Everyone's Favorite Girl (8 page)

This time around, I had a minor mental breakdown trying to unscrew the slip nut from the pipe running up to the sink.  The threading had been reinforced with plumber's tape.  I didn't think I'd be able to do it with my bare hands, and I wasn't about to go another round with James for a wrench.  Besides, how would I explain the need for one?

Finally it came loose and I was able to twist the trap around and loosen the nut connecting to the drain pipe.

The device fell out easily.  Since we only used the sink to wash our hands or get a glass of water, the trap was almost pristine, absent of the rancid stench I remember from Ted's plumbing lesson.

Flora never stirred while I banged around under the sink, reassembling the drain, nor when I repeated the process of extracting one of the two remaining drugs from the device and diluting it in water.

I sat beside her holding the glass and put a hand on her good bicep.  She awoke with wide eyes, drawing in a deep breath.

"Drink some water," I whispered.

She lifted her head and brought her hand up to the bottom of the glass as I touched the rim to her lips.  She took two small sips and I quickly set the glass on the nightstand and stood.  There was a fifty percent chance she would go into a sex frenzy.  All I could hope was that she'd use her good arm to masturbate.

Instead, tears welled up in her eyes and she reached out for me.

Reluctantly I took her hand.

She sniffled.

"I love you, Melissa."

Bingo.

~ ~ ~ ~

I slept all day.  By the time I woke it was dark again and Flora was no longer in bed beside me.  The last thing I remembered was hugging her and returning her whispered expressions of love and affection.  At some point I dozed off--or maybe we both did.

The clatter of silverware drew me to a sitting position.  The smell of bacon wafted across my face.  Flora was setting the table, wearing a white dress with loose sleeves that came down to her elbows.  Very retro, very smart.  Beside the table stood James's food cart, which meant he was just here.

"Good, you're awake," she said, setting the last fork, spoon, and knife.  "I hope you don't mind I ordered dinner.
You've been stirring a lot, so I thought you'd wake up soon.  Are you hungry?"

She was unusually chipper.  How long did the Love Drug stay in your system?

I got out of bed and put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, despite my sudden urge to take a shower.  My muscles ached from sleeping so long, and I developed a headache in the time it took to slog over to the table and plop down in a chair.

Flora was a sight to see.  Bouncy and chipper, like Kate when I first met her, only more convincing.  Humming a tune I couldn't identify.  She looked like a nineteenth century farmer's daughter setting the breakfast table before church.  All she needed was golden sunlight slanting through a window to light up her hair, the chorus of grasshoppers and bullfrogs to add rhythm to her song.

Suddenly I felt like I'd been given a dose of the love drug.  A feeling not quite like nostalgia surged through me.  I wasn't thinking about my own past.  I was thinking about the past Flora didn't have.  She'd never felt sunlight on her skin.  She'd never heard the sounds of the outdoors.

If she'd slept with me for a while, maybe we both started sweating and I absorbed some of the Love Drug that way.

Or maybe she drugged me in my sleep to improve my temperament.

I decided I didn't care.

"Smells good," I said as Flora forked two waffles onto plates and set them on the table with a syrup dispenser and plate of butter.

"Is breakfast food okay?"

"It's perfect."

We ate our waffles with a few strips of bacon and two eggs apiece.  Then we ate from a bowl of fruit that included strawberries, blueberries, white and red raspberries, apple slices, and mango.  Still on the cart was a bundle of bananas.

This was the healthiest, most elaborate meal we'd had the past few days.  Flora must have really put on the charm with James.

"You didn't drug him, did you?"

She took a bite of a strawberry.  "No, he was just really nice.  It was odd.  He asked how I was feeling and promised he'd keep us stocked in fresh fruits and vegetables to help boost my immune system.  Why would he care all of a sudden?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her.  The same reason the witch wanted to fatten up Hansel and Gretel.  My ownership--or rental--of Flora had expired, and James was on the brink of finally getting to fuck a Favorite Girl.  Like a tiger caged up in a zoo, waiting for the opportunity to devour a small child.  And if you're smart enough to know the nutritional
benefits of raw fruits and vegetables, you're smart enough to want your meat to be healthy.

James--and certainly Sean as well--wanted Flora in tip-top shape when they raped and murdered her.

"He has a crush on you, just like everyone else."

