The Bitch Posse (16 page)

April 1988
Hampton, Illinois

This is the suckiest birthday ever. It’s my last fucking birthday in this shitty town, and I should be with my friends, getting drunk and stoned and laughing my head off at nothing. Instead me and Rob are lounging in bed at the Paradise Inn in Hampton, about twenty miles outside of Holland. I’m sulking and Rob’s put on the TV, and I pour myself the last little bit of Merlot that glimmers in the bottle he’s brought. After all that shit went down in Mr. Coldwell’s office, I’ve been pretty depressed, even though Rob says that the National Honor Society doesn’t matter, that I’m “the best fucking writer and the most incredible fucking actress I’ve ever seen,” that high school doesn’t matter either, that in just a few months I’m going to Stanford, one of the two or three best schools in the country. Which brings up the very awkward question of where our relationship is going, and you bet I’m gonna ask it.

I slide the last swallow of wine into my mouth. The acid clings to the inside of my cheeks, tasting of currants. Red wine’s supposed to be blood, right, Communion? Well, this bottle of blood I’m sucking down should be labeled “Drink Me,” because, like Alice, I get smaller and smaller with each sip. Soon I’ll be able to slip through the keyhole. Soon I’ll be so tiny I won’t be here at all anymore.

God, Rob Schafer really is driving me insane.

I pull the remote from his hand and mute out
Cheers.

“Hey, I was watching that.”

I toss the remote to the end of the room, where it slams into the mirror that hangs over the cheap coffeemaker. “We need to talk.”

He misunderstands and tangles his fingers in my hair, covers my lips with his, reaches for my thigh.

I smack his hand away and break the kiss. “Not that. Listen, we’ve been together almost two months. So where are we going? I mean, I graduate in June, then the summer, and then I’m in California.”

“You know I love you, Rennie.” And it’s not the first time he’s said this, but it still sends a chill down my back. I won’t say it back to him, and that really, really bugs him for some reason.

I stroke my fingers over his chest, bring my lips to his. Squashing them with mine feels so good, and I pull in his sweet breath,
oh, please, just make me real. . . .

But when I feel him sliding his fingers up and down my back, I pull away. He wants to make love again, but I’m going to pin him down. “So, is this something you do every year? The senior fling?”

“Rennie, you know it’s not. You know we’re special.” He traces a finger along my lips. “You’re like no one else. You’re magic, my fairy queen, I love you.”

I pull a cigarette from the rumpled pack on the nightstand. It drives him crazy that I smoke, even though he does himself. I light it and inhale, blow out smoke briskly, and don’t offer him one. “Just give it to
me straight, Rob. Is there a chance you’ll leave Dawn, come out West with me?”

He pulls his finger along my chin, bending toward me for a kiss, but I lift the cigarette to my lips and turn my head to the side.

“You’re so young, Rennie. The world’s waiting to unfold in front of you. I don’t want to take that away from you. You deserve California. That’s all yours.”

He’s really pissing me off. My fingers shake as I bring the cigarette to my mouth, and looking down at the scar on my arm that’s fading now, I’m reminded of how low I can get when I think about me and Rob. “So, I guess that’s a no. You’re not coming with me.”

He sighs like I’m really stressing him out, slides a cigarette from the pack and lights it. “Listen, Rennie. Do we have to decide all this now? It’s months away.”

And I feel a sudden urge to hurt someone, to take the glowing end of the cigarette and press it into my skin or his, until it burns, blackens, hurts hurts hurts, like his words do. Even though I won’t say it aloud, I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with him, and I do want him to come out West with me. I want to move in with him, and I’ll go to Stanford and he can get a job teaching in California. Smoking harder, quicker, I tell him I’ve phoned the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and found out they have a reciprocity agreement with Illinois, that I read an article saying they really need teachers in San Jose, that there’s a population explosion about an hour north and an hour south of San Francisco and, and,
and . . .

