The boy was starting to get seriously worried. The girl was still sleeping.
At least, that’s what he hoped she was doing. It could be pretty hard to tell; she doesn’t breathe when she sleeps, and she’s isn’t warm-bodied. He supposed the only way he’d ever be able to tell she’s really dead is by the smell, only, she can get pretty ripe when she goes too long between showers, too, and it’d been, what, three or four days since Frankenbeans’ trailer? The only remaining possibility is that she’d gone into a really long sleep, the kind that sounded an awful lot like hibernation from the way she described it.
And if she really were dead, would her body rot the way a real dead girl’s body would? How long would it take for there to be something to see?
How would he know that “something to see” isn’t just part of a weeks-long sleep?
So much he should know! So much he should have asked! So many wrong things to do!
Getting her into the house had been easy. Knock, knock, can you help us please, we’ve had an accident, my sister’s sick, can I bring her in, can we borrow some blankets? Yes, we need an ambulance and police and suchlike, but can I borrow the phone first and call Mom? They have to bring some medicine or she’ll die...
The first thing the boy did afterwards was look for the car keys. He found some tarps in the basement and used those and the blankets to wrap his torpid girlfriend up and put her in the trunk after disabling the latch. Turned the car around and left the keys in the ignition, all the better to go speeding away at a split second’s notice. For the two previous days and nights, he’d slept bolt upright against the inside of the unlocked front door with the former owner’s shotgun on his lap, safety off, when he wasn’t keeping a more direct watch on the car. He’d peek in the trunk after dark, check that nothing unusual was happening.
Well, nothing more unusual than what was normal for her. It was two hours after sundown, third night in a row, and the girl still hadn’t so much as twitched a single muscle.
If he wanted to be honest with himself, he wouldn’t have claimed to be “seriously worried”. He’d have owned up to being terrified beyond words. It’d almost be easiest if she really were dead; he could just leave her unclothed body out in the front lawn for the dawn to take care of, and let the police think he alone was responsible.
No note. Also, no dental records.
If she was just in for a weeks-long nap, though, he was going to have to find someplace reasonably safe for her to spend that kind of time without fear of discovery, someplace where he could both keep watch over her and keep himself going without being spotted. This could be a problem when the nearest Big City was so far away, and they couldn’t stay here because he had no idea who might drop in unexpectedly. Family, friends, bill collectors.
He didn’t even know what happened. He didn’t know what he did to make this happen to her. Did he hit her with too much too fast? Had her mind imploded?
He had been exasperated, true enough, but was this really any excuse? She knew things and had seen things - she’d had centuries to become the master of survival on the run, and that made it hard to believe she was really only twelve in the head. He’d still been twelve himself when they’d first met, and either she’d grown with him a little bit, or he’d not grown much at all, because when he looked at her, he still saw her with the eyes of a twelve year old boy, and when she talked to him, he heard her voice with twelve year old ears. Still, she had told him very clearly that he had eyes now that she didn’t have, eyes that he hadn’t had when he’d still been twelve. He should have been more careful and more patient. He should have heard that warning.
What the hell had he said, anyway? He didn’t remember, really. He just remembered shooting off his mouth in a long, sustained burst, hurling road apples at the firmament, stupid people, the world in general, himself and especially at her. He thought he remembered the last words he shouted at her just before she melted down: “How do you think I should judge you?”
Sure wasn’t hard to make the folks who’d been living in the house believe she was sick. All she could do was say “huff huff huff huff”, gush tears and roll her eyes around sightlessly. From the look on her face, you’d have sworn she’d had a belly full of lye. Sure wasn’t hard to make the folks believe he was scared out of his wits, either. It’s a miracle his pants were still dry before ...
... and after ...
He should eat. He hadn’t been feeling like eating, but two years and more of life on the road, with no end in sight, teaches the wisdom of eating whatever you can whenever you can, because there’s literally no telling when the next meal might be, or where... or what. If he was going to have to jump into the car and make a speedy getaway, he couldn’t afford to be weak or lightheaded. Not if he’s going to be driving during the day. Not with what’s in the trunk.
Food wasn’t a problem; it never was in these far-flung houses where the roads are bad and the winters harsh. The freezer had to’ve had half a cow, pieces of a whole pig and goodness alone knew how many chickens, and there was a refrigerator the size of a walk-in closet crammed with every kind of fruit, vegetable and cheese you can imagine. There was a whole room given over to boxes and bags of dry food, cans of every kind of food and bottles of stuff he wasn’t sure he could identify properly. The microwave in the kitchen was big enough to zap up a meal for a family of four, soup to nuts, in a single ten-minute go, and enough pots and pans and stove burners to churn out a banquet for a small army in about an hour.
