Jeff swipes the card as if he’s not in love with Shelby, as if he feels bad about the impatient pill in line, as if we all don’t go to the pharmacy expecting to wait. “Huh,” he says. And Shelby could never love him or hate him. He says “huh” too much. He’s stupid. Shelby asks what’s wrong, and he scratches his head.
“This is weird,” he says. “You’re not in the system. Huh.”
“But I am,” she says, shifting her purse, wishing that Mommy were not here bouncing the mewing Baba, a whiny cry that puts out the fire in the B and B, the one 555 is stoking in her imagination.
Jeff taps on his keypad, and Shelby is so tired of this tedium.
“Huh,” he says again. “It’s like you don’t exist.”
For the rest of the day, Mommy won’t shut up about the mix-up at the pharmacy, and she really will put Shelby in an early grave. And what about the Baba? It can’t be good for him, being exposed to Mommy’s paranoia—Don’t open that email! Don’t do that DNA testing in the mail! Don’t eat fake sugar!—day in, day out.
“I don’t like this,” Mommy says, blowing a kiss to the Baba in the rearview mirror. “You can’t trust those big chain stores. They take all our information and sell it. It’s true. I saw it on 60 Minutes. For all you know, your identity has been stolen. Every year, more and more women disappear into thin air. Poof. A lot of the time, it starts like this. They wipe them out. You need to be on top of things. You need to be a mother and stop obsessing over . . . These magazines don’t even pay you, Shelby. When’s the last time we went to the bank to deposit a check?”
“Mommy, please. I’m driving. And I get paid by direct deposit.”
Mommy huffs. “You give them your bank account number? Oh, Shelby, that’s not right. And didn’t you hear the man in there? He said you weren’t even in the system. These things don’t just happen.”
“It was an IT error. That’s it. Please calm down.” She makes a kissy face at Henry and imagines 555 smiling, impressed. What a good mommy. “Hi, Baba!”
“But you heard him, Shelby. He said you were erased. Someone stole it. I know it. I read about this. And look at you, not even worried.”
The Baba chews on his fingers, and Shelby pictures him in therapy, years from now, after some girl dumps him because of his “issues” with women. The therapist thinks she’s so smart as she explains that his problems date back to his childhood, raised by two women squabbling at all hours. His future is ruined already, because this is the key time in a child’s life, and Shelby snaps. “It’s not like that, Mommy. For the last time, it was just a computer error. Nothing more. It happens all the time. Please stop talking like it’s a conspiracy. Life is mostly just boring.”
Shelby realizes the person she’s really addressing is Shelby. She needs to get it through her thick head that 555 is an IT error. Nothing more. A glitch.
Mommy grips her purse, like Shelby’s driving is that scary. “Well, I don’t like it,” she says. “You need to call before some criminal empties your bank account. I’m telling you, more and more women . . . just gone. Poof. And it always starts with something like this. Always. And then the women disappear, too, just like their phone numbers.”
Shelby will drive this car into a fucking pole if Mommy won’t shut up and Shelby is driving too fast and the Baba is in the back, wiggling in his car seat, soaking up the tension. She brakes and he cries and she pulls into the parking lot of a convenience store. Relief.
Mommy gets out of the car to check on the Baba, and she sneers at the convenience store because Mommy doesn’t believe in convenience stores. She lectures Shelby about what Shelby already knows, that she has never put one foot inside a convenience store, because they’re the downfall of civilization! Lazy spoiled brats willing to overpay for things like bread and deodorant. Good mothers are organized. They don’t need convenience.
Shelby smiles. “Do you want a Coke?”
Mommy’s favorite thing in the world is Coca-Cola, and she turns her head so she doesn’t have to look Shelby in the eye. “Fine,” she says. “But only if they’re on sale.”
Shelby slams the car door. In the convenience store, she perks up. She imagines that she is with 555. They’re on vacation, on their way to go apple picking, and they’ve made a pit stop and they’re in love and everything is funny, worth noticing. She takes her phone out in the Coke aisle, and she reaches out to him. Frisky.
Are you for real?
Yes, Shelby. Say the word and tomorrow I’ll pick you up and we’ll go somewhere.
