CHAPTER EIGHT
Tuesday morning was oddly calm and beautiful. The rains that had plagued the city had stopped sometime after we all fell asleep again and the golden, winter morning sun was making the wet branches outside the apartment sparkle and shine.
Jenn didn’t mention anything about the incident in the night, but did cook us all up a giant feast of French toast and bacon, which gave off the vibe that she was making up for something. Not that she had anything to make up, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if Dex had given her a warning. She did seem to insinuate last night that my mental health wasn’t all what it seemed to be.
Which was nothing new. I was used to people thinking that I was crazy and if anyone was going to think anything less of me, I knew it would be someone like Jenn. But it got me thinking, especially as I spent the morning pattering about in the den and flipping through all the books that Dex had.
You see, none of the books that lined his shelves had anything to do with the mental institute we would be investigating later that night, even though there were quite a few library books there. There were some on the paranormal, stuff I would eagerly devour some other time when I wasn’t afraid of a dead girl in his living room, but nothing that was remotely related to our case.
Perhaps it didn’t mean anything. Dex had been busy moving and dealing with a dog and all that, and it was possible that he forgot about the research part of the show. But normally I had a script, or something to go on, and even if I wrote that script myself, I did it with his help. This time it felt like we were winging it entirely and at a point when we couldn’t really afford to. It wasn’t just about our wee Experiment in Terror show. It was about how our show did up against the bigwigs like Spook Factory. Now was not the time to be going into any situation blind, and yet Dex and I hadn’t discussed anything about it at all.
I thought about asking him. I knew he was in the living room, reading the paper, sipping on his coffee, occasionally saying something to Jenn. But something told me not to. And it stemmed from the same reason why I thought Dex was keeping me in the dark about things. Frankly, he didn’t want to talk about it.
It must have something to do with the fact that Dex had been in a mental institute. What else could it be? We had never discussed what had happened to him or why he was there. I just knew it was true. But I didn’t know how to bring the topic up with him, or even if it was any of my business.
Yet, the fact that we were going traipsing into an actual mental hospital later, well…that sort of made it my business. It was like if you were heading off into battle with a shell-shocked veteran. You’d kinda want to make sure that they were OK with it, otherwise they’d flip out at the first gunshot and you could be dead in a second.
I decided I’d try to approach the subject when the time was right. Hopefully that time would come sooner rather than later.
After we spent the morning doing not much of anything, the couple decided to take me out for lunch in the Capitol Hill district. Dex also wanted to take me past the Harvard Exit Cinema, the allegedly haunted theatre that our dear rivals were investigating.
We got into the car, Dex’s black Highlander this time, and drove off along the sunny streets. It was funny how even in the sunlight, the city had this hidden, shadowy quality to it, like it was just being covered up by sunshine-hued fabric.
In the front, Dex flicked the MP3 player until The Beatles Abbey Road came on and gave Jenn a playful nudge with his elbow. She looked at him, coyly peering over the edge of her designer shades, and smiled in return. It seemed to be some little inside joke or perhaps telepathic couplespeak for something.
I looked away from them and kept my eyes on the road. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it had been the day before but it still made me feel funny inside.
“Something” came on, one of my favorite Beatles songs.
At least it was, until Dex started to sing along with it. I had to look. He was eyeing me in the rearview mirror while carefully crooning to the most poignant parts. I shook my head and looked away.
Dex continued the sing along with the next song, “Maxwell Silver Hammer.” He was louder this time and to my horrible surprise, Jenn started to sing along too. They traded off verses like some Paul and John session, and when the chorus kicked in, they both began to act out the hammer hits with their hands, in tune with the rhythm. They were smiling at each other, singing at the top of their lungs, and having the world’s most stomach-turning karaoke competition in the front of the car. And to a song that was essentially about a serial killer with a hammer.
I felt sick. My face scrunched up at their cutesy, song-sharing coupleness. Abbey Road was now forever ruined for me.
Luckily the song wasn’t long and Jenn stopped singing as soon as “Oh Darling” came on. Dex kept going, of course. I mean, he was really letting ‘er rip. I tried not to be won over by his vocal prowess but it was hard, especially when he rolled down the window and started howling with Paul at the most passionate, throat-burning parts.
