Party Girl Crashes the Rapture
M.E. Purfield
Published by Trash Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 M.E. Purfield
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This is a work of pure fiction
It’s Lorelei’s last year of school and she has no plans for the future. Well, she does plan to drink, smoke weed, bang boys, and get as far away from her abusive mother as possible. What else is there to do in a small New Jersey town?
But when the seizures start, Lorelei enters a Technicolor dream world where she meets a pink-eyed little girl named Darby. She has something important to tell Lorelei. Something about a murder.
Lorelei doesn’t want to deal with Darby and does all she can to forget about her. She even goes as far as finding love and a possible future. But Darby is persistent, so persistent that she starts breaking into Lorelei’s reality.
Now she must solve a murder and face a dark secret in her past that could reveal a truth so horrifying that death could be the only way to forget it.
BONUS FEATURES:
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TREK ACROSS THE GARBAGE FIELD
“Lorelei,” she whispers. “Remember.”
I look up at the blurred red void. The throbbing pain attacks my head. I close my eyes to see if that will lessen the ache. No luck. I’m screwed either way.
I remove the scarlet blanket from my head and sit up on the floor. My consciousness rushes with memories of last night’s party. Jorge lays face down on the couch, still naked except for Arianna’s thong and push-up bra. Arianna doesn’t seem to be around unless she’s in one of the bedrooms. I spot a few snoring guys on the floor and one stretched across the wooden coffee table. None of them are Foley. He must have left already. He likes to get a full six hours of sleep before he starts his shift.
So who called my name?
I shrug and then rub my temples. Doesn’t matter. I’m up.
I take the cell phone out of my skirt’s back pocket and check the time. Damn, it’s 4:36 A.M. No wonder Foley left me here. I probably told him to do it. It’s happened before. I get so engrossed in the music and the dancing and the people that I don’t want to leave.
I use the tall lamp in the corner to help me up to my feet and walk across the shrapnel of chips and popcorn on the floor, trying to be aware of bottles and cans that will surely make me trip and land on my face.
Blinding green lightning flashes through the room.
My legs weaken as the floor drops.
I stare up at blinding white lights.
Thin paper crinkles under me like I’m on one of those doctor’s tables. My legs are spread. My calves float above the table even though ice coats them. A little girl’s upside down face blocks my view. She may be around six or seven. Her long light brown hair dangles close to the sides of my face. Her old pink eyes stare into mine. I might know her but I’m not sure.
My heartbeat increases.
Chills clamp my spine.
“Say it,” she says.
“S-say what?” I ask.
“I can’t see you anymore.”
“What?” I ask.
Green lightning flashes again.
All is gone for a sec until…
The back of a man’s head. He has cropped brown hair and hunches over.
Thunder.
A crimson explosion from the back of his head.
I open my eyes and grab the throbbing pain in my skull. I’m at the other side of the room. How the hell did I get here? The last thing I remember is walking across the floor. I must have blacked out. Figures.
I check my cell again. 5:03 A.M.
I’m going to be so late for my first day of senior year.
THE UNBEARABLE PRESSURE OF TARDINESS
You would figure by now I’d be used to going to school with a hangover. I guess there’re some things that you just can’t adapt to.
I run down the school hallway as the final bell rings. After crossing the threshold, I stop short inside homeroom. Even though I’m the last one to enter, I can’t help but be impressed with my stamina since my brain is thumping against my skull and my stomach feels like it swallowed a thousand centipedes.
Instead of desks, large stations with black stone tops, sinks, and propane gas spouts for science experiments form three rows. Each station has two people on stools. Mr. Gulager glares at me from behind the master station at the head of the class. I flash him a smile and point to the only empty stool in the middle row towards the back, the one next to Tara Cunningham who I’ve been sitting next to for the last four years.
“Um, over there?” I ask.
“You’re late, Lorelei.” Mr. Gulager frowns so hard his bushy eyebrows and ridiculous graying mustache look like they’re going to collide around his nose and hold it hostage. “How many years have you had homeroom with me? By now you know I don’t tolerate tardiness.”
I nod my head and zip up my hoodie before he can see that I’m wearing a Fuck Buttons spaghetti strap tank that shows off my belly ring and the wings of my tat. Why hand the man more reason to give me shit?
“Yes, sir,” I say.
