Peachy, p.6
Peachy, page 6
After he finished his first cigarette, he pulled out a second, offering me the pack in the same moment. I curled my lip in distaste. I enjoyed watching people smoke, it would seem, but I didn’t care for the gravel and tar taste. I held out my beer to him in a matching offer. He lifted his eyebrows, and with avidity, reached out to take it. I pulled it away before he got his hand around it and finished the can. I did not share. He snorted next to me.
I wanted another beer, but I was reluctant to leave this quirky little rendezvous. He didn’t seem to feel the same, finally rising to his feet and walking back in the house. I pulled out my phone to call my mom—I had been here much longer than an acceptable amount of teen social time anyway—when he sidled back out through his door, a can of beer in each hand. He slid back down the wall, stretching the drinks out in front of him. Once he was settled, he opened the first and held it out to me with his maculated hand. How chivalrous. I suppressed my smile; I didn’t want him to know I was pleased, but took it happily. He beamed at my acceptance. We both sipped at our drinks and watched the sky as party guests gradually filtered away someplace.
Once the night became hushed, and I was the only one left, I stood up, my knees popping. He followed suit, towering over me, but didn’t move to enter the house. Instead, he reached out a hand from a distance. “Ben,” he said to me.
Nearly satiated by both his silence and his aversion to my classmates, I timidly extended my own and embraced his hand in a weak shake. He squeezed my palm vigorously until I gave the same pressure.
“Frankie,” I finally conceded.
He had seemed to understand me immediately. I’d never felt anything like it. My stomach surged at the knowledge that Ben had, perhaps, known me before I had ever met him—on the incredibly off-chance that anything he said was real. I should have been more suspicious when it had all started. He had been so … excited! Always bursting with happiness to see me, to blow off any other plans to stray around town in apathy with me. He was never offended by my grumpiness and constant rebuffs against his touch, he simply stopped asking if I wanted him there and instead began showing up at my side, at school during the day and at my house at night. Without the opportunity to say no, I became more than accustomed to his incessant presence, I craved it.
I stumbled into a big park with a well-worn mulch path around the corners. There weren’t many people out enjoying the place with this heat, just a few homeless individuals napping in the grass under a thicket of trees. I meandered through the turf, ignoring the path, until I found my own shade. I fell to the ground in swampy exhaustion. There were some yellow-type flowers around the base of the tree, a few of them stomped and broken, which, so unexpectedly, made me think of my mother.
She wasn’t like Pamela in the slightest, and after her own teenage rebellion, she had struggled to understand my desire to just stay home. She loved to dance. She would move to any music playing whether it be at the grocery store, or the hospital, or my graduation ceremony. If there was no music, she would sing her own songs and grab the nearest bystander by the arm, forcing them into an unwilling waltz. She had fiery hair that fell to her waist in silky ringlets and striking jade eyes. I was a diluted secondhand version of her, like the color had been sucked out.
Men adored my mother. I’d regularly come home from school to find a new admirer sitting at the table while she cooked up something colorful, spicy, and delicious. Her energy and our frequent visitors did not make us popular with the town, and that never seemed to bother her. She loved the cow fields and the nearby mountains. She found the expanding rumors about our family entertaining; they endeared her to them further.
I felt guilty now, for wanting the things that I did. I wanted to leave. I hated the town, I hated the people. But mostly I wanted to get far away from her frenzied energy and her endless parade of scumbag suitors who weren’t looking for a new frizzy-haired stepkid.
I resented that I was my mother’s inverse.
My mom said very little about my biological father when I was young. Eventually, I stopped asking about him. She always told me, as delicately as she was able, that he hadn’t asked for me as a daughter and she had never pressured him to commit. Just like the myriad of boyfriends with whom she kept company in my teens. Just like me. She never pressured me to finish my homework, never pressured me to apply for scholarships, or to find my dream job, or to even keep a steady, uninspiring job. She just let me follow my fancies.
