Burn Our Bodies Down Read online

  It’s empty in the way Calhoun is, ramshackle and weathered, but there’s a quaintness to it that’s unfamiliar. Buildings border the park, low storefronts and flapping awnings in colors that used to be candy-bright, the sort of thing you’d see in a snow globe or a picture book. Most of the stores seem empty from here. A grocery, the name on the crooked sign different from the name in painted letters on the big front window. A pharmacy—Hellman’s, by the neon flicker over the door—where there at least seem to be some people inside. And behind me the laundromat, its door open, all yellow tile and peeling linoleum. An older woman sits behind the counter, her eyes shut as she listens to a commercial on the radio.

  This is it. Phalene.

  This is it?

  I told myself I wasn’t expecting anything. But of course I was. Something inside me thought I’d set foot on Phalene land and feel it burrowing into me like roots—a belonging. Something inside me thought Gram would be waiting when I pulled into town.

  She’s here somewhere. I’ll find her.

  As I’m watching, a group comes spilling out of Hellman’s, their laughter carrying across the park. They seem about my age, maybe a little older. I shove my hands in my pockets and start to walk slowly around the park toward them. At the very least they can tell me where I can find some breakfast.

  The closer I get, the more I can pick them apart. Three people gathered around a fourth, a girl with a long dark ponytail pulled so tight on her skull that it hurts just to look at her. She’s holding something in her hands, glancing over her shoulder into the pharmacy with a bright laugh.

  “Hey,” a voice says, “I see we’re shoplifting for fun now,” and she twists around.

  “It’s just a pack of gum, Eli,” she says to a guy standing a few steps back. Her voice is low, hoarse, like she’s been yelling all night, or like she was asleep until just a few seconds ago. “Besides, you really think Hellman’s gonna ask the police to arrest his landlord’s daughter?”

  “His name’s not Hellman,” the boy says as she doles out pieces of gum to her friends. “What, you think the workers at Wendy’s are all named Wendy?”

  The girl rolls her eyes. I’m near enough now that I can see how pretty she is, in a strange, almost secret way. Wide-set eyes, brown like her hair, and a pale, thin mouth. She’s wearing a version of what I am, shorts and a loose T-shirt, only hers looks fresh from the store, the rips in her shorts done just so.

  “Calm down,” she says, popping a square of gum into her mouth and chewing with her obscenely white teeth. “It’s a buck fifty, max. I’ll pay him next time.”

  The boy—he feels too old for that word, but not by much—kicks at a crack in the sidewalk and sighs. That kind of resignation you feel when this is just how someone is. I know it from Mom.

  “Hey.”

  I look up. She’s watching me from the hold of her friends, between the swing of their summer-blond hair. They haven’t turned to face me yet, and I don’t think they will. That’s all right. I’m not interesting to them, and vice versa.

  “Hey,” I say back. It doesn’t sound right. I’m good with parents who ask where my father is, with the librarians who ask if I’m sure I don’t want anything from the vending machine, their treat, but girls like me—I don’t know what everything means. Just like with Mom, every word has some different meaning hiding inside, but I always guess the wrong one.

  My heart trips in my chest as the girl slips free of her friends and steps toward me. A minute ago I would’ve said she was perfect, but now I can see the sweat at her hairline, the damp gleam of her throat and the chips in her pale pink nail polish. The color matches the pack of gum she’s holding in the palm of her hand.

  “You want a piece?” she says, holding it out. Head tilted, voice too innocent, too friendly. But there’s a smile on her face like encouragement. And I unravel her in my head, because that’s what you do when you don’t have anybody there to fill the hole of your life, and here is this girl, waiting for somebody to join her, to take up her dares, to be the person on the bike next to her as she whips through midnight on her way out of this town.

  Sure, I think. I could do that with you.

  I don’t get the words out, though, before she’s shrugging and turning back to the others. I watch her knit herself back into her friends, arms around waists and ankles knocking, and they cross the road, onto the grass. Passing laughter between them like a joint, and the boy follows, reluctant, slow. For a moment I let myself imagine me with them. A fourth girl in that line. My hand in someone else’s pocket.

