“Ah!”
“What?!” said her boyfriend. He put his arms around her. “What?”
She crouched down and started laughing hysterically. “Those fucking raccoons! I thought they were dogs. Oh my god, they’re so fucking creepy.”
“Let’s cross the street,” said the boyfriend.
“Ok.”
The raccoons watched the couple, perhaps understanding that they’d been laughed at. One of the raccoons belched softly.
THE WIND RUSTLED the leaves, and the trees appreciated the feeling. A bird who was still awake sat on the branch of one of the trees and felt the warm breeze and listened to the sounds of the trees and the cars and smelled all of that freshness, and he inhaled, puffing up his cute little breast, and felt like he might cry, if only he could cry. If he could, he would, but out of an appreciation of beauty and inevitability, not out of sadness.
CARRIE THOUGHT there was something sort of obnoxious about Megan. She’d heard about the fight between her and Amanda, obviously. She’d even heard about the part where Megan was crouched under the porch screaming and crying or whatever. But it was weird, here she was, acting sort of normal. Carrie examined her skeptically.
“Did you guys see the website?” asked Megan. “Randy did it,” she said, pointing to Randy with her thumb. “I think it looks pretty good.”
And now it was easier because everyone was Anthea, and Megan was just riffing.
ELENA WAS AT HOME doing some needlepoint in front of the tv when her phone rang. She had the window open a crack and the fresh air filled her living room. Her boys were out, all of them (her husband, too) and she was working on a project that would be hung in the church. Everyone seemed to really like her needlepoint. This pattern was a line of interlocking flower branches surrounding a phrase about togetherness and sweetness and how the two were related and equal in the eyes of God. She was so happy about the way her life was sometimes. She had plenty to feel good about. She assumed the phone call would be her husband, and she felt so good she thought she would ask him to pick her up a treat from the store. Maybe a pie or ice cream, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. She slipped the needle into her work, set it aside, and reached for the cordless.
“HOW’S IT GOING, Carrie?” Megan asked. She smiled. “How was your 30 under 30 interview?”
“It went pretty well. Everyone looks great in their photos. So, so pretty. I’m really excited to see the layout.”
“You do design, right? Is that what you went to school for?” asked Megan. “For design?”
“Yeah, that and writing, painting, and photography.”
“That’s cool, like a mixed major. I bet that’s really useful,” said Megan.
“HELLO,” said Elena.
“Hello,” said Jillian, but she said it in a hilarious, gruff, Batman voice.
MEGAN’S BEHAVIOR made Amanda uncomfortable. Does she have a gun? Are we all about to die?
JILLIAN HAD A CASE of the giggles all night, and had to go into the bathroom twice just so Adam would stop asking her what was so funny. What was so funny was, for some reason, she’d decided to demand that Elena give her hundreds of dollars. Jillian believed in the power of Christ and she had promised earlier that she would trust in any idea He gave to her, and this was His idea. When she thought about it, she would laugh, then moan, then feel like she was going to puke, then feel nervous, then feel nothing. Then a few minutes later, the cycle would repeat. Similar to the feeling she’d had before she called Adam’s dad. Like dread, but also inevitability.
“YEAH, IT HAS BEEN pretty useful,” said Carrie.
“Do you have a preference between film and digital photography?” Megan asked.
“Well, I really love developing film and making prints in the darkroom. That was a lot of fun in school. But, for work, it’s easier to use a digital camera. At first we used digital offset plates, which you just print out from a computer, rather than developing, and now we don’t even use an offset printer. We just have a nice printer. If I used film, I’d have to print it, then scan it, then print it again, so . . . The pictures I get from a digital camera with a nice lens are great. And you can, of course, always manipulate the . . . ”
Anthea was looking around, bored.
“WHO IS THIS? Can I help you?” asked Elena.
“This is Jillian,” she said, still using the voice. “Jillian Bradley.”
“Jillian, why are you talking like that?”
Jillian cleared her throat, opened her eyes and mouth as wide as she could and then called on the power of God. “Sorry,” she said in her normal voice.
IT LOOKED LIKE Megan was smiling while she was talking to Carrie. Randy was watching her and felt nervous and noticed that Amanda looked nervous. But, she probably just looked nervous because she and Megan hadn’t made up yet. Probably.
“JILLIAN, WHAT do you want?”
“It’s not about what I want, it’s about what I need. I know what you think of me. I’m not completely oblivious.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Elena.
“Yes you do, ok? So let’s just get that straight. I need you to give me eight hundred dollars for Adam’s day care, and so that is what you are going to do. I need eight hundred dollars from you.”
“Jillian, I’m not going to give you eight hundred dollars. That’s absurd. If anything, you owe me one hundred dollars for all the gas I’ve been using getting your son off to day care, plus a little extra for my wasted time.”
“You shriveled, heartless little bitch, you will give me 800 dollars or I will go through with it.”
“Go through with what? You don’t have the guts to do anything to me. You’re weak and you’re too much of an idiot to come up with a way to hurt me. Jesus, Jillian, what are you thinking?”
“Ok, I’m telling, then.”
“Telling who?”
Jillian grinned and giggled then whispered, “God.”
She continued to giggle and whisper things that were not words. She drew herself up into a ball.
MEGAN SAID a few things that made Carrie laugh and they were getting along fairly well.
“I THINK YOU’RE probably the most sick, ugly, hateful person in the entire world,” said Jillian. “And so now I’m going to spend the rest of my energy letting God and Jesus know how much I hate you and how horrible you are and how much you deserve to suffer. You help me and you use it as a way to mock me? You do that and call yourself a Christian and think you won’t suffer the eternal fire for the crime of blasphemy?”
“Jillian, this is absurd. I’m hanging up. I’m going to hang up,” said Elena.
“I hope I die soon so I can tell God everything you’ve ever done to me,” Jillian screamed.
Elena hung up the phone.
“OH, GOD, you’re so lucky, you know?” said Megan, leaning in towards Carrie and smiling.
“I guess so,” said Carrie.
“I mean, you’re just so lucky that you get to turn your passion and your art into something commercial. You know, something you can make money off of.”
“Yeah, I love my job,” said Carrie.
Megan’s eyes flashed and she smiled wider. Amanda looked into that face and was frightened. She saw demons there. She saw through that smile and saw the poison in the eyes. Maybe it was the reflection of the tiki torches. Amanda drank from her beer and fumbled for a cigarette.
“It’s just so nice to see an artist make money off of their passion. Kind of makes us all feel like it’s not so hopeless after all,” said Megan.
Did Megan’s sentence trail off into a whisper, or was Amanda just transfixed by what she thought she saw in that expression?
“I have to go get another beer,” said Anthea. Megan straightened up. She had been hunched towards Carrie and grinning.