by E. C. Bell
There were a couple dozen cars, and it looked like half of them were blue. Some were even small cars, which surprised me. I honestly thought there wouldn’t be many. Looked like renters didn’t buy the big trucks. Not all of them, anyhow.
I got out of the Volvo and looked at the numbers spray-painted on one of the parking spots. 314. Looked like an apartment number to me, and I tried to remember the number for Rosalie’s apartment.
Nothing came, and I cursed my sleep-deprived mind. Stared at the building and the balconies lining the back of the apartment building, and remembered that her apartment was on the second floor.
I jumped when I thought I saw Arnie standing on one of the balconies, staring at me, but relaxed when I saw that the guy had blond hair, not mousy brown, and was holding a coffee cup. It wasn’t Arnie, just one of the living. I waved. He waved, and then retreated into his apartment, and I was alone again.
The number 203 popped into my head. Rosalie’s apartment number. I got out of the car and strode back and forth through the lot, looking for the spot designated to apartment 203.
I finally found it and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A Sunfire was squatting in that spot. And it did have dints on the roof, as though someone had recently hammered away at it in a drunken rage. But it wasn’t blue. It was green. A light, aquamarine green, but definitely green.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Why can’t I get a break here?”
I drove to Mom’s, exhausted all over again.
Arnie:
What’s She Doing Here?
I WAS STANDING on the balcony of Rosalie’s apartment, trying to pull myself together, when I saw Marie drive into the parking lot in Asshole Lavall’s damned Volvo.
“What is she doing here?” I mumbled.
I steeled myself, expecting her to march up to the front door and ring to get into Rosalie’s apartment. For a showdown, I suspected. Over me.
All right, I admit it, that gave me a bit of an ego boost.
“About time,” I said. “We need to talk.”
But she didn’t come to the door. She parked that car, and then completely ignored the apartment building. What the hell was she doing?
I scrunched down, but kept watching her through the wrought iron of the balcony’s edge. There was a chance she would have been able to see me, but she would have had to have stared directly at me, and she was far more interested in the parking lot than the building.
She scurried around, staring at one parking space after another. I realized she was looking for Rosalie’s car.
She gave me a bit of a turn when she glanced up at the balconies and waved, but I realized that she hadn’t seen me, but some living guy two balconies over.
She finally found Rosalie’s car and stared at it for a few long moments. She looked disappointed when she finally turned away from it.
I heard a noise behind me and turned. It was Rosalie. She’d seen Marie and she looked supremely pissed off.
“What the heck is she doing here?” Rosalie cried as Marie drove off in Asshole Lavall’s Volvo. “What did she want with my car?”
She stomped to her bedroom and carefully took down every photograph of me that she’d put up on the bloodstained wall.
“She’s really becoming a thorn in my side,” she said, when the last of the photos were packed and she had taped the lid of the box closed. “I’m going to have to do something about her. I really am.” She picked up the box and headed for the door.
“First, though, I have to get all these lovelies somewhere safe,” she said. “Don’t I, Arnie?”
And then she was gone.
Marie:
The Blue Dress
I GOT HOME, and everyone was still asleep. Except for Laurel, who had reappeared and was parked in her usual spot at the end of the couch. I asked her where she’d gone, but she didn’t answer. Just pointed at the television until I picked up the remote and turned it on for her. Then I went to find James and give him the bad news.
He was in my old room, wrapped in a sleeping bag on the floor. Even though he looked uncomfortable as sin, I didn’t want to disturb him, but he jerked awake just as I turned to the door.
“Marie?” he mumbled. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
He didn’t move. Didn’t even open his eyes. “Did you check the car?”
I sighed. “Yep,” I said. “It wasn’t the right colour.”
“Didn’t think it would be,” he said. “We don’t have that kind of luck.”
“Maybe we should head out,” I said. “You know, and see if we can find it. It shouldn’t take us too long. McMurray’s not big.”
“We have to go to Rhonda’s meal,” he said.
“She wouldn’t miss us.” I shrugged. “Finding that car is a lot more important, don’t you think?”
I honestly thought I was giving him the out he was looking for. I could think of no reason in the world that James would want to go to a family meal. Not my family, anyhow.
But he said, “No, it isn’t,” and then rolled on his side and pulled the sleeping bag up over his head. Conversation over.
I gently closed his door and went to the couch. Laurel looked up at me. “What do you want?”
“I gotta sleep,” I said, and curled up in the corner furthest from the ghost.
“Just don’t disturb my show,” she said. “And don’t put your feet in me. I hate that.”
“Promise,” I mumbled, and pulled my blanket over my head.
I was half-hoping that I’d come up with a brilliant plan to keep James from the family meal while I lay there, but I didn’t. All I did was fall asleep.
I slept most of the rest of the day away, only waking when I heard Mom rattling around in the kitchen.
I got up, feeling like I was drugged. Glanced at the clock and groaned. I only had a couple of hours before Rhonda’s stupid family get-together. I wouldn’t have time to hit the streets, looking for that blue Sunfire.
