When My Heart Was Wicked Read online

  My mother was wearing a long green dress like a mermaid, and her mask was gold with black beading and rhinestones. She lay back against the green couch we’d found on the sidewalk the week before, and she sang along to the music that was blaring up from the stereo. Her voice was so pretty, like a cartoon princess almost. She was sweating and I was rubbing her arm. But then a man in a top hat came and lifted me off the couch.

  “Go to bed, little girl,” he said. He had an accent, maybe French or Italian. “This is no kind of place for a child.”

  I stood there, but he reached down and gently lifted my mother in his arms, and when he bent over, he hit me with his butt and I staggered backward into the coffee table, spilling all the drinks. Then people were yelling at me and the man was carrying my mother into her bedroom and closing the door, and when I tried it, it was locked.

  I went to the fishbowl and took a piece of the candy, but it tasted awful and I spit it out.

  “No kind of place for a child,” the man had said. I’ve remembered that forever after.

  The interior of Cheyenne’s car no longer smells like her perfume. There is a clean smell now, like lemons and leather. Cheyenne herself is only lightly scented, and she’s dressed in a pale pink cardigan and white blouse. Her hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail. She looks like someone else’s mother.

  “Cheyenne,” I say, and she tightens her grip on the steering wheel. “You don’t have to buy me new clothes. I have clothes.”

  “Don’t be silly. This is one of the pleasures of being a mother.” This is one of the pleasures of being controlling. “It’s been too long since we’ve gone shopping together. Besides, I’ve seen the stuff you wear. That might work in Chico, but Sacramento is a big city. It’s the capital of California you know. People here don’t dress like they’re going out to pick berries or take a ride on a hay wagon.” I look down at the jeans and gray sweater I changed into this morning. Do I really look that bad, like a country bumpkin, like a hick?

  “I like the way I dress.” I make one last attempt, but I hear how I sound, and I shut my mouth. She is going to win this one.

  “Anyway, I’ve never heard of a teenage girl who doesn’t like shopping for new clothes,” she says.

  She pulls into a parking lot with an Oil and Lube, a tire place, and a nail salon. “Does the car need its nails done?” I ask.

  “Ha-ha. There’s a little shop in back. It’s very cool. And I happen to be friends with the owner.”

  I follow Cheyenne past the tire store to a little black cottage with a red picket fence. The garden inside the fence is lush with spinach and chard, hanging nasturtiums, and spider plants. We go through the gate and up the stone path, past gargoyles with fierce red eyes and a fountain of a stone woman whose many breasts spit water.

  I raise my eyebrows, but Cheyenne doesn’t seem to notice that this place is creep-o-rama. She opens the glass-and-iron door and walks right in. The sign above the shop reads DEMETER’S DAUGHTER.

  “Myrna?” Cheyenne calls out after I’ve stepped inside. Inside is even creepier than out. Little mice that look real are posed in glass cases, each depicting a different scene. The first scene is childbirth. A mouse with her legs caught in stirrups is bleeding while a doctor mouse whose face is virtually hidden by a mask holds a scalpel. In another case, a murder is taking place. A mouse with a top hat and cloak stabs at a scantily clad female mouse on a cobblestone street. Her blood runs in rivulets and sinks into the cracks. At first it makes me think of the magical store in Berkeley where Anna bought me my silver calligraphy ink, but this is different, the dark side of a similar coin.

  Real-looking crows hover over mirrors and paintings of dark goddesses with burned wings. A woman, Myrna I guess, comes through a beaded curtain in the back.

  “Cheyenne.” She smiles tightly, but when she sees me, her face relaxes and her smile widens. “Hi, Lacy. Do you remember me? Probably not, it’s been so long. I used to babysit you. Your mom and I are old friends.”

  She does look familiar to me although I can’t place her in any memory. She’s thin and pretty with wispy bleach-blond hair, red lips, and blue jeans. “Nice to meet you,” I say. “Again.”

  “I saw you admiring the crows. Do you like them? My husband is into taxidermy. They’re all real. You can hold one if you like.”

