Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (11 page)

Luke grinned at River and drank down the last of the port in one long gulp. He reached his arm back and threw the empty bottle into the bumping, grinding waves of the sea. 

“Luke,what the hell did you do that for?”I gestured at the water. “The bottle will break and someone will walk along the beach and cut their feet.” 

“Shut up,Vi.No one but us even knows about this spot.” 

“I can’t believe you think throwing a bottle at the ocean makes you look cool.It’s so dumb,I don’t even have words to describe how dumb it is. It’s speech-sucking dumb.” 

“Stop squabbling,siblings.”Sunshine put her hands on the sand and pushed herself to her feet.“The fire’s almost out and the wind is picking up. Let’s go back. Let’s, you know, go play in the Citizen’s attic. Come on, Violet, we haven’t done that in years.It’ll be fun.Come
on
.” She took my arm and began to tug on it. 

“Okay, okay,” I said to Sunshine. I turned to River. “Want to see the attic? It’s big and dusty and scary.” 

“Yep,” he said. 

So we all climbed back up the trail to the road and walked home. 

Jack was waiting. 

"I want you to show me how you do it,” he said. 

Jack was standing on the steps of the Citizen. He stared at River for a second, and then repeated himself. “Show me how you do it.” 

River tilted his head and smiled.“Do what?” 

“The magic.”Jack kept staring,and his expression began to match River’s—cagey, and smart, and suspicious. 

I looked at Luke and Sunshine.They were laughing and flirting with each other in a drunk,shameless way,and not paying attention. 

But I was paying attention. I watched River closely. Very closely. 

Because I knew. I knew that River sneaking away during
Casablanca
and the kids seeing the Devil in the cemetery weren’t two separate things. I just didn’t know how yet. 

River leaned down and whispered something in Jack’s ear.Jack nodded.Then River stood back up.“Jack,”he said, out loud now,“do you want to explore a dusty,scary attic?” 

Jack glared at River for a second and then shrugged. 

So we all walked through the Citizen, up the marble staircase, down the second-floor hall, past Freddie’s room,which was now my room,and up to the third floor, past the small library, past Luke’s bedroom, past the old ballroom that was now the art gallery, until we reached the rickety spiral staircase at the end of the hall that led to the attic. 

The Citizen’s attic was, objectively, breathtaking. The place was littered with trunks and old clothes and wardrobes and pieces of furniture and strange metal toys no one had played with in sixty years and half-painted canvases and on and on. There were several round windows to let in the sunlight, and I loved how it raked its way across the floor as I watched,dust dancing like sugarplum fairies in the bold yellow glow. If attics could make wishes, this one would have nothing to wish for. 

“Will I find Narnia inside there?”Jack asked, pointing to a tall wardrobe against the wall. He was wearing dark jeans that were too big, and a faded brown T-shirt. Over the T-shirt he had a green army-style jacket, which was also too big but looked kind of cool on him. It had a lot of pockets, which was probably why Jack liked it. 

Jack turned to River and me,and he was smiling about the wardrobe, his thin lips parting and his freckles shifting with the movement. “
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
is a good book.” 

So there was still a little kid inside Jack after all.A little kid that liked fantasy books and wardrobes. 

River smiled.“There’s no way Narnia isn’t in that thing. I’m going in.” 

Moth-eaten fur coats began to fly as they dug their way to the back of the tall, deep cupboard. I went over to the old wind-up phonograph in the corner and began to sift through the yellowed record sleeves, occasionally stopping to push my hair out of my face so I could lean in closer. By the time the tips of my hair were covered with dust,I’d found what I wanted. 

I put the record on the player and turned the crank. The rustling blues of Robert Johnson filled the attic. 

After River and Jack disemboweled the Narnia wardrobe of all its old coats, it served as the attic’s changing room. Sunshine put on a wrinkled saffron dress that was two sizes too small in the chest, which suited her fine. My brother found a dashing pinstriped suit, probably one of our grandpa’s. When he came out of the wardrobe I wanted to say he looked good, and that he should dress like this all the time, and hey it’s pretty awesome to wear your dead relative’s clothes . . .but I kept my mouth shut, because I was afraid he would take the suit back off. 

