Spoils (9 page)

Today, though, Natasha looked gray and defeated. Like her aura had sprung a leak and all her special passion, that shimmering quality that made people turn their head when she walked by, was gone. Sofia told her she needed to go home, have some chicken soup, get some rest. Natasha didn't want to leave her in the lurch during the afternoon rush, but Sofia practically pushed her out the door. As Natasha finally headed out, looking weary and sad, she said to tell anyone who came looking for her that she was at home and could be reached on her cell.

Sofia debated telling Leni this, but Leni looked like a hound dog trying to catch a scent on the wind. Her inquisitive face scrunched with suspicion and worry, her mouth twisting when she asked about Natasha, as if the very name left a bad taste. Impulsively Sofia felt like covering for Natasha. To give her the space she so clearly needed.

Whatever was wrong with Natasha, it wasn't something Leni could fix. Sofia liked Leni well enough, but you didn't have to be a genius to see that the sisters didn't mix well on the best of days. And something about the way Natasha looked told Sofia that this was close to the worst day Natasha had ever had.

It was a small thing to lead Leni off Natasha, to get her thinking about something else. But like getting free muffins, sometimes every little thing helped.

The phone rings as I struggle to lock the front door behind me. Metal fixtures don't do well in the salty air, and ours have started to corrode. I could ignore it like my parents always do, but some weird compulsion against unanswered calls has me rushing up the stairs to answer the hall phone.

It's a woman asking for my mom.

“She's not here.”

“Please tell her Spa Mystique called to confirm her appointment on Tuesday at ten.”

My mom has made an appointment at St. Petersburg's most exclusive medi-spa days before my birthday? With a sinking heart, I realize this means she's already spending the money she believes is coming her way.

“I can't confirm that,” I finally say.

“Excuse me?” the receptionist asks in surprise.

“She won't be able to make it.”

“I see,” she says, coolly professional. “Please tell her to call back and reschedule.”

“No.”

“What?” The polite customer voice is gone.

“Yeah. She forgot to tell you. We're broke.” Then I hang up.

I kick the wall and glare at the phone. What else has my mom already charged, knowing that by the time the credit-card bill arrives, the money will be hers? The appointment with Spa Mystique proves that another million dollars won't fix anything. It'll prolong the inevitable.

Zaydie, my mom's dad, was a Holocaust survivor. He had grown up in a wealthy German family. Within four years of the Nazis' taking power, the family lost everything. By the time Zaydie was my age, he'd gone from a pampered little boy with servants and horses to a penniless orphan, lucky to be alive.

He never talked much about that time of his life, not even to my mom, except that he always said, “You never know what life has waiting for you around the corner, so enjoy what you have while you have it.”

Maybe my mom felt the lottery money was cosmic retribution, divine justice. Maybe she felt this was a rightful inheritance, or maybe there was a
carpe diem
thing going on and both my parents wanted to have fun while they still could. As long as the money lasted. Either way, this appointment means she hasn't changed her basic view that if money's around, you spend it.

I pound my head softly against the wall cursing under my breath.

I imagine telling my parents I've changed my mind.
You're not good with money and I'll spend this trust fund you gave me way better than you will.

I might as well drive a knife in their back.

And you're not a good daughter,
they'll say, and they'll be right.
You took what we gave you when times were good and now that we need your help, you're out the door with a million bucks.

Or how about I tell them that an angel told me to spend the money. That the devil rigged the lotto so Dad would win, and that Natasha had to do something awful seven years later. Yeah. Then all the trust-fund money would go to pay for my psychiatric bills at the asylum.

I kick the wall again.

“The wallpaper does suck but that's not the best way to remove it.”

I scream, and whirl to see Eddie at the top of the stairs looking at me with interest. He's wearing the same shirt he wore yesterday, a stained and faded Red Cross blood-drive giveaway from eight years ago. It's a generic XL and a little tight around his gut. He hasn't shaved this morning or showered, from the looks of his hair.

“What are you doing here?” I demand, flustered and embarrassed. “I haven't seen you upstairs in years.”

“Har, har. I heard the sounds of a fight. Figured you were using kung fu on an intruder.”

“You came to help?”

“I came to cheer you on, babe,” he says, and I can't help smiling back at the impish look on his face. “Been a while since I've been to an MMA fight.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” But my smile wobbles at the thought of how misplaced that confidence is.

