The man took a step back from the doctor, turning his full attention to her. She ignored him in favor of the infants inside the viewing room.
“They make it look easy, this procreation. The stupidest among them can complete the act,” she said. “Even
you
can do it. But mine? Mine comes out with lungs ‘not yet fully formed.’”
“The mother?” he asked.
“Bled out, of course.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Dead like the rest. Two more weeks. She couldn’t last two more weeks. Pathetic.”
Within his limited capacity, he felt sympathy for her. They were brothers, in a way. While he wouldn’t mourn her bad luck, he could regret the necessity of it. Just as he regretted the necessity of what he’d have to do had the child survived.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You will be. Turnabout’s fair play and all that.” Her bland smile masked the threat.
He acted quickly, reflexively, the way all parents react when their child is threatened. Grabbing the doctor, he slammed her against the window, lifting her up, pinning her. Next to him, the old lady, the cooer, screamed, running away—probably to get help. It would come too late. In this form, he was stronger. He could snap her neck with ease. Not that it would solve anything.
“There are rules,” he said, gritting through his teeth. “You know this.”
“And you know how I feel about ‘the rules,’” the doctor said, smiling down at him, unfazed by the fact that her toes were dangling more than a foot off of the ground.
“I did nothing.”
“What is it they say about intentions?” she mused. “I think it has something to do with me.”
He dropped her. There was nothing he could do. He was bound by the rules in a way his sibling was not, and she knew that. Her smile widened and she gave him a little wave as she turned away. “See you next time.”
Chapter 1
“Hello, welcome to Smiley’s. Our deals are guaranteed to put a smile on your face!” They’re not, actually. Thank god no one has tried to take Mr. Smiley up on that promise, or else this store would be more in the red than it already is. Still, making this ill-advised statement is just one small part of my very enriching and fulfilling career as store greeter at Smiley’s Mart.
Did you catch that? Faking genuine enthusiasm, another part of my job as a greeter. I’m good at it. This career, believe it or not, is neither fulfilling nor enriching. But, as a seventeen-year-old (as of two years ago) with few qualifications, my options were Smiley’s, the new Wal-Mart across the street, or fast food. I don’t much enjoy scraping cooking grease off myself every night, so fast food was out. I picked Smiley’s because I liked the color of the vests better, and because my mom knows the real Mr. Smiley and so I had an in over the other two hundred seniors looking for jobs in this town.
This town being Midessa, Texas. We’re kinda near the panhandle, West Texas. What’s the difference between West Texas and the rest of the state? The rest of Texas has landforms. Ha-ha.
People only live here if they are connected to the oil business, or if they were born here and can’t imagine living somewhere else. Most of my generation forms the latter group. That’s why I coined my first lifetime resolution: never get involved with a boy from Midessa (again). A relationship with one of these guys, whose grandest aspiration is to manage a pump jack, is the surest and best way to get your feet stuck in this tar pit of a town. Which naturally leads to my second resolution: to go to school somewhere Not Texas. Preferably near an ocean. With a good science program. And proper seasons.
I have to admit, I’m doing a lot better on the first resolution than the second. A minimum wage job means slow going on saving for college, especially when you have Ivy League aspirations. But there are worse jobs than standing in a doorway, spouting mangled aphorisms (like, “A smile a day keeps the doctor away, especially with Smiley’s great deals on pharmaceuticals!”) at unreceptive customers and keeping a close eye on those leaving.
Which was how I spotted the two young shoplifters as they giggled behind their hands, heading toward the doors. This wasn’t unusual. Most stores had to contend with their fair share of shop-lifting, and it was, in fact, exactly why I was stationed where I was. I started out as a stock girl, but Mr. Smiley soon caught on to the fact that I had, as he termed it, “an uncommonly good human instinct.” He placed me as a greeter so that if and when I spotted the dishonest, I was in a position to do something about it. This way, I earned my keep not only by helping customers, but by helping with “merchandise retention.”
