The Bitch Posse (27 page)

She floors it, zipping by cars. Out of the blue she feels like smoking a cigarette, even though she gave that up in college. Shit makes no sense anymore, may as well try for lung cancer. At least it’d be interesting, and maybe she’d even learn something from it, who the hell knows? She needs to join the fucking Bitch Posse again, Jesus, why is everyone in her life so fucking distant these days? Where’d she fuck up to make that happen? She’ll never have real friends again, but if she smokes maybe she’ll pull back some of that old strength, that old certainty. Maybe she’ll be the Uber-Bitch-Goddess again, the Amy who can tackle the world, oh yeah.

She pulls off at a rest stop, buys herself a pack of Marlboros, and gets back in the car. She lights up as she merges into traffic, and as the smoke creeps into her lungs she starts to cough—oh, God, it’s like the first time she ever smoked. The nicotine rushes to her head, and she feels a little nauseated. God, it’s been years, and that word echoes in her head,
years
.

And unfortunately, even though she’s hundreds of miles away from the Soo, she can’t get Lucky out of her mind. It was stupid to think she could ever make things better, and she’s beginning to think there was no way out after all. Staying with Scotty would’ve been torture, day after day having to look into each other’s eyes and remember the baby they lost. But this doesn’t feel like freedom, she just feels alone. She smokes the rest of the cigarette quickly, stubs it out in the ashtray, and
speeds up again. As she approaches a green highway sign, she realizes she needs to stop and sleep somewhere. But goddamn if she’ll stop in Illinois.
Des Moines, 205 Miles

Des Moines, Iowa. Perhaps that’s where she’ll end up. She can’t imagine a more desolate place. The Midwest is so flat and empty and lonely, just like Amy herself. Why the hell didn’t she go the other direction, toward New York, Manhattan, where she could be anonymous in the massive clot of people? New York City, the center of the goddamn fucking universe. New York City, the only place that really fucking matters.

If Amy lived there, maybe she’d matter too.

Or not.

It’s all so crazy, why is she in the Midwest again? Why? Why? Why? All that’s here in Illinois is death, her past is like a sore that won’t ever heal, memories are spurting at her like blood and she can’t close the wound. Cutting, cutting, cutting, she hasn’t thought for a long time of how good that feels.

Her vision blurs, and she veers into the next lane by mistake. A car blasts on its horn, and she looks in the rearview to notice an old VW bug swerving onto the shoulder to avoid rear-ending her.
Shit, shit, Amy, that was close
Her heart’s pounding now, and she’s adrenaline pumped. She’s got to either drive really fast or pull off and buy some vodka and down it and sleep that way

Barely conscious of what she’s doing, she moves one hand off the steering wheel and onto the soft skin of her forearm. Her nails pop through easily, and in an instant lucidity spins into her and she feels calm again, centered, herself. She takes some deep breaths, lets up on the gas a little, reads the highway sign. Beyond Des Moines is a place called Omaha, Nebraska, and she’ll find her way somewhere.
It’s all right, Amy.
She presses her hand to her locket.
It’ll all be all right, you did the right thing.

May 1988
Hampton, Illinois

Whispers of smoke curl through the air in the motel room—yeah, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s a motel. Rob decided we had to come here instead of his house, even though Dawn’s out of town, because the neighbors might talk and that wouldn’t be good. So once again I don’t get to see the beautiful sleigh bed he talks about fucking me for afternoons at a time on, once again I don’t get to have him cook me a meal in his granite-tiled gourmet kitchen Dawn’s salary paid for, no, none of that for Rennie Taylor.

We got Chinese takeout for dinner, something with shrimp and another thing with shiny pink pork and clumpy rice. It’s all cold, and we’re eating right out of the containers. Well, Rob is. I’m done. I couldn’t eat much, and that’s my cigarette the smoke is tumbling from. It’s funny how we talk so little now, it’s all about the sex. Our charming little conversations from early on, the philosophical discussions
(Do you think we knew each other in a past life? Do you believe in God?)
have tripped into nothingness. Kind of freaky, being in a relationship that’s all about getting laid. Like being on a boat going nowhere, with no oars, no compass.