I took a long shower, and even decided to do a little something with my hair for Rhonda’s event. Meaning I brushed it. Then I pulled on the clothes I’d been sleeping in. Good enough for Rhonda’s event, as far as I was concerned.
Of course, that wasn’t good enough for my mother.
“You must’ve brought a dress, Marie. Everybody packs a dress.”
“I didn’t think I’d need one, Mom,” I said, a little more nastily than I should have. “And why do we have to dress up to go to Rhonda’s place anyhow?”
I looked down at my fairly serviceable black jeans, blue tee shirt, and black hoodie, and thought I looked just fine. Maybe a little wrinkly, but not that bad.
“Because we need to,” Mom said, just as snippily. “Rhonda’s put a lot of work into this meal. We should show her some respect.”
“Respect?” I said, outrage making my voice squeaky high. I tried hard to tone it down but failed. “She didn’t say we had to dress formally, did she?”
“No, but you know your sister,” Mom said. “She likes things to be—nice.”
Mom was probably right about the whole “wear decent clothes to dinner” thing, but it didn’t make the idea any easier to swallow.
“Maybe I have something you can wear,” she said. Before I could say a word, like, “Oh my God, no!” or something, she disappeared into her bedroom.
“She’s determined, isn’t she?” Laurel said. She was taking a break from the old movies and seemed to be enjoying my discomfort far too much.
She also looked a little washed-out and sad. I think that having Roy move on had taken its toll on her. After all, it was easy enough to say that you’re tired of your husband and that you wanted some time away from him—but when he was actually gone, well, that changed things. A lot.
I almost felt sorry for her, but had to deal with my mother, first. I marched into her room, determined to talk her out of any more foolishness, and stared, horrified, at the three old lady dresses she’d laid out on the bed.
&
nbsp; “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking,” Mom said. “What colour suits you? I think the blue. Don’t you?”
She pointed at a dress that looked like it had been made at the turn of the century—and I mean the 1900s. There was way too much lace at the neck and wrists, and the overfull skirt looked like it would have reached to just above my running shoes.
“This looks like something somebody in a cult would wear,” I said, rather unhelpfully.
“All right,” Mom said. “What about the green?”
I looked down at the algae-coloured satin number lying next to the cult dress and shook my head.
“The pink?”
“That’s not pink,” I said. “Mom, it’s coral. Bright, bright coral.” I turned away from her bed and grabbed her hands. “Please. Just let me wear what I have on.”
“But I want you to look nice,” Mom said. She sat on the edge of her bed and touched the blue dress gently. “You haven’t seen Rhonda’s children in such a long time. They so want to see you. And it would make Rhonda happy.” She looked up at me and positively batted her eyes. “Please? At least try it on. For me.”
Good grief.
I grabbed the cult dress and headed to the bathroom.
“Nice colour,” Laurel said. “I think I owned one like it, when I was alive.”
I ignored her and tried not to slam the bathroom door. Quickly undressed and pulled the dark blue frock over my head, and on.
It actually fit quite well. If it hadn’t looked so amazingly like something everyone wore in the 1980s, or maybe the 1880s, I might have even been convinced to give it a go.
I knocked on my old bedroom door and walked in before James answered. He would help me. That guy couldn’t lie to save his life.
“Look at what Mom wants me to wear tonight,” I said.
James turned away from the computer and blinked when he saw what I was wearing. His face contorted as he tried, desperately I imagined, to think of something complimentary to say. It was quite a thing to see, but I let him twist in the wind. He had to say, out loud, how horrible that dress looked. He had to.
“I like the colour,” he finally said. His voice sounded strangled, like he was choking on the rest of the words attempting to leap from his mouth. Words like “horrible” and “dated” and “take that off right now.”
“Really?’ I said, and whirled, so he could see the huge bow at the back. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I told you he’d like it!” Mom called from the bedroom.
“I like the colour too!” Laurel called from the living room.
“That’s enough from both of you,” I said, and turned to James. “Really,” I repeated. “What do you think of this dress?”
“Please don’t make me say it,” James whispered. “I don’t want to hurt your mom’s feelings.”
“You have to,” I said. “If you don’t, she’ll force me to wear it, James. You have to help me.”
“I thought you were stronger than that.”
I shrugged, and he sighed. “All right,” he whispered. “But you owe me.”
He got up and stood by the door. “Like I said. The colour’s good,” he said, loudly, “but the style doesn’t really suit you, Marie. I think it would be better if you just wore your own clothes.”
“What about something in pink?” Mom called from her bedroom. James looked at me, and I shook my head, mouthing the word “coral.”
“No, Sylvie,” he said, glaring at me. “I think the outfit she was wearing will do. Really.”
“But the kids—” Mom sighed.
“I think Marie’s niece and nephews will be happy to see her no matter what she’s wearing.”
A moment of silence filled the trailer, and then Mom sighed melodramatically.
“Fine,” she said. “I guess her outfit will do.”
“Thank you,” I mouthed at James.
“You owe me,” he mouthed back.
I definitely did.