He’d looked, poked around for something that looked appealing, but nothing did. If anything, what he wanted was to hurl.
He turned on the TV and surfed. Some talking head was yakking politics with some other talking head. Click, click. Some superhero in gaudy caped pajamas was putting some barely costumed bad guy with green skin through a brick wall face first. Click, click. Some ditz in a bar was bawling herself silly while her boyfriend was explaining something about another girl. Click, click. A couple of naked girls with gigantic honkers were romping with an improbably proportioned guy on a waterbed in a room full of mirrors. Click, click, click. Craploads of commercials. There was nothing interesting on, just nothing at all.
There was nothing on the radio, either. More talking heads, tons of slow, boring waltzes, a few stations with loud, screechy music by bands that seemed to record throwing their drummers down the stairs. He loved music, normally, but now it just grated on his nerves.
The knock on the door was soft, so very soft, he almost didn’t hear it. It could have just been the wind rattling the door in its frame, and the scratching could have been a cat wanting to be let in. He wouldn’t have heard it, in fact, except that he’d been on high, nervous alert for three days, shotgun never more than a foot away when wasn’t actually in his hands. In his gruffest hoarse voice, he demanded “Ja, wer geht da?”
“I’m lost. I don’t know where my brother is. I’m cold. Can I come in?”
Maybe she was hungry, maybe not. In that moment, he couldn’t care less. He flung the door open with a BANG forcefully enough to rattle things in the kitchen two rooms away, bellowed at her to get her butt into this house RIGHT TO HELL NOW and grabbed her in a bear hug that would have crushed a real girl. Twirled around a few times. Kissed anything within easy reach: ears, nose, eyebrows, lips, hair, throat, collarbones, chin. Buried his nose in her throat and said “omygod omygod omygod omygod”.
She giggled for a second or two, threw her head back and let loose a volley of full-throated from-the-belly laughter. It wasn’t a sound he heard very often, and was the sweetest music he knew. Then she went almost limp, but very far from boneless, and gave herself completely into his hug.
“Is there anything to eat?” Her stomach was quiet, though.
“In the basement, through that door. This house has freezers and refrigerators and pantries up the wazoo. I wrapped something up for you, you’ll see it when you get down there.”
“What I need-”
“Is in the basement, through that door. Don’t you remember?”
“Right now, I don’t even remember what country I’m in. Could you get a shower or bath or something running?”
“Upstairs.”
“I’ll be a few minutes. Go ahead and get started without me after you eat.”
“I ate -”
“Nothing in quite a while. How long did I sleep, anyway?”
“This would have been your third night.”
“Crisse chalisse! You went that long with nothing?”
“Well, I...”
She murmured softly, almost sadly “You idiot”, paused a moment, brightened up just a bit and said “Eat something, then get the shower going. Take your time.”
“You won’t need much time. There’s not a lot there. While you’re down there, see if you can find some drain cleaner. I forgot to look.”
“You’ll have time for a sandwich, anyway, and then we’ll see about getting some real food into you.”
“You’ll be nee-”
She giggled a schoolgirlish little giggle and gave his shoulder a light squeeze. “I’m fine, I promise. Better than fine. Go.”
---
The girl was dripping wet as she came into the bathroom, raven black hair slicked back. The boy was standing under the shower head, curtains flung far aside and water splashing everywhere. She looked at him, gave a small, quiet smile and said “Hi.”
She’s absolutely stunning when she isn’t a pale shade of bluish slate.
“Well, hello! Have we met?”
“Perhaps not, kind sir. I’m Christine Laplace.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Orson Chagin.”
She moved closer to the shower and extended her hand. He took it, shook it slowly, almost gravely.
“Hrm... seems I’ve heard this name before. In the news, perhaps. Are you a respectable gentleman?”
“Of course not, fair damsel!”
“Ah. Excellent. In that case, might I impose upon you for a small favour, dishonourable sir?”
“You may certainly try, young miss, but I am a most frightfully harried man and may not have the leisure to accommodate you in proper style. What might be your fancy?”
“My hair, it’s really a dreadful mess. If it’s not too much bother, would it displease you terribly to see what can be done with it?”
“Oh, all right, then, if you must, come nearer and let’s get this done.”
The girl giggled, joined the boy under the shower head and remarked “You really do have less time than you think, you know. It’s hard to mess up a frozen pizza, but if we spend too much time here, you’re going to be eating it extra crispy.”
