Wabanaki Blues (8 page)

Scales raises a well-plucked eyebrow. It makes her lemony head look like a narrow slice has been cut into it.

There's a painful silence following Del's compliment. We are all standing in a circle. Sponge's bloodshot eyes ping-pong between Del and me and Scales. The quiet becomes unbearable.

Sponge lays a limp backhand against his forehead, pretending to faint, and imitating Del's voice. “Oh Mo-na Lisa, you are so mu-si-cal. You are so won-der-ful. I think I love you.” He smacks his lips, making a kissy face.

I try not to blush. A grape-colored vein bulges in the middle of Scales' pale forehead. Del turns his back on everyone and pretends to tune Angel.

I fail in my best attempt to relax the muscles in my face. “So Bear, about the band's name—The Blond Bear—I get that Sponge and Scales are blond and that they incorporated your name into it. But how does Del fit in?”

Bear hesitates. “Actually Mona, we named the band after Del. You might want to ask your great aunt why we chose that name, in his honor.”

Before I can explain that I don't have a great aunt, Del whirls around on his good leg and cuts me off. “It's time for us to perform our theme song for Mona Lisa.” He picks me up by the waist and hoists me onto a nearby stool made from a leather-padded wheel hub. I grab his shoulders and feel his warm hands on me. My arms tingle worse than ever—my whole body tingles. Del wiggles a furry teepee eyebrow at me. I toss back my hair.

He strums a chord on Angel that sounds like a woman screaming. My former glee evaporates.

“The song Scales and I are going to sing is called ‘Growl,'” he announces.

Scales drops down on all fours in those overly short shorts and releases a half-rabid snarl, scraping her fingernails on the pine floorboards. Del bends over her with Angel, hitting another screaming chord, squatting till he's practically sitting on top of her, grinding out the most guttural sounds I've ever heard. He stands straight and spins on his good leg so fast I swear the wings on his guitar start flapping. My bones ache. Del and Scales sing in such tight harmony that the room vibrates. Their lyrics describe the search for the perfect mate. I try to remember they are only performing, especially when they both drop to the floor, groaning and snarling at one another, nose-to-nose on all fours, like mating bears.

The song spins into reverb. I collapse on an ottoman made from a padded monster truck wheel, clapping painfully.

Sponge pulls a blanket off a frosty case of Grim Reaper beer and slaps one into my hand. I thank him and guzzle it.

“Your song was great, guys,” I yell to Scales and Del, before recoiling at the microbrew's taste—which is somewhere between Guinness and prune juice. Scales reacts to my disgust with a high-pitched hiccup-giggle that morphs into a trilling war whoop. What a voice she has.

She steps between Del and me, brushing her lips against his earlobe and whispering something. Bear hands me another Reaper and I down it, remembering too late that I skipped breakfast. Del breaks away from Scales and pulls Rosalita and me onto the ottoman with him and Angel. Scales stomps back over to her Mustang couch, pouting. Sponge nestles in beside her, and she tries to shove him off. He pokes at her playfully, refusing to budge.

The neck of Del's guitar touches mine sharply. Bear looms over us, like a Victorian chaperone. I try to ignore him and turn my eyes to Del's guitar. The artist's signature on Angel says “Will Pyne.” I wonder if Del's dad is Mom's mysterious friend.

“Del, your dad paints guitars, portraits, and cityscapes. He's one seriously talented man. Does he have a gallery in Boston or New York or something?”

“Nah, he sells everything on the Internet. That way he gets to keep his privacy.”

“Can I meet him?”

He sets down his beer as if it's his worst enemy and limps away. “I think he's busy today, Mona Lisa.”

Bear overhears him and shakes his head negatively.

Missing the warmth of Del sitting beside me on the ottoman, I follow him over to a desk. The top is painted with artificial clutter: a spilled coffee cup, a newspaper from 1994, a scatter of colored pencils and two pseudo-dripping paintbrushes. My head feels dizzy. It must be the cheap rotgut beer.

“What's wrong Mona Lisa?” he asks.

“Yes, Mona Lisa, why aren't you smiling?” asks Scales, giggling.

I groan inwardly at this tired joke, and point to the desk. “I see your dad paints furniture, Del.”

“He paints anything when he runs out of canvas…” His voice cracks. “Or whiskey.”

