Billie Girl

Chapter Thirty

After we left Barnes and Noble, we went to see a movie at the Woodland Mall. The movie was not important, but what was important was the synergy between us. We both shared this mammoth bucket of popcorn, and at one point Leslie and I touched hands while reaching for a handful, and we gave each other an electric shock that really got us giggling. Then, when we went home, we talked and talked about the years that had passed and the ten-year gap between us. Mom was so young when she had Leslie. That was why Mom and Dad rushed and got married. You could see the baby bump on mom in the fading wedding photos.

When we got home, Mom was in her room. We should have called her and told her that we were having an outing. I guess both of us should not have turned off our cell phones. There was a big note on the kitchen counter telling us that she was worried sick about us, and to please wake her when we got home. But we peeked in her room and she was fast asleep. We didn't have the heart to wake her up.

She had cold pasta in the fridge left for us and the two of us pigged out some more.

Then Leslie told me something that I could not get out of my mind for a long time. "I am so sorry I left you guys alone and moved to the West Coast. Really, I am."

"It's OK I understand. There weren't any opportunities for you here. You are very talented. You had to go out there and make it happen."

"Do you want to come out to LA and live with me for awhile?"

"That sounds like fun, but I don't think you would like having Blake around all the time."

"But you need to find yourself, Billie, and you can only do that alone. You're letting yourself get lost in another person before you even know who you are."

"I know who I am. I am a person who gets super lonely when Blake isn't around."

"But he doesn't know who he is either. He doesn't do anything."

"He does me."

"Oh yeah, does he?"

"Well, not really."

"Are you two being careful? I hope you are. You know birth control doesn't keep you disease-free."

"Don't worry about all that. We don't do it."

"You mean you have not consummated your relationship? How refreshing."

"What I mean is that we haven't fucked."

"Gotcha."

She put her hands on mine like she was a spiritual adviser or a psychic. "What's holding you back? I know I should not be saying this. But what are you waiting for? Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Don't you want to live for today? God knows, I had done it by the time I was your age."

"I want it to be special when we...do it. I want us to be on our own, married, sure of each other. It's not like we don't do other things. There are plenty of variables to keep us busy in the meantime."

"Gotcha."

"Stop saying gotcha."

"Gotcha."

I gave her a light slap on the wrist. I studied Leslie's face in the kitchen light, and it occurred to me that she was in many ways as beautiful as a movie star. She had the perfectly sculpted nose of Julia Roberts and her red hair was thick and luminous. She was pure splendor, and I just couldn't help but think she was doing something wrong out there in California to be still single and searching and pregnant.

She sensed I was observing her, reading her. Then she said, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

And then I actually said it, "I love you, Leslie."

"Are you drunk or something? This family never uses that word."

"But I do. You are perfect. I want to be as beautiful as you are if I make it to thirty."

"For your information, thirty is not that old, Billie."

"I would think it would be scary to be that old."

"Come on, the years pass faster than you think. You'll see."

"Will you sleep next to me tonight? I don't want to be alone."

And so she lay down beside me, and she smelled like too much perfume, like she always did. But soon I got used to that aroma of strawberries and sugar. The dogs jumped up on the bed. And then I asked her the name of her perfume.

"Chanel," she said, "and you are going to kill me, but for some reason I am craving a cigarette."

"You still smoke? I thought you quit years ago."

"I always keep a pack with me to remind me of what a nasty habit it is. I would say I smoke about twelve cigarettes a year. I have had this pack for six months, it's probably stale."

"Do as you wish," I said

That night I dreamed of my wedding. And naturally Daddy was there, dressed in the finest of suits, and Mom was leaning her head on his shoulder. The wedding band asked me to sing a song. They were all dressed in tight fitting tuxedos. And Blake told me to go up on the stage with the band and to not be so shy. But then they played a song that was so foreign to me. It sounded like the kind of song that you would hear played by a French band on some hot August night on the outskirts of Paris. The accordion player was playing this nostalgic melody line. They cued for me to come in, but I just didn't know the song. And I was forced to improvise, which I was just terrible at. The words didn't come, and I stood there frozen, unable to deliver. Then Leslie jumped on stage and nudged me aside, and she began to sing in perfect French. I had no idea what she was singing but it sounded wonderfully foreign and exotic. I looked down and saw that her stomach looked like there was a basketball in there from her pregnancy. Then while the accordion player, who was an old man with a handle bar mustache played his joyous solo, Leslie gently touched her belly and said to me in a kooky way, "I think I am ready to pop one out. Go get a Doctor."

So I left her there alone on the stage, and after that the dream consisted of me desperately searching and calling out for doctor anywhere in the party crowd. I was still asking every guest I saw when I become unbearably frustrated and woke up happy that it was just a dream.

It was morning.

Leslie had always been an early riser, and so it was no surprise that she was no longer beside me, sharing my bed. I headed downstairs to discover that the winter sky was clear (which was rare for Michigan) and revealing the orange glow of sunrise. I was so used to cloudy mornings that I almost preferred them to sunny ones. I noticed there was only one egg left in the fridge. I noticed that, in general, we were low on groceries. So I made myself some oatmeal with a dash of sugar and cinnamon, and I realized that I still smelled a bit like Leslie's Chanel perfume.

It wasn't long before mother came in the side door with bags of groceries. "Could you be a dear and bring in some of the stuff. My arm hurts today. I think I was sleeping on one side all night."

I threw on a jacket and walked outside in my slippers to get the groceries from the open trunk of the car. As I was carrying them back to the house, I saw a cigarette stub on the driveway by a huge pile of snow near the trash cans. Since there was no man in the house and I was the youngest, I was in charge of shoveling the snow, which I was quite capable at and did not mind doing. But I had never piled snow up by the trash dispensers.

I saw a hand reaching out from the mound of snow, and this caused my heart to jump, I lost my grip on one of the grocery bags. The bag fell to the driveway, and oranges and lemons began rolling across the driveway, and I heard the crunch of glass.

But I could not take my eyes off that hand reaching up from the snow.

I rushed to the mound of snow and dug with my bare hands until I had uncovered an arm and buried face.

Leslie lay there looking beautiful. Her mouth was open as if she were experiencing some unknowable ecstasy.

But she was not breathing.