This Raging Light (5 page)

“Wait . . . I'm working right now?”

“I'll see what's in the back,” Shane says, and she throws me the kind of wink that is both cute and confident and also tells me not to argue.

“You have a nice body and a good face.” He swivels back to me on his silly clogs. “My special-ops force is a bunch of badass chicks with taco guns. We are burrito snipers, tamale bombers.” He throws a few punches in the air. “We are family, but I like my family sexy, so figure out how to work what you got and we'll be okay.”

“And how to carry a tray with fourteen waters on it,” Rachel says, somehow gliding instead of clomping in her dangerous high heels. “Don't worry, you'll be fine. We all had a first day.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking about two hundred dollars in my pocket if I can just get through this. “Make me hot so I can be all special ops and stuff.”

A girl with black hair, blunt bangs, and red fingernails, covered in tattoos, hoots. Val. “Come on, girl, let's get your paperwork done,” she says. “You got this.”

Oh my gosh,
whispers the fish out of water panicking in my head.
I hope so.

Shut. Up.

I am sweating. In fact, I have never been so sweaty in my entire life. I lick my lips and taste salt. I should be tired, but instead I am tingly to my fingertips, awake. It's like when I put on Shane's black shorts and Rachel's high heels, something happened to me. The shoes made my hips sway back and forth as I walked (well, almost ran) across the restaurant floor, and when I looked in the mirror and saw my makeup mask on—the black eyeliner, the red lipstick—I knew that Eden was right, that all I had to do was pretend to be someone else, someone brave.

Something clicked on the floor. I could only think about the things I had to do, things other people needed, and there wasn't room for anything else in my brain. Everything got squeezed out, and there was only me and this pounding, loud, explosive place. I did drop a tray of waters onto someone's back, and I thought that was the end, but when I glanced back at the kitchen, Fred was laughing. After that, it was butter.

Now I've mopped. I've wiped down counters and honey jars and the insides of refrigerators. I've covered lemons and limes and put away ketchup bottles. There is something about this that makes sense to me. There is a beginning to the night. There is chaos and running, and there are loud noises. And then the door closes, and when I'm done ticking down the list of side work, when all the boxes are checked, there is an end. The kitchen is clean. The floor is peaceful. Everyone is exhausted but happy. It's a dying down. Order.

And something else. I'm good at this.

And now I'm holding money, so much money, in my hands.

“Go ask Val to make that into twenties for you,” Rachel says.

“Oh my gosh, thank you!”

“Don't thank me, love. You earned it,” she says.

I made more than a hundred dollars.

Val has money all around her, and she counts out twenties, takes my pile of ones and fives and tens.

“You did good.” Fred startles me. His apron is off, and without it he's just a nerdy-looking guy with suspiciously sharp teeth and dirty glasses. His hair is slicked back, and his face is clean. He is still in his socks and clogs, though. If you saw him walking down the street, you would never know he is commander in chief of this weird empire.

“Thank you,” I say. There is something about Fred that makes me want to do a good job for him, and I feel like I just got an A on a test I thought I was going to fail.

“I think we're going to keep you.”

My body aches empty.

“Yeah,” Shane says, and she throws an arm around me, “I told you, Freddie. When are you going to learn to listen to me?”

He grins and pulls a cigarette from his pocket. “Val, you locking up?”

I text Eden to tell her I'm ready to be picked up, and when I get outside and look for signs of Mom's car, I find Digby sitting in his orange International, affectionately dubbed The Beast, and everything in me goes liquid.

I feel sorry in advance, since I am going to have to skin my best friend for this.

I'm freezing in this getup. Why didn't I put my clothes back on? I want to run, except I know that would be mighty rude, and it's cold and I don't want to walk home. So I try to look regular as I approach the car.

He pushes the passenger door open. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I get in, try not to squelch against the leather.

“Eden asked me to pick you up. Wren fell asleep, and she didn't want to leave her.”

We take off with a little rumble, and I try not to look at his hands.

“Nice shorts,” he says, and I hear the smile in it.

