Audrey’s Door

by Sarah Langan

  Audrey thought about the fight last night, and her time at the Golden Nugget, and the years she’d known Saraub before that. She summed them up. “I’m a jerk,” she said. “But he’s no saint.”

  “Commitment?” Jayne asked.

  “How did you know?”

  Jayne nodded. “Because in a breakup, somebody’s always the jerk, and somebody else is always needy. I’d rather be on your side than mine.”

  “Naw. It sounds like the better side, but it’s not.”

  “Yeah, but I’m like the walking wounded over here. My bruises have bruises,” Jayne quipped. The joke fell flat because it was so clearly true.

  “Yeah, but people like you will wind up with somebody, because you’re open. You’re out there taking risks,” Audrey said. Then she looked down at her coffee-stained shirt. Her hands were poised over her lap, the exact distance apart. Perfectly even. Next to her, Jayne was slumped in her chair, limbs akimbo, her teeth stained red with wine. It dawned on her that while Jayne would probably break free of this strange, lonely, single-woman existence in New York, she would not, because she was on the wrong side of the fight. She was the jerk.

  She reached into her pockets for consolation and was alarmed to find nothing there. The ring! She took it everywhere. Not once since he’d given it to her had she let it out of her sight. So where was it? Still in yesterday’s pants? She tried to sit still, but the compulsion overcame her. She hurried to the double closet, exposed the half-built door, then bent down and pulled yesterday’s trousers free from the towel she’d wrapped them in. A sharp thing inside their damp, ammonia pockets cut her knuckle. She grabbed it hard, and tucked it inside her skirt pocket like a secret. When she returned to Jayne, she was crying. Little sniffles and hitches in this cavernous, terrifying apartment. “I screwed up,” she said.

  Jayne scooted in her chair (Screetch! Screetch! Jiggle!), then leaned over and rubbed Audrey’s back with the heel of her hand. The gesture was comforting enough to allow her to release and cry harder.

  “I screw up, like, twice a day. My dad says I’m a bigger disappointment than his dog, which is dead, by the way. A dead pit bull named Pudge, and I’m the disappointment.”

  Audrey laughed a little, while still crying.

  “Everybody screws up unless they’re boring,” Jayne said.

  “Have you ever screwed up, and it was because you loved them so much?” Audrey asked.

  Jayne leaned to the other side of her chair, reached down, and took a quick slug of wine. Then she returned. “No man wants to get to know me that well unless he’s related. I never get that far.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’m not jealous,” Jayne said. “Everybody’s different. I gave up jealous a long time ago because I’m not good at anything except comedy.”

  “That’s not true,” Audrey said.

  Jayne shrugged. “I sound like a Sad Sally, don’t I? Who cares. How did you screw up?”

  Audrey sniffled. “He proposed, and I said yes. But then I got scared, because I have this problem, we both have problems, so I said no, and I moved out,” she explained.

  “The OCD?”

  Audrey heaved her breath one last time, then brought herself under control. “I guess. I’m coming unhinged lately. This apartment—I might really be crazy.”

  “That’s too bad,” Jayne said. Then she leaned to her side, refilled both glasses, and handed one to Audrey. The act was natural, and Audrey wondered if it came from growing up surrounded by family.

  “I hope you don’t mind that we just met, and I’m telling you my problems,” she said.

  Jayne shrugged. “I’m in the market for more friends. Eight brothers and sisters, and I’m the only one still single. Oh, hey! I know what’ll cheer you up! A game!” Jayne leaned back and scratched her knee. It was a real raspberry of hurt: her fingers came away glistening red.

  Without thinking about it, Audrey folded a take-out napkin to its clean side, and handed it to her. “Stop picking at yourself,” she said.

  Jayne nodded, like she’d heard the line a thousand times before, and it no longer registered. She dabbed the napkin against the broken clot. “What’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?” she asked.

  Audrey shook her head. “Thinking about something like that does not make me feel better Jayne, just so you know.”

  “It will. It always works. Trust me. Normally I’d throw out some stock bullshit for a laugh, but I’ll give you something real. I’ll give you my tenth most embarrassing thing.” She leaned back, and giggled. The sound was pure delight.