And I hated her for it.
I wanted pressure, I wanted her to yell at me. To push me to try. A part of me even yearned for her to rant about Ben’s constant presence. Wouldn’t a normal mother do that?
And that’s why, at nineteen, I left her to move to a different, uglier piece of Salt Lake City than where I sat in the grass now. I had saved up enough from the sandwich shop to get my own crappy apartment before I got a barista job at a coffee house nearby. Ben would still hang around my place whenever he worked in the area. He would cook us dinner and listen to me go on about my shitty job and my piling bills and my non-prospects of any kind. But he was just a reminder of what I left behind, and I canceled our plans more often than not. My mother called every day.
After her accident, I traveled back home to go through our junk. I’d find myself looking at her things until dark and I’d reason it was too late to drive. I’d sleep in, nestled in my old bed, until my manager got sick of my absence and fired me. I was elated until Pamela walked through the door without knocking. That was months ago. Six months ago.
I rolled over in the grass to get closer to the flower. The petals looked pudding soft, I couldn’t help reaching out to skim my fingertips across each. I wasn’t disappointed, I rolled them between my fingers. My hand traveled along the stem to the stomped brown bits in the center, and I missed her.
As I held the dead flower, the stem plumped. The silky wilted petals opened and stretched. The colors of the blossom brightened while the plant straightened itself proudly and faced the sun. Alive.
I breathed in the scent of the now healthy bloom and savored this season for the first time all year. I pinched myself hard inside my elbow.
“Ow! Shit.” I glared at the beautiful flower. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
My hand still held the fresh flower by the petals. They were warm.
I shook in denial, but without thinking, reached out for another wilted plant beside the first. Before I could connect, my spine tingled like static. I scoured over my shoulder. The nappers still lay at rest, eyes closed. My head craned left and right. Nothing looked amiss, but the tingle remained. Someone was watching me. I turned back to the flowers, peeking through my hair sporadically for my voyeur. They were getting closer.
“It’s disorienting, I know. But, wow, you have an enchanting gift.” I whipped my head around in the opposite direction than I’d been expecting. The speaker was within touching distance and stood over my shoulder, her shadow disappeared in the shade of the tree. I looked up at Cleo, unprepared for the additional heartache her beauty caused. She appeared a little older than me, clearly a woman—there wasn’t an ounce of childhood naivety or androgyny about her. Her expression was so warm, I nearly closed my eyes to escape it. This face could take anything from me.
I searched the park once more for whatever had given me that funny feeling and saw nothing. Anxiety stirred in my chest when I considered what they may have seen me do, but like a magnet, my eyes returned to Cleo and my anxiety was erased. Feeling the irrational urge to reach out to her and touch, I smashed my hands into the dirt and roughly forced myself off my knees. I brushed the clumps and rocks off my skin, refusing to meet her concerned eyes. Looking at her made me feel like someone else.
“I’m Cleo,” she introduced, “but I’m sure you already knew that. We were worried … So, Frankie? Right? You don’t like Francesca. I’m sorry this was sprung on you. I’m sure I’m not the person you want to see. But are you okay?”
I hated that this dream woman pitied me. I hated that her words made me want to cry. “How did you find me?” I asked, feeling completely pathetic.
She was embarrassed by my question. “Well, Ben knew where you ended up once you did. He thought you might not want to see him …” She shrugged her perfect shoulders. Her skin smoldered in the sun. I shook myself internally and forced myself to listen to her. “Hence, the leaving him in his car.”
“So, he sent you?” Coward.
Again, she looked sheepish. “Not exactly. I’ve wanted to meet you for so long now. I know how you’re feeling and I’m being incredibly selfish, but I couldn’t help myself. Are you absolutely hating me right now?”
Yes. But when I saw her miserable expression, my instincts screamed to soothe her. “Uh, no. No. Nice to meet you, Cleo. I’m just a little—” She smiled, and I had to close my eyes again. “—caught off guard. By all of this. And, uh, you know. You.” I risked a glance and caught her nodding. She knew the effect she had on people. “I’m Frankie,” I said redundantly. “So … it’s true? And you, you’re like Ben?”
