Words of Stone (7 page)

Now, on top of having a headache, Joselle became dizzy. After sitting at the table and counting to one hundred, she thought that food might help. She made a three-minute egg, a piece of toast, and a cup of tea with four spoonfuls of sugar and enough milk to turn the tea pale and lukewarm.

After breakfast, Joselle felt better. Floy was still asleep, so Joselle tried extra hard to be quiet. Joselle wondered if Floy couldn't pull herself out of bed because she regretted spending so much money on Joselle. Joselle pictured her grandmother flat in bed, lethargic as a wet wool blanket, exhausted by the shopping spree and clutching an overdrawn check book. The thought nagged at her, and it just got worse when she retrieved all her purchases from the closet and spread them out on the sofa. There were two pairs of tights, two tank tops, a bikini, earrings, socks, four bottles of nail polish, and, of course, the sweater. Joselle knew that if The Beautiful Vicki hadn't phoned about her prolonged trip the sofa would be empty. Floy would never have permitted Joselle to buy the bikini or the dangly earrings. They would have been completely forbidden if Floy hadn't felt sorry for Joselle. Maybe she thinks she's partially responsible, Joselle said to herself. After all, Vicki's her daughter.

Joselle had a fashion show. She tried on each new item and paraded around in front of Gary. He cocked his head, his ears alert, his tail sweeping the floor. But somehow the effect had worn off for Joselle. Last night, in the dressing rooms at the mall, she had been electric with anticipation. She had sniffed everything she tried on, intoxicated by the scent of newness. And on the ride home, buried beneath the shopping bags, her happiness had been a dazzling white spot. Now, sitting on the floor, picking Gary's wheat-colored hair off her rainbow-print bikini, Joselle was a brightly swirled, empty lump of self-pity. She could have gulped enough air last night to fill a hot-air balloon and it wouldn't have mattered. No magic had been worked. Her life would probably never be perfect.

With only her bikini on, Joselle's ball-point-pen tattoos were visible on her thigh. They had worn off a bit, so she took out her pen and wrote over them again, carefully tracing each letter.
REENA. FIRE! YOU'RE ON FIRE.
And then she added a new one:
ORPHAN.
And she wasn't entirely certain if she was referring to Blaze Werla or to herself.

The distance between Joselle's house and the Pacific Ocean seemed endless. After the fashion show, Joselle discovered a road atlas on Floy's bookshelf, and her finger followed the red and blue lines that indicated highways, weaving across the country until they ended at Route 101 on the coast. The number of miles that separated Wisconsin and the ocean was so staggering, her finger quivered. On the map, the crisscrossed network of roads looked like a maze—much too disorienting for Vicki to negotiate. Joselle hoped that Rick was doing most of the driving.

At least Rick was a good driver. In Joselle's opinion, Rick's only other talent was turning his eyelids inside out. It was one of the most disgusting things Joselle had ever seen, but he was very good at it. Another disgusting thing about Rick was his hair. The hair on the top of his head was okay—short, brown, straight, thick. But the hair on the rest of him wasn't okay. It sprouted from the backs of his hands and from under his shirt collars like twisty forests. The sight of it made Joselle want to throw up. Rick was rangy and languid. He hunched his shoulders frequently, and a perfect pimple flourished on the bridge of his nose. Vicki said that Rick was good at his job; he was an electrician. But Joselle thought that he was too absentminded and too interested in ESP to be working with things as dangerous as power sources and currents. She hoped that he would never rewire their house.

Sadly, Joselle envisioned Rick and Vicki lost and confused in Nebraska or stranded on some dirt road in Wyoming. And yet, ironically, part of her wished that the car
would
overheat, that they
would
run out of gas, and that they
would
get flat tires. A minute later, she wished them a speedy, safe trip, and she longed for Vicki so intensely that her eyes turned misty.

