Wake

  Janie watches, her heart pounding. The boy is still grinning and choking, falling under the water. He is drowning.

  “Help him!” screams Carrie. “Save him!”

  Janie leaps toward the boy in the water, but she lands on the bank in the same spot she took off from. She tries again as Carrie screams, but the results are the same.

  The boy’s eyes are closed now. His grin has turned eerie. From the water behind the boy, an enormous shark bursts above the surface, mouth open, hundreds of sharp teeth gleaming. It closes its mouth around the boy and disappears.

  Carrie sits up in her sleeping bag and screams.

  Janie screams too, but it catches in her throat.

  Her voice is hoarse.

  Her fingers are numb.

  Her body shakes from the nightmare.

  The two girls look at each other in the darkness, while Melinda stirs, groans, and goes back to sleep. “Are you okay?” Janie whispers, sitting up.

  Carrie nods, breathing hard. She whisper-laughs, embarrassed. Her voice shakes. “I’m sorry I woke you. Bad dream.”

  Janie hesitates. “You want to talk about it?” Her mind is racing.

  “Nah. Go back to sleep.” Carrie rolls to her side. Melinda stirs, rolls a few inches closer to Carrie, and is quiet again.

  Janie glances at the clock. 3:42 a.m. She is exhausted. She drifts off to sleep. . . .

  3:51 a.m.

  . . . she is jolted awake when she falls into a huge, beautiful bedroom. There are framed posters of *NSYNC and Sheryl Crow on the walls. At a desk sits Melinda, doodling on the edge of her notebook. Janie tries to blink herself out of the room. She feels herself sit up in the sleeping bag, but her motions don’t affect what she sees. She lies back down, resigned to watch.

  Melinda is drawing hearts. Janie walks toward her. She says, “Melinda,” but no sound comes out. When someone knocks on the bedroom window, Melinda looks over and smiles. “Help me open this window, will you?”

  Janie stares at Melinda. Melinda stares back, then points to the window with a jerk of her head. Janie, feeling compelled, stumbles over to the window next to Melinda and they open it. Carrie climbs in.

  She is naked from the waist up.

  And has breasts the size of watermelons.

  The breasts sway from side to side when Carrie scrambles over the sill.

  She walks through Janie and stands shyly in front of Melinda.

  Janie tries to turn away, but she can’t. She waves a hand in front of Carrie’s face, but Carrie doesn’t respond. Melinda winks at Janie and folds Carrie into her arms. They embrace and kiss. Janie rolls her eyes, and suddenly all three are back in Ms. Parchelli’s civics classroom. Once again, Melinda is embracing someone in the aisle. It’s Carrie. She leads Carrie to the front of the room. Janie can see that no one else in the class gives an ounce of notice to the naked Carrie and her enormous breasts.

  Janie sits up in her sleeping bag again and shakes her head wildly. She feels the ends of her braids slap the sides of her cheeks, but she is unable to remove herself from the classroom. She is forced not only to be there, but also to watch.

  Melinda glides to the supply closet and leads Carrie in there with her. Janie, against her wishes, follows. Melinda closes the door once Carrie and Janie are inside, and Melinda starts kissing Carrie on the lips again.

  Janie lunges in her sleeping bag blindly.

  Kicks Melinda, hard.

  And Janie is back in Carrie’s living room.

  Melinda sits up, hair disheveled, and scrambles around to look at Janie. “What the hell did you do that for?” Melinda is furious.

  Feigning sleep, Janie peers out of one eye. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “There was a spider crawling over your sleeping bag. I saved your life.”

  “What?!”

  “Never mind, he’s gone.”

  “Oh, great. Like I’m gonna get back to sleep now.”

  Janie grins in the darkness. It’s 5:51 a.m.

  7:45 a.m.

  Something nudges Janie’s legs. She opens her eyes, wondering where she is. It’s pitch dark. Carrie turns the sleeping bag flap off Janie’s head. “Wake up, sleepyhead.” The sunlight is blinding.

  “Mmph,” Janie grunts. Slowly she sits up.

  Carrie is balancing on her haunches, eyeing her, one brow raised.

  Janie remembers. Does Carrie?

  “Did you sleep well?” Carrie asks.

