Local Girls (10 page)

Gretel only had to think of him, and she was completely gone. No matter what she was doing or where she was, in her mind she was walking to his car, parked by the curb in front of the high school. She was standing in the living room of the apartment he shared with his older brother, Desmond, who was away on business until spring. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the way she had the first time he'd kissed her. She hadn't had all that much experience with romance, and none of it prepared her for Sonny Garnet. None of it led her to expect the ledge she would fall off when he leaned close to her.

He had whispered to her before he kissed her, he had asked if it was all right, not that Gretel could have spoken. But he must have gotten his answer, because he kissed her then, so deeply she thought she would never surface from the place she had gone to, and maybe she still hadn't. Maybe she was still there, wrapped up in bliss. While she walked into the kitchen, while she ignored Margot nattering at her, while she threw her books on the counter, then poured a glass of juice and drank it all up, she was kissing him still.

“I told you she was in love,” Margot announced to Frances, who was at the kitchen table, struggling to figure out her finances and pay the monthly bills.

“Don't ruin your appetite,” Frances told Gretel, who'd sat down across from her to fix a peanut butter sandwich.

“Okay,” Gretel said in a dreamy tone.

Frances looked up right away. Gretel was never so pliant.

“See what I mean?” Margot said. “Is this our Gretel?”

They studied her carefully as she chewed her sandwich. She looked the same; the high cheekbones, the wide mouth that was often twisted into a sneer. But something had definitely shifted; even though they loved Gretel dearly, they had always admitted she had a nasty disposition, and now the edge was gone.

“I see exactly what you mean.” Frances felt little waves of fear up and down her skin. She thought of Gretel's best friend Jill Harrington, pregnant, then married in eleventh grade. Frances pushed aside her unpaid bills and considered carefully. “You're grounded,” she declared.

“Why?” Gretel cried.

“An ounce of prevention,” Margot informed her little cousin.

“For how long?”

“Permanently,” Frances said. “Or until you break up with him.”

“This isn't fair,” Gretel said. “You don't even know him.”

“Oh, yes we do,” Margot called as Gretel ran from the room. “We know him better than you think.”

Gretel locked herself in her room; she flung herself on her bed and wept until her brother brought her dinner. When Jason knocked, Gretel unlatched the door, then re-flung herself across her quilt, the dinner plate before her. It was a bologna sandwich, with mustard, and some gherkins.

“Thanks,” Gretel said, uncertainly. In principle, she thought she should stage a hunger strike of some sort.

Jason leaned his head against the bedroom wall. For the past few years, he'd been so busy ruining his life he'd barely had time to talk to Gretel. Now Gretel was surprised to find he was interested.

“Sonny Garnet,” he said thoughtfully. “I'm proud of you.” Gretel's brother was still gorgeous and much too smart for his own good, but he'd become sly and far too skinny. “Now you'll have access to the best drugs in town.”

“You wish,” Gretel said. The bologna sandwich wasn't half bad. Falling in love had made her hungrier than usual; she wanted things she hadn't before, and she was embarrassed to think of all she now desired.

“Maybe you can score for me.” Jason gave her his best smile, which was so good it usually did the trick. “Amphetamines are his specialty.”

Gretel stopped eating. “Boy, do you have the wrong idea,” she told her brother. “You're crazy.”

Jason had always considered her to be naive; he now found her pathetic. “Wake up,” he told her wearily.

“That's exactly what I'm doing,” Gretel shouted as her brother left the room. “I'm waking up right now!”

That night she climbed out her window at midnight, and walked along the icy streets. Everything was dark blue and black, the road and the sky and the clouds. Gretel was so on fire she didn't notice the weather. She was in a state of pure desire, a condition few people experience, and even fewer survive. Sneaking out her window was nothing; disobeying her mother even less. As smart as she was, she would have done anything for Sonny Garnet. If that made her stupid, so be it. There she was, the stupidest girl in the world, who wouldn't stop until she got to his door.

