Girl in Pieces (15 page)

Inside the Circle K, the air is cool; it's like being underwater in a clear, deep pool. The guy behind the counter has huge black plugs embedded in his earlobes. He looks up from his thick book as I stumble down the aisles, grasping at bottles, boxes of gauze, sunblock, tape, tubes of cream. In the air-conditioning, the sweat dries quickly on my face. It feels gritty and sticky. I grab a glass bottle of iced tea from the cooler.

I have to restock my tender kit, just in case. I don't want to hurt myself; I want to follow Casper's rules, but I need these.

Just in case.

I pay, stuffing everything in my backpack.

Outside on the sidewalk, I unfold Mikey's map. There's a grocery called the Food Conspiracy, up the street, so I start walking.

It's a co-op, earthy and expensive-seeming, with whispery music drifting down from the ceiling. I'm not sure what to get. I never looked at what Mikey had to cook with, if anything. I sweep a box of crackers, a block of pepper jack cheese into the wire basket.

The store hums with activity. Two hippieish ladies squeeze pears. A tall guy ladles curry from the salad bar into a Tupperware. I was shoving my bare hands in Dumpsters, and then I was shoving cardboardy mac and cheese in my face with a spork, and now I'm
shopping.

At the checkout, I'm suddenly afraid I don't have enough money. I'm using Vinnie's money. Did I even count it? Did I even check the prices on the shit in my basket? I've forgotten how much food can cost. Blue comes back to me.
Don't let the cereal eat you.

The cereal is eating me. The cereal is eating me alive.

Is everyone looking at me as I fumble for the bills in my pocket? They are. Aren't they? My fingers tremble. I jam the food in my backpack, don't wait for the change.

Outside, the sounds of cars and people are chain saws in my ears. I squeeze my eyes closed. “Don't float,” Casper would tell us when we got stressed, when the pressure in our brains began to fight with the pressure inside our bodies and we'd start to disassociate. “Don't you dare float. Stay with me.”

I walk too far in the wrong direction and end up inside the underpass, cars whirring by.

The concrete reeks of piss. My boots crunch broken glass. He comes back to me.

Passing cars make grimy shadows on the graffitied walls. I was tucked all the way at the top, trying to sleep, my throat choked with gunk and my body steaming with fever. I was sick on and off my whole time outside. Now I know I had pneumonia.

The first thing I felt was his hand on my leg.

I try to remember: what did Casper say, what did Casper say.

Stop. Assess. Breathe.

In the dark and clammy underpass I clamp my hands over my ears and close my eyes, holding my breath and letting it out in slow waves. The cars blow warm, musty air against my legs; I concentrate on that. Gradually, the fire leaves, the saws drift away, the memory disappears..

Hands lowered, I turn and walk straight for blocks up Fourth, passing everything on Mikey's map: Dairy Queen, a coffeehouse where men are playing a game with white pieces on a table on the sidewalk, bars, restaurants, vintage stores, feminist bookstore. I go too far again and have to double back, finally reaching Ninth Street and practically running, so desperate am I to reach the purple guest house.

I lug Mikey's trunk in front of the door to keep the world out.

I have to find a way to quiet the black inside me. First, I take out the glass bottle of iced tea and drink it down all at once. I find a faded hand towel in Mikey's tiny bathroom and wrap it around my hand. I close my eyes.

And then I smash the bottle on the cement floor.

It's like a thousand birds of possibility, all beautiful, spread over the cement, glinting. I choose the longest, thickest shards and carefully wrap them in the linen that held my photographs. I slide my photos into a baggie. Mikey's got a dustpan and hand broom under the sink. I sweep the rest of the glass up and throw it in the trash.

I take out my tender kit and prep it: nestling all the rolls of gauze, the creams, the tape, the glass in the linen, side by side until everything fits perfectly.

It's all I need for now. I just need to know it exists and is ready. Just in case. I don't want to cut. I really don't. This time, I want so much to be better.

But I just need it. It makes me feel safer, somehow, even though I know that's all messed up. Casper can tell me to breathe, she can tell me to buy rubber bands to snap on my wrists every time I panic or get an urge to cut and I will, I will try all of it, but she never said, or we never got around to talking about what will,
or would,
happen if those things…didn't work.

I tuck it under some T-shirts in Mikey's trunk.

I crawl across the floor and pop the locks on Louisa's suitcase.

Looking at the inside of the suitcase calms me. It was never filled with clothes. Mikey's sister's clothes fit well enough in my backpack. The suitcase is for everything else: the sketchbook, pens, and pads of paper Miss Joni gave me; the baggies of charcoal, wrapped so carefully in paper towels. My Land Camera.