  “Oh no, thank you.” If I were the girl I used to be, I might say yes, but the truth is, the big black dead birds creep me out almost as much as the butterflies encased in wax.

  “Actually, Lacy loves science.” Cheyenne turns to me. “This kind of thing should be right up your alley.”

  “Well, I love botany,” I say, more to Myrna than Cheyenne. “You know, the study of plants. But my friends and I walked out when it was time to dissect frogs in seventh grade.”

  “Really? Good for you. I would never have had the nerve to do that when I was young.” Myrna smiles and I smile too, not mentioning the fact that my teacher, in the days leading up to the dissection, told us about his own seventh-grade biology walkout, and most of us took that as a green light to follow suit.

  “The thing is,” Myrna adds, and I have the feeling she’s trying to align herself with me, “these guys die naturally. We don’t believe in harming live objects. These are roadkill.” She smiles brightly.

  “Oh.”

  “And then the mice are mostly from friends, you know, they catch them in traps in their homes. We don’t endorse that, but we’re happy to take them off their hands.”

  I nod, trying not to look grossed out. Roadkill and glue traps. Can we change the subject, please?

  “Myrna, Lacy is starting school here on Monday, and she doesn’t want her first impression to be that she’s a pumpkin farmer from wherever it is pumpkins are farmed.”

  “Um, they’re farmed right here in California,” I say.

  “Well, excuse me for not knowing.”

  “Like haven’t you ever seen a pumpkin patch?” I ask. Cheyenne puts her hand on the back of my neck and pinches. “Ow!” I turn to glare at her. Myrna watches us, then turns away. There’s something strange about this woman, and that’s aside from the shop of dead things. It’s like it’s important to her that we’re really comfortable and happy in this weird little shop, and the way she ignores us now feels like an admonishment. I feel as though I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

  “Yes,” Myrna finally says. “First impressions are important. Come with me.” I follow her past racks of curiosities, like glitter skull sugar bowls and daguerreotypes — old cracking yellow photos of unsmiling girls.

  In the clothing section of the store, she shows me black skirts and black tops and black scarves and black hats. Wearing this stuff would be like dressing for a funeral every day. Since my dad died, I haven’t been wearing much black. I don’t see the point of mourning clothes. When you lose someone, your mood and your spirit are already black. Why drape your body in all that too?

  But all the clothes in the shop are some shade of black, and I can’t help but find myself enchanted. The clothing is beautiful, hand-stitched with gossamer threads. The fabrics are soft and thick, like new skin. “Do you make these?” I ask Myrna.

  “My labor of love. Yes, they’re all originals. Do you like them?”

  “They’re beautiful.” I am actually a little breathless. “But, Cheyenne, we can’t afford these.” I show her a three-hundred-dollar price tag.

  “No, no,” Myrna says, and something razor sharp flashes in her eyes. “Your mom and I go way back. And I am indebted to her. Please” — she takes a pile of clothes from the rack — “try these on.”

  In the dressing room I study myself in the mirror. I’ve lost a lot of weight since my dad died. I’ve always been small, and Shell and Mechelle used to make fun of me freshman year because I ate frozen cheesecakes dipped in chocolate on a stick every day for lunch, and I never gained a pound. But now I look sick, breakable. My scars from old cuttings on my legs are raised and white, and I try not to look at them b
ecause they remind me of how sad and awful and desperate I used to feel. I look like shit.

  Putting the first dress on, I expect to look like a little kid playing dress-up or some paper doll in the wrong dress, but I don’t. I look strong. I look like a girl who can see the magic in the everyday, who can even use it to make things better sometimes. I twirl. I look good.

  By the time we leave, I have a mountain of beautiful new clothing. Plumed cocktail dresses I will never wear. Fairy gloves stitched with tiny silken rosettes. Glittery scarves and thick soft tights. It seems wasteful, but at the same time, it is intoxicating.

  Best of all is a jeweled black rose necklace on a gold chain. I wanted it the second I saw it, and I couldn’t believe when Cheyenne said yes. “You have sophisticated tastes,” she told me, nodding appreciatively, and for a moment, I felt almost proud. The necklace hangs halfway down my chest, so the rose falls just at my heart.

