Last Train to Babylon

by Charlee Fam

  I nodded.

  “He had pockmarks in his face. Like acne scars,” she said. “And his hair was greasy. Yeah, I remember his hair being greasy. I just felt really gross but I couldn’t just leave, you know?”

  I nodded. The ocean looked black.

  “He kept shaking his leg over the gas pedal, and every few seconds he’d press too hard and the car would rev up. So we both just sat there awkwardly for a long time. And he was chewing gum really loud, and eventually he just leaned in and said, ‘So are we going to hook up or what?’ And then he kissed me. His tongue was limp and cold, and he just sort of licked my teeth and then darted his tongue in and out of my mouth, until I finally pulled away.”

  “That is disgusting,” I said. It was the only thing I could say.

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  “Tell me about it,” she said, still amused. She sat up again and stabbed the sand with her fingers. “So I panicked, got out of the car, and just ran home.”

  “And you never told anyone this?”

  “Nope.” She seemed to be smiling again. “Who was I going to tell?” she said. “I felt like such an idiot. I couldn’t tell you.”

  “You could have told me,” I said, lifting her to her feet. “But let’s get out of here. I’m freezing.” She stood up, steady this time, walked to my car, and never once thanked me for the ride.

  I STOOD IN Rachel’s kitchen, refilling the same glass of water over and over until I felt the nausea wash away. I had gotten her home, into bed, and wiped the puke off her face. I called Adam on the way back to Rachel’s, just to check up, but he didn’t answer. Must have been sleeping, I figured. It was nearly 3 A.M.

  I chugged another glass of sink water, and that’s when I saw him. Big, hick, Nascar-loving Jeff, with nothing on but a pair of tighty whities. I didn’t see him lurking in the shadows, so I jumped, knocking the bottle of Palmolive into the metal sink.

  “Whoa, there,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” It was dark, but the moonlight shone through the sliding glass doors, perfectly illuminating the outline of his crotch. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Busch. “Want one?”

  I could only shake my head to keep from vomiting all over the cheap linoleum. He was balding, and his gut protruded over the elastic band around his waist. He leaned against the kitchen counter, his hips jutting out toward me like he was showing off.

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  “Rough night?” he asked, popping up the tab. “Heard you two come in. Sounds like Rachel-girl is one hot mess tonight.” He let out this throaty chuckle, and I caught myself glancing at the wiry black hairs on the tops of his thighs.

  I watched the microwave clock change to 3:07, then I awkwardly mumbled something about the bathroom, stumbled into Rachel’s room, and locked the door.

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  Chapter 15

  Monday, October 6, 2014.

  THE STREETLIGHTS SWELL around Ally’s house—her parents’ house, and it looks the same as it did back in high school, except for what might be a new slate stoop. I park across the street and sit in my car, still feeling my buzz from earlier, my head still pounding from all that Jack.

  Ally doesn’t live near the water, she lives east down by the Seaport Diner. I shouldn’t have driven, but once that jar shattered on Karen’s kitchen floor, I had to get the hell out. I can’t get that look on her face out of my head, like everything just clicked for her, like she finally realized what I really am. Batshit crazy.

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  I didn’t stick around to clean up or apologize, just fled, grabbing my car keys on the way out. I hadn’t realized that I’d left my phone behind until I started the car. I expect at least forty missed calls upon my return. There was a commotion in my wake, I’m sure: Ashley consoling my hysterical mother while Marc and Eli swept up the broken pieces.

  I linger in my car and watch the shadows of three or four slim bodies behind the shades. I have no idea who to expect at this gathering and I’m not so sure I want to find out.

  I reach in my bag for a cigarette—my third of the day—and that bottle of Xanax, then slink back into the seat, rolling the window down an inch just to air out. I crunch a Xanax between my teeth and swallow before lighting up.

  It’s been more than five years since I’ve been here—the First Friday of my senior year. It had always been Ally’s dream to host First Friday, like some people dream of making captain of the swim team or getting into an Ivy League. Ally’s dream had been simply to host our senior First Friday, as if that would hold any sort of merit post–high school. And I remember feeling oddly proud of her.

