“How will we know it’s time?”
“I’ll figure that out,” she says. She sprays some hair spray and it makes my eyes burn.
“We’re ready,” she says, and it’s time to go.
Lenora is passed out when we leave, so Alex steals a pack of her cigarettes and a bottle of vodka, just puts them in her backpack like it’s no big deal, like she’s not even afraid of getting caught. We walk to the lake and it’s freezing. I drink fast so I’ll get warm, so I don’t have to think about that house and the things that happened in it, so I won’t be scared of where we’re going.
“My half sister’s moving in next week,” Alex says, her voice torn by the shot she just drank.
“How old is she?”
“Eighth grade.”
“Is she cool?”
“She’s all right.”
“Why’s she moving here?”
“Her dad’s fucking her,” she says, and the vodka gets stuck in my throat, gagging me, pulling everything inside me out.
“We have the same mom,” she says. “But Sarah’s dad was some guy my mom had an affair with so my dad made my mom get rid of her.”
“Oh,” I manage, trying not to throw up, trying to make sense of what Alex just said.
“Now the stupid social workers say she has to come live with us even though we don’t want her.”
“Oh,” I say again because I can’t think of anything else. I’m not anywhere near drunk, but my stomach feels like it’s full of poison, like there’s a fist inside moving it around. I am doing everything I can to keep from puking. I am clenching my teeth, my fists. I am walking fast. I am thinking of summer and beaches and sun on my face.
We crest the hill and see Lake Washington, dark and choppy, Seattle sparkling behind it. We get closer and can see the shadowed group of boys, none of whom I recognize.
“Who are those guys?” I ask.
“High schoolers.”
I want to turn around. The vodka’s not working. I drink more and it’s still not working.
“Where’s Ethan?” I ask.
“Right there.” Alex points and he is lit by moonlight, standing on top of a bench in his baggy pants and giant sweatshirt, balancing on it like a tightrope. We get closer and I can hear the other boys cheering him on. I feel something in my stomach that is not nausea, a pleasant, heavy numbness. The fear is not gone, but it is somehow softer.
A tall boy with a pierced lip turns around and looks us up and down. “What do we have here?” he says. Ethan hops off the bench and smiles and the numbness turns to melting.
“Hi,” he says to me, ignoring Alex. “I’m glad you came.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Do you want to sit down?” He motions toward the bench covered with his dirty footprints. I sit and he sits next to me and everyone else sits and soon we are all in a circle, and Alex is passing around the bottle of vodka and it is getting emptier and emptier and I am suddenly very angry. I am furious. That is our vodka, I want to tell her. They are drinking it and it will be gone and there won’t be enough for me.
Everyone’s talking except me. I drink extra when the bottle comes around so I won’t think about the fact that I’m not talking. It does not take long for me to get drunk enough so my mind does not have to be here anymore. I am thinking of tropical islands and warm water and I feel okay even though I’m sitting here with a bunch of high schoolers and I haven’t said anything in thirty minutes. I haven’t been paying attention to what anyone’s been saying because I’ve been somewhere else, and all of a sudden everyone but me is up and Alex is screaming because the guys are carrying her over to the embankment and threatening to throw her into the lake.
“Hey,” says Ethan, and I think he’s going to save her, although I wouldn’t mind if he didn’t. And I’m surprised at this thought and I look around to make sure no one heard it, but everyone’s laughing and not at me. “It’s time to go,” he says, and he’s the boss so they let her go. She’s laughing like she was in on the joke, but I don’t think she was. Ethan gets up and I am suddenly very cold. They all grab their backpacks and skateboards and I’m relieved but feeling pathetic, and I want to crawl into a little ball and hide in a cave and never come out, not until I’m old and all of this is done with.
I am sitting on the bench, and Alex is standing by the water, and everyone else is walking away. Ethan hangs back and sits back down next to me. “It was nice seeing you tonight,” he says with his soft lips and long eyelashes, like he didn’t even notice that the only thing I said all night was “yeah.”