  Doesn’t matter. I shake my head, clear it. A girl with needle-narrow legs and skin she lets the sun touch—that unnerves me more than anything. Terrifies me, that I want to be one. That I want to be with one. That I want to slice one open to see just how it works when you live like that.

  I head for the door of the pharmacy, ignore the drift of voices from the park as I step through. The AC is on full, buffeting down so hard that my hair flickers into my eyes, and for a second I just stand there and let it push the summer out of me.

  At the far end is a long pharmacy counter, a man propped up on his elbow behind it, flipping through a catalog. I duck into one of the aisles. I’m not hiding. I just hate that first moment when an adult sees me, when the good girl inside slips herself over my body like a goddamn couch cover.

  Of course I picked the aisle stacked high with tampons. My face goes hot, blood rushing under my skin, and I hurry past pads and things that shouldn’t embarrass me, that maybe wouldn’t if I had a mother who didn’t make it seem like the very existence of my body was a personal affront.

  “Can I help you?” the man at the counter calls just as I’m about to turn up the next aisle. I freeze, feel the tug of my public smile pulling at my cheeks. It’s already on tight by the time I turn around.

  “Yes,” I say, starting toward him, careful to sound like I know what I’m doing. “I’m looking for Fairhaven. Or Vera Nielsen?”

  I’m expecting a shrug. An idle gesture in one direction or another. Instead the man’s ruddy face goes pale as I get close.

  “Nielsen?” He straightens. “Who’s asking?”

  “Nobody,” I say immediately, my mother’s caution an instinct I can’t shed. But the damage is done. His eyes are wide, his mouth slack.

  “Jesus,” he says, “you look just like them,” and I think of Mom, of the face I share with her. Gram must be the same. Here in Phalene, that doesn’t seem to be a good thing, if the look on the clerk’s face is anything to go by.

  “Never mind,” I say, eager to leave. “I just got turned around.”

  “No, hang on.” And he almost sounds kind, but he’s reaching for the landline next to the register. “I’ll call the station. They can help you if you just wait a minute.”

  I don’t. I give him that same public smile and exit the way I came, through the gust of the AC. And out in the heat, someone is waiting for me.

  SIX

  It’s the girl from before, her phone in her hand, the glow from the screen washed out by the sun. She looks up as I let the glass pharmacy door slam shut behind me.

  “You’re new,” she says. Behind her, at the center of the park, the others are laid out on the grass, one girl pulling off her shirt. She’s got a bathing suit on underneath, and she shrieks as the boy shoves her into the spray of the fountain.

  The girl in front of me clears her throat. I haven’t answered her fast enough.

  “Yeah,” I say. I check over my shoulder. Through the door I can see the clerk on the phone, looking right at me as he speaks. “Margot,” I say, facing her again. “I’m Margot.”

  “Margot what?” She smiles when I don’t answer, smug and amused. If she knows what I am, she doesn’t seem surprised, the way the clerk was. Instead she just tilts her head so her glossy ponytail falls over her shoulder. “I’m Tess.”

  Laughter from the others. I look over at them, but Tess doesn’t move an inch. Watches me, and watches, and p
ops her shoplifted bubble gum.

  “Where are you from?” she says.

  I have to not be standing here anymore, right where that man can see me. I don’t know who he called. The police, maybe, and if I stay here I could be letting them find me. Could be letting them send me back to Mom.

  “Calhoun County,” I say. I step around Tess and into the road. I’ve learned my lesson about being direct. I can still get what I need; I just have to be more careful. “You know a good place to get something to eat? Or you got anything more than gum?”

  “Yeah,” Tess says. “The Omni’s open.” She points across the square, to the grocery store with its mismatched signs.

  “Can you show me?” This is the kind of girl who knows everything about her town, the kind of girl who can put the whole thing into her pocket without missing a beat. Calhoun has one of them, but she’s never gotten within three feet of me. Still, Tess can’t be that hard to work. I’m betting that if I can keep her talking, she’ll tell me where to find Fairhaven.

  Tess raises her eyebrows—the Omni is right there, after all—but gives me an indulgent little smile that makes me feel about five years old. “Sure.”

