Taking Turns (Turning #1)(94)

“It’s an attic, Quin. And it’s my present to you.” She smiles, her head hanging upside down, her dark hair falling over her shoulders. “Come on. I’m dying to show you this. I’ve been keeping it a secret for a week and I can’t take it anymore.”

I climb up the steep attic ladder and peek inside as she scoots away and backs up against a small circular window at the far end of the room, her head outlined by the lights around the gold dome of the capitol building. “What the f*ck is all this?”

“What does it look like?” Chella asks. “Or, who does it look like?”

I take it all in. A small shabby Christmas tree is lit up on the opposite end as Chella. It’s decorated with white lights and ornaments made of old paper. There’s dozens of vintage suitcases stacked around the perimeter walls. Those little hand-cases women used to carry makeup and toiletries in back in the Fifties and Sixties. And there’s a fuzzy pink rug on the floor.

“It looks like… Rochelle,” I say, sadness filling my heart.

“It is Rochelle,” Chella says. “I found this place by accident last week. And even I saw it immediately. She came up here, I guess. Her little secret room. Her little private life. And I don’t think Bric knows about it.”

“No,” I say, crawling across the rug and sitting cross-legged in front of Chella. “He’d have thrown it all away if he did.”

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t tell him. I figure all this stuff belongs to you. And look,” she says, crawling over to an old record player, the kind that comes in a case. “There’s music too.” She flips a switch and the turn table begins to spin. When she lifts the arm and places the needle on the 45 record, it starts to play Blue Christmas.

“Fuck,” I say.

Chella frowns. “Is this making you sad? I didn’t want to make you sad.”

“No,” I say, laying back on the rug and closing my eyes, two fingers massaging my temple to drive away the headache I feel coming. “I’m not sad.”

I’m devastated. I just don’t want it to show.

“I miss her so f*cking much.”

Chella crawls over to me and lies down. She wraps an arm around my waist and places her head against my chest. “I’m sorry she left. And I wish I knew where she went. Because I’d tell you, Quin. I promise, I would.”

I slip an arm under her and start playing with her hair as I imagine all the nights Rochelle and I spent together listening to these old records. “Blue Christmas. That’s pretty much how I feel right now.”

“Open your eyes and look up,” Chella says.

I do. And on the ceiling is… a work of art. “Jesus,” I whisper. “What is all that?”

“Her,” Chella says. “She has a thing for dandelions.”

I get a stabbing pain in my heart. “I used to pick her dandelions every summer. Whole bouquets of them. When they were yellow, she’d put them in a vase.” And there on the ceiling is the vase filled with our weedy flowers. “And then in late summer I’d pick her wishes.” I smile at that thought. “Millions of wishes.”

Chella points to the ceiling. “Like that?”

It’s a self-portrait of Rochelle. She’s not a painter—as least, not as far as I knew—but it resembles her enough for me to recognize her. She’s blowing the wishes away.

“What was her wish, Quin? Did she ever tell you?”

“Her wish…” I say, thinking about it. It has been so long since we thought of our relationship in terms of the arrangement. “Her wish was to… belong to someone.”

We sigh together. “I think that might be my wish too,” Chella says.

“Really?” I ask, turning my head so I can see her in profile.

“Yeah. Bric and Smith have both asked me, but I don’t feel like telling them.”

“But you’ll tell me?”

She nods slowly. “I like telling you things. You tell me things, I tell you things. You’re the perfect Number Two, Quin. Easy to love, just like Smith said. And easy to laugh with too.”

“I like you too, Chella. And if I had my way, we’d stay in this arrangement forever.”

“But we won’t, will we?”

“No,” I say. “It never lasts.”

More sighing from both of us. “What’s all that writing?” I ask, pointing to the ceiling.

“It’s a song,” Chella says. “An old church song. I’ll Fly Away. Have you ever heard it?”

I shake my head. Sick. So sick for not knowing this about the girl I loved.

“I can play it,” Chella says. “She has the record.”

When I say nothing Chella gets up on her knees and crawls over to the record player. Anything is better than Blue Christmas. She takes that record off, plops a new record on, and then starts the music with a loud crackling noise.

Then she crawls back to me and lies back down. Points to the ceiling. “The words are up there. She wrote them all out.”

I follow along with the song, reading her words, dying inside.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I ask.

“No,” Chella says softly, leaning into me to kiss my cheek. “I don’t think so.”