  KEEPING UP WITH our First Friday tradition, Adam and I had ducked out of the party just after midnight with a bottle of Jack. It had been one of those warm September nights. We took turns swigging from the bottle, the hot whiskey dribbling down my chin and staining the front of my tank top. Karen was staying with my grandma in Connecticut and Eli was staying at our dad’s, so we had the house to ourselves.

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  Ally would have been heartbroken if she knew that I’d skipped out early on her big night, probably the most important night of her life to date, but I think she was too busy scrubbing the semen stains off her parents’ five-hundred-thread-count sheets.

  Adam had carried me home on his back. We hardly made it through the front door, when he pushed me up against the hallway wall, his whiskey lips dancing over my neck. I pulled him by the collar of his polo, and dragged him to the staircase. My back pressed into the carpeted steps, and he was on top of me, writhing against my drunk, limp body.

  I’m not sure how we got into the shower. Maybe I blacked out, maybe I was just too caught up in the moment, but one second we were fully clothed, grinding up against each other on the stairs, and the next we were both naked, standing under a waterfall of hot steaming vapor.

  We didn’t touch. We stood at least a foot apart. It was the first time he’d seen me without my clothes on and it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel wrong either. Just unsettling.

  His eyes were fixed on me, and he sank his tongue into mine. His warm body pressed into me. I let my arms hang around his neck, and he hardened against my bare thigh. He moved up against me in a quiet rhythm until a groan escaped from the back of his throat.

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  I THINK ABOUT leaving, about speeding off down the street and crawling back into bed—texting Ally in the morning with some half-assed apology, but then I see someone peer out from behind one of the shades, and then another set of eyes; suddenly there are three or four bodies waving emphatically at me from inside the house.

  “Shit,” I mumble. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” and put out my cigarette in the car’s ashtray before anybody sees me.

  I stumble out of the car, smooth my gray cashmere sweater over my stomach, and wave back at them, slinging my bag over my shoulder and smiling until my jaw aches.

  The door swings open just as I’m coming up that possibly-new slate stoop.

  “Finally,” Ally says, draping her arms around my shoulders. I can already tell she’s wasted. “I’m so happy you’re here. We thought you wouldn’t show.”

  They stand around the doorway with weak smiles. There’s Ally, Sasha, and two other vaguely familiar faces, but for the life of me, I cannot remember their names. I can’t tell if it’s the liquor or if my memory has just been shot to shit, but either way, I realize I’m more slammed than I thought as I steady myself into the foyer.

  The air is too hot, the family photos on the wall look fake, and I feel the cashmere start to stick to my skin as my back dampens. And then I see it: the dining room table covered with the props for Rachel’s funeral, assembled in a perfect line. Ally wasn’t lying. There are shot glasses, at least sixty of them, with Rachel’s name, birthday, and date of death engraved into the frosted glass—and T-shirts, at least thirty plain white tees, with Rachel’s grinning face print-screened, slightly off-center. Whoever made them did a pretty shitty job. I take a step toward the table and finger the cotton fiber
s.

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  Ally pours me a glass of Pinot Noir and I sit down on the couch next to one of the plain-faced girls—Ellie—it’s Ellie Martin. “So you’re still dating that guy?” Ally starts. She crosses her legs and leans in toward me.

  “Danny,” I say. I take a sip and nod my head. The wine warms my throat—earthy and rich—and I can feel Ellie’s eyes on me.

  “Tell us about him,” Ally says.

  “I don’t know. He’s okay?” I say, and wonder why they even care.

  “Just okay?” She lets out a high-pitched snort and looks at the other girls. “Don’t you guys, like, live together?” Ally’s cheeks are flushed, and her mousy-brown hair falls down the middle of her back. She’s wearing too much bronzer.

  “We live together,” I say. I nod again and swirl the Pinot in my glass.

