Demensions - The Quiet One - Part Four: Speculation

They tell me I threw up Purple Jesus all over my short blue dress and then passed out on the floor, but I don't remember that part. What I remember is waking up clean and dry and hung-over in my own bed with sunlight needling me right in the eyes even though the shades were closed. I had never been hung over before. I decided it wasn't an experience I wanted to repeat. I saw a tube of lipstick on my dresser. Taped to it was a note:

     Hey girly,
     I just wanted to tell you that I'm the one who cleaned you up and got you dressed, so you know your brothers didn't see you naked. And that's why you're all clean and not wearing that adorable dress you had on. Which you must tell me where you bought it because I want one just like it. And keep the lipstick because it looks better on you than it did on me even when I was a blond.
     Heather

     Heather's phone number was scrawled on the bottom of the note, beneath her signature. I frowned at it.
     I got back under the covers. All this thinking was giving me a massive headache.
     Okay. It had been stupid of me to go out with a bunch of people I didn't know and not stay with my brothers the whole time. It had been very stupid to wear that dress, in which I had felt (and, I'm sure, looked) vulnerable. And it had been incredibly stupid to drink so much that I passed out. How old was I anyway? Old enough to know better, not old enough to drink. And now, because I had been so stupid, I had almost been raped, I had humiliated myself in front of people who went to my church, and Dad had no doubt had to deal with the kids on his morning off from work.
     I looked at the clock. It was 10:30 AM and I was still in bed. I was ashamed of myself.
     I hauled my aching body out of bed and dragged on some clothes and plodded to the kitchen to see if I could drink a cup of coffee without throwing up. Dad and Charlie were both in the kitchen--which was spotless, to my amazement--drinking coffee and talking.
     "Go back to bed, honey," Dad said to me. "You must feel like hell."
     "Yes," I said, "but if I don't get up I'll never get to sleep tonight."
     I was able to keep down a cup of heavily watered-down coffee and was forced to admit that it helped.
     "Where are the little ones?" I asked.
     "They went with Grandma and Great-Aunt Hannah this morning."
     "When will they be back?" I asked.
     "Tomorrow!" Dad said gleefully. "Grandma and Hannah are taking them to the Pink Palace museum in Memphis. They're staying the night."
     "Where are John and Jacob and Nathan?" I asked.
     "Motel 6 downtown. They're leaving early tomorrow morning."
     "I want to go see them," I said. And my jacket was still in the trunk of John's car.
     "I'll drive you," Charlie volunteered.
     I looked at Charlie, a little surprised. "Thanks," I said.
     We split before my dad could remind me to put on my jacket. I climbed up into the truck, feeling a touch of deja-vu, remembering the previous night. I fastened my seat belt, giving Charlie an apologetic smile as I did so. I am always afraid drivers will get offended when I wear my seat belt, like they'll think I don't trust them or something.
     "You have a good time last night?" Charlie asked.
     "Yeah," I lied, staring out the windshield.
     Charlie smirked and I felt a little flush of anger and embarrassment, thinking he could see right through me; that I would never be able to really lie to him.
     "Heard Ben was there," Charlie said grimly. I vaguely remembered a fight between Ben and Charlie, ages ago.
     "Yeah. With Heather."
     Charlie looked at me. I felt something inside me threaten to break, so I looked out the side window.
     He was just so damn honest.
     The Motel 6 was a well-known one among the teenage male population of our city; they called it "the Six" and they took their girlfriends there to relieve them of their virginity. On prom night there was no way to get a room there.
     However, it was also the perfect place for three guys with little money to crash for a weekend; and my brothers were used to their one-bedroom apartment in Routon, so they were able to share one of the rooms with the two big beds, without too much arguing.
     When Charlie and I arrived, my brothers were fighting over the TV remote. A football game was on, but I didn't see what teams...Jacob changed the channel before I saw any names. Nathan changed it back to the game from Jacob's Wheel Of Fortune. Jacob managed to change it again, and John snagged the remote and changed it back to the game, called Jacob a fag and smacked his head with the remote.
