The Heavens Rise

“I’m sorry. My people?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t say you people. I said—”

“I heard what you said,” Marissa answered. “My mother’s retired now.”

“And your husband?”

“Haven’t met him yet.”

“And your mother. What did she do before she . . . retired?” There was too much emphasis on the last word for Marissa’s liking. It suggested that in Heidi Ferriot’s world, black women didn’t retire, they just went on the dole.

“She was a dance teacher.”

“So at some point, presumably, she was a dancer?” Heidi asked.

“When she was younger, yes. She taught children, mostly. Through church groups and the like. She had her own studio for a while but she gave it up when I was a girl.”

“But not on Airline Highway. And not with a pole, I presume.”

The brittle silence around her seemed to confirm it: Yes, the bowed heads and pinched mouths of the other guests seemed to say. That bitch just called your mother a whore.

Marissa was not an investigative journalist, but she was a columnist, and columnists lived off of access just like anyone else in the business. And you didn’t get access by shooting off your mouth at fancy parties and taking things too personally. And yes, this may not have been the most significant event of her career, and the end of the night probably wouldn’t deliver the makings of more than a passable column. But still. But still, but still, but still . . .

“Marissa?”

It took her a few seconds to realize it was the kid who’d spoken. And he’d used her first name as if they’d been lifelong friends.

“I asked you if you knew your snakes.”

Asked. How long had he been speaking to her before she’d heard him? Was she on the verge of having a stroke? Was she really that angry?

“My snakes?”

“Yes. Your snakes.”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t own any snakes.”

Marissa was surprised to see that Donald and Heidi were looking not at her but at their son, and their expressions were suddenly tense. Were they afraid he was about to divulge some terrible family secret to this black journo? Or were they just afraid of their son in general? Too afraid to pull that fork out of his hand and slap some manners across the back of his head?

“I guess I should be more specific,” Marshall said, but he was staring down at the table. Marissa thought, The way he’s working on that tablecloth, I’d bet he’d be just as happy doing that to his own leg. Or mine. A strange thought, but the guy was plenty strange. “If you were confronted with a snake, would you be able to determine whether or not it was venomous?”

“That depends,” Marissa said.

“On what?”

“I grew up here. So I know the snakes in this area. But if you dropped me in Texas, I’m not sure I’d be of much use on that front.”

“I think it’s important . . . in life, I mean, to be able to tell the difference between a snake that can actually kill you and a snake that just scares you. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, maybe . . . but what if you’re not afraid of snakes at all?”

“Are you not afraid of snakes, Marissa?”

In a low voice, Donald Ferriot said, “What’s this about, Marshall?”

The kid was barely eighteen years old and talking to Marissa like she was his kindergarten teacher.

“Now, don’t lie just for the sake of argument,” he chided her. “That wouldn’t be very polite, now, would it?”

“To be honest, Marshall, I’m more afraid of the snakes I might meet every day.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The snakes I might be forced to have dinner with, for instance.”

The silence around the table was as stilted and pained as it had been after Heidi Ferriot fired the first shot. Marissa was about to say something to lighten the mood but Marshall was suddenly staring straight past her head with such wide-eyed intensity that her words left her. One of the costumed waiters, or possibly one of the jugglers or mimes, had caught the kid’s eye. Caught both of his eyes in one tense fist was more like it. The longer Marissa stared at him, the more it became clear that Marshall Ferriot had gone entirely still, so still it felt as if the air pressure around them shifted suddenly. As if Marshall had been rendered so rigid and devoid of life, the air itself was literally avoiding him.

“What’s the matter?” Donald Ferriot asked his son. “Are you getting sick again?”

In response, Marshall got to his feet and started walking toward the nearest plate-glass window. He picked up an empty metal folding chair a bartender had been resting his feet on a few minutes earlier. The chair had heavy cushions on the back and seat, so when he lifted it in both hands, the seat’s weight forced it to fold automatically.

“Oh shit,” Marissa whispered. She was convinced the kid was about to do something truly, truly stupid, probably in some kind of sick retaliation for Marissa’s crack about snakes. When Marshall was still several paces from the plate-glass window, he swung the chair back over one shoulder as if it were as light and slender as a baseball bat.

He’ll just try to make a commotion, Marissa thought. He’ll hurl the chair at the window to get the entire room’s attention and then—

The first crash got everyone’s attention all right. But Marshall didn’t stop there. He slammed the chair into the glass again and again and again, with a ferocity and determination that kept everyone glued to their chairs. The room was a sea of frightened expressions and napkins brought to mouths. Around the fourth strike, the kid had managed to punch several large holes in the plate glass, and the cracks radiating out from each one looked poised to bring the entire window apart.

Then Marshall tossed the chair to one side and took several steps backward. He had backed up almost to the nearest table when a terrible realization of what he was about to do swept the room. There were several small screams. Then Marissa was on her feet.

If she’d thrown herself at Marshall, tried to tackle him to the ground like he was a quarterback, she might have been able to prevent what happened next. But the kid was a good two feet taller than her. And it was a moot point anyway because when she reached for his shoulder, she missed.

Marshall hurled himself face-first into the perforated glass. Like something out of a goddamn cartoon, Marissa thought. The collision made a deep, bone-rattling thud tinged with the violent metallic rattle of the giant window’s frame.

But the window held.

The kid’s right shoulder was wedged inside one of the holes he’d punched with the chair; it looked to Marissa like he was trying to pry himself free. He was dazed and disoriented, his forehead sprouting blood from a dozen different cuts. But when he looked back into the room, his eyes found Marissa and she saw utter lifelessness in them. It was as if the kid’s spirit had literally been drained out of him.

In the years to come, Marissa would try to convince herself that it was the impact with the window that had knocked Marshall Ferriot’s senses from him, but that look—the emptiness of it, its soullessness—would stalk most of Marissa’s quiet moments for the rest of her life.

The group of tuxedoed men who had gathered behind her and Donald Ferriot froze where they stood. The glass Marshall was plastered against was too fragile for anyone to make a sudden move, she realized.

Marshall’s jaw went slack. His Adam’s apple jerked in his blood-splattered throat.

“I . . . I . . . put a . . .”

And as soon as his son’s words seemed to sputter out into ragged breaths of delirium, Donald Ferriot broke free from the group and lunged for his son. And even though the men all around him could sense Donald’s terrible