  “Well, so it’s serious, then?” Maybe it’s the way her voice gets all somber, but I start to get that guilty twist in my stomach, and I can’t figure out how she has all this information. It’s not like I have Facebook or anything—and it’s for reasons like this I like my privacy.

  “I guess so. We’ve been together a while.” I feel myself getting defensive, and I hate that I feel the need to prove something to these girls. Sasha, Ally, Ellie, and the Girl I Can’t Remember all sit on the couch, facing me like a panel of judges, leaning in, soaking up every word of my dull, monochromatic life. “He’s a nice guy,” I say. My ring clanks against the wineglass, and I realize that my hands are starting to shake again, so I gulp down the rest of my wine, put the glass down, and shove my hands under my thighs.

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  “Mm,” Ally says, a smug look on her face as she sits back into the couch. “So have you seen Adam yet? You know he’s helping us with this stuff, right?” His name rolls off her tongue, but it’s like she spits it at me. I feel my face go hot, pull my hands out from under my legs, and reach for my empty glass. “That must be awkward for you. Seeing him.”

  “It’s complicated,” I say, my voice cold.

  “I mean,” Ally starts, glancing at the other girls. “We heard some things.” Everything stops. The room starts to spin, and I swear the lights somehow dim.

  “What are you talking about?” I say. I know.

  “I heard you did something bad,” she slurs. She almost sings it, and the other girls stifle a laugh.

  I stand up. Too fast. I’m dizzy. So fucking dizzy.

  “So, Ally,” I say, the room spinning with a dull grace. “What’s going on with you? You’re still living at home. No boyfriend? Still working at the mall?”

  “You really weren’t there for her were you, Aubrey?” Ally stands up and walks toward the table of funeral swag. “She could have really used her best friend in the end.” I want to speak. I want to bring my arm across that table of shot glasses and shatter them all, like tiny grenades at Ally’s feet. But I don’t. I just stand there. My hands shaking. The numbness clashing with cold, hard panic—a nauseating combination. What about me? I want to scream. I could have used my best friend in the end, too. But I don’t say it. I don’t say anything, I just stand there, the wineglass stem clutched in my sweaty palm.

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  “We’ll all miss her, though. Such a shame, isn’t it?” Ally says. She wobbles away from the table and stands in front of me, too close, and brushes the hair out of my eyes with her finger.

  “I don’t miss her at all,” I say, the words rolling off my tongue, smooth and effortless. I can smell the wine on her breath. And the room stops spinning. It stops spinning, but it’s quiet now. Stale and silent. One of the girls clucks her tongue like she’s about to speak out, but they all look at each other, and nobody looks at me. Not even Ally, who’s practically standing on top of me.

  “Why would you say that?” Ally says, her eyes fixed sideways at Sasha, Ellie, and the Girl I Can’t Remember—who are all huddled together by the sofa now. I pick up the bottle of wine and take a swig. It feels warm and bitter going down. I swallow.

  “Why are you all pretending to care?” I ask.

  “Come on, Aubrey. You don’t mean that,” Sasha cuts in, her voice low and unsure. It’s the first thing she’s said since I got there.

  “Um, yes. I fucking do.” I take another swig, and wipe the dribble off my chin with the back of my hand. I can feel it again, the words bubbling up inside of me. “She was an attention-whoring-whore.” The words come out slurred and wet. “Give me one example of one time where she wasn’t being a horrible bitch,” I say. “I dare you. One time.” I eye the row of shot glasses, and it’s like they’re winking at me, taunting me, willing me to backhand them onto the floor in one swift motion. But I sit back down onto the couch, exhausted. “You guys are a buzzkill,” I say.

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  “You’re here for a funeral. What did you expect?” Ally says, still standing where I left her. The room is quiet, except for the soft sounds of Adele playing from an iPod dock across the room. It’s the first time I’ve noticed the music.

  I take the half-empty bottle of Pinot, stand up, and shove my purse under my armpit.

  “I’m not here for the funeral,” I say.

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  Chapter 16

  March 2009.

