Chapter One CHAPTER ONE " The teenaged girl was brutally axed to death by her grandmother ." A cashier is scanning my groceries. I have headphones in. My favorite true crime podcast is playing. I read the cashier''s lips. She asks, "How are you today?" while the podcast host simultaneously says, " They found the girl''s body in the old lady''s basement ." "I''m good, thanks, how are you?" I put the divider between my groceries and the groceries belonging to the man behind me. I would hate to accidentally purchase his Vienna sausages, or worse--for him to get away with my tampons.
The podcast host explains that the teenager''s body was found decomposing in a Rubbermaid bin in her grandmother''s fruit cellar. Despite the rotting corpse, the grandmother continued to use the fruit cellar. Along with murder, the woman''s hobbies included canning. The body was found next to stacks of fruit preserves and pickled beets. "Do you need bags?" the cashier asks. "No, thank you, I brought my own." I gesture to my tote bag. The podcast host jokes, wondering if the grandmother ever considered pickling the dead body.
I snort at the grotesque concept while the cashier kindly scans my boxed cake mix and Midol. Sometimes you have to joke about things like pickling murdered teenagers. It''s a coping mechanism. It takes the darkness out at the knees. "Excuse me!" A man rams into my shoulder. The unexpected impact propels my belongings from my hands. My phone, keys, credit card, and the entrails of my wallet sail before me. The angry man storms onward.
He does not pause to look back. A Good Samaritan kneels to help recover my belongings. "Thank you," I say. "No problem. Why did that man shove you?" "I''m not sure." She stands up. "He must have anger management issues." I nod.
"He probably has a parasite." "What?" "Nothing. Thank you again." I was born deaf in one ear. Sometimes, I''m glad I was. I can easily tune irksome people out. I sleep better. I''m less disturbed by irritating sounds.
It took me longer to learn to speak than most people, though. I didn''t hear as clearly as other babies. I don''t always respond when addressed on my bad side. When strangers say "Excuse me" while trying to pass me, I''m often oblivious to it. I know that because every so often the situation escalates. People shout " Excuse me! " as if I''m rude for not hearing them the first time. When I learned to speak, my first word was "mom." My mom told me that, though, and it''s possible that she has reworked the record.
I would not be shocked to learn that my first words were less stirring. Perhaps I said something meaningless, like "grass," or something embarrassing, like "butts." I would not put it past my mother to spare me the truth, if that were the case. That said, I am sure that I did say "mom" somewhere near the beginning. My tampon box is peeking over my bag like a pervert peeking over a windowsill. As I exit the store, I try to strategically position my arm to conceal the box and prevent strangers from knowing which stage of the ovarian cycle I am at. I turn the volume of my podcast up. " The contents of the teenager''s stomach revealed that she had eaten peaches two hours before her death.
Her autopsy also showed that she ." There is a pause for emphasis. ". was two months pregnant ." Sharp pain radiates from my lower back. I fish into my tote bag for the Midol I just bought. While searching, the automatic door behind me opens. A blast of air-conditioning cools my back.
I glance at the customer exiting. It''s a man carrying a forty pack of toilet paper above his head like it''s a trophy. He has sweat stains in his armpits and the noticeable outline of a condom in his pocket. I discreetly swallow a dry pill while I listen to the podcast host say, " It was soon discovered that the girl was dating an older man named Jerry Nit. Jerry, a bald man in his early forties-- " I rip my headphones out and immediately google "space news." Flashes on the sun could help us predict solar flares. Solar flares can impact Earth. They can disrupt radio communications and create electrical blackouts.
"Am I speaking to Enid?" a woman in my phone asks. I can''t tell if it''s scorching out, if I''m having period-induced hot flashes, or if I''ve taken a wrong turn and accidentally descended into hell. My back aches. I''m lugging home groceries. My shirt is pasted to my wet body like papier-m'ché. I skipped the previous episode of my podcast and am now listening to the next. This new episode is about a cannibal. The host was just detailing how the man seasoned his human flesh (thyme and rosemary), when the story was interrupted by my phone ringing.
