Vivian Divine Is Dead (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

M
Y HEART SHATTERS INSIDE
my chest.

The broken pieces of whatever love I had left cut me up inside. I want to curl up, to protect myself, but it’s too late. I’m already bleeding inside. My face gets hot with shame when I think about all the private things I told him. I’ve never felt so stupid, so betrayed, so completely worthless.
How did I not see this before? The gun he carried for “protection,” the “shipping company” he worked for, his godfather going to prison for “tax evasion”? Nobody goes to prison for fifteen years for tax evasion!

Standing beside Marcos, Nick has a hard, cold look on his face, the same look he had when he ordered the Zapotec boy in the cowboy hat to stop calling me the White Devil.
Was that what the kid was really saying? Or was he trying to tell me the danger I was in?

I squeeze my eyes shut so tightly I see white squiggly lines float behind my eyelids, willing it to be different when they open.

It isn’t.

Nick’s still standing up there, addressing the crowd in Spanish. He looks exactly the same as he did when I fell in love with him, except he’s wearing the same green uniform Scars was wearing when he returned from the dead.
Was Nick planning to hand me over to Scars? Is that why he met me at the dock? And did Scars even hit Nick, or was that all pretend, too?

My whole body flushes with shame and hurt. Our kisses, our naked swim, me sleeping in his arms? I thought he was falling in love with me.
Was he just using me the whole time?

Of course he was.
My blood starts to boil with anger. At first it’s just a little bubble, but it quickly turns into a steaming, overflowing pot of rage. I think I’m going to burst out of my skin.
I’m so stupid! How could I have ever believed he cared about me?

“I hate him,” I whisper as Nick walks upstage and disappears behind the curtain.

Isabel looks at me in surprise. Before she can ask me anything, however, Marcos steps off the stage and the lights drop.

When Nick comes back onstage wearing the mask of Don Juan, I grind my teeth until my jaw hurts. I think about all the times Nick humiliated me, how he made me fall in love with him, how he pretended to fall in love with me.

Isabel grabs my hand. “Is something wrong?”

“That’s him,” I mutter, rage burning through me, pushing out sweat through every gland.
The boy I fell in love with. The boy I gave my heart to, who told me I could trust him with it. The boy who lied to me.

During Act One’s first big scene, where Don Juan kidnaps his fiancée, Ines, I rack my brain for reasons Nick would pretend to care about me.
But the chemistry was real, wasn’t it? Or did he have orders to pretend to care about me, just to deliver me to his godfather? If so, what does Marcos want with me?

During the second part of Act One where Don Juan kills Ines’s father, I remember how Nick told me how he woke up on the side of the road, practically unharmed.
How could I have missed it? Of course Scars didn’t hurt his boss’s godson! But then why did Nick try to protect me from Scars at the dock, and why did Scars hit him with his gun?
The answer works itself out: That was an act, all planned beforehand. All the pieces fall into place, and my hate toward Nick turns into something else: revenge.

During Act One’s finale, where Don Juan flees the country, leaving Ines to die of sorrow, I’m concocting a dozen ways I can make Nick pay (boiling oil? ripping out his fingernails?) when I hear a familiar voice. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, and it’s so soft I’m not sure I heard it at all. But it reminds me of bright red lipstick and kisses before bed. Tears spring to my eyes and my ears ache to hear that familiar voice again:

Mom’s voice.

Chapter Twenty-Four

B
Y THE TIME THE LIGHTS
go on for intermission, I’ve convinced myself it was Mom’s voice I heard.
It had to be
. Then again, there’s no other voice in the world I want to hear more, so I must have imagined it.
But what if I didn’t?

“Where’s the dressing room?” I ask Isabel, looking at the empty stage.

“Behind the altar,” Isabel says. “Why?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but I think I heard my mom’s voice.”

Isabel looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Are you sure?”

“Not at all. But Marcos has to be involved in this,” I say, thinking of Mom’s earring and the weaving of her face.
It all leads back to Marcos.
“I think the voice was coming from backstage,” I explain, feeling crazier every second
. Don’t do this to yourself. She’s gone, like Isabel said
. But I can’t stop myself. “Will you help me?”

“What do you think?” Isabel sighs, and I see that maybe I’m not just a stand-in for her dead niece. Maybe she cares about me—for me. I feel my eyes tear up. “I’ll distract him,” Isabel continues. “You have two minutes to get to the dressing room.”

I don’t know how to thank her. Nobody’s ever risked their life for me—unless they were getting paid to.

“Thanks for—”

“Later,” she says. “You better get moving.”

It takes me a total of thirty seconds to bolt through the crowd into the alcove left of the altar.
I just need to get across the altar and through the curtain. After that, I’ll just sneak backstage and hope I hear that voice again. Easy.
I glance over at Marcos sitting in the first pew, his eyes on the stage.
But where is Scars? And how will I get across the stage without Marcos seeing me?

Isabel suddenly pushes over a pew, and a thunderous bang echoes through the church. Marcos flips around in his seat, but Isabel has already disappeared into the crowd.