  It is the loveliest thing I’ve ever had.

  After shopping, my mother takes me out to lunch. We go to a French café, order pâté and iced tea and salad and brie. I have never spent time with my mother this way. She has never taken me shopping for clothes; she has never taken me anywhere for lunch except McDonald’s. Maybe she really has changed. Maybe she really is trying.

  “Thank you for the clothes, and the necklace.” I run the rose along the gold chain. “Did you know gold and copper are the only metals that aren’t silver in color?” Random chemistry fact. Cheyenne gives me a look that you’d give to indulge a child who is telling a lie.

  “You’re welcome,” she says.

  “So what’s the likelihood of you letting me stay home from school tomorrow?” I ask.

  “I don’t care if you go to school,” she says, “but I think the state does. We’re playing by the rules this time, kiddo.”

  “I could homeschool. That’s allowed.”

  “I work all night and I sleep during the day. I don’t need some moody teenager playing loud music and slamming her door all day long.”

  “I don’t … That isn’t me.”

  “How would I know? I haven’t seen you in three years.”

  I start to remind her of the reason for this, then reconsider. The reason, of course, is that when I was thirteen, she disappeared. Just stopped coming home. So that finally, after three days, I called my dad, who took me to live with him and Anna.

  “Where did you go, when you disappeared?” I ask instead. But she gives me a sharp look and leans forward.

  “The past is the past,” she says coldly. “Can we move on?”

  “Sorry,” I say, and the word tumbles slippery and toxic as gasoline. She pulls a small mirror from her purse and examines her lips.

  “Good,” she says, and snaps the mirror shut.

  When my mother disappeared, I lived off salami, beans, and ketchup for three days. I didn’t have money for cafeteria lunch, so I stole chips and chocolate milk from the aluminum racks at school. I did not allow myself to believe that she wouldn’t be back for me. We were going to Paris together. She wouldn’t leave me behind.

  But the nights were scary. Even though I was a tough girl, with jet-black hair and smoky eyes, my imagination was still wicked and wild. We hadn’t had electricity for weeks, so I had to burn candles if I wanted to see after dark. I envisioned mass murderers and poltergeists. I slept in my mom’s bed, beneath all her blankets. I slept with my old stuffed teddy bear. All night I waited, beneath the covers, waiting for the sound of her, at the driveway, at the door, by my side.

  My father once took me on a midnight canoe trip down the American River. The moon hung low and orange in the sky. We paddled over to an island, and he lit a fire with flint and steel. In the distance, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, a thing of light and movement. He saw it too, and we followed it, but soon it had disappeared, leaving us to wonder if we had imagined it all.

  He boiled a pot of hot water over the fire and we drank powdered hot chocolate from metal cups, and I fell asleep with my head in his lap. When I woke up, there were tiny slips of paper scattered around the small island. While my dad slept, I moved from paper to paper, picking each one up and reading it. “If you’re ever lonely,” the little notes said, “and looking for friends” “Look beneath egg nests and shells” “We wear camouflage hats” “To hide from big folk” “But you, we consider our pal.”

  I kept the notes in a ceramic fish on my dresser for years. But of course, by the time my mom disappeared, I no longer believed in fairies or enchantment. The notes, I knew, were faked by a loving father, and I threw them away one day when I was cleaning out my room.

  Later, several hours after lunch at the French café, I kneel beside my garden in the backyard and dig into the soil with my hands. Surrounding me are my new little herbs in plastic cartons — lavender, rosemary, mint, sage, and thyme. Protection, love, prosperity, comfort, and happiness. I whisper good intentions to them as I tap at the sides of their containers to loosen their soil. The screen door slides open and Cheyenne comes out, wearing a black cropped bustier top and Mardi Gras beads. “Here’s money for pizza,” she says, holding out a crumpled twenty. “Make me a list of what you eat, and I’ll go shopping for you. You’re going to be on your own most nights for dinner.”

  “Why? Where are you going to be?”

  “Work. Ever heard of it? Pays the bills?”

  “Sorry, I … wasn’t thinking. What type of job do you have?”

