Everything Beautiful (13 page)

On the Fourth Day

32
Nevermore

Squeaalllll. Clank.
“Attention, campers. This is your thought for the day:
he that hath findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it
.”
Squeeallll. Clank.

Fleur stretched and yawned and said to no one in particular, “That makes absolutely no sense.” Her eyes flicked over to me. “Are you
still
here?”

I checked under the covers. “I think so.”

She gave me a smile that was all lip. She eyed the bottom of Sarita’s bunk and knocked on the slats. “Hey! Are you alive?”

Sarita was lying on her side with her eyes open, staring. She reminded me of this painting by Paul Gauguin called
Nevermore
. I used to see it every day on the back of the bathroom door. Mom had bought the print at the Guggenheim in a mid-twenties New York meltdown moment. There was a story to it, she said. The girl in the picture was afraid of death and so she would not close her eyes to sleep. Gauguin was a French Impressionist/escape artist. He ran away to Tahiti to paint island girls in various states of undress. Sarita looked just like one of his waking beauties, with her hair out and her staring eyes—except of course she was wearing her neck-to-knee nightie. Suddenly I realized I didn’t know where that print was. It hadn’t come with us to the new house.

I rolled out of bed and hunched over the mirror. Last night’s makeup had gone south. I took my eye makeup off and then reapplied my lipstick, slowly, methodically.

“Take it easy with that thing,” Fleur advised.

I stuck my tongue out at her, and looked at my reflection. Gaudy me. The lipstick
was
too much. And it was too early in the morning.

Sarita swung her feet over the bunk and announced, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.” She said it as though she really
had
tried to commit suicide.

“My life is over,” I murmured. I was thinking about
Nevermore
and about my mother and how she wasn’t scared and she’d closed her eyes. Then I remembered where I was, and my admission felt like a slip. The concerned glances from Fleur and Sarita sent me rushing to protect myself. I camped it up. “My life left on the ten thirty bus.” I waved my hands around my body. “This that you see is but a hollow shell.”

Fleur groaned. “You two should be onstage.”

Sarita whispered, “Yes.” She held up her prayer rock and kissed it, then she tossed Roslyn’s shroud at me. “Here—you need this.”

“Ta.” I blotted my lipstick on the shroud and wedged it in the corner of the mirror.

Sarita opened her mouth and closed it, then opened it again. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” she repeated.

I threw my pillow at her. “Stop saying that!”

The three of us took sleepy steps toward the shower block. Anyone watching us would have thought that we were great friends. We stood languidly in the line. We were less guarded than other mornings, and chatted amiably, spontaneously, about nothing. Someone had forgotten her toothbrush. Someone else had forgotten to flush. The steam rose up from the showers and carried with it the scent of peach shampoo. The hot water supply was on the spaz. Someone kept dropping the soap. We shook water from our ears and put dry clothes on over wet legs. We raked our tangles with our fingers and when Roslyn blew the breakfast bugle we dashed across the plain. The order of the day was same-same, but for some reason everything felt different.

At breakfast the Honeyeaters were buzzing. Dylan scattered his town booty across the table. Bird cast me a meaningful look and patted one of his vest pockets. Fleur popped a lozenge. She pinched her throat and made a fruity “Me, may, ma, mo, mooo.” The twins dismissed their All-Bran and ripped into their chocolate. They passed the bar around. I hesitated when it came to me. I was waiting for Fleur to say something snide about comfort eating, but she was warbling away, oblivious. I took a piece. Dylan passed me a paper shopping bag. “This is yours.”

Inside it were the tools that would transform Sarita, and something else—a bamboo-covered book.

“What’s this for?” I opened the notebook. The first few pages had rough sketches of flowers on them. I looked from the pictures to Dylan. “It’s not—,” he started to say, then threw up his hands. “It’s just a book.”

“Um. Thanks.” The night before came back to me. Dylan’s hand on my thigh.

Sarita banged her cup on the table with a force that surprised us all. “Honeyeaters, I must have your attention.” She was sitting stiffly with her clipboard propped in front of her. “Honeyeaters, I am floor-managing the talent show. Thus far we have only two entrants. This is dire. I want to know: what are we going to do about it?”

“Sarita!” I grinned. “You’re so
forceful
!” Something had unleashed her big-balls sleep-talking voice. I liked it.

Sarita went pink. “Roslyn has agreed to let us spend The Word planning the shebang.” She checked her clipboard. “Craig and Fleur are singing, and Lisa and Laura are performing a liturgical dance. Who else?”

Bird put his hand up. “I could do birdcalls again.”

Ethan and Richard groaned.

“Brilliant.” Sarita wrote his name down.

“I could do a striptease,” I suggested.

There was a moment of silence and then the table erupted into laughter. Even Ethan and Richard joined in.

And then I was laughing too. I felt high and . . . unified. I didn’t have my bunker book with me. I wasn’t scoffing. I was
participating
.

“Oh, my goodness!” Sarita spluttered. “I don’t think that would go down very well with the parents.”

“It was a joke, Sarita.”

Dad and Norma. As far as they knew I was rappelling and canoeing and group-hugging and cultivating a hot chocolate/
He Is Lord
habit. I tried to scowl. I wanted to keep my anti in check, but a smile kept creeping back.

Craig moseyed over during the last wave of mirth.

“What’s so funny?” he wanted to know.

Dylan looked at me. “You had to be there.”