  I follow her down the middle of the road, checking behind me to make sure nobody’s shown up to answer the clerk’s call. But there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just the hum of crickets and the press of the sun, and Tess and her friends and the pharmacy clerk could be the only people alive, the only hearts beating in the whole town.

  The boy watches as we turn the corner of the park and pass by. He’s too far away for me to be sure, but I think he’s frowning. Tess is supposed to be over there, stretched out, keeping up with her tan. Instead she’s here, with me.

  The Omni looks pretty much exactly like the pharmacy. Same brick face. Same poorly fitted door that squeaks egregiously as we push it open and sidle through. The lighting inside is even the same, fluorescent and yellow and fizzing. The air-conditioning isn’t working, and the cashier is fanning herself with a tabloid magazine.

  “Hey, Leah,” Tess says. The cashier ignores her, but Tess doesn’t seem bothered. She just keeps going, leads me down the first aisle—half of it empty, like the whole place has been raided or, more likely, understocked—toward the back, where a row of clear freezers covers the far wall.

  She props herself against them, the chill raising goose bumps on her crossed arms. I look away, busy myself reading the prices on a rack of bruised produce.

  “Margot,” she says, like she’s trying it on. “So, what are you in for?”

  “That’s what they ask in prison, right?” I say, frowning.

  Tess only laughs. “Where do you think you are?”

  Something curdles deep in my stomach. I don’t know this girl, don’t know a thing about her, really, but I know what money looks like, and I know how it sounds when a person doesn’t understand what they have.

  Fuck you, I think. I’d give a lot to be in your kind of cell.

  “What’s so bad about it?” I ask, turning a particularly damaged banana over in my hands. It’s too soft, like just the slightest pressure would split the peel. Quickly, I put it back.

  “Oh, you know.” Tess straightens up, strands from her ponytail sticking to the door of the freezer. She smiles when she notices me watching. “Middle of nowhere. Boring. But I guess it’s not boring if you’re here for Fairhaven.”

  I go still. “For what?”

  “Oh, come on,” she says. “Really?”

  Is it that obvious who I belong to? If not for our ages, Mom and I could be sisters, could be twins, and maybe it’s the same with Gram, but I didn’t expect anyone to recognize me.

  I could tell her. I was ready to when I got here, with no reason to hide. But the panic that wrapped around me as the pharmacy clerk reached for the phone—I can still feel it. Not safe, not safe, over and over in my head.

  “Have it your way,” Tess says, when it’s clear I won’t respond, and I can see the interest leak out of her, see her summer smile sliding back on.

  So she doesn’t care. If I’m not going to entertain her, I’m worth less of her time. But I still need to find Gram. And I know Tess can tell me how, if I can only find a way to ask that doesn’t mean giving her something in exchange.

  I should talk about her. She’ll open up that way.

  “Your family own this place too?” I say, grabbing a bag of chips from the rack. She frowns, and I wave it off. “I heard you before. Landlord’s daughter.”

  “That’s me,” she says, giving a wide, sparkling smile for a moment before it drops and she’s rolling her eyes. “Yeah, they bought up half the town.”

  The storefronts, maybe. Or the land I passed on the way in, flat and dry, furrowed from long-ago planting. “Are the fields yours too? They looked pretty wrecked.”

  Tess takes the chips from me and opens the bag, fishes for a handful. “Out east? If it’s wrecked it’s not ours. Everything else is, though. It’s all a mess. Phalene used to be a big farming town when the Nielsens owned it, but after the drought, the land went bad and nobody could afford to grow anything.”

  I swallow my questions. Not yet. Not yet.

  Tess bites a chip, bits of it falling to the floor. “Didn’t you see? On the way in?”

  I nod. That could ruin a town. Acres and acres, wasted and barren all at once. Too many people. Not enough work. I wonder if that happened to Gram.

  “I mean, we still plant,” Tess continues, “and I guess so does Vera, if you can really call it that. Her whole farm seems like an exercise in futility, but tell that to her.” She shakes her head. “God, why anyone stays in this town is truly beyond me.”

