Devotion 12
Two weeks later, Edward awoke to the sounds of an argument going on outside his window. The voices were so close it was like they were in the room with him. He rolled over and stared at the old brass light fixture in the ceiling. Was that a cobweb all the way from the light to the corner of the room? How long had that been there?
He sat up. Too quickly. He looked around. The voices continued, but the state of the room... Was this real? Was this his life?
Today, he was going to change. But first…what the bloody hell was all this loud..?
"Hey! Shanni! What?" he said.
Shanni and the other one, Victoria, Vickie, were having a heated discussion right there.
"I told you he wasn't dead," Shanni was saying.
"Hey, where'd you get this plant?" Vickie asked him right through his screen like it was a drive through window. He expected Alice to start screaming any minute.
"Girls…what time is it?" he asked pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Time for dopeheads to get they-selves out of bed," Vickie said with a sassy tone.
Shanni made a noise at her like she should shut-up.
"Not a dopehead," Edward said, like 'come on.' He tried to laugh a little but the throb in his head cut it short.
"What you got this sad plant for? You a migrant worker or something?" Vickie said. "You sleeping on the floor, yo."
"This a tomato?" Shanni asked.
Edward pressed closer to the screen and peered at the plant he'd bought at the sidewalk sale for seventy-five cents. It was already sporting a small green globe. "Yep," he said. It was right where he'd set it last night, still in the black plastic pot, dirt like cement. Someone had stubbed their smoke out in it.
"You'll just kill it," Vickie decided.
"Gee, thanks," Edward said. "Well…" he started to move away. His tongue felt like a well-traveled desert road. His neck was so stiff he used his hands to turn his head.
"You depressed or something?" Shanni this time.
He stopped trying to work over his body and stared at the girl. She had her mother's eyes. And mouth.
"I'm fine," he said. "You shouldn't ah…" he motioned to the bare room behind him.
"Put up some curtains, yo," Vickie said and Shanni laughed.
Yeah. He was asking for it.
He went in the kitchen and hoped like hell they would go away.
"Aunt Alice says to put some coffee grounds on it!" Shanni yelled.
Edward stepped back in the room. "What?"
"On the plant. Put some coffee grounds on it. Something for the soil," Shanni said.
"You can't tell some dopehead…" Vickie was saying.
"He's not a dopehead," Shanni argued. "He's just sad."
"Alice said…"
"Shut-up," Shanni said.
Edward went back in the kitchen and put his head under the faucet.
Alice noticed his plant? She had an opinion about it?
He was bent over the sink letting his hair drip into the stained porcelain square.
They were still arguing about him, then their voices drifted.
Fuck Alice. What the hell with this woman. First he's a pedophile, now a dopehead. Why would she care about his plant.
But she did.