Cackle, page 9
“We’re different.”
“We’re not.”
Our pancakes arrive. They’re the thickest, fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever seen in my life. They swim in a garishly pink strawberry compote. A fat dollop of cream sits on top of the pile.
“You want to think we’re different, Annie. I’m telling you, we’re not.”
“Sophie,” I say, “you’re beautiful. You could have anyone you want. It’s not like that for me. I’m not . . . I’m not like you. I want a relationship. I want to love someone and have them love me back.”
“You want sex?”
“What? No. Well, I mean . . . that’s part of it, I guess. But no.”
“Sex is easy,” she says. “I, personally, find I can do it better myself. But I understand wanting it from someone else.”
She takes a big bite of pancake. A drop of pink strawberry goo oozes out of the side of her mouth. She scoops it up with her tongue.
“It’s love,” I say. “I want love.”
“You want validation.” She’s not being mean. Her tone is as soft and warm as ever. She’s being honest. Only the honesty is just as bad.
“Yeah. Maybe I do.”
“You’re never going to get it. Not from someone else, darling. Not from Sam.”
“He did love me.”
“No, pet,” she says, “he didn’t. Or else you wouldn’t be here crying over pancakes.”
I bring my hand up to my face. My cheeks are wet. I didn’t realize.
“Annie, I only say this because I know you’re above what you seek. Meaning, you’re . . . What’s the word? Lowballing? Is that what it is?”
“I guess.” I can’t help but laugh a little. It’s funny hearing her say it with her haughty accent.
“Your life can be so much more than chasing after some domestic fantasy.”
“I don’t think that’s what I . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing.”
She skewers a strawberry with her fork. “All right. I don’t presume to know everything.”
She winks at me.
I reach with a shaky hand for my coffee. I drink it black.
“I just ask that you hear what I’m saying to you, Annie. Yes?”
“I hear you.”
“Good,” she says. “Now, onto other things. How’s work? How’s your class?”
I feel my face fall, my muscles drooping in defeat at the thought of school.
“Oh, dear, I’ve done it again!”
“No, it’s fine. Work is fine. There are a few kids in my afternoon English class who are . . .”
“Fucking assholes?” she asks.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Want me to curse them for you?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Done.”
In the morning sun, her skin is flawless. Pearlescent. She doesn’t have a single wrinkle, a single pore. She keeps insinuating she’s old, older than me, but she doesn’t look it.
“I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well last night,” she says. “I feel like a failure as a host.”
She flags down Tom and asks him to refill our coffee mugs.
“You will come back, won’t you?” Her eyes go wide and watery.
There’s a vulnerability to her. I recognize it clearly because it’s so familiar to me. It’s like we’re wearing the same perfume. It triggers such a profound empathy I want to leap across the table and hug her.
“Of course,” I say. “Of course I will.”
“Do you like to swim? I can clear out the pool. I don’t use it. I don’t like water, but if you do, I can clean and fill it. It’s indoors, so you can use it in the winter.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised you have an indoor pool,” I say. The tension drains from my body, tension I didn’t even realize I was holding. My spine unkinks; my shoulders descend. I’m sitting here eating ridiculously delicious pancakes with my charming new friend, who owns a house with an indoor swimming pool. For all the wallowing I’ve done in the past few months, leading a one-woman self-pity parade, in this moment I feel nothing but lucky. “I love to swim.”
“I’ll get on it, then,” she says. “If I eat any more, I’ll feel sick. I know this and yet . . .”
She takes another bite.
We clean our plates.
“I’m going to be useless the rest of the day,” she says, standing.
We haven’t received a check, but at this point, I’d be surprised if Tom dared to approach with one. He seems terrified of Sophie. I guess some men from his generation would take issue with having to answer to a woman. With paying rent to a woman.
“When will I see you again, pet?”
“Whenever,” I say.
“Maybe Friday? I could come by with dinner?” she asks, holding the door open for me.
“Sure! Do you want my number?”
“Oh, I don’t have a mobile. Well, I have one, but I never use it. I think they’re dreadful. People walking around hunched over. I’d rather go back to the days of sending ravens. Surprisingly reliable.”
She’s an unconventional person, so I don’t find this particularly shocking. I have a hard time picturing her using an iPhone. Still, I’m not sure how she functions without one.
“Friday. Say six o’clock?”
“Sounds good.”
“Darling,” she says, giving me a hug, “thank you for a lovely weekend. I’ll see you soon.”
We walk off in opposite directions, and I make it a few steps before I’m lonely again. Nearly instant separation anxiety.
When I get home to my apartment, it’s smaller than I remember. Emptier. I take a shower, do laundry, water my already wilting plant, then prep lessons while eating stale tortilla chips and toast with the free sample of raspberry jam. By the time the sun sets, my loneliness scores against me like rough wool. I want to crawl out of my skin.
I call him.
