CHAPTER

Seven

CLAIRE

The day after the monster came to Grammy’s yard, Claire is still thinking about it. She can’t stop thinking about it. Not just the monster—the memory of which is, in the way of monsters, pulling apart at the seams—but about Julie.

She lies on her bed with her Tori Amos tape blasting through her earphones and keeps replaying the encounter with the monster. An Alvarez and a Sudek. Claire isn’t technically a Sudek—her last name’s Whitmore—but she doesn’t think the monster cares about that.

She wonders what her and Julie’s intertwined scents smell like to the monster. A friend back in Houston had a perfume-making kit, and they used to tap the essential oils onto strips of paper and mix the scents together that way. Maybe it’s something like that. Individually, she and Julie are one way, but together, they become something new.

Claire kind of likes the idea. Even if the thought of it coming from a monster leaves her unsettled.

After lunch, Julie calls. Grammy answers the phone and shouts for Claire to come take it, and when Claire comes slinking into the kitchen, Grammy gives her a dark look.

“You know I don’t like you seeing that girl,” she says in a low voice, the phone pressed against her chest.

Claire feels a swell of irritation. “We’re friends,” she says.

“You better not be making plans with her for today,” Grammy says. “You’re going to visit with Audrey.”

Claire hasn’t heard anything about this. “What?” she says. “Audrey?”

“You made plans last week.” Grammy shoves the phone at Claire. “Remember?”

Claire shakes her head. Why would she make plans to hang out with Audrey so far in advance? She presses the phone to her ear, still confused.

“Julie?” she says.

“Hey, I was just seeing if we’re still on for going to the video store tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

“Excellent. By the way, I saw something crazy yesterday. After the—you know. The monster.”

“Oh?”

Grammy hasn’t left the kitchen. She stands next to the stove with her thin arms crossed over her chest. She wobbles in place, as if yelling at Claire to answer the phone was enough to exhaust her. She looks pale, her skin thin and almost transparent. Sometimes Claire hears her coughing in the middle of the night.

“Yeah. Definitely. It’s about Lawrence. I’ll tell you tomorrow, though—I want to see what else I can find out about it.”

Claire can’t concentrate on Julie’s gossip about Lawrence. Grammy’s still staring at her. When Claire catches her eye, she mouths, Audrey, and Claire blinks. Julie has moved on to chattering about the general awesomeness of Frank, the video store manager, and Claire catches a fragment of a memory, Audrey calling, asking if she wants to go to the beach.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Claire says to Julie, and then she hangs up the phone.

Grammy stares at her.

“See?” she says. “I didn’t make plans for today.”

“Audrey will be here soon,” Grammy says. “If I recall correctly.”

Claire rubs her forehead. She feels like she just stepped off of a roller coaster. Yes, Audrey did call. It was a lot like Julie calling right now. Claire had been listening to music in her room; Grammy called her into the kitchen.

“I’m going to go get ready,” she mutters. She leaves the kitchen and heads into her bedroom. Sunlight streams in through the blinds, illuminating flecks of dust. It’s already so hot in here Claire can hardly think straight. She switches on the fan.

“I want you to know I’m not happy about you making plans with the Alvarez girl.”

Claire jumps and whirls around. “It’s for tomorrow,” she says, startled. She didn’t hear Grammy coming. “I’m still going to see Audrey. And I’ll make sure I get all my chores done too.”

“This isn’t about the chores.” Grammy steps into Claire’s room and Claire goes still, like a wild animal has just crossed her path. Or a monster.

Grammy glances at her bed—made this morning, as always—and at the basket of dirty clothes in the corner, at the stack of cassettes sitting on top of the vanity. “I just don’t want you seeing that girl so much.”

“Why not?” Tension coils up inside Claire. She sits down at her vanity and pretends to rummage around in the makeup drawer. “She’s nice.”

Grammy stops a few paces away. Claire watches her in the vanity’s mirror.

“She’s a bad influence,” Grammy says.

