“Of course Princess Joanie needs money. You know if you give her anything, she’ll run off and she won’t take you with her. Could you live with that, Cello?” Her voice was suffused with mock sympathy. “I don’t think you could.”
Cello didn’t answer as Letta made the final turn on the Josephs’ long driveway. He knew the feel of that turn in the truck bed, clear as a road sign. He stared down at his legs as they waited for the herd of tenants that lurked in front of the gate to separate and allow them to pass. At every visit, he tried to forget them. He watched the laces on his boots until they were through.
“It’s not for Joanie,” he said as the truck lurched to a stop in an enormous, muddy puddle.
One of the younger Joseph cousins stood in front of a sagging shed, a bright green hose wound through his hands.
“Letta,” the young man said, nodding as Letta climbed down from the truck.
“Nice to see you, Frank,” Letta said primly. “Your auntie at home?”
“Out back,” Frank said, gesturing behind him with the hose, as an arc of water looped across the sky.
“Thanks. Marcela, you come with me. Wouldn’t be proper if I left you alone with these boys out here. Stay with the truck,” Letta said to Cello without looking at anyone, her gaze exploring beyond the trees that rimmed the Josephs’ wide yard.
Cello climbed down and stood at the puddle’s murky edge, looking from the colony of mosquitoes skimming the water’s surface to Frank’s dark silhouette.
“So,” Cello began, eyes on the water. “How’s business?”
“Alright,” said Frank. Cello was relieved to hear the lazy ease in Frank’s voice. He was relieved the question wasn’t a dangerous one.
“Maybe you could help me out.” Cello looked over at Frank, but didn’t move, still unsure. “I’m looking to pick up some extra money.”
“Oh, really?” Frank scratched at the significant stubble on his chin. “How much you looking to pick up?”
Cello looked down at his hand, where a mosquito had landed. He slapped the insect dead. “Not sure.” A spark of warning accompanied the insect bite.
“I guess better question is how much trouble you want to get into?” Frank dropped the hose on the ground and moved closer to Cello. The running water pooled around them, flowing into the puddle, scattering the mosquitoes with sudden, violent ripples.
“Not too much, I hope,” said Cello, concentrating on Frank’s face without looking into his eyes. Cello didn’t want to know what lurked there, didn’t want to know if the man he was speaking to was someone who’d hurt Joanie, who’d stolen the baby.
“Well, you sure are a delicate one. The way I see it, the more trouble you’re looking for, the more money you make. I’ll let you know if I need any extras done,” Frank said with a shrug.
“Alright. Thanks.” Cello turned back to the truck and opened the back. He slouched under the disappointment. If he’d been bolder, would Frank have offered him some kind of deal right off? Cello pretended to be busy, and lifted the tarp to check on their haul. There were still eleven bundles although one had loosened. Cello took a roll of twine from the cab and retied it.
“Looks a little lean today. Y’all having trouble out there?” Frank asked. Water still ran from the hose at his feet. Cello shrugged, his mind on Letta, on her hands, on the money Mother Joseph would count into them, on the Stuckey’s on Route 9.
“We’re fine,” Cello said, still busy with the twine. “This is just some extra we had to bring. Something special.”
“Something special?” Frank grinned.
“Sil’s project.” Sil had loaded it lovingly into the pickup—he’d even buckled one small crate of the best-looking cuttings into the passenger seat.
“Huh. You tried it?” Frank asked.
Cello shook his head.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. Sil and Letta are training you up right. You could give me a little out here. Free sample before they weigh it?”
Was Frank negotiating with him? Could he risk selling some of Sil’s Vine to Frank—maybe they could work something out that way. Cello paused and shook his head, just once. An unfamiliar feeling rose in his chest—not anger exactly. It was more akin to frustration. If he was being tested, the consequences would be far worse than a beating from Sil. But he needed the money—and there was no way around that.
“Where’s your bathroom at?” Cello asked. A high-pitched ringing began in his ears as he organized his thoughts around a new idea.
