Bleed

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  I bet it would fit me just fine. I stuff it into my bag along with the License to Cry book and change back into my wet shorts and T-shirt.

  Now what?

  Mrs. Pickerel will probably be home in less than half an hour. I need to take advantage of every moment. I grab a couple Suzy Q’s from the cupboard and stash them in my bag for later, along with two snack-size cans of potato stix. Then I scavenge my way through Kelly’s closet a bit more.

  She’s got a bunch of cool shoes. Prada and Kenneth Cole. I recognize a pair of black platform pumps in the corner. She wore them last Valentine’s Day with a pair of navy blue kneesocks, a short plaid schoolgirl skirt, and a chest-hugging baby tee that showed off her gut. She thought she was so great. I pause a moment, wondering how that outfit would look on me, if I would look like just as much of a ho as her, or if it actually might be kind of cute. But then decide it would be way too warm for a day like today. There’s a pair of creamy leather slingbacks that have my name all over them. They have a thick wedge heel and gold-lined strapping that winds around the ankle. They’re a full size too big, but I fasten them on anyway and walk around the room. Not too bad, especially if I’m outside in this heat and my feet are swollen. I toss them in my bag and decide to browse around for a matching purse.

  She’s got about a hundred of them. They’re on a shelf above the clothes. I go to pull a couple down, when I notice an old jewelry box sitting toward the back. I grab it, noticing how Kelly’s name is imprinted on the top in sparkly gold cursive. I flip the latch, open the box up, and music starts playing—that “When You Wish Upon a Star” song from Pinocchio … the one Jiminy Cricket sings. There’s a headless ballerina dancing in circles to the tune. I pick the head up from the bracelet compartment, noticing how she looks like a plastic version of Kelly—except the face and hair have been scribbled over with black Magic Marker.

  There’s a sticker pasted up over the faux diamond-encrusted mirror at the back of the box. It’s one of those pro-vegetarian don’t-harm-the-animals ones—a frowning chicken holding a big fat drumstick. It says COWS HAVE FEELINGS, TOO. Below it, there’s a poem written on the floor of the box in black marker:

  I close the box back up and return it to the shelf, wondering how old Kelly was when she did all this. The whole idea of it weirds me out, like maybe I should clean up and go check on Emily.

  Before tucking the scrapbook back in the closet, I flip it open, extract a short article from a page that looks pretty full without it, and jam it into the side pocket of my backpack. Then I head out into the family room. Emily’s still got her nose pressed practically up against the TV screen.

  “Hey, Emily,” I say, sprawling out on the sofa, “wanna play Candy Land?” But she ignores me, completely mesmerized by Spanish-speaking Dora and her lame-ass, boot-wearing monkey.

  About ten minutes later, Mrs. Pickerel arrives on cue. She hands me my thirty bucks, and I call my mother to come pick me up and drive me to Double D’s. But my mother is frantic. She can’t find Sadie anywhere; no, I cannot go to Dunkin’ Donuts tonight; and can I please ask Mrs. Pickerel to drive me home. Great.

  I ignore her attempt to try and box me up indoors, and instead decide to haul ass to Double D’s myself.

  I arrive, and there are just a couple people—an old crusty guy in the corner slumped over a couple of marble crullers and the funny pages, and two hospital workers—I can tell from their frugly green scrubs and dark under-eye circles.

  Where is Cheryl?

  I go up to the counter for the bathroom key, then take out my cell phone and call her. “I told you I didn’t know if I’d be able to get out,” she whines.

  “I can’t even believe you’re not gonna bother showing up,” I say. “You’re so missing out.”

  “I’m sorry, Ginger,” she whispers into the phone. “My mother keeps checking up on me, like she expects me to bolt. Just promise you’ll call me as soon as you get home, to let me know what happened.”

  I hang up.

  Why aren’t there more kids here? Sean’s gonna know right away that it’s me who called. Maybe I should just leave. The hag behind the counter clears the phlegm from her throat to get my attention; she must have been dangling that bathroom key in front of my face for a while. What is wrong with me? I return her bitchy look, snatch the key, and head into the bathroom to change.

