by Beth Bloom
I let my body fall forward, my chest against my knees, my head on the ground, and let my eyes get blurry. Sunshine soaked my skin, scalding, numbing me. Every bridge was burned or burning.
I needed to run away, but James had driven and he wouldn’t be getting up till later, and I couldn’t justify stealing his car since he was the only person I still knew who didn’t hate me. I thought about walking, I thought about the line in that song: “Only a nobody walks in L.A.” Leaning against the house was Whit’s black Schwinn ten-speed, but I’d never learned past training wheels. Triple stranded. No choice but to go back upstairs and flip through old magazines and think about all the movies where someone dies from being poisoned.
An hour later, in James’s room, still in my panties, hot as hell, woozy, sweating, trying to remember if anyone actually died in that poisoned goblet scene in The Princess Bride, I had a brief but important reality check: my parents. What day of the week was it? When had I promised them I’d be home next? When was the last time I’d gotten a note stuck to my cheek? I had answers for none of these. I had to at least call. But James had no phone, only the main house did. This day just kept sucking.
I hunted around for my clothes, but when I found my skirt I remembered why I wasn’t wearing it: James had accidentally ripped a huge tear down the middle of it last night. Hot and heavy then, stupid and annoying now. I glanced around the room for something to cover myself with, but he wore the same clothes every day, he owned nothing. Folded neatly in a corner I found a faded, threadbare quilt and wrapped it around my body like some toga-dress thing. It’d have to do. I slipped on my high-tops and headed for the front door.
Knocking would only bring someone who didn’t want me around, so I tried the knob first and it opened. I tiptoed through the living room, maneuvering for the phone next to some hand-carved African lamp. Then I heard a spoon against a bowl and Whit’s voice: “Breaking and entering?”
He was in the doorway to the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal, staring at me.
“I just needed to call home real fast, sorry.”
“I don’t care, go ahead,” he said, going back into the kitchen. I heard him drop his bowl into the sink and then pad down the stairs.
I dialed, waited through three rings, then left a message: doing fine, be home soon, no big thing. As vague as possible. Obviously I was—as my mother would say—cruisin’ for a serious bruisin’ in the grounding department. Somehow not the top worry on my list.
Now what?
The question echoed in my head. James was in a coma till dusk. Naomi’s arrival was impending. Whit wanted nothing to do with me. I was still half-naked. I felt pathetic, depressed, a wreck. No pants, no car, no training wheels.
I collapsed at the top of the stairs and sat on the first step. In my head I saw Libby floating in the desert, Morgan scowling by the pool, Naomi screaming, Whit frowning. Then suddenly I saw Whit—in reality, at the bottom of the stairs—not frowning, just looking at me, a slight smirk around his mouth, one hand on the banister. Something had thawed.
“The song remains the same with you, huh, Lacey?”
I dropped my head—it was all so seriously ridiculous—and then Whit was there, putting an arm around my shoulder, leading me to his room.
With Whit not hating me, I saw it all again like I did the first time: William Claxton, Woody Allen, Edward Hopper, Groucho Marx, Arthur Miller. Plays, records, drawings, photos. Whit was the coolest. He slouched against his pillows, and I sat on the edge of the bed.
“So,” he said. “How’d everything go last night?”
I dragged out a long sigh.
“That awesome, huh?”
“I’m over it.”
He sat up next to me. “You’re never over anything.”
“Can’t help Libby, and she can’t help us.”
“What did James say?”
“Nothing.”
Then Whit said nothing. He opened his mouth but just to breathe through it. When he lifted his hands, I thought they were coming for me, to touch my face or stroke my hair, but Whit only took off his glasses for a second and rubbed his eyes. “So is there a plan?”
“Sort of. I don’t really understand it.”
“It’ll be okay, Quinn.”
“I guess.”
Life was a Malibu wave, surf it or sink. Or stay out of the water. But it was too late for that.
