Last Train to Babylon (9 page)

A fat kid in a vampire costume hobbled across the street, hollering and whistling. Adam pulled back and let out another nervous laugh. The leaves swirled around our feet. His shaggy black hair looked almost blue in the sun, I reached up and touched his dimple. He stared at me with those gray eyes.

That night, we ditched the Halloween party, and instead Adam snuck us in to
Saw II.
There hadn't been much movie watching, though. We fumbled at each other in the dark theater, our lips tangling. A college-age couple cleared their throats behind us, and we both broke out into a hysterical fit of giggles. It was only our first night together, and we were already a pathetic cliché. But at the time it didn't feel cheesy, it never does when it's happening to you. It felt real, and when it's real, it rarely feels cliché.

My Nokia buzzed from inside my pocket. Rachel. I forwarded it to voice mail and turned the phone off.

After the movie, he walked me home. The lights illuminated the streets, littered with relics of Halloween—smashed pumpkins, broken eggs, trails of shaving cream and silly string. A couple of straggling trick-or-treaters wandered around in Ghost Face costumes. Adam slipped his hand in my mine and pulled me toward a playground on the other side of the street. He sat on the swing, just like he had that night at First Friday.

He still wore his skeleton zip-up hoodie and an orange mesh hat. His shaggy black hair stuck out around his ears.

“So,” he said, and he just said it. No buildup. “How many times am I going to kiss you before I ask you to be my girlfriend?”

I bit my lip, I think to keep from laughing at him, and stood in front of the swing. Gripping the chains, I swung one leg over and straddled him. He looked up at me, a nervous grin set on his face. I felt like for once, I was the one in control. And said, quite possibly, the most vomit-worthy thing that's ever come out of my mouth: “Just once more.”

And then he leaned in and pressed his cool lips to mine. And that's how I became Adam's girlfriend.

I still cringe thinking about it.

Monday, October 6, 2014.

K
AREN
'
S DINNER IS
going on as planned, and she's asked me to pick up some things from Pathmark. I've got nothing better to do, so I say okay. She's still trying to feel me out for the funeral, but every time she brings it up, I just shrug and walk out of the room.

Marc will be home for dinner, too. He lives in Long Beach now—just a few miles away, in a house with three roommates, all guys from high school. I don't know how he can stand it. He's twenty-five, and still actually
wants
to be around the people he grew up with.

I throw on some leggings, flats, and a baggy black sweater. It's cooler today—crisp, and the streets are lined with golden trees. A picture of perfect autumn suburbia.

My Saab belonged to one of my Cavanaugh cousins back when I was in middle school, and when he went to Berkeley, it just sat in my uncle's driveway, rotting away. He sold it to my mom for four hundred bucks. I loved that car, but Rachel always insisted on taking the wheel. She had this obnoxious yellow Pathfinder, that she affectionately dubbed “
the Bumble Bee.
” She preferred to drive, said it helped her relax. But I'm pretty sure she just preferred control.

Empty Styrofoam coffee cups, a couple of crinkled plastic bottles, and a wad of Dunkin' Donuts napkins litter the floor of my car, and half a pack of Parliaments lay in the center console. I have no idea how long they've been there.

My eyes catch the bottle of five-year-old Listerine wedged into the passenger's-side door, and memory burns through me like a fever. Everything is just the way I left it the last time I'd been home, maybe last Christmas. A cord dangles from the tape deck and attaches to my open Discman, permanent marker scrawled over the top of the CD:
Spring Mix 2009.
I climb in and turn the key. It sputters for three seconds then plateaus into a static hum. Tracy Chapman starts to play through the speakers, and my instinct is to change it, it was our song, Rachel and me, but instead I crank it up. The oversized steering wheel vibrates under my hands. I plug my BlackBerry into the car charger and check for messages—still only one new voice mail.
Rachel.

I close my eyes, take a sharp breath, think about deleting it, but picture the tiny Polly Pocket–sized Rachel again and throw the phone down on the seat next to me instead.

I strike up my one cigarette for the day just as I'm pulling into the parking lot, swinging the car into a spot near the doors. The lot is empty, and I remember the place looking much bigger as a kid—like this grand plaza at the center of town.

I unfold the shopping list, smooth out the creases, and try not to think about the last time I'd been here. My gaze falls toward the bottle of Listerine—an involuntary twitch—and I snap back to the list in front of me.
Focus. In and out. No bullshit.

