His voice already a house behind me, he calls, “If you get a craving for blood, you know why.”
I swallow, but my throat is dry, and it doesn’t take. Hot wind blows at the scratches along my neck, drawing a sting.
Shit. Bats carry rabies.
2
THAT SAC WAS THE WORST OF SURPRISES
Hulk is thrilled by my pee-shorts. As if someone finally understands her disgusting compulsions.
I shower and pull on yoga pants and a T-shirt. Wet hair dripping down the back of my shirt, I grab my laptop and google, “attacked by bats”.
Five minutes online and I’m bleary-eyed, brainstorming my eulogy. Without immediate treatment, rabies is fatal nearly one hundred percent of the time, and, for some cracked reason, the upscale neighborhood north of mine currently has a bat problem. The flying, pug-nosed vermin have been found inside homes, and sixteen bats have tested positive for rabies this summer.
I’m about to call my mom, but stop. It’s hours past her bedtime. I mentally scroll through a short list of friends. Liz lives thirty minutes away. Too much to ask. As for the others, I haven’t seen or talked to them in how long? Weeks? Months? I tell myself not to worry, not to question friendships. All these women are busy juggling work, children, cooking, and cleaning and have neglected their friendships, their sex lives, and, occasionally, their basic hygiene.
Valerie is only fifteen minutes away and never misses a text.
-Valerie! I know it’s super late, but I need you to watch my kids for 30 min.
-Booty call?
-Funny, no. Bats. I need a rabies shot.
-You’re joking.
-No. Need go to ER asap.
-Seriously?
In lieu of response, I send her a photo of my neck.
-Be there in 20. Need to find glasses.
Valerie arrives at my door wearing her glasses slightly crooked upon her nose, flannel PJ bottoms, and flip-flops. Her threadbare Eminem T-shirt stretched tight over her belly and breasts reveals she hasn’t bothered with a bra. One nipple lands a solid inch lower than the other. I am all too familiar with this boob asymmetry, and it makes me love her more.
“I’m sorry to pull you away from Dan on a Saturday night,” I say.
Bugging out her eyes, she makes a raspberry noise with her lips, and a sphere of spit lands on my arm. “Oh please,” she says. “He’s eating hummus from a spoon in his boxers, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm reruns. I’m not into any of those things.”
“Thank you.”
See, your friendship hasn’t missed a beat.
She makes another raspberry noise. “Seriously, it’s nothing. Let me see your bite.”
“They’re scratches, I think.” I bend my neck so she can see. “I need to get the vaccine just in case.”
“Wait! Are they in your house? The bats?”
“No, no. I was outside. I was jogging.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You left the kids home alone?”
“I only did one lap around the block,” I say but I am caught. My brief, late-night parental negligence has been secret. Now my impropriety will be known, will be questioned.
“I should go,” I say, hiking my purse over my shoulder. “Chloe and Wyatt are sleeping in their beds.” I go for the door, then turn around. “Listen. When I leave, keep the doors closed and locked.” I dig my keys out of my purse and rattle them, stalling, considering what I want to share with Valerie. “My neighbor is a suspect in a criminal case.”
Kidnapping.
Although, at this point, five months in, it has probably turned into a murder case. But I don’t want to say murder. I’m not ready to say murder.
My disclosure feels stagy and unnecessary, but my neighbor’s criminality has been a cloud of noxious fumes—something godawful like burning PVC—trapped inside my mind for days, and I have been desperate to vent. And Valerie should keep the doors locked. What if she was planning to lie on my couch with the front door open, warm summer breeze breathing through the screen?
“What criminal case?”
“Ava Boone.”
“Oh my God, Grace. Ava Boone? Oh God. That poor angel.” Valerie claps her hands to her cheeks and drags the skin down, nudging her glasses straight in the process. “That poor baby should be starting kindergarten like my Max. This is crazy. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I only found out a few days ago.”
“Why is your neighbor a suspect?”
“I don’t know all the details,” I say, which isn’t exactly a lie. “He’s probably innocent. They haven’t arrested him, right? He’s probably a good guy.” I’m trying for optimistic, I’m championing devil’s advocate, but my voice wavers because he’s not a good guy. “I’m just being on the safe side.”
“Safe side? Ditching your kids to go for a jog? What were you thinking?” She’s not patronizing me or being a dick. It’s a fair question.
I have several answers, each of them honest.
1. Thinking? I was barely thinking. These past four days my mind has been sticky with cortisol spooge and desperate for an eleven-minute brain-bath of dopamine clarity.
2. I have not slept in four days. I was hoping physical exertion would lead to sleep.
3. I haven’t had sex in six months and needed some form of physical release.
4. Chloe took a photo of me last week. Actually, she took twenty-five. A series of snapshots beginning with sneaking my phone off the counter as I washed dishes and ending with her getting a purely joyful tickling on the couch. I thought I was pulling off forty. These photos were a slap in the face, twenty-five of them. The first few photos showed my ass sagging in gray yoga pants and the outline of my underwear inches below where said ass is supposed to end. The next dozen photos highlighted underarms so pale, doughy, and mottled, they made me want to give myself plastic surgery with a butter knife. The final shots showcased my oily, creased forehead and greasy hair and this lumpy scrotal-like sac under my jaw I had no idea existed. That sac was the worst of surprises. That I appear happy in the photos, deliriously happy, as I tickle my pint-sized trouble-maker, counts for nothing. The ugliness her photojournalism displayed whites out everything. I remind myself, Mom ranks as “most searched” on porn sites. Doesn’t work. Nothing will boost my ego. Bottom line: exercise was needed.
I go with the easiest answer. “I haven’t slept in four days, Val. I was trying to knock myself out.”
“They got drugs for that. Or why not polish off a bottle of wine? That’s what I do.” She shakes her head, dumbfounded, same as the long-haired teenage boy. “Didn’t you check the neighborhood before you bought?” There is support and concern in her voice, but also judgement. What kind of idiot mother are you?
“I checked the predator site, but what else can you do? Go door to door, asking if anyone’s a suspect in a kidnapping? He’s not convicted of anything. She’s still missing.”
“Missing?” she says. “You know seventy-six percent of kidnapped girls are murdered in the first three hours.”
Seventy-four percent, according to my Google search. “I know. I should go, Val.” She’s put me on the defense, which I hate. And my neck stings. Images of the water-fearing, rabies-infected Indonesian teenage boy I saw on YouTube resurface.