Catherine scooped the girl into a hug, trying to pull her tight while not spilling coffee on her hair. She smelled like cinnamon.
Amy Porter lived two doors down and was at least twelve years old by now. Catherine had spent three summers watching her, from the day school got out in late May to the first day back in August. Both of her parents worked so Catherine spent nine to five-thirty with Amy, who never raced around like the other hyper neighborhood children. Amy spent her time reading or lying on her back at the pool or yawning on the couch, wrapped in a blanket as they scoured the Apple TV for something they both wanted to watch.
Amy gently pulled herself away from Catherine now but grinned up at her. “Way to dump coffee on me.”
“Please, you’re fine.”
“Hardly.” Another grin. “I made Christmas bread. Pumpkin.”
Catherine took it with her free hand. A heavy brown-orange weight covered neatly in clear wrapping and tied with silver ribbon. It smelled exactly like Amy did.
“How many did you make this year?”
“Three dozen, but that includes the mini ones too, and it’s like three of those to make one big one. You’re super lucky I gave you all a big one, ’cause the mini ones are really small.”
“Amy,” Catherine’s mother said, coming up to the door. “I was wondering when you’d drop by. You know you don’t have to do this every Christmas, though I won’t deny it’s a treat. Where’s your mother?”
“Safeway.”
Catherine suddenly realized where all the pumpkin puree must have gone. “I think they’re out of pumpkin,” she told Amy.
Her mother looked curiously at her.
Amy shrugged. “That’s fine. She needs stuffing stuff anyway. What’s even in stuffing?”
“Stuff,” Catherine said.
Easy Amy-banter felt like a sweater shrugged on, reminding her of Amy’s baking habit and her addiction to British cooking shows—both of them speaking in ridiculously exaggerated accents, trying to make savarin with Chantilly cream at three in the afternoon in August, Catherine silently debating with herself if three ounces of orange liqueur was enough to intoxicate an eleven-year-old and Amy saying, as though reading her mind, that she wouldn’t tell her mom and that they’d forgotten all about the bottle anyway, it had been in the house since New Year’s.
Catherine wasn’t entirely sure when Amy had started her Christmas bread tradition. Maybe two years ago? She went door-to-door on Christmas Eve, leaving the bread on doorsteps or in mailboxes, only ringing the bell of people she knew, but people figured it out. Some waited for her at the windows to thank her. Amy would blush on the porches, but she was proud all the same. And she also delivered her treats to the library, the police station, and the firehouse, not only on Christmas; she tried to do something for most events or holidays, even church functions, if she could manage it.
Catherine’s mother invited Amy into the kitchen and they all sat at the table, Amy tugging at her dark hair under her hat, twirling it in a distinctly teenager motion. Catherine’s mother shot a look at her dad, and he set down his iPad in a resigned manner. Amy glanced at the screen, then at Catherine.
“Did I show you I have a website?”
“No.”
“Can I—?” Amy asked Catherine’s father, who nodded at once and then stood up, murmuring something about a paper he’d left upstairs. Catherine’s mother watched him go with tight lips before following him up the stairs.
“It’s not much,” Amy admitted, swiping madly at the screen, “but I thought I should start something more official, if I want this thing to work out.”
“Impressive,” Catherine said as Amy logged into Instagram, pulling up her page: artsy baking photos, all flour dustings and eggshells. She clicked on a link below her name, and a new page popped up: The Bread You Knead: Best in West Falls, Washington.
“The title’s not done,” Amy said. “I wanted to do something called Amy’s Baking Company or something, but then there’s that crazy lady from Kitchen Nightmares and I didn’t want people to get us mixed up. Plus, I was doing bread puns, see? Too cheesy?”
Stop loafing around and try a free sample! This was next to an option to try a free mini-loaf of any flavor; six choices were listed.
“Yeah,” Amy explained. “So, they can order a mini one and if they like it they can order more. I’m charging only five dollars for each loaf, which honestly is nothing, but I think once I get a following I’ll up it, hopefully double it by the summer.”
“This,” Catherine told her, “is amazing.”
Amy beamed, cheeks almost as red as her coat. “I knew you’d get it. You always got me. My friends at school don’t. They say, Amy, I can get bread at the store in ten seconds and you can’t make PB&J on, like, lemon bread, and you’ll get fat from all the baking, yada yada.” She threw back her hair. “Whatever, though, right? People like my bread.”
“People love your bread,” Catherine corrected as she reached out and took off Amy’s hat, smoothing her hair. Looking after Amy for three summers had made Catherine feel like something between a mother and a sister; the fierce protectiveness had surprised her in its intensity. She remembered one day last summer, looking for fuzzy caterpillars in the front yard, both of them bent double, intent and squinting, until a sudden chill erupted up Catherine’s arms, down her spine, twisting her around to see a man at her back.
He was older than her, maybe late twenties, with a grimy beard and oddly yellow eyes. Filthy.
“Girl,” he’d said, looking past Catherine to Amy, who was still poking at the grass with a thin stick.
“Amy,” Catherine said, her voice raised, backing up and grabbing her without even having to turn around. “Go inside. Lock the door.”
