Perfume (11 page)

Dove was merely resident in the brain, like a parasite. She could not talk to Luce, nor explain, nor change voices. She did not even feel particularly emotional; Wing, whose emotions, like hate, were as strong as crimson and blood, had swamped Dove’s sweet, soft, pastel emotions.

Connie kept trying to get Dove to talk to her. Through Wing’s eyes, Dove watched Connie’s mouth flap. Wing was not interested in Connie and remained silent. It was Hesta with whom Wing talked.

Connie was hurt. She looked from Dove to Luce, hoping for an explanation but none came.

“Let’s go shopping after school, Hesta,” said Wing.

Although she had always despised Dove, Hesta took this in stride. Hesta accepted the new personality completely and eagerly. Connie did not. Eyes full of pain, Connie stared beseechingly at the girl she thought was her friend. I’m sorry, thought Dove helplessly, but it isn’t me. It’s Wing.

Luce said, “Dove—aren’t you sitting with us at lunch?”

Wing laughed.

“I’ve come to my senses, dumbo,” said Wing.

Luce and Connie were out of Dove’s vision but she heard their voices: “Is Dove on something?” whispered Connie, weeping at the back of her voice.

Luce said, “She’s just being rotten. Forget her.”

Forget her.

A sort of terror spread through Dove—whatever relic of Dove remained now. Her two best friends would forget her. How easy it would be for them, because Wing was not going to leave a single trace of Dove.

Wing dismissed Connie and Luce as if she were brushing ants off her food at a picnic, and went with Hesta. Hesta disdained cafeteria food; it was too disgusting for her to consume. But Hesta would never bring lunch with her, either, because that was too common. Hesta got a candy bar, a soda, and a bright red apple out of the vending machines and linked arms with Wing and they went outside together to talk about pitiful rejects like Connie and Luce.

“Oh, give me a break!” Wing said. “Can you believe I used to hang out with them? Please!” Wing and Hesta laughed hysterically, looking back at Connie and Luce, and laughing even more.

Don’t say things like that out loud, thought Dove. I have to come back here, you know. What will I do for friends when it’s my turn again?

It won’t be your turn again, you fool, said Wing. I am here, and I am here to stay, and I am going to make good use of your body.

It won’t be my turn again?
thought Dove. She stared out the narrow opening of Wing’s eyes. There was nothing to see but Hesta, and Hesta’s mean superior crowd, and Hesta’s big grabby hands.

I don’t want to look at this, thought Dove. She tried to close her eyes, but that was not within her control, and she was stuck there, watching, unblinking unless Wing chose to blink.

“Among other things on my agenda,” said Wing to Hesta, “such as skipping Luce and Connie, and destroying Timmy, and acquiring a new wardrobe, is getting a new name.”

Hesta cocked her head, very birdlike. But not dovelike. She was a crow, perhaps, pecking at a roadkill. “Dove is a pathetic excuse for a name,” agreed Hesta.

No, thought Dove, don’t rename me! Nothing will be left of me.

“I’ll think up a perfect name,” said Wing, “and well inform everybody what they’re going to call me in the future.”

Hesta and Wing went to the mall in Hesta’s car. Hesta had a wonderful car; at any other time Dove would have been awestruck. Now she just wished Hesta would have an accident. Hit a slick place on the road. Take Wing with her.

But if there was an accident … and this body I used to own got killed … what would happen to me? What is a soul? How much does the body really matter? Are Wing and I two? Or have we completely merged? Are we one? Were we always one?

I didn’t ask for this and I don’t think it’s fair, God, thought Dove.

Wing said irritably, “It’s extremely fair. Think how you locked me up for fifteen years, Dove.”

“I love the way you do that,” said Hesta.

“Do what?” said Wing.

“Talk to yourself like that. As if Dove were somebody else.”

“She is,” said Wing. “Here, let’s go in this store.”

Ragged Rock.
The
store for strange clothing: clothing with rips or fringes, shimmering mirrors or rusted metal strips, Indian beads, clashing colors or amazing neon brilliance.

Nothing would have made Dove touch any fabric in Ragged Rock. She sank into the bottom of the mind. She didn’t want to see these clothes draped over her body.

“Look down there,” said Hesta suddenly, pointing over the mall atrium and down into the lower level. “There’s your mom.”

“No,” said Wing.

