Bliss

  “Sandy, your closet smells awful.” I move to shut the door.

  “Don’t!” She tosses Regular to the floor. “I’ll get it.”

  This time she’s too late. My hand’s already on the doorknob, and I peer into the closet’s dark interior, searching for the source of the stench. Against the back wall I spot a litter box. As my eyes adjust, I realize it’s jam-packed with hard brown balls of poop—so jam-packed that not a speck of litter is visible. There’s poop on the closet floor, too. Clumps and piles and scatterings of it.

  I gag.

  “I ran out of time to clean,” Sandy says.

  I press my hand to my mouth. As I stumble back, I feel something squish beneath my shoe, and though I don’t want to look, I can’t help myself. What I stepped on is a sausage-shaped turd, only it’s so ancient and dry that it crumbles instead of smearing on my sole. I scan Sandy’s room again, and I see what I missed before. Yes, her room is filthy. Yes, there is dust upon dust. But it’s not all dust. Some of the dust is actually cat shit.

  The pigeon coop has nothing on Sandy’s bedroom.

  “I’ve got to go,” I manage. “I can’t stay here.”

  Sandy grabs me. “No!”

  I shake her off and reach down for my things. She clutches my bag just as I do.

  “I’ll clean up. I’ll do better. I just haven’t had anyone over in so long!”

  “Sandy, no. I shouldn’t have come in the first place.”

  “Please!” She’s agitated, and I flash back to the day on the quad when she hit herself over and over. Even then, I think some part of me knew she was nuts. Why did I let myself believe otherwise?

  “I can’t.” I jerk at my bag, but she doesn’t let go. Panic mounts inside me, because Sandy is strong. What if she locks me in the closet and refuses to let me out?

  I close my eyes. I struggle to find a still spot inside me, because who’s being crazy now?

  I release my bag, and Sandy flies back and lands with an ooomph on the floor. Regular howls and scats under the bed.

  “Nice,” I say. “You scared your cat.”

  Sandy swallows. She takes a deep breath. She is trying to calm herself, just as I’m trying to calm myself.

  “I really don’t want you to go,” she says in a shaky voice.

  “Will you hand me my bag, please?”

  “I live in a shit hole,” she says. “I know! My whole life is a shit hole!” Her eyes fill with tears, which pisses me off even—dammit—as it makes me feel sorry for her. She looks ridiculous sprawled there on the floor.

  I look away, crossing my arms over my chest.

  She pushes up on her hands and knees, then stands. She gives me my duffel bag.

  “I could clean up now,” she whispers. “You could sit outside. You could . . . read a book. And then I’d come get you.”

  The canvas strap of my bag is thick in my hand, a tangible reminder of reality. To go back home, I’d have to call Grandmother and ask her to come pick me up. Only tonight is Bridge night. She’ll be out late.

  I could call Mitchell, I suppose, but then I’d be the person who can’t handle someone’s differences. Yeah, and why don’t you come spend the night in turd land, I say to him in my mind. But regardless, I’m not Mitchell’s damsel in distress. I’m not anyone’s damsel in distress.

  Sandy bows her head. “Mam wants to drown her. That’s why I keep her in my room. That’s why there’s so much . . . you know.”

  “Your mom wants to drown your cat?” I say skeptically.

  “She’s going to make me get rid of her. She says so every day. I just wish . . .”

  Don’t do it, I warn myself. Don’t take the bait.

  Sandy sniffles.

  “You just wish what?” I say, despising myself.

  “That she could have kittens. Just one litter.”

  “Why?” I glance around, gesturing at her cramped, foul room. “And where would you keep them? In here?”

  “Just one litter. Well, maybe more. Why not, right? Nothing wrong with kittens, right?” She looks at me, and her desire is intense. “All I need is a safe place to keep them, somewhere Mam can’t get to them.”

  “I’m not taking them, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I say.

  She regards me disdainfully, and hints of the old Sandy filter back. Less pathetic, more dismissive. “I don’t want anyone to take them. I just want them to be safe, like I said.”

