The Last Days of California: A Novel

by Miller, Mary

  He unbuttoned his shorts, unzipped them, and pulled himself out—half-hard, big.

  “It’s big,” I said.

  “Is it?”

  “It seems really big.”

  “It’s not huge or anything,” he said. He took out his wallet and found a gold condom. I watched him open the wrapper with his teeth, roll it down his dick.

  “Wait,” I said, placing my hands against his chest.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We don’t have to,” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “I’ll go slow.” He gave me a sad look like he might love me, pulled me forward, and pushed himself in. I didn’t want to do it anymore and wanted to stop him—all I had to say was that I’d changed my mind. I could just pull my shorts up and leave the bathroom and he would let me. I could leave. I didn’t have to do this. I scooted to the edge of the counter and wrapped my legs around his waist.

  “Hey,” I said, but it was so quiet. I put my hands under his shirt and held onto him, tried to concentrate on his skin, which was smooth and warm. I wanted to pull him on top of me, wanted him to smother me, make it hard to breathe.

  After a few minutes, he grunted and tugged my hair. Then he was still and silent. I tried to move but he held my legs in place, closed his eyes. The bluish lids were lined with veins. There was a tiny mole below his left eye that added so much.

  He peeled the condom off, hobbled a few feet over to the toilet, and flushed. Then he put his hand on the back of my head and smiled at me before zipping his pants.

  When he left, I locked the door and set about cleaning myself with a washcloth. I peed, brushed my teeth, washed my face. When there was nothing left to clean, I sat on the toilet and listened to them talk and laugh, knowing I would never be a part of it. I would always be separate, thinking about what expression my face was making, what people thought of me. Observing peoples’ weaknesses and flaws—their big thighs and crooked teeth and acne, their lack of confidence, their fear. I would always think the worst about people and it would keep me from them because I couldn’t accept myself.

  Elise sat alone on the bed, wobbling back and forth. I got up and went to the bathroom, peed for the fourth time in two hours.

  When I came out, she was fumbling around in the closet.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, sliding open the door.

  “I have to use the bathroom.”

  “You’re in the closet,” I said. I turned on the light and led her to the toilet, stood there until she told me to go away. I got in bed and tried to get comfortable. I imagined myself melting into the mattress, becoming a part of it.

  A few minutes later, she came out unwrapping something.

  “What do you have?” I asked.

  “A candy,” she said, popping it into her mouth.

  “You might choke.” I held out my hand and she spit the peppermint into it. I set it on the table and told her to go to sleep, but she began to cry, softly at first and then gasping, sucking breaths that hurt my chest, my heart.

  “Elise?” I said. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “You know what,” she said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.”

  I wanted to list things, like our mother listed things when our father lost another job, or when we didn’t have enough money to go back-to-school shopping. She would remind us of all the things we had—our health and each other and a roof over our heads—things we’d always had so they never seemed like anything. I could tell her she was beautiful and smart and funny and popular, that she could walk into any room and heads would turn. But I didn’t say these things and the crying slowed and I thought it would stop but it started up again, terrible and heaving. I wondered how anyone would ever be able to love her. She was too beautiful. It was like being too rich—all you could think about was what the person could do for you.

  I walked over to the tub and turned on the pitifully slow-filling faucet. I could still feel Brad inside me and wondered how long it would take to go away. I hate myself, I thought. I thought it again and again and it felt good, like I was finally admitting something I’d kept secret for a long time.

  “Why don’t you take a bath?” I asked, watching the water creep into the tub.

  She didn’t say anything. I sat there for a moment, looking at her, and then took off my clothes and got in, waited for the water to fill up around me. I ducked my head under and held my breath, my ring scraping the porcelain—God was supposed to be my husband. I was supposed to be married to God. I imagined slicing my wrists open, red against white. It would be so bright, so beautiful. I could hear my heartbeat and remembered that it only had so many. It seemed cruel, putting a little bomb inside us like this, something that we had to always find new ways to ignore.

  I adjusted the water with my foot and looked over at my sister.

  “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.

  “Worst like what? The meanest?”

  “Whatever.”

  “I used to like Marc,” I said. “Do you remember Marc?”

  “He only carpooled with us for like four years,” she said.

  “I couldn’t talk to him so instead of being nice I was really mean. I put gum in his hair and told him he smelled bad and one time I told Mom he’d gotten another ride home and we left him in the rain.”

  “I remember that—we had to go back and get him and he was soaked.”

  “And now he’s in Ohio and I’ll never see him again,” I said. “He’ll always think I hated him.”

  “I bet he knows you liked him,” she said. “Kids do shit like that when they like each other.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know then, but I bet he knows now.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  She was quiet and I wanted to ask about the worst thing she’d ever done but she’d probably done some actual bad things, which was why she was asking. She turned onto her side, facing away from me.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you, too,” she mumbled.

  “I’m sad we’re not going to make it to California. I wanted to see the ocean.”

  “I’m sure it’s not that great.”

  “I bet it’s nice.”

