Novak sighs. “I swear, I’m going to hook you up.”
I cast her a lethal glare. “It’ll be your last act on Earth.” The one time, the only time, she fixed me up was with this shaved and pierced feminazi chick who ranted all night about taking down the patriarchy and reclaiming her uterus.
Novak’s quiet.
“What?”
“Can I ask Dante over?”
“Now?”
She hunches her shoulders to her ears.
Fuck-fest time. I need to get out of here anyway. “Keep it down, okay? Tessa will be on my case for running a whorehouse.”
Novak smiles. “I can take care of Tessa.” She pulls out a crochet hook and slits it across her throat.
When we were younger, Tessa tried to teach me how to knit and crochet too, but I’m a spaz. I couldn’t even cast on, or whatever it’s called.
I push to my feet and Novak adds, “Thanks. Oh, by the way, you might be getting a call from Amanda Montero.”
“Why?”
“I told her about your place.”
“Told her what?”
“Well… she’ll pay you.”
It takes me a minute. “I’m not pimping my apartment. Novak—”
“Okay. I just thought you’d want to earn a little extra cash.”
“I don’t.” Not like that. I head for my room.
“You could watch. At this rate, it’s the only action you’ll ever get. Just kidding,” she calls. “Not really.”
I say under my breath, “Fuck you.”
“You know you want to.”
I close my bedroom door. It’s so hard being gay—I don’t care what anybody says. Being gay and a virgin is just stupid and wrong. When I told Novak I was a lesbian, she was, like, “So, what’s your point?” We were fifteen, just starting high school. Mom hadn’t been diagnosed yet, and Tessa was gone. I came out to Novak the same year Tessa lost her first baby.
Why am I thinking this? There’s no connection.
I wade through the piles on my floor for a clean shirt.
This is Tessa’s second pregnancy.
I change into my skinny jeans and slip on checkered Converses. In the living room, Novak is lying on the divan, her arm flung across her eyes.
“Don’t smoke, okay? Tell Dante that.” Last time it reeked of pot in here for a week. Like living inside a bong.
“Love you, Johanna Banana. You juicy fruit.” Novak lifts her arm and kiss-kisses me.
I should tell her, Game over.
I snag my backpack and keys, figure I’ll hang at the mall for a while. No, not the mall. I’ll go to the hospice. The stack of mail is still on the counter, so I scoop it up.
The apartment steps are wood and warped; they sag with the slightest pressure. Mom and Dad had big plans for fixing up the apartment over the garage. Then life had different plans, like them dying.
I draw open the patio door and slip inside the main house. The shades are drawn; it’s dark and chilly, and the paint fumes make me cough. Martin keeps the thermostat at Polar. Tessa’s painting the living room purple. Excuse me—aubergine. Should she be painting when she’s pregnant?
I set the mail on the table and spot the slim stack Tessa’s collecting for me. My car insurance. Bank statement. A twenty-dollar bill.
I keep telling her she doesn’t need to give me money. I leave it. I drop the mail into my pack and head out. A flash of red ribbon in the trash can by the counter catches my eye and I fish it out.
It’s the loop of the ribbon that was tied to the cast of my handprint. A piece of the cast—my right pinkie—is now a shard. I dig out a bigger chunk, the palm and thumb. On the counter, I puzzle all the pieces back together. I made this in kindergarten. I can still feel the cold, squishy mush of the plaster of paris between my fingers. That cast has been hanging on the wall in our dining room forever.
Tessa comes back into my life just when I’m over her bailing. And she trashes my handprint. I run my index finger across the tiny fingers, the smooth palm, and this lump rises in my throat. It’s just a handprint.
I made it for Mother’s Day.
I sweep the plaster pieces over the edge of the counter into the trash. As soon as I can afford my own place, I’m gone. You hear that, Tessa? Me. I’ll be the one who leaves.
Chapter 3
Robbie shuffles in ten minutes after the last bell, looking like he has no idea where he is, who he is, what he is. I know the feeling.
I wonder if people like him can remember stuff.
