The Cake House Page 4

  I propped the flashlight so that all the light fell on her tiny black-and-white face. I went back to the picture of my father leaping over hurdles, stared at his grim determination, the shine of sweat on his forehead. I flipped back and forth between the two pictures, first my mother, and then my father, until I could place myself there, until I could walk between the bleachers, under old sunshine, and hear my father’s pounding feet along the track. Until I sat with my mother, close enough to understand her secrets.

  I thought that the notebook might tell if my parents had been happy. But it couldn’t do that. There wasn’t even a picture of them together. The bushes rustled; the trees shook overhead. My skin prickled. Just the wind, I said to myself, blowing hard enough to make the trees bend and sway, but I could feel my father’s ghostly presence breathing nearby. Did he want to look at the notebook too? Did he want to remember?

  Something brushed across my face.

  “Is that you?” I asked out loud. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  Someone called my name. I looked through the branches, but it wasn’t my father. Instead, I saw Alex’s blond head. Relieved, I let out the breath I was holding.

  He crawled all the way in beside me. My heart pounded; my hands were cold.

  “Were you talking to someone?” he asked. “I thought I heard you.”

  “Just to myself,” I said, my voice weak and confused. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  My heart soared. How long had he been looking for me? He followed my shaking hands as I tried to put the notebook back in order. Some of the pages had crumpled, and a few more had torn off.

  “Let me,” he said, and started gathering the sheets back in place. He handled them as if they didn’t hold incalculable treasures and then wrapped the notebook up in its plastic bag before handing it back to me. “Come inside.”

  But that was the last thing I wanted. When I made no motion to leave, he sighed and sat beside me. I lay down and he did the same, our shoulders touching. I turned onto my side and, wondering if he’d stop me, put my hand over his chest. We lay together and I counted his heartbeats. At first he didn’t move, but then he put his hand over mine, fingers pressing against the inside of my wrist. Maybe he could feel my rapid pulse, and he was counting my heartbeats too. Puffs of warm breath from his nose tickled my skin. I traced his eyebrows with my forefinger.

  He jerked his head away, scooted a few inches back. “This’ll only make things worse.”

  “Worse than what?” I asked, really wanting to know, but the sound of the sliding doors followed by Claude calling for us caused Alex to scramble to his feet.

  “We’re here,” he answered, then said in a harsh whisper. “You better hide that notebook if you want to keep it.”

  I tucked it underneath a low bush and left it in the dirt. He had been so quick to let his father know where we were, and so quick to know I didn’t want anyone taking the notebook. Was that why he had been looking for me in the first place? Because Claude had asked him to? I frowned as Alex pulled me to stand next to him.

  “What are you two doing?” Claude asked, his face illuminated by the light of the house.

  “Just talking,” said Alex, at the same time that I said, “Having sex.”

  The breeze whistled a funny little note, filling the answering silence. The last of the sun slipped behind the mountains, leaving the sky a dark, bruised purple. Claude squinted at both of us. Alex brushed at his jeans and tried to move past his father, but Claude stopped him with a hand.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, then dismissed Alex with a nod toward the house.

  After Alex disappeared, he held my gaze until I felt smashed and bent. I stepped back.

  “From the first moment I saw you, I knew you’d be the tough one,” Claude said, in a way I knew he meant to be sincere, wanting to compliment, wanting to make me feel special.

  “You’re scared of me.” He seemed surprised, as if no one would ever think of him as anything other than kind and jolly.

  “Terrified,” I replied with as much sarcasm as I could, but he was right: He scared me more than anything in the world. I tried to leave, but his big hands clamped around my upper arms.

  “Wait a minute, this is serious. Alex means well, but it hasn’t been easy for him since—” Claude bit off what he was going to say, then paused and searched for different words. “Promise me you’ll be careful around him.”

  “We were just talking,” I said. Hasn’t been easy because of what? What was he going to say? My mind whirled with possibilities.

  “Talking is fine. In the house. Or at school. But you stay away from him. Do you understand?”

  The crickets chirped and the half-moon rose to the top of the sky. He struggled to say more but seemed unable to come up with the correct words. “Go on,” he said. “It’s late.”

  He stepped aside and let me pass.

  THE NEXT DAY, AS I sat at the dining table pretending to read a magazine, there was a loud knock on the front door followed by the ding of the doorbell.

  A hush followed, a collective holding of breath. Claude was in the living room, the phone once again pressed to his ear. My mother emerged from the kitchen, very pale apart from the twin spots of color on each cheek. Claude waved at her, indicating she should answer the door. She didn’t move. He waved at her again, continuing to listen to whoever was on the other end of the phone. It took her a moment, but she went to the front door and opened it. It was a man in a service uniform. The house heaved a sigh; no damning visit from Child Services yet.

  He said he had a delivery for Claude Fisk. “Oh,” said my mother, slow to recover. The man waited with a blank expression until she said, “Yes, of course, come in.”

