MARTians (5 page)

“I said I would come back,” he says when I open the door.

That’s true. He did, but I never said I wanted that.

“Graveyard shift ends at seven, and then I stopped by the Warren and made sure everything was cool for you moving in. I thought you’d be up by now.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“When you start work, you can’t live here anymore. You need to move, so you should live with me, us, in the Warren.”

“This is my house.”

“It is for another few weeks.”

“You still live here.” I point to the white house across the cul-de-sac.

“I don’t live here. I come back here sometimes. And now that the water is gone, it’s not worth the trip. If I start double-shifting, it won’t even be possible. I mean, the commute — when would I sleep?”

“What if I don’t get a job? What then?”

“You have
two
work referrals. You have twice as much chance of being hired as most people. The only people with a clearer sense of future employment than you are wearing prison tattoos. If Tuesday rolls around and you haven’t got a job — that isn’t going to happen. What is going to happen is I’m going upstairs to sleep, and you are going to start packing up what you need, because the phone is going to ring, and then you will be moving to the Warren, which is conveniently located so close to both AllMART and Q-MART that we never hafta turn the lights on — the parking lot security lights keep it bright as day all night long. I’m going to shower. I brought you a jelly doughnut.” He hands me a bag and starts up the stairs like they are his stairs and this is his house. He does that while I stand there holding a bag full of squished jelly doughnuts, red smears and flattened buns.

After our last dinner together, AnnaMom packed her things while I watched.

“I wish we had some of the family stuff,” said AnnaMom. That stuff is all packed away. While she was staging our house, Jyll took all that stuff — my baby pictures, our refrigerator magnets, the collection of hard-to-find ostrich-related art — and locked it away in her unit at SecurIt Safe-Keeping Storage. Jyll said she understood the sentimental value of those things, but they couldn’t be in the house. People want to imagine their own happy future, and it’s too much trouble for them to go through the thought process of replacing my toothless smile with whatever they think is cute. Jyll never did understand, exactly, the ostrich thing, even though we tried to explain. She thought it was some sort of morbid memorial or we were members of an ostrich cult.

“Look,” said Jyll, “I don’t let people keep crucifixes on the wall or carvings of Kali on the mantel. No ostriches. I don’t care if they are good luck. You don’t need luck to sell this house; you need me.”

Jyll might have been wrong about that.

Right or wrong, all the family stuff is locked away in storage, which made AnnaMom’s packing more efficient. All she packed were her work clothes and personal items. While she zipped toiletries into little cases and tucked shoes snugly into a suitcase, she said, “You can use our stuff when you set up your first apartment. And the money from when the house sells, that all goes to you after the sales commission. It will be your nest egg.”

In her head, I think AnnaMom was imagining a nest egg laid by an ostrich. The nest egg I really have is something about the size of a human egg, which, as I learned in Sexual Responsibility class, is so small you can fit 200,000 of them into an olive.

“You should be packing,” he says when he comes back downstairs. I am still standing by the door with the bag of doughnuts. How long have I been standing here? How long does it take a boy to shower? He rubs his wet hair with a virgin towel and says, “I can help you if you have a lot.”

A lot? Do I have a lot? I don’t know if I have a lot.

“Do you got boxes?”

“In the garage. For when we move . . .”

“This is then. This is when you move. But we should eat first,” and he takes the paper bag gently out of my custody. “Do you have coffee? I woulda brought some, but it woulda got cold, you know? Coffee?”

“Coffee?”

“Coffee,” he says again, like he’s talking to a goldfish. Then he walks into the kitchen. I swim along after, through the arches of my goldfish castle, from one part of my bowl to another.

We do have coffee, in wonderful tiny capsules that keep it fresh until the coffee machine jaws bite down and inject boiling water through hollow metal fangs and the coffee drips dripsdrips drips down, smelling like hazelnut and butterscotch and whatever it is that coffee, plain coffee, smells like.

In the almost-a-minute it takes to make coffee, I say, “The packing. What do I need?”

“We got you mostly covered at the Warren, but some clothes for when you aren’t at work, personal stuff, bring that. Personal stuff. And you should bring your own bowl and spoon. That way there won’t be arguments about dirty dishes so much.”