Claire shoves the drawer shut and turns around. “Is that really the problem with her?” Claire suspects it’s not. She suspects the problem lies more with Julie’s brown skin.

Grammy’s eyes narrow. “Of course it is. She got caught drinking at a party last summer. Do you think your mother would want you hanging around that kind of girl?”

Claire doubts her mother would care. She also can’t imagine Julie at a high school drinking party.

“In fact, I better not hear that’s what you’re doing with her tomorrow,” Grammy says. “Getting drunk out behind Griff’s. Don’t think I don’t know what you kids do.”

Claire has no idea what Grammy is talking about. “I’m just going over to her house,” she says. “Her mom will be there. They have a nice house, you know.” She jabs her finger at the photograph hanging on the wall. “I mean, you certainly like it well enough.”

Grammy’s face darkens, and she pulls the photograph down so quickly that she starts coughing. Claire tenses. But then Grammy looks up and wipes her mouth and says, “I’m quite aware, thank you. And this is not the Alvarez house. This photograph was taken before they owned it.”

“It’s their house now,” Claire says. “This is the nineties. Deal with it.”

Grammy glares at her, but she doesn’t say anything more, only stalks out of Claire’s bedroom. Claire sighs and turns back to her mirror. Her reflection seems slanted at an angle.

The doorbell rings, startling Claire. She doesn’t move from her vanity. A picture of her and Josh from a show at Numbers last winter is tucked into the frame. She’s so used to looking at it that she hardly sees it anymore, but now she reaches over and plucks it off the mirror. Josh scowls at the camera. She’s been saving her weekly allowance from Grammy—she should call him. He’s always willing to talk to her, even if it’s just about random stuff, arcade games and music and the weird philosophy books he’s always reading. Maybe, since he’s never been to Indianola, she can even tell him about the monsters.

God, she misses when conversations with Josh were the strangest part of her life.

“Claire!” Audrey storms into the room, bringing with her the scent of hairspray and Calvin Klein perfume. She plops down on the bed like she owns it. “What are you looking at?”

“What? Oh.” Claire shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Ten minutes ago she didn’t even know she was supposed to see Audrey today. “Just a picture of a friend.”

“A friend, huh?” Audrey grins. “From Houston?”

“Yeah.” Claire drops the photograph onto her vanity and stands up. She doesn’t want to talk about Josh with Audrey. She doesn’t want to talk about anything with Audrey.

“I thought we’d go to Surfway Beach,” Audrey says. “It’s outside of town, but it’s not so good for swimming, so it won’t be as crowded.”

“You don’t want to go swimming?” Had they talked about this when they made their plans? Claire can’t remember.

Audrey shakes her head. “I’ve got something way better. It’s this new game. I’ve got it out in my car.”

“A game?”

The world tilts.

“Yeah, like an arcade game. You like arcade games, right?”

“Sure.” Claire shakes her head, trying to get rid of that weird dizzy feeling. “But why don’t we just go to the arcade? How can you have an arcade game on the beach?”

“You’ll see.” Audrey grabs her hand and everything settles back into its usual place. Claire lets Audrey tug her toward the door. “It’ll be soooo much fun, I promise!”

Claire nods, thinking, If you say so.

“I’ll have her back before dinner, Mrs. Sudek!” Audrey shouts as they stumble out the front door and into the blazing sunlight.

Grammy doesn’t answer.

They climb into Audrey’s car. A big gym bag patchworked in neon colors lies across the back seat.

“That’s the game,” Audrey says, and starts the engine.

They drive down to the beach. Audrey switches on the radio and sings along to a country station, all songs that Claire doesn’t know. No one’s out on the street, but it’s the middle of the day, and it’s hot. So that’s not such a surprise.

Surfway Beach is farther away than the main city beach, far enough that they pass a Thanks for visiting Indianola! sign in order to get to it. The road narrows and twists into a subdivision of candy-colored beach houses. Everything’s faded from the salt. Claire catches glimpses of the Gulf of Mexico in the distance, glinting between the houses.

