by A. R. Hadley
"Hey, wait." Annie stepped into the hall. "Are you going tonight?"
Tom glanced back while the dog yanked forward. "No, I have to work. Have to cover an early shift." And with those parting words, they were off, Marlon Brando leading his subject down the stairwell.
Annie shut the door, then filled a cup with water from the fridge dispenser. The glass shook as she drank. Annie figured it was from hunger. She’d skipped breakfast, and the headache had rendered almost every other sensation into useless background music. Except the feeling of being tired. That and the different she’d felt since the plane — the different she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Was it adrenaline or cold or hunger? All three maybe.
As she opened the refrigerator, a chill ran up her spine. “These damn wet clothes.”
Squeezing her lids shut, she willed a reprieve from the throbbing. A moment. Please.
“I just need to eat,” she whispered to the chilly appliance, but it had no reply.
After taking out a block of cheddar, she opened a couple cabinets, searching for crackers. They’d moved things around since she’d last been here, Tabitha never content with the ordinary. The lazy Susan in the corner cupboard contained the medicine, not crackers. Annie’s eyes were fixated for a moment on the variety of bottles. Scanning the labels, she turned the spindle until she found what she needed. She stared at the bottle a long time before finally removing two pills, and then she cradled the white ovals in her fist.
Her palms began to sweat while the devil and the angel began to debate across the breadth of her shoulders…
No, this is not a good idea.
Yes, you can take them. You have self-control. You're a different person now. You deserve to relax. To feel good. To eat and not have a headache. To not feel alone. To escape the different, different, different. The bullshit.
No. Don’t take them.
Yes. Do it. It’ll be the last time. It's not a big deal.
It's not a good idea.
It is. You need it today. Only today.
Fuck. This. Shit, she thought as she tossed them back, swallowed a gulp of water, and then locked the white lid into place over the amber bottle.
Done. Now, crackers.
Ping.
Crackers, cheese, and ... phone.
Annie retrieved her cell from her bag, looked at it, and rolled her eyes as she swiped the screen. A picture of Barney along with what was probably a needy message from her mother came into full view.
Mom: Are you all right? I haven't heard from you. Did you land?
Poor Barney, dressed in a shirt, resting in a pet stroller, looking ridiculous. Annie rolled her eyes again, but then she took a selfie with her hair slightly matted from the rain and a smile woven across her face — minus the eye-rolling. She sent it out with a polite message, complimenting Barney, wishing them well, informing her mother, that yes, she’d indeed landed safely.
After Annie finished eating, she fingered her hair until it looked somewhat presentable and took another photo. She took several actually.
Peering into the camera.
Eyes haunting.
Her mouth pursed, not smiling.
The pictures were quite different from the one she’d sent Beverly. She texted the photo she liked best to Cal, along with her return itinerary, and then she shoved the phone into her jean pocket.
Annie made her way to the makeshift bed Tab had prepared and plopped down. The Wall of Life drew her eyes back like a moth to the flame.
Focusing on a few pictures, she went over the details, the circumstances, the timeframe, the clothes, the hairstyles, all while twirling her hair around her index finger.
God, life had changed since many of those — no, since most of those — were taken. Everything was different. Even now — change, change, change, after only a few short weeks of absence from the city.
It was a strange feeling to experience in such an intimate space.
She closed her eyes, lay her head flat on the pillow, and clutched it.
It came hard and fast.
The medication had not helped to contain the emotions — not yet.
Define it.
Please.
Annie didn’t want to define anything.
Not it.
Not anything.
She didn’t want to feel emotions. She didn't need them. She pushed them back — go away — into an abyss before they completely engulfed her, trying to suffocate her on the pretty, made-just-for-her couch.
Ignore it.
Just as the war inside her head was about to commence, her phone chimed. Mother...
She glanced at the text message on the screen, but it wasn’t from Beverly.
Cal: Thursday can't come soon enough. You are beautiful.
Release. Swoosh.