Joselle had never been out of southern Wisconsin, and she realized how small an area this was compared to the rest of the country, not to mention the world. She and Vicki lived in a small brick ranch house in Kenosha. Floy lived in the country outside of Madison. They were only a few hours apart by car, and yet they only saw each other two or three times a year. And it was nearly always Floy who did the visiting. If I ever make it out of the Midwest I'll probably faint, Joselle thought. Her father, who she had only seen once, supposedly lived in Texas. She never heard from him, and Vicki cringed whenever his name was mentioned, so Joselle didn't bother thinking about him very often. And she never asked Vicki to talk about him—that was hitting below the belt and she knew it. She could be awful, but not that awful. Joselle owned one photograph of him that she kept in the bottom of her sock drawer. The photograph was dog-eared and slightly out of focus, but Joselle could make out a man who she thought looked devastatingly handsome or evil as a snake, depending on her mood. His name was Jerry Hefko, and in the photo he was posing on a motorcycle wearing sunglasses and a red bandanna on his head. Dense black curls hung to his shoulders. Although neither Joselle nor Vicki had ever used Hefko as a last name, Joselle had secretly carved
JOSELLE HEFKO
on one leg of the kitchen table with a paring knife when she was seven and furious at her mother for something or other.

“Why do people live in certain places?” she asked Gary, staring at Texas.

Gary tipped his head and knitted his brow.

“I mean, why wasn't I born in New York or Miami? Someplace glamorous?”

“Planning a trip?” Floy asked in a voice thick and raspy with morning, startling Joselle. She shuffled across the floor in her fuzzy slippers.

“Nope,” Joselle said, closing the atlas and replacing it on the shelf. “I was just killing time waiting for you to get up. Sleepyhead.”

Between stretches and yawns, Floy banged around the kitchen making coffee.

“I checked on you five times, you know,” Joselle said. “I wanted to make sure you were breathing.”

Floy flicked her wrist and glanced at her watch. “It's only seven-fifteen. This is when I always get up. How long have you been awake?”

And only then did Joselle realize how early she had gotten up. She figured it had been hours since she awoke. “I don't know,” is all she said.

Floy sipped her coffee, savoring every drop, as though it eased some discomfort. Her cup sounded like a tiny bell when it clinked against the saucer. “I thought I'd cut the grass today. If you're not too busy, I could use some help.”

Joselle's chin crumpled. She hated yard work. “Well, actually,” she said, “considering everything that's been happening to me lately I think I might need time alone today to contemplate my future.”

Floy only nodded and looked away, her deep-set gray eyes focusing on the coffeepot.

“I'm probably helping you by
not
helping you,” Joselle offered, her voice confident and round. “I'm usually much more trouble than I'm worth.”

The lawn mower roared in Joselle's ears, but she walked right past Floy and toward the hill undaunted. Sometimes she hated herself for the way she treated people, for her selfishness. And yet, she seemed to have no control over her behavior. It's not my fault I am the way I am, she thought.

The sky was the blue of a baby's blanket and the clouds looked like massive heads of cauliflower. Joselle slapped her thigh and whispered, “Orphan.” She couldn't decide if she should write the new word with stones as she had done with the other words or try something different. She wondered how Blaze Werla had been reacting to her messages. She hoped he was going crazy with confusion. Maybe this time I should write the word and then hide behind a bush and wait till he appears, she thought. Maybe I could see him cry.

But as it turned out, Joselle's plan was not workable. She skipped to the top of the hill and stopped suddenly, frozen. Blaze Werla was crouching beside the big tree. And before Joselle could move, their eyes met. And locked together.

T
he first time Blaze saw her, the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Although the sun was shining, he swore that she had no shadow, and despite the fact that she stood perfectly still and there was no wind, her dangly rhinestone earrings jiggled, making thin music. Her eyes appeared to be entirely black—like hard, shiny pieces of licorice. They were so hypnotic, Blaze had to work at forcing his eyes to break contact with hers. When she came closer he noticed that she smelled dusty, like a ladybug. And then she smiled. Her smile did anything but put him at ease. Her smile was enormous and glassy and sharp.

“Big teeth,” was all he managed to say, walking backward as if in a trance.

The girl thrust out her hand, her fingers grazing Blaze's chest. “I'm Joselle Stark,” she announced grandly.

Blaze's fingers felt dwarfed and breakable in hers. She had the grip of a man.

