A Frenzy of Sparks: A Novel Read online

  Gia lingered. Window light turned dust suspended in the air to gold, making Gia almost pretty in the mirror, not movie-star pretty, but more like a mer-creature who’d surfaced to see what land was all about. She hadn’t quite grown into her nose or gotten past her fear of tweezers to fix her eyebrows, but her features were sharp and symmetrical. Hazel eyes and brown hair were a good combination, according to her cousin Lorraine.

  There were footsteps on the stairs, and Lorraine smiled in her honeycomb dress and white headband like a magazine model on the hood of some fancy car, staring at the stars. Any pretty Gia felt evaporated. Plus she smelled like powdered sugar and warm butter from the bakery, a hint of anise from the amaretto cookies, almond paste. At seventeen, Lorraine took nursing classes and knew how to tap bubbles from an IV drip, pushed a cart of snacks and games around in the cardiac wing while the doctors joked about how she’d do the old men in just by smiling. Lorraine was perfect, but instead of being jealous, Gia adored her.

  “Hey, you.” She held up a little bag. “Makeup time.”

  Gia sighed as Lorraine set up shiny tubes on the desk. This was probably Agnes’s idea now that Gia was starting eighth grade, but the extra attention from Lorraine was nice. Gia sat up straight, closed her eyes for the tickle of brushes and powders over thin skin, delicate bones. A girl was a terrible thing to be most days, but Lorraine made it seem easy, even for Gia.

  “Not a lot,” Gia mumbled.

  “It’ll come off when we swim.”

  Gia smiled. After the boat, swimming was Gia’s favorite. “But what about your mom?” Last time, crazy Aunt Diane had left her TV chair to wallop Lorraine because wearing bathing suits in front of boys was trampy. It had been disturbing, Aunt Diane wading into the canal in her housedress, the web of blue veins around her ankles amplified under the water, furious at something ridiculous.

  The brush stiffened ever so slightly before moving again. “I don’t think she knows what’s what today.”

  There were always bottles wedged in Aunt Diane’s armchair while Lorraine heated TV dinners. Sometimes, Aunt Diane talked to Uncle Lou’s folded flag on the mantel. She’d been pretty before Uncle Lou had shipped off to become a pilot, skimming close to the ground to drop ammo before being shot down over Korea. The night he’d died, Aunt Diane had dreamed of his plane falling from the sky to the ocean, the moon on the water, gauges failing as the plane filled with smoke. She’d woken up screaming and scared Lorraine so bad she’d crossed the street in her nightgown for Agnes. But even Agnes couldn’t calm Diane down. Two weeks later when uniforms had rung the bell, everybody had known why. Everyone said the real Diane had died with Lou.

  “Open.” Lorraine snapped a cap into place, held up a mirror. It was Gia, only with lashes and bigger eyes, sharper cheekbones. She wished she could try this on alone for a little while, break in this new Gia until it felt right, but the makeup was back in the zippered bag. It was time to go downstairs.

  “C’mon.” Lorraine held the door. “You look pretty.”

  Gia hid behind Lorraine. In the kitchen, Aunt Ida sprinkled paprika on deviled eggs as her mother cleaned a bucket of clams in the sink, sand dotting the counter. So much for just coffee and cake. From behind, Agnes and Ida were definitely sisters: they had matching heights, the same A-line skirts, hair shades of the same mouse brown. It was hard to match these women and Aunt Diane to their stories about sleeping on the roof under a tent of drying sheets on hot nights, sharing clothes from the same dresser.

  “The color came through fabulously after one . . .” Aunt Ida, who usually looked at Gia like mouse droppings in the dish rack, stopped midsentence, forgetting about her African violets and the lipstick-stained cigarette in the corner of her mouth. “Well, look at you!”

  Gia reddened. With the blush, she must look like Raggedy Ann. Her mother turned from the sink, her face lighting up, genuinely pleased. There was no trace of the usual disappointment. A tiny soap bubble caught in her mother’s short curls, but she didn’t brush it away. She pulled off her rubber gloves and came closer, turning Gia’s face left and right, nodding at Lorraine.

  “You look like a doll,” she said. “A perfect doll. Lorraine, whatever you used, we’ll pick some up next week. Beautiful . . .”

