Blunt Thoughts: THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY (Part II)

I’m working on the next VERA chapter to post on the blog, but now that I finished The Hunger Games series, I wanted to follow up on my last post.

The second half of Catching Fire really picked up when the Quarter Quell began, and once again it became clear to me that Suzanne Collins is at her best when the dramatic tension is high and she is free to be inventive and surprising and relentless, especially when it comes to violence. Her weakness, in my view, is the more intimate, emotional territory—the interior lives of characters—since, as I said before, we are obliged to see this expressed via Katniss’ limited point of view and, to be honest, no single character or social dynamic is going to be as compelling as an Arena where vivid forms of torture try to kill you every hour.

I liked Mockingjay because it showed that Collins isn’t afraid to move the plot forward in new landscapes (District 13) and circumstances (President Snow/Coin/the Revolution/the Mockingjay), and bring in new characters to interact and complicate the dynamics present in the established cast. Also, when it comes to her hero, Katniss is rarely spared injury and loss and hardship, and neither are her companions. In some ways you can tell by how carefully Collins creates a character that she won’t make let them make it out of the final volume alive. I had my theories about how it all would end, and, for the most part I was pretty satisfied with how she wrapped it all up, even if the political angle (Snow’s assassination, etc) was pretty glossed-over, and a complicated character like Haymitch didn’t change that much over the course of the books. (And I really thought Cinna was going to pop up at the end—surprise! Alas.)

My main issue with the books, which I brought up before but feels even clearer now, is not only that Katniss can be an annoying narrator, it’s that there are in fact TWO narrators at work here, one hidden inside the other. The first narrator is Katniss herself—brave and stubborn and hearty, at times infuriatingly dense and endlessly ruminative without consistent or evolving insight (especially with the tedium re: Peeta and Gale). The other narrator is Suzanne Collins, who serves as the authorial omniscient voice and attributes acute observations, speculation, overview, and nuanced cogitations to Katniss’ mind, even though they are far beyond her self-admitted intellectual and tactical deficiencies.

Because of this disparate combo-narration, nested in one character, the voice of the books doesn’t feel stable—at once observant and dim, wise and naïve.  In some ways this could be taken as a further gesture to drive home the Katniss-as-perpetual-puppet theme—just as the “Mockingjay” is controlled by forces larger than herself, Katniss is just a prop, manipulated by Collins to tell more than just her own story.

Whether that’s was intentional or not, I think Collins could have shortened the distance between these two narrative voices by making Katniss smarter and more aware, with more ownership and pride over her intelligence and intuition. She could still have faults and have her bad temper—and still be hopelessly unschooled in matters of the heart—but if she was more consistent with how she thinks, speaks, and acts, given what goes on in her mind, I would have been more convinced of the story, and more tolerant of her as a storyteller.

But, in some ways, a complaint like this didn’t really keep me from finishing the books and enjoying the reading experience. I absorbed The Hunger Games and admired Collins’ imagination and daring the entire time. Would I recommend them? Possibly, but with caveats. Would I re-read them? Not likely. Will I see the movie? Absolutely! I’ve already told Gordon we’re going, and he has plenty of time to at least read the first book, which I guess I will say, was my favorite of the three.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for Chapter 15 of VERA, coming soon…

Blunt Thoughts: THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY (Part I)

For my first installment of Blunt Thoughts, I’d like to talk a bit (out loud, as Gordon refuses to read the series) (!) about The Hunger Games trilogy. I should make it clear that at this point I’ve only read The Hunger Games, and I’m nearly done with Catching Fire. Depending on how this second book ends, though, I’ll have to figure out if I’m going to tackle Mockingjay. 

I have enjoyed the books so far–Suzanne Collins is a smart, vivid, highly organized writer who has committed fully to the world in which her characters fight and mourn, scheme and love. In this way, to me she resembles J.K. Rowling, who’s Harry Potter universe was so carefully and convincingly created that, once under its spell, it was nearly impossible to question both the existence and the complex logic of the magic that underpins the normal world of mankind (muggles). Both authors render their fictional realms–Panem, Collin’s post-apocolyptic take on the USA, and Rowling’s Hogwarts et al– with detail and consistency so as to make their unconventional stories really stick.

The Hunger Games is fast paced and gripping. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Katniss Everdeen, a poor but skilled 16-year-old hunter from “District 12,” is thrust with Peeta Mellark, a local bakery boy, into “The Arena,” where pairs of children, a boy and girl, raging in age from 12-18, have been selected from each of Panem’s twelve districts to compete in “The Hunger Games.” Once inside The Arena, these 24 “tributes” are set to fight to the death for the sole title of “victor,” but it’s mostly for the entertainment of the audience, which is the entire country itself, plus the totalitarian regime called the Capital, as The Games are televised in the style of a highly produced reality TV show.

What makes the book exciting and page-turning is the unflinching agony and bleakness of Katniss’ existence in The Arena, and how Collins plays to a reader’s expectations, satisfies them, and then adds in a few unexpected twists and details, which allows her to put her own stamp on the genre.

I finished the book enthralled and admiring and satisfied–and genuinely curious about what the second book could hold, after all the violence and invention and intrigue of the first.

However, Catching Fire has disappointed me so far, and the issues of the book have raised possible issues about the entire series. Catching Fire deals with the aftermath of The Games, which, as you can probably guess, Katniss survives via true cunning, sacrifice, and intelligence. But, for some reason, perhaps due to the massive amount of pressure and stress that her life as a “victor” entails, all the bravery and resourcefulness Katniss displayed in The Hunger Games has evaporated. In this book she is whiny, self-oriented, stubborn, bratty, and, frankly–and most surprisingly–kind of willfully dim in matters of basic awareness.

It’s frustrating that the hero of the first book becomes so immediately unlikeable in the second. And what exacerbates this, I think, is the fact that the book, like the first, is narrated from Katniss’ point of view. In The Hunger Games the terror and insanity of The Arena made her point of view jarring and disturbing and involving. But in Catching Fire, where she is back at home, contending with her family, her obligations, and her maddeningly obtuse take on her love life, I felt as helplessly trapped in her peevish, thudding mind as she had been in The Arena.

Is it a question of narrative approach?

With Harry Potter, told in third person, Rowling floats at various proximities around scenes and characters and landscapes, going back and forth in time, always illuminating our experience and helping us feel both integrated and removed enough to form our own opinions about what’s taking place. But by Collins choosing to tell her story from only Katniss’s point of view, we have no choice but to rely on her to tell us the story, with all the frustrations that come with her as an occasionally tedious, limited character.

Anyhow, things seem to be picking up in the second part of the book, even if the plot contrivance to extract her from District 12 to go back into The Arena feels a little overly-manufactured. (As if some editor stepped in and put an end to Katniss’ home-turf griping. To which I say: thank you editor!)

That is where I am in the book right now. Like I said, things seem to be gaining speed toward more action, but I’m worried my relationship with Katniss has changed irrevocably. Like when my dog, George, jumped up onto the kitchen counter and ate all the holiday cookies I had made as gifts for my friends last year. I love that dog, and I know he’s a Lab, but ugh….he didn’t even look sorry about it!

I just want Collins to recapture the tension and thrill she mastered in the first book. Tell me, though, for those of you who’ve read all three books…given my reaction so far, would you recommend Mockingjay or should I stop after Fire and just move on to something else? (And, if so, what? I’m tired of re-reading the classics, too. Anything contemporary and that will inspire me in my VERA writing would be much appreciated!)

AB

 

 

Chapter 15 — Strength and Power

Betsy had never seen Brulée run so fast. She watched him scamper from the house, across the backyard, down towards the water, and come to a sudden stop at the top of the embankment that led down to the boathouse and dock.  Only then did he turn around to look for her, his little tongue panting, his bright eyes fixed on her face as she padded through the grass.

She knew how anxious he’d been since arriving in Maine—and now she had her own anxiety, as Pearl’s final insult rang in her head: I can’t help but think that it must keep the boys away…

            She hurried across the lawn towards Brulée, but paused when she heard a noise behind her—a man’s voice, low and gravelly, but with its own kind of musical lilt—coming from the direction of the rustic clay tennis court, at the far edge of the property.

She turned and walked towards the voice, and before long found herself standing to the side of the yard, on top of a small area of flattened grasses.  Looking down at the tamped-down blades of grass, she immediately recognized what it was: a deer bed.

During her sophomore year in college, her roommate, Trisha Bebewit, a stout girl from Illinois with an asymmetrical bowl haircut and a penchant for wearing too-tight white jeans, had done an elaborate photographic essay on the deer beds near her grandparent’s farm.  At the exhibition, Betsy recalled overhearing one of the Art Department professors describe the project as “an inane and absurd endeavor with no meaning or depth,” and she agreed. But, to spare her roommate’s feelings, she’d congratulated Trisha and said that the photos were “nice” and “mellow” and then added, “I like that it’s nature.”

