“Maybe it’s a sign you’ll turn out just like her,” he says.
“Get the fuck out,” I hear myself saying. I’m not sure but I think I said it out loud. Yeah, I did, because he has a weird look on his face.
“Never mind,” I think I say. “You want something to eat?”
“Yeah, whatever. You look so freaking weird right now. What do you want? I’ll go down and get it.”
“Peanut butter,” I say. “Peanut butter and a banana. Bring a knife so I can smear it.”
“Won’t it be weird if I go down and like raid your fridge? What if your mom asks me why you aren’t getting food instead of me. She’s always treating me like a Martha Stewart guest, like she’s got to be all proper.”
“Just go,” I say. “Peanut butter and banana.”
I can feel the haze of sleepiness and happiness all twisted so I think the Vicodin’s starting to work. The bed feels so soft. I reach over for the switch on the lava lamp I got for my ninth birthday. God I wanted that lava lamp so badly. It’s blue but it’s old so inside it isn’t big bubbles melting into each other, it’s just a gray blob that mostly hangs at the bottom of the triangle. I still want it on. Now I’m starving. Where’s Ricky? Wait, what did I tell him to bring? Popcorn? No. Not popcorn. Huh.
“Wake up, stoner,” he says, standing at the edge of the bed. “Here. Your mom was on the computer … she didn’t even hear me, so it’s all good.”
“She’s all about the computer lately,” I think I say this but I’m not sure. “At least now I don’t have to worry about her finding the letter in it.”
“You’re shitfaced already,” Ricky says. “She’s not going to find the letter in the computer, idiot. You have the letter in your hand, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He’s staring at me like I’m a volcano.
“I’m gone,” he says.
“Wait, we haven’t figured out what to do yet. What’m I supposed to do now?”
“Why don’t you ask Paul, dude. “
“Shut up. Seriously. What’m I gonna do now?”
“I told you. You should call her.”
“I don’t have her phone number, freak.”
“Google her, re-tard,” he says. “Duh. You’ve got her name. The rest is all you, loser. It’ll take like five minutes.”
“What’s your problem?”
“I’m not the one with the problem. What, you don’t know how to Google someone?”
“Why’re you yelling at me?”
“I’m not yelling at you,” he says. He’s snarling like a Doberman. “I’m sick of watching you fuck up.”
“Rage Company, woo-hoo!” I yell from the bed. I’m lying on my back. When I hold up my fist in the semisalute we used to joke about, I hear him saying shit and I think it’s because he tried to open the door but he forgot about the towel so it’s probably jammed halfway underneath so there’s not enough room to escape. Happens to me every time. “Rage Company.” I whisper. “Woo-hoo …”
Samantha
“Hey,” I say, scooting over on the faux-velour purple couch I remember thinking was such a novelty when Starbucks first started appearing. Wow, I thought, how cool: a couch so you can hang out in the coffee shop just like on Friends. I always see coats on it, people saving seats on it while they’re up in line or asking for the bathroom key chained to a block of wood so you won’t steal it, like that’s exactly what you’d steal from Starbucks, the key to the smelly sticky-floored unisex bathroom that always has the toilet seat up.
“Wow,” Craig says, taking off his jacket, folding it in half and draping it so it won’t wrinkle, “you got the couch. Our lucky day. I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks, I didn’t want to lose our seats, so I couldn’t get the coffee.”
He’s back in an instant and we’re balancing a plate of walnut thousand-calorie coffee cake between us. I read that if you have a piece of this and a regular-size chai latte you have consumed all your calories for the day.
“So? What’s new? How’d that meeting go yesterday?” I ask him in between bites.
“It went well. More of a gesture than anything else. Favor for a friend. Not important. I’d much rather talk about you. You’re my favorite topic. How’s Cammy?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know,” I say. It’s windy out and there’s a phantom hair clinging to my face tickling my nose, but I can’t find it and I’m pretty sure the only way to get it free will make me look like I’m picking my nose. There’s a line for the bathroom and I don’t want to waste time looking in the mirror, so I scrap it. But it’s bothering the hell out of me.
