Broken Marilyns

GEEZ LOUISE

GEEZ LOUISE

"Geez Louise?" Bree, my new cubicle neighbor latched onto me the moment I escaped Newman's office and I found myself at lunch with her. I was the new old girl in town, and I could feel eyes crawling all over my skin at the diner.

"Yup. Geez fucking Louise." Bree's lips slanted a little and I realized not everyone here was as foul-mouthed as I was, or was used to. Damn my luck.

"Well...it's a place to start, anyway," the bouncy blonde smiled as she poked around at the chicken on her plate. Bree was as cute and proper as they came and it annoyed me, but there was also something alluring about her.

"I guess," I shrugged and sipped my coke, wishing there were some whiskey in it. Later, I told my inner lush, later. If I had to tackle that brainless section of the newspaper to get where I wanted to be, so be it.

When we came back to the office from lunch, I began pulling up some of the columns the last "Louise" wrote. I spent most of the day meandering through questions and answers, trying to get into the right mindset. Every time my eyes drifted around the office, they got snagged on a man who looked to be barely in his twenties. This last time we caught each other's eye, he started walking towards me. No, oh no. "Hey, I noticed you're new around here. I'm Simon," I forced a friendly smile and took him up on a handshake which he awkwardly held onto for longer than usual.

"I'm Jenna. I'm gonna be writing the Geez Louise columns."

"Jenna," he answered excitedly. His eagerness and persistent nodding were making this introduction far more awkward than it needed to be.

"Well I'm the office intern, so...if there's anything you don't feel like doing, just do what everyone else does and come find me, okay?" again with the head nods.

"Okay, thanks Simon," I laughed nervously and he took off. Bree peeked over the wall at me, wiggling her eyebrows. Get me of here.

Today couldn't have ended soon enough. Slouching at my mother's quaint dining room table, I swirled the ice around in my almost empty coke - with whiskey. I remembered having to polish this table twice a week and now it was laden with scratches and water rings. Ten years ago I closed the door and turned my back on this place, and yet here I was.

Everything in this house made me feel nostalgic and sick. The liquor bottles on top of the fridge, the multitude of vitamins and pills on top of the microwave, the thick crocheted blankets made of revolting colors in every room. God, I missed her. All this time I'd spent running away from the truth I didn't want to admit - I was exactly like her, and I wasn't fooling anyone.

Staring at my laptop, I decided to get it over with and dive into the fascinating Geez Louise questions from people who were just as lost as I was. All the entries began to blur together until I found one that was submitted three weeks ago: "Geez Louise, my girlfriend ran out on me last night. We got into a big fight because I don't like what she does (she's a dancer, and not your traditional kind). Have any advice for me? -NotYourTraditionalDancer." Finally, something I could get into. I picked five other questions and printed them out for work the next day.

Washing the dishes, a car drove down the street, their headlights highlighting the side of the old Henley house facing me. I shuddered. How could my mom look at that house every damned day after what happened? "Chad Henley," I muttered out loud, "whatever happened to him?" After all these years, it never crossed my mind to look him up. Drying off my hands, I leapt to the computer. I tried to calm my fingers as I typed in the name - a nervous twinge of excitement tickled my chest and throat. Several results came up but none of them led to him. He was a ghost. "Where did you go, Chad?"

I'm walking by the Henley house, my body trembling with fear. No one is around so I creep inside that old rusty shed. Inside there are hundreds of belts with ornate buckles swinging from the ceiling. My legs give out and I fall to the ground. In front of me there are piles of overturned earth and small claw marks where my brother dug into the ground and above that my brother's blood stains the side of a rotting wood tool bench. Looking down, I see Charlie's blood on my hands.

Waking up, my scalp and hair were soaked with sweat. All these memories I was re-living were messing with my head.

During my dream I'd dug my nails into my shin so hard I broke skin. Pain...in a way it comforts me because in a world of uncertainty I can always count on it to be my constant. Pain is unseeing. I know this because if Pain had seen Charlie's face it would have gasped at his innocence and fled, but it didn't.