MARTians (15 page)

I’m shaking. I’ve thrown up until I’m nothing but a crumpled, empty bag. It hurts to use my eyes.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s contagious. Did you eat something weird? Did you eat something we didn’t?”

“No. No.” There isn’t any shape to that little word. Its edges are all melted off. It’s just a ragged gust of air.

Timmer looks at his phone. “We have about six hours to get you through this. Then you’ve got to get up and go to work.”

He stands and goes to the other room. He didn’t stay after all. And the whole world is thick and sad. My thoughts are thick and sad. Even my tears are thick and sad. But then the pain comes back, and jagged glass crawls inside of me. It goes on forever, until Timmer comes back with my adventure towel, cool and damp, and wipes away the stale sweat and dried-up tears and the traces of puke off my lips.

When the time comes, he makes me stand up and shower. He buttons my pants for me. He lets me lean against him until we come to the employee entrance. Then he steps back, and I’m on my own.

Have I scanned this can of octopus? I keep losing track. Thoughts start, and then they stop. None of them get anywhere. My head aches. I pick a can of octopus up. I put the can of octopus down. I pick the can of octopus up again.

I touch the wounded place behind my ear.

I ruined everything.

I’m not good anymore.

I’m stupid.

Close your eyes, Zoëkins. Close your eyes and open your heart to sweet dreams. Imagine we are shopping, Zoë-baby. We walk up to the doors, and they are so shiny and clean we can see inside and see so many wonderful things, but then we open the door and walk in, and we are the only ones there. Now walk with me, Zoë, walk with me to the escalator, the escalator that goes down. We just stand and the escalator floats us down, like butterflies, through the beautiful colors and smells. And when we come to that level, the music is on but the lights are a little bit dim. It is very peaceful, and we are the only ones there. Then we go to the next escalator and we float down that one too. . . . And now the things are the best things ever. There is a ruby as big as my heart, it is shining on black velvet, and it is just for you, my Zoë-heart. Everything and all the best things are for you.

“Zero? Yeah. That octopus just isn’t moving. People in this region won’t eat octopus. So get a cart, pull it all off, and then spread the other stuff out. Sorry I had you count it first. It’s all going to have to be counted again when they send it to the depot. So just stop with the inventory and pull it. Pull it all.”

I am sick and stupid and slow for days.

No one notices.

ZERO finds the air to say, “May I help you?”
May,
because of course she
can.
ZERO can lead the way to the vacu-packed celery. ZERO can suggest the DinoRoar TwinPac is the best birthday present ever; and, if it’s for a girl, ZERO points out that the DinoRoar Dream House sold separately is adorable. ZERO can and ZERO does. Her smile is AllMART’s welcome mat; the fact that the face around it is puffy with tears doesn’t change a thing.

I’m stretched out on the folding table, flat on my back with my eyes closed so I don’t start counting the holes in the ceiling tiles. I’ve been counting things all day doing inventory; unless I force myself, I will continue and end up knowing exactly how many holes full of nothing are suspended over my head. Even with my eyes shut, I can feel it up there, the nothing. It is surprisingly heavy.

Jingle-ting! Clank-a-ding!

There is a shopkeeper’s bell on the front door. This is the first time I’ve heard it ring. It’s the first time anyone has opened that front door, which is always unlocked and waiting for 5er’s family to come for him.

She is standing in the open door, tall and beautiful — so, so beautiful, though her face is grimed with slept-in, cried-in eyeliner. Tears are brimming up. They sparkle like broken glass.

“Are you here for 5er? Are you 5er’s mom?”

5er looks up when I say his name, but there is no reunion. His attention returns to the sock he is twisting into a bunny for the hundredth time or five hundredth time.

“I need Raoul,” the beautiful stranger says. “Is he here?”

“No.” I don’t elaborate, because I can’t. The only thing I know about Raoul is that he isn’t here.

“I’ll wait,” she says, and she sits down in one of the stiff orange plastic chairs. Her feet slide out of the sparkling slippers she is wearing. I recognize them. They were a special sale item last week. When they were gone, they left a gritty drift of glitter behind, a ghostly sparkle in the carpet of the shoe aisle. Janitorial vacuumed, but that only spread the glitter to other places. Today I saw it twinkle on the floor beside the duck decoys in the Great Outdoors.

She reaches down and rubs the arch of one foot, then she draws one knee up, wraps her arms around herself until she is folded like a wing without feathers. When she looks at me, I’m shot through with her need. I have no idea how to answer it.

