by Anna Roberts
“Wait,” said Lehman, and Gabe forgot how to breathe. “Hands on your head.”
Oh shit. Here it came. Of course it would be Charlie who got him the lethal injection, and he hadn’t even killed him. Ironic, considering how often he’d wanted to.
Gabe waited for the cuffs, but instead he felt Lehman’s hand on his...ass? For a second he thought life had taken a further strange turn into gay porno land, but then out of his peripheral vision he saw sunlight glinting on plastic. Lehman, with a cop’s keen eye for a baggie, must have spotted the samples. Gabe turned his head enough to see the other man holding up the bags, squinting at them in the sunlight.
“Is this hair?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Turn around,” said Lehman. He had the look of a man who thought he’d got everything figured out, which was a worry, since he didn’t have even the faintest beginnings of a clue. Warrants come next, thought Gabe. Warrants and searches and the whole house and truck turned inside out from top to bottom. He was well and truly fucked; he had a cage in his basement, for God’s sake.
“Would you like to tell me why you have bags of human hair in your pocket, Gabe?” said Lehman. “I’m assuming it’s human, right?”
“Yes,” said Gabe, and it was like some kind of idiot savant instinct took over and made him tell the truth, because he had nothing in the way of excuses. “It’s a DNA thing. We were looking into Blue’s...uh...grandparents, I guess. Since she had no idea who her father was.”
“Okay. So if we test this we’ll find that the individuals represented in these samples –”
“ – were related. Maybe. Yeah.”
“Maybe?”
“That was kind of the whole idea of testing them. One is Blue’s and the other’s –”
Lehman held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah. I think I get the picture now. Someone had to inherit the house, right?”
Oh, he was so wrong that it was almost beautiful. He thought this was some kind of grift. “Gloria’s place?” said Gabe. “Why would I want to inherit a shitbox house with terrible wiring and the beginnings of rot in the basement. I’m fully licensed scuba instructor; I can make my own fucking living.”
“And yet you’re driving around in your buddy’s truck with a busted tail-light,” said Lehman. “And little Miss Blue is gone with the wind. Whatever scam you guys are pulling, you clearly got stiffed, Gabe.”
“So what? You gonna arrest me?”
Lehman waggled the baggies. “Nah,” he said. “I think we’ll test these first. See where that takes us.”
“You do that,” said Gabe, hardly daring to believe that this conversation might be coming to an end.
“I will. Don’t leave town. It’s gonna be a whole lot worse if you do.”
“I won’t,” said Gabe, with every intention of doing so. As he watched Lehman’s car roll away he tucked his fingers into his back pocket. The photo was still there, thank God. He had an unsettling feeling that Lehman would recognize it.
*
There were times when she felt as though she was alone in her head again. Did fetuses sleep? She wasn’t sure. Blue was too young to have given much thought to how this would go for her, but now she thought there should be books – big, colorful, coffee-table books full of photos and illustrations and things to expect at every stage of pregnancy. Then the sequels, the ones that tried to soften the unexpected for what every new parent in the world told you there was no real preparation for. A hazing ritual of colic, croup, meningitis scares and ear infections, sleepless nights and screaming, like they were trying to make up for those nine months of silence.
Maybe they did sleep. Maybe that was why they were so eager to stay awake when they arrived.
The first thing, she knew, was that she had to guard that one place in her head, that lizard-brained corner where Yael couldn’t quite hear her. He was good at wants; human yearnings called to him like a siren song, but human needs not so much. He thought you ate because you wanted to, not because you needed to. Perhaps he didn’t understand flesh well enough to pierce that simple part of her brain, the one that registered hunger, thirst, the need for sleep; she didn’t know. All she knew was that there was a part he couldn’t reach, and that would be her salvation. It was the one place she could retreat from him and figure out how to end his life.