The girls were thirteen, fourteen maybe. The overuse of eyeliner was classic junior high. I got the biggest twinge from the shorter girl, with carefully blown straight hair, the one with real diamond studs in her ears carrying the Coach purse. That didn’t surprise me; rich or poor, doesn’t matter, stealing is rarely about actual money and more about a sense that the world owed you something. But they both had stolen something: the short one looked smug, secure in her ability to do what she wanted. The taller girl looked more nervous, guilty.
I glanced over at Clyde, the security guard. I was supposed to let him know when I spotted shoplifters, but sometimes I preferred to take things in to my own hands. I stepped in front of the girls. Since I was an employee, and therefore invisible, they promptly stepped around me. Gritting my teeth, I stepped in front of them again, making eye contact with the tall girl. “Hi!” I said, “Can I talk to you for a second?”
She froze, still as a statue, whites of her eyes showing. Oh yeah, I was so right about this one.
“What’s up?” Shorty, sensing her friend was about to break, took over.
“Today is a special, um, learn about Mr. Smiley’s day. I thought you might be interested in some facts about the store. You know, Mr. Smiley inherited this store from his father. His daughter, a girl much like you,” except that she was actually forty-four, “is going to inherit. That is, if they can hold on through this year.”
The short one was already bored, staring in to space, but Tall Girl took the bait. “Why wouldn’t they hold on this year?”
“Well, it’s just shrinking margins, increases in costs. Smiley’s is going under. Even little things, like mascara, lipstick, scarves—” Bing, bing, bing! Tall Girl blushed bright red. They must have each shoved a scarf in their purses, “—add up. Right now, the big chain stores can swallow these costs, but a business on the brink, like this one, it can’t. And pretty soon, family owned businesses like Smiley’s are going to go extinct.”
“So?” the short girl said. “My daddy says that’s capitalism. C’mon Madison, let’s go!” Grabbing her friend’s hand, she yanked the guilty girl towards the door. Darn. That strategy bombed big time.
Turning toward the big sliding doors, I raised my hand to signal to Clyde. As I did, a sparkling gleam of light caught my eye. A sleek, vintage cherry-red Mustang pulled up in front of the store. Gorgeous, shiny, the sheer beauty of the car dazzled me. Until the car door opened. Then the bottom dropped out of my world, and my stomach went right with it. A wave of nausea so strong hit me I barely made it the three steps to the nearest trash can before unleashing the contents of my stomach.
“Kyrie, oh my god!” Clyde rushed over, “You okay?”
Still hunched over the can, I shook my head.
“Go to the bathroom,” he said, pointing, “I’ll take over for you.” Grateful for his intervention, I dizzily made my way to the public restroom.
Five minutes later, and I was starting to feel better. Sitting on the toilet with my head between my knees, I wondered what could have caused the sudden onslaught. Bad mayo on my burger? A twenty-four-hour flu caught from a customer? Slowly, the feeling of not-right began to ebb.
At least, I thought so. I had just stood when the door to the bathroom opened and the nausea came back with a vengeance. I sat down hard on the toilet, thinking:
I will not puke. I will not puke. There isn’t even anything left in there!
My heart raced and my blood pounded, like my body had gone in to panic mode. Something was Wrong, yes, capital W. I began to realize this experience was less like having the flu, and more like the ‘vibe’ I got from shoplifters, only amplified by about a hundred.
“This place is somewhat less charming than I had hoped.”
“What did you expect, thatched cottages?” The source of my distress had a voice. Two, to be exact. Breathing deeply, shallowly, I brought my feet up on to the toilet. My brain mastered control over my stomach once more. My fear subsided, replaced with a burning curiosity. I felt compelled to know the source of my distress. I leaned forward, placing my eye to the crack in the door. So sue me, I like to eavesdrop.
They looked to be in their early twenties. One was tall, at least 5’10”, hard to tell since she wore high heels, and extremely thin. Sharp cheekbones and a razor blade of a nose gave her delicate features a hardened look that made her all the more beautiful. Her pale blonde hair fell straight and almost to her waist. The other girl was more petite. Tiny, no hips, with a figure—okay, boobs, to be honest—that most girls in this town would kill for. She wore a black halter top with white polka dots, very Bettie Page pin-up. Her black hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and her bangs curled perfectly across her forehead. A pair of huge, dark sunglasses completed the “not of this era” look.
