Love Over Matter (5 page)

“
Where is she?” I inquire,
as if I’m an old-timey doctor making a house call, which I sort of
am.

“
The bathtub,” Opal says
with a resigned shake of her head.

“
Anyone else home?” I
ask.

“
Nope.”

“
What’re you gonna do?”
wonders Haley.

“
Fix her,” I say, surprised
by the certainty in my voice.

Opal kicks the base of the door,
nudging it open. “Come on in.”

* * *

The interior of the Maddens’ house is
the demented love child of a souvenir shop, a disco, and a bag of
cotton candy (think psychedelic pastel colors, swarms of fringe and
beads, herds of ceramic elephants poised to stampede).

I step over a pile of
tattered
People
magazines and trail Opal and Haley into the bathroom, a
voluminous space with two stalls left over from the Saint Andrew’s
days and, behind a translucent screen, a Jacuzzi tub. “Mom?” Opal
says softly as we approach. “Are you awake?”

A garbled string of
nonsense fills the air, the best translation of which, by my ear,
is:
What do you want? Just go
away.

“
I brought someone to see
you,” coos Opal. She gives Haley and me the stop sign with her
palm, then slinks behind the screen.

More gurgled
syllables:
Get out of here. I hate
you.

I clear my throat. “Mrs. Madden? It’s
me, Cassandra McCoy. Can I come in? I’d like to talk to you for a
minute.”

Opal’s mother and I (and
George, too) worked on an Easter production of
Alice in Wonderland
at the Milbridge
Community Theater three years ago. George did set design and
construction; I was in the wardrobe department; Mrs. Madden played
the Queen of Hearts. (I even sewed the skirt for one of her
costumes.) “Stupid people, always botherin’ me,” her slurred voice
snipes.

Geez, and I’d thought she’d taken a
shine to me.

“
Mom,
” whines Opal, “you don’t feel good. Cassie’s going to help
you.”

I elbow Haley and
mouth:
Is she naked?

My sister shrugs and wrinkles her
face.

I clutch her shoulders and deliver an
encouraging shove. “Check for me.”

She skids to a stop, shoots me a glare
and whispers, “Jerk.”

“
Just do it,” I reply,
shooing her off with a flick of my wrist.

She shakes her head and sighs, twists
around the edge of the screen. Her torso freezes as if she’s
stopped breathing.

“
So . . . ?” I murmur.

“
Ick.”

“
Is it
that
bad?” I ask, tiptoeing up behind
her.

“
See for yourself.” She
whips backwards and rushes one of the stalls. “I think I’m gonna
puke.”

I don’t have much of a
choice. As my head rounds the screen, a noxious whiff of decay
overwhelms me. “What’s that
smell?
” I can’t help muttering, even
though the question is ultrarude.

Before anyone answers, I glimpse the
source of the stench for myself: three days’ worth (give or take)
of rotten, half-eaten snack foods—melted ice cream oozing out of a
bloated container; a bouquet of disposable cups, each holding an
inch of spoiled milk and the remains of a nibbled peppermint patty;
a brick of Swiss cheese, hacked off at weird angles and balanced,
exposed, on the grimy soap dish.

Inside the tub, Mrs. Madden is
scrunched into a ball, her mouth gaping, a muffled snore pulsing
through her airways.

Opal recognizes my disgust and, once
again, says, “Sorry.”

I pat her arm and smile.
“Don’t worry about it. The Moondancer looks like this every night.”
(Not really, but it
does
get pretty messy sometimes. And if it makes Opal
feel better . . .)

“
Wake up,” Opal says,
poking delicately at her mother’s shoulder.

Mrs. Madden’s lips clamp together. She
bolts upright, a dazed look clouding her eyes. “Erm . . .
ur . . . grrm . . .”

In the distance, a sloppy spitting
sound is followed by the whooshing flush of a toilet. I chance two
small steps toward the Jacuzzi and hover a few feet over Mrs.
Madden’s head, observing her aura, which is a striking combination
of black and gold—and the black is winning, a fact that doesn’t
surprise me given the state of this bathroom, not to mention Mrs.
Madden’s hair, which is such a snarled, schizophrenic mess that a
family of sparrows could take up permanent residence. “Hey there,”
I say in an even voice.

She dangles her arms over the side of
the tub. “What do you want?”

“
Mom!
” squeals Opal. “
Cut it
out!
”

A machine gun spray of gold in Mrs.
Madden’s aura dazzles my vision. I blink away ghostly spots from
behind my eyelids and fix my gaze on her papery-looking fingers,
which are cracked and red, raw to the point of bleeding. “I heard
you were sad,” I say, the statement a lie only in the strictest
sense, “and that you needed someone to talk to.”

“
He left me!” she declares
in her Hollywood voice. “And he ain’t never comin’
back!”

Opal gives a dismissive shake of her
head. “It’s a fight, that’s all. Happens once a week.”

I argued with George
too,
I think.
The
brother-sister kind of needling. Until that last awful
fight
 . . .

“
Would you guys mind, uh,
leaving us alone?” I ask Opal and Haley (who’s a bit shaky
post-retch).

Mrs. Madden grimaces. “I
don’t
know
you.”

“
Yes, you do. I made your
costumes for
Alice in
Wonderland.
”

Haley grabs Opal’s forearm and tugs
her out the door.

I squat beside the tub, my feet
sinking into a mound of damp, musty towels. For maybe a whole
minute, I don’t say a word. Instead, I study the worry lines—deep,
sorry furrows—that crack Mrs. Madden’s face like faults through an
earthquake zone. “How long have you been in here?” I ask
eventually, my gaze stuck on the flowy arms of her sheer
housedress.

She shifts to a kneeling position and
drops back against the tub, a tendril of stray hair matted to her
lipstick-caked mouth. “What time is it?” she asks with a
squint.