“You too,” I say.
“It’d be nice to hang out just you and me sometime,” he says, and the warm, spreading feeling comes back. “I’d like to get to know you better. Maybe you wouldn’t be so shy if it was just you and me.”
“Yeah,” I say, even though I doubt it. I will never be able to talk to him. But I can do things other than talk.
“I have to run,” he says. “Can I have a hug?”
“Okay,” I say, and I cannot remember the last time someone hugged me.
There are arms around me, a hard chest against mine, hands on the small of my back, breath in my ears. This is when I’m supposed to put my arms around his neck, when I’m supposed to put my face close to his. This is when I’m supposed to kiss him, when he’s touching me and his warmth is getting inside my clothes. I’m supposed to do it now or he won’t be interested later. I must kiss him because what he wants is not my voice. He doesn’t really want to talk. He doesn’t really want to get to know me better, not really know me, not get inside my head where the hidden things are. I must kiss him because what he wants is my mouth, my hands on his back, my body, close, closer. I must turn my head, feel his breath on my face, move my lips to his mouth. Open. Tongue in. Out. Close my eyes. They like it when you close your eyes.
“Damn, girl,” he says, licking his lips.
“What?” I say, smiling, my head cocked to one side. I am looking him straight in the eye. I am a different person. I am not scared. I know what he wants.
“Just damn.”
“C’mon, man,” someone yells from across the street. The others are laughing their always-laughs that never seem to be directed at anything.
“I gotta go,” he says, backing away and looking me up and down.
“See you later,” I say. I am still looking in his eyes. Brown. Shallow.
“Definitely,” he says, then, “Mmm,” and this must be what it feel like to be a piece of meat, to be wanted by someone hungry. This is all I have to do. This is easy. I am delicious.
Alex and I walk away from the lake. She has a big grin on her face but isn’t saying anything and I’m just waiting for her to tell me I fucked up somehow, that I looked like a fool in front of the high school boys. All of a sudden, she stops walking and looks at me and puts her hands on my shoulders.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she says, smiling at me like I’ve made her proud.
“What?” I say.
“Just kissed him like that.”
“Why?” I am smiling now, too. I have done something right.
“What happened to the sweet little virgin Cassie?” She is laughing.
“I don’t know.” I laugh back. I am giddy.
“She’s gone,” Alex says.
“Yeah,” I say. We are running down the street now. We are laughing so hard we’re screaming.
“The fucking bitch is gone,” Alex says.
“Bye-bye,” I say.
“Bye-bye, Cassie,” she says.
“Bye-bye.”
(SEVEN)
Sarah is nothing like I expected. She’s not beautiful, but she’s something close to pretty. She’s small and blond and quiet and looks younger than I do, like something made her stop growing. She’s not small like I am, not like a miniature woman, but small like a large child, as if her body’s not strong enough to hold her and there’s nothing between her skin and her bones. Everything that should be sol
id is brittle. You could break her in half with your hands.
She gets this blank look on her face, like she’s frozen, like all life has been sucked out of her. She doesn’t even blink, just sits there looking out into space like she thinks that’s where she belongs. You could blow on her and she’d fall over and crumble into a million pieces.
“Sarah,” I say. She doesn’t move.
“Sarah,” I say again. She is sitting on the edge of Alex’s bed, looking out the window even though it’s all steamed up and all you can see are drippy blobs of color, green where the trees are, gray for the sky.
“Sarah!” Alex yells. “Wake up, you fucking freak.”
Sarah blinks and looks at us. “What?” she says, like nothing’s wrong, like she doesn’t even know she was a zombie for three minutes.
Alex’s room is as messy as the rest of the house, full of dirty dishes, piles of clothes, and old, ripped magazines. The floor is covered but the walls are completely blank. There are no posters, no photos, no cutouts of rock stars or actors. It’s as if this is a garbage dump, a storage room, a place to pile unwanted things, instead of a teenage girl’s bedroom. We’re sitting on the floor, passing a joint around, and we want something stronger.