“Girl,” the man said again. “Pretty girl, aren’t you?”
“Cathy—”
“Now!”
Amy raced up the brick front steps. Catherine heard the door close. Her eyes darted around: no one was outside. But it was the middle of the day. Bright and shining. If she screamed, there were a dozen people who would hear from inside their homes. They’d come. They’d help.
But what if Amy heard her scream? What if Amy came back outside?
Then I won’t scream, she thought. I won’t make a sound.
“Leave,” she told the man, her voice low. “Now.”
He glared at her for a long moment—one that stretched itself across the circumference of the earth until it came full circle—then he spat at the grass by her feet and stalked away, muttering under his breath.
She watched him until he’d reached the street before racing up the steps after Amy, a cry in her throat, his spit on the edge of her sandals, her pink-painted toenails. When she got inside and slammed the dead bolt home, Amy was waiting for her.
Catherine turned back to Amy now, shutting her eyes hard for a moment to block out that memory. She pointed to the screen, scanning the flavor options and trying to smile. “So, that nutmeg-eggnog bread was amazing last year. Can I order some?”
Amy’s eyes widened. “Really? You’d pay?” Then she seemed to think for a minute. “You can have them at three dollars each. Discount, ’cause you’re cool and baked a ton with me while I was learning.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Catherine smiled, teasing. “So, does this mean you’re not still learning?”
“What?”
“You said I get a discount, because—”
“Oh yeah. No, I’m still learning things. But I know a ton already. Like, do you know that people have found evidence that bread is over thirty thousand years old? Yeah, starch residue on rocks they, like, carbon-dated or something. And OMG, I heard this really funny joke.” She sat up a little straighter in her chair. “Okay, so a lot of people think Jesus was all skinny or whatever, but isn’t that amazing since he could make bread appear
out of nowhere whenever he wanted? What? Why do you look so weird?”
Catherine blinked and looked away from her, to the iPad. “Never grow up,” she told Amy firmly. “Stay twelve forever.”
“Too late…I’ll be thirteen in March.”
“Jesus.”
“Bam! Garlic knots!” Amy said, waving her arms for emphasis. “Ah, this comedian does it better. Hold on, I’ll bring up the video.” She opened a new tab and pulled up Jim Gaffigan’s page on YouTube and they watched the video together, Amy’s head on Catherine’s shoulder, shaking with laughter. It might have been last summer, or the one before that. Like that night at college had never happened, and the only thing to be scared of had walked away and she’d been able to bolt a door against it.
In the days after Amy’s visit, Catherine picked at the pumpkin bread and scrolled through her phone endlessly. Hania, her best friend from high school, had texted her to meet up after Christmas, and Catherine stared at the message, wondering what to say. Catherine’s roommate, Amber, had been in touch too, saying Cordelia had been saying weird things before she left, had anything happened? Catherine replied she was fine, no worries, but didn’t respond to the texts Amber sent afterward. But it wasn’t strange, was it, not to respond to every single message? It was the holidays; people were busy.
During Christmas Eve dinner, as Catherine sat with her parents at the table, listening to her father’s short, cursory prayer, she had a sudden, vivid image of herself at nine, in that navy checkered skirt she had to wear to church—back when they’d actually attended regularly. Her father across from her at the table, both of them eating after-church donuts taken from the reception hall at First Faith.
They opened presents Christmas morning, then ate turkey and mashed potatoes and rolls in the late afternoon, exactly one uncle, aunt, and cousin joining them from Castle Rock.
Catherine ate her food without tasting it and nodded at everything said to her while only hearing every third word. She was aware of her mother’s gaze on her, and her father’s, too, a flickering awareness, as though she were an elderly relative with low blood pressure and osteoporosis who might lose consciousness at any moment and break in half on the hardwood. It made her miss talking to Amy, to Henry, their expressions uncomplicated and unaware.
When her extended family left, she was exhausted but too conscious of her mother’s worried look to refuse her offer to break open one of the cookie jars for a late dessert. She upended the jar, the undone ribbon cutting a trail through the flour, and mixed in eggs and oil, preheated the oven, laid her head on her mother’s shoulder as they stood in front of the warming door. It made her think of Amy.
“What can I do?” her mother asked.
Catherine closed her eyes. The kitchen smelled like sugar and pine. Every Christmas, the tree was real. Every January second, they left it on the street to be dragged away damp.
Her legs had been wet, sticky. Blood on her inner thighs, trickling down her right one to her ankle. A pain that cut through her in staccato bursts made her want to scream. Bending down in the shower back in the dorms, scrubbing the red off her skin, like erasing a river, using a pad—so normal, it’s normal—her hands shaking on the plastic wrapping, a rustling sound like an animal in the leaves.
* * *
—
What can I do? her mother had asked.
She wanted someone to go into her brain. Cut out the memories—these little fragments that sliced her open.
I don’t want to remember. I can’t do it. If I know more, if I see it, I’ll—
A girl in a tree, upside down. What if that was what happened? What if that was where she belonged?
