Part 14 (1/2)

The sheets on Becka's bed were printed with faded yellow flowers. Her green s.h.a.g carpet was matted and soiled, and there was a dead fly on the windowsill. I rolled over and buried my head in the pillow, which smelled like cigarette smoke and shampoo. I didn't cry.

When I woke, the sun had gone down. Jack was sleeping in the bed next to me, wearing only his shorts, with one arm thrown over the side of the bed and the other hand on the small of my back, underneath my blouse. The night was warm, and the places where his skin touched mine were sticky with sweat. He had opened the windows and pushed my hair up and away from the back of my neck, so that it lay like a skein of silk on the pillow next to me. The cool breeze from the window should have been pleasant, but I was miserable and the breeze smelled of sulfur and stale water.

I stretched slightly. The movement woke Jack. He opened his eyes and blinked.

”Well, hi, sweetie,” he said sleepily, stretching his words in an ugly parody of Becka's accent.

I rolled over so that my back was to him. Jack propped himself up on his elbow. ”What do you think of ol' Becka?” He tugged on my ear. ”Sweet li'l thing, ain't she?”

”Are we staying here?” My voice was cracked with sleep.

He sighed.

”The thing is,” he said, ”I really do need money. I can sell the stuff we brought with us, but it'll take a few days. This is a small town. People get suspicious. Now, Becka”-the blouse that I was wearing didn't have any sleeves, and he slid one hand into the armhole so that he could rub the tense place next to my shoulder blade-”Becka makes money. Tons of it. Cash.”

”How?”

”Stripping. Sleazy, but lucrative.” He half-laughed. ”After you went to sleep, her first question was whether you'd need a job and her second question was how old you were.”

”Am I old enough?”

”Nope. And it would be over my dead body, but I didn't tell her that.” As he spoke, his hand moved down my arm to cup my elbow.

”G.o.d, I missed you,” he whispered.

I pulled away.

He looked hurt and surprised. ”Ouch.”

I refused to feel guilty. Instead I said, ”What's that smell?”

”We're about half a mile from the sewage treatment plant. Welcome to Erie's low-rent district. I'll take you out to the lake sometime. You'll like that.” Now he was playing with my hair, stretching it out on the pillowcase, combing it smooth with his fingers. Despite its awful smell, the breeze felt good on my skin.

”I thought Lake Erie was toxic.”

”It was. It's better now. I think they even do some fis.h.i.+ng in it.” Jack pulled at the back of my blouse, moving it up close to my bra strap. I felt him trace our initials on my skin.

”Just because there are fish doesn't mean you should eat them,” I said. ”Are you sleeping with her?”

He sighed and flopped over onto his back. ”What if I am? It's a roof over my head. Yours, too, now.”

I shrugged. The only sound that I could hear was Jack's shallow breathing.

”I'm glad you're here,” he said. ”I really did miss you.”

I turned to look at him. ”It's a lot. This is a lot.” In the glare from the streetlight outside, I could see him gazing thoughtfully at me.

He got to his knees on the bed. ”Take off your s.h.i.+rt.”

”Why?”

”Just do it.”

I let him pull the blouse over my head, leaving me in my bra. Then he knelt behind me and began to rub my back, slowly and precisely. While he kneaded my muscles and stroked the outlines of my bones, he said, ”Look, we'll get out of here soon. I promise. But Becka can't know we're planning to leave. She'll flip out, kick us both out on the street. She thinks she's my G.o.dd.a.m.ned girlfriend, for Christ's sake.”

”How long?” Jack's hands were starting to make all this mess seem very far away.

”Soon.” He leaned down and kissed the skin between my shoulder blades. ”We'll go somewhere good, a big city. Get our own place, n.o.body to bother us. n.o.body who knows anything about us. Maybe New York.” He sighed. ”I was drifting, and this was where I washed up.”

”I don't know where I am,” I said, and he said, ”You're with me.”

We were curled together, our arms and legs intertwined, like two starfish at the bottom of the ocean.

”I promise you,” my brother said. ”I'll get you out of here. I'll take care of you. I promise.”

At five in the morning, the alarm clock went off and I stumbled to the couch before Becka came home. When the front door opened, I pretended to be asleep.

When Jack left, later that morning, I stirred enough to open my eyes and see him standing at the open door, wearing jeans and a black T-s.h.i.+rt, staring down at his upturned palm through a pair of sungla.s.ses. Then he closed his hand and stuffed it into his pocket. I heard the soft clink of coins sliding against one another.

The world on the other side of the door was glaring white in the sun. My heavy eyelids closed. When I woke up, he was gone and Becka was sprawled out on her bed in a bleary tangle of limbs and sheets and carbon black hair.

She cooked me breakfast after she woke up, around two: bacon, sausage, French toast soaked in egg and deep-fried in oil until it was crisp and golden. The kitchen was already thick with humidity and I'd woken with damp and p.r.i.c.kly skin, but the hot food was good and I ate until my face was sticky with syrup and grease and my body felt heavy.

”Sweetie,” Becka said, ”you ate that like you ain't seen home-cooked food in about a million years.”

That accent is a put-on, I thought. ”It feels like it.”

She started to clear the dishes. ”Shame your brother had to run off like that this morning.”

”Where did he go?”

”Don't know. I don't bother asking anymore.” She dropped the last of the dishes in the sink and let the faucet run over them for a minute. ”None of our friends are awake that early, I can tell you that much. They're mostly night people. ” She was twisting her long hair into a ponytail. There was a small, spotted window above the sink and her eyes were fixed on something outside.

”Me too.”

She smiled and said, ”That so?” in a tone I didn't like. I wasn't sure how to respond, so I said, ”Well, he missed the food.”

Becka shrugged. ”Aw, he never eats my breakfasts anyway. Kind of nice to have somebody to cook for.” She fastened the ponytail with a purple barrette and shook her head to test it. Then she wheeled around to face me. The rapid switch was disconcerting. ”Jack said you didn't bring hardly any clothes with you. You want to go shopping this afternoon?”

”I don't have any money,” I said, watching her carefully.

Becka waved that away with one hand. ”Jack gave me some to spend on you, and I've got more if that's not enough. Besides, this way we girls can get to know each other. You can tell me all your brother's dirty little secrets.” She winked.

”You sure you want to know?”

”You mean, watch out what you wish for and all that?” She laughed. There was a sudden bitter edge to her voice. ”Smart girl.”

”I was just kidding.”

”I wasn't,” she said, a little shortly. Then, with another whirlwind mood change, she smiled a big, toothy smile and told me to run and get myself cleaned up, now, so that we could head on out.