“Yeah, I guess,” said Randy, who definitely thought she was being bitchy, but he didn’t really care that much anymore (because it was too much worry to care, you know, he hadn’t even looked to see if she had some kind of massive, sexy scar on her ass cheek, that was how much he really just didn’t give a shit anymore). “You excited for the party tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Oooh, right,” she said. “The inaugural BBQ.”
“Are you going to comb your hair for it?”
“We’ll see,” she said.
Why did she want to stab him in the face so badly and so suddenly, too? He misunderstood her. That was the insult. He thought he understood her, but the way he understood her was so simple and condescending, and that made him an idiot. If she were hearing about this, she would obviously side with herself, and then anyone who acted contrarily would become the object of her scorn, her dismissal, whatever.
She wanted to say “Fuck the po-lice” because yeah, she didn’t need anybody. Fuck the po-lice. She looked at him contemptuously. Fuck the police, fuck the motherfucking po-lice, motherfucker.
JILLIAN WAS FEELING nervous about the coming week. She kept pacing around and eating handfuls of cereal. She did not have any money. She would not be able to get her car. If she got her car, she would not be able to pay for Adam’s day care. If she got Adam’s day care, she wouldn’t be able to get him there. She was going to have to rob a bank or sell her couch or something. Pacing. She kept pacing. That’s it, maybe. Adam and Crispy were watching tv. She brought her laptop into the living room to be with them and started looking at craigslist to see what kinds of prices she could get for her stuff. She would take pictures of all of her stuff and put them on the internet and have people come over and pay her for it. She had too much shit, anyway.
She spent a few hours on craigslist and then almost started crying because it seemed like it wasn’t going to work. And plus, how was she supposed to live like a normal person without a couch or a table or clothes? Anyway, her stuff was so fucked up and junky, and half the people on this website were giving their stuff away. Free for pick-up? What was that shit? She saw more stuff on there that she thought she might like to grab (if she had a car) than stuff that looked like hers selling at an encouraging price.
Her kid and dog were passed out because it was, like, 2:00 a.m. She was agitated. Oh my god, so agitated.
THE FIRST THING Megan noticed when she woke up on Saturday was that she was covered in a film of sweat. She had beads of sweat on the bridge of her nose. When she reached up to touch her face, her fingers slipped. The leaves that had been growing on the trees in the background (in the background, I guess, of the events of her life) were suddenly very apparent. The light in her bedroom (which she shared with Randy, who was still asleep and probably too dull in the head to appreciate this strange new change) was green. It was green because it was coming in through the leaves on the trees. She was more than happy to get up and away from Randy, who she now currently hated.
It was like all of a sudden the change had happened. She wasn’t even aware of spring. And she was surprised, the way she was surprised last year, that she was surprised that it was hot again. Oh right, heat, she thought. She was wearing flannel pajama pants. She thought about taking them off, but she didn’t want to take her pants off in front of Randy. She put shoes on, poured herself a glass of water, and left the apartment. Fuck you, Randy.
It looked like it was going to storm. There was that light that comes from electricity in the air. How did she know that? Probably wasn’t even true, she was just pretending to know the causes of things, bullshitting even in the privacy of her own mind. What a weird walk, but a great idea, because it was summer now, and that meant an increase in personal freedom. She would probably be back before Randy was awake, and maybe she wouldn’t even tell him she’d gone on a walk. It was, like, 8:00 a.m. Usually she slept until 10:30 on Saturdays, so these two hours were extras. Everything was so green. She drank the water and saw a fully clothed woman walking on the opposite side of the street.
JILLIAN WOKE UP drenched in sweat. I’m disoriented, she thought. She walked out into the apartment, which had stopped being clean a while back. There was a look to the air that was familiar—holy shit, it was summer. Jillian went around and shut all the windows and turned on the ac. She was drenched. She got into the shower. While in the shower, she thought she might as well pick up a little bit today. Her body ached, but she wouldn’t feel the full force of her predicament until after noon, and she would take that as a blessing from the lord.
IT WAS REALLY, LIKE, 85-degrees outside already. Megan wasn’t wearing underpants and her asscrack was sweaty. She stopped feeling liberated and started feeling exposed out in the world in her pajamas. Slime under her tits, too. The light outside was so beautiful. When she thought about going back inside to clean up and get dressed she wanted to die! Oh, yes, to die! She laughed. It was dark in that apartment and dirty and it was small, it was incredibly small, and she wasn’t in the mood to be so close to someone like Randy.
She thought about “walking forever” in an abstract way, but she’d tried stuff like that before. About two hours was as much as she could take before getting depressed.
It was a weird feeling, this feeling. It was a dead-end feeling, but the dead-end feeling came from, like, the possibility of eternity. She knew she would give up everything in her life to exist in the first 20 minutes of this walk, but that was impossible, and at some point she would have to go back inside, and then the grips of her crappy mood would start in again. She wanted to do one more thing before she went in, though.
JILLIAN GOT DRESSED in jeans and put all of the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, all the trash in the trash, and all the dirty clothes in the hamper. She woke her kid up and they walked the dog to the Starbucks.
MEGAN COULDN'T THINK of anything to do. She thought about eating a leaf, but that seemed stupid. She decided to lie down in a median for a minute. If she happened to fall asleep, then maybe that would be amazing.
Pretty much, she wanted to be gone so long that Randy would worry about her. She wished she could go away and be completely alone for five years. Or she wished she would die.
“NO DOGS IN STARBUCKS, ma’am.”
“Well, could I use the drive-through?”
WHAT WOULD BE the most just vehicle to wrest me from this mortal coil? A Vespa? Yes, I want to be hit in the neck with the front tire of a Vespa, that way my face won’t be covered by a car when I die. I’ll be able to see this beautiful sky and this weird green light, which I have decided I want to be the last things I see.
BY THE TIME JILLIAN, Adam, and Crispy were almost back home, Jillian felt nasty. Her entire shower was undone. It was really, really hot out.
EVENTUALLY, MEGAN got up. When she sat up in the median, the head rush felt similar to crying. She was depressed. She said, “I’m depressed,” and sat there for a minute longer, but then she had to stand up and walk back home. It was weird walking home, because she partly wanted to go home, but why? What is there for me? I hate it there so much I want to murder someone.
She held out her hands and looked at the mulch imprints on her palms.
These hands. These hands! I am capable of it, with these hands. She made gripping claw shapes with her hands. “I fucking hate myself and my liiiiiife,” she said, there on the sidewalk in her flannel jammy pants, looking at her hands, sweating, walking and talking to herself like a fucking asshole. She had abandoned her water cup.