Year One
Billie Jean
I ran a hand over my stomach. I was going be sick. The back of my throat tasted like sour wine and my ears rang with the echoes of a party: a smutty, fucked-up bass line reverberating through the floor; girls, a lot of them, slurring and yelping; a boy smashing a bottle and screaming to the crowd, “We’re here! We are the kings of the castle!”
The castle. Catherine.
I opened my eyes.
I was lying naked in an empty bathtub. My arms, hanging over either side of the porcelain, had gone numb. Everything in the bathroom was a vague off-white, from the claw-foot tub to the high-tank toilet, the swan-patterned wallpaper, the greasy tiled floor. The only thing I could focus on, by my elbow, was a bar of soap. Its surface was incised with a brutal, flawless C.
Was I dying? Was I dead?
The bathroom door clicked open and a small brown face peeked in. It boggled as it saw me.
“You can come in,” I said.
The girl hesitated. “Really?”
“Yes.”
She stepped in and stared down at my naked body with pursed lips. Her mouth was white and moist at the corners, like an old woman’s, and she wore thick plastic-framed glasses that were much too big for her face. Her hair was brushed into four strict black puffs.
“You’re my roommate,” I said.
She nodded. “We met on the stairs, remember? You were going to a party.”
Her voice was so low, flat, and abrupt that it almost didn’t sound like English. She held her right hand cupped awkwardly against her chest.
“I don’t remember your name,” I said.
“Barbara. Barbara Pearce. Everyone calls me Baby.”
“Like.” I burped, covering my mouth with the back of my hand. “Dirty Dancing.”
She sighed.
“I’m Ines,” I said.
“I remember.”
“Do you want—a towel?” she said.
“Sure.”
She pulled a towel off the rack and handed it to me. I draped it over my lap.
She sat down and leaned against the wall, still cupping her hand. Her pajamas were thin hospital-blue cotton, identical to the ones I had found in my own dresser, and like her glasses, they were much too big for her. They bunched around her dark, skinny ankles and wrists.
“Do you think you’re going to be much longer?” she said. “I—wanted to take a bath.”
“Did you go to the party?” I said. “The one in the Harrington cellar?”
“Only for a minute.”
“Why?”
She picked at the sweater sleeve. “Was it fun?”
I put a hand to my head.
The party had packed the basement gallery, a narrow space crowded with heavy oaken tables, humid with the smell of sweat, stale mouths, and vinegary alcohol. Boys and girls pressed against each other as they shook hands and clasped shoulders. Some glanced around the room with wide, nervous eyes as they took it all in: the high coffered ceiling and faded tapestries on the walls, the unlabeled wine and brass bowls of oranges and kumquats. Others tugged at their new uniforms, white T-shirts and jeans, as they shuffled to an old Tears for Fears cassette blasting out of the boom box. A boy folded his arms, chewed his lips, and spoke too loudly as he tried to casually work his SAT scores into a conversation. A girl, her T-shirt tucked in tense and tight, seemed to be trying to shake the hand of everyone in the room. She was so excited to meet us. She was so excited to be here.
Had I been excited, too? My heart was beating fast, like I’d been running. Too fast; I couldn’t stay there and pretend to be normal.
I’d grabbed a bottle of wine and slipped into the hallway. There was a window of colored glass that looked out onto the gallery. I sat on the windowsill, drank the wine, and watched the party distort. Faces blurred in and out of each other. Laughter pitched higher as a girl shrieked. A tapestry of a naked woman riding a bull was pulled from its rod and crumpled to the floor. The image contorted psychedelically as it fell.
No, I wasn’t excited to be here, at the house. But I was relieved. Just this afternoon I’d twisted around in my bus seat to watch the Catherine gate lock behind me. I couldn’t see anything, though; the gate had already disappeared into a copse of heavy black pines. The trees scraped against the dense, leaden sky.
At the party, only hours later, I could barely remember how I’d gotten to the house. I’d taken another easy swig of wine. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that in here, no one knew who I was or what I’d done. I could stop running. I was safe.
I’d drunk until the night blurred and my heartbeat slowed. Soon I couldn’t feel my heart at all.
And now I was here.
Baby was still clutching the sweater in her lap. She stared at me without blinking.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“What?”
“Why are you here, in the bathroom?”
“I told you. I want to take a bath.”
“You do not.”
She glanced down at her cupped hand, then back at me. “Promise not to tell?” she said.
“I’m not going to tell anyone anything.”
She opened her hand.
She was holding a snail with a handsome marigold-yellow shell, which he was just peeking out of now. He waved a shy tentacle.
Baby placed the snail on the floor. Shocked, he retreated back into his shell, and then hesitantly poked the tentacle out again.
“I found him on my lawn,” she said. “As my mom was packing up the car. Under the azalea bush in the driveway. I took him. I carried him the whole way here.” She poked one of his tentacles. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
I twisted over the tub for a better look. He was sliming across the floor now, toward the sink.
“He’ll be great,” I said.
A mucus trail glimmered on the tiles.
“Promise not to tell?” Baby said. “I shouldn’t have—I don’t even know how I got him past the gate. Pets are not allowed. Of course.”
“It’s a snail.”
She blinked, apparently not understanding what I meant.
I said, “I won’t tell.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
I climbed out of the tub. Baby’s eyes dashed away from me, and I remembered I was naked. I covered myself with the towel she’d given me as I lay down on the floor.
“Anyway,” she said, “I came here because I thought—I might run the hot bathwater for him. Maybe he would like the steam. I don’t know.”
The cool tile felt good against the side of my head. The room throbbed.
The snail had made it to the sink. Now he was climbing the pedestal, tentacles still timidly wavering. He was the sweetest creature I could imagine.
“I love him,” I said.
“I do, too.”
“Does he have a name?”
She shrugged.
“We should name him.”
She touched his shell. “Billie Jean,” she whispered.
“Billie Jean is a girl’s name.”
She lowered her hand.
“Is he your boyfriend?” she said.
“Who? Billie Jean?”
She pursed her lips again. “No—the guy you were with. I heard you, in the hallway—going back to his room.”