Sunday's on the Phone to Monday (17 page)

We all know you're smarter than everyone,
Tommy piqued her, letting her look.

The picture glimmered difficultly as the camera shook, like the camera was crying. A man lay in a wooded area. Another man held something the shape of a slot-machine arm, inside of a plastic bag. Natasha watched him smash the object into the first man's face nine times. Her insides squeezed, like fruit in a blender about to be pumiced.

Another man leaned in to poke out his eyes. He stabbed him in the stomach with something sharp. Like a rotable bezel on a timepiece, the man on the ground was awake and then not awake—a tympanic twisting between conscious and unconscious.

The first man smiled at the camera. He whacked the slot-machine-shaped object one tidy, sure time. The two living men walked to a car. A lengthy road appeared not far from the wooded area. One of the men said something in another language. Russian?

Natasha thought of her own name.
Natasha
meant “birthday” in Russian.

The two men washed their hands and the object in the plastic bag that Natasha now recognized as a hammer with a water bottle. Slushes of laugher leaked through Tommy Chase's speakers. The man behind the camera laughed too.

I should be recording you right now,
Tommy said to Natasha.
One of those YouTube videos where we tape your reaction to the video.

You're so disgusting and retarded.

It's just a video. It's not like we did anything ourselves. Whatever happened, happened without us. We're just witnesses. Actually, we're
not even witnesses. We're just, like, watching TV.
Tommy gave an acute smile with his eyes pushed together, looking as though he was thinking hard about something that mattered to him only fleetingly, like a crossword puzzle.
People like stuff like this. It's part of human nature.

Because people are sick,
Natasha so neatly put it, showing him how she would not be afraid. Smatterings of perspiration rained down her neck.
We're all sick fucks.

Yeah. There probably aren't even enough doctors for everyone
.

- This is almost porn,
- Natasha thought. And porn was a civil right. She wasn't naïve—every adult had some experience with porn. Like going to the bathroom or arguing: some unglamorous way of getting it out of your system. The vital difference between porn and a crime was consent. And people, most of the time, want to live.

T
he Simone family vacationed out west, renting a house for a week in Wyoming. When Mathilde planned the vacation, she was delimited by her hotly compulsive neuroses: -
my daughter may die, sooner than later. This may be the last vacation we ever -
and then she'd cut herself off by forcing herself to think of Milla or Blanche DuBois or one of her other characters. -
I have a family, -
she thought. -
We're all still here. -

Lucy, too tired to pack her wardrobe of outlandish and undigested outfits, wore Natasha's clothes: uncomplicated pants and a shirt colored a pedestrian taupe, the tint of the seat belts on the plane. They covered most of her body, letting her appear not to have a body. This was nothing beyond a decent way to dress. If she'd felt up to it, Lucy would've packed her short skirts or skinny jeans with bangle bracelets and mukluk hats. She used to tell people that her fashion inspiration was Sgt. Pepper, as in the Lonely Hearts Club Band, and that if she were a car, she'd be Isaac Hayes's 1972 gold-trimmed Cadillac El Dorado. Natasha, on the other hand, would be a practical sedan, and if she were to use a Beatles album as her style icon, she'd pick
The White Album
.

Twilight curled shyly into night on the fourth dusk of their holiday. A croissant-molded moon, which resembled an enormous disco ball stuffed with burlesque, loose stars, broke the Wyoming sky. Here, the stars dipped to sea level, fooled people
into believing they were reachable, even in walking distance. The entire family was supposed to go on a hike.
I'm tired,
said Lucy.
Go without me
.

I'll stay home too,
said Natasha. They sat on the porch swing, mute, moonbathing, the wind slanting its neck. -
Silence
, - Natasha thought,
- is a myth. -

Say something.

Old people have special powers,
Lucy said.

And what the h-e-double hockey sticks does that mean?
Natasha picked a hangnail on her ringless ring finger, used to Lucy practicing her serious feats of non sequiturs.

When we were little, we were at Grandma's, singing some song with Carly. It was very long. We rhymed the words
violet
and
triolet
. Remember how proud we were of ourselves? The song was about snails and cats who snorkel in Middle Earth. And there's this moment where we all just happened to pause, I guess because we forgot the next part of the song, and Grandma interrupts with
see, this is why I call you young people. Old people don't do stuff like that.
But she didn't mind being old. She had lived this long, good life. I mean,
Lucy's neck flushed,
she was living. Still. You know what I mean. Anyway, it was pretty cool.

I wonder what my face would have looked like with wrinkles.
Tears swam down Lucy's face, skin ecru against her cheek muscles.
Then it's Mommy and Daddy I worry about. They made me, and how could I die on them? Remember how Mom and Dad used to call the time before birth the Before, and the time after death the After? She was with me in the Before. She
was
the Before. It will just be me all alone in the After.

Can you stop talking about this?

It will be even bigger than here. I might get lost. You might never be able to find me again.

Natasha felt Lucy's hands on her throat. They were cold as hell—antibacterial cold, supermarket cold. Her fingernails spotted with a calcium-deficient white.

Oh my god! Seriously, what is wrong with you?
Natasha yanked a gripful of Lucy's bouquet of hair. Lucy's nails, Lucy's hair. They were dead but needed upkeep.

If Lucy had been well, this would have been normal. A healthy bear-cub type of healthy fight. A quick way of cinching a dilemma. A single, polar tear laid on Lucy's cheek.
I can still hurt you,
she said, terrible and sure.

S
tephen Edson had a face you couldn't blame for anything, a face that made sense to people. He was sixteen and famous for his premature hair: black, with tufty flecks of gray. His skin blue-white as milk, his frame unobtrusive and long, -
like
, - Carly thought, -
a bicycle.
- He chewed gingersnaps in class. An extrovert, friends with everybody and nobody at the same time.

