Deadly Little Voices Read online

  “I’m actually starting to feel a bit better,” I say.

  It isn’t a lie. The voices seem to be gone. My heart’s beating at a normal rhythm. And my head is no longer aching.

  Ms. Beady turns from her desk. “Can you hear me, Camelia?”

  I nod.

  She covers her mouth so I can’t read her lips, and asks me my favorite color.

  “Dark blue. Like the sky, just before nighttime.”

  She looks relieved. A tiny smile crosses her lips. She comes and sits in the cushy chair opposite mine, studying my face as if trying to decide whether to believe me about feeling better.

  “Any chance you want to talk about what just happened here?”

  I nod again, somewhat willing now to give her a chance.

  But instead of asking me what I think, Ms. Beady starts prattling about how she thinks I have had a panic attack. “It was most likely a panic attack in your sculpture class, too,” she says.

  She goes on to insist that I’m still suffering from the repercussions of the past several months, and that I’d benefit from consistent therapy and/ or prescription meds. “I’m going to recommend to your parents that you start seeing someone in town,” she says. “I have the names of a couple of really great doctors. I’ll be calling your parents to give them the information.”

  I look down at the floor. My hunk of clay is still sitting where I dropped it. Could the fact that I’m not holding it be part of the reason I’m feeling more together?

  Less crazy.

  “How does all of this sound to you?” Ms. Beady asks; her tiny gray eyes go squinty.

  “That depends,” I venture, choosing to take charge. “How do these doctors feel about people who claim to have psychic abilities?”

  “Psychic abilities?” Her left eye twitches.

  “Forget it,” I say, feeling self-conscious.

  But Ms. Beady continues to study me; I can feel the heat of her stare on the side of my

  face. “Hold on,” she says, returning to her desk. She spends the next several minutes looking something up on the computer. She writes the information down and then hands it to me on a sticky note.

  “‘Dr. Tylyn Oglesby at Hayden Community College,’” I say, reading it aloud.

  “Maybe she’ll be able to help you.”

  “Why?” I ask, eager to know if it’s because I used the word psychic.

  Ms. Beady’s eyes lock onto mine. “Dr. Tylyn and I worked together on a case a few years back. She’s very good at what she does.”

  “Will you be telling my parents about her as well?”

  “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know,” I say; my voice trips over the words. “It’s just that I’m not quite sure they’ll like the idea of my seeing a doctor who’s into that kind of stuff.”

  “The final bell’s about to ring,” Ms. Beady says, ignoring my concern. “Why don’t you go along to your locker?” She hands me a hall pass and then tidies up a stack of papers on her desk, seemingly ready for our conversation to be over.

  INSTEAD OF WAITING AROUND for the final bell, I bolt out the side exit, cross the main road in front of the school, and hop on a bus that takes me to Knead.

  My boss, Spencer, is here, as well as Svetlana, his most recent hire and current girlfriend.

  Svetlana has zero talent in the pottery department, but she’s supermodel-gorgeous and speaks with a cute accent, making her the perfect candidate for the job—at least, according to Spencer.

  Spencer reminds me of a pirate today, with a bandanna wrapped around his head and his dark, kinky hair hanging loose. He and Svetlana are cleaning a bunch of greenware (clay that’s been pulled from its mold, usually in the shape of a bowl, a mug, or some random tacky thing).

  “Hey, there,” Spencer says to me. He holds up one of the pieces of greenware: two playful bunnies, one pouncing on the back of the other, though on closer inspection it looks as though they might be humping.

  “For Easter,” Svetlana explains. “Cute, yes?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Say what you will,” Spencer says, “but the seniors at the community center love this kitschy crap.”

  “Crap being the operative word.” I set the bunnies back on the table, feeling awkward for even holding the busy bunnies in the first place. I move over to my work-in-progress at the end of the table, grateful for the diversion.