The road whipped by. White line fever, wasn’t that what they called it? Where you just zoned out and floated along on autopilot, the opposite of all that modern mindfulness. Mom had plunged into that for a while, taking it up as a kind of cheap alternative to cognitive behavioral therapy. Blue pictured her clearly, standing at the sink scrubbing saucepans with the blank, patient expression of a Buddhist monk. It hadn’t helped; nobody – least of all someone as sick as Regina – could go through life being absolutely in-the-moment all of the time. Some moments you had to be absent; if you tried to be present in them you’d lose your mind and never get it back.
Like this one.
He didn’t know roads. He wasn’t that big on directions. He was still grappling with such physical concepts. Maybe, if she turned around and drove fast she could be headed back to the Keys before he knew what was happening.
And then what? Back to the house? Because trying to contain him there had worked out so well before.
Deep down she knew why she wanted to turn back, a want so desperate that she shoved it to the back of her mind, in case Yael should catch hold of it and use it against her. She never dared even say his name in her head, but every now and again there would be a flash of memory – all the more vivid for being forbidden – the texture of his fingertips, the dark of his eye, the silky skin of his instep under her toes.
She put her foot down to ward off want, but just the echo of it was enough to stir Yael from sleep or whatever it was he was doing in the tiny, stolen body nestling inside of hers. We’re like the world’s creepiest set of Russian nesting dolls, she thought.
You and me, and baby makes three, said Yael.
“He’s alive?”
He’s me. I’m me. So maybe it’s just the two of us now. He giggled and began to hum.
“If you start singing again, I swear to God –”
- I’ll make you blind again.
“You won’t,” she said, with a confidence she didn’t feel. “You need me to drive you where you want to go.”
Operative word being want. I want to go to New Orleans. I don’t need to. I could just as easily come to life in the state of Florida, if I’m not already judged to be living already. That could be interesting.
Interesting. As in ‘may you live in interesting times.’
You got that right, Baby Blue. I could put you in a coma, for example. And you know how precious the Sunshine State gets about coma patients, even when there’s only a sad, soup-for-brains husk involved. Imagine if there was innocent, unborn baby me inside that husk; the right to life crazies would just about shit. I’d be famous.
“There’s no need to threaten me,” she said. Her spine felt like ice. “I’ll do as you say. Just let me pull over a while; I need a bathroom. Besides, I’ll need a rest stop soon. If I get into a car wreck then so do you.”
Fine, said Yael, and sighed. She hated that more than anything; his sighs hissed at a frequency that made the inside of her skull itch unpleasantly.
You know what’s really disappointing?
“No. But I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
I always thought you’d be more interesting. But you’re not. You’re just a bundle of needs.
“Most human beings are,” she said. “You’ll have to get used to that.”
Hmm. Maybe. Tell that to that last one who let me ride around in her head. Now, Gloria. There was a witch who knew how to show a ghost a good time.
*
A bar somewhere. Sometime. Art Deco mirrors and sconces. Middle aged women with Marilyn Monroe hairstyles sip delicate stemmed cocktails. Their men laugh and smoke so much that Blue – without even touching – ca
n feel the thin film of exhaled tar that clings to the bar fittings and the well-scrubbed tables. It’s this more than anything that lets her know she’s once again looking into the past, even though Dean Martin is smoochy-slurring out of a hidden speaker and the clothes look like something from the tail-end of the Kennedy administration.
“...thinking of buying a vacation place, but then there’s all the Cubans...”
“...wouldn’t mind if they’d only speak English. It’s not that much to ask, is it?”
But it’s all out of time somehow, and Blue hears the tune in Gloria’s head and understands why. It’s 1967 but Miami never left the fifties, and Gloria went out ahead. She’s combed out her blonde hair and put on a blue dress, but she’s thirsty, drunk off her ass and the song in her head won’t leave her alone. White Rabbit. Alice is back in town, looking for a little bottle that says ‘Drink Me’.
