This Raging Light (16 page)

I see it all. The softest lavender towels, the striped lavender and cream wallpaper, the special sink that looks like it's a floating crystal bowl, the white ceramic soap dispenser. The matching toothbrush holder with the two toothbrushes inside. A razor that must be Digby's, and shaving gel that's wintery fresh and guarantees smoothness and no bumps! The wooden heart jewelry box that has Eden's favorite things inside. The container that holds Eden's headband for washing her face, and her soap. Everything in here is soft and warm and clean.

And Eden's earrings are sitting by the side of the sink on the floating crystal shelf. They're the little silver dangly ones that she got on vacation in New Mexico last year. She wears them all the time. They were just in her ears, hooked through her skin. Maybe she even took them off right before she texted me so she could just come home and get right into bed.

I run my fingers across the pounded metal. It's warm.

I wish I couldn't see so clearly.

I wipe under my eyes and blow my nose, make my breaths come out even for real. I'm in sweatpants and a hoodie and I'm still cold, like the river has followed me in here and is still digging into my skin, like it's never going to let me go. Will I ever be warm again?

Eden has to wake up.

I don't want to scare Wren when I go back out, even though she's seen all of us lose it by now, so I splash some water on my face and wipe it down with one of the softie towels, and I take some more good, long, deep breaths and throw my shoulders back, and then I am ready.

I open the door as quietly as I can, and Digby is leaning against the other side of the wall in the hallway. His face is a little gaunt, all pale, and with my clear vision I see his eyes are that color that you see sometimes in advertisements for trips to faraway island places, and he has those freckles like someone put them there, one by one, so carefully. Like someone took a paintbrush and said,
that one will look just perfect right there, and that one right there.
And there's the angle, the shape of him against the wall. His torso takes up so much room, and he's thin but not. And his clothes, the way they hang off of him, it's like there's room for someone to fit there, like there's too much room, and like they're comfortable, like being in them or next to them would be so good. His eyes are big right now, so open, and they aren't asking me any questions, not even telling me anything. They are just looking at me like they see everything.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“Why are you sorry?” he says, and his voice is deep and rubs up against itself. “You saved her.”

“I was the reason she was there. I should have known better, with the ice and everything.”

He kicks at my shin. “Stop.
You
didn't slip. Shit happens.”

“Yeah,” I say, “it sure does. But I'm sorry I let her fall.”

His shoulders start to shake. He stays against the wall, but he opens his arms and there is his black hoodie like the one Eden always wears, like the one I'm wearing. And then I am pressed against it, my face in his chest, his arms around me. And then he is a pillow, but a different kind, one to fall into. One that catches and holds and doesn't smother at all, except I know he is falling right now too. I push him into the wall like I want him to go through it, and his arms get tighter and I want them tighter still.

I thought I would be able to keep it together, but something about him, about being cocooned by him like this—surrounded in black with the pressure of his arms against my back—it makes everything come out.

His heart beats against me like it's fighting for breath, like it's gone feral and wants to escape. I want to climb inside his chest and hold it in my hands. I want to stay here forever.

I touch his cheek. I run my hand all the way down his arm. His face is wet, and I take the sleeve of my sweatshirt and pull it down over my other hand, and I reach up and wipe it like I would do for Wren. He holds my wrist, keeps me from touching him anymore.

“She was there and talking to me, and then she was still,” I say, and slide down the wall. He slides down next to me. “It was so fast.”

“I thought I could be like Joan of Arc,” I say.

“You are Joan of Arc. You got her out.”

“Maybe not fast enough.”

“It was the hit she took to the back of the head. She'd be dead if you hadn't jumped in after her.”

I nudge him and he nudges me back. We both know she would be in the living room right now if I hadn't texted her in the first place, but his kindness makes a difference anyway.

The doorbell ding-dongs down the hall, and John answers.