“I told you -”
“You should know better than to try to lie to me when I can smell your hunger two rooms away, and when I can hear very clearly that you didn’t even open a cupboard in the kitchen.”
“Why, you little....! I’ll get you for that!”
The boy reached over to a shelf, grabbed a bottle of shampoo, uncapped it and squeezed a huge dollop of it into her hair with a flatulent “SPLOOCH!” She wiped a smallish bit of it into her hand, brought it to her nose and took a few vaguely feline sniffs at it. “Eeeww! It STINKS!” She grabbed what she could with both hands and rubbed it into his hair. “Now we can BOTH stink like little mall rat girls!”
They spent the next few minutes giggling and wrestling and trying to shampoo each other’s hair. When they’d more or less finished, and rinsed their heads out, he took a washrag off a nearby shelf and started lathering it up with soap.
He looked up to find her gazing at him. She didn’t do this very often, either, looking at him directly in the eyes for more than a moment or two, and this, too, is something he cherished. She’s a very beautiful girl, with exceedingly fine features and an almost unnaturally smooth, pallid complexion framed by unfathomably black hair and accented by mirror-like black obsidian eyes; a goddess sculpted in white marble and appointed by a consummately skilled artisan. Looking at her could always take his breath away, no less now than when he’d first seen her. He loved staring into her eyes, getting lost in them; they were portals into a warm and welcoming abyss.
What he didn’t cherish was expression he thought he saw: worry.
“Pray tell, have I given mum offense?”
She shook her head, ever so slightly, turned her eyes downwards.
“I’m sorry. This was supposed to be a fun time. I didn’t mean to spoil it with moodiness.”
“Honestly, I don’t even remember much of anything I said to you before you wiped out, but I remember being angry, and I said a lot. I just kept on yelling and yelling and yelling. I really should be the one saying ‘sorry’ to you. If you’re going to be ’moody’, I really can’t say I’d blame you.”
She put her arms around his neck and drew close, burying her face into his throat. He started working slowly on her back with the soapy washrag.
She managed to sound confused and amazed at the same time. “You took something from me.”
“...?”
“I don’t know. Nobody’s ever talked to me like that before. I feel different. Strange.”
“Christine, I didn’t mean -”
“Tonight isn’t the first time you’ve ever lied to me, you know. When you said you’ve eaten. I always know when you’re lying. You’ve never lied to me about anything important except maybe about how you’re feeling, and you’ve never lied to try to take something away from me or make me do anything, and you weren’t lying at all that night when you were doing so much yelling.”
The boy’s arm developed a small tremor as he continued running the washrag in circles on her back.
“Um... um... what did I say?”
“I think you told me more truth about myself than anybody else ever has.”
“You know I’m not perfect, and the things I say aren’t-”
“Don’t.”
“I mean-”
“Just... don’t, okay?”
She let the boy continue working up a lather on her back.
“I’ve lied to you. A lot.” Her voice sounded small. Ashamed.
“Oh? About what?”
“Well, like, when we met, and I told you what school I was going to, and my parents were divorced and nobody knew where my mother was?”
“In spy movies they call that a ‘legend’.”
“I’m not a spy, and this isn’t a movie. This is reality.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m also not Christine Laplace.”
“How does that make you not a spy?” The boy’s eyebrows knitted. It was a flippant question on purpose, to give her an ‘out’ if she wanted it.
She swallowed, nodded her head once. “I’m Elysse Deschamps.”
He started.
“Elysse... des champs...!?”
She huffed.
“You mean-”
“Don’t start.”
“But, seriously-”
“I said don’t start!”
“But really, now, you-”
“I got a whole tubful of ‘don’t start’ for every comment you’re about to try to make!”
“You’re serious, though?”
“Yeah. That’s the name I remember having when I was a little girl.”
“... and ...”
“You know I use lots of different names. You do, too, for the same reason. I don’t really know why I tell people who get ‘close’ to me that I’m Christine. That’s my ’secret’ name, the name I tell people is my real name. Everybody else thinks I’m Joelle or Denise or something.”
“I think I can imagine, but-”
“Don’t.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s... why are you telling me this now?”
“Because the grownup eyes you’re starting to get have already seen so much of me that nobody else has ever seen, it just seemed like this particular lie won’t let me think straight. I have to try to think straight now, and figure out what it is you took from me.”
“OK. But I’m still Orson Chagin.”
She disengaged, stepped back, looked at him gravely.
“Orson Chagin, I’m Elysse Deschamps. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, dishonourable sir.”
