Beautiful Lunatics

When Janine and Holly are at school, they act as if they don’t know each other. Janine hangs out with the cool kids in the parking lot, the ones that smoke cigarettes and skip classes. Holly eats her lunch with two girls much like herself: studious and plain. Yet within the confines of Henderson’s Pharmacy, Janine and Holly are friends, even allies.

Janine has taught Holly a few things about working at Henderson’s. First, they cash their paychecks at the bank across the street. Janine then tells Holly, “Go fill your basket while I watch the registers.”

Holly walks through the narrow aisles, choosing items off the shelves. She places purple nail polish, Seventeen Magazine, cherry flavored lip-gloss, gum, and hair bands into the red plastic basket. Once done, she takes it to the back pharmacy.

“Hello, Mr. Henderson. I have a few things I’m buying.”

“Good afternoon, Holly.” Mr. Henderson wears his white smock. The old man moves slowly and with effort.

Holly has never seen Mr. and Mrs. Henderson leave the back of the store. He adds up the items using his own register, and the girls receive a ten percent discount on their purchases.

“The total is 23.45,” Mr. Henderson croaks.

The trick Janine has taught Holly is to hide the expensive things, like make-up, facial cleansers, and perfumes under the front counter and sneak them into their bags of purchases. Holly feels guilty, but when she thinks about Janine stealing money out of the registers, she figures it isn’t so bad. She has never actually seen Janine take money, but she catches the insinuations.

Janine says, “These two old fools wouldn’t notice if their entire store was bulldozed. Taking from them is like taking from a sleeping baby.”

“Hey, you want come over to my house this weekend? We could hang out,” Janine says to Holly as they close out the registers for the night.

Holly is surprised. It seems the moment they walk out the doors of the pharmacy, Holly ceases to exist. She watches Janine climb into cars with friends. Janine never says good-bye.

“Yeah, that would be great. I mean, sure,” Holly mutters.

Janine looks at Holly, tilts her head and smiles, as if she is looking at a lost puppy.

Then she says, “Good. Come by tomorrow around eight. I’ll give you a makeover and then read your cards.”

“My cards?” Holly asks.

“You know, the Tarot.”

Janine has mentioned a makeover to Holly many times. She gives Holly beauty advice, such as, “You should wear darker eye make-up since you’re so fair; you’re tall like a model, but you need to carry yourself with more confidence; and you’d be really pretty if we find you the right look.”

Holly’s height and big bones make her feel awkward and lumbering, she wishes she were petite like Janine.

Walking to Janine’s house, Holly daydreams about the makeover. She imagines herself with dark, smoky eyes, iron-straight hair, and wearing one of Janine’s silky blouses. She tries walking with perfect posture, rather than slouched over, as she nears Janine’s house.

Holly has passed by the house countless times, though she has never been inside. When they were in middle school, the bus stop was at the corner up the street. The house doesn’t look like the other homes in the neighborhood. It stands low and dark at the back of the lot. The front yard doesn’t have a manicured lawn; the shade of the tall pines keeps grass from growing. Dry pine needles blanket dirt.

As Holly walks up the cracked cement driveway, it seems like she has deserted suburbia and entered a desolate, strange land. She notices the mounds of junk piled in the carport: old appliances, wood planks, cardboard boxes, even disfigured toys and dolls. The brick porch is dark as she approaches. One small light bulb illuminates the front door.

Holly taps the door with the iron knocker, and while she waits for someone to answer, she looks out at the yard. By moonlight, she sees two huge opossums waddle across the terrain. They look like two overgrown rats with their long pink tails, gray bristly fur, and pointed snouts.

Holly suddenly understands why Janine has friends pick her up from Henderson’s.

A tall, dark-haired man opens the door. He asks gruffly, “Are you selling something?”

Holly notices he is disheveled, his hair is uncombed and he has dark circles under his eyes. “No, I’m a friend of—I mean, I’m here to see Janine.”

He abruptly leaves and Holly stands waiting outside the door. It’s a cool night, so Holly cups her hands together and blows her hot breath to warm them. After a while, Janine appears. Janine doesn’t fit the morose surroundings. She is bright-eyed, flushed and excited.

“Why are you standing outside? Come in, follow me.” Janine pulls Holly into the house.

They pass through a dim dining room and a stark hallway to reach Janine’s bedroom. Her room is an oasis amid the bleak atmosphere. The room is filled with rosy light and colorful posters cover the walls. Scarves are strewn about, decorating the two lampshades and headboard with bright patterns. The bed is soft and warm as Holly sits down on it.

“Can you do my make-up first?” Holly asks.

