by Adam Rex
“This’ll be brown face,” said Sophie. “And brown neck.”
“And arms,” said Emily.
“You’re so lucky,” Jordan told Sejal. “You don’t have to change anything.”
“Good thing we’re not doing Grease.” Ophelia laughed.
The girls fell silent. Sejal supposed they were thinking the same thing she was: If they were doing Grease, she wouldn’t be playing the lead.
“Crap, that’s my phone,” said Cat. “I have goopy gloves.”
Ophelia fished the phone from Cat’s boxy velvet purse and sang, “It’s Ja-ay.”
“Put it up to my ear. Hey, Jay! No, I’m at Ophelia’s. A bunch of us girls are here, trimming each other’s bushes.”
A couple of girls gave scandalized shrieks, and everyone laughed except Emily, whom Sejal had come to think took everything a little too seriously. “Aah! Tell him we’re not really, Cat!” Emily said. “He’ll spread it around school.”
“Shave a lightning bolt in mine!” shouted Ophelia.
“He knows when Cat’s joking,” Sejal told Emily. “He’ll not spread it around.”
“He’ll tell Doug, maybe,” Emily whimpered.
“So what if he does?” said Abby. “Doug doesn’t care about your business.”
Silence, again, apart from Cat’s brassy laugh—Jay must have said something funny. She looked abruptly startled, chastened, as if she’d just remembered she was in church and surrounded by sober, serious people. “It just got really quiet here,” she said into the phone.
What did the other girls think when they heard his name? wondered Sejal. Surely they couldn’t be having the same thoughts as she. It really was a ridiculous idea. The way Doug had been acting, and Abby’s decline, and the stories from that store robbery and the bat that night—you didn’t just put all those pieces together any way you pleased. They had their own order, or lack of order. And although these pieces were all cut from Western cloth, she knew how it would sound to American ears if she, the Indian girl, started talking about vampires. That was the gaudy image she was embroidering from all these loose threads, wasn’t it? That Doug was a vampire? It was the Niravam, certainly. She had to stop taking it—it only made her worse. Poor Indian girl—her head is full of superstitious hoodoo. It’s a culture of confusion—too many gods, all those arms—what do you expect?
“Can I talk to you a minute, Abby?” asked Emily. “In private,” she added in the least private tone possible. It was discreet like a kazoo was discreet. The two girls rose and went off in search of some quiet corner.
“I don’t know. Some drama,” Cat told Jay. “We’re a dramatic people.”
“Okay, so what’s the deal with Doug Lee?” said Ophelia. Sejal imagined that a less brazen version of this question might at that very moment been posed to Abby in another part of the house, but Ophelia’s seemed to be directed primarily at Sejal.
“I know, right?” said Jordan as Cat tucked the last of her slick hair under a plastic grocery bag. “So creepy. My uncle pulled this really weird Jekyll and Hyde thing a few years ago, and that turned out to be a stroke.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Sejal asked Ophelia. “You have known him longer.”
“Yeah, but I’ve only been paying attention to him as long as you have. And he has a huge crush on you, so maybe you got to know him. For a while some people thought you might like him, too.”
So we’re not just talking about Doug, thought Sejal. “Maybe you should shout your questions louder,” she said, “so Jay can hear. So Abby can hear.”
“Ophelia wants to know what’s up with Doug,” Cat said to Jay. Ophelia winced. Cat leaned away from the phone. “Jay says nothing’s wrong with Doug, but he’s saying it in this weird way he gets whenever he’s lying. Like he’s talking in all caps. What? No, I’m just telling them what you said.”
“This is gonna sound all weird,” said Sophie, “and if you tell anyone I said so I’ll kick your ass, but…like, I know you said you thought he was looking better, ’Felia, but does anyone think he actually looks…good? Like not good good, but…like you see some eggplant and you actually feel like trying it even though eggplant makes you throw up.”
“I know what you’re saying,” said Jordan. “I’ll admit it. It’s like he got some kind of Guido body spray and it actually works like the commercials say it does.”
