Chapter XIII. 2007 #3
She placed her hand on Grant’s shoulder and leaned forward, “Grant, I meant to ask, when do you plan to take the bar exam?”
“In September. If I don’t die of sleep deprivation before then.”
Brian Stillman still hovered over Grant’s shoulder, so she barreled on. “You’ll be here for the Purity Ball then?”
“I will. A little birdie told me you’re participating this year? I’d have thought you already went through it. Being the preacher’s daughter and all.”
Her scalp itched. She folded her hands in her lap so she would not scratch at it. No matter how the sensation of a scab tearing away, blood under her fingernails, would alleviate her embarrassment. “Better late than never.”
He considered her. “Hmm. That’s exactly how I felt about law school.”
Her nerves were still fragile, capable of reducing her to the na?ve, fifteen-year-old she’d once been, but she pushed her shoulders back and lifted her glass toward him. This, too, was an act of a different sort than the good girl. A variation born from her foundation. “To new friends,” she said.
“And purity,” he said, and winked before downing his glass and motioning for another.
For the rest of the night, Grant stayed beside her, and she forgot her worry. Her fear. Her mother upstairs and the Dark Sisters and the illness that connected them all like some insidious string of pearls.
In those moments with Grant, all she knew, all she could feel, was her own longing. Her desire to rake her teeth along Grant’s throat and feel the give of flesh as she bit down. She imagined he would taste of ocean salt.
Once, she would have felt shame over such thoughts.
She was a student of purity and modesty, and even entertaining such things was an immorality worthy of judgment.
Of punishment. But she had seen how their punishment wasn’t meant for the sinner at all.
There was no real path back to holiness in it.
It was a tool for their own use. So her father could throw his little parties or stand in the pulpit and remind everyone it was his divine connection to God that kept them from Satan’s clutches, and wasn’t it worth a bit more in the collection plate each Sunday?
So she drank too much wine and let herself think about moving her body over Grant’s and the press of his fingers on her hips, and when he smiled at her, she smiled back.
She didn’t notice when the party began to die down or when her father began the slow process of seeing their final guests out. And then Grant was standing beside her father, his hand clasped over Grant’s as Grant thanked him for the dinner.
“Hope to see more of you,” her father said. “Much more.”
Beside him, Camilla could do little more than focus on not tipping over in her heels, but she smiled, hoping she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth or smeared mascara beside her eyes.
And then she was somehow upstairs, her dress on the floor as she stumbled toward her bed, the room floating under her feet because she’d drunk too much wine and had too little to eat.
She sank onto the mattress, closed her eyes, and then immediately opened them.
The room was too slippery, everything shifting around her as she took deep breaths through her nose and out through her mouth.
She gazed about the room, trying to orient herself in space, to settle on something that would keep the room from spinning as violently as it was, but the edges of this room, of her things, blurred, and she could not hold on to any singular item for long enough.
She shifted uncomfortably. Maybe it would be better to stand and move instead of trying to fight against it. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the nightstand so she could push herself to standing and jumped at the sound of glass and porcelain rattling.
On her nightstand was a glass of water, a plate with a slice of buttered toast, two Advil, and a single, impossibly beautiful rose. A note lay beside the plate, and she picked it up, not daring to hope.
Grant’s handwriting was a tight collision of letters, and she had to squint through her wine haze to make out the words.
Thought you might need this and asked someone to bring it up for you. And the rose … well, that’s from me. Here’s to avoiding temptation and to purity!
Below, he’d drawn a cartoonish figure buried behind a book and then his name in looping cursive.
She giggled, gobbled the toast, drank the water, and took her pills like a good girl and then crawled under her duvet.
That night she dreamed of goblets filled not with wine but with blood. And of Grant, his crimson-stained mouth on hers and filling her with the sharp edge of his teeth. When he bit down, when she bled, they drank of her together, and it was the only Communion she would ever need again.
When she woke the next morning, there was the lingering sense of something lost and a faint nausea she knew would have been worse had Grant not been so thoughtful.
She curled into herself, the duvet tucked tight, because even as the pleasant memories of the night came back to her, she knew they’d been a temporary distraction.
She still needed to keep up the charade with her father.
She still needed to talk to Vera. To figure out what she knew about the Dark Sisters and how they might be connected to the illnesses.
She showered and wandered downstairs, following the scent of coffee into the kitchen where her father sat with his Bible open before him. She paused in the entrance, but he’d already seen her and flipped his Bible closed.
“There she is. Have a nice time last night?”
“Mmm. Is there coffee?”
“In the pot.” He watched as she pulled down a mug and poured. “Seems like you and Grant hit it off.”
She busied herself with hunting for skim milk. “He’s nice. Funny.”
“He’ll make some lucky girl a good husband one day. How’s your luck feeling these days, darlin’?”
Heat built in her chest, burned its way up her throat, and she knew if she turned around, he would read the secret of how she felt there. And if he could read that secret, how good of an actress could she possibly be?
“I said he was nice, not that I wanted to marry him.”
“Clock’s ticking down there, hon. I married your mom when she was seventeen.
An unattached woman without a husband’s guidance is a danger to her brethren.
To her community.” His voice took on the cadence it did every Sunday.
“You of all people understand the importance of that. Besides, you could do worse. I’m thinking of offering him a leadership position once he finishes law school.