She extended her hand, and he took it, giving it a slight shake or two. He looked at her, top to bottom to top again, and she did the same to him. Both were slobbered everywhere with soapy foam. In some ways, this was their first real formal introduction. There was an amused twinkle in her eye, and the corners of her mouth were struggling to remain neutral. He could feel the corners of his own mouth starting to lose the battle to stay put.
They both snorted at the same time, and collapsed into each other’s arms in laughter.
When the laughter subsided into helpless giggling, and then to odd jags of snorting titters, she turned her face up and buried it again into his throat. He tightened his arms around her back, and they let the mirth subside into something quieter, something more languid.
This was not their first introduction, nor their second, nor even their hundredth, formal or otherwise. It was very familiar. There were no more names; there were no more words at all. There was no pretension, no lie, no pain or sorrow. There was no question and no reluctant answer. What washed down the drain for Orson Chagin was more than just the effluvia of several nights in lifeless fields and empty roads, it was also the fear of the past three days and the darkly permanent plans he’d made to remedy them, and the stiffness in the back of his neck and across his shoulder blades. He willingly lost himself in the solace of his girlfriend’s comforting arms until the hot water was exhausted.
---
By the time they’d gotten back down to the kitchen, the pizza was almost a solid thirteen inch cinder.
“I guess a frozen pizza isn’t as hard to mess up as I thought.”
“That’s OK. One great thing about pizza is, you don’t have to be a very good cook to make one. You just have to be good with a knife. Why don’t you poke around the fridge and see if you can find peppers, mushrooms, onions, some sausage and anything else that looks like it might be good on a pizza?”
“Like I’d know what’s good on a pizza? There’s no difference between pizza and plaster of Paris to me...!”
“I know, but if you’ll drag out whatever you think might be good, I’ll get busy with this box of pizza dough mix. After I’ve gotten that going, we can throw stuff on it, and throw it into the oven, and then you’ll be able to say you made me a pizza.”
She grinned. “Oh, ok!”
Orson dumped the mix into a bowl, added some water from a measuring cup and started mixing. Christine (it was going to take a while to get used to “Elysse”) ransacked the refrigerator and put onions, carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, a few different kinds of pepper, a jar of diced pineapple and a jar of diced garlic on the table, along with three or four different kinds of cheese and a jar of peanut butter. When he was done beating up the dough and had set it aside to rise a bit, he came over to the table to pour over what Christine had found.
“Lemme see. Carrots? Nope.” and chucked them over his shoulder onto the floor behind him. Christine giggled. “Cucumber? Not on your life!” and sent them flying into the dining room. “Onions? Oh, yeah!”, and set them aside on the table. He went through the entire inventory this way, keeping what he wanted and launching the gross, the unthinkable and the comically absurd flying in different directions, with her pretending to be aghast at his total disregard for the plight of the nonexistent house staff who would presumably have to clean it up.
When he’d finished, he told her “OK, now, everything here that’s vegetable needs to be sliced up into chunks. They don’t have to be perfect. You’ve seen pizza before, right? If not, just look at the one I can’t eat."
They both looked at it.
“Oh, well, maybe not. Cinders and lumps of coal don’t go well on pizza. You know what I’m talking about, though, and you’re really good with a knife. So, grab that the machete-sized thing from that block over there, and start cutting up!”
Christine drew the biggest knife out of the block, twirled it a few times in her fingers like a baton, and started dicing up the onions, mushrooms and peppers directly on the table. Her movements were rapid and deft.
Orson found a pizza pan, greased it, and spread the dough on it with much more enthusiasm than skill. She laughed as he swore trying to get it even. Orson deliberately made it uneven a couple of times, swearing with greater passion and more colourfully each time, just to hear her laugh.
When he was “satisfied” with his handiwork, he opened a can of pizza sauce, dumped it onto the dough, and started grating some cheese. He figured he’d grated enough about the same time Christine had finished slicing up the veggies. He sprinkled the cheese around on top of the sauce, and said “OK, woman, you ruined my first dinner, so now you’re going to make me another! Make me a pizza!”
She giggled and smiled at him. The amused smile changed subtly into something enigmatic.
“Christine...”
“Don’t.”
She spread a handful of this around, and a handful of that. Made a smiley-face pizza with the mushrooms for hair and the onions for facial features. When she thought she was done, when it looked more or less like a pizza, she looked up at him with a questioning look.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never made a pizza before, either. How about we shove it into the oven at 350 for fifteen minutes and see how it looks?”
She pouted.
“If it doesn’t turn out, you’re not blaming me for THIS one!”
He looked her in the eye with no trace of humour in his own eye or in his tone of voice.
