“Is it true that heroin comes from a flower? The same one they give out on Veterans Day?”
“Almost,” he said.
“And is it true that it used to be medicine?”
He nodded and rubbed his hand over his cheek where stubble was growing in, making his whole face darker. So science and doctors were wrong. It was disappointing. How could regular people get it right if people as smart as doctors or scientists were wrong?
“Will it work?” she asked. “Whatever you’re doing in here?”
Her father was quiet for a long time, staring at the scuff marks on the ceiling where Leo had bounced a rubber ball too many times.
“Come on,” he said. “If I sit for too long, I’ll lose the nerve.”
From Lorraine’s front porch, Gia’s house was dark except for one missed light in Nonna’s old apartment. She wanted to be away before Eddie pulled up again.
“Can I stay over? The exterminator’s coming.”
It was a stupid lie. Why would one come on a Friday night? And there wasn’t a truck out front. It was the first time Gia had been back since, and now she wasn’t sure she could sit in Lorraine’s room again, same as usual, without thinking of that stupid dress on the bed. Those shoes stacked neatly. She was thankful when Lorraine took her purse from the hall closet.
“Fine, but I was about to go out.”
“Can I come?”
Lorraine hesitated. Out used to mean makeup and hair spray, perfume and small purses, but Lorraine was skinnier now, the bones in her face more defined, the rest of her hidden in a baggy flannel shirt that might’ve been Uncle Louie’s once. She looked like she was ready for the flu, not a night out. Guilt washed through Gia again. Maybe it would be better to hide in Nonna’s apartment for the weekend instead.
“I guess, but it’s not your thing.”
“Why?” Gia anchored her toes in her sneakers, forcing back the sting, because she couldn’t go home.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Fine,” Gia said. Anything was better than staying here alone again with Aunt Diane, who called out quietly for Louis.
Lorraine took the glass from Aunt Diane’s hand and put it on the coffee table. “No, Mom, it’s me, Lorraine.” She closed the blinds and shut off the lamp, spread a blanket over her mother. This dance between them was so personal that Gia inched closer to the porch, a new sadness sitting in the pit of her chest at how lonely it was.
The air was refreshing. A yellow leaf drifted toward the ground. People were eating dinner. TVs and radios humming along. A new wash of people came off the train. It was Friday. Tomorrow they’d sleep in and mow lawns after bagels and coffee, but tonight was for bowling or movies, dinner out. Gia had forgotten what Fridays used to be like now that her parents dreaded them for Leo. They turned onto Cross Bay Boulevard and waited for a bus toward Rockaway, which made Gia even more curious about where they were going.
A car sped past, full of teenagers, with the windows rolled down. A boy leaned out, pumping his fist and screaming into the race of wind. A few months ago, she’d been with Ray, Leo, and Tommy, doing the same thing. Now everything was different.
“Is this OK?” Gia asked about her outfit, hoping for a clue about where they were going and wanting to break the silence that used to be comfortable but wasn’t anymore.
Lorraine shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter.”
Gia smoothed her pants and tucked in her shirt, pushed her hair behind her ears as the bus pulled up.
The sun was setting as Broad Channel came into view. The houses jutted into the water on stilts, everyone inside probably fishing from their living room windows. Crab traps were tied to the moorings, and everyone had little fishing skiffs meant for early morning before the water got crowded. They got off at the next stop. Lorraine turned a corner at the Legion Club and kept going, past an empty lot with a chain-link fence and stacks of old tires. Never once had Gia been inside any of these houses.
Lorraine turned down a walkway to a single-story house hidden behind shrubs, and Gia was disappointed it wasn’t on stilts. There wasn’t a front porch, just a faded red door with chipped paint and a wind chime made of beach bottles. The stoop was a mosaic of broken plates, uneven under Gia’s sneakers. Inside, a pile of shoes was gathered by the door. The air was spicy, like the buckets of cinnamon pine cones outside the supermarket in October.
