Bliss

  he Tate-LaBianca murder trial continues to keep people buzzing, as each day brings new and ghastly details. Today, the morning news anchor reported that Charles Manson showed up in court with an “X” carved into his forehead. Several hours later, the three female defendants—Patricia Krenwinkel, Sadie Atkins, and Leslie Van Houten—were led in front of the judge, each with an “X” carved into her forehead.

  But they hadn’t been in communication with Charles Manson, or, supposedly, one another. The three females were housed in different cells, and Charles Manson was in a separate facility altogether. So how did they all come to carve identical “Xs”?

  “Communist hippie freaks,” Thelma says as we walk to class. Her hair in its high ponytail bounces.

  “Thelma,” I say. “Do you even know what a communist is?”

  “Of course,” she says, like I’m an idiot.

  I wait.

  “A communist is someone who doesn’t believe in America. Like Charles Manson!”

  I roll my eyes, thinking that Thelma is Thelma is Thelma. Then she surprises me by growing uncharacteristically subdued.

  “They said that one girl, Sadie Atkins—the one who’s so young?”

  I nod. I’ve seen bits of the coverage when Grandmother was otherwise engaged, and Sadie’s the one who sits in the front of the courtroom with her hands clasped in her lap, as if she’s in church. She’s accused of slaughtering five people.

  “They say she watched the news the day after the murders,” Thelma said. “In a trailer in Death Valley, where the Family lived? Another of the Family members came forward and talked to the cops, and he said that Sadie laughed as the reporter described the slayings.”

  Thelma’s expression is bewildered. “How could anyone do that? How could anyone kill those people . . . and then laugh?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. I don’t know much at all, it seems, and the extent of my ignorance has been troubling me. Not about Sadie Atkins; about Sandy Lear. And Liliana, of course. I don’t want to think about them, but I can’t help it. And what if it’s my responsibility to stop them? But . . . from what?

  Thelma keeps walking, pensive. Then she cups her hand over her mouth and blows. “Do you have any gum?” she asks. “I feel like my breath is stinky.”

  All day long, I think about the Sandy problem and what, if anything, I should do. That afternoon, instead of going straight home, I catch a bus to Peachtree Street and get off at the stop closest to the Eternal Fountains Nursing Home.

  I need to talk to Agnes Nutter.

  “Bliss,” Agnes says when I step into her room. “Why, hello, pet. I thought you might stop by one of these days.”

  “You did?” I say.

  “Sit,” she says, patting her bed. The effort makes her wheeze. And am I mistaken, or has she shrunk since the first time I met her? Her eyes are olives deep in her face, and her body is tiny beneath the covers. Her birthmark, on the other hand, seems to have grown.

  I perch carefully on the edge of the mattress, taking care not to jostle her. Her bones look as fragile as a bird’s.

  She takes a rattling breath. “Gracious. I’m not as . . . young . . . as I . . . used to be. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, which is the truth.

  Agnes waits. The lesion above her lip appears to pulse.

  “It’s Sandy,” I say at last. “I’m scared for her.”

  “Ah,” she says. She doesn’t seem the least bit surprised. “Scared for her—or scared of her?”

  I blush. I don’t know why, but I do.

  “Do you know how old I am, pet?” Agnes asks.

  Her question catches me off guard. “Um . . . eighty?”

  She chuckles. “One hundred and one!”

  My eyebrows shoot up.

  “I’m right near done, though. My time’s almost up.”

  “You . . . you don’t know that,” I say.

  “Oh, I do. But don’t feel bad. It should have happened long ago.”

  My fingers twitch, pattering against my skirt like spiders. When I notice, I stop.

  “Um . . . does this have anything to do with Sandy?” I ask.

  “Sweet thing, Sandy took the relic,” Agnes says.

  As soon as she says it, it clicks with dreadful certainty in my mind. Of course she did, just as she took Elsie’s twenty dollars—I didn’t notice a thing. And it’s the relic, that horrible collection of flesh and hair, that’s made it so that Sandy can hear Liliana. I remember Sandy’s feverish proclamation as we lay together in her bed: I have true power.