  “Tenth? You count?”

  Her reply was serious. “It’s very important, the stuff you find shameful. Funny should come close to hurting, or it’s just slapstick. I’ve studied funny.” The lights of the city reflected in her green eyes and she stretched out the silence to make sure she had Audrey’s full attention. Showmanship. It made Audrey curious about her act.

  “Okay,” Jayne finally said. “This happened a lifetime ago. I’d just run away to New York, and I was going crazy because it was so free, and different from Salt Lake. My hair was purple, if you can picture that. Superpunk. I was waiting tables at the old Howard Johnson on Broadway, and living in that girls’ dormitory on the Upper West Side. I used to walk the city and watch people when I had time off. I’d look at them and think, they don’t know, but one day I’ll be famous.”

  “Anyway, I was a real baby face, so I had to use a fake ID to get into the comedy clubs. The laminated kind you used to buy in Times Square that said, ‘OFFICIAL IDENTIFICATION CARD’—you probably don’t remember them, but they were about as real as three-dollar bills. Anyway, this one night I went to Caroline’s Comedy Club, and met this guy who’d been on Letterman. Twice! It was like talking to a famous person. So I went home with him.”

  Audrey sat up, shocked. “How old were you?”

  Jayne smiled like a sphinx. “Fifteen.”

  Audrey paled. She had a hard time imagining being in this city at such a tender age. The metaphor it brought to mind was: lamb for slaughter.

  Jayne continued. “Anyway, the guy took me to this rent-controlled palace on the Upper West Side. He’d grown up in New York, so he inherited it. That’s how those people get trapped. Same with the folks who live in The Breviary. They inherit, and then they never have to work real jobs, so they forget how. They don’t even have any kids. They’re the last of their lines. We ought to get in good with them. We could inherit the whole building! Anyway, he gave me a few drinks—screwdrivers, maybe? After that, he showed me how to blow coke up his ass, and then he did it for me. Best high of my life.”

  Audrey shook her head back and forth. “That’s really gross.”

  Jayne nodded. “Especially when you’re allergic, because your colon spazzes. I pooped his bed. Then I was so embarrassed I ran out. Never even gave him my number. Maybe he’s my soul mate, but I had to leave because I pooped the bed. Fancy slate gray sheets, I’ll never forget.”

  The seconds passed. Audrey didn’t know what to say. Was she supposed to console Jayne? Was this some kind of test? What a terrible story! Worse, it was rehearsed. She’d told it before! Finally, Audrey couldn’t help it. Laughter burst, then roared from her chest. “No…no way,” she said between breaths.

  “Way,” Jayne said, laughing, too.

  “Couldn’t you have made it to the toilet?” tears came to the corners of her eyes.

  “No,” Jayne said. Now she was laughing really hard. “Huuh. Huuuh. I thought I was all sexy, and then…” Her face got splotchy, apple red. “It fell right out! Too late to do anything but run.”

  “Oh shit!” Audrey cried.

  “Exactly!” Jayne screamed.

  Audrey was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt. “I’m embarrassed for you right now, just thinking about that,” Audrey said. “You just made me vicariously embarrassed.”

  “Yeah. I’m embarrassed, too. Good thing it wasn’t my nose
or it could have been a lot worse. I don’t know if I was allergic to the coke or something it was cut with, but I bled for a while. Everybody tells you that can’t happen the first time. But it did happen to someone. It happened to me.”

  Audrey flinched. This part wasn’t so funny. “Oh…That sucks.”

  “So did his dry-cleaning bill.”

  “He deserved it. You were too young. I hope he got E. coli poisoning and wound up in a hospital.”

  Jayne snickered. “Fifteen isn’t that young.”

  Audrey shook her head. “No Jayne, it’s too young. You were a girl.”

  Jayne inspected her wounded knee, basking in Audrey’s concern. Then she clapped her hands together. “What’s your most embarrassing thing?”

  Audrey shook her head to both sides, fast. Once, twice, three times, four. “I think I repressed it. I can’t remember.”

  Jayne kicked up her good foot. “Come on! Don’t be a sissy. You’ve got one.”