I open the sketchbook, unpeel a charcoal from the paper towel, and take a real look around at Mikey's apartment.

Purple-painted walls covered with band flyers and set lists. Mikey's single futon with the one black pillow and a worn blue-and-white serape blanket. A rickety desk with a wooden chair. An old record player, tall speakers, the shelves of LPs and CDs that surround them. Stacked red milk crates leaking T-shirts, boxer shorts, and frayed blue work pants. A white toothbrush resting in a tin cup on the kitchen counter. The casual accumulation of Mikey's
being.

I start there. I draw where I am. I put myself at this new beginning, surrounded by the comfort of someone else's easier life.

For two days, I sleep and draw, nibbling the crackers and cheese, drinking all the bottles of water until they're gone and I have to refill them from the tap.

On the third day, I've got a pair of Mikey's headphones on while I draw. Morrissey's singing sweetly at me when I hear a dull pounding. I slip the headphones off, my heart thumping wildly, as the door swings open. Mikey? Is he back already? I scramble to my feet.

The woman at the door is tall, her lean hands grasping each side of the doorframe. Her hair is white and straight, just past her ears. I'm wearing overalls, but my arms are bare in my short-sleeved T-shirt, so I tuck them behind my back. I'm disappointed it's not Mikey—my heart slows back down.

She squints down at me. “Blind as a fucking bat. Forgot my glasses in the house. Michael texted me. He wants to know if you're okay. In case you haven't figured it out, I'm the lady who owns this place.”

There is a rough edge to her voice, some type of accent I can't place. She has the kind of lined face that people call etched. The kind that looks beautiful and intimidating and slightly creepy. I always wonder what these women looked like as children.

I nod cautiously. I'm always careful around new people, especially adults. You never know what they're going to be like.

“Michael didn't say you were mute. You mute?” Turquoise rings on her fingers clack against the doorframe. “So you okay, or not okay?”

I nod again, swallow.

“Bullshit.”

She moves quickly, reaching around me to grab my wrists. She flips my arms so the raised lines are visible. Instinctively, I stiffen and try to pull my hands back, but she tightens her grip. Her fingertips are tough with calluses.

She makes a growling sound. “You girls today. You make me so fucking sad. The world hurts enough. Why fucking chase it down?”

The breath through my nostrils is bullish, panicky.
Fucking let go
careens inside my head like a pinball and shoots from my mouth. I'm surprised by the sound of my own voice and she must be, too, because she opens her hands and lets my arms fall away.

I rub my wrists and consider spitting at her.

“A girl with teeth.” Her voice is weirdly satisfied. “That's in your favor.”

The edge of the door brushes my shoulder; in my head I slam it in her face. I step away from her so that I don't make that happen in real life. Who is this bitch?

“I'm Ariel. Here.” She presses a piece of paper to my chest. “I have a friend down on the Avenue. She's got a shop. She needs some help. Tell her I'll take her for appletinis on Friday.”

Halfway across the scrubby yard, she turns, shading her eyes. “You get a job, Michael's friend. You find a place for yourself. You don't stay here longer than two weeks.”

It takes me two hours to get up the nerve to leave the house. I spend those two hours walking the perimeter of the small guest house, talking to myself, rubbing my arms, doing my breath balloons. Going out to the shop to ask about a job means
talking
. It means opening my mouth and hoping the right words come out. It means letting people look me over, cast their eyes up and down me and my weird overalls and long shirt, funny hair, all of it. Right? Isn't that how job things go? You have to tell people where you're from, where you worked, what you like to do, all that shit.

My answers: nowhere, nowhere, get messed up, and cutting.

That's not going to go over well.

But the alternative is telling that fierce woman in the front house that I never went to find her friend, and maybe getting kicked out before Mikey gets back. The alternative is ending up right back where I was.

And I promised myself I would do better.

I finally get myself out of the fucking guest house by running out the front door and locking it before I give myself a chance to make another lap around the walls inside.

I find the shop easier than I thought I would. It's called Swoon. It's already late afternoon, and very hot. Through the glass window, I watch two girls in silver minidresses flit among the clothes racks, straightening hangers and laughing. Silver glitter sparkles on their eyelids; they have matching white bobs. This is a store where pretty, cool girls work, not scarred girls in overalls. I will
not
be getting a job here.

I look up and down the street. An Italian restaurant, a thrift store, a bookstore, the co-op, a fancy-looking café.