“What's wrong, kid?” he asks. “You haven't been yourself lately.”

“You noticed?” I really didn't think Eddie noticed much of anything besides what was on TV or his plate.

“Yeah, we all did. You and Natasha had a fight? Neither one of you has been acting right since she came back from visiting her tattooed menace in Tennessee.”

“It wasn't Emmett's fault,” I say automatically.

“Whatever.” Eddie gives me a funny look. “Come downstairs, I can't stand it up here.” Before turning away, he sneers in disgust at the beige-and-gold fleur-de-lis wallpaper that covers the hallway. I follow his bulk down the stairs to the den, with its hunter-green silk wallpaper that the decorator insisted would re-create an English-style club. She was wrong. There's a fake mounted buck's head (I wouldn't let them put in a real one); bookcases that hold volumes that look like gold-tooled, leather-bound classics but are actually made of hollow plastic; and the infamous wood floor that buckles in several places. Perpetually dark and gloomy, it's my least favorite room in the whole awful house. The large flat-screen TV's on, like always, but at least Eddie clicks it to mute as he sinks heavily into the big leather recliner. From Eddie, it's a gesture of extreme consideration and it means he's planning on a serious conversation. If this turns into a sex-ed talk, I'm bolting out of my chair.

“I know you have a lot on your plate, Leni,” he begins gravely, after shifting the recliner so that his legs are propped up. “High school is”—he searches for the right words—“it's…it's a time when you feel like every decision you make is going to shape the rest of your life.”

I lean against the armrest of the matching leather couch, but shift my weight to the balls of my feet, ready to flee the instant this conversation turns to “strong feelings” and/or “contraceptives.”

“You've got this trust-fund issue to deal with. If you're unhappy because of the money,” he says, “then I want to give you some advice.”

It isn't sex ed, but I still brace myself for the suggestion he will be compelled to make: give the money to Mom and Dad. Or heck, maybe he'll say I should hand it over to him since he hasn't partied in four years. Then I can add Eddie to the list of family members who hate me. In fact, given that Natasha has been avoiding me like the plague, maybe Eddie would make it a full house.

The sad thing is that when Eddie was in high school, I thought he was the coolest, smartest, best big brother in the world. When Natasha picked on me, I always ran to Eddie. Now it's like someone performed a partial lobotomy on him. My handsome, kind, ruddy older brother has turned into this gray, slovenly, gluttonous lump. Even his hands have gotten fat, with thick sausage fingers—nothing like the once strong, capable hands that, like my dad's, could make broken things work again.

But even as I'm cataloging all the aspects of his ruin, Eddie eyes me meaningfully. His eyes, the exact same shade as my own, have an alert look that catches me off guard. I haven't seen anything like it in a while.

“It's a joke, kid,” he says. “You're being robbed of the best experience of your life.”

It takes me a second to realize what he's saying.

“You think I should keep the money?” I squeak in surprise.

“Hell, yes, you should keep the money. It's yours!”

“But Mom and Dad need it,” I splutter. “Look around! This place is falling apart.”

“Forget about that,” Eddie says. “Think about what you want most in the world, Leni. Picture it.” His hands make a frame. “Your money can buy that. Can you really tell me that what you want most in the world is for Mom and Dad to keep living in this piece-of-shit mansion?”

“I've hated this place from the day we moved in!” I take a deep breath and force myself to stop yelling. “That's not what giving them the money is for. It's for taking care of my parents, who always took care of me.”

Eddie shakes his head before I even finish.

“You only get a chance like this once in your life. Use it up and it's gone.” I shiver at his ominous tone. “A million dollars, Leni.” He leans forward and grabs my arm. His palms are clammy and damp with sweat. I flinch and instinctively tug my arm but he holds on, fingers squeezing tightly. “Do you know what I would give to have a million dollars again?” He sucks in his lip and his eyes blaze. “I would give anything to have another chance. It's the most amazing feeling in the world. Everywhere you go, anything you see, it's yours if you want it. You have friends. You're smart. You're funny. You're hot. You're the center of the universe.” He leans way too close and the musty, cottony smell of his stale breath wafts over me.

I yank my arm out of his grip, disgust crossing my face. He sees it and that crazy light fades. He leans back in his recliner, as if in a giant cradle.

“I probably didn't spend my money in the smartest way, not like Natasha with her freakin' tea shop. But I wouldn't trade those two years I had for anything.”