  It was new furniture for the front room. My mother stood in the middle, pointing to one area with a cigarette in hand. “This way,” she said, and the men set the furniture down in an L pattern. “No, actually,” she said, “that won’t work,” and the men changed the configuration again at her bidding. And again. There were only so many ways a love seat and two armchairs could be arranged, but she could not be satisfied. From my vantage point, I watched the weary deliverymen as they moved the furniture yet again. They didn’t understand that no matter where the new furniture stood or how fresh the paint smelled, how pristine and neat and clean the room seemed to be, my mother could not hide the memories of what had happened.

  In the middle of another rearrangement, Claude finished his phone call and came in to rescue the men from a further repetition. My mother puffed on her cigarette, the stains on her cheeks fading while Claude tipped the men in cash and sent them on their way. The furniture lay where the men had set it down, the love seat off to one side, the two armchairs awkwardly grouped.

  “Sorry, that was an important call,” said Claude. He still hadn’t returned to work since my nighttime ride, saying he didn’t want to leave my mother alone when things were so uncertain. Instead, his papers and files spread like a fungus over every surface in the living room while he spoke on the phone to nameless individuals, taking up so much space that not even three floors and a garden was enough to escape his overreaching presence.

  “Aren’t they all important?” she said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m going upstairs.”

  “That’s your answer for everything,” said Claude. “Go upstairs, lie down. Look at that notebook, over and over again.”

  Silence.

  “Did you take it?” she asked Claude, her voice low and rough.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Claude, sounding frustrated and tired. “It’s been weeks. I thought …” He paused, and maybe he took her hand, or reached for her, held her by the shoulders. When he spoke again, his tone changed. “Your daughter needs you. I found her alone with Alex last night, in the garden. I’m sure it was innocent, but she needs her mother right now.”

  “Don
’t you dare use Rosaura to manipulate me,” she said, nostrils flaring. “Did you take it?” she asked again. “I can’t find it.”

  “Take what? That old notebook?” More silence. My mother was outside my range of vision, but I could see Claude’s profile, his searching, thoughtful expression. “I wish you’d let me buy you a real sketchbook. Throw that one away.”

  “No,” she said. “No, no. I have to find it.” She moved into the dining area, where our eyes clashed before she went upstairs. I hid behind the magazine’s glossy pages. Claude returned to his files and folders, picking up the phone to make another call.

  Later, when everyone was asleep, I slipped out to the garden. The wind pushed at my back as I crawled through the bushes to retrieve the notebook. I ran back to the house as if wolves nipped at my heels, hugging it to my chest.

  I went to Claude’s dark cherry desk. I tugged at the top, but it was locked. Getting down on my knees, I flattened the notebook as much as I could and slipped it underneath the drawers. If I hid the notebook there and my mother found it, she would blame Claude instead of me.

  Relieved to have it hidden again, I headed for the stairs, but the bright white of the front room caught my eye. It looked different in the moonlight, and there was a hum coming from inside. Heart pounding, I stepped closer to look and then relaxed. My mother or Claude had left a couple of fans plugged in and running, probably to air out the smell of fresh paint that clung to everything.

  Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and stepped all the way in.

  As soon as I did, I heard a car screech to a halt, followed by a banging on the front door. My father’s ghost stood in the entryway as if he’d just come in.

  “I stood here,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me but at the floor and the door and the walls and the window as if trying to remember. “This is where I stood. And then I moved over there.” He pointed, walking across the room. “And she stood over there, and he was there too. And we were all here.”

  He put his hands in his hair, looking wild, until he stopped and straightened, and I realized something was different from the last time I had seen him. No wound, no blood. Behind him, the freshly painted white wall was a blank canvas.

  Then there was a loud bang. Dark red sprayed across the white wall. I screamed. My father’s ghost staggered but did not fall. Instead, he turned toward me; a fresh, gaping bullet hole blossomed on the side of his face, and he said, “I was here.”

  I screamed again. Stampeding feet. A sudden bright light, and then there was no blood, no ghost, nothing except the stricken face of my mother, grabbing my shoulders. She wore her silk kimono, and that was familiar, that was calming, until I saw Claude behind her, with his hair as wild as my father’s ghost’s had been, looking comical in his hastily wrapped robe. Claude reached for my mother and for me; he stood where the ghost had been.

  My father was dead, and the man responsible held my mother in his arms.

  “Get her out of here,” I heard Claude say, preoccupied with my mother, who was very pale, her face ragged in the unforgiving lamplight. He was going to take me away from my mother, and I cried again, protesting, holding on to her until someone hauled me from the room.

  Alex. He brought me up the stairs and into my bedroom. I fell silent, concentrating on the hard plane of his chest against my back, the beating of his heart. He had held me like this before, but this time his legs and feet were bare against mine. This time, he started singing the French lullaby I had taught him. His voice was a low rumble, warm against my back, and every molecule in my body relaxed, my head resting against his collarbone. His singing was a release, and I let it drag me down into semiconsciousness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When I woke, Claude’s and my mother’s voices penetrated through the walls. They were wondering what they should do with me. Send me away. Put me in an institution for crazy people. Stick me in the attic; keep me quiet. Did this Cake House have an attic? I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom, listening to my mother’s high-toned confusion followed by Claude’s assurances.