A sweet and clipped voice says,
I'm so sorry I didn't get here sooner. I was out of range and I just got the news.

Digby stands.

Elaine.

When we moved in, I knew there
were kids next door. I heard them stomping up and down the stairs, arguing with their parents, laughing all the time. I smelled food cooking, things like bacon and maybe pie. If I stood in just the right place, I could hear the water running for their baths and showers, could hear them brushing their teeth. I prowled the house those first days, learning Digby and Eden, though I didn't know it was them. It took me a while before I dared to venture outside the house. The air felt thick and foreign compared with the easy California feel I was used to. I was helium.

It's his hair I remember first, the day I finally went outside. That color, like a little piece of sunset got dropped on his head. And the boys crashing into each other as they played ball across the street. Something swished around in me.

Digby was gentle, playing with the friends who are still his friends. He didn't push or call names like the other boys. He just ran, dodged, and weaved like he was doing exactly the right thing, like he was some kind of tree, long and graceful.

That's when the voice came from the adjoining porch. “Do you live here now?” it said.

I nodded at the girl.

“Before, there was a lady,” she said. “She's dead.”

“My aunt.”

The girl seemed to consider this information, then dismiss it as irrelevant.

“There's only boys on this block.” The noodly girl nodded across the street. “That's my brother, Digby.” She showed me her uneven half-baby, half-grown teeth. Such a good smile. “And my name is Eden.”

School.

It's not the flowers that get me, or even the candles. It's how many there are. You would think Eden was dead. People amaze me, how they need to jump on every tragedy or even potential tragedy like it belongs to them, how they can't leave well enough alone when they get the chance to be involved in something. Facebook and all that makes it even worse. Even though my phone was stupid and didn't have the Internet anyway, I'm almost glad it's gone now, even though it means if Mom were to try . . .

Who am I kidding? She's not going to try.

Cards and pictures and graffiti on Eden's locker, on the wall next to it. Who did all this? What time did they get here? I want to read everything they say, but I don't because I feel like everyone is looking at me, and that makes me realize how much I slip through everything, unseen, how much I like that no one sees me, or that they try not to. It's like the opposite of when Dad flipped out in the street. He gifted me my repellent quality. No one wants anything to do with the crazy guy's daughter.

Now, give them a coma and all bets are off. That's like throwing pieces of flesh at hungry sharks. I am half expecting everyone standing around the spectacle to break into some variation of “Kumbaya,” and I'm thinking that might make me a little nuts. I am thinking I'm already a little nuts.

Touched, Mom used to say.

Untouched. Too much touched. Sometimes it's hard to say.

Sometimes you just have to walk away, which is what I do now.

On my way down the hall, I squeeze past the growing crowd like a freak fish flopping against the current, trying not to have overly hostile thoughts about fake friends. Elaine is coming toward me, and when we make eye contact I am caught. Turn back and face the insanity, or talk to her. There's nowhere to go.

“Do you believe this?” Elaine says.

“Feeding frenzy,” I say.

“People will be people, I guess.” I search for signs that Elaine knows anything, and I find this instead: nice, conversational, distant, concerned maybe. Then, “Are you going to the hospital?”

“I have some things to take care of this afternoon, but I'm going to try to go after school.” I hesitate. “You?”

“Not today. But I'll be there tomorrow.”

Perfect face. Oval, zero pores on her creamy olive skin, full lips, high cheekbones, eyes to dive into and I'm-a-smart-person glasses, cute little button nose, shiny straight black hair. Her clothes look new, clean and ironed. She is bright and clear.

I float, then, away from all of this, until she brings me back.

“Lucille?”

“Yeah?” I say. “I have to go to class.”

She puts a hand on my arm. Stops me.

“It's really crazy what you did. Jumping in the river like that.” She's touching me, and I want to tell her everything, confess and hope she will absolve me.

“Anyone would,” I say.

“I don't know.” She squeezes. “I don't know about that. Anyway, you got her out. Not everyone would have done that.”

