When she saw Kaye come in, she gestured toward the stove. There was a pot of cold spaghetti and sausages. Kaye took a fork and picked at some of the spaghetti.
“So you think you can get Charlotte?” her mother said into the phone as she doodled band names on the pad.
“All right, call me when you know. Absolutely. ’Bye, chickadee.”
Ellen hung up the phone, and Kaye looked over at her expectantly.
Her mother smiled and took a sip from a mug on the table. “We’re going to New York!”
Kaye just stared. “What?”
“Well, it’s not totally definite, but Rhonda wants me to front her new all-girl group, Meow Factory, and she thinks she can get Charlotte Charlie. I said that if they can get her, I’m in. There are so many more clubs in New York.”
“I don’t want to move,” Kaye said.
“We can crash with Rhonda until we can find another place to live. You’ll love New York.”
“I love it here.”
“We can’t impose on my mother forever,” Ellen said. “Besides, she’s a pain in your ass as much as mine.”
“I applied for a job today. Grandma will be a lot happier once I’m bringing home money. You could join a band around here.”
“Nothing’s set in stone,” Ellen said, “but I think you should really get used to the idea of New York, honey. If I’d wanted to stay in Jersey, I would have done it years ago.”
***
A hundred matchbooks, from a hundred bars that her mother played one gig in, or from restaurants that they got a meal in, or from men that they lived with. A hundred matchbooks, all on fire.
She was on fire too, aflame in a way she was not sure she understood. Adrenaline turned her fingers to ice, drawing her heat inward to dance in her head, anger and a strange sense of
possibility
thrumming through her veins.
Kaye looked around her dark bedroom, lit only by the flickering orange light. The glassy eyes of the dolls danced with flames. The rats curled up on one another in the far corner of the cage. Kaye breathed in the sharp smell of sulfur as she struck another matchbook, watching the flame catch across the rows of white match heads, the cardboard covering exploding into fire. She turned the paper in her hands, watching it burn.
5
“I ate the mythology & dreamt.”
—YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, “Blackberries”
Kaye awoke to a scratching at the window. The room was dark and the house was silent.
Something peered in at her. Tiny black eyes blinked beneath heavy eyebrows, and long ears rose up from either side of a bare head.
“Spike?” Kaye whispered, crawling up off the mattress on the floor where she had been sleeping. The covers tangled with her legs.
He tapped again, eyebrows furrowing. He was smaller than she remembered him and clad only in a thin bark that ran over his waist and down part of his legs. At his elbows, points extended into the shape of thorns.
Behind him, she could make out Lutie-loo’s thin form, incandescent against the dark tiles of the roof. Her wings were so translucent as to be nearly invisible.
Kaye pushed on the window, but it took several tries to get it unstuck from the old, swollen sill. Two white moths fluttered in.
“Spike!” Kaye said. “Lutie! Where have you been? I’ve been back for days and days. I left milk out for you, but I think one of the cats got it.”
The little man cocked one eye toward her, like a sparrow. “The Thistlewitch is waiting,” Spike said. “Hurry.”
His tone of voice was odd, urgent and strangely unfriendly. He had never talked to her that way before. Still, she obeyed out of familiarity: same old room, same little friends coming in the middle of the night to take her to catch fireflies or pick sour cherries. She pulled a black sweater on over the white old-lady nightgown her grandmother had loaned her to sleep in and kicked on her boots. Then she scanned the room for her coat, but it was just another black, soft pile in the dark, and she left it. The sweater was warm enough.
Kaye climbed out
“So you think you can get Charlotte?” her mother said into the phone as she doodled band names on the pad.
“All right, call me when you know. Absolutely. ’Bye, chickadee.”
Ellen hung up the phone, and Kaye looked over at her expectantly.
Her mother smiled and took a sip from a mug on the table. “We’re going to New York!”
Kaye just stared. “What?”
“Well, it’s not totally definite, but Rhonda wants me to front her new all-girl group, Meow Factory, and she thinks she can get Charlotte Charlie. I said that if they can get her, I’m in. There are so many more clubs in New York.”
“I don’t want to move,” Kaye said.
“We can crash with Rhonda until we can find another place to live. You’ll love New York.”
“I love it here.”
“We can’t impose on my mother forever,” Ellen said. “Besides, she’s a pain in your ass as much as mine.”
“I applied for a job today. Grandma will be a lot happier once I’m bringing home money. You could join a band around here.”
“Nothing’s set in stone,” Ellen said, “but I think you should really get used to the idea of New York, honey. If I’d wanted to stay in Jersey, I would have done it years ago.”
***
A hundred matchbooks, from a hundred bars that her mother played one gig in, or from restaurants that they got a meal in, or from men that they lived with. A hundred matchbooks, all on fire.
She was on fire too, aflame in a way she was not sure she understood. Adrenaline turned her fingers to ice, drawing her heat inward to dance in her head, anger and a strange sense of
possibility
thrumming through her veins.
Kaye looked around her dark bedroom, lit only by the flickering orange light. The glassy eyes of the dolls danced with flames. The rats curled up on one another in the far corner of the cage. Kaye breathed in the sharp smell of sulfur as she struck another matchbook, watching the flame catch across the rows of white match heads, the cardboard covering exploding into fire. She turned the paper in her hands, watching it burn.
5
“I ate the mythology & dreamt.”
—YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, “Blackberries”
Kaye awoke to a scratching at the window. The room was dark and the house was silent.
Something peered in at her. Tiny black eyes blinked beneath heavy eyebrows, and long ears rose up from either side of a bare head.
“Spike?” Kaye whispered, crawling up off the mattress on the floor where she had been sleeping. The covers tangled with her legs.
He tapped again, eyebrows furrowing. He was smaller than she remembered him and clad only in a thin bark that ran over his waist and down part of his legs. At his elbows, points extended into the shape of thorns.
Behind him, she could make out Lutie-loo’s thin form, incandescent against the dark tiles of the roof. Her wings were so translucent as to be nearly invisible.
Kaye pushed on the window, but it took several tries to get it unstuck from the old, swollen sill. Two white moths fluttered in.
“Spike!” Kaye said. “Lutie! Where have you been? I’ve been back for days and days. I left milk out for you, but I think one of the cats got it.”
The little man cocked one eye toward her, like a sparrow. “The Thistlewitch is waiting,” Spike said. “Hurry.”
His tone of voice was odd, urgent and strangely unfriendly. He had never talked to her that way before. Still, she obeyed out of familiarity: same old room, same little friends coming in the middle of the night to take her to catch fireflies or pick sour cherries. She pulled a black sweater on over the white old-lady nightgown her grandmother had loaned her to sleep in and kicked on her boots. Then she scanned the room for her coat, but it was just another black, soft pile in the dark, and she left it. The sweater was warm enough.
Kaye climbed out
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