s i x
The drive to Caravel is about four hours. It’s scenic and winding, the stuff of vintage cinema, flying headscarves and red convertibles, cool sunlight, good-looking people. I would go with Mikaela but I don’t think I’d be able to handle a constant view of the coastline of the state for four hours without wanting to jump out of the car. Also I don’t think I’d be able to handle her parents without wanting to jump in front of a train. And anyway, I should probably let her have her own peace – she shouldn’t have to deal with a mental patient with a hangover like the one she’ll have this morning.
I’m up before she is – which is almost always the case. It’s not because I’m a morning person or because I like to watch the sunrise or any healthy channel-your-zen bullshit like that. It’s simply because I’d rather be awake than asleep; the world in my head isn’t a nice place to be, and at least here, in our crappy Benna Lui apartment I know where everything is and what everything is and there are no large-mouthed monsters lurking behind corners, choking my lungs, pressing my heart.
The sun has just risen. Nobody in Benna Lui is awake – our kitchen windows are open and from outside I hear only absolute, deathly silence, and, in the distance, the waves. They’re always there; always an option.
My shrink told me to move to a non-coastal town, actually, soon after the incident. He told me to go stay with Aunt Evelyn in Parnem for the vacation after end-semester results were announced. Parnem is not too far from Benna Lui, the biggest city we have close by. Parnem has clean trains and lots of schools and bookstores and museums and exhibitions and expensive apartments, and Parnem does not have a beach. Aunt Evelyn was informed of his recommendation. But I’m twenty-one years old and I refused to be shipped off to the big city like a misbehaving teenager in some badly written YA novel. And I stayed in Benna Lui, despite the fact that with every passing day the waves seem greyer to me.
There’s the sound of a door opening. I turn around to see Mikaela emerge from her room just in her underwear, a set she bought online and it cost her sixty-five pounds off Daddy’s credit card. She was with one of those boyfriends at that time, one of the real ones, as she puts it.
She walks – or stumbles – to the kitchen, ignoring me, which I’m fine with. She takes out the Ibuprofen from her stash of painkillers – she collects them like other people would collect stamps, or coins, but I guess painkillers are more useful.
“Fuck,” she mutters, as she fills a glass of water. She pops the pill in her mouth. “Fuck,” she says again after swallowing it. I watch her, more because there’s nothing more interesting to watch. She braces her hands against the counter, bending over.
“Eve,” she groans.
Eve usually isn’t in her post-drunken-night vocabulary, so I guess she wants something.
“Yes,” I say.
“Can you drive me to Caravel?”
She doesn’t mean that. Of course not.
“I have been deemed unfit to drive, Mikaela,” I remind her.
She bends over further, puffing out a breath. “Of course you are.”
I feel like I wasn’t supposed to hear that.
“I have an appointment with Dr. Lemaiy today,” I say.
“No you don’t,” she mutters.
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
I do, of course I do, it’s circled neatly on the calendar on my table.
“Eve, for God’s sake, that’s tomorrow. Today’s Sunday, the clinic’s closed.”
I swallow. I thought I knew when my appointment was, I guess I don’t. Why can’t I remember stupid stuff like this?
“Jesus. I’m sorry. Go check on your own if you want.”
She’s softening her voice. I know because Dr. Lemaiy told her to do this in case I get agitated. I’m not a fucking animal.
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to go check on my own. She’s right.
“D’you think you could manage the groceries today?”
Of course I can. Normal human beings buy groceries. I can do normal things.
“Sure,” I tell Mikaela.
She straightens up. She’s getting thin, thinner, I can see a few of her ribs now. She smiles at me only it doesn’t work.
“Thanks. I’ll leave the list on your table. We’ll split the bill with the rent, ‘kay?”
I nod.
After that she goes into her room, muttering something about concealer and white eyeliner, and I’m still stood in the kitchen. I look down at my clothes – I’m still in the dress and tights from last night.
Last night. I remember last night. Atlanta’s Heel and the Green Door. Tequila. Dexter. I remember Dexter and his hair and his beard, his closed eyes, his guitar, his hands. I remember how he left. I wonder if I’ll even see him again. If Micky sticks around with Jake, I probably will.
I know I should go bathe and change. Fanny’s opens at eleven, and it’s barely seven now. There’s nothing to do in our apartment, so I decide to change and leave. I wait till Mikaela’s done in the bathroom and then I go in.
The walls of the sole bathroom in our apartment are a sick kind of lilac, the kind you get when you mix crimson and Prussian blue and add a smidgen of white. There’s a large rectangle of white where the mirror used to be. Mikaela had it removed when we moved in. She uses the full-length one in her bedroom. As I step in, I feel like I’ve invaded her personal space – the place reeks of her, her stuff everywhere. The only thing I have here is my toothbrush, propped up in the cracked beer mug we’re using as a toothbrush holder. Micky’s left the toothpaste lying near it, cap open. I stand in front of the counter, looking at the mess. Her hair dyes are shoved in one corner, followed by her colour-protect shampoo, colour-protect conditioner, and colour-protect serum. There’s a bottle of clear nail polish and another bottle of jarring green, a large vat-like bottle of apricot face scrub, a case with her makeup, her various applicators and wands, her blush, her mascara – black, green, blue – her eyeliner – liquid, pencil – her foundation – liquid, powder – her lipstick – matte, glossy – her lip gloss – cherry, guava, strawberry, chocolate. There’s a half-open pack of contraceptive pills and an unopened pack of five pregnancy tests. Christ. We’ve only been in Benna Lui a week.
As I brush my teeth I examine the box of pregnancy tests. There’s a little graphic strip on how to use the test. Evidently you just have to pee on it. It sounds fun. I do one, even though the last time I had sex was two years ago. I watch the result emerge after a couple minutes. In those minutes I pretend that I’m actually nervous, a just-wed young woman, whose husband is off at work and oh look my period is five days late I should probably check if I’m pregnant because we had unprotected sex that night at the party because we’re so in love, what if it’s a boy, what if it’s a girl, what will I name him? name her? where will we put the nursery, what colour will the walls be? yellow? is that neutral? gender neutral? should I use lead-free emulsion paint, should I buy a BPA-free sipper when he goes to kindergarten? oh I’m so nervous, but I want this, I want this baby, I want to go for fancy childbirth classes with my husband and have hot pregnant sex but I –
Two blue lines.
So much for that.
I chuck the test into the bin, wash my hands, and get into the shower. I hope Fanny’s opens early today.
*