I say something, I'm not sure what, and walk away, nodding and bobbling, because she can't do that. It's not allowed.

Don't be nice to me, Elaine. Please don't do that.

I am at the hospital again. The goddess nurse named Rita glides in and out of the room and sashays around me, tutting and humming. Wren sleeps in the chair. My elbows have sunk into the putrid pink. Janie has gone home for an hour, just to shower and eat something. Digby isn't anywhere.

Eden is skeletal. I should talk to her. That's what you're supposed to do, anyway.

The machine goes
shakaaaawah, shakaaaawah, shakawaaaah.

The other machine goes
beep, beep, beep.

My head collapses between my arms.

I am literally unable to take normal breaths, and I'm shaking all over when I walk into Fred's with Wren. I go in through the back door, past the cooks, and Fred is nowhere in sight. The dishwasher waves and says hi in Spanish.

“Hola,”
I say, digging past my fear and relief at seeing and then not seeing Fred around every corner. Then I scoot past the walk-in, where he's hunched over a container of green chile, moving it somewhere, and everything speeds up.

The dining room is pretty much set, and the girls are milling about. The crosses all over the walls. I don't know that I've ever paid attention to them until now. They are everywhere, every version, every possible configuration of a crucifix. My mind wants to get to the bottom of why that matters.

I don't know if I still have a job, I don't know how pissed off Fred is about finding me making out by the bathrooms when I was supposed to be working. No matter what's going on with Eden, I can't afford to lose my job.

Fortunately, Wren has no idea about any of it, really, and I figure she acts as some kind of barrier between me and the potential forty lashes that are coming my way. At first when I step through the back door, no one pays attention. Shane and Rachel are sitting at table six, reading something. I try to be quiet, but Wren says, “Hi, guys!” and they look up and then they are on me, around me giving me hugs, hugging Wren, too.

“Girl,” Shane says to me, “how did you not tell us that you got into all this?”

She holds up the
Cherryville Squire,
and there in that crappy small-town paper is a picture of Eden, a story about us. The headline reads
LOCAL STAR BALLERINA IN COMA
. I can't see any more than that, what with Shane shaking the thing, but there's a picture of Eden, one of me, too, my school picture from last year. I look so clean on the black-and-white, almost pretty, almost normal.

Rachel ticks at Wren's chin, tells her, “Your sister did something really special.”

“We were just at the hospital,” Wren says, and she goes into the back, to play with the makeup, I'm sure.

“Yeah,” I say, “ask Eden how I did.”

“It doesn't matter,” Rachel says. “That's not what matters, sweetie.” She goes off after Wren.

“Thanks,” I mumble at her back.

“You're here?” Val comes up behind us looking especially vampy. There is latex involved in her outfit, and her eyeliner is extra thick. “Shouldn't you be somewhere else?”

“I need to work,” I say.

“Right,” Shane says. “Life keeps on.” Her phone buzzes on the table and she picks it up, grunts. “Hm. Wouldn't you know? Trent. They need to be blown off at least once a month, just so they remember.”

“You need to talk to Fred,” Val says.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Like, now.”

“What are you doing here?” The voice behind me is flat, devoid of anything identifiable.

Fred.

I am so fired.

The dining room clears out so fast, you'd think someone had let off tear gas in the place, and then it's just me and Fred. He sits down, and the paper with my picture is next to his wrist. He tells me to sit, and then it's like I'm in
The Godfather.
I'd like to stuff some cotton balls into Fred's cheeks so we could go all the way with this, but I don't think he'd take kindly. I don't think he's in the mood for me at all.

My legs feel weak, my head is starting to ache, and something burns in my throat.

“So you're back.” He seems wan, like the zombie apocalypse he's always waiting for came and got him.

I say, “I covered my shift.”

“Yeah, but”—he clicks at the paper with his fingernail—“you got a lot going on.”