The dog didn’t move.
She wasn’t in the mood for this, and was about to go back inside, when something between the dog’s paws caught her attention. It wasn’t a stick. He’d found some sort of bottle out here. A jerk-off kid probably tossed it over the fence.
“There’s real food over here. Come on boy,” she said, patting her leg.
Lester started panting.
“What have you found there, you weirdo?”
Janet crossed the yard and stopped a few feet from the dog house. Lester moved his paws inward and growled, his gaze turned down in warning. She’d raised him since a puppy and had never heard him growl.
“Lester!” She stomped her foot. The Border Collie’s ears dropped in self admonishment and the bottle fell sideways against the doghouse. The unusual tempered glass was different than any she’d ever seen, like overlapping blades of shadow. She reached again for the bottle and jumped back as Lester let out a snappish bark. Lester retreated inside the doghouse, bringing it back with him.
Janet decided to leave things alone. Let him cool down. “But don’t think I won’t be back, mister.”
She returned for the house.
In the kitchen, Faye sat at the cluttered table. The bag of assorted alcohols had been neatly twist-tied and rested against the wall with three other trash bags taken from throughout the house. Janet planned to head straight for the bedroom, but then she noticed the tears peaking in Faye’s eyes.
Faye scrubbed the tears away as Janet approached. “So how’s Les doing?”
Janet folded her arms. “What did you find?”
Faye slid out something from under a stack of Herman’s various water pump manuals. “This.”
Janet knew the photo well. It had been taken at Melody’s one year-old birthday party at the park. Faye was spinning her around, background set to brilliant slopes of green grass and the distant, ghostly presence of weeping willows near a duck pond. That had been a really fun day. To think it had only been a few years ago too… Faye looked quite younger, and Melody, as with all photos of her now, was astonishingly beautiful and alive.
Faye got up from the table and hugged Janet tightly around the waist. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you…too…”
“I’m sorry.”
She pushed back and pecked Janet on the cheek. “Don’t be. I’m not being that helpful, am I? Blubbering idiot is what I am.”
“Now stop… Hey, I’m just gonna…”
“Yeah.”
“…lay down now.”
“Of course. Go.” Faye slid her overlarge purse off the table and began to rummage through it, probably for something she didn’t need right now.
Outside, a car horn blared.
Faye smiled crookedly. “I don’t know why he’s honking, the silly guy. Probably isn’t thinking, worried about He-Man and all. I told him he needs to stay here with you. I have other errands to run and I don’t want you alone.”
“No,” Janet’s voice squeaked. “He’ll be bored here.”
“He’ll be fine. He can watch ESPN.” Faye went through the front door. Her eyeliner was smudged from crying and the streaking made her look more exotic, rebellious, something Faye definitely wasn’t. “Be back in a little while, babe.”
Within minutes, Evan was walking resolutely through the door. He wore an orange sherbet colored polo shirt, khaki pants, and despite the relatively cooler Southern California weather, carried himself like an overheated car salesman after a summer blow-out sale. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and took off his glasses to examine them.
Janet dropped on the couch. There wasn’t a chance Evan would let her take a nap. She waited for him to say something and when he didn’t, she knew exactly what type of conversation this would be and her headache instantly grew new roots.
He put his glasses back on and stood there, wary of her, a Clark Kent with only one identity. “I don’t know where he is, Jan,” he finally said, “but you know what, I’m beginning not to care.”
“Herman’ll turn up. He just freaked out and went to hide. It’s his way. Did you call all his jobs?”
“Yes I did.”
“Even the machine shop?”
“All of them.”
“He’s driving then. Probably lost in L.A.”
“Wondering if you’re dead?”
“I regained consciousness right after we got to the hospital. He knew I’d make it.”
“No he didn’t. I talked to him, Janet. He sounded crazy.”
“I forgot you told me about that.”
“I didn’t tell you everything,” said Evan.
Janet rolled her neck and it cracked. “I don’t want to know.”
