The Vow

by Jessica Martinez

  The nasal apartment buzzer—the auditory equivalent of a rusty nail probing the softest part of my brain—sends Satan’s Cat scrambling off the couch. She’s jumpy. Probably related to a guilty conscience.

  I drag myself up and off the couch and stumble through the cloud of dizziness swirling my field of vision around like a psychedelic glow stick. Is this the first time I’ve stood up today? Yeah. Maybe. I can’t really remember when yesterday ended and today started, and I must’ve gotten up to pee at some point. I shuffle my way over to the intercom and hold the wall-mounted box for a moment to steady myself. When things look relatively solid, I depress the red button. “Yeah?” My voice is gravel, tar, and a cheese grater.

  “Let me up.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Very funny, Mo. Let me up.”

  “This sounds like a girl I used to know. Annabelle, I believe her name was.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. The weekend’s been a little crazy.”

  “For you, too? I’ve been wrestling with a possessed feline and contemplating whether a toaster in the bathtub would actually do the job.”

  “You’d better be talking about killing the cat.”

  “Actually, I was referring to both of us. We’ve made a murder-suicide pact.”

  “You can’t make a murder-suicide pact. It’s just a suicide pact, and you don’t make one with a cat.”

  “I’m not even sure she’s a cat,” I explain. “She could be, like, I don’t know, the devil incarnate.”

  “Let me up.”

  “If it’s not a murder-suicide pact, what do you call it when she promised to kill me if I don’t kill myself ?”

  “Mo!”

  “Fine.”

  I press the gray button, look around, and realize too late that I’ve made a mistake. She’s going to go nuts. I’ve got three days’ worth of dirty dishes on the coffee table and half a box of used tissue from when I may have shed a few manly tears about being abandoned, all scattered around the permanent body imprint I’ve left on the couch. Four empty bottles of Mountain Dew on the end table, and oh yeah, and a family-size box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on its side beside the couch with about two hundred tiny cinnamon toasts sprinkled across the carpet, which I may have accidentally kicked over and trudged through on my way to the intercom. And the boxes I was supposed to unpack—my clothes, my books, some dishes and kitchen crap that I don’t even know how to use, some decorating stuff my mom insisted I keep—are all still stacked in a tower in the corner, unopened. Satan’s Cat is perched stone-like, glaring down at me from the top one. Hell’s gargoyle.

  Annie doesn’t knock. The door opens and she takes a few cautious steps into the cave, looking around without a word. She’s wearing another one of those sundress things that she doesn’t seem to realize make her look like she’s a five-year-old time traveler from the 1950s. There’s something else different about her too, but it takes me a moment to figure it out. Her hair is curled. She hasn’t curled her hair since Chris Dorsey. Great.

  She places her purse oh-so-gingerly on an open patch of carpet, then turns a slow circle. She saw the place last week after we’d just moved the boxes in, before my family left, so she knows what it’s supposed to look like. I brace for impact. I’m predicting the words “disgusting,” “pig,” and “health inspector” in any order.

  What I’m not predicting is for her to turn, put her hand on my arm, and say, “Oh.”

  Just oh.

  I underestimated her. The way she looks at me, eyes bigger than gumballs, it’s clear I’m not the revolting, unshowered mess of a human being I’ve morphed into over the last forty-eight hours. We’re not even at Wisper Pines. We’re at the Louisville Children’s Science Center, I’ve got piss running down both of my legs, and she’s the only one in the world who sees me.

  I swallow and turn away. She doesn’t try to hug me, and for that alone, I will love her forever.

  She starts with the food, scooping handfuls of cereal into an empty grocery bag she finds in the kitchen. I watch for a few numb seconds, then go off to find the vacuum cleaner.

  When I get back she’s holding an empty Mountain Dew bottle in each hand. “Recycling bin?”

  “Can’t do it. Global warming conspiracy theory is way too mainstream.”

  She doesn’t even roll her eyes, just tosses them into the trash.

  I gather the tissues and chuck them too. “I had a cold,” I mutter, in case she’s wondering, but she doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.

  Satan’s Cat watches it all from her perch until Annie opens up a can of cat food and scoops it into a bowl. For this, the beast hops down from her roost, slinks and weaves her way through Annie’s legs, then begins taking dainty little bites.

  I glare at the beast. When I feed her, she pounces on it, stopping to hiss every few seconds to let me know her feelings for me haven’t changed just because I’m keeping her alive.

  “No offense,” Annie says after a few minutes of cleaning, “but how long has it been since you showered?”

  “Uh . . .” I can’t even remember what day I took them to the airport. Friday? And today’s Sunday? No, Monday. Maybe.

  “Go shower.”

  I obey, relieved to be bossed around, relieved to not be having another staring contest with Satan’s Cat, relieved someone is offended by my stench. And my obedience leads to the discovery of Wisper Pines’s finest amenity: the showerhead. They really should have included it in the brochure. I mean, the tennis and basketball courts plus community gardens are lovely features, but this showerhead is way better because it feels like I’m being pelted by skin-melting lasers, and it’s something I’m going to use every day. Well, theoretically. If I’d known, I would’ve spent the last two or three or four days in here instead of lying on the couch.

