The Cake House Read online

  I licked his lips. I was skin hungry, unable to get enough, thrilled when he shivered and panted and came apart in my hands. He slid my underwear down, parting my legs. I stopped listening for the noises of the house at rest. All I could hear was the music of Alex’s breathing.

  He filled all of my vision, above me, between my legs. He paused to put a condom on, then pushed in, and it hurt less than before. He took his time, until he couldn’t hold back anymore and I pressed my lips against his neck.

  I WOKE IN TIME TO see Alex sit up and slip his boxers on. I trailed my hand down his back. He arched away from the chill of my fingers but smiled when I sat up.

  “I better leave,” he said.

  The bedside clock read a little past six in the morning.

  “No one’s awake,” I said.

  I slid my arm across his back. He held himself still this time, knowing that it was me who touched him. I explored the vulnerable skin at the back of his neck, taking the time I hadn’t earlier. He shivered, but I didn’t let that stop me, tasting down the line of his collarbone, lost in the poetry of his nakedness until he pushed me down against the mattress and kissed my neck, my breast, his hand pushing at my legs.

  The house creaked, its weight shifting when a door opened and closed. Alex froze and we both looked at the door to my room. Nothing happened; all was quiet. “It’s okay. It was probably the wind,” I said, hoping that he would start again, but he pulled away, alert.

  “Someone’s awake,” he whispered without looking at me. He rose from the bed and walked to the door, opening it a crack to look into the hallway, his bare shoulders bone white in the moonlight.

  I didn’t have a good argument for him to stay. Alex was gathering his discarded clothing but paused when I stood and let the sheet fall away. He watched me cross the short distance.

  “See you in the morning,” I said.

  He shook his head at my crazy naked boldness, and I felt warm inside that he liked what he saw. But with another smile, a quick kiss, he slipped through the door into the darkness of the hallway.

  With his absence, I felt a wave of embarrassment to be naked alone in my room, and I slipped my nightgown over my head. I cupped my breasts through the nightshirt, remembering how he had cupped them, tempted to follow him down the hallway, into his room.

  I heard a bump and scrape of furniture, then a curse. I stepped out into the hallway, then down the stairs.

  Moonlight flooded the living room, spilling into the dining room. All was quiet, but then Claude emerged from the shadows. I took a step back before he could see me.

  He was pacing, his briefcase left open with his papers strewn across the dining table. Behind Claude, the desk was open and exposed, pulled away from the wall. It must have been the source of the noise. He paced from the desk to the briefcase, then all the way over to the sliding glass doors, his head twitching, as if getting rid of a fly. A hand swatted, confusion crossing his face. The Christmas tree stood unlit in the corner, the cloth angel silent and observing from on high. The longer I watched, the more I saw a shadow that dogged Claude’s every move.

  My heartbeat slowed, and my breath with it, and I saw him: the shape of the ghost’s head, a couple of inches shorter than Claude, his sweatshirt with the pocket weighed down, the wound on the side of his face. I froze, my heart hammering so hard it hurt. Claude continued his pacing, restless: desk, briefcase, then up and down the living room. With each step the ghost mirrored his movements. Each step Claude took, the ghost took one with him. Step. Step. Turn. Breathe. Sigh.

  A quiet rasping filled the living room. The harder I listened, the more I understood the words that were not spoken out loud. A hum in the air. A buzz.

  The ghost whispered in Claude’s ear, saying, You’re worthless.

  Claude twitched; he swatted the air again, but the ghost switched to his other side.

  You fail at everything.

  Claude paused by the laptop and picked up a few of his papers.

  She’s using you. She doesn’t love you. It’s your fault. All of it.

  He moved to the desk and the ghost followed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, my voice cracking, uncertain which of them I spoke to.

  Claude glanced up and so did the ghost. They smiled in sync, but only the ghost lifted his finger to his lips.

  “Did I wake you?” Claude asked. “I’m sorry. I’m … working, figuring things out.”