I search the walls for a clock but
come up empty. “Three thirty?”

“
Saturday?”

“
Uh-uh.” I give a
nonchalant shrug. “Monday.”

“
Oh.” She peels the hair
away from her mouth. “What do I have to do to get rid of
you?”

I flash my cheerleader smile, though
I’ve never shaken a pompom in my life. “Come out of there,” I say,
extending a hand to help her over the side. Clumsily, she latches
on to me, her bony fingertips pinching my bicep. “Good,” I say,
once she’s steadied on her feet.

She loosens her grip on my arm but
doesn’t let go. “You’re Cassandra McCoy,” she says, studying me
with violet eyes that have gone suddenly clear.

I baby step to the scalloped,
mother-of-pearl sink. “The one and only,” I say with an encore of
the cheerleader grin.

“
He feels bad about it, you
know,” she tells me, a mystic, far-off tone to her otherwise
scratchy voice.

I locate a plastic cup that’s as close
to clean as we’re going to get, rinse it under the tap and fill it
with cool water. “Where did he go?” I ask, trying to take an
interest in Mr. Madden’s Houdini act.

“
The astral
plane.”

“
Huh?” I hold the cup out,
but she stares right through it.

“
Limbo,” she says. “The
space between.”

Why am I here again? Oh,
yeah.
“Okay . . . uh, do you have
a phone number? Maybe I can call him
and . . . ?”

She takes the cup and sets it back on
the sink among the spent toilet paper rolls, crumpled tissues, and
tipped-over bottles of makeup. Below a whisper, she intones, “Guilt
is toxic.”

I finger the bourbon bottle in my
pocket, work out how I’m going to get the holy water into that
cup—and then into her. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

She jerks out a wild
cackle. “Forgive
me?
”

“
I just mean that
. . . well, everyone makes mistakes. You shouldn’t feel
bad. It’ll probably blow over by tomorrow.” I sneak the nip bottle
into my palm and carefully uncap it. When she’s not looking:
drip, drip, drip—
right
into the cup.

A dizzy, fuzzy look comes
over her. “There’s no such thing as
time
in the astral plane.”

I give the cup another try. “Aren’t
you thirsty?”

She accepts the water, takes a long,
slow gulp. “Suppose I was.”

I have no proof of this, but holy
water seems to mellow people out—or at least that’s what it did for
my dad. “Drink it all,” I prod. “In case you’re
dehydrated.”

“
He loves you,” she tells
me, the cup swinging back toward her garishly outlined
lips.

“
Mr. Madden?”

“
Of course not.” She shakes
her head, her gaze floating toward the ceiling. “It’s the boy,” she
mumbles. “George.”

* * *

“
You’re gonna have to
drive,” I tell Haley as we hustle to the Prius after an unsettling
tea party with Opal and her mother. I toss the keys in my sister’s
direction, but she lets them drop into the street, where they
clatter across a manhole cover and skid under the car.

She looks at me like I’ve
suggested sacrificing a goat. “Are you
crazy?
”

I hold my arms out,
zombie-style. “You trust
me?
” I ask, watching my chipped blue
fingernails tremble.

She crouches for the keys, fishes them
out and gives them a doubtful stare down. “Why don’t we just call
Dad?”

It’s not a bad idea, since our father
is the understanding type. But if Mom finds out we’ve kidnapped her
baby (sometimes I swear she loves this eco-friendly cruiser more
than she does us), we’ll be headed for the guillotine. I check my
cell phone for the time. “I doubt they’re back,” I say, referencing
our parents’ biweekly jaunt to Boston for restaurant
supplies.

“
Well,
I’m
not getting behind the wheel,”
declares Haley, “and you can’t make me.”

Did she really just say
that, or was it an echo from 2002? I wrench the keys from her hand.
“Fine. If you’re going to be so . . .
immature.
”

Neither of us bothers speaking until
the Prius hums into the garage at home, the ride an empty blur
(which proves I had no business warming the driver’s seat in the
first place). “Does this look right?” I ask once we’ve exited the
car, a wave of panic washing over me.

Haley studies the way I’ve parked,
checks the ground for the chalk marks we’ve left behind as a guide.
“You’re off by six inches,” she tells me flatly.

“
Should I fix it?” I spin
back toward the car. “I should fix it.”

“
Lighten up,” she says with
a roll of her eyes. “You’ll never get it perfect.” She snatches a
whisk broom from the utility bench. “There,” she says, brushing
away the first mark. “Good as new.” She taps me on the shoulder
with the broom.

“
She knew about George,” I
mutter, whisking the next chalk line out of existence. “Weird
things.
Personal
things. Things she had no way
of . . .”

“
Is that why you’re acting
so freakish?”

I guess she’d assumed I was
rattled from the intervention, which went off swimmingly, all
things considered. “Why won’t he talk to
me?
” I ask, not expecting an answer.
“I was . . .” I finish the cover-up and return the
broom to its slot. “We were . . .”

“
You should have told
him.”

A dagger to my heart.
“Now
you’re
a
relationship guru? How many boyfriends have
you
had?”

She grins. “Maybe I don’t
like boys. Maybe I have a different
preference.
”

“
Touché.
” I give her a snappy nod. “Do
you? Like boys, I mean?”

“
They’re all right. Some of
‘em, anyway.”

“
There’s none like George,”
I say. “Not that I’ve seen.”

Haley shakes her head, a look of pity
coloring her face. “Don’t you think it’s time,” she says gently,
“to let it go?”

I’m
so
sick of this conversation. For two
years, I’ve heard nothing but:
It’s not
your fault, Cassie. George wouldn’t blame you. Remember the good
times. Celebrate his life by living yours.