Last Train to Babylon

by Charlee Fam

  She’s actually going to the wake. Without me.

  “I’m leaving. You’re really not coming?” Her voice sounds tired, and she doesn’t take her eyes off the bottle of wine open on the floor.

  195

  Memories are a funny thing. I think of Rachel, and I think, Narcissistic slut, judgmental bitch, sadistic psychopath, weak. I see her throwing me under the bus at seven years old, calmly telling Ms. Price how I’d been responsible for “Don’t Stop Lovin’ Me, Baby.” And then again at thirteen, as she politely explained to Karen how I’d been the one who stole the bottle of whiskey from the liquor cabinet. I see her driving around in her yellow truck, a cigarette dangling from between her thin lips. I see her prepping me to lose my virginity and then walking out the second some dick with a guy attached looks her way. I think of her while I was lying in Eric Robbins’s bed, his back to me, his boxers scrunched up next to the bed. I see her when I look at myself in the mirror, every time I go to the bathroom. I see her carved into my hip for the rest of my life. And I see her with Adam.

  And my whole body aches again.

  And all of the rest of it—the long drives, the secrets, the inside jokes—all of the rest of it falls away. It just doesn’t matter anymore. They’re just hollow shells scattered at my feet.

  I start to say something, but Karen cuts in. “At least for her family, Aubrey. Whatever little spat you had with Rachel that was so awful, you can show some respect to her mother and sister.” Her voice is cold and accusing. My fingers tingle. It spreads up my hands, arms, and chest like pins and needles. This is what numb feels like. I want to tell her to mind her own business. I want to tell her to get out of my room and leave me alone, but instead I just reach for the glass and raise it toward the ceiling.

  “Cheers,” I say.

  I propel myself back into the closet one last time, and finally emerge with the black left pump. The dress I picked out still hangs from behind my bedroom door, it’s shadowy and menacing, and it probably won’t even fit right. I’ve lost a good deal of weight since my cute, but kind of chubby days. But, even if the dress is a tad loose, I think the whole outfit will look nice pulled together—a classic black dress, patent fuck-me heels, maybe even a bit of red lipstick—#funeralchic.

  196

  I’M HALFWAY THROUGH the second bottle of Pinot when that dull pain starts behind my eyes, and my chest starts to tingle again. I know I will start to feel it if I don’t get the hell out of this house.

  I throw on an old gray sweater and step outside. I suck in the autumn air, drawing it into my lungs, trying to reach that place where my breath never seems to touch.

  I walk around the side of my house and sit down on the curb, my feet sprawling out on the street in front of me, a cigarette pinched between my shaky fingers.

  A middle-aged man with a receding hairline rounds the corner. A small white dog stumbles a few feet ahead, tugging at the leash in the man’s hand.

  He slows up, a bit, in that neighborly way, and nods his head at me, like he’s waiting for me to ask to pet his dog. I press my lips together in a reluctant smile and shift my gaze toward an empty beer bottle nestled against the curb across the street.

  “You’re way too pretty to be smoking,” he says. He has this jocular smile that lingers for an extra uncomfortable second.

  I suck in the smoke, trying to fill that hollowed place again, and blow it out the corner of my mouth.

  “No,” I say. “Not pretty.” Gray ash burns and falls from the tip of the cigarette, settling onto my leggings like stardust. “Cute. But kind of chubby.”

  197

  Chapter 20

  April 2009.

  THE DUGOUT WAS cold and wet, and the rain seemed to be suspended in the morning sky—collecting in the sagging gray clouds. The bench gave off a thick metallic scent. I held a cigarette between two fingers and sat between the red-painted walls. I didn’t inhale all the way. I never did and I wouldn’t until college. Until this point, I had never really smoked without Rachel. But that Wednesday morning, I sat like the shady class cutter that I’d become, holding the smoke inside of my puffed-up cheeks, hiding in the baseball dugout. Smoke streamed off the end of the lit cigarette, creating invisible designs on page ninety-seven of The Bell Jar, a red paper clip was placed gently in the center fold. The smoke twisted and twirled like hair on a finger.

