Bombshell

by Rowan Maness

  I watch the women behind the check-in desk and consider changing Thora’s backstory. I’ve done the art restoration thing before—it’s easy because it was my dad’s job, so I know good details. But Rosie’s in art school—there might be spillover. I might get confused.

  Maybe Thora manages a therapist’s office. I wonder about the politics of the place, try to size up the women—this one’s obviously the leader. She looks a little bitchy, like if you didn’t have your insurance card ready she’d roll her eyes while you looked for it. The girl on the phone scheduling appointments seems sad.

  The third girl comes out and whispers that Dr. Judson will see me now; she is like a robot moving from one doorway to the next, all day, back and forth.

  She leads me to a smaller, darker room. There is another fake waterfall—this one sits on a table, and I can see where it’s plugged in to the wall. When I sit down, James has texted.

  James: Ouch

  James: I guess you should say yes

  James: If you want to

  James: But ouch

  A new message broke into James’s lament, and I didn’t notice until it was too late, until I’d sent my response to the wrong person.

  Kit: Come on, let’s see Conor Oberst together

  Me: I wish it was you

  You did a Wrong Thing. The jackrabbit-coyote beneath Dr. Judson’s desk is laughing at you.

  Kit sent a response, but I couldn’t look. Careful, deliberate, I went back to James.

  Me: I wish it was you.

  I wished my desire for him was a physical thing, a little rubber ball I could carry around.

  Dr. Judson comes in, sits down, doesn’t speak. I turn off the phone.

  Rosie (you would be a Soft Robe),

  Sometimes this is enough, and that seems crazy to me. It’s crazy that this way of knowing a person could even approach satisfying.

  But tonight it’s not enough and it’s so deeply not enough that I’m sitting here with my arms out, helpless. I don’t like that feeling. I want to help you with the person sending you those threatening texts. I want to tell you that I don’t have visions of animals, and if I were your boyfriend I’d probably tell you to go talk to someone about it. Maybe I only feel like saying that because I got angry when you told me about the guy asking you out. Angry at myself for letting it get to this point.

  There’s too much I can’t do from here.

  So let me make sure you know how I feel, at least:

  You can do anything. You’re like a superhero to me. You should be living on the fucking frightening full moon! You should be conquering the forbidden ice castles of Jupiter’s moon Callisto in the year 3010! You should be blowing up icons.

  I need to say it:

  I think we should meet. I think e-mail and chat and texting are hitting a critical point, and if we don’t meet, I will have to stop. And then what? “Oh yeah, Rosie, we used to be pen pals, but then it fizzled out.” We can’t let that happen.

  I’d like to build a tree house. Would you come live in it with me?

  How can I miss you? I’ve never met you.

  Old Jacket

  • • •

  There are steps to take when someone I’m talking to gets too uncomfortable with the unknown, and restless because of it.

  After my session with Dr. Judson, my mom had to go back to the office, so she dropped me off at home.

  James’s e-mail came when it was past midnight in New York. I’d just gotten out of the shower. I signed on to Chat and he was there.

  I dragged a video clip into our conversation.

  sharkliver: What is this?

  RosieRose: Just open it, if you can. I don’t know if it’ll work. Never sent a video over this thing.

  That’s a lie. I’ve sent videos before. I’ve sent the same one I was sending to James to countless other people—a thirty-second clip of me touching myself through a pair of sheer black panties. (Close-up, careful not to show any identifying marks, like the patch of freckles on my upper left thigh.)

  sharkliver: A video?

  RosieRose: You’ll like it.

  RosieRose: I have many thoughts about your letter, and I’ll write back.

  RosieRose: (I don’t feel like a superhero, though.)

  sharkliver: You’re my guru.

  RosieRose: And you’re a tree house philosopher.

  RosieRose: Did you watch it yet?

  sharkliver: Rosie . . .

  RosieRose: You like?

  sharkliver: Oh my god yes

  It turned me on, knowing that James was watching. That we weren’t physically together was irrelevant. My body responded to his all the same.