  I don’t know how Kelly can cram that fat ass of hers into this dress. It’s like it was made for me. Except that balloon mark on my chest looks even redder than ever.

  I look down at the slingbacks as I make my way across the dirty clay floor, trying hard to keep my ankles from wobbling. I wonder if Sean will recognize the clothes, if he’ll notice how much better they look on me.

  A car pulls into the lot—an old, grandma-looking, flesh-colored Volvo—and like a reflex, I wobble up to the counter to order a small Coolatta and a jelly doughnut, so at least it looks like I’m here for legitimate reasons. I take my wax paper—bagged treat and turn around to find a place to sit.

  Sean comes in and looks around. His face is sweaty, like he’s in a hurry or nervous or sick or something. He goes up to the counter, orders an iced coffee, and turns around to look at me.

  I choke back a nervous giggle and look away, pretend to be preoccupied with licking the sugar sprinkles jelly-glued to my thumbs. I poke my fingers into the side pocket of my backpack, wishing I had borrowed one of Kelly’s designer totes. The touch of the article clipping helps to ease me a bit, helps to release the tight little knot I feel tied up in my chest. I’m able to let out a breath, remind myself that this is for fun, to pay Kelly back for being such a whoring little bitch.

  Sean takes a seat at the table next to mine, and he’s just … staring. He’s sipping his coffee, but he’s looking right at me. I lick the jelly globules off the nubs of my fingers and savor every moment, trying my best not to laugh out loud. Two more bites in, and I decide I might like another snack. I scoot out from the table and make my way across the floor, bending slightly over the counter, like I can’t see all the doughnut selections from where I’m standing. “I’ll have a jelly cruller,” I say, hoping Sean’s taking a good look.

  I don’t even bother with a bag this time. I tell the counter hag she can keep it, and instead lick at the tip of the cruller as I swing my hips pendulum-style back to the table. Sean’s looking. He’s watching the way my mouth fits around the doughnut stem, the way my ass sits just right in this dress.

  I slide back into the seat, and Sean gets up, plunks himself down into the chair across from me at my table, and just keeps on staring.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi.” He looks a bit different than he does in Kelly’s winter ball picture—taller, thinner, a lot more tan.

  “Do you have something to say to me?” he asks.

  “No.” I let out a nervous giggle and then bite down on the skin of my tongue to stifle the full-fledged laugh I feel pushing in my chest.

  “I think you do,” he says.

  “Nope.” I bite down fully on the cruller tip and smile at him as I chew it down.

  He leans forward on his elbows and he’s really kind of cute—soft brown eyes with dapples of tawny yellow; wavy brown hair painted over with golden sun streaks; modest muscle bulk.

  Way too good for Kelly Pickerel.

  I hold the cruller stem out to him. “Wanna bite?”

  “Tell me what you gotta tell me,” he says, “or I’m leaving.”

  “Well, aren’t you a lousy sport?” I spoon up a globule of jelly with my finger and poke it into my mouth.

  “I don’t play games,” he says.

  “Not what I hear,” I sing.

  “Oh, yeah? What do you hear?”

  “Stuff.”

  “What, is this fun for you?”

  “Kind of.” I giggle. “But I know a way we can have much more fun.” I poke the now-four-inch cruller into my mouth and almost choke on some crumbs. I’ve stuck it in too far.

  “How
did you get my cell phone number?”

  “Are you serious?” I ask between coughs. “That was so easy.” My eyes are watering now. I take a sip of my Coolatta to ease the tickle in my throat, but almost end up spitting it all out. It’s way too bitter.

  “So what do you have to tell me about Kelly?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather talk about something more interesting?” I lean in closer and imagine venturing my fingers across his forearm. “Like, what we’ll be doing later?”

  He yanks his arm away. “I’m not doing anything with you.”

  “Why not? Don’t you like girls?” I poke my finger into the jelly filling and suck at the tip.

