Wicked Little Games

Chapter Four

Lillith fidgeted across from me, and because I felt wired to her every nuance, my eyes shot to her. Clutching her knife, she stared intently at the butter as if willing it to move closer. She opened her mouth to say something, but then slammed it shut.

Without a word, I nudged the butter dish closer to her. White with bright red poppies, she’d had the dish for years, given to her as a birthday present by her late husband Joseph. I guess he’d known she loved to cook as much as she liked to dance.

I covered her hand with mine, the contrast of my younger skin against hers, slamming home the cold hard truth. We didn’t have much longer. And I didn’t know when. I didn’t know how. “It’s called butter.” I tried to smile. I think it worked.

She nodded, her shoulders shrinking as if she were disappearing within herself.

Wasn’t she?

Always the attention diverter, Heather-Lynn cleared her throat and pointed her fork at me. “Tonight I’ll have some of that orange blossom and ginseng tea you and Lillith love so much. Maybe I’ll run down to the bakery and get some goodies for dessert.”

“Get the chocolate fried pies,” I begged, and they both laughed.

Yeah, it was the simple pleasures that kept the darkness at bay.

After breakfast was finished, Heather-Lynn and I cleared the table while Lillith read the newspaper, part of her daily routine. Editorials and world events were her favorite sections, probably because she’d traveled all over Europe in her youth, dancing for various ballet companies.

All was well. Yet…

“Keep an eye out for her today,” I whispered to Heather-Lynn who nodded, her teased blonde hair not moving an inch.

“Don’t be talking about me like I’m not here.” Lillith snapped up, newspaper in hand, eyes flashing. “I’m not a child.” She turned her back, cleaning the stovetop.

Oh.

Heather-Lynn never missed a beat, running over to a shopping bag she’d brought in earlier and set by the door. With a flourish worthy of a magician, she pulled out a see-through, baby-doll nightie. She jiggled it. “What cha think of my new outfit, ladies. I bought it just for Maxie-poo.”

I stared at the lace and the garters and the snaps and I don’t know what all else. An image of her and Max, our fiftyish-year-old mail man, rolling around…

“Thanks for that picture. Now, I have to go bleach my eyes,” I joked.

She turned to Lillith and made the hanger dance. “Huh? Ya see it?”

“I certainly can’t unsee it, my dear,” Lillith said, her good mood restored.

Or perhaps she was just pretending for us. Lately it was hard to tell how much of what she said was real or if she held back, not wanting us to know the truth.

Wanting to ease her work load, I went with her to the studio to set up for the morning classes. Across the hall from our apartment, the studio took up the entire width of the right side of the building.

Beckham House, a two-story construction, consisted of three apartments, one down—which was ours—one up which was Heather-Lynn’s, and one that sat empty because it needed renovating.

The last tenants had moved out under the cover of night, leaving behind punched walls and carpet ruined by a German Sheppard. That empty apartment was the one I’d shared with my mama, and I never walked past it without remembering those hungry days.

It needed a complete makeover. But our money was tight, especially since last summer, when we’d had to replace all the wood flooring in the dance studio because of a burst pipe.

I’d never asked Lillith how much it set her back, but I knew it had been substantial. Which reminded me. We needed to see a lawyer, get the ball rolling on transferring power-of-attorney over to me. I’m eighteen, so it should work.

I flicked on the lights in the studio and watched them blink on one by one, the scent of freshly mopped wood and the sweat of hard work reminding me of every moment spent here training with Lillith

She'd devoted herself to teaching me everything she knew. And it hadn’t always been easy. We’d had lean years, like most people in Ratcliffe. But we’d hung in.

I turned on the heat, set out the sign-in sheet for the students while she popped in a solo piano music CD. And we were done. Now it was up to her.

Fifteen minutes later, Lillith walked me out to my brown Corolla. Without her noticing, I checked her wrist for the ID bracelet, needing reassurance.

We strolled past the For Sale sign in the front yard, and despite being nervous about leaving Lillith, I got a zap of excitement. As soon as this house sold, we’d be out of Ratcliffe and living in a decent neighborhood. Cue, angels singing.

Maybe we’d find a small apartment near my ballet company—if I got into one. That depended on my upcoming audition at the Dallas Ballet Company. Not only was it validation for eight years of hard work, but they also awarded stipends to their students, which would obviously come in handy.

Of course, my dream had been to move to New York City or even Paris to dance, but I needed to stay close to Lillith.

I slung my dance bag and books in my car and backed out of the small gravel drive next to our building. When I got to the road, Lillith stood on the old, rickety porch, watching me leave like she always did, her hands on her hips. A vacant smile graced her face.

Did she know who I was…right at this moment?

A morning was coming when she wouldn’t sing out to me, when she wouldn’t remember my name. Alzheimer’s does that. Like a thief, it steals all the moments of a lifetime; it scrounges through your heart and rips out the people you love; it claws through your mind and takes your ability to think, and then it takes your words until you can’t speak.

And once you have nothing left inside, it slithers away.

Because you’re dead.

I lowered my window down and called out in a sing-song voice. “Did I mention that I love you?”

She rolled her eyes and waved me away.

......

A cold rain drenched me in seconds as I raced from my car to the front doors of Brarwood Academy.

That’s what I got for parking my beat-up car in BFE. But it was preferable to parking next to an import or a luxury car.

At least in the overflow parking, I didn’t have to worry about accidentally dinging a hundred thousand dollar car with my door. But most of all, I didn’t have to worry about running into him.

He always parked in the closest lot, the one designated for seniors.

Prestigious and old, Brarwood Academy was hailed as one of the most academically excellent schools in Texas. It also had an excellent dance and music department.

It certainly had one of the biggest price tags, annual tuition costing around thirty-five thousand a year for non-boarders. Against a backdrop of stately oak trees and carefully maintained shrubbery, the austere grey stones ushered in the privileged to its hallowed halls.

Calling me privileged was downright funny, yet here I am, finishing up my last year at BA. All because Lillith had wrangled me a scholarship, pulling strings with one of the dance teachers here.

BA reeked of money, sophistication and class. It reeked of things I didn’t have, like Hummers and Prada purses. The girls—and guys—dressed like it was Milan Fashion Week and the paparazzi were waiting right outside the school to take their pictures.

I pushed through the double doors, stopping in the tastefully decorated foyer to brush off the rain. It didn’t help.

I probably looked like a drowned rat, but at least my backpack had kept my books and ballet clothes dry.

I continued down the long entry hallway to my locker, and it was a lot like walking the gauntlet.

But I’d mastered the art of ignoring the eye-judging of the girls and the leers from the jerk-offs who thought I was easy. They’d recognized I wasn’t a clone of them on day one.

Fine with me. I liked being on the fringe. The less they knew about me and where I came from the better. And ballet kept me happy. I didn’t need people.

But I shouldn’t generalize because I had some friends here, namely Spider. With his stuffy English accent, you’d think we wouldn’t go together, but we’d met freshman year and had been friends ever since. He was filthy rich and I wasn’t, but we did share a love for cafeteria French fries and Minecraft.

He boarded at BA, and sometimes if I was too exhausted to drive home after hours of dance or if he was scary drunk, I’d sneak into his dorm and crash or take care of him, whichever was needed.

One of the football jocks—Matt the Quarterdick I called him in my head—whistled at me as I passed. As if. The star quarterback at BA, he was the epitome of the handsome, frat boy type.

He was also Emma Easton’s on again, off again boyfriend. Although they’d been off for a while this last time.

Whatever. I avoided him.

I’d already learned a painful lesson with a certain rich boy at BA.