Killing Kate(12)
Alicia and I finish a bottle between us. I’d like to think we split it but I know I drank more than my half, and she doesn’t say anything. She knows enough of my problems to piece together that alcoholism just comes with the territory. Or maybe she feels guilty that we don’t really have health insurance but we do get paid under the table. I pick my battles and so does she. I get sufficiently drunk enough to feel like I’ve fast forwarded to being in my cage. The music is an eerie jungle beat that makes the bars vibrate in my hands. The automatic lights are swirling pink, green, gold, red and they make my head spin. My hair is down and falling around my back, which is cold and wet. I can’t tell if there’s been a drink poured on me from above or if I’m sweating in air conditioning.
People become a blur in Appleseed and every now and then I notice something stand out in the crowd. Red shirt. Blue hair. 400 pounds. Once I saw a gun tucked into some guy’s belt and flagged down Carlos to point him out. I got a nice bonus that day. No one wants weapons in the club or you might get the wrong publicity. Normally people ignore the atmosphere after they take it in for the first few minutes of being on the dance floor after they’ve had a few drinks in them. Tonight I feel like someone is watching me and I’m distracted, but I can’t stop. The only way I can stop and have a look is to grab onto one of the top bars and hang upside down and glance around, but I’m drunk and attempting it makes me dizzy, so I continue to sway and dance.
I start at 11:00 pm and dance until 2:00 am with a break around 1:00 am. It’s a long time, and sometimes I’m clever and put an audio book on my iPhone and listen to it by duct taping the iPhone to the back of my bra and wiring the headphones through my hair. I didn’t do that tonight and of course I regret it after an hour, as my mind is wandering and thinking about Jack and Devin and attempting to remember something happy about Justin.
Kate sits at the bar, watching me. She is wearing the gold counterpart to my silver bikini which complements her amber hair. “There was this one time when you were riding your bike home from school in the second grade and fell and skinned your knee pretty hard. Devin was ahead of you riding with friends of his and didn’t want to stay behind and wait for his little sister. You sat on the sidewalk and cried for an hour and Justin was the one friend of Devin’s who rode back because he didn’t know where you were and carried you home.”
“Before you were here,” I say. It’s a sweet memory. “What else?”
“Not all memories are good,” Kate tells me. “I can’t tell you everything without talking about anything bad.”
“I don’t give a shit tonight,” I reply. “Today was all bad and I’m alive. Maybe I can live with knowing it all.”
“Not all of it,” she says. “Even I don’t remember all of it.”
“Who were they?” I ask her. “How many?”
“I don’t know who they were,” she says. “Maybe six or seven…maybe ten or fifteen. They were just older men who wanted a taste of something young and sweet, and Jack sold it to them for a price. You probably paid the biggest price.”
“What did I do?” I ask her. Kate rolls her eyes.
“You’ve talked about it before,” she says. “Remember years of therapy? Talking about it then did nothing for you. Why relive it?”
“Because I think I’m ready to remember and get over it.” She shakes her head.
“Bullshit,” she says. “It will make you crazy. I mean crazier.”
“I think you’re wrong,” I tell her. “I think it will help. And that scares the shit out of you. If I’m better then you’ll be gone.”
She smiles at me sadly. “I’m already gone.”
I don’t understand, but that’s okay, maybe I don’t want to. Suddenly things are slowing down, which they do later in the evening. People are tired and the music gets slower and lower to match their pace. I’m done for the night and Kate isn’t there. I want out of this cage, and I want to shower and sleep until the next time I absolutely have to leave the house. In the locker room I say goodnight to another girl named Sarah and slip on a white shift dress over a pair of blue lace panties and no bra. It’s too hot for a bra. I think about how four bottles of whiskey would be a great way to spend tonight and tomorrow, and I can just go home and lay in bed naked and not move.
I’m walking out onto Rush Street and I hear him. “Hello Jenna,” he says. His voice is warm, dark honey. I whirl around and he’s standing against the wall. He looks more casual. He’s lost the suit and exchanged it for tight black jeans and a black shirt that shows off his very defined chest.