“Well, good.” Evan paused. “Because I don’t want to talk about him right now anyway.”
“I’m going to go sleep—”
“We haven’t had a chance to really talk about us, lately.”
“This isn’t the best time to bring this up, Evan. In fact, I thought we weren’t ever bringing this up.”
Evan moved quickly to her side and sat uncomfortably close. He wore the aftershave she’d once told him she loved. He took both her hands in his and kissed them. His face was so desperate and nerdily handsome, she thought fleetingly of kissing. With almost compulsive ease, she could transform into that other woman: Not-Janet, the woman who accepted and gave pleasure in exchange for the mental dam it built around her memories.
But Not-Janet had never gotten her far. Screwing Evan behind Herman’s back, drinking like a lush to all hours of the day and night, marinating in household filth like a slug, it didn’t do much else than conceal the emotionally deformed clone who screamed beneath. Realizing that, she decided it was time to stop talking about suicide and really check-out of this life. After all, if Not-Janet couldn’t bring her out of this hell, what could?
Evan had been working up to saying something again and at last it spilled out, “I didn’t think it would have that effect on you…finding out about Faye’s baby. I should have told you in private first.”
Janet cocked her head. “It’s both your baby, and that’s not why—”
“When I found out, that she was pregnant, I mean, I didn’t know what to feel.”
Why the hell does he have to be here right now? I’m just home from nearly dying. God damn him.
“Weren’t you happy?” she asked with a sigh.
“I love her, you know I do, but—”
“No, no, no. No buts. You don’t need me, Evan. We had a thing, but it was really stupid, and I was cruel and selfish and screwed up to let it happen.”
“Why are you blaming yourself? Herman abandoned you, remember? He’s still abandoning you!”
“I’m over it. Be over it too, please. Christ, I thought you were happy again. Why can’t you ever make up your mind, Evan? Why?”
He dropped her hands in astonishment. “You think I took advantage of you. That’s what this is about?”
She shook her head and shifted away from him.
“Then you’re saying you never felt anything for me?”
“I’m not saying that either,” she replied. “You’re one of my best friends, you dumb ass. I don’t know what I’d do without you and Faye.”
His wife’s name made Evan look physically ill for a second. “Like I said, I love her, but she’s so cold lately…”
“Evan, the woman’s nearly slobbering on you every second of every day.”
“It’s an act.”
“Oh please.”
“I thought she’d change with the pregnancy, but she’s become more of an automaton than ever.” Evan took a deep breath. “Faye will make a great mother, and a great wife to somebody else maybe, but she’s not ever going to be the love of my life. She’s not passionate like you. I need that.”
“You listen to me right now. That passion came from a drunken, wounded animal, Evan,” Janet said, leveling her gaze. “How dare you.”
He began to say something but
his dull expression indicated he didn’t have any more cards up his sleeve.
Janet got up and he grabbed her arm, lightly. She didn’t pull away, just stood there, feeling breathless, suspended thirty thousand feet above the earth.
“I love you,” he said.
She snorted. He gently let go and looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. “I recognize a recurring pattern of behavior here. Why can’t you? You’re going to be alone again. After this, Herman’s probably off to the gym again for ten hours a day, doing steroids and god knows what—”
“Steroids?”
“You didn’t know?” Evan’s eyes were cartoon wide behind his glasses. “I thought he would have at least told you by now. Why do you think he was gone so much? He really and truly doesn’t give a shit about you.”
She headed for the bedroom before he could go on. There was a lock on the bedroom door but it didn’t work and Herman had never had it replaced. Luckily, Evan did not come in and instead flipped on the television.
Janet didn’t really despise Evan, nor could she fault Herman for keeping a part of his life secret from her. They were confused, just like everybody else in the world. Fatal flaws she could completely understand, by now.
A new feeling settled in on her as she tried to get to sleep, and it was surprising, not only in its emergence, but also its intensity.
