Sweet and Low Page 7

  Before he left, he had to ask, “Why me? Why are you doing this?”

  Bella smiled, showing her white teeth. “Because,” she said, “when you look at us, we feel powerful.” She closed her eyes and took a final puff of her cigarette. “We feel—I feel—like a god.”

  * * *

  —

  BENJAMIN STOPPED GOING to Mr. Tuttleworth’s altogether and pedaled over twice a week to visit the Cade sisters and work on his sketches of them. He started small with his new project, examining their faces closely at first. Really, he soon learned, the human face was simple enough in its architecture: a series of footballs—eyes, nose holes, lips. Ovals that were pinched at the ends. He made them sit in the bay window in the living room, where the light caught the gold in their hair and made them almost glow. By the middle of July, he had filled up two sketch pads’ worth of “practices.” He had pages devoted to their eyes and their noses (Beth’s was smoother than Bella’s) and their chins (he could draw their faces with his eyes closed now and thought he might never forget them, that they would stay with him always), but very few of his sketches focused on them below the neck. That part of them intimidated him. Each time he tried, the figure came out sloppy and ill made, with Beth shaking her head at it and Bella saying he wasn’t “seeing them right.”

  One day the twins were going through his latest attempts at their body, flipping through the pages and Bella smacking her lips. “Something is still not right. You seem to be holding back. Sister?” Bella said. “Is this really how our body looks?”

  Beth sighed. “This is a fine torso, but it is not our torso. Not nearly as complex or multidimensional as it needs to be. Think we are asking too much of him?”

  Benjamin coughed. “Uh, I’m still here.” He shifted in his seat in front of them. They had a way of making him feel like he was the one on display, not them, and he didn’t like it. Ultimately, he was doing the drawing for himself, and so far, he was happy with his progress. They, obviously, were not, and he was coming to understand that maybe they never would be.

  “Just not good enough,” Bella was saying. “Come here.”

  Bella patted the cushion on her side of the seat, so he sat there.

  “Listen,” she said, taking his hand and placing it against her chest. “This here is my heartbeat. Feel it?” He nodded, and Beth took his other hand and brought it to her side of their chest.

  “And this one,” she said, “is mine.” They dropped their hands, but he kept his palms pressed against them. He felt the tiny undulations of their hearts, pumping fresh blood to all of their organs. “Understand us. You have to understand us if you want to make what you are doing worth a damn.”

  “See how my heartbeat is just a bit stronger than hers,” Bella said, and Benjamin closed his eyes. Yes, he soon could feel the difference: Her heart thumped just a little more forcefully than her sister’s. “I’m what the doctors call the dominant one. There’s more of me here than there is of her.”

  “I’ll give out sooner,” Beth said, and leaned her head against her sister’s.

  “But I won’t be far behind. What? Two minutes tops.”

  Benjamin removed his hands. “Are you scared?” he asked Beth. “Of giving out faster, I mean. Being the first to go.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m the lucky one. Won’t have to know what it is like without this one here nagging me.”

  “Benjamin,” Bella said. “We want to understand you too.”

  “Yes,” Beth said. “Please.”

  They asked him to tell them about his mother. He knew that this was a way of bonding themselves to one another, revealing their vulnerabilities. He didn’t mind because, although they were not the first who had asked him to talk about his mother, they were the first who seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say about her.

  “She was a painter,” he said. “Did that mural in the fellowship hall of Second Baptist of all those Old Testament characters.” After his mother’s funeral, the repast was held in that room, and he remembered not being able to take his eyes off of those figures on the wall—Abraham, Moses, David, Esther, Ruth—that his mother had created, thinking how strange it was that they seemed to persist even though she did not. He tried to explain this to the twins, but he felt it somehow got all mangled and confused.

  The twins were staring intently at him when he finished. “Tell me,” Bella said. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”

  He shook his head, and they leaned forward.

  That night he dreamed about the twins, about how he’d kissed both of them: first Bella, who’d nipped at his lips with her teeth, and then Beth, who’d allowed him to press into her, steal her breath. He dreamed that he was between them, conjoined to their body. He wasn’t much more than a head atop their shoulders. “You’ll have to share our hearts,” Beth said matter-of-factly. “It’s the only way.”

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT WEEK the twins had an idea for how to improve his work on their torso. “Nude,” Bella told him. “Our body, for better or worse, in the raw. So you can get a better look.” Benjamin was drinking Dr Pepper at the time and almost spit it out of his mouth when he fully understood what they were proposing. He could tell by the way Beth wouldn’t meet his eyes that it was mainly Bella’s idea.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Bella smiled. “It’ll make the drawing sing.” She told him that they had talked over the pros and cons, and were both willing to do this. The world became very small to Benjamin as he listened to her talk; it seemed to shrink and become just them. He didn’t know what to do with his hands and looked for his pencils in his satchel. While they went to the bathroom to change, Benjamin closed the blinds, and when they returned, the living room was dark and quiet. Benjamin was sitting on the coffee table, not knowing where to look. They were wearing the same terry-cloth robe that they’d worn at the pool party, which now seemed long ago. Beth’s hand clutched the robe close to their chest, her trembling as evident as Benjamin’s. Only Bella appeared to be calm. “It’s okay,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or her sister. “This is something the Lord hath made,” she added, her voice sounding more serious than he’d ever heard it. She grasped her sister’s hand and moved it down to her waist. She unclasped the belt of the robe, and it fell to their ankles.

