The Bitch Posse (25 page)

Suddenly she’s just so sick of herself. She walks back into the bedroom and says, “Puck, I have to go.”

“What? No, stay.” He pushes her thighs apart, and hmm,
now
he’s interested in pleasing her, but she just won’t have any more of this, won’t sink so low.

She pulls on the rest of her clothes. “I’m sorry, Puck. I’m leaving.” His eyes widen into a quizzical and hurt look, like a basset hound’s. She won’t fall for it and doesn’t feel like explaining. “E-mail me if you want. You have my address.”

“Your chapters, what about your chapters?”

“Fuck my chapters.” There are no chapters, Lisa hates them and now so does she. She should just quit writing, it’s too fucking humiliating.

“Wren, what did I do?”

“Nothing.” She turns and won’t look back or her whole world will turn into salt. She walks down the stairs to the living room and hurries by the mirror streaked with dusty residue, the crumpled bills still sitting on the table. She pushes the door open and steps out into the afternoon sun.

Somehow California’s too bright for someone like her. The sky’s way too blue, and she’s sure she’ll go blind until several blinks send her vision back to normal. A warm breeze is blowing, and a bird’s singing somewhere.

The only way she figures out it’s Sunday is the fat newspaper sitting on his driveway. Dirty names for herself float through her head, and she’s not altogether clear where she’s headed, but she’s getting the hell out of Palo Alto, that’s for sure.

It’s Half Moon Bay where she ends up, someplace nobody knows her and vaguely unfamiliar, perfect. She kicks off her shoes and skates her feet through the white sand. The bay’s like a crescent; of course the word “Bay” upsets her, but she won’t think about that.

Almost no one is here, a family with an umbrella, a curly-haired woman with a dog, an older couple holding hands. It’s the perfect peaceful place. She scoops up some sand and flings it into the water, watching it crash and disintegrate in the foam. The surfers are out, but the waves suck. They suck at surfing, too, because they keep missing the waves and getting caught under, and suddenly Rennie feels like tearing off all her clothes and swimming out in the freezing water until she’s caught in a riptide and pulled out to sea.

But instead she decides to hunt for beach glass. She picks up green pebbles and blue pebbles and brown ones, bottle pieces worn smooth by the waves, and she hardly knows what she’s after but she keeps picking them up and putting them in her pocket. She picks up a sharp one and starts to throw it back into the water so it can get worn down for someone else, but for some reason she pulls her arm back. As she studies the green shard in her palm, an urge comes to her.

She sits on the wet sand and pulls the sharp glass over her skin until it hurts, does it again until petals of blood bubble up against the scratch she’s made. She closes her eyes. Everything feels so clear, the horrible self-hating feelings are gone. The salt that must be clinging to the piece of glass stings into her wound as the sun hazes the sky over the Pacific. She cuts again in the glowing yellow dusk, as a wave rolls to shore and drops foam on the sand in front of her.

As long as the stars are fixed in the heavens and the fish sparkle in the sea.
She was so strong then and is so weak now, it doesn’t make sense. Her eyes fall closed, and she pictures her old friends, Amy and Cherry, just for a minute. And odd, she doesn’t feel like crying anymore, doesn’t feel quite so desperate anymore, feels at peace, just for now. Abruptly a thought falls into her head from nowhere and her eyes pop open.

Mallory!

Mallory and Max and Caleb, their two-year-old, are taking a taxi from the airport to Rennie’s house in Mill Valley today. Rennie offered to pick them up, but Mallory insisted; she likes to throw money around. Her flight was getting in at three, and Rennie told her sister she’d be at home when she got there, and they’d maybe walk to dinner at D’Angelo’s because they like kids there and and and . . .

Oh, what a fuck-up she is, the door’ll be locked and they’ll bang on Beverly’s, her landlady’s door and that’ll piss her off. She thinks Rennie’s trouble, she probably wishes she hadn’t rented her guest cottage to someone so fucked up, Beverly who trades stocks in the city, and damn, Rennie, what are you doing?