The orange light at the end of the hall drew them forward. Lorraine pushed aside the beaded curtain and stepped into a room of pillows. A side table had metal pots, bowls of rice, and stacks of flatbread; the floor was littered with tambourines and bells, and a tiny accordion sat next to a table of plants with long, viny arms growing over everything.
Lorraine picked a spot in the corner, but Gia could not move. Where the hell were they? And how, how, had Lorraine found this place? It was unnerving how comfortable Lorraine was, crossing her legs on the pillows and closing her eyes in a room full of strangers where Gia was easily the youngest and everyone else was the same age as their parents, or at least older than Lorraine.
One of them stepped forward, a woman wrapped in fabric.
“Welcome.” She smiled, holding Gia by the elbow so she couldn’t dart, smelling like a spice rack. The whole thing was kind of welcoming in an unexpected way, more than Aunt Ida’s or even Lorraine’s. The woman didn’t ask Gia’s name or why she was there, just led her to a pile of pillows next to Lorraine and told Gia to make herself comfortable.
There was too much happening: People whispered softly, someone poured water from a pitcher, and a stick of incense curled a smoke ribbon into the thick air, making her faintly nauseous. A woman had a small dog wrapped to her chest with a scarf. Gia pulled at the tassel on her pillow, where a parade of blocky elephants was crossing. The room was not full, but it closed in as everyone found their places, forming a circle that, like it or not, Gia was part of. The boys would’ve had a field day, ripping into this whole place. Lorraine found a cult. She could almost hear them snickering. For a second, she missed them terribly. Even Ray.
“Lorraine?” she whispered. “What is this?”
Lorraine’s eyes stayed closed. “Pretend it’s church.”
But it was not church. That was wrong to say. There was no priest or altar or Communion wafers or red prayer candles or holy water. This was not where they’d made their first Communions or penance. It didn’t have nuns. Our Lady of Grace would not approve of this place. It seemed like everything they warned against. False idols and all that. Gia worried about her soul, surprised any of what she’d learned in religion had stuck. There was still time to sneak out. She could catch the bus back to Howard Beach and sleep in the boat if she had to because maybe Lorraine had lost her mind. Maybe she was more broken than anyone thought, which made a hard lump form in Gia’s throat as she looked at her cross-legged cousin on a pile of pillows, so different from the person Gia had known her entire life.
A bell chimed at the front of the room, startling Gia.
“Let’s begin.” The same rag doll woman settled onto her own pillow. The accordion hummed to life with a few sad notes that made the room vibrate through the smoke, swirling together two competing senses, smell and sound. It coursed through her, waking up the little atoms that made Gia until she no longer cared what this place was, whether it was allowed or not. It was just music, same as anything on the radio, and her body was singing, weightless, so unlike what she felt at home lately.
“From the outside,” the woman said, chanting along with the accordion, long slow notes, “we may look like different people. Different hair, different eyes, different skin. Different wants, different needs. But we are all the same.”
A tiny sound came from Lorraine. Gia knew she shouldn’t, but she peeked, and a small tear was rolling silently down Lorraine’s face. Before, Gia would’ve put her hand over Lorraine’s. Now, a sickening guilt plastered itself in Gia’s head and made her hands immobile, made her close her eyes to block Lorraine, pretendi
ng she had not seen. So much for not being a coward, Gia thought.
“And in the forest or the park, just as trees may look like another at first, on closer inspection the differences become clear. Different leaves, different bark, different branches, different seasons to wake and slumber.”
Gia cringed. It was hard to pretend this was church if they were going to use different stories. But the woman went on, lowering her voice, and it was surprising that that quiet woman could be so powerful behind an accordion.
“But they are all one, their roots connecting to the earth, drawing from the same abundance of nutrients, and if one tree calls out its need, another answers. One tree will not drink more than another if there is a drought, just as trees know not to grow into the space another needs.”
She should have told her parents sooner. Right after the basement. After Leo had sold the bike. After the first time he’d skipped school. She wrapped her arms around herself, laced her fingers, pretending it was Lorraine’s hand covering hers. The woman was still talking, and Gia tried not to listen because it had already woken up something unexpected.