“Here, it’s right here,” he says, reaching over, and with his first two fingers he picks it up and away from my face. I’m afraid I’m blushing so I look down and worry a pull in my sweater.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“So guess what?” he asks.
The barista barks out the most complicated drink order I’ve ever heard.
“What?”
“I just bought tickets to South Africa. A wine-tasting tour. I’m taking my dad. You know how long I’ve been wanting to do that? I’m so excited. It’s true excitement. I’m trying to talk Evie into taking a trip with her girlfriends while I’m gone. My mother could watch Lexi …”
“That’s so great. I didn’t know you were thinking of doing that. That’s just great.”
“I didn’t think we’d be able to pull it off—my father’s so hard to pin down. That’s why I didn’t mention it.”
He’s saying this like he feels guilty, keeping this from me.
“Please!” I say. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Jeez!”
I feel shut out and it shows.
“What a great trip.” I fake smile. I’m trying not to seem envious, but I am. I wish I could plan a great trip, too. I guess I could, but it’d never fly. Not with Bob.
“But I do,” he says.
“You do what?” I haven’t been paying attention.
“I tell you everything,” he says.
I brush invisible crumbs off my lap.
“Well …”
“It’s true,” he says. “Think about it. I tell you everything. It’s nothing bad. I mean, what’s so wrong about talking?”
My heart’s beating fast. But then the momentum of this trip, of the forward motion he’s starting to make, takes over and he leans in and blindsides me:
“What if we kiss—not here or anything, don’t worry! I have to kiss you. I have to kiss you,” he says. He gets up and motions me to follow.
What the?
Cheating is a choice. I read that somewhere and now I understand it completely. I stand up and watch Craig pointing out to the sidewalk to let me know he’ll be waiting there for me. I look around the busy room and no one seems to notice something major is about to happen. Here is where I could turn things around and do the right thing. This is the moment I’ll look back on as a defining one in my life. I should feel shaky or filled with fear and doubt and guilt. I should hesitate. I should consider ducking out the alternate door. Instead, I throw out my coffee in the square cutout on the condiment island. I’m watching myself from the ceiling. This normal woman on a normal day doing a normal thing. I’m watching myself make this choice. No bolt of lightning, no last-minute divine intervention.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I have coffee breath.”
I grab my purse in search of gum or a mint. I settle for a Tic Tac I have to bang out of the plastic because its so old it’s stuck. Do I have a conscience? Am I thinking about the consequences of a simple kiss? Hel-lo? Is anybody in there?
He’s reaching to me. “Here, let me get the door.”
I’m following him out and on my second step away from Starbucks, right in front of the frappuccino poster in the window, I step in gum. My shoe literally grips the sidewalk and I almost do that awkward buckle forward you do when you’re trying not to trip.
“Wait. Hang on,” I call out
to him. The wad of gum is so big it’s hard to believe it could have comfortably fit in someone’s mouth. I scrape my shoe on the pavement but that only creates long strings of gum that then fly up and stick to the shoe itself, so now it’s not just the sole that’s a mess, it’s my entire right shoe. A pump. One half of my favorite pair of black heels I got on sale at Saks a month ago, after I met Craig and started feeling sexy.
“I can’t get it off!”
“I heard ice water helps,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
He goes back in to Starbucks and just as the glass door shuts behind him I look up to see Lynn walking toward me smiling and shaking her head at the spectacle of me trying to scuff the gum off my shoe back onto the sidewalk.
“Someone doesn’t want you to walk the direction you’re moving in,” she says.
I’m frozen, searching her face—did she see me with Craig? Oh, my God, he’ll be back any second, but he’ll see me talking to Lynn and know to stay away. But what if he’s looking down or what if he backs out the door since now he’ll be juggling his coffee and the ice water. Please God, let him go out the other door.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Lynn asks. “You look panicked.”
