The next day is not so idyllic.
After we finally go to bed, Raychel stays in the guest room all night. I try not to be annoyed that I’ve woken up alone, since it means she managed to sleep well on her own, and she needed it after her little meltdown.
But it seems to set the tone for my entire Saturday. Andrew’s hungover, snapping at everyone until Mom sends him out to clean the garage as punishment. This morning’s rain has petered out, so I suggest we hike Twin Falls instead, but Raych shoots that idea down.
“We could float,” I say, waiting for her to make the next move in a thrilling game of Scrabble. “The Mulberry will be flowing and Dad said we can take the canoe.”
She wrinkles her nose, staring down at her tiles. “Let’s just hang here.”
“If Nathan was around, he’d go with me,” I say, teasing.
But it pisses her off instead. “Well you’re stuck with me, so suck it up.” She leans over the table, bra strap peeking out of the old T-shirt she borrowed from me this morning. “Triple word score.”
*
The rain returns as thunderstorms, which makes the argument moot. After she beats me at board games, we go upstairs to read, and she curls into the papasan chair by my window. “What do you want to listen to?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Something mellow.”
I hit shuffle on my rainy-day playlist and stretch out on the bed. We’re both working on projects for the senior seminar we’re taking. It’s kind of an independent study, kind of not. We’re all assigned a bunch of reading, and we have weekly class discussions that the teacher, Ms. Moses, leads, but we also pick our favorite book and create a presentation about it for the final. Mine’s Crime and Punishment. Raychel’s changed hers so many times I can’t keep track.
Over the top of my book, the curtains frame her, rain streaming down the glass behind. She’s tucked her knees inside my T-shirt, and I bite my tongue because she’s stretching it out. She glances up. “What?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.” But she knows, giving an exasperated sigh as she pulls her legs out and sits cross-legged. “What are you reading?” I ask to distract her from the fact that I’m a picky pain in the ass.
“The Handmaid’s Tale.” She shows me the cover.
“Oh.” I sit up and settle against the headboard. “I couldn’t get into that.”
“But the imagery is so amazing!” She lays the book on one leg. “When she’s talking about the sound the rim of a wet glass makes and says something like, ‘That’s what I feel like, the word shatter’? Or the women using butter as lotion because they have nothing else, like they’re just … food or something?” Her wide eyes wait for me to take it back.
I probably should, but I don’t. “No, yeah, I mean … I guess the writing is good—”
“You guess?”
“It’s so … flowery.” I rush on as her eyes narrow. “But I mean—okay, writing aside, the story itself is sort of boring.”
“Boring?” she repeats incredulously. “The United States is taken over by religious extremists who basically enslave women and it’s boring?”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.” I put my own book down. “We don’t see any of that. We just follow the main character around the house all day.”
“Okay, first of all, that’s not even true, and secondly, those parts are like, half the point!” Raychel pushes her hair out of her face. “She can’t leave—”
“Yeah, but she barely even tries.”
Raychel stares at me. “Because she’ll die,” she says slowly, like she’s translating.
“Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Seriously?”
“Okay, maybe not,” I backtrack, recognizing the look in Raychel’s eye. It is the I would happily put your balls in a vise right now look. “I mean, it’s just not believable if we never even learn how they got into that situation in the first place.”
“Because it’s what already happens!” She sees my involuntary eyebrow raise. “Women have been treated like that for thousands of years and we just accept it with no explanation—”
“Well it’s not very convincing in this book,” I interrupt, trying to end the argument. “To me, anyway.”
She crosses her arms and huffs. “This from the guy who’s read Lord of the Rings ten times. Where, I might add, women are treated—”
“That’s different,” I say. “That’s fantasy, not misguided commentary on society.”
I expect more argument, but her mouth closes, and her whole body seems to shut me out. “It’s just my opinion,” I add. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
She glares. “Yes, my delicate feelings are definitely the problem here.”
She’s pissed that I apologized? “I didn’t—”
“Oh, I know.” She shakes her head and picks up her book, face disappearing between the dark blue cover and dark gray window. A female figure in red in the corner is the only blot of color. I didn’t finish the book yet, but from what I’ve read, I’m guessing she got herself stuck there, and though I hate to admit it, it’s easy to see why Raych likes the story so much. I feel bad that things are so hard for her right now, and her parents are obviously terrible, but she’s the one who got so drunk that she was late to work. She’s the one who decided to hook up with Carson. She’s the one who continues to get trashed at parties but never wants to face the consequences.
Everything is always everyone else’s fault. Nothing is ever hers.
RAYCHEL
I go home Saturday night instead of staying over because Matt is being such a bitch. I was so happy, getting a job offer and some time with Asha and a fun night with Matt—and then he had to ruin it. He acts like I’m hormonal, but I swear he has his own men-strual cycle. Funny how unfunny the joke is when it’s about him.
I stay up late and try to finish that “misguided commentary” he “couldn’t get into.” He wants it spelled out for him, how a world like that could happen, but won’t even let me finish a sentence to explain. Must be nice, not being able to fathom a world where you’re the bottom rung, being so sure of your opinion that you judge a book by what you wanted in it instead of what’s actually there.
I’m restless most of the night, and I fall asleep so late that I don’t wake up until eleven on Sunday. Mom is still crashed. Not surprising, since I heard her come in at one. I make lunch and then put my frustration into doing chores. I don’t mind cleaning. Mom spends all her time picking up after other people’s kids. She shouldn’t have to pick up after me.
For a minute, I consider talking to her about Matt, or even Carson. But I know she’ll be smug about Matt, who she thinks is a stuck-up rich boy. And I don’t want her to guilt-trip herself for letting me go to parties and stuff. Mom trusts me to be responsible because she thinks she’s the best example of what can go wrong.