The Girls I've Been(61)
12:02 p.m. (170 minutes captive)
1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys, 1 hunting knife
Plan #1: Scrapped
Plan #2: On hold
Plan #3: Stab
Plan #4: Get gun. Get Iris and Wes. Get out.
Plan #5: Iris’s plan
The contents of Iris’s purse: 1 wallet with 23 dollars and a driver’s license, 1 nylon scarf, 1 cotton handkerchief, 1 bottle hairspray, 1 plastic water bottle, 2 tampons, 1 celluloid brooch, 6 lipsticks, a packet of bobby pins, 2 hair ties, 1 brownie wrapped in tinfoil, 3 bottles of pills
Iris tries the bathroom door, and he’s definitely blocked it. It won’t budge. I push the two stall doors open, but there aren’t any windows. We’re stuck.
“I don’t think he’s out there,” she whispers, pressing her ear against the door.
He’s probably gone to check on Duane, hoping to wake him up. We need to move fast.
“Did he have you down there in the basement the whole time? Does he have Wes too?”
She shakes her head. “Just me. Wes is still in the office as far as I know.”
“Are you okay?”
She nods. “He just made me sit there while he melted through the bars.”
“They got through the bars? Did he get the box?”
“He got through, but didn’t even go inside.”
“Why wouldn’t he try to get the box open?”
“I don’t think he knows what box they’re looking for,” Iris says. “Either the one in gray didn’t tell him, or . . .”
“Neither of them knows,” I finish.
“Another reason why the manager not being here messed everything up.”
“The more I find out about their plan, the shittier it gets,” I say.
“Yet they’re still winning,” Iris says. She sets her purse on the sink. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I need to empty my cup.” She pushes past me and goes into one of the stalls.
“Look in the cupboard below the sink,” she tells me from the stall, and I bend down, yanking it open.
“We’ve got toilet paper, a refill bag of hand soap, toilet brushes, plunger.” I reach farther into the cabinet, dragging out the big bottle in the back. “Gallon bottle of hand sanitizer.”
“That,” she says, coming out to rinse her cup and then going back inside the stall.
“Okay.” I set it to the side. “Um . . . bleach spray, two bottles of air freshener, and a bottle of Drano.”
“Perfect. All of that.” The stall door opens with a click and she wipes her hands on a paper towel before pumping hand sanitizer from her own purse all over them. “Sorry for being gross and not flushing the toilet. I don’t want him to hear and think we’re done.”
“Lucky for you I’m not terrified of menstrual blood like the asshole out there.”
“Oh, God, don’t make me laugh right now,” she hisses. “I need to concentrate.” Then she grabs the big trash can near the door and carries it over to the sink, pulling the top off and assessing the contents with a glance. Getting on her knees next to me in front of the cabinet, she sets her purse down with us and pulls out a shiny square from it, unwrapping the tinfoil to reveal a brownie. She sets the pastry to the side and tosses the foil at me.
“I need little balls, marble sized.”
She unwinds the toilet paper with the efficiency of a seasoned TP-er, which I can’t imagine is the case. She dumps the loose paper into the garbage can in layers, squirting hand sanitizer and the vodka that she’d found earlier onto the mess. By the time I’m done with the balls of foil, she’s filled the can.
I glance at the door and then back at her as she feeds the balls of foil into the now-empty bottle of hand sanitizer and adds the bobby pins from her purse. Then she unscrews the bottle of Drano and, with the steady hands of a girl who can victory-roll her hair, pours the liquid into the bottle, over the foil balls.
“What are you doing exactly?”
She lets out a long breath, screwing the top of the bottle tight. We kneel there, the bottle between us, and there is nothing but fear in her face when she answers.
“Building a bomb.”
— 46 —
Abby: How He Hooks Her
She goes to dinner with Raymond. She dates him. She falls in love with him.
She does everything he wants, because it’s the same things she wants, and what I want . . .
Well, it doesn’t matter.
“I’m tired of the game, baby,” she tells me one night when I’m helping her get ready. “I’ve been doing this a long time. And I’m not getting any younger.”
She hasn’t been getting any younger all my life, it seems. She’s always fretted in front of the mirror, looking for lines that aren’t there because Botox, and complains about flaws that have never existed in her almost-too-beautiful face.
“You’re perfect,” I tell her, because that’s what I’m supposed to say.
I hand her the diamond earrings Raymond gave her on their third date and she fixes them in her ears. He gave her a pair for me at the same time—little studs, a rich girl’s first diamonds—and Mom cooed for days about how thoughtful it was and I wondered how I’d ever thought she was smart, because this was just basic love bombing. She taught me this.