“Panicked? I’m not panicked. I’m pissed I’ve got gum on my shoe, but I’m not panicked. “Jeez.”
A guy selling a newspaper written by homeless people is calling out, “Streetwise! Streetwise! One dollar!” Lynn’s saying, “What’re you up to today?” and Craig’s about to walk out any second—or probably he saw us and did take the side door after all, please God. And the bus is honking at a beat-up Camry parked smack in the middle of the bus stop. Cutting in front of the bus is a huge, shiny, black SUV with all the windows down, so I can feel the bass of the hip-hop song in my stomach.
“You look nice,” she says. “Where’re you off to?”
“I gotta go,” I say to Lynn, pulling my foot free, knowing it’s useless because it will stick tightly with the next step. “I’ve got a million things …”
“Call me later,” she says, holding her thumb and pinkie up to the side of her face. “Call my cell though because Mike’s got a conference call tonight.”
“Talk to you later!”
I rush to my car. The gum’s still not scraped off, but at this point I don’t care. My cell phone rings from the bottom of my purse and I upend the whole thing so I can get it before it goes to voice mail.
“That was close,” Craig says.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in my car—look across the street. You ready? Okay, follow me.”
“Where? In case we get separated …”
“Montrose Harbor, where it curves off into that dead end at the tip where all the fishermen go.”
“Wow. It didn’t take you long to think of a place,” I say.
“I know what you’re thinking and for the record no, I’ve never done this before. Don’t worry about the red light, I’ve pulled over until it turns. It’s just a place I go when I want to think. I’ve never even taken Lexi there. It’s like this little island no one knows about.”
We pass a Jewel supermarket with posters of fresh cantaloupes in the window. Attached is a drugstore that’s open twenty-four hours a day. A block south, next to a withered playground, is Kentucky Fried Chicken. An animal-rights group is marching in front, holding signs calling for a boycott. Posters of tortured chickens from poultry mills are plastered on a folding table with leaflets on top. I saw Bianca Wells about to pull into the drive-through there the other day and sped up to stop her, happy to do my part in forcing the fast-food chain to start using humane practices. At the light I stare at the beakless bird with its head trapped between the wires of the tiny cage it “shares” with countless other chickens, all pecking themselves to death. The light changes but I can’t pull my eyes from the mangled bird. How can humans be so cruel? How can we treat living creatures this way? Did that bird wonder how it ended up there, in a hell only monsters could devise?
“The light’s green,” Craig is saying into my cell phone. “You okay? Are you changing your mind?”
“Why? Are you?”
“No. Not even close.”
The chicken fades into the back of my mind with the influx of endorphins.
“Me neither. Should I just park next to you?”
“Yes.”
He motions across, through our closed windows, for me to join him in his car. I touch my purse on the passenger seat, my hand fluttering over the gearshift, making sure I’m in Park. Then the keys. I take them out, but then put them back into the ignition in case I have to make a Bonnie and Clyde getaway. I take a swipe at smoothing my hair. Outside the car the wind picks up and since we’re at the edge of the lake I feel the spray from a wave hitting the breaker. His door opens heavily and closes the way expensive German-car doors close, sealing us in, cocooning us, the thick glass blocking the sound of the waves but not the sound of a distant car alarm.
“Come here,” he says, leaning over.
I drop my keys in the dish on the front hall table and look at myself in the mirror. I tuck my hair behind my ears and smooth my blouse. My index finger touches the corners of my mouth, wiping away any lipstick outside my lip line. Pull it together, Sam. Hold it together.
“Mom! Cammy’s throwing up!”
“I’ll be right there.” I look into my mirrored eyes: You can do this. I wipe under my eyes once more to make sure the mascara that ran is back in place and then I walk up the steps, back into my life.
“Andrew? Get me a washcloth out of the dryer, will you? While you’re at it, bring it all up and you can fold it up here.”
“Why do I have to fold? It’s Cammy’s turn …”
“Does it look like Cammy’s in any condition to fold laundry?”
