Vicious Little Darlings (17 page)

“Isn't that a little drastic?” I say. But all I'm thinking is: how can I keep her from going upstairs? I rack my brain. And then I get an idea. “Hey, can I borrow your face for a few minutes?”

Agnes gives me a quizzical look.

“I have to do a drawing assignment for tomorrow and I'm getting really tired of drawing myself.”

“Well, I suppose,” she says reluctantly. “But I really want to wash those sheets first.”

“I want to draw you now, if that's okay. It's best for me to draw when I'm inspired, because who knows how I'll feel later?” I glance toward the staircase. “It won't take long. Stay here. I'm just going to get my drawing stuff.”

Agnes squints at me like she's confused, and I take the opportunity to run upstairs. Why am I working so hard to protect Maddy? So what if Agnes finds out she lost her virginity? It's not like Agnes will stop being friends with her. Of course, I'm grateful that Maddy didn't tell Agnes I had sex with Sebastian, and, in a way, I feel flattered that Maddy would tell me a secret she'd never tell Agnes, but this whole scenario feels a little odd. Still, I remind myself, Maddy saved my life last night. At least, her voice did. I kind of owe her for that.

I knock on the bathroom door.

“Yes?” Maddy says, sounding distressed.

“It's Sarah.”

“Oh, come in.”

I open the door just a crack. Maddy is leaning over the sink, vigorously rubbing a bar of soap across the stained sheet.

“You'd better hurry,” I tell her. “Agnes wants to wash your sheets.”

“I'm almost done. I'll sneak these down to the washing machine.”

“You know, you could just tell her you got your period.”

“Yeah, except I didn't sleep in my bed last night.”

“Oh, right.”

“Plus, she knows my cycle.”

That's kind of sick. How would Agnes know? Does she inspect the garbage for Maddy's used maxi pads? Or maybe they're on the same cycle? I've heard that women's menstrual cycles tend to sync up when they're living together, but that's not a topic the three of us have discussed. Maybe they never brought it up because they're in sync and I'm not, and they didn't want to hurt my feelings.

Now I'm being paranoid. Why should I care if they're on the same menstrual cycle? I have more important things to worry about.

Still, I have to ask. “Are you guys on the same cycle?”

“What?”

“You and Agnes. Are your cycles synced up?”

“No, silly. Agnes doesn't get her period.”

“She doesn't?”

“No. Agnes can't have kids. She was born that way.”

“Oh.”
Agnes can't have kids?
Why didn't I know this earlier? I want to know more, but this isn't the right time to ask.

Agnes calls me from downstairs, “Ready, Sarah?”

“Go,” Maddy whispers.

I close the bathroom door and grab my drawing supplies from my room. The idea of drawing Agnes scares me a little. Why? Because she's Agnes. I'm halfway down the stairs when I think of the condom. Where would Maddy have thrown it? In her wastebasket, of course. And since Agnes is the one who empties all of our wastebaskets, she's going to be the one to find it. I have to warn Maddy.

I run back upstairs and knock on the bathroom door. “Maddy?”

“I'll be right out.”

I wait and I wait.

“Sarah!” Agnes calls out to me.

“Coming!” I yell back.

I decide to help Maddy and empty her trash before Agnes finds the condom and goes ballistic. It's disgusting, but someone's got to do it. I go into Maddy's room and lean over her wastebasket. No condom. In fact, the wastebasket is empty. Strange. I guess Maddy already emptied it.

I turn to leave and that's when I see it: the Heinz bottle on Maddy's dresser, hiding behind a framed photograph of the three of us. Why would the ketchup be
here
? My heart leaps when the realization hits me: she used ketchup! That's why the blood looked so lumpy and fake. That's why there's no condom. Suddenly it all makes sense. She lied to me about losing her virginity. What a crazy bitch.

I feel like confronting her right here, right now, but something tells me it won't make me feel better. It'll just bring more drama and chaos to this already chaotic day. What I need is time to think about this.

I leave the ketchup bottle where it is and head back downstairs.

21

M
y portrait of Agnes is taped to my bedroom wall. I'm completely mesmerized by it. It's as if the portrait is trying to say something to me, but the message keeps getting lost in the translation. An hour goes by and I'm no closer to understanding.