  We were all figurines on the different tiers of the Cake House, with painted-on expressions and fixed, plastic smiles: my mother and Claude standing with their arms linked, a gross parody of a happily married bride and groom. Alex and I on the middle tier, his pale yellow likeness next to my dark figure. My father would have the bottom tier to himself, to hold all the blood he’d shed.

  The shadows in my bedroom pushed and pulled. They collected together, into arms and legs, but it was too dark and I couldn’t see. A cold bath of fear woke me up, and I wished Alex had left the light on before leaving me alone. Light might not stop the ghost, but it would make me feel better to see into the corners. I strained my eyes and could make out a smudge on the wall opposite. It might be the light switch, or it might be the ghost’s face. If I stared at it long enough, maybe the light would magically flip on, but it remained off.

  Just when I’d convinced myself to make a break for the light switch, the doorknob clicked and a shaft of light from the hallway sliced across the room. My mother entered. Her solid weight dipped the bed, and I felt her touch my forehead. The right side of her glowed, bathed in the wedge of light from the open door, but the rest of her melted back into shadow.

  She was real; she was my mother. I breathed in the ashy scent of her skin, familiar and reassuring.

  “What did you see?” she asked, her voice stripped and bare. She brushed my hair away, fingers dry and cool.

  Instead of answering, I caught her left hand in both of mine. The diamond ring on her finger sparkled in the light from the hallway. With my forefinger and thumb, I turned the ring around to hide the diamond against her palm. Then I turned it back around the proper way. I turned it around again. And again. The ring loosened.

  My mouth opened and the words to tell her were right there, waiting to be spoken: My father’s ghost lived in this house, he was still here, and he wanted something. It should have been easy to say, but I remembered how she had looked the day my father died: white, bloodless, and ravaged.

  “Nothing,” I said, turning away so she would leave, while at the same time not wanting her to go. I wanted her to sit with me until I fell asleep, but I didn’t want to have to say it.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked, the same way she might ask if I had done my homework or if I could help her cook dinner. “I hope you don’t hate me. It’s not right, to hate your mother.”

  My throat closed. Sometimes I hated her more than I hated anything else. For bringing me here. For leaving my father. For letting Claude put that ring on her finger.

  “Although maybe you should hate me,” she said. Her eyes glittered like diamonds. “Sometimes I hated my mother. Never marry, she said. It’s a mistake. Don’t have children. They’ll only hurt you. I should have listened.”

  My father, with his hesitant laughs, his nervous energy, the way he used to twirl her around, never stopping until she pried herself free: He was her mistake. But perhaps I was the bigger mistake.

  Behind her, a shadow broke away from the rest. The shadow spread. It came up behind her with arms outstretched. Ready to swallow us in his embrace.

  I gripped her hand, too afraid to move, to do anything but hold on.

  “What is it?” she asked. She started to turn around to look, but I jerked her hand in mine and shook my head, unable to speak.

  “Dahlia,” called Claude. His silhouette loomed in the doorway.

  “Here,” she said to him, but she was still watching me with concern and confusion.

  “Come to bed.” Claude opened the door wider, causing all the shadows to scatter and revealing nothing unusual except for the ring of my possessions lining each wall.

  She nodded and started to stand. “Pick up your things from the floor, Rosaura,” she said, then turned to leave.

  “Wait,” I said, frantic to keep her with me, grasping at her hands. If she chose Claude, I might lose her forever.

  My finge
rnails scraped her skin as she pulled away. She cried out and cradled her wrist. I could see the scrape my nails had caused along her skin.

  “You’re bleeding,” Claude said.

  “It’s fine,” she said, letting him take her away.

  I said that I was sorry, but she was already in the hallway. Claude shut my door, leaving me in the imperfect darkness with silence pushing in from all sides. There wasn’t even a ghost to keep me company.

  THE NEXT MORNING I RAN downstairs to be first in the kitchen, but Claude was there scrambling eggs in a frying pan and wearing a frilly apron over his clothing. He beamed at me. “I was about to call you,” he said. “Breakfast is served.”

  Conflicting desires battled within me: I wanted to ignore him, reinforce how much I hated him, but I was also hungry. He didn’t notice, busy serving eggs and toast onto a plate and pouring a glass of orange juice. He sat at the table and studied me with his bright, expectant blue eyes until I gave in and sat down opposite him.

  I picked up the fork and stabbed a piece of egg. “What?”

  “Your mother and I have something to do today, but just for a couple of hours,” he said, as if wanting to reassure me.

  I managed an indifferent shrug, but it hurt to think that my mother would leave me in this house where my father’s ghost lived to go with Claude, even for two hours. He watched as I ate. I knew he was thinking of the previous night and how I had freaked out. I was trying to figure out a way to say there was nothing wrong when my mother walked in. I looked behind her, but there was no Alex. I wished I had been smart enough to stay in my bedroom too.