by Jenn Cooksey
Sighing, I gently take Erica’s face in my hands and meet her eyes to say, “You are one hot mess, girl. C’mon, beautiful, let’s get you into a hot shower and then some clean clothes. Sound good?”
She sobs something incoherent that I take to be either her agreement or refusal, I’m not sure which, as I scoop her into my arms and slowly try to stand up. Now I’m not saying I’m weak or that Erica’s fat, because I’m built like fuckin’ Superman, damn it, and Erica can’t weigh more than a buck-twenty, but smoothly picking up a girl and cradling her in your arms while you carry her all heroic-like to the bedroom isn’t as easy as the movies make it out to be. Honestly, I was worried I was gonna wrench my back the whole time until I practically dropped her and she went kerplunk onto my bed. I power through though and while she’s in my arms and crying into my neck, I make sure to give my house a quick once-over with my eyes to see if people are doing as they’d been told, and just for good measure, I say it again, “C’mon, folks, the party’s over. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”
Also, and I’m not entirely sure why—maybe to try to make her laugh or because it’s just a habit and saying shit like this is what I do—I remember that when everyone had started showing up earlier, I had been in the process of replacing the threadbare bed sheets I’ve had for like almost a decade with new ones—sheets, mind you, that don’t have a single Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pictured on them, and aren’t stained and full of holes, but are a very masculine soft blue and are supposedly made of Egyptian cotton or something else just as adult and expensive sounding—so, I decide to add, “My new sheets need breaking in and my bed has been calling Erica’s name, so everyone hurry the hell up and get to gettin’!”
She grumbles and whimpers something like, “I hate you, you filthy pig,” into my collarbone and just before kicking my bedroom door shut behind us and dumping Erica’s soggy ass onto my crisp, clean sheets, I reply to her by lightly placing a kiss on the side of her head and heaving an overly dramatic, heart-happy sigh as I say, “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
From there I go into business mode, turning my shower on and making sure it’s getting warm before smelling the towel hanging on the rack to see if it’s clean enough for Erica to use. Then I start searching the medicine cabinet, drawers, and the cupboard under the sink for a toothbrush that hasn’t been used. I rattle and rummage around bottles of cologne and hairspray, a completely spent tube of toothpaste and another one that has maybe a week’s use left in it, God only knows how many used and unused razor cartridges, several upended and almost empty bottles of hair gel, a couple sticky containers of hair styling wax, that fucking bar of cheap soap, at least five, uncapped sticks of deodorant in a variety of scents, and two cans of shaving cream with dried foam running out of the nozzles. I come across three somewhat questionable toothbrushes that find themselves being tossed straight into the trashcan before I stumble onto one still in the wrapper way in the back of the cupboard. I blow off the package and then wipe it down with my hand to clean off all the little pieces of lint and hair shavings, the whole search and rescue mission indicating that I’m all about manscaping and keeping my body tidy and presentable, but I’m clearly lousy at housekeeping.
With that thought in mind, I stand up and try to look at my reflection through all the toothpaste and shaving cream spatter on the mirror, and then I shrug. I mean what am I going to do? Go on a cleaning frenzy seconds before a girl uses my bathroom? Plus, it’s just Erica and in the shape she’s in tonight, I really doubt she’ll give a shit that there’s a pair of my boxers next to the towel on the floor or that there’s two, maybe three forms of my hair along with a couple of used Q-tips cohabiting the sink.
Huh. On the other hand, though, I’d really hate to give credence to Erica’s somewhat recurring pet name for me…
I quickly grab up the towel and underwear, pitch the Q-tips, run the faucet and splash water on the sides of the sink to send any and all forms of my DNA down the drain, and just to be safe, I give the toilet a flush and then lift the lid to check for anything that might make a girl think twice before sitting down; like yellow of any kind, be it the general color of the toilet water, rings in the bowl, or drip spots on the seat from the occasional need to whiz early in the morning or late at night when I’m not so steady on my feet, but still for some reason don’t think to take a leak sitting down. And, this should go without saying, but I of course look for floaters. I almost use the towel to wipe down the counter and mirror, but decide against it. I mean let’s not get carried away here. Checking for overly buoyant and stubborn turds that refuse to be flushed is one thing, but homo or hetero, every guy’s gotta draw a domestic line somewhere and it looks like mine is drawn in toothpaste on a bathroom mirror.
Perversely proud of myself for taking a stand that will never be known to anyone bar Mr. Clean and those scrubbing bubble guys, I walk back into my bedroom in the knick of time to see Erica wipe her leaking eyes and runny nose with her hand, which is of course immediately followed by the usage of my new sheets to dry said snotty hand before she stands up to face me. She kicks off her heels, one of which is broken, and instead of sliding her stockings down her legs to take them off, she just starts pulling at the holes, looking lost and alone in the chasm of heartache that Holden’s death has opened inside her. Not being able to take the painful sight and sound of her struggle, I set both the toothbrush and dirty towel down and grab a pair of scissors off my desk. Pulling the pantyhose out from under the garters and being careful to not catch her skin, I cut the tattered remnants of her nylons from her body, letting them just fall to the floor rather than making the effort to get them into the trashcan where they’ll be right at home now.