The portrait looks nothing like Agnes. Half of the face is sinister, a distorted fun-house image. The other half is open, innocent, childlike. While I was drawing, my leaky pen left splotches all over the sinister half, giving the skin a diseased, rotting effect. I didn't intend for the drawing to turn out this frightening, but drawing with my left hand—Professor Connelly had told us to practice drawing with our nondominant hand—must have unleashed something. I didn't have control of the pen, and felt as though I were drawing directly from my subconscious. As soon as I started the drawing, I knew it would turn out the way
it
wanted and not how I wanted. I was just the conduit.

Surprisingly, Agnes was a good model—maybe even too good. She didn't fidget, talk, or even blink, sitting as still as a mannequin. I thought I would be uncomfortable staring at her for so long, but once my subconscious took over, I was in another dimension: calm, free, safe. The next thing I knew we were both staring at my diabolical drawing. Grimacing, Agnes said, “My skin is not that bad.” I explained that I was temporarily possessed, that the drawing wasn't really of her, that it had nothing to do with her. I tried to blame the outcome on my poor drawing skills, my whiplash, even my leaky pen, but Agnes still ended up sulking the rest of the day.

Is it possible that what I was drawing was Maddy's tortured soul? After all, I had just discovered the ketchup bottle in her room and I was still confused and angry about all of her lies. I know Maddy has a dark soul. What I can't understand is why I'm so drawn to it. She's got some kind of power over me. And I know it can't just be her beauty. Sometimes she really frightens me. Sometimes I want nothing more than to get away from her.

But I need her. Without her, I'm nothing. Without her, I don't have Agnes, and without Agnes and Maddy, I don't have anything that resembles a family. Yes, I have Reed. But ever since Boston, things with him have been a little shaky. Not only did I completely forget about our date but I didn't even return his panicked phone calls until hours later. He was hurt that I didn't call him right after the accident. He said it proved I don't really love him. Which isn't true. But I couldn't tell him the deal I made with Maddy, or how she saved my life, or how complicated things have become; he'd think we were a bunch of freaks.

Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. So Maddy lies. It's not like I don't do it. I lie all the time. In fact, I might be just as pathological as Maddy.

Then again, Maddy's lies are much more demented than mine. Lying to me about losing her virginity to Brian, then “proving” it with ketchup—now that's twisted. What's even sicker is that a part of me is actually flattered by the effort. She must have really wanted to impress me, and I'm no stranger to the idea of wanting to impress people. I'm sure she and Agnes figured out that my family is fucked up, yet they never ask me about it. Because that's what friends do. They don't care about your past. They accept you and support you no matter what. And they forgive your mistakes.

Surely I can forgive Maddy, can't I?

After psych class, I go down to the lobby of the science building to see what jobs are posted on the bulletin board. There are lots of requests for dog walkers and babysitters, but I'm looking for something more mellow. And then I find it: “Retired psych professor seeks part-time assistant.” I copy down the number and go outside to make the call.

A man picks up. “This is Dr. Shelby.”

“Hi, I'm calling about the assistant position.”

“Yes. Are you available this evening for an interview?”

“Uh, sure,” I say.

“Excellent.”

He gives me his address and tells me to be there at seven o'clock sharp. I can just imagine what Agnes is going to say:
What kind of interview takes place at night? You're not doing anything unsavory, are you, Sarah?

I decide not to tell Agnes until after the interview.

22

D
r. Shelby has beady, bloodshot eyes, wild gray hair, a whiny voice, and the worst OCD I've ever witnessed. I've been working for him for the past two weeks. He keeps the thermostat at eighty, wears cotton booties around the house (and makes me wear them too), and has this annoying habit of clearing his throat every two seconds. But it's easy work, mainly just loading and emptying the dishwasher, and the pay is twenty dollars an hour. There are specific rules I have to follow, though: no plastics must ever touch metals, I must wear rubber gloves while handling the dishes, and if my gloves ever come into contact with anything “dirty” like my clothes or my face, I have to replace them with a fresh pair.

The good thing about working for Dr. Shelby is that there's lots of downtime. He has a ton of magazines, and although the job is weird, it beats working at Starbucks or being Agnes's personal slave. On the other hand, the job also gives me a lot of time to think—which is not good—and less time for Reed. We've seen each other only three times since I got back from Boston, but things feel a little more solid now. But no matter how much time we spend together, it still doesn't feel like enough. We both want more. It's like we're addicted to each other or something. But between my job and Maddy's ultimatum, seeing Reed is tricky. I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to quit work, but the thought of quitting for Reed—or for any man, no matter how lame the job—makes me feel unempowered. I can't help it; feminism is contagious at Wetherly. Plus, a part of me worries that Maddy is right: I
am
unlovable, and eventually Reed will figure this out.

