One gelcap left.
The text is from Tanner: Still up for drinks this week, killer? I don’t have the stamina to text a pithy comeback. Tanner will just have to wait. I have three new voicemails from Mom. I was so dead to the world I must not have heard her calling last night. Or this morning. As I listen to the messages, I can hear her tone tighten with each voicemail:
Hon, is everything alright? This isn’t like you…Give your mother a ring, will you?
I don’t know why you can’t simply pick up your phone…Should I be taking offense? Just promise me you’ll be there tomorrow. You know how important this is for your father…
Tonight. As in Monday. Seven p.m. Sharp. Don’t forget. For your father’s sake, not mine.
I can’t understand why this party is so important to her. Dad doesn’t care. Even at twelve, I sensed my parents were destined for divorce—or should be. They could’ve put our family out of its collective misery just by separating, but instead, they’ve gone through the motions of marriage with ghoulish devotion.
No texts from Amara. Guess the last ten hours haven’t lifted her mood. I call her but her phone goes straight to voicemail. She’s probably still asleep. Lord knows I want to be.
My skull is pounding but I desperately need to get up and get some water. When I lift my head, I notice the tag I’d scribbled on my wall in Sharpie weeks ago:
ERIN WAS HERE
What the fuck? What kind of sick joke is this? Who rewrote is as was?
I lick my thumb and rub at the was to see if the marker will come off. It smears across the wall, the Sharpie coating my thumb.
My phone vibrates again, a call this time, startling me. It’s not a number programmed into my contacts but I pick it up anyway.
“Uh…Hi?” The woman’s voice sounds hesitant on the other end. “This is Lorraine? At the McMartin Agency? Just calling to check in, see when we should expect you this morning.”
Oh shit. My first day of work. I’m so screwed. I could lie—tell her I’m feeling sick. Loraine would understand, right? She’d let me come in tomorrow. I need one day, just a day, so I can get my head on straight and get my life together. “I—think I came down with something?”
“Ah. Oh, okay. Well…”
It’s slipping. My future. My fucking five-year plan. My opportunity to move on with my life. It’s all slipping through my fingers right now and I’ll lose everything if I don’t grab it back.
“You know what,” I hear myself say, “false alarm.”
“…You sure?”
“No. Yeah. Food poisoning. Nothing big. I’m feeling better.” I sit up and open the blinds. Too much sun comes flooding into the apartment all at once. It stings to look out the window.
As I blink against the harsh light, I notice a figure standing in the middle of the street directly below my apartment window. A woman enshrouded in plastic. A clear plastic tarp.
“Great,” I hear Lorraine say. “So…I guess we’ll see you in the office soon?”
“You got it,” my voice trails off as I slowly step away from the window. I keep my eyes on the woman in plastic for as long as I can—who is that who is that who—until I’m in the hallway and she finally disappears from sight. I can almost convince myself that she’s no longer there. Out of sight, out of (my) fucking mind. I compel myself to let the notion of her go. It’s too early and I’m way too hungover to give the thought of who she might be any mental real estate.
I head to the kitchenette. I’m seeing things, that’s all. I just need to eat something. Clear my head. But the fridge is empty, save for a plate of cheese speckled in blue fuzz.
I fill a glass of water and try sipping some but it tastes far too metallic.
I wander over to the living room window, which gives the same view of the street below as my bedroom. Just to see.
The woman wrapped in plastic is still there. Still staring up at me.
What. The. Fuck.
Compartmentalize, Mom would say in this situation. I watched her do the exact same thing for years. It’s easy to place whatever we wish to dismiss in tiny boxes and stow them away in our minds where we can’t dwell on them. All it takes is finding a space within yourself to house these particularly unpleasant feelings and simply…lock them up. Throw away the key.
That’s all I need to do right now: Don’t be afraid, Erin. Simply…compartmentalize.
I repeat the word, my new mantra—compartmentalize, compartmentalize—as I finally extract myself from my apartment to head off to my first day at my new job—my new life.
She hasn’t moved. The woman in plastic is still standing in the street. Waiting for me.
You’re not compartmentalizing, Erin, Mom tsk-tsks.
The elderly woman’s head tilts toward me. Now I can see she’s completely naked underneath her tarp. She’s well into her eighties. Pale blue veins branch across her skin. Her hair is wet with sweat as it clings to the tarp’s underside.
She’s still breathing. I say still because, despite her physicality—despite the way her breath clouds her face beneath the tarp as she exhales—I know she isn’t alive. Who is she?
“…Ma’am? Are you hurt?” I don’t know what else to say. What am I supposed to say?
What am I supposed to fucking do? I don’t understand what’s going on here. I just want to—
Compartmentalize, Erin, Mom chimes in. Pack these thoughts away and move on…
The tarp crinkles along her body as she steps forward, dragging the plastic with her.
Instinctively, I step back. My unconscious mind knows it’s best to put as much space between us as humanly possible. But she keeps coming for me. Slowly closing in. She keeps staring at me through the tarp. Even through the gray haze of plastic, I can see her eyes are filled with a yearning look. I don’t know her, I’ve never seen this woman before, so why is she looking at me like that? Does she think we’re related? Her lips move slowly beneath the sheet. She’s muttering but I can’t make out the words.
“I can’t hear you. Do you want me to…” Want me to what? What am I even doing?
Her lips are moving faster now. Before I think twice—what’re you doing Erin what—I reach out for the tarp.
Free her, I think as I pull the sheet from her face.
The shroud slowly slides off her head. The last inch of plastic slips away. Her gray eyes widen. She’s finally out. This must be what she wanted…Right? I’ve freed her from her sheet. I imagine she’ll take in a lungful of fresh air—bless you, child—but the woman begins to claw at herself. She smells like the shallows along the James River. Still water festering in the heat, breeding mosquitoes.
Panic rises in my chest as I step back. “Are…are you okay?”
The woman drags her fingers over her pruned breasts, her distended belly. She won’t stop. She keeps scratching at herself, overcome by some hideous itch, her bloated body and the latticework of veins in full view. Her mouth opens as if she’s moaning, but I can’t hear a sound.
“What’s wrong? What can I—”
Gray water spills from her lips. It dribbles down her chin in thin rivulets.
Does she want the plastic back? Is that it? I look down at the tarp in my hand and it crinkles between my fingers. I can still feel the warmth of her trapped in the plastic, the heat from her breath. But the tarp quickly cools until it’s just a sheet of plastic.
I look up and—she’s gone. The smell of her lingers, stagnant water still in the air.
Where did she go? Where the fuck did she go? How did she—
I drop the tarp. It collapses across the pavement, empty.
I don’t know what’s happened but a sick feeling in my stomach tells me I’ve done something wrong. I hurry away, abandoning the plastic on the sidewalk. I don’t turn back.
A stray wind blows by. I hear the breeze fill the tarp and drag it down the sidewalk behind me. I can feel the scraping sound of the sheet on asphalt in my teeth, sskrrrch.
Without turning, I sense the plastic phantom drifting on its own as if it’s following me.
Don’t look back, I say myself. Whatever you do, please, Erin, don’t look, just…
Compartmentalize.
nine-to-five