Smoothing her hair away from her face and kissing her forehead, I take her hand and guide her the few feet to my small, yet adequate, pigsty of a bathroom. I also find myself having to help her with the buttons of her blouse and after that, I reach inside to the back of it to fumble with the clasp of her bra when her shaking fingers won’t cooperate. Going the extra mile without knowing if I need to or not, I unbutton her skirt as well and fight with the zipper that I discover had also been ripped from its seams during her earlier outburst. I watch to make sure she steps out of the skirt without tripping, but noticing a smallish gash just below one of her black satin-clad butt cheeks, I stop her from stripping any further and kneel down so that I’m basically eye level with her ass, but can see well enough to remove the sliver of brown glass that’s faintly catching the light. While I’m down there, I slide both of the lacy elastic garters off her legs for her. Finally, I turn and close the door, intending to give Erica all the privacy and time she might want, realizing with the click of the door that I’d set the toothbrush down on my desk when I picked the scissors up. Tapping on the door, I crack it open again but close my eyes just in case.
“Erica?”
When she doesn’t answer, I risk a quick look. The shower curtain is only partially drawn, allowing me to see that she’s already sitting in the tub, her arms wrapped around her knees that she’s pulled tightly to her chest while the water pounds down on her. The up and down movement of her shoulders tells me she’s crying, the sound of beating faucet water silencing the slow trickle coming from her eyes. My heart wrenches when without looking at me, she unwraps an arm from around her legs and extends her hand to me. Before taking it without question, I reach across the room to set the toothbrush on the tank of the toilet and then slide my back down the wall beside the tub. So while the minutes tick by and the air becomes thick with steam, I just sit here, staring at the ceiling and holding her hand, neither of us having to look at each other or speak a word to know what the other is feeling. There’s a newfound security in place with the knowledge that without a doubt, the casual and easy friendship we had before has something of a new element now; one of undeniable trust. We’ve become united.
It isn’t until she rests her head against the back of the tub and close
s her eyes that her grip on my hand relaxes. I take it as my cue and leave her side to go do all the post-party clean up, which I know won’t take long, being the pro I am and all, although I’m still none too thrilled about having to do it in the first place. Seeing the small, mesh-patterned, blood smear from where Erica had been sitting on my previously pristine sheets though is what has me rolling my eyes again and sighing. Picking up the towel that had been on my bathroom floor from where I’d dropped it on the back of my desk chair, I start wiping at the sheet to get the blood up before it sets. It doesn’t do any good. All I’m doing is removing the pattern in the smear while coming to be of the belief that I just can’t have nice things.
4
“Shake The Disease”
—Erica—
In a daze and feeling so wholly spent, I wander back out into Cole’s living room to see a cigarette hanging from his lips as he bends to pick up a few of the last remaining plates of pizza that had been abandoned when he kicked everyone out of the house. I glance around and realize that he either has cleanup down to a science, or that I must’ve taken one of the longest showers in the history of ever after he left me, because by the looks of it and not counting the coffee table area that he’s currently working on, no one would be able to guess that this house had been the setting of something like a Super Bowl party earlier this evening.
He glances up at me through his lashes and then stands straight, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and gesturing to me when he says, “I laid out a pair of basketball shorts on my dresser for you and that Iron Maiden t-shirt you used to like, the one with Eddie on the cover of the ‘Killers’ album…but hey, if you’re more comfortable in a towel, that’s cool I guess. I hear terry cloth is gonna be the in thing to wear this year anyway.”
I feel my cheeks flame just barely, but like the rest of me, they’re worn out and don’t seem capable of working up the energy to produce a full-on blush. “Oh. I guess I just didn’t see them.” Truth be told, I didn’t even look. When I stepped out of the shower, my eyes went straight to the bathroom floor and the pile of my clothes along with the garters that are part of the set I’d bought to wear under my dress the night I graduated; the set I didn’t get to wear and that Holden never got to see me in. I managed to get my panties back on, but just the mere idea of putting real clothes on seemed so insurmountable a task, I just wrapped myself in the towel and pitched my destroyed clothes into Cole's bathroom trashcan. “Thank you though. And uh…just FYI, Eddie always gave me the heebie-jeebies. I just pretended to like him because I knew you’d make fun of me for being creeped out by a cartoon.”
He huffs out a quick laugh and proves me right. “Mmhm. I would’ve probably called you a wimpy girl unworthy of the most lovable bag of bones in heavy metal history that Eddie indisputably is.”
I roll my eyes at that and then watch him move around the coffee table to plop himself down on the sofa with the bag left forgotten on the other side of the table. He looks tired and as if to prove another of my points, he lets his head drop to the back of the couch before blowing out a long breath and raking a hand through his hair. I sit down next to him, putting my back to the arm of the couch so that I can face him better and almost transfixed, I watch blue-tinted smoke spiral up into the air and vanish into a haze of gray nothing as he inhales another lung-full of nicotine and exhales it in the next breath. Before I know what I’m doing, I reach over and pluck the cigarette from Cole’s lips and bring it to mine.
