The Accidental Siren (29 page)

Later that evening, Mom enlisted Livy’s two
closest friends to coax her back to reality.

Kimmy tried first, rattling the door handle
and pounding the wood. “Hey girl! Get your skinny butt outta there!
Didja fall in the pot?”

Haley had a kinder approach. “Livy? Honey? We
miss you. We heard the nasty things that creepo said and we’re so
sorry. Come in your room so we can talk.”

The girls returned to the parlor without
Livy. Kimmy shrugged, then walked to Mara. “Holy smokes. Your eye
is bleeding!”

“It’ll go away soon,” Mara said.

Kimmy hugged her. “I heard about Dorothy...
you’ve been through so much!” She stroked Mara’s hair. “I finally
got my own phone line, so if you ever need to talk...”

Mara nodded, then broke the embrace.
“Thanks.”

We formed a pow-wow on the parlor rug. Mom
offered to nuke some Jiffy Pop, but we declined.

Kimmy nodded to the bathroom. “What’s she
been doing in there?”

“Crying, mostly,” I said. “When she was
little, Dad and I called them ‘Livy Tivys.’”

“Cute.”

“But they’ve never been this bad.”

For a half hour we chatted on the floor,
pausing every few minutes to speculate the bathroom’s thumps and
groans until a loud crash stiffened our spines. We sat in absolute
silence, swapping a daisy-chain of concerned looks, waiting for
another sound to confirm my sister was alive.

“Crap!” she said through the brick wall.

We relaxed.

Haley touched my knee. “I can’t wait to see
your movie on Wednesday. My whole family’s coming to watch.”

“Neat,” I muttered.

“How’s it goin’?”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

Her hand retreated from leg. Before I could
apologize or explain my reaction, the bathroom door creaked and
Livy finally emerged.

She was a train wreck, but not in the way we
expected. Her hair was not just beadless, but straight, uneven, and
white.

We stood... but nobody spoke.

Livy stepped with forced elegance, one foot
in front of the other like a busted drunk driver. As she
approached, she carried with her the stench of singed hair. Her
eyes were encased with liner, thick like melted wax.

She was trying to look older, but the caked
makeup and sickly saunter had the opposite effect, evoking the
blind loftiness of a teenage prostitute.

“Oh, Livy...” we said. “What did you do?”

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” she replied, her
voice hoarse from crying. “I thought I’d try something new!” She
cocked her head and brushed the blonde behind her shoulder.

Mom stirred in the kitchen. “Do I hear that
sweet child of mine?” she asked. “You missed a beautiful summer day
all locked up in–” She emerged from the archway, saw her daughter,
and gasped. Her eyes welled as she crossed the room. She bypassed
Livy, took hold of Mara’s head, and seethed an inch from her face,
“What are you doing to my family?!”

* * *

“You look a little better,” Mom said. “How do
you feel?”

“A little better.”

“You scared me tonight, Liv. I know it’s been
a rough couple of days...”

“Why’d he say it, Mom?”

“Because boys can be cruel.”

“I knew he liked Mara...”

“You did?”

“...but I thought that maybe a part of him
liked me too.”

“Here, sweetie. Wipe your eyes with
this.”

Livy sniffled. “Thanks.”

“You know you’re perfect, right?”

“I know
you
think I’m perfect.”

“Every time you look in the mirror, you need
to tell yourself that.”

“Whatever.”

“Do it.”

“Huh?”

“Right now. Look at yourself.”

“Uhg.”

“You see?”

“I see a monster.”

“Do you see how pretty you are? Do you see
how strong you are?”

“You’re such a liar.”

“You know why you have to be strong?”

“No... but I bet you’re gonna tell me.”

“Because Fantasia is coming home next week.
She’s only an infant, but you’ll still have an effect on her.
Whether you like it or not, you’re a role model to all of our
temporary blessings. And who knows what colors they’re gonna
be!”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“You’re a good mom.”

“Now who’s the liar? Did you hear what I said
to that poor girl?”

“Mara? Yeah, that was pretty harsh.”

“I have no idea what came over me. I need to
apologize.”

“Hold this for me? Thanks.”

