Sue Ellen doesn’t wake up at all.
I guess ’cause she’s been taking Tylenol PM every night to go to sleep.
I bend over and kiss her damp, sweating forehead.
“I’ll call you later,” I whisper.
She doesn’t respond.
I go walk off to work.
The girl opening with me today is someone I haven’t seen around before, I guess maybe ’cause I don’t usually work this shift. She introduces herself as Carmine, and I introduce myself as me—obviously—trying to suss her out as best I can. From what I can tell, I’d say she’s probably a little younger than I am, with a certain quietness about her. A quietness that seems to come from some inner wisdom. And she is beautiful in her quietness. As we set about making the coffee and putting out the baked goods and all that shit, I can’t help but keep studying her, not being too goddamn obvious about it, I hope. I mean, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t notice.
Her body is extremely thin and sort of pulled and twisted-looking—like maybe she has a kind of scoliosis or something. Her spine is curved like a half moon at the base of her neck, pushing her right shoulder up, creating a fairly large hump there. But her body’s deformity isn’t freakish-looking at all. If anything, it just adds to how fragile and lovely she is, her limbs like spiders’ legs, her eyes large and dark and bored and distrustful, her lips full, pursed, her black hair hanging down long and straight, a lot like Sue Ellen’s.
When she speaks, her voice comes out all hoarse and raspy, like maybe her throat is being constricted by her condition, even though I guess that’s not how it works, huh? In general she seems reticent to talk to me at first, but I do manage to get a little bit out of her.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m from Broomall, Pennsylvania, but, uh, I’ve been down here for, like, five years now. I mean, I just graduated from school last spring. I’d like to get out of here, for sure—maybe move to LA or New York or someplace where stuff’s actually going on. I’m just trying to save up enough money, that’s all. You know, working here and, uh, making some other money on the side.”
I decide not to ask her about that second part. Instead, I go on and tell her that I just moved here from LA, and I could definitely see her really loving it out there. While she washes some dishes, I prep the sandwiches, just so I can hang out in the kitchen with her.
“LA’s actually a pretty cool place,” I say. “I mean, I know everyone disses on it all the time, but, really, compared with other cities, I’d say it’s way less pretentious there. Like, well, I’m from San Francisco, and I lived in New York for a while, but both of those places are so full of phonies trying to claim those cities as their own, you know? Someone could’ve moved to New York, like, a year before, but suddenly they’re calling themselves New Yorkers, sneering at you for not being a local. San Francisco’s the same way. But no one wants to claim LA.”
The long, serrated bread knife I’m working with slips and slices a big ol’ chunk off the side of my finger.
“Ah, motherfucker,” I say through my teeth all clenched tight together.
Deep, purple-red blood drip-drips onto the vegan sandwiches I’ve been making.
Carmine laughs at me, throwing over a clean dishrag.
“Here, wrap your hand in that. You’re getting blood everywhere.”
“Sorry,” I tell her, doing what she said with the cloth. “It’s gross. I’m sorry.”
She laughs again, saying all sarcastic-like, “What? You gotta problem with blood? You a little squeamish are you? Christ, men are so lame. You should try being a woman. We gotta deal with a lot more blood than that every single month.”
Narrowing my eyes at her, I speak before I really have time to think better of it. I mean, it just sorta comes out. “Yeah, well, I was an IV crystal meth and heroin addict for about five years, so I’d say I’ve had my share of getting familiar with my own blood.”
She kinda freezes up at that, and I guess I do, too.
“Fuck,” I stammer, all quick and awkward. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve just said that. I’m an idiot. Don’t pay any attention to me.”
She stares me down a second longer but then cracks up laughing.
“Nah,” she says. “I’m just messing with you. I don’t think any less of you, and I definitely won’t tell anyone. Actually, I think it’s kinda cool, really.”
I tell her it isn’t, but I can tell she’s got this new, misguided respect for me suddenly.
“Hey, since you told me that,” she whispers, pressing up all close to me, “I’ll tell you a little secret about myself. You know how I said I was saving up money to get out of here? Well, I deal pot and pills, so if you ever need anything, you just ask me.”
What I’m supposed to say is no. What I’m supposed to tell her is that I’m sober. But what comes out of my mouth is, “Right on, thank you. And, uh, yeah, I won’t tell anyone, either. Don’t worry.”
And so we go on talking like that for the next couple of hours, until we both get off, doing a pretty good job of ignoring most of the customers. It’s actually Carmine who suggests that I come over. She asks if I wanna go “smoke a bowl.” The way she says it sounds so casual and harmless. A fucking bowl. How dangerous could it possibly be?
My brain processes the long string of thoughts in a virtual nanosecond. I mean, I think about Safe Passage Center and all the other goddamn rehabs I’ve ever been to. They were all a joke—a waste of time. They were wrong about everything. So when they said I
