The Cake House Page 14

  “What do you want it for?” asked Claude.

  “There’s a party.”

  A silent conversation took place, questions asked and answered in the open space between them. Claude walked over to the kitchen, rummaged around in a drawer for the second time that evening.

  “Take Dahlia’s car,” he said, tossing the keys. I recognized the green key chain; it was a dahlia flower, a gift from my father.

  I caught the keys before they reached Alex, snagging the key chain in my right hand. Alex tried to grab them, but I dodged him.

  “Can I go to the party too?” I asked. Going to a party was something normal teenagers did. I wanted to see what Alex would do if Claude said that I could go.

  Alex reached around one side of my body, then to the other, but I elbowed him in his belly.

  “You’re not invited,” he said, exasperated, annoyed.

  It didn’t surprise me that he didn’t want me with him, but now I was determined. “But I want to go.

  “If you let me go to the party, I’ll let you have those photographs,” I told Claude, who was leaning against the kitchen doorframe.

  Alex stopped trying to grab the keys, noticing for the first time the photographs in Claude’s hand. “What photographs?” he asked.

  Claude hadn’t moved. “I think that’s a great idea,” he said, and then shifted his attention to Alex. “Why don’t you take Rosie with you?”

  My heart stopped, breath trapped in my chest like a great big ball of wonder. I hadn’t thought he would say yes.

  “But I can’t—” started Alex.

  Claude looked at me. “Wouldn’t you like to go?”

  He had turned it around and made it his idea, as if I hadn’t been the one to ask to go. As if he knew I hadn’t been serious before and now he was calling my bluff.

  “Well?” Claude asked.

  “She doesn’t want to go,” cut in Alex.

  “Let her say that. What will it be, Rosie?”

  On the mantel in the living room a clock ticked, doling out time by the fistful. It was past eight on a Friday night. All over Southern California, hundreds of teenagers were getting ready to go to parties. My mother would have wanted me to go; at least the version of her that had existed before my father’s death would have wanted me to go. My father would have wanted me to stay. Alex wanted me to stay.

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  Alex sighed and took the keys from my hand.

  I thought Claude might grin in his usual triumph, but that hard look returned as he pinned me down in close scrutiny. “Then you’d better get ready,” he said, by way of dismissal.

  The command in his voice had me already running for the stairs, but I stopped when Claude said my name.

  “Why don’t you leave those photographs here, so I can go through them?”

  I knew I didn’t have a choice, not if I wanted to go to the party. Not if I wanted that darkroom. And I did want to go, despite Alex’s clear annoyance. After another hesitation, I handed over the envelopes that held both the photographs and negatives before running up the stairs. But I stopped on the top step when I heard Alex speak.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Just taking a look,” answered Claude, but when there wasn’t a response, he continued. “Can you explain this?”

  Silence, then Alex said, “It was nothing. I was using the phones and Tom was there. That’s all.”

  “We have enough problems, Alex.”

  “I know.”

  Another long silence followed before Claude spoke again. His tone changed back to his usual fatherly sternness. “She’s been here for months. It’s good for her to get out of the house.”

  “But I thought—” said Alex.

  “I trust you.” There was finality in Claude’s words, in his tone, that made me wonder if he trusted me. “Or can’t I?”

  Alex paused long enough for me to fill the silence with desires and hopes unspoken. “Of course you can,” he said.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing. I’ll take her. It’s fine.”

  After a silent moment, I heard the front door open and close, and then the soft complaint of the couch as Claude sat back down again.

  As I stepped into the hallway, I climbed up the stairs to the third floor, where my mother was resting. I realized that I wanted her opinion, that I wanted her to know I was going to a party. The stairs creaked with each step. In her room, the moon shining through trees made a patchwork design across the floor.

  She lay on her back with one arm flung across the other pillow. Maybe she sensed that I was there because she tossed her head, slurred my name, and made as if to open her eyes, but it was like they were glued together. “What is it?” she mumbled.

