We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(16)
“Probably just, like, for a visit. How long do people visit for?”
“You’ve been here a year.”
“Oh, and what would you do without me?”
There is a thwacking sound, as if one of them has thrown a pillow. Then another thwack. Laughter.
“I contribute so much!” yells Brock. “You would be iron deprived without me, subsisting on powders and pavlovas and wineberries.” More laughter. “I stocked the freezer this very afternoon, you butt.”
“Did you get the marinated steak?”
“And the swordfish skewers and the chicken you like. I got all the things,” says Brock. “Paid for with the effing innocence of my effing youth. Okay? I bought you steak today with the sacrifice of my childhood.”
Tatum laughs. “Okay, seriously, that’s good. Thank you.”
“Arg,” says Brock lightly. “You know I’m gonna eat like half of it.”
“You got a lot, though?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s awesome. I owe you.”
“It’s nothing.”
There’s a pause. “But Matilda,” says Tatum.
“Her room’s right there. She can probably hear you.”
Tatum’s voice drops. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” says Brock. “She’s going to mess Meer up. Now he’s going to be full of feelings all the time.”
“We shouldn’t add another person,” says Tatum definitively. “It’s just been us, you know? She shouldn’t be in our business.”
18
No one is downstairs.
Meer said dinner at seven. My hair is still wet from my shower, but I put on a black cotton dress that I hope is appropriate.
The cavernous living room is minimalist but warm. The couches are a deep apricot color and look like they’re built of velvet spheres, linked together. One of the cushions is stained with dark liquid. The coffee table is double wide and stacked with books on art and architecture. From the wildly high ceiling hangs a mobile that stretches maybe eight feet across, turning in the breeze from the sliding doors that stand open to the evening.
There’s no art on the walls, except for one Cello painting that I recognize from seeing it online.
* * *
—
Odysseus Flees shows a man standing at the wheel of a speedboat.
He wears a blood-spattered sweater and jeans.
He is very, very small. The painting is
mostly ocean. Violent, terrifying waves.
Behind Odysseus, on land in the distance, a Cyclops lies dead,
stabbed through the eye with a spear.
You can barely make it out.
Odysseus braves this vast expanse of
very dangerous ocean.
Escaping.
* * *
—
I haven’t actually read The Odyssey, but I know it’s an ancient Greek poem. Plus Saar and I played Killer Odyssey all the way to the end.
Odysseus, the great king of somewhere or other, leaves his kingdom to go fight the Trojan War. He ends up traveling all over the world. You play the game by boating around between levels on this wine-dark sea. At each level, you have to battle a legendary creature—like Cyclops, or Medusa, or a bunch of feral mermaids.
The mermaids are the worst to kill, actually. You can’t slaughter them any of the usual ways. You have to drown them in the air, one after the other, by dragging them out of the sea and trapping them so they can’t get back. They beg for mercy and struggle for breath.
It’s brutal and misogynistic, but it’s what you have to do to beat this level. And you can’t be a gamer if you get mad about misogyny. It’s threaded through practically every game. Mario Kart, even. Angry Birds. So I just save being pissed off for real-life situations. Plus, when I become a game designer, I’ll make some superviolent games that don’t also hate women. Or forget we exist.
Anyway, once you’ve drowned all the feral mermaids in the air, they shrivel up. Their scales form an excellent trophy sword you can use later on. After that, the other villains can be killed the normal way, like with swords and grenades and ice picks and carving knives.
Kingsley’s painting is bleak. The water seems infinite, the tiny boat so vulnerable. Odysseus doesn’t look like a conquering hero; he looks haggard and desperate. Like a man who’s done awful, awful things in the name of self-preservation.
Beneath the painting, on the mantel of a large fireplace, are four glasses half filled with pink juice. They look like they’ve been sitting there a few days. There are two bowls crusted with yogurt and old granola.
I wander into the dining room, which houses a table that seems custom-made to match its wood walls and built-in shelves. The chandelier is green glass blown in oceanic, squidlike spirals. It’s lit from within and casts strange shadows on the wall—but the table isn’t set for a meal. On it are several old coffee cups and a plate sticky with crumbs and syrup. The floor is covered with bits of food and other trash.
The kitchen is orderly. The indigo pot still stands at the back of the stove, but the rest of the day’s project has been cleaned up. The fabrics have all been moved to hang on lines outdoors. Sheets, shirts, skirts, and pillowcases, all in varying shades of blue, flutter in the summer wind beyond the sliding glass door.