Heartbreaker Read online

  Rinse, he says, the ceiling light bright behind his head. From beneath the water she looks straight up into his face. When she is finished he squeezes her hair into a rope that drips over her shoulder.

  You’re all set, he says.

  As she gets out of the tub water slops over the porcelain and onto the floor. She stands in front of him, water slowing in the hair between her legs. He reaches up to touch her face. She opens her lips and he pushes two fingers past them and as she closes her eyes she thinks, Now. But she is wrong.

  * * *

  Because she wins the next night’s game of Rummy she is allowed to have one beer.

  Toast me, she says, lying next to him on the living-room rug. She tips the neck of her bottle toward his.

  No chance, he says. You cheated.

  She laughs and forces the lip of her beer into his. When she is finished drinking she turns toward him, propping herself up on her elbow, her fist against her cheek.

  So where do you work? she asks.

  Slaughterhouse.

  Oh, she says. She can’t tell whether he is joking or not. Do you have a girlfriend?

  He shakes his head.

  Why not?

  He shrugs. Just don’t.

  You have me, though.

  He grunts, taking a long swallow of beer. She scoots closer to him.

  Your hair is in my face, he says. She leans down to kiss him and he kisses her back. She tastes alcohol and that night’s spaghetti sauce. His eyes are closed for a moment but when she lifts her leg and spreads it over his hip, reaching for the zipper on his jeans, he puts his hand on her chest.

  Stop, he says, sitting up.

  Why?

  Because.

  Don’t you like me?

  I like you, he says, rubbing his eyebrows. I like you.

  Why, then? Why not?

  He gets up and takes the bottles to the kitchen, throwing them into the trash so hard they crack. She follows him in, hands on her hips, and he turns to her and says Don’t you know anyone who doesn’t want to fuck you?

  She flinches. You’re the one who brought me here! she shouts. We do the same things every day and you never want to go anywhere and I have to lie down in your stupid truck on the floor and you make me—

  I don’t make you do anything, he cuts in, flinging the back door open. You want to go? Get out.

  Fuck you! she screams, kicking the door shut so hard the windows rattle in their frames. His face twitches.

  What’s wrong with you? she says. He looks away.

  It’s late. You should go to bed.

  Would you stop telling me what to do?

  * * *

  Early the next morning she goes to his room. He is lying on his side beneath the sheets, one rough cheek resting on his bicep. Everywhere there is cracking plaster, more bookshelves, the painted dresser with its drawers shut tight. Water and a cluster of keys stand on a little table beside his bed. Everything feels familiar to her but also strange, because she sees so clearly the pieces but not how they fit together.

  Come here, he says.

  I thought you were sleeping.

  No. I don’t sleep very well.

  She shuffles toward him until the backs of her hands brush against the mattress. He makes room for her and she lies on her side next to him, her breasts chafing against her T-shirt.

  He touches her eyebrow with his thumb. I’m sorry I made you lie in the back of the truck.

  It’s okay. She tries to look him in the eye but she can’t.

  Go to sleep, he says, and somehow she does.

  * * *

  When she wakes up he is gone. She rinses her underwear and shirts in the kitchen sink and when he comes home he sees her clothes slung over the shower rod, dripping on the floor, and he stops and says Didn’t I tell you I fixed the washer?

  * * *

  That evening he says he wants to go for a walk. Outside, it’s still light. It’s too cold, she says, stopping at the bottom of the porch, but he doesn’t turn around.

  You should have put on a sweater.

  She throws her hands up. This is exactly what I’m talking about. You always want to do something that doesn’t make any sense. She considers turning back, but instead kicks at a rock and keeps going.

  * * *

  They walk about a mile and then there is a loud cracking noise, like a gunshot.

  What’s that?

  Just a branch, he says. We can go back now if you want.

  No, she says.

  We can.

  No, she says again. Chase me.

  He looks at her.

  Come on, she urges.

  Okay, he says. Run.

  She takes off into the trees.

  * * *

  As soon as she knows she is out of sight she stops, leaning against a tree, the air on her lips brittle as she catches her breath. The sky is hooded with leaves and where the sun melts through it turns the dust in the air to gold.

