BABY WITH THE BEAST

by Naomi West

  “What’s going on?” he stutters.

  “How many of you are here?” I ask him. I can’t hide the anger in my voice, even if it’s not anger at him. It’s anger at Grimace, and Chino, and the whole situation.

  “Six, seven, including me, sir.” The homeless man bows his head. “We was quiet when you were calling but that last bit … what you mean there’s gonna be a fire? Here?”

  I look over his shoulder. A woman, about Willa’s age, just as grimy as he is.

  “That’s my wife, mister,” the man says, moving so that he’s standing between us. Maybe he thinks I want her. “What d’you mean, sir?”

  “Nothing,” I say, dropping my matches into my pocket. “I don’t mean a damn thing, friend. Go back to sleep.”

  I walk away without looking back. It’s the first time I’ve been sent to burn a place down and haven’t seen flames in my rearview mirror when I’ve ridden away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Willa

  As the weeks go by and summer gets even more brutally hot, I wonder what I am. I don’t ask myself who I am, but what. What, exactly, am I in relation to Diesel and Peter? I left Diesel lying in bed, looking down at him and feeling like my body was going to break in half because I wanted to stay with him and I needed to go in equal measure. When I arrived on Peter’s doorstep, he smiled and welcomed me in like a real gentleman. He had a spare room, and the door even had a lock on it. So I felt safe. I felt alone. I could tell myself I was just a tenant, nothing more.

  But this question keeps occurring to me. Was I Diesel’s girlfriend? Am I now his ex-girlfriend? Does Peter think that he and I are boyfriend and girlfriend, or are at least going to be soon? It’s clear that he wants that. I spend most of my time here in my room. When I take a shower, I take my clothes with me and get changed in there. When I eat, I make my food quickly and take it to my room. I do everything in my power to remain isolated—I need time to think, to reason all this out, and to deal with these pesky insurance people—but Peter still makes it clear what he’d like to happen.

  He crumbled around the three-week mark, stopping me on my way to the kitchen one evening. He was sitting on the couch watching TV. “Hello!” he said, way too loudly. “How are you doing, Willa?”

  I offered him a smile. “Fine, thank you.” When I made for the kitchen again, he patted the space next to him.

  “Come and watch some TV,” he said.

  “Uh—”

  “Come and watch TV,” he repeated. This time his voice had a desperate note in it.

  I felt sorry for him. He looked and sounded so pathetic. So I went and sat next to him and we watched TV for a while, some drama about cops in Baltimore. Neither of us was watching the TV, however. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye and I was watching him watch me, getting pretty creeped out.

  His eyes kept locking onto my legs. I wanted to wear pants every day but it was so hot. Part of me suspected Peter purposefully set the AC to be warm, knowing I’d be wearing a skirt or shorts. When Diesel looked at my legs, I got wet, horny. When Peter looked at them, I felt cold and stale. I felt like I wanted to take a shower to wash the look away.

  “I’m going to make some food now,” I said. “And then try and get some work done.”

  “Right … okay … right …”

  He squinted at me as I went into the kitchen. I felt his eyes on me as I started preparing the food, and when I looked over the divider which separated the kitchen from the living room, sure enough he was staring at me, pouting like a little kid.

  I’ll always remember that pout. Even today, sitting in the office at work weeks later, I remember it. It’s seared into my memory because it was so pathetic. I tried to ignore it as I put the frozen meal into the microwave, but then I had to wait three minutes for the meal to nuke, giving Peter an opportunity to come into the kitchen with his empty glass and head for the sink. I pressed myself against the wall, wishing I could make myself completely flat.

  He mumbled something. It was clear he wanted me to ask him what he’d said, so I kept my mouth firmly shut. For the umpteenth time, I asked myself why I was waiting on the insurance people. I should be doing something else, anything else. Maybe I should go to a homeless shelter. But the idea of being on the streets terrified me more than Peter’s pouting did. He filled up his glass and then turned to me, the hum of the microwave the backing track.

  “I thought we’d watch a movie together tonight,” he said. His eyes strayed to my bare legs. I took a step back, as if that could hide them. “You can pick. It’d be nice, don’t you think, for roommates to watch a movie together? Isn’t that what roommates do, instead of hide in their bedrooms all the time?”

  I imagined the night he wanted to have: sliding his hand up my leg, wrapping his arm over my shoulders, kissing me on the forehead, falling into bed together. Worms, maggots, spiders crawled over my body, up my neck, into my mouth. I felt like I wanted to gag. Being with Diesel was so, so wrong, and yet it felt about one hundred times more right than this.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I want to do that.”

  Peter gripped his glass, and then laughed and smiled without humor and placed the glass on the counter. “I’ve been nice to you, haven’t I?” he asked. “I’m sure I’ve been nice to you. I let you stay here. I let you … Come on, Willa. Watch a movie with me.” He closed the distance between us, standing way too close to me. “I can be romantic if you give me a chance.”