“Do you think they’ve…you know,” asked Carrie. “Do you think he took her virginity?”
“Ha!” said Ophelia. “He’s not a time traveler.”
Cat had by then hung up. “Jay says he and Doug haven’t hung out much lately, but…he thinks it all has to do with Doug wanting to go with Sejal and her saying no. Doug thinks she led him on—sorry, Sejal, I don’t think you did. Maybe he’s just bitter or depressed or something.”
“I need a glass of water,” said Sejal. “Does anyone want a glass of water?” No one did. “Excuse me.”
She didn’t know this house well, and at the bottom of the staircase she veered away from the sibilant whispers of Abby and Emily (“Jodi thinks so, too,” Emily was saying. “She called him evil…”) and down one hall, past a loo, and into a laundry room.
“Damn,” she whispered. She turned and found Ophelia blocking the hall.
“Hi,” said Ophelia. “Here.” Then she leaned forward, her still-sugary-brown locks breezing fragrantly past Sejal’s nose, and switched on the dryer. The empty tumble made the small, slightly chilly room inexplicably more inviting. Dapples of warm light like goldfish appeared on the blue moonlit wall behind the dryer. Ophelia half closed the door. No one would hear them speak.
“I didn’t lead Doug on,” Sejal said. “I thought I might grow to like him, isn’t it? When I realized my mistake, I stopped it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What I did was proper. I do not mean to lead anyone on.”
“I believe you. I’m sorry.”
They paused. Sejal listened to the warm, snoring dryer.
“I’m trying to learn to be a better person,” Sejal said. “A stronger person.”
“You’re good. You’re strong.”
“I’m not,” Sejal insisted. “I have the Google. Did you know that?”
“Oh,” said Ophelia, stepping back. “That internet disease?”
“It’s not contagious.”
“Sorry.”
“It makes you forget what’s important. I lost track of myself for a while. I forgot who I was. You can do terrible things when you don’t know who you are, na?”
Ophelia shifted from one foot to the other. She shrugged slightly.
“I became a ghost, and I only cared about other ghosts. I was not available to people at school, on the street…I wasn’t there. But move your mouse like on a Ouija board and you could speak with me. You could conjure me up. I lost every one of my real friends, but I had a box full of trolls and demons, like Pandora.”
“You don’t have to tell me all this if you don’t want to,” Ophelia whispered.
“No, I don’t,” Sejal said. “That’s true. Will you let me?” Now that she’d started, she was impatient to get it off her chest, finally. The story of it all stuck to her like wet clothes.
A second passed, then Ophelia nodded.
“There was this girl,” Sejal continued. “A girl from my neighborhood, one of the only ones to follow me onto the web. One of the only kids I still talked to who knew me in real life. Maybe that was part of it…She had a blog. She posted videos, bad poetry. And we haunted this poor girl. Me and the other ghosts. They were awful to her, and I was awful. We posted terrible comments, things I would never say in real life. Because I only cared for the people online and for what they thought of me—and when I was mean, I was funny, and when I was funny, I could make them laugh out loud.”
Ophelia was shaking her head. “Lots of people are meaner on the internet.”
“And those people will have to deal with what they’ve been. Or they won’t, I don’t know.
But listen: This girl, Chitra, she posted a video, singing and playing the ukulele. Because pretty girls playing the ukulele was a thing then. And this girl…this poor stupid girl always left the comments on.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I wrote that she had made me pukelele with her bad singing. I—I and the other commenters suggested maybe she wasn’t really pretty enough for the pretty girls-with-ukuleles meme.”
“God.”
“Yes.” Sejal nodded. “She singled me out—I was the only one who actually knew her. ‘Why was I being so mean?’ I had my own blog pages full of posts and videos and hundreds of comments, good and bad. Some terribly bad. In the outside world I felt numb and half dead, but then I could look at my hit counter and read the comments, and every little vicious word was like a paper cut that got my heart beating again. And this fat ukulele player wanted to know why I was being so mean?”
