The Bitch Posse (3 page)

I pull cat hair from the disposal, dreading her return. Did I mention we have fourteen cats in this tiny house? But I love them all, Pongo, Posey, Belinda, Baby, Bradbury, Bitch, Jezebel, Jaws, Jazzy, Juniper, Jelly, and the newest babies, Skinny, Scream, and Shelley. Marian decided all of them were mine except Pongo and Posey, who she never got fixed. Why else would someone own fourteen cats?

I flood the lasagna pan from two nights ago with soapy water and
start scraping with a knife. Want to guess which one of the Winters women made the lasagna?

The abrasive, gentle rhythm of blade against glass is somehow comforting, and I flick on the radio with a soapy finger as Jelly or, no, I think it’s Jezebel—they both have gray spots and both look exactly alike, but Jezebel’s getting fatter, pregnant maybe?—jumps off the stove onto the floor and darts across the kitchen. When some asinine Bon Jovi song floats over the airwaves—what did I expect in Holland?—I pop in the Sisters of Mercy tape I shoplifted from the mall a few weeks ago. I felt bad ripping it off, but it wasn’t like I had a choice, since I have no money, and I live in Holland, Illinois, where we vote Republican and till the fields, where Homecoming’s big news, where practically the whole school’s white and middle class and so fucking predictable, where noble farmers struggle their whole lives so the CEO of Archer Daniels Midland can buy his tenth Mercedes. Welcome to my hometown, Holland, Illinois, where cutting-edge radio is “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

I turn “This Corrosion” up loud, way loud, to blast Jon Bon-Fucking-Jovi out of my brain. Andrew Eldritch slashes thick and angry words into the air, words about bleeding until you can’t bleed anymore, words that break my heart and words that make me hate and words that make me want to dance.

The lasagna pan needs more soaking, and I let it fall into the water, brushing my hair away from my face with the back of one hand. Marian appears out of nowhere, running her knuckles across her red, pasty nostrils. “You’re not going out in
that.”

“That” is a super-tight black V-neck sweater, black miniskirt, fishnets, and combat boots. Sam likes it, but that’s not why I wear it. My clothes are part of who I am. The outfit’s practically identical to what I wear whenever I go out, so I don’t see what her problem is. But this is part of her show. She’ll let me wear the outfit. The only question will
be how big a deal she makes of it. She dresses slutty herself, but that’s not why she’ll drop the subject. In a minute, if I’m lucky, her thought train will jump the track.

“Listen, Cherry.” She turns down my music, pulls a cigarette from the pack on the counter, and lights it. “When I was your age, I dressed that way too. Do you see where it got me?” She offers me the pack. I shake my head—I’ve got a sinkful of dishes to do and I might have to make a quick getaway. “With a baby, no husband, and a fucking waitress job. Seventeen years later what do I have?”

“A seventeen-year-old, no husband, and a fucking waitress job.”

She blows out a thick stream of smoke. “Do you want to be like me?”

“Like me” has nothing to do with her job or the fact that she was a teenage mom or that my father’s not part of our lives or even that she’s a fucking cokehead. It has to do with who she is. I will never, ever, ever be like her.

I can’t say that, though. I’m too cautious to stoke her fire, because I’ve seen her angry on coke, and it’s worse than any other kind of angry I’ve ever seen. “Yeah, Marian, you’re right.” I don’t mention the clothes again because she probably won’t remember that the clothes were what got her started on the speech.

“I’m right?” Her eyes harden into pebbles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

God, I can’t say anything. “Sorry.” I lift Bitch off the refrigerator and deposit her onto the floor. My heart beats in my ears as I dip my hands back into the sink.
Please, let her keep control.

But she pulls a clean plate from the drain board and hurls it at the wall, where it shatters. “What do I have to do to get your attention? You’re not going to be like me.” A shine of snot appears at the corner of her nostril, but she doesn’t bother to wipe it away, just lets it glisten there. She yanks my arm out of the dishwater and squeezes it, hard.
“You don’t want my life. Hell, I don’t want my life. How the fuck did I endup here?”

I shake my arm away, just wanting to get the hell out.

