Broken Monsters

  ‘Did you see where my friend went?’ Layla pulls the piece of glass out of the fleshy part of her thumb. Hand-fat, Cas called it once. Where the hell did she go?

  ‘You gonna pay for that breakage? You can’t come here and chase away my customers. Are you high?’

  Layla is indignant. ‘He’s not a customer, he’s a pedophile!’

  The waitress stares. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ The rest of the kitchen has come out to see what the commotion is about. Other customers are hovering. Layla feels the rush of righteousness.

  ‘You saying the guy who was just here is a pedo?’

  ‘Yeah, we bust him online. Soliciting a minor.’ She feels like a true-blue bad-ass.

  ‘He’s taken off,’ the chef calls from the door.

  ‘I knew he looked sketchy. The moment he came in here, I said to myself, “Melissa, there’s something off about this one. Grown man ordering a milkshake.”’ People are unreliable witnesses. They can talk themselves into anything.

  ‘Hey, I drink milkshakes,’ an old black guy with peppered hair says, indignant. ‘You saying I’m a pervert?’

  ‘I know this guy,’ the other waitress says. ‘I saw him come in here last week. Wasn’t he with a kid? I’m sure he was.’

  ‘A little boy,’ the first corroborates.

  ‘No, no I don’t think so,’ Layla says, pressing a napkin against her bleeding hand. This is getting out of control. The nausea of justice.

  ‘Judge a man by the dairy products he drinks.’

  ‘Did you escape from him, honey? Is that what happened? Like in Ohio?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ a customer half-screams.

  ‘Call the police!’

  ‘Please don’t.’ She is suddenly exhausted. All the adrenaline and righteousness have been sucked right out of her. And where the fuck is Cas? ‘Don’t,’ she says again, with as much authority as she can muster. So far as she can see there’s only one way out. Drop-down menu: maximum bullshit.

  ‘I am the police.’ She tries to summon up the image she had of her mother when she was a little kid and still thought she was a hero. All in blue, with her hair pulled up and the light behind her in the doorway, the Virgin Mary with a gun.

  ‘It’s a sting. Undercover vice. Don’t worry. My partner’s probably got him by now.’

  ‘You look awful young,’ the chef says, suspicious. Galleo, she remembers.

  ‘That’s why it works. I’m twenty-three.’ The lies come easily. All she has to do is open her mouth and they’re already there, fully formed.

  ‘I told you I’ve seen him!’ the waitress says.

  ‘No, it’s his first time here. New location every time, that’s why we had to go through all these hoops to get him. The masks were part of his thing. Sick bastard.’

  She has to get out before they ask to see her badge. She’s stuffing the flyers in her jacket before they can take a look, along with the black leather wallet Phil left behind.

  ‘What was he going to do with you?’ Their faces are hungry with grotesque curiosity, reminding her of Greek tragedy masks, the ones you can turn upside down into a smile.

  ‘I—’ She pulls her phone out of her pocket, acting out the fake incoming call decoy. But there is a message, from Cas, that has come in sometime during the big inquisition.

  >Cas: Sorrysorrysorry

  ‘That’s my partner now. We got him!’

  The diner burst into a smattering of applause, like when they went to visit her grandparents in Miami and everyone clapped after the plane landed.

  ‘I have to go do the paperwork on this.’ She pulls a twenty out of her bag and presses it on the waitress. ‘This is for the broken glass. Thank you all, and I’m sorry again for the inconvenience.’

  ‘Don’t you want our statements?’ The know-it-all chef again. She wishes he’d stayed in the kitchen.

  ‘We’ve got a ton of dirt on this guy already, but maybe you could take down everyone’s details for me, and I’ll send an officer if we need statements.’ The chef fluffs up with importance. And then because she feels she has to say something else: ‘Bye now.’

  The bell on the door clangs cheerily, and she’s never been so happy to be hit in the face by wind chill.

  She walks briskly round the corner and then starts running, not slowing until she’s five blocks away. Panting, she pretends to study the poster of a very brown butt in an electric green thong in the window of the tanning salon as she thumbs over her keypad. She thinks about the unlikelihood of their friendship, why Cas picked her, why she’s so secretive and aggressive.