The Parliament dangles from my lips.
Chicken stock, rosemary, shallots.
I read through the list, mapping out the store in my head. I need to get in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible. There's only one supermarket in this town, and I can't risk a run-in. Not today. Smoke streams off the end of the cigarette and settles into the fibers of my sweater. I can feel the scent lingering in my hair, so I reach back and twist it into a messy bun on top of my head.
Six Yukon Gold potatoes, two organic tomatoes, romaine lettuce, cucumbers.
I dust the ash off my sweater and throw on a pair of Ray-Ban aviators before I go in.

The automatic doors glide open, and I push a clunky shopping cart through. A rush of cold air hits me, and I can already tell I grabbed the bum cart. The front right wheel swings at an awkward angle, screeching as it slides across the cheap vinyl.

I tear a plastic bag off the roll and reach for a cucumber, when I hear a shrill sound from behind me.

“Aubrey?”

Fuck.

I stop, and the air punches out of my stomach.

“Oh my God, Aubrey.” I recognize the voice instantly—Ally Marlo. I turn around slowly to face her, my skin stretched around an unnatural smile.

She stands there, a glazed sideways smile on her face, like she's trying to drink me all in. She's with a much thinner Sasha Coyle, and they're each holding baskets full of butternut squash.
Be nice. Be nice. Be nice,
I tell myself.

“Hi! Oh my God. How are you guys?” I try to mimic their reactions, that raw enthusiasm that seems to come so damn naturally to everybody else, but I sound like a hyperactive moron, and as the words leave my mouth, and the skin around my mouth stretches harder, I know I'm not fooling them. Maybe it's the smell of day-old produce, the cold, stagnant supermarket air, or what happened the last time I stepped down this aisle five years ago, but I'm standing here, the elasticity of my face about to give out, and I just feel numb. Totally, completely, fucking numb. It spreads over me—still, stale, and empty, like I'm pumped full of helium.

My ears hum. I twist the plastic bag in my hands around the cucumber. All three of us stare at one another. Staring and smiling, like we're trying to outgrin each other. I break eye contact, let my gaze fall back to Ally's basket of gourds, and then feel her arms come down around me.

“I'm so, so sorry about Rachel,” Ally says. She's got this baby voice, something that I know too well from high school. “I remember how close you two always were.
We all
always were,” she corrects. I stand with my arms stiff at my sides. I don't breathe until she lets go. Her hands linger over my shoulders, though, and she pushes out her bottom lip. “I'm still so shocked.” Sasha shakes her head in agreement, her lips all pouty.

“We haven't spoken in years,” I lie, and blink nervously until I lose the image of Rachel's face, her final plea, in my head.

Sasha catches me staring at their baskets. “We're trying this new diet,” she says. “All we eat is squash for five days. It's supposed to be, like, this new detox.” I raise my eyes at her and smile, but I think it comes out more of a grimace, because she shrugs and looks at her feet.

“Sounds cleansing,” I say, and I don't mean to, but I think of Rachel again.

She'd be standing here with us, her mouth twisted into that perpetual sneer, and when Ally and Sasha walk away, she'd turn to me and say something like,
God, Aub, butternut squash diet? Sasha didn't lose all that weight with butternut squash. Try trigger diet.
And she'd click her fingers toward her gaping mouth and gag, and then smile. That sweet, sneering, sickly smile. And I'd snicker and shake my head at her, and I would smile, but it would be real, because that's just how it was with Rachel and me. It was real.

Remember when I showed you how?
she'd say.

And I'd be fifteen again, with the spins and a belly full of store-brand Cheez-Its and Franzia boxed wine.

You know you can make it stop?
she'd said.
I can show you.
The room spun, just like it's spinning now, right in the middle of the produce aisle of Pathmark, but instead we'd be in my bathroom, Rachel holding my hair back—the swill of orange dust and zinfandel turning over in my guts.

Immgonnathrowup,
I'd say.
Immgonnathrowup but I can't.

Yes you can,
she'd say.
Like this.
She'd lean down next to me, the sterile bowl smiling up at us, and she'd put two stiff fingers into her mouth. She'd take my own two fingers, limp and cold, and guide them to my throat. I would retch and pull my fingers out.

No, you have to commit to it. Just tickle the back of your throat with the tips of your fingers and don't stop till you puke.

So I'd push my fingers back into my throat, and thrust them against the dangly thing, till I felt the hot Cheez-It paste and cheap wine splash back up at me.

Nice,
she'd say, stroking my hair out of my eyes.

The produce aisle comes back into focus. “So,” Ally says. “You're going to the funeral, I assume, though, right?”

The cucumber becomes deadweight in my hand. I want to say no. I want to say,
No, Ally, I'm not here for the funeral. There's no place on this earth I'd rather be less than the funeral, except for maybe standing here with you.
But I don't say that. I just smile, and say, “Of course.” Her face stretches into an obligatory grin.

