Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  Momentarily clear-eyed, I saw the heart. No longer plaster white, it had turned a deep red. And it wasn't my imagination. It was heavier, weighing my hand down.

  Cry your heart out, Millie whispered.

  And I did.

  I cried for Dad, because he'd never sit in that stupid rowboat on that stupid lake playing his flute ever again. And I cried for me, because I loved him and missed him, because I hadn't been there to say goodbye when he'd died, and because there are some things you never get a chance to fix. My body rocked with ugly, hiccupping sobs that hurt both coming and going. I sank to my knees, clutching the plaster heart to my chest, and bawled. My nose ran, my face got raw and puffy, and my throat hurt. I cried until the last tear wrung itself free, leaving me exhausted and drained. But also lighter, like I could breathe again, even though I hadn't realized I'd been drowning before.

  Maurin was right. Shutting away my grief hadn't made me strong. It had hollowed me out, sucking away everything but my misery and guilt and resentment. Another realization, I hadn't wanted to cry for Dad, hadn't wanted to let myself mourn because a part of me, beyond any logic or sense, still clung to the hope that he was coming back. Like if I could just show him how strong I could be, that I was sorry for how I'd broken down before, he'd come back. But he wasn't. And nothing I did was going to change that. Accepting that released me from the load of guilt I'd been carting around, and I felt better--still sad, but at peace.

  The heart throbbed in time with the pulse in my ears. I knew what to do, clear as if I'd read it out of an instruction manual. Guess I am a bokor.

  I picked up the knife and slipped its point into the "X" on Maurin's chest. Easier than peeling an apple, folding back those flaps and opening his chest. Nothing to get squicked about, really, more like opened flower petals than Hellraiser. I laid the gently beating heart into the emptiness, and it fit just right. Voodoo magic.

  I closed him up and watched the seams disappear. No more X-marks-the-Maurin.

  I took a breath, and Maurin's chest rose and filled. I took another, and tears spilled down his cheeks. He opened his eyes, astonished, and the next breath he took was his own.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "It was the only thing I had in my heart."

  "Non, non, ti bokor. Grief is good. Good to share, good to let go. And I have much to mourn. Mèsi." He took my hand. "Mèsi bôcou."

  "Dèriyin," I said.

  He smiled through his tears. "You are en quick study, I see."

  "I hope so. I was sort of hoping you'd teach me--"

  "Voodoo?"

  "Yeah, that too. But actually, I was hoping you might teach me how to play the gudi."

  Maurin's mouth quirked. "Ki? Who has told you I can play?"

  "Can't you?"

  "Non."

  "Then who--?"

  Don't ask silly questions, dear, Millie said.

  The Center of the Universe, by Eugie Foster

  With a class numbering only seventy-two, my high school reunions were more like family get-togethers. The class of ‘83 was a demoralizing family though, filled with peers like distant cousins who knew me when I was gawky and spastic, excruciatingly self-conscious in my metamorphosing skin. I’d avoided them — classmates, reunions, my estranged family — easy to do when I lived four states away. But, as with other family gatherings, it was death that brought me back home to my twenty-year reunion: Marc’s funeral.

  His mother, a woman I remembered as an intensely assertive homemaker, had phoned me three days ago. They’d found him on some quiet side road, a 9mm bullet propelled at high velocity through his brain. Nothing missing, no signs of struggle, but no gun either. A stumper to the fine officers of Concorde, Indiana, and a nagging riddle to me. But I’d finally learned that I couldn’t solve every riddle.

  I hadn’t spoken to Marc in over five years, our communications limited to vacuous holiday cards and Spartan emails. Another page of my past turning over, I was set to observe it without even a cursory bookmarking. But as I searched for a sympathy card in my cluttered home office, I stumbled across the small stuffed bear Marc had won for me at a county fair once upon a time. I wasn’t prone to superstitious fancies, but it made me nostalgic. Didn’t I owe Marc this last goodbye?

  Still, I couldn’t help feeling exasperated as I booked my flight that he’d chosen this, of all times, to get himself killed.