  Gia didn’t have the heart to protest. No one quite knew what to do with the girl who hunted chemicals and preferred boats to boys. Even Aunt Ida looked impressed.

  “Come!” Agnes clapped and handed Gia the tray of deviled eggs to take outside, proving Gia could be ladylike after all.

  Gia prayed Agnes wouldn’t make a fuss in front of the men: her brother; her cousins, Ray and Tommy; her father; and Uncle Frank. It was bad enough with Aunt Ida.

  “The thing about shucking clams,” Ray was saying, “is breaking the muscle. The fresher it is, the more it fights you, so you slit the muscle that’s holding both halves together like this, twist off the top, then shove the knife under the body to loosen it.”

  Clam juice splattered his shirt. Gia stopped cold at the top of the steps. He was ripping a clam from its home. The table was piled with them.

  “Wait,” she said. “They’re still alive?”

  “Of course it’s alive. You can’t eat the dead ones.” Ray pushed hair back from his face and slurped from the shell, wiping his chin, chewing on something that couldn’t scream.

  “Don’t be a sissy, Gia.” Leo fumbled with the shucking knife. Uncle Frank reached for another, drizzled hot sauce and lemon juice, his own shirt dotted with clam juice. Gia’s eyes watered. It would burn that clam like hell. Leo’s knife skipped, and a red line welled up on his hand. He put it to his mouth and held it there.

  “Go on,” Agnes urged, her hand on Gia’s back encouraging her forward. The rabbits squirmed in their cage, shaking straw through the chicken wire, but that pile of shells, knives moving in half circles, shells tearing apart, piling on the table like the sparrows had under the tree. She missed the step, fumbling over her feet. The eggs splattered onto the fresh-cut grass. Her dress caught the drainpipe, leaving a gash where the pocket had been.

  “You’ll have to excuse her,” Agnes explained as the boys hooted and Lorraine rushed forward. “She read some book, and now it’s chemicals, chemicals, chemicals and what they do to animals . . .”

  “What a sin.” Aunt Ida fingered the torn pocket until Gia pulled away. Gia felt like she’d been splashed with lemon juice, her eyes watering as her mother’s disappointment pulsed behind her, and Aunt Ida made eyes at fat Uncle Frank. At least Buster hadn’t been in her pocket. She cut toward the canal, where the water would scrub her clean until she was just Gia again.

  Chapter Two

  The water was cold around her ankles, warming as it remembered her. The houses on the other side of the canal were empty, cutouts in plywood for windows and doors, crabgrass where newspapers would drop on weekday mornings before the sun came up. The new houses towered over the squatty bungalows, taller than the floodwater to protect the nice things inside. On Gia’s side, there were salt-weathered bungalows with missing shingles, plywood was nailed to a window a street ball had gone through weeks ago, and crazy gray-haired Louann sprinkled cat food from her bicycle basket every evening for strays. The old side.

  Gia inched deeper into the water, wondering why she couldn’t be the right version of herself with her family, why everything she felt on the inside didn’t match the things she did on the outside with them. All she’d had to do was put the tray of deviled eggs on the table, and she’d botched it. The torn dress turned a darker shade of seafoam. Getting past her belly was the hardest part, so Gia dunked, washing water over her head, melting away the makeup, hair streaming, dress floating. Under the water, she was nameless. Nothing was afraid of her, nor she of it. If she walked lightly enough, like a daddy longlegs, hermit crabs with fuzzy shells would brush past her ankles, accepting her as she was.

  Gia opened her imaginary gills for air, adjusting her dress as she drifted. Being alone was a relief. She
shouldn’t feel that way about family but couldn’t help it.

  Gravel crunched. Gia pressed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to talk. That pile of clams was too upsetting, especially since she’d swum for sandbars and filled buckets with them, clams spitting from their burrows to keep her away, but they’d been like rocks. Now she knew better. There were a lot of things she was starting to know better about lately, even more than her parents, who’d only done eight years of school.

  “You missed it.” Lorraine’s voice was muffled in Gia’s underwater ears as Gia resurfaced.

  The sun turned Gia’s eyelids orange, then black, like monarch wings. Poor Lorraine, always looking after broken things. The water rippled as Lorraine floated in, drifted past.

  “Leo was showing off his motorcycle, and the brakes stuck. He took down the Salernos’ fence. The whole thing. He flipped over the top, but he’s fine.”