She sees herself in the mirror. Red lips, blonde hair. Looking Veronica Lake enough for a backwards joint like this one, but if she looks too closely she can see him burning under the surface. Blue sees it, too – like the way Yael left Charlie torn at the seams and peeking through the gaps – only with Gloria it’s more than just Yael. It’s the white rabbit and the freak song and the terrifying thought that she could be free in this brave new world. She could grow her hair, buy a pair of granny glasses, drop acid and just be one more weirdo in a world of happy oddities.
Except you don’t just leave your baby alone in the world. Not when there are things like Yael around.
The bartender has the beginnings of little jowls, reminding her of Richard Nixon, who even Maury admits is a downer. She speaks clearly and slowly, trying to sound sophisticated and sober, just a woman waiting sedately for her date. “Hi. Can you make me a mai tai?”
Obviously it doesn’t come out quite right, because the bartender hesitates. She’s about to say please, to beg him not to throw her out and force her to go do her drinking at home, because the kid is just about crawling out of his crib and it’s giving Yael all kinds of horrible ideas.
“It’s okay. She’s with me.”
There’s a man standing there at her elbow. White shirt, white teeth. “You’re running late, honey,” he says. “Didn’t think you were gonna show at all. What’ll it be?”
“A mai tai,” says Gloria, slurring her drink order back at the bartender. Fucking Miami. So prehistoric around here that you had to have a man on your arm just to be allowed to get drunk in public. And the man in her head is no help. He’s still humming Jefferson Airplane and whispering that if she just gave him what he really wants then she could do whatever the hell she wanted. Go anywhere, do anything. Fuck it – run all the way to San Francisco or whatever it is the kids are doing these days.
Kids. She’s only twenty-two herself, but Miami makes you middle-aged. At least all the Cubans pouring into town are young. A bit of life, a bit of energy. Deep down she knows she’s more in step with Yael than she wants to admit; you can’t be satisfied playing the princess when you’re really the big bad wolf.
“I’m married,” she says, when the bartender is out of earshot. “Happily ever after.”
“Good for you,” says Mr. White. “So there’s nothing improper about me buying you a drink.”
“Not a thing.” It’s the tiniest little flirt, but it’s enough to make Yael snort and hoof the dirt, the way he always did when she sneaked a boy home. He loves flesh so much that it scares her; when she was pregnant with Wes he all but danced at every kick and hiccup.
“So where is the husband?” says Mr. White. “Overseas?”
She should be so lucky. No draft for Maury; he had rheumatic fever when he was a baby and it weakened his heart, or so Ma Blanchard says. Deep down Gloria knows Maury will outlive his mother, and probably her, and even the baby. He’s just that type of person, good at hanging around when he’s no longer useful.
“He’s around,” says Gloria. “Like always. He took me to the Keys, you know.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It’s not,” she says. “I grew up there. It’s a shithole with a handful of decent beaches. How excited can you really get over seawater and sand and a couple of palm trees? Seen one beach, you’ve seen them all.”
He smiles and nods. Her drink arrives and the bartender gives her a beady look, but fuck him. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have to drown out Yael all the time, not now that Yael’s restive. The kid cries too often and Maury says he’s tired, or has a headache. That’s supposed to be her line.
“So what’s your name, honey?” says Mr. White, and bares his teeth again when she tells him - “Like the song.” He’s looking for a good time, no questions asked, and she guessed it only thrilled him the more when she said she was somebody’s wife. Men are so goddamn predictable.
Along comes his friend, with horn-rimmed glasses and sleeked back hair. He looks her up and down, asks her name and then asks if she has a friend. For him.
He’s thinking of a brunette, or a redhead. Anything but the little friend howling inside her skull. Yael wants fun, and what Yael wants Yael gets, no matter how hard she digs her heels in and tries to thwart him. “I don’t need a friend,” she says. “I’ll fuck both of you, if you want.”
Only the words come out too loud and everyone looks at her, and that’s that for the mai tais tonight. The bartender asks them to leave.
It’s dark. The music rises. White Rabbit – feed your head. Only the thing in her head has an appetite like no other, and he’s licking his chops at the promise of pleasure. He’s like the red shoes; he’ll make you dance until you die.