This is my chance: I run for it.

I dash across the stage, expecting to shock Nick by showing up in his dressing room.
This totally isn’t worth it. I probably just imagined her voice.
Imagining myself stuck alone on the stage, I sprint to the small door behind the altar, rip it open, and shut it behind me.

The room behind the altar is set up as a miniature dressing room: mirrors with round bulbs, makeup in boxes on the dressing tables, wigs and costumes hanging in movable plastic closets.
But no one’s here.
I feel my heart sink.
Then where was that voice coming from?

I catch sight of myself in the mirror, realizing that this is the first mirror I’ve seen in days. For a girl who’s lived her entire life in front of a mirror, and tracked every tiny change in skin appearance and weight gain with meticulous concern, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it missing before, aching like a phantom limb. Glancing at my reflection again, I can’t believe how much I’ve changed in a few days. My chopped black hair is oily and stringy, and Paloma’s white cotton dress hangs off me in loose white folds. My skin is tanned from the last four days in the sun, and my lips are chapped from the wind.

In fact, the last time I saw myself in a mirror was the night Nick and I stayed at his cousin’s house. My chest aches from Nick’s betrayal, and there’s this itchy feeling under my skin reminding me that I don’t know who to trust anymore
. Was it even his cousin’s house, or was that a setup too?
I want to scream, to set fire to this place that made me imagine Mom’s voice, but I can’t, because the door to the dressing room opens, and a chill bolts up my spine.

The girl who shuffles into the room, her shoulders slumped over her thin chest, looks like she was beautiful once. Now, her ragged black hair hangs over her face, like a dark veil, and her eyes trail the ground as she walks. She’s otherworldly, ethereal, like a ghost who’s come home for the Day of the Dead.

The girl shuffles past me, hardly noticing me, and starts rearranging brushes on the dressing room table. I’m standing frozen behind her, watching her line up the lipsticks.

“Who are you?” I whisper.

I’m afraid she’s going to scream or strike out at me, but there’s no reaction in her face at all. She just drops a burgundy-colored lipstick. It rolls across the floor to my feet, and when I pick it up, the name printed across the bottom is mom’s favorite: Tango Red
.

“
Me llamo?
” she says. Her voice is so monotone it’s chilling, as if all the expression has been beaten out of it. I notice that the skin around her left eye is bruised, and her nails are chewed to short, ragged edges.

“I’m . . . I’m Vivian,” I stutter. “Do you speak English?”

“A l
ee
tle,” she says. The girl’s eyes grow narrow, suspicious, and she glances around the room as if there’s a ghost in here with us.
“Me llamo
Paloma.
”

My heart catches in my chest
. Isabel’s Paloma? Her missing niece? Is it possible that she’s still alive?
I study her face in the dim light of the dressing room. She
does
look like the girl in the weaving above Paloma’s altar, except a lot skinnier and paler
. Why would she lie? But if it is her, why would she be back here, in this creepy dressing room, at a play Marcos is putting on?
I feel my heartbeat thump once, twice, before I trust myself to speak.

“Paloma?” I ask softly.

Tears well up in her eyes as if nobody’s said her name in years. Then she nods, her black hair dangling in her face, covering her bruised eye.

“
¿Este vestido?
” she asks, reaching out to rub the end of my rough cotton dress between her fingers. “Is mine?”

I look down at the ratty, once-white dress Isabel lent me, and nod. It’s definitely had better days. Covered in dirt from the cemetery, it looks like a dead animal the dog dug up. “From Isabel.”

Paloma looks confused that I know Isabel, but she doesn’t speak much English, and I don’t know enough Spanish to explain how Marcos had Mom’s diamond earring, and how I heard a voice coming from backstage that sounded like my mom’s, so I just point to my eyes, and say, “Have you seen Pearl Divine?”

Paloma doesn’t answer; she just bites on her lip so hard I’m sure blood’s going to spout from it any second.
“No he visto
.
”
She shakes her head, tears gathering like storm clouds in her eyes, and adds, “No talk.”

“No talk?” I repeat.

Paloma clamps her hand over her mouth as if she’s said too much, and my whole body starts tingling.
I know she’s hiding something, but how can I find out what it is?
I remember what Mary once said:
The secret to getting what you want is having what they need
. I point to her, and say: “If you talk . . .” I crook my index finger in a come-here gesture, and say, “I’ll take you with me”—I point to my eye—“to see Isabel.”

For a brief second, Paloma lights up like a flame that’s been hidden for too long.
She’s going to tell me!
Then she lifts my hand and places it on her cheek. Under my unwilling fingers, I feel a hard mound of skin, half an inch wide. With her hand on top of mine, I follow the hard bulge down her cheek to the bottom of her chin.

“I talk,” she says.

First the little girl, now Paloma? Did Scars cut her face too?
Before I can ask her who did that to her, I hear footsteps on the other side of the door. “Tell me what you know about Pearl Divine,” I plead, dropping my voice to a whisper.