  198

  I’d read The Bell Jar twice before. Once in ninth grade, to see what all the hype was about, but I didn’t get it. I was unimpressed—don’t even think I finished it. And then again for a women’s lit class in eleventh grade. I remember liking it then, finding the prose quite beautiful actually, but retaining nothing. But this time, it was as if the words crawled off the page, like tiny spiders, and onto my skin, and I hated myself for it. I’d become like those pretentious, dramatic, feeling girls I swore I’d never be. Those girls at school who quoted Sylvia Plath for no other reason than to sound edgy, dark, and complicated.

  It hadn’t really sunk in until Saturday, late afternoon. I didn’t sleep at Eric’s house. I’d just stared up at the ceiling while the tequila and weed pulsed through my veins. I waited until he was asleep before I finally forced myself to get up. I pulled my dress down toward my knees, but each time it sprang back up to midthigh. It seemed shorter than before. I felt more exposed. But I guess that’s just what happens after. Or at least that’s what they always say. I needed to get to the bathroom, to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. I could still feel his hand jamming into my crotch.

  My flats glided against the wood floor. Downstairs, a dull glow from the den soaked up some of the darkness in the hallway. There was no sound, just the phantom shadows of the television. I fell back into the armchair and pulled out my phone. Nothing. It was after four, and a news segment started on the television. I read the caption: April, 1, 2009, April Fools’ Day.

  199

  I sat there for a while. Minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe fifty. Time didn’t really make sense anymore, but from where I sat, I saw two bodies tucked under a blanket on a pullout couch just across the room. I could see her ash-blond hair spattered out over the couch pillows. I slipped out of the door before she woke up.

  “So,” Rachel sang from the third-base line. The hard sound of her voice scared the shit out of me and I slammed The Bell Jar shut. “A little light reading, Aub?” she said, but before I could answer, and as I shoved the book into my backpack, she went on into the real reason she’d found me. “You never called me back, bitch.”

  Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday stood like a barricade of bricks between that last night at O’Reilly’s and the two of us on the empty baseball field.

  I had managed to fake an ongoing migraine the first half of the week, a believable ailment, genetically shared with my mother. Karen’s sympathy hadn’t been an issue. I skipped two days of school and spent them lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling stagnant and empty. Worse than any migraine I’d ever had. A dull pain spread across the back part of my skull. My ribs ached with a fatigue that I couldn’t shake. Sometimes it would seep into my lungs, a crushing sensation that pinched my breath.

  And then there was the nausea. Constant. Lingering. I couldn’t eat more than a few forkfuls of whatever was on my plate before I’d feel it rising up in my throat. I’d been sticking to iced coffee and frozen yogurt, making excuses at dinner—I’d had a late lunch, my stomach hurt. Karen looked at me and shrugged. I think she thought I might drop some baby fat before college.

  200

  I’ve heard that anxiety can manifest itself as physical symptoms. That what’s in your head can spread through your body like poison. And I felt full of poison.

  I managed to avoid both Adam and Rachel. Not that avoiding Adam was too hard; it was becoming clear he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. Rachel was the real issue. She’d been calling nonstop since Sunday morning.

  “I wanted to tell you about my sexcapades,” Rachel said, snatching the cigarette from me and takin
g a long drag. She put her other hand on her hip, pausing slightly, as if she just now remembered hearing me come back into the house with Eric. This look of hers—the way she raised her eyebrows at me in suspicion, sparked that crushing sensation in my chest. I sucked in air but tried to keep my face still. “Wait a minute,” she said.

  I held my breath. The air suddenly felt warm. Way too warm. I stammered, about to change the subject before she could bring up Saturday night, but she just stood there, her hand on her hip, and said, “Since when do you smoke?”

  A lull swam over me. I exhaled, my muscles eased up just a bit, and Rachel segued into every detail of her night with Rod. Phrases like “three times” and “so hard,” and, of course, “Rod’s huge rod” hung in the air like BAM! or POW! from a superhero comic book. I listened passively and remembered my own evening—how the warm mixture of semen and blood dribbled and chafed like slime against my inner thighs as I walked home in the dark.