“We’ll do that later. I’ve been waiting to do your spread,” Janine says as she shuffles large cards. “Here, now you shuffle.” Janine hands the Tarot cards to Holly.

The cards are worn around the edges. They feel smooth in Holly’s hands as she awkwardly moves them through her fingers. She catches glimpses of images: swords, cups, and shields.

Suddenly there is banging on the door, and Janine yells, “Go away, Jake.”

There is no response, and Janine leans over and turns up the song playing from the speaker. The music is an ethereal– a high-pitched voice mixed with techno.

“Who’s Jake?” Holly asks over the music.

“My brother.”

“Was that the guy who answered the door? He looks kind of old,” Holly says as she hands the cards back to Janine.

Janine begins to lay the cards out on her purple bedspread. The cards fan out in two directions and Holly’s eyes follow their paths.

“He’s twenty, but he looks older because he’s been sick.”

“Sick with what?” Holly asks.

“Good question,” Janine answers. Now she sits still with her eyes on the cards. She flips them over slowly, revealing images. One is a court jester holding a rose in one hand, walking towards a cliff. Another is a stone tower being hit by lightning.

The cards seem foreboding to Holly, but Janine explains, “This is great—it means you are on the start of a new journey. It will be spontaneous and filled with adventure.”

It is going to take more than the fool and lightning to convince Holly her life could be exciting.

There is more banging on the door, and this time it doesn’t stop when Janine yells.

Janine jumps up and opens the door theatrically. “This better be important, Jake.”

“It is important. Mother is asking for you,” Jake says.

When Janine huffs and walks out, Holly can feel Jake standing over her. She can sense the intensity of his posture. She turns her head slowly and glances up, catching him out of the corner of her eye. Jake stares down at the cards with a grimace.

“My gypsy sister is performing her black magic on you. Casting your fate, is she?” he says to Holly. His tone sounds accusing.

“Oh, it’s just a game. I don’t believe in it,” Holly tries to sound confident, though her voice quivers slightly.

“It’s no game. Fortune-telling, Ouija board, Voodoo—they’re the Devil’s play things, his tools.” Jake begins to pace the room. “You see, these mystics, these so-called clairvoyants, aren’t sympathetic to you or me, they’re trying to snatch our souls. They would tear it right out of a person, if they could.” Jake’s voice is rising and he rubs his fingers through his dark hair, making it stand on end.

Holly watches him, and she notices his pale skin and sunken eye sockets. But then she sees how vibrantly green his eyes are. His light-green eyes are glowing. Holly now sees his youth, and a passion flaring inside him like a wild, beautiful animal.

Holly’s face turns vibrant pink when she blushes.

Jake continues, “See, my sister the witch told me I was a judge. Then she showed me the Death card, but she told me I wouldn’t die, you see, because it’s not about dying, it’s about transformation—but mine was upside down and that meant stagnation. Is stagnating any different than dying? As if any of it matters because I know, as well as you do, that we’re all going to die. Stagnation and transformation have nothing to do with it.”

Jake is even more agitated now, as he walks around the room. Suddenly he stops pacing, and he looks directly at Holly. He sits down next to her and takes one of her hands into his. Holly notices that the muscles in his arms are tight and that his hands are bony and slender. Holly is drawn into his green, piercing gaze.

She feels herself being sucked into his gaze, as if all of her being is floating and swirling toward Jake’s inner light, toward the heat of his body. She has no will to fight it, so she lets go and drifts.

“You are pure and good, I can see that, so I trust you. Maybe you can even help me. I have to be careful. I can’t leave my house. They’ve been after me, you see, and they’ve even put hidden cameras and tapped the phone,” Jake rambles. His energy is so powerful, Holly believes him.

Janine walks in and breaks the spell. “My God, Jake, leave the poor girl alone.”

“Let us be, you gypsy devil woman,” Jake says as he jumps up from the bed.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Janine tells her brother as she sits down once again in front of the cards. “Don’t let my brother scare you, Holly. He tends to imagine things.”

“Imagine things?” Jake yells at Janine while waving his arms in the air. He pauses and stares at the ceiling, then slams the door as he leaves.

Janine continues flipping cards and talking to Holly as if nothing unusual has occurred. Holly can’t concentrate on the cards; she is thinking about Jake. He not only scares her, but his madness has seeped into her pores and she feels dizzy and breathless. She thinks he is the most beautiful man she’s ever seen.

Holly snaps back to reality as Janine says, “I have to go check on my mother again. She broke her leg and is in bed. Jake usually takes care of her, but he’s having one of his episodes.”

“Episodes?” Holly asks innocently.