Why had she gone to that party? Why had she gotten so drunk? Why hadn’t she asked Amber to take her back to the dorms? Then this would just be Christmas. Her life would just be her life. None of this would have happened. She would be fine. Fine.
What can I do?
And it came to her. An answer. Not a perfect solution, no, but she knew she couldn’t walk those paths and pass the dorms and take showers down the hall knowing what she had washed down the drain that night.
“I don’t want to go back,” she told her mom as the oven counted down. “In January. I don’t want to go back.”
* * *
—
Her mom pushed and prodded and begged for more details but Catherine just shook her head. It had been a bad night. She was fine, just still shaken up, mostly by what could have happened. No, she just hadn’t liked it there as much as she thought she would. Lots of people transferred. Well, she could go anywhere, really. Just wanted a change. Maybe a community college, then transfer. That’s what Henry was doing. Henry Brisbois, remember him? He liked it at Falls. No, it didn’t have to be Falls. Anywhere. Just not back.
Am I crazy? she texted Henry that night. They’d been texting off and on. Talking to him was easier, somehow, than talking to the friends she couldn’t face. He asked her how the cookie jars went. She asked him about Molly. They talked about Amy. (Henry had gotten the coveted eggnog bread this year.) Then she asked him about Falls and he asked her why.
Bc West Washington U sucked. Falls is way cheaper
Might convince parents to let me transfer
That bad?
Worse
Do you have to live at home at Falls?
No
Lots do, but there are dorms. I think there’s a lottery for them though.
You serious?
Maybe
Pretty sure that’s the opposite of serious.
She stifled a laugh and sat up straighter against her pillows. Feeling suddenly very awake despite it being nearly midnight, she powered up her laptop and signed into her college account. She’d have to figure out the transfer process if she really wanted her parents to take it seriously. She’d come down in the morning with everything neat and organized, prepared to answer all their questions.
She had two emails in her school account. She clicked on those first, noticing one was from her roommate, Amber. Subject line: U ALIVE?
Hey Cat. You’re totally MIA on text. Everything okay? I heard rumors right when I was leaving, idiot Cordelia mostly. WORST RA EVER. Just wanted to make sure you’re good/chill/know I’m here for whatever. And yes, that was a screw you to Prof. Kang’s parallel structure. 89.7 is NOT a B+. I swear I’ll come back and sue once I’m a real lawyer. Anyway, call me, text me, whatevs. Merry xmas too. Best roomie ever! PS: can we please go to the gym more spring semester?? I need cardio and kale and you. <3333
Catherine made a strange sound, something between a laugh and a sigh. She could almost hear her roommate’s voice in her head, slightly raspy from cigarettes, Amber lying on the floor with her legs kicked up on the bottom bunk, holding her phone a foot from her face, squinting at a picture some random hookup had sent her. “Is that it? Is that supposed to turn me on?” She held it out to Catherine, who snorted and twisted away. Borrowing eyeliner and sharing dresses. Trying to do the drunk test, walking in a line they made with overlapping Post-it notes in the hallway, clutching each other and laughing. Complaining about finals being so many points and how group projects were literally the worst.
“I think they’re secretly a test,” Amber had told her over fries one night. “Like to see if you can resist committing murder, even when it’s justified.”
“What do you get if you pass?” Catherine asked.
“Not arrested.”
“Lame.”
“Totally. I think if I murder one of them, it might be worth it.”
Catherine scoured her takeout box for the saltier fries at the bottom. “Well, I’m not helping you bury the body or whatever.”
“Oh, come on. It was going to be tha
t Felicia girl who literally told me she was going to do nothing because her ferret died last month and she still wasn’t over it.”
Catherine paused, fry in the air. “Okay. Maybe her.”
“Thank you. God.” Amber play-kicked her with one bare foot. “The things you have to do for a decent accomplice-after-the-fact.”
Now, in her bedroom, Catherine’s fingers hovered over her laptop, but she wasn’t sure what to say. She was fine? Yeah, Cordelia was terrible? Hey, you need to find a new roommate?
She clicked out of the email. She’d figure it out later, along with what she was going to say to Hania.
The only other message was from her British literature professor. Subject line: Final Essay Submission.
Shit, Catherine thought, her heart skipping. Her final essay for Brit lit had been nothing short of brutal. An analysis of a collection of poetry or any of the full-length pieces they’d studied that semester. No fewer than ten pages. She’d chosen the poems, mostly because five poems were still way shorter than a full book, none of which she’d actually read cover to cover. She remembered a high school teacher telling the class senior year that they couldn’t expect to use SparkNotes in college and still pass. Well, Catherine had been using them with some regularity for the two classes she needed to fulfill her English credits, and she had a B in both of them, so there. But she’d actually read the poems for this essay. Looked up analysis of them in the college library, too. She’d tried to do well on it. She thought she had, but maybe a ten-page essay on two-hundred-year-old poetry had been beyond her.
Hastily, she clicked on the email, thinking that if her professor was telling her that her failure of an essay had dragged her down to a D, that would be the last straw on a camel basically knee-deep in the sand at this point.
Monsters Among Us Page 4