“Except maybe another million dollars,” I say, only half-kidding.

“Yeah, there's that.” Rueful self-awareness flashes by. He's still there, the brother I remember from childhood. I want to ask him more, about why he doesn't finish his degree, why he doesn't do anything, not even play recreational baseball like he used to. Then the TV flickers and his eyes shift, catching an instant replay of some awesome catch. His attention drifts to the game, and his hand, almost of its own volition, slides toward the remote control. This surprising window of candor and clarity has closed as quickly and unexpectedly as it opened. But before he clicks the sound back on, before he turns away and tunes in and leaves me to my own devices, Eddie has one last piece of advice to give.

“We all got the chance to feel like kings, to feel like a god,” he says as his green eyes, bloodshot and moist, drift toward the glowing screen. “Don't give them your money, only to resent them for the rest of your life.” Then he settles back with a small belch and turns the volume up.

The Rays are tied at the bottom of the sixth and Eddie, with his insights and regrets and touch of madness, is self-medicating again. His face is slack, his eyes dull and fixed on the screen.

He might as well be in a different country, he is that far gone from me.

I wake up Saturday morning feeling weird and achy. Six days until my birthday and my head feels somewhere between a headache and vertigo. My stomach turns in a slow, nasty way that bodes badly for a morning spent under the brutal sun. My room is already hot and stuffy, the ceiling fan only stirring the soup, not cooling it.

Weeks earlier, before classes started, I signed up to join a group of students from SHCC for a beach cleanup. It sounded like a great project and a good way to meet students outside class. Now it sounds awful. I'm no closer than I was on Wednesday to figuring out what to do. Time is running short. The only thing that has me leaving my bed is the fact that staying at home is worse than heading out. Maybe going back to the beach will bring some brilliant solution. A girl can hope, right?

I smear on a palmful of sunscreen and head downstairs. Feeling a little better after toast and jelly, I pack a thermos of ice water and a towel in my backpack. My parents aren't up yet and no one sees Eddie until late afternoon. I leave a note on the counter and depart the silent house.

A large van idles in front of the library as it waits for students to board, something that always annoys me. Idling engines produce more pollution per minute than driving. If people turned off their cars when they weren't driving, they'd save gasoline as well as wear and tear on their cars. It's ironic that students off to clean the beach are polluting the air.

I'm early, so I sit on the steps leading up to the library and rest my head on my arms. The sun bakes my back and cooks my headache. I'm clearly failing at fixing the mess my family's in, and I know that the powers that be are disappointed. As I sit there, I grow angry at the idling van. There's no one even in the van, so I open the door and switch off the ignition. Almost as soon as the engine is cut, the inside of the van begins heating up. I return to my spot on the steps and put my head down in my lap, my headache no better.

“Are you coming?” a girl asks. “The van's about to leave.”

To my surprise, the sidewalk and steps are deserted. Everyone has boarded the van, which is now idling again. I rub my temple and wince.

“Yeah,” I say, rising.

She gives me a funny look, another conquest of my infamous charm. As she heads over to the van, I follow her, shuffling my feet like an old woman.

By the time I board the van, almost all the bench seats are taken. For a moment, it looks like I'll have to turn around and disembark and I feel speared by simultaneous relief and disappointment.

“Leni,” someone calls out. “There's room back here.”

A hand waves from the back. It's the girl from marine chemistry class, the one on her third major, wearing a vintage-looking Lucky Charms shirt. She scoots over to make room, then nudges me and rolls her eyes, pointing to someone behind us.

“He's such a hottie,” she murmurs in my ear.

Even before swiveling to take a look, I already know there's only one person who evokes such a response. With a sinking heart, I see Gavin with his earbuds in, busy tapping at a tiny screen, oblivious to the stares he's getting. He has a backpack on the seat next to him. He doesn't notice my glance.

I turn back to Lucky Charms, smiling weakly. The morning's outing is looking less and less likely to be pleasant.

“We're lab partners now,” I whisper, as if he can hear.

“Oh God, lucky you!”

I shrug and then wince at the blade of agony this sends through my brain. “You wouldn't have any Advil, would you?”

She's instantly solicitous and digs through her small backpack like a busy squirrel. “I usually do,” she says, her head half-buried in the bag. “I get killer cramps during my period. But I think I took the last two a week ago. I'm so sorry. You look miserable.”

