I’m in the kitchen, digging out the cleaning supplies from under the sink, when Mr. Purdue breezes in. “I took a sick day,” he informs me, answering a question I didn’t ask.
“Hope you feel better.”
“Oh, I’m fine. It’s more of a mental health day.”
I don’t answer as I head to the bathroom. I shut the door, even though that means the fumes will be stronger. I am leaning over the tub with a can of Clorox when I hear the door open behind me. The Purdues have two bathrooms; there is no need for him to use this one. I wait for him to turn around, but he doesn’t. He comes closer. He’s barefoot and I can hear the sound of his toes cracking against the tile floor.
I stand up and turn around, the Clorox can still in my hand, my finger still on the nozzle. He takes a step toward me. The distance between us is already unnecessarily close, and then he takes another step.
I hold the can to his face and squeeze out a tiny warning shot. “Just give me a reason,” I say. “Just one.” I mean to be tough, but to my ears it sounds almost pleading.
He backs out of the bathroom, arms up in surrender. By the time I hear the tires squeal out of the driveway, my rage has passed. But unlike the last time he messed with me, I am not at all triumphant or Buffy-like. I already warned him once, but he just paid me ten more bucks and came back for more.
x x x
It’s a bleak night. Tricia is out with Raymond, and the neighbors next door are having a party. I still smell of bleach, even after my shower, and it’s like it’s not the bleach but Mr. Purdue’s lechery that won’t wash off.
I can’t face looking at Final Solution notes, so I try to force myself to do something different. I leaf through a couple of library books, but the words swim on the page. I open Meg’s computer for a game of solitaire, but I wind up in her email program again. For the hundredth time I stare at the missing hole of mail, as if the deleted messages might magically materialize and answer all my questions. I back up and read the notes she wrote to Ben. I read what he wrote back
You have to leave me alone. How that had pissed me off. Only it’s hard to summon the anger now. Because hadn’t I told her the same thing, just without words?
Was she mad at me? For being too close? For pulling away? For not coming to Oregon over Christmas break? I pull up the email she wrote me after I broke our weeks of silence by telling her about Mr. Purdue’s first ass grab. Ha! That skeevy old bastard. How I wish I could’ve seen that! I know you’ll always be strong; you’ll always be my Buffy, she wrote.
I take out my phone. Ben’s texts are still in the log, ending abruptly after I told him to stay away. My finger lingers over the call button. I imagine talking to him, telling him about Mr. Purdue today, telling him everything that’s been going on the past few weeks.
It’s only when I hear the first ring that I realize I’ve actually hit call. When I hear the second ring, I remember how often his phone rang when we were sitting there watching TV together that day. I picture my call being the one that interrupts his time with some girl now—and with a sudden and abrupt disgust, I see that I’ve let myself become that girl. Before the third ring, I’ve hung up.
Also in my text log is a message from Alice with Tree’s number. Call her, Alice exhorted. I haven’t, because the whole point of finding the mystery friend was to find All_BS. But right now Tree’s caustic bitterness seems to fit the mood.
The world’s grumpiest peace-and-love hippie answers. “What?”
“Is this Tree?” I ask, even though I can tell it is.