Our Crooked Hearts(16)
“Stop,” I said, “stop.”
We held on to each other, we held each other up, the sounds coming out of our mouths something like laughter. Marion cut out abruptly and turned, vomiting French fries and Mal?rt over the grass. When she was done we held her up, rubbing her back while she cried.
* * *
What did you do?
“I don’t know,” Marion kept saying. “I don’t know.”
How did you do it?
There was vomit on the toes of her shoes. She scuffed them against a curb. “Please. Stop asking.”
We could hear that she meant it. We were quiet for as long as we could stand it. Then:
Could we do it, too?
We were sitting at the edge of the Dominick’s lot, empty snack bags sifting around our feet. Fee had run in to buy Marion water and came back with Bugles and Pop-Tarts and Cool Ranch Doritos. All of it tasted so good, so electric, blasted with fake flavor that singed my tongue. We kept laughing with fresh surprise, mouths full of sodium crumbs, remembering the way the Ferret had fallen to his knees, then farther, embracing the sand.
“Yes,” Marion said. She said it so shyly. Like an old-fashioned bride. “If you want to. We could do it together.”
If, she said. If we wanted to learn how to be ferocious, how to have power, how to bring shitheads to their knees. We’d never wanted anything as much as we wanted this.
CHAPTER TEN
The suburbs
Right now
I wheeled up the drive to find my brother sitting in the sun, rolling a joint. He squinted at me.
“Your mouth looks better. I thought you were grounded, though.”
I dropped my bike by the garage. “Whatever. You get away with so much worse.”
Hank shrugged, like Yeah, I do. “Dad told me what happened with your King Shit boyfriend. Need me to do something?”
“Ex-boyfriend. And definitely not.”
“Just call me next time, dumbass. If you need a ride.”
“Fine, but you better answer when I do.” I sat beside him. “So. Hank.”
“So. Ivy.”
“I know you don’t want to. Like, ever. But we need to talk about Mom.”
He kept his eyes on his work. “That’s actually the last thing we need to do.”
“I’m serious,” I persisted. “Something’s going on with her. You haven’t talked to her lately, have you?”
“Talked? To Mom? That’s funny.”
Their rocky relationship was a scab I tried not to pick. Usually. “Listen to me. Last night I saw her burying something in the backyard. So I dug it up.”
He took a beat. “Yeah?”
“It was a jar of blood. And broken glass. And blood! I mean, what the hell?”
“Was it a full moon last night?”
My heart sped up. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Why?”
“That’s totally the kind of thing a New Age white lady does under a full moon. It’s probably some prosperity thing she read in a book.”
That was so annoyingly plausible I got out my phone and pulled up the dead rabbit. “Fine, except someone left this on our driveway the other day. And I was just at the shop. It’s closed for no reason, and I’m pretty sure someone left another rabbit on the floor.”
He glanced at my screen, then twisted away. “Ugh, who takes a photo of that? I know about the rabbit, I saw Dad hosing down the drive. That child of the corn probably left it, whatshisname who lives in the blue house.”
“Peter.”
“Right. Peter. But if you’re worried, talk to Aunt Fee.”
“I texted her. She’s gonna call me later.”
“Good.” He watched me for a second, eyes clouded. Then he shook his head. “She’ll tell you if things aren’t okay. Mom wouldn’t, but she will.”
“I guess,” I said, and hesitated. Tell him about the safe in the closet, yes or no?
Not yet, I decided. He’d want to break in again, see for himself. Or he’d underplay it completely. Either way I’d end up annoyed.
Hank held up the joint he’d finished rolling. “You want?”
“I’m good.”
“Cool.” He stashed it in an empty Altoids tin, swatting skunky flecks from his knees like he was about to stand. But I wasn’t done talking, so I opened my mouth and said the first thing I thought of. One of the drain holes my thoughts had been swirling around.
“Do you remember Hattie Carter?”
“Oh, god.” He laughed a little. “Everyone remembers Hattie Carter.”
“Right, but did you know she was my bully?”
“You had a bully?”
“Everyone has one at some point. Unless they are the bully.” I made my voice light, but it was bad. Cherry Coke poured into the slats of my locker bad. Rumors about my invented sluttiness bad. Aching stomach, Sunday-night dread bad. The worst part was, it was completely random. She was just some dick in my gym class who terrorized me for weeks, for no reason, until our teacher caught her texting a locker-room photo of me in my underwear to her friends. That skated close enough to lawsuit territory that the school got off its ass and did something about it.