  I was sitting at the desk in my bedroom, wrapped in a towel. I slipped a hand beneath it—

  RosieRose: I wanted to give you something, and tell you—

  RosieRose: Even when I’m with someone else, I think of you every time I come. I’m always picturing you

  I typed it, and realized it was true. I was never really actually with anyone else, but it was true. I was always pretending it was James.

  sharkliver: I wish there was something I could give you in return.

  RosieRose: You want more?

  I opened my English Reports > Tale of Two Cities subfolder, where I kept the video clips hidden, and queued up the second one. It was from the same angle as the first, but in it I push the panties aside, teasing myself with them.

  I stood, keeping my eyes on the download bar as it crept forward a centimeter at a time. I dropped the towel and pulled on a pajama shirt before climbing into bed, carrying the warm laptop. Under the covers, I rested a hand on my navel.

  The download finished.

  He’s watching.

  RosieRose: Did it get you hard?

  sharkliver: Yes.

  RosieRose: I can feel you.

  My hand—James’s hand, I was willing it—moved between my legs—

  Suddenly, sound echoed from downstairs—the garage door opening, a car door slamming, keys jangling. I jumped up and ran to turn off the light, then hurried back into bed, shoving the laptop under a pillow.

  My mom’s heels clicked loudly up the tiled stairs. She stopped just outside my room, took off her shoes, pushed the door open. I shut my eyes and shifted the covers a little so she’d know I was there without having to look too closely.

  The door shut, she left, and except for the noise of the shower she started, the house was silent and still once again.

  I uncovered the laptop and pulled it closer, dimming the harsh blue light of the screen.

  sharkliver: I’m lying in bed. About to come, thinking of you. Your eyes, your hands on my chest. You’d wear yourself out on me, then I’d lay you down.

  A new chat window popped up.

  BelieverJWL: http://www.josslies.tumblr.com

  Pulse pounding hollow against my temples, I moved the cursor over the link.

  Click.

  An all-black Tumblr page, blank except for four words at the top in big white letters.

  JOSS WYATT TELLS LIES

  Across the room, my phone, set to silent and left on my desk, lit up.

  Don’t look at it.

  I X-ed out of the chat, and blocked BelieverJWL.

  Another chat window popped up immediately.

  BelieverJWL1: http://www.josslies.tumblr.com

  I blocked it, too—but they kept coming.

  BelieverJWL2: http://www.josslies.tumblr.com

  BelieverJWL3: http://www.josslies.tumblr.com

  No, no, no—

  I clicked back to my chat with James.

  sharkliver: You want that?

  sharkliver: Rosie?

  CHAPTER 7

  Something is not right in Rosie’s room.

  One moment it’s her studio, the next it’s the hillside near the café. It’s not a room so much as a pocket of constant flux—I can’t make it stop changing. I try to ground the whole thing by focusing on the window, forcing it to stay in one place.


  It’s not easy, but I do it. The window, its curtains drawn, is fixed. I go to it, pull the curtains back, look over the outdoor hallway, down into the Dream Palace courtyard. Still figures lie on plastic pool loungers. The sky is a flat, starless black matte.

  The room stops spinning, is stuck somewhere between the studio and a cold, photo-negative version of the hillside. One wall is peeled back and crumbling, trees bursting through it. There’s a rustling in the trees. When I turn around, a turquoise glare.

  It’s too big to be a jackrabbit; he’s decided now—the coyote incarnation suits him best. It’s a trickster, too. He is breathing. He’s alive outside me, something new.

  A pounding at the door. It’s James, I think. He found me here again and he will come in and make this stop.

  The coyote’s voice, itsnothimitsnothimitsnothim, a steady thrum. I ignore it.

  But it isn’t. It’s Max. Why Max? His eyes are empty sockets. His hands are cut off.

  And when I slam the door in Max’s face and turn around, the coyote is in the middle of Rosie’s room, hunched over Peter’s dead body.