  201

  MY PHONE HAD died back at the bar, and even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t go home that night. My house keys were in my overnight bag, and my bag was at Rachel’s. I’d have had to knock on my door, and Karen would have known right away. She would have taken one whiff of me, placed her bony hands on her bony hips and said, You had sex, didn’t you? You had sex and you smoked marijuana. And you were drunk, weren’t you? So home was out of the question. And Rachel’s hadn’t been an option either. I considered it, though—shaking Rachel awake while she lay there with Rod on that awful, pleather pullout couch, and telling her what had happened, detail by detail: how Eric lured me into his room, left, and came back for me later, when I’d been asleep—too hazy to realize what he’d been planning. How he’d scrunched my dress up to my neck while I pretended to sleep. How he buried his face into me, even when I tried to kick him away. And how he’d held me down—one hand clamping down on my wrists, the other hand stabbing into me until my body quieted.

  I wanted to tell her, but I knew Rachel too well. I knew the way the girl operated, and she wouldn’t have seen it the way I saw things. She’d have seen it as betrayal. She’d have seen it as me fucking around with the one guy she had been saving for herself.

  So I walked.

  It was dark, cold, and everything was damp. The fluorescent lights glowed from inside Pathmark—the grand plaza at the center of town. The automatic doors glided open and a rush of cool air hit me. For the first time that night, I thought I might vomit, and part of me wanted to crouch down behind a Dumpster and pull the trigger in my throat until my guts spilled out on the asphalt.

  202

  I stood still in front of the doors, closed my eyes, swallowed the sick back down, and pitched forward into the store. I walked up and down the aisles for an hour or so—the cool, stagnant air and bright lights reminded me of the life that ticked and pulsed inside me, that I existed, even if I didn’t exist beyond the stacked cans of peaches and bottles of Chateau Diana. I stalked down every aisle, straightening cereal boxes to proper formation, memorizing the flavors of Ben & Jerry’s. Seasonal was packed with wicker baskets, cellophane wrap, Peeps, and Cadbury Cream Eggs, and the thought of all that sugary, pastel Easter propaganda made my throat feel thick. The store was empty except for a new dad buying diapers and formula. He pushed the bum cart toward the register, the front wheel shrieking against the vinyl. I bought a bottle of water, a hair tie, and a small bottle of Listerine.

  The cashier eyed me as she rang up my things. I threw a pack of gum down at the last minute. She was older, probably late fifties, and her hair was tied back in this tight graying bun. I caught a glimpse of myself in the soda cooler’s door. My hair was matted and frizzed out like a lion’s mane, and my mascara had smeared into dark rings around my eyes.

  I reached into my bag and pulled out the crumpled wad of damp cash. Seven dollars, and it still smelled like beer from O’Reilly’s. The cashier clicked her tongue and tightened her lips. I stared hard while she flattened the bills against the register, and for the first time I wanted to punch a complete stranger.

  203

  There were moments when I’d forgotten during those early-morning hours. I’d be walking, or lying flat on my back in Clear Pond Park—not far from the spot where Max died—and suddenly I’d feel normal, calm even. I was still shivering, still cold, still wet and tired, but I’d forgotten why. And then it would hit me, and I would feel it in my throat. It would spread through my chest, and I’d remember.

  I’d tried to get to my car earlier, but a cop car idled in the bar parking lot, so each time I walked, heel over toe, toward my Saab, he’d eye me. The second time, he rolled down his window.

  “Miss,” he said. “Where are you headed?” He was a middle-aged guy with a thick mustache, and he looked like he could be somebody’s father. I thought for a second about how to answer, and staggered toward his car. Getting into my own car was not an option at this point. I was sober, at least I felt sober. But it had only been a few hours since my last drink, and there was a zero tolerance law with teens drinking and driving. I could still smell the alcohol on my skin. I didn’t want to take any chances.

  I started to speak, careful not to slur my words, and careful to stand in a straight line, and wondered what would happen if I told him that maybe I’d possibly been violated. But then I wondered if Eric had even broken any laws. Had I said no? I couldn’t remember. Had I even cried? I felt like I had. But maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I was frozen into silence.