  You’re fast, he says, coming up behind her. She stumbles away from the tree.

  Shit, she says, still panting. You scared me.

  Should we go back?

  Not yet.

  Then what now?

  She smiles. Now you have to kill me.

  He pushes his hands into his pockets.

  Yeah?

  Yeah.

  And what if I want you to kill me?

  She blinks. What?

  Go ahead, he says.

  She reaches out and touches his stomach with the palm of her hand, running it up to his chest and then down past his belt while he watches her. She wonders about beauty, about the way he looks right now—older and folded in on himself—and the heat in her body that will not stop.

  Aren’t you going to hit me? he says.

  Her hands slide off him and she takes a small step sideways.

  Don’t be scared, he says.

  I’m not, she says.

  Then hit me. He lifts his chin. Come on.

  I can’t.

  Yes you can.

  When she sees him raise his hand she thinks for a moment that she should try to stop him, but she doesn’t and he hits her, hard, across her face, knocking her to her knees. He crouches down behind her, an arm wrapped tight around her waist.

  What do you want? he asks.

  Tell me I’m beautiful, she says.

  You’re beautiful, he says into her ear, and then again into her hair. You’re beautiful. Her shoulders start to shake.

  Listen to me, he says. You have to go home.

  No.

  You have to.

  No, she says, sinking her fingers into the ground.

  When I count to ten, he says. One. Two.

  Why? she whispers. I don’t want to.

  But he keeps counting. And when he gets to ten he lets her go.

  LOVE, LUCY

  Did you do that? he asked, his hands on his hips, squinting, as I held up the pigeon for him to see. It was the first thing I killed. I was four. I dropped the bird at his feet.

  You didn’t mean to, he said.

  I kicked the bird and it bounced off the front door, leaving a rich red smear. One of its eyes, pried loose by a butter knife, fell out. I had stabbed it all over. He pretended not to notice.

  We’ll give it a nice burial, he said.

  I snatched the bird and shook it. I gnashed my teeth and made dying sounds and sailed the corpse over the porch railing, where it splashed into the dirt. I smeared my fingers down the front of his shirt, leaving behind ten wet tracks branching over the cotton, delicate as a Japanese painting. My hands were small then. He held them, he kissed them; animal blood touched his mouth. I howled, I hissed, trying to free myself from his grip.

  It’s a phase, he decided. But I had just begun.

  * * *

  When he found me in the toolshed, so the story goes, I was covered in black fur. He was already an old man, widowed early, childless; he figured, Finders keepers. He trimmed me with scissors and kept the hair in
a box on which he wrote Lucy Fur.

  Now when did you hear of a kid having fur? That’s what I call special, he’d say.

  He brought the box out sometimes and let me play with it. The hair felt like a cat’s. I could imagine his fingers straying over me, lifting and cutting. When I smelled the box I smelled ashes.

  * * *

  He had to block the front door when a friend stopped by for a beer or to say hello. I’m sorry, he’d say, but she bites, and I would bark, loud. If you wanted to see him you’d have to find him somewhere I wasn’t. Even the porch was off-limits; when the postman came I jabbed at him through the door slot with a pair of scissors.

  But my not-father didn’t complain. He didn’t want to go out. I’ve had enough of drinking and women, he’d say, and turn the television on to his favorite show—the one he’d named me after—while I sat beside him, picking holes in the green velveteen and pulling the stuffing through until the cushion on my side of the couch was empty and I had to sit on the floor.

  * * *

  When I was five I took a stick and wrote in the sand, I AM THE SON OF THE DEVIL. We were at the beach. I was not crazy about the waves or the seaweed. He was gathering shells and I pointed at the words with my stick and he turned his head to the side to read them.

  Okay, he said, shaking scallops in his palm. A, you’re a girl. B, do I look like the devil?

  I took the stick again. You, I wrote, and then I drew an equal sign with a slash through it, followed by My dad.

  He sighed. You sore about being adopted?