     I turned the TV off and danced in front of the remote sensor so my brothers couldn't turn it back on. They howled in protest and I was summarily dragged into the tussle, and we scuffled merrily for a few minutes while Charlie stood by the door, looking uncomfortable.
     I dragged myself out of the tussle and onto one of the two double beds in the room, stood up and held the remote high above my head with a yell of victory. Nathan was laughing, John was laughing, Jacob was laughing, and even Charlie was silently chuckling, which I had come to know was his version of a raucous belly laugh. But I stared at the remote in my hand, and thought of the dream I had had, of holding a handful of others' valuables high with a yell and war-whooping like a wild Indian. And I realized that I was doing all this in front of Charlie.
     Suddenly I was embarrassed. My brothers could tell immediately; they stopped what they were doing and looked at Charlie pointedly.
     I plopped down on the bed cross-legged and picked at the battery casing cover on the remote. "Something happened last night," I said. "To me."
     John frowned at Charlie once more and then looked at me. "You got drunk, I know. And you were hiding from..."
     "From Ben." I sighed. Poor Heather.
     "Amanda, did Ben do something to you?"
     "He tried. But I crouched down and I guess he didn't see me. I had this stupid thought that I was invisible." I smiled at the ridiculousness of the idea. It wasn't nearly so scary now that it was out in the open.
     John looked at Nathan. Nathan rubbed his eyes and got up off the floor and sat on the bed next to me.
     "Amanda," Jacob began carefully, "were you in the same room all night?"
     "What time was it when you guys paid attention to me last?" I asked. "We got there around nine o'clock, and Ben made Purple Jesus at around eleven, and that group of people arrived at eleven-thirty or so..."
     "It was a quarter to twelve," John murmured.
     "And Jacob was all over Marie from the Kwik-Stop," Nathan recalled.
     "Nathan was doing the beer-funnel with the keg," Jacob said accusingly, and got hit with a pillow by Nathan.
     "I was in the car with Anjelica," John said.
     "And I kept drinking and lost track of time," I said. "What time did you guys find me?"
     Silence all around.
     "What time?" I demanded.
     "About three o'clock," John confessed.
     "We looked everywhere for you!" Nathan said. "We started looking for you at one-thirty. We were afraid you left without us and started walking home and got raped and slaughtered. We were about to call Dad!"
     "I was crouched down on that floor for three hours??"
     "You were crouched down on that floor the whole time?" Jacob stood up and loomed over me. "We checked that goddamn room six times!"
     "So it's true," Charlie said quietly from his place by the door.
     Everyone looked at him again.
     "You didn't see her because she was invisible," Charlie said, in the same soft tone.
     "BULLshit," Nathan snarled. "We were drunk and we didn't see her is all."
     "Tell them about the convenience store, Amanda," Charlie said.
     I got tense. "What about it?"
     "How you stood there for twenty minutes while the cashier ignored you. And how your dad looked for you for ten minutes in the living room one day while you sat on the couch and he didn't see you." His face was grim.
     "THAT was NONE of your GODDAMN business, asshole!" I yelled, and flew at him with fists balled up and managed to bruise one of his cheekbones and split his lip before my brothers hauled me off him. I don't even remember what I was screaming at him, but it was loud enough to make our neighbors bang on the wall.
     "I thought you were honest!" I screamed at him finally. "I hate you!"
     Charlie left the room and closed the door behind him. I punched the door and kicked it a couple of times. My brothers stared at me like I was insane. Nathan was hiding in the bathroom.
     I gave the door another kick and then limped over to one of the beds and sat down and sulked for a while, hugged my knees and rocked back and forth and all that dramatic stuff. My brothers stayed away from me. That was probably a good idea.
     I took off my shoe and studied my big toe...it was turning purple from kicking the door in my thin tennis shoes. "Serves me right," I muttered.
     Jacob perched on the edge of the bed and poked me in the arm. "You okay, kiddo?"
     "Fine," I said, chucking my shoe tiredly at the dent I had left in the door.
     Nathan came out of the bathroom and also sat on the bed. "What was he talking about?"
     "He pretty much told you everything." I took my other shoe off and dropped it on the floor.
     "Why are you so sensitive about this?" Nathan asked.
     "Why NOT?"
     "Hey, hey...there you go again. Stay calm," John advised. "Tell us what happened."
