“Different how?” I ask.
“That’s enough questions. It’s high time you left my house.” She ushers me—rather forcefully, I might add—off her couch and down the hallway.
As I near the door, something clicks into place. Mary thinks I’m to blame for Rose Gold’s size. They all think I’m to blame. What if that’s what Rose Gold wants? What if she’s trying to turn them all against me by pretending to be sick?
“If you love Rose Gold, if you’re even capable of love, you will move out of her house and leave her alone.” Mary opens the door and shoves me outside.
“Mary—”
She silences me with a stony expression. “Take care, Patty.”
The door closes in my face. I am left standing on her stoop, speechless. The dead bolt clicks.
I pound on the door. “Mary, what if she’s making it up?”
No response.
I pound again. “Mary!”
Still no response.
I pound a third time. “Mary, maybe she’s lying.”
On the other side of the door, Mary sighs. “I was there for you,” she says, sounding more tired than angry now. “I held your hand and listened to you cry. I made you dinners and gave you money. You were like a sister”—here her voice wobbles, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry—“to me.”
I hang my head. She clears her throat. I imagine her dabbing her eyes, regaining her composure. I hear her pad down the hallway. She’s done with me.
I move away from the front door and sit on the stoop, my head in my hands. I don’t think I can muster another ounce of peppy Patty positivity today.
One afternoon Mary and I decided to make French macarons. I got powdered sugar and almond flour everywhere when I forgot to put the lid on the food processor. By the time we’d piped the batter onto baking sheets and cleaned up the kitchen, we were exhausted. We settled onto Mary’s couch to catch up on All My Children and were horrified when our favorite hunk, Leo du Pres, plummeted to his death over Miller’s Falls. While our macarons burned in the oven, we made plans to send an angry letter to the showrunners, demanding Leo’s return. We never did write that letter.
One spring Mary and I signed up for a 5K. For months we trained side by side, progressing from walking to slow jogging to running the three miles. Together we raised five hundred dollars from our neighbors and donated the money to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. On the morning of the race, we both had nervous jitters. Our goal was to finish in thirty-five minutes. We’d just crossed the starting line when Mary tripped over a stick and twisted her ankle. She insisted she still wanted to complete the race and could walk if I supported some of her weight. We crossed the finish line an hour and twelve minutes after we started.
One September Mary and I took the girls to the nearby cul-de-sac for wheelbarrow races. Rose Gold had been bedridden for days. She was too weak to run around outside, but she was bored out of her skull. So Mary and I wheeled her and Alex around in circles, huffing and puffing and laughing at how out of shape we were. Mr. Grover, a crotchety old man, stopped us for a lecture about the appropriate uses of wheelbarrows. Every time he turned to face Mary, I made hand puppets behind his back and imitated his stern expression, while Mary tried not to laugh. She even rolled her eyes once—the Mary equivalent of giving someone the finger—while he was chastising me.
I realize I have lost my closest friend, maybe for good. Even if I can get her to come to the door, she won’t believe me.
I turn and begin the long walk home, concentrating on the sidewalk in front of me. Glassy eyes peer from dark garages and second-floor windows. Every time I leave the house, everywhere I go—they watch me. I feel their eyes on me in the shower, while I’m napping in my recliner. They crawl across my skin, but when I look, they aren’t there.
I speed up, distract myself by replaying the conversation with Mary. I keep coming back to the same question: is Rose Gold sick or not? If not, what does she hope to gain by faking an eating disorder? Attention? Sympathy? Making my neighbors hate me even more? Regardless of her motive, if she’s starving herself, that still means she’s sick, right? Maybe she has depression or an adrenal insufficiency or cancer. Shouldn’t I find her some help?
When I get back, I pace the house, nervous energy burning me up. Rose Gold won’t be home for a while. She took Adam to the pediatrician for his vaccines.
I sit in my recliner, but my legs won’t stop trembling. I stand and pace the house some more. I need to shake off that visit to Mary—I can’t strategize until I calm down. Maybe Rose Gold has the right idea with exercise.
In my bedroom, I change into sweatpants and a ratty old T-shirt under the gaze of the watery blue eyes on the ceiling. I tie the laces of a pair of gym shoes. My legs are leaden, but I walk to the kitchen and fill a water bottle under the faucet. I screw on the bottle top. I search the living room and kitchen to see if Rose Gold has one of those iPods for listening to music, but I don’t see one anywhere. Finally, I head toward the basement. Jogging outside, with all those evil eyes watching me, is out of the question. That leaves me with one option.
I breathe in, breathe out, then twist the basement door handle. I descend the stairs, keeping my eyes on the floor. The rafters are all I can think about, but that doesn’t mean I have to look at them. I scurry to the treadmill. Stay focused on the task at hand.
Rose Gold has tucked it into a corner so the right and back sides of the machine are nearly flush with the walls. I climb on and press the start button.
The machine’s screen illuminates, but the digits in the speed section are gibberish. I sigh, pressing the button to increase speed. This is what Rose Gold gets for picking up someone else’s trash. There’s a reason our neighbor was about to throw this old thing away.
The treadmill belt still isn’t moving. I press the buttons harder. The list of people who have humiliated me in this town is getting long. Someday they’ll regret the way they’ve treated me. I jab the ^ button, pretending it’s Mary Stone’s face. The nerve of that—
The treadmill belt rips to life under my feet. The garbled numbers on the screen straighten themselves. I recognize a speed of 16.5. The force of the machine flings me backward. I flail my arms, try to lean forward, but the belt throws me off.
My back hits the wall with a thud, knocking the breath out of me. A burning pain screams from my lower shins. I glance down and see my feet are wedged between the wall and the treadmill belt. It peels layer after layer of bloody skin from my shins.
I am screaming. Watching my own legs get shaved like gyros on a spit. The treadmill belt has blood stuck to it. I might pass out. I flail. I fall to my left. My palms smash into the concrete. I pull my legs toward me. They’re still burning. I glance at my shins—free now, but a bloody wreck.