  Reunion evening, seeing Natalie again didn’t bother me as much as I’d expected. I suppose it really couldn’t have; I’d have suffered a dual aneurysm and stroke if it had.

  Natalie had been my first true love affair. She’d been eighteen, I a precocious seventeen. We started out best friends as freshmen, our lockers next to each other. With my mother all but certifiable and Natalie’s greater age and world experience, she became my mentor, confidante, lover, and yes, even mother-figure.

  How I adored her. I’d only recently been able to admit to myself that I’d never gotten over her, never been able to move on despite a string of girlfriends, lovers, and even a life-partner. In the end it was always the same; they couldn’t measure up to the standard Natalie had set over two decades ago.

  I hesitated in the doorway. Natalie had her back to me. She’d gotten fat. Not just fat, obese. She wore a sleeveless black dress with a tiger batiked on the hem. A longer, cheetah-print underskirt completed the jungle motif. It wasn’t flattering. Her arms were exposed from wrist to shoulder, white and doughy with dimples that framed her elbows.

  It was petty, the relief I felt. A part of me had expected her to be unchanged. Though she had never been willowy, her figure had been lush and ripe, supple without being flabby.

  Her hair was short too, cut below her ears. I’d always liked it long — the stream of relentlessly straight chestnut-brown fanning out behind her on a pillow or as a shimmering curtain at her back. She had taken to wearing it short after graduation.

  Bethany Campbell spied me lurking in the shadows.

  “Kimberly! Kimberly Harris, isn’t it? I’m so glad you could make it.”

  She grasped my hand, half to pump it, half to tug me into the old student lounge. “You look exactly the same! I wouldn’t believe it’s been twenty years.” She handed me a self-adhesive nametag and a blue marker.

  “Thanks.” She was being kind. Despite monthly trips to the salon to re-tint gray roots, annual whitening touch-ups at the dentist, weekly yoga, aerobics, and step classes to keep the thickening waistline and slowing metabolism in check, I looked my age.

  I scribbled out my name and plastered the sunny label to my suit jacket.

  “We missed you at the other reunions,” Bethany continued.

  “I moved out of state.”

  “I’m glad you could make it this year.”

  “I’m in town for a funeral.”

  “Oh.” Bethany’s cheerful patter died away, which had been my intention. I liked her, but we’d never been close. Now she reminded me of a cheek-pinching aunt with her garrulous small talk and overbearing friendliness.

  “I’ll let you mingle,” she said. “There’s soda and wine.”

  “Thanks.”

  Bethany pulled me into a fierce hug. “I’m really glad you could make it.”

  It rocked me, this impulsive touch. Since Faye and I had split, I had drifted in an orbit of remote acquaintances and standoffish co-workers. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had hugged me.

  Off-balance, I wasn’t ready for Natalie to turn around. The line of her nose had elongated and widened, becoming beaky where it had been distinctive. The tapered curve of her chin submerged into puffy flesh bulging under her jaw. And her eyes were huge, brown pools behind wire-rimmed glasses. I’d never been able to convince her to try contacts. In her eyes I saw the young beauty I remembered, lost in the folds and flab of a clumsily aging body.

  “Kimi,” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Neither of us moved. In high school, Natalie had shown me with her easy exuberance how to take joy in casua
l touches: friendly hugs and linked arms. Now we couldn’t even shake hands.

  “Marc was my friend too,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just you haven’t been to the last two reunions—”

  “I live in New Jersey,” I said. “It’s not exactly a ten-minute drive like it is for you.”

  “Concorde is a good place to live.” Such belligerence in those words. Like old times.

  How often had she railed against Concorde and filled afternoons with dreams of escaping the sleepy town to ports bigger and wilder? “I won’t die in the same place I was born,” she’d vowed. And here she was, securely established in Concorde, while I was the one who had broken free.

  But I wasn’t there to pick a fight. “Concorde is a nice town,” I said. “I’ve lived in worse.”

  Maybe she didn’t want to fight either. “What have you been up to?” she asked. “Haven’t heard from you in forever.”