  Janie’s stomach twists. “Um . . . yeah.” She gauges Carrie’s reaction. “Did you?”

  Carrie smiles. “Like a baby. Even on this hard floor.”

  “Ah, hmm. Well, that’s great.” Janie scrambles to her feet and untwists from her nightgown. “Where’s Melinda?”

  “She left about ten minutes ago. She was acting weird. Said she forgot she had a piano lesson at eight.” Carrie snorts. “Duh.”

  Janie laughs weakly. She’s starving. The two girls fix breakfast. Carrie doesn’t appear to remember her nightmare.

  Janie can’t forget it.

  As they munch on toast, Janie steals a glance at Carrie’s chest. Her breasts are the size of half an apple, each.

  Janie goes home, falls into bed, thinking about the strange night. Wondering if this ever happens to anyone else. Knowing, deep down, it probably doesn’t.

  She falls into a hard sleep until late afternoon.

  Decides sleepovers are not for her.

  They’ll never be for her.

  June 7, 2004

  Janie is sixteen. She buys her own clothing now. Often she buys food, too. The welfare check covers the rent and the booze, and not much else.

  Two years ago, Janie started working a few hours after school and on the weekends at Heather Nursing Home. Now she works full-time for the summer.

  The office staff and the other aides at Heather Home like Janie, especially during school holidays, because she’ll pick up anybody’s shifts, day or night, so they can take a last-minute sick day or vacation. Janie needs the money, and they know it.

  She’s determined to go to college.

  Five days a week or more, Janie puts on her hospital scrubs and takes a bus to the nursing home. She likes old people. They don’t sleep soundly.

  Janie and Carrie are still friends and next-door neighbors. They spend a lot of time at Janie’s house, waiting for Janie’s mother to pass out in her bedroom before they watch movies and talk about boys. They talk about other things too, like why Carrie’s father is so angry all the time, and why Carrie’s mother doesn’t like company. Mostly, Janie thinks, it’s just because they’re grouchy people. Plain and simple. Whenever Carrie asks if she can have Janie sleep over, her mother says, “You just had a sleepover on your birthday.” Carrie doesn’t bother to remind her that that was four years ago.

  Janie thinks about Carson and wonders if Carrie really is an only child. But Carrie doesn’t seem to talk about anything with sharp edges. Maybe she’s afraid they might poke into her and then she’d burst.

  Carrie and Melinda are also still friends. Melinda’s parents are still rich. Melinda plays tennis. She is a cheerleader. Her parents have condos in Vegas, Marco Island, Vail, and somewhere in Greece. Melinda mostly hangs out with other rich kids. And then there’s Carrie.

  Janie doesn’t mind being with Melinda. Melinda still can’t stand Janie. Janie thinks she knows the real reason why, and it doesn’t have anything to do with having money.

  June 25, 2004, 11:15 p.m.

  After working a record eleven evenings straight, and being caught by old Mr. Reed’s recurring nightmare about World War II seven of those eleven evenings, Janie collapses on the couch and kicks her shoes off. By the number of empty bottles on the ring-stained coffee table, she assumes her mother is in her bedroom, down for the count.

  Carrie lets herself in. “Can I crash here?” Her eyes are rimmed in red.

  Janie sighs inwardly. She wants to sleep. “ ’Course. You okay with the couch?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

 
Janie relaxes. Carrie, on the couch, would work fine.

  Carrie sniffles loudly.

  “So, what’s wrong?” Janie asks, trying to put as much sympathy in her voice as she can muster. It’s enough.

  “Dad’s yelling again. I got asked out. Dad says no.”

  Janie perks up. “Who asked you out?”

  “Stu. From the body shop.”

  “You mean that old guy?”

  Carrie bristles. “He’s twenty-two.”

  “You’re sixteen! And he looks older than that.”

  “Not up close. He’s cute. He has a cute ass.”

  “Maybe he plays Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade.”

  Carrie giggles. Janie smiles.

  “So. You got any liquor around here?” Carrie asks innocently.

  Janie laughs. “There’s an understatement. Whaddya want, beer?” She looks at the bottles on the table. “Schnapps? Whiskey? Double-stuff vodka?”

  “Got any of that cheap grape wine the winos at Selby Park drink?”