I open the cupboard where the bowls live, stacked into beautiful little pagodas. In front of them there is a little row of chopstick holders: little bunnies, little kitties, little fish, all curling just so, just right, just perfect. We never used them to hold our chopsticks. We just had them because they are
kawaii
— so cute. I shut the cupboard and open the drawer where we keep the plastic dishes. There, at the back, is a plastic bowl with a row of pink bunnies running along the rim. At the bottom of the bowl is a full moon, smiling up at me, smiling up at the bunnies. I’ve seen those bunnies, that moon, so many times. How much do you love me, AnnaMom?
I love you a pink bunny bowl, and a pink kitty comb, and a little silver spoon just the right size for your little baby mouth.

I open the silverware drawer and look through all the sections, but the little silver spoon isn’t there. Maybe AnnaMom packed it away in a gray plastic bin and Jyll took it away to Safe-Keeping Storage. Is that what happened to my spoon, AnnaMom?
It doesn’t matter if a mean girl broke your kitty comb, Zoëkins. She didn’t break your heart. I know. I know she didn’t break your heart. I know because I keep it in my own heart.

How much do you love me, AnnaMom?
I love you all the doorknobs and a bubble bath. I love you a pink-striped washcloth. I love you all that.

I choose one of the other, ordinary spoons.

MORTimmer puts a mug of coffee into my hand and then he balances a squished doughnut on the rim. Some of the red goo clings to his thumb until he wipes it on the towel draped around his shoulders. That’s another virgin towel so very ruined.

I pack while MORTimmer sleeps on my mother’s bed. Instead of a box, I use the bag Ms. Brody gave me. I put the book at the bottom, then my pink bunny bowl and my ordinary spoon, six pairs of clean underpants, my pajamas, my toothbrush, my striped washcloth, and the adventure towel. I look in my closet where my school clothes smile like flowers dipped in sugar. I shut my eyes and brush my hand along those clothes like I did each morning before I went to school, when I needed a costume that would shelter me, hold me, make me happy. They exhale a little fresh scent, just like they are supposed to do. Still, no sleeves cling to my fingertips. Nothing says,
Pick me! Pick me!
so I can open my eyes and smile and think,
Yes! This! Kawaii!
So I open my eyes and I choose a sweater, because it might get cold later. AnnaMom always said that, every day:
It might get cold later, ZeeZeeBee. Take a sweater.
So I choose a sweater, and then I shut the door and leave the rest of the clothes wilting in the dark.

My phone sings. I answer. It is a robocall that says, “
Hssshhsh
. . . Zindleman, Zoh-EE,
sskksh
. . . you are part of the AllMART family!” Then the phone sings again and I think it might be AllMART calling, but it is the text message confirmation of my job offer, which requires a response acknowledgment.

I walk into the master bedroom, where MORTimmer is stretched out diagonally across the bed with a pillow clutched in each arm. There is still a little water pooled in the hollow of his lower spine, which surprises me, but there it is, a pearl of water come to rest.

My phone sings again, but I thumb it quiet fast, just sneaking a look at the caller ID. It isn’t my AnnaMom. I step into my own room, shut my door, and check the message. “It’s always Q-MART! Q-MART is your savings store, all you want and even more. . . . This message is for . . .
click
ZOO ZINDLEMAN
click.
Congratulations! . . .
click
. . . ZOO . . .
click.
. . . You have been selected for a position with Q-MART.” Then it’s the job offer text awaiting my reply.

I have a choice to make, a great big might-matter-for-the-rest-of-my-life choice. On one hand, I don’t want MORTimmer to think I listened to him and chose AllMART because I respect his opinion. On the other hand, I do not want to accept any job offered to a person named ZOO.

“Last Girl? I heard the phone.” He is standing on the other side of my hollow bedroom door.

I stand up and say, “Yes. It was about the jobs. I will start on Monday at AllMART.” I reply yes to the text.

“I can help you pack now,” he says.

“I think I’m done,” I say, and I open the door. “I think I have everything.” I hold out the AllMART bag. I don’t mean for him to take it, but he does; then he turns and walks down the hallway toward the stairs. He’s wearing a shirt now, but I still wonder about that drop of water and gravity and other unnameable things.

