Real Bad Things(13)

But it was. Jane couldn’t remember the contents, but she could recall the feeling. Lying there with Georgia Lee on the couch, the rain tapping at the window and some far-off wind chime relaying a song, Jane let herself believe all the hurts and the harm were in the past and all that lay ahead for her were easeful days full up with Georgia Lee.

Georgia Lee sucked on a Jolly Rancher and then grabbed Jane’s left hand. She took the last little bit of candy out of her mouth and stuck it on Jane’s ring finger. An almost emerald, sticky mess.

“Gross,” Jane said and laughed, examining the candy-cum-gemstone’s placement on the fourth finger of her left hand. She wished she could afford a class ring. She wished Georgia Lee could wear it on her left hand. She wouldn’t need to wrap it in embroidery thread and nail polish to make it fit. “How many girls have you proposed to like this?”

Georgia Lee punched her. “None! I’m barely seventeen.”

Jane held out her hand and let the overhead light sparkle in its limited capacity against the green candy on her finger. They could never marry. Not in their lifetimes. They’d have to be like those sad women in the movies and books Jane sometimes consumed. Doomed to fight. Doomed to tragedy. Doomed to sorrow.

Those were adult worries. First, Jane had to survive trigonometry. Georgia Lee, her swim meets.

Georgia Lee nuzzled close. “Do you like it?”

Jane held out her finger. “I’d prefer something a little more tasteful.”

“It is!” Georgia Lee wrestled for the “emerald,” but Jane popped it into her mouth before she could grab it.

“You’re right. It’s pretty good.”

Georgia Lee rested beside Jane again and clasped her hand. “You’ll be mine, though? No matter what?”

Underneath that green apple goodness lingered the sense that nothing would ever come easily to Jane, not without reaping some other sorrow. Not without payment in kind. Joy required a price.

Jane let the last bit of candy melt on her tongue. She swallowed it down and kissed Georgia Lee on the head.

“I will,” she said, mimicking words she’d only ever heard on TV. “Till death do us part.”

Agitated by the recollection and the state of her back, Jane shoved the sweatshirt aside and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She twisted her hips to crack her back, rolled over, and wrangled the previous day’s bra on under her shirt. She didn’t miss much about youth except a body that could handle some extra weight and a walk in nonsensible shoes longer than a mile without feeling like she needed a crank and grease to set it right. Her most recent ex had tried to get her into yoga, but it had only made her more tense. All that breathing. That quiet time. The clock ticking in Jane’s head and filling the emptiness with anxieties. Her ex was probably at yoga right now. Taking deep, cleansing breaths. Inhaling a new life, exhaling Jane.

Pills would help.

She wandered into the bathroom. Diane had always preferred booze to numb her feelings, but that’d been years ago. Maybe the alcohol no longer worked for her. She opened the cabinet. Made a wish for Xanax, Prozac, Valium, Ativan, Adderall. Something. Anything. She’d once stolen all the Klonopin prescribed for an ex’s dog when the night terrors of the time she’d spent in juvie had hit.

The dog was fine. He got a refill.

She rifled through an assortment of cold sore remedies, dried-up nail polish, disposable flossers, and mostly empty jars of what looked like face cream with worn-off labels. No pills. Of course not. Pills would require a prescription and a prescription would require a doctor and a doctor would require insurance, which Diane never had, which meant Jane and Jason had never had it either.

She shut the cabinet door, and the whole shelf came down with it.

“God. Dammit.” She breathed in once, twice, three times to calm the rising irritation.

When she opened the cabinet, all the contents tumbled out into the sink, including the broken shelf. At least it wasn’t glass.

Diane slept soundly through it all. At times, it was hard to know if Diane was blackout drunk or just slept like a baby, unbothered by the world.

Cleanup complete, she sat on the toilet and lost track of time wading through old news articles about Warren’s disappearance on her phone and debating whether the local police would immediately arrest her or let her sit around for a while. She certainly didn’t want to show up and offer herself as she’d done before. So stupid.

No word online about the discovery of Warren’s body. Yet. As soon as it hit, she had to be prepared. For what, she wasn’t quite sure. But one thing felt certain: a second arrest.

After her first arrest, no one had visited her. Not Jason, not Angie, not Georgia Lee. Would they now that they were adults? Now that they were clearheaded, mature, and fully aware that Jane could be sent to prison, for real this time?

She googled Angie. She tried Facebook first, searching the listings for Arkansas. Too many girls had been named Angie the same year. Too many results to sort through, even when looking for a Vietnamese woman named Angie. She’d probably gotten married and taken her husband’s last name. Probably moved out of Arkansas.

Maybe she was dead. That would certainly be helpful. One less accomplice to keep quiet.

She had to stop wishing other people dead. It wasn’t good for the spirit.

She set up RSS feeds and Google notifications to alert her to news that mentioned Angie Pham along with the one she’d already set up for Jason Mooney. Then she added one for Warren Ingram. She tossed her phone onto the bath mat and waited for her bowels to relax after a night of poor dietary choices.