“Don’t pull away from your mother.” As if in slow motion, the open palm smacks across my face, and in spite of my prayers to stay strong I cry out, hands fluttering to my cheek. I back away from her, slowly; I don’t want to upset her more. “Someone needs to get your attention! Who do you think you are, going out dressed like a hooker?”

So she hasn’t forgotten the clothes after all, or maybe it’s just an excuse to blow up. Her eyes have that glassy look, the glazed-over TV set look, and I whisper, “I’m sorry,” and hightail it toward the door before she hits me again.

Her face crumples. “Cherry, I don’t want you to end up like me. That’s all.” Tears streak down her face, running her makeup so she looks like a clown in the rain. My cheek still smarts, but more than that my stomach burns, whirls. I just want out of here, forever.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, honey. I love you,” she pleads, and now the sobs start, the wheedling voice, the gulps, the chokes, the cocainelaced promises. I don’t want to hear them. “Wouldn’t want to stay home tonight with your mom, would you?”

She’s angling for something, probably wants a little company, someone to smoke some dope with when she gets too paranoid. Count me out. “Me and Amy and Rennie are going to hang around the college for a while,” I say coldly. I’d far rather get drunk or stoned in the basement of the Psych Building with my two best friends in the world than toke up with Marian, who gets disgustingly chatty when high, and unpredictable when wired on coke. She’s up for a bigger whaling tonight; I know she has it in her, and I’m sure as hell not going to be around when it happens.

I grab the keys from her purse—better that I have the truck tonight
than Marian—and pull my leather jacket off the sofa. Before she can notice what I’ve done, I’m out the door.

What’s on her agenda tonight? Is she going to space out in front of stupid sitcoms and mope about a life she’ll never have? Or will I come home later to find her tangled on the sofa with a man I don’t know, some bar pickup? Who gives a fuck, anyway?

Not me. I don’t need a mom. I can take care of myself.

I pull my mittens on and walk toward the truck, and now’s when the real fun’s going to start, now’s when the Bitch Posse’s going out to raise some hell.

Oh, I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have the friends I do. They’ve freed me from Marian, made me into somebody. Rennie, who’s way too beautiful to be a virgin, always acts like I’m doing her a huge favor by hanging around her, when really I was the one who ached for her attention and couldn’t believe the smartest girl in class actually thought I was worth her time, said I was creative, told me she liked my poems, that I could be somebody. Cherry Diana Winters—Somebody. Of course, I’ll never tell her how desperate I am for her friendship. It would totally shatter her image of me. Part of why Rennie likes me is that I’m off the wall, wild, different, strong.

Maybe I am.

Maybe not.

And Amy—well, Amy’s looking for fun, wherever it’s to be had. She ditched the popular crowd to be with us because we accept her for who she is. Took a pair of scissors to her fucking cheerleader uniform and threw it in the too-gorgeous face of her former best friend, Pammie McFadden. That was when we decided Amy was the Über-Bitch-Goddess.

I let the truck run while I scrape the windows. Scoring Amy—Homecoming Queen Amy, Head Cheerleader Amy—gave me and Rennie credibility. We got together as best friends just before Christmas. First me and Rennie, then Amy. We christened ourselves the
Bitch Posse. Figured that way, we had license to do whatever the hell we wanted, since we were bitches anyway—we said so ourselves.

Tonight the Bitch Posse’s going to find some trouble. I don’t know what it is yet, but if you don’t find trouble, trouble finds you. It’s better to choose your own.

Besides, it’s a hell of a lot more fun.

March 2003
Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan

Amy presses her palm to her swelling belly and stares at the birthday cake on the gray granite countertop. Night blankets the four-bedroom Craftsman on the Saint Marys River as a cold wind whistles outside, hard enough to blow her across the river to Ontario. Where the hell is Scotty? He promised he’d be home early tonight, that he’d cut short his trip to Hancock, where he’s scoping out a second Toyota dealership he might buy.