Two Fridays ago, Carly had walked out of her sixth-period SAT prep class, crying due to something about her sister's worsening condition. Now, two weeks later, Carly couldn't even remember what it was that had gotten worse, because things were always indistinct and bad—long story short, Lucy was suffering and would never be healthy until she had surgery. Everything hazed together in Carly's Heart, like a rug with loosened weaves.
My sister's Heart,
were all the tidings Carly had been able to congregate.
It's not doing well.

She wept this when he followed her red eyes out of class, calling,
Carly,
carefully unswaddling a white tissue like a reverse navy man with a flag at a funeral.

Thank you,
said Carly. It was hard to blow your nose politely.

Stephen absolved her:
people need help.

I'm usually not so bad,
said Carly.
Not so lonely.

After school? I live on West Barrow Street, next to that veterinarian's office? Do you have any pets? I don't. Well, I used to, before
I moved here. You can always stop by whenever. Whenever you want. We can play card games or like, video games.
He recited his address, and Carly entered it into her phone.

Carly felt the prickle on her body on a school night two weeks later, ordering her to leave the house and find a friend. Lucy and their parents were at the hospital again. Lucy's lung was being examined. Natasha, who'd gotten a job babysitting for a neighbor, was working.

You're here,
he accredited.

You said.
Carly suppressed herself from speaking more, feeling frumpy.

You're right,
said Stephen.
I did say.

He complimented her hair. Carly thanked him, then asked if anyone else was home.

My parents work until like nine or ten. I just finished dinner.
He led her into his room. There were some trophies and a poster of
Dark Side of the Moon.
Stephen picked up a cassette player.
Cassettes just sound better.

- You don't know what you're talking about, -
Carly wanted to say.
My father owns a record store,
she said instead.

Dope.

A
re you any good at massages?

What?
asked Stephen.

My back's killing me.

You've come to the right place,
said Stephen, but he wasn't any good, and after a few minutes, he turned her around and gave her a short, deep kiss. His massage had been soft and lousy, but he wasn't so bad of a kisser. Her mouth accommodated his.

What if Carly pretended her sister's situation was worse? It would have been nice for Stephen to remind her that she could be taken care of.
- Many people want other people to care for them, -
she rationalized. Though she maybe was taking it too far? Purposely placing herself in a situation in which she would need to be saved?

Want to?
she asked, trying to sound charming in a croupy fashion, like the women in the movies.

What?

You know.

Nope,
he said thickly.

Do you have protection?
whispered Carly.

Are you serious?
he asked, a sodium window-light bathing his eyes.

I don't know,
said Carly.

Listen, I dig you. I don't want you to think I don't like you.

- Everything's so easy-peasy-mac-and-cheesy in your life, -
Carly thought. She hated the moment, hated Stephen for his felicity, for probably having a healthy sister who'd have not a thing go wrong in her adorable life.

Who cared if this habitually happy sister didn't exist; she'd probably thrive in a small, expensive private college, experiment with prescription drugs or unsafe sex a couple of times, laugh it off when she was in her midtwenties with a straightforward job at a law firm and a Manhattan doorman-operated apartment. She'd probably have the same chic name as an East Side avenue—Madison. Parker. Lexie.

Binge drinking and drugs! I could have died,
this sister would grieve over brunch to the man she'd later marry. They'd secrete muffled chuckles before fighting over something like whether to tip 15 or 20 percent and forgetting about the idea of living or lack thereof. But they wouldn't stop doing it. They would go on living, while Carly's sister would probably be underneath the ground, and there'd be nothing anybody could do. But right there, there were a few things that Carly could do, with Stephen. She wasn't sure if she was in the right place at the right time, but she was in
a
place at
a
time, which was a damn lot.

Stephen took his shirt off. What was that above his hip bone? Looked like a smudge. A tattoo! The word
Lux
in cursive. She
lifted herself over him, one leg on each side. He steadied her and laughed from the bottom of his throat. Put a hand to her chest. Her response: a scrap of Heartbeat.

Six minutes later, Carly asked,
can you?

Can I what?
Stephen said. He picked up her tights, which were inside-out. The label read
DANSKIN, GIRLS SIZE 16
. Holding them made Stephen feel like he'd just beat up somebody who couldn't take care of herself.

Carly pined. They'd both seen it happen to him—this insensitive geyser. This hormonal, unconstrained boy. Her urges were, and would be, inscrutable. This hardly seemed fair.
Can you?
she repeated.

Do you want to go home?
Stephen gently asked.

Okay,
said Carly, the moment leaving her unsure of anything that made her happy. Still, as soon as one hour after this, she'd daydream about it, shielded with the naïve mysticism of romantically fractured recollection.

She wasn't going to tell Lucy and Natasha. Fooling around with a boy she barely knew seemed selfish. She pushed her feet into her flats, every bone in her feeling buried alive in skin and cartilage and clothes.

Outside in front of the vet's office, the leaves were flaky, cornstarchy, and the mealy-apple smell of domestic animal lay in the air. Her body felt like a rest stop bathroom. -
Am I alive? -
she thought to herself. Then: -
Am I a boy? -
Then: -
Who am I? -
And lastly:
- Run! Run! Run! -

Carly ran sloppily home, at last reassured that her body still worked properly. A cold fog hid her, rendered her unseen. Sprinting gave her time to consider a virulent combination of thoughts. How did her mother and father fall in love? Her mother had told her that they'd met at a party. That Daddy had been nervous. Her father would have never taken advantage of an unfathomably sad girl. Maybe Stephen had been just as confused as she, but Carly was doomed to probably never meeting
a guy as kind as her father. It was the worst thing about having a father who loves you that much.