Eventually we relaxed. I curved my body like a C around Whit. The room felt safe and sound. The night felt far away. At some point I sank into sleep.
And when, sometime later, Whit roused me awake, the room was much darker.
“Naomi’s in her room,” he said.
“I better go.”
“Don’t forget the, uh”—Whit pointed to my bare legs—“thing.”
“Thanks.” I ruffled the hair on the top of his head, grabbed the quilt, and hobbled my way out his door and up the stairs, still yawning.
I was a couple of steps into the kitchen when my heart seized and I froze: A stranger in an old sweatshirt with his back to me was rummaging through the cabinet beneath the sink. I started to back away but bumped against a picture frame, making a noise, and he spun around.
“There you are.” James had his hood up, and he looked tired.
“Wait, what time is it? What are you doing up?” I rushed to his side and took off the quilt, holding it up to shield him from the wide beam of low purplish light coming through the kitchen window. The sun was setting, but it wasn’t gone.
“It’s okay, it’s not direct,” he said. “I’m fine.” He kept digging around under the sink. “There it is.”
I looked inside the cabinet to see what he’d found. In his hands was an economy-size jug of liquid Drano.
“What’s that for?”
“You know what it’s for. Will you go wait in the living room?”
“Why?”
“I need to talk to all of you.”
“What do you mean ‘all of us?’”
He gave me a look. It was a “Get with the program” look.
“What? Why?”
Three of us in the same room was bad news. Four of us would be war.
“Please just do it.”
“You’re going to use Drano? Will that even work? I thought you were going to get, like, arsenic or rat poison or something.” I tried to remember Heathers. Her lips turned blue and she smashed right through a coffee table.
I heard footsteps, and Whit came up the stairs, nodded at me, and passed into the living room. I followed him and found Naomi already there, leaning against a windowsill, twisting a piece of hair, staring into space. Whit perched on the edge of the couch and tapped his fingers nervously on some ashtray lying on the mantel.
“Would it kill you to put some clothes on?” Naomi asked, snapping her head toward me, her eyes ice.
“I…don’t have any,” I said, then shrugged, then looked to Whit. He shrugged back.
“Naomi, just give her something,” James said as he came into the living room, a small black plastic bag in one hand, the top of the Drano bottle sticking out. He put an arm around my shoulder, obviously making things worse.
“It’s fine, I’m cool like this,” I said.
“Not really,” Naomi mumbled under her breath.
Whit sighed and snapped his fingers twice. “Let’s just get on with it.”
James gestured to the mudcloth couch Whit was on, but Naomi didn’t move, so I didn’t either. “I need you all to stay here while I’m gone tonight.”
“Done,” Naomi interrupted.
“Yep,” Whit seconded.
“No,” I said. “I’m coming with you.”
“Not for this.” There was no debate. “I have to leave now while there’s still a little light, before they wake up.” James pulled his hood forward and looked me in the eyes. “Stay with Whit, promise?”
“I promise.”
“I’ll be back. Don’t worry. No one needs to worry.”
But I was
already worrying. And I was already preparing to break my promise. I couldn’t risk James alone against the twins, armed only with a bottle of drain cleaner and a hoodie. Things could go wrong. They always did.
James hugged Whit, who hugged him back, and then Naomi, who kept her arms straight at her sides but nuzzled her head into his neck, and then me. I squeezed him with all my strength. Then I kissed him on the lips, right in front of everyone. This was where we were, and I was done pretending we were somewhere else.
Finally he stepped back, his eyes moving across us. I didn’t understand the silence, but then I realized: He was hesitating. He was scared.
“What’s in the bag?” Naomi asked.
“Drano,” James said back.
“What for?”
Whit shook his head. “Don’t say it.”
“Say it.”
I looked to James. “Is it a secret?”
Whit interrupted, “It’s all a secret. Just go.”
“Tell me,” Naomi said.
“Chill out,” I said.
She opened her mouth, maybe to scream, but Whit shoved a finger in her face. He also pointed a finger at me.