  “No!” I snapped, taking my microwave meal into the bedroom, not caring that it scalded my hand.

  Sitting at my desk, I reflect that it wasn’t that bad. He didn’t outright try to kiss me or anything like that. And since then he’s been okay, even if his eyes do still stray. I’m saving up my pittance from the station job to try and pay for a motel for at least a month while I figure out what to do. Hopefully the insurance people will stop messing me around by then. So I just have to ride it out a little longer. I think about how easy it would be to return to Diesel’s place, to fall into his arms, easy and satisfying and incredible. But apparently I’d rather dodge around Peter than fall into the arms of the man I can’t stop thinking about.

  I click away from my Word document for a moment and go onto the news website. I refresh the page for my LA fire newsfeed and glance down the results. There have been four fires that fit Diesel’s pattern since I split with him … four buildings turned to charred frames. Nobody has been killed, but two families have been forced to move from their homes. And people could have been killed. I stare at the page, reminding myself why I’m staying clear of him. This is why. This is what I have to do. One day I’ll forget Diesel. One day I’ll forget living with Peter. One day I’ll be living alone, far away from either of them, and all this will seem like—

  I barge through into the bathroom, stumbling into a stall and falling to my knees just in time to vomit violently into the bowl. I grip my belly. It feels like there’s something alive in there, twisting my insides. I vomit again, again, splattering the bowl, my mouth tasting like acid. I slump down on the floor, leaning against the wall, wrists on my knees, and breathing heavily. I don’t know what the hell just happened to me.

  “Willa?” It’s Brittany, sounding annoyed and kind of concerned in the way only Brittany can. “What’s going on in there?”

  Since our argument about me moving in with her, we haven’t talked much except small talk. But right now she seems like the only friend I’ve got here. “I don’t know,” I say. “I was just working and then I was going to be sick, like, right that second. No warning or anything.”

  “Oh.” I can hear Brittany stroking her chin. I imagine makeup scraping beneath her fingernails. “Oh,” she repeats. “Willa, when did you last have your monthly?”

  Monthly, I wonder. Is she talking about a magazine? Then it hits me. I count back. When did I last have my period?

  Shit.

  “Over a month ago,” I whisper.

  “What’s that?” Br
ittany calls.

  “Over a month ago,” I say, louder. And then the sickness returns and I’m hunched over the bowl, dry heaving.

  “Over a month ago,” Brittany repeats. “I’m going to run to the store for you. Over a month ago … silly, silly girl.”

  I don’t have a chance to respond because the sickness hits me again. I manage to flush the toilet and splash water in my face just in time for Brittany to return, a small plastic bag clutched in her hand. “Over a month ago? How long?” She looks at me over the top of her glasses. “Two weeks, three, four …”

  “I’m not sure.” I take the plastic bag from her. “I don’t know, okay?”

  “It’s your period!” Brittany throws her hands up. The multicolored fabric of her flowing dress flutters around her. “How can’t you know?”

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” I say, knowing that my real mom never would have reacted like this. She would have helped me without the scorn. “Can I have the test now, oh mighty one?”

  “Do not talk to me like that,” Brittany says, glaring. With her big glasses, her glare is magnified. “I am helping you and you talk to me like that? What is the matter with you? There must be something wrong with you.”

  She holds the plastic bag back, almost as ransom.

  I sigh, and then say, “I’m sorry, okay? Can I just have the test?”

  She gives it to me and then goes and stands by the door. “I’ll stand guard,” she says.

  I’m not sure I need anybody to stand guard, but I don’t have the energy for another Brittany argument so I nod and go into a stall, a different one, one that doesn’t reek of vomit. I hear Brittany clicking her tongue outside, making it distracting as hell as I take the test from its box and hold it in the bowl. My heart is thumping in my mouth, through my tongue, right into my eyeballs. Pregnant, pregnant with Diesel’s baby … pregnant with Diesel’s baby! I force myself to calm down, take a deep breath. Maybe I’m just late.

  “How’s it going in there?” Brittany calls.

  I want to snap at her, “It’d be going a lot easier if you’d just go away.” But I know that would cause her to go on a Brittany rant, and I’m in no mood for that.

  “Fine,” I say. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Okay …” She sounds like an impatient teenager.

  I think of all the times I’ve needed to pee so badly I thought I’d do it in my underwear, sitting on buses and trains, legs crossed, biting my lip, praying for a toilet. And now, sitting on a toilet, my bladder doesn’t want to cooperate. It’s almost like my body doesn’t want me to find out if I’m pregnant or not. But eventually, after what feels like an hour, I manage a trickle onto the stick. Once I’ve cleaned myself up, I go to the sink and wash my hands, placing the test on the counter.

  “How long does it take?” Brittany peers over my shoulder at the test. In the mirror, I see her reflection. She looks way too eager.

