Whit squealed, “What happened?” then saw the horror etched in the creases of my face.
The next two seconds lasted two hours as my father stared at the fallen child with frozen panic. Then the boy leapt up, hid his face from the lunatic with the gun, and barreled full-force into the brush.
Dad sighed, fell against a tree, and watched the fire with a hopeless stare.
“Did he kill somebody?” Whit asked.
I shook my head, inhaled hard, and watched the flames dance in my father’s glasses.
* * *
“Maybe they’re high-schoolers,” I said while scooping heaps of sugar into my mouth with a candy stick. “Some of Ryan’s friends?”
“Ryan’s friends never heard Mara sing,” Whit replied.
“Maybe they’re tryin’ to catch a glimpse. We already know she’s the prettiest girl in the world.”
“Duh. But that’s not the reason they’re outside her window or everybody who’s ever laid eyes on her would be with ‘em.”
“Then why are they here?”
“You want me to rationalize super-human powers?”
“I wanna know who they are!” I sucked leftover dust from the cellophane wrapper like a fiend, then ate the stick whole.
“Maybe A.J. told the boys from Ms. Grisham’s house. You said he knows all about their blue bandanas, and we know for a fact that he’s been out there too.”
“Age didn’t even tell Danny about Mara,” I said between chomps. “He wants to keep her a secret as much as we do. No... it’s not the zombies from the Grisham house.”
Whit groaned. “Do you think your dad scared them off for good?”
I opened the second bag of candy, licked my pinky, and swirled it around inside. “Doubt it.”
* * *
T-minus four days until the Fairytale premiere.
My parents, the Greenfields, Livy and Ryan Brosh livened up the dining-room table with an energetic game of Monopoly.
Ryan was the canon token. His blonde hair was such an exquisite mess that I imagined he spent hours in the mirror with gel and a brush. He wore a light-pink polo that betrayed both William Shakespeare and Larry Bird, and bared his brilliant blue eyes whenever Mara looked his way.
My sister was the battleship token. Mrs. Greenfield was the dog, a tribute to her Alaskan Malamute named Snickers with different colored eyes. Mr. Greenfield was the hat and his wife made a joke about his bald head. Dad picked the shoe for no other reason than there wasn’t a skyscraper or an eagle, and Mom picked the car instead of the iron or thimble because, “I do enough housework when I’m not playing games!”
Mara and I were forced spectators, bound to my parents’ peripherals and expected to participate in every conversation. We knelt side-by-side on the living-room couch, elbows on the backrest, watching the battle for Boardwalk and Railroads while playing a secret game of footsie where no one could see.
“Dog-nabbit!” exclaimed Mrs. Greenfield. She was stuck in jail and had just failed her second attempt at doubles. She held the die to her ear, shook them in cupped hands, and smiled so big her eyes became tiny slits.
Ryan provided an obnoxious drumroll on the table. When a pair of twos landed face up, he raised his arms and said, “Way to go, Mrs. G!”
Mara caressed my ankle with her toes. She knew my struggle.
Livy slipped her arm beneath Ryan’s and wiggled her head into the crook of his neck. She whispered something, then fingered her new hoop earrings. For the nineteenth time since he arrived, Ryan glanced at Mara, then glared at me, then returned his attention to the girl at his side. Mara’s pinky rubbed a patch of color into my white fist.
Dad began his turn.
Mom caught Mrs. Greenfield staring at the lovebirds with a clear look of concern. “They’re teenagers, Norma,” she said. “Believe me, I’d fend the hormones off if I could.”
“They’re just so innocent! Don’t you just wanna hold ‘em till they’re thirty?”
Ryan straightened his back, gently forcing Livy from his side.
“I do,” Mom said. “Luckily, this evil little prince is a good kid.”
Dad reached over Livy and ruffled Ryan’s hair. Then he rolled the die, moved the shoe seven spaces, and declared, “Reading Railroad. Who do I owe?”
Ryan grinned. “That’ll be a hundred dollars, Mr. P!” he said, then glanced at Mara for the twentieth time.
“Don,” said Mrs. Greenfield, nudging her husband. “Did you tell the kids about your new toys?”
His eyes brightened and the gap in his teeth rose behind his ‘stache. “Do you kids know what a modem is?”
