Beautiful Broken Girls Read online

  “That. Was. Awesome!” Francesca said between pants.

  “That was stupid!” Ben said, breathing hard. “You could have killed yourself.”

  Francesca struggled with her breath. “I’m not afraid to die.”

  “Then you could have killed me. Why would you do that?”

  Francesca fixed on him with a look of barely suppressed hate. “I guess I needed to cool off. You guys get me hot and bothered,” Francesca said, mocking, rolling onto her back. Her jawbones formed a perfect heart shape as she pushed away from Ben, arms rising and falling languorously over her head, trying to tame her own breathing so Ben wouldn’t see her struggle. Above, Mira and Louis pointed. The sun was behind them and their faces were blotted out, but Ben thought they were laughing because of the way their shoulders shook.

  “You could have killed us both,” Ben faltered, Francesca’s moon face the only thing visible as she glided in her one-piece bathing suit the color of shiny eggplant. He knew he sounded childish; he knew he was angrier than he had a right to be. He treaded water spastically, too awkward for the swimmer he was, and felt his shout linger, pathetic. He wanted to say something cool to patch it over, make it seem like she hadn’t completely freaked him out, but he gave up and swam to the wall. Ahead, Francesca climbed toward Mira, who crouched on her hands and knees at the tip. Ben made out the outline of Piggy, and Connie on a lower ledge, having scrambled down for a better view. Connie couldn’t have done that. Ben bobbed for a few minutes, stalling, though more than anything he wanted to get out of the water. Eventually he climbed, arriving first on Connie alone, leaning on one hip, her legs swept to the side like a mermaid. Ben paused to get ahold of himself before reaching the altar rock. He felt dangerously close to crying. Connie handed him a towel, purple and plush, from a bathroom, characteristically inappropriate.

  Ben blotted his face. Connie bit her lip.

  Ben peeked over the towel. “You’re mad that I yelled at her. Your ‘blood.’ Well let me tell you something: you would have freaked out, too.”

  Connie shook her head, still smiling.

  “What then?” Ben snapped.

  “I know you care about Francesca. That’s why you were mad she did something so dangerous.” Her eyes filmed over with dopiness. “I understand. We all love her.”

  “No, Connie.” He handed back her towel. “I don’t love Francesca.”

  “I know. You love Mira. But we’re one. Sangue. You said it yourself.” Connie traced her calf with her finger. “If you love one of us, you love all of us.”

  “Connie.”

  “Mira would say the same thing. You do something to one of us, you do it to all.”

  “Connie, listen. It’s way hot, and it’s probably time we headed back.”

  “I thought, I mean, if you did like me, too, we might…”

  “Connie!” Ben’s tone was louder than he meant it to be, and his cheeks burned. “Please stop.” He checked to see if the others had heard, but the silhouettes had moved away. Even Piggy didn’t care if Ben was making the moves on Connie, hangdog now around the eyes and mouth. “Hey, don’t sit here by yourself. Come up with me. I’ll help you.”

  Connie shook her head.

  “You gotta go up to get out, anyway. Come.”

  Connie squinted past Ben’s legs, as if into the sun, though it was the wrong direction. “I’m gonna lie here alone for a while. You go.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded hard.

  “Your way then.” Ben turned and climbed, hand over hand, having trouble feeling for the notches that he knew by heart.

  Connie called up to him softly. “She wouldn’t have drowned. She’s protected, by her gifts.”

  Ben let Connie’s words float away over the lake. When he reached the altar rock, he saw Francesca seated like a queen with a towel draped around her neck, Mira at her feet. He hoisted himself up and collapsed on the bare rock. Mira sprang up and ran to him, planting her hands on both sides of his chest, hovering over his face as though she might kiss him. Ben had no way of knowing her expression: she had eclipsed the sun. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn she was going to mount him.

  “Whoa!” He laughed. Instantly, everything was better. Everything was amazing. This was Mira’s gift, he wanted to yell to Connie, dumb, dramatic Connie.

  “That dive was sick!” Mira gasped, damp hair spilling onto his chest, light shining through a hundred shades of butter gold, the smell of tropical flowers and coconut. Instinctively, he reached up and touched it; it was sunlight on his fingers.