Jenn made an annoyed sigh and smacked him on the shoulder. “What are you doing? Roll up the window. No one wants to hear you.”
He ignored her and kept belting it out the window to the bemusement of the cars and pedestrians going past. A few of them gave him the thumbs up for the free performance on wheels.
“I’m serious, you’re so fucking embarrassing,” she sneered, and for the first time, I didn’t find her so pretty anymore.
I quickly eyed Dex to see his reaction. He stopped singing and gave her one hell of a look. Had I mentioned that Dex was the king of looks that could kill? It was one of those looks. I waited with bated breath for Jenn to explode into flames and I was glad I was sitting far away in the back seat.
She didn’t burst into flames, unfortunately, but she did push her shades further up against her face and brought out her phone. She started texting someone, ignoring the bolts of brimstone that were shooting out from Dex’s fiery glare.
Finally, he brought his attention back to the road before we almost rear-ended a van, turned down the volume on the stereo and we rode the rest of the way to Capitol Hill in relative silence. It was fucking weird. They had gone from a sickening, “in love” couple doing a duet to the complete opposite in the span of two songs. Who knew the Beatles were still so controversial.
The lunch, then, was brutal for all of us. Dex and Jenn weren’t talking to each other and Jenn wasn’t talking to me, which left Dex and me making careful small talk with each other, dancing around subjects like two characters in a play. When Jenn got up to go make a phone call outside, Dex exhaled loudly and comically collapsed across his chicken club sandwich.
I watched him anxiously, rubbing the edges of my fingernails. He eventually lifted his head and a small, tired smile tugged at his lips and the corners of his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” I told him, trying to sound cool, like I was an impartial friend and not at all invested in the decline of his relationship. “Couples fight all the time.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. Then sighed, sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his eyes unfocused.
“Am I making things worse?” I asked.
“Worse? No, kiddo. Things aren’t worse. This is just the way it is sometimes.”
What I think he meant to say was that “this is just the way it is all the time” but he was trying to save face. I didn’t know why. Why did he bother with her? Why did he bother moving with her? Why did he bother getting a dog with her? I didn’t understand any of it. Did he love her? Was that it? Did he actually truly love her and was too afraid to let go?
I could have gone on with these questions, as I often did, but I stopped myself and forced myself to think about something else. This was the only way I was going to get over him. Get over him as he sat across from me. I turned my attention to the other people in the restaurant, trying to focus on something, anything else. I picked up on a group of girls my age who were giggling with each other over a Smartphone they were passing around the table. I envied them. It was working.
Jenn came back to table after her phone call was over. She stopped in front of us, leaned over to Dex, moved his face over to hers and kissed him passionately on the lips. There were tongue and slobbering sounds involved. My eyes widened, watching them, unable to look away.
When she pulled back, he looked dumbstruck, while she gave me a quick, sly wink. It either said, men are simple or it said, oh no you don’t. I’d put bets on the latter.
“Excuse me,” I blurted out, quickly getting out of my chair, which rattled loudly against the tiled floor, and hurried my way over to the restaurant’s bathroom before I burst into tears.
I entered the washroom, which was thankfully empty, and ran the tap, splashing an endless amount of cold water on my face. I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry. I was going to get out of the damn city without a single tear leaving my face.
When I calmed down a bit, I gently patted my face with a paper towel and leaned against the mirror. I needed to get a hold of myself. I was tired of being fine and tough one minute and then losing it the next. What the hell was wrong with me? Jenn, Dex, they both had way too much power over me and my emotions. This had to stop. Now.
I breathed in a few times through my nose until I felt under control and then went into the stall to pee. I thought about this Bradley fellow. Maybe I’d ask Rebecca tomorrow about setting me up with him. Maybe he was just the distraction I needed from this whole Dex and Jenn business. Plus, the fact that both of them seemed totally against it, was finally sounding intriguing.
As I pondered this exciting diversion, I heard the door to the washroom open and a woman enter, her heels slowly making their way down toward the mirrors. She absolutely reeked of gin, the tangy scent of juniper flooding the bathroom. That, coupled with the slight unevenness of her gait, made me think that this girl was pissed off her gourd.