“Rennie.” He puts a finger on my lips. “Can’t we enjoy what we have, live in the moment? Just relax . . . ” He stares at the empty Merlot bottle. “I’ve got another one of these out in the car. I have something else for you too. Be right back.” He pulls on his jeans, no underwear, tucks his sweater over his head, and is gone.

Here I am, alone in a hotel room with the smell of sex clinging to
the Lysol-y spray. Alone alone alone. The room’s getting smaller, the walls are closing in, and I lie on my back on the bed and smoke, the ceiling pressing down toward me, the little snowy patterns of paint ready to fold up inside themselves and send down flakes, freezing me, Rennie Taylor, ice princess, me, Rennie Taylor, Snow White in her coffin.

Today’s Shakespeare’s birthday too.
The course of true love never did run smooth. . . .

My hair’s wet near my ears, and I realize I’m crying and turn my head to the side. I’m not even altogether sure why I’m crying, but sobs bubble up from a well deep inside me, and my guts spin. I feel so emotional, it’s like my period is starting. But of course it’s not, and the sobs tremble through me, my stomach, my uterus, everywhere inside me, and he’ll be back any minute, damned if I’ll let him see me cry.

I run my fingers over the red beaded necklace Amy made for me and take three deep breaths.
Give me strength, Bitch Posse.
As I sit up, the ceiling rises again, and I dry my eyes and cheeks with the back of my hand and pull in smoke real hard, scorching my lungs.

In a moment he slips in with some more Merlot and a box wrapped in silver paper embossed with white roses. Do I tell him? Do I tell him? I haven’t told anybody, not even the Bitch Posse.

He doesn’t even notice I’ve been crying and splashes some more wine into the little jewel-cut hotel glass, or really, if you want to call a spade a spade, the Paradise Inn’s a motel. I’m not having a high-class affair with a married man in a hotel, I’m just a slutty whore fucking someone in a seedy motel.

You have to hurt if you want to feel anything at all.

He hands me the box. “Happy birthday.”

I tear off the paper and toss it on the floor. Nesting in the box is a thick silver bracelet, with flowers carved all over it.

“For my little pixie,” he says.

It’s not really my style, but it’s from him and it’s pretty, so I say “I
love it” and put it on. The bracelet weighs down my wrist, making my arm look like a stick. Everyone says petite girls shouldn’t wear big jewelry. In the end it’s just another thing, a hunk of metal. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a promise.

I gulp some more wine, which actually clears my head, or at least makes it easier for me to talk. “So, are you leaving Dawn, or not?” It’s the first time I’ve come out and said that and thrown all my cards on the table, and I work real hard to keep the sobs boxed up inside me because I don’t want him to think I really care. “Because there’s a guy at the college who really wants to hook up with me, and if you’re not interested I think I’ll give him a call.” And there, I’ve put him in the only corner I know how to, aside from the last trump card, which I haven’t played yet.

He stubs out his cigarette and rubs my cheeks with his thumbs, pulls me close. “I told you. I love you, damn it, Rennie. I love you.”

“Those are just words.”

“You’re a writer. You know the power of words.” He kisses me hard, squeezing me too tightly, nipping my neck for that good little hurt, and pressing my back with his palms. I can’t help it, I breathe out an “oh,” and the wind whistles outside, but I push him away.

“Am I just your little high school fuck, or is this serious?” I turn away, grumpy.

“You know it’s serious.” He licks his finger and runs it down my neck and back. “Know what? If you want, we’ll get married someday. After you’ve had your education, and time to grow.” He laces his fingers together over my chest, and I lean back into him as he brushes his lips across the top of my head, then lifts my hair to kiss the nape of my neck. The tingles send a real thought into my brain. Should I tell him? I don’t even know what I’m planning to do about it yet. Should I invite him into the discussion?