  Audrey sighed. Her smile faltered.

  “Come on!” Jayne whined.

  Audrey looked out the window. The collateral damage to the lit-up buildings on either side of the Parkside Plaza had been repaired after the explosion, but if you looked closely, you could see the difference between the old concrete seams and the new ones. She felt her neck. Smooth, unblemished skin. No one would ever guess she’d once been cut. “Okay. I’ve got something, but I’m not good at stories, like you. It’s not a story. And it’s not funny, either.”

  Jayne’s smiled stretched ear to ear at the compliment. “Of course not! I’m a professional. Tell me!”

  Audrey’s voice echoed in the apartment, and she had the feeling that something in the walls was listening. “I was thinking about how young you were, and I remembered, I was pretty young, once, too. You ever go hungry?”

  “All the time,” Jayne answered.

  Audrey sipped her wine. Absurdly sweet stuff. The sugar alone would induce a hangover. “Yeah. It’s worse when it’s not by choice. It’s not like how they say, you know? You don’t get fuzzy when you’re starving.”

  “Really?” Jayne asked.

  “First it’s fuzzy, but then things clarify. Everything distills. You ache. Your fingernails hurt. You want calories so bad that even the air tastes like sugar. But it feels good, too. It feels like flying.”

  “Like you’re high?” Jayne asked.

  “Better, I think. Little instants of better when you’re not trapped in your body like everybody else. You’re free from it, and numb. Things you’d normally be sad about don’t matter. The rest of the time, it hurts. Like there’s this hole in you, that keeps growing…My mom left once, for six weeks. And I was starving like that. It was the worst feeling of my life.”

  “Wow,” Jayne said.

  Audrey had forgotten about most of this, but now, it all came back. Like a scab reopened, the pain was surprisingly fresh. She felt her throat as she spoke. “My mom is bipolar.” It still hurt to say this, even after all these years.

  “I’m sorry,” Jayne said.

  “Me, too.” Once again, she’d surprised herself. Her voice sounded bitter. Unkind.

  “Anyway, the disease worked in cycles. I came home one day and found her tearing up the kitchen floor with a chef knife she’d stolen from a neighbor. A serious German number, sharp enough to cut through bone. She kept saying she was digging—she thought something bad was down there. In the hole. I remember being so upset, but mad, too. I liked that double-wide, and we got kicked out for what she’d done. And I kept thinking, you know? Maybe it would have been better if she’d turned that knife on herself instead.

  “She cut me with that knife. On purpose. Not deep or anything. It was more just upsetting. It was the first time she’d ever done anything like that, and she never did it again, either. But afterward, I hated sleeping in the same room with her. I couldn’t trust her anymore.”

  She hadn’t thought about this in a long time, and she knew there was more to the story than she remembered. Something about the hole in the floor, and her mother’s ants. Something about her dream.

  “It must have scared her when she saw the blood on my neck, because she ran off. Six weeks. That was the longest she was ever gone. I kept expecting her to come back, but she never did. Those asshole neighbors at that park didn’t share. I was so skinny my knees didn’t touch, and they never even offered their leftovers because they didn’t like my mom. She’d done stupid stuff like spray-paint their cars and steal their newspapers, and she slept with a few husbands. They wouldn’t forgive her for it. Really, they wouldn’t forgive her for being crazy. They were scared it might be contagious. Like one of those sick houses during the Black Plague in Europe. They nailed human skulls to their doors, so people knew not to come knocking. Everyplace we ever lived felt marked like that. Like a sick house.”

  She leaned back, suddenly ashamed that she’d started this story. It was a real downer. Not remotely funny. “I stopped going to school—I’d enrolled that semester, passed into my junior year even though I’d missed tenth grade. I started working full-time instead. I told myself it was the freedom, but looking back, I think I was just ashamed. She’d abandoned me. Most kids, their parents care enough to teach them things, and show up.”

  “So what happened?” Jayne asked.