“Both of you shut up.”
Naomi stared at the ground. I stared at the ceiling.
“Please,” James said, and then he turned and went out the door.
No one did anything for a second. I looked down at my naked legs, over at a family portrait, around the room, anywhere.
Naomi stared at me. “What’s he going to do to Stiles?”
I had nothing to say. The truth was retarded, ridiculous. A lie seemed even more so. “Poison him.”
“He’s not going to drink that stuff.”
“But if he did…,” I said. “You remember that night.”
“What about it?”
“James was screwed up.”
“You bitch.”
“Naomi!” Whit yelled. “Just go get her something to wear.”
Naomi sharpened her stare, knifed me with it. “You made your coffin, now lie in it.” Then to Whit, a little disgusted, “You’re smarter than this.” Then she left.
Whit shrugged, gave me a sweet look. “Whatever. Guess I’m not.”
A second later Naomi flung some balled-up black dress up the stairs. “Here.”
Whit picked it up and handed it to me. Then he went downstairs, leaving me alone in the living room to change.
I tried to shimmy into the thing, but it was supertight around the waist, so I had to stretch it and keep wiggling my hips to get in. I tried to scope my reflection in the big bay window. The dress was a Kelly Bundy cut, not my thing at all. And it also wasn’t much longer than the T-shirt I’d been wearing. I looked kind of slutty actually. Naomi, you suck.
I had to get back to my house, and I only knew the phone number of one free taxi service in the city: Morgan. It was pathetic, weird, low, rude, evil, all those things, but I had no choice. I grabbed the phone, dialed, and mercifully he let us skip past the lameness, the silences, the tense sarcasm. He could tell from my hello that I wasn’t so whatever tonight.
“I need a ride home.”
“Okay, from where?”
“I’m at Naomi Sheets’s house.”
“Why?”
“Morgan.”
“Sorry, I don’t get it. Naomi has a car, right?”
“Please,” I said.
There was nothing on the other end. I thought he’d hung up.
“I can’t leave Olivia here,” he said finally.
“Oh.”
“Never mind. I’ll bring her. What’s the address?”
I gave it to him. He was thirteen minutes away, maybe less.
“I owe you. Again.”
“Just be outside.”
This was working. Confidence was creeping back in. All I needed now were shoes.
I hunted around the living room for a minute and then remembered that I’d left my Converses in Whit’s room. I dashed down the stairs and threw open his door, which slammed right into his shoulder.
“Hey, watch it!” he yelled.
“Why were you standing right there?”
“I was coming to get you.” He stopped, looked at me, and held back a laugh. “Where’s the rest of that dress?”
“Very funny. She hates me. Old news.” I grabbed my shoes and sat on his bed, starting to tie the laces. “Morgan’s picking me up.”
“You know I can’t let you go. You heard James.”
“Look, it’s chill, I just have to remind my parents I’m alive. It won’t take long.” One shoe done, on to the next. “And I’ve got to relax. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown if I stay in this house.”
Whit shook his head. “He told us to stay together.”
“I’ll be safe at home.” Second shoe done.
“You’re safe here.”
“No one’s safe anywhere.”
Whit moved the hair out of my eyes, tucked it behind my ear.
“I’ll just run in, say hey, get the Lexus, and come right back.” I was handing out empty promises like boxes of kittens today.
“Just…don’t let anything happen to you. James would kill me.” He tried to smile.
We hugged, and I was out the door. The house was darker, the sun was basically down. How much had I already missed? James was probably there by now, maybe even inside. The plan was so flawed, so random, I could only doubt it.
I sprinted up the stairs, through the living room, out the front door, up the driveway to the street. The light was fading, the horizon a dim crimson line. One minute later a car horn honked and Morgan pulled around the corner, his sister Olivia sitting in the front, waving at me. I hopped into the backseat, and we were off.