  RACHEL SWUNG HER bright yellow Pathfinder around in front of the school, grazing the curb on the way in. I stepped back, waiting for her to brake, before climbing in, hoisting myself up into the passenger’s seat. It was a Friday afternoon in late March. She handed me the coffee before my ass even hit the seat. Drop of skim, no sugar, sprinkle of cinnamon. She knew how I took it. That’s one good thing I can say about her. With Rachel, it had always been the little efforts that actually meant something—knowing how I took my coffee, being the first to wish me a happy birthday every year, picking me up when I stayed after school to work on the newspaper.

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  Rachel sucked down her iced caramel Frappa-something, one hand turning the wheel away from curb. The slush slopped down her wrist, and she lifted her arm to her face to lap at it—her tongue drawing spitty lines around her purple Livestrong bracelet. The sticky sweet smell of slush-caramel-flavored-coffee-saliva made my guts roil, and I reached into her glove compartment and handed her a stack of coffee-stained Dunkin’ Donuts napkins.

  “So? Any word on your man friend?” She didn’t waste any time.

  I shook my head and tried to act unfazed.

  It had been eleven days since our fight. It was stupid, really. It had started with some playful wrestling, nothing out of the norm for Adam and me. But we had been together for all of high school, and tension was building on the whole sex conversation.

  “CHRIST,” HE’D SNAPPED. We’d been on my bedroom floor, the door open. It was earlier that month.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. I knew. Adam sat up, adjusting his jeans.

  “Either do it or don’t. Stop fucking around.”

  “Or start?” I said. He hadn’t said anything. “Or what?” He’d clenched his jaw, and his gray eyes burned through the hardwood floor. I stood up and walked toward the door. He was still pouting. Staring hard at the ground, like he was on the verge of spewing out some nasty remark.

  He’d filled out over the past month, since the concert. His chest and back had broadened, almost overnight. He’d started lifting weights, and he’d been working at the marina restaurant for Jason Dowd’s dad, busing tables and lifting boxes. He was still dark, brooding, and somewhat hypothermic-looking with those thick bluish lips, but when he kissed me, it was never cold, and when he hugged me, I rarely pulled away.

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  “Adam,” I’d said. He didn’t look up, just drew circles on the floor with his finger. “Hello?” Nothing. “So you’re just going to sit sulking there, then?” He smelled like french fries and seawater, with a hint of coffee. “Okay.”

  I stood in the doorway of my own room. It’s not like I hadn’t been accommodating. The year before, I’d given him his first hand job; six months earlier,
his first blow job. Most nights, he would climb on top of me and grind up against my thigh for ten minutes until a small wet stain would seep through his jeans. I didn’t really mind. It was better than letting him do anything to me. I had a strict nothing-below-the-waist rule at the time—my waist, not his.

  “What does it matter at this point anyway?” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know you’re gonna end up leaving. So what’s the point?”

  “I never said I was going.”

  “Do you really think your mom will let that happen? You’re going to Brown. I know it. You know it. So if you don’t do it with me, you’re obviously just holding out for some jerk-off frat guy who’ll only want to get inside of you for a night.”

  He sat on my bedroom floor, sulking, drawing stubborn circles on the hardwood with his fingers. “You know that’s not true, Adam,” I started. “What would possess you to even say that?” He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look up. I let out a breath and waited, feeling the weight of his words bubble up inside me. At the moment they were just words. Cruel, empty words, a telltale sign of his own insecurities; but the more I stood, and the longer I waited, the harder it was for me to stay calm.

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  I had no intention of dumping Adam. That was never even an option for me, and I didn’t understand how going to college—something that I’d always been meant to do—could provoke such a tantrum. It didn’t seem fair. I’d worked hard. He’d known that. And I’d gotten into an Ivy League school, despite Karen’s professional opinion. That was huge. He should have been celebrating with me, not guilting me. As I turned his words over in my head, holding out for some jerk-off frat guy, I felt the sudden urge to punch him in the face, to grab him by the shoulders and shake the doubt out of him. But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead I kept cool, like I always had, and with an even, dull voice, I said, “Go fuck yourself,” and walked out of the room.