Betsy heard the deep voice speaking again and followed it to a large, overgrown thicket, through which she could see an old woodshed, half-hidden in the trees.  The door was ajar and it was clear someone inside.

Is Paul inside that nasty woodshed? she wondered, squinting at the little window, draped with a dingy oilcloth curtain.

She remembered their arrival, when she encountered Paul for the first time—manly and muscled and musky, with hands like oven mitts, and the voice of an oil truck, idling in low gear.

Conjuring this memory made her Lycra shorts feel even tighter and warmer.

I bet he’s the type of man who’d appreciate a woman with an appetite, she thought.

Suddenly, a dark shadow swept across the ground.  She looked up into the sky and saw Arnaud circling against the clouds.

Ils sont incroyable, ces gens de la cité! the bird sneered, peering down his beak from that great height as Betsy, terrified, sprinted back across the yard toward Brulée, who was crouched on the lawn, staring up in the sky with frozen terror…

“When you were young,” said Grandma Pearl, standing at the living room window with Vera, as they surveyed the scene below. “Did your friend Bertha take the regular-sized bus to school?”

They watched Betsy run across the lawn and scoop Brulée up in her arms. Arnaud tucked his wings at his side and dove down through the air at them, pulling away at the last minute so that the tips of his sharpened talons skimmed the crest of Betsy’s blonde ponytail.

La prochain fois, mes petits lardons!  The bird laughed before disappearing behind the trees.

“BruBru,” said Betsy, as she clutched him to her heaving chest.  “We’ll get through this. It takes a lot more than an old crow and her nasty bird to scare Betsy and Brulée Baxter!”

Slowly, they raised her eyes to the windows of the house. They knew that Pearl was watching them, and they knew the sheer pleasure she felt in seeing their panic. She was right, of course, Pearl gave them a terrible smile and little wave, as Vera stood beside her, biting her lip, helpless.

“She’s faster than she looks,” her grandmother said. “Stronger, too.”

“Grandma,” said Vera. “I told you already—Betsy’s not weak. She’s one of the most—“

Her grandmother turned and grabbed Vera’s wrist and squeezed it.

“But when I speak to you of strength,” she said, severely. “Your strength—your power—it is something no simple, average girl will ever comprehend!”

She looked down at her grandmother’s vise-like grip on her flesh and thought instantly of her mother, back in Central Park, the night she’d murdered Fabrizio, displaying a kind of strength and power she’d never seen before—that savage, animal force, and Fabrizio, crying out, helpless—and that final tiny splash—in the darkness.

She thought of her blood-spattered kitchen back in the city, and the shreds of Siggy’s remains, which she’d had to pick out, piece by piece, from the cracks in the linoleum…

Strength and power…

Down in the yard, Betsy and Bruleé disappeared behind the hollyhocks and Vera felt relieved they had safely escaped…

She looked over at her grandmother’s eyes, which were now staring out over the ocean at the distant islands offshore.

“Soon, my dear,” said her grandmother, wrapping her long, sinewy arm around Vera’s shoulder. “Soon you will understand.”

At the lighthouse, Betsy paused for a moment to catch her breath and take in the view before her.  From the edge of the cliff, with the wind whipping her flaxen hair around her face, she watched the perpetual back and forth motion of the waves, the constant flux of every crest and trough.  She stood still, breathing deeply, searching for a fixed point, a place of calm constancy, just as her yoga teacher back had instructed on the occasions when Betsy hadn’t already fallen asleep on her mat.

But even as she searched for that calming space, the anxiety and anger from the morning kept coming back to her: A young girl like you shouldn’t be carrying so much weight around…

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, staring at the water, the waves.

All her life, she realized, she had been like these waves, pulled this way and that, a tormented, endless pattern: starving or binge eating; obsessively going to the gym or sitting on the couch with her close friend Häagen-Dazs, watching The Princess Bride for the seven hundredth time…but never feeling whole, never finding peace.

She thought of all the kids who’d relentlessly teased her in school, and of all the old ladies like Pearl who insisted no man would ever be interested in a heavy girl, even if she had a pretty face and was relatively in proportion.  She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, as the worst of the nicknames came back to her: Fatsy Baxter, Chunky von Niblet, Snickerdoodle Ass, Betsy Baxter Turkey Baster and, perhaps the worst: Chunkasaurus Bax.

The sun came out from behind a cloud and poured its warm golden light over her. And, suddenly, it was as if the purity of the sunlight’s glow, combined with her sadness, her rage, and her unchecked lust for a certain caretaker in tight overalls, rinsed away all the darkness that was threatening to take her over.

She opened her eyes and thrust her fists into the sky above her head.

“ENOUGH!!!” she screamed.

The wind whipped around her, the waves crashed on the rocks, a blue whale, feeding on algae offshore, considered asking her for her number.

“Can you hear me?!” she screamed to the universe. “ENOOOUUUGH!!!”

Brulée, standing beside her in the grass, propped himself up on his hind legs and rested his paws on her ankle, letting out a bark of solidarity.

“Right here, right now!” she called out, “Betsy Baxter declares an end to feeling bad about herself!”

Brulée barked again, and gave her calf a loving lick with his tiny pink tongue. He had waited years to witness this moment.  

Go, girl, he thought.

“So, I like cookies!” she continued, shouting into the bracing sea air. “And I like gravy! And maybe, after a few beers, I like them both together!  But, that’s NO reason to keep berating myself for who I am!”

Brulée continued to watch the moment of sustained empowerment in wide-eyed amazement.

“Someday, someway!” she said, her arms raised to the sky. “Someone will love me, Betsy Berenice Baxter! Be it Keyshawn, be it Hugh Grant, be it the brunette lifeguard on the fourth season of Bay Watch—maybe it’s someone I don’t even know! But whoever it is, I know that if I love and accept myself, someone will love MEEEEEEEE!”

Brulée had to sit down.  It was all too much for the four-pound Pomeranian.

Betsy charged up to the base of the lighthouse and stood at the very edge of the cliff, imagining a thousand sailors using her as a beacon, a guide, a siren, calling them ashore with her sweet curvaceous song of self-acceptance.

“I refuse to try to be less than who I am!” she shouted. “I am a big, beautiful goddess!”

A flock of seagulls flying by were blown off course by her bold declaration.

“From this moment on!” she went on. “Betsy Baxter’s life is going to change forever! I will never again doubt my own magnificence!”

She looked down at Brulée, gazing up at her.

“NEVER AGAIN!!!” Betsy screamed for a second time, so loud that the cliff began to crumble away and fall into the frothing water below.

Betsy closed her eyes, and, to commemorate the moment, took a deep breath, did three sun salutations, overdoing the nasal yoga exhale and exaggerating every movement, and then turned to her trusted companion on the grass below her.

“Come on, BruBruBrownie Sundae,” she said. “There’s got to be a bakery in town somewhere. We need to celebrate!”

As they descended the hill, they took in the little coastal town—a harbor sat to their right, filled with lobster boats coming in from sea, unloading their catch and spraying down their traps and nets.  Just beyond the harbor was the general store that, according to the hand-painted sign that featured a puffin in a red bikini, had been established in 1936. Beside the store was a crab shack with a little sign out front that said “Claws I Said So!”

Betsy looked over at the docks and was struck by the sturdy backs and arms and thighs of the rustic fishermen, as they hoisted their traps and secured ropes to their boats.

As she watched them, a daydream rose up, unbidden, in her mind….there she was, in the dead of the night, wearing in a skimpy white nightgown, sneaking from Grandma Pearl’s house down the yard to the woodshed where Paul, fully engorged and fully naked except for tattered leather welder’s apron, would be begging her to unleash her Baxstreet Girl on him…

A wave of dizziness and heat struck her as the daydream dissolved slowly from her head. She steadied herself before continuing on down the path toward town, calling Brulée to follow. He continued after her, but only after taking a moment himself to recover from his own daydream–or rather, nightmare–in which that spiraling shadow in the sky came down like a bullet at him once more…

In the musty, rustic general store, Betsy searched for some light reading in the magazine aisle.  It only took her a moment to come across a glossy cover featuring the insolent and unyielding grin of her nemesis, Heidi Klum.  Everything about the woman enraged Betsy: her lithe body that boasted a year-round tan, her dismissive “you’re aut!” from that stupid show that had inexplicably brought her international fame, her marriage to Betsy’s celebrity crush/fantasy boyfriend, Seal, and her ability to lose baby weight in a matter of days, despite four pregnancies.