And then the houses end, replaced by a long stretch of road surrounded by sand dunes and sea grass.

Claire gets an uneasy feeling. She stares out the window at the dunes, imagining that they’re full of rattlesnakes and monsters. She isn’t sure she wants to face down a monster without Julie’s help.

“Here we are!” Audrey pulls off the road. An old wooden sign says Surfway Beach in plain white letters, the paint peeling off in strips. The car bounces through the dunes and the wheels grind against the sand. The beach is completely empty. Not even an old man taking his dog for a walk.

“See?” Audrey says. “Much better than Indianola Beach. We get some privacy.”

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” That uneasy feeling hasn’t gone away.

“Of course! I wouldn’t get you in trouble. Come on.” Audrey bounds out of the car and grabs the bag. Claire follows her, but once she’s out of the car, she hesitates, looking at the water.

Nothing seems right. It’s not like it was back at the house, where the world was tilted. Here, the world doesn’t seem like—the world.

Audrey turns to her, the wind blowing her hair across her face. She looks like a girl in a perfume ad. “Come on!” she says again. “I promise this’ll be fun! Plus, I brought snacks!”

The wind buffets against Claire, and the sea roars in the background. She picks her way across the sand until she’s at Audrey’s side. Audrey grins at her; her yellow silk sundress, covered in screen-printed sunflowers, shimmers in the sun.

“Isn’t this fun? Like we’re explorers.”

Claire doesn’t mention that they passed a cluster of houses not five minutes ago. Of course, she can’t see any trace of the houses from the beach—staring down the shore, she only sees sand and water and creeping dune vines.

Audrey spreads a blanket on the sand and sits down. She pulls things out of the bag, one at a time, and lines them up in neat rows. Claire expected a Gameboy, but she’s never seen what Audrey has here. In fact, she’s not sure she’s even seen anything that’s even like it, not in any arcade or mail-order catalog or on TV or anything. It’s a series of little plastic buttons, all different sizes, attached to slim metal squares. Audrey doesn’t set them up in any particular order, at least not that Claire can see.

“Sit!” Audrey says, and pats the blanket beside her. “You’re making me nervous, hovering over me like that.”

Claire sits down, but she doesn’t look away from those buttons. It’s as if they’re spiders or cockroaches, and if she looks away, they’ll scuttle up her arm.

Audrey pulls out another metal square, this time with no buttons, only a flat smooth surface. Then she pulls out a trio of Tupperware containers, red, yellow, orange, and lines them up along the edge of the blanket.

“There we are!” she says. “Oh, wait, I forgot.” She pulls the lids off the Tupperware, revealing Cheetos, carrot sticks, and slices of Cheddar cheese.

“Wow,” says Claire. “All the snacks are orange.”

Audrey’s grin stays plastered on her face. “Of course! Isn’t that how you do it?”

Claire isn’t sure how to answer.

Audrey’s grin deepens. She grabs one of the carrot sticks. “Okay,” she says. “The game. It’s super fun.” She holds up the blank metal square. “This is the controller. You use it to make the buttons light up.” She gestures at the rest of the equipment. “They’ll also create a tone.”

This isn’t like any arcade game Claire has ever played. She’s not even sure how it’s a game at all, really.

“Why don’t you go first,” Claire says. “And show me how it works.” The row of buttons makes her nervous. She keeps glancing over her shoulder, certain she’s going to see a monster creep out of the sand dunes. But there’s nothing.

“Oh, of course!” Audrey straightens up her spine and sets the controller in her lap. She touches the top left corner, and one of the medium-sized buttons lights up bright electric blue and lets off a long, sighing hum. Not even a tone—that would suggest something electronic, something created by a machine. But this sounds entirely organic. A siren’s song.

“How is it doing that?” Claire asks. “It’s not even connected.”

“It works like a TV remote.” Audrey slides her fingers down the controller and more of the buttons light up, all that same unnatural blue. Each one adds a different note to the song.

