* * *
“You’re late!” the Leech yells.
What I don’t say: I hate you!
“You forgot the cat food! What’s He-Cat supposed to eat?”
What I don’t say: Poison!
“Look at the mud you tracked onto the floor! Scrub that now!”
What I don’t say: You scrub it!
On my hands and knees, I wipe the floor clean of scuff marks.
What I do say: “Clean enough?”
“Enough of your sass.”
I see her arm swing back and then forward. If I have the time to see it, why don’t I move away? Why don’t I block it? Why don’t I defend myself? I feel her palm hard across my face. What she just did, hitting me, that’s against the law. She’s not allowed to do that. But it doesn’t matter. The law is meaningless. Who will enforce it for me? Who will take my side against hers?
In my room I cry, but it’s the kind of crying that is silent and only a little wet.
I cry because I’m so alone. Because of the way Raymond hurt my feelings today. Because of the way Alix ignored me. Because a boy like Brendon will never notice me. Because I’ll never have a real family. Because of all the times I held my tongue and this is what it got me. I cry because of so many hurts and insults that I can’t begin to name them all. I still feel the Leech’s slap across my face.
Enough. Enough!
I don’t want any more of this. I want things to be different. My whole life to be different. Especially for me to be different.
It can happen. It has to happen.
I feel something brewing.
I’m ready.
But ready for what?
What?
The rest of the night I spend on research for our Western Civ project. I dive into it. Here’s one of the things I learn:
The ancient world didn’t have much in the way of official laws and punishments. It was eye for an eye. If you hurt me, I hurt you. In ancient Greece the practice of personal vengeance against wrongdoers was considered natural and necessary.
7
I
don’t need
a map to get to Ambrosia’s. You can’t miss the place, a three-story, red Victorian on a hill overlooking the ocean. It sits all alone up there. Before Ambrosia’s family moved in a few years ago and fixed up the peeling paint and broken window frames, everyone knew it as the old Hamilton place, and it was haunted. Kids dared each other to creep into the overgrown gardens and through the creaking front door. I personally never set foot inside, but I know somebody who knew someone who did, and she ran out screaming about how the invisible hand of eccentric, long-dead Edith Hamilton had tapped her on the shoulder.
I get off the bus and start walking up the road, which quickly narrows and twists. In only a few blocks, our usual crowded surf-town atmosphere turns more isolated and rural. Trees thicken into a canopy over the road, and then there’s a sign with the address. The metal gate creaks and swings open with a light push. Despite all the money that Ambrosia’s family supposedly poured into fixing things up, I’m still getting the creeps. I try to shake off the feeling that eyes are watching me from deep in the trees. I follow a wide gravel driveway as it leads through a stand of redwoods, and beyond that the path curves for a while before opening into a clearing.
I gasp. It’s the landscaping, the intensity of it. It reminds me of the old movie Raymond made me watch four times, Dorothy from the world of black and white landing smack in color-saturated Oz. There’s a rumor that Ambrosia’s family imports flowers and plants from all over the world and somehow manages to get them to grow like crazy in our foggy climate. I can report for a fact that the rumor is absolutely true.
Pinks and blues and chartreuse. Plants climbing up and hanging down. Thousands of flowers in the shape of tiny silvery fairy bells and others like huge upside-down mixing bowls. There’s a line of cactuses as big as men that are draped in shrouds of white cobwebby stuff. There’s one section of the garden in particular that draws me closer. I didn’t know so many different kinds of pure-white flowers existed. White tulips and white roses and heads of what look like albino cabbage and a semicircle of silvery plants with huge fluffy, fringy petal wings. But it’s the plant in the middle of the garden that makes me walk right up to it.
It’s like from another world, a world where plants mimic human body parts, and these are the lips, parted, cracked, and red. From the center shoots a stalk, a sharp, silvery spear of a tongue—it must be twenty feet high—composed of all-white flowers, hundreds of them, thousands of them, and I know that I’m seeing a bloom that doesn’t happen very often. Maybe once every ten years, maybe every hundred.
The wind shifts and I’m overcome suddenly with the smell of rotting meat oozing from that plant. No bird or butterfly would have anything to do with it. This is a lure for maggots and beetles. Who planted it? Why put something so amazing and yet so disgusting at the center of so much sweet-smelling beauty?