THE DRIVE OVER to Rhonda’s was quiet. Mom, who was sitting in the front seat beside James, was silent, concentrating on keeping the chocolate cake she’d baked from tipping over when James took the corners. I was glad of the quiet. My stomach felt like it was so full of butterflies it would explode if I opened my mouth. James turned on the radio briefly and then slapped it off when both Mom and I glared at him.
“Sorry,” he said. I think he would have said more, but I glared him to quiet, then stared out the side window, wishing I was anywhere but there.
The last time the whole family had been together was Christmas six years before. Mom spent most of the day crying, Dad got mean drunk, and Rhonda silently blamed me for everything that was going wrong. Then Dad left, and the explosion that was my family falling apart officially began.
Fun times.
“Are we going the right way?” James asked, as we entered a subdivision so new there wasn’t even grass in many of the front yards of the homes we passed.
“Yes,” Mom said. “They moved in here a few months ago. It’s nice enough.”
She sniffed the last bit, as though she meant exactly the opposite.
“What’s wrong with it, Mom?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Rhonda’s happy with it, anyhow.”
Hmm.
We turned a final corner, and the size of the houses increased appreciably. We drove past McMansion after McMansion. James slowed the Volvo to a crawl. “How much farther?” he finally asked. “I feel like we missed it.”
Meaning, these places looked way too good for a member of the Jenner family. I was all ready to agree with him, but Mom shook her head.
“No,” she said, “it’s just up the way. Theirs is on the left.”
I nearly laughed when I saw the driveway to Rhonda’s house. She’d attached a bunch of helium-filled balloons to the mock-antique letterbox sitting at the end of their lane.
“Looks like they’re ready for a party,” I said. “I can hardly wait.”
When I heard James sigh, deeply, like he wished he was anywhere but there, I did laugh a little. Until he glared me to silence.
“Can’t you be nice?” he asked. “Just for one meal?”
That brought me up short. All right, so maybe I was acting a bit mean, but it was Rhonda we were talking about. I always made fun of her and her pampered kids and whipped husband, and their godawful houses that looked exactly the same as every other one in their neighbourhoods. They’d changed houses four times since they were married, and every time the house got bigger, blander, and even more plastic.
“I don’t know if I can,” I said.
“Well, try,” he replied, shortly. That silenced me, but my mother snorted laughter.
“That’s the way, James,” she chortled. “You put her in her place.”
Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot.
“You should have worn the dress,” Mom said, leaning back and grinning at me over the edge of the seatbelt. “It’d probably make you act a little more ladylike. You know?”
It was James’s turn to laugh, and I decided to ignore them both.
Act ladylike indeed.
Arnie:
Rosalie, Prepping for Her Big Night Out
ROSALIE CAME BACK to her apartment two hours later. She took off her coat and washed her hands. Then she made sandwiches.
This wasn’t unusual. Rosalie was supposed to go to work that night. What was unusual was how many she made. Six sandwiches. Three ham and cheese, and three peanut butter. She wrapped them in cellophane and put them in her ridiculous pink lunch bag. Then she pulled out two apples, cut them into quarters, wrapped them in cellophane, and added them to the lunch bag, too. Then she grabbed half a dozen chocolate chip cookies, and I thought, Hell girl, think of your figure! She wrapped them and set them on top of the overfull lunch bag.
Then she filled her Thermos with herbal tea, dosed it with honey, and tightened the lid.
She did not put her coat on and go to work after she did all t
hat. She picked up her phone instead, and called work.
“Harley,” she said, her voice suddenly raspy and painful-sounding. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it into work tonight. I know I should have called earlier, but—I just woke up.” She mocked a gag as Harley, evidently her boss, yakked at her, but snapped to smiling attention when he shut up.
“Yeah, Harley, I’ll make sure I go and get a doctor’s note,” she said, her voice raspy. “I will.”
She put down the receiver, then blew a raspberry at it. “That’s for you, Harley, you big poop,” she said, in her little-girl voice.
Then she laughed and grabbed her coat. “Time to teach Marie Jenner a lesson,” she said.
Now, that brought me up short. I mean it was one thing for her to blow off work. Hey, everybody did it, why not her? But she was talking about going and finding Marie, and teaching her a lesson. That sounded pretty fucking threatening to me.
I tentatively reached out a light thread from my aura and touched it to Rosalie’s skin. She flinched and then shuddered as I tried a couple more. And a couple more after that.
If I could do it, I was going to go with her. ’Cause there was no way in the world I was going to let Disposable Rosalie do anything to my Marie.
I didn’t think it would work. When I’d tried connecting to Rosalie before, I hadn’t been able to hang on very long. But it looked like what I’d learned riding Roy worked for the living, too. So, when Rosalie threw her coat over her arm and headed out the door, I went with her.
It was a little rough for a while, and I felt like I was being stretched as thin as the cellophane Rosalie had wrapped her sandwiches with, but after I threw in a couple more light lines and really anchored myself to her, it worked like a charm.
Like an absolute charm.
ROSALIE GOT INTO her car and put her great big lunch bag down in the back seat. Then she buckled up and headed out to old lady Jenner’s trailer.