  Louis crawled over, a wicked smile across his face. He leaned and whispered in Ben’s ear. “I thought, Benny. I just thought, if you did like me, too, we might … you and I might, you know, right here on the ledge…” His imitation of Connie was loud enough for Mira to overhear, but it hadn’t mattered; nothing mattered. Ben had touched sunlight. All bets were off: Mira would be his.

  Ben looked up at the sun. The morning was passing fast. He wasn’t here to remember: the memories would only drive him mad. Mira had given him one last job to do. He scanned the ledge. Pockets of trash—cans, Johnny’s Foodmaster bags, condoms—were stuffed into crevices. A knot of panic poked the back of his throat. Where would someone leave a note where no one would find it unless they were looking? Where?

  Ben took a deep breath and stuck his head back over the side of the ledge where Connie had sat. Behind a weeks-old sapling flashed white. Mira’s note, weighted with a rock. The knot in Ben’s chest loosened. Ben scrambled down to the shallow ledge and snatched it up. The ledge was skinny and seemed less stable than it was a year ago, when it had held Connie and him, or maybe he was becoming a wimp. He jammed the note in his pocket and pulled himself onto the altar, crab-walking backward, spraying tiny stones.

  Ben unfolded the note. When he saw the first word, he let out an anguished groan.

  Francesca wakes every morning with hair soaked

  from tears. She cries all night over him and the things

  he does to her. She makes excuses, says he can’t help himself.

  Only I know better.

  Ben swore and threw the note to the ground. Why was Mira wasting her notes to him on her sister’s love life? Everyone knew Francesca Cillo had a crush on Mr. Falso. It made sense, the guys rationalized, for her to fall for a dude who was unreachable when she wasn’t allowed to date anybody anyway. He was lean, had shoulders that looked good in shirts, and actual dimples. His skin stayed dark in January when everyone else looked like dishwater. Rumor was he spray-tanned. His eyebrows dipped in the middle, making him look angry when he wasn’t smiling, which wasn’t often. Mr. Falso (“Call me Nick!”) didn’t shake hands: he hugged. It didn’t matter if it was a girl or a guy, he grabbed your shoulders and looked you in the eyes.

  Then: “How are you doing?”

  Followed by the Meaningful Pause.

  Worst thing was, Ben wanted to dismiss Mr. Falso’s touchy-feeliness as hokey, but he liked it. Many times Ben had gone to Mr. Falso to talk about games that went south and grade troubles, and once, the fights between his mom and dad. You’d text Mr. Falso, and he’d be in his office waiting for you to arrive. He’d let you talk, then tell his own thinly related stories, always with a reference to the time he lost the big game, or the girl, or some tale that included a lesson learned. You knew his story didn’t match up: the shame of missing a three-pointer two decades ago couldn’t sting the same as attempting a behind-the-back fake and having the ball fall out of your pocket last spring. Not the same sting at all. But no one cared. Mr. Falso knew sports, liked girls, and seemed to have a life outside the church. He was never exhausted by the problems of teenagers in his congregation; he got energy from them. More importantly, he fixed things. When Kyle didn’t pass the state trooper exam, Mr. Falso was the one who suggested EMT training, then hooked Kyle up with the right people. Mr. Falso was the one who sat with Eddie in the days after Connie died, dispensing lots of advice, mostly centere
d around helping his mother re-enter reality. Technically, his job wasn’t far off from a camp counselor, herding kids onto yellow buses for spiritual retreats, to build houses in the deep South, and to Bible camp in the summer. Also technically, his job was to “counsel the youngest parishioners, particularly about spiritual matters.” Since his arrival last fall, Mr. Falso had found fans among the mothers and fathers, too, and as a single young guy, was invited for lasagna dinners and beers with the dads at Black Rock Tavern five nights out of seven.

  Mira had to be talking about Mr. Falso in her note. Right?

  Whatever. He cared so little about Francesca. A tear welled in the corner of his eye, and he brushed it away roughly. There was a special cruelty that Mira would feed his lust for her voice with words about Francesca. The notes were like a drug: he needed the next one, and the next one. And Ben knew where the next one was, because after he had touched Mira’s hair on the ledge, it was officially on.