Heidi, Betsy had decided, was ruining everything for the rest of womenkind!

F-you, Heidi Klum! was all she could think every time she walked by a newsstand.  F-you to hell!

But the new Betsy, the Betsy so recently reborn on the cliff overlooking the sea, was now beyond being antagonized by the likes of Heidi Klum.

That way of thinking was over; it was unnecessary, unhelpful, unhealthy.

Instead of unbridled anger and rage, she approached the magazine rack and calmly covered Ms. Klum’s face with an issue of Field & Stream, and then quietly exited the store.  Brulée, for his part, left his own field and stream of urine behind them, to show his continued support for his owner’s foray into self-advocacy.

It was while Betsy was looking into the window of an art gallery, which sold framed watercolor paintings seemingly done by a blind child with three fingers for upwards of $400 each, that she smelled an irresistible aroma in the air, bearing hints of honey and vanilla.  She followed the scent down a small alley and arrived at a charming bakery, Dawn’s Delights. Through the window, she could see people sitting at tables, nibbling on blueberry scones and sipping freshly brewed coffee drinks in oversized mugs.

“Isn’t this cozy, Bruchetta?” she said, opening the door for him to skitter inside.  “I hope they have organic, gluten-free doggie biscuits for you!”

Brulée emitted a yip, which was all he could muster after the morning’s dramatic and exhausting self-actualizations.

“You new in town, Miss?” asked a woman behind the counter. She smiled at Betsy with the fallen, disappointed face of a divorcee.

“Just visiting!” Betsy said.  “I’m here with my friend; we’re staying with her grandmother.”

“How nice!” said the woman. “Is it by any chance Mona or Mayme or Greta-Anne? As I recall, they’re all expecting family this weekend.”

“No, none of them, actually,” said Betsy.  “We’re staying over on the point, with Pearl, at Belle’s End.”

The woman froze and glanced quickly at her co-worker, a short woman wearing a train conductor’s cap, a pair of fraying board shorts. She had a tattoo of Gertrude Stein’s face on her calf. Two chatty ladies having coffee by the window stopped their gossiping and looked at Betsy, aghast.  An older man immediately stood up, violently clenched his lower body, and rushed into the bathroom.

“What?” said Betsy, looking back at the silent room, the patrons still staring at her. “What did I say?”

The woman behind the counter leaned toward her.

“You strike me as a smart girl,” said the woman. “But do you have any idea about the things that go on at Belle’s End?”

Chapter 14 — Divide and Conquer

Vera woke to the sound of Brulée’s bubblegum-pink-painted toenails clicking on the wooden floor of the bedroom. Betsy was awake, digging through her suitcase, dressed in a sports bra, bright aqua Lycra biking shorts, and a single yellow ankle sock.

“Sorry, V!” she said, attempting to whisper. “We didn’t mean to wake you up. Brubles has to go out and I figured I’d start my new wellness regime right now, when I take him outside. It’s such a beautiful morning!”

Vera looked out the window—the same window that, just hours before, had let in that goading, gruesome moonlight that had draped so seductively over her sleeping friend.

But now there was just sunshine, and the pure blue sky hung with perfect fluffy clouds.

“Go back to sleep,” said Betsy, sitting on the bed to tie her bright white, never-used cross-trainers. “We’ll be gone in a second.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said. “I should get up, too.”

She swung her legs out of bed. No sooner had her bare feet hit the floor than Brulée skittered over and began to lick her toes.

I’ll lick your delicious feet because I’ve been a very naughty boy! were his thoughts.

Downstairs, Vera’s grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee from a hand-painted porcelain teacup. She was dressed in cream-colored linen pants and a sea-foam green cashmere cardigan, her wavy, white hair pulled back with a garnet clasp.

“Good morning, girls,” she said, smiling—the smile fading as she caught sight of Betsy in her workout gear, which brought to mind rising bread dough in a too small tin.

“Bertha?” said Pearl, eyeing Brulée. “Does your dog need to go out?”

Brulée whimpered at Pearl’s appraising gaze, and retreated behind the bulwark of Betsy’s calves.

“It’s Betsy,” said Betsy. “And yes, I’m going to take him now. I was thinking I’d get a bit of breakfast—“

“I’ll ask you to attend to your dog first,” said Pearl, imperiously. “I’d like to avoid an accident in the house. And speaking of accidents, I’ll also warn you to be careful when you’re outside—Arnaud’s looking for a little breakfast for himself.”

“Who’s Arnaud?” said Betsy.

As if on cue, a long, high-pitched cry cut through the air. In the sky above the back yard, the dark silhouette of a great bird reeled in wide circles against the sun.

Betsy bent down and immediately snatched up Brulée.

“Brubies!”

“It’s okay,” said Vera, reassuringly. “Just take him out to the front yard and stay under the trees. He’ll be fine.”

Grandma Pearl stared at the quivering Pomeranian.

“Let the games begin!” she said, delighted.

Betsy turned on her heel and left the kitchen.

Once she was gone, Vera sat down at the table and poured herself some coffee. She could sense her grandmother staring at her with that unsettling smile, like a beautiful doll possessed by the spirit of Aileen Wuornos.

Vera looked out the window over the back yard. Paul was there, wearing only overalls and work boots, going into the woodshed. He unlocked and opened the door and, for a brief moment, Vera thought she saw something inside…

“Vera, darling?”

She slowly turned back to her grandmother.

“That was a bit of a close call last night, wouldn’t you say?” she said. “You must have been extremely hungry if you’re finding that kind of option appetizing.”

Vera said nothing. The night before came back to her in a scattershot of images—standing, ravenous, over Betsy’s sleeping body, the expanse of soft, pale, vulnerable flesh; the blood, laced with sugar from a midnight binge of peanut M&Ms, racing in her veins…

And then the next thing she knew, she was out in the hall and her grandmother was pressing a glass to her lips; the blood slid down her throat, smooth and warm and thick…

“I mean a friend,” said Pearl, taking a sip of coffee. “And, frankly, a friend who looks like that.”

“Grandma,” said Vera. “That’s not fair—Betsy tries hard—“

“Not hard enough!”

“It’s just, genetically—“

“No excuse!”

“But she owns her curves,” said Vera. “She’s proud—“

“Proud of having a shadow the size of a grain silo?”

“She’s learning to accept herself!” said Vera, more forcefully. “I think it’s inspiring—“

Quick as lightning, Pearl reached across the table and grabbed Vera’s wrist.

“Acceptance!” she hissed. “Yes! On that we can agree, my dear, for that is the entire reason you’re here with me right now!”

Just then, Arnaud’s long, piercing cry filled the air once more, followed by the violent clattering of tree branches at the front of the house.

“Oh, no!” said Vera, looking back out the window. “Brulée!”

“Oh, yes!” said Pearl, excitedly. “Perhaps Arnaud got his breakfast morsel after all!”

Vera gave her a disapproving look, and removed her hand from her grandmother’s grip.

“It’s the circle of life, my dear,” said Pearl, easing back in her chair. “Accept it.”

Betsy burst into the kitchen, clutching Brulée to her heaving chest.

“Are you okay?” said Vera. “Is Brulée—?”

Brulée was looking back over Betsy’s shoulder, toward the front door.

That was no ordinary bird, he thought, his pink tongue extended.

“We’re fine,” said Betsy, pointedly, staring at Pearl. “But I think your pet bird needs to learn the difference between a squirrel and a dog.”

“He’s not a bird,” said Pearl. “Arnaud is a peregrine falcon. He works on instinct—he sees what he wants he goes after it. It’s his true nature and it can’t be changed.”

She gave Vera a meaningful look, but Vera turned away.

“V,” said Betsy. “Do you want to go on that walk we talked about?”

“Yes,” said Vera, getting up from the table. “Let’s go right now.”

Pearl put her teacup down with a clank.

“No,” she said.

Vera and Betsy looked at her. It was as if her voice—that single word—had frozen them in place.

“Rather, I was going to suggest,” Pearl continued, “that you go on your walk alone, Bethy, so Vera and I can have a chance to catch up some more.”

Betsy smiled politely at Pearl.

“We’ll only be gone for an hour,” she said. “It’s nine now and we’ll definitely be back by ten, eleven at the latest—“

“I said NO!” said Pearl, crushing the teacup in her hand and sending china shrapnel over the table and floor.

Although Brulée had just been taken out to go to the bathroom, it appeared his bladder was still able to contribute a pale, golden streak down the front of Betsy’s tank top.

“Now, please, Betty,” said Pearl, through clenched teeth. “If you would, humor an old, helpless grandmother on the rare occasion she gets to spend time with her only grandchild.”

“Wait…Grandma?” said Vera. “Only grandchild? What about Seth?”

“Who?”