I realize she is wearing an AllMART special-services smock.
JULIETTE
is embroidered in silver thread over her heart.

“Juliette? Juliette. I’m Zoë. How can I help you? Do you want a drink of water?”

She shakes her head no. She doesn’t want water; she wants Raoul. I get the water anyway, because I have to do something. When I hold it out to her, she takes it from me and drinks small sips without ever taking the cup from her lips.

“You work at AllMART?”

“Yes,” she says. It’s a tiny little answer, and she says it into the cup. Then she straightens up and says, “I’m bonded and certified. I work registers and special-services departments.”

She is not a family-hardship-waiver trainee. She is a real employee. She can count pills into the bright yellow-and-black bottles at the SpeedyMed pharmacy. She can pamper customers with spa footbaths full of nibble fish that kiss away flakes of skin and lavish crooked toes with attention like they were celebrities. She can sell lottery tickets at the service desk.

And she is still terribly sad.

I have no idea what else to do or say. The air is thick with nothing.

The back door opens, and we both look in that direction.

“Juliette!” The stranger is no stranger to Timmer. His voice bends with happiness when he says her name.

But she doesn’t smile back.

“Juliette, what’s wrong?” Timmer is on his knees in front of her. She droops down and onto his shoulder like a wilting flower.

“I need Raoul,” she says to Timmer.

“Yeah,” Timmer says, and he rocks back onto his heels. He grasps her hands, bites his lower lip, and shakes his head. “Yeah, he isn’t back yet. This scrapping job, it’s a big one — and far away.”

“But I need him,” she says. “We’ve been evicted.”

“What?” says Timmer.

“I went home after work, and they’d thrown all our stuff out into the parking lot. Even the food out of the fridge. My card didn’t work in the lock. There was this.” She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper.

“Shit,” says Timmer. “Two months.” His shoulders sag. I can see he’s churning with this, trying to fix it.

“Raoul always paid the rent. He always said it wasn’t my problem. I just thought . . .”

“Well, for now,” says Timmer, “you have a place here. You know it.”

She doesn’t look happy.

“It’s just for until Raoul gets back. Then he’ll get a better place for the two of you.”

“But I texted him, and he didn’t even respond.”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s just the satellite rain messing up the signals. Like they said on the news.”

Timmer cuts a glance at me. He knows that I know that he doesn’t believe what he just said.

“Come on, come on, Juliette,” says Timmer. “We’ll get you all settled. Right, Z?” He points at me, and I put on a welcome mat smile. I don’t know for sure what’s going on, but something has hit the fan somewhere. And I know that beautiful Juliette is part of the family. She needs help. She asked for it. And we will help because that’s the deal.

I think about Jyll. Much as I hate her, I have to give her credit. First, back in the days of younger, cardboard Jyll, she sold houses. But real estate agents only get a commission if there’s a sale. The market shifted. There were way too many sellers and not enough buyers. So she adapted. She started staging houses, promising it would make the difference between SOLD! and sad-face emoji. Cool thing about staging: It’s a service, and the service provider is paid even if there is no sale. But Jyll’s best move was jumping to her position with American Dream, which put her in front of the cameras, explaining things to Sallie Lee.

I climb onto the mattress where I sleep and read and worry. 5er is curled into a ball no bigger than a pillow. I pick up the book from the bag. I stare at the ceiling. If I could see through through the leak-stained ceiling tiles and tar roof, through the smoke of distant fires, past the glare of the parking lot, would I see the satellites sparkling as they fall?

My fingers smell like blood and feathers. I made it through another day. I spent half of it crying and half of it wishing I had claws like the taxidermied polar bear so I could scratch Kral’s face right off his skull bone.

This is life without modulated moods.

Tomorrow I’m working in Petlandia. Will the little birds be frightened of the way I smell? No matter how much I try, I can’t wash that smell away. I think it is inside me now, because it won’t wash off no matter how much Ginger-Citrus BodiWash I use.

5er’s small hands are curled around my shoulders. His bony knees poke my back. We can’t sleep like spoons nestled in a drawer because he is so much littler than I am, so he clings to my hair and kicks me all night long. I wonder if he rides piggyback into my dreams. I don’t remember seeing him there, but then I don’t remember dreaming, not since I started work. That’s one good thing about working.

Another good thing about working? At least I know who I’m supposed to be, and I know what I’m supposed to do. When my shift is over and I step outside, when the hot parking lot wind touches my face, it seems possible that I might blow away, like a bit of litter or a butterfly.