  >Lay: WTF? Where r u?

  Her phone rings straight away.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Cas’s voice sounds like she’s taken a cheese grater to her throat.

  ‘I don’t know if I should talk to you.’

  ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to leave you like that. I freaked out.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘How did it go? Are you okay?’

  ‘Well, I’m bleeding.’

  ‘Oh my God, Layla. Should I call an ambulance?’

  She relents. ‘It’s a scratch. You didn’t even see it, did you? I can’t believe you didn’t stick around.’

  ‘But are you okay?’

  ‘Stop fucking asking me that. In fact, don’t fucking talk to me.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘I heard you.’

  ‘Are we still friends?’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  There’s silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘I’m hanging up on you now, Cas. Don’t call me, okay?’

  She hits end-call and rams the phone in her pocket. It buzzes almost immediately. Twice. Fuck’s sake.

  >Cas: Im RLLY sorry. Ill explain. Pls 4give me? Love u bitch

  And one to SusieLee’s chat account:

  >VelvetBoy: FjuckcyiuafuckagfyouafuckgtyouaFUck

  She deletes them both.

  Unseasonal Flowerings

  It takes a little while for Betty Spinks to notice the knocking, like a dog pawing to be let in. What bothers her is that it’s not the front door. Which means it’s not one of her employees, nor some persistent and illiterate customer who can’t read the sign that clearly says ‘Closed’. It’s coming from the back door to the courtyard where the student kilns are, yet that outside gate is kept locked at all times.

  She shouldn’t have let Donald go home early. It’s store policy that the security guard has to stick around until they’re all cashed up and the day’s proceeds are locked in the safe. But he had a pressing engagement, literally, because he was planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him over dinner at a fancy steakhouse at the Greektown Casino, and he wanted to go home and freshen up first, so she’d wished him well (she’s not bitter about love or her bastard ex-husband, not at all) and sent him on his way.

  That’s her first thought, naturally. Her ex. She snatches up the aluminum bat she’s kept under her desk ever since the incident at the Tigers game when Peter screamed at her in front of everyone and grabbed her face so hard it left bruises on her cheek and jaw, bad enough that she was able to press charges, because all the times he’d punched her in the stomach had never left a mark. She got a restraining order now, but the bat is handy insurance.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she yells at the door. There’s a long silence.

  ‘It’s Clayton. You called.’

  She huffs in relief and sets the bat down on the shelf. ‘God’s sake, you scared the life outta me!’ She unlocks the door and swings it open in welcome. ‘About time. I’ve been calling you since Halloween to come and collect your stuff. But what the hell are you doing in the yard?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I still have your keys,’ he says, holding up the keyring. ‘You never took them back from when I used to help you out.’

  She smacks herself on the forehead. ‘I wondered where they’d gotten to! Come on in, honey, get yourself inside outta the cold. Might even still be some coffee in the pot.’ r />
  ‘Thank you,’ he says and shuffles in, closing the door carefully behind him.

  ‘Your pieces came out beautifully, even unglazed. Couple of them cracked, but that’s to be expected. I hope you don’t mind, I put one of the girls in the gallery. You’ve already had an enquiry from someone who wants to buy her, if that’s something you want to do.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t want to sell your work?’ She turns, surprised, and sees a funny regret on his face. She recognizes it: It says it hurts me that I have to do this. She steps back. She’s too far from the baseball bat, but there are other things she could use. Throw tiles at his head, keep him busy until she can hit the alarm, get out the door. She is calculating the location of her car keys. ‘Why are you here so late, Clay?’

  ‘I don’t need the bird girls. I’m done with that. I came to see you.’ He is distracted, running his hand over a row of the botanical tiles, fleur-de-lis in iridescent turquoises. ‘I’ve been thinking about you. About all the natural forms.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ she says, trying to keep her voice level. The pattern is moving – it looks like there’s something nudging up under the glaze of the tile, which has to be a trick of the light, the shadow of his hand. But all the tiles on the shelves are reacting the same way, luminous colors swirling, the surfaces bulging.