“I’m not blaming you for anything.”
---
She grinned when he opened his mouth wide and unleashed a long wavering belch that sounded almost like the growl of an angry timber wolf. A BIG angry timber wolf. He was sitting on the floor in front of the TV with his back against the couch, a half demolished homemade pizza on his lap and a nearly empty litre-sized bottle of Coke next to his knee.
“So, was the pizza I ‘made’ you any good?”
“It was awful. I wouldn’t feed this swill to a barnyard pig.”
She feigned a hurt expression.
“Seriously. It just wasn’t edible at all.” He brapped and boohruppfed a couple more times, carved himself out another gooey chunk with a fork and shoveled it into his mouth. Even very nearly gorged, he couldn’t help making little “om nom nom” noises as he chewed.
“Well, I’m glad you hated it, because now you’re going to have to shower again. You’ve managed to slop more sauce all over yourself than into your mouth!”
---
They sat drip-drying on the couch.
“Christine...”
“I don’t really want to.”
“I know, but I have to ask.”
“I know.”
“What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t.”
“Then why...?”
“I don’t know. I said I feel different, and I can’t say what it is.”
“No, but I mean, why did you sleep so long? Was it your time, or did I hurt you, or ...?”
“It wasn’t my time. I’m not even sure I have to have long sleeps, but when they’re about to happen, I get tired. Really tired, and it gets hard to think. I don’t know what made me sleep for almost three whole days this time. It’s never happened before. It’s always just a single day, or it’s several weeks.”
“But...”
“Do you remember what I told Mr. Frankenbeans?”
“Yeah. You promised him something he’d never had before, and that he’d spend the rest of his life loving it.”
“I said that? Well, that was a lie, wasn’t it? He loved it, alright, but not for the whole rest of his life. Just for the first part of it. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Not actually wanting to remember that night.”
“Me, either, but I said something, and when I said it, I didn’t know I knew about it until I said it.”
“What’s that?”
“‘My boyfriend is more of a man than anybody else I’ve met ever since I can remember.’”
“Oh. I thought you were just standing up for me.”
“I was, but...”
She frowned, trying to focus. Trying to make sense.
“OK, what I was really doing right then was comparing you to him. Don’t take this the wrong way, but he was a lot bigger than you, so saying that you were bigger than he was just a slap in the face. I didn’t think about what I was saying, and I didn’t think about what might happen afterwards. It just came out of nowhere.”
“OK...?”
“You were going to take him on, weren’t you? Because of what he wanted to do to me.”
“Once I had some idea of what he had in mind, yeah, I was going to rip right into him.”
“He’d have broken you in two with the first punch.”
“Maybe, but you’ve seen how mad I can ge-”
“There’s no ‘maybe’. If I’d been a real girl, you’d have probably been dead in less than a minute. You knew that, and you didn’t care.”
Orson hung his head.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. That’s just the way things are. But you proved what I said.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’d have died for me.”
“Yes.”
She paused. Swallowed hard. Opened her mouth, closed it again. Blinked.
“And you’d have died without me.”
“But you were there-”
“No, I mean, today.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s probably enough food in this house to keep me going for a year-”
“That shotgun is loaded, isn’t it?”
“... yes... “
“It’s an eight gauge, isn’t it?”
“... yes ...”
“And you thought I died, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know, but-”
“No, you didn’t, but you thought I died, didn’t you?”
“Look, I-”
“Don’t.”
Orson sighed.
“I don’t understand why anybody would die for me. I mean, not like that.”
“Nobody has ever-”
“Do you remember the man you thought was my father?”
“... yeah...?”
“He burned his face off when he got caught so people wouldn’t know who he was, so people couldn’t find me. He didn’t die, not right away. When I went to the hospital to see if there was anything I could do, he was in so much pain he couldn’t really think.”
“Is that who that was...!? I remember hearing about that on the radio. I’m really sorry-”
“And I killed him. I don’t really know exactly why I did that, but one thing was that if he got better, if they fixed him up, they might have been able to make him talk about me.”
“Chri... um, Elysse, I’ve killed people, too, to keep them from causing trouble we can’t handle...”
“Yes. I mean no, but there’s more. See, in some ways, he was like Frankenbeans. He liked little girls, and I always thought the only reason he liked me was that I was a little girl. I played him for that, and made him do things by making promises. He said he loved me, and I said I loved him. You do things for me, and then I do things for you, and that’s just how love works. When you can’t do anything for me anymore, I won’t love you anymore.