  “She came back. I still don’t know why I took her back after all the things she’d done. I’d moved by then, and the new place was pretty bad, but we didn’t stay long. We found another town. Except for when I ran away to college at U of N and she couldn’t find me, I took care of her for twelve more years after that…I should have left,” Audrey said, shocked by the words as she spoke them, and by her tears, too. She’d thought she’d outgrown self-pity. “I should have let her die. I’d have been better off.”

  Jayne didn’t say anything. Audrey wiped her eyes. She thought about taking it back, but she didn’t. That dream last night, that sad girl. It was time to stop hating her. “So, that’s my embarrassing story. I got abandoned. A lot. Sorry it’s not funny.”

  “That’s okay,” Jayne said. She didn’t seem shocked, like Audrey always expected people to be when she told them about how she’d grown up. But everybody’s got troubles. Even rich people in cashmere suits. Maybe they had OCD, or a kid with cancer, or couldn’t find love. Or they were the black sheep of their families for no good reason. It’s such hubris to think your problems are bigger than the person’s sitting next to you, just because they have the fortitude not to complain.

  Audrey sat back. The night had gotten late. It was past eleven. She felt heavy, and tired. But good, too. She liked Jayne. “On the plus side, my growth got stunted, so I didn’t have to deal with having a period until college. Actually, I have no idea if I can have children.”

  “That’s not funny! That’s sad. I’m so sad for you!” Jayne exclaimed.

  “Are you trying to tell me that the coke thing is happy?” Audrey asked with a raised eyebrow. “Because it sounds pretty bad, country mouse.”

  A beat of silence passed. Then two. Jayne laughed first, and was quickly followed by Audrey. “It’s the hard-knock life,” Audrey said, and Jayne banged the floor with her crutch, and chimed in: “For! Us!”

  And then, together. “It’s the hard-knock life!” They laughed hard and long. Tears filled Audrey’s eyes, and she wasn’t sure whether she was sad, or happy, but the release felt wonderful.

  “We are so fucked up,” Jayne declared, and they laughed harder.

  13

  Humans Raised as Cows!

  By glass two-point-five, they were loaded. The wine was so cheap that Audrey’s headache had already started. Her dried-out tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, so she took another sip to set it free. On the television, Leno was reading nutty-but-true newspaper headlines—“Humans Raised As Cows Graze the Countryside!”—when the buzzer rang.

  Audrey hoisted herself up on wobbly legs. The stained-glass crows looked like they were following her. Their red eye
s shone especially bright. “Demon birds,” she mumbled.

  Jayne waved her hand. “It’s Clara. She wants to raid your fridge. Chick was an orca. Like the woolly mammoth, I mean.”

  “Whale.” Audrey simultaneously pressed talk and listen on the intercom. She could vaguely detect the doorman’s French-Haitian accent, but it was mostly just static: blah blah blah Mizz Lucas? She had no idea what he wanted, but it could wait until tomorrow.

  “Okay, good!” she said into the speaker, then staggered back to her chair and clawed a handful of string beans into her mouth. They were overcooked, and liquefied on her tongue. They were hot, too, and like everything hot and soupy, hurt the gums under her temporary crown. “Vegetables are bullshit!” she announced.

  Jay’s guest was sweating through an act about terrorists with funny accents using canned city smog as a weapon. US 405 in Los Angeles had gotten another bomb threat this afternoon. No one was hurt, but the traffic jam caused two asthma-induced deaths.

  Audrey glanced at the pull-down map of Los Angeles behind the man and admired the clean perpendicular roads that counterbalanced its jagged coast and highways. That got her thinking about changing the topiary on 59th Street to something less symmetrical because unless they’ve got OCD, too many right angles make people nervous.

  The comedian sprayed his bottle of Aqua Net, over which he’d pasted a SMOG label illustrated by a black death skull and crossbones. Not a laugh in the whole house. A fury rose inside her, and she wanted to reach inside the television and slap him.

  “Amateur,” Jayne grumbled. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “Too soon!” she heckled.

  “What is this, Beirut?” Audrey asked. “I don’t wanna live in Beirut.”

  “Like the band? That song ‘No More Words’?” Jayne asked.

  “No, that’s Berlin.”

  “I don’t wanna live in Berlin,” Jayne said.

  “Well, who asked you?”