“I don’t care. I had some in Clarence, but they gave me more at the infirmary when I ran out. They have if you want them.”
“It would be nice…” She stares into space, then straightens. “That’s not going to help me now. I can’t use credits to buy any, and those hospital pads are like diapers.”
There may be plenty of birth control, but tampons are a luxury item. One hundred women using one box of tampons each for twelve months works out to well over a thousand boxes gone—and that doesn’t include whatever Central Park found. We’re left with pads. Either giant hospital pads, since the good ones were used first, or cloth pads. And menstrual cups, one of which I found at Cassie’s apartment still in its box, and which I will give up over my dead body. The few here cost two weeks of credits.
“Why don’t you buy a cup?”
“Because we’re not using our credits, dummy.”
I shush her, though Roger is helping someone and Sharla didn’t hear. “I’ll give you a week of mine and you use a week of yours. Everyone will understand, and, if the men don’t, they can bite me.”
Indy chews her lip. “Promise you won’t be mad if I tell you something?”
“I hate that question. What?”
“I used all my credits.”
That’s months of credits gone, and her share of our ten percent. There are so many things I want to buy, but haven’t, because we’re supposed to be in this together. It feels like a betrayal, particularly added to the fact she’s never home the way she promised. I thought we were growing closer, but I’m beginning to think I know her less than I did a year ago.
“Landon ran low,” she says before I speak words I can’t take back. “He promised to return them.”
“He already used his ten percent?” I ask calmly. Inside, I’m screaming.
Indy nods and picks at a cuticle. Her nails are bitten to the quick, and the surrounding skin is rough. Scabbed, in some places. She can fake everything else, but she can’t fake that, and my anger turns to empathy. Indy graduated summa cum laude, she cooks like a chef, she’s an accomplished actress, she’s beautiful—and she is unbelievably, indescribably stupid when it comes to men. That fiancé who destroyed her trust must have done more damage than she lets on.
“Use two weeks of mine,” I say. “But do not let him keep your credits. What did he buy with them anyway?”
“Just things he needed,” Indy says. “I mean, he was right when he said we both use his stuff, you know? I can’t mooch off him all the time. I promise I’ll pay you back.”
I signal for Indy to wait and tally up a lady named Veronica’s whitening mouthwash and flavored condoms, though regular ones are free at the infirmary. Someone’s having fun tonight, likely with the dude who bought them last time, and with whom I’ve seen her lurking. And who is married.
After I’ve sent her off, I ask Indy, “Would you tell me if you weren’t okay?”
She angles herself away slightly. “Of course.”
“Or if you were abnormally hungry or something?”
“What?”
“You’re eating your fingers.”
Indy tucks her hands behind her back. “I used to chew them when I was young, until Eli… I’m fine. Just have my period.”
“Okay. But you also need a candy bar. And you don’t have to pay me back.”
“Thank you. I’ll be home later.”
“Good. We’re playing dominoes, and I could use some womban power.”
“Believe me, my womb is angry today. We’ll kick their asses.” Indy’s eyes gloss over. “Thanks, Syls.”
“What are girlfriends for, if not chocolate and menstrual cups?”
She touches my hand with her chewed-up one and moves for the aisles. It’s not just her period. Something’s off between her and Landon. Something’s off with her in general. I’d pry, but Indy likes prying as much as I do. I think she’ll tell me in time—she’s already told me this much. I open the binder to my name to deduct her coming purchases.
“Use mine,” Roger says. I glance at him, confused. “Use my credits for her stuff.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” I draw a line through my old amount and write down the new one. “I don’t like to owe people.”
“I wasn’t expecting them back.”
“It’s nice of you, but we’re good.” I do appreciate the offer. Roger sure does a personality turnaround when you curse him out or threaten to kick his ass.
“He does that, you know. Landon. He’s done it before. He’s not giving them back. I think usually they feel too stupid to complain. After the last time, he was in the red for months once Kate returned them to their rightful owner.”