His head falls to the side, one of his eyebrows raised in a blend of curiosity and disbelief. “What the fuck are you doing, Erica?”
“Stealing your cigarette, Cole,” I answer and without giving myself time to think twice, I breathe in deeply, taking in all the noxious mysticism the cigarette between my lips has ever held before this moment.
“While you’re certainly taking the towel, wet hair, and drowned rat look to a new level of smoking hot right now, lest I be the one to remind you that you don’t actually smoke, sugar.”
“Yeah, well I also don’t go around slapping guys and then needing them to undress me ten minutes later because I can’t seem to remember the right way to take off a pair stockings and I’m too inept to work six buttons on my own. It’s like a whole new me.” My retort also includes twisting the top off of a Heineken and taking a swig so big, beer trickles out the corners of my mouth.
“This is true,” he chuckles and retrieves another cigarette for himself from the pack on the table.
“Oh, I also borrowed your toothbrush.”
Cole rolls his eyes at my admission of breaking the laws of personal hygiene boundaries and before taking a drink of my beer that he’d forcibly taken from me, he mutters, “Of course you did.”
“And I straightened up the mess in your cupboard when I was looking for a Band-Aid. I think I used the last one, though. Hope you don’t mind,” I tell him, snatching the bottle back and taking another long drag off the cigarette as I pull my knees up to my chest.
“Nope, but you might mind my wandering eyes if you stay sitting like that,” he smirks at me with a quirk of his eyebrows, indicating that although he isn’t actually looking and I have my panties on underneath it, he’s noticed the towel isn’t quite long enough to completely protect my modesty.
“So don’t look.” Remembering a birthday party that feels like a lifetime ago though, and how my grandma liked to toss us in the bath together after rain storms that we would go puddle jumping during, or after we had made what Cole claimed were “super awesome and elaborate speedways” for his Hot Wheels cars in the composted soil of my grandma’s vegetable garden—you know, before having different private bits made bathing together weird—and then of course the more recent time of a half-hour or so ago when he had to have seen me naked in the tub, I add, “Although it’s not like you’ll get an eye-full of anything you haven’t already seen before. Besides, I can’t seem to find it in me to care or move right now.”
He sighs and nods. “Fair enough.”
I’m not sure if he remembers that birthday party or not and I consider asking, but after spending the afternoon and earlier evening talking and reminiscing for hours at Holden’s parents’ house with them and a bunch of other people who had shown up with casseroles and cakes in hand, I realize I don’t really feel up to taking another trip down memory lane just now, even if it is a quick one and along a different route, so I keep my mouth shut. We sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes until I remember the box I was supposed to give to Cole.
“Shit. I have to go to the car,” I announce, leaning sideways to put the cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table before moving to stand up, which of course is a rookie mistake. “Mr. And Mrs. St. James gave me a box with a bunch of stuff they thought you might want,” I mumble through my sudden lightheadedness brought on by my first-ever nicotine rush.
“You mean the box you smashed my toes with before you hit me the first time? If so, then it’s over there,” he answers and points a look across the room to where he’d moved it.
The dizziness passes more quickly than I thought it would, but Cole’s teasing reminder of the scene I made finally has my cheeks burning bright and my knees feeling weak. I sink back down to the sofa and then burying my face in my hands, I start crying again, the tears coming unbidden but not unexpected.
“I’m so sorry, Cole…I didn’t mean to go crazy like that. And I didn’t mean whatever I said to you. I mean I was kinda mad at you on the way over here, but I really didn’t think seeing you with a beer in your hand would turn me into whoever that psycho was who probably said all kinds of hateful things.”
Cole leans forward and rather than putting his arm around me or rubbing my back in comfort like most everyone would’ve felt like they had to, he just rests his elbows on his knees and nudges me with his shoulder. “Look at me,” he whispers, and when I drop my hands to my lap and turn my face to his, he continues, “You don’t owe me or anyone else a goddamned thing, least of al
l an apology. You hear me?”
I nod, sniffling back tears and wiping my nose with my hand. “I’m just so…” I stop and sigh, afraid and not wanting to admit it out loud, but knowing I should—and even more importantly, that I can.
Knowing I can trust him and say anything to him gives me a newfound comfort, so I take a deep breath and plunge forward. “I’m angry, Cole. I am so angry. And I know somewhere in the back part of my mind that’s still capable of rational thought that I can’t blame him for what happened or even be mad at him, because I know he didn’t die on me on purpose, but I can’t help feeling betrayed or something. Like he left me when I didn’t do anything to deserve being abandoned like this. He didn’t give me any warning, he just…left.
“We had plans. Big plans for when I graduated and the rest of our lives that I had my heart set on living out, but I couldn’t even go to my own high school graduation ceremony because I couldn’t hold it together long enough to go without breaking down every five minutes. And instead of spending graduation night with him and finally being together after everything that happened and waiting so long, I had to be medicated in order to even sleep longer than an hour without waking up, screaming my head off and choking on my own tears because he broke his promise to me. A promise he should’ve never made to me because he wasn’t gonna keep it. And I hate him for that.