  Facing the nozzle, I lean into the pressure wash of scalding water and steam until the grime shell is gone. I don’t turn it off until my skin is too sore for one more second. I’m raw all over. But transformed too, because I feel seventeen again—not seventy or seven—too young to be dying, too old to be homesick. Or family-sick. For now it’s all scalded away.

  I shave, put on fresh clothes, and leave the bathroom to find Annie digging through my life. Basketball trophies, report cards, immunization records, a badge-covered shirt from my ill-advised foray into the world of the Boy Scouts of America. She sifts through it without taking it out of the box, then moves on to the next one.

  “My clothes,” I say. “I’ll do them.” I reach down and take the box from her. She doesn’t protest or ask me why I’m such a lazy piece of crap for just letting them sit here instead of unpacking like a normal human being.

  From my room I can hear her taking out the contents of the next box, and I know it’s the one I don’t want unpacked because I can hear the clinking of candlesticks.

  The apartment came furnished, but my mom insisted on leaving a few things to make it like home. I know exactly what’s in there because I saw her pack it up. Family portraits in matching silver frames. Her favorite candlesticks, like I’m ever in a million years going to light candles. A hand-woven silk table runner that belonged to her mother. This ancient anthology of children’s stories she read to Sarina and me when we were little. Stuff I don’t want to see right now.

  “Just leave that stuff in the box,” I call from the room.

  “But some of it’s really pretty. Don’t you at least want the family pictures out? And what’s this old book?”

  “I don’t want to see it right now,” I yell, too loudly, and instantly regret the blatant desperation. “Please,” I try again, softer. “Just leave it.”

  Silence. I stick my head out the door and I see her small body bent over the candlesticks. She’s rewrapping them in the table runner, placing them gently back into the box like she’s afraid they’ll detonate.

  By the time I’ve found drawer space for all my clothes, Annie’s long done with the living room and nearly finished unpacking the kitche
n boxes too.

  “Thank you,” I say, sliding into a chair at the kitchen table. I know I’m alone in believing this, but people overuse those words so they mean almost nothing at a time like this, when I need them to mean everything. I can only think of a few times in my whole life I’ve ever been more grateful. She deserves a million thank-yous.

  “It’s nothing. I should’ve come by sooner.”

  “No. I really mean it. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything this nice for you.”

  “A couple of hours of cleaning? You spent at least twenty hours tutoring me for chemistry last semester. I bombed the final, by the way.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s embarrassing.”

  “How bad?”

  She tucks her hair behind her ears and squeezes her eyes shut like that’ll help her forget. “You don’t want to know. And it was algebra the semester before that, and biology the semester before that, so you do nice things for me all the time.”

  I let it go. But this wasn’t nice. This was heroic. Life-altering.

  “So, what’s going on with you?” I ask.

  “Nothing. Sorry I haven’t called. I knew you were spending every second with your family, and then this weekend has just been kind of busy.”

  “You hooked up with that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “The one with the plant name. Weed.”

  “Reed.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Him.”

  She bites her lower lip in classic Annie concentration. Her face says: formulating lie, formulating lie, formulating lie, crap, can’t formulate a lie, change the subject. “I hate the term hooked up.”

  “Noted.”

  “No really. Can we not say hung out with?”

  “We can, but it means something different. And it’s obvious you and the Weed have done both.”

  “Why is that obvious?”

  “Because otherwise you would have just answered the question.”

  “Hmm.” She taps her fingers on the countertop. Her nails are pink. This is serious.

  “So when do I get to meet him?” I ask.

  “Never.”

  “What? How is that even possible? As your husband, I demand to meet the dude you’re making out with. ”

  “And as your wife, I demand you let it go. When do we meet with the lawyer?”

  “If today is actually Monday, then tomorrow at nine in the morning. And he’s just a law student. Supposedly, I don’t need a real lawyer, just some know-it-all with legal tendencies to tell me which forms to fill out.”

  “I’m kind of surprised you actually made the call.”

  “I didn’t,” I admit. “I kept putting it off until my dad freaked out and at the last minute called for me. It’s in Louisville, but you don’t have to go if you’ve got work or hookup plans that interfere.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she says, but I can tell she doesn’t want to. From the way she grimaced under the word “wife,” it’s clear she’s experiencing buyer’s remorse. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight?”

  “Sure.”

  “And do I have to know anything or say anything?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t even see the point of it. I think we just show up and smile.”

  “I can do that.” She exhales and her shoulders drop a little. She looks worried. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I glance around me. Okay. Am I going to be okay? “Yeah?”

  “Really?”

  I have no idea. I don’t even know if I want to be okay. Up until an hour ago, dedicating myself to winning the love of Satan’s Cat or killing her was actually starting to sound like a viable life plan.

  I lean over, rest my chin on my palm, and stare at the grout between two tiles. Grout is way less likely to make me cry than Annie’s eyes all full of sympathy and worry. “I didn’t think it was going to be this hard. Saying good-bye, I mean. But I can take care of myself.”

  “I know.”

  “Not that you’d believe me based on the state of this place an hour ago, but I’ll do better.”