  “At your service.” Janie hauls herself off the couch and looks for clean glasses. The kitchen is a mess. Janie has barely been here the past two weeks. She finds two sticky, mismatched glasses in the sink and washes them out, then searches through her mother’s stash for her cheap wine assortment. “Ah, here it is. Boone’s Farm, right?” She unscrews the bottle and pours two glasses full, not waiting for an answer from Carrie, and then puts the bottle back in the fridge.

  Carrie flips on the TV. She takes a glass from Janie. “Thanks.”

  Janie sips the sweet wine and makes a face. “So what are you gonna do about Stu?” She thinks there’s a country song in that sentence somewhere.

  “Go out with him.”

  “Your dad’s gonna kill you if he finds out.”

  “Yeah, well. What else is new?” They both settle on the creaky couch and put their feet on the coffee table, deftly pushing the mess of bottles to the center of it so they can stretch out.

  The TV drones. The girls sip their wine and get silly. Janie gets up, rummages around in her bedroom, and returns with snacks.

  “Gross—you keep Doritos in your bedroom?”

  “Emergency stash. For nights such as these.” Since Mother can’t be bothered to buy any actual food at the grocery store when she goes there for booze, Janie thinks.

  “Ahh.” Carrie nods.

  12:30 a.m.

  Janie is asleep on the couch. She doesn’t dream. Never dreams.

  5:02 a.m.

  Janie, forced awake, catapults into Carrie’s dream. It’s the one by the river. Again. Janie’s been here twice since the first time, when they were thirteen.

  Janie, blind to the room her physical body is in, tries to stand. If she can feel her way to her bedroom and close the door before she starts going numb, she might get enough distance to break the connection. She feels with her toes for the bottles on the floor, and goes around them. She reaches out for the wall and finds her way into the hallway as she and Carrie are walking through the forest in Carrie’s dream. Janie reaches for the door frames—first her mother’s bedroom (hush, don’t bump the door), then the bathroom, and then her room. She makes it inside, turns, and closes the door just as Carrie and Janie approach the riverbank.

  The connection is lost.

  Janie breathes a sigh of relief. She looks around, blinks in the dark as her eyesight returns, crawls into bed, and sleeps.

  9:06 a.m.

  When she wakes, both her mother and Carrie are in the kitchen. The living room is cleared of bottles. Carrie is drying a sink full of dishes, and Janie’s mother is fixing her homemade morning drink: vodka and orange juice on ice. On the stove is a skillet covered by a paper plate. Two pieces of buttered toast, two eggs over easy, and a small fortune of crisp bacon rest on a second paper plate, next to the skillet. Janie’s mother picks up a piece of bacon, takes her drink, and disappears back into her bedroom without a word.

  “Thanks Carrie—you didn’t have to do this. I was planning on cleaning today.”

  Carrie is cheerful. “It’s the least I can do. Did you sleep well? When did you go to bed?”

  Janie peeks in the skillet, thinking, discovering hash browns. “Wow! Um . . . not long ago. It was close to daylight. But I was so tired.”

  “You’ve been working ridiculous hours.”

  Janie. “Yeah, well. College. One day. How did you sleep?”

  “Pretty good . . . ” She hesitates, like she might say something else, but doesn’t.

  Janie takes a bite of food. She’s famished. “Did you have sweet dreams?”

  Carrie glances at Janie, then picks up another dish and wipes it with the towel. “Not really.”

  Janie concentrates on the food, but her stomach flips. She waits, until the silence grows awkward. “You want to talk about it?”

  Carrie is silent for a long time. “Not really. No,” she says finally.

  AND PICKS UP SPEED

  August 30, 2004

  It is the first day of school. Janie and Carrie are juniors. They wait for the bus on the corner of their street. A handful of other high school kids stand with them. Some are anxious. Some are terribly short. Janie and Carrie ignore the freshmen.

  The bus is late. Luckily for Cabel Strumheller, the bus is later than he is. Janie and Carrie know Cabel—he’s been trouble in school since ninth grade. Janie doesn’t remember him much before that—word was that he flunked down into their grade. He was often late. Always looked stoned. Now, he looks about six inches taller than he did in the spring. His blue-black hair hangs in greasy ringlets in front of his eyes, and he walks with shoulders curved, as if he were more comfortable being short. He stands away from everyone and smokes a cigarette.