  I shrugged. “I got my MA in Psychology and then dumped the whole thing when IBM offered me a job as a systems analyst.”

  “How did that come about? I thought you were really into psych.”

  “I was. Still am. People, motivation, behavior — it’s all fascinating. I got tired of the politics and games at the university. Didn’t think I could stand it for another two years to get my doctorate. Started taking some programming classes instead. The pay is good, even with the IT bust.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, my degree turned out pretty useless too.”

  “What was it again? Global Justice and Strategic Studies or something like that?”

  “Global Peace and Strategies, yes.”

  “I never understood what that curriculum was about.”

  “Neither did the people I sent my resume to.” She laughed, a rueful, good-natured bray. “Basically it was Economics, Sociology, and Poli-Sci all bundled together, with a big dollop of cultural philosophy tossed in. Now I answer phones and help Luddites print their email. In the name of global peace, of course.”

  I grinned. “Of course. You still living with Eliot?”

  “Actually, we got married.”

  Obviously, I hadn’t been invited to the celebration of their union, and I was irrationally hurt I hadn’t even received an announcement. But Natalie had called marriage a worthless institution. She hadn’t come to the commitment ceremony Faye and I’d had, but then she hadn’t approved of Faye either. Another something to let go of.

  “It was a real shock getting that call from Marc’s mom,” I said. “I’m astonished she even had my number.”

  “She asked me for it.” Natalie chewed her lip, a habit she had when she was feeling uncomfortable or guilty. She wouldn’t look at me either, her eyes drifting over my right shoulder towards the buffet table. I recalled a bit of trivia from psychology class: most people looked leftward when they engaged the creative hemisphere of their brain — fantasy, imagination, and lies.

  What was the lie? That Natalie had asked Marc’s mother to call me? That would be like her, too proud to reach out to me and pressuring someone else to do it.

  “She was pretty incoherent when we spoke,” I said. “I didn’t want to ask for details. What happened?”

  “No one’s sure.”

  “The police don’t have any leads or suspects or anything?”

  “Not without the gun. They looked for it, but you know how the Concorde cops are.”

  They’d been the butt of many teenage jokes. “I can’t believe they’re still such fuck-ups.”

  “Believe it. And get this, the police came around our place and grilled Eliot and me for a couple hours.”

  “You’re kidding. They thought you had something to do with Marc’s shooting?”

  “Not really,” she shrugged, “But they freaked us out and got off on it. You know how it is.”

  And I did. I laughed at the absurdity of it; I couldn’t help myself. “You thought they were busting you for drugs?”

  She pressed her lips together, furious. “You haven’t changed a bit. You’re still a spiteful bitch.” Natalie spun away, striding to the buffet with quick, jerky steps. She filled her plate with pastries and chips.

  I had no enthusiasm for the rest of the reunion. I made my rounds, spoke to old classmates, met their spouses and children, and left.

  Our high school had been on the border of the university campus. A laboratory school, it shared many of the facilities and resources of the big state university, including a preponderance of cheap hotels.

  My hotel room was bright and loud, the raucous sounds across the hall bleeding through the cardboard-thin walls and the lights from the parking lot seeping through the flimsy curtains. Last year’s hit movies didn’t interest me, nor the piped-in nudie videos.

  I put on jeans and a loose sweater. Blue and violet, dark colors, bruise colors. They suited my mood.

  My rental car grumbled to life in the chilly October air. I didn’t bother with map or destination. I couldn’t get lost in Concorde. I’d grown up here, ridden my bike through the streets and thoroughfares, hiked barefoot through backyards and golf courses, and clamored over fences and walls.

  I circled the university campus, doing grid laps up Main Street, across College, down Center, and over University. The height of weekend entertainment, townies and students alike driving in circles, stopping in the middle of the road to gossip and giggle with a cavalier disregard for stoplights and traffic laws.

  Phantom voices: Natalie and Eliot in the backseat, hitting off a fat joint before passing it to Marc, riding shotgun. Marc furtively waving the smoke out the window before passing the toke to me at a red light. Looping around campus in a giggly haze. And when I was too high to drive anymore, pulling into the parking lot of the Museum of Natural History.

