Rita and I would talk about her son, who was around my age, living in Louisiana and trying to be a chef, and then we’d sit in silence watching Hell’s Kitchen for hours. Rita would order sesame chicken with broccoli to be delivered. Rita didn’t make me do any exercises, which meant I didn’t have to waste my time making my pain worse, and that was really all the exercises seemed to do. Somehow I could convince myself every time that the pill would make getting up a little more bearable, but it wouldn’t. There was slippage, I would tell myself when I tried to put any weight at all on the leg. The exercises make the slippage worse.
Rita returned from the kitchen, where she’d warmed up today’s plate of sesame chicken.
“Where’s yours?” I asked her.
“I’m burned out on Chinese food.”
Footsteps on the stairs.
Cassie entered, kicking off her Converses and socks, humming along to some tune in her headphones, smelling like fresh air. I wondered if I was excited because it was Cassie, or if I was excited because since I’d killed a fly earlier this morning, this was the most exciting thing to happen all day.
My tongue was feeling loose. Cloud head was descending. “Want some sesame chicken?” I called.
She paused in the path to her bedroom and looked at me, startled. “What?” She took her headphones off her ears and I noticed for the millionth time that everything was harder than before. I thought of our e-mails, our jokes. Speaking in code, poking at each other, but stopping if it hurt.
“Oh, I said do you want any lunch? You can have some of this,” I said.
“I can’t eat that shit,” she muttered, and continued on her way. That’s right. I always forgot. But how was I supposed to know? I don’t know, dumbass, maybe look it up.
“Well, I should be going,” Rita said. “I’ll leave you kids to it.”
“No, don’t go—” I began.
At the same time, Cassie said, “No, Rita, you can stay.”
“Nah, I gotta go let Dante out.” Rita held up a peace sign. “See ya later, champ.”
When she shut the door, the room got quieter. I could hear the music pumping from Cassie’s headphones across the room. She kept them around her neck, pressed pause, and continued into the kitchen without a word.
As I ate, I could hear her take something out of the refrigerator, the sounds of a knife hitting the cutting board. Since I’d moved in, she’d begun to sort of vibrate.
Or else I just knew her now. Measured steps, water for tea, humming: she had either just played music or had sex with Toby, which I hated to think about. Quick steps and tossing her purse meant she was late and pissed, or looking for something she had lost, which happened a lot; she forgot her phone on her nightstand at least every other day. Slow steps meant she was tired or thinking hard or about to sit down and write music.
My empty, sesame-sauce-streaked plate sat in my lap. I was about to set it aside, but then I realized Cassie might think I expected her to clear and wash it. Rita usually took care of this part. Well, not today, cloud head said. Cloud head told me I should prove that I wasn’t just an eating, sleeping blob.
But you are just an eating, sleeping blob, regular head said. You couldn’t keep Frankie safe. You can’t keep yourself safe. What makes you think you’re not going to fuck this up?
With my good leg, I scooted the chair into the kitchen, plate and fork in hand. Go ahead, try. See what happens when you try.
Cassie was cutting tomatoes, keeping her eyes on her task. Chop. Chop. Chop.
Her kitchen seemed to shrink. I was having a hard time steering the chair in the right direction without the use of both hands. I started to sweat, from frustration or effort, I couldn’t tell. Now I was in the middle of the tile, not one foot from Cassie, eye level with her back and ass. Great.
Either I would have to wait until she was done chopping, or ask her to move so I could get to the sink.
My thoughts were moving slowly. This was the problem with the “one-thing” function of OxyContin. It seemed to take about three minutes to move from one idea to the next.
I summoned more cloud head, trying to sound polite. “Could I get by here?”
She turned, glancing at the plate and fork. “Just give them to me,” she said, reaching.
“No, no, it’s okay,” I said, moving them out of her reach.
“Luke, you can’t reach the faucet—” she said, grabbing again, and the movement made me lose my grip on the plate. It fell to the floor and cracked in two.