“It's okay,” I say, happy that we're not talking about Gavin. “I'm sure it'll pass. I don't usually get headaches.”

She pats my hand and then kindly falls quiet. We both lean back and watch the bay sparkle in the morning sunlight. The little flickers of light, bright as flares, should make my headache worse, but they're oddly soothing. There and gone, they look like fairy dust, powerful and ephemeral. Lucky Charms dozes off, I really need to learn her name. I must doze too, because I wake with a start as I realize that people are getting off the bus. I shake my seatmate awake. She looks a bit flustered and disoriented.

“Don't worry,” I say, because she's furtively wiping her mouth like she might have drooled. “I fell asleep too. We just got here.”

She smiles tentatively. I pat her leg. “Let's get to work, huh?”

“Yay,” she says weakly. “Why did I think this was a good idea, again?”

As I step down, the sun and heat are like a brick wall, a physical presence and a shock after the blasting air-conditioning in the van. That beloved beach smell of salt, seaweed and decomposing sea life brings a small smile to my face. I love this place. Behind me, Lucky Charms staggers a bit at the heat. As the last of the students disembark, Gavin makes his way down. He nods when our eyes meet but doesn't seem surprised. Maybe he noticed me on the van after all. People split into teams, and the driver, a volunteer with Keep Pinellas Beautiful, distributes large trash bags and rubber gloves. There are a few trash grabbers, long sticks with pincers on the end so you don't have to touch things or keep bending over, but the people sitting at the front of the van have already snagged those. I take two large bags, figuring that's all I'll be able to carry, and a pair of rubber gloves, which I shove into the waistband of my shorts to use later. I don't bother trying to partner up with anyone. Lucky Charms is chatting with a group of people she knows, her high energy back in place.

The guy who organized this excursion explains the basics and then everyone scatters, spreading across the beautiful expanse of powder-fine sand. I walk fast to gain distance between me and the rest of the students before really taking in the view. The dark blue-green of the Gulf spreads out like Neptune's blanket. Under the brutal sun, the winking water is inviting. In July and August, the water can get so warm it's like standing in a great pool of bathwater, with no temperature difference between the air and the sea. But by mid-September, the water's cooled off enough to be refreshing. It's the end of the stingray migration as well. During the summer, they like to lie motionless, half-covered with sand, under the shallow water of the Gulf. You have to enter the water with “the stingray shuffle,” dragging your feet so that stingrays feel the vibrations and scoot away, and so that you don't step on one. If you do step down on a stingray, it'll whip up its barb and sting you, which, while not life-threatening, is extremely painful. I've had a couple of friends who were stung; they spent a miserable afternoon shivering with the reaction. We get jellyfish too, of course, some worse than others. If it's a moon jellyfish, which has very short tentacles, or a comb jelly, which isn't even a true jellyfish, then I don't hesitate to head in for a swim. If it's a sea nettle, or worse, a Portuguese man-of-war, I won't go in at all. I once saw a woman screaming on the beach as several people huddled around her, trying to help. Someone said she'd been stung by a man-of-war, and the lifeguard cleared the beach of swimmers. A Portuguese man-of-war can send an adult to the hospital and its barbed tentacles can stretch an average of thirty feet behind them.

Scraggy sand dunes, with their clinging sea grapes and droopy sea oats hanging on for dear life, edge the beach. This beach is one of the few that isn't built up with condos and houses. Even so, there are plastic bottles, a single black rubber flip-flop, faded beer cans, a cloud of torn plastic bags, and various other flotsam left by that most invasive and destructive animal of all. Us.

I walk farther and farther away from the main group, feeling better as I leave them behind, the breeze plays softly with my hair and the sandpipers scatter every time I draw near. I pick up trash, shove it in my bag. The bay doesn't get many breakers, so the lap of little waves is like a soft heartbeat. A line of crushed shells snakes along the edge of the surf but I stay away, knowing I wouldn't be able to resist picking through them for pretty treasures—Florida fighting conch, baby's ear, giant heart cockle, angel wing, even fossilized shark teeth. It's the closest I've been to relaxed since Natasha laid her bomb on me.

I catch a glimpse of a shiny black dorsal fin a hundred yards offshore. Before I even form the thought
Dolphin!
there's another one and another. It's a large pod, seven, maybe eight dolphins. For some reason, I think about my dolphin, the one my parents bought me years ago. She's not one of them, of course. She was never released back into the wild, but seeing these wild dolphins, I'm struck by a deep longing to see her again, to make sure she's okay.