I hold my nose and back away. I start to jog, glad to leave behind that stink. A few more twists on the driveway and the sprawling red house comes into view. I also see that I’m not the only guest. Alix is standing beside her battered brown Volvo with the surf racks on the roof. It’s parked next to Ambrosia’s gleaming convertible, and I doubt that any car with a cardboard back window and bungee cords holding down the trunk has ever parked in this driveway before. Stephanie is kicking at some gravel. Her bike is propped against a fence, and she’s red-faced with sweat from the trek up the hill.
None of us is thrilled to see the others. That’s obvious. Alix glares as I approach, her upper lip curled. Well, I’m disappointed, too. Not that I have anything personal against them. But—I know what Raymond said and I can’t help it—I thought Ambrosia invited only me. The way she whispered the invitation and didn’t let go of my hands, I figured it would be just us. Her and me. What are these other two doing here?
At the front door, Ambrosia, dressed in her usual black—pants, silky blouse with a sweater, cashmere of course, that drapes like a cape—observes the scene. She’s standing in the redbrick doorway, which must be fifteen feet high. Her dark, almost purple, hair hangs loose. With both hands she lifts the huge mass and twists it into a pile on the top of her head, which shows off her long, slender neck. The hair drops, settling instantly into glamorous waves. She beckons us over. “Come on in. This is home.”
We enter. We stop. We stand. We gawk.
“My family, we’re collectors.” Ambrosia clearly expects our stunned reaction. “My people despise anything modern or contemporary. Loathe it.”
As she gives us a quick house tour, her voice strikes a tone that somehow manages to combine bored and bragging. “Drapes, red velvet with silk lining imported from Turkey. Carpet, eighteenth-century Afghanistan.”
There’s so much red in the living room, it’s like walking through a sore throat. My brain spins with the dates and origins of rugs, fabrics, and vases. I’m not the only one who’s awed. From what I’ve seen of Stephanie, she’s not normally a person who cares about things like wealth, power, and precious heirlooms, but her head snaps from side to side, trying to take it all in. In intimidated silence, we follow Ambrosia upstairs. Alix walks practically on tiptoe since our path is lined with about two million dollars’ worth of breakable stuff. At the landing, I catch a glimpse of myself in a huge hallway mirror. Framed by gold leaf and filigree, even I look like someone important and powerful. I like it. I give myself an approving last look and follow the others down the hallway.
“My room.”
Ambrosia opens a door into a space that is less like a museum than the rest of the house, but still not like any teenager’s room I’ve ever seen. It is very much Ambrosia, whose style is what fashion magazines would call classic. Only instead of her usual all black, the bedroom is glaring white—white walls, white bedding, everything understated and reeking of money. My eyes lock onto interesting treasures. These aren’t the usual clutter of knickknacks and memorabilia from childhood visits to Disneyland. On a table there’s an ornate jack-in-the-box inlaid with scenes of mountains made out of what look like real jewels. Only Jack, this pitiful Jack, lies toppled, his head half ripped off.
Ambrosia takes note of what I’m noticing. “Meg, there’s something special that might interest you.” I follow the line of her pointing finger to a snow globe on her bookshelf. It’s the size of a grapefruit and not the cheapo souvenir kind you buy at the boardwalk.
“Pick it up. It won’t bite you.”
From the heft I know it’s real glass, not plastic, and my first reaction when I look at the scene inside is:
Something’s seriously messed up, something’s not right about this
. I hold the globe at an angle to study it better.
No, it’s not messed up accidentally; it’s meant to be this way. Suspended in the liquid there’s a slanted cliff, and all along the jagged rock are tiny figures in various actions and positions. One figure, a man, is caught in the moment of jumping off the cliff, his arms spread in panic, his features painted to show fear and dread. On a rocky outcrop another figure sits huddled, head in arms, the posture of despair. Another figure is frozen in the act of pushing someone off the ledge.
I shake the globe, and instead of snow, black ash falls on these miserable, tortured figures.
