Fairy Circle (14 page)

“
Okay.” Saffron waved her hand in dismissal. One of her knees was trying to give out so she lifted her leg to give it a good shake. She had no idea what Bea just said. “I…” And here she swayed, just a little, like a snake in a charmer’s basket. “I gotta do the coffee.” Saffron pointed one twitchy finger at the condom aisle, her lips as slack as a stroke victim’s.

Bea watched Saffron swaying, had watched her slap at her ear for no good reason, and watched her shake her leg like a peeing dog. Her lips pursed over her Marlboro teeth. “If you’re on drugs or somethin’ you can just go home. Now!”

“
Hey!” Coco raced forward on her stick legs and homemade boots. “What the frick, Bea? You can’t send her home. You don’t own this place. Just finish doing whatever you’re doing and go home so we can do our jobs.”

“
You can’t talk to me like that! I’m senior clerk!”

Coco’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes blazed with ‘you got it coming.’ “Yeah, Bea, well, that’s a title he only yells out when he’s orgazmasizing. His wife hasn’t officially given you that title, now, has she? Or are you screwing her too?”

Bea sucked in a strangled breath and her splayed fingers slapped her chest, causing her nametag to pop off.

Saffron watched the exchange without flinching, without ducking down to straighten the perfectly piled brown paper bags. A bit of drool formed under her tongue and with sloth-like reflexes, she finally remembered to shut her lips and swallow just before it spilled out.

Bea’s eyes filled with tears. She grabbed her home party knock-off purse and ran out of the store, the lottery papers first flying up, then floating down to the floor, twirling and lilting like white leaves. Coco stalked to the cooler. Saffron loitered behind the registers.

When Saffron’s cousin Mindy came into the store, Coco and Saffron were both leaning on the counter between the dual registers. The cereal shelf was dusty and the coffee thermoses were running low or empty.

“
You look like a freak.
”
Mindy always knew just what to say
.

Coco’s eyes slid down Mindy’s fitted cashmere coat which was opened to show a leather miniskirt and thigh-high Italian boots. Mindy wouldn’t even look at Coco. Saffron crushed her face in her hands. “Hi, Mindy. What’s up?”

“
Do you want to go to the movies with us tomorrow night or what?”

Saffron winced as she felt Coco’s stiletto heel dig not so lightly into the toe of her Chinese slippers. To Mindy, on the other side of the counter, it appeared that Coco had never moved. Saffron felt a long-distance relief that Coco wasn’t mouthing off for once.

“
I mean, like, you haven’t even seen your friends since you graduated.”

Coco snorted. “Yeah, okay. Who are your friends, Saffron, hmmm?”

And here we go.
Saffron thought about crouching down to stack the brown paper bags. Instead, she stared at the dirty Black Chicken floor and dreamed of curling up on it, covering herself with the lottery papers that they hadn’t picked up.

Mindy leveled eyes on Coco for the first time. She spoke to Coco’s flat chest, “Ah, I don’t think you know them.”

Coco stood up straight and tall, thanks to her stilettos. “Ah, yeah,
Mindy,
I think I do. We went to the same hick school remember? Remember there was like, ten people in each graduating class?”

Mindy expelled a short, forced breath, almost a cough, and refused to look at Coco again.

A level of discomfort started to course through Saffron’s sluggish blood, just enough to wake her. She wanted Mindy out. “Mindy, can you just call me tomorrow? I’ll go. Okay?”

Mindy turned on her heel, “Whatever,” and strutted out.

“
Do you
really
still hang around with them, Saffron?” Coco looked down at Saffron as if contemplating a sun-sat banana peel.

“
No. I haven’t seen any of her friends since we graduated and I haven’t seen Mindy since a family Fourth of July party.”

Coco snapped her gum. “She wants something from you.”

“
Nah, she’s just like that. Sometimes she wants to do something together. She might seem snobby but it’s just an act. She likes me.”

