“Not jerks. They’re assholes.”
I smiled at the dirty word. Mara smiled back.
Inside, I was terrified. Danny and the boys wouldn’t stay away for long. Today it was threats and hateful words; tonight, Mara would visit them in their dreams. Tomorrow, the lust would blossom into plans and strategies. Eventually, they’d come back for more.
“Guess what,” she said.
“What?”
“My washcloth was purple... Ms. Grisham used green.”
We laughed. I picked a leaf from her hair.
“Mara?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“I won’t ever make you sing.”
The girl didn’t respond, but closed her eyes and wound my shoelace around her finger.
* * *
Midnight.
The scream belonged to Mara. It’s terrifying vibrato echoed through my subconscious and strangled my dream until I woke up thrashing. I sat up in bed, froze in absolute silence, and wondered if I had imagined the cry.
Then it happened again–the word “fuck” in Mara’s precious voice–splitting the stillness with such ferocity that it rattled my windows and sang for days in the back of my mind.
* * *
“You actually think I have superpowers?” Mara’s face glowed amber in the light of a dying prayer candle. The cavern’s pipes fell to the blackness of my peripherals; for all I knew, we were the lone survivors of the apocalypse.
“Think about it,” I said. “How do you explain all those boys outside your window? You saw them, right?”
“Duh. Every time I looked out my window there were more.”
“They even went back to steal your stuff! And what about that psycho woman? She took you out of school and never let you out of the house. That’s not normal.”
“Yeah...”
“Plus, I’ve known those bullies since preschool and they’ve always been jerks–’specially Danny–but I’ve never seen them like that. They were totally nuts.”
“You think I made them like that?”
“Not on purpose. I just think that boys really, really like you when they see you. And when you sing...”
“When I sing... what?”
I shrugged. I didn’t intend to finish the thought. “It’s different somehow. Special. Did you see the way that Danny’s uncle looked at you? Who does that?”
“Lots of guys do that.”
“Maybe to you. But not to other girls.”
Mara’s pupils had consumed all but a sliver of her irises. She truly didn’t understand.
“I think we should do some experiments,” I said.
“To test my superpowers?”
“But only if you want to.”
Mara considered the idea. “Kinda like a comic book.”
“Totally.”
She nodded and grinned. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
“I call your house three times a day and your sister tells me you’re too busy to talk. Now you need help with a science project and you come crawlin’ back. You think I’m that easy, James Parker?” Whit spun his chair to face Mara. “What’s a cute girl like you doin’ with this doofus? You can do better. I’m Whitney, by the way. Whitney Morris Conrad the Third. And welcome to my bedroom.” He held out his hand.
Mara took it. She was smiling.
This is eaxactly what I was afraid of.
“Dude,” I said, “I’ve been super busy–”
“Don’t ‘dude’ me. And I don’t want your excuses. Mom thinks we’re not friends anymore. I told her you dumped a cripple for a silly girl.” To Mara, “No offense, darling.”
She giggled. Giggled!
Whit rolled to his desk and pointed up to shelves that displayed three rows of ribbons and trophies. “Top shelf is spelling bees, geography bees and Quiz Bowl,” he said. “Middle shelf is science fairs. Bottom shelf is miscellaneous: Odyssey of the Mind, Science Olympiad... crap like that.”
“Whoa,” Mara said.
I rolled my eyes.
A string drooped from one end of the shelf to the other, displaying an unbroken row of Pizza Hut Book-it pins with five stars each. Whit’s desktop was laid out like a grid with writing utensils, measuring tools, stationary, and a bin of cubbies with red labels. A computer monitor dominated the center of the desk with cords leading to a blocky tower at our feet.
He opened the lefthand drawer and removed–from a heap of fun-sized candy bars–our production notebook. “James tells me you want to test your superpowers.”
“He thinks I’m special,” Mara said. “I think he’s crazy.”
“I rarely agree with a man who abandons his friends, but I think his hypothesis is right. Heck, you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
I scoffed. When did Whit become a ladies man? “Just show us your plan, Romeo.”
