*
What did I do, in those days before Marlena and I were friends? I unpacked my room, maybe, finished one of the books in my stack, watched a bowl of reheated soup spin in the microwave. But the I who began during those months, the I who’s still me now, had just begun to stir. I’d spent ninth grade at Concord Academy, an expensive prep school, on a combination of loans and scholarships—none of which were applicable for just the fall. After the news of the move I fought for my parents to let me stay on as a boarder (“Ha,” Dad said, “keep dreaming”), but they pulled me out a couple of days into my sophomore year, early enough to get a tuition refund. Mom called it an adventure; Dad said private institutions made people into sheep. Even with the aid, that single year did a number on their finances. I’d heard them fighting about it. I was a studious and focused girl, and already taking advanced classes—I don’t think it really occurred to them that letting me drift for an entire fall term would undo something in my brain. But cut free from the net of school and routine that had surrounded me since childhood, I could feel my edges rearranging.
I killed a lot of hours watching for signs of the people next door, telling myself it was boredom, that my interest had nothing to do with her. Besides Marlena, I noted a little boy, her twin in miniature; a scrawny man who always wore an orange knitted hunting cap; and another, larger man, who was around intermittently and drove a black truck with extra-large wheels. I had a good view of her house from the kitchen window. Sometimes Marlena came and went, flanked by two boys our age. One of them was cute; the other had terrible acne.
It was one of those nights when, sleepless and hungry and full of vague anger, I got out of bed in the predawn morning. I stepped into a pair of Dad’s slippers and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. The new house was too quiet. I stood in the refrigerator light, drinking orange juice from the gallon, and wiped a sticky drizzle off my chin with the back of my hand. Mom kept her secret cigarettes—secret cigarettes, such a Mom thing to do—inside an Express shoebox that she hid on the upper shelf of our coat closet in Detroit. We had no equivalent place in Silver Lake, so it took me a while to find the shoebox at the bottom of a giant nylon bag full of odds and ends. I removed the lid and there they were, the Merits, nestled between the spooning heels of her mint-green pumps. Mom and Dad used to come back from nights out smelling like smoke and salt and wind and something sweeter: raisins maybe, or wine.
I grabbed the lighter gun from the kitchen counter—like lots of our stuff, it would never find a proper place in the new house, and would drift around from surface to surface. Outside was just inside with worse cold. Stars, stars, stars, and a couple trailer windows glowing television blue. I sat on the platform outside the front door, where Jimmy had left his muddy shoes. A poor man’s pied-à-terre, Mom kept calling the tiny deck, until Jimmy told her that pied-à-terre didn’t mean balcony or even porch, his voice weary. I opened Mom’s pack and pulled out one of the two cigarettes turned smoking-side-up. Who knew how old it was. I propped the filter between my teeth and clicked the lighter’s trigger. The flame didn’t catch until I sucked a little. I’d imagined that I’d splutter and hack, that my very first drag would burn. But I was three inhales in before I coughed. Smoke curled above my head, and I exhaled and watched the cloud tumble away, traveling far from Silver Lake.
I reached the filter, snubbing the ember out against the railing, and a sparkling started behind my eyes. I breathed deep and lit another. The cold from the icy step burned through the three layers I sat on—blanket, flannel pants, cotton underwear—but I was committed.
A pair of headlights appeared down the road, and then the truck with giant wheels swung into Marlena’s driveway. I slid off our stairs and crouched in a triangle of space between the porch, the house, and one of the chubby evergreen bushes that flanked the steps. I’d told myself that in Silver Lake, I was going to be someone new, someone too bold for hiding, and yet I hid. Catherine had apologized for everything, for the simple fact of her body taking up space. But not Cat. Or that’s what I hoped. The passenger-side door opened. I’d only been Cat for a couple of days; I decided not to move. Marlena sat in the cab, despite the hanging-open door. The cigarette pack crumpled in my hand as I craned to see. The lighter had fallen into the snow. Marlena pulled her knees into her lap, tucking them under her chin. In the quiet, early dark, every sound was amplified—her nails scritch-scratched against her jeans as if she were crouched next to me. She ran them up and down her legs.
“I’m going,” she said. A cough spidered around in my throat, but I fought it back.
“Just a minute,” said the driver. “I love looking at your goddamn pretty face.” He clicked on the dash light, and her body came into focus. From her outline I knew the position she was in—her chin buried between her kneecaps, her elbows hugging her sides. I’d made that shape in the car with Dad, the last time I saw him. Don’t touch me was what that meant. Leave me alone. I stood up a little, trying to see.
“Goddamn pretty,” she said, with a fake laugh. “Please.”
“I brought you home, didn’t I?”
“Give it to me, Bolt.” Her voice sounded tired. “C’mon, babe. My daddy could come back any minute and I haven’t checked on Sal all day.”
“Your daddy,” the man, Bolt, said, as if he were saying Yeah right. “But I’ll give them to you. Didn’t I say? But I want a kiss first. Just a kiss good night.” Kissing noises, like a crappy punch line.
She didn’t move and my legs ached and I ticked off the seconds, sure I would cough. He lifted a something into the air, pinched between his fingers, and shook it above her head. Her body undid itself as she grabbed, laughing, at whatever he held. I swallowed over and over. She turned to face him and his palms slid over her shoulders and then she was just whitish hair, one of his tattooed arms all tangled up in it, the other sliding up her sweater. I don’t know how I knew it from there, when she was still a stranger, but I could tell that she could hardly bear him touching her. She wriggled away after a few seconds and jumped from the truck. My skin crawled on her behalf.