  I jabbed the stick into the sand and threw myself down on the picnic blanket, my back to him. I could hear him unwrapping the sandwiches he took from his pockets. My stomach growled.

  Come on, he said, reaching around my shoulder with a piece of ham. Even devil spawn has to eat.

  I chomped at his fingers. He burped behind me, wiping his hands in the sand.

  There was no one else on the beach. It was cold and gray. Still, he swam. He pulled me out into the water. I sank. He pulled me back up. My hair gleamed like black oil around my shoulders and he scooped it up in his hands like treasure.

  You are beautiful, he said. I punched him in the arm. He twisted to his knees with a splash, grinning. I wondered sometimes if he was senile. With the water licking his waist he looked up at me.

  Someone lost the lottery the day they lost you, but I won it, he said. Which was wrong. Which didn’t even make sense. But he believed it.

  * * *

  I was expelled from school for putting tacks in the rain boots lined up in the coatroom. He said he never liked that stupid school to begin with. It became my job to fix the rotten wood porch, to pull weeds by the fence, to peel potatoes. I did everything wrong, but he still said Good job, Lucy! whenever I presented him with a handful of torn-up violets or showed him the porch pounded too full of nails or the potatoes hacked to pieces. In the evenings, I waited in the kitchen for bugs to crawl past so I could stomp on them with both feet, thinking Kill kill kill.

  Did you get them all? he’d call, and I’d jump in response, making the windows rattle in their loose frames.

  Thatta girl, he’d say.

  * * *

  I was seven, smashing a square block against a round hole in a puzzle he’d made as a Christmas present. I hated Christmas presents. After an hour of smashing he grabbed my arm and yelled Lucy, use the other damn block!

  I went rigid; it was the first time he’d yelled at me. The square fell out of my hand. Immediately he knelt beside me, offering the block on his big palm.

  I’m sorry I said damn, he said. Go on doing it your own way.

  I was still for a moment, then pushed all the pieces into their proper slots as fast as I could. We looked at the puzzle together in silence. Then I shoved it over and went to my room, which was his room, too. I pulled the sheets over my head and breathed out hard to make a tent. He stuck his face in. I slapped it. He sang. I put my hands over my ears. The song was supposed to be funny. Ha was not a sound I could make, just as I could not say hello or please or my name, or any name. I could not tell him he was driving me crazy, and he couldn’t take a hint. So he kept singing.

  * * *

  When I was ten I started menstruating. How about that, he said when he saw the stain blooming on the crotch of my jeans. You want me to get you some sanitary thingamajigs? he offered, but I insisted on bleeding anywhere and everywhere, like an animal, staining the couch, the carpet, the tile. My skin flared. My chest was always sore and I wore his clothes, T-shirts that came to my knees, pants rolled fat at my ankles and cinched at the waist with rope. I wanted robes, a crown; but it was not my time yet. Instead, I ran through the fields barefoot, my toenails black, my arms out like wings. I waited in trees, savaging the leaves and pinching ants between my fingers; when he passed beneath me I dropped onto his shoulders and he grunted like nothing bigger than a softball had hit him, reaching back to catch my shins. I made a sign asking what was for dinner. Spaghetti, he said, and I thumped the side of his head. Sloppy Joes, he offered, and I hit him again; he chortled and said Okay okay, liver and onions it is. I licked my chops.

  * * *

  At twelve I was asked to a dance by a boy. I knew by his good looks and sideways eyes that my not-father had put him up to asking me. Instead of going, I burned the old dance hall down to the ground. There were people inside, but they managed to get out more or less intact before the roof fell in. Flames flew from the burst windows as glass flocked the lawn and shrieks dressed the night sky. I was watching from a tree and he pulled me by my foot from the branch, quiet, making sure no one saw me.

  Sit down, he said, once we were home and he’d locked the door just in case. I would not sit down. He sighed.

  I taught you better than to go fooling with matches. A fire can be real dangerous.

  I waved my arms to say, I know!

  Someone could get hurt.

  I grinned to show I meant it. He rubbed his eye.

  Lucy, he said, you don’t have to do none of these bad things.