I know it’s only an inanimate object, but I can’t wait to get it out of my hands, and I feel a peculiar relief when the globe is back on the shelf. I push it as far from me as possible without sending it over the edge. Behind me I hear a faint tinkle of a laugh from Ambrosia: “It’s a work of art, but it takes a little getting used to. Give it some time. You’ll appreciate it eventually.”
Across the room Alix is pacing like a caged animal trying to make herself comfortable in all the finery. Out of water she’s so awkward. She flops on the bed, quickly stands, and with a look of apology to Ambrosia slaps her pant legs to remove some dried mud and sits back down. So, I think, she does have manners after all.
In the meantime Stephanie, dressed in her usual layers—long hemp blouse and thrift-store sweater over a flowing paisley skirt—has curled up in the window seat. She’s taking everything in, less impressed and more judgmental now, probably disgusted by all the wealth. I imagine her calculating how many monkey lives could be saved by the price of Ambrosia’s brocade drapery alone.
Behind her, with those drapes pulled open, I have a perfect view of the all-white garden, and behind that I can see a broad sweep of the ocean. I’d give anything to have a room of my own with a view like this. The weather report said that the last freak storm was over, but it sure looks to me like another is brewing. It was clear this morning, but now a cloud bank, thick and gray, collects on the horizon.
I choose to sit in a white wicker rocker, and Ambrosia offers me first dibs on the snack she’s prepared. Crackers are fanned out like a deck of cards on fancy white china, accompanied by a bowl of purple-colored dip. I dig in. It’s garlicky, salty, and sweet, but not sweet like sugar, more perfume sweet, the very essence of sweet. Delicious. Unlike anything I have ever tasted before. I have to stop myself from licking it off my fingers. My mind concocts recipes. I want to smear it onto bread, coat spaghetti with it, slurp it through a straw.
“I am totally pigging out on this,” Stephanie agrees. “I never want to eat anything else ever again.”
“All organic, of course. Olive and fig,” Ambrosia explains. “It’s an old family recipe, secret spices and all that.” As she bites into her cracker, she makes little moans of pleasure. Every movement of her mouth fascinates me. She dabs at her lips with a cloth napkin, sets it aside, and fixes her attention on us with an individual nod to each.
“I called you,” she says warmly. “You came.”
I stuff the last of the cracker into my mouth.
She lifts a book off her desk. It’s a journal or scrapbook, and she unties the bow of gold ribbon that holds it closed. I catch a glimpse of the calligraphed title,
The Book of
something. She takes her time leafing through pages. The paper looks old and in danger of crumbling. I notice clippings from newspapers, drawings, and passages in ornate handwriting. Ambrosia’s so engrossed that for a minute I wonder if she’s forgotten that we’re still here.
“Ahhhh. Here it is. Just the thing for this occasion. Listen carefully.”
She reads aloud and I know that she’s speaking English, only the language is so dense and poetic that I can decipher only sections of it. There’s something about somebody’s hand and a drawn sword dripping in blood, and a description of women who aren’t really women.
A hideous sight
. I catch that. And how their moods and breath are foul.
Ambrosia closes her eyes and explains, sounding a little blissed-out as she does. “Those are the words of the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. Lived 525 BC to 456 BC. Considered the father of tragedy. In my opinion, he’s the father of it all—tragedy, comedy, truth, falsehood. Nobody, then or since, has expressed it better.”
So that’s what this invitation is about. Greek theater. Our Western Civ project, schoolwork worth 25 percent of our grade. I feel disappointed—and yes, a cringe of humiliation—for thinking that Ambrosia could have any other possible reason for inviting me. Raymond was right after all, and speaking of Raymond …
“If we’re working on our school project, why isn’t Raymond here, too?” I ask.
Ambrosia’s eyes open—
thwop
—like two black, spring-loaded umbrellas. She gives me her own look of disappointment. Her voice turns breathy, thick with concern. “Meg, my dear Meg. Always hanging out with the same person. It’s so limiting to your personal growth.”
I leap to my best friend’s defense, the defense of our friendship. “Raymond is…”
She interrupts before I can figure out what exactly I was going to say. “Your loyalty is very commendable. Touching in its way. I value loyalty, too. But the two of you are very different. Day and night.”