  “Oh, Agnes,” I say faintly. “I think . . . I think this isn’t good.”

  “Ever since the day you two visited, my health has declined,” Agnes muses. “It’s been quite rapid. The doctors don’t understand, but I do. After all, I gave her offerings. I kept her safe. In return, she fed me life.”

  My mouth goes dry. “The ‘she’ you’re talking about . . .?”

  “Liliana. Yes.”

  I wrap my arms around my chest. This is really, really not good.

  “Before you, I’d shown the relic to no one. But then you came—and I felt compelled to bring it out. I think now that it was Liliana, guiding me one last time.” She cocks her head. “She sensed your power, you see.”

  “But Sandy ended up with the relic,” I say. “Not me. And I think, um, that she and Liliana are kind of connected now.” I don’t mention the key. I’m too throbbingly, skittishly ashamed to speak out loud of how foolish I was.

  “Then Sandy is standing in the need of prayer,” Agnes says flatly. “Liliana will use her, just as she used me. And Sandy will let her, just as I did.” Her dark eyes lock on mine. “Liliana might have been drawn by your power, but Sandy’s weakness will serve her even better.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  Agnes’s frail chest rises under her sheet. Her eyes go distant.

  Don’t drift away on me, Agnes, I say silently. I shift on the bed—just slightly—and the movement brings her back.

  “Liliana’s needs were deep,” Agnes tells me. “Or rather, are deep, and until recently, I’ve existed purely to fill them.” Agnes takes my fingers. “Do you know how wonderful it feels to no longer serve her? I would never have known it, never have chosen it. But, oh Bliss, it’s lovely to be free of her.”

  “I’m glad,” I say.

  “Sandy, too, has a deep need,” she says.

  “I know,” I say. “That’s what I’m worried about, I guess. Should I try to stop her or something?”

  “Stop her from what?” Agnes says. “Being needy?”

  We look at each other. We both know the impossibility of that proposition.

  Agnes coughs and pulls her hand to her mouth. When she brings it away, I see spittle tinged with red.

  “Agnes, are you okay?” I ask.

  She fumbles for a tissue and wipes her mouth. “Stay clear of her,” she tells me in a weak voice. “Don’t get . . .”

  “Should I call someone? Do you need a nurse?”

  “Ensnared,” she whispers. “Go on, now. Let me rest.”

  ’m glad to be warned away from Sandy. I’m glad to have that dictate: Stay clear. And stay clear I do. Over the next several days, I sequester myself in the library and devote myself to my studies. I conjugate French verbs. I solve math problems. I settle on a thesis for my research paper.

  On Wednesday, I find Sarah Lynn Lancaster at the library table I’ve grown to think of as my own.

  “Oh,” I say stupidly. Clutching my satchel full of books, I turn to leave.

  “No, wait,” Sarah Lynn says. “Were you planning to sit here?”

  “Um, yeah. I have to work on my English paper. But that’s okay, I’ll find another spot.”

  “Ms. Phillips?” Sarah Lynn says.

  Ms. Phillips is my English teacher. I nod.

  “I’m working on my paper too.” She grins. “Join me. Sometimes I work better just knowing that someone else is stu
ck doing the same thing I am, you know?”

  This is the first time I’ve seen Sarah Lynn since my sleepover at Sandy’s. Sarah Lynn and I, we slept on the same spot in Sandy’s bed. I feel an unexpected kinship with her.

  I smile tentatively and slide into the chair across from hers. I jot down several ideas in my notebook, then stop, realizing that my pencil is the only one making any noise. I glance up at her, and she startles and leans over her piece of paper.

  We scribble away for several minutes before once again I realize that Sarah Lynn’s pencil is limp in her hand. This time when I glance at her, she wrinkles her nose in that way she does.

  “I’m distracting you,” she says. “Sorry. I’m just having a hard time focusing, you know?”

  “Yeah, that happens to me, too,” I say. Boy, does it.

