*
Something in the Pignataros’ driveway caught Mira’s eye: a flicker of reflected glass on top of the Winnebago. She squinted out the window, the candle in her hand poised above the sill. Beyond the Pignataros’ house was a white fluorescent mess of strip malls and skeletal light poles illuminating empty parking lots. Farther to the west lay the vast black swath that was the quarry. If Piggy Pignataro was peeping into her bedroom from the roof of his RV, she wouldn’t be surprised. Tonight’s madness was right up his alley, with his special interest in succubi and sexy blue girl aliens, and any sort of fantastical intrigue involving half-dressed girls.
Behind Mira, in the darkened bedroom, a rustle. The sharp drag of sheets across a mattress.
Mira shivered in her thin nightgown and placed the candle on the sill. She should be attending to Francesca, but she stared out the window a moment more. The thought of a boy out there, even a boy who disgusted her, was a minor comfort. She felt so alone. Before her sister had slipped into her current state—what Francesca called ecstasy but what Mira thought might be a seizure—Francesca had forbidden her to call Connie, whom Mira needed most. Instead, Mira had betrayed her sister in the worst way possible: by telling their father. And at any moment, things were going to get embarrassing.
Francesca moaned.
Mira turned and rushed back to Francesca in her drenched nightgown, twisting atop her bed, feet caught to the ankles in a miasmic tangle of bed linens. Mira had placed votives in a line on the floor, and the flames cast shadows as Francesca arched and writhed, possessed by what infected her. Her eyes were closed and her mouth parted slightly. Not infected: that wasn’t the right word. Francesca’s trance, or whatever she had slipped into, didn’t seem unpleasant. Parts of Mira felt hot, stirred to feel what Francesca was feeling. She couldn’t watch, nor could she stop watching.
If Mira closed her eyes, she could put herself on the bed in Francesca’s place. She envisioned Ben over her, waves of desire inside her building. Her nightgown against her body teased her skin. He was a beautiful boy, broken, angular, and sharp as a blade, with long muscles in the bones of his hands, curving around his scapula, cording his neck. When he gazed at her, his eyes welled with hunger and fear. Mira loved him more for the damage inflicted on him, the kind of damage that her touch might heal. Mira imagined that the bad coach had hollowed out parts of Ben for Mira to fill. A co-mingling that might suffocate Mira’s own wrong urges.
Francesca’s head whipped from side to side in an unnatural, fast rhythm, her cheek thumping the pillow.
Selfish thoughts. Francesca needed her. Before she had become insensible, Francesca had told her to pray. So Mira dropped to her knees, her forehead touching folded hands.
The crunch of crushed stone under tires.
“Thank you, God,” Mira whispered into her fingers.
It was the sound of the red Miata pulling deep into the Cillos’ driveway. Mira imagined the driver running to the front door, compact under winter cashmere, propelled by purpose and heroic delusion. At her father’s voice, Mira’s face tipped upward and caught the moonlight. He barked flat commands before pulling the visitor inside.
Mira stood, wobbly. Soon Mr. Falso would run up the stairs and take control. He would see what Francesca was. Perhaps not the way she wanted, but she could convince her sister that it was to her advantage. She was practiced at this.
Back at the window, Mira plucked at her gown, letting the winter air off glass cool her. The distant rumblings within her own body were unmistakable. Something was growing inside her, a volcano that would run and run and take everything with it.
She ripped the drape shut.
PART 4
Cheek
OCTOBER 2016
Ben’s knowledge of what had gone down between Mr. Falso and Francesca was becoming a presence, detectable to Ben, something smutty sharing the space between them in the cramped front seat of the red Miata. He couldn’t stop animating Mira’s notes in his head, starring an actressy Francesca refusing to eat for heartache, and Mr. Falso, saying he couldn’t help himself (from what? Kissing her? Making love to her?), bemoaning their forbidden love. Even secondhand, and removed by time, it was too much.
He hated knowing these things about Mr. Falso. And now he had another note in his pocket—
Despite all he’s done, Francesca says she’ll forgive
him and turn the other cheek.
—one that implicated Mr. Falso in real wrongdoing, at least in the girls’ eyes. The note, which he only peeked at after finding it in Mr. Falso’s bedroom, was vague yet pointed: despite all he’s done. Ben stared at the extra folds of skin in front of Mr. Falso’s ear.
What did he do?
Now everything Mr. Falso did seemed suspect to Ben. Parking his car illegally behind Johnny’s Foodmaster to hike up the quarry. The whole idea of rock climbing, something Ben tried to quash but Mr. Falso had insisted on, wouldn’t have been a bad way of knocking Ben off, so his secret affair with Francesca would never be discovered. Ben suddenly wished he’d told Kyle where he was going, in case he never came out.
“You’re awfully quiet. Aw, you still tired, Benny?” Mr. Falso said.
“No sir.”
“Because you know real men sleep when they’re dead.”