I wait for the dishwasher to complete its cycle, put away the dishes, and then go home.

Agnes greets me with a sour look. “You don't have to work. I'll lend you the money,” she says.

Then she takes me down to the basement and shows me where she keeps her cash—under her desk in a Prada shoebox. Opening the lid, she reveals stacks of rubber-banded bills. The bills are hundreds and they look brand-new.

“It's not just the money. There's something gratifying about working,” I say.

Agnes sighs and throws up her hands. “I'll never understand you, Sarah.”

It's Wednesday night and I'm standing outside Dr. Shelby's house, waiting for Maddy and Agnes. Ever since I started working, they've been meeting me afterward, once a week, for dinner at O'Malley's, a noisy restaurant-slash-pub in town.

Maddy shows up in a velvet swing coat and jeans, and Agnes has on a long military-style coat.

“Hey, working girl,” Maddy quips.

“Thank God you're here,” I say. “I'm starving.”

“How was work?” Agnes asks, looking preoccupied.

“Okay,” I say as we start walking toward town. “Today I got in trouble for touching the clean dishes with my bare hands. So I had to rewash them.”

Maddy wrinkles her nose. “Huh?”

“My boss is a major germophobe,” I explain.

“Oh,” Maddy says, nodding.

Still a million miles away, Agnes says, “So, we were thinking of going somewhere different tonight, like the Wetherly Inn.”

“Really?” I say, disappointed. “I was kind of looking forward to having a burger at O'Malley's.”

“Well, it's quieter at the inn—I have a slight headache—and I've got something important to discuss with you.”

My body tenses. “What do you want to discuss?”

“I'll tell you at the restaurant.”

Am I going to get busted for something? Agnes doesn't look upset. Maybe it's nothing. Maddy grins at me.

The minute we enter the formal lobby of the Wetherly Inn, I feel out of place, as though I shouldn't be here unless accompanied by a well-heeled adult. The hotel staff seems to agree. That is, until they see Agnes, whose aura reeks of money and privilege. Soon we're whisked off to a private table in the deserted dining room.

Once we're seated, I turn to Agnes. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Why don't we order first? I thought you were starving.”

I open the menu. No burgers. But there is a New York strip steak for fifty-five dollars. There goes my paycheck.

After we've placed our orders and been appropriately fussed over by our waiter, Agnes turns to me and says, “Thanksgiving is in two weeks. What are your plans?”

Thanksgiving
is what she wanted to talk to me about? I'm so relieved I could cry. “I'm staying in town,” I say.

“Why don't you come to New York and spend Thanksgiving with my family? They'd love to meet you.” Agnes sounds like she really means it.

“Yeah,” Maddy chimes in. “It'd be so much fun. I could meet you guys in the city and we could go shopping and stuff.”

Agnes adds, “We'd only have to spend Thanksgiving Day with my parents. The rest of the time we'd be free to do whatever we want.”

“Thanks,” I say, “but I have a lot of reading to catch up on. Plus, I have to work.”

“On a holiday weekend?” Agnes scoffs. “Tell your boss it's Thanksgiving. Remind him that you're an American.”

Though I'm curious about Agnes's parents—their apartment, their collections, their relationship with Agnes—satisfying that curiosity would never outweigh all the anxiety I'd have to endure just to make them like me. I'd have to buy a whole new wardrobe and prepare a life story that would be bland enough to make them think I come from a semidecent family. Plus, I'd have to be witty and charming and respectful. In other words, I'd have to be someone else. This kind of visit would take over a month to prepare for. Besides, I already made plans to spend the weekend with Reed, and I've been looking forward to spending every minute of it with him. Not only that, but I need the time with him. The more I see him, the less I'm haunted by Maddy's words:
It's not going to work out … You don't know
how
to love. Because no one taught you.

“I can't,” I say firmly. “But thanks for the invitation.”

“Well, if you change your mind …” Agnes trails off. “I wish I could skip Thanksgiving, but my parents would never allow it.”

Maddy sighs. “It's just four days.” She glances at me. “I'm sure you'll be fine by yourself.”

“But she won't have turkey,” says Agnes. “How can you not have turkey on Thanksgiving?”

“You don't eat meat,” I remind her.

“Yes, but my parents still make me eat turkey on Thanksgiving. It's tradition.”

“Don't they know you're a vegetarian?” I ask.

Agnes nods. “But tradition is everything at my house.”

Poor Agnes. Her parents sound like dictators. No wonder she's so uptight.