Coco looked straight ahead, arched one brow. Her lips pouted way out into a feigned, “Oooooh.” She patted Saffron’s back. “C’mon, come with me, you’re killing me standing there like that.” They went into the back where the loud machines and boxes of surplus goods were kept. Coco took an X-acto blade and sliced at the tape on the seams of some large, empty boxes so she could lift their flaps and press the cardboard flat. Saffron stood swaying, watching her, until Coco took Saffron by her elbows and made her sit down on an overturned bucket. Then Coco took Saffron’s sweater, rolled it up, and placed it on one end of the flat boxes that she had stacked. She left, then came back with her own long sweater jacket. “Here,” she guided Saffron by the elbow one more time, helped Saffron lower herself to the makeshift bed. “I’ve never in my life seen anyone need sleep like you do. What’s going on with you?”

Saffron smiled with her eyes closed as Coco covered her with her sweater. “I’m watching a fairy have hot, sweaty sex every night. Well, only most nights. He’s making me insane.”

“
What do you mean a
fairy
? You mean, like, a gay guy? That guy that lives in your house? Oh, man, what are you talking about? You need someone to take care of him? What else is he makin’ you do?”

“
Oh, he doesn’t make me do anything. It’s all me. It’s all me.” She wagged her head with her eyes still closed.

Coco crooked one finger and removed a chunk of oily hair from across Saffron’s eyelids. “Well, tell him to go do it somewhere else; you’re starting to look like a zombie.”

“…
He still has time for me…can you imagine?” Saffron was quiet after that and soon started to snore.

Coco tucked the sweater in around Saffron’s shoulders. “I could have sworn you were a virgin, in body and mind,” she muttered as she got up and quickly made her way to the front of the store as the bell ting-a-linged.

It was Markis. He was smiling, expectant, and looking around. Coco came to the register counter and drummed her long nails on the laminate. Markis’s eyes kept searching.

He made Coco smile too. “She’s in the back, sleeping.”

“
What?” he laughed.

“
It’s not funny. She’s so tired she’s a little mental.”

Markis looked toward the back of the store. “Can I see her?”

“
I’m not her dang keeper; do whatever the hell you want,” the smile still in her eyes.

Markis waited for the rotating camera to scan the other corner of the store, then slipped behind the counter and trotted toward the back.

Coco didn’t follow. As he strolled past, she let him know, “She’s goin’ to the movies tomorrow with her bitch cousin and her bitch cousin’s friends.”

Markis saluted her. “Good work. I’ll see you Saturday, right?”

“
Yup.”

He jerked his head toward the back of the store. “She workin’ Saturday?”

“
Nope, I make sure we work all our shifts together. She’s a good worker, a good person. I’ll make sure she shows up Saturday night, too, even if I have to put her in my
trunk.”

“
Oh, Coco, you’d do that? For me?” He fast-blinked his eyes. “Shucks, you’re like, wicked sweet, and groovy, and awesome.”

She slapped his shoulder. “Will you go already?” She frowned toward the back of the store.
Having sex with a fairy.
She wondered if she should tell Markis. He
was
her friend. She didn’t really know Saffron, not really, just had the feeling she was cool. But this, watching the gay guy have sex thing, shouldn’t Markis know about it? What if they both got into something they didn’t want to with this girl? Maybe none of it was a big deal. Then again, Saffron
was
a whole lotta weird. Did it matter?

Markis was already in back. He tiptoed to the edge of Saffron’s cardboard bed and smiled down at all of the red hair haloed around her head. He reached out, stopped, and brought his hand back by his side. He squatted down beside her. He looked at her long and hard, from her hair and the fading bruise on her forehead, to her collarbone just under the stretched neck of her floral tank. He rolled his eyes over her breasts, down the line of her thighs, to her painted toes. Her roughed-up Chinese slippers had been kicked off to the side. He reached out again, his fingertips almost to her hair, then shook his head, retracted his itchy fingers and smiled. “Pretty soon.” he whispered. Then he got up and left.

The next morning, in her own bed,
Saffron blinked her dry eyes several times. She turned her stiff neck to look out the window and realized by the way the sun hung over the pines that it was already around noon.