People like him. God, I’m so mean.
He crosses the room and stands at the desk. This bubble of spit clings to his lower lip and I want to clue him, lick my lip where the spit is so he’ll wipe it off or suck it in.
“Do you want to sit down?” I ask.
He spins a full circle and spirals into a desk. Wow, that was kind of… balletic? Except for his case smashing into the desk beside him. The thud pongs around the room and lands in my chest.
From his pants pocket he withdraws a wad of string and shakes it out. He starts threading it through his fingers.
This is so not getting the essay written. I get up and hand him his paper and pencil. I brought lined paper and a regular pencil. A pen too.
He winds the string around and through his fingers.
“Hey!”
He jerks aware, untangles the string and lowers it to his lap. I set the essay on the desk.
“Your best moment,” he says, staring at the paper and writing utensils.
“Right. Start over.”
He glances up. “No. Yours.”
“What do you mean?” If he’s going to be belligerent or something …
“I mean,” he says slowly and deliberately, “what was your best moment?”
“I lied on my essay.”
He cracks a grin. “What did you write?”
I think back. “I wrote about this time I studied really hard and got one hundred percent in AP Physics. I can’t even spell AP.”
The grin widens.
“See, it doesn’t matter what you write. Just not… my name. Or ‘fuck you.’ I have to hand this in to Mrs. Goins.”
“Meaty Loins,” Robbie says.
I suppress a smile.
“In no less than a thousand words,” he adds.
“Right.”
He peers down at the paper and scrunches his forehead. I return to the desk. I can feel him staring at me. He doesn’t actually ever make eye contact; more like fixes on my mouth.
“What’s your best moment?” he asks.
Didn’t we just have this conversation?
Robbie says, “Don’t lie.”
Brain freeze. Seriously. I can’t think of anything.
Robbie waits and waits. My mind seizes. Finally a thought breaks free, but the only words that form are “I don’t think I’ve had a best moment.”
He nods once. “Me neither. I have a worst moment,” he says. “I have a whole bunch of worst moments.”
“Good. I mean, not good. That you have bad stuff in your life. Start with the worst. Pick one of those.”
He centers the paper on the desk, turning and twisting until the corners are equidistant and squared, for God’s sake, then takes a year to decide—pencil or pen? Pencil or pen? Pen! I watch him write his name in the upper-right-hand corner. He has nice handwriting for a guy. Is that sexist? Martin’s writing is completely illegible, which I only know because he wrote me a note once: “You’re going to be an aunt! I’m calling you Auntie Mojo.”
That was the first time, right after Tessa moved home.
Robbie scratches his scalp behind his ear. “How do you spell ‘murder’?”
“What?”
He writes something.
“Who got murdered?”
Robbie raises his head a fraction of an inch. “My mother. I killed her.”
The back of my head smacks the whiteboard as the chair slips. It must bruise my brain, because when I come to, I’m sidestep
ping out the door, telling Robbie, “I forgot something in my locker. I mean, my car. I mean, I’ll be right back.”
I bolt. My projectile body smashes into another moving object and the collision sends us both flying.
“What the hell?” Hands press against my shoulders. “What the hell!”
Oh my God. My mind and muscles engage. I’ve knocked over Reeve. I’m … on top of her.
I clamber off. My voice catches somewhere between my stomach and throat. I touched Reeve Hartt, full body contact.
I jump to my feet and hold a hand out to her. “Sorry.”
She twists away and pushes to her feet.
“Really,” I say. “It’s… it’s him. He’s…” My eyes dart back into the room, where Robbie is still sitting, hunched over, writing. “He says he killed his mother.”
“What?” Reeve’s face contorts. She leans forward to peer into the room and for an instant I think she’ll rush me, storm in, maybe bump me, ignite me. Her feet stay planted. “He’s a head case,” she says. “Did you think he was serious?”
I open my mouth. Suck up air.
All these years. All my imagined scenes and stimulations. The almost dreamlike quality of her, her skin all milky translucence. The rise of her breasts over the low-cut string camisole. My attention wavers. We lie together, on the hallway floor. She gazes into my eyes.