“What, pissing in the woods not good enough for you?” Frank said, the water still flowing. A pert-eared mutt danced around his legs, rhythmically picking its paws out of the mud.
“No, I just... I had a stomach bug and, you know, it ain’t all clear.” Cello clutched at his stomach, trying to make the urgency look authentic.
Frank looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Well, sure, if it ain’t all clear, you can use the outhouse.” He gestured over his shoulder to a half-collapsed wooden structure.
Cello jogged off toward it, masking his disappointment. He thought if he could get into the house, or somewhere, he could lift something worth a hundred dollars. Maybe he could leave that—some kind of jewelry, anything—at the Stuckey’s, if he couldn’t actually get the money. He opened the outhouse door to a space thick with cobwebs. He glanced back at Frank, whose gimlet eyes were still on him. Cello stepped inside and closed the door, looking around for another exit. The slats in the back were nearly rotted through. Cello pressed his fingers into the soft wood, manipulating open a space the width of his hand. He folded the rest of the plank back easily. He slipped through and pressed the plank back into place.
The stretch from where he stood, hidden, to the main house was long and unforgiving—there was nothing but open, mowed lawn, not even a shrub to duck behind. Frank’s back was turned, for the time being. Cello ran, willing himself invisible. He couldn’t be caught—this was the only thought he had as he ran. He tried to remember what Letta taught the girls about tending the Vine’s power, and wished he knew the words that could conjure the right kind of help. But boys were forbidden to learn, so he did what he could—running swiftly, optimistically—praying that Frank wouldn’t see him, that no one would see him, that he would find everything he needed.
Cello pressed his back to the side wall of the boxy main house, his lungs heaving with the sudden burst of effort. He waited for a minute, for the sound of being followed—a dog’s bark or an outraged human voice—but he was still alone. Cello crept along the outer wall, looking for a way in.
But at every window, he heard the flurry of voices. He propped his chin up over a peeling sill and spotted Letta’s bored profile. Marcela’s eyes widened out at him through the glass, and she tilted her head forward, urgently—Get out of here, she meant. Mother Joseph’s heavy step rattled the windowpane, and Cello ducked down, thwarted. He wasn’t going to get in this way—maybe the basement, he considered. He looked for an opening near the ground, crawling close, his hands in the dirt and his right side scraping against the house like a beast trying to get inside.
A narrow rectangle gaped out at him. Cello pushed a hand against it—a flap of galvanized steel gave at the pressure. Some kind of a vent, he thought. He didn’t know if he would fit, but decided to try. Cello slid feetfirst through the opening, like a letter in a mail slot. He moved his feet and legs experimentally, surprised not to feel the twists and obstructions of ductwork, only plain opening. He slipped down, letting himself fall.
Cello slid into darkness. A spherical orange glow appeared suspended in the middle of the space. He waited, still and silent, for the sound of discovery, but again, nothing. The light pulled him forward to a glass tank lined with leaf-green gravel. A snake lay nestled in the stones like a brass ring. Cello tapped the glass, and the snake lifted its lazy gaze toward him. Cello’s eyes adjusted to the dimness. The cella
r floor was packed earth—he could smell it. It was easy to move over, and forgivingly muffled any sounds that would have echoed on poured concrete. It was surprisingly tidy. A line of assembled folding tables had been arranged on the wall opposite the snake. It looked like they had been set up for the creature to guard.
Cello heard footfalls of activity overhead. The crash of a slammed door burst through the orange quiet. Someone was leaving the house. Cello hurried to the tables, squinting in the gloom. He swept his hands over the surface of the table, and felt the scatter of filled, hand-size plastic packets slipping over and under his fingers. He grabbed one of the heavier ones, and brought it under the light of the tank. He unzipped the opaque plastic envelope, and from it spilled a stream of bills. His heart chugged with the thrill of it.
He scooped up the fallen slips of paper and shoved them back in the envelope. There were mostly twenties, but larger bills, too. He shoved a handful into his back pocket, and zipped the envelope closed. Cello threw it back onto the line of tables; there was no time to try to resettle the strange buffet of tiny plastic bags that he’d discovered.
