Beautiful Beast

by Dayle A Dermatis

  That was when I saw it. Next to her signature (a T with a spiral curving left out of the bottom), written in pale pencil strokes.

  I’m sorry.

  I traced shaking fingers over the words, not quite brushing against the paper.

  I’m sorry.

  Suddenly it made sense. Suddenly I understood.

  I was the one who was sorry. I’d left her, just like everyone else she’d loved had. Her father. Linny.

  Now there was something Aunt Pat could do.

  “We have to go back,” I said.

  Twenty-Eight

  Aunt Pat eased the car to the shoulder of the road and put it in Park. Then she turned and looked at me.

  “You want to go back?”

  I looked down at the sketch in my hand for strength.

  “We have to go back and get Taryn,” I said. “She didn’t come because she wanted to take the heat off of me. Mrs. Wentworth would have blown a gasket if Taryn had left, and so she stayed so there wouldn’t be any blowback on me.”

  A pair of creased lines appeared between Aunt Pat’s brows.

  Aunt Pat was silent for a moment, her eyes searching my face. I could count my heartbeat from the blood pounding in my ears.

  Finally, she asked, “Are you worried for Taryn’s safety?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Like I told you on the phone, Mrs. Wentworth is beyond controlling, and she was like that well before I arrived. She keeps the fridge and pantry locked; there’s a small fridge for us with snacks for between meals, but they’re limited. I mean, I understand her wanting us to eat healthy, especially me, but…doesn’t that seem overboard to you?”

  “She locks the food away? You bet that’s going overboard.”

  “And she’s horrible to Taryn,” I went on. “Ignores her most of the time, or tells her to shut her mouth. Never hugs her, never says anything nice to her, just mean things. Never lets her go out unless it’s to an approved place.” I didn’t mention that Taryn hadn’t had any friends before me, so there hadn’t been much of anywhere she’d wanted to go.

  “Mrs. Wentworth might be mad enough at me leaving to do something worse to Taryn,” I said. “She was so, so angry when she caught us kissing, and now I’ve left, which will look really bad for her. She never likes to look imperfect.” I took in a shaky breath. “She might escalate.”

  Was I being overly dramatic? Maybe a little. But the more I thought about it, the more sure of things I became.

  Because I trusted Taryn, and if Taryn was willing to stay behind and face her mother’s wrath alone in order to protect me, then she had to be thinking that the wrath coming at me would be really bad.

  She’d been trying to save me, and I’d left her alone, the one thing I’d promised not to do.

  Now I was going to save her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Aunt Pat said, and her voice shook. “I can’t believe I left you with that beastly woman.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not your fault, not at all. We didn’t know. And it was what I wanted, then—it sounded like a fairy tale to have a pageant winner be my coach and cover my expenses. We didn’t have any idea what she was like.”

  “I suppose not,” she said. “I’m just glad you’ve gotten away. As for Taryn, I can’t legally take her away.” My breath caught, a painful rock in my chest, but then she continued. “But this sounds like an emergency, and we can figure out the legalities later. However, I thought you said Taryn didn’t want to come?”

  I raised the sketch. “I’ll explain on the way. Please?”

  Aunt Pat put the car in gear and spun a U-turn. “You don’t have to ask me twice, sweetie. If you think Taryn needs to be out of that house, that’s good enough for me.”

  The drive back seemed to take much longer than the time it had taken to drive away. Maybe because I had nothing to distract me, like the food, which now sat in a greasy lump in my stomach. Maybe because now I was more worried for Taryn.

  I tried to call her, but the phone just rang until a computerized voice told me the user hadn’t said up their voice mailbox yet. I thought about texting her, but it would take too long to explain everything, why I was worried, why I didn’t care what her mother tried to do to me as long as Taryn herself was safe. I wouldn’t be able to get it all out before she stopped reading and locked all the doors to keep me out, or called the cops to stop us or something.

  I settled for, Are you okay?, but no matter how many times I looked at the phone again, there was no response.