  • • •

  I slept in fits all night, following links in my sleep, waking up for good at four thirty to more texts from the blocked number, more LIARS. I finally read Kit’s reply to my accidental text sometime around then—the dreaded What? followed by Was that for someone else?

  Sunrise outlined my bedroom window with light where the blinds met the frame, and I thought of the Dream Palace and what the difference was between visiting it in a nightmare and going there consciously. Thoughts spun, floated, swam. Nothing came of them. The rectangular beam of light lengthened across the ceiling until the alarm on my phone rang. Seconds later—

  “Joss!”

  My mom, from the bottom of the stairs. “Are you up?”

  When she yells, she makes my name two syllables—JAW-OSS!

  Once, in the days after my dad died, when Dylan and my mom and I were all trying to win the Who’s the Most Depressed? game, I said, Why did he have to die right when summer vacation started? I don’t even get to miss any school, and it made them laugh. But I really meant it. I still hold that against him.

  “I’m up. I’m up. I’m up!” I shouted, to silence the beast.

  I rose, and brought the laptop to my desk. I plugged it in and began the routine morning rundown of all my active profiles and in-boxes, trying not to think about the Tumblr.

  Max is two days away from losing it if Anna doesn’t remind him why he’s promised to marry her and tells her “I love you” even though she only ever says “I’m sorry” back. I’ve ignored George’s last two texts. He sent Emma one of his long sex-fantasy things—I can read that in homeroom. Make those changes to Thora’s profile. She works in a therapist’s office. Or maybe she’s the therapist—

  I wrote to Max, really just to avoid writing back to James and having to confront the proposition that he and Rosie should meet.

  At least leaving our chat abruptly was a good tease. He probably thought of Rosie all night, watching her videos over and over.

  Max,

  Oh my gosh, I’m so, so sorry I haven’t been in touch. That’s great about your paper getting published. I tried to open the PDF, but it wouldn’t work.

  I think I am going to Turks & Caicos next, with that photographer I told you about. Remember, Rune? He seems like he’s in a better place now. Not like when we were together. I’m not too worried about him—don’t be jealous!

  Hey, Max!

  My name is Joss and I made Anna up and I’m so sorry, but I think I’m sick of her. Can I kill her off? Would you miss her much? Are you going to remember her when you’re old?

  I couldn’t keep going.

  I didn’t want to check, but I had to. The Tumblr was still there, everything the same—white letters, and the sentence that had opened the door to the astral plane-coyote-Kokopelli-Max-Peter dream: JOSS WYATT TELLS LIES.

  • • •

  “Did I hear you right, yesterday? Mary-Kate’s cheerleading?”

  Sitting at a red light, my mom twisted the cap off her coffee mug. I grabbed it from her before she could have a sip.

  “Sorry,” I said, taking huge gulps. “You know the rules. If you want to have a conversation in the morning, I need coffee.”

  “Well, I think it’s nice that Mary-Kate’s doing something social. She’s always been so shy. Deb was a cheerleader—”

  “You hate Mrs. Mahoney.”

  “I don’t hate her. I dislike her. And I didn’t dislike her in high school. Now, yes—”

  “Because—”

  “Because she gets on her high horse about church things, and every time I see her she insinuates that you’re some kind of bad seed.”

  I laughed. “Really?”

  “All she ever thinks about is who’s Catholic enough, who’s getting divorced, who’s getting married, who’s pregnant, whose kid is the most screwed up.”

  “Everyone knows Rhiannon’s the bad seed,” I said.

  “Obviously.”

  My phone chimed.

  New message from KIT

  Kit: So, Saturday?

  “Who’s that?”

  “Uh—” She caught me off guard. “Kit Behr?”

  Me: Why are you even awake right now?

  “Who’s Kit Behr?”

  I looked at my mother’s face, trying to decide how much I wanted to give her.

  “He’s a guy.”

  “You’re telling me something!” she exclaimed. “Should I stop the car? Are you ill?”

  Kit: I wake up early

  Kit: To meditate

  “Does he go to Brophy?”

