.
“What’s so funny?” he wanted to know.
Dylan looked at me. “You had to be there.”
Fleur quickly put her bitch back in gear. “Hey, Riley,” she called out. “Do you want my roll?” She sent her plate spinning toward me. Richard’s face lit up. “Have mine, too, Riley.” He pushed his plate forward. “Go on, girl’s gotta eat.” Ethan mirrored his friend’s move. I had bread coming at me from all quarters. I was unprepared for this attack, but I hadn’t reckoned on Sarita. She lunged forward and emptied her fruit salad over Fleur’s head.
Fleur’s face—what we could see of it—went white. She peeled a fried egg off her plate and flung it at Sarita, who managed to duck just in time. The egg landed on Roslyn’s palm tree head sunny-side down. I heard gasps and laughter and then the room fell silent as if catching its breath. Moments later a random Bronzewing kicked back his chair and hollered, “Food fight!” and then the sky above the mess hall was thick with buttered buns and bacon shrapnel.
Sarita and I used our trays as shields. We ran blindly through the battlefield, shrieking all the way. Outside we collapsed on the spidergrass.
“Sarita, that was beautiful.” I gripped my stomach. My sides hurt, my face hurt, everything hurt, but it also felt mad wild good. Sarita sat up. She bubbled with pride. “There is always a food fight at camp. But this is the first time I have been an instigator.”
I laughed. Sarita looked crazy. She had fried egg sideburns and the ink of delirium in her eyes. She said, “Something is happening, Riley. I’m going tropical.”
I clucked my tongue. “I think you mean troppo.” I put my hand on her forehead. “You’re crazy from the heat. You’d better lie down.”
Sarita lay back down and spread her arms and made snow angels in the grass.
33
Involved
The Honeyeaters had to clean up the mess hall. I’d just picked up a sponge when I heard my name over the PA. “Riley Rose and Dylan Luck, please report to Neville outside the rec room.” I never liked my name until I heard it next to his. Riley and Dylan, Dylan and Riley. Our Ys and Ls had a pleasing assonance. Dylan winked. I threw down my sponge. “I can’t believe we don’t get to clean!”
Neville was wearing a smug smile and a green mohair cardigan. This morning’s badge said Holy Roller. We saluted him and he stamped his heels together. “This way.” We made our way to Fraser’s house. Neville stopped at the recycling cage to grab some flattened cardboard boxes. He loaded us up and spooled Dylan’s arm with two rolls of packing tape. He paused at the door, dangling a thick bunch of keys. “Come see paradise.”
Fraser was more than a packrat. He was a crazy-man hoarder. Every inch of his three-room cottage was covered with cans, food packaging, flyers, newspapers, clothes, and curiosities like spindles and specimen bottles and eight-track cartridges. Neville carved a path for Dylan. He started assembling the boxes, tearing off tape with his teeth. After he’d exhausted his he-man antics he cleared his throat. “Riley, Dylan. Your task is to get this house in order. These boxes are for clothes. These boxes are for books. These boxes are for knickknacks. Any papers can go in the recycling, and general trash can go in those garbage bags. Questions?”
“What do you classify as a knickknack?” Dylan queried.
Neville sighed. He picked up an ancient Matchbox car and slapped it in Dylan’s palm. “Use your discretion.”
“Where’
s it all going to go?” I asked.
“Charity.” Neville looked around at the mess almost belligerently. “Fraser didn’t have any family. He had a kelpie, but the dog went mad around the same time he did.”
“It was the desert,” I whispered melodramatically.
Dylan went, “Shhhhh!”
We shivered at the possible presence of ghosts.
“But Neville,” I whined. “We’re going to miss The Word. I was really looking forward to helping plan the talent show.”
“You were going to get involved, were you?”
I smiled bright and fake. Dylan guffawed.
Neville turned to him. “You too, huh?”
Dylan blanched.