  The wrought iron gates of roses and vines opened when we turned in to the driveway. I suppose they could be locked, but it wouldn’t do much good since there wasn’t a fence around the entire property.

  We drove between the lines of trees, the driveway feeling as endless as it had the first time I’d arrived here.

  “You go get Taryn and I’ll talk to her mother,” Aunt Pat said. “I do have to tell her Taryn’s coming with us. Let me handle it.”

  “Okay,” I said. If I never saw Mrs. Wentworth again, it would be too soon.

  When the house came into view, I saw that Mrs. Wentworth had all the lights on in rooms along the back left of the house, where her living room/study was.

  Aunt Pat pulled up and I was out of the car almost before she had it stopped, my feet crunching on the gravel as I rushed to the marble steps. Smoke scented the air. The night was cool, so it wasn’t unreasonable that Mrs. Wentworth would have lit a fire.

  She was probably burning all of my clothes in a fit of rage. My stomach twisted at the thought of those beautiful evening gowns, but objects, things, weren’t important. I’d give up a million of those gowns if it meant Taryn was with me.

  Thankfully, Mrs. Wentworth had forgotten to lock the front door after we’d left. Well, she’d been pretty drunk. I took the curved right-hand stairs two at a time, calling Taryn’s name.

  She must have heard me, because I barely got one knock at her door before it opened and she was standing there, her beautiful brown eyes wide with surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “My mother—”

  “—doesn’t deserve you,” I said. “Aunt Pat is taking care of her. Grab your stuff.”

  She still didn’t move. “But…why…?”

  I held up the sketch. “Because I realized you were pushing me away to protect me. Well, tough. I promised not to leave you alone, and I won’t, not ever again.” I gently pushed her backwards into her suite, and she moved with me, not fighting me.

  Over her shoulder, I saw a small, fuchsia suitcase on the ottoman at the foot of her bed, her laptop bag atop it. Relief flooded through me, making my knees weak. She’d been planning to go, maybe all along, then decided not to—and she hadn’t unpacked. We could get out of here, and then it would be over.

  At least for now. For a while.

  We could worry about everything else later, and—

  “Annabelle!”

  Aunt Pat was shouting my name up the stairs. She sounded frantic. I ran to the landing.

  “There’s a fire!” she yelled. “Hurry up!”

  “Come on,” I said to Taryn. In her room, she grabbed the suitcase and bag, and I reached under her bed to haul out her art portfolios.

  “No, leave them—”

  “Not on your life,” I said. They were awkward to carry, but I followed her down the stairs with a death grip on them. The foyer was already hazy with smoke. The glow I’d seen outside hadn’t been the fireplace after all.

  “We have to go.” Aunt Pat was waiting by the door, phone in hand.

  “But my mother…” Taryn dropped her luggage and made for the back of the house. Aunt Pat moved swiftly to block her, grabbing her upper arms when she tried to dart past.

  “I tried, honey,” she said. “I tried. The smoke is too thick. I’ve already called 911 and the fire department is on its way.”

  “But…” Taryn faltered, trying to see behind Aunt Pat.

  “We need to get out so the fire department can do t
heir job,” Aunt Pat said. “They’ll find her.”

  Taryn nodded, her eyes filled with tears. I already had the door open, and Aunt Pat grabbed Taryn’s bag. We raced down the steps to the car, threw ourselves in, and drove away.

  We parked alongside the road near the driveway so the emergency vehicles could get through. We stood next to the car, looking back. The house was obscured by the trees, but we could see the glow of the fire.

  Taryn gripped my hand. Her fingers were cold. Mine were, too. The night temperature had dropped. I could still smell the smoke on my clothes, my hair.

  A few moments later, we heard sirens in the distance, growing louder. By the time they reached us, we had to plug our ears from the piercing scream. Fire trucks, an ambulance, rushed past us down the driveway. A police car pulled up next to us, lights flashing. Too bright; I had to look away.

  Thankfully the officer turned them off before he got out of his car.

  My fingers threaded with Taryn’s again.

  It felt as though the nightmare was just beginning.

