He wanted to let other girls in. He would have, if not for the smell. That’s what bothers him most about his house. Sure, walking past his grandparents in the living room is always a creepy experience, the way they turn their heads in slow motion to see who’s entered their home, even though they can’t see anything with their cloudy white eyes. The way the heat is always too low and the volume of the TV too high; the disturbing way they grunt or moan instead of forming words.
“It’s like living with zombies,” he’d said the last time we were there. “If my dad wasn’t such a cheap fuck, he might’ve put ‘em in a home. They should probably be in a home. For serious, they have a nurse who comes and it totally reeks in here. Doesn’t it smell like a hospital? It does, right? That’s the smell of rotting. Rotting people. It's almost like they’re already dead.”
Looking at my two friends, I feel absurd. Inadequate. They’re not underweight. They have shoes on their goddamn feet. My clothes, I don’t know when they were in style. Paying attention to things like that is too difficult. Most of what I own either came from my aunt’s closet, or from the garage sales she goes to.
Bronwyn tries to make them look better, to help me transform myself because I don’t know how to be any version of me, much less a new and improved me.
Some fabric dye here. Some hair coloring there. The result: a bunch of outdated clothes with bad dye jobs and a head of hair with an even worse color that cannot be found in nature.
The color on the box advertised a sexy red. The model on the box with teeth a startling shade of Airbrush White, she had sexy red.
“That’s what I want,” I’d said to Bronwyn in the middle of the Walgreens. “I want that. Sexy Nympho Red.”
What I have on my head isn’t so much Sexy Nympho Red as it is Ridiculous Jackass Puce. What I got is a weird shade of purply-brown that I sometimes see on old ladies at the drugstore downtown.
I can imagine what kinds of things go through the minds of these people as they zoom right on past us. I would do the same thing if it were me behind the wheel.
What I can’t imagine is what it might feel like to sit behind the wheel of my own car, to own a thing that big, or to take myself anywhere I want to go.
“Wait you guys. I have an idea,” Dominic breaks me away from my thoughts about cars and purple hair.
“Okay,” I say. “What is it?”
“Hold up. Stop walking.” He starts to unbutton his flannel shirt. Bronwyn makes a crack about not wanting to see him naked. He ignores her and holds his shirt out to me. “Here.”
“What the hell do you want me to do with that smelly thing? Aren’t you going to be cold in just that shitty, ripped-up t-shirt?”
“No. I’m fine. Now stuff this up there under your sweatshirt. Barefoot and pregnant is sure to get us a ride.”
Bronwyn looks impressed. “Diabolical.”
“No fucking way.” I look at Bronwyn. “Why can’t you do it?”
Dom rubs at one of the bleach scabs on his forehead. “You just look like more of the knocked up type, ya know?”
“Oh. That’s awesome. At least I’ve got that going for me.”
“Well, we could walk all the way to Boulder. I guess it’s not all that far.” Dominic shrugs and starts walking again. “Your feet can probably take it. They’ll start callusing up soon, I bet.”
“Eat shit, Dom.” I stuff the shirt up inside my sweatshirt, folding the bottom of my shirt under, hoping that his flannel won’t fall out.
“No, no.” Bronwyn shook her head and began patting and smoothing out my new false belly. “That looks like shit. Your baby’s gonna be some kind of lumpy mutant.”
“Hilarious. You and Dom make quite a pair. The two of you should think about making real babies.”
“Damn, Ivy. Now you’re just being unfriendly. Must be those pregnancy hormones.”
Up ahead, Dominic stops and waits for us to catch up. He gasps and puts a hand over his mouth. “My God, Ivy. You are absolutely glowing.”
“She is.” Bronwyn throws me a smug look. “She sure is getting bitchy, though.”
“Oh, yeah. Hormones.” He nods in a serious, sage-like manner.
“When we get a ride, I’m gonna jump in and leave both of you fuck faces here. Me and flannel baby don’t need either one of you shits.”
“C’mon, Ivy.” Dom moves toward me, arms stretched as though he intends to wrap them around me. “That’s my baby, too.”
I move to reach up under my sweatshirt and yank Dominic’s shirt baby out, but the sight of a small green pickup pulling over a few yards ahead changes my mind.
Dom runs ahead. Bronwyn and I keep silent, letting Dom do all the talking. The driver nods, then motions to the bed of the truck with his hand. Dom gives us the “let’s go” signal and lowers the tailgate to let us in.
The last of the day begins to disappear behind the mountains. To the west, the sun setting behind the Rockies creates an illusion of a great love-colored inferno that threatens to incinerate us all if not for the great, jagged wall of rock protecting us. We pass the IBM building and the Broken Arrow greeting card company. I try to picture the people working inside those places; to imagine what it feels like to experience the satisfaction of collecting a