  “Bartender. Lousy pay, decent tips. Lots of men.” She runs her tongue across her teeth, joking, I hope. “I have to go, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, a little relieved. At least she has a job. Maybe we really are going to be okay.

  After she leaves, I turn back to my garden and put the little plants in the ground. They look sweet and hopeful — the lavender waving its purple stalks in the breeze. The frogs begin their late-afternoon croaking from the rosebushes. After a while, I go back inside, turn on all the lights, and call the pizza place. For a moment, I consider ordering something good and vegetarian, like Anna would. But when I open my mouth, it asks for a large pepperoni with sausage.

  I pop the screen from my window and hide it at the side of the house. I don’t like screens in windows. I like full access to the night. As the spring sun sets, turning the sky to a tie-dye of purple night and yellow clouds tinged with orange, I light a candle and eat the pizza at my window, listening to frogsong.

  My phone chirps (the ringtone set to CRICKETS) and I pick up. Anna.

  “Hey,” I say, my mouth still full.

  “Hi, Lacy. I hope I’m not disturbing you. Is Cheyenne there?”

  “No, she’s at work.” I wipe my mouth with a napkin.

  “Work? She actually has a job?”

  “Yeah. She has a car, and a real house. She took me shopping.”

  “I wonder who she’s stealing money from this time.”

  “I don’t know.” Even though I had the same thought, I don’t like hearing it from Anna. Cheyenne is still my mother, and there are some things other people aren’t allowed to say. Mothers are off-limits. I feel a surge of protection toward her, and I have to remind myself how much I love Anna too.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  “Well, it’s lonely around here, but Mr. Murm is keeping me company.”

  “Good,” I say, but it makes me sad. Anna and Mr. Murm. I miss them both. The candle flickers at my window. I look outside at the night, now a pure velvety purple. Stars and planets are beginning to appear like pinpricks in fabric held up to the light. I miss everyone.

  My father had a sense of humor that not everyone understood. Sometimes, around friends, he’d make some joke and everyone would stare at him, not daring to laugh, not sure whether or not he was joking. But I always knew. I’d lean against him, cracking up. “You’re the only one who gets me,” he’d often say.

  He was like a wolf. A little bit wild. A little untamed. But he was playful, and silly, and I loved him. I loved him so much
.

  He played guitar and sometimes he dressed in a chicken suit. The night is now totally dark. I lie in bed, tears pooling on my pillow. When I wake up, my eyes will be so puffy and pink, I know.

  Cheyenne driving first thing in the morning is not an event I have ever in my lifetime enjoyed. She looks like she’s about to fall asleep at the wheel, and her hands are shaking, and she’s almost rear-ended three cars. When we get to my new high school, she pulls up behind a city bus and rests her head on the steering wheel. I wait, unsure what to do.

  “Are you dropping me off here?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, her head still down.

  “Okay. Well. Um. Get some rest.”

  “Mmmph.”

  I get out of the car and start walking through the parking lot. I stumble over an upturned chunk of asphalt and try to recover, hoping no one saw. I feel so conspicuous in my new clothes — an eyelet summer dress, polka-dot knee socks, and Eskimo boots (all in shades of black, of course). No one is dressed like me. Everyone in the parking lot is wearing jeans or shorts. They dress just like everyone does in Chico.

  It’s been so long since I’ve been completely uprooted, since I’ve had to start a new school where I know nobody. I wish I could just vanish. Better yet, I wish I were the old Lacy, with my smoky eyes and stolen bomber jacket. Instead, I am New Girl in a five-hundred-dollar dress. I think I’m the only white person at this school. But no, there are others. I am not alone in my whiteness. I am only alone in my aloneness.

  At the office, I am given my class schedule and locker assignment. First period, English. I don’t want to look like a total loser by being the first one there. Then again, I don’t want to wander the halls alone. I head to Room C10.

  Surprisingly, I’m not the only one there. A group of kids sit near the middle of the room, inspecting a tattoo on one of the girls’ forearms. The girl has gorgeous auburn hair piled on top of her head like a fountain. She has dark skin and a sprinkling of freckles across her face.