  “Did you watch the trial yesterday?” Sarah Lynn asks.

  “No,” I say. “Did something new happen?”

  She draws a strand of her honey-colored hair between her lips. “Not really, just more of the same. I feel so bad for Sharon Tate, don’t you?”

  I put down my pencil. I nod.

  “And how awful for her husband,” she goes on. “To lose not only his wife, but his unborn baby.”

  “I know.” It is awful, every bit of it.

  “And the second night, with the LaBiancas . . .” Sarah Lynn pauses. “They were somebody’s grandparents. That’s how old they were.”

  “I hate thinking about that,” I say.

  “I think about how scared they must have been when Charles Manson tied them up, and I wonder . . .”

  The silence stretches out. Sarah Lynn’s eyes are dark with pain.

  “If they knew they were going to die?” I finally say.

  She nods. “Or if maybe Mr. LaBianca said to his wife, ‘Just do what he says. It’ll be okay.’ Because Charles Manson only tied up their hands, you know. He tied up their hands and put pillowcases over their heads, and he told them nothing would happen to them if they just sat still and didn’t make any noise.”

  “And then he sent the other members of his Family back in to finish them off,” I say helplessly.

  “But not until twenty minutes later! They could have gotten away!”

  “I know. But they were trying to be good and follow Charles Manson’s instructions.”

  We gaze at each other. Yeah, and look how far it got them, is our shared, unspoken thought.

  “Did you know that Charles Manson told them to steal Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet?” Sarah Lynn says. “But it wasn’t for the money. He just wanted one of his followers to plant it in a gas station restroom in the black part of town.”

  “Why?”

  “So that a black person would find it and use the credit cards and get blamed for the murder.”

  Black part of town, black person . . .

  I think about Lawrence, and I assume Sarah Lynn’s thinking about him too. Does she remember that day in the stairwell, when I saw the two of them together? Surely she must.

  “Did Charles Manson especially want a black person to find it?” I ask. “Or would anyone have done?”

  “No, he wanted it to be a black person,” Sarah Lynn says bitterly. “He had this whole plan: White people would blame black people for the murders, and then the black people would get angry and exact revenge. Charles Manson wanted the blacks to kill every single white person in the world.”

  “But he’s white himself.”

  “Yeah, only he and his Family would be holed up in some cave out in Death Valley,” she says. “And once all the other white people were dead, Charles Manson would lead his followers back out into the sunlight and they’d rule the world.”

  “But Charles Manson is white. Why would he think black people would let him be their leader?”

  “Because he’s a racist jerk,” Sarah Lynn says. She tilts her head. “To quote his right-hand man: ‘So Blackie will say, “I did my thing, I killed them all.” And Charlie will scratch Blackie’s fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick cotton and go be a good nigger.’”

  Sarah Lynn looks down, and if I’m not mistaken, she’s fighting tears. “Or something like that.”

  Blackie, I think. Blacks, coloreds, Negroes, niggers. Little Nigra girls.

  “Oh, gosh,” she says. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

  Yes, I think, but first I say, “Only an idiot would think something like that.”

  She lifts her head. Her eyelashes are long and generous. “My daddy thinks that. He thinks it was better before, when black people . . . knew their place.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “I don’t think that!” She blushes, only it’s more intense than blushing. “I think white people need to know their place, and not pass judgment on others all the time!”

  “Girls?” the librarian says, appearing at our table and resting her hand on the back of my chair. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sarah Lynn tells her. “Sorry, Mrs. Lambert.”

  Mrs. Lambert attempts to maintain her disapproval, but like everyone else, she’s charmed by Sarah Lynn.

  “Try to keep it down,” she says.

  “We will. Like I said, we’re really sorry.”

  As soon as Mrs. Lambert’s out of earshot, Sarah Lynn exhales shakily.

  “I shouldn’t have laid that on you,” she says. “But . . . he’s my daddy, you know?”

  I think of my own dad, eating wild berries somewhere in the wilds of Canada.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  n Thursday, Sandy finds me despite my best efforts to stay out of her path. “Have you thought about what I told you?” Sandy asks.

