Sunset City Read Online Free PDF Page B

coworker Jessie suggested that I work the register instead. I shook my head. I knew if I had to make eye contact with anyone I would cry. Around eleven I hadtime to drag the mat to the floor drain in the back and hose it down. I covered Jessie’s break up front, and sucked down an espresso and half a cigarette before the lunch rush. At two my shift ended. My whole body felt sore and sticky, and my head throbbed. I drove home.
    I took the whiskey bottle down from the top of the fridge. A pill of dust clung to the bottle, drifted to the floor. I had a brief vision in which I saw myself bring a chair to the kitchen, stand on it, and wipe the refrigerator with a rag and soapy water. I was too exhausted to do it.
    I ran a bath and took the whiskey bottle into the tub. Hot water inched up the sides of my breasts, rising with each exhale. I lay not thinking, heat radiating through me, pumping into the heart and out, to my limbs, my fingertips. I sipped the whiskey. Let me stay like this, I thought—clean. It was almost a prayer, but to no one. The water covered me, and the temperature reached equilibrium, making my whole body blank and warm. There was nothing, now, to feel or do.
    I thought about the dust on top of the fridge, and other dust that I couldn’t see—fan blades, window frames. I imagined I could hear it gathering, a tiny army collecting its troops. When my mom was alive the house was always dusty, a mess everywhere, especially around her favorite chair. On bad days she might accidentally knock over a glass of Diet Coke and not even clean it up. Right now I could relate. I got out of the bath, wrapped a towel around my head, and fell into bed, exhausted. I suppose I was drunk, though I couldn’t tell. A bird and a squirrel fought on a maple branch outside my window. They shrieked and chattered. I let sleep overtake me, glad for it.
    I dreamt of Danielle. We were in a school bathroom together and she tried to show me how to shoot heroin into avein on my forehead because that was how you were supposed to do it with this needle shaped like a knife. It was a new kind of needle that was safer and more effective. I had to look in the mirror while I did it. In the dream I got high and thought, Oh! Finally .
    I woke in early evening, groaning, and staggered to the bathroom to throw up. I wished I could sleep backwards. To last week, last year, four years ago. Danielle and I should have skipped town, moved to Austin or Portland, someplace better. But Danielle, she’d been with Joey. She wouldn’t have gone with me anyway. Now it was too late. She was dead, Danielle was dead. I felt so tired.
    I brushed my teeth, dressed in a miniskirt and high-heeled sandals with ankle straps. I fixed my makeup and hair and drove to the bar. I needed to be around people and think about something else. Maybe someone would be kind to me.
    The leftover happy-hour crowd mingled with the kids stopping in for their first drink. I took a seat at the bar. A man in office clothes tried to hit on this girl in a green dress. She giggled, clearly embarrassed. I ordered a Manhattan. A few minutes later they were kissing sloppily. What did he say to her, I wondered.
    A guy edged between me and the next barstool.
    â€œCan I buy you a drink?” he said.
    I studied him. He was cute, in a fratty way, his boy-band hair gelled into place. I didn’t mind having someone to talk to. I smiled.
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    â€œI’m Peter,” he said.
    â€œI’m Eliza,” I lied. What did it matter?
    â€œI love the name Eliza,” he said.
    â€œMe, too,” I said.
    â€œYou like this song?”
    â€œI guess.” I hadn’t been paying attention to the music.
    â€œDance with me,” he said.
    â€œMaybe later,” I said. Nobody danced in this bar. Who was this guy?
    I thought of Danielle before her arrest. When she first started stripping she danced constantly. Even high, she couldn’t sit