He glances at the same faces from the last four years and begins his speech about ‘tardiness’ and how it screws up the whole morning. And there I am: standing by the door, watching everyone’s bored face and trying to keep from falling asleep standing up. When he finishes, he motions for me to sit.
I exhale a gracious, “Thank you,” and walk to the stool as the man continues to talk.
“Being late is no way to live your life,” he says. “Punctuality is the structure of life, Lorelei.”
With my back to him, I roll my eyes. Holy guacamole! This guy has such a hard-on for lateness. It’s effin homeroom. Not like I’m late for my period. Now that would be something to freak out about. Besides, it’s the first day of school, you know?
Mr. Gulager stops talking as I sit on the stool. I slouch forward, cross my arms, and close my eyes. The room is quiet (the way Gulager has trained us to be) and I’m so tempted to take a 5-minute power nap. I think twice about it since I’m in deep shit as it is for my first day of senior year. Man, I wish I had some weed on me so I can sneak right off after homeroom, but my stash is in my locker.
After attendance, faking the pledge of allegiance, and the start of morning announcements, I sneak my phone out of my hoodie pocket. I cross my legs and hope to God Mr. Gulager can’t see the phone hidden behind the table.
I check my text messages as the kid over the loud speaker spouts bullshit club information and when try-outs are for the lame sports the school takes way too seriously. I have two messages from Fatima and one from Foley. Fatima’s first message asks where I was last night. We’ve been friends most our lives so she probably knows the answer to her own question. I open Foley’s. He asks if I need a ride to Chuckie’s party tonight. Chuckie? Ah, in Lakehurst. Right. I sneak a quick text back to him: f yeah, baby. The coast clear, I slip the phone back into my hoodie pocket and case the classroom.
At the table up one row and to the right, a new guy throws me a smile. He needs to lose that mini Mohawk. His clothes seem too perfect - khaki cargo shorts, tennis sneakers, and solid blue T-shirt – like his mommy picked them out for him. He’s kind of cute, and I might give him a throw if the chance arrives this year.
For kicks, I open my hoodie and lean forward so my cleavage presses out over the low cut collar. He might be able to see some of the biker demon on my right breast, maybe even some of my bra. I catch his eyes staring and his mouth smiling wider. To seal the deal, I flash a slight kiss. The guy blushes and places his hands over his lap. Yeah, like I don’t know what he’s trying to hide. Mission accomplished, I turn away and congratulate myself on a job well done.
I spot another new guy sitting to my left. He’s a super cutie in jeans, black Doc Martins, and an old Fear T-shirt. He scores major points for the T. I’ve only met one boy during my four years who has ever heard of Fear. New Super Cutie’s black, curly hair stops at his neck and his bangs dangle over his eyes. Hands down, I want him. I’m already imagining how he looks naked and on top of me. But the boy pays me no mind. For some odd reason, he focuses on sketching in a notebook. I keep staring, waiting for him. C’mon, I mentally scream, what is so important that you have to draw instead of check me out?
He finally looks up. New Super Cutie stares into my eyes, his face blank. I smile, wink at him, and give him a view of my thigh. He glances at my legs, but his expression doesn’t change. He looks back into my eyes and then continues his sketching.
Holy guacamole!
I feel my face flush red. What is his problem?
I turn forward. Brian Callahan leans over his desk and grins at me. He’s probably remembering the time we fooled around at that party in Point Pleasant last month. He arches his blond eyebrows and motions to my breasts. I pout and ease my shoulders together. I doubt he can see much from that distance, but the action sets him off. He fakes a death on his stool and smiles.
Yeah, New Super Cutie has to be gay.
THE GAP OF IMMATURITY
Leaving homeroom, I walk down the hall and find Fatima waiting for me at my locker. She looks good in a Radiohead T-shirt she bought when we saw them live last summer in Jersey City and tight jeans even though she has those stupid Hello Kitty patches on the thighs that match the Hello Kitty earrings and charm bracelet. You figure her obsession with Hello Kitty would be a cause for alarm. But it’s her hair that makes me flinch. I’m still not used to the amount of bleach she used on it. I want to tell her that because of her pale skin she almost looks albino, but I don’t have the heart to make her cry since she thinks she did such a great job.
“So tell me tell me tell me,” she says as I open my locker.
“God, put a plastic bag over my head,” I say.
I rummage in my backpack for the spliffs I stashed earlier.
“You went to that party last night, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So?” She pouts. “You promised to take me with you.”
I turn to her and inhale. “No, I didn’t.”