  She straightens her spine. “Anyway, I’ve got the perfect place—and not just for kittens, but for all sorts of wonderful things. Wonderful things! And don’t try to worm it out of me, because you can’t.”

  I have zero interest in worming anything from her.

  Sandy waits. When she realizes I’m not going to pursue it, she says, “But maybe I’ll show you one day.” She lets out her man-giggle. “If you’re a good girl . . . and if you do as I say.”

  I assume she’s speaking of Hamilton Hall, of Liliana’s old room. I push the thought from my brain, however, because I don’t want her sensing that I’ve figured it out. I don’t want her taking that as permission to speak of her “secret place” out loud.

  “So are you going or staying?” Sandy asks.

  I’m tight inside, and I’m as ticked off with myself as I am with Sandy. Maybe more so. Why do I put myself in these situations? Why am I such an easy mark? Maybe Thelma has it right and it is better just to be shallow and self-absorbed.

  And yet, I don’t want her growing so agitated that she . . . makes any rash decisions. “Fine, I’ll go hang out in your backyard,” I say, promising myself that this is the very last time. After this, no more mister nice guy. “But I’m taking my bag with me. And seriously, Sandy, you’ve got to use, like, cleaning supplies.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All the poop has to go.”

  She gives me a coy look. “Can’t I save just one? For posterity?”

  “Forget it, I’m out of here.”

  “Kidding! Kidding.” She’s already bustling around, picking up trash and bits of fluff. She shoos me out the door. “Go! I’ll come get you when I’m done. And I swear, Bliss, it’ll be the best sleepover ever.”

  t’s not the best sleepover ever. Even though it’s my first sleepover ever, I know it’s the worst and not the best. Sandy cleans up the turd piles, but the odor lingers. I doubt it will ever be fully gone. Plus, every time I glance toward the closet, I can’t help but think of what used to be there. That’s the problem with closed doors: Even if nothing’s behind them, it’s easy to imagine the worst.

  Added to the fun is Regular herself, who stays in Sandy’s room with us since she’s not allowed anywhere else. At one point she meows at Sandy’s door as if she wants to go out, but when I get up to let her, Sandy says the thing again about her mom throwing Regular into a river. This time I don’t contradict her, but I do ask where her mom is, anyway. I haven’t seen her all night.

  “She got tired and went to bed,” Sandy says.

  I glance at my watch. “At seven thirty?”

  “She has a bad back, all right? It takes a lot out of her to get around. It takes way more out of her than it does you or me, all right?”

  I hold up my hands. “All right, all right.”

  Sandy goes to the closed door and snatches Regular. She plops down with her and gives her a good petting, which Regular endures with flattened-back ears and back-and-forth darts of her eyes. Eventually she purrs. Still, when I look at Regular, I don’t think, Now there’s a cat that’s meant to have kittens. Instead I think, Procreation is not for everyone.

  The worst part of the evening comes after dinner (fish sticks) and TV (Bewitched), when Sandy and I tromp back to her room and get ready for bed.

  “So . . . should I sleep on the floor?” I ask hesitantly after I slip on a nightshirt that reaches past my knees. It’s girly, with pink flowers. Grandmother bought it for me.

  “Tell me you’re kidding,” Sandy says. She pauses in the middle of changing c
lothes. “You honestly think I’d invite you over and make you sleep on the floor?”

  “Oh,” I say. It’s nice of her to let me have her bed, I guess, but I kind of want to ask if she put on fresh sheets. I also want her to go ahead and pull her nightgown on. She’s standing there wearing neither shirt nor bra, which makes it seem as if she and her boobs are all three gazing at me.

  I haven’t been brought up a prude. I’ve seen plenty of naked people in my fourteen years, and I respect the human form and all that. But it’s one thing to see a girl whip off her tie-dye at a Dead show and swing it around in a circle, yelling, “Woo-hooo!” It’s quite another to be in a small, enclosed space with a too-bare Sandy, just the two of us.

  I adjust my own nightgown, trying to use E.S.P. to get her back on track, and it works, because she shoves her arms and head through the openings of her nightie and tugs it down. Then her hands slip up and under, wiggle-wiggle-wiggle, and off comes her underwear. It’s exactly the kind of underwear I’d expect, large and pale and shapeless. She tosses them to the side.