  Time moved in confusing ways, sometimes almost too fast to keep up, then slowing to a crawl. Things would reduce to a blur of dark color and muted sound, then snap back into focus.

  I remembered this feeling: I’d had it the night my parents had died, for days afterwards. Feeling this way again almost caused me to panic, but I focused on my breathing as my therapist had taught me to.

  And I focused on Taryn, who needed all the support I could muster.

  Aunt Pat bundled us into the back of the car with an emergency blanket from the trunk after we’d given brief statements to the police officer.

  We’d all agreed not to drag Mrs. Wentworth’s behavior towards Taryn and me into the mix. Instead, we said that Aunt Pat had picked me up for a visit (true) and I’d forgotten something important so we’d had to go back (also true, although if pressed, we’d say it was my phone), and when we got back, we discovered the fire (true as well).

  Taryn opened the car door to ask about her mother several times, and the officer finally said he’d let us know when he heard something. Otherwise, neither of us spoke. Just clung to each other for support.

  Finally the cop had Aunt Pat follow him to the station. A female cop, a pretty young Hispanic woman with sleek, seal-brown hair and a hint of lip gloss introduced herself as Officer Diaz and brought us cocoa. It was from a mix, and watery, but at least it was hot. Aunt Pat had coffee.

  They put us in a small room with a ring of chairs and a loveseat around a round, faux-wood coffee table. At least we weren’t in an interrogation room.

  The clock on the wall ticked slowly. The room had windows all around, but the brown blinds were closed. A potted plant in the corner (fake, and needed dusting) was the only thing to look at. I didn’t want to read, but a spread of magazines on the table would at least given some color.

  Finally two cops came in, the one from the house and Officer Diaz.

  They asked if we needed anything, and when we said no, they sat down. Taryn vibrated next to me on the loveseat, and I knew she wanted to ask, but she waited.

  “I’m so sorry,” Officer Diaz said softly. “I’m afraid your mother didn’t make it.” Taryn gasped, her free hand flying to her mouth. I sighed, my shoulders sagging. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised, but it still sucked.

  “It looks as though it was smoke inhalation, but we’ll know more once the coroner has examined her,” she went on. “Preliminary report is that the fire was started by unattended candles.”

  I shuddered to think what would have happened to Taryn if we hadn’t come back. By the time she realized there was a fire, would she have been able to get out?

  “Tomorrow—well, later today—we’ll need one of you to identify the body,” the other cop said.

  “I can do that,” Aunt Pat said before either of us could speak. “I met her several times.” Then she added to Taryn, “Unless you want to see her, honey. You don’t have to, but it’s your choice.”

  Taryn’s free hand had dropped to her mouth. Her eyes were dry, but her skin was pale, almost too pale. “No, that’s okay,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”

  When we left the station, the sky had gone from black to grey, with a hint of brightness in the east. We checked in to a hotel, and Aunt Pat went back out to get food, leaving Taryn and me to shower and change. I put on my favorite pajamas, the ones from my parents. Taryn threw on sweats and a T-shirt. We didn’t speak much, just stuff like “You can shower first” and “Excuse me” when we had to navigate past each other. But when we did pass each other, our hands reached out as if magnetized so our fingers brushed together.

  Whatever happened next, we still had this.

  Twenty-Nine

  I hadn’t realized how awful and smoky I smelled until I’d showered it off me, replacing the stench of the fire with shampoo and conditioner and body wash and lotion. Taryn and I shoved our stinky clothes into a plastic laundry bag and made sure the fan in the room was circulating air. By the time we were done, Aunt Pat returned with sandwiches, chips, bottled water, and fruit, plus Entenmann’s chocolate-chip cookies, the soft kind. She showered while we devoured our food.

  I hadn’t thought about what I’d been eating, except for the greasy burger and fries that hadn’t sat well with me. Now, as I took a bite of sandwich and shoved a chip into my mouth with it, I automatically thought of how far I’d have to run to work all of these calories off.

  That was after I winced and realized what a pig I looked like, something that no pageant girl would ever allow.