But I also didn’t say I wasn’t going to take her. I glance into her extreme light blue eyes. People always say Fatima has one of the freakiest stares in school. I never got that feeling. I always thought there was something childlike in her eyes. Throughout high school we always had a lot of classes together and got the same kind of grades. Where I just didn’t try for my Cs, Fatima studied hard for them. For some reason her brain just couldn’t wrap with ease around information. I’ve often wondered if she was slightly retarded or had a learning disability or something. Then I would grow mad that her religious parents or the thick teachers never picked up on it to help her.
“You went off with Foley again, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, what’s the big deal?”
She studies her shoes, the weight of her sadness holding her face down. God, I just want to slap her. Instead I say, “I asked him if you could come with us. But he wanted to be alone with me. Okay?”
The lie lifts her head up, but the sadness still remains. “Yeah, okay.”
“Listen, I’m working on him. I’ll keep trying.”
I’m amazed at how the lies just keep falling out of my mouth. I’ve been stringing Fatima along ever since she found out about my nightlife. No way in hell I’m going to bring her along. She’s very pretty and has a nice body and isn’t even aware of it. Some guy could easily persuade her to some bedroom or bathroom and take advantage of her, take her virginity and flush it down a toilet. I just wish she would move on and focus on other things.
I pocket the weed, grab my Wayfarer sunglasses, and close the door.
“Just like you keep trying to set me up with one of Foley’s friends?” she asks.
Problem number two: Fatima wants a boyfriend. But no guy in this school wants to date a girl he thinks is retarded. Have sex with that kind of girl? Yes. But not date.
I decide to stop lying and say, “Trust me, Fatima. You don’t want to go out with Foley’s friends. They’re jerks.”
She shrugs and picks at the corner of her notebook.
The bell for first period blares. The hall clears out.
“Wanna light up with me?” I ask.
“Nah, gotta start off the year like a good girl.” She steps away. “What’s your first class?”
“No idea.” I say.
She laughs again. But it’s true.
As she rushes to make her first period class, I run down the hall to the back of the school.
ILLUSIONS OF SMOKE
Owel High School is not really in Owel, New Jersey. Some idiot built the building just on the border of Farmingdale. Acres of barren land and trees surround the school. If you stand on your toes you can make out an old rock quarry and the train tracks that run past it. We’re so far from civilization that if a bomb explodes no one but the yokels in the few clapboard shacks in the woods would hear us die. A baseball field, a few tennis courts, and a football field that hosts the games of our sub par team - the Rebels - frame the huge two-level building. I rarely go to the sporting events, unless some guy wants to drag me to one and promises to take me to a party afterwards. Oddly, I have never been in the East wing of the school where the college prep and advance placement classrooms are rooted. I would never be caught dead in those rooms and the faculty would never make the mistake of putting me there either. They like to keep all the remedial classes together. Sophomore year I had all my morning classes in one corridor. I just zigzagged across the hall at the sound of the bell. Maybe the faculty thinks we’re so stupid we might get lost roaming the corridors.
I sneak out the entrance by the gym and slip on my Wayfarers before my eyes freak from the bright sunlight. No one’s around this time of the morning. I look out to the woods and the back corner of the parking lot. It’s almost the perfect place to smoke. ‘Almost’ meaning that everyone knows to smoke here, even the teachers and security guards. To keep from suspicion, I take apart cigarettes and mix the weed with the tobacco to create spliffs. To the average eye it appears like I’m just smoking an unfiltered cigarette. They could also pass for clove cigarettes, which a lot of kids have been smoking lately. I still don’t take any chances, though. As soon as a guard or janitor walks by, I’m out of there.
I finish the spliff and stub it out with my checkered Chuck Taylor sneaker. I still have twenty minutes of first period left. The nausea starts to fade from my stomach, but this headache is relentless. I figure I can drop down to the school nurse and score some aspirin. It would be a good excuse for why I missed first period. I smile, proud of myself. Looks like today might not be so bad.