  Unlike the sculpture of the figure skater that I’ve been working on at home, this sculpture has continued to baffle me ever since I first laid hands on it months ago. I lift the tarp and pull away the rags that keep it moist, revealing a vaselike bowl. It started out as an abstract piece—something to keep me distracted from all the drama going on in my life. But every time I look at it, more drama surfaces.

  Because it makes me think of Ben.

  I was working on this piece at the time of our breakup. It’s different from anything I’ve ever sculpted before. The sides twist inward, resembling entangled limbs, and the top curves out to look like a mouth. I’ve been working on it for a while now, seeing where my impulses take me, but I can’t seem to get it right.

  “She’s obsessing you, isn’t she?” Spencer asks, standing at my side now. “I get obsessed with my pieces, too.” He nods toward his work area in the back, where he’s been plugging away at a life-size bronze ballerina. “Sometimes I find myself awake at three in the morning, pacing the hallways of my apartment, unable to stop questioning my work. I go over the process in my head, wondering whether if I’d used a different casting method maybe she’d look less forced.”

  “Your work is brilliant,” I tell him, hoping he knows it’s true.

  Spencer shrugs off the compliment, preferring instead to focus on me. “So, what’s the problem?” He takes a closer look at my piece.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.” Why would I even think of coming within a thousand-mile radius of a pottery studio after what just happened in sculpture class?

  “Care to share?”

  I take a deep breath, feeling lonelier than I have in a long time, and more fearful than ever before. “Not really,” I tell him.

  “You’re just trying too hard,” he says, still assuming that my sucky mood has to do with my sucky sculpture. “I can see where your efforts are going, but you’re falling a bit short on technique.”

  “As if I couldn’t feel worse.”

  “Are you kidding?” he asks, stroking his facial scruff. “Technique can be learned. But talent and obsessive compulsiveness like ours…that has to be innate.”

  “And where do you suppose I learn better technique?” I ask, wondering if he’s going to teach me.

  “What you need is a life drawing class. More care needs to be taken with respect to body, form, and awareness of the muscles and joints.”

  “It’s a bowl,” I remind him.

  “A bowl with a whole lot of body,” he says, pointing out the area beneath the handle, where it looks like there might be a knee. “I’ve got a friend who works at Hayden. Are you up for a little Life Drawing 101?”

  “That depends.…How much does it cost?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says, stepping away to grab his cell phone. “Dwayne owes me a favor or two. I hooked him up with a hottie a couple weeks ago, and he’s been begging to pay me back ever since.”

  While Spencer calls his friend to see if I can serve as hottie payback, I glance over at Svetlana. She’s abandoned the bunny figurines and is trying her hand at rock sculpture now, by experimenting with Spencer’s mallet and chisel.

  “You’re in,” Spencer says not two minutes later, sliding his phone shut. “Dwayne’s expecting you Thursday night at six o’clock sharp. Apparently, you’ve already missed a few classes, but he’ll treat you as a drop-in.”

  “Thanks,” I say, trying my best to sound enthusiastic, because I know I should be grateful.

  “Sure, just don’t let me
down.”

  “In what way?” I ask, surprised by the comment.

  Spencer looks away, toward the table of feisty bunnies. “I just think you have an amazing amount of talent, and I don’t want to see it go to waste.”

  “It won’t,” I say, suspecting that Spencer may be feeling a bit sucky, too. Before I can ask him about it, a loud clanking bursts in on our conversation.

  “It’s okay?” Svetlana asks, noticing our attention. Bits of soapstone lie strewn about the table.

  “Not okay,” Spencer says, most likely referring to the fact that she’s not wearing the requisite pair of safety goggles to protect her eyes. She’s placed them on one of the bunny statues instead.

  I’m just about to tell her that failure to take safety precautions is a huge no-no in Spencer’s Big Bad Book of Studio Rules, but then I reconsider. Because, while it appears that the bunnies may indeed be humping, at least they’re trying to use some form of protection.