Impulsively I kick off my sandals and pull off my shirt. My nylon shorts will dry fast and my blue sports bra covers more than most bikinis. Then I race through the surf, splashing water, and dive headfirst as soon as the water's past my knees. The instant my head goes under, I can hear their clicks and squeaks.

I tread water a careful twenty feet away from them, hardly daring to breathe. Dolphins are curious, though, and two sleek, powerful creatures, bigger than me, stronger, and masters of their element, swim over and check me out. They glide by so smoothly, so fast, that the primitive part of my brain suddenly remembers that these beloved creatures are predators. With teeth clenched, I tread water, keeping my head above the waterline, poised between glee and terror. Their blue-gray skin, smooth as plastic, blends with the clear green water. As one draws near, I stretch out my hand and touch it on the flank, feeling its surprisingly hard, rubbery body before it disappears under the water and reappears yards away. Its bright eyes seem to laugh at me, at the silly daring touch. I laugh out loud. It slips underwater, and bobs up again more yards away, back with its pod.

Once I swim to shore, I can't stop laughing.

My heart racing with adrenaline, I throw myself down on the sand, delight and sheer joy zinging through every joint, and fizzing fits of giggles overtake me. I wish there were someone here with me to feel this.

Eventually I brush off the sand and pull my shirt over my sopping wet bra. I'm happy and relaxed, my weird headache gone, the nausea gone, my body so tingly from the water, the sand and the burning hot sun that it takes me a while to realize I'm not alone.

His presence reveals itself slowly but with growing intensity, prickling along my skin like electricity.

I instinctively stand, knowing I need to brace myself.

“Oh,” I say softly. “Oh. Oh.” And then feeling like I have to say something, I whisper, “You're back.”

Whatever doubts I managed to invent since his last visit—the sad loneliness—vanish with a soundless
poof.
Because Michael is back and he is with me. There is no terrible pain this time, no physical attack, but the intensity of his presence, growing by the second, skates right along the line of pain. The prickling heat grows hotter. My skin is on fire.

I turn my face straight into the blinding hot sun because he is there, and everywhere, and nowhere, and I don't know what else to do. I can't run from this so I throw myself into his punishing inferno. Maybe it hurt so much last time because I fought it, because I was unprepared. My molecules incinerate and scatter to the winds, the assumption of me gone. Terrifying. Thrilling. I close my eyes against the impossible glare and see a wash of red behind my lids.

We never left you,
the angel says to me. He is angry and kind, impatient and loving. My knees buckle as he booms in my head, and I dimly feel the scorching sand, like granules of fire, my arms and legs burning in a weird echo of the burning pain already there.
We're always with you.
A promise. A threat.

I try to hold on to the sound of his voice, though it is soundless. I try to hold on to that voice full of love and power, forgiveness and fury. How enraging for a powerful creature like him to deal with a weakling like me. His voice is like holding molten lead, so hot it almost feels cold as it slips and burns through my fingers. A blazing heat that doesn't consume. I am nothing before him.

He speaks. I listen.

Lenore,
he says, and the way he says my name is the way a mother calls for her little babe and the way an enraged father bellows for a naughty child. The tender love is there, as is the exasperation, and the patience strained to the point of snapping.
Lenore, make right what has been set wrong. Choose to heal old wounds.

I'm not quite lucid enough to speak; even forming coherent thoughts is hard. I'm trying so hard to listen. To remember every word he says.

The one who was wronged will come to you,
he says in a voice that is prophetic and infuriatingly vague.
Who is it?
I want to scream.
What am I supposed to do?

Fix it,
he booms.

My mind spins under the assault. So much on the line. So much up to me.

We are always with you,
he says. Which is great. But also:
Do not fail us.
Which frightens me.

The careful balance I struggle for wobbles. It is too much. I fight the vortex below me, the hanging sword above; I must keep my focus. But the stack of balanced cups and spinning plates that is my concentration teeters. I have time to gasp in fear. Then it all comes crashing down. I catch a sense of Michael's impatience, the stunning frustration of dealing with a substandard minion, before I lose any sense of meaning in his words or the ability to track what he is saying. I'm lying at the bottom of the ocean looking up at a whirlpool. Then the whirlpool closes in over me and everything goes dark.