“We fought sometimes when he wanted more than I wanted to give. He was always wanting. We fought when I wanted more than he wanted to give. I guess I was always wanting, too, and I made him do things he’d never have done in a million years if we’d never met. Things that must have really hurt him worse than he already was.”
“How did you meet him?”
“Found him in an alley. He reeked of booze. I saw the way he looked at me, and figured maybe if I could clean him up, he could help me.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.
“So, he was like Frankenbeans. You feel bad about using him?”
“He wasn’t like Frankenbeans. I mean, he was, but he wasn’t. We fought, but he never tried to ‘make’ me do anything, and I don’t think that was because he was afraid of me. Most of the time, he wasn’t. So, the last time he went to get some food for me, it was because I promised him... things... when he came back. I even lied to him, told him if he didn’t do this, I might die.”
Tears started rolling down her cheeks. Orson fidgeted and started making plans in the back of his head for the next three or four days.
“I knew he took along something to burn his face off with. I just didn’t think he’d go through with it. I mean, you don’t just run around burning off parts of your body for one little girl when there are so many others around, right? Little girls who aren’t as disgusting as I am. But he did!”
This wasn’t the time to tell her she wasn’t “disgusting”. Orson hung his head again and waited.
“And, I mean, there’ve been lots of people who helped me because I made them. Sometimes I’d use money, sometimes I’d do things for them like stealing things that nobody else could steal. Most of the time, though, I looked for people like that man because they’re usually very easy to control. Sometimes they died doing things for me, and sometimes I killed them because they were getting dangerous. Some of them said they loved me, but most of them just called me names. But nobody ever got killed trying to protect me. When it came to that, most of them just ran away. The ones who died doing things for me weren’t expecting to die.
“So that man who said he loved me, I didn’t believe it. I don’t think he believed it, either. I think he thought he was just lying. He wasn’t, but people aren’t lying when they say what they believe, they’re just believing the wrong things. I think he really thought the only reason he liked me was because I was a pretty little girl who made him promises he wanted to hear. I know that’s what I thought.
“So he went and burned off his face for me. I think he didn’t just want to burn it off, I think he wanted to burn his whole head off. I think he wanted to die just to give me a chance to get my stuff together and get out of town. And I think he didn’t want to go to prison.
“And, I think he didn’t want to live without me.”
Orson grunted, put his hand on the armrest trying to keep his balance. His “grownup” eyes were starting to see things, and he wasn’t sure he liked where this conversation was probably going.
“And you don’t want that to happen again.”
“You never said you love me.”
“I...”
“And I never said I love you.”
“... think ...”
“But that doesn’t mean you don’t. Nobody ever ordered me into the house, squashed me and said nothing but ‘ohmygod’ for the longest time, either.”
“... I don’t know what to say...”
“But you did, and you do. You do say it, you just don’t use words. You say it every time you ask what I mean when I say something you don’t understand. You remember saying that about me just before I fell apart? It’s like that. You’re the same way you say I am. You even said it tonight when you made me help you make a pizza. You did all the hard stuff, but then you told me to put it all together and shove it in the oven so I could say I made you a pizza so I wouldn’t feel bad about not doing a better job of cooking up a real meal for you. That is what you were doing, isn’t it? Making it so I wouldn’t feel bad?”
“Um, no, actually, I really was starving, and I really did want a pizza, and I really did want your help.”
“Uh huh. And why were you starving in this house that has so much food in it?”
“Sometimes, you’re too goddamn smart for your own good”, he retorted plaintively.
“Do you remember our first night in your bed?”
“Bon sang, I’m never going to forget! You made me really happy, you know. I mean, you were the first person ever to tell me I’m not alone to where I believed it.”
“That was right after I went to the hospital.”
“...!?”
“Yeah. You didn’t give me any time to think about things. I was afraid if I said ‘no’, you’d push me away, and I didn’t think it was ever going to be anything serious, and it wouldn’t last long, so I played along. I just needed you to help me take my mind off things for a little while.”
“So, that was just supposed to be a one night stand to help you forget your old man?”
“Yeah, when I first got under the covers, but then you didn’t try...”
“No. I was twelve, remember? Not twelve like you are, I really was just a kid. What you’re talking about was something I didn’t need, didn’t want and wouldn’t have known how to use. I think I would have just thought it was yucky and gross. I guess I needed you to help me take my mind off things for a little while. I needed someone to belong with, and you were the one I wanted because you were always so nice to me.”
She shook her head, almost like she was trying to shake the cobwebs out.
