Annie's idea of helping Laurie put up Halloween decorations is 10% verbal encouragement, and 90% glued to the television, spread out on the couch like a lazy cat. Laurie had just began carving her pumpkin when Annie moans:
"I don't understand why he won't call me."
"I do. You dumped him."
Annie pouts. Crosses her arm, and has the nerve to act petulantly. Which doesn't come to Laurie as much of a surprise. Still, it is disappointing that her friend has no dignity and while Laurie is tempted to snap at her with a scathing insult to knock some sense into her, she moans again, "I treated him better than Lynda treats Bob and that geeky buffoon always comes crawling back to her."
Laurie withholds her scoff. She wants to ask Annie if she's taken a good look at herself in the mirror while taking a good look at Lynda, which Laurie can no doubt bet Annie has done a lot. Because who doesn't stare at Lynda? But knowing Annie, she's probably scrutinized their golden mare of a friend, only to find flaws that were virtually nonexistent.
Laurie is glad she's over that stage of her life. She accepted she'd never look as good as Lynda. Ever. But, if Laurie can't pride herself over her looks at least she can pride herself over her grades, something both Annie and Lynda would envy Laurie for if they ever found out. But grades, unlike looks, are much easier to hide and Laurie wasn't interested in taking part in a competition with no apparent reward.
Annie thinks boys are capable of being less superficial than her, when really they aren't. The metrics they use when finding a girlfriend is the measurements of her waist, her hips, and her breasts. And no sense bothering how nice a girls face looks because it's too early a stage for that. Right now, as far as the boys are concerned, all a girl is good for is her body. Not her character. God forbid she's a kind, intelligent human being.
Too bad Annie can't look past that. Maybe Annie doesnt think of herself as intelligent. Which sadly she isnt. And maybe she doesnt think of herself as kind. Which sadly, she isnt always.
"Uughhhh," Annie groaned with the energy of a zombie as she shoved a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
"Annie! Can you not be such a slob?" Laurie said miserably. "Why don't you find a guy, huh? The bowling alley is swarming with them every Friday."
"You don't get it."
"Get what?"
"We were meant to be."
"And how do you know? You're only sixteen," Laurie sounds exasperated because she is.
"You sound like my dad and I have to tell him the same thing so he can shut up. Love has no age limit!"
"That's stupid."
"Hey! Dont call me stupid. You're stupid. You've never fallen in love. How'd you know what love is like?"
Laurie wants to say she might not have ever acted out of love, but she knows for damn sure what it shouldn't look like. And it shouldn't sound like spite, or smell like sex, or feel like an evening riding the wisps of a joint or taste like laughter after a can of warm beer. Love isn't fun. Love isn't always supposed to feel good, because Love takes work or it rots.
Whatever Annie feels that's not Love. That's just Take. Because if she really loves Paul and he really loves her, and if Paul had done her dirty, then he would be coming back. He'd be calling her now. But, the boy has probably cast his net wide, and if he can't find that 36 - 24 - 36 in the next two days, then he might just come back.
"Love is like marriage. It's hard."
"What? Like your parents?" Annie says snidely and then a flash of regret peels back her frown. "I-I mean…"
But, Laurie knows exactly what she means. It doesn't stop the heat from sizzling beneath her skin. And it may just be on the tip of her tongue to call Annie all these nasty things. Laurie wants to aim low with Annie's intelligence, and then aim high by calling Paul a cum-guzzling dweeb whose eyes are too close on his face. Would that do? Would that hurt? It wouldn't be enough for Laurie never…
Never…
The knife vibrates in Laurie's rigid grip. She looks down at the slimy blade, slick with the grainy flesh of the pumpkin she is carving.
Then her eyes find Annie who refocused on the TV.
The conversation isn't finished. There is so much more for Laurie to say. But…
Laurie hacks a triangle for an eye on the rine.
There.
It's done.
Her Jack O Lantern stares back at her menacingly. Its smile: beguiling.
XXX
The ends of her hair drip water onto her shoulders. She is so consumed with writing an entry in her diary, she didn't bother to dry her hair after leaving the shower. The pen scratches impatiently upon paper: each line is filled with words Laurie wished she'd said. Instead, there is a torrential downpour of her thoughts consuming six pages of her diary and she has started on the seventh.
How stupid school is...
How the janitor is creepy...
How Annie needs to keep her fat nose out of her parents' marriage and watch her big mouth...
How Lynda needs to stop slutting around before she catches something...
How her dad needs to stop slutting around before he gives something to ma...
How her ma needs to do her chores…
How Ben Tramer was too good for the world...
How her brother…
The pen comes to a jarring halt as fingers weave through her hair from behind.
Laurie doesn't know how long she was there, sitting and hunched over her desk. But, she appreciates that her hair is no longer drenching the back of her sleeping gown.
The fingers in her hair lightly scrape down her scalp. Then, a brush from the corner of her vanity is plucked up to contest the tangles hiding within her damp mane. Laurie sets down the pen and closes her diary. She deliberates where to hide it— there was already one breach that happened and Laurie can't risk the next one. Because if Annie and Lynda ever really know the darkness behind their quiet friend's chicken scratch, Laurie will have to move schools because she will have no friends then it will be goodbye to Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes-Myers. And long after Laurie has left, someone might even write "Die Bitch" on her locker, leaving the next unfortunate student to wonder what rotten person had kept their books there.
"Do you think everyone hated sissy?"
The brush freezes at the crown of Laurie's head for a moment before continuing its path down to the nape of her neck. Laurie sighs.
"I think they did," Laurie says. "I think she made a lot of enemies. Maybe that's why her boyfriend murdered her..."
The brush is set down on her desk and hands move around her shoulders. Skin meets skin and Laurie feels the pressure of fingertips on the curve of her neck. Laurie sighs again. She wonders if Michael would've liked to slaughter their sister instead. Eventually, the hands which groom her leave, accompanied by the sound of heavy footsteps that were not so heavy when they first entered her room, and Laurie decides that is a sign to go to bed.
She strides over to her door and locks it. As she nestles under her covers, she forgets her diary on her desk, and is lost to the throes of sleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.
It is sometime between dreaming of hotdogs sizzling on the grill and a great big orange pumpkin consuming the moon, does Laurie see that very pumpkin transpose into her parents' bedroom. A crib sits in the middle, and a little girl is bent over the edge with a glass jar tucked under her arm. Something moves in the jar. It is long and black and hairy. And it thrashes like a tiny beast, retaliating against its imprisonment. The hairs, which aren't really hairs but legs, twitch to the sound of a squawk and a blubber below it.
There is only a blank stare on young Judith's face as she twist off the tin cap and dumps the contents of the jar into the crib.
The squalling intensifies. The baby boy screams.
Laurie stirs to sluggish consciousness, just enough for her eyes to crack open. She recognizes the shapes and arrangement of furniture to be assured that she was still in her room. Yet, the only thing out of place, is the hunched shadow on her bed. Her heart thrums steadily, unconcerned of the predator like apparition that watches her with a soft glint of silver in its hand.
When Laurie closes her eyes, she dreams of a mirror bathed in moonlight.
There is a slight smile gracing her lips until morning wakes her.