“Doesn’t that nasty kid in your smart class take Ritalin?” says Alex.
“I love Ritalin,” says Sarah, and her face lights up. It’s the most animated I’ve seen her.
“Call him,” says Alex.
“I don’t have his number,” I say, which is a lie because we’ve been partners for every single group project. As much as I want to get high and as much as I hate him, there’s something that makes me want to keep Alex away from Justin.
“Talk to him on Monday, then.”
“I will,” I say.
“What are we going to do?” says Sarah as she twirls her hair around her fingers. Her hair is patchy all over because she pulls it out. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it. You can’t really tell it’s like that when she wears it up, but right now her hair is down and she looks like a cancer patient.
It’s Saturday and Alex doesn’t know where her mom is. There’s no food in the house, so I brought some over. She’s on her fourth peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Sarah is gnawing absentmindedly on a piece of sandwich meat she has wrapped around her finger.
“I am so fucking bored,” says Alex, and Sarah and I say, “Me too,” in unison.
“We need money,” she says, and Sarah and I nod our heads. We sit in silence for a while, thinking about money and getting high. I am thinking about Ritalin. I am trying to guess what it could do, why something so great could be a kid’s prescription. My stomach turns over and my body tingles. Of course he will give it to me. He probably won’t even make me pay. I will have an endless supply of something new to feel.
“Oh, shit,” says Alex. “I have the best fucking idea.”
• • •
Sarah and I are the ones who knock on the doors because we look the sweetest. Alex tells us where to go and what to say, then hides behind a bush or a car until we’re done. I am holding the manila envelope with kirkland junior high science class donations written in black Sharpie. Sarah did that. She has the nicest handwriting, careful, like someone’s watching her.
An old woman with blue hair answers the door. A tiny white furball of a dog starts jumping on my legs. The hair around his eyes and mouth is stained brown with snot and tears and gross dog things.
“Mitzy, come here!” the old woman screams with more force I would imagine could come out of her frail body. She starts coughing uncontrollably, and Sarah and I look at each other like Should we run? We don’t want to be around when she dies.
The old lady takes a drag of her cigarette and the coughing stops. “Can I help you girls?” she asks in a raspy voice.
“Um, we’re seventh graders at Kirkland Junior High,” I say. “As you may know, funding for schools is at an all-time low, and our science class does not have the necessary funds to buy supplies. We’re collecting donations so we can buy animals for our classroom.” I hold up the manila envelope, and Sarah hands her the official letter I typed up on Alex’s mom’s computer.
The old lady puts on the reading glasses that are hanging around her neck. She wheezes as she reads, and the dog is biting my ankles. I want to kick it but I don’t. “Hmm,” the lady says. “What kind of animals?”
“Gerbils,” Sarah says. “Mice, lizards, snakes. You know, science animals.”
“I don’t like snakes,” says the woman, squinting at us.
“Me neither,” says Sarah.
“Are you going to do experiments on them?” She looks worried.
“No. We’re just going to observe them,” I say. “It says so in the letter.” I point it out for her.
“That’s good.”
We stand there for a moment, Sarah and I smiling our sweetest smiles.
“Well, I guess I could spare a few dollars. For education and all.”
“That would be great,” says Sarah.
“Our class would really appreciate it,” I add.
She goes back into the house, and the dog follows her. As she finds us our drug money, Sarah and I look at each other and try not to laugh.
“Here you go, girls,” the old lady says as she hands me a five-dollar bill. I put it in the manila envelope.
“Would you like a receipt?” Sarah asks. “For tax purposes.” We stole a receipt pad from the office supply store down the street. We thought of everything.
“Oh no, girls, that’s fine,” the lady says. “What would I do with another piece of paper?”