I pulled a black party dress and fake pearls out of a wooden trunk—very
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
—and went into the wardrobe to put the dress on. When I came out, River took one look at me and grinned. A nice, kind of
appreciative
grin. 

“You need to put your hair up,” he said. 

So I dug around in a small box of cheap jewelry until I had gathered a handful of bobby pins.Then River appeared behind me, and, with his long, tan fingers, started lifting my hair, one strand at a time, twirling it and pinning it until was all piled on my head in a graceful twist. My hair was thick with dried salt from sitting on the beach, and tangled from the wind, but River made it look pretty damn elegant, all things considered. When he was done, I went over and looked at myself in one of the long dressing mirrors—it was warped and stained with age, but I could still see half my face pretty well. 

“How did you learn how to do that?” I asked, putting my hand to my hair.“Wait . . . let me guess.Your mother is a barber.” 

River laughed, but his eyes didn’t join in. “No. My mother is . . . invited to a lot of parties. While she puts on makeup and picks out her jewelry, we talk. She taught me how to do her hair when I was a kid. So that’s how I know.” 

What River was telling me sounded personal. It sounded . . . real. As in, not a lie. So I was interested, and my tongue itched to ask some follow-up questions. But River walked away and started digging through a red trunk by the record player. Done talking, apparently. 

I put my fingers to my hair and spun around so I could see myself in the mirror again. I pictured River as a little boy, with his straight nose and crooked smile, but also with soft,hairless cheeks and a small boy’s body,like Jack’s. I pictured him helping his mom pin her hair up for a party. It was a damn sweet image, and it kind of nullified the feeling I’d been working on since the cemetery. 

Luke came over to the mirror and pushed me out of the way so he could see himself. He smiled at the way the pinstripes were pulled tight across his chest and arms. And then his smile faded, and his fingers flew to his forehead. 

Luke had a deep widow’s peak,and he was already worried about going bald. I would often catch him looking at himself in mirrors and window reflections, moving his head this way and that, trying to figure out if his hairline was receding. 

“Vi, look,” he said, pointing to his head. “
Look
. It’s moved. I swear it’s moved.” 

“No, it hasn’t,” I replied, without looking. 

“Are you sure? I can’t go bald,Vi. I just can’t. I’m not a bald guy. I wouldn’t wear it well.” 

I sighed, and kind of laughed. “Your hairline hasn’t moved. I promise.” 

“Okay,” Luke said. He took a deep breath, let it out, and turned away from the mirror. “I trust you.” 

I laughed again and then turned to look at River, who had just come out of the wardrobe in what looked like Italian peasant clothes, complete with a red kerchief around his neck.Something left over from my parents’bohemian friends, no doubt. He had even scrounged up a ukulele, and he sat down on one of the torn velvet sofas, strumming the chords to
Moon River,
in honor of my dress. 

Jack searched around until he found a checkered vest and a tweed cap. He was smiling, and I think he was having a good time,but he was so quiet.I got the impression that he was used to keeping still and silent.He just didn’t give off the feeling that other kids gave off—of recklessness and innocence and mischief. And I wondered why. 

Jack took his costume into the wardrobe and came out looking like a street kid selling newspapers on the corner in an old movie. It was damn adorable. And I don’t consider myself particularly susceptible to adorable-ness. I had the urge to sit down and paint him, right there, on the spot. And I hadn’t wanted to pick up my brushes in a long time. 

Luke and I had been painting since before we could talk, and, while other kids had crayons, Luke and I had a box of acrylics. But after watching my parents prioritize art over us for so many years, I’d kind of gotten sick of it. I’d quit cold turkey last fall when they’d left for Paris.Luke hadn’t painted in years, not since around the time Freddie died, as far as I knew. And he’d been a lot better than me too. He was good, really good, like our dad. 

I remembered the damp paintbrushes in the guesthouse. 

“Luke, are you painting again?”I looked at him, sitting in the dashing suit next to Sunshine on a pile of dusty old velvet throw pillows. He ignored me and began to nibble on her ear. 

I kicked his leg. “Just tell me if you’re painting again. It’ll make me happy.” 