  Dear Jill,

  Do you remember the day you wore a skirt to work? It was black, and went about three inches above the knee. I remember trying to appear engrossed in my work, but I couldn’t help noticing the way your backside stretched the fabric of the skirt, the way the length rode up every couple minutes, and how you kept trying to tug at the hem, most likely regretting your choice of outfits. You probably could’ve chosen a size or two up, but I was really glad that you didn’t.

  It was getting late, just a few minutes before closing time. Could you tell that I was nervous? Did you see me fumble in my pocket for the trinket I’d brought along for you? The piece of sea glass. I’m sure you’ve heard what the media is saying-that I’d given similar pieces to girls who came before you. It’s disgusting the way that people try to cheapen what can only boil down to a lack of creativity. Why does no one question it when a guy gives all his past and current girlfriends roses or candy? Why are such gifts not considered devices as well?

  Regardless, please know that I could never have compared you to any of the other girls.

  You were-and will forever remain-far more special than any of them. Which is why I knew you’d love it. Which is how I knew you’d love me.

  …

  Dear Jack:

  It was a Monday. I remember because it was also a holiday (a long weekend) and I was off from school, working the morning shift.

  I wore a skirt that day, and I kept checking my reflection against the stainless fridge, wondering if it made my hips look wider than they already were, or emphasized my chunky knees.

  You sat at your usual table at the back of the coffee shop, studying from that Romantics book. I held my breath and ventured to imagine you were thinking about me as you read it.

  Finally, when the crowd at the shop had thinned out and my line had gone down, you glanced up from your notebook and smiled in my direction before coming up to the counter and asking me what I thought you should order.

  I remember how self-conscious I felt, hoping you didn’t notice all the freckles on my cheeks, or that my nose was way too long for my face. “What do you like?” I asked.

  “You know what I like.” Your grin was lethal—straight white teeth, pale full lips, startling blue eyes.

  I turned my back and started to pour a glass of iced coffee, almost wishing that you’d just sit back down. But then you muttered that you got me something, and I swear my heart all but stopped.

  You reached into your pocket and pulled out a piece of sea glass. “I was combing the beach this morning and spotted it,” you said, handing it to me.

  Turquoise, diamond-shaped, and brilliant, it took up half of my palm.

  “I couldn’t believe it myself,” you continued. “I mean, it was just sitting there, sticking out from a pile of kelp. I almost didn’t see it, but something told me to take a closer look. That’s when I noticed what a beauty it was.”

  “A beauty,” I echoed, hearing the question in my voice. You must’ve heard it too.

  “So beautiful,” you said, closing my fingers around the piece, and then taking my hand in yours.

  Did you notice how my lips parted? And how I took a step back? I couldn’t imagine you were truly saying what it sounded like you were saying. Because why would you ever say that?

  “It reminded me of you,” you said, still holding my hand. I wondered if you could feel the sweat in my palm. “Can I ask you something?” you continued.

  I nodded, wanting desperately to believe you—to believe the moment, to believe your sincerity. But I honestly didn’t know how.

  Before you could utter another syllable, Carl ordered me to help Dee out in the storage room“It’s a real mess back there.”

  When I turned to answer him, I felt your hand slip away. “Can it wait a second?” I looked back in your direction, but you were no longer there.

  Your back toward me, you collected your books from the table, and then headed out the door without saying good-bye.

  …

  KIMMIE CALLS WHILE I’m at Knead, desperate to know where I am and why I went all psycho-and-demonic in sculpture class (her words, not mine). Part of me wants to hang up, but instead I agree to let her and Wes pick me up, which is exactly what they do. Less than twenty minutes later, they’re parked and waiting outside the studio.

  Luckily, we don’t really talk much to one another in the car. Kimmie is too busy on her cell phone, telling her dad why he can’t expect her to change plans on a moment’s notice.

  Kimmie’s parents separated recently, and Kimmie and her younger brother, Nate, have been spending some weekends at her dad’s new apartment in the city.