Amy considers herself lucky. Most residents of the Soo aren’t doing so well, so she has the best of both worlds: a painter’s paradise of Lake Superior beaches, sunsets sparkling over the water, tall white pines, blueberry bushes, scrubby jack pines, the ground a blanket of needles; and of course, enough money to surround herself with the things that make her feel successful, hardwood floors, granite countertops, Viking appliances, Pottery Barn crockery, Martha Stewart copper cookware,
embroidered dish towels, all bought online, stuff most of the permanent residents of the Soo could never afford.

But why, when she’s alone at night, does she feel like a small ghost of a girl, about to blow away in the wind, disintegrate into ash? Didn’t she do everything right, leave her old life behind her, change?

After all this time, why does it hurt so much to think of her old friends?

And why, after fifteen fucking years, do those four red letters still burn against her eyelids?

No. That girl at the Porter Place isn’t a part of Amy anymore. She was very careful to put that behind her, right after it happened. No letters to Cherry, not a word to Rennie, ever. The old Amy’s dead. The new Amy’s pregnant and well-to-do and happy.

Right?

This afternoon, she bundled up and walked to the Sault Harbor, just to pass the time. A tug and barge crunched their way through fairly thin ice past Mission Point at around one o’clock, bound for Detroit amid clouds of diesel smoke. Tonight, she heard on the late local news, they’ll heave to in the ice off Nine Mile Point, passing the hours till daylight, when the Coast Guard icebreaker will help them the rest of the way along the lower Saint Marys River. She feels a sense of kinship with the little tug, pulling Scotty along, hardly noticeable.

God, she hasn’t painted in so long.

Her heart’s not in it anymore.

The wind outside sings a familiar song, whose haunting notes she transposes in her mind to hopeful ones. Despite her anxiety, her annoyance at Scotty, and the cold loneliness that winter storms bring her, tonight’s birthday is going to be special. No matter how late Scotty gets here, they’ll have cake and milk (Amy wishes it was champagne, but she knows better than to drink while she’s pregnant) and sing “Happy Birthday.” Later, much later in bed, they’ll have that warm, wonderful sex that somehow seems so much better now that
she’s pregnant, his flat belly pressing against her rounded one, the skin over the baby so tight, so firm. For once she feels perfect. “Your last birthday before you’re a daddy,” she told him this morning, before he left. In three months they’ll be joined by a little girl. Her baby was exquisite on the sonogram, each finger fully formed, the thumb of her left hand popped firmly in her mouth. Amy doesn’t deserve this, does she, could she?

Scotty doesn’t want to know if the baby’s a boy or a girl. He covered his eyes during the sonogram, made a little joke of it even. But Amy’s already bought some frilly outfits and folded them away in the dresser in the nursery that Scotty’s painted yellow. She hasn’t come up with a name yet. Bad luck, or superstition. After all this time, her life is coming together. But she can’t quite believe it.

Oh, there are the small disturbances—tonight, for instance. Scotty promised he’d be home early to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday with her. “Can’t promise I’ll be back for dinner,” he said before grabbing his coffee and kissing her good-bye, “but I’ll be back for cake.” Now she glances at the clock above the stove. Ten forty-five.

But the time, like all Amy’s problems, seems small, unfair, compared to what most people have to deal with. Still, there’s something not quite right; it’s like that moment in the horror movie just before something awful bursts from behind the heroine. Inside her head lingers a niggling suspicion that life
won’t
work out for her, because it shouldn’t.

All this time she’s thought her past was buried deep under layers of experiences and thoughts and her and Scotty’s courtship, but somehow it keeps wearing away the wall she’s built. She does a little patchwork now, mortaring over the crumbling bits with the good memories.

Oh, think of the U of M, think of the Angell Hall psych lecture where we stared at each other week after week.
His name, she knew, was Scotty. But neither exchanged a word until the last day of class, when he handed her a skinny paperback by a poet named Pablo Neruda. She read from
it, not listening at all to lecture, dipping at his phrases,
Ah los vasos del pecho! Oh the goblets of the breast! Ah los ojos de ausencia! Oh the eyes of absence!
Her breath quickened, and she stared at Scotty, her cheeks flushed, his eyes shining.
He ido marcando con cruces de fuego el atlas bianco de tu cuerpo. I have gone marking the atlas of your body with crosses of fire.
Dizzy, half-drunk, her eyes scanned across
Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.