I want to tell him about Sophie, about her enormous house with a library and ballroom and theater and swimming pool. About how I stayed there last night and in a tired wine fog convinced myself for a minute that it was haunted. I want to tell him about the pancakes, reminisce about the time we got stoned and went to the IHOP in Union Square. We experimented with all of the syrups. Blueberry, strawberry, regular, maple pecan. We tried different flavor combinations, recording our findings on the back of a napkin with a rogue crayon we picked up off of the floor. I want to ask him if he remembers. If he still thinks about it whenever he sees syrup, the way I do.
But he doesn’t answer.
A COINCIDENCE
I wake up early, having gone to bed at seven forty-five last night to avoid being conscious. I scroll on my phone for too long, looking at pictures of celebrities out in the wild. An Oscar-winning actress in the parking lot of a Los Angeles grocery store holding a case of trendy seltzer while wearing sweatpants and no makeup. A disheveled former action star in a grubby, sweat-stained T-shirt out walking his dog. A young heartthrob dining alfresco, shoving french fries into his mouth. Something about these photos brings me peace. They help get me out of bed.
I put on a white oxford shirt, navy slacks and loafers. I stare at myself in the mirror, and my celebrity-photo zen dissipates. I have to analyze my outfit, my makeup, my hair. I have to ask myself, What can they make fun of me for?
This process involves picking apart my appearance. It involves being mean to myself.
If they’re going to make fun of me for being birdlike, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t change my bone structure, my nose. I can’t change my long, scrawny neck. Maybe a scarf? Would they have something to say about that?
I leave my apartment sooner than necessary, just to get away from the mirror. I’d rather not arrive at school super early because I really don’t want to be there, so when I see the Good Mug, I pull into the nearest parking space.
I want a latte and to look at that handsome dad.
It’s a little pale green building with white shutters. It looks almost like a garden shed. When I walk in, a bell dings overhead. Oskar looks up from behind the counter and smiles politely. He’s got a rag over his shoulder. I bet he’s always got a rag over his shoulder. I bet he sleeps with it there.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” Rose is sitting at a table near the door, reading and drinking coffee out of a comically large mug. She’s wearing thick-rimmed round glasses and a beret. “How’d you like the jam?”
“I had some yesterday,” I say. “It’s great. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Annie,” she says. “You’ll be back Saturday for more?”
“I will.”
“Good, good. Oskar, this girl’s a sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Rose,” I say. My entire face is blushing; I can feel it. My forehead. My chin. I can barely look at Oskar now. “Morning.”
“Morning, Annie. What can I get for you?”
“Um . . . can I have a large latte?”
“Any flavor? I can do vanilla, hazelnut, maple, cinnamon, honey, almond. I can do lavender, but that’s not for everyone. My son says it tastes like soap.”
“I like the taste,” I say. “Of lavender, not of soap. Though I haven’t tasted a lot of soaps, so who’s to say?”
Really, Annie? Really?
“I like lavender, too,” he says mercifully. “I usually do it with a little almond. I think it balances.”
“I’ll do that, then.”
“Coming up,” he says. He starts working the large fancy espresso machine.
“So, you’re a teacher?” he asks.
“Yes. English and ASL.” I don’t know how he knows. Someone must have told him. I guess it’s that small-town thing: News travels fast. Not that my profession is news, but . . .
“Erik goes to Aster. He’s a freshman.”
“Maybe he’ll be in my class next year.”
He pours the milk, moving his wrist to create a pattern. His eyebrows pinch together, and a strand of silver hair falls in his face.
He pushes the cup toward me.
“On me,” he says. “If you like it, come back again soon.”
“You’ll be back,” Rose says. “Oskar makes the best coffee.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I feel bad. I lived in the city, so I’m not used to this . . . this . . .”
“Small-town hospitality?” Oskar asks, stroking his scruff. He smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Enjoy.”
“Thank you so much,” I say, taking the cup. “Bye, Rose!”
“Bye, sweetheart. Have a good day.”
By the time I’m back in my car driving to school, my mood has done a complete one-eighty. It’s all sunshine. The rest of my morning, powered by a latte that tastes like heaven, is pleasant and easy. In my first few classes, everyone behaves.
At lunch, I eat alone in my classroom. I check my phone to see if Sam has reached out at all. He hasn’t, but I have a text from Nadia asking how I am.
Good, I say, and it doesn’t feel like a lie. Town is precious. People are nice. Met a new friend who is super glamorous and lives in a . How are you?
More glamorous than me? Bullshit. I’m good! Hot new history teacher. Mr. Collins. Rawr. I’ll send u a pic if I can get one.
Be stealthy, stalker.
She sends me a series of emojis. Detective. Skull and crossbones. Hearts.
It’s nice of her to think of me.
The day’s going so well that when I hear the first chirp in final period, I get startled and drop the dry-erase marker. But it’s not the chirp itself that gets me. It’s the fact that I let a good mood delude me into thinking happiness was something I could hold in my hands, that it wouldn’t slip through my fingers the moment I stopped fearing it would.
See? my cynicism hisses. See!
I pick up the marker and continue like nothing happened. But it’s too late. The students sense my weakness. They know they’ve gotten to me. That I’m emotionally compromised.
“Bacccc-bacccc-baac-caaaa.”