Mara nodded. I shrugged.
“It connects right to the IBM in my living room. Let’s me send messages through the phone lines at nearly twenty-nine kilobits per second!”
“That’s what it’s supposed to do,” said Mrs. Greenfield. “Don’s been having a little trouble with the set up.”
“It was delivered right to our front door,” he continued. “Norma thinks we won a magazine contest. I think it’s an answer to my prayers!”
“You know how Don loves to tinker!”
“Maybe your friend in the wheelchair could give me a hand,” he said, “to show me the ins and outs.”
I nodded.
Livy rolled the die and landed on Community Chest. “You have won second prize in a beauty contest,” she declared. “Collect ten dollars.” She returned the card to the bottom of the deck and muttered, “Yeah, right.”
Ryan missed the hint, leaving the comment to dangle awkwardly in the silence.
“What were the other new toys?” Mara asked Mr. Greenfield. Her interest was genuine; our feet were no longer touching and she didn’t even notice.
“Well,” he said, “the guest room has a brand new furniture set!”
“Real oak,” added his wife. “And a king-sized bed to boot!”
“Cool,” Livy said. “Your turn, Mom.”
“There’s more!” said Mrs. Greenfield.
Her husband pinched the tip of his mustache. “What am I forgetting?”
“The thing you spent all weekend setting up? Remember? In the backyard?”
“Of course!” he said. “The trampoline! Aw, kids... she’s a beaut! A sixteen-footer. Top of the line. Got her at cost.”
“Rad,” Ryan said. Mara and Livy nodded their approval.
I was disinterested and confused. Aside from the fact that Mr. Greenfield referred to his trampoline as a “she”... why were he and his wife trying so hard to win us over? They were my parents’ friends, not ours, and they lived over an hour away. Their only child was eight years older than us. Did they really expect us to spend the night in their new guest room just to jump on a trampoline?
(How blind I was...)
Mom took her turn and landed on Free Parking. “I’d be a millionaire if we were playing by the house rules.”
“That’s why we play by the book,” said Mr. Greenfield, waving the rules above his head.
Ryan glanced at Mara for the fiftieth time and it happened, so subtly that a less-attuned boy might have missed it. His lips pursed. While fixating on Mara–my girlfriend–Ryan’s lips pursed.
“Samantha’s coming in for The Lakeshore Celebration,” Mr. Greenfield said. He might have rolled too, but my eyes and brain and soul were focused on the minuscule creases around Ryan’s mouth.
“That’s exciting!” said Mom.
“She can’t wait to see your movie!” Mrs. Greenfield added, presumably looking at me.
I nodded.
“How do my fireworks look?” asked Mr. Greenfield. “I pointed them right where the director told me!”
I nodded again.
Ryan caught me scrutinizing his advance and looked away.
Mara caressed my leg with her ankle, but it did little to settle my anger.
Mrs. Greenfield landed on a space already occupied by her husband.
“No trespassing!” he said and she giggled. “And spe
aking of trespassing–”
“Don’t even bring it up,” Mom said. “Macho Man over here tried to handle it himself.”
Dad’s face flushed, though I couldn’t tell if it was out of embarrassment or anger. His eyes flicked to Mara.
“It’s sick,” said Mrs. Greenfield. “What kind of boys do something like that?”
“Perverts and punks,” said her husband.
“It’s not just boys,” Dad added. “Women too.”
“The women with the scones?”
“Tammy Bakker nut jobs...”
“It’s Tammy Messner now,” corrected Mrs. Greenfield. “And that woman turned her life around.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “The Andersons agreed to keep Fantasia until school starts. She doesn’t need to be around this stress. We called the sheriff–”
“Sheriff Beeder?” asked Mr. Greenfield. “Good man. I sold him a croquet set last fall.”
“He offered to patrol the woods for a night or two. After what happened yesterday, we thought it would be best.” Mom scanned our faces, probably wondering if the conversation was appropriate with Mara in the room. “Olivia and I ordered new curtains from the JCPenny’s catalogue, didn’t we honey?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m stuck with trash-bag curtains until they get here.”
“Somebody should check those women for brain tumors,” suggested Mrs. Greenfield. “Mara must have been valuable to their ministry. That’s all I can figure.”