I keep watch for Indy and ask quietly, “Whose credits?”
“Anne. You know her?”
“Yeah.” Anne of the wine and journals. That explains her purchases. I sigh and mentally plan to spend some credits on wine for Indy in the near future. “Sometimes I really hate people.”
“Only sometimes?” Roger asks. “You must be an optimist.”
33
Landon left. Packed his stuff, took a truck, and headed up the FDR with everything he could fit. Including things bought with Indy’s credits. I don’t know what the note he left for Indy said, but she’s been in her bedroom for three days, coming out only to use the bathroom. I enlisted Lucky’s help, but she pulled the blankets over her head, and Lucky knew how to cope with that less than I do.
I putter around while I consider trying again to rouse Indy from her self-imposed prison. She’s awake; I heard her use the bathroom a few minutes ago.
Paul enters the living room with Leo. “You going to breakfast?”
“In a little bit,” I say. “I want to see how Indy is.”
“She still won’t come out? I told her he was an asshole.”
Leo covers his mouth and giggles. I say, “Paul, maybe try to be helpful. I told you so isn’t helpful in this situation.”
“Well, he is.”
“Yes, Paul, we’re all aware he’s an asshole. Leo, see what your dad’s doing now? He’s gloating. Don’t do that.”
Leo looks from his dad to me, then back to Paul. “Sylvie’s right.”
“What do you know?” Paul asks. “You’re only five.”
“Daddy, I’m six!”
“No way you’re already six. C’mon, we have to leave if we want to get you to kindergarten on time.”
“First grade!” Leo screeches.
I wait until Paul herds him out, and then I knock at Indy’s door. A mutter comes through the wood, which I take as a hearty invitation to enter. The Indy-sized lump under the comforter is lit by slats of light seeping through the closed blinds. It doesn’t smell delightful, seeing as how it’s July, the window is closed, and Indy hasn’t had personal grooming high on her list in the past days.
“Indy? How about some breakfast?” She doesn’t answer, though her body twitches at my voice. “You have to get up. Lucky’s worried.” I hoped the mention of Lucky would motivate her, but there’s no reply. “We’ve been covering your shifts, but there’s no one to cover it today.”
She groans. “What are they going to do, kick me out?”
I raise the blinds. Sunlight floods in, and I get a glimpse of her face, eyes shut tight, before she yanks the blankets over her head.
“Please,” I say. “You have to come out of there sometime.”
The lump doesn’t respond. A paper sits on her nightstand. It’s been folded and refolded and crumpled and smoothed. I read:
India,
We had a lot of fun, but Central Park is where I belong, and I know you’ll be happier here with your friends. I hope, when we see each other again, we can have good times the way we always do. Good luck in all your endeavors!
With much affection,
Landon
I read it twice more, chest burning with indignation. “Good luck in all your endeavors? What the fuck is that? He’s not worth this. You should devote five mi
nutes to stupid Landon, in which to be thankful he’s gone, and then be done with him.”
Nothing. I sit on the bottom of her bed. She kicks me in the stomach, possibly by accident, and I get to my feet. “Okay, now I’m not kidding. You have to get out of this bed today.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I rip down the blankets. She’s curled into a ball, chewed-up hands covering her face. Her tank top is rumpled, and her pajama pants hiked up, exposing one lean calf and a foot with toenails painted sparkly red. She and Grace painted their toenails a few days before the trip to JFK, and, when I came in from watch, they did mine. My polish has long since worn off, but Indy must have repainted hers. The thought that Grace might be walking around as a sparkly red-toed zombie is another kick to the stomach.
“Sylvie, go away. Just leave me alone.”
There’s a note of desperation in her voice. I get wanting to be alone, but I think the problem is that she has been left alone. Given her own room and no impetus to leave it, she’s falling apart.
Her mattress jerks with a sob so pitiful that I abandon my Tough Love plan. I drag the blankets to her shoulders and sit beside her. “I can’t leave you alone because I’m worried about you. I need you out there. You know I’m going to end up in a fight with someone, and I’ll need you to jump in.”