  A collection of amber-colored medicine bottles sat in a row on the bedside table. I picked up the first one. The label read “Benzodiazepine” in bold lettering. It was a pretty string of letters all together. Some of the pill bottles were larger. Some smaller. “Take with food. Take with water. Do not operate machinery. Do not drive.”

  I called her one more time, but she turned onto her side, facing the wall.

  Alex honked the horn, telling me I was taking too long. I left her sleeping and went down to my bathroom, brushing my hair until it crackled with electricity, the ends rising like a mad scientist’s. I twisted it into a ponytail and then applied ancient makeup handed down to me by José’s sisters years ago. “Take this,” they had said. “Take this, girl, you need color.” With lipstick I looked like a clown with too wide a smile. I took a bit of toilet paper and rubbed the color off until my lips were raw.

  Claude appeared in the doorway of the bathroom.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked, speaking into the silence that braided between us.

  “Nothing,” he said. “She’s tired.”

  “She’s always tired.” I tried to find the truth in his eyes, but all he did was wave me out the door.

  “Go,” he said. “Have fun.”

  IT WAS STRANGE TO SEE my mother’s car parked in front of the house. Claude kept it in the garage, along with other forgotten things my mother and I had stolen from our old life. Unlike the Mercedes, which purred, this car growled and hiccuped while it waited. The hood was dented, the blue paint chipped and rusted.

  When I climbed in, Alex was sitting like a statue at the wheel. He wouldn’t look at me.

  “If you don’t want me to go, it’s okay. I’ll stay home,” I said, reaching for the handle, but he put his hand over mine.

  “No, it isn’t that. I have to pick up Tina. I mean, I offered to pick her up.”

  His breath hung in the air for a moment before disappearing. I looked through the rain-splattered windshield. “Of course.”

  Alex drove, one hand on the steering wheel and the other tapping on the gearshift with a rhythmic beat; his fingers were always busy. I concentrated on the familiar movement of the car, the smell of the ashtray, choked with crushed cigarette butts smeared with lipstick. My mother had left a trail of burn marks over the dashboard and the seats. There was one deep scar in the pleather of the passenger-side seat, a gnarled old wound. I remembered when it happened. She had the car in reverse and hadn’t seen how close she was holding a lit cigarette to my leg. It burned through my jeans to my thigh, and when I cried out her hand jerked and she dropped the cigarette. It burned a hole in the seat before she picked it up. I still bore the scar, a circle on the side of my thigh.

  Alex turned the car onto Eveningstar Road, then coasted down the street until he parked underneath a big, overhanging tree. The tree dripped fat drops of rainwater, pinging the roof of the car.

  “What are we waiting for?” I asked.

  “She’s meeting us here,” he said.

  “On the street?” I looked at the houses, but they were dark and quiet. A moment later, I saw a flash of movement beneath the intermittent streetlight. Tina did a half walk, half run across the street. Alex exite
d the car but left the door open.

  As Tina got closer I saw that her coat covered something that glittered red and gold. “I was watching through the window,” she said as she came up to Alex. “I saw the moment you came up.”

  Then she noticed me sitting in the passenger side. She looked from me to Alex.

  “She’s coming with us,” said Alex, apologetic. I felt my cheeks burn.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s cool.”

  An awkward moment passed. I knew I was supposed to move to the backseat, but I couldn’t make myself do it. If Alex wanted me to move, he needed to ask.

  “We should get going,” said Alex.

  “Wait, come back to my room first.” Tina tugged on his arm. “I want to show you something.”

  “I can’t go to your house,” he said, digging in his heels. “That would be a really bad idea.”

  Tina shook her head, tugged on his arm. “No, it’ll be all right, I swear. They’re watching television. They won’t notice. They don’t even know I’m gone. I climbed through the window. Please. Please,” she said again. “It’s important.”