  “I’m outta here,” he says.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll tell you.” I rip open a sugar packet, add it into my Coolatta, and stir it all up with a straw. “So I know some stuff about Kelly.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, that she’s cheating on you with another guy, some murderer from California.” Proof positive that she’s a backstabbing bitch. I take another sip of the Coolatta and add two more packets of sugar.

  “How do you know that?”

  I end up showing him the article clipping and telling him all about the scrapbook at the back of her closet. I tell him about the girl who called, the diner, and how Kelly left her cell phone there this morning. I even throw in the rumors I’ve heard about her—blowing Mr. Vargas and her gang bang with the guys on the lacrosse team. And at the end of all of it, instead of being ripshit like any other normal guy, Sean wants to know what I have on him, what I meant when I said he didn’t seem faithful.

  And suddenly, I think, Holy shit, this guy’s been scam-ming, too.

  “I guess I heard you’ve been cheating on Kelly,” I say, flipping my hair back the way Kelly did in the courtyard that day; leaning back in the seat so he can admire the dress, how it looks so much better on me.

  “How? From who? Who told you that?”

  So completely pathetic. “You know what?” I say. “I gotta go. You’re way too lame-ass to be seen with me. No wonder Kelly’s cheating on you.” I frown at another sip of my Coolatta. “I have a real man to see tonight.”

  “Not until you tell me who you heard that from.”

  I look over at the crusty guy, still reading his funny papers, and say, “My papergirl told me, all right?”

  “Your papergirl?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know, she said she was delivering the papers and saw you in action. I don’t know how.”

  At that, Sean dissolves into a slushy, dirty mass, like I could flush him down with the push of a finger. I almost feel bad for him. Except my cell phone is ringing and I have to answer it. “This is probably one of my boyfriends now,” I say, plucking the phone from my bag, suspecting that it’s really my mother, that she’s going to be pissed I haven’t come home yet—since she’s already misplaced one daughter today.

  But it isn’t my mother. It’s my pain-in-the-booty sister Sadie. Apparently some cop picked her up en route to escape and my mother’s cell phone is out of range and Dad’s working and can’t be reached (even though it’s Saturday) and there’s some social worker there asking Sadie about her red and puffy eyelid and the No Feeding sign Mom pinned to her shirt.

  I tell her I’ll be right there and hang up.

  “Sorry, Sean,” I say, scooting out of the chair. “It’s been fun, but I really gotta go. My man’s waiting for me.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?

  “Why did you call me? Why did you tell me all this? What do you want?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you must have some reason.” He’s glaring at me like this is my fault, not hers, like it’s my fault Kelly’s such a lying, backstabbing ho.

  “I don’t know,” I snort. “Because Kelly’s, you know, kind of a bitch. Everyone knows it.”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “I know of her,” I say, “and that’s enough for me.”

  “You don’t know anything about her.”

  “Yes I do,” I say, feeling a wad of tension cram itself in my jaw. “I know plenty.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  And then I think about it. About her room and what I found. That she used to pray to Mother Mary. But now Mother Mary is all closed up in a box.

  I know about the spotted cat and the foreign coins, and that she probably misses her dad. Probably looks in books to try and find what’s missing. But no words on love or hurt or isolation have ever helped bring Mary back.

  I look away when I feel my eyes betray me and start to fill with tears. “Maybe you’re right,” I say finally. “Maybe I don’t know anything. Maybe it’s just me who’s the bitch.” I throw my backpack over my shoulder and pitch my Coolatta in the trash, now way too sweet from all that sugar.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2:55 P.M. WEST COAST TIME, 5:55 P.M. EAST COAST TIME

  I have a rubber dick and I’m not afraid to use it. It used to belong to my mother. When I was little, she’d keep it in the night table beside her bed. I’d take it out and play with it, pretend it was a jumbo hot dog and that I was fixing a barbecue. Then I’d click it on and it would start buzzing and I’d pretend the noise was the sizzle of juicy meat, fighting to burst from inside the tight, hot dog skin, over pretend-flame heat.