I can’t think about it much.

The pork glistens from the end of the plastic fork on its way to Rob’s mouth, and he opens it and shoves in the food and closes it and chews. Eating is a disgusting act when you think about it. Ingesting. Destroying. Digesting. Ugh. All I could force down was a few spoonfuls of soggy rice. Lately I seem to be getting most of my calories from wine. I just can’t eat.

We’ve blocked out this Saturday to be together. Rob told Dawn he was in Springfield at a teacher training institute. I got out of babysitting Little Miss Mallory by telling Dad and Kelly I was going to a day of lectures and workshops at the college called “People and Politics in the Post-Reagan Era.” It sounded just like something the old Rennie would do, and they bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Last night Amy got way fucked up, and Cherry took her to sleep over at Sam’s. I’m pretty worried about Amy, to tell you the God’s honest truth. She popped a handful of pills and sucked down some vodka, and before she passed out with her hand in Sam’s crotch (and Cherry, smart-assed Cherry said
nothing),
she promised she was never going to do that again. But I know she probably will. One thing about Amy, she’s not good at hiding things, and it was soooo obvious she was rattling her pill bottle all night. Two vodkas later she was toasted; now if you knew how much it usually takes to get Amy drunk you’d know something was up. I have to wonder if she’s not coasting to the edge on purpose, seeing how far she can go without totally losing control of things. Such as her life.

Rob’s packing up the Chinese food. Is he planning to take it home tonight, warm it up in the microwave, eat it in front of the TV with Dawn? How’s he going to explain boxes of Chinese food coming from
a teacher training in Springfield? He folds the lids down neatly and places the boxes on the dresser. Smiling, he shows me two bottles of wine. “Cabernet or Pinot Noir?”

Like it really makes a fucking difference. “You pick.”

He chooses one and opens it. He’s made a fuss for some reason; from his briefcase he pulls two wineglasses and pours us each a glass. “Cheers.”

It’s twelve days since I’ve had my abortion, and I know he’s been keeping track of it because he says, “Today’s the day, right, your self-imposed celibacy can end?”

I swallow some of the wine. “Doctor imposed.”

The word “doctor” seems to throw him, and he drinks faster, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. His jawline is a little bristly with those hairs so dark they’re almost blue. He notices my empty glass and pours some more, red liquid sparkling like a jewel. I’m glad he’s brought two bottles, because I’m feeling down and I’ll probably want to drink them.

He puts on the radio to a boring station that’s playing John Cougar Mellencamp, the closest thing to decent music we get out here. But I can’t stand hearing about how great the Midwest is when I know it’s one big lie. “I hate shit that makes living in a small town sound like the greatest thing on Earth.” The heartland, what a joke. There’s no heart in the heartland. She’s been raped and had the life sucked out of her, she’s become a bitter old woman.

He laughs. “Do you really think it’s different anywhere else?”

And Mellencamp sings endlessly about his fucking small town in that fucking Midwestern twang that I’ll do anything to get out of my voice, for-fucking-ever.

Damn it, I’ll drive to San Francisco and jump off the Golden Gate Bridge before I die here. “Maybe you weren’t listening. This is shit music, can we put on something else?”

“I thought you liked Mellencamp.”

And I do and I don’t. It’s some kind of masochism probably, but Rob’s pissing me off and I don’t feel like explaining. “Get real. The Bible Belt’s not going to save my soul or yours or anyone else’s.” I twist the dial around for something else, and of course, there is nothing else, why would there be, we’re in the middle of a fucking cornfield, nothing here but country and western and crappy Top 40 hits. I wish we had a boom box or something, because I twirl and twirl and twirl the dial and every station’s playing the same damn song. I snap the radio off, and we stare at each other in the silence.