The apartment was three flights up, and when Gretel knocked, the door, left ajar, opened. Sonny was on the telephone; his back was to Gretel and his shirt was off. He was wearing black slacks and his hair was wet from a shower, and Gretel knew this was the defining moment of her life. Would she stay or would she run? Was she the sort of person who would turn away from what she wanted most, and then, forever after, live with her regret? Frankly, she didn't know until she went to him and reached her arms around him.

After that, she went to his apartment whenever she could. She was so burning-hot little sparks fell from her fingertips and left their marks in the asphalt as she walked the same path every night. Her secret life began to take a toll. Words escaped her; odd things amused her. When woken from sleep, she often could not remember her own name.
This is what love is,
she thought when she was beside him. But there were times, in the morning, after she'd climbed back through her window to get into her own bed, when she could have sworn she saw the outline of her heart rising through her chest. Try as she might to steal a few pale hours of sleep, lulled by clean sheets and the waking song of the few winter birds that were left, she would suddenly panic. Her arms and legs would grow cold as ice.
I'm not ready for this,
that's what she'd think.
I'm not now, and I never will be.

Sonny Garnet kept extremely odd hours. He slept through noon, and stayed up until dawn. Gretel knew this because twice she had told her mother she was staying at a friend's house, then had promptly gone to Sonny's to spend the night. It was all him when she was there. They didn't bother with dinner or small talk; there was no talk at all. Gretel let him do things she didn't even know people did, all because of the way he looked at her, the way he said,
I'm never going to let you go.

Later, what she remembered most was that the phone was always ringing. All night long, it rang and rang. Every now and then there'd be a knock at the door, sometimes when they were in bed together and sometimes when she was fast asleep. Sonny always told her not to worry, not to bother; he'd take care of everything. And when he went out to the hallway and closed the door behind him, Gretel didn't think twice about what he was doing or where he'd been. But there was a night when Sonny wasn't home and someone came to the door. Gretel tried to ignore it, but the racket kept getting louder, and when she couldn't stand to hear it anymore, she threw on her clothes and opened the door. The man who was stationed there was already furious, and Gretel hadn't even said anything yet.

“Where is he?” the man demanded.

“I don't know.” Although this was a fact, Gretel felt ridiculous and foolish. Somehow, she had entered into a situation where the truth felt as flimsy as a lie.

The man pushed the door open, hard, so that it slammed against Gretel's shoulder. He could have done anything to her then—murdered her, raped her—but all he did was look through the cabinets in the kitchen and go through all the drawers. When he didn't find what he wanted, he simply turned and walked out, but the way he'd shoved the door open had left a purple bruise on Gretel's skin. Afterwards, when she looked at the mark, she got a nagging feeling, as if Margot had somehow settled into her brain to remind her, again and again, that smart girls should always look before they leap.

At the end of February, on a gray and heartless day, Gretel realized that her period was late. She went over to the Harringtons' basement, where her friend Jill lived with her husband and six-month-old baby, Leonardo, named for his grandfather on his father's side. Leonardo was advanced for his age, and he crawled in a circle on the floor, like some large crustacean, while Gretel cried.

“You'll just have to make the best of it,” Jill told her. “Look at me.”

Gretel did and started crying again.

“Well, thanks a lot.” Jill was all huffy and defensive. “My sweet little crab boy.” She scooped up Leo and kissed him half a dozen times. “It's not such a bad fate.”

That evening, Gretel went to Margot's house. She pounded on the front door, since the bell had broken ages ago.

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Margot said when she let Gretel in. She'd been watching the news on TV and eating chocolate-covered pretzels. The house was something of a mess, and had been for several years, ever since Tony had taken off.

“What if I was pregnant?” Gretel said tentatively.

“Oh, Jesus,” Margot said. “What's wrong with you girls?”

Gretel threw herself into an easy chair. Her head was spinning. “It's just a
what if
situation.”