Song—it’s not the right word, but it’s the only word Claire has to describe it. The notes layer on top of each other, haunting and strange, and the music drifts over the beach, catching on the wind. Claire wonders how far it can carry, if it will go all the way across the Gulf to Florida, to Mexico, to the Caribbean.

The music stops abruptly. Claire is jerked back down to earth. Audrey stares at her, smiling.

“You want to try?” she says.

Claire looks at the square of metal in Audrey’s lap. She does want to try, desperately. She’s never wanted to do anything more than she wants to do this, right now.

“Sure.” She tries to be nonchalant. But Audrey smiles like she knows better.

Audrey hands over the controller. When Claire touches it, energy zaps into her fingers. Her heart rate surges. She takes a deep breath, settles the controller in her lap the way Audrey did.

“I just touch it?” she asks. “Do I press in—” She lays her fingers on the controller and notes erupt into the air like a fountain, discordant and wild. She snatches her hand away. “Oh, that wasn’t right.”

Audrey’s eyes glitter. “It’s okay. You have to get the hang of it, is all. Try using one finger.”

Claire taps her index finger against the top of the controller. This time there’s only one note, long and drawn out. She lifts her hand. The note stops.

“Good.” Audrey nods with satisfaction. “Now try moving your finger around.”

Claire does. She slides her finger down in a straight line, and the notes ripple out across the beach. She traces a circle and she taps the controller at different intervals. The music is out in the wind and it’s inside her head, an extension of her thoughts. She’s aware of Audrey sitting there, watching her with a strange teacher-like intensity, but it doesn’t bother her. The heat from the sun, the rough scatter of sand across her face—none of this bothers her either. She can see now why Audrey called this an arcade game. It’s certainly as absorbing as one.

Claire goes through all the shapes she knows, listening to the music they create. She tries abstract squiggles and the dots and dashes of Morse code. Each shape creates a different melody, some beautiful and some sad and some frightening. And then, distantly, she remembers the monster in her backyard, the one who said that she and Julie created a scent. Maybe it’s not like the perfume strips after all. Maybe monsters don’t use the right words for things. She and Julie aren’t an interesting scent, they’re an interesting melody. This game has showed her a truth: All the things in the world create music, and as we move through the universe, that music runs into other music and overlaps. Everyone in the town overlaps with everyone else, and together they create the music of Indianola.

Claire spells out her name in looping swirls of cursive on the controller. The music it creates is music she has always known, and it shudders deep down inside of her like an echo.

Audrey says something, her voice far way. It sounds like You’re getting it. Or maybe She’s getting it.

With a burst of excitement Claire spells out Julie’s name, and she pictures Julie as she does so, imagines that it’s Julie sitting across from her on the blanket, her tangled black hair shining dark gold in the sunlight. And that music is unlike anything Claire has ever heard, complex and rich and haunting, minor-keyed. It chimes with the music that’s inside her, her music, Claire’s music, this cosmic mystery she’s coming so close to understanding—

“I think that’s enough for now, don’t you?”

This time, Audrey’s voice cuts through Claire’s thoughts like a sword.

Claire snatches her hand away from the controller and the music evaporates, replaced by the rush of waves against the shore. Slowly, the world starts to come back to her, in fits and starts, spangles of sunlight and bursts of hot wind.

“I think you were enjoying yourself a little too much,” Audrey says in a sly, knowing way.

Claire blushes. She tosses the controller at Audrey and mumbles, “It was all right. Wasn’t much like a video game.”

“It’s a new kind.” Audrey smiles and tucks the controller back into her bag. “You did a good job with it, though. Took to it like a natural.”

Claire looks out at the ocean. Her head is fuzzy, like she’s been sitting in front of the TV for hours, rather than playing with Audrey’s game for five minutes. The waves lift up, white-crested. Gulls circle around through the pale sky, squawking at one another. The wind tosses Claire’s hair to the side.

High up against the clouds, something glints.

Claire’s heart skips a beat. It’s just a flash of light, flickering, catching on the sun, but it’s up too high to be a boat, and she doesn’t hear the roar of an airplane. She stares at the light. It flashes like a camera and then disappears.