“Tell me something, sweet child. How exactly
did your hair turn white?”

“I found bleach in the laundry room. Works
wonders.”

“Olivia Jean Parker.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

* * *

“You told your sister, you pickle-pricked
bastard.”

The phone cord tangled my waist and thigh as
I paced the living room. “How’d you know that?” I asked Whit.

“Mara told me.”

“When did you talk to Mara?”

“I called you earlier and she picked up. Said
you were busy takin’ a dump. How’d Livy react?”

“Like you’d expect.”

“Poor girl.”

“She had a right to know. And at least I
never hafta see Ryan Brosh again.”

“Too bad you’re grounded,” Whit said.
“They’re already settin’ up the Zipper and the Gravitron. The whole
street smells like cinnamon.”

“I don’t have time for rides. If I don’t
spend the next two days editing...”

“How far are we?”

“The opening and the red room scene are both
finalized. The war needs sound. The evil prince and the ending are
still under construction.”

“Damn. How ‘bout the credits?”

“Still gotta write them on poster board, but
my penmanship sucks.”

“Ask the girls.”

“It’s impossible to stay focused in this
house.”

Whit scoffed. “It’s only gonna get worse, my
friend.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

“I’m just sayin’... you can’t contain the
chaos forever.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you read Jurassic Park?”

“I saw the movie. Seven times.”

“You remember Malcolm?”

“The guy with greasy hair.”

“In the novel, Malcolm gets high on morphine
and starts ranting about how it’s impossible to constrain complex
systems. The dinosaurs are an epic force of nature, and nature
can’t be controlled.”

“Um, okay.”

“The scientists do everything they can to
contain the dinosaurs. They build massive electric fences,
implement state-of-the-art security systems, hire hunters and
archeologists and lawyers to test out the park... they even
engineer the dinos so they can’t breed.”

“Right.”

“But what happens? The raptors escape. They
build nests. They reproduce. They conspire. They learn the patterns
of the supply boats and–despite every effort to contain them–they
get off the island.”

“Are you calling Mara a dinosaur?”

“Mara Lynn is a complex system; way more
complex than a dinosaur. She doesn’t belong in our world, much less
your sister’s bedroom. If you think she’s gonna sit, stay, and roll
over because you pet her, you’re gravely mistaken.”

“What ever happened to the nerd who once
traded candy for a picture of a naked girl?”

“It happening, James. It’s right in front of
you and you don’t even see it.”

“What’s in front of me?”

“Expectations of stability. You buy school
supplies. You ask Mara to go out with you and she says yes. You
beat up Ryan as if it matters.”

“It does matter.”

“While you’re busy planning a nice, linear
path for your future with Mara, your dad is outside shooting kids
outta the trees.”

“That was an accident!”

“Your mom sent the twins away.”

“Yeah? So?”

“Your sister went berserk.”

“Get to the point. I’ve got work to do.”

“Ms. Grisham tried to contain her too. Look
what happened.”

“That was different. There were boys spying
on her from the...” I caught my mistake, but it was too late.

“Precisely,” said Whit.

“Sheriff Beeder’s patrolling the woods as we
speak. Those boys are done for. Besides, I’m way smarter than
kookie Ms. Grisham.”

“You said she had three locks on her front
door.”

“Yeah.”

“And barbed wire in the bushes.”

“What about it?”

“She kept Mara on the second floor,
handcuffed her ankle to a pedestal, pulled her out of the fifth
grade, never let her out of the house alone, and slept in bed with
her.”

“What’s your freakin’ point?”

“All those precautions... and you know what
toppled her master plan? An ad for a camera. Grisham spent ten
years perfecting her security system. Then a twelve-year-old boy
responds to a classified ad and two days later, she’s rotting in
prison and Mara’s gone forever. You really think you have a tighter
grip? There’re too many factors; too many variants. Mara Lynn is
the personification of chaos and sooner or later, she’s gonna break
free.”

“But I’m
different
.”

“Why? Because you were the only boy she ever
ate crackers with in a tree?”

“Yes!”