  He needed to get to Eddie’s house. Soon. He’d text him later, ask him to shoot hoops like old times. Make an excuse to go to the bathroom like he had that day last summer, and find the next note, a note that had to say something more about Mira. In a cramped hallway, under the Villelas’ spoon rack, half-blind from the sun. Mira had let him know.

  But today the sun felt so good.

  Ben turned his ear to the woods. He thought he heard voices. He listened hard, but there was only the muted rush of the highway. Sure he was imagining things, Ben yawned and leaned back, feeling the rising sun on his face. He placed the notes on his chest and folded his hands over them: two notes now, and he was no closer to knowing anything about why Mira was gone.

  More than once, Ben had suspected the quarry had a hypnotic effect. He’d seen it in Mira’s eyes as they rolled upward, the way her foot slid down the towel to meet the other. One after the other, the girls, their bodies cooled from swimming, would still. Ben felt heavy. He no longer minded that sharp points dug into his back, didn’t bother to flick away the june bug that landed among the hairs on his wrist. Ben told himself that it was the sun, settling over him like a blanket, that made him fall asleep at the quarry. Nothing else.

  Ben’s knee jerked. He settled back again, remembering again the way he had touched Mira for the second time in this exact spot where she had also fallen or maybe leaped but definitely died. He smelled a trace of sulfur, and thought he should stay awake, but the fall from consciousness was delicious. His last thought before sleep was of violet gas rising from the pickle water and himself, flat on the ledge, a stick man, the lines of his body drawn in pencil, clear and colorless, waiting for the gas to meet him. He let himself be heavy as the gas swirled around his head, trunk, and legs, growing a vibrant shade of eggplant as the color filled him.

  * * *

  Scoffs and low whistles mingled with footsteps breaking branches.

  “I heard the EMTs had to pry them apart. Long wet hair and purple lips. Like Korean water ghosts,” said Louis.

  “Ever think of asking me? The one guy who was actually there?” said Kyle.

  Voices traveled in the quarry in funny ways. If kids were splashing below, you could have trouble hearing the person next to you, but a conversation three ledges above would sound crystal clear. It was the main reason Piggy got away with saying he did a chick on one of the ledges, because you knew if he hit the acoustics right, the whole event could have been soundless, even if that particular girl had a reputation for being a screamer.

  Ben’s eyelids had sunburned into tacky shells. The collar of his T-shirt dug into his neck. He checked his watch: 12:45 p.m. He’d been asleep for five and a half hours. The voices threaded through the thin saplings and grew louder as they made their way up the hill toward Ben.

  “Not for nothing, but the quarry’s not normal during the daytime. The way it screws with time. Ghosts from dead bodies down there. It’s got, what do they call it? Bad energy. You ask me, I think the spirits didn’t want those girls messing with their burial ground, and maybe made sure they knew it,” said Piggy.

  “Ghosts? You’re saying the Ghosts of Quarry Divers Past pushed them off the ledge?” said Louis.

  “I’m saying something got to them, dude,” said Piggy.

  “It was a waste of hotness, that’s what it was,” Louis said.

  “You should have made your moves faster. Mira was ready, man,” Piggy huffed. “If I had whatever it was she saw in your sorry mug, I would’ve been in months ago.”

  On the ledge, Ben’s bowels clenched.

  “Instead of having to make moves on the cousin?” said Louis. A chorus of “hey!”s rose up. It was a fine line, talking about the Cillo girls and Connie, even when Eddie wasn’t around.

  “I’m just saying. Those girls were like one big lost opportunity,” said Piggy.

  “You chuckleheads ever consider Villela might have beat us there? Seriously, shut the f—” Kyle froze, expecting to see Eddie.

  Ben rolled up onto his elbow and put his finger to his lips.

  Kyle nodded. His widow’s peak fell into wings worn long to cover his bad ear, and his mouth belonged to a little boy, with screwed-up, rosebud lips. Kyle was overgrown for his grade, and preferred to hang with guys from his hood, even if they were two years younger. Girls thought Kyle was cute, with his shambling walk, like he was wearing invisible ski boots.

  Kyle spun around and disappeared back into the brush, waving his arms, yelling. “No room up here. Let’s go jump off the other side!”

  “If somebody’s squatting, they got no right!” Piggy called.

  “That ledge is sacred ground. Tell them to hit the road!” Louis yelled.

