26
Days passed.
Then weeks.
The sky rolled overhead, dark and starry one moment, bright baby-boy blue the next.
Clouds charged, like soldiers in an invading army, from one horizon to the other, then back, scattered and broken, in full-blown retreat.
The passing traffic was an unnatural high-pitched scream that morphed into a dragon’s growl as the time stream slowed.
The huntsman I’d seen when I first arrived at Cookie’s grave appeared to be a permanent resident of the graveyard.
Or, at the very least, a frequent visitor.
It emerged from time to time, scurrying over the tombstones and stalking through the yellowed grass like a lioness on the savanna, hunting down crickets, beetles, and, once, a small frog.
I decided to call her Claudia.
Claudia lost her wariness of me after a while, coming close enough for me to see the subtle stripes on her legs and the dignified, almost pensive set of her mandibles.
Once, early in the morning, she climbed up my slumped torso, long legs gentle, to drink dew out of the open cavity in my head.
I didn’t mind. I was happy to be useful.
Besides, Claudia deserved the drink. She was a good spider, long and lanky with brown fur and a large fuzzy face, not unlike Cookie.
I tried to reach out, to pat her, but all I could manage was a feeble jerk.
She scurried back and hid beneath a nearby rock, a baleful eight-eyed glare aimed in my direction.
I’m sorry, I thought. I shouldn’t be here. I know. This is your place, not mine. I don’t know why I’m here.
Except that was a lie. I knew exactly why I was there, alone in the pet cemetery, trapped in a small and probably already moldy body held together with duct tape.
It was because I hadn’t told anyone it was my graduation day.
If I’d done that, if I’d said something at Ginger’s party, if I hadn’t been up in my own head about it, I could’ve had a nice time.
I could’ve gotten to know Nicola, and perhaps some of Ginger’s other friends too.
I could’ve stayed there and dinged my teaspoon with them all night long. But I didn’t.
Why did I let that party get to me? Why did I look at those stupid Instagram comments? Why was that why I called Krissy? Why didn’t I hang up the second I heard Kyle’s voice? Why had I let him in the house despite Cookie’s warnings? Why had any of this happened?
Why did Kyle do that to me?
Why couldn’t I stop him?
What’s going to happen now?
I thought of Ginger in her wedding dress, looking like a porcelain doll, a toy, dressed up as a bride. I thought of Nicola as she’d been at Ginger’s tea party, long brown hair, shy, uncertain smile. I thought of Krissy.
The last time we’d hung out, back when both of our hearts beat, we’d played Monopoly. I remembered the organized way she’d laid out the Play-Doh-colored notes and how she’d wrinkled her nose when the dice tumbled into two ones.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she’d asked as she nudged the silver Scottie dog forward a couple of spaces and drew from the community chest.
“Don’t look now, Krissy. But we’re grown.”
“No we aren’t. Grown people have shit figured out. I’ve got nothing figured out.”
“What do you want to be?”
“I don’t know. I’m meant to know by now, right? But I don’t. I thought I was going to become a teacher, but—”
“But you hate school.”
“But I hate school,” she replied with a dramatic sigh. The dice rolled again. Two threes. I watched as she moved the dog up onto the vacant lot. It was one of the good ones, big and expensive, the last of a set.
I looked down at my own properties, lined up in front of me, few in number and grossly mismatched. I’d known I wasn’t going to win this game. Weirdly, it was a relief. I didn’t have to keep caring if the conclusion was set in stone.
“How’s your course going?” she asked.
“Almost finished.”
“Business, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do when it’s done?”
“Business, I guess.”
“Hate to break it to you, Lucy. But you don’t seem particularly good at taking care of business.
” Another roll. Two sixes. I thought there was a rule about getting three doubles in a row.
Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
But Krissy didn’t say anything, and so I didn’t either.
She just moved the dog to its new spot, drew another card, and passed it to the empty seat beside her.
There was something wrong with that seat in my memory. It was set out from the table, cards and properties laid in front of it, but empty, shadowy, wrong.
“It’s my turn now,” Krissy said, which didn’t make sense, but somehow, in this memory, I nodded and watched as she rolled and moved her piece, the thimble, to a new spot.
It didn’t matter anyway.
I’d already lost.