Water trapped behind a dam flowed.
The crying began first in whispers as she attempted in vain to hold back the deluge with the stubbornness of a mule, but it was no good. Everything she’d tried to quell burst forth like the shattering of the Hoover Dam in the 1978 film Superman. There were a million tiny cracks on the surface.
The water went everywhere all at once.
Mainly in her heart and throat.
Water … leaking, splintering through the concrete — a mess only one man could clean up. The man with the S on his chest. The man with superhuman strength.
Another text bleeped.
She stopped the dam.
No, he did.
He flew in and made time itself obsolete.
Cal had sent a link to a song … of course.
He wasn’t very subtle with this particular selection.
Maybe he was never understated when it came to his choice of song — or his lips or his fingers or his cock. God. She squeezed her eyes shut and leftover tears slid out. Before clicking the link, she Googled the lyrics and read them.
Medication working, mushrooms began to sprout. Nerve endings danced across the tips of the fungus as she read the not-so-mysterious words of The Rolling Stones’ tune "Miss you".
Finished reading and analyzing, the phone shook in her palm.
Definitely. Not. Obscure.
Who are you, Calvin Prescott?
Each song he’d ever shared had told her things he couldn’t say or he dared not say or he was afraid to say.
Was he afraid? Waiting? Missing her?
The same sensation that came over her whenever Cal was near struck. Something else hit too. A good kind of nausea — was there such a thing? Butterflies in her stomach magnified to infinity.
It began at her toes … maybe. It was everywhere, though, and hard to pinpoint exactly where it had started.
Similar to an orgasm, it ran through her completely, concentrating in her middle, low in her belly, stampeding through her entire torso — her veins, sinews, and bone. Everywhere. Tingling electrocution. Nerves swimming off the deep end of the ocean.
Unable to be confined to a single place.
It swirled in her stomach the longest — in its depths. Then, finally, the trails of energy rested, floating away into space, escaping through her skin.
It left, but she danced, eyes shut, with the synapses firing across the tops of the mushrooms. There were a lot of them now. Fat, round caps. Long-stemmed. Too many to count.
Fuzzy.
Warm.
Vivid daydreams.
Things.
Unusual mind pictures.
Problems small.
A thin film of sweat slicked every inch of her body, and the heat enthralled the way it might on a tropical vacation as she bounced off the mushroom tops in Mario Kart.
Bong. Hop. Pounce.
Dropping, falling with an open parachute, then jumping up again, up-up-up, then floating down-down-down.
Sadness was a blip on the radar. She was a balloon, a blimp, a fantastic thing in motion — untouchable and suspended inside her head — and for once, it harbored absolute peace and no distractions … unless you counted the
two painkillers she’d swallowed. No, no distractions. Only quiet. And the next thing she knew, without having played "Miss You", without sending a reply to Cal ... she was asleep.
Neither Tom nor Marlon stirred her from her slumber, and when she awoke, she felt reenergized. Annie Baxter, daydreamer extraordinaire, thought she was ready for New York fucking City.
Annie arrived in Midtown at the restored firehouse-turned-Off-Broadway theater just before curtain, dressed for the wet weather in boots and Tab’s rain jacket.
She strolled down the center aisle, maroon seats on her left and right, until she found a single cushiony chair five rows from the stage.
Crossing a knee over her leg, she eyed the people surrounding her and listened to their voices humming while she waited for the imminent arrival of the characters, the plot, and Tabitha — whom she hadn’t seen yet and couldn’t wait to.
Annie hoped it would all be a wonderful distraction from the anxiety that had returned in spades.
The tapping of her foot made her knees bounce. She chewed a nail. Bit a lip. Twirled a piece of hair.
She waited.
In the stillness, a feeling descended, overwhelming her ridiculously fragile nerves. It sprinkled over her the way the rain cloaked the city. Someone held a constant watering can overhead, saturating her pores.
Why had it started with New York? Since the plane? Why was it continuing after the pills and the nap?