I don't have a phone. How will someone call me if I fill out an application? And what about short sleeves? Waitresses are always wearing short sleeves. Who's going to hire me with my arms the way they are? The hole in my stomach starts to grow. I'm in the middle of the breathing exercises when I hear a soft voice say, “Can I help you?”

Except for Ariel, I haven't talked to anyone in four days. One of the glittery Swoon girls is standing at the door, peeking out.

“I was just…my friend…somebody told me you were hiring, but…” Gah, my voice. I sound so…
timid.

She looks me up and down. “No offense, but we're more vintage-y. You're more…grunge-y. You know?”

I give her a look like, Yeah, I
know
, because we don't have to pretend. These girls and me? We're fucking miles apart in terms of our exterior maintenance. I move on.

“Do you…I mean, do you know of anything else around? Like, better suited to me, or something? I really need a job.”

She purses her mouth. “Mmm. Most everything cool is sealed up on the Avenue right now, I think. Hold on.” She shouts back into the store. “Darla! Kid out here's looking for a job. You know anything?”

The other girl pokes her head out. I feel disoriented just looking at them, with their blinding white hair and lips and matching dresses.

Darla smiles. “Hey there.” Like her friend, she looks me up and down, but not in a bad way. They work in a cute vintage clothing store. I get it. They're used to placing people by what they wear.

“Oh, yeah, you know what? Try Grit. It's a coffeehouse up the street, next to the DQ. I think somebody quit yesterday. You look like total True Grit material. Ask for Riley.”

The other girl elbows Darla. “Riley. Oh,
yeah
. Riley
West.
” She draws it out like it tastes delicious in her mouth:
Weessssst.

“Keep your panties on, Molly.”

Molly rolls her eyes at me. “Riley's kind of hot,” she explains.

Darla says, “Kind of. On a good day. There aren't many of those. Anyway, just tell him we sent you, okay? And buy a hat or something, girl. Your face is starting to get real pink.”

They laugh and retreat inside the store before I can ask about Riley, his hotness, or falling panties. I hope he's having one of his good days, whatever that means.

I'm nervous walking up the street, psyching myself up to have to talk again. What if this doesn't work out? I touch my face. Darla said I was getting pink. That's just brilliant: a sunburn.

I get distracted, though, by the bright colors everywhere. The sides of buildings are blazing with murals: dancing skeletons in black top hats drink wine from jugs, their white bones loose and floppy. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison look out over the street, the Beatles walk barefoot down a wall. Everywhere I look, I see something unusual and cool.

A bunch of boy punks in heavy leather gear are sprawled on the wooden benches in front of the Dairy Queen, nibbling sprinkled cones. There's just one girl with them and she's not eating, only smoking and picking her black nails. The boy punks eye me as I walk by.

Next door, several older men sit at wrought iron tables, staring down at square boards with perfectly round white and black stones. They chew their fingers and take slow sips from chipped white mugs. Behind the players, against a cloudy glass window, a blinking, slightly crooked neon sign spells out
TRUE GRIT
. Coffee urns and potted ferns on the inside window ledge peek through the lettering. The sad strains of music drifting from a speaker mounted above the window outside come to me gently: Van Morrison.
Then we sat on our own star and dreamed of the way that we were / and the way that we wanted to be….

The screen door to the coffeehouse clatters shut behind a thinnish guy wearing an apron smeared with red sauce and grease. He lights a cigarette, his eyes moving over the game boards. Plumes of smoke billow in front of his face.

The music keeps me rooted to my spot on the sidewalk. My dad played this album over and over when I was little, sitting in the back room of the house on Hague Avenue the rocking chair creaking back and forth. It was a creamy clapboard house with a small, square backyard and a crumbling chimney. Listening to the music, I have a rush of longing for him that's so strong I almost cry.

“Lost in the reveries, eh, love?” The voice is accented, light, and shakes me out of myself.

The men at the tables chuckle. The guy in the apron cocks his head at me. His face is crackly with stubble. Lines spider his eyes.

His attention takes me by surprise. His eyes are very dark, resting with curiosity on my face.

Something shifts inside me. It's electrical, and golden. He sees this happening, or senses it, and his face breaks into a gigantic, shit-eating grin. My cheeks flood with red.

One of the boy punks yells, “He's not really British!”

“Nah,” says a narrow-faced man at one of the tables, leaning his head in his palm. “He's an all-American asshole, that's for sure.”