  He pushed the desk back into position and rolled the top down, used his key to lock it. “Isn’t it a little early?” he asked. “I hope you’re not trying to sneak a peek at your present.” But his chiding grin didn’t hold as he returned to staring without focus at the documents in his hand.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I said, with my gaze more on the ghost than on Claude.

  “Oh. Well—” Claude seemed at a loss. He wasn’t looking at me but went back to collecting his paperwork into a neat pile. The ghost stood beside him, his shadow.

  Behind me, I heard the soft sound of bare feet on carpet and turned to find my mother in her kimono robe standing a few steps above. She came down the remaining steps and entered the living room. The four of us—Claude, my mother, myself, and the ghost—stood in awkward silence.

  There was no movement between us, until I saw the ghost lean in close to Claude to whisper in his ear, and somehow, as before, I heard the words as well: What’s wrong with you? How can you stand to look at her?

  Then the ghost detached from Claude, took a step back, then another step, and melted into shadow. With his disappearance, the spell lifted, and I took a big breath.

  “You’re awake,” said Claude, speaking to my mother.

  “I thought I’d start breakfast,” she said.

  “That’s good. But I have some work to do.” Claude returned to his briefcase. “I should really go into the office. Just for a few hours.”

  “On Christmas?” I moved farther into the room. Claude startled when I spoke, having forgotten that I was there. I turned from my mother to Claude and back again.

  “Just for a few hours,” he repeated, and a smile returned to his face when he looked at me.

  “You can’t go.”

  “Rosie,” said Claude in a reasoning tone, but I could hear the change in his voice and knew he wouldn’t be leaving.

  “Maybe later, after we’ve opened presents.”

  He sighed but nodded. “All right. Why don’t you turn the Christmas tree lights on?”

  I moved to the tree and plugged in the lights, watching them blink on and off, on and off. Beneath the tree, presents waited to be opened, my name among them. I crouched low to inspect the new ones that had appeared overnight.

  Claude moved over to the couch, bringing his paperwork and briefcase with him. “See anything for you?” he asked.

  There was a box with my name on it, wrapped in silver paper and topped by a round, springy bow. I picked it up. It was heavy. Claude smiled as I carefully turned the box around.

  “Rosaura, help me with breakfast,” said my mother, standing by the door to the kitchen.

  “Go help her,” said Claude, but without looking at her.

  I set the box down, hesitating for a moment, worried that the ghost would reappear with my absence, but Claude nodded toward the kitchen and I left him alone in the gray of morning.

  She and I cooked breakfast. “Maybe I should get a job,” she said while carefully inserting bread into the toaster.

  I stirred scrambled eggs around in a pan and lowered the fire.

  “Something part-time, maybe at a store,” she continued. “I can’t sit here and do nothing all day forever.”

  Careful not to drop any of the egg, I scraped the pan clean before turning to her. She was looking at me with uncertainty, a quiet plea on her face.

  “Sounds like a good idea.” I said.

  She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth before nodding, turning to the refrigerator, and hiding in the light of its open door.
r />   Alex stood in the kitchen doorway. “Can I help?” he asked.

  He and my mother eyed each other, but I took his arm and positioned him by the counter, giving him a knife. “Careful,” I said, handing him half an onion to chop. “Don’t cry.”

  Claude appeared at the door, watching as the three of us negotiated the kitchen space.

  After breakfast we sat around the tree and I gave everyone gifts. Claude got a bunch of small photos of my mother arranged like a bouquet of Dahlias. He took his time, carefully examining each one. My mother got a photograph of me that Aaron had taken. I wanted to give her something else, something more, but she waved her hand. “I don’t want anything,” she said. “This is perfect.”

  Alex received a picture of him and me together, sitting side by side on the low brick wall that circled the fountain. The automatic timer on the camera had been too quick or I had been too slow, because the edges of my body blurred like a ghost. It had been hot that day and though my hair was in a ponytail, most of it had come loose, bits of it netted about my face.