  Once I put a blob of brown yarn on it for hair and pretended it was Barbie’s boyfriend, Buzz. Then another time I poked it inside my underwear to see if I could make it look all bulgy, like a boy. But it was too big to squish the whole thing inside, and so it stood up straight, at least four inches of thick rubber dick pointing out the hem of my Cinderella panties like it wanted to chat.

  Of course, I was only trying to get a rise out of my mother. Obviously I knew what it was. I’d seen the dangling wee-wees of the neighborhood boys, the Guerino twins, skinny-dipping in their pool, inviting me to come over and play Marco Polo, telling me to shut my eyes and reach out my hand for something long and wet.

  My mom would take the rubber dick from me and hide it, but that just made me want to seek it out all the more. I’d find it crammed under a stack of bed pillows, sticking up out of an old coat pocket in her closet, or at the way, way back of her underwear drawer. I’d click it on and twirl it around and around, feeling its power sparkle through my hand. I’d be the princess, and the rubber dick, my very own magical wand.

  You’d think that would have really put my mother over the edge. It didn’t. She just got exhausted trying to hide it from me all the time, and so she finally let me keep it and got herself another. A bigger one. With a louder buzz.

  I hold the rubber dick in my hand, gooey at the tip from old sticker jizz. A gash in the balls from the time I took it on a bike ride. I went over a bump; it jumped from my basket, fell to the ground, and I ended up running it over.

  I’ve decided I’m going to put it to some good use once and for all.

  I hate boys today. I hate the way they pretend that they like you when they smile and nod at what you’re saying, like what you’re saying is actually interesting to them, but then you ask a question or make some comment and realize they’re not even listening at all. I hate it when they bring you into the woods because it’s secluded and supposedly romantic and lean you back against a jagged rock that cuts right into your shoulder blade and makes you bleed.

  When they make you breathe into their ear because it gets them all hot. And then stick their big, fat tongue in your mouth and waggle it back and forth. When they squish your boobs like it’s fifth grade all over again, like boob-squishing is at all pleasurable for you. And go up your skirt and wedge your panties up the crack. And then leave, in the middle of everything, after you’ve told them about yourself and your family, that your parents got a divorce when you were seven, that your cat, Moses, died on your ninth birthday, and that you’ve always wanted to be a princess—like you’re a stupid, stupi
d piece of dung.

  I hate Robby Hate him. I pick up the cell phone his girlfriend left at the diner today and start searching through the address list. I want to tell her what a backstabbing, two-timing slimeball she has for a boyfriend. I click on the number labeled HOME, talk to some girl who tells me Kelly’s away for the summer, visiting her father. Hang up. Find the number labeled DAD. Bingo.

  “Is Kelly there?” I ask.

  “Just a second,” some lady says.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Kelly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My name is Joy. Maybe you remember me? I’m the waitress from the diner you and Robby met at this morning. First, you left your cell phone at my station and now I have it. Second, and much more important, I wanted to let you know that your boyfriend is a two-timing piss puddle. After you left him at breakfast, he had me for lunch. And if he even tries to deny it, tell him it was in the woods, behind the high school, and that his wiener is the size of a Planters peanut. Toodles.”

  I hang up. That felt good, but not nearly good enough. I want to see for myself that he pays. I search through the phone’s address list a bit more, hoping to find his number. I want to tell him what I did. I want to hear the pain in his voice when I fib and say that his girlfriend was crying when I told her. When I say that I told her that we PB-and-Jammed, even though we didn’t, even though he ran off and left me spread-eagled in the middle of the woods. Left me alone there after I was almost ready to do it with him, after I told him all about myself. But his number isn’t even listed in here, and I don’t know his last name, so I can’t exactly look him up. I click the phone off so Kelly can’t call back, and toss it to the floor. Double damn!

  But that’s fine. I breathe. That’s okay. Because I’ve still got my rubber dick. And there are still plenty of other boys to pay back while I figure out what to do about Robby.