“Yeah. I didn’t understand that. I mean, boys even younger than you were used to tell me ‘give up or get out’. I usually just gave up. I had no idea what you were really asking for that night, and it scared me because I didn’t know what to expect. And then other things happened, like, you took me places and showed me things and told me things about yourself, and we did things together. You put my ‘father’ right out of my mind, especially after you almost got yourself killed for real. I didn’t think about him again at all until just a few days ago.”
“Did you love him?”
“I don’t think so. I remember thinking maybe I did, sort of. Or maybe that I could have. I don’t know. It was all really confusing.”
Now was a good time to remind her she was wrong about how she often saw herself.
“Of course it’s confusing. You’re a girl.”
“Yeah, and he wasn’t a boy. And maybe all those other boys who used to tell me to give up weren’t really boys anymore, either. You were. Thing is, you’re doing the same thing my ‘father’ did. Only, with you, it’s a lot worse.”
“What’s that?”
“I could have lived without my ‘father’. I lived a very long time without lots of different people, and some of them were pretty good people, but none of them have ever been anything like you. I don’t want to live without you, and if I die while you’re still around, I don’t want you to die before your time because of me.”
“If you die before I do, you’ll have no idea when my time is.”
“But-”
“You can tell me all kinds of different things. For a long time, you pretty much had to, because I wasn’t good for much of anything. What you can’t tell me to do is what I can’t do. Like, you can’t tell me to grow wings and fly on over to the next town for a pound of hamburger, because that’s just not going to happen, and you can’t tell me to keep on going after you’ve gone because I’m not sure I can do that.”
“But you have to!”
“But I might not be able to.”
“Sure you can! Just don’t pull the trigger!”
“And live with what?”
Pause.
“Chri... um, Elysse, would you really want me to live the way you say you’ve lived all this time?”
“There are other girls. You could meet one, and she could give you what I can’t.”
“But can she give me what you can?”
The girl squirmed.
“But I’m nothing. I have nothing to give because I am nothing!”
The boy sighed again. Almost resigned.
“I know that’s what you think, and it’s the biggest reason we fight so much.”
The girl opened her mouth to say something, closed it again. Furrowed her eyebrows together, started to say something again. Orson beat her to it.
“Do you think it’s fair to say that your feelings for me are about the same as mine are for you?”
“... yeah...?”
“And you’re telling me you can’t live without me?”
“... yeah...?”
“Then what makes you think I can live without you? Don’t you think it’s a little selfish to expect me to do something you can’t?”
“Very funny. Look at what I am. If this isn’t ‘selfish’, I don’t know what is!”
“Oh. You were just being selfish for most of a year when you lugged around a twelve and thirteen year old baby who couldn’t even feed itself? You were just thinking of yourself when you burned up half your hand trying to fix my dinner and tried to hide it?”
“It was mostly my fault you were like that!”
“I don’t believe that, but even if that’s true, why would you care?”
“...”
“Like you keep trying to tell me, look at what you are. Look at what you do to stay alive. You don’t need people for anything but exactly that, just to stay alive. Really, apart from that, people are worthless to you. So, why would you care?”
“But.... why...?”
“For the same reason you say you can’t. There’s no difference, because there’s really no difference between you and me. Just no difference at all.”
“Then I think maybe I don’t want you to love me anymore.”
“But I never said I love you.”
She pouted. “You’re not helping.”
---
“Ah, here we are! A candle that looks like it’ll burn for hours and hours!” Orson brandished and fondled it.
“Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, but that candle is something more, isn’t it?”
“Yup! Consumed by the flames of passion, and all that. People do all kinds of bizarre things, don’t they?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Too late.”
“Do we have to?”
“We can’t use something else because it wouldn’t give us enough time.”
“No, I mean, do we have to?”
“Why would you care?”
“Did you see all those pictures on the walls?”
“... yeah... ?”
“Some of those people might like to have something.”
“They can have the money.”
“It’s not the same.”
Orson’s voice went very gentle.
“What happened to your family happens to everybody sooner or later. I know that sounds harsh, but what happens to the people in the pictures isn’t as bad as what could happen to us.”
The girl sighed.
“OK, I’ll get the drain cleaner ready.”
---
They had been going to light the candle up in the master bedroom, but there were too many flies for Orson’s comfort. The child’s bedroom they wound up deciding on was an awful lot like the one Orson had had when he’d still been living in his mother’s apartment, roughly the same size, with a twin bed up against a wall, a child’s writing desk against another and a beat up old TV perched on top of a bookcase. The candle did an unexpectedly good job of illuminating the small space.
She lay behind him, head on his shoulder.
Orson smiled. “Hrm... Christine, do I have a chance with you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean, bozo?”
“What I mean is, do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“Orson.... I’m not a girl.”
