Only a handful of people knew that Angelica Wyatt—yes, the Angelica Wyatt—was Ema’s mom.
“So tell me what happened in California,” Ema said.
We sat on oversize beanbag chairs. I told her everything. When I was done, Ema said, “Maybe it was your father’s wish.”
“What? Being cremated?”
“Right, a lot of people choose that,” Ema said. “It’s a possibility, right?”
I thought about it. We had traveled all over the world. Most foreign cultures—most cultures my father admired—preferred cremation to burial. I remembered that my father once bemoaned the “waste” of good land, land that could have been used to grow crops, because it was being used as a graveyard.
Could he have told Mom he wanted to be cremated?
I thought some more. Then I said, “No.”
“You’re sure?”
“If Dad had wanted to be cremated, he wouldn’t then want to be buried too. He’d choose one or the other.”
Ema nodded. “But it was your mother’s signature on the form?”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“So I need to ask her about it. The problem is, she’s not allowed visitors in rehab right now. She’s going through withdrawal.”
“How much longer?”
“I don’t know.” I looked at Ema. Yes, she was interested, but I knew what she was doing. For some reason, she was asking all these questions to stall. “So tell me about your missing boyfriend.”
“Before I do,” Ema said, “I wanted to show you something.”
“Okay.”
She started pulling up her shirt.
“Uh,” I said, because I’m good with words.
“Relax, perv. I want to show you a tattoo.”
“Uh,” I said again.
“You’ll see why.”
Ema was loaded up with tattoos. This helped cultivate her bad-girl image. She wore them almost like a fence, warning people to stay back. Yes, I know a lot of people have tattoos, but Ema was only a high school freshman. Many of the kids were intimidated that a girl so young could have so many. How did she get her parents’ permission?
I had wondered that myself.
But more recently I learned the simple truth: The tattoos were temporary. She had a friend named Agent at a tattoo parlor called Tattoos While U Wait. Agent liked to try out designs before putting them on someone in a permanent way. He used Ema’s skin as a practice canvas.
Ema turned her back to me. “Look.”
There, in the center of her back, was a familiar image to Ema, Spoon, Rachel, and me.
A butterfly. More specifically, the Tisiphone Abeona butterfly.
That image haunted us. I had seen it on a grave behind Bat Lady’s house. I had seen it on Rachel’s hospital room door. I had seen it in an old picture of hippies from the sixties. I had even seen the image of that butterfly in an old photograph of the famous Lizzy Sobek, the young girl who led children to safety during the Holocaust. I saw it atop my father’s “maybe” grave, on the back of a photograph in Bat Lady’s basement, even in a tattoo parlor.
“You told me about that,” I said.
“I know. But I went back to have it redone. You know. Have Agent make it bright or change it. The tattoos usually wear off after a few weeks.”
I felt a small chill ripple across my back. “But?”
“But he couldn’t.”
I knew the answer but I asked anyway. “Why?”
“It’s permanent,” Ema said. “Agent said he doesn’t know how that happened. But the butterfly is there. For good.”
I said nothing.
“What’s going on, Mickey?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat there in silence. I finally broke it. “Tell me about your missing boyfriend.”
For a second or two, she didn’t move. She swallowed, blinked a few times, and then stared at the floor. “Boyfriend may be putting it a little too strongly.”
I waited.
“Mickey?”
“What?”
Ema started twisting the skull ring on her right hand. “You have to promise me something.”
Her body language was all wrong. Ema was about confidence. She was big and confident and didn’t care who noticed. She was comfortable in her own skin. Now, all of a sudden, that confidence was gone.
“Okay,” I said.
“You have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”
“Are you serious?”
She just looked at me.
“Okay, okay, I promise. It’s odd, that’s all.”
“What’s odd?” she asked.
“This promise. I thought you didn’t care what people think of you.”
“I don’t,” Ema said. “I care what you think of me.”
A second passed. Then another. Then I said, “Oh,” because I’m really, really good with words. It was, of course, a dumb comment on my part—the stuff about her not caring. Everyone cares what people think. Some just hide it better.
“So tell me,” I said.
“I met a guy in a chat room,” Ema said.
I blinked once. Then I said, “You hang out in chat rooms?”
“You promised.”
“I’m not making fun.”
“You’re judging,” she said. “That’s just as bad.”
“I’m not. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“It’s not like you think,” Ema said. “See, I’ve been helping my mom with her social networking. She’s clueless. So is her manager and her agent and her personal assistant—whatever. So I set some promotional stuff up for her—Twitter, Facebook, you know the deal. And now I watch it for her.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Anyway, in this chat room, I met this guy.”
I just looked at her.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“You’re judging again.”
“I’m just sitting here,” I said, spreading my hands. “If you see something more on my face, that’s more about you than me.”