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back the petals.
 Have you seen Rose Red? he asks.
 No. I m so afraid for her.
 When you get strong you can help her.
As he comes, I feel a pressure release in
me and before I can stop it I am crying. My
whole body.
 What did he do to you? Jack asks as his
body relaxes. He strokes my head; my hair
is pressed damp against my skull.
123
I remember the smell of hot roses.
I remember the bed with the huge posts.
I remember the draperies on the bed like
bride s veils. My parents bed. My mother
is not there.
 He touched you, didn t he? Jack says.
 Your father.
My father. After the first time, there
wasn t blood anymore. It didn t hurt so
much. And once there were little pulses of
pleasure. That must have been the time the
spasms drawing his sperm back up into me.
One of those seeds had made me. I never
came anymore after that with anyone. What
kind of baby would we have made? Twice
born. Some monster with beautiful eyes like
patinaed bronze.
I try to turn away and cover my mouth
but it is welling up in me like an animal,
like a beast with hooves. Jack grabs my
wrist. He will not let me cover my mouth.
 Get rid of it.
I am screaming all the plates and glasses
124
and mirrors I have ever broken are smashing
around inside of me, flung against the in-
sides of me. I imagine a storm of broken,
glinting bits tearing at me.
I pull away and bury my face in the pil-
lows. I am screaming a storm of blood and
broken glass and china.
Finally, quieter.
I think of Jack his eyes watching me. If
he would press me to him, lick the wounds.
 Who are you? I say and suddenly I feel
like I can t breathe. Fear like fingers
whitening to the bone as they close my
throat.
The room is dark, very quiet. The air
smells charred. He is gone.
125
X. Strength
haven t seen Claudia since the night we
were with Jack. I heard she is still
I
hanging around with the sculptor she met
at the beach. He does body casts of her in
white plaster. Makes her look like a war
casualty. He can get her junk and coke. One
of his models shot herself in the head with
her father s hunting rifle.
I haven t seen Jack. I look for him every-
where but I never see him. I go to parties
and down to the clubs. I wake up sweating
in the middle of the night, sit straight up in
bed with
127
his voice echoing inside of me.
In the day the sun never comes through.
But it s so hot. Sweat in my eyes; sweat
drips down my neck, beads on my nipples.
It is trying to storm. The sky is swollen and
dirty.
Today, I go down to the pier alone. The
ground is littered with hot-dog wrappers,
popcorn boxes, crepe paper. This morning
there was a mermaid festival. Everyone
dressed like mermaids. Now it is getting
dark and everyone is going home. I am
wearing shorts and my flesh is bumpy with
cold on my bones.
The carousel is ready to close; there is
one last ride. I choose a white horse with
red roses carved on his saddle. I read once
that they make carousel horses sexless so
no one will be offended, but if he were real,
this would be a stallion. He throws back his
head, his nostrils flared. I feel him between
my thighs. The music starts to play.
While I ride around and around on the
horse,
128
I look for Jack. This is a place he would be,
I think. This is a time he would come up
behind me, thrusting his hands against my
rib cage, pulling my head back with my hair
so my lips part, so my throat is naked. I
watch the last few people gathering their
things and going home. There is a man with
a beard carrying a scepter like Neptune s.
A woman wearing shells over her breasts.
They are drinking beers and laughing. It is
getting darker, foggy, and I feel the chill
from the sea.
When I get off the carousel, I pass the
mechanical fortune-teller in her booth. Her
eyes are green glass balls. As I walk past,
her eyes roll in her head and stop, fixed on
me.
In the distance the Ferris wheel is lit up
green.
There is a little girl sitting on a bench.
Crying. It is Perdita. I think it is Perdita. She
is wearing a long, blond wig, a woman s
wig so long on her that it reaches to her feet
almost. She
129
is wearing strands and strands of beads that
cover her naked chest. Her legs and feet are
bound in shimmery, greenish-silver cloth
sewn like a tail.
For a second, I remember the smell at the
bottom of the garden, my helpless legs and
arms. Thick fingers of giants.
 Where is Victoria? I ask.
Victoria is Perdita s mother. But Perdita
looks more like me. Victoria is always on
something and with a different man. Some-
times she gets so fucked up she doesn t
know what she s doing.
 They left, Perdita says, crying.
Victoria has gotten so fucked up some-
times that she doesn t know what she s do-
ing. But not this fucked up. Not so fucked
up that she would forget her kid. I imagine
Victoria dressed like a mermaid, leaning on
some man, tilting a bottle of something into
her mouth as they try to find their car.  I
thought you had her, someone
130
would say later.  I thought she was with
you.
 Let s go home, I say and I help Perdita
out of her mermaid tail, freeing her little girl
legs. She is only wearing bathing suit bot-
toms under the tail so I give her my sweater
which is long on her like a dress and I carry
her because she is barefoot. We throw the
tail and the wig into the trash on the pier
and take the bus back.
My mother comes up to my room with a
tray of strawberries and plain yogurt, a piece
of fresh-baked bread spread with honey. She
puts the tray with real butterflies pressed
under glass onto my bed.
 How are you? she asks.
 Okay, I say. I think, I wonder what you
would say if I told you. Would you cry like
a little girl or look hard and tell me I was
imagining things again? Or would you
laugh hysterically, mumbling about white
moths? Maybe you would say it was my
fault:  You are a witch. I
131
knew you were a witch. Born to seduce him
with your sex. To make him sick.
 I ve been worried, Laurel, she says.
 About you. I ve been thinking we should
find someone to talk to. And later, when
you re feeling better maybe we can send you
to Italy or someplace for a while. If you
want. There s this program like the one I
was in. Outside Rome. They teach you
painting and stone carving. It might be
really good.
I imagine pink granite, green marble,
black-veined Carrara marble. Out of the
stone, women waken, stretch, raise their
arms, press their hands to their bellies. Full
women with breasts, hips, sloping baby-
sized abdomens. Not the women my father
made blind, rigid women caught in the
cages of their bodies. I imagine sitting in a
plaza at twilight eating pasta and drinking
wine, the marble statues gleaming, looming
in the soft light. I imagine painting a tower,
a magician, a moon red as pomegran-
132
ates, blue as star-cloaks, veins of gold.
 I m worried, she says. There are tears
in her eyes.
I look at her, trying to imagine her young.
Botticelli s Venus. I imagine him, my father,
seeing her for the first time, modeling for
his art class. Seeing her full of something
he wanted. And how later when he could [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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