7. Rabies on My Mind
Rabies on My Mind
Josie
“He’s that bad, huh?”
My brother sounds wide awake and like he’s running on four shots of espresso when I call him. Despite it being just shy of six in the morning.
After leaving Wyatt snoring softly, I finally went to the bathroom and am now multitasking, trying to make a dent in the mountain of dirty dishes in the sink while calling Jacob for advice.
“He’s bad,” I tell him, using the rough side of the sponge to scrape at some unidentifiable food particle at the bottom of a bowl. “And so is the house.”
Wyatt’s murder cottage is thirteen- or maybe fifteen-hundred square feet of needs work . Mostly in terms of updating, as the bedrooms and living room are tidy and I detect a faint scent of lemony cleaning spray that suggests a professional might have been here.
But it has signs of aging no amount of cleaning can wipe away. I swear there’s a bit of a slant to the floors. If I dropped a marble, I bet it would roll all the way to the left side of the house, coming to rest against the chipped baseboards.
A strong breeze or a wolf huffing and puffing just might blow the whole thing down.
The bathroom is where things start to go downhill.
It’s an homage to mint green and mildew.
The classic tiles have come back into fashion—a mix of subway and tiny square floor tiles— but the white porcelain sink has orange water stains, and the faucet is practically crusted over with calcium deposits.
There’s a dark ring in the toilet bowl I’m sure bleach can’t even touch.
When I sit down to use it, the seat wobbles, almost sending me to the floor.
But the kitchen, a narrow room tacked onto the back of the house like an afterthought, is the first double punch of disrepair plus filth.
It surprises me, given that Wyatt never gave off the messy, uncaring-frat-boy vibe, not even when he was in college.
I’m going to give him a pass and chalk the mess up to his injury.
I don’t love cleaning, but I do love mindless tasks as a way to distract myself.
And while the other rooms in Wyatt’s house are neat, the kitchen is an epicenter of disaster.
There are bags of trash, dirty dishes everywhere, and a table covered in takeout containers and what look to be rolled-up blueprints of some kind.
There’s a pile of laundry in front of the ancient washing machine at the back of the room. I should probably have started a load, but I couldn’t bear the idea of potentially touching Wyatt’s underwear.
“I’m questioning whether I made the right choice in not taking him to the hospital,” I tell Jacob. “Or calling an ambulance, since in his current state, I’m not sure I can lift him into a car. How’s his insurance?”
“Not an issue. Look—he had surgery, but it’s been a month. Long enough that I’m sure it’s not an infection at the incision site.” He pauses. “Probably.”
“ Jacob .”
“No, really. I think waiting to see if the fever goes down is a good idea. I can give you his doctor’s number if you want.”
“Yes. Absolutely. Why do you even have his doctor’s number?”
A brief pause. “Wyatt put me down as his emergency contact. They called me when he stopped going to his appointments or answering his phone.”
I turn off the water, letting my hands drip-dry in the sink as I mull this over.
I’m not sure why it shocks me. Jacob and Wyatt are good friends.
But again—where is Wyatt’s family? Does he seriously have no friends besides my brother—who loves Wyatt, yes, but also has a vested financial interest in his recovery?
I assume he doesn’t have a girlfriend or I wouldn’t be here.
Is Wyatt’s circle of support really so small?
The thought makes me want to march right in where he’s sleeping and give him a hug. Almost.
“You still there?” Jacob asks.
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Thinking you might stay for sure?” He sounds so hopeful.
The thing is—I do want to stay. Or, rather, I feel like I need to stay. Not just for the money, though I absolutely plan on price gouging my brother. I don’t like the idea of Wyatt out here with no one. Not when he seems so unwell. And possibly self-destructive.
It has nothing to do with him saying I’m so pretty in his feverish state, something I wish I could forget.
He might have been talking about something else anyway— not me. He didn’t say You’re so pretty, Josie. Just... So pretty . Maybe he meant the curtains behind me. Maybe the fever made him hallucinate something—or someone —pretty.
In any case, those two words aren’t factoring in to my desire to stay, though they do keep whispering through me like a faint heartbeat.
“I’m still a maybe.” I quickly add, “Though I don’t know how long I’ll stay. If I do. Maybe just until this fever is under control. Absolutely not weeks or a month like you mentioned before. I don’t like being away from home that long.”