It was different than a panic attack. Or was it the precipice of one? Was she on the edge? Was the sweet-sixteen birthday dream a prelude to a righteous, heart-choking descent through the eye of a needle?
Peter was only a dream.
She’d experienced tons of those — he's alive he's alive he's alive — dreams. What was it then?
Something, something...
The lights in the auditorium dimmed. The audience became quiet.
Annie longed for the peace of Maggie's home — the sound of the ocean a welcome mat of tender noise — and she needed her room where silence was abundant…
Because here, she felt like an insignificant grain of sand on the beach. New York City's beach. Being pelted by its surf and wind, by the millions of people walking in a goddamned hurry on the shore of its tiny island. Annie was just another person. A mosquito. A gnat. A killable bug.
I'm a bug in a net. In the throngs.
Fly.
Flight.
Flee.
Leave.
She wanted to bolt from her seat, escape her scattered thoughts — Post-It notes she scrawled on and couldn’t keep track of — and run from the indescribable, the unavoidable, the nothingness which had begun its chase at the airport. The somethingness. Something. Something. Something.
Stop!
The black curtain parted. An actor took center stage. Stop. She clenched her fists. Bit her bottom lip. Stop. Straightjacket yourself to the seat. Don't move. Watch. Shut up.
A couple hours later — a full-blown panic attack somehow averted — backstage after the play, Annie leaned against a brick wall outside a random dressing room door. Hands in her pockets, face somewhat tilted toward the floor, her green eyes discerned the private vista. The hustle of the behind-the-scenes action was every bit as exciting as the play had been.
Thank God the story had distracted her from the cage of her mind.
"Annie!" Tab shrieked. An ink pen lay over her small ear. Her long hair was pulled tight in a clip, pieces of the black strands clawing at her face. “You’re wearing my coat. Aren't you hot?" Tab smiled, pulling at the knotted string around Annie's waist. "God, it's so good to see you."
They hugged.
And even though Annie rested her chin on Tab's shoulder, smelled the vanilla in her perfume, felt a relaxing, familiar comfort in their embrace, Annie couldn’t help but focus on the wall of bricks behind them.
The need to touch and photograph them — to stare at them until her eyes blurred at the places where the concrete created chasms — distracted her … maybe it pacified her. Made her feel safe. Gave her something to concentrate on other than trying to accept the love inside Tab’s arms.
Whatever it took to deny the feelings which had consumed her since arriving. A hug might split her open.
"Did you like the play?" Tab pulled away and shook Annie's shoulders. "Tell me, what did you think?"
"I did. I really liked—"
"There are so many people I want you to meet." Tab pulled the pen from her ear and tapped the air with it. "We're going to a great little place not far from here to celebrate." Tab’s voice and stance had the fever. The adrenaline. Annie wished she could borrow it. Or … never mind, maybe she didn't.
Annie stuffed her hands back into the raincoat pockets but left her thumbs poking out of the creases as she twisted her lip between her teeth and sighed.
"I'm sorry. I can't. I'm not feeling well. Tom gave me a key. I just need to go back to the apartment and lie down." There. She’d spoken as fast as Tabitha usually did. Maybe faster. No room for error or argument. No damn heart on her sleeve.
Tab furrowed her brow and rested the back of her hand on Annie's forehead. "Are you sick?"
"No." Annie glanced at the ceiling, then at the few people milling about, then back at her friend. "I think I just need to rest."
"God, Annie, you know I have to stay."
"I know." Annie paused, getting lost inside her friend’s loving eyes. Don't cry. Don't cry. "It's me, okay." Annie hunched her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I—"
Tab squeezed Annie's hand.
"Don't feel bad. It's probably just all this damn rain. You'll feel better tomorrow. The sun is actually supposed to make an appearance."
Annie chimed in with the words of the famous song the little orange-haired orphan sang about the sun, then both women sang the next line together. The Annie song. Tabitha, with her adoration of musicals, loved to tease Annie about that. Thank God Annie didn’t have red hair too.