  Ben shoved Mira’s notes into the waistband of his shorts as he crawled close to the edge, turning toward the water and giving them his long back. The boys shoved past Kyle and charged into the clearing. Piggy spotted Ben first and planted his hands on his thick hips.

  “Lattanzi?”

  The only sound was june bugs whirring to a fever pitch.

  Ben cringed, stinging his sunburn. He spoke out over the water. “I want to be alone.”

  Kyle yelled from his place behind. “The dude’s grieving over Mira. Let the man have some peace.”

  Louis approached. “What’s he doing here by himself?”

  “What does it look like he’s doing here? He’s praying,” called Kyle.

  Piggy snickered. “He ain’t praying.”

  Ben felt Piggy’s cool shadow on his neck before he swiped the notes from his waistband. Ben spun around wildly.

  Piggy waved the notes out of his reach. “What are these? You writing journal entries up here? Communing with nature?”

  Ben tried to swipe them back, but Piggy was quick. He waggled them above his head. “Love notes to a dead girl, maybe?”

  Ben felt his ears fill with blood. Everything around Piggy turned shimmery and fragmented. Ben shoved Piggy backward.

  “Dude, relax! Not for nothin’, but you and Mira Cillo were over way before this all went down,” Piggy said.

  Ben pounced on Piggy, taking him to the ground and slamming his skull against the rock, and then sat on his chest. Piggy rolled and Ben fell off, groped his way back on and shook his head like a dog. His fists sank into Piggy’s jowls, the meat of his chest, and the softness of his belly, and every punch was better and better, like Piggy’s body welcomed Ben’s fists, begged to be pummeled and shaped. Piggy had at least twenty pounds on Ben, but he covered his face with his hands. Ben smelled imaginary Old Spice deodorant and stale breath, cigars and Scotch; saw hairs in his opponent’s nose and ears not there as he drove his head back with jabs to his jaw, which had grown from the Pignataro chin that folded up on itself into something sculpted. Piggy raised a knee to Ben’s balls, and Ben rolled off, nearing the edge of the ledge.

  “Christ, don’t fall!” yelled Louis.

  Ben rolled away from the edge and snapped to his feet, charging at a half-risen Piggy and knocking him to the ground a second time. He loomed
and swayed over him, then fell to one knee.

  “Lattanzi, that’s it!” said Kyle.

  “You’re even!” said Louis.

  Ben cupped the back of Piggy’s head as though he might kiss him. The head in Ben’s hand didn’t wear a shaved fade, but was streaked with silver and slick with drugstore hair oil. It was Mr. Cillo he wanted to kill for keeping him and Mira apart. Because Ben could have made things right with her; he was sure he could have.

  The old man was to blame for all of it.

  Ben head-butted Piggy with his forehead. Piggy’s head snapped back and hit the ground. Ben staggered away, pressing his wrist into his mouth. He dropped to his knees and fell forward to his hands. Vomited.

  Kyle dragged the towel from around his neck and handed it to Ben. “Dude, you cracked him with your skull. A freaking Glasgow kiss. Who does that?”

  Ben’s ears rang, and the nausea caused by Piggy’s one good hit got worse in waves. The quarry grew dark. Ben blinked, thinking he was losing consciousness, but it was only a cloud passing over the sun. He felt the absence in his waistband, a cold settling at the small of his back. He scanned the ground. The notes had settled, miraculously, ink-side down. They could have been receipts or Kleenex or trash. He fell to his side and lay still.

  The rest of the guys kneeled around Piggy, whose eyes were slits.

  “Is he alive?” called Kyle.

  Louis leaned into his ear. “Can you speak, Piggy?”

  Piggy muttered, “Ucker.” His reptilian eyes fluttered and rolled back, white gel flashing.

  Kyle rubbed his hands together and bent on one knee to flick up Piggy’s eyelid, listening to him breathe. He looked at Ben. “You gave him a nice concussion, Lattanzi. I never would’ve guessed you had it in you.”

  Louis held his head. “He’s gotta weigh 190 pounds! Who’s gonna carry him out of here?”

  “We’ll take turns carrying him,” said Kyle. “One at the head, one at the feet.”

  “What happens when we get him home?” said Louis. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the one to face Mr. Pignataro.”