“I have to wear this.”

“I never pegged you for a Fred's girl.”

“Necessity is the mother . . .”

He shifts around. “They look nice. I didn't mean anything. The shorts look nice on you is what I mean. You have nice legs.”

My turn to shift around in my seat. I pull at my clothes in hopes of covering myself up some more, then find out that short shorts have nowhere to go but where they already are.

“What I mean,” he says, “is that you seem too shy for Fred's, and I have never really seen your legs before, and they are nice.”

“Okay,” I say, “no need to go overboard.” Silence. Silence. “And thanks. And maybe I'm not so shy.” I'm thinking about the night I just had. “Maybe you're the shy one.”

He seems to mull this over. “Maybe I am.”

We pull up to my house. It snuck up on me, came too quick.

“Would you grab Eden for me?” he says.

“Sure.” I get out. Get a clear shot of his eyes, the sweet clean green he carries around with him like it's nothing. I force myself to stay with them, to see what's in them. Pooling lamplight is what. Wee sparkling stars. It's like that. He looks away first.

“Have a good night, Lucille.” He says it like I'm standing outside the driver's-side window.

“Yeah, Digby.”
Tink.
Snapshot. Him, just like that, turned away, I'm pretty sure because he can't look at me. “I'll go get Eden.”

Eden is reading, legs splayed like a broken doll. Wren is crashed out on the couch.

“So?” She scans me head-to-toe from behind her book. Faulkner. “Damn, you look pretty good all tarty.”

“Yeah? Good, because I was thinking I'd just go ahead and give up the Converse and the overalls as per your suggestion and wear this daily.”

“How much did you make?”

“One hundred and eight dollars exactly.”

“Not bad. Also, that's a sacred number. Portent. Good things to come.” She slaps the book shut. “Digby's outside?”

“Yes.” I try for a pointy look. “Thanks for the warning, by the way.”

“Why do you need warning?” She's putting her book in her bag, not looking at me. “It's just Dig.”

“Wren?” I ask. “Was she okay?”

“Oh, yeah. We did some rocking out, a little homework, watched
Cake Boss
. He made some kind of lizard.” Eden yawns. “I don't know how he does that. It shot flames out of its mouth and grew new tails when you ate them. He's like a god.” She gives me a quick hug, squeezes my shoulders. “Mrs. Albertson came by, though. She wanted to talk to your mom.”

I thump. “What did you tell her?”

“That she's on vacation.”

“Oh.”

“What?” she says from so far away. “What's the matter?”

So many lies.

The night Dad went away, I left
the window open because it was getting to the time of year where it never really cools down but Dad hadn't gotten the air conditioners out of the basement yet. One of those choices I wonder about now. What if my window had been shut? What if the air conditioning unit had been on, whirring away? Would Mom even still be alive?

I thought Dad was a pig.

Dad was a mewling, snorting pig making noises outside my window, only I didn't know it was Dad at first. I sat up looking for the source of that awful, sickening noise, tried to figure out how a pig escaped from a farm somewhere and wound up in the middle of town. Then the pig said my mother's name, not once but over and over again, a squealing mantra.

“Lauralauralauralauralaura—” High-pitched. Animal. Not a man. Except it was Dad. My belly told me. The spit that filled up my mouth told me. My pittering-pattering chest told me.

“Shut up, baby,” Mom hissed from down on the street. “Get in the house.”

I shook in my sleep shirt, took short, quick steps to the window, and hunched down, but they were too close to the house for me to see anything. I stared at the quiet street, our neighbor Andrew's perfect bushes across the way, and listened fierce.

“I can't, I can't,” he said. “I can't go back in there.”

“Just—Tony, just walk five steps and get inside.”

“It's all a lie. I'm a failure. I failed at this, all of it.”

“You didn't. Who cares about a stupid raise? It's nothing.”

“You made me care about this shit. This is your fault.” His voice got louder, higher. “You did this.”

“What did I do? What did I ever do to you?” She sounded so defeated.