He felt a glimmer of pride—he had done something of value for two people he loved. He had to get out, back to the outhouse, all quickly, all without being seen. He couldn’t remember where the slot was, and even if he did, he doubted he had the upper body strength to heave himself out. Cello crept up the stairs, past the serpent’s illuminated tank. He pressed an ear to the door and heard nothing. He twisted the handle, but the door had been locked from the outside. Breaking it open wasn’t an option. Cello wasn’t trying to create an obvious problem—if the Josephs did notice an interference in the basement, he didn’t want it to coincide with his foster family’s visit.
Cello ran lightly back into the cellar and paced in panicked laps, looking up at the dark smudge where the wall met the ceiling. He looked at the light attached to the snake’s tank and wondered if he could detach it and use it as a kind of flashlight. He was near nauseous with gratitude that snakes didn’t bark. The back of his hand itched and stung where Joanie had drawn on it; the sensation was uncomfortable and frightening. It was in that strange instant that he noticed the serpent’s head had moved dramatically—the triangular jut of its snout holding still, its entire body pointing like an arrow to a very specific place. Cello followed the snake’s direction and reached a hand up, feeling for the flap. He felt nothing at first, and then jumped, getting a little higher each time; he was so eerily certain the snake was communicating with him.
He gasped with relief when he felt the slip of steel duct on his fingertips. Cello leaped, grasping at the opening. He didn’t know if it was adrenaline or something stranger, but he caught on and lifted himself to the opening on his forearms. He tried to crawl out without banging against the steel flap, and his muscles burned and struggled against the impossible task. He plunged out into the sunlight, ungainly as a birthed calf. Cello didn’t wait for any signals of detection this time—instead, he sprinted to the nearest spot where the woods edged up against the Josephs’ lawn and ran in their prickly cover, back to the outhouse, back to where Frank was eternally watering. Cello collapsed on his knees in the yellowing grass, wiping the sweat from the back of his neck.
“You weren’t joking,” Frank said, his mouth awkwardly moving around a burning cigarette. He took a few steps back from Cello. “You look awful, brother.”
“Yeah,” Cello breathed out, trying not to smile, striving to contain his triumph.
“They shouldn’t let you out like that,” Frank said, sparing a pat for the dog. “Could be catching.”
“Got to work,” Cello said, shrugging.
“Really pulling through, huh?” His eyes half closed and he flicked his cigarette butt into the grass—not exactly at Cello, but near enough to be some kind of message. “Next time you come around, I’ll have something for you,” Frank said. “Always can use an extra, uh, hard worker.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks,” said Cello. A sudden swarm of gnats whorled around them in a gristly mist. He stretched his arms behind his back. The muscles there still quivered.
Marcela reappeared at the edge of the clearing, sour-faced, eyeing them both with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Nice to see you again, Amberly.” Letta’s voice carried from beyond the overgrown row of scrub oaks.
“Wish I could say the same.” The other woman’s voice fell raspy and thick over the clearing. Even the gnats fled from that sound. Cello dreaded meeting Mother Joseph at these deliveries. Whenever he saw her pocked, nicotine-yellowed face, he ran to rage, remembering the listless Joanie they’d collected from the sagging shed—the exact shed he could see now behind Frank as he kept on wasting water.
“You should turn off that hose,” Cello said, before the older women came into sight. Frank raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Letta’s knifelike figure approached; Mother Joseph lumbered beside her.
“This boy of yours is fresh,” Frank said.
“I hope you been minding your manners, Cello,” Letta said.
“Quit gabbing and unload the truck,” Mother Joseph snapped.
“Marcela?” Letta called, keeping her voice sweet.
Marcela sauntered over and held out her arms for the first bundle. Frank’s lewd gaze ran over her body.
“Come on now, Frank. Don’t be inhospitable.” Mother Joseph flicked her fingertips out toward her nephew. The rest of her was still as the moon, her thick legs adhered to the ground in their baggy, faded jeans. Cello wondered what it would be like to pull out tufts of her voluminous but slovenly graying hair, to see her face twist with pain. Mother Joseph moved only her eyes to stare back at Cello, and smiled, as though she’d read his thoughts.