“It’s not like you’ve got pets or anything to get back to,” Jacob says. “Do you even have any plants?”
“Yes,” I say defensively.
Though they’re fake. I don’t have the best track record with living plants. I seem to personally offend them somehow, and every one I’ve ever bought has shriveled up and died with prolonged exposure to me. The succulents too.
It’s almost a talent. Too bad I can’t monetize it.
I refuse to tell Jacob this, however, because he’s making my life seem insignificant—which is completely unfair.
I know for a fact he also has zero pets and zero plants.
He does occasionally have girlfriends, even if they never seem to last long.
They’ve got a shorter lifespan than my doomed houseplants.
Still, it’s better than my sad love life. More like my sad lack of a love life.
Toni has been trying to convince me to get out there for years now. She insists that if I do, I will find good men out there, ones who will treat me like a queen.
To which I typically reply: Does such a mythical creature exist?
In an attempt to prove that it does, Toni has introduced me to a number of “nice” guys in group settings.
I’ve been on a handful of awkward first and second dates.
They were fine. Like a meal you enjoyed but never thought about repeating.
There was never a pull or a sense that I wanted to see any of them again.
The very last date I went on was when Toni strong-armed me into going out with an art teacher from her middle school. It took her an entire school semester to wear me down before I finally agreed. Five minutes later I regretted saying yes.
And ten minutes into the date with him, I got back in my car and left.
Joe—who had gold hoops in his ears like a pirate, a detail Toni left out—told me we were going to do something creative but wouldn’t say more than that.
“Should I dress up or dress comfortably?” I asked, already feeling the pinch of panic that comes from new situations.
When he laughed and said, “It doesn’t matter,” the red flag unfurled and slowly started to wave.
I went into the date feeling more nervous and anxious than I’d normally be, which is saying something. As it turned out, I had cause.
Creative according to pirate-hoop Joe meant going to a place with giant canvases rolled out on the floor for us to paint—by getting naked, covering ourselves in paint, and then rolling around.
Which, obviously, I was not interested in doing on a first—or any —date.
Toni is still making it up to me by bringing over dinner from our favorite Italian place once a month.
If anything, I’m far less likely to dive back into the dating pool now. Not after that belly flop.
In any case, not having a boyfriend, pet, or plant doesn’t mean it’s an easy decision to stay and take care of Wyatt. I have a life. A good friend. Plans to read my way through the women of literature.
“That was out of line,” Jacob says, his version of an apology.
“It was. Even if you’re right—I don’t have any plants.” He chuckles, which I ignore and continue on. “And I guess I’ll stay. Not indefinitely. Just until he’s...better.”
“I know it’s a sacrifice no matter what,” Jacob says, though I’m not sure my wonderful but also very selfish brother understands the word. “Thank you, Josie. For real.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t told you how much it’s going to cost you.”
I’m just shoving laundry into the machine, underwear included— and no, I don’t want to talk about it—when a voice in the doorway startles me.
“You don’t have to do that.”
I scream and bang my elbow into the washing machine. Wyatt stands in the doorway, leaning on his crutches and looking...well, at least upright, which is an improvement from an hour ago when I last checked on him.
I tiptoed in after my call with Jacob and found Wyatt in the same position he’d been in when I left him.
According to the digital thermometer I always travel with, his fever was down a little, though 102 is still higher than I’d like.
I figured I should give the ibuprofen a little more time to kick in before insisting on the hospital.
And if I allowed myself a minute to examine and appreciate Wyatt’s sleeping form—the thick golden stubble I really think he should keep; the full lips, slightly parted; the thick lashes brushing his cheekbones—well. No one can prove a thing.
Now, remembering the way I stared at him makes me blush.
It also makes me irrationally angry. With myself, with Wyatt, with Jacob. With the world, really.
I yank the earbud out of my right ear, which stops the true crime podcast that’s been playing. “You scared me,” I say, as though it’s not obvious. “I was listening to a podcast.”
“About what?” he asks.
I blink. Because Wyatt is asking me a question. Has he ever asked me a question about me or my life?
I don’t trust it. “About stuff,” I say vaguely. “How are you feeling?”
Wyatt doesn’t smile with his mouth, but I swear, his eyes are laughing. I’m not sure I’ve seen Wyatt happy before. It’s unnerving.