  “One minute, it says.”

  It’s the longest minute of my life. I bite my fingernails, chewing the forefinger down to a stub and starting on the middle finger before the test tells me that, yes, I am pregnant with Diesel’s baby.

  “Wow,” Brittany says. “Just, wow … you and Peter are going to have a baby.”

  “What?” I wheel on her, face burning red. “What are you talking about, Brittany?”

  “You and Peter …” She gestures at the test, looking at me like I’ve had a bump to the head. “That’s great news. Crazy news.”

  “Peter isn’t the father,” I snap. I shouldn’t be telling her this. I shouldn’t be telling her anything. But I can’t have her floating around the station telling people that Peter and I are having a kid.

  “Who is, then?” She peers closely at me. “You’ve been living with Peter for a month now, almost, and one can only assume that it started before then …”

  “What started? Peter and I are just friends.”

  Brittany folds her arms. “Honey, if you believe that, you need to grow up. Do you really think a man invites you to stay with him because he wants to be friends? Either he’s fucked you or he wants to fuck you, sweetie. So I’ll ask you again. Who’s the father?”

  “Why are you being so fucking mean?” I hiss. “I don’t know what I’ve ever done to you, Brittany. Why do you hate me?”

  Brittany brings her hand to her chest melodramatically. “Hate you? Whoever said I hate you? What a horrible thing to think! I don’t hate you. I care about you deeply. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  The words hold none of the accompanying feeling. She sounds like a text-to-speech program repeating the statement by rote. I grind my teeth, but say nothing. My world has just been cracked down the middle and the last thing I need is Brittany watching as the sole spectator. I swallow a retort, swallow anger, swallow pride, and nod. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m going back to my desk now.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” She mimes a crude throwing-up gesture.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m great.”

  I return to my desk determined not to be sick, or to show any sign that something out of the ordinary has happened. I try and get back into the copy but my fingers keep typing traitor’s sentences: Diesel is my baby’s daddy … I can’t believe this … What am I going to do …

  I click onto the news page and move the mouse cursor over the headlines. My feelings are at war with each other. One half of me wants to jump up and down with joy, because the fantasies I secretly entertained about having a baby with Diesel are coming true. Another part of me wants to throw the computer screen to the floor, because Diesel is an arsonist. That clearly hasn’t changed.

  By the end of my day, all my fingernails are stubs, one of them bitten down so much that it starts to bleed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Willa

  This bedroom will never feel like mine. I don’t think I’ve had a bedroom since Mom died which really felt like mine. Even at Grandma’s, my bedroom felt like some other girl’s. I always felt like an intruder as I lay down, even with my posters around me. I never quite felt like I could relax. It’s the same in Peter’s place. My bag with my clothes is pressed against one wall. I wash the clothes, dry them, and then put them back into the bag. I guess it’s so I can tell myself I’m leaving here soon. Everything else is how it was when I moved in. A bland, normal, run-of-the-mill guest room.

  I lie on the bed and stare up at the ceiling, wondering what I’m going to do. Outside, one of the rarest occurrences in living memory is happening. It’s raining in LA in the summer. It’s a light downpour, pitter-pattering against the window, but it still has all the news stations in an uproar. When it started this afternoon, the phone lines went crazy. LA people can’t handle the rain.

  But the rain isn’t what concerns me. Diesel is. He’s an arsonist; he’s the only man I want to be with; he’s a criminal; he’s the father of my unborn child. These are all facts I can’t ignore, even if they don’t fit well together. I want to be with him. I can’t be with him. Why does life have to be so confusing?

  The knock startles me. I sit up. “Yeah?”

  “It’s me. I made pizza.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I reply, already lying back down.

  “Please, Willa, just have some pizza. I made it for both of us. I’m not going to eat it all.” The whining note in his voice is too much to take. I try and ignore it, but he goes on. “I let you live here without paying any rent. I let you ignore me, treating this place like a hostel. The least you could do is—”

  I walk across the room and throw open the door. I haven’t got the energy to have a battle of words with him. He jumps back, holding his hands up, and then smiles. “You scared me,” he says.

  My chest drops a mile when I see what he’s done. He’s set up a circular dining table in the living room, cleared the couch and the chair, and put a candle on it. And he’s wearing a suit. Oh God, and now he’s leaning across to kiss me on the cheek. I dodge out of the way.

  “P
eter, what is this?”

  The corner of his lips twitch. “I’m trying to be romantic,” he says. “I know women like you need romance, Willa, so that’s what I’m doing.”

  It’s like a scene from a movie, without any of the magic. I imagine him watching some movie and thinking to himself: ah, this will get her! What does he expect me to do, crumble at the sight of some a candle? Does he expect me to become the woman he desperately wants me to be? I feel guilty for ever moving in here. It was a mistake. I should’ve let myself become homeless instead of coming here.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  “I don’t … I don’t think I can be here anymore.”