“Um…my brother?”

Pearl looked at her blankly.

“Now, what do you say, Bitsy?” she said, turning back to Betsy. “You seem like a generous person. You certainly appear to treat yourself generously when it comes to food.”

Unprepared for the insult, Betsy shifted back onto her heels, as if struck by a great foul gust of wind.

Pearl pointed out the window.

“There’s a lovely loop that goes from my yard, out to the lighthouse, and down through town. It’s a good three miles. Do it twice—or, three times. No, four. Could you manage four without a coronary?”

Betsy looked over at Vera.

“You should just go,” said Vera, trying not to sound anxious. “You’re all dressed and everything. I’ll stay here and catch up with my grandma.”

“On your way, then,” said Pearl, brightly. “And be sure to get that heart rate up! It’s not healthy to be carrying around so much extra weight! And I can’t help but think that it must keep the boys away!”

Betsy’s face crumpled.

“Bets…” said Vera, quietly. “Don’t listen, just—“

“It’s okay!” said Betsy, forcing a smile, blinking hard to keep the tears welling in her eyes from falling onto her cheeks. “It’s good inspiration, right? I can’t wait to go on my walk now!”

Vera shook her head at her grandmother.

“What?” said Pearl, with a smirk. “You heard her, darling, I’ve inspired her!”

Betsy fled the kitchen. Brulée looked back over her shoulder as they left.

You’ve inspired me to take a shit in your shoe, he thought.

 

Chapter 13 – Inheritance

After their nap, Betsy and Brulée came downstairs to find Vera sitting alone in the living room, staring out the windows at the sea.

“Where’s your grandma?”

Did she die? thought Brulée. I hope so.

Vera looked up at them.

“Oh, V!” cried Betsy. “You’ve been crying! Your eyes are all red!”

Vera raised her hand to her face.

“No,” she said. “No, I haven’t—it’s just…allergies, just pollen.”

The pollen of the most evil flower in the world, perhaps, Brulée added.

Vera stood up.

“I’m glad you guys got to nap,” said Vera, trying for a lighter tone. “I’ve always slept so well up here…but, anyhow, my grandmother said she has to go out tonight. She didn’t say why or where—only that it was unexpected. So, she won’t be here for dinner, but she’s put something in the oven for us. She’s in the kitchen right now getting it ready. Are you hungry?”

Brulée peered up at his mistress.

Is water wet?

“I could have a bite of something,” said Betsy.

 

They walked into the kitchen to find Grandma Pearl removing a large, bubbling pan of lasagna from the oven. Betsy stood by the door, a safe distance away, clutching Brulée to her chest, as Vera stood at the counter, her lithe body leaning against one of the wooden stools beside the butcher block island.

Positioned where she was on the opposite side of the room, Betsy could take them both in—grandmother and granddaughter—and was suddenly struck by how similar they were. In some ways, she observed, they could be a single person, just at different stages of a life—youth and near-twilight years—as both were true examples of natural beauty, exuding vitality, health, and a subtle, erogenous thrum.

And yet, watching them interact now, she couldn’t help but feel that something was different from when they’d first arrived—Vera paused before she responded to her grandmother’s questions, and her grandmother’s voice seemed to have a more pronounced note of impatience to it; when Vera leaned away from her grandmother, her grandmother, like a hunter, leaned forward. All these subtle, miniature adjustments combined to a form a palpable, unmistakable tension that had clearly formed between them.

Something happened when we were upstairs taking our nap, thought Betsy.

Brulée, watching them fixatedly, agreed with her, and as proof of this, growled low and steady, like the motor of Betsy’s other best friend.

 

Vera and Betsy sat at the kitchen table in the windowed breakfast nook. With Grandma Pearl now gone from the room—and the house—the air felt lighter, cleaner, safer to breathe. Despite this, Vera sat quietly, distractedly, shuffling her food around her plate.

“When your grandmother gets back,” said Betsy, her fork poised in the air. “I have to ask her what she puts in this sauce!”

She stabbed another bite of lasagna, twisted it around her fork, and popped it into her mouth.

“I can taste a definite sweetness,” she said, thoughtfully, “honey…or molasses, but with an even earthier note; there’s salt too, and a little acidity…there’s something specific holding it all together, which is always the key to a robust red sauce!”

A chill ran down Vera’s spine. She peered down at her plate.

            Red sauce.

Had she? Would her grandmother actually use…it as an ingredient?  No. Impossible. She wouldn’t while Betsy was here…

Vera took her fork and turned over portions of the glistening, steaming mass of noodles and tomato and cheese, all bound together by…

“I was noticing earlier,” Betsy said, taking a gulp of red wine, tearing off a piece of baguette. “When you were standing by the island with your grandmother…”

Vera continued to stare, with increasing horror, down at her food, her fork like a scalpel in a corpse…

“V?”

Vera looked up quickly.

“Yes?’ she said. “Sorry. What were you saying? Something about your nap?”

“No,” said Betsy, carefully. “I was just saying that earlier, when we were all the in kitchen…I was noticing how much you look like your grandmother—more so than even your mom.  It’s really crazy. It’s like you could be the same person—“

Vera slammed her fist on the table.

“We’re not the same person!”

Betsy recoiled in her chair, her eyes wide.

Brulée, snoozing in her lap, awoke for a fraction of a second, long enough to yelp ne me quitte pas! before falling back asleep.

Betsy sat across from her, blinking.

“I didn’t mean it literally,” she said, cautiously. “And…even if I did, it’s not exactly an insult. Your grandmother is gorgeous and youthful and totally sexy. I mean, my grandmother looks like she was created from a pile of mashed potatoes! And I know it’s only a matter of time before I head in that direction myself—“

Vera pushed her plate to the side, out of view.

“Don’t say that,” she said, her rage disappearing. “It’s not true. And, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spark at you. I’m just tired…the trip up and everything.”

She sat back in her chair, looking up at the flickering white candles in the center of the table.

“But it’s weird, what you were saying,” she said, watching the wax dripping down the shafts of the candles and freezing into delicate, cascading clots of whiteness. “Inheritance, or whatever…How we’re supposed to turn out. I’m just beginning to realize how little control we have when it comes to what you get from your family. But, it’s like…do you just have to accept things the way they are? Or, the way they will be? Even if they’re…genetic? Are we completely helpless to how we’ll turn out?”

Betsy put down her fork; it clanked against her plate.

“No,” she said, frankly. “Sure, some things are uncontrollable—like, I’m never going to be five foot ten, there’s a good chance this double chin is here to stay, and my legs are always going to have dramatic muscle tone, especially in my calves—but, we’re still we’re individuals! We’re still ourselves! We’re not our mothers or fathers of grandmothers. And we can’t go through life being a slave to whatever destiny other people assign for us!”

She pushed her plate away from her. There was still half of her food left on it—it had been her second helping, but the statement still rang true.

Vera smiled at her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget that—especially these days. But you’re exactly right—we’re still who we are. We’re not powerless.”

She picked up her glass and toasted her friend.

“To who we are.”

Betsy picked up her glass and toasted her back.

“That’s right,” she said. “Cheers to that!”

They clinked their glasses together and drank.

“And you know what?” said Betsy, cradling her wineglass to her chest. “You and your grandmother…you’ve both inspired me!”

Vera, taking another sip of wine, nearly choked.

“What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

From where she sat, she could see through the darkened living room and into the shadowy library where the portrait of her great-grandmother hung in the moonlight.

Betsy stood up from the table, placing Brulée on the pillow of the window seat, before picking up their plates and bringing them to the sink.

“I mean,” she said, “I was looking at you both—all healthy and fit, and I’ve decided I’m going to be totally healthy this weekend! I’m just really focus on me, and listen to my body, and really get in touch with my own destiny!”

She scraped the plates into the garbage with gusto and turned on the water in the sink, spraying white liquid soap all over her hands.

“That’s great, Bets,” said Vera, bringing the rest of the dishes up from the table. She looked at the pan of unfinished lasagna on the countertop—the red sauce glistening and inviting. She covered it completely with tin foil and banished it to the back corner of the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.

“And when I get back to the city,” Betsy continued, “and I see Keyshawn again, I’ll be all toned and healthy and glow-y and he’ll be like, Whoa, giiiiiirl, look at you…back that thing up!”

A chill came over Vera—a new chill, entirely different than before—as Betsy broke into an impromptu booty dance in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Brulée woke up on the window seat and looked across the kitchen at her. He raised his paw in the air and waved it around like he just didn’t care.

Vera looked down at her hands, fully immersed in the soapy water of the kitchen sink. She took hold of her grandmother’s silver flatware, each piece adorned with the noble family crest—a thorny, flowering vine encircling a fountain—and watched the stream of hot water pour down and over them, cleaning them to perfection.

