“You’re even!” said Louis.
Ben cupped the back of Piggy’s head as though he might kiss him. The head in Ben’s hand didn’t wear a shaved fade, but was streaked with silver and slick with drugstore hair oil. It was Mr. Cillo he wanted to kill for keeping him and Mira apart. Because Ben could have made things right with her; he was sure he could have.
The old man was to blame for all of it.
Ben head-butted Piggy with his forehead. Piggy’s head snapped back and hit the ground. Ben staggered away, pressing his wrist into his mouth. He dropped to his knees and fell forward to his hands. Vomited.
Kyle dragged the towel from around his neck and handed it to Ben. “Dude, you cracked him with your skull. A freaking Glasgow kiss. Who does that?”
Ben’s ears rang, and the nausea caused by Piggy’s one good hit got worse in waves. The quarry grew dark. Ben blinked, thinking he was losing consciousness, but it was only a cloud passing over the sun. He felt the absence in his waistband, a cold settling at the small of his back. He scanned the ground. The notes had settled, miraculously, ink-side down. They could have been receipts or Kleenex or trash. He fell to his side and lay still.
The rest of the guys kneeled around Piggy, whose eyes were slits.
“Is he alive?” called Kyle.
Louis leaned into his ear. “Can you speak, Piggy?”
Piggy muttered, “Ucker.” His reptilian eyes fluttered and rolled back, white gel flashing.
Kyle rubbed his hands together and bent on one knee to flick up Piggy’s eyelid, listening to him breathe. He looked at Ben. “You gave him a nice concussion, Lattanzi. I never would’ve guessed you had it in you.”
Louis held his head. “He’s gotta weigh 190 pounds! Who’s gonna carry him out of here?”
“We’ll take turns carrying him,” said Kyle. “One at the head, one at the feet.”
“What happens when we get him home?” said Louis. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the one to face Mr. Pignataro.”
“Piggy’s playing you with that mob talk. Besides, the only person who’s ever home at that house is Nana P., and she’ll be cooking in the basement,” said Kyle.
“I got it. We say he got jumped by kids from Germantown,” Louis said. “I got a cousin who has a score to settle. I can get some names.”
Kyle cuffed his shoulder. “Don’t be a moron. We can’t get away with pinning this on someone else. Besides, he’s the one who’ll have to worry when his dad finds out who clocked him.” Kyle smiled over at Ben, who closed his eyes and held his groin.
Louis gave Kyle a cold stare. “Always sticking up for Lattanzi, no matter how much of a nutter he acts like.” Rubbing his shoulder, he scraped up the notes and dumped them at Ben’s nose. “Whatever these are, I hope they’re worth the way you’re gonna feel when you wake up tomorrow.”
“What the hell happened here?” Eddie stood in the clearing, staring at Piggy on the ground.
Kyle sprang up. “Nothing, man. Lattanzi decided to use some of those new big muscles on Piggy ’cause he was getting out of line about his mother. The usual Piggy trash talk. Ben got in a lucky punch and Piggy’s milking it. Right, Piggy?” Kyle kicked Piggy in the side and he groaned.
“Mother-ucker,” Piggy moaned.
Eddie grunted and moved past Piggy like he no longer saw him. From the ground, Ben watched Eddie with his big bandaged hand, eyes clouded, dragging his feet. The idea of stopping by the Villela manse to shoot hoops suddenly seemed whack.
Still, Ben tried. He spit blood and brushed his knuckles across his lips. “Ed. You wanna get out of here and shoot some hoops at your place?”
Eddie looked at Ben like he didn’t recognize him. He dropped his towel and rifled through his gym bag until he found a plastic bag, which he tented over his hand and secured with duct tape. Ben doubted it would keep the bandages dry, but no one else said anything, nor did Kyle offer any professional medical advice. Eddie moved past the boys like they were ghosts, stood at the top of the ledge of the altar rock and raised his hands above his head as if in salute. Then, he was gone.
SEPTEMBER 2015
Francesca let out a pained sigh.
Mira looked toward her sister’s bed. There was no hint of pale, no lighter darkness, nothing that suggested a form. She raised her hand in front of her face, expecting to see a shimmer of movement, but blackness saturated the room, and Mira had lost the most familiar parts of her body to it. She scrambled upright and swatted at the lamp, which fell to the floor with a soft filament pop.
Mira waited for Francesca to startle. Nothing but darkness.
“Francesca?” Mira’s voice was small. “What’s wrong?”
Nothing.
Mira threw off her covers and righted herself. “You’ve been groaning. Are you sick?”
She was used to Francesca’s unresponsiveness. Though eighteen months younger, Mira often felt like the older sister. She slipped off her mattress and felt for the cord, pulling the blinds up in a shriek. It was later than she’d thought: the sky was already the color of a raincloud. A flutter as Francesca’s birds rose and dipped low, landing on the branch outside the window again, one higher than the other. Not just any birds, but the same two that had lived outside their window since Mira was a little girl, that followed Francesca everywhere. They were a complicated mix of green and purple, with white breasts and garlands of deeper purple around their necks, so ubiquitous and with Francesca since such a young age that no one spoke of them anymore. Except for Connie, who still nearly squealed every time she saw them, and probably wished there were three, because then they could say they were their birds, one for each girl, instead of simply “Francesca’s birds” (kinder, to ignore the “two”: Mira’s idea).
One bird shrugged and cocked its head, puffing snowy under-feathers at Mira.
“Shoo!” Mira whispered. The birds stomped their insect legs, uncomfortable.
Mira navigated to Francesca’s bedside, leaning in close. Her sister’s face was slick with tears and waxy, as though her blood had drained away. Mira touched her hair. It was soaked, by sweat or tears. Mira thought she might have a fever. Francesca spiked fevers constantly, ran hotter than her body’s limits. Mira skidded in socked feet to the door, easing it open and listening for her father, considering if she should wake him. Snores crescendoed into a choke.
Francesca moaned again, arching her back, pointing her chest to the ceiling.
Mira returned and stood over her sister. Her thoughts went to their mother, in her bed on a different morning ten years ago, after an après-dinner Ambien/vodka cocktail cured her insomnia forever.
Mira grabbed Francesca’s shoulders and shook them roughly. Francesca’s chest rose and fell. Mira hovered her ear over Francesca’s mouth, and heard her slow, wet breath. Satisfied, she hissed, “Francesca, stop this, now!”
A room away, their father mumbled in his sleep.
Francesca’s eyes flew open. Her black pupils were vast. Mira jumped.