  “Will you cherish it forever?” I asked, trying to sound coy.

  “If you want me to,” he said, cocky, with half a smile. He put his hand near mine, fingertips touching. I looked at Claude, but he had eyes only for his Dahlias.

  “Open your present, Rosaura,” said my mother.

  Alex got up and brought the silver box to me. I slipped a finger under the taped flaps of the wrapping paper, slowly working it loose. The picture on the box showed a shiny new camera, the word “Nikon” printed across the top.

  “To replace the broken one. I thought it was time,” said Claude.

  TINA APPEARED ON THE LAST day of winter break. She was a bit of sea foam, bobbing back and forth at the bottom of the hill, popping in and out of view as if she were waiting for me to go inside or leave before venturing any closer. She remained at a distance until I left the yard and went to meet her. When she saw me, she took a moment to regroup before facing me.

  “Is Alex home?” she asked. Her hair was dirty and her lips chapped and bloodred.

  “I haven’t seen him today,” I lied. Alex had come out of the bathroom at the same time that I had left my bedroom. He’d stepped aside to let me enter and we had brushed against each other. But I didn’t tell her this.

  “Can’t you go check?”

  I should have told her to leave, but I wanted to understand her. I wanted to take her picture again with my new camera. When I first knew Tina, she was my rival, but now I wasn’t so certain what her role was, and it hurt to see her so confused and lost.

  “Come around to the back,” I said.

  She appeared suspicious, but I didn’t wait for her to say no and led her down the worn path along the side of the house. The tall grass had turned white like an old man’s hair.

  “The garden is my favorite part of this house,” I said, my bare feet dusty and dirty, hurting a little from sharp rocks and burrs that lay hidden in the grass. “When I first came here I liked to hide in those bushes.”

  “And you don’t anymore?”

  “Not since …” There was something about Tina as she was in this moment that reminded me of myself those first days after my father died. “Sometimes I see my father’s ghost. He died in this house. I saw him down in those bushes not long after.”

  I spoke of his ghost out loud for the first time, but surprisingly nothing happened as a result: The garden remained exactly as before; the sky and the sun floated above us. I let out a shaky breath.

  She didn’t look at me like I was crazy. Instead, Tina sighed, as if she knew all about ghosts, had one of her own, or even several. We sat on the brick wall of the fountain.

  “Are there fishes?” Tina bent over the rim. “Hey, there they are. I see them.”

  “You can see them?” I saw nothing but the dark, mossy water.

  “Right there.” She pointed, dipping her hand into the water. She bent closer, and for a moment I worried that she meant to climb all the way in and sink below the surface. But it was a foolish fear. The water couldn’t be more than a foot deep.

  We sat on the edge of the fountain, splashing water. Five minutes. Ten minutes, and for all that time we sat together and didn’t mention Alex.

  “I got a new camera for Christmas,” I told her.

  She said she wanted to see it. “You’re lucky. My parents didn’t get me anything. They were promising a trip to Europe, but that’s not going to happen now.”

  I wanted to ask why they wouldn’t be going to Europe when Alex appeared on the other side of the sliding glass doors.

  “You should go,” I said, with a rise of conflicting emotions. She needed to be gone, away from Alex. He was no good for her, but she wasn’t any good for him either.

  She followed my gaze, but I blocked her view, pleading with my eyes, with my entire body, go, get away, get away now. I pushed her toward the side of the house and the narrow path that led to freedom.

  “Is that him?” she asked when the sliding glass doors opened.

  “Get out of here.” I kept pushing until she pushed back and gave me a hurt expression. Too late, I thought, when Alex called for us to stop.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Tina, while ignoring me. I wondered how he could stand to have the both of us there in front of him. Were we interchangeable to him? Or perhaps he did not think of us as the same.

  I witnessed her struggle as she managed her emotions. “Is your dad home? I thought I could speak with him.”

  Her question threw me—why would she want to speak with Claude?

