Chapter 3

Ruffling.

I pull myself from the sleeping bag and glance to the alarm clock on my nightstand. Its red lights blare out 5.17AM into the darkness. I stumble over to the closed door and open it. I can hear something from the kitchen and step through the darkness until I can see them.

"We don't have time for me to make you something to eat."

Father looks flustered. "Well what am I supposed to eat then?"

Mother grins and presses herself against Father's waist. "I can think of one thing."

"Mmm," he growls in a low rumble. He puts his hands on her hips and rubs them up and down. "I'm gonna leave you hollow."

"Ha!" She pulls his hands between their legs. "I'm gonna leave you dry."

Part of me wants to sit down and cry, and the other wants to flee and wish this into a dream, but before I can do either, they spot me.

"Nick!" Mother quickly pushes Father off of her as though he were some kind of parasite. She clicks over to me in heels that are too tall for anyone her age. "What are you doing up, baby? Are you sick?"

"No," I shake my head groggily and flinch away when she tries to hug me. "I guess I j just heard something."

Mother flashes a look to Father, who rolls his eyes. "Yeah," he says, "well, go back to bed now."

"Tell your grandmother we love her and said hi," Mother pats my shoulder tentatively.

"Yes," I say. "I will."

"Oh!" Mother yelps. "Don't forget to use those things I gave you."

The condoms. My organs shudder. "All right." I turn back around to head to my room.

"What size are you? Do you need more?"

"Mom," I say, turning around again, this time clearly aggravated. "I'm fine. I haven't even used them."

"Oh, dear," she says, eyes widening. "Am...you're not--I can't be a grandmother yet!" Her breaths catches in her throat as Father walks over.

"Who'd you fuck?" he asks. His voice is rougher than usual, and I'm not sure if it's a lack of medication or just the early hours of the morning, but I don't like it.

"I didn't fuck anyone," I say, shaking my head and shrugging. "I'm going to go--"

"Then why is your mother upset?"

Um. Because she's a psycho. "I think she thinks I'm sleeping with someone."

Mother pulls away from Father's grip and leans against the wall, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. Father walks towards me and grabs my wrist harder than I think is necessary. "You listen to me," he whispers through clenched teeth. "I don't want you making your mother cry again. You hear me?"

"Um..." I'm taken aback by his sudden anger, even though I know I shouldn't be. He's obviously not taking his medication again, which is fine until something like this happens. "Yeah, I didn't mean to make her cry this time."

"Yeah?" He asks, getting in my face now. "Well you did." I can feel his warm breath on my face. His fingers seem to be applying more and more pressure to my arm, and it's really starting to hurt now. I swallow and pull back a little, but this only incites his free hand to come slamming down against my other shoulder and knock me to the floor. I wince as I open my eyes, but he's just standing there above me, disgust etched across his face. I can feel my blood vessels already allowing exudation of leukocytes and plasma proteins into the affected tissue: swelling and reddening. As more and more fluid accumulates, the heat rises, making the affected are warm and sore to touch. I push myself up along the wall until I'm standing upright again. Mother has quietly walked to the other side of the room and turned her back on the whole situation.

"Go to your room," he sneers.

I can feel warm tears springing to my eyes as I silently walk back into my room and shut the door. I don't even know why I'm crying, but I am, and fuck that sleeping bag. I walk over to my bed and push Dylan to the other side and crawl in. He doesn't wake up as I curl into a ball and wipe my nose. The red lights from the clock burn their bloody digits into my eyes before I fall asleep, and all I can think is that I shouldn't be crying.

This must be one level below Hell: midway through June and the temperature is already ratcheting itself towards a hundred. The sidewalk sizzles beneath my sneakers, and the dew from the morning hours, now risen, stuck at eye-level, clings to every part of me and makes the air so thick I don't even want to breathe.

Jill comes up beside me. "Hey," she breathes out. Her body is covered in sweat.

I've never understood the appeal of running, alone or together. People who run alone are kind of pathetic, and those who run together look like a whipped herd--their limbs dangling every which way, occasionally hitting someone else's, bodies clung to by the moisture in the air. Maybe it's just getting in touch with the primal hunter inside of us, but it's pretty disgusting either way. Besides, the only hunting I'm interested in is at Best Buy or Walgreens. I mean, if I wanted someone to share in my sweat and exhaustion, I'd just have sex with them. "Hey," I say, trying, unsuccessfully, not to look at her.