  But after I remembered that Mrs. Wentworth wasn’t here to criticize me, I realized I hadn’t thought about pageant stuff much in the past few days. It seemed far away, and not important, but yet it still was important to me, deep down. I was so tired, it was hard to process what I was feeling. It wasn’t something I could focus on right now.

  Aunt Pat came out of the shower in grey cotton shorts and a white tee that said “Art is a way of survival” in dark purple lettering. After shoving her clothes into the plastic bag with ours, she grabbed a sandwich and an apple, and plopped cross-legged on one of the queen beds.

  “You two doing okay?” she asked before she started to eat. “Is there anything you need, anything I can do?”

  We shook our heads. “No, thank you,” Taryn said.

  “I’m really happy you’re here,” I said to Aunt Pat. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You already have,” she said. “By trusting me, and being safe.”

  Tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked them back. She set her food on the nightstand and came over to the small table to hug me, then Taryn.

  “You both look exhausted,” she said. “Get some sleep. We’ll deal with whatever needs dealing with later.”

  The coroner’s report said Mrs. Wentworth had died of smoke inhalation. Due to the amount of alcohol in her system, it was likely she hadn’t been conscious when the fire started. A small but welcomed comfort in an otherwise horrible situation. No matter how poorly she treated us, she didn’t deserve a painful death.

  Aunt Pat once again put her life on hold for me, and for Taryn, too. She dealt with lawyers, funeral arrangements, and making sure we were fed and okay. We had a brief graveside service, just the three of us.

  “I think something’s wrong with me,” Taryn confessed quietly one afternoon when Aunt Pat was out and we were alone in the hotel room. “I don’t know what to feel. She was my mother, but I’m not…not grieving. I’m sad, and scared, but…mostly numb.”

  I pulled her close. “You’re still in shock,” I said. “This…it’s a huge thing, and your whole world will never be the same. That’s terrifying—believe me, I know. But don’t question your feelings, ever. Your emotions are your emotions, and emotions are never wrong or bad. They just are.”

  Taryn had emailed her father to let him know, but he was overseas and wouldn’t be able to get back in time. They were continuing to commu
nicate, though, which was a very good thing.

  My phone had blown up the day after the fire, of course, with Madison, Brittany, and Emilia calling and texting to ask if I was okay. They included Taryn in their questions, too, and I made sure Taryn knew that. Their moms all called, too, to offer help, and I felt overwhelmed by their generous offers. I let Aunt Pat deal with that, because every time I tried to thank them, I started to cry.

  A few days later, the cops closed their end of the case, Officer Diaz again expressing her sympathies. Accidental fire, the end.

  There would be insurance money, and a long, protracted legal jumble while Mrs. Wentworth’s attorney figured out the financial side of things. Taryn was her only living relative, so at some point, there’d be her inheritance, likely a huge bucket of money. Not that Taryn cared much about money right now.

  I had no idea I had money until Aunt Pat reminded me, on the car ride to the city, about my trust, everything from my parents’ estate. Because Mrs. Wentworth had been paying for everything for me (and had refused Aunt Pat’s offer of help), Aunt Pat had been letting it sit until I needed it for college.

  That was a relief. I’d been counting on scholarships from pageants, and I’d had no idea what my pageant future might be now. I had no gowns, no other appropriate clothes or shoes, and those were expensive. I was still technically signed up for one more pageant, but it was coming up in a few weeks and I made a mental note to officially bow out once we were settled at Aunt Pat and Aunt Rhea’s.

  I’d visited them before, with my parents, but I’d never given a thought about how small their apartment was. Real estate was dear in the city, of course, and they were content in a one-bedroom, one-bath place with a Juliet balcony for a flourish of green plants and a kitchen that was separated from the living room by only a counter.

  Taryn and I switched off sleeping on the sofa or on a single futon on the floor next to it. In some ways, looking back, it was a perfect, out-of-time bubble: we’d hold hands, whisper until we fell asleep. Supporting each other. Loving each other. The tiny space didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were together, and free.