  “God no,” I said, slipping in “He’s nineteen. We met at that party.”

  “I see,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

  I was glad, for once, to see the adobe facade of Xavier appear a few blocks ahead. The morning sun was already hot, cloaking the school in a glow of coral and pink. A line of cars rolled up to the front entrance, depositing one or two sleepy girls wearing headphones and hoodies before driving off to the mall or a CrossFit gym or Whole Foods.

  Me: Sorry about that text, btw. Embarrassing

  “Well, nineteen? Deb Mahoney won’t be happy. But I’m so glad”—she touched my arm; it was mortifying—“that you’re talking to someone—”

  We pulled in to the parking lot.

  “—appropriate.”

  Kit: No worries

  Me: I’m not sure about Saturday though. Not after that meditating comment

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I said, opening the car door.

  “Will this guy come by the house sometime? So I can meet him?”

  “Bye, Mom.”

  “Text him hello from me,” she called out before driving away. “Love you!”

  Kit: You ever try it?

  Me: No

  Kit: Look up at the sky. Try to clear your mind

  I was near the school chapel, standing beneath the old bell tower, once part of a Spanish mission. Light shone through cutout windows, bouncing off and around a big brass bell. Small brown birds darted in and out. One perched on a ledge, a twig in its beak. I held up my phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Kit.

  Kit: Where’s that?

  Me: School. Xavier Prep.

  Kit: Catholic schoolgirl. Hmm.

  Me: Oh relax. More like militant atheist schoolgirl

  Mr. Lauren’s car rumbled past and sputtered into a parking space, black smoke pouring from the exhaust pipe. He locked it, leaving the windows rolled down, and I watched as he walked up to the school.

  “Something’s wrong with your car,” I said, catching him as he passed by.

  “You think so?” he replied, with a grin and a glance at my phone. “Texting one of your many admirers?”

  “Oh sure, like I have admirers,” I said, watching his back as he disappeared through the door to the front office.

  Me: Okay to Saturday

  Kit:
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br />   Dear James, why do I feel like I’m cheating on you?

  I propped myself up against the bell tower wall, in a triangle of shade that retreated steadily, climbing up my bare legs, as I wrote to James.

  Dear Jimmy Jacket,

  I like it best when we send messages to each other at the same time. Matching timestamps in Chat. Think of all the times you’ve texted me while I was writing one for you. Astral choreography. Not insignificant. Important.

  It doesn’t matter who I am. It doesn’t matter who you are, or that we’ve never been in the same room. Our thoughts, our words have synced. In that way, we’ve met a thousand times already.

  I’m not good with change, and I’m even worse at losing things. I fell apart when I left my favorite necklace in an Uber. You say “let’s meet” and I hear “that’s the end.” Do you understand what I mean? It’s not about you, or not wanting you. I want you. I have you. Just . . . not the way you want, I suppose. . . . I’ll think about it.

  Last night, after the videos, someone slipped a letter under the door. I say “someone” but I know who it was. The guy from my past—Peter. Peter stalked me when I was thirteen. He was convinced that I was someone else, some woman he was in love with. Olivia made me call campus security. They came out and found cigarettes and binoculars in the woods below our room.

  I’m really scared now. You can’t get into the dorm blocks without an ID card. The door to our room was unlocked. He could have walked right in.

  I don’t know what to do.

  xx Rosie

  Twisting the real thing, enough to focus his attention off the idea of meeting. But I was looking for ways out, and each one broke my heart.

  You could tell him the truth.

  Never. I couldn’t.

  He might stay.

  He doesn’t want me. He wants Rosie.

  I heard music, looked up. It was coming from the parking lot—

  I followed it to Mr. Lauren’s car. The windows were rolled down. Red leather seats marbled with white cracks. The music was coming from the floor in front of the passenger seat—accompanied by a faint buzzing sound. A phone. His phone, forgotten. I recognized the Tom Petty song, rolled my eyes at the appropriateness of it. The phone’s screen was lighting up with each buzz. I stuck my head through the window.