“What do you mean—no?” Hesta pointed again. “Next to the Kitchen Shoppe. See? It’s your mother.”

“No. It’s the maternal body. It’s Dove’s mother.”

Hesta giggled. “I love it when you talk like that. ‘The maternal body.’ As if all it did was give birth. That’s how I feel about my mother.”

It’s not how I feel about mine! thought Dove. I love my mother.

Hesta and Wing leaned on the glass balustrade and looked down into the atrium.

Dove’s mother switched packages from one hand to the other and walked, without ever looking up, into the department store and disappeared behind the perfume counter.

Perfume.

Memories of perfumes once sniffed were as strong as memories of Christmas mornings once unwrapped.

Mother! thought Dove, wanting to go home, and be little, and be safe.

Wing trembled. Dove felt it long before Hesta saw it: a queer shudder in every cell of the body, a rippling of thought and molecule. Wing tipped back, staring up into the glass pyramid. The yellow sun shone down into her eyes with such ferocity that Dove felt herself turning gold.

Wing’s trembling took possession of her entire body, and she convulsed, rippling, each muscle in turn shuddering.

Wing held her hands up to the blue sky outside the glass pyramid, and seemed to wait for some answer. Then slowly Wing walked away, elegantly, like a one-person procession. She stood on the top step of the escalator and was borne down like a queen on a palanquin.

Hesta said nervously, “Dove?”

“I’m not Dove,” said Wing softly. She pressed her palms together, and held them upward, as if offering a sacrifice. Her body continued to ripple and quake, like a robot whose bolts were coming apart.

Through the glitter of the sun in her eyes, Dove saw fear on the shoppers’ faces. Who was this girl dressed in black, body quivering like a volcano ready to explode, hands held up as if she were a sniper reaching for a machine gun?

Wing never blinked.

Never looked down.

When she reached the bottom, she walked directly into the splashing fountain. She did not see the shoppers who paused, and stared, and exchanged frightened glances. She held her hands up to the pyramid’s cone straight above her and called the gods of the Nile. “I know you’re there!” cried Wing. “I can see you!”

She dipped her hands into the cool tumbling water and threw droplets of silver into the air toward the pyramid.

Yes! thought Dove. Go! Take your ancient twisted genes and go back to the Nile, back to Egypt, back to your tomb! Just leave me here! Dove tried to fall back in the mind to give Wing room to fly, to let Wing out of whatever opening Wing had come in.

Like falling autumn leaves, Dove heard whispery flutters of talk among the people staring at this strange event. Dove saw Wing as the crowd leaning over the second-floor railings saw her: a small slim girl, shrieking nonsense about wings. A girl floating on the edge of insanity, baptizing herself in a mall fountain.

“What’s going on?”

“Who is that girl?”

“Somebody call the mall police!”

Don’t call them yet, thought Dove. Give Wing a minute. This might work, she might go. Please let her go!

“Don’t get involved!” said a harsh voice. “Wait for the ambulance. They know how to handle this stuff. Sometimes people like that get violent.”

Another
v
word. There was no end to these
v
words. Dove floated in
v
words: venom, viper, victim, violence.

“What will happen to her?” said a shopper. “It’s not a crime, is it?”

“Lock her up, I suppose. Their personalities snap like that, they don’t get ’em back, you know.”

The shoppers knew. They had an extra show that day; how they enjoyed it. They circled her.

I’m glad I’m safe inside, thought Dove, cringing. Those are scary people out there.

Hesta’s big long hands closed on Wing’s shoulders. “Are you crazy?” hissed Hesta. “It was funny at first, but enough’s enough.”

Wing ignored her.

“Let’s get out of here!” said Hesta.

Wing continued to shriek, but now the words were not English, they were something far more primitive, something ancient and evil.

“Stand away from her!” shouted somebody. “She’s flipped out.”

“Come on,” hissed Hesta. Grabbing Wing’s shoulder did not work, so she grabbed Wing’s hair. “Come on!”

“You touched me,” said Wing.

“We have to get out of here!” said Hesta, yanking at her.

“You touched me,” said Wing. “You’ll be sorry.”

S
AFELY IN HESTA’S CAR, DRIPPING
on the lovely wine-red upholstery, Wing continued to tremble under the spell of whatever she had seen through the sun and the glass.

Hesta, too, was trembling, driving quickly, looking over her shoulder, muttering, “Dove, who would have thought you could get so weird?”