     "Last night, I went out to get milk, and I waited in line at the store, and when I got up to the register people were just pushing past me until everyone else was gone. And then the cashier guy was going to go read a magazine and I had to say something before he'd notice me."
     "And last night?"
     This was the part I didn't want to tell.
     "Amanda, last night," John pressed gently.
     "Ben...had me cornered and I crouched down and he couldn't see me any more. I thought if I tried to be invisible, he wouldn't see me, and it worked."
     "I thought the shit between you and Ben was grade-school stuff," Nathan said.
     "He was trying to rape me, Nathan."
     "Little lost, are we, Nate?" Jacob smiled at the dumbfounded Nathan.
     "Shut up, Jake," Nathan said, a trifle defensively.
     "Go on, Manda," John said.
     I wondered why they didn't have the psych ward on the phone. "There's nothing else."
     "We should test this out, Amanda," Jacob said.
     "Test what out?"
     "This power. This invisibility. You could use this."
     "You don't actually believe that I'm invisible, do you?"
     "After everything you've told us, how can we not?" Nathan was getting excited. "You could go in and out of movie theaters, get past the cashier lady at the Miccadilly Café without paying for your food, totally speed on the highway and not get pulled over..."
     "But that's wrong. I would never want to do those things. And I don't even like Miccadilly Café."
     "Just for research! Amanda, you could be..." Jacob took my hands and looked me in the eyes. "You could be my doctoral thesis!"
     "Screw you guys!" I gave Jacob a shove.
     "Ooh, Catholic girl, watch your language!" Nathan hit me with a pillow and we all were roughhousing again and suddenly I was cheerful once more. I love my brothers.
     I put my shoes on and went outside with Nathan to go out to their car and saw Charlie standing by the door. I had figured he was long gone.
     Nathan handed me the keys. "Go on; get your jacket."
     I was wary.
     "Go on," he prodded, and I went, looking over my shoulder. I watched while they talked in low, dangerous guy-voices, and Nathan hit Charlie in the shoulder hard enough to knock him back into the wall, and Charlie put up his hands in a "calm-down" gesture, and I'm guessing the car didn't see me, but I didn't hear it until it had almost hit me.
     I jumped back on the curb and watched it go along, my heart pounding. Charlie called out to me, and I looked up.
     "You okay?" he yelled down, as Nathan was just starting to turn around to look.
     "F-fine," I managed. I went out after my jacket without looking back this time.
     When I got back, Nathan was smoking a cigarette, which only reminded me of how long it had been since I saw them last. I swatted him on the arm.
     "What?" he protested.
     "You have asthma," I reminded him.
     "So?" he stubbed the cigarette out.
     "Charlie, could you take me home?" I asked humbly.
     "Yeah." He dug for his keys.
     "You'll be okay, won't you Amanda?" Nathan said.
     "Yeah, we'll be fine. Let me go in and hug John and Jacob goodbye."
     I kept trying to say I was sorry during the ride home, but I didn't have the words in me. I was slouching in the truck passenger seat, silent, thinking about how easy it was to talk when I was upset, and how hard it was to say I was sorry later, when Charlie spoke up.
     "I really shouldn't have said anything to your brothers about the store last night."
     "You're right," I said indifferently. "But it's a little late now."
     "I just wanted to say I was sorry."
     "Why did you, Charlie?" I sat up straight and looked at him. "Why did you tell them?"
     "Because you wouldn't have, but if you didn't get it out it would have poisoned you. I could see it happening."
     I slouched again. Was that all? "What do you care?"
     "More than you give me credit for."
     I picked at my thumbnail. "I don't really hate you. I'm sorry I said it. And I'm sorry I said all those other things too."
     Charlie half-smiled. "Some of 'em were true."
     I was almost disappointed when I heard the gravel driveway crunching under the truck wheels. Charlie got out first and then opened my door for me, and offered me a hand down from the seat. Even though it was cold out, his hand was warm and a little sweaty.
     "Thanks for-..." I couldn't think of anything. "For the lift," I finished lamely.
     Charlie cupped a hand behind my neck and kissed my forehead fondly. Three weeks ago this gesture from him would have panicked me. That day, I blushed very red and ran into the trunk hood on the way into the house. I suppose it may have been because I had a hangover.

The Quiet One

Part Four: Speculation

© 2001 Eula Thompson