The Unnoticeables (9 page)

Nadine.

The simple reduction of Nadine's primary core self could shunt her potential energy where it would better serve. Instead of living (pointlessly), Nadine could provide 1.2 terajoules of energy to an active volcano on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean. Just enough power to tip it over the erupting point, eventually creating 762 square miles of new land. That land would erode in time, but if the goal is survival, the land would last through epochs, while Nadine would last a paltry few years longer on the street. The untapped energy called “Nadine” could foster the survival of a much larger entity for hundreds of thousands of years.

Or she could share her beer with a desperate and confused man beneath an overpass in a thunderstorm. She could say his name with affection, and he could hear it that way for the first time in half a decade. She could feed the skin hunger that was threatening to consume him. She could say good-bye two hours later and head off down Marcy Avenue toward the bus stop, and he could concoct elaborate fantasies about her getting on that bus and going Home. Someplace with a picket fence and clothes drying on a line, where people would welcome her back with open arms—
so sorry for what we said, we were just so worried
—and she would get her shit together. Eventually, she would invite the confused man to join her there, in the vague and ill-defined town of Home, and his brain would work right again, and they'd buy a fucking vacuum cleaner or whatever it is normal people do.…

This is hypothetical. Energy is energy, and her energy could have been used more efficiently elsewhere.

The fantasy kept me warm some nights.

Warmth is energy being expelled uselessly into the air.

 

NINE

2013. Los Angeles, California. Kaitlyn.

God, he probably thinks I'm crying.

I ran inside and immediately locked myself in the bathroom like a heartbroken preteen.

But I wasn't crying. Well, not much, or at least not yet. I was checking my mouth. I pulled my lips up to see the gums, wiggled my tongue, held it up to look beneath. I tried to induce vomiting a few times, but I have practically no gag reflex. (Shut up, it's not like that; I wanted to join the circus as a kid. I wanted to be a sword swallower. I said
shut up!
) I settled for a huge slug of mouthwash. My cheeks bulged out like a cartoon chipmunk's. I even swallowed a few burning sips, just on the irrational chance it would kill … whatever I was worried about living in my stomach and throat.

My mascara was blurred a little around my eyes, and my lipstick was smeared. I pulled out a pad and wiped it all off. I took a deep breath.

I still looked like me. I still felt like me.

Whatever Marco had been trying to do to me, I don't think he did it. I slipped out of my black party dress and into the jeans and T-shirt I'd left sitting on the bathroom floor. It was downright therapeutic. Like donning armor. I was halfway back to the living room before it even occurred to me to wonder about the strange homeless guy I had just invited into my apartment.

Jesus Christ, Kaitlyn. What is this Scarlett O'Hara bullshit? You know better than this.

I stopped, thankful that I'd shed my shoes at the door, and padded silently back to the bedroom. My hedonistically excessive bed filled every inch of the room, all the way up to the door. I dropped to my knees in the hallway, reached under the bed and around the corner, and felt about for my Mace. I knew I'd tossed it in one of the big Tupperware bins I use for storage down there. Working by feel, I pulled out a flashlight from one bin, some air freshener from another, a vibrator, and a spray bottle of Binaca before finally laying hands on the pepper spray. It was an off-brand canister I bought while driving through one of those shitty pocket neighborhoods in central L.A. You know the kind: You're driving along thinking how nice and down-to-earth this place seems despite what the rap videos would have you believe, and then you cross some invisible line and it all turns into Little Sarajevo. Smashed bottles filling the gutters. Shirtless dude with dried vomit on his belly waiting for a bus that won't come. Little kid in a baggy shirt standing like he's packing heat.

I don't know if there are reputable brands of pepper spray—
is Mace like Kleenex; is it a proper noun?
—but I was sure this wasn't one of them. It had a slutty devil on the side, red skin and horns, short skirt hiked up. She had one coy finger in her mouth, the other on the trigger of a flamethrower.

What the fuck kind of message is that? Here, sluts, defend yourselves from the poor men you've tricked into trying to rape you?