“Oh,” she says. “I almost forgot to tell you. Sasha, Adam, Eric, Ellie, and I are in charge of the after-party. We could really use your help.” Before I can even process the fact that another person has confirmed that this after-party is actually a thing, she's going into all of the grisly details: “It's at O'Reilly's—right after the cemetery. A bunch of us are getting a limo. You can get in on that, but I honestly just don't know if there's any room left. I have to pick up the decorations, the shot glasses—oh my God, we got the cutest shot glasses with her name engraved—you know instead of those stupid prayer cards that everyone throws away anyway. Rachel would have wanted it that way. And oh, oh my God, T-shirts. They are adorable. I had Jimmy screen-print her face onto them.”

She pauses and takes a breath. “It's just so intense, planning everything, you know? Like a total mindfuck. But it's going to be so amazing to see everyone.”

Her words swirl around me, and I pretend to listen but all I can hear is his name.

“Sounds fun,” I say. She clicks her tongue, like I'm totally out of line for using the word “fun” to describe a funeral.

“Oh, it's all for Rachel. It's what she would have wanted.”

I smile and nod, and start to think of an excuse to leave, when she's got her arms around me again.

“You know, why don't you come over tonight. We'll have a girls' night. You know? Like old times.” Sasha nods way too enthusiastically at her side.

“I really can't,” I say. “I've got this dinner thing—”

Before I can finish, she cuts in. “That's fine. We'll wait up. Come by at like ten?” I want to say no. I need to say no. “I'll pick up some vino,” she sings, and I'm about to decline, but the pushover in me comes out and I just smile and nod.

I
LEAVE MY
cart at the end of the aisle and run out to my car as soon as Ally and Sasha are out of sight. I'm in my car, the windows closed, sucking in hot air until I stop seeing those floating black spots in front of my eyes. My hands shake. I hold them in front of me and try to keep steady. I count to three, a trick I learned years ago. I figured out that if I steady my hands for three whole seconds, then the shakes usually fade, and I'm back in control.
One.
I can feel my back drenched beneath my sweater.
Two.
I hold my breath.
Three.
Nothing, so I fumble for a cigarette, my hands still shaking.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I say, and then, “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.” It actually helps to say the word, even if it means I'm not actually breathing. I roll the window down with my free hand, a cigarette dangling from my lips, and scrape the bottom of my bag for a lighter. The tips of my fingers graze crumpled receipts, lip balm, but no lighter. “Fuck,” I say again, and then a bottle rattles from inside my bag—the Xanax. I look over my shoulder out the back window. Sasha and Ally would still be shopping, buying out all the squash in the place, but I can't stop shaking, and my breath still feels stale and sharp. My knuckles whiten around the bottle. I pop open the top, crunch a pill between my teeth, and swallow hard with no water. I turn the ignition, and the car sputters, shakes, and rumbles.

I see the automatic doors slide open from across the parking lot and I sink into my seat, still fumbling for that lighter.
Please don't see me. Please don't see me.
I know it's not Ally, but the thought that any person in this twisted town could come gliding out of those doors makes my whole body ache. I sink even lower and close my eyes, and finally grab the lighter.
One.
I hold out my one hand again.
Two.
With my other hand, I flick the lighter.
Three.
My hands stop shaking, and I strike up my second cigarette for the day.

I pull the smoke into my lungs and blow it out through my nose. Maybe it's all in my head, but I think I can actually feel the Xanax sweep through my blood, calming my veins, and somehow in the midst of my meltdown, I manage to make it out of the parking lot and onto a side street. My Saab idles, and I blow smoke out the cracked window. I'm hollow and weak, like you feel after a fever breaks. I need to compose myself and pull it together, think of something believable to tell Karen.

Sorry, Mom, I lost your list; forgot my wallet; had a massive panic attack in the middle of a crowded supermarket.

Though the truth is not an option here. If I tell Karen about the panic attack, I'll have to tell her about all the panic attacks, and I'll have to tell her why they're happening. And one of two things will happen: she'll cry and make a huge deal about it and insist I seek professional help, or she won't. And I'm not sure which I'm more afraid of.

“Fast Car” plays again, low through the static of my speakers, and I can't figure out what triggered me this time. Maybe it was Ally. Maybe it was hearing the way she casually dropped his name, like he'd be the florist or the caterer. Maybe it was just being in that place again—the cold rush of the air-conditioning, the smell of produce and dirty mop water. Maybe I was just too sober for that sort of encounter, or maybe it was Tracy Chapman. But whatever the reason, for the first time since I got home last night, it all starts to hit me.