  204

  And then the next sequence of events flashed before me like a premonition: Karen would be called down to the station while I sat on a cold bench with a scratchy, gray wool blanket draped over my shoulders, and Eric would be called, and maybe even Rachel, and then by Monday, the whole school would have gotten word—half of which could vouch for Eric, say they saw me drunk, at a bar, illegally, with my fake ID earlier that night; and that they saw me get into a car with Eric, willingly; saw me enter his house, and sit on his couch, and they vaguely remembered the cute, but kind of chubby girl he’d taken to his bedroom, and that was the last they’d heard or seen, except for that body sprawled out on the couch, who would swear he didn’t hear me scream.

  “I live right over there,” I lied, and mumbled something about staying at a friend’s house but not feeling well and not wanting to wake my mother. He eyed me for an uncomfortable extra second and asked if I needed a ride and if I was sure I was all right. I remembered that I’d read somewhere that it’s a felony to lie during a police report, but I couldn’t remember if that was true, or where I’d even heard it, and was it considered a lie if I really didn’t know the truth?

  “Um,” I started to say, and I felt the words tickle my throat, like I might even cry. I didn’t have a story, I didn’t have anything really, except for the horrible pit in my stomach. But for just a moment I started to say something. But then he cut in.

  “Have you been drinking?” I felt myself sink. I shook my head and told him I was just tired and needed to get home. He rolled up his window and went back to reading his paper. I walked away, steady. Heel over toe.

  IT WAS MORE than an hour before the cop finally drove off, and the sky was starting to turn a soft, clamshell purple. I took my third swig of Listerine, swished, and spat it out onto the sidewalk.

  205

  “Where are you?” I remember how hard it was to keep my voice flat. I was finally able to charge my phone in my car.

  “I’m at Dad’s. Sleeping,” Eli said. “What’s up?” I heard him yawn through the phone. “What time is it?”

  “It’s like five thirty,” I said. “I need you to let me in, but quietly.”

  He opened the back door, and the screen door creaked as I slipped through. I didn’t have a bed there, and I couldn’t shower without waking my father, so I borrowed a pair of sweats from Eli and rubbed myself down with a hand towel and a bar of soap in the bathroom.

  By the time I hit the couch, the sun was streaming through the skylight overhead.
I covered my face with a knit throw, but the light crept through the holes. I flipped over on my stomach and buried my face into the black leather sofa. My neck felt stiff, and my joints ached from exhaustion. I don’t think I ever really fell asleep, but I could feel him, his hands fumbling at me. I could still feel his fingers jamming into me. Phantom pains.

  I woke to my father’s voice from the kitchen. I’d forgotten to take out my contacts, and they felt pasty, like somebody filled my eyes with Elmer’s Glue, and my sinuses throbbed. I squinted to see the time. Eight o’clock. I’d only gotten in two hours earlier.

  206

  “Aubrey,” my dad called from the kitchen. “I got bagels.” I stood up, groggy, off balance. I couldn’t even think of eating. Bagels had been my staple hangover food. Maybe it was a Long Island thing, maybe it was just a human thing, but the only cure and requirement after a night of drinking was an everything bagel, scooped, with veggie cream cheese, and a very large coffee. But that morning, the thought of biting into that starchy, salty sandwich made my guts turn. Water. I needed water. My head felt empty and my mouth felt like it was made of sand. I ground my teeth and walked toward the kitchen, holding onto the walls for balance.

  My father sat at an empty table, a cup of coffee and Newsday in front of him. His brown, streaked-with-gray hair stuck up in every direction. No sign of bagels anywhere.

  “April Fools,” he said, loud, too loud. Any other morning, I would have been disappointed. I tore open the case of water on the ground, stretching the bottle through the thick plastic.

  “Funny,” I said, and walked back toward the couch.

  207

  Chapter 21

  Wednesday, October 8, 2014.

  “CAN I ASK you a question?” I stand outside the Seventh Precinct, my lips stained purple from Pinot, beaming over my ability to walk a perfect line in his direction. I swallow a hiccup and cross my arms over my chest while my entire family and the rest of Seaport pay their respects to the late, ethereal Rachel Burns. The officer is young and has one hand on his car door as if he’s about to slip inside.