  Janie catches his eye by accident, so she nods hello. He looks down at the ground quickly. Blows smoke from his lips. Tosses the cigarette down and grinds it into the gravel.

  Carrie pokes Janie in the ribs. “Lookie, it’s your boyfriend.”

  Janie rolls her eyes. “Be nice.”

  Carrie observes him carefully while he’s not looking. “Well. His pox-face cleared up over the summer. Or maybe the new fancy ’do hides it.”

  “Stop,” hisses Janie. She’s giggling, and feeling bad about it. But she’s looking at him. He’s got to be about as dirt poor as Janie, judging by his clothes. “He’s just a loner. And quiet.”

  “A stoner, maybe, who has a boner for you.”

  Janie narrows her eyes, and her face grows sober. “Carrie, stop it. I’m serious. You’re turning mean like Melinda.” Janie glances at Cabel. His jeans are too short. She knows what it’s like to be teased for not having cool clothes and stuff. She feels herself wanting to defend him. “He probably has shitty welfare parents, like me.”

  Carrie is quiet. “I’m not like Melinda.”

  “So why do you hang with her?”

  She shrugs and thinks about it for a minute. “I dunno. ’Cause she’s rich.”

  Finally the bus comes. The ride is forty-five minutes to school, even though the school is less than five miles away, because of all the stops. Juniors like Janie and Carrie are considered by the unwritten bus rules to be upperclassmen. So they sit near the back. Cabel passes by and falls into the seat behind them. Janie can feel him push his knees up against her back. She peers through the crack between her seat back and the window. Cabel’s chin is propped up by his hand. His eyes are closed, nearly hidden beneath his greasy curls.

  “Fuck,” Janie mutters under her breath.

  Thankfully, Cabel Strumheller doesn’t dream.

  Not on the bus, anyway.

  Not in chemistry class, either.

  Or English.

  Nor does anyone else. Janie arrives home after the first day of school, relieved.

  October 16, 2004, 7:42 p.m.

  Carrie and Stu knock on Janie’s bedroom window. She opens it a crack. Stu’s dressed up, wearing a thin, black leather tie, and Carrie has on a slinky black dress with a shawl a
nd a hideously large orchid pinned to it.

  “I saw your light on in here,” explains Carrie, regarding the unusual visit. “Come to the homecoming dance, with us, Janers! We’re not staying long. Please?”

  Janie sighs. “You know I don’t have anything to wear.”

  Carrie holds up a silver spaghetti-strap dress so Janie can see it. “Here—I bet this’ll fit you. I got it from Melinda. She’ll die if she sees you in it instead of me. And I’ve got shoes that’ll go with it.” Carrie grins evilly.

  “I haven’t washed my hair or anything.”

  “You look fine, Janie,” Stu says. “Come on. Don’t make me sit there with a bunch of teenybopper airheads all night. Have pity on an old man.”

  Janie smirks. Carrie slaps Stu on the arm.

  She meets them at the front door, takes the dress, and heads over to Carrie’s ten minutes later.

  9:12 p.m.

  Janie drinks her third cup of punch while Stu and Carrie dance for the billionth time. She sits down at a table, alone.

  9:18 p.m.

  A sophomore boy, known only to Janie as “the brainiac,” asks Janie to dance.

  She regards him for a moment. “Why the fuck not,” she says. She’s a head taller than him.

  He rests his head on her chest and grabs her ass.

  She pushes him off her, muttering under her breath, finds Carrie, and tells her she has a ride home and she’s leaving now.

  Carrie waves blissfully from Stu’s arms.

  Janie attacks the back door of the school gym and finds herself in a heavy cloud of smoke. She realizes she’s found the Goths’ hangout. Who knew?

  “Oof,” someone says. She keeps walking, muttering “sorry” to whomever it was she hit with the flying door.

  After a mile wearing Carrie’s heels, her feet are killing her. She takes off the shoes and walks in the grassy yards, watching the houses evolve from nice to nasty as she goes along. The grass is already wet with dew, and the yards are getting messier. Her feet are freezing.