I know I am part of this family, she thought as the wind blew through the trees outside, the foghorn of the lighthouse sounded vaguely in the distance, and Betsy continued to drop it like it’s hot.

But I am still me.

 

The turret room was dark, cut through with bright bands of moonlight, which stretched across the beds and over the antique wallpaper.  It was the room Vera had always slept in as a young girl when she came to visit her grandmother. It had two beds, and back then, the extra bed was always empty, except for when Jellybean Jones needed his space. The room her brother stayed in was down the hall, beside the linen closet where the cleaning supplies where kept. Often, late at night, Vera would hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner mysteriously laboring away. It would be years later that Vera would figure out that on those nights her brother wasn’t cleaning, but rather making sweet love to the household appliance.

On this visit to see her grandmother, however, Betsy occupied the extra bed in the turret room. And now, half-awake, in a strange, semi-conscious daze, Vera found herself standing over her snoring friend, the bed sheet twisted tightly around her body, like a boa constrictor wound round a sheep.

Vera’s eyes traced the expanse of white flesh before her: shoulders and neck and chest, the plump round masses of her generous breasts spilling out of her spaghetti-strap tank top. She felt possessed, famished, like something within her was trying to climb out, ready to feast on this heap of skin and muscle and blood—this offering—goaded on by Betsy’s pungent aroma: the lingering remnants of dinner—the red sauce—the wine, the bread, the excessive use of salt, the twelve Oreos, the section of dark chocolate, the finger-swipe of peanut butter; then, toothpaste, mouthwash, water…perfume?

No, the perfume was Brulée, sleeping soundly between Betsy’s ankles. As part of their evening ablutions, Betsy always sprayed him with Chanel No. 5. It was what he demanded: This is what I want, he had thought the first time she’d gotten out the atomizer, to smell radiant, expensive…classic.

Vera leaned closer to Betsy’s body as her hunger built, her thirst reaching its peak.

Her eyes traced the pillowy folds of flesh which hid Betsy’s veins, those pulsing rivers of hot, sweet blood, waiting to be tapped, like channels of oil, aching to spew against her lips, to pour into her waiting mouth.

Closer she leaned in, closer still—she couldn’t stop herself, as the heat and mounting anticipation grew fierce and stiff within her.

Just a taste—a simple touch—light as a fingertip tracing the circumference of a petal…

Now her face hovered above Betsy’s neck. And now her lips were parted, her pointed, eager tongue millimeters from the shallow, tender divot in Betsy’s throat…

Yes, whispered the voice in her head. Yes…yes!

The cool air from the window touched her bared teeth as she dove, finally, toward her prey—

And then something grabbed her—strong arms around her waist, which, with quick, precise, movements pulled her out of the room and into the hall where she was pushed roughly up against the wall.

She stood there, panting and confused, looking around. The arms that had seized her were holding her fast. In the dim light of the passageway, she saw her grandmother’s bright eyes and smiling face before her.

“Here,” she said to Vera, holding out a crystal wineglass filled with thick, dark liquid. “Drink this, my dear. Drink it now!”

Vera looked at her, shocked, fighting back tears.

“What? Grandma…?”

“It’s all right,” said her grandmother, reassuringly, stroking the side of her face. “I sensed this might happen. I…hoped it would! I knew my cooking would only whet your appetite!”

Vera heard the words, but she could not comprehend them. She was transfixed on her grandmother’s sinister, smiling face before her.

“You really do make me so proud, my dear girl.”

“Proud?” Vera managed to finally spit out. “I just…I almost…My god!…Betsy! She’s my friend!”

Tears fell from her eyes, which her grandmother swiftly wiped away.

“Hush,” she said softly. “Just drink. It will help you sleep. There’s still so much to explain.”

Vera closed her eyes, picturing Betsy’s expansive body, helpless and unaware and vulnerable in the moonlight. She could hear her snoring through the door, and smell the lingering scent of Parmesan…

“That’s it,” said her grandmother, soothingly, as Vera took the glass from her. “Good girl…there you go.”

Vera raised it to her lips.

I’m still me, she thought, closing her eyes.

“Drink now. Drink it all up.”

No matter what…I am still myself.

The thick, warm blood covered her tongue and streamed down her throat.

Chapter 12 – Grandma Pearl

Betsy set Brulée down on the gravel driveway in order to pull her large Vuitton trunk from the back of the car.

“Betsy, it’s okay,” said Vera. “Paul will help us with our things, just wait.”

“Paul?” said Betsy, stopping immediately and turning around. “Who’s Paul?”

“He’s kind of like the caretaker and gardener here, but he runs errands and does odd jobs for my grandmother, too.”

Betsy attempted to arrange her face into an expression of calm and neutrality, but, like a storm gathering strength offshore, Vera could see the excitement building behind her eyes.

She turned and surveyed the yard, which was full of flowers and shrubs and plantings; the grass was beautifully cut in long, even, striated bands.

“From the looks of this place, he looks like he’s very good at what he does…”

“I guess so,” said Vera. “He’s worked for my grandmother for years and—“

Betsy lunged toward her.

“Is he single?!!” she screamed.

“Wha…what?”

“I mean…he must be married, right?” continued Betsy. “Like, he probably lives in town, or wherever, in a cute little house, with his sporty little wife, and their kids. A boy and girl…or maybe two girls? Oh my god! Twins! Twin girls that he’s so gentle and tender with…and they have to have a dog…doesn’t everyone up here have dogs? But not a packet of cuteness like BruBru”—she picked Brulée up off the ground and held him to her chest—“ but like, one of those big hounds that go swimming and catch animals and…wait, you never answered my question. He’s married, right? Totally married?”

Vera looked at her.

“Uh,” she said. “I’m actually not really sure what his deal is beyond working for my grandmother. I think he lives in town, but—“

“’hallo, Miss Vera,” said a deep, flat voice, with a thick Yorkshire accent, from behind them.  “Let me help you lasses with yer things here.”

Vera and Betsy turned around to see a tall, rugged man dressed in weathered, fitted blue jeans, and a paint-flecked denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up that revealed tan, heavily muscled forearms.  He was nearly bald and had his dark hair shaved close to his angular scalp and chiseled, lightly sweating face. Though he looked to be well into his 40’s, he exuded a raw, almost palpable musk of capability and stamina.

“Paul!” said Vera.  “Hello! It’s so nice to see you again.”

“Miss Vera,” he said, bowing his sculpted head, his lips bearing the faintest trace of a smile.  “Welcome back to Belle’s End. We’re glad to have ya back.”

Vera turned to Betsy who was clutching Brulée even more tightly to her chest. The expression on her face was one of complete and utter shock—her blue eyes were wide, her pillowy lips had parted with her tongue slightly extended, as if she’d seen a vision, an angel, a buffet.

“Betsy,” said Vera, putting her hand on her shoulder. “This is Paul. Like I said, he helps my grandmother around her place.”

Paul gave Betsy a slight, noble nod.

“How do you do, Miss Betsy?” he said.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa,” was the nonsensical sound that came out of Betsy’s mouth, as she continued to stare at him.

“Oh,” said Vera. “And this little guy is Brulée.”

Paul stepped forward and leaned over to be eye-level with Brulée.

“’hallo, little ‘un, “ he said, as he gently, but firmly, stroked Brulée’s head. “Long trip in the car for ya?”

It’s all worth it now, purred Brulée, lapping the rough tips of Paul’s fingers with his flickering pink tongue.

Paul drew his hand away from Brulée, and as he did, his thumb brushed up against Betsy’s clavicle. Vera watched as Betsy’s entire body quivered and quaked, as if her skeleton had liquefied; she nearly dropped Brulée on the gravel driveway as she leaned back against the car for support.

“Let’s go up to the house, Bets,” said Vera. “Paul, are you sure you don’t need any help?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, pulling the bags out of the trunk with ease. “None needed.”

Vera led Betsy from the driveway toward the edge of the lawn.

“I bet…” Betsy whispered, “I bet he could lift me…with just one arm…one finger!”

“I reckon I could,” said Paul, under his breath, without looking up.

He slammed the trunk closed and walked up the flagstone path to the house, carrying their luggage, lashed across his body. Betsy stared at his broad, taut back and tight Levi-clad lower half, striding up to the house, with a stallion’s power and grace.

Vera gazed at her askance.

“Are you okay, Bets?”

Betsy looked up at her, her eyes still wide but now glassy with tears.

“I love it here already, V,” said Betsy. “I love Maine.”

 

On the porch, Betsy set Brulée down before the front door, but he would not cross the threshold.

“Come on you, Mister Bru Baxter,” said Betsy.  “Don’t be a scaredy cat.”