She becomes aware of the blood smearing across her forearm, and it turns her stomach now, what the hell was she thinking? She’s too smart, too old to act this way. She’s acting like a teenager, and fuck, why does she always do this? Cutting was over long ago, why start again? Why pull out those feelings again? And now that she remembers how good it is she’ll never be able to stop.
Oh, please, let me stop . . .

She throws the beach glass into the ocean and rubs the blood into her skin, shame flooding her. She walks back to where her sandals are and, cursing herself, jogs to her car, opening the wound with her fingers and letting the hurt pulse through her.

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

May 1988
Holland, Illinois

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is your morning anchor, Cherry Winters, reporting on another frighteningly fucked-up crack of dawn in Holland, Illinois. Wretchedly humid, with the thermometer already inching toward ninety and the heat index way beyond that. At this very moment, the valedictorian of Holland High School, Miss Rennie Taylor, is screwing our married drama teacher. Homecoming Queen Amy Linnet’s spent a night fucked up on Xanax and vodka and is now out cold on Sam Sterling’s sofa. Juvenile Delinquent Cherry Winters is the only one who’s responsible these days, and yes, she feels vaguely superior about that.

Last time I checked her, Amy was snoring happily, no problem. But she scared me, damn it. After Sam and I dragged her in here and dumped her on the sofa, I pulled his old army blanket over her and slid a pillow under her head. Then I called her mom and dad and pretended
to be Pammie’s mom, explaining that Amy was spending the night. Fortunately Mrs. Linnet seemed pretty wasted herself so she didn’t recognize my voice.

I pushed aside my anger at Sam in favor of some pretty noisy sex, and Amy didn’t even stir. Guess that Xanax knocks you out. It was one of those really delicious nights where every time I woke up he woke up and we’d reach for each other and we’ve just had sex for the third time. Now, Sam’s climbing off me and zipping over to get a smoke. Oh, it was perfect beautiful sex. Well, sure he slapped me around a little bit, but just the way I like it. We haven’t revisited that thing with him punching me, and it will never, never happen again. He curls back into the pillow (the boring bed, I have come to realize, has its advantages, easy to fall asleep right after, no splinters in my bum), slides a cigarette into my mouth, and holds his under mine to light it.

And now is when I will deal with the shit that went on after Amy’s drama. I inhale and blow out a flat stream. “So, what was the deal with you and Amy last night?”

“What do you mean?” He whistles out some smoke. “She was all fucked up.”

“Yeah, but grabbing your crotch. What was that about?” I know she was fucked up, but once she collapsed next to Sam, he tucked his arms around her (like a friend, I thought at the time), and Amy slid her fingers up his leg and grabbed him. And he pulled her jacket over his lap and just let her do it.

This is one of those times when I question why I’m with Sam at all, why I put up with his bullshit, and the only answer I have is that it’s better than being alone. Which makes me so fucking pathetic and un-Bitch Posse-ish that I can’t let that thought tug me any further. Anyway, maybe he’ll change, he could, people change, don’t they?

“I don’t think she even knew what she was doing.” He kisses my neck. “I doubt she’ll remember it.”

For now, he’s the same old bad old Sam. He’s totally talking sideways;
he missed the point completely. “Why’d you pull her jacket over your lap?”

“I didn’t, she did.”

Liar. “You let her give you a hand job.” I smoke faster, angrier. “She’s my best friend. Why’d you let her do that?” And why, why did I let him do it? I’m such a fucking wimp.

He laughs. “What are you talking about?”

“You know how fucked up she was. She’d never do that sober. I’m surprised Brandon didn’t say something.” And why didn’t I say something? Or Rennie? It was almost like we were in a dreamworld; I couldn’t believe it was happening. And though I will never admit it, a tiny part of me is afraid of Sam’s reactions. “You should have moved her hand away instead of let her feel you up.”

He slides some more smoke from his mouth. “You’re making a big deal of nothing, Cherry. She was messed up, she won’t remember it, who cares?”