  They moved to the couch, but Benjamin stopped them. “No,” he said. “Keep standing. Please.”

  Bella smiled and nodded, and Beth looked above his head and appeared to be mumbling something. Benjamin, unable to swallow, taking in what was before him, went to work tracing the strange geography of their skin. Their breasts were different and beautiful in their own way: Bella’s hung heavy and round, her nipple a stubby knot of pink, while Beth’s was a pert scooping of flesh a bit smaller and more sensitive looking than Bella’s. If he had to guess, Benjamin would assume that Bella had developed faster—but was that possible? He didn’t know, and looking at them and feeling his penis go hard and press uncomfortably against his pants, he understood how little he knew about anything. Their figure got only more interesting the farther down his eyes went. They shared a rather large and startling belly button, which he knew many would find repulsive, but the sight of it only made him feel closer to them. As he was tracing the area between their legs, where a soft spray of yellow hair, curly and unkempt, disappeared between their closed thighs, he thought of Mr. Tuttleworth, of what the old teacher might say to him for drawing these girls. I’ll show you who’s ready, he imagined telling the man and tried to picture his teacher’s face when he showed him the figure he was creating now on his pad.

  Afterward, the twins looked over the piece, and Bella said, “Still looks like a cave drawing, but it’s better.” They were wearing the robe again, but it hung loose, untied.

  He was standing close to them, peering over their shoulder, and could smell thei
r eucalyptus body lotion and a darker scent underneath that. As if he were huffing spray paint, smelling them made him heady, dizzy even. He reached over and touched a patch of exposed flesh just below their belly button. The skin was soft, pliable. The room darkened. It was late in the afternoon, and he would have to leave them soon. The girls gazed down at his hand. “That’s us, both of us,” Beth said, and he moved his hand lower, hooking a finger inside them. “That too,” said Bella, her voice catching. They stood there, the three of them, rocking, until Bella murmured, “No,” and touched his wrist. When he took his hand away, his finger was slick with them—their essence, he thought, as he put the finger in his mouth.

  * * *

  —

  BENJAMIN LEFT THEIR HOUSE immensely proud of his portrait and feeling as if his joints were made of air. A part of him wanted to take the portrait to Mr. Tuttleworth right away, but it didn’t seem ready yet. As he was walking his bike out of the twins’ driveway, someone stepped in front of him to block his path. Lucy.

  “I’ve been watching you,” she said. “Ever since you quit art class. I don’t know exactly what you’ve been doing with them, but it’s sick, whatever it is.”

  He felt as if he’d never seen Lucy until that moment. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t know what you—”

  “Freaks,” she blurted out. “And, what, they’re your own personal carnival sideshow?”

  “It’s really none of your business.” Benjamin was trying hard to remain calm; he wanted to hit Lucy in the throat, make it so she would never talk again.

  “You are such a piece of shit, you know that?”

  “All this just because I wouldn’t suck your ugly face. Fuck you.”

  “You can’t talk to me that way.”

  “Fatty,” he said, the anger pulsating through him now, strong and steady. It’d been a long time since he’d exploded on someone, and he had forgotten how nice the release felt. “Moo!” he bellowed. “Moo!”

  She stood there shaking, her hands tightly knuckled into fists.

  Benjamin told her to get out of his way and shoved past her. Her next move surprised him: She rushed him, pushing him to the ground, his head slapping against the pavement. “Fuck me,” he said. The papers in his satchel scattered across the blacktop. When he got himself back to his feet, Lucy was gone. It took him nearly half an hour to get his papers back into his satchel. He pushed his bike home, dazed. It was only later, when he was in his room, that he sensed—without even checking—that Lucy had stolen his nude picture of the twins.

  * * *

  —

  HE BICYCLED TO LUCY’S HOUSE the next morning, not caring if her parents were home. What he found in the neighborhood shocked him. Taped on the light poles and sticking out of every mailbox were bright neon flyers, all fluorescent shades of pink and green. Some people were already outside taking them down, and when he snatched one that had blown into the street and saw what was on it, he almost threw up. There was his drawing of the twins, their nude figure, their immediate faces, only it had been rendered to look more exaggerated than he’d intended. The angles of their hips, the curve of their breasts—they had a mean, hard look to them that made his stomach suck in on itself as if a fist had just walloped him. Under the drawing were the words NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH: BEWARE THE GIRL WITH TWO HEADS!

  He dropped his bike and raced down the street toward Lucy’s house. The sun had not yet burned the morning mist away, and the house seemed to appear out of the clouds. He knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. The garage was empty, and he began to think that no one was home, but he heard a dull thump coming from the backyard. Tad, Lucy’s brother, was jumping on a trampoline and waved at Benjamin when he saw him round the corner of the house. “Your sister,” he told the boy, “is a cunt.”