Things have gotten so uncomfortable, and we drink and smoke and finally start kissing. He pulls my Cure T-shirt over my head and runs his fingers up my belly. Last time since I couldn’t have sex all we did was drink and watch
9½ Weeks
on the motel cable (goodness there’s a lot about sex I didn’t know before), and he talked me into giving him a blow job, which like a lot of things I can now say I have done.

Blow job. Sex. Abortion.

Racking up experiences.

He hasn’t seen me naked for a while, and he breaks the silence with “You’re still so beautiful.”

Still? “Post-abortion, you mean? You thought I’d look different maybe? My hair would turn to snakes? I’d have
666
written across my tits?” I’m trying to be funny, but it comes out as sarcasm.

He blushes. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know what I meant.” His fingers skate over my hips, tracing figure eights like Snoopy’s, over and over, the same figure eight each time, the same pattern. “You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”

It’s true, I’ve dropped about five pounds in the last two weeks. Ninety pounds is what the scale said this morning, and on my five-foot frame I know it shows. But I like being skinny, the long whalebones of my ribs showing. If I press I can see the shapes of my liver, my stomach, my ovaries. I like being so thin I could break. “Just a few pounds,
not on purpose.” I’m not anorexic or anything. It’s just that I can’t eat anymore, and I remind myself to drink more wine just to send some calories to my body.

He runs his fingers along my ribs. It tickles and I laugh and that breaks the tension. As he presses his lips on mine, it all feels good again. Maybe we are in love after all, maybe something can come of this, he’s said he loves me. And he breathes it into my ear again, “Rennie, I love you, I love you, I love you. . . . ”

I wonder if I should tell him I love him too and stop playing the stoic, the strong one, like Cherry. Whenever I’m not sure of myself, I think of what Cherry would do. Now he’s biting my earlobe, slipping his hands down my pants and pulling them off, and it’s that fast hot passion I can’t control. I pull off his clothes too, and suddenly it’s those sticky sweet sounds, those kisses and tugs and little moans. Rolling over, I press him onto the pillows and draw my tongue down the hair that runs along his breastbone and past his navel, and all of a sudden I’m doing things I wouldn’t have imagined I’d do just a few months ago. I cup the plums of his balls, slide my lips over him. I want to suck the very life out of him, drain him, strengthen myself, and forget all the stupid shit about the real world. As I’m blowing my married drama teacher who got me pregnant and threw money at me to get an abortion
(shut up Rennie, just shut up, shut up)
my favorite poet, Christina Rossetti, bursts into my mind. I fill my head with her words to blank out my own stupid thoughts. A few lines from “Goblin Market” echo in my brain as Rob’s fingers shift through my hair, pulling me toward his warmth, for him, for him, for him, oh, I’ll do anything to keep him, anything.

Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red.
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?

I’ll do whatever he wants me to, I just want to forget, forget the reality of our relationship, Dawn and Stanford and the baby I’m not going to have and all that shit. I press those thoughts away, all thoughts away, with my tongue and teeth and lips that work around him.

She sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She sucked until her lips were sore . . .

Oh, God, did Christina know what she was writing? The body’s a remarkable anesthetic; my mind numbs out and all I can think of is Christina in her long black dress stalking to the center of the room to defend poetry, saying, I
am Christina Rossetti.

I am, I am, I am, I am, Christina Rossetti.

He arches toward me and trembles and comes, and I drink, drink, but at the end I’m still so thirsty, and I climb back up and start kissing his face, but he says, “Rennie, I have nothing left, you’ve taken it all.” So I grab his fingers and push them inside of me and rock against him, and that’s it, I don’t have to think, just to feel. In a moment electricity flashes through my body and I’m enchanted.

I press my face into his sweaty salty neck, and he holds me there. We lie that way for a while and then I slide off of him and nestle into the brush of hair under his right arm, the little secret Rob spot that smells of animals and sex and danger. I feel like crying, and I’m still so thirsty. I’m going to say it, it’s the last thing I can do because I want him want him want him, he’s mine, and I say, “I love you.”