Slice of Cherry

by Dia Reeves

  “Interesting approach to the afterlife, Ilan,” Mr. Hofstram murmured, with none of the contempt he used whenever he had to address Fancy. “To put him in that cellar in pieces instead of on a cloud somewhere.”

  “In heaven? I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “Art as therapy. You might try putting him on a cloud. It might make you feel better.” Mr. Hofstram moved on to the next pair of students, circling them like they were a large fairy ring. Maybe he’d circle one too many times and disappear through a door.

  “Maybe I don’t wanna feel better.” When Fancy tore her eyes from Ilan’s father it was to find Ilan staring at her, a streak of red on his cheek like war paint. But his expression had nothing of the warrior about it. He looked young and sad. “I’m not afraid of pain. Are you?”

  When Fancy didn’t answer, he said, “I know you can talk. You talked to me at Cherry Glade, remember?” When Fancy still didn’t answer, he took her hand, and with his red paint-brush he wrote please into her palm.

  Fancy looked at the word a long time, frankly stunned by his boldness in even touching her, let alone begging for favors. She closed her hand over the word as if it were alive and fragile. “How do you know what our cellar looks like?”

  “Photos.”

  “Death ain’t really like that,” she told him. “Beautiful like that.”

  “What is it like?” Ilan asked, giving her a sly look. “A dance contest or a tea party? A boxing match? Seems to me like you don’t wanna face the reality of death any more than I do.”

  “You don’t know what I want. I don’t know what people are saying about me, but don’t get to thinking you know me.”

  “I do know you, Fancy. All about you. The problem is, you don’t know about me.”

  Fancy’s day was made even more unnerving when Kit didn’t show up to read the letters. The ringing bell brought Fancy racing to the front door, until she realized Kit wouldn’t be ringing the bell like some stranger.

  When she peeped out, she saw that it was only Ilan and opened the door.

  “You know you got a fruit basket out here?” The smell of rain was on the wind.

  He picked it up off the porch, a giant thing almost taller than Fancy. It was addressed to her and Kit from Doyle and his godmother. Ilan stepped past her into the house.

  “Wait—”

  “Where do you want me to set it?”

  “I can carry a fruit basket.”

  “Just being helpful.” He set it on the coffee table. He wore black wristbands wrapped in silver chain, like he’d broken loose from a dungeon. Fancy was sure that if she chained him, he wouldn’t break free.

  “So what’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was too dark, so she opened the shutters to brighten the room. Ilan followed her as she went from window to window, reminding her of one of the velvet tigers on the wall, stalking her, circling her, and looking her over in a way she couldn’t hide from. In a way that made her feel chained.

  “You alone?”

  “Madda’s here.” He wasn’t even that tall, but he seemed to take up too much space. She was embarrassed suddenly by the ripe-rotten smell of blue statice, which Madda liked to decorate the house with because the flowers “died so beautifully.” It was especially embarrassing because Ilan smelled so nice, like sweet clover and paint.

  He stopped in front of her. She could see the pulse beat in his throat. “Is it okay that I’m here? Your ma has all these notions of what kinda stuff you’re ready for. Maybe you ain’t ready to be alone in the house with a boy.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “Unsupervised,” he amended.

  His lips looked slightly moist, as though he had licked them recently, but she didn’t remember seeing his tongue. She would have remembered that.

  “I’m not five.”

  “Then why are you dressed like that? In that teeny dress? Don’t you have anything that fits? The straps are cutting into your shoulders, probably cutting off your circulation.”

  “Are not.” They were, sort of. He illustrated by trying to wiggle his finger under her strap, but he couldn’t.

  Fancy moved away from his hand and sat in the wicker chair.

  “If I cut that dress off you, I’d be doing you a favor.” He pulled up an ottoman and sat in front of her, determined to crowd her. “Saving you from gangrene or something.”

  “I’m not scared of you. It’s funny you think I would be.”

  “Is that the problem? You think I’m holding a grudge? Looking to hurt you? What happened between our families . . . I don’t blame you.”

  “That’s what you told Madda. That you don’t blame her.”