Well, it was better than nothing.

I sighed loudly, faking a stretch as I walked out of the hallway into the living room.

Real smooth. Real believable. I mentioned I'm a terrible actress, right?

And I felt all the stupider for it when I saw the homeless guy—Carey, he'd said his name was—sitting at my table with his hands politely crossed. He was old and whip thin. His skin was cracked and weathered. He had thick webs of laugh lines wrapped around his eyes like a Zorro mask. He smiled up at me with an expression of genuine concern and maybe a little paternal condescension. I noticed he had popped open one of my beers and clumsily tried to hide two more in his waistband.

“How you holding up?” he asked, as I dropped into the seat across from him.

“I don't … I don't really know.” I thought about grabbing a beer myself. Something about the way he zealously caressed his own sold me more than any beer commercial I'd ever seen.

Then I remembered Marco. The silvery strand of corruption he'd slipped down my throat when he'd kissed me. I decided on something stronger. I got back to my feet, even though my body threw a minor rebellion over the decision.

“Thanks for helping me out back there,” I yelled from the kitchen, standing on tiptoe to pull a dusty bottle of Jameson down from atop the fridge. “That guy just wouldn't take no for an answer.”

I didn't want to say it. Didn't want to vocalize what had actually happened. Who the hell would believe that?

“Don't give me that shit,” Carey said. His eyes lit up when I came back to the table with a bottle and two coffee mugs.

Mine had a picture of a grumpy owl. It said, “Do I look like I give a hoot?” His said, “2009 Breast Cancer Awareness Run.” He didn't seem to notice, or care.

“I know what you're thinking,” he continued, not setting his beer aside in favor of the whiskey, but instead opting to follow one with the other. “‘That shit was crazy; nobody will believe me. I was probably hallucinating. Maybe he slipped something in my drink earlier. Maybe I didn't have enough to eat.' Don't be stupid.”

I arched an eyebrow at him.

“Fine. You don't have to say it first.” Carey opened his hands; a gesture of surrender. “He put his Hollywood weasel lips on you, and you felt something evil slide down your throat, where it started to eat your life. Simple as that.”

I shuddered and fought off a wave of nausea. It was worse, having somebody verify it.

“That was the second worst kiss I've ever had in my life.” I smiled. When he tilted his head at me, I clarified: “Tommy Giovanni, fifth grade. Just straight up put his tongue in my mouth and left it there, like a dead slug.”

Carey laughed. It turned into a dry cough.

“Tell me about it,” he managed, catching his breath. “Try fucking one of those things. Like sticking your dick in a black hole.”

“Who
are
you?!”

“I'm Carey,” he said. He looked hurt. “I'm the guy that takes your cans?”

“No, I mean who are you to know about this? What were you doing out there? Don't give me that right-place-right-time crap, either. What's going on? When did the whole goddamned world go off its meds?”

Carey downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp, then he reached for mine and slammed that too. He stood up slowly, wrestling with a set of audibly creaking joints.

“Rest. That's the only thing for it. Trust me. I've been where you are. You'll sleep like a fucking morphine jockey, and when you wake up tomorrow, this goes one of two ways: either you'll want to know more, or you'll never want to talk about it again. If you can choose, go with option B. Most people who go that way are happy. Some of 'em even live. If you go the other way and want to talk about it, I'll see you Wednesday night.”

“What's Wednesday night?” I asked.

“Garbage-day eve!” Carey grinned, and his face unfolded like an old leather wallet.

I couldn't help it. I smiled back.

But I still locked the deadbolt the second he left.

He was wrong. There was no way I was going to sleep tonight. But I sure as hell wanted my bed. I crawled in there on hands and knees all the way up to the headboard. I fell into a nest of pillows, pulled my blankets up around my neck, and prepared for a long, sleepless night.

I blinked and it was morning.

My alarm sent panic shooting through my chest. I awoke like somebody who'd just slept through a long flight. Morning was a foreign country.