He opened the notebook to a list of meticulous bullet points and flipped on the computer monitor for even more information. “Part one,” he began, “asks the question: is Mara prettier than other girls? Part two is the hypothesis: if we compare her to twenty other girls, we believe that Mara will be the prettiest. Part three, the experiment: I propose we find yearbook photos of the hottest girls in school–maybe add some pictures of girls from our families–and show them to a diverse group of strangers who will rate the overall attractiveness of each girl. Part four: we analyze the data and draw conclusions.” Whit closed the notebook and turned himself around. “Well?”
I looked at Mara. “Whaddya think?”
She shook her head. “I think you’re both nuts!”
* * *
“Tell us! Tell us!” Mara said, bouncing on a quilt of beautiful photographs.
Whit tore a page from a Reader’s Digest magazine and pressed his hobby knife around the “after” picture of a successful weight-loss program. “I’m working on a new invention.”
Mara clapped. I rolled my eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Well, everybody knows that the best part of Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip is the candy stick–”
“Duh,” she said.
“So I thought to myself, ‘Why dip a perfect stick into inferior sugar?’ And the Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip was born.”
“Whoa...”
Whit noticed Mara’s genuine interest and embellished his pitch with flamboyant hand gestures. “I’m going to pulverize two candy sticks into powder, then repackage the dust into miniature baggies. When I distribute the candy at school, I’ll include an uncrushed candy stick for dipping.”
I scoffed. “You think kids’ll dip their candy stick into more candy stick?”
Mara licked her lips. “I’m already drooling.”
“The trouble is turning a profit. The extra sticks are expensive. But then I realized I can sell the unused flavor packets for ten-cents apiece to hardcore sugar junkies looking for a cheap rush. For my high-end clients, I’ll push the Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip as ‘the purest candy high without sucking a sugarcane.’ If I market this right, I can charge two bucks per baggie, save enough to buy the sticks in bulk... and we’re lookin’ at massive profit margins.”
“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,” gushed Mara.
“Would you buy Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip?” he asked.
“I would totally buy Candy-Stick-Flavored Fun Dip.”
I held the cardboard package for a Star Wars action figure and worked my scissors around a photo of Princess Leia in her bronze bikini. “Whit’s a nerd,” I said.
“That’s why James and I get along,” he quipped, “we’re both nerds.”
“That’s what we call a ‘Whitty remark.’”
Mara laughed. “How did you nerds get to be friends?”
“Ha!” Whit exclaimed. “We’re friends because moms talk.”
I placed Leia in the “hot” pile and continued the story. “I invited Whit to my eighth birthday party at the roller rink. Because I was a nice guy and didn’t exclude him,
our moms assumed we were best buds.”
“They set up another play date–”
“And the rest is history.”
Mara grinned. “Neat.”
Minutes later, she excused herself to the bathroom (to check her lipgloss, I assumed since I couldn’t imagine her doing anything else in there) and Whit and I continued our project.
“I can’t believe she’s actually sitting on my bed!” he said. “I’m never washing these sheets again.”
“Get over it, butt munch.”
“I know, I know... you saw her first.”
“Better believe it.”
Whit exchanged his knife for a pair of lefty scissors to cut his aunt from a family photo. “We’re both only children. We both like Snickers bars. We both think Luke Skywalker is a whiny little brat... That’s a lot to have in common, don’t you think?”
“I think you better keep your grubby little hands off her.”
“I can’t believe you let the three stooges meet her before me. Thanks a lot, buddy.”
“They didn’t ‘meet’ her. They tried to kill her. A.J. went back to the Grisham house. Stole a tape of her singing.”
“Let the redneck have it. He’ll wear out the tape in a couple of days. Hot damn, Mara’s good lookin’.”
“Yeah...”
“And what a fine pair of melons!”
“Melons?”
“Boobs.”
“I know what melons are. But she doesn’t even have–”
“Welcome back, darling!” Whit exclaimed in time to shut me up.