“No boxes?” he calls up the stairs. “A suitcase?”

AnnaMom took the suitcases. She knew what she needed, what she wanted, and she took it.

I’m still here.

I don’t know what I need. But I know what I want, and it isn’t here.

“The bag. It’s all in the bag.”

“Well, if you have food, we can bring that. Food is useful. Especially cereal.”

The Warren isn’t a house. It’s a dinky, dusty, abandoned strip mall. MORTimmer parks his car in a delivery alley between some Dumpsters. Here, in the back, all the doors are gray metal rectangles in the windowless wall. The business names are written in black block letters on the doors. It isn’t inviting, but then it isn’t meant to be. The alley is not the face that the stores show to the customer.

“Shut your eyes,” says MORTimmer. “I want it to be a surprise.” He pulls open a door. I don’t know why I should have to close my eyes; it is so dark in there I can’t see a single thing. Then he takes my hand and says, “Come on.” I don’t shut my eyes. I don’t pull my hand away from his either. He pulls me into a small, hot space full of rumbling noise. The heavy door behind us clicks shut.

“You can open your eyes now,” he says. It is so dark he has no idea if my eyes are open or shut, but he’s pulling me forward, three steps and a little stumble, and then there is the light of a door opening in front of us.

My eyes adjust.

We are in one of the stores. No, not a store, a public laundry. I’ve never been in a place like this. The thought of it makes me cringe a little. Imagine, washing my underpants where some stranger had just washed — who knows what? Sheets full of body dirt? Baby pants smeared with all the smelly things that come out of babies? I smell hot clothes, detergent, and drains. The faint smell of dirty water reminds me of Room 2-B. It does not remind me of home. It’s another thing I’ve lost, the quiet growl of the dryer on a cold night while AnnaMom and I eat microwave popcorn in the kitchen and the whole world smells of fabric softener and butter.

Rub-a-Dub-Tub. Someone has painted a mural over the windows. Blue birds are hanging striped towels, pink and green and white, on a clothesline. Painting on the windows is very low budget / low return as far as advertising goes. I’m not impressed. I am not persuaded.

“This is 5er.”

A little boy is perched on top of a service counter beside a cash register. He isn’t wearing anything but underpants. He has long, bony feet and long, bony toes. I look away. Behind him, a screen is flickering pictures. The sound is turned off, but I can read the crawl along the bottom. I can’t help myself. I can’t ignore a screen. . . .

“5er. Hey, man. This is Zoë. This is the last girl I told you about. She lives with us now. Say hi, okay? Say hi.”

The little boy puts one hand out. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t say anything.

I put my hand out. Maybe I’m supposed to shake hands. . . . The kid jerks his hand away and hides it behind his back. He shuts his eyes tight.

“It takes 5er a while to get used to new people. Doesn’t it, man? But don’t worry. It’s okay. It’s all okay. We shower back there.” MORTimmer points at a garden hose hanging from the ceiling. There’s no curtain. Just a garden hose and sprinkler nozzle hanging over a drain in the floor. “We got a toilet. And sinks. We talked about maybe stealing a bathtub or inflatable raft and setting up a cool pool-and-shower deal, but it isn’t practical, you know?”

“You live here?”

“This is the Warren. It’s a good place to live. Safe. Close to AllMART. Come on. Let me show you.” He walks behind the counter and opens a door to another room, small. There is a metal desk with an office chair on top of it shoved into the corner. The rest of the floor space is covered with a mattress and a snarl of blankets. “This is our bedroom,” says MORTimmer. “You can put your stuff in one of the desk drawers.”

“I’m supposed to sleep here? On the floor with you?”

“Well, at least until I can get you another bed, you can sleep with me and 5er, yeah.”

“No. Look, I’m sorry, but no. Can you just take me home? This is a mistake. I want to go home.”

“Home? Terra Incognita?” He puckers his mouth and sighs. “No can do at the moment. I gotta go ta work. You just sit tight, here, with 5er. We can talk when I get back.”

“I need to charge my phone.”

MORTimmer points to a charging pad sitting on the counter beside a pyramid of tiny soap packets.

“Thank you.” I place my phone on the charger and see the blink of light that means it is sipping energy.