"How's work?" she puffs and stops running.

"It's fine. How's..." I realize I have no idea what Jill does.

"Oh, it's okay, thanks," she says, smiling graciously. She pulls a water bottle from an unknown compartment on her side and lets the liquid splash against her face before actually drinking it. Then she pours the rest of it on her. I wonder if she realizes Al Gore would be pissed.

"So, um..." I don't know what her strategy is with the running. Besides fitness, she's probably doing it to impress somebody. Except she won't get near most people--a foot, at best--because she thinks she might contract something. "Why don't you run, like, in the little herds around town?"

She shrugs. "Most of those people don't bathe before they meet, so there's no telling what kind of bacteria will come out of their pores when they sweat."

I think I just vomited in my mouth a little.

"Hey!" She says, wiping her nose with the back of her arm. "Did you hear about the new PETA group for veganism?"

"No." I'm guessing this is why nobody runs with her.

"Oh, you should definitely check it out. It's got all these cool tips for converting and everything. There's even a list of suggested food products for the flesh-eaters."

"Um..." I glance over at her. "I thought you were a vegetarian."

"I am!" She sounds offended. "Well, actually, I'm an ovo vegetarian, so not completely a vegan. But you should definitely check it out."

I'm not sure if this is better or worse than being approached by Jehova's Witnesses. "Definitely." Maybe this makes her the equivalent of an Elsie's Witness. "I don't think it's actually flesh, though."

"Flesh?"

"Yeah, hamburger meat. I don't think it's actually the flesh of the cow. I mean, what about liver and tongue? That's not flesh."

"No, it is." She glances towards the street. I wonder if she's ever considered bounding out in front of traffic and killing herself.

"Well, it's just that--" I think I accidentally swallow some of my saliva and choke.

"Oh my gosh," Jill backs away from me as I recover. Her voice lengthens syllables in a way I find aesthetically unpleasing, like she's unable to stop her vocal chords from vibrating. Like she's talking to a terminally ill person. "Are you sick?"

"No," I shake my head. "I think I just choked on my spit."

She nods, eyes wide and suspiciously gauging my movement. If I knew what choking on your spit was a symptom of, I'd fall to the ground and present with the rest of them. But I don't, so I don't. And instead she retrieves a packet of hand sanitizer. "Here," she says, thrusting it out to me.

I squint down at it before realizing exactly what it is. "Oh..." I slowly grab it, careful not to touch her fingers. "Thanks..." I tear it open and pour the contents into the palm of my hand. "You...carry these around on you?"

She looks at me funny. "You don't?"

"...right," I nod and keep walking. I wonder what the use-value of hand sanitizer is for a person who's just choked. Was I supposed to eat it?

"So that boy at your house," she says finally. "Is he single?"

"Um, Dylan?"

She doesn't respond. She looks down at her feet.

I see if she'll say anything more. "I think he has a girlfriend or something," I shrug eventually. "I don't know."

"Je..." She doesn't know his name. "Jeremy--thought he was single."

"You talk to Jeffrey?"

She shrugs again. "I saw him the other day outside, and so I--oh!" She halts on the concrete as though she were about to walk into a wall. "Did you know he has little red dots on his arm? He could have angiomas or MRSA."

"Yes, that could be it." I can see the Weslayan intersection coming up and thank God. Jill likes to stay within some certain radius of her house. Weslayan is not in the radius.

"Did you know MRSA just last year killed more people than HIV?"

"People don't die from HIV," I said slowly.

She exhales as though I have deeply offended her. "I know that," she insists. "But look, just make sure Jeffrey gets treatment."

"Yeah," I press the crosswalk button. "Sure."

She rolls her eyes as she looks at me. She clearly doesn't believe I'm going to help him, which means she's at least a little bit aware of the painfully obvious. The bell goes off and I quickly shoulder away from her and across the street. When I look back she's already jogging away.

I'm twenty minutes late to work, which means that the look on Justin's face is going to be one of utter contempt and disrespect. "Where have you been?" he shouts at me from the produce section. He comes flying around the vegetables and the banana stand so that he's several inches from my face.

I stare at the dumb expression on his face. "Egypt."

He deadpans at me. "I am so not in the mood this morning." Ah, not enough milk in the cereal again. "I don't find your quips clever or amusing." Someone really needs to tell his mom he wants it exactly three-fourth full; not four-fifths and not two-thirds.