  “So leave,” I say. Mom left Phalene. And I left Mom. You can always make it out of somewhere, if you want it badly enough.

  “Yeah,” Tess says, a moment too late. Something’s there, moving under the tight mask of her smile, but she’s not about to let a stranger see it. “Anyway.”

  She heads for the register, waving to the cashier as she fishes out another handful of chips. I hurry after her.

  “One fifty,” the girl says, not looking up from the tabloid, which she now has open on the conveyor belt.

  “Thanks, Leah,” Tess says, and then she’s outside, the chips still with her. I sigh, hand Leah my money and wait for change before following.

  “Can I have some?” I ask, not waiting for an answer before I take the bag from her. “Listen, about Vera—”

  “Tess!”

  We both startle, and I follow Tess’s gaze to the park, where her friends were a few minutes ago. Now it’s just the boy, standing by the bike rack with one hand raised to keep the sun out of his eyes.

  “Hang on,” she calls back. When she turns to me, she’s got almost an apology on her face. “That’s Eli,” she says.

  I don’t bother looking at him again. I’ve seen enough boys to know he has the sort of face I think I’m supposed to like, but how can any of that matter when there are girls like Tess in the world? I clear my throat. “Are you guys . . .”

  She laughs, shrugs one shoulder. “Depends who you ask.”

  I’m asking you, I want to say. She’s gone before I can, crossing the road and stepping onto the grass, beckoning for me to follow.

  Eli nods in my direction as we approach—that, apparently, is how boys say hello in Phalene—and then wordlessly holds his phone out to Tess. She takes it, biting her lip as she scans the screen, and then lets out a laugh.

  “Holy shit,” she says. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Will says he passed it on his way to work.”

  I feel ridiculous standing here, watching them have their own conversation, so I reach into the bag of chips and come up with a handful. It crinkles so loudly that Eli looks my way just as I’m in the middle of shoving it into my mouth. So what. I’m hungry.

  “We should go see,” Tess says. She’s practically bouncing, her smile real and shining. “If it’s happening again.”

  If what’s
happening again?

  Eli takes his phone back, shoves it in his pocket and moves toward one of the two bikes propped up in the rack. “You know I hate when you get started with that.” I want to ask what he means, but he’s already waving Tess away. “Come on. Let’s do something else.”

  “What’s going on?” I say.

  “Oh, you’ll want to see this,” Tess says even as Eli makes a noise of protest. “Somebody lit the Nielsen farm on fire again.”

  It sweeps over me, a panic so wild and sudden I don’t understand it. Gram. That’s Gram’s land, and it’s burning. “On fire?” And then, as the rest of Tess’s words sneak inside: “Again?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Just like before. A new fire for a new Nielsen.”

  She says it like it’s a story she’s telling, excited and eager. But this is real, and it matters. It matters that she knows my name. It matters that somewhere out there, my grandmother’s fields are on fire. What if Fairhaven is burning? What if Gram’s injured?

  “Is everyone okay?” I manage to ask.

  She shrugs. “Will didn’t say.”

  I’m too close for it to all disappear. I won’t let it.

  “We should go,” I say. “Now. We should go now.”

  SEVEN

  The sun is high as we follow the main road out of town, Tess riding in front, standing up on her pedals. Eli stays steady; I’m perched on his handlebars, his arms bracketing me. It’s uncomfortable, and I can tell he’d rather I weren’t here, but after the first block I stop holding my body so stiff, stop focusing so hard on keeping my skin away from his, and manage a look around.

  Outside the town center it’s more of those houses I passed on the way in, identical and rotting. Paint flaking like shedding skin, beams at an angle, the whole place swooning in the summer heat. Some houses are shut up and dark, mail piled on the porch. Others I can see into the kitchen, can watch a woman pick at crusted food on her apron as her microwave runs, can watch a toddler scream and scream from their high chair, red-faced and alone.

  Mom was here. I can picture it, can put her on any one of these porches, in any one of these houses. I wonder if she was born wanting to be anywhere else, or if this place put it into her. If there were already stories about her last name or if the stories are about her.