The Throne Page 15

  An answering grin on her face, Meredith reached for the brush. About her, the porch stood empty of its usual clutter. Over the last few evenings, she had been clearing it out, and scraping and washing it down in anticipation of this moment. As reward for her efforts, Aunt Sancy had said they could paint it midweek, even though it was a school night. I can’t believe it, marveled Meredith as she carried an opened can to the inner wall. Dandelion yellow, September gold—it’ll be the first thing we step out into it every morning and come home to every night.

  Awed, she dipped her brush into the glowing paint and ran it across the grayish wall in front of her. “Whoo-hoo!” cheered her aunt from across the porch. “All winter long, we’ll be living inside the sun.”

  Again, Meredith dipped her brush and ran it across the wall. The change in color was intense—the deep pulse of tawny gold engulfing the cracked, faded white. Reveling in its richness, Meredith decided to focus on the inner wall where she could work more quickly, and leave the external ones, with their complicated window frames, to her aunt. To her left, she could see her reflection in a darkening window, hair tied in a bandana and dressed in some old clothes, but she was soon lost to anything except the glow spreading across the wall in front of her, then up through her arms and into her chest.

  “I now know what I’m going to do with my life!” she announced, holding her dripping paintbrush aloft. “I’ll be a house painter, and paint every house dandelion yellow—top to bottom. No matter what the house owners ask for.”

  “Could do worse than a painter,” agreed her aunt. “Grandpa Goonhilly was a carpenter, and he supported his family just fine on that.”

  A frown creased Meredith’s forehead as she noted the underlying defensiveness in her aunt’s voice. Even in the middle of something as celebratory as this, Sancy Goonhilly’s resentment of the Polks remained right at the surface, entirely undiminished. “Maybe I’ll be a painter and a carpenter,” said Meredith, trying to steer her aunt clear of a potential funk. “D’you think Grandpa Goonhilly would’ve liked this color for a porch?”

  “Oh, he’d love it,” Aunt Sancy said immediately. “So would Grannie Goonie.”

  Meredith hesitated. In her bedroom, her parents’ wedding picture was still lying face-down on her night table. For three days now, she had been looking everywhere else when she had been in there, determinedly banishing their faces from her mind—but still, the pretty smile of her mother tugged at her thoughts, willing her to pick up the photograph and return it to its central, upright position in her life.

  “And my mom?” Meredith asked carefully. “Would she have liked it?”

  Across the porch, the smooth strokes of Aunt Sancy’s brush paused. “Ally liked yellow,” she said after a moment. “She wore it a lot. I think her wedding bouquet was yellow.”

  “Yellow and white,” affirmed Meredith. “But a lighter yellow. No dandelions.”

  Aunt Sancy laughed shortly, then said, “Y’know, I believe that’d actually be quite pretty—a wedding bouquet of dandelions. Not that the Polks would’ve allowed it—every detail of that wedding had to be approved by Johanna, and dandelions would’ve been considered gauche. Lower class. Something a Goonhilly would do.”

  “Well, I’m a Goonhilly,” Meredith said stoutly. “And so are you.”

  “All Goonhilly,” asserted her aunt. “And proud of it.”

  Again a frown crossed Meredith’s face. “Grannie Goonie was a Pegler,” she reminded her aunt. “You’re part Pegler, too.”

  “Another family from the lower class,” said Aunt Sancy, without missing a beat. “Where I come from, we’re all plebs—through and through.”

  Slowly, Meredith lowered her paintbrush. Without warning, short heated breaths were rising through her; inside her head, thoughts whirled, intermixing the image of her parents’ wedding portrait with the Polkton Post’s snapshot of the broken bridge guardrail and the partially submerged car. Pain—maybe it was a decade old, but there was still so much of it, a huge inner bruise. But no words—nowhere inside herself could Meredith get a fix on the words that went with this ache.

  “Sometimes,” she said finally, her voice hoarse, “you’re too Goonhilly, Aunt Sancy.”

  The silence that dropped onto the porch then was immense. The very air stiffened; on the other side of the porch, the quiet rhythm of brush strokes ceased.

  “Exactly what,” asked Aunt Sancy, her tone dangerous, “do you mean by that?”