Grownup logic at its best, I thought, from adults who never heard her sing.
“You never need to worry about those creepers,” Ryan said. He was speaking to Livy, but his eyes were on Mara. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Then it happened again–fully formed this time–his lips pursed. His eyes closed. He blew my girlfriend a single, invisible kiss.
I looked at Mara. She was placid, but smiling as if Ryan Brosh never called Livy that terrible word. Did she even care? Had she already forgiven him? Bestowed him penance and a single Hail Mary for being a racist jerk? Where was her anger? Where was the outrage that once released unspoken terror on Little Trevor Tooth Fairy? Did the stint on the hill–Mara’s unanswered plea for rescue–make her indifferent to the earthlings’ moral code? Was she still restrained by an invisible force? Restrained because Whit asked us not to tattle? Did her promise bind her magically to his command? Here sat Ryan Brosh–eviler than any toothless, neck-jabbing buttwipe–and Mara’s blood-stained eye didn’t even twitch. Here sat Ryan Brosh, grinning, spouting flattery to “Mr. P” and “Mr. G”, laughing as if he was one of the family, tonsiling my sister to prove his love, trampling her self-esteem, her self-worth, her eventual acceptance of her dark skin as she teetered the brink of a hopeless adolescence; a terrible time for normal kids, down-right shitty for adopted girls. Ryan didn’t understand my sister’s delicate mindset any better than I did, a mindset cultivated by my mother, reinforced by my father, broken again and again by her ignorant peers, then built back up with a careful balance of love, distance, and discipline that was never made apparent to us kids.
It was Dad’s turn but I didn’t care. How many times I forgave Ryan’s manipulation. The lies to Mara in the basement, the seemingly innocuous flirtation, the zombie-ferrets in my trees because–somehow–they too were his fault. Now he was in my home, air-kissing my girlfriend, boiling with jealousy because I had succeeded where he had failed. She’s mine, Mr. Brosh, I thought as I bore holes through his face with lasers from my eyes. I’m the boy who saved her from that witch. I’m the boy who carried her up that hill. I’m the boy who helped bury her cat. Not you, Ryan Brosh. Not you.
Every time he brushed a braid behind Livy’s ear, he was unknowingly flicking the latch on Pandora’s box. And if Mara cared, she didn’t show it.
Livy counted spaces and slid her battleship to Marvin’s Gardens. “I’ll buy it!” she said.
“Good call,” said Ryan.
I had become a champion at sitting on my hands, bitting my tongue, and repressing the longing in my gut (caught between the molten desire to make Mara sing, the anger demanding the head of Danny Bompensaro, the craving to herald “She’s mine!” to the world, and the pining prayer for Ryan to purse his lips one more time just so I’d have a reason to strike him dead).
It was Ryan’s turn. He looked at Mara, snatched the die, and blew them for luck. But as he blew, his mouth tightened, the lines around his lips pursed, and I pounced.
My thigh rammed the table, knocking over tokens and sending hotels to new properties.
Ryan’s chair clattered to the floor. He was on the ground in seconds, back against the tile with my knuckles pummeling his throat.
“James!” Mom shouted, but I ignored her plea, raised my fist above my head, and jammed it into the soft parts of Ryan’s body over and over again as if he too killed Mara’s cat; as if three months of push-ups had prepared me for this very fight.
The dads pushed aside their seats and fake money fluttered to the floor.
“You’re hurting him!” Livy screamed.
Dad took an elbow to the ribs and fell backward into my sister.
Ryan’s knee jerked and connected hard with my crotch. I tumbled sideways, but before I could shout “racist pig” his hands were tightening around my throat.
“Do something!” cried Mrs. Greenfield.
I felt the heat rising to my cheeks as I gagged and gasped for air. His hands were huge. His eyes were black.
Mr. Greenfield forced his arms between us and finally pried us apart. He held Ryan at one side of the table. Dad caught me and held me at the other.
“I’ve had enough!” Mom said.
“What’s gotten into you kids?” Mrs. Greenfield asked, hugging Mara on the back of the couch.
Ryan huffed.
Mara knew what I wanted to do. She shook her head and mouthed, “No James.”