“Aw.” The man in the apron grinds his cigarette out on the sidewalk. He speaks without the accent now, his voice lazy and pleased. He's still got the grin. “Care for a coffee? Espresso? Bagel? Enchilada?” He sweeps an arm to the coffeehouse. He pronounces it
en-hee-lada
.

Checked shirt with silver buttons, bulge of the lighter in his pocket. He is a person entirely comfortable in his body. Why is he paying any attention to
me
?

“Cat's got her tongue, Riley.” The girl punk's got a crooked, glazed smile. I like her pink hair.

They are all terribly high. “She never met nobody famous before.”

Riley.
Riley
Wessssssst.
The one who makes Molly-from-Swoon's panties fall down. I can see why, kind of, now. This must be one of his “good days.”

“
Semi
famous
,”
another punk corrects, spitting on the ground.

“Semifamous
locally,
” one of the game players asserts, wagging a finger.

The girl punk cackles. “Semifamous locally in his
head
on this
street.
” The punks bark with laughter. The guy in the apron glowers at them good-naturedly.

A super-skinny boy punk says, “Riley, man, you look like shit, dude. You look
old.
”

I sneak a look at him. Riley. Maybe he hasn't noticed how red my face is? It's true; his face looks worn out, a little too pale. He glances at the punks dismissively. “I'm a good and goddamn twenty-seven, children, and nowheres near heaven, so don't you worry none about me.” He lights another cigarette, twirling the gold lighter. When I raise my eyes to his, his face splits back into that wild grin.

And for some reason, I smile back, that electrical feeling fluttering inside me.

And now we're smiling stupidly at each other. Or, Riley's smiling at me like he might smile at anything with breasts, and I'm the one smiling stupidly because I'm a stupid jackass.

Because if he really knew me, if he could really
see
me, what would he think? Once when we went to the Grand Old Day Parade, hoping to scoop up fallen wallets and half-drunk beers, Dump made us stop to watch the dance team girls go by in their purple hot pants and spangly gold tops. Evan noticed me watching them, too. After a while, he said, “You're kind of excellent-looking, Charlie, you know?” He grinned. “Under all that dirt and shit.”

I just looked at him, not knowing what to say. Before, Ellis was always the one who got noticed, for obvious reasons. And the boys I'd been with? There hadn't been any need for sweet talk or flowers there. But what Evan said…made me feel kind of nice inside.

Dump glanced over at us. He scanned my face intently. “Yeah. You got good eyes. Really blue, like the ocean or something. You got nothing to worry about.”

Now Riley tilts his head at me. “Well, Strange Girl? You got something to say?”

That's right. A job. I'm here to ask about a job.

I blurt it out. “Darla sent me. From Swoon. She said you might need somebody.”

“Darla knows me so well.” He smiles, blowing a smoke ring. “I need somebody, all right. I think you'll do.”

The men at the tables snicker. I feel my face heat up again. “For a
job.
I need a damn job.”

“Oh, right, right, right. That. Now, see, I'm just a lackey here. My sister owns the joint, and she's not back until day after tomorrow. I just don't—”

“Gil quit,” says one of the players at the table. “Remember? The incident?”

Riley scoffs, “She doesn't want to wash dishes.”

“Yes, I do,” I say quickly. “I do.”

Riley shakes his head. “You'd make more waiting tables somewhere.”

“No, I don't like people. I don't want to give them food.”

The men laugh and Riley smiles, stubbing out his cigarette. From inside, I hear “Riley!
Riley!
Order
up
! Where the fuck are you?”

“Looks like my time here is done. Gentlemen.” He salutes the players, then turns to me. “All right, Strange Girl. Come back tomorrow morning. Six a.m. No promises.”

He winks at me. “That's how hearts get broken, you know. When you believe in promises.”

The green door slams behind him. I stand there, thinking (hoping?) the players, or the punks, or anyone, might talk to me, but no one does. They just go back to what they were doing before I showed up. I wonder if everyone at Creeley has forgotten me. I start walking home.

A job. Washing dishes. I breathe deeply. It's something.

When I get back to Mikey's, Ariel's house is dark, so I decide to sit in the backyard for a little while. I find an extension cord and plug it into Mikey's lone lamp, dragging it outside and setting it up on the dirt. I arrange my sketchbook and charcoals around me. I take off my boots and socks and wrinkle my nose at the smell. I'm now going on about a week without washing. No wonder everyone in the co-op was staring at me: I stink. I sniff my armpits. I'm going to have to take a shower. But not right now. I've lived for longer without washing.

From somewhere, not far away, comes the sound of guitars and drums, the noisy lurch and sudden silence of a band practicing.