“After months of staring at boys outside her
window, the hottest girl in the world sees pudgy James Parker and
says,
‘I pick that one!’
”

“She didn’t sneak out with other boys! And
even if she did, she chose
me
. And that’s got nothin’ to do
with dinosaurs.”

* * *

T-minus two days until the Fairytale
premiere.

That morning, I glued myself to my chair and
attempted to edit the remainder of our summer project, but my
conversation with Whit had annihilated my ability to concentrate.
What if he was right?

He
wasn’t
right, but I had to prove
him wrong. That afternoon, I crept into Livy’s room to inspect the
corners of Mara’s sheets. They were clean, wrinkle free, and never
used for climbing. I rifled the junk beneath her bed. I scoured the
colorful depths of the shared closet. I looked anywhere a picnic
basket might hide, but came up empty.

Trash bags were taped to the window’s trim as
protection against the tree-top perverts. It was a temporary
solution, but the bags looked like cancerous membranes and gave the
room a dismal, horror-show quality.

Despite a lack of evidence to support Whit’s
musings, his dire premonition lodged itself in the coiled crannies
of my brain, took root in the tissue, and squeezed.

It got worse at night. My mind digressed
every time I pressed “pause,” switched tapes, or spent more than a
second considering a shot. I recalled our first night together;
Mara’s rapid preparation of the crackers and cheese, her intimate
knowledge of the ladder’s rusty nails, her deft footwork and lack
of trepidation when scaling the wall and hurdling the hidden
wire.

I recalled my attraction to her playful
personality. Was this another example of manipulation by the “It”
that created her? Did I view Mara as a free-spirit because that’s
what my personality needed in order to fall head-over-heels? If she
really did visit other boys in the trees, how did she behave for
them? If they were sickos, was she bound to their perversions? How
far would she go to maintain her personalized, universal
appeal?

I re-watched the church scene on the TV. It
felt stilted. Uninspired. And the more I imagined cracker crumbs
and smeared brie between Mara and some other boy, the uglier my
film became.

* * *

Sheriff Beeder had left a lawn chair and an
empty pack of Camels in the woods beneath Livy’s window. I seized
the seat, buried the cigs with my toe, and aimed my flashlight
casually through the midnight trees.

The movie could wait.

* * *

One day until the Fairytale premier.

Ryan’s apology was a formal affair arranged
in the castle driveway and supervised by our mothers.

Livy went first. From my perch on Leo’s stone
pelt, I watched my sister exit the front door with Mom by her side.
They walked hand-in-hand to the hood of Ryan’s own Toyota Tercel; a
rusty gas-guzzler that seemed to be assembled from discarded
toasters. The large hood doubled as a conference table with Ryan on
one side, his victim on the other, and the mothers keeping the
peace at the headlights.

Ryan removed a letter from his back pocket,
opened it, and read it to Livy.

She didn’t speak, nod, or provide any
indication that she cared about Ryan’s apology.

The mothers exchanged a glance, suggesting
they were either capable of telecommunication or–as I always
suspected–part of a singular mind shared by every other mom on the
planet.

Ryan finished the letter. Livy avoided his
eyes, grappled for Mom’s arm, kept herself composed for the length
of the sidewalk, then collapsed on the inside of the door.

My turn was next. I told Mom I could talk to
Ryan alone, but she pinched my neck and ushered me to the presence
of my ex-leading man.

The yellow remains of a bruise poked from
Ryan’s collar. He didn’t have a girlfriend to powder his sores.

Ryan didn’t write me a note. “I’m sorry I
choked you,” he said, less reluctantly than I anticipated. “And I’m
sorry for the name I called your sister.”

“Mara doesn’t like you anymore!” I
blurted.

“James Parker!” Mom said. “What did we talk
about?”

“Anymore?” Ryan asked. “She changed her
mind?”

I gouged my fists into the metal hood. “She’s
mine now and you stay the hell away!”

“James!” Mom said again, then apologized to
Mrs. Brosh.

I groaned. I was happy to parley with my
valiant nemesis, but the presence of the moms emasculated my
victory and turned our month-long war into nothing but a
boys-will-be-boys brawl over a sideways glance. “I’m sorry about
how I handled the situation,” I muttered. “I’m sorry I beat you
up.”