“And we are not so different from the trees if we can learn to hear those around us and trust that we will be heard, that our roots anchor us not only to the earth but to each other.”
The accordion played for a while without words.
“If we can learn to hear those around us.”
Her voice rang out, repeating it again and again to make it more important. She thought of Crazy Louann calling out for her cats, how they came to her. Her mother sitting at the foot of Leo’s bed, keeping watch. Her father on the porch at night with his smokes. Her longing for the water.
The room was chanting, repeating a name. Someone had a tambourine, and whenever it seemed the chanting would end, it started again. It was worse than reading the saints at Easter vigil, Leo and Gia elbowing each other in the pew, only this was pleasant. She opened her eyes to see what everyone was doing. Singing. Even Lorraine. It was a little embarrassing, all those voices.
Finally the accordion stopped. The singing stopped. But the music was stuck in her bones, lingering like water after a swim or sun after the beach. She felt lighter, the way she was supposed to feel after confession or church but never did. Here, no one asked her to confess anything or apologize for not being good enough. It just filled her up with strange music and a poem.
With her eyes closed and her head tilted back, Lorraine looked almost herself again. She lay back on her pillows, her arms fanned above her head, as if she were floating in the canal.
But when she opened her eyes, the heaviness settled around them again. Gia wished she could keep that music in Lorraine a little longer, bring some of the happiness back.
“Imagine my dad at this place.” In his uniform on pillows covered in elephants, struggling to keep his eyes closed in a room full of strangers, commenting on how close the incense was to the table edge. What if someone bumped it? They’d burn the whole place down. And he would definitely never pick up a tambourine unless it was bagged as evidence.
Lorraine’s mouth hinted at a smile, but it was only a hint. “The exterminator’s not really coming tonight, is he?”
“No,” Gia said, shedding the lie more easily than she’d planned to. “It’s Leo.”
Lorraine stared at the ceiling, where the incense had left a gray film.
“But it’s a secret,” Gia said, rushing on.
Lorraine nodded. Gia lay back, too, closing her eyes on the pillow as someone snuffed out the incense and people piled their pillows in a corner, walking barefoot on a shiny wood floor.
“Come on, let’s eat,” Lorraine said. “There’s some kind of curry tonight.”
Gia had no idea what a curry was, but she followed Lorraine to the metal bowls, where the covers were lifted and steam spiraled above, surrounding Gia like music, her body singing in the newness of it all. She could understand why Lorraine liked this place, weird as it was. Here, she wasn’t just Gia from Queens but a star in the universe, burning alongside billions of others, and all was right.
Lorraine was asleep, but Gia tossed in her cot until she gave up and sat by the window. Her house felt far away. The spicy bean thing she’d eaten earlier rolled in her stomach, sending angry heat waves through her. She wanted to run or jump or climb to burn it off. The best she could do was bounce her knee.
Her house was dark. No sign of whatever was going on inside. The street was quiet too. Everyone was inside, asleep, or waiting it out. Was the worst over yet, or had it even started? What would the worst flu even be? Chills that blankets couldn’t stop, sweating through them, nauseous at the memory of food, an eye-burning fever, body aches that made it painful to roll or stay still, forgetting what good felt like, what life had been like before, only sick.
Just let it work, she prayed. Whatever they’re doing. Just let it work.
She was ready for everything to go back to normal, though it startled her that she couldn’t remember what that was anymore.
A lighter flared. Someone was on the porch, pacing by the bunny hutch. A cigarette burned orange, lowered, lifted. It was not her family, because the front door was closed, the porch light off. It was someone looking for Leo. Gia’s breath fogged the glass, making it harder to see.
The cigarette flipped off the porch. So rude. A shape crossed the yard until it was under Leo’s window, kicking around for a stone or a stick. Ray. Gia’s stomach clenched.
This was his fault. Everything. Why wasn’t he locked in his room with the worst sick of his life? He threw something at Leo’s window, but the light stayed off, the window closed.