  I nodded that yes, I did, and yes, I would.

  No, you don’t. You’re a good girl.

  I shook my head until my hair flew. The room spun. He wanted to get hold of me; I crashed away. In a corner he reached for my shoulders. I butted my head into his soft stomach. I pushed and pushed. He held the tops of my arms.

  You can’t make me not care for you, he said. So you should go on and quit trying.

  I kept pushing. He dipped his head down to mine, his torso curving to protect me instead of himself. We became a shell inside a shell, the insides of us never touching, but the outsides as close as two outsides could be.

  You can’t hurt me, he said.

  I dug my feet into the floor; I pressed my hands into his chest. I became a bull. Maybe for minutes, maybe for hours. But he was strong, and I was still a girl, coated in weakness like a caul. I fell asleep against his stomach. When I woke up his arms were crossed, heavy, over my back; he was snoring, his cheek on my head. I opened my eyes and my lashes kissed the belly of his T-shirt.

  * * *

  The next morning he slung a hammock from two posts on the porch. From then on in the bed we’d shared I was alone. I wrestled from one cold end to the other; I took to sleeping on the floor. Dust clung to my hair like dirt in the weave of a broom. He had to haul me up by the elbows in the morning while I made my body into dead weight. At breakfast I insisted on eating my bacon raw, my elbows on the table, my hair pooling in my plate. He let me eat until I threw up, and then he cleaned the mess I made.

  Later a friend or relative called asking how I was and he said Well she’s at that age. Weird diets and always aching for a fight.

  I slunk around the kitchen doorway and stared at him.

  I have to go now, he said. Lucy’s trying to give me the creeps.

  He hung up, turned to me. You feeling any better? he asked. I hissed. He handed me a glass of milk.

  * * *

 
; In the months before I turned thirteen I was transformed. The muscles stood out on my arms; my bones sharpened and stretched. All over I became hard, like the rocks I dug out of the riverbeds and smashed against the branches. We arm-wrestled on the porch. He pretended he was letting me win.

  Out in the fields I tore my clothes to shreds. I stayed out all night; he kept the porch lights burning and let me sleep until evening. When I shuffled out of my room for dinner he wanted to play cards. I yawned into my elbow and looked at my hand, playing for spades no matter what the game was. Finally he gave up, gathering the deck and grumbling You can’t just make it up as you go along, that’s why there’s rules.

  I crammed the last sausage into my mouth.

  You gonna dry these dishes? he asked as he washed them; licking grease from my fingers I nodded yes, but as soon as he turned his back I slipped out the door, hungry for the dark, the house bright behind me as I ran.

  * * *

  I could have done it with my mind. Tools were beneath me; they were things that any creature could use, and I was no longer bound by human laws. I could have done it from far away, while he was sleeping, in a split second. But I wanted him to see it coming.

  Oh, that’s a big knife you got there, he said, swinging in the hammock. It was midnight; he’d been waiting up for me. I crept toward him, the porch light cutting either side of the knife I held so tight in my hand.

  That knife’s not for playing, honey-Lucy.

  I am grown, I wanted to scream. I know what are toys and what are not. I came close to him, close enough to see the wrinkles squeezed out by the corners of his eyes as he smiled.

  I lifted the knife. He leaned way back to look at me, his not-daughter who had suddenly grown so tall, and in the dark rooms of his pupils I saw that I, too, had become dark.

  You love me, he said, and reaching for my face, he touched his knuckle to my chin. I raised my face as high as I could, but his arms were long and he stayed touching me.

  He was never scared of me. Even then. He watched as I brought the knife down.

  * * *

  Afterward I went from room to room, touching the things he had touched for the past thirteen years: one by one every object shattered and broke, snapped and collapsed. The couch, his chair, the bed, the broom. The television spat glass and smoke. The curtains turned to dust. Back on the porch I laid his body on the boards, and I dissolved the hammock, burst his bottle of beer. The house had black eyes for windows, a hole for a mouth; then it, too, was gone. At last I reached for him, and he ran through my fingers like molten gold, glittering my palms with ash.