So Del's dad is a drunk, and he has no mom. That explains my grandparents' involvement in his upbringing. Stones rumble in the driveway, along with the distinctive motor sound of a Harley pulling in. Everyone springs into action as if an alarm has sounded. This must be Mr. Pyne. Sponge falls off her Mustang couch with a thud. Scales rushes to scoop up our beer bottles. Bear leaps around like a ballet dancer stashing unopened beers in his gym bag. Del kicks his dad's painted desk with his overly heavy black boots, scuffing the chair leg. His eyes scour the room as if he doesn't recognize his own house. I've seen this same look on Lizzy's face, whenever her deadbeat dad visited her apartment. On those days, I felt protective of her, realizing her Cherry Coke attitude was really a mask.

I slurp one last mouthful of Grim Reaper right before Scales grabs my bottle and tosses it. Before I can swallow, I notice one real photograph among the faux-clutter on the desk. I pull it out and beer spews from my lips. It shows a dark-haired man, who looks like Del, standing beside a Harley with green flames. I'm desperate to look out the window to check out what kind of bike just drove in, but I hear the electric garage door already grinding closed.

I hold my forehead.

“You okay?” Del asks.

I don't respond right away. I try and tell myself there must be hundreds of Harleys with green flames in New England, not just the one that belonged to the guy who killed Mia Delaney. Still, I've never seen another bike that matched this notorious description before. Grumps did say Del's dad went to Yale—which is only a half-hour away from Hartford. I'm hoping this is all a dark coincidence.

I pick a few triads on Rosalita and finally reply in half-sung lyrics. “Sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you lie.”

I think I meant to say, “cry,” but it's hard to be sure what I meant.

Scale sucks air between her teeth as Del leans into me.

He re-sings the lyrics I started and adds a new line. “Sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you lie. Sometimes you're wishful when an angel walks by.”

This guy really likes angels. I've never been called an angel. It sounds like something a guy says to inveigle a girl. Or scarier, Del means it.

He slugs his beer before Scales whisks it away. “Wait a minute, Mona Lisa, my muse! I think we got us a song here.”

I'm pretty sure Del's dad is about to appear, and they don't get along. So why is he taking the time to write a song right now? This is insane. It's obvious his dad makes him nervous. Hell, the guy's self-portrait makes me nervous, never mind his green-flamed bike. Then again, the whole point of songwriting is to cope with life's emotional challenges. Right? Bear seems to appreciate this fact. He remains calm and strums a few chords to go with the lyrics, encouraging Del to add more words to the tune. Del tries his burgeoning lyrics with Bear's third line:

Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you lie.

Sometimes you're wishful when an angel walks by.

Sometimes you need her, sometimes you know…

Del lifts his furry teepee eyebrows at me, indicating I'm responsible for completing the final line of the stanza.

I swing Rosalita into position and jump in with a single country-western style chord, “
Where there's an angel, a devil must go.”

Bear nods, approvingly. Del wraps his arm around me like a blanket infused with fire ants. I'm sure he is going to kiss me. I want him to kiss me. I don't care if his friends see, or if his drunken father walks in, or even if his dad is Mia Delaney's murderer. The fire ants are climbing up my neck, choking me. I'm a seventeen-year-old high school graduate, and no guy has ever kissed me.

Del pulls me closer. I sink a few inches, like I'm sucked down into this woodsy earth. A door between the house and the garage bangs open and shut. Del presses his forehead to mine and his lichen eyes fade. “What a team we made.” He pushes me away, as if he's saying good-bye forever.

“Daddy's home!” comes a shout from the newly opened door. Those words rattle out of this guy's mouth, like a dumped bucket of used car parts.

He staggers in, wearing a tee shirt with a picture of an exploding planet on the front. It says, “Apocalypse Survivors” in flaming letters. That's Mom's favorite Hartford band. This must be
her
Will. He resembles a rotting and decomposed version of Del with axle grease hair, bile-green monster gumball eyes, and skin that shines as if it's spread with a thin layer of mayonnaise. Great taste, Mom.

Del's dad approaches Sponge, unsteadily. “Lemme guess, you're stoned again, aren't ya boy?”

Sponge shakes his head like a Muppet. “No sir, Mr. Pyne.”