  “He’s not here. And it wouldn’t help. Come on, I better take you home,” he said.

  Reluctantly, she followed. Any second and they would both be gone, back around the house. Maybe he’d take her for a drive; maybe they would park and he’d have sex with her in the backseat. I was jealous, but I was also afraid for her and angry that she couldn’t see how Alex would only hurt her more. It had been a mistake to bring her to the garden.

  That night, Alex appeared in my room. Bare chested, he slid in against my overheated skin.

  “Is this how it’s going to be?” I asked. “Will you be hers during the day and mine at night?”

  “We only talked.”

  “Oh right, of course.”

  I didn’t know why I bothered to ask; he didn’t answer.

  “What happened to her? She’s different now, than how she was,” I said, even though I risked that he would get up and leave if I kept pushing. But he slid his hand beneath my nightgown, across my stomach, up to my breast, a nipple between his fingers. I started to think that maybe I hated him.

  “If you hurt her, you’ll never forgive yourself,” I said.

  All I could hear was his breathing.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At school, I began to watch Tina more often, watched her spiral and unravel slowly, an inch at a time. From across the courtyard, I watched her approach Tom. He was sitting against a wall reading a brand-new Popular Mechanics magazine, partially hidden from view by a tree and a trash can.

  I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he listened. After she finished, he closed his magazine, and then he shook his head, no. Tina, with a jerky nod of acceptance, turned to leave.

  “Wait,” said Tom. He placed a closed fist over her open palm, then leaned in and whispered into her ear. When she tried to walk away, he held on until she nodded in agreement to whatever it was he had made her promise. Then he let her go. She ran back to her friends.

  Tom sat back down in his corner and picked up his magazine.

  I crossed the courtyard to sit with him. A mix of bushes and bedraggled flowers were growing where the cement ended. I picked a buttercup and rolled it between two fingers.

  “What was that about?” I asked, offering Tom half of my bologna sandwich.

  He took it and chomped off a big bite, speaking with his mouth full. “They’re all going out tonight. She asked if I wanted to go.”

/>   Without Aaron next to him, something about Tom appeared unfinished, with his skin yellowed and pale like tissue paper, the cuts and scabs on his knuckles, stains below his eyes.

  “Did you say yes?” I asked, wondering who “they” were exactly, and if Alex was one of them.

  “Nah,” said Tom. “They’re going to some club. She doesn’t want me to go.”

  “Then why’d she ask?”

  Tom rummaged around in my sack lunch and took out a bag of chips. I noticed that his left arm bent at a crooked angle. I examined it, bending the arm back and forth, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

  “That’s from when it broke. I was just a kid,” he said in answer to my unspoken question, and I remembered the story Tina had told, about how Alex broke Tom’s arm when they were children. They had all known one another since preschool. I was the one who didn’t fit. I was the interloper, the stranger.

  I rolled up his sleeve to reveal the crease of his elbow. “Why do you do this?” I asked, softly caressing the ragged set of track marks.

  He smiled. “I’m glad you can ask that question.”

  My cheeks grew warm. I let his arm go, wanting to ask him what it was like when he was high, but it was like asking how someone liked to have sex. I changed topics. “I’ve seen you with Alex. Are you friends?”

  Tom slapped his sleeve down to cover his skin. “We’re not. Friends.”

  “Then what do you guys talk about? And don’t tell me you don’t.”

  He upended the bag of chips over his mouth to eat the crumbs. When he saw that I expected an answer, he said, “We talk about his dad and my brother.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. Because of his general air of neglect, his exhaustion and unkemptness, I had always thought of Tom as being alone, without family, besides Aaron. Or if he had family, they were as good as nonexistent. I held all sorts of assumptions, that Tom came from a broken home and that was why he turned to drugs. That maybe he was homeless. But of course he had to have a home. He was scruffy and occasionally unbathed, but he wasn’t dirty. He wasn’t starving. Maybe a single brother wasn’t enough.