  “I don’t even blame your pop. I tried that. It didn’t bring ’em back, you know?”

  “Anybody did to my family what Daddy did to yours, I’d kill ’em. Or die trying.”

  “You get mad. You get violent. But nothing changes.”

  “You one of those goody-goody types?”

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. You like goody-goody types?”

  “No. I don’t like anybody except my family.”

  “Even your dad? Even after what he did?”

  “Everybody does bad things. What’s that got to do with love?”

  “Now who’s goody-goody?”

  “Why’re you in my house?”

  “To pay back the money for the amp.” He stood and dug in his back pocket. She caught a flash of his lower stomach. He had an outie. “Frigging Tony destroyed it in a tantrum. I weaseled it out of Gabe, where the money came from.”

  “Amp?” She stared at the crisp folded bills he held out to her.

  “We needed a new amp so we could audition for the battle of the bands, and we only just got paid today, so thanks.” He pushed the money into her hand when she wouldn’t take it and sat back down. “I woulda given it to you in class, but I figured it’d be easier for you to talk to me if nobody was around.”

  Fancy took the money with fingers that felt numb. Counted it. Two hundred dollars. Exactly what had been missing from the treasure chest. Maybe her dress was cutting off her circulation— she felt dizzy.

  “Kit’s cool for helping us out like that. I told her she should be in charge of the band’s finances.”

  “You . . . see her?”

  “Gabe brings her by the house most days after her music class. It’s always weird to see her without you. Even now. Y’all have such a stranglehold on each other usually. I told Miz Lynne those classes’d be a help.”

  “You told Madda?”

  “I didn’t tell her, like I’m her boss. She was asking about classes, and I told her about the ones me and Gabe are taking. Y’all got it easy, though. We take three each, plus we have to work. The band’s the only thing I got to look forward to. That and art class.”

  “Where’s Kit now?” She could barely hear herself speak over the roaring in her ears. “At your house?”

  “Probably. You okay?”

  “I wanna go to your house.”

  “Fancy.” His voice compelled her to look in his eyes. He was worried about her. “Is something wrong?”

  He ought to be worried about his brother.

  “Let’s go.”

  The ride to Ilan’s house downsquare was awkward. Ilan tried to make conversation, but Fancy blasted the radio to shut him up. She had to concentrate on filling her mind with hope. Hope that Kit’s only interest in Gabriel was how to kill him and not get caught.

  The Turners lived with their grandpa in a shotgun shack down the street from St. Michael’s Church. They entered to find Ilan’s grandpa dozing on the couch in front of the TV. He mumbled something about “devil’s music” as Ilan walked past, but both Ilan and Fancy ignored him. Ilan led her to the back of the house, through room after room, until she heard Kit laughing behind a door.

  When Ilan opened it, Fancy saw Kit and Gabriel lying together on a fuzzy brown coverlet, so caught up in each other they didn’t notice Fan
cy and Ilan.

  Kit was laughing as Gabriel made smacking sounds against her neck and telling him she had to go, but not seeming in any big hurry to actually do so.

  Fancy looked away from Kit’s expression. The mirror on the wall behind her, above the dresser, showed her the happy place. But it wasn’t soothing her.

  “Gimme twenty more kisses and I’ll let you go.”

  “Twenty? Where?”

  “Lady’s choice.”

  “Your spleen.”

  Fancy looked back at her sister, hopeful.

  “Huh?”

  “Your liver. Your thyroid glands. I think about it all the time, opening you up and kissing you on the inside.”

  “You are inside. Right here.” He touched his heart.

  “I love you.” She kissed his mouth. His cheek. His ear. Fancy stormed into the room, hooked her arm around Kit’s neck, and dragged her from beneath Gabriel. She felt like she was outside her own body watching the arm around her sister’s neck tighten. She had just wanted to get Kit away from Gabriel, but now she was afraid to let go. What if Kit ran back to him?

  Gabriel scrambled off the bed. “Don’t be mad at her, Fancy. I’m the one—”

  “Don’t talk to me like you know me!”