I forced myself to smile.  Flora had a glow to her this morning, and I didn't want it to fade.  She was the closest thing to sunlight I might ever see again.

We sat in silence for a minute, picking at our preferred fruits.  Flora went mostly for strawberries; I liked mango.  Between the two of us, we'd already killed the blueberries.

Finally I suggested we mosey over to the couch.  Flora poured us each a cup of coffee and I carried the fruit bowl and the bananas.

"Should we be drinking coffee this late?"

Flora shrugged and handed me a mug.  "I won't tell if you won't."

We sat and sipped.

"How is your arm?"

"It's a little sore.  I probably need to stop using it for a while."

"I'm sorry I put you through that."

"It's okay, really."  Her eyes dropped for a moment.  "Just tell me you have a plan."

"I do."

"Does it involve anyone getting hurt?"

"Just them."

"Who specifically?"

I pictured them one by one in my head.

"James, Kate, Sean, Gene . . . and Patton."

Her eyes widened.  She started shaking her head.  "No, Melissa.  You can't.  Patton isn't bad.  You can't hurt him."

"I thought he wasn't bad, too," I said, "but it's all a show, Flora.  He's no better than the rest of them."

"You're wrong."

"Flora . . ."

The glow was gone now.  She was crying.  I should have known better.  If Patton wasn't who she thought he was, her entire world would crumble.  He was her beacon--he played that role for all the Favorite Girls.  Without him, they had nothing good in their lives, no reason to hope.  Of course it was all a lie, Patton nothing more than a torture device.  Every Favorite Girl grew up believing they were being groomed for marriage, and each of them suffered the delusion that her new husband would be just like Patton: warm, comforting, caring, helpful, and gorgeous.

Fuck him for his perfection.

Flora looked up from her steaming coffee, tears streaming down her cheeks.  "Can I tell you . . . a story?"

"Sure."

"It'll take a minute."

"I think we've got time," I said, peering around the quiet room.

Flora nodded, returning her eyes to the mirror surface of her coffee.

Then she told me her story.

-Flora's Patton-

"EVERY TIME a new Flora joins our class, Patton comes to tell us all the story of where we came from and where we're going.  It's everyone's favorite day."

We lay opposite one another on the couch, sharing a blanket, our cold feet tucked between the cushions.  We were both bloated and lethargic from the waffles and heavy syrup.  Flora looked sleepy--the state in which she was the most beautiful, with her eyelids drooped just a little, her mouth barely open.  Men and women alike would look at her right now and feel only jealousy.

Once again I felt like a young teenager having a sleepover with my best friend while my parents were off on one of their weekend getaways to the riverboat in New Albany or for restaurants and theater in Chicago.  Those irreplaceable nights when boys and girls, free from the moral authority of parents, conspire to generate whatever trouble they can clean up by Sunday afternoon, be it solo cups and the smell of
vodka, a stained twin-size bed sheet, or explicit browser history.  Me?  I was the type to invite boys over but only to let them watch me make out with a girl.  I was
that
girl--the one driven blindly by the desire to be liked by everyone.

Sometimes I think if I hadn't been lucky enough to get swept up by a multi-millionaire fresh out of high school, I might well have traded in my serving apron for a stripper pole.

Staring at Flora in white dress, feeling her wiggling toes on my feet, I regressed to a teenager, relishing in possibility without consequence.

Then she winced and cupped the bandage on her arm, and reality crept back in, pushing out stale childhood feelings.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said.  "It stings on and off."  Before I could say anyt
hing, she continued, "You know the story he told us was a lie, obviously, but have you ever heard it?”

I hadn’t.  The lie about where the Favorite Girls were headed, but not their falsified story of origin.

I shook my head, eager to hear her out.

Flora
nodded, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and began:

“
Do you know the worst day of the year for a Favorite Girl—you know, not knowing what
we
know?”

“Graduation Day.”

“Do you know why?”

“Because the oldest girl leaves and you never see her again.”

She nodded emphatically.