I slapped at my phone, still caught in the pocket of my jeans, which I had forgotten to take off. After an infuriatingly long time, I finally managed to prod the right combination of buttons to shut it off.

I couldn't believe I still had to work today. Your whole world can fall apart on you—everything you know can be called into question while some sick inhuman thing steals part of your soul—and when you wake up the next morning, your boss will still yell at you for not smiling at the customers.

I started groggily rolling for the door when it hit me.

Jackie.

She was way too friendly with Marco at the party. It seemed like they might have even known each other.

I couldn't tell her what happened. Not really. She wouldn't understand, like Carey. Would she? I didn't think Carey would believe me at first, either. Maybe this is just something everybody deals with. She'd think I was stupid for not having known it before, like mispronouncing “falafel.”

Oh, yeah, the Empty Ones, the ones that impregnate you with clawing despair and don't seem to feel pain? Ha-ha, totally! You never made out with one of them before? Wow. Get out much?

No, I couldn't tell Jackie the truth. But I could tell her he was a scumbag. Stuck his hands down my pants or asked me to pee on him or something. Anything to keep her away.

I poked at my phone with sleep-clumsy fingers until I landed on Jackie's name in my contact list.

CALLING,
the display read.

Instead of ringing, there were tiny dogs barking.

It confused the hell out of me, until I remembered that time Jackie replaced her inbound ring with an old Jewish couple arguing about parking spaces. I have no idea how or why she did that.

There was no answer. Wee, furious dogs. Chihuahuas. Yapping like a broken starter motor. No answer. Unbroken, unceasing yaps.

I texted her instead:
AM OK STAY AWAY FROM MARCO HES A PISSER CALL ME.

I threw myself out of bed and swerved into the bathroom. I did the bare minimum of presentable maintenance: concealer, eyeliner, hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. I stuck with the clothes I'd slept in, tossed on my beat-up black Converse, and jogged unhappily to the bus stop.

*   *   *

A drugged-up old white guy sat right next to me and spent the entire bus ride loudly freestyling raps about how bitches never listen to the voices in his head. He successfully rhymed “Mercedes” with “all the ladies”; he unsuccessfully rhymed “schizophrenia” with “put it in ya.”

*   *   *

“You look like a butt,” Carl told me the very second I stepped through the door.

“Excuse me?” I tried to muster some offense, but I couldn't help laughing.

“You look like an old butt that somebody sat on all day,” he explained.

I threw up my hands and went to the wait station to tie my apron on.

“You okay?” he hollered after me.

“Late night. Absinthe and gentlemen callers,” I yelled back. “You know how it goes with us tramps.”

“You're covering for Madison again,” Carl said, now poking his disapproving bald head around the corner.

“Hell, no! Some CW-cast-member-looking bitch nearly took my eye when I screwed up her mai tai last night!” I grabbed a Styrofoam coffee cup and whipped it at his
Father Knows Best
face.

He ducked it. Bastard.

“To be fair, you made it with Aftershock,” he countered. Then, seeing me frantically search for another, larger cup, he quickly added, “It's just until four! The bar's dead during the day, and Bennifer is coming in to start her first shift then.”

“I don't gi— Wait—Bennifer? That's seriously her … his name?”

Carl gave me an apathetic shrug and put on his best old-man impression: “I can't tell. Kids these days and their crazy haircuts and hip-hop music.”

He came around the alcove and gave me a conciliatory pat on the shoulder, then pushed through the swinging doors to go chew out the kitchen staff.

The little bells on the door rang. Our first customer.

I took a breath. Tried on a few fake smiles until I found one that fit. I chugged a tiny white foam cup full of strong, cold coffee, grabbed my pad, and went out to do battle.

I had gone mad.

It had to be madness. This could not be real.

It was Marco.

He stood at the hostess's podium with his carefully constructed smirk. Looking at his face, I realized I had never really seen his eyes up close before. Not in the light. I had assumed, since they were a bit on the squinty side and it was nighttime, that they were dark brown. But they weren't. They were black. No. They weren't even black. They were the color of absence.