“Yeah, I kind of have to piss,” said Megan. She turned to smile at Amanda. The girls left. Carrie and Amanda looked confused.
ELENA WAS STANDING, suddenly feeling creepy. She walked around her house to make sure all of her doors were locked. She put the safety stopper locks on the windows and called her husband to ask if he would come home. She went to the kitchen and leaned against the counter and put her hand to her mouth and shook. She did not shake for remorse. She shook for rage and fear for her personal safety. She imagined Jillian breaking into her house. Elena would decapitate her if she tried anything. She glanced at the knife drawer.
MEGAN TOSSED her empty into a trashcan and walked up the back porch steps. She had that kind of feeling that should probably be embarrassing, but is too overwhelming at the time to be embarrassing. That kind of studly, cinematic feeling that comes after a massive, psychic unburdening.
There was no one in the apartment. Megan pissed without turning on the light in the bathroom. When she was finished, she washed her hands with cold water because her fingers tended to get stiff and swollen in hot weather. She always wondered if that happened to everyone. She could hear the shrieks and chatter of the party outside. Someone started shooting bottle rockets.
JILLIAN HUNG UP the phone and then lay down because she was already on her bed, so why not?
IT WAS HARD for Megan to make out what the living room looked like in the dark. The streetlights were visible through the open windows, and they had that hypnotic effect over Megan that bright things sometimes have over moths and the drunk. She walked to the windows. There were large plants in the living room and bookshelves and a tv. A cat lay on the couch. If anyone came into the apartment she would say, “Oh, I’m just looking at the cat.” People love to look at cats.
She put her palms on the windowsill and looked out onto the street. Even though it was cooler now, a bead of sweat ran down her asscrack. A cyclist rode past and a guy stumbled around on the pavement. Megan zoned out. Megan turned to the cat.
“I envy you, you fucking idiot,” she said to it telepathically.
It squirmed and said, “Whatever.”
She sighed. She looked out the window and again thought about taking some kind of long road trip or maybe faking a fugue state or maybe drinking so much or becoming so stressed out that she actually entered a fugue state. When she came to, she would work on getting it together. Etcetera. There were very few cars out on the street. Everyone must be drinking, she thought.
IT WAS DIFFICULT for Jillian to sit up and, when she did, she felt like a ghost, like she was sending her avatar to continue her life while she was really still there on the bed. This feeling had happened before. It was fun in a certain way, because of how she felt like she was floating around, which made her feel, even if she didn’t think it specifically, as if there were some kind of random current to life sloshing her towards her fate.
She sat next to Adam on the couch. They didn’t speak. They watched the program about the sentient dolphins.
MEGAN AND RANDY walked home together. Megan started crying and Randy held her hand. They fought again in the morning. Sunday was a generally bad day. Megan smoked a lot and sat outside on the curb and fantasized about fugue states.
JILLIAN TOOK the battery out of her phone and hid it somewhere in her house, then sat down and consciously forgot where she put it. Then, since it was Sunday, she observed that it was her day of rest.
FIVE
Things kept happening the way they would. On Monday it was still warm. Megan took a shower and shaved her legs, bikini area, and armpits, put on lotion and deodorant, then put on a decent outfit. She got on the bus and sat in a patch of sun and put a book in her lap, but wasn’t able to read it. She was spaced out. A really loud guy got on the bus.
“Ugh, I lost my cell phone,” he shouted. Megan watched him. The guy looked around and noticed another guy, similarly dressed, look up at him. “Hey, man, can I use your cell phone?” he asked.
The similarly dressed guy said, “Sure,” kind of quietly and handed his phone to the loud guy.
“Hey, man, this is Jim. Yeah, I’m on the bus right now. Yeah, I’m at North and Halsted. Yeah, so I guess I’m gonna be there in like 20 minutes, ok? Ok. Ok,” said the loud guy. He hung up and gave the phone back. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I’m an event promoter.” The other guy nodded. “And I lost my cell phone, so it’s like, man, I’m drowning over here without my phone, you know?”
“Oh, yeah, I know how that is.”
“Yeah, you know. And it’s not the value of the phone that I’m worried about. I don’t care about the value of the phone, it’s the value of all of those contacts.”
“Oh yeah,” said the other guy.
“I’m on my way up to go get my cell phone right now. The lady who found it called around to get in touch with me. I feel lucky about that.”
“Oh, yeah. You know there’s still good people in the world.”
“That is right. You know, I was working all weekend at those two Temptations shows. You like the Temptations?”
“Oh, yeah, Big Daddy Williams.”
“Oh yeah! So I was dancing with my girl, taking a break from working, and my phone slipped out of my pocket. And it was, like, the end of it for me. I thought I was going to lose my position. Because I’m my own boss. But I can’t do my work without those contacts.”
The other guy nodded. The loud guy continued.
“But then this lady called my girl up and said she had my phone. And now here you are, lending me your cell phone. And that’s just so great of you, man. I mean, I might have lost everything if you hadn’t lent me your phone, I’m serious.”
“Well, I believe that good deeds are returned. And I believe that we’re all in the right place at the right time to help each other out or to not help each other out, depending on the way we feel moved to act. It’s an invisible impulse, but I think, and I don’t know if this is too much to say, but I think it’s something else that’s telling us how to act.”
“That’s a deep feeling, friend,” said the loud guy.
The two guys continued to talk about the invisible accidents of politeness and cruelty or whatever and, eventually, Megan tuned them out and turned to the window.
About the Author
HALLE BUTLER is a writer living in Chicago. Jillian is her first novel.