Neanderthal Seeks Human(18)

The car was moving. I frowned at the pile of bills in my fist. I wondered why my sisters were so fearless. I wondered if I had missed out on that gene along with June’s beauty gene and Jem’s crazy gene. I wondered why everyone- Jon, Elizabeth, even to a certain extent Sir Quinn McHotpants- felt like I needed oversight, someone to escort me, take care of me, usually out.

“Where to?” The cabbie’s baritone cut through my dazed preoccupation and I realized we’d already gone two blocks. “Where are we going?” his voice sounded again from the front.

I quickly considered my options: I could go back to the apartment, read my new book on the history of viral infections, and embrace my hermit tendencies or I could ask the driver to turn the cab around, take me back to the club, and- just for one night- live my life unescorted while I tried to unlock my Morris Girl fearless gene.

“Take me back to Outrageous.”





CHAPTER 5




There are times, after drinking too much alcohol, that I start to wonder if the prohibitionists were on to something when they coined the term ‘demon liquor.’ I felt like I had a demon inside of me and it was stabbing my eyes with a corkscrew, scooping pieces of my brain out with a spork, twisting cotton in my throat, and wearing soccer cleats as it jumped up and down on my bladder.

This was only my third time with a hangover and, like all the other times, I promised myself it would be my last. The first time was not my fault; my younger sister, Jem, diluted my breakfast of orange juice with vodka on the morning of the SATs. She said it was a protein drink which was supposed to be brain food. I ended up throwing up all over my examination and the proctor screamed that I’d ruined his perfect test administration record.

The second time I was with Jon at a tiki bar near his parents’ house in the Hamptons. He ordered me a drink called ‘the hurricane’ which didn’t taste like anything but fruit juice. I ordered several, liking the little umbrellas and other accoutrements which donned the rim of the glass, and ended up getting sick on the beach; I passed out on the sand and Jon, being just my height and of a lean build, wasn’t strong enough to lift me. He had to call two of his friends over to help pick me up and carry me back to the guest house. When I woke up I wanted to die.

Now, lying face down, my mouth tasting like whatever the Grim Reaper served at Thanksgiving, there were three things I knew for certain: 1) I was not at Elizabeth’s apartment, 2) I was wearing only my bra, thigh-high stockings, and underwear, and 3) I wanted to die.

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, wanting to postpone my collision with reality for as long as possible, and willed myself back to sleep. I wasn’t certain how much time passed as I lay on, what I surmised was, a bed, hoping that my Fairy Godmother would appear along with little talking birds and mice, clothe me in jeans and a t-shirt, put me in a pumpkin carriage and send me to Starbucks for a soy latte. When I finally opened my eyes all my earlier assertions of certainty proved true.

I wasn’t in Elizabeth’s apartment. In fact, I had no idea where I was. Swallowing with a great deal of exertion, my mouth professedly free of saliva, I slowly tried to move my gaze around the room. My eyeballs felt like sandpaper and I had to blink several times, both in response to the unforgiving brightness of the world and the dryness resulting from sleeping in my contacts.

When they were appropriately lubricated, I scanned my surroundings from where I lay. It was huge, the walls made of exposed red brick, and it was sparsely decorated. The ceiling was tiled tin, rusted in a few places, beige everywhere else. There were no overhead light fixtures; rays of sunlight poured in through tall windows along two adjacent sides of the room. Near the bed there was a floor lamp which was currently off. The floor was sealed cement.

From my current vantage point I saw only five other pieces of furniture besides the mattress and the floor lamp: a drafting desk, a tall wooden chair for the desk, a bookshelf, a brown leather couch, and a side table. The drafting table was covered in papers and the bookshelf was littered with what looked like machine parts.

I was wearing only my bra, stockings, and underwear. I confirmed this belief when I peeked under the white sheet which had pooled at my mid-back. I glanced again around the room and found my dress folded in half over the back of the wooden chair and my shoes neatly settled under the desk.

My hands went to my chest as I struggled to sit upright; adjusting the strapless bra to ensure it covered my breasts as I deliberately attempted to find equilibrium in the vertical world. My hair fell to my lower spine in a puffy, untenable tangle of curls; it must have come completely loose sometime during the night. Elizabeth called it my mane of hair; I called it my bane of hair. However, it was far worse looking when it was short, sticking straight up or out at awkward angles; at least when it was long it almost obeyed gravity.