She needed her husband. She missed him.
Where was he?
Outside came the hissing of a garbage truck. It pulled in front of the house briefly and then chugged on. Nobody had put the cans out. That was Herman’s job. There would be twice the trash for this week. Yay.
Lester’s long accented bark from the back yard seemed to warn the noisy garbage truck it better get moving faster. The bark was the last sound Janet heard before falling asleep. Her last thought was about that strange bottle.
Janet woke up every few hours with a different arbitrary topic possessing her thoughts. These sheets and quilt are dirty and that stupid washing machine will mess them up. High efficiency my ass… Stuffy in here; a cold beer would hit the spot… How might Melody have looked as a teenager or an old woman? Like me? Like Herman? Maybe neither of us… Did Faye bake pineapple upside-down cake? The house smelled like the cake. Don’t love it like she thinks I do, but actually a piece would be nice right now… How am I going to ditch those detox meetings they want me to do…?
She was never awake long enough to ponder each topic in much detail, not until her eyes opened and night had fallen.
Not investing much hope, she slid her hand to the sunken side of the bed where Herman normally slept. It was cold and without.
Dread forced itself on her and horrible new scenarios inked into the channels of her mind. Her mouth went dry and all of a sudden she needed water badly. She climbed out of bed and went out into the living room. A form was curled up on the couch. Taking only a few steps closer, she realized it was Faye and felt some relief.
The kitchen spread out before Janet, twice the size she remembered it. Everything was immaculate and put away, and on the table, there was indeed a pineapple upside-down cake under cellophane. Janet opened the refrigerator and a meat loaf dinner, complete with mashed potatoes, green peas, and cornbread had all been compartmentalized in Tupperware. The food looked good enough to eat cold, but Janet grabbed for the water pitcher instead.
She poured a glass of water and drank it all. Then poured half a glass and steadily sipped on it. Her taste buds interpreted the texture of the water with a sour aversion at first. She anticipated the sharp sting of alcohol, but there wasn’t one.
She drank the rest of the glass and returned the pitcher.
As the fridge closed, the kitchen went black again and her eyes had to adjust. Through the window to the backyard, she saw something stand out starkly in the nightscape. She recognized the bottle’s long, delicate form and obscene black tint. Why hadn’t Lester batted it around like he did with his other toys? She would have bet good money she’d find the bottle somewhere against the fence the next day, a sticky film of doggy slobber all over it. But no, the bottle was still upright and at the mouth of the dog’s little den.
“I’ll get you the magic water like I did for Lester. Hold on baby. Hold on!”
The memory was Herman’s voice, but Janet didn’t trust it; the context of the recollection had been removed and sounded like a line from a movie she’d never seen. The most bizarre part was she recalled his words so clearly and yet there were no images tied to them. If she believed in a soul, she might have considered Herman speaking to her through his emotions; like he was in some far away place, yes, and he was feeling this communication to me.
Sleep beckoned. That was more important than stirring this strange soup in her mind any further. The bottle though, she resolved, had to be taken away from Lester. He could step on it, break it and really hurt himself. This should have been done already.
With awful thoughts of a dog tearing open a major artery while she selfishly slept, Janet knew it couldn’t wait for a more convenient moment. She’d be up all night if she didn’t get the bottle now.
She grabbed Faye’s small moss colored jacket draped over a chair. The jacket didn’t button up over Janet’s chest, but it would do for the short trip across the backyard. Soaking her slippers in wet grass was more on her mind, but she knew if she returned to her room she’d just talk herself out of going back.
The sliding glass door made no sound, which she was grateful for, but outside a rhythmic knocking came from the far side of the yard. The gate was banging against the fence—the wind must have forced it open again. Janet looked down on the porch. Lester’s food had been messily eaten and his water reduced by more than half. That made her feel somewhat better and she took to the yard.
The grass was moist but not terribly wet. Janet stepped carefully, afraid of squishing any canine landmines under her slippers. As she neared the dog house, Lester’s head sprung up. He was awake and as alert as ever.