  I don’t know! Meredith wanted to shout at her. I don’t like the Polks any more than you do! But something dense and heavy had hold of her—something that weighed down her brain and muffled her thoughts.

  “You make it sound like a disease,” she said shakily. “Being a Polk. Like there’s nothing good in it—they’re the enemy, the Taliban.”

  “That’s pretty close,” snapped her aunt. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty much the category they belong in.”

  “The Taliban?” demanded Meredith, turning to face her aunt, who remained crouched opposite and staring grimly out a window.

  “The enemy,” replied Aunt Sancy. “Dave and Johanna Polk—citizens emeritus, donators to charity—ha! Gamblers, gangsters, drug syndicate shit, more like! All those flights he made to Colombia and Mexico—you think those were for his frozen food business?”

  Face contorted, she pivoted and pinned Meredith directly with her gaze. “Cocaine crook!” she declared. “Dave Polk was flying it in by the plane-load, then distributing it up and down the east coast. Family of goddam thugs—the Polks go back generations in that muck.”

  A sheer whiteout of shock hit Meredith. Open-mouthed, she stared at her aunt. “What ... are you saying?” she faltered. “Granddad Polk was a ...?”

  “You heard me!” snapped her aunt, no warmth anywhere in her expression. “Your respected, super-citizen grandfather was tied in with the drug trade big time. That’s where your father first picked up his habit, though Dave and Johanna had theirs under better control—I’ll grant them that much. In fact, they had everything pretty much under control ... or so they thought. Then, somewhere along the line, something went wrong; Dave miscalculated, stepped on the wrong toes. All of a sudden, his yacht blew up—taking him, your grandmother, and their multiple facelifts into oblivion. All that wasted Botox—what a pity.”

  “They were ... murdered?” whispered Meredith.

  Her aunt didn’t even bother to nod. “When the lawyers went over their estate, they found out that the great and mighty Polks were bankrupt,” she said heavily, staring at the wall above Meredith’s head. “I suppose, living high-off-the-hog the way they did, it came as no surprise. Maybe it was all those people your grandfather was paying to keep quiet. Probably, in the end, it was for the best—if you’d inherited much money, the scum kissing your grandparents’ asses would’ve come smooching after yours. Since you were penniless, they weren’t interested, which was fine with me.”

  Stunned, Meredith gaped at her aunt. Inside her brain, nothing moved. When she finally spoke, the voice that left her mouth was unfamiliar—rough-edged and guttural.

  “Was it?” she heard herself growl. “Was it, Aunt Sancy?”

  Throwing down her paintbrush, she tore out of the porch, through the kitchen, and down the hall to her bedroom. Without hesitating, she headed for her night table, where she slammed down the photograph of her Polk grandparents. Grabbing the support stand, she yanked at the cardboard backing and lifted out the photograph. Next, she repeated the process with her parents’ wedding portrait. For a moment then, she stood staring at the two pictures—their smiling faces smudged by glowing yellow fingerprints.

  With a moan, she sank to her knees and began ripping them up. The pictures shredded easily—too easily ... or too quickly; when the two photographs lay scattered in fragments, anger was still ramming itself through her, and Meredith found herself reaching for the last standing photograph. Mercilessly, she tore at the snapshot of her Goonhilly grandparents, and then, finally, when
there was nothing left to reach for—no dreams and no illusions—she covered her face with both hands and began to sob.

  She didn’t know when her aunt arrived in the doorway but, at some point Sancy Goonhilly was there, surveying the destruction, then cautiously crossing the room and kneeling beside her. “Meredith,” she murmured. “Meredith, oh Meredith.” Without asking, she slid an arm around her niece and, when Meredith stiffened, silently took it back. Around them, the room breathed heated and raw—its heartbeat racing, throbbing, throwing itself at them both.

  “There!” Meredith burst out finally, hands still covering her face. “They’re gone. I’ve done what you wanted. I got rid of them, and now I’m not a Polk anymore.”