  A green tip pokes up from a tile, like a shard, or an arrowhead, which makes her think of the indigenous peoples who lived here and made pots of their own. Miskwaabik is the word for copper, her brain supplies, uselessly. But it’s not an arrowhead, she realizes, it’s a tightly folded bud, emerging from the pattern on the tile. It opens as she watches, unfurling into delicate pinks and whites, deep meaty red on the inside, the petals falling open like a secret revealed, the whole shop bursting into flower all around her.

  ‘What is this?’ she murmurs, leaning on the counter. Her legs feel weak.

  ‘A dream,’ he says, stepping up to her, cupping his hand behind the base of her head, under her hair, tilting her chin down, while a tropical jungle springs into bloom around her.

  ‘It’s … a miracle,’ she says. Something hard digs into the back of her skull. A gun, she thinks.

  ‘You will be,’ he says. There is the hard click of a trigger and the whole color spectrum flashes through her head. It’s beautiful, she thinks in that instant before the blackness leaps up.

  Cheese Dreams

  Layla gets home to a dark house. Typical. Her mom is too busy chasing after dead kids to worry about the live one she’s got at home.

  >Mom: Bad day. Late one tonight. Fishfingers in the freezer. Do your homework. Love you.

  >Lay: LuvU2

  >Mom: ! :)

  >Lay: Yeah yeah big revelation. When are u going to b home?

  She hopes that doesn’t sound as needy as she feels.

  >Mom: Very late. I’m sorry. Sleep tight sugarbean.

  Layla tears up at the nickname. It’s the adrenaline crash after the diner scene. It would be swell to be able to talk to someone about it, she thinks, sucking her wounded palm. ‘Why, yes, I am feeling sorry for myself, thank you for asking,’ she says to no-one in particular. She goes to get a Band-Aid from the bathroom, flicking on all the house lights as she goes. Let her mom just dare complain about the utilities bill. She pads back to the kitchen and yanks open the freezer. The box of fishfingers is singular. There’s only one miserable crumbed hake sliver rattling around in there all by itself. Like her in this house.

  Screw this. She phones for pizza. ‘Stuffed crust, triple cheese with extra artery-hardening please.’ The person taking her order doesn’t hear her or get it, or both.

  ‘Extra anchovies coming up.’

  ‘Fine,’ Layla sighs, because not even the pizza guy is listening to her, and reads off her mother’s credit-card number from the pinboard next to the kitchen window.

  ‘Half an hour, okay?’

  ‘Better than emergency services response time.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  She hangs up and taps in the area code for Atlanta and listens to the line ring and ring. She hangs up and tries again. This time someone answers straight away.

  ‘Dad?’

  He sounds harassed. ‘Hi sweetie, this isn’t a good moment. I’ve asked you not to phone at bed time.’

  ‘Sorry, I forgot.’ She pictures him reading to Julie and Wilson, one tucked under each arm. ‘What are you going to read them?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Wilson! Do not put that in your mouth! Sorry, Lay, can I call you back later?’

  ‘You should read them The Shrinking of Treehorn. I always loved that one.’

  ‘I don’t know if we have that.’

  ‘I can bring you my copy. You left it here.’ In a grand gesture of charity, she had packed up all her old toys and books and written a DIY card covered in sparkles and glitter:

  For my new little brother and sister. I loved these things. I hope you will too.

  She found the box still taped up amongst the miscellaneous junk her mother had stacked in the basement when she went looking for the TV remote, just after they moved. The envelope was unopened and grubby.

  ‘Wilson! I said, don’t eat that! Sorry, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you, bye.’ The phone reverts to dial-tone.

  ‘Yeah. Great. What happened to later?’ She chucks the phone on the bed, barely missing the cat, who opens one eye, stretches wide, then curls up like a furry comma, tail dangling off the bed. Layla scratches her head. ‘At least you’re here for me, Nyan. Sorry I called you a dumb name that went out of date in five minutes.’

