Silk

5.

Niki found Bactine in the medicine cabinet and sprayed some on her hands, the burns crisscrossing the backs of both, striping her wrists and forearms. Made bandages from an old bedsheet and then she sat alone in the living room, nothing for the pain but four extra-strength Tylenol, watched sitcoms with the sound turned too far down to hear. Her eyes itched and watered and there were still bright purplewhite splotches that danced about the room when she blinked. But the thwumping on the walls had stopped, the brushy rustling from the basement, and she could sit on the couch and watch mindless crap and almost not think about the familiar pattern the burns had etched into her skin or about what Spyder was doing in the kitchen or the racket when she wrestled the body off the kitchen table. The sounds the dead boy’s swaddled heels made as she dragged him to the trapdoor and down. Not think about what had happened or what to do next, about the things that had happened in this house, had never stopped happening because Spyder had been scarred and so the house had scars, too. There would be time to think later, when her hands stopped hurting, when the splotches in front of her eyes faded.

The phone began to ring and Spyder let it, seventh ring before Niki got up and went to the kitchen (no boy mummy body on the table, no salt on the floor, no sign of Spyder, either) to answer it.

“Hello?” and there was sweet, faint music from the other end, the Smiths, maybe, and then Mort said, “Hey, Niki. You guys doin’ okay?”

“Yeah,” and inside, No. No, we’re not. Not even a little bit okay. “We’re fine.”

“Well, look, I’ve got some bad news,” and she thought she heard Theo in the background; Mort paused, and the music went away.

“It’s about Keith, you know, our guitar player,” and “Yeah,” she said, “Is he all right?” just as the basement door slammed closed. And then Spyder, standing between crooked paperback stacks in the next room, watching her: dirty hands, red dirt like rust or blood, dirty bare feet. A smear of dirt across her face.

“No,” Mort said, “He’s not,” and Niki listened to the details, stared helpless into Spyder’s expectant, nervous eyes and listened. When it was over, she hung up and sat at the table, just a plain table again, not a mortuary slab, and all the salt and pepper shakers and bottles of hot sauce back in place. The plastic honey bear and the sugar bowl.

“What’s wrong, Niki?” Spyder asked, cautious, sounding frightened again; Niki shook her head, no words left in her. She looked down at her ridiculous, bandaged hands, already begi

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1.

T he real funeral and the one in her head; Daria, sitting on her bed, sitting with her back to the wall and squeezed into the corner like a gunfighter so no more of this shit could come sneaking up on her, the real shit and the shit in her head; the shit since Saturday night and her laying down the law, the sentence, for the late and never-to-be-great Mr. Keith Barry, and the other shit like a 1950s Cold War big-bug movie. That last kept for herself, her pearl, more secret than the guilt over Keith. Because she knew it was crazy, because she was too afraid to say it out loud, too scared to say words to set the nightmares loose.

Claude had gone out for more coffee thirty minutes before, only had to walk down to the Bean and back, So where the hell is he? and she watched the clock-radio and wished him home, wished herself back to Saturday night and Heaven and the time when there was still opportunity, a million other ways things might have gone down, if she’d let them, and none of the wishes came true.

Outside, the sun was going down, already, going down again, and that meant that she’d lived through one, two, three, four, and this had been the fifth day since Saturday night: Thursday, Thursday night creeping up on her like a fucking vampire that would take away nothing anyone could ever see, would leave her a little less alive, but still hurting. Hurting like she’d never imagined she could hurt, and empty, and sick, and she thought she heard thunder.

She knew she looked like cold fucking shit, smelled just as bad or worse, maybe, same grody clothes, same underwear and no shower, so she smelled like sweat and puke and dried tears, old booze and stale smoke; mostly drunk since Tuesday afternoon, solid drunk since the funeral, drunk since the hours before his wake; hidden away in the apartment, sucking down the cheapest wine, the bottles of Wild Irish Rose and Boone’s Farm and MD 20/20 that had been left behind after she’d chased everyone away from the wake, the precious numbing bottles she’d lugged back from Keith’s old place in a huge, bulging paper bag.

Where are you, Claude? and she looked at the window, although she couldn’t see anything for the bedsheet she’d made Claude thumb-tack over it, could only tell how soon it would be dark. You fuckin’ promised, man, and Christ, she hadn’t even wanted the fucking coffee.

“But you are going to drink it, and you are going to sober up,” he’d said. “He’s dead, not you. What happened to Keith, that wasn’t about you, Dar. That was just about him, and nobody but him and all the shit he couldn’t deal with anymore.” And it hadn’t mattered that she’d screamed at him for saying that, had hurled an ashtray across the room at him, dumping butts and ash and putting another dent in the walls.

He’d gone anyway, thirty-five minutes now.

She looked away from the window, tried not to think about time or the setting sun, bad dreams or the distant storm sounds; He’ll be back soon, and she looked into each of the room’s three remaining corners, one after the other, corners Claude had cleaned so meticulously for her, swept away every trace of cobweb and sprayed them with Hot Shot; indulging her.

The thunder again, but no lightning, not yet, and the windowpane rattled a little. Daria lit another cigarette and waited for Claude, the can of bug spray gripped tightly in one hand, and she watched the empty corners.

2.

She’d been at the Bean, one hour into her Monday night shift, when Mort had come in, stoop-shouldered Mort and Theo in his shadow, her eyes red, puffy, and that had been the first thing, the realization that Theo had been crying, and Daria had just never thought about Theo Babyock crying. The coffeehouse was crowded, noisy, afterwork crowd, and she’d been too busy, still furious and pouring it all into the job, the endless procession of lattés and cappuccinos, double espressos and dirty glasses.

“We need to talk, Dar,” he’d said, leaning across the bar so she could hear him over the Rev. Horton Heat and the beehive drone of customer voices.

“I’m busy right now, Mort. Real busy, so if it can wait…” but he’d shaken his head and reached across the bar, held her arm so she had to be still and listen. Theo had turned away, wiping at her nose with a wilted Kleenex.

And she’d seen the red around his eyes, too, and felt sudden cold down in her stomach, belly cold, had set down a plastic jug of milk, and, “Yeah,” she’d said, “Okay. Just give me a minute.” Had asked a new girl to cover for her, and then she’d taken off her damp apron, followed Mort and Theo, not to a booth or table (none were empty, anyway), but out the door to stand shivering on the sidewalk.

“What’s going on?” and Mort had brushed his hair back, rubbed his hands together; Theo blew her nose loud, like a cartoon character.

“Keith,” Mort said. “He’s dead, Dar,” just like that, no words minced; at least he hadn’t fucked around the point, hadn’t tried to break it to her gently. And then he’d said it again, “Keith’s dead.”