  For a moment, her aunt was silent. Then, breath ragged, she muttered, “That’s not what I wanted. I—”

  “You do too want it,” accused Meredith, lowering her hands and gazing directly at her aunt. “Every time we’ve talked about this, it’s always ended up being about how good the Goonhillys are and how bad the Polks are. And I know they were bad—what they did was wrong ... evil—but it’s not my fault. And you make me feel, somehow, that it is—that somehow I’m them, that I’m responsible for everything they said and did. And that no matter what I want or do, I’ll always be them—what they were. I can’t be just me because I’m polluted by their genes, and the only way to be safe is to somehow get rid of my poky-Polkness and be a Goonhilly—just a Goonhilly. A goodie goodie Goonhilly.”

  Briefly, Aunt Sancy’s expression hardened, and then she breathed long and deep, releasing something. “Meredith ... I’ve been stupid,” she said. “Really, really stupid. I should’ve seen how this was affecting you. I don’t know why I’ve hung onto it so long. It was an ugly mess ... everything about the Polks was ugly—”

  Abruptly, she stopped speaking. Surprise crossed her face and she shook her head, as if telling herself internally to shut up. “No!” she said forcefully. “Not everything. The Polks—well, they’ve always had ambition. The ability to go after what they wanted. Of course, what they wanted was a problem, but I see that ability in you too, Meredith—you see what you want and you reach for it. You’re a go-getter. I’ve always told you that part of you was Goonhilly, but it’s Polk. The Goonhillys ...” Here, Aunt Sancy smiled fondly. “Well, we’re a contented bunch for the most part. But you, Meredith—you’ll do things in life, see what needs to be changed and try to change it.

  “And as for the rest of the way the Polks were—well ...” She shrugged, then added, “In the end, I got you out of the deal, and you’re the light of my life, sweetie. Painting our porch gold was the best way I could think of to tell you that. I was hoping you’d figure that out.”

  A shuddery sigh ran through Meredith. “So you didn’t adopt me to get the Polks’ money?” she asked.

  Head bowed, Aunt Sancy studied her own hands. “That’s something you’re going to have to work out for yourself,” she said after a pause. “I don’t think anyone else can tell you something like that.”

  Air breathed in and out of Meredith’s lungs, in and out. Tired—she felt so tired. “I’m not sure,” she said tentatively, looking at the scattered photograph fragments, “I’m glad I did this.”

  “I’ve got the negatives,” Aunt Sancy assured her. “If you ever want them again, I can get more prints made—for your photo album, maybe?”

  “Yeah,” said Meredith. “I think I need to be by myself in this room for a while. Too many ghosts.”

  “Too many ghosts,” agreed her aunt. This time, when she placed an arm around her niece’s shoulder, Meredith didn’t pull away.

  When she walked into home form Thursday morning, Meredith made a point of stopping and chatting with Sina and Kirstin before heading to her third-riser seat. As they conversed, she thought she could feel Seymour’s gaze riding her—speculative, calculating the signs she might be sending him. But when she turned and continued toward the drums, he appeared oblivious to her presence, deep in discussion with Morey. Behind them sat Gene, observing their conversation with a quizzical expression. As Meredith slipped in behind the drums, he raised an eyebrow at her and lifted a finger to his lips. Then he returned to watching Seymour and Morey. Puzzled, Meredith joined in on the surveillance, quickly tuning in to the intensely calculated quality of Seymour’s and Morey’s apparent casualness. The biggest giveaway was the manner in which they had physically positioned themselves—facing one another, but carefully angled so they weren’t likely to catch even a peripheral glimpse of Gene. They were shutting him out, obviously; the question was why?

  Opening her binder, Meredith pulled out another Caramilk wrapper from the front flap and wrote across the inside: Don’t they like you anymore? Then she passed it to Gene. A smile crossed his lips as he read her note; scrawling a response, he passed the wrapper back.

  Morey found out what I found out, Meredith read. We had a disagreement.

  As usual, Gene’s response was making her work to figure out what he was getting at. About me? she wrote back, and Gene nodded, then scribbled, He’s declaring his loyalties.

  Eyes widening, Meredith homed in on Morey. Blonde hair frizzed out wild as ever, he was keeping his gaze fixed on Seymour as if his life depended on it. At the same time, he looked weighed down by guilt—hunched and rigid—and Meredith was momentarily seized by the urge to poke him, just to see how he would react.

  So she did. Leaning around the drums, she jabbed Morey in the shoulder—firmly, so he couldn’t ignore it. His response was electric—jerking away with a yelp, his eyes darting around to meet hers.

