Emmy Laybourne - Monument 14

Tears were sliding down her face. She made no move to wipe them away.

“He said that I should be, like, his girlfriend. And I guess I thought I could, you know, do what all he wanted me to do. But then I didn’t want to and…”

“I was keeping an eye on him,” Astrid said. “I didn’t trust him. She said no. And he wouldn’t stop—”

Josie grabbed my sleeve, pushing her way through to the center of the group.

“So I was right. Right? He was bad. He was bad?”

She was breathing fast, tears pooled in her eyes.

“He was a bad guy and I had no choice but to do what I did. Right?”

“Yes.” “Of course.” “Absolutely.” We answered, but she didn’t seem to hear us.

Niko took her by the arms and looked right into her eyes.

“Josie,” he said. “Robbie was bad. You saved my life by shooting him. You did the right thing.”

Josie swooned, her knees buckling out from under her. Niko steered her down onto the futon, next to Astrid and Sahalia.

Astrid put her other arm around Josie and now she had Sahalia on one side and Josie on the other.

“I heard the shot and I came running,” Josie said.

I understood she needed to tell us all her story.

“There, in the middle of the aisle, was the bag on the floor and the second gun just laying there. I took it. I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. I just thought… a gun shouldn’t just be laying on the floor.”

She wiped at her eyes.

“I didn’t even want to pick it up. But I did. And then I saw Robbie hurting Niko. I didn’t even think,” she whispered. “I just shot him. It felt so natural. As if shooting people is something I do all the time.”

“You did the right thing,” I said.

“Because he was going to hurt Niko, right? He was going to shoot Niko.”

“He had already hit me with the gun,” Niko said. “And I think he was going to shoot me.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did the right thing. I did.”

Josie pulled her head back and looked at us all of a sudden. Niko, Jake, Alex, me. My shirt and my arms.

“Are you guys covered in blood ?” she asked. “You have to get cleaned up,” she said, staggering to her feet. “What will the kids think?”

As bone weary as we all were, only Sahalia, Jake, and Alex could sleep.

Sahalia was curled up on the futon couch.

Alex on the butterfly chair.

Jake had lain down in front of the futon on the floor. “Just to rest my eyes for a sec.” And soon he was snoring away.

“I’m ready to work,” Josie said. “I’ll take the first watch over Brayden and Mr. Appleton while you guys get some sleep.”

Astrid stood up. She walked over to the door to the Train and looked in, scratching her head.

“Do you want me to show you where your bunk is?” I asked her.

“I guess you’re pretty tired,” she said, looking at me.

“Why?”

“I think I might have lice.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You probably do.” I explained to her that we’d all had lice and that Josie washed our hair.

“I can wash yours for you,” I said.

“You’re not too tired?” Astrid asked me.

I had been totally wiped out just a moment before, but talking to Astrid. Just the idea of… well, the idea of washing her hair, made me feel really, very awake.

“No,” I said. “I can always spare a moment to delouse a friend.”

She smiled.

We walked over to the Dump. Astrid darted away near Office Supplies.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She came back holding a pair of scissors.

“I have four brothers,” she said. “I’ve had lice three times. And there’s no way to get them out of long hair like this. You’re gonna have to give me a haircut.”

“You know I’ll suck at it, right?”

“I would be shocked if you didn’t,” she said.

And there—she smiled at me.

The same smile I’d been seeing in my dreams since I was a freshman.

The hair-washing stuff was still set up in the Dump, complete with extra towels and everything.

“Cut away,” she said as she sat on one of the stools.

“God help me,” I said.

I took a towel and wrapped it around her.

I started chopping. The golden tresses that had absolutely transfixed me were now drab and mousy. They were almost like dreadlocks. One big clump was all fused together and I just hacked at it with the scissors until I had cut the whole thing away.

Astrid shivered.

“Does it feel weird?” I asked her.

“Light,” she said. “My head feels free.”

I cut and chopped until it was mostly gone. It looked god-awful. Down to the scalp in some places, wispy in others. Matted down in places and kookily long in others.

“I think I need to wash it so I can make it look… uniform… somehow… or better… maybe…,” I said.

She laughed.

The most elegant way to wash someone’s head over a basin, Josie had figured out by the end of the delousing episode, was to have two stools set together. The washee sits facing away from the basin and the washer sits closer to the basin, sideways. Then the washee leans back so that they are lying down, their torso resting on your knees. You put the basin under their head and you have a bottle of water and the shampoo at an arm’s reach.

I explained this to Astrid, so she sat down facing away from me and then leaned back onto my lap.

And there she was. So beautiful, laid out on my knees. She had her eyes closed, and for a moment, I just looked at her. Dirty face. Lips drawn together, chapped and rosy. Eyes red rimmed. The rise of her cheekbones. Eyebrows and lashes golden honey–colored. Some brown, dried freckle-dots that could be blood on her jawline.

Astrid Heyman. I tried to memorize how beautiful she was.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “it’s going to be cold.”

I poured the water over her head.

“It’s freezing!”

I put the pitch-smelling shampoo into my hands and started rubbing. I moved my fingers in small circles over the surface of her grimy scalp.

“Mmmmmm,” she said and it was all I could do not to bring her to me and kiss her.

A trickle of water had run over her forehead to her eye. I took the edge of the towel and dabbed it away softly.

In the ruse of brushing away water, I ran my thumb over her eyebrow. It was a marvel of God, how perfect it felt under my thumb.

Brayden shot and Mr. Appleton dying and all I could think of was that perfect eyebrow.

I rinsed the shampoo out.

She shivered and I saw goose bumps go up on her forearms.

After it was done I put my hands under her shoulders and helped her sit up.

She towel-dried her hair and put her hands up to feel her head.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I’m bald!”

She turned and looked at me, her blue eyes shining.

Her hair was fluffy and standing up in all directions.

“You look like a baby chick!” I said.

She let me trim it some. I cut away the long, draggly tendrils.

In the end, she looked not so much like a baby chick, but maybe an orphan boy from a Charles Dickens book.

“It’s cold,” she said, shivering.

And I realized I had a hat! It got cold sometimes in the early morning in the Kitchen so I’d taken to keeping one in my back pocket.

It was an orange knit ski cap with a band of blue around near the edge.

“Thanks,” she said and she put it on.

“There’s like a dozen different styles in the Men’s Department, if you want a different one,” I said.

I didn’t want her to feel some kind of pressure to wear it. And if she replaced it, it would have made me feel better to know that I had given her the idea.