  Alex hesitated. “But.” He bent down to look at me, still sitting in the passenger seat. “What about—”

  Tina didn’t say anything, and I knew she didn’t want to say that I should wait in the car. I also knew Alex didn’t want to ask if I would mind waiting, either. I could have let it drag on, neither Tina nor Alex asking and me not offering. But Alex cocked his head to one side and gave me a lopsided smile.

  “Whatever,” I said, sighing. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Ten minutes,” he said. “We won’t be gone long.”

  I refused to look at him as he shut the door and disappeared into the dark across the street. Drops of water weaved drunken paths down the passenger-side window, distorting the view of the beleaguered front lawn of the house on the corner. The house had a fat fake turkey marching across the lawn, its ceramic feathers fluffed and bold, and a scarecrow sitting on the porch next to carved pumpkins lining the railing. I realized it must be near Halloween.

  I was left alone with my memories of driving and waiting in this car to keep me company. Alex’s presence had kept the memories at bay, but now they pushed and shoved like they needed a ride, some in the backseat, some in the front with me, like live things, with pulses and heartbeats.

  And some memories stood outside and tapped on the driver’s-side window. The ghost’s face pressed against the glass.

  “Open up,” he said in my father’s angry voice, fiddling with the car door. When it wouldn’t open, his hand slapped hard against the glass. He came around to my side, but I climbed over the gearbox to get away. He tried that handle, then slammed his body against the door. The car rocked, back and forth.

  “Open the goddamned door or I swear I’ll kick it in,” he yelled, pounding on the window. “Look what you’re doing. Look at her; you’re making her cry, you’re scaring her. Let me in and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

  The ghost paused, as if someone was responding and speaking to him. Even though I knew I was alone, I looked in the backseat, but it was empty. All I saw were cigarette burns and the stuffed ashtray.

  The banging stopped. I was breathing hard. The windows had fogged, making it difficult to see through the rain to Tina’s house. Maybe he had given up; maybe he was gone. Then a deafening crack shook the entire car. I bit my tongue and tasted blood. Through the fogged window I saw the ghost standing by the hood of the car wielding a baseball bat. He slammed it down on the hood. The car reverberated.

  He came around to the passenger side. “Sweetie, open the door. Open it,” he coaxed, the way you do with a small child to get them to do what you want. But when nothing happened, he yelled, “Open it! This is your fault; you’re making me do this.”

  The baseball bat shone in the meager light of the streetlamps. The ghost held it with both hands above his head. “Get away from the window,” he said, with dead calm.

  I backed away as far as I could, pressing up against the opposite door. He swung the bat and I put my arms over my head, curling into a ball in the front seat, screaming into my chest. The door opened and I fell, tumbling from the car, splashing into a puddle.

  Alex helped me up from the ground. I struggled between breathing and gagging. Next to him Tina held an umbrella. I hadn’t noticed her gold headband before. Her coat fell open. She wore a red bustier and starry blue hot pants. They sparkled in the streetlight. Alex had changed out of his old T-shirt into a blue shirt with a Superman logo on the front that he wore under his jacket. In a flash I understood: She was supposed to be Wonder Woman. She must have made him change into the Superman shirt.

  He had been calling my name, his lips moving, but I hadn’t heard him. Sound returned with the splash of rain on my face.

  “I’m fine,” I said, struggling to stand on my own, holding on to the car door and Alex for support. The window wasn’t smashed. The hood of the car had the same dents it always had, but now I understood how they got there. My mother had tried to run away before. Years before. She had tried and failed.

  “I fell. When I got out,” I said, wanting to climb into Alex’s arms. Tina watched both of us, a crease between her eyebrows.

  He looked uncertain. “I should take her home,” he said to Tina.

  “No.” I pushed his hands away, adjusting my blouse and jacket, which had twisted with my frantic motions in the car. “No, please.”

  Alex wiped the rain from my cheeks. “If you promise me you’re all right?”

  “She doesn’t look well,” said Tina. The noisy rain drowned out her voice, but she touched Alex, tugged at his jacket. The cold brought color to her cheeks. “Maybe we should take her inside.”