Blue sees a drinks tray in a smoky room. The song wails on as Gloria reaches for one bottle after another, mixing something green as poison in highball glasses. The blue dress is already on the floor; beneath it she’s wearing a slip of the same color and her figure is ripe and lovely, a Fifties shape rather than the skinny flowerchildren currently in vogue.
“Russian vodka,” she says, playing to her audience. The two men sit on the sofa opposite, smoking and waiting. “Creme de menthe.” She brings out the last bottle with a flourish. “And this,” she says, swaying to the music. “Absinthe. All the way from Paris, France. This is the real shit, boys. Wormwood. Drink this and you’ll see the green fairy. Or the blue fairy. Or any fuckin’ fairy.”
“Funny,” says Hornrims. “But we’re here for you, hon. We’re not doing each other.”
Gloria clicks her tongue. “And there was me thinking you had a sense of adventure.”
“We’re good boys,” says Mr. White. “Wholesome, all-American.”
She laughs and hands out the drinks. “Aren’t we all?” she says. “Would you believe all I ever wanted was the house, the husband, the white picket fence?”
They don’t. Obviously. Sometimes she hardly believes it herself. She raises her glass. “Bottoms up, babies.”
The men sip and sputter, unused to the kind of eyewatering drinks that bored witches cook up in their kitchens when the husband’s snoring and the kid’s out cold.
“It’s...um...yeah. Wow.”
“I call it a green goddess,” says Gloria. Her ear – tuned to a parent’s frequency – picks up a low whimper behind the music. It’s the kind of noise he makes when he’s filling his lungs for more, and she doesn’t have the time for this shit right now.
“Drink up,” she says. “Gotta go powder my nose.”
She takes the vodka with her, and closes the door behind her, her heart beating strangely. Oh God, she’s so drunk, but she needs this. Anything to keep him quiet. His room is just down the hall and she can hear him moaning, the kind of whine he sets up when he doesn’t know what he wants, but he wants her anyway, just because.
Gloria opens the bedroom door. It’s dark inside, but there’s enough light to see that the model airplane hanging from the ceiling is circling like a stunt plane about to crash. She sees the bars first, then his fists as he pulls himself up. His face is wet and snotty and she k
nows she’s supposed to wipe it, but she digs her toes into the rug, the better to keep herself standing in place.
“Go to sleep,” she says.
“Momma.” He’s all square mouthed and scrunch-eyed, settling in for a marathon bawling session. Even from across the room she can smell shit, but she’s in no shape for this. Not tonight.
“Go to sleep,” she says, once more.
He howls, and the hurt and the rage in his little voice should be the worst, but it’s not. Not like the voice in her head.
“Stop it, West,” she says. “You know damn well there’s nothing I can do.”
This time he yells like he’s on fire, and all she can think of is those men in the other room. If he doesn’t get what he wants...
She closes the door, goes to the kitchen. The room spins horribly and the pan clatters as she takes it out to fill it with water. She shushes it and that makes her laugh, but it’s a thin, nervous laughter, touching on the edge of craziness. The bottles are in the fridge where she left them, all made up. They just need warming, and a little something more.
Gloria unscrews the nipple from a baby bottle. She reaches for the vodka...
*
...”Nice try,” said Blue. “But if you wanted to paint her as the Wicked Witch of the West then less is more. She didn’t do that.”
She did, too, said Yael. I told you. There’s no better teacher of monstrosity than a mother.
“You forget,” said Blue. “I actually knew her. She was a drunk, salty old lady. And yeah, she could be mean, but never so evil that she’d willfully neglect her own child or murder her grandmother. You’re not nearly as good a liar as you think.”
And you never knew Gloria like I knew Gloria. It gets worse, Baby Blue. It gets much, much worse than this.
4
It was raining again. The signs said Tampa.
They have a zoo there, with red wolves, said Yael. Florida wolves. Not gray – red. Red wolf, blue wolf, black wolf, white.