Dove seemed to be the body also; she felt damp on the seat and the curliness of her hair from being under the fountain. She felt the pressure of the shoulder strap and the acceleration of the curve.

She knew what was happening. Wing was receding just enough for Dove to take the blame. Wing would let Dove suffer for what Wing had done.

It is hard enough to take the consequences for what you do yourself—but to take the consequences for what your other personality does? How unfair!

People will assume that it was
me
in that fountain.
I’ll
have to pay the price. It’ll be my mother and father who have to deal with it. Not some maternal body. My mother! And what will Wing do?

Wing will vanish.

“You looked so funny in that fountain,” said Hesta. “There you were, splashing like a two-year-old, calling up to the sky like you’re worshipping the mall gods, or something! What a hoot! Too bad nobody had a video, because everybody at school would love it. You used to be so stodgy, Dove! And now you’re halfway to an insane asylum.”

Hesta was teasing. Dove recognized the lilt.

But it was Wing to whom she was really talking, and Wing did not like being teased. Wing’s inner trembling was replaced by a metallic brittleness, as if neither Wing nor Dove owned the body anymore—it was a robot’s. The bolts were being tightened. Wing’s eyes drilled into Hesta’s.

Dove shrank back from the force of Wing’s dislike.

“You have such a creepy expression on your face,” giggled Hesta.

“Are you afraid?” said Wing. “You should be.”

Hesta laughed so hard, she hardly kept hold of the steering wheel, but controlled it with the tips of two fingers. “You looked so funny at the mall,” giggled Hesta. “At the time I admit it shook me a little, but now that we’ve got away, and nobody could possibly have recognized you, Dove Bar, I mean your own mother wouldn’t have recognized you—well, the truth is, you looked so funny.”

The venom that was Wing turned her pale with hatred for Hesta.

Hesta paused at a red light and took in Wing’s expression. “What are you thinking about?” she said, giggling again.

“I am,” said Wing, “choosing my next victim.”

Hesta giggled on, hearing nothing wrong in that sentence. “Oh, Dove, you’re so funny! I mean, I had no idea. You hung out with Luce, who’s so annoying, and Connie, who’s so simple-minded. And here you are, you’re so funny, Dove Bar.”

“I am not Dove,” said Wing through her teeth. “I am Wing.”

“Wing, schming,” said Hesta. “Say, there’s Timmy O’Hay and Laurence. Let’s pass them.” Hesta slammed down the accelerator. She pulled into the left lane and drew up next to Timmy. Timmy looked over, saw Dove in the passenger seat, saw Hesta driving, and took the challenge. He floored the gas. Hesta and Timmy roared down the road, neck and neck, stock car racing in the middle of town.

“What do you mean—Wing schming?” said Wing.

“Stupid name,” said Hesta.

Call me stupid!
Wing said silently.
I’ll show you stupid, Hesta!

“Stick with Dove,” advised Hesta. “You’re giving ‘Dove’ a whole new meaning.”

I’m going to give you a whole new meaning
, said Wing silently.

Don’t do anything
, Dove pleaded.
We’re going too fast.

“Go faster, Hesta,” said Wing. “Timmy’s going to beat us.” Because they shared a mind, Dove knew what Wing was thinking of. Because Dove looked out the same eyes, Dove knew what Wing was looking at.

The steering wheel.

A strange sense of lassitude overcame Dove, as if she had been given sleeping medicine. Wing was not only going to do something stupid, she was going to do something dangerous. Something potentially fatal. Something vicious, with victims.

One of the victims would certainly be Hesta.

One of the victims could be Timmy O’Hay. One Laurence.

And one, though Wing seemed not to understand the consequences, could be Dove.

Dove could curl up and take a nap inside the mind. What was the point in worrying? She had no more control than an infant in a car seat has control of what happens to the car.

Dove could not even look over and check out Timmy, see if he was still racing Hesta, because Wing’s eyes were focused on the steering wheel that Hesta held loosely in her hands.

Wing cast a quick glance over the traffic patterns of the road ahead and made her decision. She was going to wrench the wheel when they drove over a raised portion of the road, where daisies bloomed like a million white and yellow stars, and the road edge fell twenty feet to a rock-lined gully.

Your thoughts are too horrible. I don’t want to
s
hare thoughts any more
, Dove said.