“That’s right, and like you. It’s so unbelievable. It takes time, a lot of time. And support from people like us.” Her face suddenly hardened and I took a step back. “I hope you aren’t terribly upset with Ben. He looked so hurt when I left him.”
She grabbed my shoulders and I was both horrified and exhilarated. She rubbed them up and down like she was keeping me warm. I loathed unfamiliar touch, but I practically fell to my knees and thanked her for the contact.
“Everything will make sense soon, I promise,” she vowed. I did not want to go back to the car, but my head was bouncing up and down on my neck, desperate to keep this woman happy. Her smile put the stars to shame. “Wonderful!” She let go of my shoulders but took one of my hands before turning away. I saw a glimpse of self-satisfaction on her face and I did not trust this woman.
Walking with Cleo was like taking a tour of Salt Lake City. With the hand that wasn’t holding mine, she pointed out structures and streets, telling me whether they were worth a cover fee or if the service was bad. Her hand soaked in my sweat, but she never let go.
“Did you like the food at Stella’s? It’s not the best spot in town, but they have a great patio. Don’t you think so?” Cleo asked.
“Stella’s?”
She giggled. The sound was wind chimes, and I bit my cheek to keep my head. “Where you went to lunch! Did you like it?”
I thought back to lunch and I could hardly remember what I ordered, let alone how it tasted. “I think so.” She put her hand to her chest and looked at me like I was a puppy that couldn’t climb a stair on its own. Such a face was insulting, but my mouth stretched into a silly grin for her.
We were crossing the street to the Stella’s parking lot now and I saw Ben leaning against his car, head down. I waited for Cleo to drop my hand, which she didn’t. She was virtually skipping as we reached him. He lifted his head when he heard us on the pavement, and his expression transitioned from worry to fierce relief. The relief was so visible and profound I very nearly felt remorse for leaving him. “Bastard,” I murmured.
Cleo steered me to the backseat of Ben’s sedan. Once I was belted inside, she finally released me and shut the door. Without her skin on mine I felt more like myself: incensed. She circled back around the trunk of the car before she opened the driver-side door. I stared at her in the rearview mirror, baffled, before Ben slid into the seat next to me. His eyes were entreating and anguished. He didn’t say anything, but his face was positively begging me to let him sit at my side. Figuring my only option was to run back into the street and drown in my own sweat, I groaned and mashed my face into the back of the driver’s seat.
Ben did not put his seatbelt on, but turned his body to face me. He put his feet over mine, the back of his calf resting against my shin, and encircled my fingers in his own. I cringed, but then he held my hand to his forehead, his eyes closed reverently, and gave my knuckles a swift kiss, just a brush of his lips, before placing them back in my lap. His immense gratitude was unexpected—he probably knew I was on my way back before I did.
Cleo pulled out of the parking lot and got on I-15. She rolled down all four windows, not even attempting the AC. She’d driven this car before, and she shifted expertly. I felt stupid for not realizing she had been in Ben’s life all this time.
No one talked for the bulk of the drive, which seemed against Cleo’s nature, but she was happy. The radio squeaked, and she hummed sweetly along to each static song. Every few moments Ben would stroke the back of my hand with his thumb or bump his leg against mine. Each touch less unnerving than the last. From time to time, I would shift positions, throwing an elbow into his ribs or stomp on the toe of his Sperry, pleased with each grunt spewed from his mouth.
We were ten minutes outside of town when my cell phone rang. Without having to ask, Cleo rolled up the windows and turned the radio down.
“Hello?”
“Hello, am I speaking with Francesca Hughes?” a woman recited.
“Yes,” I answered hesitantly.
“My name is Amanda Wells, I’m with the medical examiner’s office. I’m calling in regard to your grandmother, Pamela Hughes.”