Mr. Pyne circles Sponge, head-bobbing and singing Lady Ga Ga. “Daddy I'm so sorry, I'm so s-s-sorry yeah. We just like to party, like to p-p-party, yeah.”

He stops singing. “Well, well, well. Looks like we got us a new troublemaker in town.” He approaches me, bugeyed, spewing whiskey breath. “You're Lila Elmwood's kid. My condolences on being trapped here for the summer, little Lila.” He presses his smelly chest against my shoulder. “Ain't nothing worse than getting trapped in Indian Stream.”

Mom's friend is a creep. I try and focus on the fact that he controls my only access to running water and the Internet.

Sometimes you lie.

“Your artwork is beautiful, Mr. Pyne,” I cringe.

“I know. I'm a genius.” Those emphatic words blow a whiskey hurricane my way. “But I'm no mister to you, Babe. Your mom and I go way back. Call me Will.”

I was afraid of this. He thinks his connection with Mom makes him my instant pal. I feel the thumping pulse of his heart pressed against me; he's that close. His stale alcohol smell makes my stomach convulse. I'm grateful when he stumbles backwards. I scan the room for help. Bear, Scales and Sponge are already packing their musical equipment. Del stands still and lifeless like a helpless clone of himself.

Will heads for the open kitchen area and slams a pot of something from the fridge on the stove. “Listen, Lila Elmwood's kid…” He stirs the pot with one paint-splattered hand and shakes the other paint-splattered arm at the ceiling. “I'm going to take your picture, and then I'm gonna blow it up, and paint it, and make you immortal. He flings his arms upward, including the one holding the spoon. He splatters the wall with red sauce from the pot.

I don't move or speak.

“Well, all right then, Little Lila!” He drops the spoon back on the stove and heads my way, more upbeat, as though I've agreed to his proposal.

Running his paint and sauce-speckled hands through his axle-grease hair, he grabs a camera from a kitchen drawer. Stumbling, he circles me and snaps photos of my mudwood eyes, tree bark hair, and unsmiling face.

Will hauls up his sagging pants, weighed down by too many paint tubes, paintbrushes, and flasks, paid for by my grandmother who somehow couldn't afford running water or electricity for her husband. He leans over to grab Angel, and I eye Rosalita warily. If he touches her, I swear that I'll stab him with one of Scales' “Now” or “Never” hair clips. He strums a stunningly complex Chuck Berry-style chord, which shows me he really can play guitar. Del was right: Will should have given him lessons.

Will tosses Angel back on the futon and yells. “Listen up, you monster rocker wannabees! I made some fine bear chili last night. You gotta try it.”

Now that I've met Marilynn Awasos, the idea of eating bear chili sounds not only disgusting but also dangerous. My stomach flip-flops and my head reels. I don't know if it's my fear of Marilynn or eating bear chili, or the digestion of cheap beer that's making me ill. I double over from a sudden wave of nausea. The shadow of a girl with a hoop earring slides across my feet. I assume it's Scales. I lift my head to regain composure and see she's still packing equipment, across the room. It wasn't her.

Something is wrong here. My body becomes weightless, as if something has yanked me under Second Connecticut Lake. I stagger to the ottoman and sit with my head between my knees, hoping not to pass out. The girl's shadow crosses my sneakers again, more slowly this time. The outline shows a head full of curls, just like Mia, the graffiti girl.

I feel like hell. Del rushes to my side, gently caressing my head with the back of his hand. “Relax, Mona Lisa. Take a deep breath. There's no actual bear in Dad's chili. It doesn't even contain real meat. He's a vegetarian. The name is a joke. People always freak the first time they hear him say ‘bear chili.' I would have warned you, if I'd known he'd be showing up.”

This news is somewhat of a relief. I think about how few murderers must be vegetarians, and then I recall that Hitler was one.

“Willy's chili is coming out!” calls Del's dad, carrying the heated pot to the table and shaking his vulgar hips, making his pants fall lower than I want to see.

He slips, slopping chili on the floor and splattering it onto a kitchen corkboard. So what if he's a pathetic drunk? That doesn't make him a murderer. I remind myself that thousands of Harley-Davidson motorcycles must have been painted with green flames back in the 1990s. The odds of Will Pyne being Mia Delaney's murderer are a million to one. Still, if ever there was a world-class, drunken psycho, whack-job, murdering son of a bitch, it's Will Pyne.