  With that, he leaped onto the trampoline and tackled Tad. “A star! A star!” the boy was screaming as Benjamin pounded into him, feeling his knuckles tear against the boy’s face. Then, something whizzed past his face; he felt something bite his shoulder. It was like a wasp sting only stronger, deeper. Behind him, Lucy stood on the deck, a BB gun leveled directly at him.

  “Next one goes in your eye,” she said. Her own eyes were red and swollen, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in a week.

  “How could you?” he said, getting off the boy, who was holding his face and muttering something.

  “Leave.” She motioned with her gun. “You’re no good to anybody.”

  Benjamin jumped off the trampoline and walked out of the yard back to his bike. He didn’t look back, though he swore he could hear Lucy Gatesmith crying. Told himself that she’d probably cry and cry long after he was gone.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEWS OF WHAT HAPPENED—the flyers, which everyone assumed were all Benjamin’s doing, and the assault of the Gatesmith boy—spread around town as fast as Benjamin figured it would. “Can’t protect you this time,” Aunt Beatrice said, meeting him at the door. “Vivian Cade called. Said she’s a good mind to call the police. Said those girls are just distraught.”

  He didn’t feel like talking or explaining himself. Let people think what they would; the only people he cared about were the girls. He knew that he would have to make it up to them.

  “Where are you going?” his aunt said; he was halfway down the hall to his room. “Your father wants a word with you.”

  He hadn’t been in his father’s office since before his mother died. It was just as he remembered: books scattered everywhere, the thick smell of dust, the desk grainy and chipped. His father was standing by the tiny window that looked out into the street and holding one of the flyers. “You did this?” he said to Benjamin, and he shook the picture at him.

  “Sort of. I was only—”

  His father held up his hand. His hair was thinning and his face was creased in deep wrinkles. He’d never looked so old. “You drew these girls,” he said, speaking as if he were trying to understand. “You drew them—naked.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After studying the picture for some time, he began to laugh. His laughter was hoarse and heavy, and was as painful for Benjamin to hear as if he’d been slapped.

  * * *

  —

  BENJAMIN SLIPPED OUT of his bedroom window with such ease that he wondered why he’d never done it before. The night sky was clear: the Big and Little Dippers coasted above his head as he hurried into the night. Trees shook in the wind, black figures against a black sky. He made sure to wear dark clothes; he didn’t want to be seen as he spirited through the town, heading toward the Cade house. It was half past eleven when he skidded to a stop in front of their house. The house was dark, and when he stepped into the yard, the grass crunched under his feet. Every sound seemed to echo and multiply in the darkness. Earlier that day, he’d selected pebbles carefully from the driveway—small smooth ones that would scratch against the glass but not break it. He had a pocket full of them.

  His first few shots at the twins’ window were poorly aimed and cracked against the shutters and the awning. But he got better. A few scraped across the window, and soon the room came alive with light. He saw their dark silhouette against the window. He waved, and the figure disappeared. He pressed his ear to the house to see if he could hear them walking down the stairs, but he heard nothing. The sound of crickets swelled up around him and made him sick with longing. If he could just see them one more time, he could explain everything. He could make it all right. If they’d let him. There were footsteps, quick little ones that pranced down the stairs. The door clicked open, and Benjamin scrambled over to see them. He was speaking, blurting it all out in one mash of vowels, before he realized that it was only the aunt standing in the doorway.

  “You,” she said, “need to leave. I am two seconds from calling the police.”

  “Please,” he said, but he couldn’t finish. He was crying, snot a
nd tears dribbling down his face. “Please,” he said again, and reached for the woman. She screamed then and slammed the door shut. He threw his body against the wooden frame. “Please,” he screamed into the door. He slid down and rolled onto the grass and wallowed there until he calmed down some, until he could think. In the distance, he thought he heard sirens. Let them come, he thought; he would be able to explain it to them. He would explain how he got there, on that front yard, to anyone who would listen. Once the words started rolling out of his mouth, they might never stop.

  PART II

  THE EXAGGERATIONS

  I longed for the days when I was young enough to be switched with crape myrtle.

  —LEWIS NORDAN,

  “Sugar Among the Chickens”

  SWEET AND LOW

  I.

  Forney’s mother spends the whole morning cleaning their dusty farmhouse from top to bottom. Beginning with the dining room, she dusts the china cabinet and the upholstered chairs. Adds a leaf to the table, then drapes it with a freshly starched and pressed tablecloth embroidered with bright yellow flowers. She vacuums the carpet in the living room—the sudden blast of the Hoover waking Forney, his first indication that today will be an unusual one—and she sweeps the hardwood floor in the den, her broom finding every mote of dirt, every knotty cobweb. Finally, she varnishes the upright piano in the hallway, taking her time with the old Steinway, until it gleams. Before Forney comes downstairs, she moves the pewter urn containing his father’s ashes from atop the piano to some other location. Out of sight. Perhaps to her bedroom.

  All of this cleaning is a rare and sudden occurrence—Forney knows his mother loathes housework and hasn’t touched a dishrag since his father’s death the year before.