"Yes?" I struggle to hold my phone up to my good ear. My tote bag presses into my shoulder. Sweat stings my eyes. "Are you fucking Joan?" The woman''s voice cracks. I stop walking. A cyclist in full-body purple spandex swerves around me. He rings his bell as he pedals furiously ahead. "Are you dating Joan?" I ask.
I had no idea Joan had a girlfriend. "No," she says. I exhale, relieved. "I''m her wife." The strap of my tote bag slips from my shoulder and slides down my arm. I fumble to grab it, but my box of tampons topples out. After performing a double backflip, the box lands upside down on the mauve rug lining the hallway of my apartment as if it''s just landed the splits. Before I can recover the box, a door in the hallway opens.
Light from inside the apartment shines a yellow block on the rug. I hear keys jingle and a man sigh. Someone new just moved into that unit. I prepare myself to greet him. I position my face, ready to smile at the sight of him. I watch his shadow overtake the block on the rug before the light switch is flipped, the glow vanishes, and a tall man, with keys dangling from his teeth, enters the threshold. The man is bald. I smell smoke.
Am I choking? The top of his head is gleaming beneath the hallway light. His scalp is so shiny it looks like it''s about to catch fire. More groceries fall from my bag. Tostitos. Icing sugar. Our eyes connect. Bosc pears roll, lopsided like tipped bowling pins, across the carpet. The man glances at the avalanche of groceries tumbling around me.
I stare at him, frozen, like the face of a mountain in a landslide. I smell something burning. "Do you need help?" he asks. I feel my stomach drop. "No," I say. "No," I repeat until he leaves. Red food coloring bleeds into the yellow cake batter. I stir until the batter turns into a muted, pale pink.
I am baking a gender reveal cake despite understanding that the practice is profoundly offensive. It involves dying the insides of a cake pink or blue, so that a pregnant person can slice into it and discover the sex of their offspring. I am doing it because one of my half sisters is pregnant, and she asked me to. It was offered as a sort of olive branch. I considered explaining why I would prefer not to, as well as why I would recommend against celebrating an infant''s genitals entirely, but my sisters and I barely know each other, and sadly, I have discovered a new character flaw to add to my already long list of defects: I would sacrifice my values to oblige my estranged sisters. I want them to like me. I feel like a stray dog, rejected by our sire, trying to be accepted in his new litter of puppies. I don''t want them to think I''m some fleabag mutt, or a coyote masquerading as a house dog.
I''m a purebred golden retriever, just like them. I want them to think I''m a clean, bug-free, normal dog. I want to prove that our dad was wrong. I am a good girl. There is something animalistic about it. I feel a bizarre biological drive to connect to them because they''re my sisters. Maybe there''s some evolutionary benefit to that. Maybe someday I might need their kidneys or some bone marrow.
The primal part of my brain wants me to have a relationship with them because we''re blood. I''m supposed to be in their pack. I think they might feel that biological drive too. That must be why they keep inviting me to events. On a subconscious level, they want my bone marrow. I keep abandoning my baking to ensure my door is locked and to look out my peephole. I put both hands on either side of the hole before peeking out. There are red cake-battered handprints on my door.
Each time I spot them, they startle me. I think, Are those my bloodied handprints? Am I a ghost? Did my neighbor kill me earlier? Am I trapped in here, reliving my attempted escape for eternity? Then I remember that I am baking a cake and rush back to the oven to watch it rise. My mom taught me to watch the oven. When she cooks, she stays beside the food. She has a stool she sits on in her kitchen. It is important, she says, to keep an eye on a hot oven. She also says, for her, it''s like watching a show. She likes to witness cookies rise, butter melt, and the edges of vegetables blacken.
She turns the oven light on, looks through the window in the door, and watches food turn brown and hiss. I tried to use an oven timer shortly after I moved out for school. I didn''t hear it go off. I thought I would hear it. I always heard the timer at my mom''s house. I think she may have bought a special timer with my hearing in mind. It had a lower sound than most timers.