Mara struck a pose in the doorframe and showed off a pair of Whit’s Batman boxers pulled over her shorts. She deepened her voice. “How do I look, boys?”
“Holy Hannah,” Whit said. “You with those curves, and me with no brakes!”
She rolled her eyes and sauntered in. “What a goof!”
I shook my head. “My friend here has a disgusting sense of humor. It makes up for his missing legs.”
Whit shrugged and nodded. “You know how blind people have better hearing? It’s sorta like that.”
Mara lowered her head like a hyena, eyed the pile of photos, grinned an evil grin, and charged. “Cannonball!” she screamed and dove knees-first onto the bed, sending photos of pretty girls into all corners of the room. Upside down, she overtook the bed and her knee came to rest against my thigh. “What’s next?”
* * *
It was my idea to perform the experiment at the beach. Four miles of coastline separated the castle from the tourist trap called Grand Harbor State Park, but there were enough local lakeside homes to populate our sand with visitors.
The sandy staircase presented a problem for Whit. He made Mara cover her eyes, then scooted down the steps while I followed with the chair.
Twelve years in Michigan and Mara had never been to the beach. Mom bought her a teal one-piece for the occasion which she wore beneath a summer dress. For the experiment, she donned the blue shades from the costume bin, secured her hair beneath a backwards cap, and stormed the shore with kinetic enthusiasm.
“Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment to look at some pictures?”
Nobody could deny her pep. When they agreed to help, I pulled out my Canon A-1 camcorder, Whit snapped open the notebook, and Mara fanned twenty photos for the victim to peruse. “Take a look at these pictures and tell me which person you think is the most attractive.”
We scored fifteen interviews in the first hour and captured on tape a variety of responses.
Male, thirty-two years old: “I think this one’s adorable.”
Female, asian, thirty-five years old: “She looks just like my daughter!”
Male, sixty-eight years old: “This girl has an old-world charm. Reminds me of a young Veronica Lake.”
Male, nineteen years old: “You’re kidding me. I swear she looked legal!”
Female, twelve years old: “I want this girl to be my best friend.”
One boy slipped his arm around Mara and told her she was prettier than anyone in the photos.
Another guy was walking the beach with his girlfriend. When Mara pulled out the pictures, he exclaimed, “Do I look like a pedophile?” then noticed the picture of Mara... “That one,” he said. “Definitely that one.”
Another boy snatched the Polaroid of Mara, bolted down the shore, and put an end to the first half of our beach experiment.
On the steps, Whit scanned the results.
“What is it,” I asked. “Like, a hundred percent Mara?”
He sighed. “I think we need to up the ante.”
We returned to the house for peanut-butter sandwiches and lemonade, then scoured Mom’s “Good Housekeeping” and Livy’s “Seventeen” to give Mara tougher competition. Child models, lingerie models, Sharon Stone, the girl from “My Girl” (my pick), Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman (Whit’s pick), the robot girl from “Small Wonder” (Mara’s pick), and more. We snapped a new Polaroid of Mara to replace the stolen picture, then spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach.
Thirty-eight people were interviewed. Thirty-eight people selected Mara as the most attractive. Some called her “pretty” or “cute.” Others called her “precious.” A few called her “sexy.”
Around 5:30, a pinpoint of light caught my attention from the castle tower. It was a pocket mirror; Dad’s nerdy way of calling us in for dinner.
We kept the results to ourselves at Mara’s request. It was “weird,” she said, and explained that she didn’t want to make Livy feel bad, especially since we used her photo for comparison. “Your parents’ll think I’m crazy.”
Whit slept over. At 10:30 the boys and girls were sent to separate rooms, but parents forget that bedtime only marks the beginning of a twelve-year-old’s imagination. The proof of Mara’s ability spurred more and more questions, and we stayed up until three o’clock hypothesizing other powers and inventing ways to test them.
“Her voice!” Whit said, and I told him no.
The next morning, we proposed our ideas to Mara. She loved the prospect of superhuman abilities and participated fully in our barrage of silly experiments.