  “Just because you want to play house with your fourteen-year-old girlfriend on the weekend of the twenty-first doesn’t mean that I have to rearrange my whole entire social schedule,” she tells him.

  “The highlight of which involves eating curly fries, playing video games, and driving around aimlessly with me,” Wes snickers.

  Kimmie moves the phone away from her ear as her dad speaks, enabling us to hear his garbled voice. He’s demanding that she give him more respect, and reminding her that his girlfriend, Tammy, is actually nineteen years old, not fourteen. “And very mature for her age,”

  he adds.

  Unfortunately, Kimmie’s not the only one whose parents are dealing with drama. Ever since my aunt’s most recent suicide attempt about six months ago, my mom hasn’t been herself.

  She’s been beyond stressed out, clinically depressed, and ADD-like distracted, which is why she’s started seeing a therapist, and why she hasn’t been super involved in my life lately, despite how messed up it’s been. I think she just can’t handle it, and I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.

  By the time Kimmie clicks off her phone, we’re in front of my house with exactly one hour before either of my parents gets home. We go inside, and I head straight for the kitchen.

  The red light on the answering machine practically blinks Ms. Beady’s name. I press the play button, and her voice squeaks out, begging for either or both of my parents to call her back pronto.

  I delete it.

  “Okay, are you trying to get yourself grounded?” Wes asks me.

  “You’re right,” I say, keeping my voice low, though fairly certain Aunt Alexia is locked away in her room, out of earshot, as has become usual for her. “If my parents have to hear that I had some sort of psychotic episode in the middle of sculpture class, it’s better if they hear it while my mother’s straight-out-of-a-mental-facility-suicidal-and-possibly-schizophrenic sister is staying with us.”

  “Point taken,” he says, keeping his voice low, too.

  “Plus, it doesn’t even matter, because I’m pretty sure Ms. Beady left two messages earlier, not one,” I say, suddenly flashing back to the voice inside my head that told me there were two. Is it possible that it was referring to the two messages? Does that even make sense?

  “So, there’s at least one other voice mail message out there just waiting to get played,”


  Kimmie says, putting the pieces together.

  “Hungry?” Wes asks. His arms are full of bags of Fritos and Starbursts. He’s managed to locate my dad’s stash of junk food (kept in the baskets over the kitchen cabinets) in less time than it takes most people to pick a wedgie.

  We loot the stash, and I lead them down the hallway, almost forgetting the fact that Aunt Alexia’s nurse is there.

  “Hi,” Loretta says, coming out of Alexia’s room. She closes the door softly behind her.

  Nurse Loretta (a.k.a. Nurse Leatherface, according to Wes) is about sixty years old, but it looks as if she’s spent at least forty of those years in a tanning bed. Her skin is pure lines and leather. “Alexia’s just gone off to sleep,” she tells us, “so if you wouldn’t mind speaking in soft voices…”

  “Will Frito-munching be too loud?” Wes asks, holding the bag out to her.

  Instead of dignifying the question with a response, Loretta proceeds to the living room to wait for my parents. Meanwhile, Kimmie, Wes, and I head for my bedroom to talk.

  “Okay, so I just have one question for you,” Kimmie says, flopping onto my bed. “What the hell was up today? Because you totally freaked me out. I was half expecting your eyes to roll up toward the ceiling and guttural phrases to come chanting out your mouth. You know…just like a couple months ago, also in sculpture class, I might add, when you flipped out and told me that I deserved to die.”

  “Maybe you plus sculpture class equals a really bad idea,” Wes says.

  I take a deep breath and tell them about the voice in my head—how it started whispering at me from the moment I touched my mound of clay.

  “And you couldn’t just ignore it?” Kimmie asks.

  “Nor could you simply stop touching your mound?” Wes grins.

  “I actually started feeling better when I ditched the mound,” I tell him. “When I dropped it on the floor in Ms. Beady’s office.”

  “Well, there’s your answer,” Kimmie says. “About putting an end to the voices, I mean.