  Kit clawed at the arm Fancy had at her throat, leaving long, red scratches that Fancy didn’t feel. Her veins felt full of Novocain.

  Gabriel’s hair, normally corralled into artistic squiggles, was free and sprouting all over his head in black crinkles. He looked like a clown. A clown with his fly undone.

  Kit got her feet under her and broke free of Fancy’s hold, pushing her back into the wall. “Fancy, calm down.”

  “I am calm.”

  “No, you’re not. Remember what I said? I love you. I know you think there ain’t room enough for you and other people, but there is. I swear. Gabriel’s a good guy. He even goes to church! But he’s not scared of me or freaked out by me. He loves me, Fancy. And if a boy like Gabe can love me, there must be something in me worth loving. Something good in me.”

  “And you think I’m so evil and tainted that my love doesn’t count?”

  As she spoke, the happy place seemed to ooze out of the mirror, sliding along the walls.

  “Fancy,” said Kit. “What’re you doing?”

  “All of a sudden I’m not good enough for you? Why can’t I be enough for you?”

  “Because I don’t wanna be with you! Don’t you get that? I wanna be with Gabriel!”

  Fancy looked away from Kit, the realization that she had been making a scene in front of strangers heavy in her mind. Ilan and Gabriel. Staring at her like she was a particularly good show on television. She saw the Ray Charles record on the dresser. “I Got a Woman.” The one she’d been looking all over for.

  “I loaned it to him,” said Kit, following her gaze. “Fancy, look at the walls. Are you doing that? Without the scope? How is that—”

  “You loaned it to him because you wanna be with him. Give him things. Even my things.”

  “Our things.”

  “My things!” Fancy broke the record against her knee. And hurled the pieces at Kit. “You wanna be with him? After I take his head, you can keep it in a jar and have him all to yourself and be with him all the time.”

  The happy place took over the room, consumed it.

  FROM FANCY’S DREAM DIARY:

  I DIED. I DON’T KNOW WHAT OF. I WAS IN A CRATE IN THE PIKACHU COSTUME I WORE FOR HALLOWEEN WHEN I WAS SEVEN. KIT WAS DRAGGING ME FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE TRYING TO GET SOMEBODY TO TAKE ME IN AND BURY ME, BUT NOBODY WOULD.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The happy place was almost unrecognizable. Clouds hung low and heavy and reddish like blood clots in the sick-yellow sky. The light that colored the clouds also touched the statues with a red glaze, so their heads seemed to have been lopped off in some bloody massacre. The trees creaked in the wind, only the creaking sounded like shrieks of pain. A smell of rot soured the air, wafting from the flamingos lying dead on the grounds.

  It was as if they’d entered an alternate world where the happy place was run by a lunatic instead of a young girl. A sweet young girl with a wicked, deceitful, faithless sister.

  “What did you do to this place?” Kit whispered, staring wide-eyed at the garden.

  Fancy reached into Kit’s pocket and grabbed her switchblade. Then she leaped on Gabriel and brought him to the ground. “After I cut his head off, you can keep it in a jar and have him all to yourself and be with him all the time.” She released the blade and went for Gabriel’s neck.

  People were screaming, but Fancy felt more calm than she had ever felt. Her purpose in life had been reduced to one simple goal: remove Gabriel’s head.

  Someone grabbed her arm and kept her from jamming the blade into Gabriel’s throat, so Fancy leaned forward briefly and then whipped her head back hard. Ilan groaned and dropped to the ground beside her. Fancy didn’t pay him any mind, too busy jabbing the knife toward Gabriel’s—

  Fancy was yanked to her feet, the switchblade snatched from her hand. “Have you lost your fucking mind, Fancy?” Kit pushed her aside and helped Gabriel to his feet. Stay away from him. Stay away from us.”

  Fancy tried to grab the knife again, but she tripped over Ilan’s unconscious body. As she stumbled Kit caught her, and this time, she slapped Fancy across the face.

  “Slap me again,” Fancy said. “Might as well get all that anger out now, cuz Gabriel’s dead. I’m going to kill him, and you can’t stop me.” Fancy waited, but Kit didn’t hit her again.

