Do I try to understand me or her? Are we opposites, or twins — like the Arkansas girls?
We’re entrenched in our positions over the operation for the conjoined Wilks sisters. Lucy is for the surgical separation, while I’m against. She says that the odds of 40 percent are worth the gamble for Amy, and that it’s her choice. But I know that Amy has been bullied into this by Annabel. I also know that the odds are nothing like 40 percent. I believe the other experts, not the glamour boy who wants the kudos of performing the operation live on television.
What about my aberrant “sister,” my “twin”? What does that magnificent, hardassed bitch want with me? Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. The cracks are showing. I have to keep you strong. To keep encouraging you. Because this is all going to be so worthwhile. We really need to find out exactly who we are. It’s time.
I take that sliver of soap, the one I used to wash my feces- and blood-stained face, from its secreted location in my sweatpants pocket. Also in there is the fur material from the cuff, which I’ve been slyly tearing away at. I apply the soap to my wrist and pull and push and pull again. My hand goes a little white, but I’m amazed at how easily it slips off. A bolt of fear strikes me in the chest. I slip my hand back in, look at it, and wave the shackle like a bracelet, as my pulse slows back to normal. Then I start to laugh.
On — off. On — off.
My body hurts with pleasure then trembles in a sick fear as I cross the room, moving carefully, stealthily, over that formidable space, as if each step might detonate a land mine. I feel my free arm, liberated from the weight of that shackle, almost rising ceilingward of its own volition. I look back at the chain, lying sprawled on the wooden floor like a slain snake. Move over to the support pillar. Kick it. Kiss it. Swing gleefully around it like a kid in a park.
I go to the bathroom. How good to do a supported piss and shit! Stepping into the shower, a hot shower, I can feel the water jets blasting layers of my sweat and grime away, as if actual fat is vanishing down the drain. When I’m done I gaze at myself naked in the mirror: my body is so lean and toned, I almost expect a fat girl to come lumbering into the reflection and elbow this strange elf out of the picture. My ridges of muscle, which have replaced the soft fat, leave me awe-struck. Most of all, I can’t believe my neck. It is swanlike; I’ve never had a neck like that!
In the kitchen, on the countertop, sits my purse with my cellphone and my credit cards. I deftly slide a card from the wallet, leaving everything else as it was. I go back into the room Lucy’s been using, and find some sweat pants and a top. I get dressed and ride the elevator down and head out to the warm, deserted street, moving nervously along the sidewalk. Outside is so strange. At first I fear my own shadow, overwhelmed by a sense of danger lurking on every corner. But then I see that my shadow is so much thinner and I’m loving the glimpses of my reflection. I squint up at the green, glassy tower, trying to count the floors up to my prison. Forty.
Walking a while, I pass a bar full of people I can see through the big plate-glass window. They all wear fancy-dress costumes and are drinking beer and shots. A man inside meets my eye and points drunkenly at me to two girls in sequined masks, his face breaking into silent laughter.
I cross over to Bayside, watching the people in the bars and restaurants, all eating and drinking garbage that holds absolutely no interest for me. I stop a taxi and ask the chatty driver to take me to the nearest mall, to go shopping for some important items. He looks at me as if I’m another of Miami’s transients. — Looking good for the Heat, he says. — LeBron on fire last night.
I don’t know what he’s talking about but I reply in the affirmative, shocked at how my voice sounds — strange, higher and faster than I recall, as if every word is a butterfly fluttering just out of my reach.
At the mall, I make my purchases, then, anxious to get back before Lucy, I return to the apartment.
Back to my comforting prison.
46. EMPTY CUFFS
THE FIRST DEAD body I’ve seen. Already waxy, already something other than human. A small kidney-shaped lake of blood leaking from it. I start to cry, my throat swollen in an unstable mix of emotions. I’m thinking about what Jerry must have been like as a kid. I see a small boy, full of astonishment at the world, and wonder how he grew into such an asshole. And where did it get him? A hated, loathed pile of flesh and bone on the floor, still a young man, dead before his time, and only the air conditioning stopping him from putrefying.
In my paralysis, the only move that suggests itself is to drive back to the apartment. Freeing Lena and telling her everything about Jerry, showing her the notebook, the pictures and the negatives. It chills me to think of it that way, but Dad’s bullshit story was a prophecy. Yes, I’m a killer. Okay, it was self-defense, but I need Lena’s backup or I’m on a diet of pussy minus plastic for the next twenty. I’m a killer; possibly a double killer; fuck knows what shape I left Winter in. And what it all means is that I’m now at the mercy of my hostage.
Self-defense. I keep saying it over and over again as I walk outside into the dappled light, climbing into the Caddy, my movements like an automaton. Noises — faint but keen and insistent — leak from a source that can only be me, but are like the sound of someone whispering in my ear.
Self-defense. Though on another level, I know I’m lying to myself; wasting that Jerry asshole was something I was destined to do for years. I knew that prick before, or at least versions of him. That bastard was fucking toast as soon as he crossed me, and now I have to pay for that.
Rubbing my eyes. A dense night sky, lit by two brilliant stars. The lights of the cars around me muted in the patchy dark. I stop by my apartment, to pick up something, then I’m back across downtown. I’m a fucking mess, my hands shaking on the wheel. Trying to turn at the last minute, I almost collide with a convertible at a crossroads. A driver honks me, a dapper guy dressed in a suit and a Panama hat. — Cheese and crackers! he shouts, tapping the side of his head, — Eyes on the road, please, lady! Thank you! Hello!
When I get into the apartment Sorenson’s fucking gone! The empty cuffs lie there, attached to the end of the chain. Then suddenly I can hear her, rustling about in the kitchen. I expect her to have a knife, and come at me with it. I’m not even scared; if that’s my fate I’m resigned to it, too broken now to assume a defensive stance. She can do what she wants. Or perhaps the cops are already on their way, summoned by my former prisoner. Either way, I’m totally fucking screwed. But as Lena comes through, she just waves at me and steps onto the treadmill.
— Don’t mind me, Lucy, I got another fifty cal to shed today.
— You. . you got out, I say in disbelief, as she switches on the machine and goes for it. — How. . when. .?
— I first slipped out of the cuffs the day before last. My wrists. . I’m 131 pounds, Lucy. She gawps in delight, pushing up the speed controls. — I haven’t been that since sophomore year at the Art Institute!
— You look great, I tell her and I feel myself tearing up. I’m seeing her for the first time as she really is. She isn’t fat anymore. — You. . you could have escaped before now. .
— Why would I, though? I can see the results, she beams. — Of course, I really wanted to kill you as well, she giggles, then gasps, keeping her breath and holding her stride, — but instead I went out and got some champagne! It was weird and scary just going outside at first. . you crazy fucking beautiful bitch you, she grins, pulling up her tank top to show a gut so drastically reduced as to be almost gone, — but the means really do justify the ends!