  “These aren’t the last days of California,” she said. “You’ll see it eventually.”

  A few minutes later, she was asleep. No matter what, she never had any trouble sleeping.

  I got out of the tub and dried off with a damp towel. I let it fall to the floor and walked over to the window, stepped onto the ledge. The blue light of the parking garage reminded me of a mosquito zapper. It could have been dusk or dawn. I pressed my hands to the glass and leaned forward, thinking about Brother Jessie’s baby. Why would God have given him a baby like that? I wondered if his wife had spent her pregnancy afraid, if it had caused the baby to be deformed. If I ever became pregnant, I’d be terrified the whole time, and my baby would be born dead or worse, completely messed up. I’d have no choice but to sacrifice my life for it, and people would say how good I was, how selfless.

  I closed the curtains. Then I put on my clothes and got in bed, letting my hair soak the pillow. At home, I’d have waited for it to dry, or put a towel down. At home, I wouldn’t drop things when I was done using them. I checked my phone. As usual, no one had called or texted. Before I could think better of it, I typed a message to Gabe—I’ve been thinking about the back of your van—and pressed send. Then I set the phone screen-side-down on my chest and waited. A minute later, I picked it up and looked at it, adjusted the volume. He was probably asleep. It was late and he was asleep and had been asleep for hours, but I needed him to be awake. I wanted to tell him everything. I felt like he would understand, that he was the only person who would understand.

  I played games with myself—counting down from ten, ignoring the phone—but nothing worked, so I gave up and recited the Lo
rd’s Prayer. I said it over and over until the words got all mixed up and I had no idea how it went.

  When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed I was blind except for a small square in the upper right-hand corner of my vision. I had to keep moving my head around, positioning the square in just the right place so I could see. I saw a banana, reached out and grabbed it. I peeled it and took a bite and each bite brought back more and more vision until I could see normally. Then I dreamed we were at home and my mother was in the driveway, being dragged off by a snake as big as a car. My sister yelled for me to get our father so I went inside and found him asleep in his chair. Gunsmoke was on TV, which made it feel less dreamlike. Instead of screaming, I shook him until he woke up and we ran outside, but by that time, the snake had her whole body in its mouth and we just stood there and watched.

  SATURDAY

  When I woke up, Elise was curled around me. I scooted away from her and checked my phone. Gabe had responded at seven forty-eight: Hey girl. What have you been thinking about it, exactly? I didn’t know what to write back. I wanted to be flirty, yet serious. I wanted to be serious, mostly, but I’d started it by being flirty. I was happy he’d written back, but it also seemed like too little too late. He couldn’t help me.

  I turned on the TV. There had been no reports of Christians gone missing. Marshall was unavailable for comment. We were going to have to drive back to Montgomery, but I didn’t want to go back to Montgomery, or I didn’t feel like driving anymore, ever. I wondered if we could stay in Arizona. I imagined myself beautiful in Arizona—my hair longer and fuller, my skin clearer. My mother could get a teaching job and my father could find work in a place where people didn’t know about all of the jobs he’d lost. Where he could start fresh. And Elise could have her baby, or not, and no one would give a shit. I thought of other reasons, ways I might try to sell them on it, while I watched my sister sleep.

  After a while, I went to the bathroom—my stomach was queasy and I had a dull headache, but I looked better than I ever had in my life—cheeks and lips flushed, eyes burning. My dirty hair looked darker, nearly thick. I studied my pores in the magnified mirror, the light making halos in my eyes.

  I turned on the little TV and sat on the toilet. It was a show I’d seen before, the people pretending it was the 1800s. They were on a farm with pigs and chickens and the women were sweating in ankle-length, long-sleeved dresses. A butch woman washed clothes while a more attractive woman made biscuits. You had sex, I thought. You did it. I wanted to feel more, for it to hurt, so I kept repeating it to myself. You had sex. You aren’t a virgin anymore. I called myself a slut and a whore while digging my nails into my thighs to move the feeling from my chest to my legs.

  An hour later, we were in our parents’ room, lounging in their empty tub while our mother talked to one of her sisters. She’d given us dirty looks when she’d opened the door but hadn’t said anything about not calling her back. She didn’t want to get off the phone.

  “I have no idea where we are,” she said. “We could be in Toocumterry for all I know.” Toocumterry was her version of Bumfuck Egypt. She was wearing the dress we called her carpool dress; it was green and blue tie-dye, old and soft. Elise and I were wearing the tank tops we’d slept in. We had our sunglasses on, hair piled on top of our heads with bobby pins. Along with my slight hangover, this ensemble made me feel cool and jaded.

  I hooked my arms over the back of the tub and watched the muted TV, the nonevent unfolding across the globe. The rapture hadn’t happened in China or Russia. It hadn’t happened in Japan or Vietnam or India or Cambodia. Somewhere in Australia, a group of drunken revelers released helium balloons with blow-up dolls attached.

  “Australians are so weird,” Elise said.

  “You’ve never even met an Australian,” I said.