  I wait for her to go to her dresser and get fresh undies, but she doesn’t. First nightgown, then panties, I coach her in my brain. You can do it.

  Instead, she climbs into bed. I’m confused, because didn’t she just say that I was going to get the bed? Then it sinks in: She expects us to sleep together in the bed, and she’s one of those people who sleeps without underwear. Not so long ago, perhaps such a matter would have seemed trivial, but that time is gone. That me is gone, and the me I am now doesn’t want to be here.

  “Is there a problem?” Sandy asks.

  I hunch my shoulders and climb gingerly into the bed, staying on the very, very far edge.

  “Okey-dokey,” Sandy says. She rolls over to turn off her lamp, and the room goes dark. I lie there, immobile. Then there’s a near-silent padding, followed by a thump-pounce that rocks the mattress.

  Regular treads across me, and her tail flicks my face.

  “Chuckle buddy,” Sandy coos, or maybe “suckle buddy,” though neither endearment makes sense. Cats don’t chuckle. Still, I’m glad for another body between me and Sandy. Regular’s squeaky purr starts up, and I allow myself to shift around on my pillow.

  “Can I tell you something?” Sandy says in the shadows.

  “Um . . . I’m pretty tired.”

  “It’s about . . . friendship. And being true, and doing things for one another. That’s what friends do, right? And sometimes it feels, well . . . like a sacrifice, maybe—but it’s for a greater good, right?”

  “Sandy, what are you talking about?” I say wearily.

  “I thought I had a friend, once. A true friend. But she betrayed me.”

  “Yes, I know. I know all about Sarah Lynn, and I see no point in talking about her, because I already know you hate her.”

  She giggles, but it sounds forced. “There are things you don’t know, though. Like . . . she and I have the same initials. Even our middle names. They both start with ‘L’.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “My middle name’s Lurlene,” she offers.

  “Okay.”

  “We thought that was so great when we were in the fifth grade,” Sandy goes on. “We thought it was a sign.”

  I gaze at the ceiling, which is beginning to gain definition. I really would prefer to sleep—or be gone from this bedroom altogether.

  “And for the record, I made the first move. She was new and had no friends. I was nice to her.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sandy turn to face me. “She spent the night, like, every weekend. In this very bed. In the very spot where you are now.”

  I imagine a ten-year-old Sarah Lynn lying right here with her hands clasped over her chest. Maybe gazing up at the ceiling, just like me?

  “We used to play a game,” Sandy says, her voice changing. “A private game. Just for us.”

  “Better keep it private, then,” I say, my blood pressure taking a sudden plunge. I’ve already told her I don’t want to talk about Sarah Lynn. I certainly don’t want to hear about any . . . private games between the two of them. My chest goes up and down with shallow breaths.

  “We would draw designs on each other’s skin, with our fingers.” Her voice dips. “We’d lick them first.”

  “Your . . . fingers?”

  “I’d lift her nightgown and tell her to hold still, but she never could. She said it tickled.”

  I make a noise, but I’m not sure it’s audible.

  “But she loved it! She loved being tickled!”

  “Sandy, I’m really tired. I think we should go to sleep.”

  “Do you know what she told Lacy and Heather and Melissa?” she says, her voice breaking. “Once she decided she didn’t want to be friends anymore, because I wasn’t good enough? Because I wasn’t pretty enough and peppy enough and stupid enough?”

  Sandy’s words quaver, but Regular keeps purring. If anything, her purring grows stronger.

  “She told them”—she gulps—“She told them . . .”

  I turn my head, and our eyes lock. Hers have circles of brightness in them despite the dim light.

  “She told them I was unnatural, that’s what she said!”

  You are, I think. And, Oh, Sandy. My heart breaks for her even as it puts up a wall to keep her out.

  “But who cares?” she says, sniffling. “’Cause now I have you, right? And you’ve been a super-good influence on me. I mean that. And . . . well, I was wondering . . .”

  My pulse spikes. No, you may not draw on my stomach.