We say our good-byes and thank yous and Sarah adds a “God bless you” and I think I’m going to burst with laughter as we speed-walk around the corner to where Alex is waiting for us. As soon as we get out of sight of the old lady’s house, I am laughing so hard I think I’m going to pee my pants and Sarah’s practically on the ground and she keeps saying, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” and then gulps for air, and I put my arm around her shoulders and focus on my bladder.
Alex emerges from behind a van. “What’s so funny?” she says, like she’s angry.
“You should have seen that lady,” Sarah says.
“Sarah blessed her,” I say, and we’re laughing again and Alex does not look happy.
“How much did you get?”
“Five dollars,” I say, and suddenly things don’t seem so funny because Alex is all business and there’s a scowl on her face like we’ve done something very wrong.
“We need more.”
“Oh, lighten up,” Sarah says, and now no one is laughing. Now everything is heavy and ruined.
“Don’t talk back to me,” says Alex.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll hurt you.”
“Bullshit.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
They stare each other down and I want to be anywhere but here. Sarah looks weird, like she’s someone else, possessed, like she could die right now and not care. Alex looks like she could kill her.
I could leave and no one would notice. I could just walk away.
“Hit me,” Sarah says, looking Alex straight in the eyes.
“You want me to hit you?”
“Yeah, hit me.”
They stare at each other while Alex considers this. I am quiet. I look up at the tops of trees like I see something interesting. I must pretend I’m invisible. I must pretend nothing’s wrong. My body’s tense, solid, like my petrified muscles are the only thing keeping Alex and Sarah from killing each other. My brain is black space, empty, with one line of tiny white writing, barely visible, white words against black, silently repeating, Please stop please stop please stop.
Alex rolls her eyes and starts walking. “I’m gonna hit you when you don’t want it,” she says.
“Whatever,” Sarah says, and we follow Alex to the next house. I can breathe now. I am glad we are moving. I am glad
we are in a single-file line, saying nothing, not looking at each other. I am glad we are pretending nothing happened.
A mother with two crying young children gives us a twenty just to make us go away. An old man gives us seventy-six cents and invites us to come in and see his collection of World War II memorabilia. A woman with a million cats gives us a five. A thirty-something guy in a stained white undershirt gives us nothing, but tells us we’re pretty and says he’ll give us some whiskey if we stick around. I consider it, but Sarah starts walking.
We knock on the door of a small house with a yard that looks like it was beautiful until recently. The hedges betray perfectly trimmed angles, fallen leaves litter the overgrown grass, and the skeletons of various flowers line the side of the house. I can hear movement inside and someone talking. A frail old woman opens the door and smiles when she sees us. A strange odor seeps out of the house, like something way too sweet.
“Oh, hello,” she says, like she’s been waiting for us.
“Hello, ma’am,” Sarah says and starts the speech, but the lady keeps looking back and forth at us with the big grin on her face like she’s not even listening. Sarah gets to the part about the animals when the lady interrupts her.
“Come in, come in,” she says. “George and I were just sitting down for dinner.”
“We don’t want to impose,” Sarah says.
“Honey, the more the merrier,” says the lady. “We love company, don’t we, George?” she calls behind her into the house, but no one answers.
As we enter, the smell is overwhelming. My eyes start to water and Sarah coughs. The lady is saying something about having no grandchildren, but I can’t hear her because I’m looking around the house at every single table and windowsill and countertop covered with vases full of molding, dead flowers, giant bouquets like the kind people send after someone dies. The table is set for two but no one is there. A small pile of saltines is on one of the plates next to a half-eaten can of tuna.
“Now what were you saying about gerbils?” the lady asks.
“We’re raising money to buy them,” I say. “For our science class.”
“Oh,” the lady says. She looks around the room nervously, as if searching for gerbils or cash or something that will help us. “I think—” the lady says, but doesn’t finish her sentence. She is digging through the pockets of her polyester pants.