BI - DO OR DIE
By lunch the aches in my head and body are gone, but my eyelids weigh a ton and I’m not sure how long I can keep them open. I sit at the table in the cafeteria and pick at a banana nut muffin and sip a carton of milk. Eric Dornoff sits to my right. He’s looking fine in jeans, high top sneakers, and a black T-shirt. While he eats pizza, I tease my fingers through his spiked brown hair and finger the new stud in his ear. Temptation urges me to trace the dragon tat that sticks out from his shirt at his neck. Since we’re in a public place, I practice self-control even though he doesn’t. His free hand rubs up and down my bare thigh. I don’t think he has any idea that Brian Callahan’s on my left is doing the same. I pretend that nothing’s happening and talk to Fatima sitting across the table. She goes on and on about how her parents, strict Russian Orthodoxs, grounded her for coming home late from the mall. I half listen and anxiously await the scene that will result after Brian and Eric’s hands meet between my legs. Will they fight or will they pull their hands away in fright and hope the other won’t say anything?
As I zone out from Fatima’s whining, I spot New Super – possibly gay - Cutie a few tables away with his lunch tray. He’s alone, which is expected for a new boy. I bite my lip ring and consider approaching him, making sure he’s straight or at least bisexual before I waste any time with him this year.
“He just won’t listen to me about it. I really don’t get it, you know? You’re really smart Lorelei. What do you think I should do about it?” Fatima asks.
“Fuck ‘em,” I say.
“Huh? My dad?”
Anger rises into my face. I glare at Fatima like she’s the stupidest girl in the world and sometimes she really is. “Ew! No. That’s sick.”
Glad so I can get away from Fatima’s stupidity, I stand and feel Eric’s hand move away.
“Fuck what?” Eric asks, then smirks.
“Mmmm fuck me,” I say in my best little girl voice, tucking my anger away. I kiss the top of his head and say, “Be right back.”
As I step away I hear Brian Callahan say, “Damn, Fatima. You’ve been looking so fine since you bleached your hair.”
Hoodie open, I stroll over to New Super – possibly gay - Cutie. He has half of the table to himself while a gaggle of kids in polo shirts, khakis, and pen-stuffed pockets pound numbers into a calculator and argue over the results. He reads a comic book opened on the table while he picks at his meat dish and vegetables. I sit at his side and turn the chair towards him. I cross my legs, lean in, and smile.
“Hi,” I say.
He looks up; his face blank. “Hey.”
His voice is dark and rich, like chocolate. I can’t wait for him to say my name. I bet it’ll send a shiver up my legs.
“You’re in my homeroom, right?” I ask.
He nods. Not much of a conversationalist.
“I’m Lorelei. Lorelei L. Cox.”
Usually guys smirk when they hear my last name, hoping the L stands for Loves. He just has a stone face. “Rick Collins.”
I squeeze his arm. “Nice to meet you, Rick Collins. You got a sexy name.”
Eureka! The boy smiles.
“Thanks.”
He glances at his comic. I can’t believe he finds men and women in tight costumes more interesting. Even the boys next to him are checking me out and probably memorizing my image for future masturbation reference.
“So you wanna guess what the L stands for in my name?” I ask.
He shrugs and connects with my eyes. “Lorraine?”
I laugh, squeeze his arm again, and scoot closer. My knees touch his denim-covered thigh. “No. Oh, my God. No!”
I wait and give him a chance to guess again. Boys never guess what it really is, but I’m not looking for the truth.
Rick shakes his head and shrugs. “Sorry, not good at this game.”
I frown and sigh. Maybe he has a learning disability. He wouldn’t be the first boy who does. I rub his arm, “It’s cool. Maybe later,” and then take my hand away.
As he looks down at his comic (again!), I glance back at my table. Fatima flashes me a questioning expression. I want to give her the middle finger, still pissed about her dad fucking comment. Instead, I make the one-minute sign.
I turn back to Rick and catch him checking out my breasts. I smile. The boy is so not gay. At least, not all the way. He connects with my eyes and blushes. Caught!
“I got to get going, Rick,” I say. “I’ll see you later.”
He nods.
I stand up and walk back to my table. Looks like I won’t be wasting my time this year.
I find Brian sitting next to Fatima in a similar fashion to how I was sitting with New Super Cutie. He has his hand on her thigh and his head close to her ear. Fatima smiles so wide she could pass for Ronald McDonald. I grab a chair and pry my way between them.
“Excuse me,” I say.
Fatima giggles and turns away from Brian who looks like he wants to beat my ass.
“What the fuck, Lorelei?” Brian says. “What are you doing?”
I sit on the chair and turn my head to him. “Sitting next to my best friend. Deal with it.”
Brian sighs and shakes his head. “Crazy bitch,” and then walks off.