I swallow hard. “He wrote it,” I say, “on his senior essay.”
Reeve’s eyes slit. “Butt nugget!” she calls into the room. “Get your dumb ass out here.”
Her eyes meet mine again and hold. She seems to ratchet down a notch. Or I do? I smile. And hiccup.
Robbie’s essay flaps in front of my face. “It’s not done,” he says. “A thousand words is ten times ten times ten.”
I take it from him and skim the three sheets he’s filled, front and back. He wrote a lot. A sentence fragment jumps out at me: “… cut up her body into bit size peeces and ate it.”
Oh my God. He is a psycho.
Reeve says, “You told her you killed our mother?”
I look from him to her. Our?
A grin sneaks across Robbie’s face but is snatched away when Reeve grabs his shirt, balls a fist, and punches him in the face. Hard. I feel the floor tilt.
“He’s a liar,” Reeve says to me. “Don’t believe anything he tells you.” She’s twisting his shirt in her fist, choking him. “What else did you say, you dickwad? If you said anything about me …”
“He didn’t.” I reach over and press down on Reeve’s wrist. “He didn’t say anything about you.”
She stares at my hand on her arm. “Why’d you do that?” She jerks away.
“I …” But she’s not talking to me. Her eyes have resettled beyond me, on Robbie.
He recites, “Cooperate with Johanna.”
Reeve backs up a step. “Time to fly.” She pivots and charges down the hall, the frayed hem of her jeans sweeping the floor. Robbie lingers, like he wants to say something else. I want to ask if he’s okay. Reeve turns and screeches, “Shut up, Robbie!”
Bling’s is packed with tweeners. I swear they get younger and meaner every day. If I say, “Can I help you?” they give me this look, like, Pleez. You? You suck. My job at the mall is, basically, trolling for shoplifters. I clock in and immediately spy a clique of streaky blondes who are all dressed in coordinating outfits, trying on bracelets and fingering necklaces, removing earrings off the rack as they spin it. To cause distraction. So obvious. One of them drops two cards of gold hoops into her purse.
I mosey over. “Can I help you?”
She lunges toward the aisle. I block it. Frantically, she scans for her buds, who’ve scattered. Nice.
Adjusting the earring cards on the table, I lower my voice and say, “You won’t get out the door. Everything is marked with an antitheft code. The alarm will go off and you’ll get busted.”
Her lower lip quivers.
I add, “When I look away, you’re going to put the earrings back.”
I retreat a step and hear her purse unsnap.
They aren’t always so dumb. I mean, come on. Who’d pay to code six million pieces of junk jewelry? I catch her in my peripheral vision, skittering out the door.
I can’t wait to go to college so I never have to work again. The biggest sale I ever rang up was $16.12. I wish I could spend all my spare time at the hospice, but volunteer work won’t pay for tuition.
The mall closes at ten, and Shondri, my boss, says she’ll clear the register and do the deposit. On my way past the food court, the smell of Chinese makes my stomach grumble. Dinner was a snarfed bag of chips.
But I know one place where there’s always food—and socially redeeming work.
* * *
The hospice never closes. When Mom was here, I sat with her all night, every night, until the end. “Hi, Johanna,” Jeannette greets me from the front desk. “You’re here late.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I fib.
She’s eating a burrito the size of a blimp. My eyes must glom on to it, because she says, “There’s plenty in the kitchen.” Jeannette dabs her mouth with a napkin. “Miguel’s donated tonight.”
Local restaurants are always bringing leftovers to the hospice. It’s sort of weird to think about—there’s never a food shortage for people who mostly can’t eat.
I wander through the empty cafeteria to the kitchen, where one of the nurses is chowing down a chimichanga while reading a paperback. He glances up and smiles. “Johanna, right?”
Yikes. I don’t remember his name. “Hey … you,” I say lamely. The badge on his scrubs is covered by a jean jacket. He’s either coming in or going out.