“Okay, fine. You want a
what if?”
Margot got out her cigarettes and a diamond-studded lighter her ex had given her years before. “What if I killed you, how's that?”

“Go ahead, do it,” Gretel said. “I'd thank you.”

“Gretel, I thought you were smarter.”

“I'm in love with him,” Gretel said, as though that were an explanation for anything.

“Sure you are.” Margot wasn't wearing any makeup, and she looked tired, but she was still young enough to remember how all of this felt. “Whatever you want to do,” she told Gretel, “I'll stand by you.”

Three days later, Gretel got her period, but instead of feeling relief, she had the oddest sense of loss. She closed up on herself. She stopped talking. When Sonny gave her an opal ring for her birthday, all she could do was sit down and cry.

“Not exactly the reaction I thought this would get,” Sonny said.

There was nothing wrong with the ring. It was, by far, the most beautiful gift Gretel had ever received. She wore it day and night; she stared at it as she fell asleep and gazed upon it when she opened her eyes in the morning. But she could look at that opal all she wanted, and it still wouldn't erase the premonition she had that disaster was only steps away, and heartbreak even closer. She had started to hear the phone ring late at night at Sonny's place. She'd begun to feel an ache in her chest whenever she saw Sonny, the way people do when they know something is going to break apart.

It happened in March, just when there were hints the winter would end. The sky was bluer, the wind less like a hammer; ice had begun to melt, leaving cold, little streams in the gutters and streets. It was a Saturday and Frances and Margot were in the kitchen preparing for a Saint Patrick's Day party. They were fixing green potato knishes, éclairs filled with mint cream, and celery sticks stuffed with green-tinted tuna salad. It was noon, but no one ever ate lunch in this house. They grabbed bits and pieces, which is what Gretel did when she came into the kitchen, already wearing her navy-blue jacket.

“Where are you off to?” her mother asked her. “You're never here anymore.”

Gretel had already taken two of the éclairs, and now Frances smacked her hand when she reached for a third.

“I'm just going out.” Gretel saw the way Margot was looking at her, lips pursed, like she knew the answer to some state secret. “No place in particular,” Gretel said, directly to Margot. “FYI.”

But of course, that wasn't true. All the night before, she'd been dreaming of Sonny Garnet, and in her dream he had left her to talk on the phone. He always paced when he talked on the telephone; he wound the cord around his arm like a tourniquet. Not that he was the least bit nervous; no way. Even if you couldn't make out what he was saying, his voice sounded so smooth. But in her dream, he wasn't smooth at all. When he spoke, rocks came out of his mouth. White stones, so flawless it had taken Gretel a while to realize they weren't rocks at all, but perfect white teeth.

She'd woken that morning with a terrible urge to see him, and by noon she couldn't wait any longer. All the way there she had an odd, breakable feeling, as if the slightest thing could hurt her. A branch falling from above, a strong gust of wind, anything could destroy her or blow her off course. Ever since she'd fallen in love, the rest of her life had somehow slipped away from her, the reality of streets and trees, the future and the past—it had been soaked up in the present with Sonny Garnet. She'd never noticed the twisted crab apple which grew by the front door of his apartment building. She'd never heard the way the steps creaked as she ran up to the third floor, or paid the least bit of attention to how cold it was in the stairwell, colder than the blue, March air outside.

Just before she knocked on the door, Gretel thought to herself,
I could leave now,
but she didn't. She bit down hard on her lip, and prepared herself for whatever was to be, and still she was completely undone when a girl answered the door. She was a beautiful girl of nineteen or twenty, with long blond hair and too much makeup. Immediately, Gretel lost the ability to speak.

“What is it?” the girl said. At least her teeth were awful. She was wearing a tacky name necklace. Laura was her name, and she acted as though she owned the place. She had her hands on her hips. “What do you want?”

“Sonny,” Gretel said, and alas, it was true. Standing in the hallway, where she now noticed the linoleum was cracked and filthy, she wanted him terribly.