Me. He’s supposed to be my boyfriend. Amy’s got an excuse, she was fucked up on pills and vodka. I pulled the prescription bottle out of her purse and read it while she was passed out. There was a whole shitload of warnings about drinking with Xanax, and I’m pretty sure she’s setting herself up for some major trouble. “She was totally off her face, Sam. You just don’t do that shit to someone who’s fucked up like that, especially when your girlfriend’s sitting right there.” I hear my own words and realize they sound pretty dumb. “Hell, Sam, you don’t do that shit anytime, under any circumstances.”

A draft pulls up goose bumps on my arms, and I gather my clothes from the floor and start putting them on because this is as far as this conversation will go. I’ve made my point, and we’ll go on from here like we always do, because the relationship fits me like an old pair of shoes, and anyway, I wouldn’t know how to act with someone who didn’t need fixing.

“What’re you so controlling for?”

“I’m not controlling.”

“Fuck you are.”

Where the hell’d that come from? “Fuck I’m not. Just drop it, Sam. Don’t pull that shit anymore.”

I’ve just slipped my shirt over my head when he grabs my wrists, and his nails bite into my skin, hard. I shake him away, but next thing I know he pulls my hands behind my back and slams me into the wall. Lightning bolts shoot through my entire face. I yell, “What the fuck?” and he smashes my face into the wall again. Blood trickles down and my mind turns off somehow.

I sniff in blood, and fuck, did he totally fucking fuck up my face? He grabs my hair and yanks. My scalp burns, he may very well pull all my hair out. Shit, Cherry Winters is getting the shit kicked out of her, and shit, this just doesn’t happen, Cherry Winters is as tough as nails.

I gather all my strength and twist my hands free. As I turn around I can feel my lips bleeding. “This is bullshit, Sam.” Are those tears streaming down my face? Cherry Winters doesn’t cry. “Fuck you.” And Amy, Amy, doesn’t she hear? I knee him in the balls before he can think about it, and he howls and doubles over. I dart under his arm and into the living room, where Amy’s sitting up groggily. I know she doesn’t know where she is or half of what happened last night. When she sees me, she goes, “Cherry, oh, my God . . . ”

I grab her arm. “Come on, Amy, now.” I pull her to her feet as Sam tears into the room. I hurl open the door to the hallway and drag Amy along.

“What, what happened, Cherry?” We’re outside in the thick humid morning and she’s rubbing her eyes. “God, I feel like crap.” Then, she looks into my face. “Cherry! Oh, my God. It looks even worse in the light. What’d he do?”

I’m humiliated that Amy sees me this way. “Forget it, Amy. Come on, let’s go.” And shit, my purse is in there in the bedroom and Amy’s
too. Fortunately my keys are in my pocket, so I’ll just leave my goddamn purse and drive without my license.

We jump into my truck. I start the engine, and we pull out of the parking lot. I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but damned if I’m going home to Marian like this. I check myself in the rearview. It’s not as bad as it felt at the time. My left eye’s blackening and there’s some blood by my nose that’s already staring to clot over, but other than that I look okay. My nose still has its shape, I can cover all this with makeup.

Amy’s still annoyingly worried next to me. “He fucking beat you up. I’ll fucking kill him. Cherry, you should go to the police.”

“No, no, I don’t deal with cops.” They’re unreliable, absent, don’t even know I exist.

You could say that cops are not a part of my life.

“I’m fine.” Despite my efforts to push them down, sobs tear out of me, blurring the road. I have to pull over, and fall into Amy’s arms. I’m not usually like this, I don’t need people.

She runs her fingers down my back and traces circles on my T-shirt. “Cherry, be reasonable. Go to the cops.”

“No.”

She sighs, a breath fluttering against me, then lets me go and sits back. “I can’t make you.”

“My purse. And yours. They’re back there.”

She shrugs. “I’ll get Brandon to get them. Drive without a license for a while. I can’t drive anywhere but Mary Sue’s anyway. I’ll just say it was stolen at the movies, which is where I was supposed to be with Pammie. . . . ” Then she realizes. “Pammie! I was supposed to be home by one.”

“Don’t worry, I called. I pretended to be Pammie’s mom.”

She runs her finger over the bridge of my nose and gives a low whistle. “First things first, let’s take care of you. Come on, there’s a
Shell on the corner. I’ll walk over and get some paper towels wet from the bathroom.”