“Um…”
“I became something awful. I made personal attacks. I revealed all her crushes and told all her embarrassing secrets. And because I never knew her all that well, I ran out of secrets fast and began pinning her name to some of my own. Even the trolls started telling me to back off, in their way. They claimed the thread had gotten stale and I was getting boring and, besides, Chitra hadn’t said a word in days. She hadn’t posted in days because she’d tried to kill herself.”
“W-what?” said Ophelia. She covered her mouth with her hands.
“When I found out I just…I broke it off with the real world. Entirely. It could not touch me. When my mother came home that night, she found me sitting in front of my own video blog, watching myself watching myself. Like I was trying to fold right up into one single electron. My parents got me help. When Chitra’s parents found out my part in the whole thing, they tried to bring me up on charges, but I hadn’t done anything against the law. But I got help. I got better. That was the best I could do for them, for Chitra. I’m lucky in that way—I had this horrid event to tell me I was not the sort of girl I thought I was, and now I have made the decision to be good. I don’t believe most people think to make this decision, you know?”
“Uh-huh.”
Silence.
“I thought I saw something familiar in Doug, but…I’m trying to be good, and I don’t need any more friends who are not also trying.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
“Also I think Doug is a vampire.”
“Um.” Ophelia frowned. “You mean, like, a metaphorical vampire?”
“No, the regular kind.”
Silence.
“So, watch out for that,” said Sejal. “I’m going to go,” she added, and waited for Ophelia to let her out of the laundry room.
Cat tried to talk her into staying, or at least accepting a ride home, but Sejal told her she’d prefer to walk. It wasn’t even a kilometer, and the streets were sort of familiar. Jay lived nearby.
She supposed Ophelia would tell everyone that she had the Google. And maybe that she thought Doug was a vampire. Well, good, she thought as she pulled her coat closer and started down the hill. Fine. What better way to kick-start this new, improved Sejal—this strong girl who’s good and who knows her own mind and doesn’t care what other people think? She shuddered and pulled her coat closer still.
These neighborhoods looked fake at night. In the dim lamplight one could see only a scant spill of stars, and the colors and details of the lawns and houses flattened out and gave the impression of huge miniatures. And now there was a thickening fog at the bottom of the hill. It reminded Sejal of the fogging of distant objects in some video games. There was not enough processing power to render the bottom of the hill. The bottom of the hill would not exist until she got there.
There was a rustling behind her, and then a rustling to one side as she turned to look, and then it was down the hill and gone. Sejal considered suddenly the wisdom of declaring someone a vampire and then taking a walk, alone, at night. Had she never seen a movie? Did she not understand how these things worked? She comforted herself, however, with the insight that the movie would not kill off the well-meaning foreign exchange student with the comical internet addiction. Sejal wouldn’t be the main character, the hero—not in an American movie—but she might be the best friend or the comic relief or the one you think is dead but turns out to be all right in the end. She wondered who the main character in her life was.
When she finally saw the person standing at the bottom of the hill, she was almost on top of him. Given more warning she might have nonchalantly crossed the street, but now she could do nothing but pass him by. Or else stop, turn, walk or run, risk embarrassment and offense against what was probably just a man walking his dog. A short man, about Doug’s height. No dog. A man staring right at her.
Not Doug. This man was a little leaner and older. Just a man. Who seemed to be trying to hoist his careworn features into an unpracticed smile.
“Hello,” said the man.
“Hello.” Sejal smiled briefly, then dipped her head as she passed.
“A quiet night,” the man replied, and kept pace with her, though whether he was now following her or merely continuing on his way, she couldn’t tell.
“Mmm.”
“You know, when I was your age, one didn’t often see a girl walking alone at night. You would be tempted to draw conclusions about such a girl. You would say she was no better than she should be.”