  “You don’t know.”

  “Who?”

  The toilet flushed and our father came out of the bathroom, still in his robe. He paused before taking a seat at the edge of the bed. “That was some bill y’all racked up at the pool yesterday,” he said. He took off his glasses and held the bridge of his nose. “Room service, too. Hot fudge sundaes—everybody likes a hot fudge sundae.”

  Elise raised her sunglasses to look at me.

  “We didn’t think you’d have to pay for it,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “Of course you didn’t.” He didn’t say anything else, and we listened to our mother tell one of her sisters about the fabulous dinner we’d had last night—it was the best lobster she’d ever put in her mouth. The lobsters had been small and overcooked, but our steaks had been good—tender, medium-rare.

  My father turned the sound on, a reporter interviewing an unknown man. The man said we were likely to go through the stages of grief from denial to depression. He said we would probably experience psychological trauma and may consider suicide. I looked at my father to gauge his reaction.

  I climbed out of the tub and sat next to him. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” he said. Then he patted my leg and said I was his girl and I loved him so much in that moment. I was his girl and would always be his girl.

  “It could still happen,” I said.

  “No it couldn’t,” Elise said.

  “The Middle East is full of Muslims,” I said.

  “Australia’s mostly Christian. New Zealand, too.”

  Now that she told me she made things up, I was suspicious of everything. I got out my phone and Googled “Drunken revelers in Australia release blow-up dolls,” but there was no sign of these people. Most of the links had to do with women and binge drinking.

  My father walked over to the window. “Why don’t y’all go back to your room for a minute and let me talk to your mother,” he said. But we’d left our keys in our room; our bags were in their entryway. Elise pointed this out and asked if he wanted us to go to the coffee shop.

  I went to the bathroom and admired my face some more, my red lips. I was thirsty but didn’t feel like drinking any water.

  “Jess,” Elise called. “What are you doing in there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Will you make me some coffee?”

  I sorted through the little plastic bin. “There’s only decaf.”

  “Go find the lady.”

  “Go find her yourself,” I said. I went to the door and looked out. There was a cart in the hall. I walked over and saw a cleaning lady pushing a vacuum by the window. I tried to get her attention but she didn’t see me so I opened a plastic drawer and took out two packets. Just as I was turning, she met my eye—a flash of hatred and surprise.

  I ran back to the room like someone was chasing me and tossed them to my sister.

  “It would taste better if you made it,” she said.

  I got in the tub and we watched coverage we’d already seen—dozens of news vans camped outside of Marshall’s offices, a wide lot and a half-dozen trailers. A pretty black woman in a pantsuit knocked on a door. No one answered, so she knocked on another and another until she was back at the first one. It was always so damning when no one could be reached for comment. Then it cut to a reporter interviewing a man from the Florida leg. He was in the driver’s seat of a rapture van, his tan arm hanging out the window. The reporter asked if it had been a waste of his time and the man said he had brought many people to God, that lives were changed because of what they’d done. I looked at my father and wondered if he could convince himself he had changed lives. He didn’t look sad or traumatized or angry. He didn’t look anything.

  “I hope they show Greta,” Elise said.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t.” I imagined the door to her home ajar, all of her electronics gone. Cats gone, husband. The faces of her plain, overweight children stapled to telephone poles. Long after they were found dead, strangers would still be peering into their eyes.

  My father stood and wheeled his suitcase into the bathroom. “We have to be out i
n forty-five minutes,” he said.

  Elise and I looked at our mother, who was now watching something on her phone.

  “She hates us,” Elise said.

  “Don’t say ‘hate,’ ” our mother said, glancing up at us.

  “See? She hates us.” She took the bobby pins out of her hair one by one and laid them on the edge of the tub.

  “I always wanted two girls—two girls, two years apart. You know that.”

  “I’m sure you were so specific,” Elise said.

  “We’re two and a half years apart,” I said.

  Elise put her feet on either side of my head and lifted herself into a backbend, her crotch pointed at my face. She moved her head from side to side and her hair swung back and forth like a pendulum.

  On our mother’s phone, a crowd cheered.

  “What are you watching?” I asked.

  She turned the screen to me but I was too far away. “Have you seen this video?” she asked. “This man in Oregon made a video proposal.”

  “No. Why would I have seen it?”

  The cheering died down and a man was telling a woman he loved her more than life itself. Then he was saying he was going to spend the rest of his days trying to make her happy. He didn’t say anything remotely original and the woman, of course, was crying. When the boy I loved proposed, he wouldn’t say the usual things about how much he loved me or get on one knee. He’d say he wanted to die with me in a freak submarine explosion. He’d say he loved me down to the squishy insides of his bones. I could help him come up with things if he needed me to. Boys had trouble expressing themselves because they weren’t as good with language.

  Elise walked over to the desk and picked up the landline.

  “What are you doing?” our mother asked.

  She turned her back to us and placed an order for room service, more food than we could eat. It was probably going to cost a hundred dollars.