A tray of taquitos warms on the stove behind him, and as I lift up the foil, his cell rings. “Babe,” he speaks into it. “Where are you?” He gets up and leaves with his chimichanga.
Solo mío. I find a plate and help myself. Jeannette wanders in. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Arcaro,” she says. “I know you were close.”
I nod and swallow. Mrs. Arcaro came to the hospice during the time Mom was here. I could’ve cared for Mom at home until the end, but Tessa decided I wasn’t capable. Even though I’d been doing it by myself the whole time she was sick.
“Frank’s been agitated all day.” Jeannette pours herself a cup of coffee. “Maybe you could drop in and see him?”
“Sure,” I say. Frank’s this grizzled old guy about ninety years old who has dementia and diabetes and I don’t know what all. He doesn’t have any family, or at least no one who cares enough to visit. Too many people die alone in this world.
On my way to the ward, I stuff the rest of my taquito into my mouth. Frank’s laid out in bed, masturbating.
Ew. “Frank?” I say softly. “It’s Johanna.”
He rubs his wanker. It’s dark and wrinkled. “Frank?”
Nothing is really happening. No hardening of the, you know, arteries. For privacy, I pull his blanket over his lap. His eyes are far away and he has a quirky smile on his face.
It makes me smile inside.
Go for it, Frank.
Chapter 4
We’re in this amazing bed, naked, spinning around and around—because the bed is round. Reeve is kissing me and I’m all over her, running my hands through the hair on her head and between her legs. She’s soft and firm and arching into me.
She says, “Johanna. I love you. I want you.”
“I want you too,” I say. “I want you bad.”
The bed spins and spins. We spin harder and faster, out of control. She screams, “Don’t stop!”
“I won’t. I promise.”
She expels a breath like she’s emptying her lungs or cleansing her soul. I breathe her in and out. I run a red silk scarf over her flat belly and around her breasts and in between them. She unties the red ribbon in my hair to unleash my ponytail and my hair splashes like a waterfall over her face. She holds it back and I kiss her. I kiss her so soft and gentle it’s mist and fog. It’s spray.
The beating of my heart is constant and steady, sharp as knuckles on wood and metal and pounding on wood and pounding, pounding. …
• • •
Knocking? Someone is knocking.
What time is it?
I hold myself for one last surge, then stagger out of bed to answer the door.
Dante looms behind Novak, grinning like the fool he is. “Hey ya, Joho,” he says.
I hate that he uses Novak’s nickname for me.
“Hi, sweetie.” Novak kisses me on the cheek. “We came to say hi. Hi.” She’s high. She slides past me into the apartment and I consider shutting the door in Dante’s face. He’s tall and thin, with razed hair and a shadow beard. His clothes are always the same—tight black tee and loose jeans that creep down his butt. One eyebrow is pierced.
I loathe this jerk for all the hurt he’s laid on my friend. But she loves him. I have to honor that stupid fact.
“What time is it?” I check my watch. 7:46—p.m. I vaguely remember deciding I’d skip Film Studies to sleep in.
Dante tramps to the refrigerator and yanks it open, removes a can of Fresca. My Fresca. He pops the top and slugs it down.
Novak rests her head on my shoulder. “I love you, Johanna Banana,” she says.
“Give me a minute,” I tell her. “I’ll bail.”
“You don’t have to.” Novak snuggles in tighter. She’s too close and I’m too needy.
I’m also hot and sticky. I beat a path to my bedroom to change from my drawstrings into jeans, wishing, not for the first time, that my bedroom door had a lock. Novak knows it’s off-limits, but I don’t trust Dante.
When I emerge into the living room, Dante has Novak’s shirt up around her neck and her bra unlatched. I snatch a hoodie off the divan and yank the door shut behind me.
The door whooshes open. Novak says, “Johanna,” breathing hard. She wrestles her shirt down over her boobs and hands me something. “You can borrow it,” she says.
They’re keys to her Crossfire. “You’re kidding.”
She smiles weakly. “What would I do without you?”
“Get a hotel?” I say.
She blows me a kiss and shuts the door.