She sniffs under her hands, and I catch a tiny shake of her head—the shake that says she thinks I’m ridiculous yet entertaining. It’s a start.
“I can’t,” she whispers.
“You can. You’re the woman who bosses around teenage boys and gets Paul to shut up. You’re formidable and kickass and, to top it all off, you’re smokin’ hot.”
She lifts a hand to glower with one eye. Her face is swollen, what I can see of her hair is not looking so hot, and her current aroma isn’t something I’d use as inspiration for perfume. I raise my hands. “Fine, right now you’re more of a smoldering lukewarm, but the rest is true.”
Indy’s laugh is a ghost of her typical laugh, but it’s better than nothing. I lightly circle my fingers around her wrist before her hand returns to her face. “Just try to get out of bed. If you really, truly can’t, I won’t argue with you until tomorrow.”
Her other hand drops to the bed. After a minute, she rises to a sitting position. Several deep breaths later, her feet touch the floor and she shuffles with me into the hall, where I direct her into the bathroom and wait outside. The toilet flushes, the sink runs, and then nothing. After another minute, I ask, “Indy?”
I open the door of our white-tiled bathroom. Indy stands before the mirror in the harsh window light, wrinkled clothes askew, with her head down and her arms hanging at her sides. She meets my eyes in the mirror and her hand rises to her hair, where she pulls at a frizzy curl.
“Look at this.” She yanks the curl hard enough that I flinch. The silk scarf she wears to sleep must have come off days ago, leaving her hair in disarray. “It’s broken.”
“What’s broken?”
“My hair.” She plucks at her shirt. “Me. Everything.”
Her lips tremble before her head drops again, and my chest tightens at the utter brokenness of her stance. When her shoulders shake, I move forward and wrap my arms around her. She’s so thin it seems she could’ve wasted away in her room if left undisturbed, and I regret not doing this sooner. Indy once said she hides her insecurities. While I assumed she knows we consider her part of us, she may not believe it. It took a lot of convincing before I believed it myself.
“He’s not worth this,” I say.
“It’s not stupid Landon,” she says, followed by a jagged breath. “It’s…I always had Eli. Even when we were clusters of cells, I had him. And now I don’t. But I don’t know how to not have him, Sylvie. It’s—part of me is just…gone. I wanted to make something new. Someone new.”
It’s why she wouldn’t hear anything bad about Landon. Like anyone looking to fill a hole, she threw herself into her method of plugging it. Drugs, alcohol, food, anger, and even love—anything can become a habit. Her shoulders jerk with despairing sobs, and I rock her the way Eric rocked me when we arrived in this alien environment. I don’t have a lot of practice, but she holds on for dear life, like I can drag her from the mire. And I will, if I can.
Maybe I can’t fully comprehend the connection they had as twins, but Grace was my constant, my one person, for years. Nothing was official until she knew about it. No one could make me laugh as hard or be as silly as she could. And that girl, the part of me that was her friend, has disappeared along with Grace.
“I know it’s not the same,” I say, “but I’m here. We’re all here, and we want you with us. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay.” A small laugh breaks from my lips, though it sounds closer to a sob than I’d like. “No one is okay, you know?”
Indy nods, her face pressed to my shoulder and tears wetting my shirt. “What do I do without him, Sylvie?” she moans.
My throat throbs with pent-up tears. I could think up a platitude, but I whisper the truth. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”
I haven’t cried for Grace the way I have for Maria, and I’ve told myself it’s because she and Eli could be out there, but the truth is that the thought of mourning her is overwhelming. I can let it out in dribs and drabs—a brushed-away tear here, a hitch of the chest there. Any more than that and I’m afraid I’ll end up in bed like Indy.
But, finally, I let the tears go, and with them I release the hope they’ll roll through those gates, banged-up but alive. Indy’s arms tighten around my waist, and we hold each other as we cry for Grace and Eli, who had a few measly months together before a monster took their lives. It doesn’t matter what kind of monster it was in the end—it all comes down to the same men.