Not to mention the man looks like he was sculpted out of marble.
” He pushed his chair back from the island and gathered his Bible.
“Got to run. Meeting with Brandon Thompson today to go over a few things for the Purity Ball. Oh! Speaking of the Ball…” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and held it toward her.
She blinked down at the phone, her gaze blurring as she tried to make sense of what was on the screen. He laughed as she blinked stupidly.
“I made an appointment. At Dior. 30 Montaigne. In Paris. Told them it was a fashion emergency. You’ll need a dress, and since your mom isn’t feeling well, I figured I could help. We only have a week left. Most girls have had their dresses for months.”
There was an ancient, deadened part of her that fluttered dimly awake.
Once, she would have squealed and thrown herself at him without pretense.
That part of her still existed in some small way, but she knew it would never be the same again.
She’d buried that girl, and there had been no one there to mourn.
She acted it out though. Flung herself into her father’s arms and ignored how it made her skin crawl to know how easily he’d tossed her aside the moment she didn’t fit his expectations.
“Thank you, thank you. You have no idea.”
“That’s my girl.” He pulled himself away and dropped a kiss on her forehead. She kept her gaze lowered, so she wouldn’t be tempted to scrub it off in disgust like a child. “I’ll be back soon, but the nurse is here if your mother needs anything. I expect you’ll be here when I get back?”
He phrased it as a question, but she knew he meant it as a statement. A commandment she wouldn’t dare break.
“Of course. Be careful,” she said.
Back upstairs she went, coffee in hand, where her mother’s door remained closed.
She considered knocking, letting the nurse lie and say her mother was sleeping and couldn’t be disturbed, but she turned and went back to her bedroom.
Hearing the lie yet again would do nothing to change what was happening.
She would put on her makeup and do her hair, so when her father came home, he would see the effort she made and be pleased. Another step toward earning his trust.
She settled at her vanity and unzipped her makeup bag.
Nestled on the top was a scrap of paper, meticulously folded.
She smiled as she unfolded it, wondering how Grant could have possibly managed to sneak a note into her bathroom.
Angela might have agreed to the water and toast and Advil, but this was a line she would not have crossed.
But it wasn’t a note. It was a rushed sketch in the barest lines of pencil. What looked like a sink and a partially finished arrow pointing at its base.
She frowned. Was it supposed to mean something?
Clearly, someone left it in a place they were certain she would find it but had taken care to hide it.
She glanced over at the sink, the marble countertop with its crystal vase of pink roses gleaming, but there was nothing that caught her attention. Nothing out of place.
She glanced again at the drawing, wondering if she’d missed something. The arrow looked as if was a last-second addition, the pointed edge on the left side cut off as if the person drawing it had been interrupted while trying to add an important direction.
It hit her then. The drawing wasn’t about the sink at all. It was what the arrow was pointing to. The cabinet under the sink.
She pushed back from her vanity, feeling more than a little stupid she hadn’t immediately guessed at what the picture meant, knelt in front of the cabinet, and opened it.
This was a singular space meant only for her, untouched by Angela and the other church members who comprised their cleaning staff, and it was filled with a variety of beauty products left there to die.
She sank back on her heels and pulled out hairspray, self-tanner, body lotion that hadn’t gotten rid of her cellulite like it promised, a series of eyeshadow palettes she’d forgotten she owned, three bottles of perfume gifted to her for white elephant parties, and a Lucite container with more bobby pins than should be legal.
She peered into the cabinet, past the bullshit detritus of her girlhood, thrust her hand into the very back, and swept everything out.
Lip gloss, and nail polish, and hair clips, and maxi pads tumbled to the floor, and there, like a tiny, gift-wrapped miracle tucked behind the pipe she could never remember the name of, was a brick-shaped item wrapped in a dark cloth.
She pulled it out, testing the satisfying weight in her hand as she didn’t bother to stifle her laugh. Noah had done it. Somehow, he’d gotten a phone inside her house.
“You absolute angel,” she said as she unwrapped it. It was simple, no bells and whistles, but it would call and text, and that was all she needed.
She opened the home screen, where there was already a single text notification.
It’s me. Let me know when you find this. I paid Joel Franzen to sneak it into your dinner party since I wasn’t invited, but he’s an idiot, so … I preprogrammed the numbers for me and Brianna in case you’re a normal person and don’t have them memorized. And for Vera.
She typed a quick response. Got it. I hope Joel Franzen knows how to keep his mouth shut.
Noah replied almost instantly. He will. I paid him enough.
As she clicked away from the text messages, her hands shook. Her father was gone, and she was inside her locked bedroom. It would have to be now. She needed it to be now.
She pulled up the saved contacts and selected Vera’s name.
Her throat went dry, and she wanted to stand, to run the tap and thrust her face under it and drink until her stomach ached, but she remained on the floor and waited as the phone rang three times. Four times.
“Pick up,” she pleaded.
Five times. Six.
She dropped her head toward the floor, her body wilting. She could call again. Could call over and over, but it was possible Vera wouldn’t pick up. Would assume it was a prank or a spam call and ignore it.
But the next ring didn’t sound. There was only a slight crackling and then silence.
“Hello?” Camilla spoke into the silence, unwilling to let herself hope.
“Who is this?”
She let out a quiet sob.
“Vera, it’s me. It’s Camilla.”