A problem has been pointed out: you can't be fired from Dunkin' Doughnuts for eating the merchandise. I feel dumb because if I'd thought about it I would have realized that employees get to do stuff like that. Also, there are no quotes in Maureen's first memory sequence but I tried to make the dialogue clear. Tell me if it works, I did it for effect.

Fourteen: Maureen

1989

In my first memory of myself I am five and at the zoo with mom and Laura. We're standing by the zebra pen. Mom is wearing her white linen sundress, the one that made her look almost pretty. She's leaning against the chain link fence around the animals, smoking a menthol, letting the ridges on top of the fence dig into the undersides of her arms. It's much too hot and my red t-shirt is sticking between my shoulder blades. We've been standing by this pen for half an hour now, much too long, but mom won't let us leave.

I keep begging her to take us to see the elephants and the lions. I want to see the seals too, but mom doesn't like water so it's a no go. Laura is sitting with her back to the fence, sucking her thumb. I wish she'd help me but she's three and too young. I pull on the hem of mom's dress. Can I go look alone? I ask. I won't talk to strangers, swear, mom. Please! Mooom! Moooom I'm BORED. She blows the smoke out in a perfect jet and keeps her eyes fixed on the zebras. Don't go far, she says, someone might snatch you. They might think you wouldn't be missed. You don't look like anyone that anyone would care about.

It's 1973 and daddy is in the hospital again.

All my life my family has played a sort of musical chairs between states, hospitals, homes. When daddy was sick we'd live with mom, then daddy would get out and mom would go into the hospital a couple of months later and dad would take care of us. Later, when it got really bad, when they committed dad for life and the state took us away from mom, we lived with Grandma Lily in Vermont.

Even though Laura was two years younger, she figured out that daddy and mom weren't sick in the fever/puking your guts out sense before I did. She was only seven when she caught on, I was nine and still fooling myself but Laura has always been better at seeing the way things are than I am, or maybe she just recognized something in them that I didn't. Either way, she was the one to break the news to me, and it should have been the other way around.

"They're both nuts, you know." She stretched her legs across the ugly green sofa and prodded me with her long toes.

"Who?" I asked. I concentrated hard on not getting the blue nail polish on the skin around my fingers. I knew who she was talking about.

"Mom and Daddy, stupid. They aren't sick, they're crazy. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah I know." The little brush slipped and electric blue polish smudged across my knuckles.

The year mom got us back, 1980, was the year Laura joined the hospital gown dance. That year she turned ten and I turned twelve. Daddy had been inside for two years. He was at a famous hospital, the same one as Sylvia Plath. Mom told us this like it was supposed to be reassuring but I couldn't help thinking that staying there didn't do Sylvia that much good, seeing as she stuck her head in an oven after she got out.

It was a Wednesday when Laura got sick. I remember because we had play rehearsal on Wednesdays. We were doing The Wizard of Oz that year and I was the scarecrow. I was so excited. I had this idea that if I was in the play, my mother would realize that I was somebody that someone could care about.

Rehearsals were after school. Laura was supposed to come to the auditorium and wait in the back until I was done, then I'd walk her home. But that day she didn't come. I thought maybe she'd stayed after in the art room. She did that sometimes. She loved art. After rehearsal was done I checked the art room, but she wasn't there. That really pissed me off because she was supposed to wait for me. She was too little to walk home alone! I wished I didn't have a little sister sometimes. Life would be so much easier if I didn't have to take care of her all the time!

Later I'd sit in the too bright hospital waiting room, pressing a cold can of Pepsi between my palms, and wonder if my wish to extinguish her hadn't had something to do with what happened. Maybe the universe sent her some message, some signal that it was time to check out and maybe my wish had given it strength.

The doctors would say they couldn't guess how a ten year old had known that lying in the bathtub would make her bleed out faster. They'd also say how thankful they were that she didn't know to slit her wrists vertically, along the vein. She'd cut them horizontally with a blade from my mother's Lady Shaver and that was all that had saved her. That and my over full bladder, my screams, my 9 1 1 call. All through it my mother sat on the living room sofa, fiddling with the blue afghan and smoking one of her fucking menthols.

Laura was in the hospital for three days, then in the kid's psyche section for two weeks. When she got out I bought her a 100 pack of fake gold bangles from Dollar Tree and the state took us away from mom again, this time for good.

I'm wearing one of the bangles now. Laura gave it to me with a bag of candy for my thirteenth birthday. I wear it not so much for luck as for remembrance.

"This is the place," says Henry. I don't much like Henry. He's dumb as mud, but he's in Rocky Horror and he's promised to get me a job as the understudy for Columbia so I've got to play nice with him until the deal is done. He kind of looks like a Ken doll and this disturbs me.

"Wow," I say, squeezing his hand. "Seedy." I've been here before, of course. God, who hasn't seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Henry nods. "Yup."

See? He says the most fascinating things.

We stand still for a couple of minutes, admiring the sheer grodiness of the building I guess. I'm starting to think maybe Henry's forgotten why we are here so I grab his hand and pull him into the building, giggling and shrieking "Oh I can't wait! I've only ever seen it on video! Oh this is going to be so exciting!!!" lies lies all lies.

Henry beams. "Yeah."

I spin around and plant a big wet one smack on his lips and squish my boobs against his chest. "Let's go backstage. I want to meet everyone."

Henry stares at me for a long moment. Maybe it I talked too fast or used a word with too many syllables?

"C'mon!" I break away and tug his arm again and jump around a lot. That seems to get him motivated.

"Okay."