  “. . . if you might like to know something special about me.” She says it nervously, but with white-hot desire thrumming below the surface. It makes me nervous. It makes me very nervous.

  God, where do I go with this?

  “Um, I’m kind of feeling . . .” I breathe out a puff of air. “I just, um . . . phew. You are special, Sandy. I already know that.” I yawn. “I’m just really, really, incredibly—”

  “I have power,” she interrupts fervidly. “True power. You can have it too.”

  I look at her. Moonlight shines through the slats in her blinds, and her face is slivered dark, then white, then dark. I’m in this room—in this bed—with a person whose grasp on sanity is no longer solid, if it ever was, and my senses kick into overdrive. I need to be careful.

  “Do you believe me?” Sandy says.

  “Y-y-yes,” I say, because I think it’s better not to contradict her.

  “I’ll show you.” She’s getting worked up. “You see, I’ve found a way to communicate with Liliana, Mother of All. She speaks to me—she speaks through me! Shall I call Her to us?”

  “No!” I say, experiencing a surge of fear so deep that my insides lock up, especially my lungs. I have a hard time breathing.

  “Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

  “Um, I just don’t think it’s a—”

  “Please.” This time it’s more of a groan.

  “Sandy . . . no!”

  She stares at me reproachfully. Seconds trudge by, and her reproach changes to resentment. I can’t seem to pull my gaze away, and so I see in her eyes the very moment her resentment turns to hostility, as if I’ve let her down and must be punished. I’m suddenly scared of what she might do.

  “Maybe another time?” I say. I purposefully slow my breathing, and I don’t break our eye contact, hard as it is not to look away. Beneath the covers, my toes are clenched snails.

  She blinks.

  “You’ve got to realize, you’re kind of springing this on me out of the blue.” I laugh with what I hope is the right mix of confusion and awe. “I need to get my head around it, you know?”

  She wants to believe me. Her eyes are shining beacons.

  “You are part of it,” she whispers. “What you could offer, it will make everything . . . come together.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, nodding. “I get that. Just . . . be gentle with me, okay?”

  By chance I
’ve landed on the right thing to say, because a smile stretches across Sandy’s face. “Okay,” she says happily. “I’ll be your teacher, and you’ll be my student. We can’t take too long, though, or Liliana will grow impatient.”

  “I understand.”

  “I knew you would say yes. I knew it.” She sighs. “I feel really good about this. Do you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I say. I feel absolutely, gut-wrenchingly nauseated about this. Sandy and Liliana are a bad mix, a very bad mix.

  She laughs. She adjusts the covers and scooches to get comfortable, and then bam, she falls asleep. Within minutes she’s snoring.

  For me, it takes longer. If Liliana is in touch with Sandy—and I have no reason to believe she’s not—what is she telling her? Is Sandy to be the next Nanette? The next Elizabeth, strapped to a roughhewn cross? And what did Sandy mean when she spoke of what I could offer?

  I am offering nothing, not one bloody thing. On that I stake my life.

  I shift my gaze back to the ceiling and watch the movement of the shadows. I think about how strange life can be. Being here in Sandy’s bed—this is where I am right now. I don’t want to be, but I am.

  Just get to the morning, I tell myself. Just get through the next eight hours, and a new day will begin. From the moment I leave this house, I’ll have as little to do with Sandy as humanly possible.

  Sleep lures me in despite my best intentions, and as my thoughts go drifty, a long-ago memory is dislodged. When I was seven, Mom took me with her to a concert, and afterward, we crashed at one of her friends’ apartments. The sleeping bag her friend pulled out for me smelled like pee, and I wanted to go home. Mom told me to lie down and quit complaining. I woke up the next morning covered with bites, and when Mom pulled me out of the sleeping bag, she saw that it was teeming with spiders. In the lining she found the remains of an egg sack, sticky and white as a marshmallow.

  When at last I fall asleep in Sandy’s bed, I dream of spiders with pinhead bodies and spindly legs. They scuttle over me . . . and then they change in their dreamlike way. Spider legs turn to cat claws, cat claws turn to human fingers. Human fingers whispering—shhhh—over my skin.