Fleur quickly put her bitch back in gear. “Hey, Riley,” she called out. “Do you want my roll?” She sent her plate spinning toward me. Richard’s face lit up. “Have mine, too, Riley.” He pushed his plate forward. “Go on, girl’s gotta eat.” Ethan mirrored his friend’s move. I had bread coming at me from all quarters. I was unprepared for this attack, but I hadn’t reckoned on Sarita. She lunged forward and emptied her fruit salad over Fleur’s head.

Fleur’s face—what we could see of it—went white. She peeled a fried egg off her plate and flung it at Sarita, who managed to duck just in time. The egg landed on Roslyn’s palm tree head sunny-side down. I heard gasps and laughter and then the room fell silent as if catching its breath. Moments later a random Bronzewing kicked back his chair and hollered, “Food fight!” and then the sky above the mess hall was thick with buttered buns and bacon shrapnel.

Sarita and I used our trays as shields. We ran blindly through the battlefield, shrieking all the way. Outside we collapsed on the spidergrass.

“Sarita, that was beautiful.” I gripped my stomach. My sides hurt, my face hurt,
everything
hurt, but it also felt mad wild good. Sarita sat up. She bubbled with pride. “There is always a food fight at camp. But this is the first time I have been an instigator.”

I laughed. Sarita looked crazy. She had fried egg sideburns and the ink of delirium in her eyes. She said, “Something is happening, Riley. I’m going tropical.”

I clucked my tongue. “I think you mean troppo.” I put my hand on her forehead. “You’re crazy from the heat. You’d better lie down.”

Sarita lay back down and spread her arms and made snow angels in the grass.

33
Involved

The Honeyeaters had to clean up the mess hall. I’d
just
picked up a sponge when I heard my name over the PA. “
Riley Rose and Dylan Luck, please report to Neville outside the rec room
.” I never liked my name until I heard it next to his. Riley and Dylan, Dylan and Riley. Our
Y
s and
L
s had a pleasing assonance. Dylan winked. I threw down my sponge. “I can’t believe we don’t get to clean!”

Neville was wearing a smug smile and a green mohair cardigan. This morning’s badge said
Holy Roller
. We saluted him and he stamped his heels together. “This way.” We made our way to Fraser’s house. Neville stopped at the recycling cage to grab some flattened cardboard boxes. He loaded us up and spooled Dylan’s arm with two rolls of packing tape. He paused at the door, dangling a thick bunch of keys. “Come see paradise.”

Fraser was more than a packrat. He was a crazy-man hoarder. Every inch of his three-room cottage was covered with cans, food packaging, flyers, newspapers, clothes, and curiosities like spindles and specimen bottles and eight-track cartridges. Neville carved a path for Dylan. He started assembling the boxes, tearing off tape with his teeth. After he’d exhausted his he-man antics he cleared his throat. “Riley, Dylan. Your task is to get this house in order. These boxes are for clothes. These boxes are for books. These boxes are for knickknacks. Any papers can go in the recycling, and general trash can go in those garbage bags. Questions?”

“What do you classify as a knickknack?” Dylan queried.

Neville sighed. He picked up an ancient Matchbox car and slapped it in Dylan’s palm. “Use your discretion.”

“Where’s it all going to go?” I asked.

“Charity.” Neville looked around at the mess almost belligerently. “Fraser didn’t have any family. He had a kelpie, but the dog went mad around the same time he did.”

“It was the desert,” I whispered melodramatically.

Dylan went, “Shhhhh!”

We shivered at the possible presence of ghosts.

“But Neville,” I whined. “We’re going to miss The Word. I was really looking forward to helping plan the talent show.”

“You were going to get involved, were you?”

I smiled bright and fake. Dylan guffawed.

Neville turned to him. “You too, huh?”

Dylan blanched.

“Gotcha!” Neville’s grin only lasted a second. “Now get to work,” he growled. “And see what you can do about this dust.” He stabbed the air with a newly blackened finger and stalked out the door.

“Well,” Dylan said. “I suppose we should work on our dance routine.”

It was his defeatist voice that made me flare up. Was it so ludicrous to think that he might be able to do something, anything?

“Nice. FYI, people in wheelchairs
can
dance. I saw a show in the city once. For school.”

Dylan tutted and looked away.

“Actually it was good,” I went on. “It was called
Dance with a Difference
. The dancers were all in wheelchairs, but not all of them were . . . you know . . .
disabled
.”

“Hate that word,” Dylan muttered. “It’s so retro.”

“The audience didn’t know who was or who wasn’t, and in the end it didn’t even matter.”

Sky—the patchouli lit teacher—had taken the class as part of a workshop on “expression.” Afterward she was all, “
Who
has the handicap? Ask yourself that.”

I considered telling Dylan this, but when I looked at him he was busy
Vogue
-ing, Madonna-style. His face was frozen in an exaggerated wink. Next he had a finger in his dimple and coy glint in his eye. Next he’d seen the face of death, and was spooked to all eternity. With each look he used his hands to frame his face appropriately. It was his “startled indignation” complete with fingertips on nipples that got me giggling.

“You should do that for the talent show.”

“I should rise from the chair and do Cossack dancing,” Dylan countered. He folded his arms and nodded like a demented Russian.

“Hmm.” I tried to be serious, but the image was too funny, and even Dylan couldn’t keep his scowl straight.