I ignore it. The chicken sound is new. It gets a few chuckles.
“Caaa-caaaa.”
I can tell it’s coming from one direction, from one person. Chris Bersten.
I turn around. He doesn’t look conspicuously evil. There are no devil horns poking out of his head, no red pentagrams spinning in his pupils. Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m so ugly, so birdlike, such an easy target, it’s impossible for him to resist.
He opens his mouth, looks straight at me, and does it again.
“Caaa-caaaa.”
Snickers all around the room. A single annoyed sigh from Madison.
“God,” I hear her say.
I can feel my heart descend through my chest and land in the pit of my stomach. I can feel it bobbing around in a rough sea of acid. I might throw up. I might cry. Or lie down right here in the classroom, facedown on the floor, waving tiny white flags.
He opens his mouth again, and I’ve resigned myself to what’s coming next. But then the sound catches in his throat. He retches.
Twenty-five heads swivel toward him in unison.
He does it again. This time, he smacks two palms down on the desk, sending a wave of startled jolts through the room.
Chris’s face was already rosy from laughing, but now it’s red in a way that’s unnatural. That’s disturbing. Like a fire engine. Like a stop sign. Like all of the blood in his body has collected there behind his cheeks, behind his forehead.
He retches again, his posture contorting, the sharp peaks of his shoulders rising up past his ears. His spine curves; his neck juts forward.
He’s making a new noise now. Sam’s parents had a calico cat named Cookie who would emerge from the depths of the basement only to cough up hair balls and eat smelly wet food. It’s like Chris is about to cough up a hair ball. A terrible dry sound rips through his throat.
The rest of the class watches in horror. I watch in horror as he lurches forward. His lips zip together; his cheeks fatten for a moment before he relents. A viscous blob resembling the insides of a rotten black egg slowly emerges from his mouth. The sound it makes when it hits his desk . . . Awful. Like reverse slurp. Eerily wet.
The classroom is silent. Horror is, apparently, an effective tool for silencing a class.
Chris’s eyelids flutter and his head rolls back like he’s exhausted.
I suspect the ordeal is over and am considering what I should do next; then the blob begins to move. The black yolk of the vomit stirs. Tiny black sticks poke their way out of the gelatinous spit.
It’s a spider. A spider the size of a fat baby’s fist. And it’s alive.
It begins to walk off of Chris’s desk, making its way onto the floor.
Someone screams.
Now there’s a whole chorus of screaming. Chaos. Kids standing on chairs. Papers flying.
“Kill it!” someone says.
“No!” I yell. I don’t know why. The students look at me like I’m insane.
The spider picks up speed. It has a lot of legs. It hurries to the back wall, disappears under a bookshelf.
Kylie Hamilton is shriek-crying. Joe Alvarez is shining his phone flashlight on the floor near the bookshelf. Madison is rolling her eyes.
“Hey!” I say. They ignore me, so I whistle. A proper finger-in-mouth jet-engine whistle.
There are so many eyes on me. Wide and terrified eyes.
“Sit down,” I say. “Now.”
I take a breath.
“Can someone please escort Mr. Bersten to the nurse?”
They blink at me.
“Anyone?” I ask. “All right. Tyler.”
I point to one of the other chirpers. He’s well over six feet tall and always looks uncomfortable at his desk. I figure I’m doing him a favor.
“No,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
He can’t answer.
“Walk Chris to the nurse. Now. Thank you.”
Chris is completely drained of color. A lattice of blue veins emerges on his forehead, also at his temples and on his neck. Tyler groans and makes sure he pushes his desk when he gets up to show he’s angry.
“You need help, man?” he asks Chris without looking at him.
Chris gives a slight shake of his head and stands slowly. He shuffles out of the classroom with his whole body bent, like a four-legged animal attempting to walk upright.
As soon as Chris and Tyler are out of the room, the bell rings and spares me from having to salvage the rest of class. If there was any salvaging it.
Probably not, considering a kid vomited up a live spider. That then crawled away.
I watch as a series of faces in varying states of shock and disgust stagger past me.
I lean back against my desk, staring at the glob of spit forming a crust on Chris Bersten’s desk.
It’s cruel to leave it for the janitor.
I dig a stack of napkins out of the top drawer of my filing cabinet.
I approach cautiously.
There’s no bile, no chunks of food. It’s not puke. Just thick spit. I fetch the trash can, wipe the desk down, throw the napkins in the trash. I get a Lysol wipe. Another. I go over the desk again and again. After, I go up to the teachers’ lounge bathroom and wash my hands until my knuckles are pink and raw.
I do this all without thinking. If I start to think, if I start to question how, or why . . . It’s a thread I don’t want to pull on.
Isn’t there some data about how many bugs we eat when we’re asleep?
He probably slept with his mouth open. A true mouth breather.
It’s a freak occurrence that the spider survived.
Or maybe he ate the spider on purpose. Maybe he’s one of those kids who were dropped on their heads as babies and like to cut the tails off of cats and set things on fire. Maybe he’s a psychopath masquerading as a normal teenager in Adidas athleisure wear.
