American Delirium by Betina González

Author:Betina González
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

* * *

Berenice had a very clear picture of the people who called themselves dropouts. She imagined them naked, dirty, and muscular, living in tents pitched in a clearing in the woods, where it was always summer, or sitting around a campfire in a cloud of smoke. The water game also appeared in that image (in the form of a waterfall cascading into a lake), which disturbed her. So did the carnation man, wearing a suit and gazing seriously at the group, which he belonged to in a mysterious way that not even Berenice could explain. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine Emma Lynn among them, with her beautiful dresses, her complicated beauty routine, and her perfect curls—which she sometimes wore in an old-fashioned style, gathered in a ribbon at the crown of her head to accentuate her features, while falling loose across her lovely back. Berenice thought it was much more likely that she’d run off with a man, a threat she made often, especially when Berenice insisted on asking about her father.

Emma Lynn’s account of the circumstances surrounding her birth never changed: “When I felt like I was running out of time to have a beautiful baby girl, I went to a bar and found the handsomest man there. I slept with him and nine months later, my wish came true.” More than the story, the different faces her mother made while telling it stuck with Berenice. In her memories, as she spoke Emma Lynn had her hands in a flowerpot or was spreading liquid mud on her face, one of the oldest beauty tricks in the book. Then she would add, returning to the story, “It’s surprisingly easy, I could do it again. The trick is to not get caught up in the fantasy of love. I mean, of course I could still fall in love, lots of people insist on it, but then you’d end up alone, and we don’t want that, do we?”

That time they were in the bedroom and Emma Lynn was talking to Berenice in the mirror. She’d made a point of looking her in the eyes when she said the word “alone,” as she finished doing Berenice’s hair in dozens of Medusa braids, as she always called them. “Go on, time to turn those boys to stone,” she’d said, giving her a pat on the bottom. And Berenice had left for school feeling like she had superpowers, like she had a vast, vegetal force safeguarding her. Because even though her mother had explained the Greek myth to her, Berenice was convinced that “medusa” was the name of a plant; what a waste that would be, if not. She’d find it one day, she promised herself, and it would be magical. The medusa would be able to detect evil in people’s faces. A girl could save a lot of time with a plant-based potion to help her tell who was good and who was bad.

The carnation man, for example, was one of those who complicated her life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.