  “What did you do that for?” he demanded in aggrieved tones, flexing his injured shoulder.

  “I dunno,” said Meredith, settling back into her seat. “Just felt like it, I guess.”

  For a moment, Morey stared at her. “Well ... don’t,” he said huffily. Then, carefully re-positioning himself, he resumed his conversation with Seymour, who, along with Gene, had been silently observing the proceedings.

  Returning to the Caramilk wrapper on her binder, Meredith wrote, Contact with the alien race has been established. Soon, entire new civilizations will result.

  Don’t hold your breath, Gene replied.

  The bell rang; the national anthem lumbered past; PA announcements regarding field hockey and drama tryouts followed. Slouched behind the xylophone, Gene appeared to be absorbed in a chemistry textbook. One riser down, Meredith noticed what appeared to be the same textbook lying atop Morey’s binder. Eyebrows raised, she glanced from one textbook cover to the other. Then, leaning over, she tapped the front of Gene’s opened book and asked, “Are you and Morey in the same chemistry class?”

  “Desk mates,” said Gene.

  “No kidding,” said Meredith. Leaning back in her seat, she returned to studying Seymour and Morey. PA announcements complete, they had once again taken up their discussion, Seymour intensely cool as ever, and Morey intensely ... well, intense, thought Meredith. More than intense, actually—the guy looked miserable, even frightened. Whatever it was that he had heard while asking around about the gum-wad assaults, it had really scared him. As she registered this, a trembling passed over Meredith, but she fought it off. There were two ways of responding to this thing, she told herself—Morey’s and Gene’s. Afraid or ...

  Well, is Gene scared? she wondered, giving him a sideways glance. Still scanning his textbook, he looked unperturbed, but she couldn’t say the situation didn’t frighten him—she didn’t know him well enough. Suddenly, glancing between Gene and Morey and their matching textbooks, Meredith felt guilty. These guys were friends—probably had been for years. Expecting Reb and Dean to stick up for her was one thing; Gene was from a different social stratum entirely.

  Flipping over the Caramilk wrapper, she wrote across the front: You can talk to them if you want. Don’t worry about me. Then she slid the wrapper onto the page Gene was reading.

  Deliberately, he pinned the wrapper with one finger and read her latest missi
ve. Eyes narrowing, his gaze shifted to Morey, still angled in his seat and talking earnestly to Seymour, then to the Mol himself. Slowly, a tiny smile on his face, Gene scrawled something across the wrapper and returned it to Meredith.

  He started it, she read. I’m pouting.

  Meredith spurted laughter. One row ahead, Seymour and Morey stopped talking, and she could see it in them—the instinct to turn toward the mirth, discover the joke, and join in. Instead, their faces still rigidly casual, they again took up conversation. To Meredith’s right, Gene made no comment, but simply read on, a grin on his face. Leaning back in her chair, Meredith tucked the Caramilk wrapper into her binder flap and sighed. Complicated as things were in her life right now, she reflected, Morey’s situation was ten times worse. No question about it—chem class with a pouting desk mate ... especially this pouting desk mate ... was going to be a drag. While she hadn’t yet had the pleasure of encountering Mr. Disgusted directly, Meredith had the feeling he wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted to be mixing acids and bases with. But like Gene had said in his note, Morey was the one who had started it. So it was up to the accordion player extraordinaire to end it.

  The bell rang; she got to her feet, stepped down off the third riser, and headed to Math.

  chapter 16

  It was the end of the lunch hour and the halls were swarming with students en route to their first afternoon class. Books under one arm, Meredith was moseying along the corridor one floor down from her history class, when she glanced up and saw Morey trudging toward her. Head down, he didn’t appear to have noticed her; slowing her pace, Meredith came to a near halt and watched his approach.

  She knew the instant he saw her. His head came up; every frizzed flyaway hair lifted a centimeter higher; then, turning his face ninety degrees in the opposite direction, he proceeded past her without speaking. Open-mouthed, Meredith turned and watched him traverse the rest of the corridor. Once he was safely out of visual range, Morey rotated his head to a forward-facing position and picked up the pace until he disappeared into the cafeteria entrance at the hall’s north end.