“Did you see that?” she asks Audrey.

“See what?” Audrey gazes back at her with a lucid, unwavering expression. “I didn’t see anything.”

Audrey pulls into Claire’s driveway. The house looks faded and unfamiliar against the yellow grass. Claire shivers. She’s still out of sorts from playing that game on the beach.

“We’ll need to get together soon,” Audrey says, fixing her hair in the rearview mirror.

“What?” Claire glances over at her. “What for?”

“The Stargazer’s Masquerade, duh.” Audrey drops her gaze from the mirror. “Do you know what costume you’re going to wear?”

“I’m not even sure I’m going.” Claire’s head throbs. What she really wants is to go lie down in front of the fan in her room.

“Oh, but you have to go! It’s the most exciting thing that happens in Indianola all year, and you’re going to be here for it!” Audrey twists around in her seat and faces her.

“I don’t have a costume,” Claire says.

“I’m sure we can think of something.” Audrey leans back against the car door and looks at Claire appraisingly. “You have an elegant face, has anyone ever told you that?”

“No.” Claire looks over at the house again. “Maybe we can talk about this later? I’m really feeling pretty—”

“Absolutely not.”

Audrey’s voice sounds magnified and transmitted, like it’s coming in over the radio. The pounding in Claire’s head swells, and she jerks her gaze back over to Audrey, who’s smiling sweetly in the patch of sunlight shining through the window.

“What did you say?” Claire says.

“That you have an elegant face.”

“No, you didn’t, you—” The memory seeps away from Claire until there’s nothing to grasp on to. “We were talking about the dance.”

“Yes, exactly.” Audrey gushes like a teacher praising a student. “And your costume.”

Claire shakes her head. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

Audrey looks at her. She’s smiling as if she has a secret. The pain in Claire’s head jars for a moment. It feels like something’s come loose. Then Audrey reaches over and takes Claire’s hand. Claire looks up at her in surprise, and then she freezes, not sure what she’s seeing.

Audrey’s eyes are glowing. They’re the same color as the moon. Claire can’t look away.

“A costume,” Audrey says, and her voice has that crackling radio quality again. “A gray dress. Silk. You found it in Julie’s attic.”

“It won’t fit me.” The words sound far away, like someone else is speaking them.

“Oh, but it will. I’ve seen to that. After all, what do you think that game was doing?”

And then Audrey blinks, and Claire reels backward, the headache so bad, she sees spots of light dancing across her vision. Silver. Silver light.

“Oh, you’re not looking so good,” Audrey says.

Claire glances up at her, expecting something to be wrong with her eyes, but they’re the way they always are, wide and bright blue.

“I told you I wanted to go lie down.” Had she, though? She can’t remember.

“You should do that.” Audrey smiles. “I’ll see you later. We can talk about your costume then.”

Claire stumbles out of the car. She presses against both of her temples, hoping the pressure will relieve the pain. It doesn’t. She keeps her head down because the sun is too bright, and stepping into Grammy’s dark house is a relief. The TV’s on, commercials blaring, but Grammy’s not in her chair. The sound bores into Claire’s skull. She reaches over and twists the dial until the image evaporates. Silence. Another relief.

She goes into her room, shuts the door. Turns the fan on high and sprawls out on her bed with her eyes closed. In the whine of the fan, she hears Audrey’s voice: a costume, a gray dress, silk. Over and over, each oscillation of the fan the start of a new word.

A costume.

A gray dress.

Silk.

Claire opens her eyes. A water stain spreads across the ceiling, and in the dusty light it’s the same color as the dress she found in Julie’s attic.

A gray dress. Silk. A costume for the Stargazer’s Masquerade.

It’s the greatest idea she’s ever had.

“Okay, this place is amazing.”

Claire stands in the doorway of Alvarez Video, taking in the labyrinth of six-foot-tall shelves, all stuffed to the brim with VHS tapes. The headache that’s been pulsing at her temple since hanging out with Audrey subsides at the sight of them.