“Yeah, can’t you tell? He stopped taking his medication again. Anyway, he was supposed to bring her dinner, but he took her a can of cat food with an opener. I swear, sometimes I think he’s doing it on purpose, just to be mean.” Janine loses her confident, carefree persona as tears roll down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Janine. Is there anything I can do?” Holly asks, but she feels strangely detached from Janine’s sadness. She can’t get Jake out of her head or shake the excitement she feels.

“Just wait here while I take her some soup and crackers,” Janine says as she walks to the door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Holly eagerly waits for Jake to return. Several minutes pass, and she begins to fidget. She changes the play list on the iphone to Red Hot Chili Peppers. She opens the drawer of the nightstand and rummages through journals, books, papers, and photos.

She picks up photos scattered inside the drawer and begins to examine them. Most are of Janine with her friends from school—at the beach, at concerts and parties. They all have their arms around each other with open-mouthed smiles or pursed lips, holding plastic cups and cigarettes up to their faces. Then she finds one of Janine and Jake standing on either side of an older woman with long dark hair and the same piercing green eyes. Holly knows it is their mother.

She seems as mysterious and beautiful as Jake.

Holly worries Jake isn’t going to come back, so she decides it is worth taking the risk to look for him. It is worth embarrassment and worth getting lost within the scary, dark house to see Jake, even just one more time.

She walks down the dim hallway and makes her way into the dining room. On the wall is a large painting of the Last Supper. It is a classical style painting. Jesus looks angelic and androgynous. As she stands looking at it, she feels a presence behind her. She can feel electricity run down her back.

The voice behind her says, “You see what I mean? We have to protect ourselves from the two witches living in this house. They are both the same, I’m sure they would tear out our souls the first chance they got.”

Holly holds her breath.

“I can tell you’re different. You are so pure and good, I trust you,” Jake is closer now, almost whispering in Holly’s ear.

Holly knows she looks pure and good. That is what’s kept her safe and her life uneventful. She is plain, drab in her mind, with her strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, and freckles, sweatshirts and white sneakers and baggy blue jeans. She admires Janine, with her exotic dark hair, pale eyes and olive skin. Janine wears sequins and beads.

As if reading Holly’s mind, Jake says, “These gypsy women can’t be trusted, they work for the Devil. Come with me.” Jake grabs Holly’s hand and leads her to the front door. He pulls her along the porch, passing the carport with its mounds of rubbish, and out into the front yard.

The moon is nearly full, huge and bright in the sky. They walk together through the yard, and Holly is reminded of the two opossums she had seen there earlier, grotesque and with gleaming eyes. Her sneakers are covered with dry pine needles and dirt. Jake stands under a huge tree, its thick branches radiating out in all directions.

“Follow me,” Jake tells Holly as he grabs a low branch and pulls himself up. In no time he is sitting midway up the tree. Holly stands on the ground below, looking up at him. He appears owl-like, as if he can stretch out immense wings and take flight.

“Come on, you can do it,” he calls to her again.

Just as Holly grabs the branch and begins to pull one leg up, Janine calls to her from the porch. “Holly, what the hell is going on? What are you doing?”

“Don’t listen to her, she’ll snatch your soul. Climb up, quick,” Jake yells down at Holly in a hoarse voice.

Holly is still for a moment with her hands grasping the low branch and her foot resting on the jagged trunk. The moon illuminates the yard, and Holly watches as bright clouds roll across the sky.

“Holly, come inside and let’s do a makeover. I’ll do your hair and you can try on my clothes,” Janine calls nervously from the porch.

Janine is barely visible in the dim light, but Holly can see her begin to glow with a red aura. Janine’s figure becomes tall and gaunt and her head transforms into a thin and pointy face with stumpy horns growing out of her skull.

Holly becomes frightened, so she pulls her body up into the tree with her arms. She climbs from branch to branch, higher and higher, and is out of breath when she pauses to look down. She feels dizzy and her heart is thumping hard inside her breast.

Janine looks small standing on the porch below them. Holly sees that she is motionless but watching them, still with a red glow.

Jake offers her a hand and pulls Holly closer to him, as he tells her, “You made the right choice.”

Holly sits next to Jake on the sturdy branch and their legs dangle side by side. She feels a current of electricity, the heat of his body warming and comforting her. Holly looks at his profile and sighs. He is so beautiful.

“I like you the way you are, you are so pure and good. I know I can trust you,” Jake says while he holds her hand. His hand feels bony and smooth in hers. His energy is so powerful, Holly believes him. They both look up at the moon and silently watch the illuminated, white clouds drift by.