"I have the day off tomorrow." Tab tried assuring Annie with only a look, but it didn't work. "Come here." She pulled her friend in for another hug, a deeper and longer one.
"Thank you," Annie said, her voice muffled against Tab's shirt.
Why couldn’t she just be normal? She used to be normal. Used to go out, hang out, and mingle. Now she walked around with a wad of cotton in her throat. She was a turtle shell. Closed up and off. Broken. Not normal.
What the fuck was normal anyway?
A word.
Normal was a connotation. Subjective bullshit. A lame word to make weirdos feel even weirder. I'm weird. I'm proud I have that. But she could’ve done without the anxiety, the fleeing, the suffocation, the whatever/something bullshit, the pansy-ass, flaky weirdo, pill taker, panic attacker, blah, blah, blah. Fuck. Me.
“Do you need any help getting a taxi?" Tab yelled across the open space.
Annie had pulled herself together and now stood at the exit, looking over her shoulder, about to push open the fat bar on the door. "It hasn't been that long."
"Yeah, well, cabs can be a bitch to flag down around here. Call an Uber."
"I'll manage."
All smiles, blue eyes twinkling, Tab waved. "I'll see you in the morning, Annie-pie. I’m sure you’ll be asleep when I get home."
Those oceanic eyes, the wave, the “Annie-pie,” and their goodbye turned out to be the most "normal" thing Annie had experienced all day.
“This is odd,” Tab muttered under her breath, standing in the kitchen, palming a prescription bottle.
It was early Monday. Tom must’ve been sleeping. Annie sat up on the couch, adjusting her sight to the glow of the stove light while pinching the corners of her eyes with her thumb and forefinger.
“Are you awake?” Tab asked, pills still in hand, walking to the other end of the counter and facing her friend's sleepy head.
“What?” Annie batted her lids, shook her head, and yawned. “I am now. What is it?”
“T's pills." Tab hoisted the bottle into the air.
“Oh, I left that out yesterday." Why had she left them out? "I'm sorry. I had a headache.”
Tab peered across the room, eyes blazing like a cowboy on a horse racing. Even in the gray of the room, Annie saw the hooves leaving tracks in her blues.
“What?” Annie grumbled.
“You know what,” Tab snapped.
“No. I. Don't." Liar. "Tom told me to take something—"
“Since when do people take hydrocodone for a headache, Annie?”
“Don't start. I just woke up." Annie stood and began to tool around for her things.
“I'll raise hell! We’ve barely had a chance to talk, and you've been strange since you got here. Is this why?” Tab's voice shook the way the little, white ovals did inside their cylinder prison.
There's about eight or ten in there, Annie thought. Eight.
“No. And I only took two, okay?"
"Two!"
"I can take a freaking pill." She couldn’t, though. She’d proven it. "I mean, you have them right there—”
“Don’t put this on me. These are left over from when T sprained his ankle. Six months ago.”
“Stop treating me like a child." But maybe she was a child. She’d never been a child. Always the parent to her own mother. "Can we talk about something else, please?”
A stark remembrance of nights spent on the couch in a relaxed stupor caused her guts to swirl with fear and regret. It was a memory she wanted to erase, but the chalkboard in her mind wouldn't budge. The neurons craved another one. One little, tiny, white oval.
Damn. It.
“Promise me?” Tab pleaded, her eyes never bluer. Hypnotic, begging, terrified — wet like a thousand rivers.
“I'm clean. I'm..." Stand straight. Say it like you mean it. "I'm never going down that road again.” I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.
“Good." Tab slammed the bottle onto the counter. "Because you scared the shit out of me."
“You're the only one,” Annie began, eyes making a sheen. The desperation in them held the sinking, the weight, the nothing/nothing/something.
“What?” Tab closed the distance between them and took her friend’s hand.
“You're the only one who knows." Annie started to cry. A choke because she sucked the sobs into her lungs, denying them release.