  I found myself in that barren lot, the single streetlight casting more shadows than illumination on the old brick and stone building. The heater wafted hot, dry air over me, comforting as happy memories.

  This had been our favorite hangout place, away from parents, safe and clandestine. We came here to get stoned, come down, make out, but most of all, to be together. We’d called it the Center of the Universe.

  I turned off the ignition and got out. There was only one way into the Center of the Universe. I slung my purse over my shoulder, better to free my hands.

  The fire escape ladder was overhead, out of reach, but not the diagonal wall support. I jumped, grabbed hold, and half-shimmied, half-swung myself up. I’d done this in stiletto heels, drunk and high, and a couple of times tripping on LSD or ’shrooms. I wasn’t young anymore, but I remembered. The riskiest section was the first part; you were the most exposed. After you reached the ladder, the shadows and the foliage protected you from random passersby, or less random campus police.

  I scaled the rungs, pausing halfway at the second floor landing. Four stories in all, not a great distance unless you were climbing the outside of a building, supported only by slender metal bars.

  It was so ingrained it felt like instinct: don’t look down, never look down. I was afraid of heights. Yet, up I went, guarded by the spreading oak tree, its leaves still abundant this early in autumn. I’d had to conquer my fear every time.

  At the top, another moment of exposure as I slipped over the ledge. Then the walls were guardian, shield, and sanctuary.

  Above me was exhilaration. I remembered this sky, the clear, crisp vista from the roof. I’d seen it lying on my back on blankets smuggled from home, watched the sunsets, the stars, the moon. I’d gotten high beneath this sky, made love beneath it, and been happy once, all under that vast openness.

  On winter nights, when there was snow or frigid chill, or when we were too buzzed to climb back down, there was the attic, a little storage area with stark, wooden studs interspersed with insulation. We had to duck our heads or get tangled in cobwebs. Eliot, with his six foot two inches, once banged his skull on the slanted whitewall hard enough to bring down a rain of debris.

  It wa
s the heart of the Center of the Universe.

  The metal door creaked when I pulled on it. The university hadn’t fixed the lock. Did they even know the door, this attic, existed? It opened to familiar darkness, windowless and deep.

  I stepped in, letting the door close behind me as I breathed the musty air. Dust, mold, old beer, and pot smoke, just as I remembered it.

  In the darkness, I only knew my eyes were open by the absence of eyelashes brushing my cheeks. It was a comfortable pressure, familiar as a tatty flannel shirt. Memories like shadow shapes grew out of the emptiness, spurred by the familiar scents.

  I envisioned the catwalk that led to an alcove. Marathon Dungeons and Dragons tournaments there, the silence broken by faint strains of music from Natalie’s boombox: The Police, INXS, Depeche Mode, U2. Conjured by memory, the wailing guitar opening of “Synchronicity II” throbbed, punctuated by the clatter of plastic dice. We’d hung blankets like curtains and piled sleeping bags stolen from the storage closets and basements of our parents on the wooden floor. Milk crates swiped and furtively lugged up for tables and a few ragged throw pillows completed our nesting. It was drafty in winter and sweltering in summer, but it was ours, our Center of the Universe.

  For light, we’d bought a candelabra at Big Lots and filled it with rainbow-hued candles. In retrospect, it was probably a miracle we hadn’t burned the place down. Eliot stored his bong here, enshrined in its own milk crate with various drug fixings: balloons and dispensers for nitrous, lighters, chips and gum for the inevitable munchies.

  I had my first real kiss here. Marc and I, fumbling to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

  Marc had been my oldest friend — red-haired, freckled, and lanky. We met in third grade after I transferred in from a different district. It was an age when boys lost status in their mysterious schoolyard hierarchy if they were seen fraternizing with girls, and girls were cruel and malicious to newcomers who read books and disdained polo shirts and designer sneakers. By third grade, cliques were carved in granite with pecking orders fixed as eternity. I was a tomboy and an outsider, immediately branded a freak, destined for years of solitary elementary school hell.