Piss off, Gia prayed, but Ray threw another stone. Then another. There was something desperate in his pacing, off balance.
“Wake up, Dad,” Gia whispered. He had to tell Ray to get lost, because if Leo knew Ray was outside, he’d go nuts. There was no movement in the house, but Ray was not leaving. Another stone arched toward the window.
That was it. Gia’s insides burned. She grabbed something heavy and hard from the dresser. Her feet flew down the stairs; the front door swung behind her.
“Hey.” She charged across the street. “Piss off.”
Ray’s eyes went wide. He threw his hands up, but Gia couldn’t stop. Not when Leo was unrecognizable, her parents barely sleeping, skipping showers and meals, while Ray was fine with his pockets full of cash and his new car and big, stolen dreams.
“Listen, you don’t understand,” Ray said, rushed. “This thing, it’s bigger now. It’s bigger than me. I stopped, Gia. He’s gotta stop too. He’s not getting it from me anymore, OK? That’s not what this is about anymore.”
Lies, lies, lies. The thing in Gia’s hand cracked against Ray’s head. He staggered, wiped at his eyes. It smelled suddenly of Lorraine’s perfume. Gia crouched as if on the back of Leo’s bike to kick down garbage cans and nailed Ray’s stomach; he doubled over, wheezing.
He held up one hand to stop her, wheezed something about Antonio, but Gia didn’t care.
“Hit me again,” she taunted. Slapping girls. Pathetic. She aimed for his face. Gia was out of breath, her vision blurry, but she shoved him down, jumped on his back, pummeled with her fists. His nose was bleeding. It was on her hands, her face, but she hit harder, the bones in her hands screaming, swelling every time they smashed into his skin and the bones underneath. Ray was catching his breath, screaming something, muffled from where his head was hiding in his arms. Lorraine’s perfume was in her nose, her mouth. She spit and pummeled, her fists coming down slower now, running out of fight. She pulled at clumps of his hair.
There were hands on her shoulders, lifting from under her arms, shouting, “Enough.” But Gia kept kicking, throwing her legs in the air until Ray skittered away. His car peeled off without headlights.
She stopped, suddenly exhausted. Lorraine’s broken perfume was in the grass. That beautiful bottle. Lorraine had saved up to buy it, and now it was ruined. Gia sat in the grass and tri
ed to piece it back together again, but it was hard to see, and her hands were shaking and swollen. There was blood under her fingernails, and even if she fixed it, the perfume couldn’t go back inside. The smell of it was everywhere. Gia sobbed. A piece of glass sliced her hand, and a line of red welled up.
“Gia.” Her father lifted her face. She had to look at him. The sadness there was too much, so she focused on his tattoo instead. She used to pretend the ink rope tied them together, drawing a rope down her own arm in blue pen, and she wished she still believed that. He kissed her forehead, and Gia threw her arms around him. He picked her up. Not as easily as he used to, but Gia didn’t let go even though she was too tall, too old.
“He’s gonna ruin everything,” Gia sobbed.
“I know, Gia. I know.”
His voice broke, and it was terrible, like the sound of feral cats calling for missing kittens. Her father rocked until Gia felt ridiculous for being held like a baby in the front yard. The light was on across the street. Aunt Diane was at the window.
He carried Gia to the porch and told her to stay put. He was in his pajamas, barefoot. Gia felt a new wash of tears spring up and wrapped her arms around herself as her father gathered blankets from inside. Do you see? she thought to Aunt Diane. I’m trying. Aunt Diane disappeared from the window. The light clicked off, and then her father was back.
“Don’t worry about this. We’ll get Lorraine a new one.”
“But it’s expensive.”
“So what? I’d buy ten bottles to see you crack him again.”
Gia laughed. The relief of it made her even more exhausted.
“You’re not mad?”
“Mad? No. Proud, maybe. You hope a girl could hold her own if she had to. Just don’t seek it out, a’right?”
He was quiet for a while as the sky lightened around them in a hazy purple, the trees still black.
A Frenzy of Sparks: A Novel Page 15