“The old lady that lives over there is my grandmother,” Joselle said, pointing toward Floy Stark's neat, square house. “I'm staying with her for a bit while my mother explores the Pacific Ocean. She's kind of a scientist—my mother. My grandmother's just a grandmother.” While she spoke she tossed her head and flared her nostrils. “So,” she said, “who are you?”

Blaze could barely speak. His words cracked and melted. “My name is Blaze,” he finally offered in a scratchy whisper.

“That's an odd name.”

Blaze shrugged and scuffed his shoes.

“You're so
little,
too,” Joselle said in a thrilled voice, rumpling his hair. “And if it wasn't impossible, I'd swear you were shrinking right before my very eyes.”

Looking down, Blaze scanned his entire body, checking to make sure that he wasn't, in fact, becoming smaller. And then, as though he had no control over what he was saying, words spilled out of his mouth like the beads of a breaking necklace: “I'm the smallest in my class. I am every year.”

“No kidding,” Joselle said sarcastically. “It wouldn't take a brain to figure that out. Unless you go to school with midgets.”

Blaze only fidgeted, regretful.

“Well, who cares anyway?” Joselle said, marching in place. Then she strutted around the black locust tree like a queen. “All I can say is—just look at this view! I've never been up here before. It's tremendously fantastic.” She cleared her throat. “I just arrived today, you know,” she said, turning her head toward Blaze, her eyes thin as slits. Because she wasn't looking ahead, Joselle tripped over one of Blaze's stones. Dust rose, veiling her as she stumbled and fell. Her knees and hands were streaked with dirt.

“Are you okay?” Blaze asked shyly, lightly nudging the stone with his shoe.

“I'll live,” Joselle answered, her face bunched. And then suddenly her mood swung and she smiled again. This time gleefully. “Hey, look, I'm injured,” she said merrily, pushing her knee at Blaze. Marking the middle of her knee was a perfect drop of blood. “It's an enchanted liquid ruby,” Joselle whispered. “I'll seize it like this,” she said, wiping her knee with her finger. “I'll share it with you like this,” she continued, smearing blood on Blaze's leg. “And then I'll seal the magic like this,” she told him, licking her finger several times. “Now we're true friends. Forever.”

Blaze pulled the edge of his T-shirt into his mouth and bit down, and because he was breathing so hard, his mouth sounded like the wind. “I'd better go,” he said tentatively, moving away. In his mind, he was already home, lying on his bed with the door closed.

“Come back tomorrow,” Joselle called. “You have to. Same time. Same place.”

Blaze ran all the way down the hill. As he tore through the weeds and grass, his arms making huge loops in the air, he felt as though he were emerging from a terrible and wonderful spell.

Thoughts of the girl stayed with Blaze all afternoon like a film on his skin. She baffled him and intrigued him. His mind strayed to her even as he set the table for dinner. He saw her face in each plate and bowl. Her teeth and her eyes materialized vaguely on the china like the Cheshire cat.

The day had grown hotter and hotter, so they were going to have a big salad and gazpacho. “Too hot to use the oven today,” Nova repeated as she moved around the kitchen. Her skin had taken on a sweaty sheen. When she turned from reaching for the large wooden salad bowl in the cupboard, her forehead glistened and Blaze noticed damp saggy half-moons under her arms on her thin housedress. The heat didn't bother him nearly as much as it did Nova.

Glenn was slicing hard-boiled eggs for the salad. It had been just over a week ago that he had introduced Claire to Blaze and Nova. Since then, he had been spending a considerable amount of time doing domestic
things: helping to make dinner, washing dishes, shopping for groceries. He wasn't painting nearly as intensely as he usually did.

“I'm going to freshen up before Claire arrives,” Nova said. She flapped her dress and sighed. “Too hot,” she murmured on her way upstairs to change clothes.

“You seem quiet,” Glenn said to Blaze.

“Not really.”

“Well, then talk to me,” Glenn said as he arranged the eggs on a ruffly bed of various lettuces from Nova's garden. “How are you?”

“I dunno,” Blaze answered, and it was purely the truth. He didn't know. And if
he
didn't know, how could he give his feelings a name and discuss them? He had too much to think about. Claire. And now Joselle Stark.

“I understand how you might feel about Claire,” Glenn said. “I do . . .” He smiled his assurance and squeezed the back of Blaze's neck.