There was an expectant silence. “Okay.”
“We have reached the cause of death in her case. She experienced cardiac arrest, which isn’t uncommon for a woman her age.”
My eyebrows pinched. “She had a heart attack?”
“No, Miss Hughes, a heart attack is a blockage in the blood. Cardiac arrest is the sudden failure of the heart, by which I mean the heart stopped beating. I’m very sorry for your loss.” Her voice was wooden, but I couldn’t begrudge her that. “Should I arrange for the deceased to be picked up by the funeral director? Perez Family Funeral Home will handle everything from here.”
I didn’t know what else to do with the deceased. “Okay. Thanks,” because, what else was there to say. I hung up the phone and let it fall to the side.
“Pamela’s heart stopped,” I informed the car. “That’s what did it.”
Ben and Cleo exchanged weighted expressions in the rearview mirror. My suspicion piqued, my hackles raised. My mind was connecting dots, slowly and painstakingly, but I was definitely realizing something. I played back what Ben had said to me earlier: I couldn’t join him in whatever this was with my grandmother still around, with her grip on my life so suffocating. Something about my pulling away, but it was time …
I shivered despite the heat and resisted the urge to leap from the moving car. “Did you?” I whimpered, wide-eyed.
Ben snorted in disgust. “I know I haven’t been honest with you but I’m not sure I deserve that.” He faltered when he saw our entwined limbs. His jaw clenched. “Maybe I do.” He cupped my chin, and my twitch was insubstantial after all the exposure. “But I didn’t kill your nana, Frank.”
The emphasis was perfectly clear. Ben didn’t kill Pamela.
But somebody did.
I was calm in comparison to discovering the truth about Ben. It could be because when I found her, I was already inundated with the knowledge that there was something abnormal, something overpoweringly wrong about Pamela on that couch. It was the utter absence of the unfamiliar—nothing was knocked over, she hadn’t tried to stand up, the shades weren’t drawn. It was the normalcy of the entire scene that made it so obvious that there was something very not normal about it.
“Who, Ben?” I demanded, feeling vengeful. I even cast a furtive glance at Cleo behind her back.
He put his big sunglasses on and stared up at the burning sky. “I don’t know. Like I started to tell you in the car, when I see something, it’s not like there’s a camera set up that I’m watching through, I see through someone’s perspective. The more time I spend with a person, the more often I see through them. I hadn’t seen anything important concerning Pamela since she decided to move in with you.”
I curled my lip. “You could have warned me.”
His features all pulled together as if there was a bathtub drain in his nose. “I was in her head when it happened.” He kicked the loose pebbles of his driveway. “A vampire got to her, looked like.”
Cleo gasped at this ridiculous revelation. Ben’s foot swung harder, rocks pummeling the side of his car.
“Hands were on her. The palms were on both sides of her head.” He held his hands to his cheeks in illustration. “They just rested there. They weren’t Pamela’s hands. And her sight just drifted away to nothing.”
I imagined Nosferatu sneaking in to kill my grandmother with his claw-like hands. “Vampires? Vampires and witches and … wendigoes,” I finished lamely, “Oh, my.” I stomped back to the car and leaned my head on the hot roof until it hurt. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” I bounced my head against the steel.
“Vampires are witches, Dorothy. It’s just a classification. Their affinity.” He yanked my shirt, pulled me away from the car. I wrenched the cotton from his hands. “They’re like life-drinkers. I’ve never met one before. Creepy things.” Cleo nodded vigorously beside him. “Groups of us, covens or ilks, some have life-drinkers and they are powerful commodities. Rare. Each slightly different than the last. But they are not an easy people to control, for murder-y reasons.”
The sun sank below the crest of the mountain, and I feared my mind was sinking with it. Either that or it was about to explode and leak out my ears. I couldn’t think of a response that didn’t involve the words insane or crazy. I couldn’t think of anything. I just turned to the front door and waited for Ben to open it.