Cello and Frank loaded out the truck, while Marcela leaned against it.
“And how is your Joanie? We had such a nice visit last week,” Mother Joseph said, as though remembering Joanie for the first time. Even the dullest among them, even Frank, could read the artifice there. Marcela stiffened midlounge, her body pressed awkwardly against the side of the pickup.
“Oh, Joanie’s Joanie,” Letta said, her voice like a whistle.
Frank and Cello had picked up the pace. Everyone wanted it to be over.
“Boys, you about done?” Letta asked, crossing the lawn to the driver’s side of the truck.
“Yeah,” said Cello.
“Nice seeing you again, Frank,” Letta said, delicately shaking his hand.
“You, too, ma’am. And don’t forget what I told you, man. Next time.” Frank nodded a goodbye to Marcela.
She and Letta shared a look between them, then Letta smacked the dusty side of the truck with an open palm. “We’ll see you again next month, Amberly,” she said.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” Mother Joseph muttered.
Cello and Marcela scrambled into the now-empty bed of the truck, and the engine turned beneath them.
“What’d he mean by ‘next time’?” Marcela asked, everything crossed now, arm over arm, leg over leg.
“For that extra cash.”
“Oh.” She blew a wisp of dark hair out of her eyes. “What about me? Did you ever think I might like some extra money? Jesus, I’d like some money, period.” They were silent—Cello knew they were both thinking about the last time one of them had asked Letta or Sil for money. It ended with Marcela kneeling on a raft of broken branches for an afternoon, her bare kneecaps bloody for days, and her muscles spasming from holding the tensed position for so long.
“What happened in there?” Cello finally asked. “Did you pick up on anything?”
“What? About the baby? I don’t think Mother Joseph even knows about Junior. I’m starting to think it’s not them.”
“I don’t think it was them.” Cello moved his arm, demonstrating an inclusive rounding-up. “Maybe just one of them.”
“Wha
tever, I don’t know. They barely talked at all. Why were you sneaking around the house?” Marcela asked.
Cello shook his head. “Just trying to look around a little more. Hoping we missed something last time, I guess.”
“It’s disgusting in there. All those old drooling people lying around—I don’t know what Mother Joseph’s doing to them, but it’s zombie central in that house. And it stank like adult diapers. I thought we had it bad. I don’t know how Joanie ever put up with it.”
“She didn’t, I guess,” Cello said. It had been barely a year, and already Marcela forgot what Joanie had been like coming home—a creature, not a girl.
Cello reached over and knocked at the window of the cab. “Letta?” he called.
“What?” her muffled voice asked.
“I need to stop at the Stuckey’s, okay?” Letta turned her head sharply, slowing the truck and pulling it to the side of the road. The engine idled beneath them as she looked from Marcela and back to him. “I sure hope you didn’t do something stupid,” she finally said.
“What?” Marcela asked as Letta pulled into the cracked asphalt lot of the Stuckey’s.
“Nothing,” Cello answered. Letta opened the driver’s side door and began to speak over him.
“Go get some milk,” she told Marcela.
Marcela eyed them both, arching a dark brow. “Okay,” she finally said. Letta slapped some money into her palm, and Cello watched his foster sister disappear under the gabled entrance of the convenience store. Letta stared ahead through the windshield, holding up her hand like a traffic cop. “I don’t want to hear nothing about it,” she said. “If you’re going to do what I think you are, go do it and don’t waste my time.” Letta twisted a brassy loop of hair around her finger and tied it in a knot. Despite her refusal to actively help, Cello saw her carefully controlled optimism in that single nervous gesture.
Cello hopped out of the truck bed, his mouth curled in a partial smile. Despite how useless he’d believed he was—to Joanie, to the baby—he’d done it; he’d met a demand. Maybe he was even saving a life. Cello was filled up with something then, that same magnificent power he felt coaxing something new from the dirt—what he was doing felt right. It felt good.
Daughters of the Wild Page 12