The wine has all gone to my head, and I’m a little giddy. I must have had at least four glasses, and anyway, he as much as said he’s going
to marry me, didn’t he? Somehow my legs are opening again, and I’m falling back into the pillows, reaching for his ass, guiding him. I lock my feet around him, let him pull me up, up, up in the hot-air balloon, so I’m dizzy; and he shows me the view of the countryside, quilted with pastures, and I’m dizzier; and he laughs and we jump out together and float, float, float like ashes of burned paper, down to the wet earth, and I think, I think I’ll tell him; and he moves against me one last time and gasps, and as he holds me close for a moment, stroking my hair, I press my face against his cheek and whisper my newest secret in his ear, the one that’ll change everything, that’ll get him off the dime about Dawn.

I tell him what I’ve been pretty sure of for a few weeks, what I confirmed this morning in the bathroom, that I’m pregnant.

April 2003
Freemont Psychiatric Hospital

Well, it’s one of those days where Cherry doesn’t want to get up in the morning. Lately things with Michael have gotten weird. Yesterday they got in another shouting match, but then he leaned over, right there in the lounge, and kissed her, and that was the last thing she’d expected. Half of her felt like breaking away and slugging him, and half of her wanted to lock her fingers around his neck, yank him toward her, and open her lips until everything heated to scorching.
Sam Sam Sam.
Josie, her roommate, pushed herself between them; but lately Josie’s been acting strange too, asking Cherry if she remembers things like their kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch (which of course never happened). God, Josie can’t help Cherry. The girl can’t even help herself.

Last night Cherry dreamed about Michael beating her, lashing welts across her back, and what’s weirder is that she woke up feeling
like she’d had an orgasm. She got up and went to the bathroom and stared at that dumb red emergency button next to the toilet. As if all emergencies occurred in bathrooms. So stupid! Like this whole stupid place.

She was still hot from her dream, so she played around in the bathroom for a while, staring at that crazy red button, until she came and felt sleepy again and shuffled back to bed. Emergency. They wouldn’t know one if it slapped them in the face. She pulled her half-finished tapestry from under her bed, curled up under her covers, and fell asleep clutching her mountains in front of mountains in front of mountains.

No, she hasn’t dreamt like that for a long time, not since she and Sam Sterling pushed things to the edge, way too long ago to even remember. The dream is surely the sign of some deep disturbance, something else to hide from Dr. Anders.

Cherry rolls over, rubs her fingers over her eyes, and stashes the tapestry under her bed. “Josie?” Josie’s snoring softly in the bed next to hers, Josie, a little girl really, Josie who won’t eat, hardly sleeps. “Jos?”

Josie mumbles something and pulls the covers over her head. Cherry decides to let her catch as many winks as she can, but in a few moments the morning nurse rouses them with her usual robotic wake-up call. After they get dressed, run brushes through their hair, and have a quick smoke (with all that Michael stress Cherry’s taken up the habit again), they walk together downstairs for the women’s discussion group. It’s a pale April day with fog high in the air and, Cherry supposes, the daffodils may well be blooming outside, but she wouldn’t know. She hasn’t had a bench pass in several weeks, and anyway, it’s been cold.

Josie and Cherry walk to the meeting room, where everyone’s sitting in a circle. Cherry’s often pictured college would’ve been something like this, students in a circle of desks, discussing Shakespeare or Keats. Through the window it isn’t such a pleasant spring day after all; the
wind whips through the branches on the trees of the courtyard as Cherry slips into a desk near Josie.

The social worker, Leigh McLeod, pushes her brown hair back with a pencil. Leigh’s like a needle; Cherry can’t stand her. “Patient check-in first. Relationships. Susan, you start.” This is as warm as Leigh gets. Her skin’s vanilla ice cream, frozen, pale, and Cherry snaps open her Zippo and lights a cigarette even though this isn’t one of the smoking areas.

Susan gives her a glance and begins. “As you all know, last weekend I had the opportunity to return to my home for a few days, to see my husband, my kids.” She takes a deep breath and explains that something very unusual happened there; she watched his face (Raymond’s), and it was as though she could see into the future and all that was there was blackness, “the memories of my months here hanging above him,” a book, Susan explains, that’s forgotten how to be written. “And so,” she says, with a deep breath, “I’ve decided to ask him for a divorce.”