  I rubbed at my damp and dirty knees. “Really, I’m fine. It was just a little weird alone in the car. Halloween, I guess.”

  After considering me for a moment, Alex said, “She’s okay. We should go.”

  He stepped aside and held the door open for Tina. She hesitated before sitting down.

  Alex held the back door open for me as well. I didn’t want to return to the car, but after insisting that we continue on to the party I had no choice.

  The seat was cold. Alex shut my door; then he shut Tina’s door. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror, but he turned his attention to the drenched street and started the car. Tina was peering out her window. She wiped at her eyes, and I wondered what she had to cry about. He was going to the party with her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The party glittered at the butt end of a cul-de-sac, on a street called Calypso Court. The house was perched on the side of a hill and lit up like a beacon for wayward teenagers dressed as cowboys or punk rockers. Floodlights illuminated the ghouls and goblins greeting Alex with high fives. Witches and fairies clustered around Tina, cooing with delight over her Wonder Woman bustier. Costumed strangers mingled near a damp barbecue or formed a crooked line for the keg. Lawn chairs were scattered around the yard like rocks in a lake. Alex disappeared, buoyed into the house as if carried by a strong current. I wished for a mask to hide behind. Perhaps a harlequin clown or a Zorro mask and bandanna.

  Inside, the house was a honeycomb of rooms. Like Ariadne in the labyrinth, I picked up a string made of music and walked from room to room, encountering monsters and princesses around every corner, bodies flailing and laughing. Looking for Alex’s blond head became futile among the rubber faces, witches’ hats, and Halloween streamers dangling from the ceiling. I met ghosts in every room, but these were ordinary ghosts, solid and familiar, with holes cut out of bedsheets or greasy white pancake makeup smeared over bright faces. These ghosts lacked gaping bullet holes along the sides of their heads. They didn’t carry baseball bats.

  In the kitchen an alien with bouncing antennae handed me a plastic cup of thin, urine-colored beer. It was bitter down my throat, but I drank most of it like water before refilling. I wandered around, looking at pictures that belonged to the family w
ho lived there. The shiny, happy faces reminded me of Mrs. Wilson’s handbag with its countless pictures. A young man in a cap and gown, fat babies and rosy-cheeked toddlers perched on laps and told to look at the camera. Look at the camera! Say cheese! The walls were mint colored with chocolate chip accents, and the carpets plush and spotless. It was a house for rich people—clean and pristine.

  A twang of a guitar followed by a smattering of drums caught my attention, and shouts of Alex’s name. “Come on, Alex, just one song.”

  People crowded the living room. Squashed into a corner, a band had set up their equipment. Alex resisted, but a man with a bandanna tied around his forehead thrust a guitar into his hands.

  I found a spot where I could watch away from the crowd. I’d seen him play so many times it should have been familiar, but there was something different in watching Alex on a stage with an audience of more than one. He’d taken his jacket off and his Superman T-shirt hung loose on his slender frame. He tuned the guitar, the pick held between his lips.

  At his feet Tina sat with her girlfriends crowding around her, whispering and giggling. The girl I recognized as Tina’s friend who drove the VW Bug hooted and hollered, her hair teased big and buoyant. She was dressed as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, her breasts spilling over the lip of her top. “Come on, stud,” she said, whistling through her fingers.

  Alex smiled, lopsided. He liked the attention.

  It was a song I had never heard him play. A ballad. A love song. A pretty melody, sidling around the room to make love to all the girls, to make the boys envious. Sung for Tina, I thought, who looked up at him with adoration. Next to Tina, her friend in the cheerleader costume rocked and swayed to his music.

  I dug my fingernails into the flesh of my palms. He kept his eyes on his fingers as he played but then lifted his gaze to meet mine. Even separated by the length of the room, by the many bodies of strangers, I felt naked in front of him. With the twang of his last chord, I noticed that Tina was no longer pouring devotion up at Alex but had turned to see where he was looking.