Housebreaking

by Dan Pope

  She recognized the refrain: Because it is what it is what it is.

  Everything seemed to be moving slowly, a pleasant sensation, this Vicodin haze, a little deeper than normal. Had she taken more than usual? She tried to remember. A couple of Xanax in the morning, a Vicodin at lunch, another in the bathroom before leaving school. Keeping her eyes open took a profound effort; her eyelids seemed as heavy as the rain.

  Daniel, I feel weird.

  Open your eyes, dummy.

  I can’t.

  Sure you can. Don’t be a wuss.

  I think I might pass out.

  Or, you could observe the passing scenery. It’s a rainy day in New England, blustery for this time of year. Rain expected until tomorrow morning. Remember to bring your umbrellas, kids!

  Why are you so chipper?

  Because you’re drowsy and the music is way too loud.

  And that makes you happy?

  I’m trying to cheer you up, silly.

  B-Ray parked the car, the music suddenly gone, a jarring silence. He got out, and she followed, nearly falling backward while climbing the tenement stairs. They went up to the third floor. B-Ray knocked and a guy appeared. The cousin. He had a huge smile. An enormous TV flashed sports highlights. In the kitchen they drank vodka out of plastic NY Yankees cups, which tasted like nothing. She embraced the feeling of letting go, of being here but not being here. The luxury of blacking out. Of not being able to remember what she was about to do. Of being close to Daniel in that silent place.

  Later, she would remember asking for orange juice. The ding-dong doorbell ring tone from B-Ray’s cell. The sound of cheering from the television. She surfaced twice, once with the cousin standing over her, the second time on the bed, on her stomach, someone fucking her from behind.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE came out of the haze, the room was dark. She found her bag by the bed and checked the time on her cell phone. It was a few minutes after ten o’clock. Past her curfew. Shit.

  She found her clothes and followed the light down the hallway. B-Ray lay on the couch in the den, his face illuminated by flashes from the television.

  “Yo,” he said, not to her.

  “Just in time, girl,” said a bald guy. He was wearing long gym shorts and white tube socks, without a shirt. His chest was perfectly hairless, like his head, shaved clean. It came back to her. The cousin.

  “I got to go,” she said. “Can you give me a ride?”

  B-Ray switched channels with the remote. “What’s the rush?”

  “Curfew,” she said. She got a head rush, making it difficult to stand. “Whoa.” She wavered, then sat on the rug, landing heavily on her ass. The room seemed to shake, and the boys laughed.

  The cousin crouched next to her. “Check this out.” He held out a hand mirror and razored a couple of lines. “This’ll wake you up.”

  She took the rolled-up dollar bill and snorted both lines. That same charge as the first time she’d done it.

  “More,” she said.

  * * *

  SHE TOOK a cab home—late, really late, the sun coming up. Her parents were waiting for her in the den. They looked miserable and dead tired. They didn’t bother to yell. “Why are you doing this to me?” her mother asked, a rhetorical question, apparently, because she didn’t wait for a response. Everyone went to sleep.

  The confrontation came the next afternoon, after her father went to play a “match.” He’d even asked her to come along, as if she could sit there and watch, as if she could even look at a tennis ball without crying. Daniel used to juggle them for her, always bouncing the last one off his nose like a trained seal.

  Around noon she took a book out to the backyard and sat on a lounge chair in the sun, with Sheba on the ground beside her. She couldn’t read for long without dozing, her head foggy. She didn’t remember much about the night before, and what she did remember she pushed away. When she went inside to get an Adderall for her head, her mother called her into the bathroom.

  “Look,” she said, standing over the bowl, and there were her pills, a hodgepodge of colors, like Froot Loops, floating in the toilet water. Before Emily could react, Audrey flushed, and Emily watched them swirl and disappear—a hundred pills, maybe more, at least five hundred dollars’ worth. There would be some happy fish and frogs and baby alligators in the sewers tonight.

  She tried to keep her pulse steady, tried not to think about her whole stash, gone. “I can’t believe you went through my closet,” said Emily, as evenly as she could.

  “Where did you get those?”

  “Why don’t you read my journal while you’re at it?”

  “If it would help me understand why a perfectly healthy girl would take prescription drugs, maybe I should.”

  Her entire stash. This was a catastrophe. She had no backup supply. She had a few Adderall in her bag, but nothing for sleep or to slow the motions of her mind.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” said Emily.

  She went into her room and locked the door. Her mother ranted outside, but Emily didn’t respond. She vowed not to speak to her mother for a very long time. She called Douglas in New York and left a voice mail. It took him two hours to get back to her. No, he said, he had nothing. Things were dry.

  Try back later, he told her.

  * * *

  WHEN THE sun went down she headed over to Billy’s place with her homework, lugging her book bag, just to get out of the house. He and his mom were finishing dinner, hamburgers and French fries. The place smelled like burnt meat. She spotted the pan on the stove, greasy and black. Disgusting. His mom offered her some, but she told Mrs. Stacks she’d already eaten.

  In his bedroom, she told Billy what had happened to her stash.

