Em Garner - Contaminated

“What are you guys doing?” Opal sounds disgusted.

I try to answer her, but the laughter won’t stop. Dillon’s watching me with bright eyes. He has a great laugh to go along with the great smile I already noticed. He runs a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. He has great eyes, too.

Blue. Bright, gleaming blue. And he’s looking right through me. And just like that, I’m on my way to serious Crushtown.

Opal looks back and forth from him to me, then frowns. “Hey, Velvet, c’mon. I’m still hungry. C’mon!”

“Right.” I wipe at my face and then reach for a plastic-sealed roll of paper towels. “Sorry, Opal. How’s mac and cheese sound?”

She gives me a narrow-eyed look. “What kind?”

I want to laugh again at her expression. I’m very aware of how close the walls are, how close Dillon’s standing. “Have you heard that saying about how beggars can’t be choosers?”

Opal crosses her arms and looks annoyed. “No.”

“It’s that beggars can’t be choosers,” I tell her. “Know what that means?”

“Does it mean you want me to close the door so you can kiss or something?” she says, exasperated.

“No!” I cry too loud. From behind me, Dillon laughs again. I can’t look at him. “It means you’ll have to eat whatever kind I make, because that’s all the kind there is!”

“Oh. Well, can you make it fast? I’m hungry!”

“Yeah. I’ll make it. Go watch Mama.”

Opal nods. I risk a glance at Dillon. He doesn’t seem embarrassed or annoyed at what Opal said. He’s busy turning the cans to read the labels. When he feels me looking at him, he looks up.

He smiles.

What Opal said doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

OF COURSE, I DON’T KISS DILLON. I DON’T really know him. No matter what Tony’s mom thought about me, I’m not like that. I can’t pretend the thought doesn’t get my heart pitter-pattering in a good way, which is a nice change from the stomach tumbling. From the way I keep catching him looking at me, I’m thinking maybe Dillon wouldn’t mind so much, either.

He doesn’t try, though. Not even when it gets dark and I walk him out to his truck. We’re full of macaroni and cheese and hot tea. Not the best meal I’ve ever had, but the company and atmosphere made up for it.

“So,” Dillon says, then stops.

I laugh a little bit. Dillon makes it easy to laugh. “So, what?”

“So… Velvet.”

I’ve heard lots of people say my name. Some of them make it sound sort of like a joke. Some stumble on it, make it sound exotic or strange. But Dillon just says my name like it’s the most natural word in the world to slide off his tongue.

“Yes?”

“This was nice. Really nice, tonight.” I smile and laugh again, unable to help it. “Are you kidding me?”

“No.” Dillon smiles, too.

I look back at the house. We have some candles lit, and the fireplace light casts a warm orange glow, faint, from the front windows. The good smell of wood smoke tickles my nostrils. Even so, there’s really no pretending everything inside is normal. Or anything out here, for that matter.

“Do you think they’ll have cleared the traffic away?” I ask him.

“I think so. If not, I’ll find another way home.”

“Where do you live?” This conversation sounds so normal, so BC. Before Contamination.

“We used to live in Mount Gretna, on the lakeside. But we moved closer to my mom’s work when… you know.”

I know. “We were living in assisted housing behind the strip mall.”

“This is better,” Dillon says.

“This is better,” I agree.

We’re grinning like idiots, and I don’t care. It feels good to be normal, even if it’s just pretend. It’s too cold out here to linger, though, and no matter how much I’d like for Dillon to stay and hang out longer, I know it’s time for him to go.

“I should go,” he says at the same time I think it.

“Yeah. Thanks for the ride. And everything, Dillon. Thanks.” I bounce a little on my toes, too cold to care if I look silly.

Something tells me Dillon doesn’t think I look silly. He opens the door to the truck and gets inside. I’m backing up the sidewalk toward the front door, hoping I don’t trip and fall and land on my butt in front of him, but not wanting to turn my back, either. I want to watch him drive away.

He leans out of the truck, looking over the door.

“Velvet!”

“Yeah?”

“Can I come over again sometime?”

I want to dance right there, and it has nothing to do with being cold. Because I’m not, just then. I’m warm again because of Dillon. “Yeah, sure.”

He nods. “Great, I’ll… oh, crap.”

No phone. Instead of feeling bad about this, I just laugh again. “Dillon, I got fired from my job and pulled my kid sister out of school. I’m pretty sure if you stop by, I’ll be around. Besides, maybe you can give me a ride to the store or something, if I need it.”

“I’ll do that.” He nods again, then ducks into the truck. It starts with a rumble and roar.

I’m hugging my arms around my belly to keep warm, and I back up, all the way to the front porch. I don’t fall. I stand watching as the lights of his truck illuminate the trees, then the driveway, and finally, at last, disappear down the street.

Inside the house, Opal’s already curled up in a nest of blankets, her eyes sleepy as she watches the firelight. It’s not late, but something about the sun going down has made all three of us tired. My mom’s tucked up on the couch, blankets to her chin, eyes already closed.

I want a shower so much, it’s like a physical ache, one more to add to all the others. I ignore it, though. I haven’t ventured too much upstairs to check the bathrooms. Even if the shower works, the water will be cold. I’m not in the mood for that. Instead, I curl myself up in my own nest of blankets and quilts. I have my own pillow, from my own bed. I’d forgotten how much I loved my pillow. How comforting it is to feel it under my head. How that one small thing makes all the rest of this really feel like home.

I wake in the night to the sound of humming. I bolt upright, heart pounding, eyes blinking and straining against the dark. The fire’s burned down to a glowing red, but it’s not hard to see the silhouette in the rocking chair by the window. Some of the slats in the back and seat are broken, but it still rocks.

It’s my mom. She’s rocking slowly and humming. I recognize the tune as a mashup of all the lullabies and show tunes she’d ever sung to us. I think I hear a snippet or two of Madonna and some Lady Gaga in there, too. Every so often, she stops and sighs and the chair stops rocking. Then another sigh and she starts again.

This should be creepy but I find it even more comforting than my old pillow. This is almost like my old mom. Watching over us in the night, making sure nothing hurts us. It makes knowing that the dark is pressing against the house all around us outside so much easier to bear. It makes all of this easier, and I fall asleep to the sound of her voice.

I wake up to it again. It’s farther away. She’s not in the chair, though there’s a blanket there to prove to me I had seen her in it and hadn’t just dreamed it. I sit up, my blankets tangled around me. Opal’s still buried inside hers.

My mom’s in the kitchen. I can see her from my place on the family room floor as she moves from cupboard to cupboard, then back to the sink. I hear the water run. I get up to see what she’s doing, but I have to stop in the doorway to just stare.

She’s cleaning.

She’s taken all the dishes out of one cupboard and put them on the center island, which is also clean, despite the huge nicks and scratches in the marble from where the pot rack fell down on top of it. She has a cloth in her hand and she runs it under the sink, wrings it out, then wipes the inside of each cupboard shelf as high as she can reach. This means the top shelves have been left alone, but that’s okay. I’m sure I don’t want her teetering up on top of a chair or even a step stool.