  “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

  “Too late!” Fancy screamed, and it was too late. She felt like one big bruise from head to toe.

  A stone circle, full of earth, pushed up through the ground near Kit and Gabriel, causing them to stumble into each other. The circle was right in the center of the platform, a showcase spot. And Fancy knew exactly what she wanted to showcase there. She was sure Gabriel would make an especially handsome tree.

  Fancy ran forward and shoved Gabriel backward into the dirt, and smiled when it swallowed him up.

  “No!” Kit dove into the stone circle, but instead of bouncing off the dirt as she had before, she sank into it, disappearing the same way Gabriel had.

  “Damn it.” But despite her annoyance Fancy felt a warm curl of pleasure that Kit was finally beginning to accept that the happy place was just as much hers as it was Fancy’s.

  Fancy held her nose and then jumped in after her sister. She swam through the moist cakelike earth, batting the worms away, and crashed into a dark coffin. She ripped open the lid, struggling to keep her hair and the earth out of her eyes and throat, but when she saw Gabriel lying inside the coffin, looking at her with a nervous grin, her focus narrowed to just one thing—choking that grin right off his face.

  Fancy reached for him, but Kit shoved her away and slammed the coffin shut; she floated over it protectively.

  Fancy tried to push Kit aside, but Kit would not be moved.

  “I’m not one of your happy-place subjects, maharaja. How many times do I have to tell you that you are not the boss of me? Now get outta here.”

  “I’m not leaving you down here alone with that—”

  “GET OUT!”

  Fancy shot out of the grave, the force of Kit’s anger lifting her so high in the air that she could have touched the neck of one of the statues. So high that when she finally hit the ground, Fancy was sure she would break against it like an egg. But this was her place. When she hit the ground, it made itself as soft as down. So unfair that the ground cared more about her than Kit did.

  When someone stumbled over Fancy’s ankle, she sat up. The platform was full of mourners in black, weeping. She hadn’t authorized this.

  Fancy shoved through the crowd, a sick feeling in her stomach as she reached the center of the platform, where she’d raised what she’d meant to be Gabriel’s grave. Instead of a tree sprouting from it as she’d planned, a tombstone jutted from the
soft earth with an inscription that read:

  CHRISTIANNE CORDELLE

  1995–2011 GABRIEL TURNER

  1997–2011

  DIED IN THE BLOOM OF THEIR YOUTH

  BECAUSE CHRISTIANNE’S HORRIBLE SISTER

  REFUSED TO LET THEM BE HAPPY.

  The headless people filed into the garden in a long, sad line. One by one they each placed a single flower on Kit’s fake grave. Fancy watched angrily. How could they play along with Kit’s idiot fantasy?

  “I can’t believe she’s gone.” Franken stood beside Fancy, tears in his eyes, scars bled white with shock. “I was so sure I’d go before she did. I thought she’d see to it.”

  “You’re all a bunch of idiots.”

  The mourners started weeping. Lorne looked at her nervously with the godfather’s old gold eyes and switched his head to the crook of his other arm, out of her reach.

  “We’ve only come to pay our respects,” he said, “but if you don’t wish it—”

  “What do I care? Dance on her grave, if you want. Break-dance on it.”

  They stared at her as though she’d cursed in church. She felt the sacrilege more than they did. “Just get out of here. Get out before I throw all of you down there with them!”

  Everyone left the garden except one person.

  Ilan, his forehead bloody, walked dream slow toward the stone circle, as if he didn’t trust each step to land him on solid ground. His eyes crawled over the tombstone inscription.

  “It was the mirror,” he said. “It brought us through. Just like . . . You opened a door.” He was trying to digest everything, but it was sitting hard inside him, hurting him. He looked at Fancy. “You did this. You killed my brother.”

  “Your brother’s not dead. Him and Kit are down there snuggled up, laughing at me.” She put her mouth close to the stone. “I hope you get eaten by maggots!”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Fancy straightened up and smoothed down her hair in an effort to look less insane. “Kit, come up so Ilan’ll stop thinking I killed you and his disgusting brother!”

  The tombstone inscription changed.