I nod understandingly. "Of course not."

He keeps going, but I try to tune him out. It's surprisingly easy once you get past the nasal whining and occasional mouth-breathing. In fact, I've already had experience with tuning him out in calculus class. Mr. Mahavier, our teacher, would stand at the board and rock back and forth on his heels (an annoying trait) as he talked to us. The fifty minute period went by roughly in the following manner.

Mr. Mahavier, rocking, of course, would pick up his coffee cup and take a dainty sip from it as though too much might cause him to break out in hives. Then he'd glance around at all of us and clear his throat sadly. "Math math," he'd begin, "mathymathmath."

And then, at some point--always sooner than one would expect or appreciate--Justin, who insisted on sitting, like a dumbass, in the front and center of the classroom, would nod with a fervor akin to that of a child who was just asked if he wanted ice cream, and would exclaim, "Numbers!"

This moronic stage play would go on for the rest of the period, with the vast majority of students simply sitting around, like I chose to do, and texting each other. Mother, ever-vigilant and aware of seventeen year old culture, purchased unlimited text messaging for my phone. At the end of each month, she would look on the bill to see I had sent around a hundred messages and was always delighted to see how many friends I talked to. The truth is, though, I just sent messages to myself. I'm not very popular in my school, which doesn't bother me, but if Mother found out, she'd probably throw parties for me and send out invitations to everyone she knew. Why did I text myself? I don't know; I guess kids just know when their parents really need them to be something. I sort of feel like I need to be "that kid" for Mother.

"Are you even listening to me?" Justin puts his hand on my shoulder, and I immediately flinch away in pain.

"Ow," I wince, pushing his hand off and tentatively touching the affected area.

"This is why you only made a ninety four in calculus," he says and rolls his eyes. "It's like Mr. M. said--" pet names for teachers is, I think, a bit much "--there are just some things I'll always be better at."

I don't even know what this twerp is talking about anymore, and I don't care right now either. "Right," I say. "Hooray for Justin."

He glares at me. "She's waiting."

"What?" I look around. "Who?"

"Ms. Carlyle." He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. "Where have you been?" he repeats. "I said that five minutes ago."

I blink like I'm waking up for the first time. The light inside the store suddenly seems different--brighter, less hazed.

"Go," he says, eyes wide and expectant. "She refuses to do anything but stand in other customers' ways until you show up."

"Why me?"

He shakes his head. "I ask myself that too."

I walk past him, careful not to hit my shoulder on anything, until I see her. She is wearing a hideous black mink scarf and perfume that can be smelled several meters away. The lines in her face seem more concealed by make-up than they did last time, and when she sees me she throws her hands up in the air and shouts, "Finally!"

It's an absolute miracle nobody has ever stabbed this woman. After two hours of painstakingly slow product selection, she has left me with her purse and cart while she goes to the bathroom.

"Why are you holding her purse?"

I turn around and see Justin's sour face eying me suspiciously.

"Where is she?" He taps his foot.

"The bathroom," I sigh and turn away from him.

"Hey!" he yelps. "Look at me!" He appears in front of me, obviously upset. "She donates thousands of dollars to us every year--you better treat her with more respect than you treat anyone else." His upper lip curls and he grabs my shoulder again. "Don't screw it up."

I initially shift my weight so that his hand isn't on my shoulder anymore, but he grips and eventually I push his grasp away. "Don't," I say quietly and look down at my feet.

"Look at me!"

I look up but refuse to look at him. I instead prefer to look through him and imagine the tranny and his/her flowers being placed in another overpriced vase.

"You have to be more attentive." He snaps at me like I'm some kind of animal. "I'm not kidding."

"Fine." I shake my head and shrug. "I'm here, aren't I?"

At this moment in spacetime, I think I could hear her pumps clicking across the floor from several miles away. Unfortunately, she's only a few feet behind me.

"Is there a problem here?" she asks, voice sniveling.

"No," Justin vigorously shakes his head and smiles politely. "Just making sure everything was still going well."

She looks at me, then to Justin. "I'm sorry," she clears her throat, "did I...say there was a problem?"

"No," Justin shakes his head again. "I was--"

"You realize when I come here and request a particular servant, I don't expect her or him to be distracted in any way, shape or form, don't you?" She rolls her eyes as though she is dealing with someone far too incompetent for the post they staff.