This seemed like an insult, something that begged for an answer, though maybe it was just harmless chitchat. Times have changed—what a world. She stole a glance at the little man out of the corner of her eye: a dark, long-sleeved shirt over a white tee. Gray wool pants. That was all, despite the chill. Sejal suddenly wondered if this man was in need. Perhaps he only meant to ask for spare change.
“I do not think they have the sort of girls you’re talking about in a neighborhood such as this,” she said. “Is your…house nearby?”
“No. I have two homes, but one is in the country, and one is in the city.”
“Like the mice,” said Sejal, “in the fable.” It was a puerile thing to say, but she always felt more at ease when she pretended to be at ease.
“Yes,” said the man. “Very good. I hadn’t thought of that in ages. I’m like a mouse that flies from city to country, country to city. But I have no houses in the rarified half life that is the suburb. I’ve only been spending some time here, observing. We’re both far from home, I think.”
“No, my home is close. Very close,” she added, though it was still many blocks away.
“Then you’ll permit me to escort a young lady just a little bit farther. To her home, or to the place that serves as home for now. Am I right?” His sleeve brushed her coat, and she sensed if not felt it through three layers of clothes—a cold sting. “I think we have this in common: we’d both like to go home but we have now only houses. I have a house in the Poconos, but it’s not my home. I have a house in West Philadelphia, next to Clark Park—do you know it?—but it is not my home either.”
Sejal was surprised to find that Clark Park did spark some glimmer of recognition in her. A name like that, once heard, could never be entirely forgotten. Had Cat mentioned it?
They turned a corner. The Browns’ house grew closer, but was still achingly far away.
“I think I’ve heard of the Clark Park,” Sejal said. “I cannot remember why. Is it nice?”
“It’s perfectly nice. You should visit. I expect you will.”
“Well, this is me,” said Sejal, stopping in front of a well-lit flagstone house with THE HOLSTEINS painted on the mailbox.
The man stopped a few feet off and watched her. Could body language be mistranslated? What was expressed on his face as a smile clearly meant something different where he came from.
“You have nothing to fear from me, young lady. Not directly. You’re not my type.”
Sejal tried to tell him that she just really needed to get inside and was dimly surprised to fin
d she slurred her speech. She was so tired, in a moment, and the fog was thicker than ever.
“Do you know something?” said the man, and it was like the hum of a voice that you hear a moment before waking. “I’m going to tell you everything. I’m going to explain it all. And you won’t remember a bit of it until it’s much too late.”
30
CURTAINS
THIS WAS HOW Doug’s dates with Abby went: they’d rent a movie or go see one. Doug had half watched the first fifteen minutes of a number of movies from the back rows of theaters or from the tweed cushions of his great accomplice, the Lee basement sofa. He’d initiate some kissing, and Abby would respond willingly at first, but eventually return to the movie, as if anyone could possibly care what Matthew McConaughey was doing. He’d have to keep restarting things, keeping both of them on track. Then he’d feel a breast, and she’d guide his hand away, and he’d wait what seemed like the requisite amount of time before he could do it again. She’d let his hands be on the second try, sometimes the third, but get squeamish when he went under her shirt, so he’d go back to just kissing, as if they both didn’t know what was going to happen. Once he was under her shirt he’d hike it up a bit, maybe feel her ass, and if the movie wasn’t too short he’d finally get to the business of biting her neck and sucking out a half pint of blood before the closing credits.
At her front door, or his, they’d have a kind of coded conversation about how Doug always rushed every evening to sex. He didn’t know how to tell her they’d hardly had any. If he was leaving Abby’s house she might wonder aloud why she always gave him what he wanted, they should be more careful, she couldn’t vouch for his safety if her parents ever caught them. Doug wondered how her parents would react if they ever caught him doing what he was really doing to her. In monster movies there were usually torches.
She was a little overweight. He reminded himself constantly that extra weight meant extra blood, that this was a good thing. Swimsuit girls would be like light snacks. They’d be small Diet Cokes. He’d hear himself noisily sucking air after the third date.