I turn back to Fatima and say, “So what were you saying about your dad?”
ART IN SEDUCTION?
Out of my four-year high school career, Art is the only class I get As in. I do like to draw and paint and stuff. By no means do I create brilliant works of art. But my teachers don’t seem to care. Maybe I get an A for effort.
This year my Art teacher is Mr. Hanson who I haven’t had since Art II sophomore year. He’s a middle aged divorced guy who could be cute if he stopped dressing like a hippie in bell bottoms and tasseled shirts that look like someone puked paint on them. Plus, he could use a haircut. Other than that, he’s cool. Unlike my other teachers, he’s the only one that sends out good vibes. He looks like the kind of guy who could give advice on how to get rid of a hang over.
I walk in and scan the classroom for a spot to sit. Thick planks of paint-stained wood screwed into the tops of short filing cabinets form the tables with battered stools circling around them. The walls are still bare. By next month, paintings and drawings from the classes should be covering them. I then find the perfect place to nest: right next to New Super Cutie Rick. But he isn’t alone. Sarah Powers sits with him. Even though they’re on two different sides of the table, I hate that she shares air with him. Since she’s in those Advance Placement/College Prep courses, we never had any classes together except for gym. By the way she walks and gives smug looks like she knows more than everyone is more than enough reason to hate her. It also doesn’t help that Sarah is actually pretty even though she styles her dyed black hair long and straight with the bangs cut above her brow and has a fetish for black jeans and ugly puppy-patterned tops.
I stand by the easels, pretend to search my notebook, and watch them talk. They smile and look into each other’s eyes, but they never touch. That’s a good sign.
“Lorelei?”
Mr. Hanson stands at my side. I smile at him.
“Lose something?” he asks.
“Not yet,” I say. “I hope.”
He smiles back and nods as if he’s responding to some crazy person. “Um, yeah. Why don’t you take a seat? We’re going to start soon.”
I walk to Rick and Sarah’s table, drag a stool over to his, and sit.
“Oh, hey,” Rick says. “Lorelei? Right?”
“Exactly,” I say and tap his forearm.
I glance at Sarah who just stares at me.
“Hi, Sarah.” I flash her a smile, too. Why not?
“Hey,” she says, not returning it. Figures she wouldn’t.
Rick turns back to Sarah. “So, yeah. I don’t mind that about him. I kind of like that his writing is flawed, just a little rough but still tight and minimal, you know?”
“I guess,” Sarah says. “Just sometimes I’m reading this funny passage, like when he’s delivering that certified letter to that crazy woman, and the writing trips me up. And I feel I would be laughing harder if I wasn’t so distracted by the flaw.”
Rick holds his fists out and moves them like he’s bending an invisible metal bar. “You got to bend,” he says. “And also remember that Bukowski wasn’t some college trained university writer. He wrote for the common man and they never cared about flaws, just the bigger picture.”
The boy didn’t have this much to say to me during lunch. Was Sarah holding his tongue for him then? I sigh as anger burns my cheeks.
Sarah raises her penciled eyebrows at me.
Rick finally turns around and says, “Shit. Sorry, Lorelei. Didn’t mean to leave you out.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“What do you think?” he asks.
“About?”
“Charles Bukowski’s novel Post Office?”
From a small pile of schoolbooks next to her, Sarah picks up the novel and shows me the cover. I have no idea what it’s about. The post office maybe? I wish that my step dad were here since he works at one. He could possibly save my ass.
“Um, it was ok,” I say. “Better than the movie.”
Rick flinches.
Sarah drops the book down like it’s a dirty tissue and shakes her head. “Factotum was made into a movie. Not Post Office.”
“Oh.” I hold onto the stool to keep myself from shrinking and falling into the cracked wood. How am I supposed to know that?
I open my mouth to say something, something smart I hope, when Mr. Hanson starts attendance. We all sit in silence and only speak out when our name is called.
“Enrique Collins?” Mr. Hanson says.
“Here,” Rick says. “But I prefer Rick.”
Mr. Hanson looks at Rick and then down at his attendance sheet. “Rick it is.” He writes the correction in the attendance book.
“Enrique,” some wiseass kid squeals in a fem voice a few tables away. Aaron Pegg and a few other jerky guys laugh from a table on the other side of the classroom. Rick ignores them. Sarah sighs and shakes her head like she needs someone to save her from this gaggle of idiots that trapped her. The funny thing is that if Rick wasn’t in the class, I would be sitting at Aaron’s table.