“Oh? Oh, crap, you’re not one of those....?”
“Yup! I’m a man-eating smiley face pizza!”
“Sheah, right, and I’m the gingerbread man.”
“Do gingerbread and pizza go together?”
“Only if you can’t tell the difference between them and spackle.”
“Oh, well, we’ll just add jalapenos, blueberries and soy sauce. And some heavy cream!”
“Ugh. You’re really gross, you know that?”
She giggled.
“Listen, it’s OK if you don’t want to be my girlfriend. You don’t have to mix stuff up.”
“Do you do anything special when you’re a girlfriend?”
“How should I know? I’ve never been a girl!”
“So everything stays the same?”
“I hope not! Maple syrup on a pizza? WAUGH!”
“Good. We can be together, then.”
“Eh?”
“It’ll be you and me against the world.”
“Seriously?”
She paused.
“Yeah.” Almost a whisper. Face unreadable.
He rolled over, facing her. Gazed into her eyes.
“Good.” Also almost a whisper.
“Now that we’ve got that settled, I suppose you’re going to want to get nasty.”
“Um... get nasty?”
She explained really slowly, enunciating each word in a kind of singsong, as if explaining something to a small child.
“You know, a man and a woman meet, and they find out they get along really well together, so then they fall in love, and when they really love each other-”
“Oh, wait, don’t tell me! I know! I learned about this in school! They find a dime and put it out in the cabbage patch, and it turns into a diamond, and then a stork comes along and takes the diamond... wait, does this house have a cabbage patch?”
“I don’t think so...”
“Then what’s the point of ‘getting nasty’?”
“The point is making it so you have to take another shower so I can stink up your hair with that awful mall rat girl shampoo again! And this time, I’m gonna finish you off with a bottle of perfume!”
“Eeww. Think I’d rather go to sleep instead.”
She pouted.
“Oh, sure, you got what you wanted, and now you’re going to just roll over and drift off. I thought you were different and special! What about me? Don’t I have needs, too?”
“Besides, it’s not ‘getting nasty’, it’s ‘doing the nasty’.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is, you probably don’t want to do the nasty with people who get nasty with you.”
“Oh. Guess I’m still learning this language. Sorry.”
“That’s OK. I’m sure there’s a lot I still have to learn, too.”
She squeezed his shoulder.
“You’re right, though, it’s time to get some sleep.”
“Are the blankets and tarps still usable?”
“I don’t think I want to sleep in the trunk again. The bathroom doesn’t have a window, it’ll do just fine.”
“But if somebody comes-”
“Then I’ll help you.”
“Christine, it’s not smart...”
“I can’t tell you how tired I get of having to be smart. When I said I didn’t know where my brother was, it was because I didn’t. I was really scared there for a minute or two. I don’t want to wake up alone tonight.”
“I had to-”
“Shhh. I know. You just don’t seem to understand. You’ve been taking really really good care of me, too.”
---
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Did you have good dreams?”
“I don’t remember. I didn’t wake up screaming, did I?”
“Nope.”
“We probably need to be moving on. We’ve been really lucky so far, but we can’t push it.”
“I know.”
“I’ll pack my own lunch, thank you very kindly. Knowing you, I’ll wind up with a backpack full of peach jam and tunafish sandwiches.”
“Yup, and I’ll take care of everything else. Knowing you, you’ll just pour vegetable oil down all the drains instead of drain cleaner.”
“Heh. I’ll go check the candle in the bedroom, make sure it’s still burning.”
“Yes, you do that, but first, there’s this problem of your not paying attention to me.”
“Christine, I really do want to be a few miles down the road tonight.”
She rose in a blur, grabbed the shampoo, aimed it at his belly and squeezed hard enough to blow the cap off the top with a loud POP. Orson wasn’t fast enough to roll away, and the cap bounced off his belly. Shampoo sprayed everywhere.
“OK, so maybe a mile or two isn’t going to make any difference. You’re right, this stuff stinks. It smells GIRLY!”
She laughed and turned on the faucets in the shower.
---
“All set?”
“I think so. My backpack has clothes, socks, shoes and stuff. A spare coat and some thermal undies. I’ll take your word for it your pack has lots of food.”
“Sounds good. There’s nothing else?”
“Nope.”
“Excellent. I’ll just loosen up this brass connector and we’ll be on our way.”
“You were right, we need to be going. I'm getting hungry again."
---
They weren’t even an hour down the road when he heard the distant but obviously massive whump. He turned and looked. From this far away, the glow almost looked like the flame on a candle, but it didn’t flicker.