“That’s embarrassing.” I wondered what my father had thought, seeing us there. He’d never once asked me about Brynn. If she was my girlfriend. “I didn’t think anybody knew.”
“Everybody knew, Jessa.”
The room was stifling. Every breath I took seemed to contain a quart of dust. I coughed, then coughed again. My eyes burned from the dryness.
Something was under one of the cabinets. I leaned down and reached beneath as far as I could. My fingers brushed against something that jangled. I grabbed it and pulled it out. When I held it up in front of us, dust fell from the matted fur of a stuffed animal. The bell was still shiny and trilled when I shook it to dislodge the fuzz.
“Cat toy.”
Milo winced. “You think there’s still a cat up here?”
“Probably not a live one.”
He dragged it around on the floor between our bodies, making patterns in the dirt. “You’re a lesbian. How come you never got any cats?”
Grabbing it back, I beat him over the head with it until dust pillowed the air. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
Coughing, he waved a hand in front of his face to dispel the cloud. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah. You’ve said stupider.” I lay back on the floor, exhausted. “I think this place will work.”
“We’re gonna have to gut it.”
I spread my arms and legs, knocking into Milo. “We’ll have Lolee help. Child labor, right?”
“It’s what Dad would’ve done.”
Scraping my arms back and forth across the dirty wood, I pretended I was a dust angel. I’d never seen snow once in my life. That seemed very sad to me. I’d never traveled anywhere, or seen anything. Never left the United States. I didn’t even own a passport. I wondered where would be the best place to see snow. Maybe I’d take Lolee with me. “Dad always made us work,” I said. “He thought it was good for us. Built character.”
“He always made you work.” Milo reached for my leg and I kicked at him until he quit. “I didn’t have to do half that shit. You’re the one who liked it. You’re the one who always wanted to be there.”
“I still do like it. It’s what I know. It’s comfortable.”
“Can you hear yourself?” He tapped at the bottom of my boot, prompting me to kick again. “You sound like you’re sixty-five years old. Like you’re describing life at a retirement village.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” I rolled over onto my side. There was something else beneath the case. I pressed my face closer to the opening between it and the linoleum, dirt grinding into my cheek. I couldn’t quite make out what it was. Something dark and bundled. A mystery shape. “I like being comfortable.”
“Maybe get a little uncomfortable and find a date.”
“I don’t want a date who makes me uncomfortable.” I reached beneath the cabinet again, but my arm was too short to grab whatever it was. Huffing, I flopped over onto my back. The fluorescents were half-lit and spotty, flickering weakly.
“Is that what you like about Lucinda? It’s comfortable?” Milo tossed the cat toy in the air, little puffs of dust flying out every time it smacked against his palms.
“What about Lucinda?”
“You guys are fucking, right?”
“Don’t be gross.”
“I’m not being gross.” He threw the cat toy at me and it landed on my chest, rolling up to my neck, where it huddled like a scared live thing. I tossed it back.
“We were seeing each other. Now we’re not.”
“Why?”
One reason was she was married. The other reason was I’d anonymously called her wife and told her about Lucinda cheating. Did I need another reason? If so, I had one: I’d cost her her business. I had to assume she was pissed about that. On my next throw, I looped it up high, getting as close as I could to the light fixture without actually hitting it. “I don’t know. I think I like emotionally unavailable women.”
Milo arced it up the same way, coming even closer to the light. “You’re emotionally unavailable, Jessa.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“People aren’t as emotionally unavailable as you think.”
I aimed the next throw at his head. He tossed it back just as hard. “I know they aren’t,” I said. “I’m just not sure what I want.”
“Maybe think about it.”
“Sure. When’s the last time you went on a date?”
My next throw hit the light. Bits of cracked plastic rained down on us. I sat up and tried to avoid debris falling into my eyes. I picked pieces out of my braid, remembering too late that my fingers were shredded from helping Milo with his palms. My hair dug into the cuts and it hurt.
“Shit. We need to clean up.”
He got up and helped me to my feet, both of us careful with our wounded hands. “I bet we could pull this place together,” he said.
I kicked the cat toy down the aisle, toward the doorway. I tried to yank the cabinet away from the wall, so I could see what I’d been reaching for. It was too heavy for me to lift alone.
“Help me with this.”
Milo grabbed the opposite side and we both pulled. It scraped hard against the floor and moved a half foot forward. He looked behind.
“Found the cat,” he said. “You want it?”
“I’ll have Bastien bring a garbage bag.”
CATHARTES AURA—TURKEY VULTURE
We weren’t the kind of family that went on vacations. Our father thought it was a holiday if he took a day off work; even then, I couldn’t remember a single time growing up when he’d willingly stayed out of his workshop.
I’m happiest when I’m busy, he told our mother when she’d pushed a Carnival Cruise brochure on him one Saturday morning. He was stitching a coonskin cap at the breakfast nook, even after my mother had given him the side-eye and told him to keep his taxidermy out of the margarine. Can’t imagine being trapped on a boat with all kinds of awful people. Rather be here, in my own house, with people I kinda like.
So we played around the neighborhood during our summers off, making the lake our vacation spot. We rode our bikes through the cemetery, camping out in the tree house when it got cool and the roaches finally fled. And when I turned fourteen, my father brought me along with him once a week for our trek along the highways just outside of town. That’s where we searched for discount taxidermy treasures. We were looking for roadkill.
We searched for animals that lay half in the crunchy dead grass, half in the road. We picked up squirrels and waterfowl, possums, armadillos, and snakes. Some had sat out too long and turned rancid; those we’d have to leave, unless my father decided that any of the parts were still usable: wings or beaks, legs or ears, possibly a tail if it was in good enough condition and the maggots hadn’t gotten to it yet.
Morning’s best. Before the sun comes up and cooks the meat.
That meant predawn on a Saturday. My father slouched at the kitchen counter, pounding strong black coffee while I forced down a bowl of Cheerios that stuck in my throat.
I liked how barren the streets were that early in the morning. The truck smelled like gasoline and heated vinyl. Receipts slid along the dashboard with a satisfying hiss every time he’d turn a corner or switch lanes. It was mostly quiet, but sometimes he’d put on the radio, and other times we’d talk about whatever was on his mind, which was usually the shop and what kind of animals he hoped we’d find.