  I look at her, then look away. My pulse goes jittery.

  “Have you?”

  “Um, I haven’t really had time,” I say.

  “What, too busy with all your social engagements?”

  I let her sarcasm slide, because as a matter of fact, yes. I have been busy with social engagements. Yesterday Mitchell offered me a ride home on his motorcycle, and I accepted. He pulled up five houses down from Grandmother’s and walked me the rest of the way. He rubbed my shoulders to warm me from the chilly ride.

  Sandy snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Hey! Anyone home?”

  “Quit it,” I say tensely. I push away her hand and dart into my classroom.

  On Friday, she finds me in the cafeteria and asks again if I’ve considered her offer.

  “Because I’ve been thinking,” she says in a let’s-tell-secrets tone. Her voice dips to a dusky whisper. “The perfect time to perform the ceremony . . . well, why not do it on the night of the Winter Dance?”

  Ceremony? “I don’t think so, Sandy,” I say, just barely able to keep the contents of my stomach where they belong. I should just say no and be done with it—and I would, if she didn’t seem so unstable.

  “But why not?” she says. She reaches for one of my fries, but in her agitation, she knocks over the plastic salt shaker. “You’d be all dressed up. You’d be so pretty. I could dress up and be pretty too.”

  “I just don’t think the dance is the right time,” I say, hating myself for my cowardice. Strangely, my foot moves below the table to touch the fabric of my satchel, where the wooden dove still lies. The key—before I lost it—disturbed me, and yet I kept it close. The dove, on the other hand, comforts me, and so I keep it close.

  “You big silly,” Sandy says. She smiles and rolls her eyes.

  I frown. “Why am I silly?”

  “Because of course the dance is the right time. The dance is supposed to be magical, right?”

  “Yes, but romance magic,” I say. “Enchantment-in-a-winter-wonderland magic.”

  “Exactly,” Sandy says. She wets the tip of her finger and drags it over the spill of salt. She brings her finger to her mouth, sucks it, then slowly draws it out. She gazes at me until I look away.

  She half-laughs. “You’re nervous. I und
erstand.” She pushes back her chair. “But don’t keep me waiting forever. After all, a girl can’t make magic if she doesn’t have anyone to make magic with.”

  My stomach cramps. I stare doggedly at my half-eaten hamburger until I’m sure she’s gone.

  he next week, I return to the library. I look for Sarah Lynn, and I’m disappointed when I don’t see her. But on Thursday, after our last class has let out, she appears.

  “Hey,” Sarah Lynn says. Am I making it up, or does she look pleased? “Can I sit with you, or am I too much of a nuisance? I feel terrible about last time, how I just kept going on and on and didn’t let you get a thing done.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I say. She stands there, and I realize she’s waiting for an actual invitation. “Sit. Of course. We can work on our papers together.”

  She sits, and we work. I’m actually fairly productive, and she must be too, because at the end of the hour, she says, “Listen, want to trade essays once we’re done?”

  “Um . . . sure,” I say.

  “You want to come home with me from school on Friday? We could critique each other’s essays, and you could stay for dinner, maybe?” Sarah Lynn looks at me, and everything about her—her hair, her flawless complexion, her perfectly applied lipstick—reflects her golden-girl status. She’s accustomed to getting what she wants, and before I spent any real time with her, I misinterpreted that as arrogance. A sense of entitlement.

  There’s something else beneath that, though. If I had to name it, I’d say it was hope.

  “I’d like that,” I tell her, and my chest expands with a sudden happy certainty. Of course, I think. I’ve been so blind.

  She smiles. “Me too.”

  n Friday morning, I put on eyeliner and a teeny bit of blush. Rosie stops by my bedroom to deliver laundry and does a double-take.

  “Look at you,” she says.

  My cheeks heat up, but I smile. “Yeah, you know. The ‘new me’ and all that.” Am I a new me? It certainly feels that way.

  In the kitchen, Grandmother grills me on the details of my study date with Sarah Lynn.