Such fun to be such a secret slut, agreeing to flee with a strange man—she doesn’t even know what he looks like. She picks up two Cokes—wildly, exorbitantly overpriced—and she puts her Cokes on the counter at the register and scans back through their texts. Who is he? Where is he? Could she do it? Sneak out of the house with a mysterious stranger? Shelby is a good woman. She lets her mother live with her, and everyone knows that mother and daughter can’t cohabitate like this without driving each other nuts. And it’s not like she would sleep with 555. They would only go apple picking and maybe share one illicit kiss.
The man at the register slams a pen on the counter. “You all done with your text, ma’am?”
What a jerk, and Mommy is going to whine when Shelby gets back to the car. What took you so long? Shelby signs away seven dollars for two Cokes and she is the jerk. Texting at the checkout counter is a faux pas and she apologizes meekly and she walks to the car and Mommy growls, “What took you so long?”
Rajid is using the neti pot again and raving about it. Never felt better! Never breathed easier! Mommy is still harping on Shelby to call the pharmacy. Shelby keeps thinking of that coldhearted Jeff. It’s like you don’t exist. She lies to Rajid about progress on her “Modern Love” essay that doesn’t exist, and she picks up the Baba. Mommy and Rajid look at her like she’s lighting a crack pipe. Mommy points at the clock. “You’re feeding him now?”
Rajid rinses the neti pot, as if it isn’t permanently contaminated. “Isn’t it a little late, Baba?”
Mommy scowls at Rajid. “Rajid, hon, you’re dripping.”
Rajid turns off the water, and Shelby pats her fucking baby, the one that was inside her only months ago, on his fucking back. “He’s hungry,” she says. “I can tell.”
On the way up the stairs, her phone pings, and it’s him—Tomorrow? 11?—and that’s men for you. They know when you’re holding the Baba, when you’re not thinking about them. She almost drops the Baba—all mothers almost drop their babies—and she sits in her nursing chair and pulls out her tit. The Baba eats—Shelby was right—and Shelby turns on a Hallmark movie, her favorite, the one where Candace goes to Alaska.
Mommy knocks on the door as she barges in. “Did you call the drugstore yet?”
Mommy glares at the TV, where Candace is making a snow angel, and this is their basic incompatibility as housemates. Mommy likes to fill her unhappy, paranoid mind with unresolved stories on Dateline. Mommy blocks the TV. “You need to call the pharmacy. If your identity was stolen, there’s a small window of time for them to catch the thieves.”
Shelby does not tell Mommy to get out of the way. She will not start a fight. “Mommy,” she says. “I’m telling you. It’s fine.”
“You don’t know that, Shelby. Women disappear. You want to avoid all the news, you want to fill your mind with fluff, but it’s a bad world out there. You have to get on top of this, and you have to do it now, or they might come for you. A woman in Kansas . . . she had two kids and one day, poof. Gone. They still don’t know where she is, but it started like this. She couldn’t use her ATM card.”
Shelby puts the Baba in his crib. Doesn’t Mommy know that babies need peace? She wants Mommy to follow her cue and gaze at the Baba and let a baby do what all babies do: make you feel good about this world. But Mommy is determined to make this an emergency. She is old and Catholic and cheap and paranoid, and she is still sipping her Coke—she watered it down with tap water, disgusting—
and she says she has a bad feeling about the pharmacy, and Shelby tells 555 that eleven tomorrow works for her.
Mommy scratches her head. Does Mommy have lice? Did she always scratch her head this much? “Who are you texting with?”
“Annette.”
Mommy frowns. 555 texts: I’ll pick you up at 11.
Shelby’s maternal instinct kicks in: I didn’t tell you where I live . . .
555 is polite: If I’m lucky, you will tomorrow. I took the day off. And there’s no pressure, Shelby. This is all up to you.
Obviously she won’t go. She’s not a cheater, but it’s fun to pack a bag in your head and Mommy is irritated with Shelby’s texting and Shelby is calmer now. The date is set, and she has all the power. She can be the bigger person now, and she hugs Mommy. She apologizes. She promises to call the pharmacy, to learn how to operate the new Crock-Pot, to change.
Mommy cups Shelby’s cheeks in her hands. “I hope so, Sweet Tea. You know I only want what’s best for you.”
It’s been so long since Mommy called Shelby Sweet Tea. That was her nickname when she was a little girl, when it was just the two of them, because her father was an investment banker slash road warrior, always in a city, always pitching. It was their version of Baba, and Shelby embraces her mother in a way she hasn’t in years. She drops her phone on her chair, and she is crying now, about Scrumptious, about her career. Mommy is all love. “It’s okay, Sweet Tea. This is why Mommy is here. This is why I said yes when Rajid asked me to come.”