They were clearly not from around here. First of all, I knew most people around here, at least, the type. Secondly, their clothes were far better than anything at our dirt malls. Blondie wore a silk blouse I recognized from last month’s issue of Vogue. Bettie Page carried a handbag that cost about six months of my salary.
Before I got to hear anything good, though, Clyde pushed through the swinging door, interrupting them in mid-sentence. For a second, the three just stared at each other. Then the dark-haired girl let out a dismissive huff and went back to inspecting her reflection. Not even a word about the sudden appearance of a man in the women’s room.
Clyde came over to my stall. “Hey, hey Kyrie, you okay in there?” Leaning against the door, he said in a loud whisper, “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
Another little snort. “Classic,” the blonde said, and with that the two left.
“Witches,” Clyde said, “Nothing wrong with being pregnant, who’re they to talk?”
“I’m not pregnant,” I said, coming out of the stall. “It’s just food poisoning or something.”
“Thank god. You feeling well enough to go back to work?”
Following Clyde out of the ladies’ room, I began to nod, heading back to my post—then I caught sight of them, the two girls, meeting up with two men. All I could tell from this distance that one man was big and burly and dark, and the other was thin and slight and ginger-haired. Just the sight of them, however, made my stomach curdle. I keeled over, slapping my hand to my face. Clyde looked at me, concerned. “I’ll get the manager,” he said. “You need the rest of the day off.”
#
By the time the manager had been rounded up and signed off on my sick time, I already felt better. At that point, though, it was too late to claim a miraculous recovery without causing even more of a hassle, so I decided to just take the time and use it for homework.
I headed to MCC. I was about an hour and a half early, but there was no class before mine so I decided to set up shop in the classroom. I picked my favorite spot in the corner, by the windows, and pulled my books out. I could have driven home, but MCC had better air conditioning. Besides, doing my homework at home, in the same room I grew up in, only served to reinforce the idea that nothing had changed since graduation—like I was trapped in a Twilight Zone of eternal high school, destined to be stuck in childhood forever.
On campus I could at least pretend I wasn’t in Midessa. I could screen out my peripheral vision and make believe I was in a nicer school, with either a sleek modern-glass classroom, or the dark polished wood I saw in schools in the movies. I could look out the window, blur my eyes, and pretend I could see the Pacific Ocean. Pepperdine claimed in the brochures that you could see the ocean from almost anywhere on campus. That sounded ideal to me. It wasn’t as highly ranked as Stanford, where I’d also been accepted, and they also had private-school tuition costs, but being near the ocean probably made up for it. Both of those schools were on my short list. What it would really come down to, I knew, was which school on my list would accept my transfer credits and wouldn’t require the sale of a kidney or other vital organ to pay for tuition. But on happy days I liked to pretend I was frivolous enough to choose a university based on proximity to the beach.
I put my daydreaming about real college aside and turned my attention to my schoolwork. By the time my night class rolled around, I’d finished a short essay for writing class and a series of questions for organic chemistry. This put me ahead of schedule homework-wise and in a good mood as students began to filter in for European History, my favorite class, anyway. Mainly because the professor of this one was actually interested, and treated us like adults. And if I’d felt crappy earlier in the day, at least that gave me an interesting story to tell during Gossip Time.
Gossip Time was my informal name for the ten minutes before class started, when my sort-of-friends showed up to class. They were girls, not all from my grade, but all from my cheer squad. These three girls were part of the perpetual high school Twilight Zone I felt trapped in. Strong and coordinated, I’d gone out for cheer on a lark and earned myself a spot on the bottom of the pyramid. That, and a “cool” boyfriend was all it took for me, nerdy and goody-two-shoes as I was, to have a safe pass on the outskirts of the popular kids. I wasn’t exactly welcomed, but I hadn’t been shunned, either. At a friendly arm’s length from the in-crowd, there seemed to be a quiet acknowledgement that once graduation took place, I’d be moving on and they’d stay behind. Only that hadn’t happened yet.