“You wanted babies. I gave you babies. You wanted me off the road. I stopped playing. You wanted me to get a real job. I did it. You did this to me.” He edged out, so I caught sight of his burly shoulders, his old Bones Brigade T-shirt, worn and falling over his chest, his belly, his hands in his hair. “Look at me. Look at me. I'm not a man. I failed. I have nothing to show for any of it. I should be surfing, playing music, not doing this soul-sucking crap. I can't do this anymore.”

“Do what?” Mom's voice was so hollow and thick, I almost cried out to her then, but he went on.

“Any of this. I suck at being a suit. I'm a loser. You can see that, right? It's killing me, this whole sham of a life.
You
are killing me, all three of you. No career, no house of my own, I'm a nothing, a nothing. And you're a vampire.” A low voice now, one I had never heard before. “You're a succubus. You and those fucking kids have taken everything from me.” He pointed. “You did it on purpose.”

“You can't leave,” Mom said.

“Why not? You don't love me. I don't love you. What's the point?”

“I love you so much, I'm sick with it,” my mother said, and I knew it was true when her voice cracked. He shook his head. “Tony, come in the house.” Soothing now, like she was talking to Wren with a bloody knee. “Just come with me. Let me make you a cup of tea.”

“Tea?” He laughed. “
Tea?
What are you, out of your mind? I don't want tea. I want my life back. I want what you took from me
,
dammit
.
”

“Tony,” Mom said.

That's when he grabbed her.

They stumbled against each other, and I pressed my nose into the mesh screen, trying to see them, but they had disappeared under the porch awning, and all I saw were the cars parked along the sidewalk. So still. It was so still for a second. And then they staggered back into view, Dad's hand on Mom's neck, dragging her.

Back to the pig noises, the snorting, squealing. He looked up. I don't know if he was searching for God or stars, but what he found was me. And I swear to you, I swear he wasn't there. A monster was. Dad's face twisted, his skin gray and dull in the lamplight. But his eyes, his eyes were on fire.

I spun and twisted myself out of my spot and down the stairs. I flew, I think. It's the only explanation for how fast I got out the door. And then I was on him, on his giant hand, yanking and prying. He let go, even with the monster in him, like I was a Taser, my skin on his weakening his grip. Mom fell to the ground, now making animal noises too. She puked a little while her breath tried to come back to her.

Dad's legs went out and he cried like Wren did when she was new. Worse than that, because something inside him had scattered, and I knew it right then. The police, the ambulance, they all came. Even a couple of volunteer firemen. It didn't take long for word to get out. After all, we live just a few houses down from the fire station.

Mom tried to stop them from taking him, even as her neck turned colors. She wouldn't press charges. He cried a long time in those flashing lights while Irv and Linda, the cops, tried to get to the bottom of things. At some point Dad started laughing, a hyena now, and they put him in the car, I'm pretty sure mostly because that laugh was such a nasty sound and nobody could get him to stop.

“Don't take him. That's my husband.” Mom kept saying it, but they explained that they had to, at least for the night. He wound up on suicide watch in the institution—sorry,
mental health clinic—
and that's the last I saw of him, writhing and growling in a cop car.

You'd better believe everybody came out of their houses after they took him too. It was like a damn town meeting. Andrew on his porch in his silk robe. Even Smoking Guy two houses down. Middle of the night, early in the morning, smoking, smoking.

Nobody said anything about it. Not to us. They just shuffled a little more than usual.
Sorry,
I wanted to say.
I'm so sorry we messed with your suburbia.

It got to be morning while it all went down. As the cops drove away with Dad, Linda and Mom talked in the little alleyway in voices too low for me to hear. Birds tweeted happiness.

Mom tugged on my hand and didn't do much more than glance at the neighbors as we went inside. She pulled me up the stairs into Wrenny's room. Wren was still sleeping, of course, would stay still another couple of hours at least, her amazing sleep-through-everything powers at work. We slipped in on either side of her, collapsed onto the full mattress, pressed into her body, in the room that had once been Aunt Jan's guest room. We looked at each other over her head. Wren was an anchor between us and we held tight.