21
Tricia’s in a good mood. The weekend I lost big in Seattle, she won big at the Indian casino, so even after paying for the expenses of food, hotel, and gas, she comes home two hundred dollars richer. She fans out the twenties that night at dinner and says we should splurge on something. For Tricia, this usually means something expensive and useless that she sees on the Home Shopping Network, like an ice-cream maker that she’ll use twice and then turn into a receptacle for more junk.
“What do you think we should get?” she asks me.
“A year’s worth of Internet.”
“Why do you keep going on about that?”
I don’t say anything.
“There is a guy.” She smirks at me. “I knew it all along. You’d better not get pregnant!”
If there is one thing Tricia has pounded into me over the years, it’s not to make the same mistake she did.
“You’ve been to Tacoma, what, three times now? And you want an Internet connection so you can go into chat rooms and do what you do. Don’t tell me it’s not a guy.”
After the kiss, Ben tried to get me to calm down, but I grabbed my stuff and started walking toward the bus station, and he was forced to give me a ride. In the car he said, “It’s okay, Cody.” And I said, “How can you say that? I don’t know if she can see us. If she’s up there or down there, watching us. But if she is, she’s disgusted. You know that, right?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Who knows?”
“I know. And it doesn’t matter anyway because I’m disgusted.”
He didn’t say anything else after that. At the station, I asked him to forward me all those long emails Meg had sent him and, after that, never to contact me again.
“It’s not a guy,” I tell Tricia now.
“If you say so.”
In the end, she buys a decorative fire pit.
x x x
I have read every post I can find written by All_BS. He doesn’t post that much. But he posts enough that it’s clear he’s there, paying attention. And the name? All_BS? What’s that all about? Is it short for “All Bullshit”? As in, “These boards are all bullshit”? Or as in, “Life is”?
x x x
One day, on the way home from the library, I see Sue driving out of the parking lot of the fried chicken fast-food restaurant. My impulse is to duck out of the way.
“Need a ride?” she asks, pulling up alongside me.
I peer into the car. There’s no Joe, no Scottie, just a big bag, already seeping with grease. Sue moves the chicken to the backseat and opens the door for me.
“Where you headed?” she asks, as if there are multiple possible destinations.
“Home,” I say, which is true. “Tricia’s waiting for me,” I add, which is not, but I’m worried she’s going to invite me over and I can’t face that, especially right now, with the folder full of Final Solution printouts in my hand.
“We haven’t seen much of you,” Sue says. “I’ve left you some messages.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “We want you to get on with your life.”
“I am,” I say. The lies slip off my tongue so easily now, they barely register as untrue.
“Good. Good.” She looks at the folder, and I start to sweat. I think she’s going to ask about it, but she doesn’t. The silence grows and gapes between us, shimmering like the heat on the empty asphalt.
It’s not a big town, and within five minutes we are home. I’m relieved to find Tricia’s car in the driveway, if only because it backs up my story.
“Maybe come for dinner one night next week,” Sue says. She glances toward the bag in the backseat; the deep-fried smell has now settled throughout the car. “If you come, I can make the chili you like. I’m starting to cook again.”
“Chili would be great,” I say, opening the door. As I shut it, I catch a glimpse of Sue’s face in the side mirror, and I understand that we’re both of us liars now.
x x x
The next day, I clean Mrs. Driggs’s house. It’s one of my easiest jobs because it is usually immaculate. I strip her bed, the sheets smelling like old lady, even though Mrs. Driggs can’t be more than ten years older than Tricia. I scrub the bathtub, self-clean the oven, Windex the windows. I save Jeremy’s room for last. It creeps me out a bit, the ghostliness of it, vacuuming the shag carpet, still bearing the treads from last week’s cleaning.
I push the vacuum into the corner where Hendrix’s cage once sat. Something clatters in the motor. I switch it off, get down on the floor to inspect what’s inside, and find a bobby pin, the kind Mrs. Driggs uses to pull back her bun. So she haunts this empty room, this empty house. She should get a pet or something, maybe some cats. Much better than a snake, although cats would go after mice too. Still, it wouldn’t be such a rigged game as it was when Jeremy fed Hendrix—the victim and the victor predetermined. Poor fucking mouse.
I’m sitting there with the bobby pin in my hand when it hits me. How to find All_BS. He’s the snake. To get him, I have to be the mouse.