I sent Indy to work looking far better than anyone has a right to after crying for thirty minutes. My face is still swollen, and my nose stuffed, but I feel less muddled, as though I couldn’t think clearly until I let myself feel the pain. This thought sounds suspiciously like Grace whispering in my mind, and I’m glad to have a piece of her with me, no matter how small.
I head for the garden before my guard shift in a few hours. July is often miserable in terms of weather, but this may be the worst July ever. It’s hot, it’s humid, and the plants are roasting in the heat. Eric rigged up mesh fabric to put over the most delicate during the brightest points of the day, which saved them but hasn’t helped their stingy production. Not surprisingly, everyone looks to him for guidance with the gardens, and he’s been moved there full-time.
Even Bridget likes Eric, if the way she smiles at him in the rows of tomatoes is any indication. Age-wise, she could be his mother, but when he turns to point out something in another row, she examines the muscles of his outstretched arm and his backside in a most non-maternal way.
I wait for her to leave, then creep up behind where he crouches and breathe on his neck. “Thanks,” he says, continuing to pat down mulch. “I was wondering if it was possible to feel grosser than I already do.”
“You’re welcome.” I sit in the dirt under the mesh fabric, which is a little cooler than the hundred degrees of the rest of the air. “Bridget was checking out your butt.”
He snaps a baby leaf off a tomato plant; the plants need to concentrate on making us food, not new leaves. Tan as Eric is from weeks in the garden, his cheeks gain more color. “She was not.”
“She was, but I’m not jealous. I can take her no problem.”
Eric laughs, teeth white and eyes as green as the leaves he tends. I want to take a real snapshot of him, but I take a mental one and store it in my mental coat pocket. He snaps off another leaf and smiles at a ladybug crawling up the stem of a plant. I can’t fault Bridget for ogling when it’s impossible not to; the man smiles at ladybugs. I’ve caught him talking to the plants and, possibly, singing to them, though he said he was singing to himself.
Eric sets his knees in the dirt and studies my face
. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying.”
“That’s because I was. It was Indy’s fault.” I peer through the thick stems of the tomatoes. “I’m okay now.”
I could’ve waited until all traces of tears were gone, but I seek out Eric when I’m happy, or angry, or feeling silly, and I want him when I’m sad, too.
He tucks my hair behind my ear. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I got her out of bed, and she made me cry.”
“Sounds fair.”
“We needed it. I’m fine. I know you have work to do.”
I’m as fine as possible with Eric’s peaceful presence, the smell of tomato leaves and warm earth, and the soft whirring of an insect somewhere. The heat keeps everyone in the shade whenever possible, and it feels as if we’re the only two people in StuyTown.
Eric frowns at the sky. “That sun makes this feel like an exercise in futility.”
“A boondoggle,” I say. “There is no way you can beat that word today.”
“I’m too hot to argue. Or think.”
“Come take a cold shower. The plants will still be dying tomorrow.”
“Are you in this cold shower, or is it an alone shower?”
“I’m wherever you want me to be.”
He looks intrigued but shakes his head. “I have to finish the row. If we don’t get the plants through this heat, we’re fucked this winter.”
I’m sweating my ass off, but a chill passes through me at the grim determination in his jaw, which makes it clear how fucked we’ll be. “I can help. You’re mulching all the rows?”
“Yeah. I said I’d finish the last one.”
Last though it may be, it stretches out for a million miles. Or three hundred sunbaked feet. We get to work, neither of us mentioning Sunset Park, though I assume we’re both recalling how we had enough food to comfortably weather a bad harvest.
At the end of the row, Eric lifts the last pitchfork of compost and shredded newspaper. I catch the word infected on a strip of newsprint when he sets the clump between two plants. “I think I can work on Bridget about using the ammo,” he says. “I’ve been telling her about Walt, and I think I’ve scared her.”
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 23