We tested for a sixth sense: telepathy, telekinesis, bending spoons, something Whit called “omni-linguism,” mental projection, teleportation... even flying. I don’t need to tell you she failed every test... but not without an abundance of bonding time and scores of laughter.
“I bet you’ve got more powers,” I said, “you just gotta figure out how to control ‘em.”
In the end, Mara was satisfied with her gift of “cuteness,” but asked to set aside the experiments to focus on the fairytale. Whit and I agreed. It was time to make a movie.
* * *
“Are you kiddin’ me?” Whit zipped from his hiding spot in the closet to the safety of the folded ping-pong table. He took a shot with his suction-cup dart gun, but missed. “You’re a real buzz-kill, Jamesie-boy.”
I poked my head from the trench of pillows and worked another Nerf arrow onto my plastic bow. “All I’m saying is that we know what happens when other boys find out where she lives. They broke into her house! I just don’t see how we can shoot the war scene without–” Another dart whizzed by my head.
“She’s gonna get us friends!” Whit said. “She’ll make us popular! It’s perfect timing!”
“Yeah, but–”
“Shut up and listen.” He rolled into the open–unarmed–and made a “T” with his hands. “We need to show this girl off. For once in our lives we have something totally awesome that nobody else has, and you wanna giver her a suit and glasses and turn her into Clark Kent!”
“She’s too special.”
He sighed. “Don’t rule it out, okay? We’ll move the war scene to early August. That way we can see how the first scenes go, then if there’s nothing out of the ordinary, we’ll invite a few kids to your house for a film shoot and sleepover. That was your idea, remember? Your parents’ll be there, Livy’ll be there, and we won’t make Mara do a
nything she doesn’t want to do. Just don’t rule this out yet, okay?”
I nodded, “We’ll see what happens.” I grabbed my bow, pulled back the plunger, and shot Whit in the chest. “Gotcha.”
* * *
There was one more experiment I proposed to Mara alone in the cave between the walls. “What if you can heal yourself?” I asked. “What if you can never get sick, never get hurt, or never die?”
Mara looked at me with an expression so devoid of emotion that I feel her pain today. Without a word, she removed her left tennis shoe and rolled down her sock to reveal a mark so obvious that I wanted to shoot myself in the head for the suggestion. A ring of flaky tissue encircled her ankle where the handcuff held her to the stage, emphasized by a fading rim of green bruise.
As an adult, I think of that scar often to remind myself that a cut was still a cut and blood was still blood. Mara Lynn’s appearance may have been otherworldly, but that ring of torn flesh would always serve as a memento of her mortality.
5. FAIRYTALE, PART I: THE GIRL
To prepare for this descent into my past, I took a weekend vacation to my childhood home. I stooped in my closet and unhinged–with a crowbar because of the nails–the hatch to my childhood lair. Dismembered limbs from a fake tree expanded from the open square like a wrung sponge. I removed the branches one by one, piled them beside the dismantled bed frame, and coughed in a plume of spray-on snow.
I was taller than the boy who wrote stories in that narrow hole, but I was thinner too. Inside, my legs were crossed and my chin could rest on the lowest pipe. The smell was unfamiliar–like soot and wet newspaper–but the memories were bountiful.
Mickey’s bulb was broken, confirmed by the rattling noise when I shook it, so I relied on the thin beam from the hatch to navigate the cavern. My comic books were still intact and I made a mental note to check the going rate for Batman memorabilia on eBay. My yearbooks–dating from 1991 to 2002–were in various stages of disrepair. I scanned the pages of my freshman year and found on the twenty-first page a smushed piece of paper like a pressed flower: “Idea!” it said. “Maybe I Should See His Emergency Room!”
The real treasures were those christened by little Mara; a zebra-print snap bracelet, a plastic VHS case that boasted Disney’s Beauty and the Beast but contained no tape, Dorothy’s collar, a blue diary with a broken lock, and a statuette of Saint Michael, wings ablaze and poised to fight. I placed the statue by the exit, then cracked the diary’s spine and flipped to the last entry: August 26, 1994. It was the night of the carnival. The night when everything changed.