Shelby pulls away. That is news to her. “He asked you?”
“Sweet Tea,” Mommy says. “Your dog died. It’s not your fault, but a thing like that . . . it’s supposed to change you. You’re supposed to worry about those you love. You worry about your work, but the one you need to worry about is Henry. I promise you’ll be happier if you let family take over, Sweet Tea. I promise.”
She pecks Shelby on the cheek, and Shelby can’t look at Mommy. She didn’t want it to be true. Just for once she wanted to be the paranoid one. She can’t stand the idea of Rajid calling Mommy behind her back. What else did they say? She breathes. She’s no better, conspiring with 555. But now they’re even. And even is good.
Mommy sighs. “Don’t worry, Sweet Tea. I know it takes time to change. Everything is fine. Rajid is fine. Henry is fine. And I’m here. I want to be here. So don’t you go fighting with him, you hear? Don’t accost him and tell him that you’re upset about him calling me. He was only trying to help.” Mommy picks up Shelby’s phone and stares into Shelby’s teary eyes. “Call the pharmacy. Call the police, just in case.”
Shelby is home alone.
She didn’t give 555 her address, and she woke up feeling like one of those women who likes to go to the spa. This is a fresh start. She’s in control of her life. She didn’t turn on the TV today, and she started a new essay that feels like a breakthrough, a breakaway. She’s writing about the incident at the pharmacy, about clinging to her neti pot. She thought it would be difficult to write around 555—she could never, would never, tell anyone about those texts—but it was easy to leave him out of it, as if the texts were only a booster shot.
Tonight, when Rajid gets home, she’ll come clean about her writer’s block, and she’s not nervous about it. She’s excited to be alone with her husband, to be honest with him the way they were in college when they were new to each other.
She steps into the front yard, and the development’s not so bad. She can see for miles. She likes that every house has a paved driveway and a brick mailbox. She opens her mailbox, and there’s a Lands’ End catalog. She likes that catalog, and she inserts her hand—maybe she can also write about catalogs—and that’s when the needle hits her neck. The bag goes over her head. She can’t separate these things. They happen too fast, all at once, and then she doesn’t exist.
She wakes up on a sofa in an office. Could be a therapist’s office. A lawyer’s office. She is groggy, and where is she? There are no windows in this office. The furniture is plush. Not cheap. She remembers the Lands’ End catalog, and the title sends a chill through her body. There is a door, but it’s locked, and there are clipboards. Posters. And all of them say the same thing: Property of Winter’s Bottom. Her wrist aches. Like she was chipped. She shudders, still in her clothes. A knock on the door. A woman enters. Old like Mommy. A gun on her hip. So out of place, that firearm. She locks the door behind her, and Shelby realizes that Mommy wasn’t paranoid. Mommy was right. More women are disappearing all the time. The woman extends a hand. “I’m Alice,” she says. “And congratulations. You’re our first resident from Virginia.”
Shelby is dizzy. Strange to be congratulated. The Pavlovian ego boost is in direct contrast to her shock. Where is she? Who took her? “Resident of what? What is this? Where am I?”
“Don’t worry,” Alice says. “You’re in Winter’s Bottom. We’re a small mountain community, and you’re going to love it here.” She brightens again. “And like I said, you’re our first Virginian! That’s a coup. I know you have questions, but you are safe. This is a pilot program, Shelby. And because you’re the first Virginian, you’ll find that people address you as Virginia. Makes it easier to get to know people.”
There is more to Shelby than Virginia and she’s not even from Virginia and why is Alice looking at a medical chart on her tablet? Shelby’s wrist stings a little, and she was chipped, she really was.
Alice smiles. “I take it you don’t like nicknames.”
Alice offers water. She offers coffee. She says it’s good water. From our mountain springs. Shelby’s eyes are going to pop out of her head. “I want to go home. Now.”
“I won’t insult you,” Alice says. “I won’t tell you to trust me. I know you’re an intelligent woman, but I promise you’ll feel better when you understand.” Alice pulls up a video on her tablet. She presses “Play.” “You’ll like this,” she says. “It’s like one of your Hallmark movies.”