A bureau drawer slid wood against wood and immediately the hairs on the back of her neck spiked to attention. What in the world was in her room now? Saffron dreaded looking over the top of her blanket. To her great relief and annoyance, she found her mother was in her room, putting away laundry. Saffron reminded herself that she really needed to take over that chore completely to keep her mother out of her room.

Saffron knew she had just been dreaming, probably even up to the point when she woke up, about something particularly nasty. Something she had enjoyed immensely but couldn’t remember what right now. What if her mother heard her talking, or worse yet, moaning? It was way too embarrassing. Saffron fake-yawned and fake-stretched. “I’m going to the movies with Mindy tonight.”

“
Wow!” Audrey stopped and turned around with socks in her fist. She didn’t restrain her enthusiasm at all. “You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back. I’m so happy you’re spending time with some friends. It’ll be so much fun!”

Saffron nodded as she unconsciously kneaded her hair, causing the big red mess of it to knot further. “It’ll be great.”

Audrey clapped her hands and walked over to pat Saffron’s knee under the blanket. “Go get ready for your movie. It’s going to take you three hours to comb out that head.”

Saffron realized what she was doing and lowered her hands to her lap.

Audrey tweaked Saffron’s nose. “I’m making chicken pot pie from scratch. I’ll go start on it.”

Saffron stared at the ceiling for a little bit, her hand back in her hair, twirling her fingers around her knots until they tripled and quadrupled. Finally, she got up, lurched out into the hall and headed for the bathroom.

The phone rang with a screech that rebounded off the high ceilings of the farmhouse, making her jump. They kept the ringer on high so they could hear the phone over the loud music any one of them might be playing at any time. Saffron stopped halfway to the bathroom when her mother called out, “Saffron, it’s for you.”

“
I’ll get it in my room.” Saffron yelled down the stairs, then turned around and lurched back in the opposite direction. The old phone her mother had put in her room eight years ago was dusty with nonuse.

“
Hello?”

“
Can you like, (snort) can your
mother
, like, pick us up? Eve lost her license, Tamara crashed her ride last week, and Rochelle is still high from last night, so we need a ride. You need to go get your license.”

So that was what Mindy wanted. And hadn’t Saffron known that? Why had she defended Mindy to Coco? “Yeah, my mom can give us a ride.” She looked at her mirror, where she found herself glaring back at herself.

“
Make sure you get here by seven – don’t be late.” Saffron could hear the other girls laughing and screaming in the background. Mindy hung up.

Saffron took a shower and began to dress for her big night out. She breathed a long, heavy sigh. She sat down in front of the elaborate boudoir mirror, a heavy and ornate piece that Audrey and Derek had purchased at an antique store and lovingly refurbished for her last Christmas. Obviously, they had hoped she’d get a life and primp in front of it. It took Saffron forever to rip the knots out of her hair - no conditioner could conquer them - then another half hour drying her hair with a big round brush. When it was mostly dry, she pulled the long, unheeding tresses back and secured her hair at the nape of her neck with a tortoise-shell clip. One corkscrew at her temple popped out sideways.

The attack began during dinner. She didn’t say anything to her mother or Derek. Her stomach twisted and pulled, twisted and pulled, till a sheen of sweat coated her forehead. And the burning! She wanted to rip her gut out and douse it in ice water. In half an hour she was riding high on the jitters. She had had plenty of anxiety attacks before to know what was happening to her. And always, it took just the smallest thing to set her off. She wasn’t really panicking over the fact that her hair was atrocious. In fact, she had no idea why she was panicking. All she knew was she did not want to go out…not tonight. She began to concoct lies in her head, stories to tell Mindy and her friends, fibs to feed her mother - she was sick, she was tired, she forgot she had to work tonight. Anything to get out of this stupid girls-night-out-thing.

She trudged up to her vanity and sat down hard, slumped and dejected. She had some ideas earlier that afternoon about wearing a moss-green sweater, her favorite. It was a tunic with capped sleeves, which she tied off with a sequined, eggplant-purple kimono sash. Now that the time to leave was approaching, she wondered what in the world she had been thinking. Of course she wasn’t going to wear such a color and combination. Mindy had always told her she dressed like a reject.