Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

“Right, the witch won’t come in. The ratio is too big for the witch to get in.”

Sheba and Jimmy’s room was tidy and organized. Dr. and Mrs. Cone hadn’t managed to empty it, but they had managed to stack all their stuff in boxes pushed against one wall. The bed was made with a bright pink batik bedspread. There were mismatched nightstands on either side. One held the books I’d seen Jimmy reading in the banquette in the morning: Play It as It Lays and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The other had hand cream and face cream. On the ceiling, over the bed, hung another pink batik bedspread. I wondered if Mrs.Cone had done that, or if Sheba had.

I took a few steps into the bathroom and looked around. There was a giant claw-foot tub and a separate walk-in shower. Thetile was Tiddlywinks-size pink and black circles, like what I imagined might be in a diner in the 1950s. On the pink marblevanity a framed mirror lay flat, like a tray. Two perfume bottles and many face creams sat on the mirror tray. I picked upChanel No. 5. I’d heard of it, but had never seen an actual bottle. I sprayed it on my wrists and sniffed. It didn’t smelllike Sheba. The other bottle was cut glass with a stopper in it. I lifted the stopper and sniffed. That sort of smelled likeSheba, but not quite. I dipped the stopper and dabbed each of my wrists where I had sprayed the Chanel No. 5. I lifted mywrist to my nose. Now I smelled like Sheba. I sniffed again. Breathing in Sheba’s scent made the world momentarily fall away.

I left my Sheba-scented bubble and hurried to the walk-in closet. The bar on one side of the closet held Jimmy’s clothes.The bar on the other held Sheba’s. Her clothes were arranged by type: dresses, tops, jumpsuits, nightgowns, and robes. Withineach group they were arranged by color, lightest to darkest, left to right. I ran my hand along everything, feeling the variegatedtextures—satin, silk, leather, cotton.

When I got to the nightgowns and robes, I pulled them out one by one. Some were so sexy—with see-through lace bra tops and thigh-high slits—that I was embarrassed looking at them. My sex addiction roared, tingling through my body, and I hushed it down sternly.

Even the not-as-sexy nightgowns were beautiful. I worried I’d disappoint Sheba and pick the wrong one. And then my hand stoppedon a white nightgown with lace straps and lace on the hem. The cotton was so soft, it felt like thick water running betweenmy fingertips. I took off my shorts, T-shirt, and bra right there in the closet, and slipped the nightgown over my head. Thebreast panels were baggy on me, but other than that it fit me well. The cotton was so smooth against my skin, I wanted toroll around on the ground just to feel it more.

I folded my clothes and carried them out of Sheba and Jimmy’s room and then down the stairs to the second floor. The shoutinghad stopped, and the conversational voices of the four grown-ups floated up like sound clouds. Also, the smell of marijuanawafted up. I wondered if Dr. and Mrs. Cone were smoking too. Or was it just Sheba and Jimmy?

I walked into Izzy’s room and shut the door behind me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust and see that Izzy was stillawake, her glowing eyes flashing on me.

“Everyone’s calm,” I said. “They worked it all out.”

“Okay. Can we sleep now?”

“Yeah.” I climbed into bed. Izzy’s sheets were clean and stiff. We had washed and starch-ironed them only two days ago.

“I love you, Mary Jane.” Izzy scooted in closer to me and pushed her head between my breast and my armpit. She breathed deeplyand slowly, as if she were releasing something from far inside her body.

“I love you too,” I whispered.

7

When I woke in the morning, I was surprised that I had slept so solidly and easily. At school we went on camping trips everyyear and I always came home exhausted and ready to sleep for a week straight. And when I slept at the twins’ house, we stayedup late and then got up early. But in Izzy Cone’s bed I slept better than I did in my own house.

Izzy was still pressed up against me, her mouth gaping open like a fish’s. Her thick eyelashes looked wet and shiny and herred curls were plastered behind her head. I slipped out of the bed slowly, carefully, and dressed in my OP shorts, bra, T-shirt,and flip-flops.

I put the nightgown to my face and sniffed. It smelled like Sheba’s perfume combination and not like anything I recognized as myself. With the nightgown in my hands, I left the room. The door to the third floor was closed. Dr. and Mrs. Cone’s door was ajar and I could hear ocean-sounding snores coming from it. I went down the stairs slowly, sticking to the wall edge, where there was less creaking.

The living room floor was covered with scattered books. The air still smelled like a rubber eraser. On the coffee table washalf of a broken dinner plate, the edges chalky white and craggy. On the plate were three stubbed-out joint ends. Roaches, Jimmy had told me in the car one night before he swallowed a lit one, just to make me and Sheba laugh.

I stood for a minute surveying the damage. I could start shelving the books then, or I could wait until Izzy woke up. We’dbeen talking about it so much that she might be hurt if I started without her. But I was slightly worried that if I didn’tstart systemizing the books soon, someone else would jump in and shelve them willy-nilly. Certainly not Dr. and Mrs. Cone;they were blind to chaos and disorder. Sheba, however, had a neat streak in her as strong as mine. No one did anything inthe Cone house before