Andre wanted to lie down again, but she felt strongly disinclined to stay at the house alone.
“I hope Ben can make it,” Amy said in the car. “Merri will be disappointed if he doesn’t come.” She gave Andre what was probably a sly look, but it was hard to tell with her sunglasses on.
“Why?”
“You’ve never noticed how moony she gets when he’s around?”
Andre watched the trees and telephone poles drifting past the window. “No, but that’s . . . sweet.” Dreamy, orphan Ben with his shaggy sable hair and piercing, wary black eyes—dark features from his Mexican mother. She’d died of breast cancer when he was four. At twenty-four, he was very thin despite a sedentary lifestyle and a steady diet of beer. They’d lived together since the twins had moved out west thirteen years ago. Their fathers had been unmarried partners, but Ben was more of a sibling to Andre than her real half-brother.
Ricardo, Genevieve, and Raf lived on the top floor of a tiny apartment on the border of Arroyo and Darryville. Amy parked, shoved her sunglasses back up onto her head, and shuffled through her backpack. Andre followed her twin up the stairs. Amaryllis was beautiful. Not normal beautiful, but a freak–unnerving, startling. Andre was weirdly proud of it. It amused her to introduce Amy to people and watch them blink and gape. The physical differences between them bordered on comical. Andre was nine inches shorter with straight black hair down to her waist. She was small and compact, built like a gymnast and flat-chested. Amy was five-ten with turquoise hair and large, tapered limbs half covered in tattoos. She had huge fawn eyes, and her face was ridiculous– otherworldly. Her sculpted bone structure alone was a gift from the gods to humankind. Andre was average looking, maybe pretty, but next to Amy, everyone was plain.
Immediately following Amy’s loud knock was the sound of high-pitched barking. “Down, Pippin! Pippin! Down!” Genevieve, buxom, also heavily inked, opened the door, blocking the fiercely yapping Pomeranian with her leg before bending down and scooping him up. “Hi! Come in.” She stroked the dog aggressively and pressed her face into its fur. “Why do you always have to freak out, huh?”
They stepped into a cluttered living room that smelled of sandalwood incense and pot. A Chagall print sat over the sofa: two people—pancake-flat—suspended in the air. Genevieve set Pippin down. He barked a couple more times and scuttled around, sniffing Andre’s and Amy’s ankles.
“Are you coming tonight?” Amy asked.
“No, I have to study. Raf can’t go either. He’s working. Are you?” she asked Andre.
Andre shook her head. “I work tomorrow morning. I picked up Merri’s shift for her. It’s not really my thing. I don’t like crowds.”
“Hey, twinsies.” Ricardo appeared, shirtless and wearing sweatpants. “Who’s doing what?”
“They aren’t going tonight, but I am,” Amy said.
“Is Ben coming?” Ricardo moved some magazines off the couch and sat down, then stood back up. Andre didn’t understand band politics, but Ben and Ricardo used to practice together, and now they didn’t. She never sensed tension between them but hadn’t asked Ben outright about it. Amy shrugged and then followed Ricardo back to his room. “Good question. I’m trying to get a hold of him, but he’s unfindable at the moment.”
Andre hugged herself and sat down with a whimper.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Genevieve asked, putting a hand on Andre’s back.
“Yeah, sorry, no, my stomach is upset.” Andre looked up, and her gaze floated along the tiger lily tattoo on Genevieve’s arm.
“Want some tea? The water is still hot,” Genevieve said, moving towards the tiny kitchen. “I just made some.”
“Sure, thanks.” Andre’s phone rang—Ben. “Hey, where are you?”
“Andre.” She’d never heard so much desperation poured into the two syllables of her name. She went still.
“What’s wrong?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Genevieve’s with Amy. Everybody’s looking for you.”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m on the phone. Can you come home?”
“Yeah, as soon as Amy’s done here. Ugh. I need to get home. I’m sick.”
“You too?” He muttered something she didn’t catch, then said, “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, anxiety niggling at her more the worse she felt.
“Just get home, please. It’s important.”
Genevieve appeared in front of her holding a mug with a monkey arm handle. Andre smiled apologetically but stood up and shook her head. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Listen, don’t tell anyone that you’ve talked to me. I can’t talk to anyone else right now.”
“Got it.” Genevieve shrugged and disappeared back into the kitchen. Andre spoke quietly, “What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.”
“That light we saw last night brought something with it.”
“What—”
“Just get here.” He hung up.
Chapter TWO
Ben stood on the deck in the backyard, smoking a cigarette and guzzling a beer. He hoped, with a sort of imploring fervency that was almost prayer, that Amy would drop Andre off and not come inside too. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Amy to know, but if he was crazy and wrong about what he’d thought he’d seen, Andre would be less likely to give him a hard time and make a thing of it.
They were taking forever.
His fingers shook as he brought the cigarette to his mouth. Staring at the shed fifteen feet away, he finished his beer. It was probably not the best thing for him at the moment, after vomiting off and on the last couple of hours, but Ben was having trouble dealing with reality sober. He stubbed the cigarette out and flicked it over the fence. Unforgivable. He’d not been so thoughtless in years, but now everything was different. The world might be coming to an end.
Andre opened the back door so quietly it startled him. “Hey.” Hammer had followed and stood panting by her legs. She stroked his ears absently, looking around. “Sorry it took so long. Amy . . .” She made a flicking motion with her hand and rolled her eyes, and this somehow indicated Amy’s flightiness or fault. “She had to pull over. I threatened to throw up in the car. I almost did. She went back to Ricardo’s.” Andre grimaced, crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t get it.” She licked her lips. “I feel like shit. Like, poisoned.”
Looking over his shoulder at the shed, Ben turned to go back inside the house. “C’mon.” He crossed the living room into the kitchen, threw his beer can into the recycling, and went to the fridge to pull out another. He opened it and took a long drink, avoiding her eyes. “I’m glad you saw that crazy ball lightning shit last night. It will make this easier to take.”
Andre frowned. “Weird. I can see the vein in your neck like, pulsing. You know, I was starting to think I’d imagined it or exaggerated how it was. But I’m pretty sure it’s a real phenomenon, just super rare.” She poured a glass of water. “But . . . you’re kind of scaring me. What’s going on?”