“Mom?” Cammy’s head is in the toilet bowl, so her voice sounds hollow. And childlike. Nausea is the great equalizer, I think to myself. It’s impossible to cop an attitude when you’re vomiting.
“I’m right here,” I tell Cammy. “Did you eat something funny? You’ve been sick a lot lately. I’m calling the doctor.”
“No! I don’t need to go to the doctor,” she says. “Please don’t call him.”
“I don’t think you’re in any condition to decide that, honey. Do you feel like you can move to the bed and maybe lie down for a little bit? It might make you feel a little better, sweetheart.”
“Mom, I’m sorry,” she says. Her head’s still hanging into the bowl and her voice sounds far away. “My back. It’s so itchy. Can you itch it? Oh, God, it won’t stop itching.” Her voice bounces off the porcelain.
“People get sick, honey, it’s nothing to be sorry about. In the middle? Where’s it itchy? Let me take a look, maybe you have a rash. Jesus! What’re all these red marks? Oh, my God …”
“Uhhhhhh,” she groans and heaves. Then she says, “I had to itch it. I had to keep scratching it.”
“This part in the middle’s bloody, Cam! What’d you use to scratch it?”
“This,” Andrew says, holding up the large pasta fork.
“Oh, my God,” I say. “Okay, okay, calm down. I’ll rub it, how’s that. When did this start?”
“What’s wrong with the toilet?” she screams into the water. “There’s a tornado in the water! What’s wrong with the toilet? The water’s talking to me!”
“Calm down! Cammy, what’s going on? You’re not making any sense. Nothing’s wrong with the toilet. I didn’t even flush it.”
She doesn’t wait for me to finish, instead groaning “sorry” over and over. Then, freakishly, her groaning gives way to laughter.
“What’s so funny? And what’re you sorry for? Jesus, what the hell’s so funny? You’re scaring me, Cammy.”
“Oh, my God, the water just told me to tell the floor it’s beautiful. And I’ve never noticed it before but it is! The floor’s fucking awesome. Look at that.”
Just as quickly she’s back to muttering, “Sorry, I??
?m sorry.”
“You’re sick, honey. You don’t have to be sorry for being sick.”
“That’s not why she’s sorry,” Andrew says from the doorway.
“Andrew, get outta here!” When she yells she doesn’t sound sick at all. But then she starts dry-heaving.
“Andrew, go finish folding,” I say. Then I turn back to her.
“What’s he talking about, Cam? What are you sorry for?”
“Don’t be mad, okay? You’ll be mad. Don’t be mad. Oh, God, it fucking itches so bad! Don’t be mad.”
What parent hasn’t made this deal with the devil. You want to know the truth so you agree to the impossible because you know whatever they’re about to tell you is as important as it is maddening. All parents fall into this trap. If I say I can’t promise that I’ll shut her down and I’ll never get the truth.
“I won’t be mad,” I say.
“Promise?” Another dry heave rolls across her back and of course I’ll promise. “If we eat broccoli we’ll turn green. The water just told me that.”
“Just tell me, Cam,” I say. It’s delirium. That’s the only thing I can think of.
“I only tried them just this one time.”
“What are you talking about?”
She lifts her head and says, “See? I knew you’d be mad. You promised not to be mad. This floor is hilarious. I never noticed it before. The tiles can tell time. And they’re perfectly spaced. Ten little squares inside every triangle. Do they plan it that way? It’s fucking beautiful.”
“Jesus, Cammy, tell me what’s going on. What did you only try once?”
“I finished folding,” Andrew says from the door.
“Andrew, go away!” Cammy and I yell in unison.
“The water’s circling again. Make it stop! Don’t flush it! It’ll suck my hair in.”
“Cammy, you’re scaring the hell out of me. I didn’t flush the toilet. We’re going to the emergency room. Andrew, go get your brother.”
“Mushrooms!” she yells. The sound bounces up to my ears but I still can’t take it in. I am silent, trying to compute what she’s just told me. I understand the words but I can’t say anything.
“I did mushrooms.”