But he didn’t answer me, just continued kissing Sunshine. Maybe he considered it too important to talk about. I kicked him again, but then let him be. 

Jack sat down between River and me. It made me feel motherly, to have this kid around, even if the kid was kind of stoic and silent and hardly acted like a kid at all. Still, it made me think. It made me think about how, if I was a mother, I wouldn’t spend all my afternoons with my artist friends, talking about Renoir and Rodin. Or take off for Europe, and disappear for months at a time. No . . . I would sit with my kid and make him maple syrup iced tea and tell him stories.It wouldn’t have to be all the time. Just once in a while.Just so he would know I wanted him around. 

Jack started yawning.Which made sense. He’d spent the last few nights in a cemetery, looking for the Devil. I thought about what Jack had said earlier, in front of the Citizen. About wanting River to show him how he did it. 

River felt me looking at him, and looked back. His fingers were still on the uke and his eyes were open and happy and content. 

I decided to go back to pulling a Scarlett and not think about the cemetery devil until tomorrow. 

Freddie once told me that I was the worst sort of stubborn—because I wasn’t stubborn at all. I was patient. Patient, but determined. A stubborn person could be distracted, or tricked. But not me. I just held on and on and on, never giving up until I got my way, long after everyone else stopped caring. I don’t know if what Freddie said was true. Maybe she was just frustrated with me at the time for something. 

Jack yawned again. He had high cheekbones that popped out when his mouth opened wide, and I thought he would be kind of an elegant-looking man when he got older—debonair,like a George Sanders–voiced movie star in the 1940s. 

Jack closed his eyes and fell asleep. 

I turned my head and looked out the window.My gaze drifted, and my eyes followed a sunbeam to where it covered an old trunk in the corner, making the black leather look lighter,almost brown.I realized that it was the trunk with the gin bottle and the red card. I’d forgotten that I wanted to search through that thing again. 

And I almost got up to do it right then, but Jack was leaning against me, and he looked soft and sweet. I didn’t want to move and lose the peaceful moment by starting up my Freddie yearning again. 

I would check it later. And I wouldn’t forget this time. 

“So there’s this story by Faulkner.‘A Rose for Emily,’”I said, to no one in particular, after River finished the song he was strumming and everything was quiet except for the soft sleep-breathing of Jack next to me.I felt like talking, which was unusual—I had all these thoughts going through my head and I didn’t want to think them. So I opened my mouth and just let it run.“It’s about a woman named Emily who falls in love with a man,but he doesn’t love her back. Then one day he goes missing. Disappears. Years later, when Emily dies, the people in her town find the decomposed corpse of the man in her bed, a strand of long gray hair on the pillow next to him.” I paused. “Emily poisoned him with arsenic and then put him in her bed, to lie there, forever.” 

I paused again. “I know it’s supposed to be a horror story, but I always thought the whole thing was sort of sad, and beautiful. She
really
loved that man.That’s rare in life, I think. More rare than people think. Everyone thought she was insane, but I think she was just really, really in love.” 

River stopped fiddling with the ukulele and looked at me. 

Then Luke stretched out his leg and kicked me in the shin. “
God.
Please tell me you don’t go around saying crap like that to everyone. No wonder no one in town ever talks to us.Wealthy families always have a crazy person or two. Is that really the role you want to play,Vi?” 

“We’re not wealthy anymore. Remember? So if I’m insane, no one will care.” 

Luke turned to River. “What the hell do you see in my sister, anyway? I’m curious.” 

“Siblings, stop squabbling.” Sunshine reached into her glass of tea, took out an ice cube, and started running it over her neck and upper chest.Slowly.“It’s too hot up here for fighting.” 

“It’s not hot,”I said.“It’s not remotely hot.It’s sixty-five degrees at the most.” 

Sunshine stopped moving the ice cube, grinned at me, and then popped it into her mouth and began chewing on it. 

I got up and started the record over. “You know, some people think Robert Johnson was poisoned,”I said.“With strychnine. He was only twenty-seven years old when he died,and no one ever figured out what killed him,so who knows? Strychnine is a mean poison.Death is horrific and painful. Someone must really have hated him. Otherwise they would have used arsenic, or cyanide. If I was going to kill someone, it would be with cyanide.”