Backstage turns out to be a teeny little place behind the projector screen, maybe about twelve feet square. The whole cast is squashed back there in their fishnet, sequined, corseted glory. Henry leaves to change into his sparkly gold Speedo and I mingle with the cast.

I'm talking to this girl named Carol who plays Magenta when I notice Brad (or rather the actor who plays him) staring at me like he's never seen a girl before in his life. I love it when this happens. Since I was about thirteen I've noticed people staring at me. At first I thought it was because I was uncommonly ugly (because don't all middle schoolers think that?). Then one day I looked in the mirror and thought, huh......I guess there's something there after all.

Even in the stupid sweater vest, this guy is pretty damn foxy. I'm about to go over and hit on him when a girl with bubble gum pink hair and a safety pin through her lip appears out of nowhere and twists herself around him like a boa constrictor.

"Hey Roger," she purrs. She isn't pretty—she's a little stocky and her nose is turned up in a way that probably hasn't been cute since she was five—but there's something mesmerizing about her all the same. She's got IT, whatever that is. She doesn't need to be pretty.

"Hey babe," he murmurs, grabbing her ass. She jams her tongue down his throat and soon their engaged in a snogging session to end all snogging sessions. It looks like they're capable of dropping their pants and doing it right here and now (and wouldn't that be an interesting sight?) when a blond guy with glasses comes backstage and pulls the pink haired girl off Roger.

"C'mon April, time to go sit down. Roger has to work now."

April jams her lower lip out and gazes at the guy (who is getting cuter the more I look at him) through her eyelashes, "But Marky! I don't wanna goooo!"

"Too bad. Do you want to have to spend the whole show backstage again?" he asks.

"No! but....God Marky don't be such an old Jewish woman!"

"But I AM an old Jewish woman!" he protests, widening his eyes. Roger laughs. "I'll give you a Snickers if you come," says Marky, pulling a slightly squashed candy bar out of his back pocket.

"OOOO! Candy! Let's go!" April grabs Marky's arm and hauls him off stage. Roger rolls his eyes and straightens the God-awful vest.

"Maureen!" it's Henry. Oh, God of Rocky Horror kill me now.

"Hi Henry! Well I guess the show's starting soon so I'd better sit down see ya and don't forget to introduce me to that head in charge person guy thing! Well, bye love you see you later!!!" and I'm up and running. I swear if someone had been timing that I'd have broken a world record for fastest sprint (which is quite a feat in leather boots with four inch heels).

I slide into a seat three rows behind April and Marky. She's resting her head on his shoulder like they're at Casablanca or something.

The theater darkens and the camera slowly zooms in on the giant read lips.

"A LONG LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

GOD CREATED LIPS!!!!!" chants the audience. And so it begins.

By the time the movie ends I've time warped myself into a state of frenzied happiness. The cast pours out from back stage. I watch April fasten herself onto Roger like a large pink and black barnacle.

I start winding my way through the crowd, trying to find Henry. You'd think it would be easier to spot a hot blond in a black corset but it is not to be.

I'm simultaneously walking and trying to see above the crowd when I crash head (well chest) long into some guy and we both fall on our asses.

I recover before he does so I have time to collect myself and to recognize him. It's Marky, looking if I may add, adorably bewildered. I wonder what he'd look like without his glasses. And the moth eaten black t-shirt. And the jeans......stop it! I'm not a slut, I swear. I just keep my options open. Everyone is my type.

When he finally recovers himself he looks at me the same way his friend did, like he's never seen one of my sex before. Must be looking extra good tonight.

"See something you like?" I ask. I borrow April's lower lip pout.

"No. I mean yes. Sorry. It's just......you look like someone I used to know. Not that you aren't pretty but.....yeah."

Awwwww he's cuuuuute!!!!

He starts to walk away and I skip in front of him. "Well? Aren't you going to say who I look like?"

He shrugs, looks uncomfortable. "Just an old girlfriend from high school."

"Oh, really?" I twist a strand of hair around my finger. He swallows and I know I'm getting to him. "What was her name?"

His face twitches and then goes completely blank. "Laura. Laura Johnson."

And the world stops.

"What did you say?" I grab his shoulders. I know it's dramatic but I can't help it.

"Laura Johnson," he repeats.

"That's my sister. That's my little sister. How do you know her?" I shake him a little. "How? You didn't go to our high school I'd remember you I'd......oh." You ever have a tone-of-bricks moment? One of those times when realization hits you over the head with a sledge hammer. "Oh, I see."

He shrugs free and spreads his arms, shrugs a little. I reach backwards, trying to find something to lean against. It's been so long since I've thought about her. I didn't want to think about her or my mother or anyone and now here's a little piece of crazy staring me in the face.

"Want to go outside?" he asks, grabbing my arm before I fall. I nod and we walk slowly out together, winding through the crowd.

Outside we stand under the canopy in front of the building and watch the rain fall. Mark smokes a cigarette (not a menthol, thank God, that would be too much).

"So," he says.

"So," I say.

So we stand and watch the rain.

Laugher bursts through the door and Roger and April stager out, clinging to each other and laughing like there's no tomorrow.

"Hey Mark!" calls Roger. "We're going to the Life!"

"Come with us, Marky-Warky!" giggles April.

"Who's your friend?" asks Roger but he and April have already tottered halfway down the street before I can gather myself enough to answer.

"Wanna come along?" asks Mark.

I clear my throat. "Sure."

We step out into the rain together and I grab his hand without thinking.

Awwwww! Ain't it cute? So that's the update. I may not update for at least a week, just to warn y'all because I'll be out of town.