  Her brother was indestructible, so unlike the sensitive thing she’d become.

  “It’s safe to come back. No one’s thinking about you anymore. And your rabbits are probably hungry.”

  Gia’s stomach tightened. She hadn’t thought to feed them. Of course they were hungry.

  “Was the bike OK?” Leo had been gathering parts for weeks, working under a tarp bungeed to two trees in lieu of a garage. He’d promised her a ride when it was done, all the way to Rockaway.

  “Eh. He was taking it apart when I left.”

  Gia cringed at all that careful work, the only kind her brother had patience for.

  The sun had reached its highest point hours ago and was arcing back to the water. She didn’t want to go back, not even to see the fence. Right here was perfect. The breeze shifted, setting off a chain of ripples. The air was charged like after a thunderstorm, when the swollen canal was off limits. She suddenly felt exposed belly up, the most vulnerable position for an animal. A car door slammed, and Gia righted herself and balanced on her toes, holding the dress to her sides. Lorraine did the same, lowering to hide the bare skin rising above her bathing suit.

  “Afternoon, ladies.” He was on the new side of the canal, parked on the crabgrass lot that would be a lawn one day, scattered with lumber and pipes. Leaning against a new brown car, so shiny his reflection was hinted at in the door. The engine was running, exhaust disappearing into the air. He was wearing a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, the first two buttons undone. Her father said not to talk to people like him, no matter what, because nothing was free.

  Lorraine gave a small smile. Gia did, too, just to be polite, but not too friendly.

  “Nice day for a swim.” He shook a cigarette loose from the pack. “Sure is hot enough. Might as well enjoy it before it’s filled in.”

  He gestured toward the stretch of the swimming canal that led to the bay. “Too many mosquitoes. Nobody wants a BBQ with suckers floating around, am I right?”

  He lit the cigarette and brought it to his mouth, which was full of yellow teeth, even though he was probably just a little older than Ray. He exhaled another plume of smoke.

  “But bats eat mosquitoes,” Gia said. Everybody knew that. If they filled the canal, it would break the cycle. Lorraine’s hand drifted to Gia’s elbow under the water.

  “Bats eat mosquitoes,” he echoed, picking on something stupid Gia hadn’t said. The shallow water was suddenly more transparent in the sun, revealing too much of her dress above the water. She tugged harder to cover the parts different from his.

  “My cousin likes nature,” Lorraine said. “Don’t mind her.”

  “But where will we swim?” Gia pressed on. How could they take away the pebble beach? Lorraine squeezed harder.

  “In beautiful aboveground pools, my dear, with crystal-clear water just like the Florida Gulf.”

  Maybe on his side.

  “And you”—he fixed on Lorraine—“are invited anytime.”

  Gia bristled. He wasted half a cigarette, grinding it in the dirt under his heel.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  Gia dug her feet into pebbles and broken shells, wishing they could swim away. There was no point in not answering. He could find out easily. Lorraine brushed wet hair from her forehead and stared back at him, holding her ground on the underwater pebbles.

  “Lorraine.”

  “Lovely to meet you, Lorraine. I’ll see you around.”

  He gave one last look at the unfinished house and slid into his car, then glanced back through the side-view mirror before the car disappeared onto the street.

  Lorraine waded toward the shore, where she rubbed a towel furiously over her arms and legs, her mouth set in a thin line. Water ran down Gia’s legs. Pebbles cut into the bottoms of her feet. The dress suctioned to her, and she wished she had a towel to hide in, too, thankful they hadn’t had to get out of the water with him watching.

  “Look at me,” Lorraine said finally, shoes in hand. “Do not ever—ever—talk back to people like him. Do you understand?”

  Gia nodded, eyes stinging, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut, but it was too late now. Everyone knew to stay away from the fancy suits and cars and not to take favors, knew about the businesses that had burned down on Cross Bay and the people who had gone missing. Why had she forgotten when it mattered?

  “Do not talk to them at all if you can help it.”

  But the new houses watched them through empty windows and doors. In a few months, they’d have sliding doors and kids on bikes spilling down driveways into the same streets as Gia’s side. Even the canal would go away, blurring the line between them. The sun burned a little brighter in the sky, warming Gia’s already hot face. He’d never even told them his name.