  “I believe you. But I need you to be okay okay. Like not too depressed to shower or eat or talk to humans.”

  “Annie.”

  “Mo.”

  “My family just left. Left. They did it. It’s over. My childhood, everything, I’m—” I stop myself just short of saying what I really mean: I’m completely alone. It’s too pitiful. “I’ll be okay.”

  “You’ve got me.”

  I run both hands through my hair. It’s still wet and I feel the water drip down into the collar of my shirt. “I know. But my sister had to leave, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what I’ve done to deserve to be sitting here, while she’s somewhere learning how to wrap up her head so nobody sees hair.”

  “So don’t waste it.”

  I look up from the grout into Annie’s eyes. Sometimes she says the most brilliant things. “Okay.”

  She pulls out her cell, to check the time I assume—of course, the prison guards will be waiting for her—but then she puts it up to her ear and turns to face the cabinets, as if this prevents me from hearing her conversation.

  “Hi . . . Yeah, I know, but I’m going to be late . . . With Mo . . . Can’t you just tell Dad I can’t make it? . . . Because . . . Mom . . . his family left two days ago. . . . Maybe. . . . I’ll ask him. . . . I’ll call you back.”

  She hangs up. “Do you want to come over to my house for dinner?”

  I pretend to think about it for a couple of seconds. She pretends to believe that I’m thinking about it. And then I shake my head no.

  It’s been a while since I’ve been to dinner at the Berniers’, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed. Good food, bad feel. Bloodless and brittle. Lena must’ve been the heart that pumped life into those people, the walls, the air. I don’t understand where Annie fits into all of it or how she even survives, but it’s dry and colorless and fragile, and I’d rather eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch on my couch and have another staring contest with Satan’s Cat.

  She nods, understands. She takes out her phone, dials her mom again, and turns back to the cabinets. “Hi . . . No, he’s got a lot to do here. Actually, I’m going to stay and help him. . . . I know. . . . I don’t care. . . . Yes, I am. . . . Tell him I’ll be back by midnight. . . . I’m eighteen. . . . Just because. . . .”

  I get up and walk back into the living room. Satan’s Cat is perched on a single box in the corner, the one I wouldn’t let Annie unpack. Back when the cat was Duchess, Sarina played games with her every evening, hid her catnip toys, actually stroked her fur.

  I wonder what Sarina’s doing now. I’m assuming Jordan has a plethora of nasty cats to love, but I can’t imagine she’s adopted one already. She’s probably lying in bed clutching a stuffed animal, worrying about whether or not I’ve remembered to read Duchess a bedtime story. I check my inbox to see if she’s responded to the email I sent yesterday. Nothing.

  “TV?” Annie asks, flopping down on the couch.

  “Sure. Don’t get in trouble over me, though. I’m okay if you have to go.”

  She purses her lips and examines the remote. “I know. I’m exerting a little independence. You know, being my own woman and all that crap.”

  “But they just bought you a brand-new car. Maybe you shouldn’t piss them off.”

  Satan’s Cat hops off the box and onto Annie’s lap. “If I was going that route, I’d have told them I got married last week.”

  “Good point,” I say, and sit down beside her. “But I don’t want them hating me any more than they already do, on the off chance they do find out and your dad is deciding whether to kill me or only cut my testicles off.”

  “Do you want me here?” she asks.

  “Of course.”

  “Then shut up.”

  “Okay.”

  We watch a double episode of COPS, then stop to make dinner, which consists of grille
d cheese sandwiches—possibly the best I’ve ever tasted—and a pear she finds in her purse. We split it bite for bite, and it’s the first fruit or vegetable (excluding Crunch Berries) I’ve had in days, so it tastes pretty incredible. Next up, a reality show about an animal stuffer with a shop called Xtreme Taxidermy, which completely captivates Satan’s Cat, which reaffirms that my name choice for her was a good one. And the last show I remember is Access Hollywood, but I fall asleep in the opening sequence, vaguely aware that I’ve got my feet on Annie’s lap and that I’m not miserable for the first time in days.

  * * *

  When I wake up at seven the next morning, Annie’s gone. But the cat is asleep on the couch directly above my head, either keeping sentinel or plotting to smother me. Either way she fell asleep and failed to accomplish her goal.

  The note on the coffee table says: Pick you up at 8:00.

  I check the clock. 7:15.

  In the next forty-five minutes I take my second Wisper Pines shower, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, iron a dress shirt in case I’m supposed to look presentable, and lose another staring contest to Satan’s Cat before I decide to go wait outside.

  Outside is weird. I haven’t been outside in days. The sun feels slightly abrasive, to the point of making my skin itch, and I’m hearing an uncomfortable number of sounds. Not particularly loud, but too many little ones: birds, cars, wind, bicycles and their bells, leashed animals, chatty walkers—it seems excessive. I’m turning to go back inside when Annie rolls up. The glossy new car surprises me. I wonder if in my mind she’ll always be driving the old truck.

  “I forgot how in-your-face this thing is,” I say, climbing into the passenger seat.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That it looks like an obsidian chariot from outer space.”

  “I see you’re feeling more like yourself,” she says. “That’s probably a good thing. Would you rather take your car?”