She is.

"Of course," he says. "My apologies."

"Mhm." Her eyes blaze. "Then what are you doing, again?"

"I was just--"

"You were just leaving," she nods quickly and snatches her purse from my hand.

Just scurries off. He reminds me of a mouse freed from a trap just before the onset of death--fear-stricken paroxysms shivering down his spine--and for a moment I feel a slight ounce of affection for Ms. Carlyle.

"What are you looking at?" she asks.

And there it goes. I push her cart to Callie's register (by force; Callie's was the closest open one).

"Why didn't we go to that one?" Ms. Carlyle asks, pointing to the register behind Callie.

"This one was open," I say.

"That one is closer to my car." Her voice clips the ends of every word almost twice as fast as normal people, so her speech sounds appropriately stilted and rigid. She seems not to mind the look of resentment on Callie's face. Honestly, I don't know what difference it makes; it's not like she pushes her cart out to her car anyway.

"Callie's a better cashier," I lie. I have absolutely no idea how Callie's cashier skills actually are, but Ms. Carlyle seems to accept this without further question.

"Paper or plastic?" I ask, grabbing a fourteen dollar glass jar of milk.

"Oh," Ms. Carlyle twirls her pen in the air before sighing. "Which do you have less of?"

I glane down. "Plastic."

"Then plastic."

Other than the delight of being brutally cruel, I don't see the purpose in her actions. I watch as her eyes quietly survey the area like it's a crime scene; then, with impeccable precision, she targets the most inefficient and indubitably most impractical thing to obsess about. She does this, also, with her groceries.

"Oh," I hear Callie say, "my check machine is broken."

Ms. Carlyle's pen clicks as she drops it against the counter. I can hear her teeth clink apart as she asks, "There isn't another one?"

I can already feel the pressure from Callie's forced smile. "There is, but it means we have to re-ring your purchase at another stand."

"Okay."

I look up. Callie and Ms. Carlyle seem engaged in some feminine staring spar that I neither understand nor care to. Callie finally glares at me and coughs under her breath, "Bitch." I smile at Ms. Carlyle who simply stares at me. She doesn't offer to help me unpack the groceries or haul them over to another register.

"She's the best?" Ms. Carlyle asks, arching her eyebrows. She doesn't wait for a response. "We're at number two."

I grab the last of the items and shove them in the cart before wheeling it to the next register and repeat the process of loading and unloading.

"Your total is $242.16," Callie says as she hands me the last box of fat- and salt-free chips. As Ms. Carlyle fills out the check, Callie leans towards me. "Meet me in the back when you're done?" she whispers.

"I'll be right back," I nod and flash a quick smile. I glance to Ms. Carlyle, whose eyes are watching us carefully. It takes an annoyingly long time to process Ms. Carlyle's check (probably because, like every other aspect of Ms. Carlyle's life, she has chosen the most uncooperative approach to checking), but finally the machine spits out a receipt.

"Thanks," Callie says.

"Cunt," Ms. Carlyle sneezes as she walks away.

I pretend like that last bit didn't happen as we walk out of the store. I quickly and quietly unload the groceries into the trunk of her car in the order she dictates--cold items on the far right, followed by vegetables and canned food, followed by boxes and lastly bags and bread.

"Thanks again," I say to her as I close her trunk and start walking away.

"Hey," she says. "Where do you think you're going?"

I blink and swallow as I turn around to face her. "Back to my job."

She stares at me as though I've just said something bizarrely comical. "Get in," she holds up her keys. "I need someone to unload these at the house."

"What about my--"

"Don't worry," she says. "I'll call Phillipe and let him know you were with me."

Phillipe is the manager of the store. No one has ever seen him in person, but a picture and name tag hang on the employee lounge. I don't even know what his voice sounds like, now that I think about it.

I approach her hesitantly, glancing back at the store. It had suddenly become a beacon of hope and safety from the world of Ms. Carlyle. Inside it, there were only mildly aggressive crates of food, suggestive trannies and more annoying customers--who knew what Ms. Carlyle's life was like. More importantly, who would want to know?

"Get in," she repeats, this time less as a request and more as a demand. As she opens her door, she mutters something about "public servants always acting like rabbits," and a sense of overwhelming regret and prefigured dread seeps its way around me even as I open the passenger door.