  He nodded. “Okay. Lemme see what I got.”

  He disappeared for a few minutes and came back with an aspirin bottle, which he tossed to her. She opened it to make sure: BAYER ASPIRIN.

  “Seriously?”

  “My mom’s. Don’t make it look like you took any.”

  “It’s aspirin, you idiot.”

  “You take it with a Coke. That’s supposed to get you high, right?”

  She tossed the bottle back to him. “Very funny.”

  He raised his leg and farted. “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger,” he said.

  “You are so gross.”

  “I just ate, it’s not my fault.”

  “Why do you always do the wrong thing?”

  Billy fussed with his phone; it was like a pacifier for him, that thing. It never left his hands. After ten minutes, just as she was getting into her schoolwork, he looked up and said, “What did you do last night?”

  “Nothing. You?”

  He shook his head.

  Didn’t he know? She’d assumed B-Ray would have filled him in already, the way those two gossiped. Wasn’t he texting him right now, as they spoke?

  “I called a few times,” he said.

  “I didn’t get any calls.”

  “Did you check?”

  “Of course I checked. What did you want?”

  “I thought we might go out.”

  “Out?”

  “A movie or something.”

  “Like a date? Why are you acting so weird?”

  “What’s weird? I thought we could go out, that’s all.”

  “Let’s go tonight.”

  He shook his head, his eyes on the phone, working with his thumbs. “I don’t feel like it tonight. My stomach hurts.” He scrunched his face and farted again.

  “Aren’t you going to say ‘Cheeseburger, cheeseburger’?”

  “It doesn’t smell,” he said.

  Actually, it did. It smelled awful. She pulled her turtleneck over her nose. “Once more,” she said, “and I’
m leaving.”

  As she did her schoolwork, she was aware of him staring at her. He stared for a full minute, longer—until, finally, she lowered the book and said, “What?”

  “So where did you go last night?”

  “Why are you obsessing about last night?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “Shut up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why not? Something happen?”

  She ignored him.

  “Because I heard you gangbanged B-Ray and his cousin.”

  She felt her skin go cold. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, he wasn’t the first.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He laughed. “Everybody knows, you moron.”

  “You’re a fucking liar.”

  “And you’re a major slut. Take a look.” He held out the phone. She could see her profile. She was lying facedown on the bed, her ass bright white, most of the picture darkness and shadows, a lamp glowing yellow in the corner.

  “How did you—”

  “Check out this one.”

  She looked at the picture—and turned away immediately. She stuffed the book into her bag and went out the back door. By the side of the house she bent and threw up on the grass. She felt dizzy, her mouth filling again with bile. She would scratch his eyes out when she saw him. But, no. She wouldn’t see him, she wouldn’t go back to school, she couldn’t go back to school, she would never go there again.

  His voice came out of the darkness.

  Em.

  What do you want?

  If number two pencils are the most popular, why are they still number two?

  Seriously? You’re telling jokes?

  Yep.

  Not funny. Not funny at all.

  Okay. How about this one? What did the green grape say to the red grape? Breathe. Funny, right?

  No.

  Come on, admit it. You smiled.

  I don’t like jokes. You know that.

  That’s because you can’t remember them. Even the ones I just told you. You probably forgot them already. You’re the amnesia victim of joke telling.

  Can you believe anyone would do that? I mean, what is the point?

  Boys are creeps.

  Trust me, I know.

  Not all, though. Some of us are okay.

  Yeah, the dead ones.

  Ouch. You really know how to hurt a guy.

  Sorry.

  And besides, I’m not dead. I’m incognito.

  You’re in a casket buried in Fairhaven Cemetery.

  Says you.

  An oak casket that cost six thousand dollars. I saw the bill.

  Wow. Somebody overpaid. Mom and Dad should have shopped around, gotten a few estimates. Maybe a secondhand one.

  She wiped her eyes. Okay. That was almost funny.

  Better than my one-liners?

  Much.

  The rain started, drenching her all at once. She hurried toward home with her arms wrapped around herself. At the intersection up ahead, she saw her mother walking with Sheba. She called out, but Audrey kept striding up the street and tugging Sheba’s leash, not letting her sniff or pee or do the things she liked to do on a walk. “Mom!” she called, her voice cracking, the tears starting to fall. “Mom, wait!” She expected her mother to turn and notice her, but she didn’t. Emily hurried after her, squinting against the rain, lugging her book bag. She was about to call out again, louder this time, when her mother turned up someone’s driveway. A moment later the front door opened and she disappeared inside the house with the dog.

  Emily reached the end of the driveway. What was going on? Her mother had no friends in this town; she had no social life whatsoever. All she did was read novels and burn through Netflix, the unlimited plan, piling up stacks of red envelopes for the mailman. Who did she know in that house? What was she doing in there? Borrowing a cup of sugar?