“Gotcha!” Neville’s grin only lasted a second. “Now get to work,” he growled. “And see what you can do about this dust.” He stabbed the air with a newly blackened finger and stalked out the door.
“Well,” Dylan said. “I suppose we should work on our dance routine.”
It was his defeatist voice that made me flare up. Was it so ludicrous to think that he might be able to do something, anything?
“Nice. FYI, people in wheelchairs can dance. I saw a show in the city once. For school.”
Dylan tutted and looked away.
“Actually it was good,” I went on. “It was called Dance with a Difference. The dancers were all in wheelchairs, but not all of them were . . . you know . . . disabled.”
“Hate that word,” Dylan muttered. “It’s so retro.”
“The audience didn’t know who was or who wasn’t, and in the end it didn’t even matter.”
Sky—the patchouli lit teacher—had taken the class as part of a workshop on “expression.” Afterward she was all, “Who has the handicap? Ask yourself that.”
I considered telling Dylan this, but when I looked at him he was busy Vogue-ing, Madonna-style. His face was frozen in an exaggerated wink. Next he had a finger in his dimple and coy glint in his eye. Next he’d seen the face of death, and was spooked to all eternity. With each look he used his hands to frame his face appropriately. It was his “startled indignation” complete with fingertips on nipples that got me giggling.
“You should do that for the talent show.”
“I should rise from the chair and do Cossack dancing,” Dylan countered. He folded his arms and nodded like a demented Russian.
“Hmm.” I tried to be serious, but the image was too funny, and even Dylan couldn’t keep his scowl straight.
34
The Story of February 2
Fraser’s books were old and battered and really, really read. Some had leather covers and gilt lettering; others were barely bound. They were mostly science, religion, and natural history. I gasped when I saw the same copy of Utopia as the one Chloe had given me.
“What?” Dylan spoke around his cigarette.
I held it up. “I have this book.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve seen you reading it. What is it?”
“It’s good. You should keep it.” I tossed it to him. Dylan ducked and Utopia landed on the dust bowl. He picked it up. “Always throwing things at me.”
I looked at him. “Are you even going to help?”
“What can I do?”
“Clear out those papers.” I pointed to the desk. “And nix the cigarette. This is tinderbox country.”
Dylan was miffed. “You know, we don’t have to do this. Neville only put us here because he doesn’t know where else to put us.”
“I know.” I pulled down a handful of books and started stacking. “But I tried to take the low road, and look where it got me. If I don’t keep busy I’ll go nuts. I never thought it would be so difficult to just leave.”
“How hard is it? You’ve got legs.”
“Ha-ha.” I stopped stacking. Something had occurred to me. It was obvious, but I wanted to hear it from him. “Were you trying to leave?”
“I’m always trying to leave,” Dylan said.
“Here?” I was confused. I drew a circle in the air to signify Spirit Ranch.
Dylan pointed to his head. “Here.”
That was when I asked him how it happened.
He smiled for a long while. “You took your time.”
“Okay.” Dylan started slowly. “This is the story of February second. This guy Brett invited a few of us up to his parents’ farm. We were going to make a no-budget horror movie, then we found the beer. I’d never been drunk before. Really. I had a bit of a thing about it, like My body is a temple. But everyone else was . . . doing it . . . so.
“After we started drinking, the night had no order. I can remember lying out in a field and everything looked soft. I remember trying to out-stare the cows. I fucking hate cows. And then we all had a go on the tractor. I tried to do a donut. Stupid. I remember this noise—like a wave crashing over my head. And the sky and the ground came together. When it stopped rolling there was this silence and then there was just like . . . a flood.” Dylan opened his mouth and I heard white noise, the roar of a soccer crowd, the sound of a shell. “I remember the ambulance driver’s breath smelled like bananas and Brett’s dog wouldn’t stop barking. I thought the reason I couldn’t move was because I was stuck under the tractor. But then they got me out and I still couldn’t move.” He squinted and shook his head.