I wiped spit from my lips with the back of my arm. I coughed and I winced. Then I looked my nemesis right in the eyes, ignored Mara’s silent plea, and growled, “Ryan called Livy a nigger.”
* * *
T-minus three days until the Fairytale premiere.
I managed to pee one time before the usual commotion overtook the shared bathroom. I noticed a pillow in the bathtub and wondered if it was Livy or Mara who had claimed the porcelain bed.
For the next twenty-four hours, I did my best to ignore the clamor of cosmetics, muffled cries, screaming sobs, lectures, encouragement, and the awkward bouts of laughter. The bathroom had become a spaceship airlock; if my door wasn’t closed when Livy’s opened, the castle would implode. Steam hissed through the cracks as my sister sucked the furnace dry with hour-long showers.
Because Mara was entitled to her privacy, Mom used my bathroom door whenever she needed to check on Livy. She always knocked... but if Livy didn’t answer immediately, she jimmied the lock with a paperclip and barged in, releasing a chemical-cocktail of nail polish, hairspray, and artificial fruit into my room.
Around noon I heard a strange sound from the bathroom; tink-tink-tink-tink like a semi-automatic pellet gun. The sound continued in bursts over the next forty-five minutes, but I wouldn’t discover the source until that evening. Beneath the piano was a plastic toy bin. Inside were Livy’s hair beads–a hundred at least–rolling around the bottom between wooden blocks and Tinker Toys.
Mara and I spoke only once that day. I caught her praying on the bedroom floor. Her ratty sweatpants and faded orange tee seemed like a hopeless attempt to look scrubby. “We shouldn’t be so affectionate,” she said. “’Specially around Livy.”
“Yeah, but–”
“She’s sad, James. If she sees us hugging, it’s only gonna make it worse.”
I grimaced, but took my punishment like a man. At least Ryan Brosh was out of my life for good.
“Does your throat hurt?” she asked.
I lifted my chin and massaged my Adam’s apple. “Only when I touch it.”
“Here.” She unzipped a po
lka-dot bag, fished out a plastic clam, opened it, and tenderly powdered my neck.
“I’m sorry I told her,” I said.
Mara inspected my flesh for patches of purple and dabbed them with a pad.
My father was in the bathroom now. His words were smothered by the cosmetic cloud and brick walls, but his tone with Livy was empathetic. It sounded like he was offering her advice, but her replies were short, sharp, and defiant.
“Do you think she knows?” I asked.
“Knows what?”
“That Ryan was using her to get to you.”
Mara placed the pad back in its shell and snapped it shut. “Yeah,” she said. “She knows.”
Later that evening, Mom enlisted Livy’s two closest friends to coax her back to reality.
Kimmy tried first, rattling the door handle and pounding the wood. “Hey girl! Get your skinny butt outta there! Didja fall in the pot?”
Haley had a kinder approach. “Livy? Honey? We miss you. We heard the nasty things that creepo said and we’re so sorry. Come in your room so we can talk.”
The girls returned to the parlor without Livy. Kimmy shrugged, then walked to Mara. “Holy smokes. Your eye is bleeding!”
“It’ll go away soon,” Mara said.
Kimmy hugged her. “I heard about Dorothy... you’ve been through so much!” She stroked Mara’s hair. “I finally got my own phone line, so if you ever need to talk...”
Mara nodded, then broke the embrace. “Thanks.”
We formed a pow-wow on the parlor rug. Mom offered to nuke some Jiffy Pop, but we declined.
Kimmy nodded to the bathroom. “What’s she been doing in there?”
“Crying, mostly,” I said. “When she was little, Dad and I called them ‘Livy Tivys.’”
“Cute.”
“But they’ve never been this bad.”
For a half hour we chatted on the floor, pausing every few minutes to speculate the bathroom’s thumps and groans until a loud crash stiffened our spines. We sat in absolute silence, swapping a daisy-chain of concerned looks, waiting for another sound to confirm my sister was alive.
“Crap!” she said through the brick wall.
We relaxed.
Haley touched my knee. “I can’t wait to see your movie on Wednesday. My whole family’s coming to watch.”
“Neat,” I muttered.
“How’s it goin’?”
“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”