23
I haven’t talked to you, Wendy said, her tone a bit hurt. You know they’re shutting down the telephone services. I wondered if you would even say goodbye to me. And your brother. I worry about you two, especially now with the world ending. You don’t know what it’s like to be a mother worrying about her children. It’s its own thing. You’ll never know. You’ll never know such worry, now. Michelle could hear her mom exhale smoke.
I Wouldn’t Have Known Anyway, Michelle said. I Never Wanted A Kid.
You say that, but I had a dream. One of those dreams everyone’s having. You had a baby, your brother had a baby, it was like we were all a real family.
Michelle hadn’t recalled seeing anything about a baby in Ashley’s files. But Ashley’s files, she realized, stopped at the end of her and Ashley’s relationship.
You really haven’t dreamed about the baby? Oh, it’s a cute thing.
Boy Or A Girl? Michelle asked.
Wendy snorted. You won’t say. In the dream. You give it some weird name so no one knows if it’s a boy or a girl and you say you’re going to just let the baby figure out what it is. Good thing the world is ending, huh? You’d have some kind of confused person on your hands if you did that.
It sounded like something Michelle would do, actually. Am I Alone, she asked, With The Baby?
No, no, you have some person, you know. She looks like a boy but she’s a girl. She’s good, I like her. She gives people a good feeling. You’re happy.
Really?
Yeah, really, you’re in love. You really haven’t dreamed about this?
No.
Well, you’re older in the dream. Kind of old to be having a baby. Maybe it hasn’t come yet.
I Was Thirty-Seven In My Last Dream, Michelle said.
Oh, no, you’re older than that in the baby dream.
Jesus, Michelle said. That Sounds Grotesque.
Well, how are you doing in the real world, huh?
In truth, Michelle was doing fine. Every morning she woke up in a different part of the bookstore. She dragged a pile of cushions onto a pile of books and slept there, like a child surrounded by toys. She slept upstairs in the stacks of cassette tapes, she slept in the break room above her hidden pile of money. Michelle opened and closed the bookstore depending on how she felt about humanity that day. She had to have an open heart to open the door. One afternoon a woman, batshit crazy, began hurling books at the wall, emitting a shrill keen. Michelle joined her. It felt fucking fantastic. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee! she trilled, the sound coming from deep in her throat. She chucked book after book at the wall, where they collided with other books, the lot of them tumbling to the floor to land in a pile of still more books. The woman stopped, just briefly, to see if Michelle was mocking her, but feeling safe in her insanity resumed her cries and hurls. She cackled and Michelle cackled back. Almost every day had a moment like that to open into, something totally apocalypse.
In the break room she made a lousy cup of coffee, regretting that she would probably never taste real quality coffee again, but grateful nonetheless for the caffeine. She would select a book and read it. She’d read in her pile of cushions, sneezing at the dust. She’d read behind the counter as if she were a normal girl at a normal workplace during a normal era, slacking off in a normal manner. She’d sit on the counter. She’d sit on the ladder or a chair. She selected books at random, ones she’d never heard of. Glory Goes and Gets Some. Car. The Speed Queen. She grabbed ones that made her think of San Francisco: Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy. She read the entire Tales of the City saga. She read books about Los Angeles: Kate Braverman and Mike Davis.
The hours of operation were ruled by insomnia, anxiety, boredom. On many nights Michelle stayed open through till sunrise, closing up shop in the morning to sleep like a vampire in the windowless back room. The novelty of living like this, like the kids in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, was not lost on her. Michelle imagined that it would take a while for the odd romance of it to wear off, and Michelle didn’t have a while.
With the exception of Matt Dillon, Michelle spent time with hardly anyone. His visits were infrequent, but when he came he brought Michelle cigarettes, which she began to enjoy again. He liked spending the night on her cushions. Like camping, he’d laugh, enjoying the weirdness of it, reading out loud to her from books strewn across the floor, playing a divination game where he picked a sentence at random to forecast their next day, or explain the nature of their erratic coupling, or detail what they could expect in the moment the earth exploded. Together they remembered the places they’d longed to sleep as a child — inside refrigerator boxes, in a play structure at a park, behind the couch, beneath the Christmas tree, beneath a stairwell in the library. They agreed that the bookstore was as good as all such places rolled together, though Matt was quick to return to his own home, which Michelle imagined was quite lovely and probably home to a quite lovely woman as well.
I’m Fine, Michelle said to her mother. She had slid into her loneliness and found it oddly comfortable. She felt badly for the years she’d pestered her mother into increased happiness, trying to rouse her into someone else’s life. I’m Thinking Of Starting An End-Of-The-World Book Club. Like Where We Read Books About The End Of The World. And Discuss.
Well, you’ll never guess what happened at my work, Wendy said, and continued without pause. We all moved in. We took over.
Moved In Where? Into The Asylum?
That’s right! Wendy exclaimed. Oh, it’s excellent. We play games all night, we’ve got that big kitchen, we all take turns cooking, all the nurses. I made shepherd’s pie last night. It was good. I used that packaged cheese on top, you know the stuff that comes in the mac and cheese boxes?
The Orange Powder? Michelle asked. You Put That On Your Shepherd’s Pie?
It was delicious, Wendy insisted. We’ve been eating mostly ramen so it was a treat. Everyone’s calling me “Chef “ now.
But Where Are The Patients?
Some are still around, we still take care of them. Some wanted to go, we let them go. Listen, everyone is crazy out on the streets. Who am I to tell someone they got to stay all cooped up when they’re gonna be dead so soon?
Are You Going To Get In Trouble?
Nah, Wendy said. This is happening in a few places. My friend Dolores is a nurse at an old folks’ home, she said whenever one of her patients dies a nurse moves into their room. Or a CNA or whatever. It’s better than living alone right now, waiting for some gang to rob you.
Alone? Michelle asked. What About Kym, Is She With You?
Oh, honey, Wendy said. Kym left me.
What? Where Did She Go?
She left me for a man.
No! Michelle shrieked.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, she did.
When? Oh My God! Are You Okay?
Wendy laughed. Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, we’re fine. You know, we were more like roommates for a long time. I mean, it was hard, don’t get me wrong. But it’s good now. It’s better. You know, it’s a relief not to have to take care of someone all the time.