  The house was dark except for a first-floor room around the side. After a few minutes, Emily crept across the lawn, staying in the shadows. In the yard, she maneuvered around some bushes and stood on her tiptoes, looking into the lighted window. The curtains were half-open. Inside, in the den, the fireplace was blazing. Audrey was standing in front of the fire, talking to a middle-aged guy with curly salt and pepper hair. He turned his back to Audrey and stared out the window with a blank look on his face. Emily froze. He seemed to be looking directly at her, but after a moment she realized he was not seeing her; she was invisible in the darkness beyond the window. Behind him, Audrey slipped out of her clothes and stood naked in a pair of fuck-me panties. She bent and put on black high heels. The guy turned around and embraced her, kissing her and reaching around to fondle her butt.

  Emily felt like banging on the window and screaming, What the fuck, Audrey? Soon her mother was pulling at the guy’s pants, the both of them sliding to the floor. Emily found her way out of the bushes, wiping her face, the snot and tears. She ran home and waited in the den. She stared at the dark TV screen, registering nothing.

  An hour and a half later Audrey returned, subdued, the dog hyper.

  Emily looked up from the couch. “Your face is red,” she said.

  “Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”

  “I’m making an observation about your face.”

  “Would you like some dinner? I made tofu earlier.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “For a walk.”

  “You were gone a long time.”

  “Have you finished your homework?”

  “You know what, Mother? I think I prefer not talking to you.”

  She went into the kitchen and found the plate of tufu and rice and took it into her room. A minute later came the sound of the shower from Audrey’s bedroom. Washing off the sweat. Scrubbing away the dried semen.

  This is un-fucking-believable. Can you even begin to believe this?

  Poor Mom.

  Poor Mom! Daniel, are you joking? First she flushes my stash, then she sneaks out for a quickie with the neighbor?

  Maybe they were just making out.

  Sure.

  She’s lonely, Em.

  Is that what you call it? I can think of another word.

  You know how Dad is. He takes her for granted.

  He’s an asshole, is what you mean.

  No. He cares about us.

  Seriously, Daniel. Since you went away, he’s changed. He doesn’t care about anyone. And now she’s, like, Mrs. Robinson.

  That doesn’t even make sense.

  You know what I mean.

  Down the hall, the sound of the shower ceased.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY her mother pronounced that she was grounded for a month: She wasn’t allowed to leave the house except for school. Emily glared at her but didn’t respond. “And if I catch you sneaking out, because that’s what you’ll do, then it’ll be another month. Understand?”

  Was she joking? Grounded? The concept was a little anachronistic, like sock hops and the hula hoop, wasn’t it? Emily found it humorous, almost. Humorous except that Audrey wouldn’t drive her to the mall, wouldn’t drop her at Starbucks or let her walk around at night in the town center, wouldn’t let her do squat. How much time could she spend on MySpace without losing her marbles? She checked about ten times that day to see if anyone mentioned those pictures. So far, nothing.

  Hypocrite, she nearly responded. Adulteress.

  By Monday morning she couldn’t stand being trapped in the house with Audrey anymore. Besides, she had to see Billy and get his phone and delete those pictures. B-Ray too. She hoped Billy had lied about everyone knowing. Maybe he was just jealous, trying to get back at her for going off with B-Ray. B-Ray was a total asshole to take those pictures. She couldn’t believe ho
w stupid she’d been—to have a crush on him all those weeks, without even knowing anything about him. He was a macho creep. How had she not known that? Talk about stupid—she’d stayed up all night doing coke with him and his jerk-off cousin after they’d already snapped those pictures of her, while she was passed out. Still, B-Ray wouldn’t tell or show anyone besides Billy, would he? As for the cousin, he didn’t even know her name, so who could he tell? No, it was probably just B-Ray and Billy, texting back and forth, their usual junior high bullshit. Maybe they were the only ones who’d seen the pictures. She decided to risk school.

  She got dressed and went out to the car. While waiting for Audrey to unlock the door, Emily glanced up to see him, the boyfriend, cruising down the street in his wannabe Hummer. He was staring straight at her. Gawking. Emily raised her hand and flipped him off. He stared back, openmouthed, dumbfounded, which pleased her.

  Fuck you, old man. Go fuck someone else’s mother.

  As soon as her mother dropped her at school, she went to the courtyard to find Billy Stacks, who was standing around the anchor with the usual crowd, shivering in place, blasting hip-hop. No sign of B-Ray. She beckoned to Billy with one finger, and after a while he came over, dragging his feet, his laces undone. He was wearing bright yellow basketball sneakers with black socks. He said, “What’s up, gangbang?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not?”

  She tried to play it off. “Because two guys isn’t a gangbang, dumb-ass.”

  “You should know.”

  “And if you call me that again, you won’t be getting laid for a long time.” She paused. “Nice socks, by the way.”

  “Nice reputation.”

  She ignored this only because she needed to get to the point. “Where’s B-Ray?”

  He shrugged. “He’s your boyfriend. Go find him yourself.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s an asshole.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Can I see your phone?”

  “What for?”

  “Cause I left mine at home.”

  He shuffled his feet, looking down. “Not my problem.”

  “Don’t be a jerk. I forgot to tell my mother something. I have to call her. It’s important. I’ll give it right back.”

  “One minute,” he said. “I want it back in one minute.”