“Hey Les,” she said, to remind him who approached.
The dog’s panting made her feel slightly more at ease. He wasn’t acting nuts like earlier today. Gradually, she pushed out her fist, letting him run his cold wet, sniffing nose over her knuckles. From there, she glided her hand over his face and petted his head, told him he was a good boy, then scratched him behind the ears, grabbed the bottle by its neck with her other hand, rubbed under his chin, patted him on the head, called him a nice doggy again.
Which she’d always believed he was.
Lester looked up in the darkness and whined. He lowered his head to his paws, but continued to stare at her and the bottle.
The bottle felt empty but fluid sloshed around inside.
Janet returned to the house, relieved to be done with her task. She went straight to bed and put the bottle on her nightstand. She didn’t want to throw her treasure away just yet, not after winning it as she had.
As soon as dawn broke, she planned to call the police. Seeing cops in her home again would not be easy, but Herman’s absence had gone beyond even her thin reasoning about him running off.
Something had happened to him.
If he never came back, what then? What next?
She needed a drink, she decided. Or maybe a strong rope.
After a moment her eyes drifted over to stare at the bottle’s shape: beautiful, painful, useful. Janet was so glad it was here.
7
Janet tapped her teeth to the point of irritating her gums. How long ago had Faye left to go check the gym for Herman? Five minutes? Ten? That still gave her enough time to throw on a coat and shoes, jump in the car and grab a couple Jim Beam travelers from the college liquor store. Just traveler size, nothing bigger. Whiskey didn’t sound very good at the moment but if any bad news came about Herman, she would need it.
She promised Faye she’d call the police if Herman didn’t turn up at the gym, but that possibility still terrified Janet. If the cops got involved, this thing became more
real, more in-your-face.
But she couldn’t wait another day without doing something. Herman hadn’t taken anything from the house, not even his toothbrush, and he was damn picky about having the electric GE model he’d had to buy on the internet—yet, maybe this had finally been his clean break for his awful wife. It just didn’t sound like him; Herman liked to hide under a rock sometimes but he’d always come back out at some point to prove he was unhurt. If he did come walking back through that door, he would focus on how she’d driven him away.
That was fine. She deserved the blame. Bring it on. Just come back, Herman. Come back. I can’t die until I know you’re still alive.
She wrung her hands and paced the bedroom. The bottle, which she’d kept hidden from Faye in her master bathroom, poked its long fluted neck into her peripheral vision. Janet had been second-guessing herself all morning about uncorking it. Not like she’d had a chance until now. Earlier, she had to sit down with Faye for breakfast, a lecture, and an ultimatum.
“As soon as I come back, we’re on that phone, babe. He could be really hurt. Evan’s probably out of his mind by now.”
Evan was out of his mind, all right.
Now that Janet was alone and ready to throw herself headlong into liquor again, she marveled that the answer might be waiting in her bathroom. It was a long-shot the bottle’s contents turned out to be a beverage, but she had to at least check before sneaking to the store. Yes, sneaking, that’s what she’d been reduced to, but who the hell cared?
Janet walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. The darkness of the bottle had such a presence that the bar of bright vanity lights hardly eked out any luminosity. With some measure of caution, she picked up the bottle and grabbed the cork between her thumb and forefinger. It didn’t take much to pull the long, sodden cork free. There wasn’t a pop, not even a release of trapped air.
She sniffed carefully over the mouth of the bottle, hoping to get alcohol’s nice flaming bee-sting in the nostril, but the soft scent from inside somehow watered her eyes without the pungency desired, like a flower could. In spite of the sloshing around, she couldn’t see any liquid and with how very light it was, she wondered if this was a trick bottle. That would make sense, for all its magical, otherworldly appearance. Some kid might have bought it at a gimmick store and dropped it in the field behind their house.
Bottled Abyss Page 7