LaRose(32)

There was the house. They paused in the brush and regarded the angry neatness of its yard. There were planted flowers, bunched and glowing. A small hedge fiercely trimmed.

La vida loca, said Josette.

I know, it’s so sad.

She tries so hard to be okay, said Josette. I kind of get it. And I like her flowers.

Me too. But she scares me.

You go first.

No, you.

Okay, but you talk to her.

No, I can’t. I’ll bust out.

Nola had developed an unnerving force field. The vibrational aura flowed with her to the door and pulsed toward the girls when she opened it—not wide, just a crack—and said, Oh, it’s you. Vibrations flowed out when she spoke, and sealed the door like plastic wrap when Nola closed it softly in the girls’ faces. When she opened the door again, she did it so slowly that the ions were only slightly disarranged. With his backpack on, LaRose popped through. The aura was sucked back in and the three of them ran across the lawn.

After the first time, Nola had stopped herself from watching out the window. She grabbed her headphones and walked straight through the house, out the sliding double glass doors, out onto the deck and down its four steps, across the yard to the shed with its crossbeams that worried Peter. She opened the doors, topped up the tank of the riding lawn mower, then got on and adjusted the walkman clipped to her belt. Peter had given her some very strange music for Christmas. It was soothing and yet disturbing, pipes and echoey voices chanting, ethereal soprano solos, wordless and mysterious voices, melodies that swirled, collapsed, revived in some ruthless disorienting key. She could listen to this music indefinitely as she cut the grass over and over on the riding lawn mower.

Eventually she parked, got off, and went into the house. She went up to her room, leaned on the closet door, stared into the clothing. Except for her one purple dress, she had four of everything, in neutral colors, and she wore only these things. Four jackets, four pants, four skirts, four jeans, four shirts, four panty hose. Four of everything for dress-up, and four for everyday. But she had lots of pretty underwear that she bought from a catalog.

At first, she was only going to change her underwear. Her belly was tight. A push-up bra of scratchy maroon lace. A tiny white bikini. Then she stood there and laid out the eggshell white shirt, the whiter pants, upon the bed. She took the brown heels out of their box. Laid the gray jacket, tailored, with no collar, around the eggshell shirt. The whole outfit was assembled there as though by an undertaker. Too businessy to be dead in, she thought, and took away the white pants and replaced them with a short, flaring skirt. I’ll have to think again, she decided. She tapped her lips and opened the closet.


Wild Things

THE TWO GIRLS and LaRose between them walked back through the woods. Snow did not forget about the ticks but just gave up, she was so happy. They had their little brother back for a few days now and the light was pure green, cool, the sun hot only outside the trees, on the road. Halfway there, LaRose stopped and said to them, Can we go? They knew he meant to the tree. Nobody knew how he knew about the tree, but he did know and often he insisted on going there when the girls came to get him. They didn’t mind so much. They never told their parents. It was easy to get to and in a moment they stood before Dusty’s climbing tree, the branch, and the space of ground beneath, where dead flowers, tobacco ties, loose sage, and two small rain-beaten stuffed animals—a monkey and a lion—were arranged. LaRose put his backpack down and took out Where the Wild Things Are. He gave it to Josette and said, Read it. She read it out loud. After her voice stopped, they stood in the resounding sweetness of birdcall.

What was that about? said Josette.

LaRose took back the book. He turned it to his pack with a little frown.

I think it was his favorite, said LaRose. Because she reads it to me all the time.

Snow and Josette put their hands over their hearts and mouthed the words for sad, for sweet. They each took LaRose by a hand and kept walking.

I am so over that book, LaRose said loudly.

The girls batted their eyes at each other to keep their laughs inside.

Maybe you should leave that book for him, said Snow.

Put it with his stuffed monkey and stuff.

I can’t, said LaRose. She would search.

Well, said Josette, okay, but she wouldn’t find it. So she’d give up, right?

No, said LaRose. She would never give up. She might go out to the barn and scream like a banshee.

Ooo, said Snow. What’s a banshee?

It’s a boney old woman with long teeth that crawls around graves and screams when someone dies.

Holeee, said Josette.

Creep me out! said Snow. Where’d you get that?

Maggie told me. She’s got a collection of pictures from books and things that she keeps underneath her bed. All scary.

She keeps scary junk underneath her bed?

Josette and Snow looked at each other.

Whoa, for badass.

Where’s she get that crazy shit?

Don’t say that to LaRose.

She rips pages out of library books at school, said LaRose.

Little man, said Josette. Don’t let her bother you.

I’m used to her, said LaRose. I’m used to everything now.

The girls just held his hands and didn’t talk after that.

Before they took LaRose to the Ravich house last fall, Landreaux and Emmaline had spoken his name. It was the name given to each LaRose. Mirage. Ombanitemagad. The original name of Mink’s daughter. That name would protect him from the unknown, from what had been let loose with the accident. Sometimes energy of this nature, chaos, ill luck, goes out in the world and begets and begets. Bad luck rarely stops with one occurrence. All Indians know that. To stop it quickly takes great effort, which is why LaRose was sent.