Mary Miller - The Last Days of California

I adjusted the water with my foot and looked over at my sister.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.

“Worst like what? The meanest?”

“Whatever.”

“I used to like Marc,” I said. “Do you remember Marc?”

“He only carpooled with us for like four years,” she said.

“I couldn’t talk to him so instead of being nice I was really mean. I put gum in his hair and told him he smelled bad and one time I told Mom he’d gotten another ride home and we left him in the rain.”

“I remember that—we had to go back and get him and he was soaked.”

“And now he’s in Ohio and I’ll never see him again,” I said. “He’ll always think I hated him.”

“I bet he knows you liked him,” she said. “Kids do shit like that when they like each other.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe he didn’t know then, but I bet he knows now.”

“I hope so,” I said.

She was quiet and I wanted to ask about the worst thing she’d ever done but she’d probably done some actual bad things, which was why she was asking. She turned onto her side, facing away from me.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too,” she mumbled.

“I’m sad we’re not going to make it to California. I wanted to see the ocean.”

“I’m sure it’s not that great.”

“I bet it’s nice.”

“These aren’t the last days of California,” she said. “You’ll see it eventually.”

A few minutes later, she was asleep. No matter what, she never had any trouble sleeping.

I got out of the tub and dried off with a damp towel. I let it fall to the floor and walked over to the window, stepped onto the ledge. The blue light of the parking garage reminded me of a mosquito zapper. It could have been dusk or dawn. I pressed my hands to the glass and leaned forward, thinking about Brother Jessie’s baby. Why would God have given him a baby like that? I wondered if his wife had spent her pregnancy afraid, if it had caused the baby to be deformed. If I ever became pregnant, I’d be terrified the whole time, and my baby would be born dead or worse, completely messed up. I’d have no choice but to sacrifice my life for it, and people would say how good I was, how selfless.

I closed the curtains. Then I put on my clothes and got in bed, letting my hair soak the pillow. At home, I’d have waited for it to dry, or put a towel down. At home, I wouldn’t drop things when I was done using them. I checked my phone. As usual, no one had called or texted. Before I could think better of it, I typed a message to Gabe— I’ve been thinking about the back of your van —and pressed send. Then I set the phone screen-side-down on my chest and waited. A minute later, I picked it up and looked at it, adjusted the volume. He was probably asleep. It was late and he was asleep and had been asleep for hours, but I needed him to be awake. I wanted to tell him everything. I felt like he would understand, that he was the only person who would understand.

I played games with myself—counting down from ten, ignoring the phone—but nothing worked, so I gave up and recited the Lord’s Prayer. I said it over and over until the words got all mixed up and I had no idea how it went.

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed I was blind except for a small square in the upper right-hand corner of my vision. I had to keep moving my head around, positioning the square in just the right place so I could see. I saw a banana, reached out and grabbed it. I peeled it and took a bite and each bite brought back more and more vision until I could see normally. Then I dreamed we were at home and my mother was in the driveway, being dragged off by a snake as big as a car. My sister yelled for me to get our father so I went inside and found him asleep in his chair. Gunsmoke was on TV, which made it feel less dreamlike. Instead of screaming, I shook him until he woke up and we ran outside, but by that time, the snake had her whole body in its mouth and we just stood there and watched.

When I woke up, Elise was curled around me. I scooted away from her and checked my phone. Gabe had responded at seven forty-eight: Hey girl. What have you been thinking about it, exactly? I didn’t know what to write back. I wanted to be flirty, yet serious. I wanted to be serious, mostly, but I’d started it by being flirty. I was happy he’d written back, but it also seemed like too little too late. He couldn’t help me.

I turned on the TV. There had been no reports of Christians gone missing. Marshall was unavailable for comment. We were going to have to drive back to Montgomery, but I didn’t want to go back to Montgomery, or I didn’t feel like driving anymore, ever. I wondered if we could stay in Arizona. I imagined myself beautiful in Arizona—my hair longer and fuller, my skin clearer. My mother could get a teaching job and my father could find work in a place where people didn’t know about all of the jobs he’d lost. Where he could start fresh. And Elise could have her baby, or not, and no one would give a shit. I thought of other reasons, ways I might try to sell them on it, while I watched my sister sleep.

After a while, I went to the bathroom—my stomach was queasy and I had a dull headache, but I looked better than I ever had in my life—cheeks and lips flushed, eyes burning. My dirty hair looked darker, nearly thick. I studied my pores in the magnified mirror, the light making halos in my eyes.

I turned on the little TV and sat on the toilet. It was a show I’d seen before, the people pretending it was the 1800s. They were on a farm with pigs and chickens and the women were sweating in ankle-length, long-sleeved dresses. A butch woman washed clothes while a more attractive woman made biscuits. You had sex, I thought. You did it. I wanted to feel more, for it to hurt, so I kept repeating it to myself. You had sex. You aren’t a virgin anymore. I called myself a slut and a whore while digging my nails into my thighs to move the feeling from my chest to my legs.

An hour later, we were in our parents’ room, lounging in their empty tub while our mother talked to one of her sisters. She’d given us dirty looks when she’d opened the door but hadn’t said anything about not calling her back. She didn’t want to get off the phone.

“I have no idea where we are,” she said. “We could be in Toocumterry for all I know.” Toocumterry was her version of Bumfuck Egypt. She was wearing the dress we called her carpool dress; it was green and blue tie-dye, old and soft. Elise and I were wearing the tank tops we’d slept in. We had our sunglasses on, hair piled on top of our heads with bobby pins. Along with my slight hangover, this ensemble made me feel cool and jaded.

I hooked my arms over the back of the tub and watched the muted TV, the nonevent unfolding across the globe. The rapture hadn’t happened in China or Russia. It hadn’t happened in Japan or Vietnam or India or Cambodia. Somewhere in Australia, a group of drunken revelers released helium balloons with blow-up dolls attached.

“Australians are so weird,” Elise said.

“You’ve never even met an Australian,” I said.

“You don’t know.”

“Who?”

The toilet flushed and our father came out of the bathroom, still in his robe. He paused before taking a seat at the edge of the bed. “That was some bill y’all racked up at the pool yesterday,” he said. He took off his glasses and held the bridge of his nose. “Room service, too. Hot fudge sundaes—everybody likes a hot fudge sundae.”

Elise raised her sunglasses to look at me.

“We didn’t think you’d have to pay for it,” I said.