“I know, right?” Julie steps up beside her and lets the door slam shut, the bell in the entryway jangling. “Not bad for a crappy town in the middle of nowhere.”

“Not bad?” Claire swoops her gaze over the shelves. They’re marked with hand-lettered signs indicating the genre: Horror here, Westerns there. She thinks about the Blockbuster in the strip mall by her house in Houston, how empty it feels in comparison. “I’ve never seen so many movies in one place!”

“Told you, Frank’s the best.” Julie pushes forward and vanishes into the space between the Foreign: Japan shelf and the Science Fiction shelf. “Frank!” she bellows, her voice muffled by the video cases. “It’s your favorite customer!”

Claire follows behind her, trailing her fingers along the battered VHS cases. She recognizes some of the names from the film magazines she used to flip through at the Waldenbooks in the mall: Akira, My Neighbor Totoro, Hiruko the Goblin. She stops on that last one, her heart rising into her throat. The title is hand-lettered in black marker, the box the plain black-and-white sort you buy at the dollar store. “Oh my God,” she says. “This never got a US release!”

“It did if you know the right people.” A heavyset guy with long curly hair sticks his head around the corner. “I’m guessing you’re in the Japanese section, huh? Great stuff. Turn around and look at the French section, too—I just got Last Year at Marienbad and All the Mornings of the World. Everyone should see those before they die.”

Claire turns and pulls out a box. There’s nothing on it but a handwritten title: The Beautiful Troublemaker. “I think I’ve heard of this! La Belle Noiseuse!”

“Oh God, you found his pride and joy. All these copied movies.” Julie materializes behind Claire and moves up close to her. “He’s not even supposed to have these.”

“Well, yeah, but foreign films don’t really get released much. Somebody needs to make them available.” Claire looks up at Frank, who’s grinning at her. “Do you really rent these out?”

“Of course! But only to the right people,” he says. “And if you’re a friend of Julie, you’re the right people.”

Claire slides out Hiruko the Goblin and gazes up at Julie. “Do you know this one?” she asks, trying not to sound too eager. “I hear it’s like The Fly—”

“I’ve seen it,” Julie says, her eyes sparkling, and Claire feels a jolt of excitement. “It’s buck wild. We can totally rent it if you want. And watch it at my place.”

Claire nods. “Double feature with Aliens, right? I still need to see it.”

Julie shakes her head and presses her hand to her heart. “An absolute travesty. We have to fix that.” Then she pulls on Claire’s wrist, drawing her deeper into the store. “Come on, let me show you what else he’s got.”

They weave through the shelves, the air dim and cool and filled with dust. Frank is settled back behind the checkout counter, flipping through an issue of Fangoria. “You let your friend pick!” he calls out as they glide past him. “She’s obviously got better taste!”

“Shut up!” Julie yells back, dodging a cardboard standee of Bill and Ted.

They wind up in a narrow back room. Classic, says the hand-lettered sign, and there’s a small shelf that just says Hitchcock! in big block letters.

“Oh, man!” Claire cries out.

“I remember you liked my Vertigo shirt,” Julie says, looking sideways at Claire. “Frank’s got everything, even the hard-to-find ones.”

Clare kneels down in front of the shelf, sweeping her gaze over the titles. Julie’s right: There are movies here that would never in a million years show up on the shelves of Blockbuster. Under Capricorn, Jamaica Inn, even The Ring—some of these look like bootlegs too, but Claire’s pretty sure Hitchcock’s entire oeuvre is represented.

“Pretty righteous, huh?” Julie leans against the shelf. Claire looks up at her, grinning.

“I can’t believe all these movies are here,” she says. “In Indianola! Of all places.”

“I know!”

Claire stands up. She’s never met anyone who knows as much about movies—not even Josh, although he pretends to.

Julie pushes a hand through her messy hair, her hip jutted out at an angle. Her black nail polish is already flaking off her nails. And she’s grinning at Claire like they’re best friends.

She really is the coolest person Claire has ever met.