“
Siga los cempasúchiles
,” Paloma whispers.

What?

The door opens. I hear dialogue coming from the stage, and then Scars’s huge body fills the doorway. “Vivian,” he growls, and steps into the dressing room, closing the door behind him.

I retreat farther into the room, but Scars keeps moving closer, until I’m backed up against the dressing room mirror. I see Paloma’s terrified eyes beside me, and then a glint of metal shimmers through the air in front of my face. Within seconds, it’s inches from my cheek, and I see my unscarred skin reflected in the knife’s thin blade. My horrified look stares back at me: eyes wide, mouth gaping open, cheeks soft and smooth. Scars pushes the blade closer to my face, and I feel the edge of the knife, thin as a paper cut, across my cheek. I hear Mom’s words in my head
: You’re stronger than you know.
And I think,
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I can save myself.

It happens like this:

I slam my knee between his legs.

The knife clatters to the floor.

Paloma gasps.

I shove the door open and burst onto the stage.

Everything stops.

The audience cranes their rapt faces away from the final death scene, where Nick, dressed as Don Juan, is standing with one foot in the grave, stuck between heaven and hell. He stares at me, frozen in place. I glare back, hoping my look is burning a hole through his heart.

“
Toma de la mano
,” the actress says, leaning off the tombstone and extending her hand to him. Nick doesn’t move, but his eyes shift slightly to the right as Scars lands behind me on the stage. I try to run, but I can’t make my legs work. I feel like I’m in one of those slow-motion dreams where you’re running as fast as you can but you’re not going anywhere.

“
¡Toma de la mano!
” the actress repeats, her voice high and whiney. She leans down and grabs Nick’s hand.

Nick shakes her off and points behind me. “Watch out!” he yells. His voice jolts me into action, and I jump off the stage, Scars and his cheek-carving blade inches behind me.

As soon as I hit the ground, the crowd explodes in chaos. Pews scrape across the floor as people jump up, shuffling into each other. Kids wail in confusion, and Spanish phrases are fired like stray bullets:

“¿Qué pasa? ¿Quién es ella?”

Pain sears through my skull as Scars grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me off my feet.
He’s not going to let go
. I try to get to my feet but the burning in my scalp pulls me back down.
He’s going to kill me here, in front of all these people.
But then, in the front pew, Marcos rises to his feet and shakes his head at Scars.

“
No aquí
,” Marcos says under his breath.

Scars abruptly lets go of my hair, and I stumble onto my feet, my scalp stinging.
Why is Marcos trying to help me?
I force Marcos out of my mind and focus on the crowd, which is parting as I push my way to the gold doors, to freedom.

“Try to run,” Marcos calls, his voice echoing in the massive church chamber. I glance back at him as he surveys the crowd, and then he looks smugly at me and says: “Just try to run, Vivian Divine.”

How does Marcos know my name?
Confusion swims through my head as his words slap the crowd into a stunned silence.
Does he recognize me from TV, despite my disguise?
I feel my legs tremble beneath me as the silence turns to whispers, and then I hear it, what I’ve heard all my life. Person to person, voice after voice, it’s whispered:
Vivian Divine. Vivian Divine.

All heads turn toward me, one by one. Other than Marcos and me, most of the crowd’s wearing skeleton masks, their grins fleshless and maniacal. The whispers circle around my head, folding people toward me.

“La actriz . . .”

“Está muerta . . .”

“Vivian Divine . . .”

Oh God. Not here.
I scramble toward the doors, but it’s too late. The crowd closes in around me, shoving up against my body until they’re all I can see.

“Hollywood?” one woman yells. “Hollywood?” She grabs at my clothes, a familiar hunger in her eyes. I throw myself against the crowd, but they’ve become a wall: I can’t get out.

I’m locked in by my own fame.

Bodies are pressing against mine, and hands are touching me from every direction, curious about my clothes, my hair, my skin. I’m suffocating, shrinking into the fetal position, my hands wrapped around my head.
I’m going to die right here.

Then, in the sea of people, there’s a hand reaching toward me.
Isabel.

“
Niña
, now!” I grab onto her hand and let it tow me through the crowd. When we reach the door, Isabel crouches down, her face still covered by her skull mask, and lifts a metal rod out of a hole in the floor. “
¡Vamos!
” she says, pushing the door open, one hand still clamped tightly around the metal rod.

I grab on to her other hand and we race out of the church together. Yellow explodes behind my eyes as sunlight drenches me in its blinding light. When my sight clears, the cemetery doesn’t look as scary now—or as magical. Wax has solidified in distorted droplets on burned-out candles, and the orange marigold petals are wilting to a light brown on the graves.

Now we need to get off this island, and fast. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can get help for Paloma
. I watch Isabel shove the metal rod between the two door handles, locking the church from the outside. On the locked doors, the carvings of the mangled people in hell, burning in gold flames, flicker in the bright morning light. I can almost hear them screaming.