I swallowed. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow,” Dylan echoed. “And just before it happened I saw a shooting star.”
“Really?”
“Nah.” He smiled briefly and counted off. “Two months in the hospital, then four months in rehab, then back home with ongoing physical therapy. The doctors do this pinprick test—‘Can you feel that?’ ‘No.’ They go higher. ‘Can you feel that?’ With me the pin stopped here.” He sliced his hand into the top of his thigh. “I’m what you call incomplete. My spinal cord wasn’t completely severed, just partially. In mutard that’s a good thing—it leaves you some wiggle room. If you’re complete that means there’s no going back.”
My words were out before I could stop them. “Oh, Dylan.”
He gave me a funny look. “Don’t cry for me, Argentina. It was my own dumb fault. I’ve been living with it for ten months, twelve days, and seven hours. I’m almost used to it. Sometimes, usually first thing when I wake up, I forget. I go to get out of bed like I used to, and then I remember and it’s like a blind coming down or a slap around the head.” Dylan clapped his hands, and the sound echoed throughout Fraser’s house.
35
Crazy People
What would you have learned? Neville had asked me. That first morning at Fraser’s house I was getting a different kind of education. I learned that:
1. Domestic cleaning may result in mirth;
2. Only crazy people write things down;
3. Last summer, Dylan touched Fleur’s breast (the right one).
Fraser had gone for a horizontal-over-vertical stacking system, so it took most of our time to break down the wall of books. Right at the back, there were two shelves of uniform black notebooks. I flicked through one. There were maps and diagrams and equations. Fraser’s handwriting was cramped. He was big on underlining and spiral doodles. I passed the notebook to Dylan. He opened it up a crack and then slammed it shut as if it was cursed.
“Have you seen the movie Seven?” he asked me.
“I can’t watch anything with Brad Pitt in it,” I said. “He’s too smug.”
“He’s not smug when he gets his wife’s head in a courier box.”
“Mmm.” I wasn’t really listening. “It shits me how everyone’s so beautiful in the movies. The whole world wants to pay money to see beautiful people doing bad things. It’s sick. Brad Pitt gets paid a fortune just because he has good genes.” I shrugged. “He collects art. He makes films about people dying in Tibet or wherever and then spends thousands on a painting that some guy made by spraying paint out of his bum.”
Dylan gave me a strange look. “You know a lot about Brad Pitt.”
“My mom bo
ught those magazines. Used to. Also, I hate the way you never see fat people on the screen unless they’re white trash or retarded or a criminal or all of the above. A fat girl on film is either there for laughs or to gross people out. Unless the film’s about the fat girl’s ‘journey’ to social acceptance through weight loss. Where’s the happy fat girl? That’s what I want to know. Hmmph.”
“Okay, you hate movies.” Dylan smiled. “What do you actually like?”
“Huh?” I was supposed to have a pithy “personals” answer. I like sunsets and romantic walks on the beach and eating my own toe jam.
I could say I liked trouble. Or whatever Chloe had lined up for the weekend. Actually, I liked reading, but that was my secret—I didn’t do it around Chloe. I used to read with Dad, but he hadn’t cracked a book since Norma—all they read was the back of food packaging. Then there was drama. I used to put on mini plays with Mom. I know she hoped I’d eventually study it, but the future was a long way away and all bets were off. Plus, it wasn’t cool to be passionate—every geek in the library knew that much. Once I used to wish it were the Middle Ages so I could run off with the traveling players. Now I just wanted to run. Mom said that words changed when you spoke them out loud. I had no words for Dylan. But he must have known I was feeling sketchy, because he didn’t press; after a few beats of silence he simply breezed back to Seven.
“What I was going to say was that the killer in Seven has notebooks just like these, row upon row upon row.” He paused to give me the crazy eyes. “Only crazy people write things down.”
Everything Beautiful Page 11