No matter what she said, he wouldn’t budge.

“It’s okay, Bru Brunhilde. Momma’s here.”

Betsy bent down, scooped him up, and tucked him, squirming, under her arm.

Heaven, help us! Thought Brulée, beneath the shampooed, conditioned, and styled fur on his small head. Something here is amiss! I can feel it! Rotten and amiss!

“Come on inside,” said Vera. “I know Grandma is around here somewhere.”

They stepped into the cool, shadowy foyer of the house.

All her life Vera had come to this house and had experienced this same impression upon arrival—at once welcomed and secured by the familiar space, while still feeling intimidated by the austere and aristocratic air it possessed—like a museum; a series of perfectly preserved rooms from a past that was unknown to her.

In the main hall they passed by a long, stained, oak credenza set with antique porcelain plates painted with pastoral scenes of harvests and wheat gathering and hunting. A vase of deep red roses—the blooms almost black—stood in a shadowed alcove by a narrow passageway. At the back of the foyer, a pair of heavy brass candelabras flanked a huge, fogged mirror hanging on the crimson velvet wallpapered wall.

Betsy, with Brulée whimpering softly against her bosom, followed Vera further into the house and into the living room, lined with oil paintings, velveteen wingback chairs, and expansive, overlapping Persian rugs on the wooden floor.  In the center of the room was a large faded burgundy Chesterfield couch that faced a wall of windows and overlooked the rolling back lawn and the shimmering Atlantic beyond.

Once again, Vera noticed Betsy’s wide-eyed amazement.

“I know,” she said. “It’s beautiful, right? It’s always been this way. Nothing’s really changed at all. This place has always calmed me—even just thinking about it—”

Brulée let out a short, sharp yip.

Baked goods!

Betsy smiled down at him.

“You’re right, Brubino,” she said. “I smell them too!”

Vera inhaled through her nose and turned toward a door at the far end of the room.

“Just like when I was little,” she said. “Follow me, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter.”

She led them into the large farmhouse kitchen, spaciously arrayed around an island of polished soapstone in the center of the room.  Bright copper pots and pans hung above the countertops, stocked with clusters of hand-jarred condiments, a burgeoning fruit bowl, a large wooden wedge of knives, and service plates in a metal racking system, in graduated sizes.

In the center of the island was a large pile of freshly baked brownies, glistening with melted chocolate chips—lava flows of decadent, lavish sweetness.

All of it! barked Brulée. All of it for me!

“Ah,” said a low, dusky voice out of thin air. “I see you’ve finally arrived…”

“Grandma!” cried Vera.

A tall, elegant woman with glossy silver hair pulled back from her barely-lined face, emerged from the shadows of the back corridor. She was wearing a floral summer dress in muted blues and greens that clung to her nubile body like a second skin. She smiled at them—her high cheekbones, red lips and dark eyes all seemed to glow, as if a candle had been installed inside her skull.

“Come here my sweet Vera,” she said, holding out her arms.  “You look more beautiful than ever.”

“Oh, Grandma!”

Vera ran to her as her grandmother wrapped her in her arms and pulled her pliant body against hers.  She felt the soft cushion of her grandmother’s chest and her strong hands stroking the back of her head; she breathed in her grandmother’s comforting, endlessly familiar aromas: rosewater, Chanel No 5, bran.

“Grandma,” said Vera, pulling away from the embrace. “I’m so glad to be here—I’m so relieved!”

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” said her grandmother. “I’m so glad the time has come for you, as well.”

“And, this is my good friend Betsy,” she said, unsure of what to make of that last comment. “We went to high school and college together—we’ve known each other forever. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her to you over the years.”

“I am so honored to meet you,” said Betsy, with a little curtsey.  “And I must say you have such a beautiful home. And you”—her eyes widened again—“you’re so beautiful, too!”

“Oh, now, Betsy, dear,” said Pearl, with a gracious smile.  “You truly are so sweet.”

The smile faded from her face.

“But I wasn’t expecting my dear Vera to arrive with a guest.”

“Oh!” said Vera. “I’m sorry, it’s just, well, this was last minute, as you know, and Betsy’s my only friend in the city with a car—“

Pearl raised her hand and smiled, nodding.

“I understand,” she said. “It’s fine. I’m just going to have to make a few…adjustments…for the weekend. But that’s what we women do, right?  Make all the necessary changes, redo all our efforts, at a moment’s notice, when we’re not given the least bit of warning? Isn’t that the expectation of our sex?”

Betsy gave Vera a confused, sidelong glance.

“And who,” said Pearl, pointing to Brulée with a dark red polished nail. “Who is this little one?”

“This is Brulée,” said Betsy, proudly. “He came all the way up from New York to meet you!”

“I see,” said Pearl, fixing her dark eyes on him. “We must be sure to watch out for him”—she looked out the window—“my house is full of things that would consider him quite the little morsel!”

“Wait, what?” said Betsy.

This woman! thought Brulée, pointing an accusatory paw at Grandma Pearl. She is not any ordinary woman! Perhaps not a woman at all!

“I think I might need to lie down for a bit, if that’s okay,” said Betsy, taking a step backwards, as Brulée continued to stare at Grandma Pearl. “It was a long trip up from the city.”

“Of course it’s okay,” said Pearl. “I’ve put you in the east room, the turret, which was always Vera’s favorite. Isn’t that right, Vera?”

Vera, registering Betsy’s discomfort and noticing a sopping wet urine stain that Brulée was rendering on her shirt, stepped forward and gestured to the far door.

“It’s just up the main staircase, Bets,” she said, “turn right, go down the hall; it’s the first door on the left. You’ll see it.”

“I asked Paul to bring your things up,” said Grandma Pearl. “They should be there now for you to…freshen up.”

“Paul?” said Betsy, turning back to Grandma Pearl.

“Yes, Paul,” she said. “You met him outside, I assume. He should have brought your luggage—”

“Paul,” said Betsy, with the intonation she usually used when discussing cakes, soufflés, and truffles.

“All right, Betsy!” said Vera, steering her toward the door. “How about you guys take a nap and afterwards we’ll go for a walk. I’ll show you around, okay?”

“Oh!” said Betsy, snapping out of her reverie. “Okay. Great. See you soon!”

Once she was out of the room, Pearl raised her hand up to Vera’s face and gently caressed her cheek.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she said. “My dear, dear girl. I knew I needn’t have lost hope for us…”

Vera felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“Grandma,” she said, softly. “Can you please tell me…what is going on? Mom…Mom! Last night! Last night she…”

“I know,” said Pearl, placing her hands on Vera’s shoulders. “She told me about it. It must have been a real shock for you to see her that way—to see her as she truly is.”

“What?” said Vera. “As she truly is what?”

            Pearl smiled at her.

“I know things are changing for you too—it’s been hard,” she said. “Let’s go into the library. I’d like to show you something.”

They made their way into a long, paneled room with high built-in bookshelves and evergreen painted walls. The windows in the room looked out over the back and side yards, with a clear view of Pearl’s Har-Tru, regulation-sized tennis court, where Paul was watering the honeysuckle that bloomed along the fence.

Her grandmother sat beside her on the couch, the light from the window illuminating her stately, handsome face.

“Now,” she said, taking Vera’s hand in hers. “What you’ve been experiencing, these feelings, these sensations…they are the beginning of something wonderful—“

“No!” said Vera. “They’re not!”—her eyes started to fill with tears again—“what I’ve done, what’s already happened!…there was this dog in my building, this little helpless thing, owned by a completely psychotic pill-popping, anorexic, sociopath, and I—“

A smile of pure relish and excitement flashed over Grandma Pearl’s face then instantly vanished.

“I know the process of acceptance can be very…complex.”

“Process? Acceptance? I—“

Her grandmother raised her two fingers and placed them over Vera’s lips.

“Please, dear, just listen to me.”

She turned and gestured to a large oil painting on the opposite wall above the fireplace. It was a seated portrait of an elegant looking woman with coal-black hair and ivory skin. She wore a deep red dress, a ruby necklace that hung neatly between her full and supple breasts, and an imperious expression on her face.

“Remember how she used to scare you?” said her grandmother. “I even had to cover her up when you were little.  But now, there’s no need, is there? She doesn’t frighten you anymore, does she?”

“Great-grandmother,” said Vera, dreamily, staring at the woman’s face. It was true; she didn’t feel afraid of her anymore; in fact, she felt drawn to her, pulled in by her dark, disdainful, beautiful eyes.

“An amazing woman,” her grandmother said. “A goddess. She taught me everything I needed to know about surviving in this world.  You and she are very much alike.”

“Alike?” said Vera. “How do you mean?”