  The walk home was silent. Water dripped from their bodies to the concrete, leaving a trail that would evaporate before sunset. Lorraine split off at her house, the TV flickering through the window as always. Gia crept through her back door just as the boys were drifting away in their usual huddle to smoke by the dock or waste time in Ray’s basement. Inside, the women washed dishes while the tables and chairs were put away. The Salernos’ chain-link fence was rolled up into a neat bundle and tied with rope, and there was one long tire mark in the soft earth.

  Gia left the dress on her floor in a soggy heap, shakier now that she was home. What had she started? Maybe nothing. Maybe he’d seen her as a little girl and let it go, but the way he’d looked at Lorraine was upsetting, like something mean scraping the bottom of a boat. Her neighborhood was changing. Her body was changing, too, making her less invisible.

  But filling in the canal was unnatural. Her family had been here forever, and mosquitoes hadn’t carried them away. Storms hadn’t washed them out. The water was a part of them.

  She would apologize to Lorraine and promise to keep her mouth shut. She would tell her father about the man. There was nothing her father couldn’t fix with his gun and shield, his star-pointed hat. People respected him.

  Gia changed into the shorts her mother hadn’t approved of and left as quietly as she could, stuffing lettuce leaves between the chicken wire for the rabbits before crossing the street to Aunt Diane’s, where Lorraine sat on the stoop, tapping ashes from a cigarette, brushing them away with her toe. Everything seemed less easy for Lorraine right now than it had before.

  “I was thinking.” Gia sat beside her cousin. “We could tell my dad.”

  “No.” Lorraine lifted the cigarette to her mouth.

  Gia’s father closed the garage door, smothered the barbecue coals. Lorraine didn’t have a dad, so she didn’t know when one could help.

  “Yeah, but,” Gia started, but Lorraine cut her off.

  “Drop it.” She ground out the rest of the cigarette. Gia reddened. “Let’s go to Ray’s. I can’t just sit here.”

  Ray’s house was three doors over with perfect white shingles and blue shutters. Marigolds and petunias lined the walkway in ceramic pots, twelve inches apart from each other. They left their shoes by the front door, tiptoed down the plastic rug p
rotector, past marble heads on pedestals and sickening blue paisley wallpaper, without touching anything. Smudging the fridge had sent Aunt Ida to bed with two aspirin and an ice pack once after a polishing frenzy and a long rant about respecting her home. Gia kept her hands in her pockets now, which was fine because everything stank of bleach and potpourri.

  The basement, though, was full of empty tanks where the turtles, a corn snake, and two baby alligators from Florida had lived until one had snapped at Aunt Ida. The pets had gone away after that, and Aunt Ida had stopped coming down here when the boys had put up pinups. They put out cigarettes in the cast-off furniture Uncle Frank found on his sanitation route and had bought a stereo loud enough to shake the paneling, cutting through the stench of sweat and boredom.

  “Yeah, but we’re losing,” Ray’s voice boomed. “Why else would they send more men?”

  Gia held the banister, creeped out by the see-through steps.

  “No, man, it’s over. They’re throwing more power to finish it,” Leo shouted back, pausing from rolling a joint, the table littered with tiny twigs. “The US doesn’t lose wars, man. It doesn’t happen.”

  “Everyone can lose, man,” Ray shot back. “Everyone.”

  “Shave my head—I’ll go right now.” Leo pointed at the READY FOR ACTION poster over the couch, stolen from the post office bulletin board.

  Gia settled beside Tommy, whose hands were folded neatly in his lap, his hair combed to one side from church. He, like Uncle Frank, would find a way out of being drafted because where Leo and Ray were wiry and almost old enough, Tommy was younger and looked like the Gerber Baby. Aunt Ida still cut his meat and made his bed in the morning; he was too innocent to be anywhere near a gun, let alone fire one.

  “What do you want to run around the jungle for?” It came out snippy, but she was curious. There were interesting things to explore in the jungle.

  “C’mon, Gia.” Leo mimed shooting a machine gun. “Village raids. Bombs. Sweating on a boat. Free cigarettes. Canned meat. Cruising alligator rivers and rice paddies. And . . . you know.” Whatever he meant was lost on Gia, but Ray smirked and Tommy shifted. She should’ve known better than to expect an intelligent answer. He wouldn’t care about anything that lived in rice paddies. At least no one was teasing her about the clams.