  Layla messes around online. She finds pictures of cockroaches dressed up in clothes. One of the earliest examples of stop-motion animation by an entomologist with a sense of humor. God, she loves the Internet, even if rainbow toaster cat memes come and go faster than new electronic currencies and ideas auto-cannibalize into remixes of remixes, Disney Princesses as My Little Star Wars Superhero Pony.

  But eventually the bugs start to gross her out. The Black Plague wasn’t spread by rats, it was fleas. Cockroaches are vectors for horrible things, flies vomit onto your food.

  She switches over to Facebook, but Cas is right, it only makes her feel anxious. Photos of her friends from her old school, Emily and Jade, at a Halloween party two weeks ago.

  >Thanks for the invite! she types and then deletes. She tries for something less desperate.

  >You know I’m only five miles away, not like in the next state? ☺

  That won’t work either.

  >Looking hawt, sexy zombies, she types and hits post. Like, hey, remember me.

  God, she cannot wait to get her license, and, somehow, a car. Maybe she can guilt her dad into it, the same way she guilted him into getting her a smartphone against Gabi’s wishes.

  She clicks over to Dorian’s page, to see if he’s posted new skating videos. Not because she’s a stalker. Not to see if he’s still talking to that LA artist girl.

  Which he is. They’re making plans, right in front of her. The hurt is like being punched in the heart. She’s angry with herself for being so pathetic.

  She switches over to Phil’s page. But it looks like he’s wised up and deleted his profile. She checks on her phone and types in VelvetBoy. ‘That username does not exist,’ MChat informs her. Good. Maybe he’s been scared off for life.

  And that gives her something more useful to do than obsess over Dorian. Clean up after herself.

  She deletes all the chats and clears her history of every search related to ‘pedo-baiting’ and ‘how do you know if someone is really a pedophile?’ and ‘how to report a pedophile’. Even if the NSA has already recorded everything and added it to her file, she can do due diligence for her mother’s sake. It’s all about plausible deniability. But she keeps the SusieLee account. Just in case.

  She goes outside and puts the rest of the flyers on the barbecue, drowns them in lighter fluid and tosses a burning mat
ch into the middle. The pages flare into orange flames, before the edges brown and curl up around Phil’s hateful nice face. She watches the soft black ash drift into the night, her injured hand throbbing. The doorbell goes while she’s gathering up the scraps, and she only just catches the pizza guy as he’s climbing back in his car.

  ‘Hey! I paid for that,’ she shouts at him.

  ‘You can’t do that, not answer the door,’ he complains. ‘I thought I was being set up for a robbery. You’re lucky I don’t blacklist your house.’

  She takes the pizza to bed with her, realizing she hasn’t eaten since breakfast. Cheese makes the world a better place, Cas has observed. One of the holy food groups along with bacon, and ice cream, and bacon-flavored ice cream. She doesn’t care about the grease stains on the covers, or that NyanCat pokes her nose into the box to lick at the pepperoni.

  She falls asleep sometime after midnight, her mom still not home, and dreams restlessly about having to do her driver’s test. But the words scramble on the page, and the steering wheel turns to smoke under her hands, and the car goes smashing through the wall and onto the stage in the middle of the performance. Everyone is angry with her and Mrs. Westcott is shouting at her, calling her a little fake. She gets out of the car and realizes she’s naked. She can’t remember her lines and everyone is laughing at her.

  She tries to explain, but when she opens her mouth, little fish come streaming out and flop around on the stage, growing bigger and bigger until they turn into spiky rainbow creatures with mouths that open like tunnels, full of spiny inward-facing teeth, and they gape to swallow her whole.

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14

  People Who Live in Gingerbread Houses

  There is a pair of shoes neatly placed in front of the kiln at Miskwabic Pottery. Ladies’ rubber boots. Red with ladybugs on them. The feet are still in them, little hard nubs of gray, swimming in blood. The ankle bone’s connected to the foot bone. A red smear down the kiln door. Bloody drag marks from the back door. The showroom is full of colorful tiles smashed on the floor like puzzle pieces, along with a florist’s worth of dead flowers.