“The arc of her transformation was similar to yours,” she said.  “A late bloomer who, once she eventually came to realize her potential, possessed a power and a force unlike any other.”

Vera stared at her, unable to respond.

“Which is why you’re here,” said her grandmother. “It is my role to help you blossom into something ever rarer and more beautiful than what you already are.”

“But,” said Vera. “I don’t want to blossom into anything! I just want to be me! I just want to go back to being normal again!”

Her grandmother laughed—a deep and sonorous laugh of doom and destiny. A chill shot through Vera’s entire body.

“Oh, darling,” said her grandmother, squeezing her hands tightly.  “Why would you ever aspire to be normal?”

“Because—because I can’t…live like this!”

Her grandmother’s eyes flickered red—a flash like a hidden flame, building, growing in furious intensity.

“This is a gift, Vera,” she said, pointedly. “A privilege!”

“But, for me it’s—“

Her grandmother stood up.

“Do not insult us,” she said turning to the portrait. “Do not insult your family.”

“I’m not—I don’t mean to!” said Vera, tears running down her face. “I’m just…this isn’t what I want…”

Her grandmother stood above her, powerful and stoic as a column of carved stone.

“I love you, Vera.”

“I….I love you too, Grandma Pearl.”

“Then, not another word.”

Chapter 11 – Heading North

“I’ve never felt this way before in my life!” cried Betsy.

Vera cringed, gripping the steering wheel of the old green Subaru wagon as they sped up Route I-95.

“Betsy…I—“

“I know what you’re going to say, V,” Betsy interrupted, “but it’s true—it’s for real: I’m totally in love with Keyshawn!”

They’d been driving since seven that morning, when Betsy pulled up in front of Vera’s building with the stereo blasting “Walkin’ on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves (on cassette), Betsy’s essential adventure anthem.

“Bets,” said Vera, carefully. “He’s a great guy, and I’m not doubting you, but…it’s just…you barely know him. You’ve met him once.”

“I know that,” said Betsy, ”but I also know what I feel, and this feeling is definitely love!” She pulled on her seatbelt so the straps pressed deeply into her waist and chest. “And…maybe a little lust.”

A road sign appeared before them on the highway—large and green, with an image of a turkey wearing a Pilgrim hat: the symbol of the Mass Turnpike. Vera thought back to the Peking ducks in the window of the Chinatown restaurant—attenuated, grotesquely roasted, slathered in dark sauce. She thought of the lone egret by the lake in the park, a silent witness to her mother’s efficient and pitiless massacre—rescue?—the night before. And now here was another bird—the turkey—its pitiful existence further insulted by being outfitted in the gaudy accoutrements of the settlers who’d established the tradition of its massacre, while spreading a symphony of venereal disease among our First Nation inhabitants…

“V?” said Betsy. “Are you listening to me? Did you hear what I just said?”

“What?” said Vera, shooing the birds from her mind. “Sorry. No. I just spaced out—what did you say?”

“I said that Keyshawn was my heartsong!”

Vera had no words.

“Are you feeling okay?” asked Betsy. “You’re acting kind of weird.”

They passed by a rest stop where an obese, dark haired man in a white jogging suit carried overloaded trays of fast food out to a crème-colored SUV. The bright white of the suit and dark hair made her think of Fabrizio—his suit from the night before, and the image of him being pulled into the darkness, thrashing and screaming into the shadows to be shredded by her mother.

“I’m fine,” said Vera, once again trying to clear her mind. “ Just a little hung-over from that publishing thing last night.”

“That’s right!” said Betsy. “At the Pierre! Keyshawn was there, right?”

“Uh…yeah, he was,” she said. “Pretty much all of publishing was there.”

“Yes,” said Betsy, nodding pensively. “Now…does Keyshawn go for red wine? A nice cab sav/rioja/zinfandel? Or is he more of a chardonnay/pouilly fuisse guy? Or maybe…Courvoisier? Is that racially insensitive to wonder that?”

Vera closed her eyes and gripped the steering wheel.

“I honestly have no idea, Bets.”

“I know how to find out!” said Betsy, reaching into her oversized purse covered in zippers and platinum studs, and pulled out her phone, decorated with glittery Hello Kitty stickers. “I’ll send him a quick text to get to the bottom of this!”

Is that why she let me drive her car for the first time ever? thought Vera, so she could have her hands free to text Keyshawn all the way up to Maine?

            Betsy’s mood perked up even more once she heard her phone beep: Message delivered!  Even though Keyshawn had only been responding, in a politely restrained way, to one in every ten texts she had sent him, Vera knew it was more than enough to keep Betsy inspired and determined, like a starving polar bear tracking a seal in late winter. And, just as that bear had young pups to feed, Betsy had a lifetime of loneliness and rejection to overcome and quash with the love of a good man.  Affection and adoration was not going to elude her grasp, and if there was one thing Vera knew about her friend, Betsy Baxter did not give up!

A few seconds later, Vera’s phone beeped.  She grabbed it off the dashboard.  One new message—from Keyshawn.

Shame you’re not in the office today.  Very pleasant bc Fabrizio didn’t bother to come in—probably passed out in some flop house in Queens right now.  Your friend is texting me every hour. Not sure what to say. Any help?

The image of her mother’s arms and hands and mouth stained with her boss’s blood flashed again through her mind.

“Was that K-man?!” asked Betsy.

“No,” said Vera, putting her phone in her pocket. “It was my brother being stupid, as usual.”

A tiny, high-pitched bark from the back seat startled her.  All the phone beeping and buzzing had awakened Brulée, Betsy’s beloved two-year-old Pomeranian.

“Good morning, sleepy peepy head!” said Betsy. “Come see Mama B!!”

As Brulée bounced into Betsy’s lap, Vera noticed some writing on the little gold-trimmed white hoodie he wore: Who you callin’ a mixed breed? it read, in script.  Vera looked away from the fluffy creature and straight ahead to the highway in front of her. Don’t focus on the dog, she told herself, again and again. In her bag she had a thermos full of her medicine, as her mother recommended, just in case. She knew she’d be able to control herself if she just stayed calm and kept things predictable, balanced, and steady. But watching Brulée hop around Betsy’s lap, which was no small piece of real estate, barking at every passing car, made the dim percolations of heat alight within her, and in the back of her mind she could hear the pitiful, desperate sounds of a doomed Siggy scratching at her door…

            “He’s always like this after a nap,” Betsy said, happily.  “He’ll calm down, but first, I think he needs to tinkle.”  Betsy picked up Brulée and cradled him against her bosom as if he were a russet-colored, downy baby.  Vera had been with them when strangers stopped on the street to admire Brulée’s cuteness, and Betsy would always tell them that Brulée was “the only man in her life” and also, “the man of her dreams.”

And no truer words had ever been spoken.

 

At a rest stop outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Vera wandered around the gift shop while Betsy headed to the food court. She had just finished interrogating Vera to figure out if Keyshawn was more of a cheeseburger or a grilled chicken sandwich kind of guy.

“He’s definitely a healthy eater—that’s obvious. I bet he has a salad at least three times a week,” Betsy had surmised, as she strolled away toward the bright food stalls, with their rising clouds of grease. “But I’m sure my baby boo’s got a sweet tooth, too!”

Vera turned back toward the gift shop wall and its vast display of New England-themed souvenirs—Patriots and Bruins and Celtics jerseys and caps and boxer shorts, phallic foam We’re #1 fingers; cheap magnets in the shapes of lighthouses and fishing boats and seagulls; stuffed, plush lobsters that came with a miniature cookbook that contained instructions on how to murder and prepare the crustacean, otherwise known as the cockroach of the sea.

Vera was grateful to have company on the trip up to Maine, but, with Betsy at the food court, she was also glad to have a little reprieve from the Keyshawn conversation. She had no idea just how many text messages Betsy had actually sent him, but if it was even half the number Betsy sent to her on a daily basis…an image of a massive avalanche crashing over a lone mountaineer flashed through her brain.

She looked back through the lobby of the rest stop, trying to find Betsy amidst the bright food court signs with their universally terrible fonts. Finally she saw her, at a Chinese fast food stand, smiling at the woman behind the counter and pointing emphatically at a steaming trough of pork-fried rice.

Vera sighed. She knew her friend so well when it came to matters of the heart: When they were juniors in college, Betsy had had a crush on Barty Pook, a short, blond, semi-cross-eyed Religion major from Indiana. She’d pined for him for months, sitting behind him in Physics for Poets class, collecting stray bits of lint from his sweaters, which she kept in a lavender-scented envelope under her pillow. Even though Vera urged her to at least just say hello, Betsy was always just too scared.

