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Authors: Delilah S. Dawson
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For you, and for me.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Learn your lines, Dovey. It’s almost opening night.”
I look back down, and the black box is gone. In its place is one of Carly’s mama’s Goodwill plates, the one with the little chip on the edge. It’s heaped with collards, just collards, and they’re writhing around like cottonmouth snakes.
“I hear Café 616 has the best collards,” Carly says conversationally, but I see something stir in her ink-black eyes. “If you have to eat ’em, that’s the place to find ’em.”
“I hate collards,” I say, practically begging.
“Yeah, but you love your lemon chiffon pie,” she replies.
She points at my plate with a finger of naked bone, and I take a bite, and it’s bitter, bitter as sin.
I swallow, and it fights me, the whole way down.
8
WHEN I WAKE UP THE next morning, the pink bead is in my hand and my mouth tastes like death. I leap out of bed to rinse with water in the bathroom across the hall, but the taste won’t go away. It takes three gulps of mouthwash before I can be sure I’m not going to puke. They say the average person eats bugs all the time while they sleep, and I must have gotten one of Savannah’s famous giant roaches. I’m exhausted, mentally and physically, almost like a hangover. But I don’t remember dreaming.
I look up at my face in the mirror and draw back in surprise. From forehead to chin my coppery skin is smeared with white and lavender and tiny flakes of glitter. I was so exhausted last night that I went to bed in my fairy makeup. With my frizzy hair standing out like a dandelion and my face splashed in color, I look seriouslywild. No wonder Rudy and the lady in the hallway at Paper Moon looked at me like I was insane. I scrub with a washcloth until I can see my freckles again. My gold eyes are wide and bloodshot, and I feel a little like I’m falling apart. But at least I feel something .
My mom appears in the door in makeup and a bathrobe. “You okay, Dovey?”
“Must have swallowed a bug,” I say.
“That’s just an old wives’ tale,” she says, shaking her head.
I shrug and move to walk past her, and she steps back to let me pass without touching me. I can’t help wondering why she never hugs me, why she barely looks at me. Even before Josephine she was never one of those touchy-feely moms who want to have heartfelt discussions all the time. She’s all business. My dad’s the gentle, sensitive one, and Carly was my real confidant. I miss the days when I could wake up from a nightmare and call out, and someone would hold me close, make me feel warm and safe.
In the kitchen I pour myself a bowl of cereal and wait for my mom to turn around. It’s really boring, pretending to be dull. When she’s done with her shake, she watches me rattle out an aspirin from the brown bottle and smiles while I swallow it.
“Good girl,” she says. And I smile back.
I have to struggle to act brainless and uninvolved in school. Before Carly died, I was always raising my hand to answer the tough questions or read out loud. But now the teachers don’t even see me unless I make a big racket, so I use the time to do my homeworkand doodle. Again and again, for no reason that I really understand, I keep drawing the number 616 and a circle covered with squiggles.
I don’t remember the dream until I see someone eating creamed spinach at lunch. It hits me with such force that I choke on my ham sandwich until Nikki smacks me on the back. Remembering the way the collards writhed and fought in my throat, I can’t eat another bite. The number and the squiggles suddenly make sense, and I know that after rehearsal I have to go to Café 616.
Carly and I used to eat there every year on her birthday, sitting at the table painted like a cow and toasting each other with chocolate milk shakes. The restaurant is kitschy and kind of famous and
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Learn your lines, Dovey. It’s almost opening night.”
I look back down, and the black box is gone. In its place is one of Carly’s mama’s Goodwill plates, the one with the little chip on the edge. It’s heaped with collards, just collards, and they’re writhing around like cottonmouth snakes.
“I hear Café 616 has the best collards,” Carly says conversationally, but I see something stir in her ink-black eyes. “If you have to eat ’em, that’s the place to find ’em.”
“I hate collards,” I say, practically begging.
“Yeah, but you love your lemon chiffon pie,” she replies.
She points at my plate with a finger of naked bone, and I take a bite, and it’s bitter, bitter as sin.
I swallow, and it fights me, the whole way down.
8
WHEN I WAKE UP THE next morning, the pink bead is in my hand and my mouth tastes like death. I leap out of bed to rinse with water in the bathroom across the hall, but the taste won’t go away. It takes three gulps of mouthwash before I can be sure I’m not going to puke. They say the average person eats bugs all the time while they sleep, and I must have gotten one of Savannah’s famous giant roaches. I’m exhausted, mentally and physically, almost like a hangover. But I don’t remember dreaming.
I look up at my face in the mirror and draw back in surprise. From forehead to chin my coppery skin is smeared with white and lavender and tiny flakes of glitter. I was so exhausted last night that I went to bed in my fairy makeup. With my frizzy hair standing out like a dandelion and my face splashed in color, I look seriouslywild. No wonder Rudy and the lady in the hallway at Paper Moon looked at me like I was insane. I scrub with a washcloth until I can see my freckles again. My gold eyes are wide and bloodshot, and I feel a little like I’m falling apart. But at least I feel something .
My mom appears in the door in makeup and a bathrobe. “You okay, Dovey?”
“Must have swallowed a bug,” I say.
“That’s just an old wives’ tale,” she says, shaking her head.
I shrug and move to walk past her, and she steps back to let me pass without touching me. I can’t help wondering why she never hugs me, why she barely looks at me. Even before Josephine she was never one of those touchy-feely moms who want to have heartfelt discussions all the time. She’s all business. My dad’s the gentle, sensitive one, and Carly was my real confidant. I miss the days when I could wake up from a nightmare and call out, and someone would hold me close, make me feel warm and safe.
In the kitchen I pour myself a bowl of cereal and wait for my mom to turn around. It’s really boring, pretending to be dull. When she’s done with her shake, she watches me rattle out an aspirin from the brown bottle and smiles while I swallow it.
“Good girl,” she says. And I smile back.
I have to struggle to act brainless and uninvolved in school. Before Carly died, I was always raising my hand to answer the tough questions or read out loud. But now the teachers don’t even see me unless I make a big racket, so I use the time to do my homeworkand doodle. Again and again, for no reason that I really understand, I keep drawing the number 616 and a circle covered with squiggles.
I don’t remember the dream until I see someone eating creamed spinach at lunch. It hits me with such force that I choke on my ham sandwich until Nikki smacks me on the back. Remembering the way the collards writhed and fought in my throat, I can’t eat another bite. The number and the squiggles suddenly make sense, and I know that after rehearsal I have to go to Café 616.
Carly and I used to eat there every year on her birthday, sitting at the table painted like a cow and toasting each other with chocolate milk shakes. The restaurant is kitschy and kind of famous and
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