“Assholes,” I whisper.
Rick smiles at me. I smile back.
When attendance is over, Mr. Hanson explains our first project. He wants us to find a picture from a magazine and blow it up to a larger scale. We can use any medium we want: pencil, charcoal, oil paint, whatever. One by one he asks each table to send a representative to the supply room to take out some magazines.
As we wait to be called, Rick and Sarah start talking about some book called Naked Lunch. They keep bringing up homosexual sex and creatures called Mugwumps. The book sounds like something I could get into until their conversation turns political. What the hell do I know about politics? I barely passed US History II last year.
Mr. Hanson points to our table. We’re next. I silently thank God for the chance to leave the conversation and stand. “I’ll go.”
“I’ll help you,” Rick says.
I try to refrain from doing a back flip and say, “Thanks. Such a gentleman.”
I glance at Sarah to see if she’s jealous. She just sits and inspects her black painted fingernails. Maybe she share’s Rick’s sexual retardation.
We walk into the supply closet where a mountain of old donated magazines are piled from floor to mid-wall. Mr. Hanson has collected everything from National Geographic, Travel, and Rolling Stone. I then realize that Rick and I are alone in the room, away from authority and away from Sarah Powers. In the past, I have flirted with boys in this room. Nothing major, just some serious above the clothes stuff. Why break tradition?
I pick up a huge pile of mags and pretend that I’m having trouble holding them.
Rick grins and offers his arms out to take the pile. “Let me get those.”
I lean in, look up into his eyes, and smile as he takes the magazines. Instead of stepping away and letting him gain some balance, I stretch my head up and press my lips to his. For the first few seconds he’s kissing me back. I then place my hand on the back of his neck and offer the tip of my tongue.
He releases an aggressive moan, but not the kind I expect. “Wait,” he says.
I remove my hand and lips. A flustered expression covers his red face. I want to eat him up.
“What’s wrong?” I ask in my best little girl voice.
“W-what are you doing?”
He stares at the pile of mags in his arms. His face is drawn down and red. His confused expression sends a jolt of depression through my heart. Did I do something awful?
“I was kissing you.” I sound so stupid. I never had to explain myself before. “I thought…I…”
Rick turns to the door, “Better get back,” and walks away.
I pace the closet, not sure where to go. My mind reels like a CD that can’t decide on what track to play. I have to be dreaming. I must have gotten my signals mixed. Maybe I’m still hung over from last night. Maybe he has a girlfriend. Then again, that has never stopped a guy before.
“Lorelei?” Mr. Hanson says at the doorway. “You lost?”
I grab a bunch of magazines and walk past him. “Sorry.”
As I head for the table I notice the room tilting. I stop. Rick flashes an embarrassed stare at me then turns away. The sensation of the room spinning faster pushes my balance, trying hard to knock me off my feet. The next table representative walks slowly to the closet. Not like they’re taking their time, but like slow motion video. Then I notice that everyone is moving slow.
As I wonder if someone slipped me acid during lunch, the florescent lights turn green. I pant as my head heats up. My heart pounds in my chest. I drop the magazines.
“Lore…”
The magazines finally hit the floor.
“…lei?”
I close my eyes. The floor drops out. So much pressure hugs my eyes that I want to cry, but I just can’t bring out the sob. I can open them, though. I’m not in the art class anymore. I’m in a back yard. A black picket fence surrounds the manicured blue lawn. The new red house is one level high with pink trim and window shutters. I turn to my right to see a little girl sitting in one of those small plastic pools. Instead of water, it’s filled with mud. The girl wears red pajamas with feet. She could be six or seven years old. It’s hard to tell with the wrinkles around her eyes.
I float towards her and stop at the pool. The girl looks up at me. She smiles. Chubby, kissable cheeks round out her face. The sadness from her pink eyes infects me but still can’t get me to sob. She seems so familiar.
“Dar uh uh bee,” she says. “Dar uhhhhhh beeeee.”
Darby? I want to ask her if that’s her name but I can’t find my voice.
“My daddy loves me,” she says. “Does my mommy love me, too?”
My heartbeat increases. It’s going to burst. Fear paralyzes my being.
Her wide smile slowly turns into a frown. A purple tear runs down her soft cheek, trailing like paint.
I try to move. I want to hug her. I want to tell her that everything will be okay. That I’m scared, too. She doesn’t have to be alone.