It was only after he asked for her help during lab that they finally spoke—for all of twenty minutes—but it was enough to set off a torrent of fixated scenarios in Betsy’s mind, all of which she recounted to Vera, late at night, while Vera was trying to go to sleep, in order to get up for her early morning, clothing-optional modern dance class.

Even so, Vera had tried to be supportive: she encouraged her to take it slow, maybe get to know him a bit better before she decided which New Jersey suburb they’d settle down in—Maplewood? Short Hills? Chatham? Or if she wanted Corian or soapstone countertops in her “dream kitchen.” And what would they name their children? Garbo? Blandine? Scott-Michael?

Then, like clockwork, the next phase of her obsession commenced: Betsy started calling him—first to get the homework assignments, which she always already had, and then just to say, “what’s up?” and then, inevitably, “what else is up?”

After a few days, it seemed Barty had started screening his calls. And soon after that, he stopped coming to class and the science lab section she usually went to. Eventually, drunk at a frat party, Betsy approached him and said, in a calm and understanding voice, that she didn’t expect a full karat for her engagement ring; she’d be happy with a cheap cubic zerconia set in silver plating—once he made partner at her father’s law firm, he could buy her the real thing, of course—if it meant a lifetime of bliss together.

Vera was standing on the other side of the dank, urine-scented basement during this encounter and saw a baffled, amused expression of scorn wash over Barty’s face. Her stomach twisted into knots as he laughed uproariously at Betsy, and then walked away, high-fiving his friends as they stepped up to the beer pong table.

“Looking for a present for your grandma?” said Betsy, laden with bags of food, as Vera stood in front of the shelves of Red Sox merchandise: cups, pens, socks, mousepads, and even condoms. Seeing this—the condoms emblazoned with the sagging, bloated red socks of the Red Sox logo—made Vera wince and, as she did from time to time, consider lesbianism.

            “Oh, Betsy, no,” Vera said, looking at her seriously. “I guess I should tell you this now, but my Grandmother…she would disown me if I got her a present from a highway rest stop gift shop. It’s just not something she’d find…appropriate.”

“Why not?” she said, picking up a plastic key chain of a crab, made in China. “These are cute!”

“She won’t think so,” said Vera. “She’s an amazing woman; she’s strong and powerful, and she’s been through a lot in her life. But she doesn’t do ‘cute.’”

Besty picked up a Red Sox back scratcher, reached into her large purse, removed a sleepy Brulée, and proceeded to drag its clawed end over the length of his back.

His little hind legs immediately began to shudder in rapture.

“Well, Bru-Bru sure likes this stuff!”

She set Brulée down on the ground in order to angle the scratcher under his stomach, which caused him to spray a fine mist of joyful urine over the tiled floor.

 

“So, you didn’t say anything about how Fabrizio was last night,” said Betsy, as Vera merged back onto the highway. “Was he being his usual perv-ball self?”

            Vera looked straight ahead and tried to keep her hands steady on the wheel.

“He was fine.”

“Fine?” said Betsy, “When has he ever been ‘fine?’ The last time you went a party with him, didn’t he spill champagne down the front of your dress and then insist on licking it off because he didn’t want it to go to waste?”

“Uh…yes, that’s true,” she said. “But last night he was behaving—he had to behave, because there were lots of important people there. I only saw him for a minute at the beginning of the night and luckily never ran into him again.”

Vera could still see his eyes wide with terror and agony as he was dragged into the night; she could see the blue black water of the lake, the surrounding, tress and the hushed sound of their shifting leaves; she could hear that tiny, miniscule, splash echoing in her head. What had made that quiet, nearly-silent sound?

She pictured the blood in the thermos in her bag—her safety.

How is it that life has become a never-ending nightmare?

From Betsy’s lap, Brulée awoke and barked.  Vera looked over at him. He was staring right at her, his little beady eyes staring into her own with the focus and intensity of a psychic—a puppy psychic.

“It’s funny Keyshawn hasn’t written me back yet,” Betsy said, studying her phone.  “But the service is so spotty up here. That’s probably why. How many bars does your phone have?”

“I don’t know, Bets,” said Vera. “Probably none.”

“You didn’t even check! You have to check! Will you check?”

Vera took her phone out of her pocket and looked at it.

“Uh…”

“How many?”

“Three.”

“Three?!?” said Betsy. “I only have one! Can I text him on your phone? Or, should I wait? No, can I? Or, do you think I should even text him again?”

“No, you shouldn’t!” said Vera, more loudly than she meant to. “Or…I’m sure he’s really busy at work.  It’s always crazy the day after those big literary parties. Especially now that the author is in town.”

Oh my god, thought Vera. D.B. Johnson is going to be looking for Fabrizio! Everyone will be! What was mom thinking? People are going to find out!

            She thought of her mother’s face—how set and stoic and confident it had been: I need to go finish this.

What did that even mean? Was he finished now?

“That makes sense,” said Betsy. “He’s probably swamped.”

She put her phone back in her bag, a smoothed Brulée’s ears with her manicured fingertips.

“I’ll wait fifteen more minutes.”

 

They crossed the bridge from New Hampshire into Maine. Betsy held Brulée up and made him wave his paws at the sign that read: Welcome to Maine – Vacationland!

“So, Bets,” said Vera. “I just wanted to ask before we get there, how is Brulée around other animals?”

“Well, he only has a problem with big dogs, because they’re obviously jealous of his Bru-bru-brilliance” said Betsy. “But with every other animal, he’s fine. Why?”

“It’s just that my grandmother has a pet. An…unusual pet.”

“What do you mean unusual? Like a snake? Brubies is obsessed with my snakeskin stilettos so I bet he’d love—“

“No,” said Vera.” Not a snake—a bird. A falcon, in fact—a large Peregrine Falcon.”

“A falcon? What kind of person has—?”

“It’s named Arnaud,” Vera continued. “I’m just trying to prepare you. She’s very attached to him and she might get upset if Brulée bothers him.”

“Bother him? Brulée would never bother anyone!”

She picked up Brulée and turned him to face Vera. He gave her another keen, penetrating look as if to say: We are here now; I understand everything.

“I’m sorry,” Vera said.  “I’m not insulting him, it’s just she’s really protective of Arnaud.”

“You’ll be a good boy, won’t you Bru Bru?” Betsy said to Brulée, prompting him to turn his small face toward her and bark.

“He says he fully understands, V!” she said, smiling.

Vera had to admit that Brulée was quite a charmer, but then again, Siggy had been pretty charming too.

           

Vera felt the tension in her neck and shoulders ease as they made their way along the Maine coast toward her grandmother’s town of Nob Haven.  She saw the beaches where children ran along the water and built sand castles near the dunes; the yellow and chocolate Labrador Retrievers plunging into the waves to retrieve their bright plastic toys; the fishermen making their daily visits to the local lobster shacks with their catch of the day—it all brought back the sweet memories of her childhood summers with her grandmother.

And yet, looking at these things now—these bright vignettes of a simpler, more innocent time—Vera felt a greater distance between her life as a child and what the world she was living in today.  A part of her knew that a normal life was perhaps forever out of her reach, but what was within reach? What would she be allowed to have—what could be hers—now that nothing felt real or safe or clear?

Grandma Pearl has to have answers for me, she thought, looking out the distant islands, which dotted the horizon. She’ll know what to do.

            “Vera?” said Betsy. “Have you been listening at all?”

“What?” she said. “Yes, of course I have! But, actually…no. What did you just say?”

“I asked if your grandmother ever gets lonely up here, living all by herself.”

“Oh,” she said. “No—I really don’t think so.  She’s always been kind of solitary person—I mean, I barely even remember my grandfather, who died when I was really young. But I know she loves it up here, because she’s able to do the things she really loves—watercolor painting, cooking, tennis, hunting, forbidden forms of ancient martial arts.”

“Wait, how old did you say she was?”

“Seventy-two,” she said. “But you’d never know it.  She looks like she’s 45. Oh! We’re here!”

She turned the car under an arched portico emblazoned with the name Belle’s End in iron, filigreed letters. They drove up a long driveway that wound through the forest. Once they were through the trees, the yard opened to reveal the large, dark shingled house, on the top of a grassy hill. Behind the house the ocean glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

“Oh my god!” Betsy exclaimed.

“I know,” said Vera. “Isn’t it beautiful? She built this house…I don’t know when exactly. A long time ago. I feel like it’s been here forever.”

“Yes, it’s amazing,” said Betsy. “But I was just thinking: I’m starving!  Do you think she’ll have snacks for us?”

“Are you kidding?” said Vera. “Ever since I was a little girl, she’d always make cookies to celebrate my arrival!”

“I love cookies!”  Betsy screamed.

“I really can’t wait for you to meet her!” Vera said, parking the car, overcome by a feeling of safety and relief.  “I think you two are really going to like each other!”