“The only plus side is the next morning, when the new girl is released to us.  There’s no time to be sad because you don’t want to scare her.  Besides, Patton comes and spends the
whole
day with us, telling us stories, listening to us play our instruments, and we get to talk about anything we want.”  I couldn’t help but notice she’d begun to speak in the present tense, as though she were still a part of this ritual and not a past sacrifice.  “He never stood in front of the class and told the story,” Flora explained.  “He would just slip it in to conversation—but only once.  Sometimes you miss the beginning.  I was eleven when he picked me to tell it to.  It was lunch.  A few other Floras were sitting at my table, but he and I were the only ones talking.  What always sets off Patton’s story is someone saying something bad about another group of Favorite Girls, and that’s what I was doing.  I was fed up with the Vampire Girls and Glow Girls bullying everyone else, and I was fed up with Patton and Ms. Lane not doing anything about it.  I was a very vocal Flora.  Some Floras just keep quiet and smile no matter what happens, but a few of us are different.  Anyway, I was telling him about how mean the Glow Girls were being to the Frog Girls in gym class, and he said, ‘You must consider where the Glow Girls came from, Flora.’  This is how he always begins the story.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled, perhaps recalling the smell of the cafeteria food.

“According to Patton, he was given the task of identifying the different types of women in the world, and then going out and finding a perfect example of each.”

So far Patton’s lie was the truth.

“Did he tell you the different types?”

She nodded.  “
Frog Girls represent the unattractive, the uneducated, the unconfident.  Most of them are kindhearted, but despite being the strongest, they let people walk all over them.  Vampire Girls represent the angry and spiteful.  They hate everything—even each other.  Dolls represent people who aren’t able to take care of themselves, who are at the mercy of others for sheer survival.  Giggle Girls represent the naively happy.  They’re very self-centered.  Diamond Girls represent the self-destructive.  They’re characterized by their emotional instability and deceptiveness.  Glow Girls represent the purely vain and narcissistic.  Glow Girls believe themselves to be the most beautiful, most desired Favorite Girls.”

“When actually that’s you,” I said.

Flora curled her brow.  “Really?”

“You didn’t know?  Floras are the Number One seller.”

“Hmm.”

Whatever emotion she was feeling, she didn’t show it.  On the one hand, being most desired puts your head closer to the chopping block.  On the other hand, couldn’t so
me form of flattery be interpreted from this awful fact?

“The Favorite Girls are made from the DNA of Patton’s original selection.  We’re shaped to be the best of our kind, so men can know they’re getting exactly what they want in a wife.”

I was amazed.  The story Patton told the Favorite Girls was basically the truth.  Only the outcome was a lie.

“What happened to the originals?” I asked,
though whatever lie Patton told her didn’t interest me.  I knew enough about the family dynamic to figure it out for myself.  Patton took exotic vacation after exotic vacation, meeting, seducing, and luring girls onto a plane, bringing them back to headquarters, where, upon Mr. Shriver’s observation and approval, Brian most likely harvested their usable genetic material, after which, wounded from surgery, the girls were handed over to Sean for rape and murder.  At that point Clifton came to collect the remains.  Perhaps the Favorite Girl prototypes were the original reason for the installation of the incinerator.

I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear Flora’s answer to my question, but by the look on her face, she didn’t put much stock in Patton’s lie either.

“When do we get to the part where I feel better about Patton?”

I bit my lip.  That sounded snarky.

But Flora was smiling.

“You haven’t heard the end of the story.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“We have Frog, Vampire, Doll, Diamond, Giggle, Glow, and Flora—”

“What does Patton say the Floras represent?  You never told me that.”

Her shoulders drew up to her ears.  “He says we’re the kind, generous, and honest ones.  He also says we’re the ones burdened with intelligence.  That we’re the ones who know something isn’t quite right, and unlike the other girls, we grow up worrying.
  But after that—after he describes all the Favorite Girls—he says, ‘There’s still one group missing.  I just haven’t found the right girl.’”

“What’s she like?”

“That’s exactly what I asked!”  Her eyes were alight, a blue so deep she could compete with Patton for a mesmerizing stare.  “Patton said the final Favorite Girl is like a combination of all the other girls.  She can be kind and compassionate but vindictive when necessary.  She’s intelligent, but she puts herself in harmful situations.  She has a lot of hate inside her, but she has a lot of love, too.  Does that sound like anyone you know?”

“Are you talking about me?”

“Of course.”

“So Patton’s going to clone me, too?”

She shook her head gravely.  “He said when he finds the final Favorite Girl, he’s going to marry her himself.  It’s you, Melissa.  He chose you.  He’s somewhere right now figuring out a way to help us.  You have to believe it.  He loves us.”