Alice shouldn’t know anything about Shelby. Alice who has no last name. Alice who is armed. The movie plays. Winter’s Bottom is a federal community for women in need of soul repair, and those words don’t belong together. A soul is not federal. The camera pans around the township of tree-lined streets with tiny shops and curly, woodsy roads with cottages. It is all so Hallmark, and Shelby can relax. This is a prank. Maybe it really is the City witches, some sort of second-generation escape room. It’s nice to think of them going to so much trouble to get to her. They do know about Shelby and her Hallmark movies, and by the end of the day, she’ll be at home writing about this. But then she looks at the screen, at the women wearing aprons. The women on the screen are all friendly, if slightly cultish. They aren’t actors. You can see it in their eyes as they all say the same thing: “Welcome to Winter’s Bottom. We can’t wait to meet you.”
This isn’t a prank and this isn’t an escape room and Shelby pulls her hair and Alice pauses the movie. “How can I help?”
Shelby is a reasonable woman. A journalist. “I want a lawyer,” she says. “Now.”
Alice scowls in a way that makes sense of the gun on her hip. Shelby knows this feeling. A woman who is your friend looking down on you as she sits across from you. It’s Mommy telling Shelby to learn to cook. It’s Annette on Shelby’s last day at City Woman. Did you want to say goodbye to anyone else?
“Oh, Shelby,” Alice simpers. “You know this is the right place for you. Women like you are dangerous. Look what happened to Scrumptious. Your mother had to move in with you because you weren’t even able to care for your own child on your own.”
“I want a lawyer.”
“No, Shelby. Don’t be defensive. We know you mean well. You don’t want to hurt the people you love, and don’t you see? Now you can’t hurt them. You can’t betray them.”
“I didn’t betray anyone.”
Alice smiles. “Would Rajid agree if he looked in your phone?”
So it was a hoax and Shelby is a sucker and they know everythin
g. Women disappear all the time. Alice tells Shelby that it’s not over for her, that Winter’s Bottom is a training facility, a place where she can reform, learn to love.
“But I do love.”
“Do you, Shelby?”
“I want a lawyer.”
Alice sets her tablet on the table. There are two women. One is as calm as Candace Cameron Bure, and the other is in ripped jeans, sticking her tongue out at her cell phone, taking a selfie. “Look,” Alice says. “You are a W2.” She says this as if a woman can be a tax form, as if any of this makes sense. “We’ve done our research, Shelby. There are two kinds of women in this country right now. W1s are women who love. W2s are women who don’t love. You are a W2, but you can become a W1.”
Shelby will burn that iPad, and she blasts Alice about this sexist language. She demands a lawyer. She wants out, and she wants out now, and armed Alice just shakes her head. “You don’t need a lawyer, Shelby. You need to become a woman on your own before you can be a woman with your family.”
“I am a woman.”
“You’re a W2. And it’s nothing to be ashamed about, Shelby. And you’re a smart woman. I know you know I’m right. You saw the video. You’re not alone. Many W2s need help learning to nurture.”
Shelby grunts. She wants a lawyer. She wasn’t serious with 555. It was just innocent, meaningless flirting. A few stupid texts, a natural response to being fired, stalled in her career, dismissed. It’s like you don’t exist. She was played. Tricked. Betrayed. And the more she fights for her freedom and defends her actions, her inactions, her lies, the more Alice stands her ground. That’s why you’re here, Shelby. But Shelby will show them. She will get out. Get home. Get free.
Winter’s Bottom is starting to grow on Shelby.
She likes her sessions with Alice. It’s almost like therapy, but Alice isn’t a therapist. She’s blunt. She’s direct. She evaluates Shelby three times a week, chastising her for not making her bed every day, for letting dirty dishes sit in the sink. Shelby feels like she’s back in college, the brief time in your semi-adult life when your education matters, when your job is to learn for the sake of learning. Her goal is to transform into a W1: a woman who makes a valid contribution to her family, workplace, and/or community. Real life is messy, full of mixed messages, but Alice is clear about how the system works. Shelby knows how she got here. She was flagged when she lost her job. They monitor text messages, and the ladies at City Woman had a lot to say about their coworker Shelby. She was double-flagged when Scrumptious died—they saw Shelby’s tributes on Facebook—and she was triple-flagged when Mommy moved in. They knew because Shelby’s mother filed a change of address with the postal service. They know everything. They had access to her cable. They knew how many times she watched Christmas Under Wraps, and they knew that she was lying to Rajid about her deadlines and googling things like, Bored by my baby. Sociopath?
Sweet Virginia (Out of Line collection) Page 3