“Well, move your butt around. You gotta get your blood to circulate.”
Bernadette slid around on the seat again, peered down between her legs, and repeated her sister’s advice out loud. The words had an entirely different meaning when she said them. “I wish my blood would circulate, Jess. I swear to God, if I’m pregnant with that idiot’s kid, I’m going to kill myself.” She held the pregnancy test strip under her stream.
“Don’t say things like that, Bern. Bobby loves you. And a baby wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to happen to you guys.”
Bernadette smirked at the phone. What an idiotic thing to say. “First of all, Jess, a baby wouldn’t be happening to us, it would be happening to me. Bobby’s practically an infant himself, so it would really mean I’d have two kids to raise. And second of all, yes, it would be the worst thing in the world to happen to me. I’m twenty-six and I haven’t started school yet. I’m still working at the fucking IGA, for Christ’s sake. This is not the way I pictured my life turning out.” She sank her head deeper into her slumped position.
“C’mon, Bern. I had Peanut when I was twenty-six and my life didn’t turn out that bad.”
“You also had your degree already—and Steve has a job. Have you seen my life lately?”
“Maybe it’s time to think about getting your act together, then. Stop smoking pot every day. You’re only enabling Bobby anyway.”
Bernadette closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her sister’s voice was beginning to have that tone that grated on her. She was slipping into mom mode. She hated mom mode. The banging on the bedroom door came right on cue. “Jesus, here we go.”
“I’m not starting on you, Bern. I just—”
“No, not you. Bobby’s at the door. Hold on.” She looked at the small blue lines forming on the tip of the plastic testing strip and wanted to scream. “What?” she yelled loudly enough to be heard through both the bathroom and bedroom doors. She heard a voice, but couldn’t make out the words. “I’m taking a piss,” she yelled even louder.
“Classy, sis.”
“Shut up, Jess.” She tapped the phone, taking it off speaker. The voice on the other side of her bedroom door rose to match her own yelling.
“I said there’s somebody here, Bern.”
“Well, who is it?” Bernadette said, and reached for the toilet paper only to spin the bare brown cardboard roll Bobby had left on the holder. “Goddamnit.” She held the phone to her ear. “Let me call you back. There’s someone here—no, I don’t know—yeah, I brought a test home from work. I’ll call you back tonight after I know for sure. I love you, too. Bye.” She held the plastic strip up and already knew that two blue lines meant positive. “Fuck,” she whispered as her eyes got wet.
“I don’t know, baby,” Bobby yelled from the door. “I think it may be the cops.”
Bernadette sat up straight at the mention of that word.
Cops?
She set her phone on the floor and tossed the positive test in the trash. She tried to stand up, but her legs were still asleep and she almost collapsed onto the linoleum. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” She tried to hike her sweatpants and panties up over her knees, but her legs were so sensitive from the rush of blood reviving them that she had to stop moving altogether.
“They might be cops, babe, but I’m not sure. Do you want me to let them in?”
“I want you to stop yelling about cops across the house,” she said, as thousands of tiny pins and needles began to swarm her skin from her thighs down. Bernadette pushed herself off the commode and caught her balance on the bathroom counter. She opened the cabinet for a fresh roll of toilet paper, as if that was the most important thing to worry about at the moment, but she was high, and she couldn’t walk, and she was confused. Seeing the empty cabinet, which she knew she’d stocked the day before, confused her more. “Where’s all the fucking toilet paper?”
“What, baby?” Bobby knocked again. “You okay in there?”
Why the fuck was he knocking, anyway? He knew how to unlock the door. Why was she still looking for toilet paper? She knew she’d left at least a quarter ounce of dope on the living room table in plain sight and there was no telling what else Bobby had stashed around the place that she wasn’t aware of, so if cops were at the door, a wet spot in her panties was the least of her problems. She hiked her sweatpants up and shook her legs back to life one at a time.
“Bobby, don’t you let a soul in this house. I’ll be out in a minute.” She couldn’t believe she even had to tell him that. She unlocked the bathroom door and took a careful step over the mountain of dirty laundry on the floor in front of the threshold.
“I don’t know, baby. These guys don’t look like—” A thunderclap drowned out the rest of what Bobby had to say.
The sound caused Bernadette to jump. She flinched so hard she knocked over a jewelry armoire by the closet, and a cascade of cheap gold chains, tiny ring boxes, and multicolored costume jewels spilled all over the carpet.
Was that a gunshot? Oh, my god, that was a gunshot.
She began to hear yelling that quickly turned to screaming. Her heart sped up and pounded in her chest like a hummingbird in a box. Without thinking, she yelled out for Bobby and immediately regretted it. She was answered with another gunshot and more yelling—frantic yelling. Something fell over somewhere in the house. She thought she heard the sound of glass shattering, but had no idea what it could’ve been. She moved into the closet, her legs still not fully cooperative, and sank down onto all fours. The sudden eruption of more gunfire and chaos in the next room had her head spinning with sensory overload, but her hands had already begun clearing the floor before the rest of her even knew why. A fourth and fifth gunshot clarified the moment before everything went silent. She yelled for Bobby, but there was no answer. The yelling had stopped, too.
She knew where Bobby kept his gun—in the same place she kept her weed in case of a raid, in the floor of the closet. She slid another pile of dirty jeans and shoes she never wore across the cluttered hardwood floor to clear the space in the corner. The boards were loose there when she bought the house, and one night, while she and Arnie Blackwell were blasted on some killer shit Bobby had brought home from a hiking trip in Colorado, they’d decided to build a small hidden compartment under the slats. It took them two straight days. Bobby kept a handgun in there, even though none of them knew how to shoot it. Her hands were shaking so bad she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to figure out how, either, but she had to try.
The house had gone completely quiet beyond the room—even the stereo had stopped playing—and Bernadette sat there on the floor, quivering. Gun smoke had seeped in under the bedroom door and filled the room with a soft blue haze. The rancid smell of cordite stung her nose and her eyes watered. They itched so badly. She couldn’t keep a clear thought in her head. There was a brief moment when she thought that maybe whoever was out there had done what he came to do and left, but that glimmer of hope vanished when someone rattled the doorknob on the bedroom door. She used the side of her fist to bang on the end of the rectangular piece of wood at her knees and lifted it up by the edge. She tossed the lid of the hideaway hole on top of the pile of clothes and immediately thought she was going crazy.