Olivia had a ton to say. Morgan, not so much. So we let her ramble on about Nickelodeon, Judy Blume, shiny stickers, fuzzy stickers, swimming, whatever. Now this was a sister I could get into. This sister loved me.
When Morgan finally parked in front of my house, I felt the strangest sensation. It was either like I never expected to see the place again or like I’d forgotten it still existed at all. I turned to Morgan, who hadn’t given me crap for the stupid short dress, hadn’t grilled me about Naomi or the rest of her family, hadn’t made me apologize profusely or thank him incessantly, who’d only let me be, in peace.
“Morgan, you amaze me,” I said. I meant it. Maybe everyone hated me, but I loved them all. They were all amazing.
“My parents are still in Maui. You could come over if you—” But Morgan knew me so well, knew I wouldn’t go back to his house with him, that he actually stopped himself midsentence.
My heart hurt. How could it be so unconditional, so endless? I’d done nothing, literally nothing, to deserve this. I was just a flip-flopping flake. “No, I’m cool.”
“Got it.”
“I wish I could tell you this was the last time I’ll need something like this.”
“I know.”
“How about we say one more time and then I’ll promise to stop, like, ruining your entire life?”
Free kittens, anyone?
Morgan stared at me, amused.
“Right, okay.” I laughed. “Going now.”
I high-fived Olivia, squeezed Morgan’s hand—transmitting all my psychic unspoken love—shut the car door, and watched them drive away. The Lexus was in its usual spot. Inside, the keys were on the kitchen counter. On the fridge, the sweetest note yet:
Quinn, got your message. No phone number where we could reach you, cause for some alarm. But we know you’re fine and we’re trying not to “spaz,” as you would say. Reminding you to eat, sleep, wash yourself, come home every so often. Please do all those things. Love, Mom
I grabbed a pen and scribbled on the same sheet of paper:
Mom and Dad, doing awesome. Sleeping at Naomi’s again tonight, but I promise I’ll come home after that and stay for a while. Because I miss you guys. Taking the Lex, hope that’s cool.
Quinlan
Oh, I wa
s getting grounded for sure. Whatever. The Diet Cokes were gone. So was the sun.
I ran through stop signs and ignored speed limits and got to the twins’ place in about six minutes. There was no light left, streetlamps had turned on, prime-time sitcoms were about to start; it was officially night. I squinted in the shadows and got nervous and decided to park a couple of blocks away just to be safe.
The streets were empty. I spied in some front windows and saw families walking around, TV sets on, dinner tables cleared. Life was normal everywhere except in my tiny microcosm, where life was totally psychotic. My boyfriend was lugging around a jug of Drano, I was stalking through strangers’ front yards like a homeless weirdo, my parents were nowhere, and my friends were all pissed or perma-fried.
Finally I got back to the twins’ property. I ducked down low and creeped alongside a row of cacti running parallel to the driveway. I snuck past the main house, past the short brick wall dividing the main house from the guesthouse, and as I entered the backyard I froze—I could just make out a hooded figure crouched in some bushes in front of the window.
I took a deep breath and made a break for it, dashing straight across the lawn to the bushy shrubs James was hidden inside. As I got closer I saw he had one hand on the edge of the windowsill and was trying to peer in, but the curtains were closed. When he heard me approaching he whipped around, his eyes panicked.
Then the color in his eyes drained. The gray went grayer, if it was possible. He looked destroyed. Like I’d died. Like I’d chosen to die.
I ran to him anyway and hugged him, careful not to make a noise.
“Are you crazy?” he whispered.
I nodded because, yes, I was crazy, and there wasn’t a better way to explain it.
He just stared at me, broken. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.
“It’s okay, I’ll help you,” I whispered.
“No, you won’t.” He turned and stared back at the window in silence.
“Did you go inside?”
James nodded but wouldn’t open his mouth, his face still hard. Seeing him this worried worried me. Over his shoulder, shoved deeper inside the hedge, I noticed the bottle of Drano, empty and without its cap.