“You say, ‘I can’t see you anymore’,” the girl says.
Is she talking to me?
Green lighting breaks the sky.
A gunshot thunderclap.
White void. Silence. Another thunderclap.
The top of a man’s head explodes.
Thunderclaps again, followed by green lightning.
Then all goes black.
STORM BEHIND THE CURTAIN
I open my eyes and gasp for air.
Darby.
Who’s Darby?
My heart racing, I spring up, grab onto the metal bars, and look around the room. I’m not in art class. I don’t even think I’m at school. I sit on a gurney behind a pale blue curtain. On the other side, machines beep and people hang out and talk like they’re passing the time. A stabbing pain in my head sends me back down. My heavy brain tries to pull me to sleep. I touch my forehead and hope to find a bandage around it since my brain feels like it was shot with a bullet. No bandage. But a tube connected to a saline bag runs into my arm and a clip wired to a machine pinches the tip of my finger.
A woman my mom’s age whips the curtain open. She glares at me as if she wasn’t expecting me to be here. “Oh, good,” she says with a heavy Spanish accent. “You’re up.”
From the white med coat over the pea green scrubs and the stethoscope around her neck, I assume she’s the doctor.
“My name is Doctor Taylor.” She looks over my monitors. “Do you know where you are?”
I open my mouth, but all I can do is croak. She stares and waits for my answer. I nod my head, just to change her expression.
“Are you having trouble speaking?”
“N-no,” I say under a sigh.
“Good.” I expect a smile, but she offers none. “Do you remember your name?”
“Lorelei.”
“Bueno.”
“Huh?”
“Good.”
“Whatever.” I grab my head. Her voice stokes the pain behind my skull, if that is at all possible.
“Do you remember what happened?”
I do and it’s unfortunate.
“I was in class.” A breath. “When weird things started to happen,” I say.
“What kind of weird things?” Dr. Taylor takes out a pen and poses it over her clipboard.
“Things were moving…slow. I think. The light was weird,” I say.
“And then?”
I slam my fist on the gurney rail and widen my eyes at the bitch. “Then I don’t fucking know. I can’t remember.”
She nods, not at all bothered that I want to rip her head off. Maybe I’m supposed to feel this enraged. Then the anger drops as fast as it came and the tiredness consumes my body.
She tucks the pen into her coat pocket and slips the clipboard under her arm. “You had a seizure, Lorelei.”
I squeeze my eyes, hoping it will lessen the pressure in my skull. “Great. Okay. Yeah?”
“Do you have epilepsy or a history of epilepsy in your family?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we’re still waiting on your MRI and CT, but your EEG came out negative,” Dr. Taylor says. “I expect the others will be negative, too.”
I nod.
“Are you on any kind of medications or take recreational drugs or have you suddenly stopped using any?” she asks.
The anger rises again and pulls the skin around my face. The way she asks makes me think she already knows the answer. Did she find anything in my blood? Traces of weed or alcohol?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“Oh, you don’t? Sometimes when people continue to use recreational drugs or suddenly stop, they may experience seizures,” Dr. Taylor says.
I stare at the purple socks on my feet and cross my arms. “I’m not using drugs.”
She checks off something on the clipboard. “Can you tell me what you were doing before the seizure?”
I remember the humiliation with Rick in the closet. “No,” I say. “I mean, I wasn’t doing anything…odd. I was just going to get some magazines in art class.”
She nods and stares with those cold dark eyes. I notice her wedding ring and feel sympathy for her husband.
“Where is she?” a familiar voice says from the other side of the curtain. “Is she in here?”
“Oh, shit,” I sigh.
Dr. Taylor raises her eyebrow, not realizing the storm that’s behind the curtain. She moves to the side as Mom joins the party.
She must have left the house in a hurry. She wears a tight sweatshirt that shows off her belly and breasts competing to see what can stick out the farthest and a pair of green, plaid seersucker pants that I know have a hole in the crotch. The muscles in her face sculpt total aggravation, an expression she saves for me on a regular basis. Many times I wish she had a ripcord that I can pull to make the expression fly away.
“Lorelei.” Mom crosses her arms and shakes her head. A yawn escapes her mouth. Whoever called home must have woken her up. If I were awake when I got here I would have told them not to bother. Mom turns to Dr. Taylor. “What did she do that I had to get dragged out of bed in the middle of the afternoon? I work nights you know.”