Marianne by Elizabeth Hammer (best books to read in life TXT) 📕

30

Fattening the Calf

Marianne walked through the turnstiles at the exit of the park and made her way into the outdoor shopping area, Downtown Disney. She passed by the shops, and the tourists, and the lighted-up trees in a daze. Now that she was finally free to think straight, she realized that she had nowhere to go. She wasn’t in the mood to shop, and one could only spend so much time smoking cigarettes by a fountain. She walked a little farther on, toward the spot where everything would go down in about three hours.

She stopped between the two last buildings before the parking lot. On the left was the sports bar that looked like a gladiator arena. On the right was the three-story restaurant that looked like a Mayan temple. She put her hands on her hips and glanced from one side to the other. Oh, very cute, Universe. Very cute. Marianne figured she’d rather go down fighting, so she went into the sports bar. The girl at the desk gave Marianne a funny look. Ah, yes. She was dressed like a nineteenth-century vampire. She sighed. “Table for one, please.”

After the waiter took Marianne’s order for a diet soda and a giant plate of French fries, she sent her nine o’clock text.

I never told you when I was feeling hurt or scared because—and this is lame, I get that—because I didn’t think you’d understand, not really.

After she hit send, she sat staring down at her phone. She scrolled through all the texts she’d sent today. One after another, betrayal after betrayal. She tried to imagine Patrick’s thoughts on receiving each one. Did he sigh and roll his eyes every time his phone buzzed? Did he turn off the power at some point so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it? Did they make him sad? Was he startled when she asked him to come tonight? How long did it take him to make up his mind? A second? Maybe he still wasn’t sure.

Marianne’s food came. She thanked the crabby waiter and set her phone down on the table. Gently. That was her soul right there, so she set it down gently. She wanted to talk to Danielle. She wanted to go back to the Goths. This whole day had been stressful, but this was the first time she felt stressed and lonely. The stress would evaporate a few minutes after midnight, one way or another, but the loneliness? Who knows.

Marianne wiped her eyes on her napkin and tried to put that out of her head. Thinking about these things was just making the minutes crawl by more slowly, anyway. She ate her fries, drank her soda, and watched the TV, trying to figure out the rules of football.

She’d finally decided that football had no set rules and that the players just lined up wherever they felt like it when the waiter came back and snapped at her. “You need anything else?”

“Huh?” Marianne took her eyes off the TV and looked down at the table. Empty.

Empty?

“Oh…” Marianne reached out and jiggled the ice in her empty cup. “Another soda, please.”

She watched him walk away and tried to sit up straighter. None of the fries from the giant plate had disappeared; they were all inside her. The seams of her dress were digging into her sides. Her throat felt greasy and warm…

Oh, for the love of bats. This was not the time for this. She’d eaten a bunch of food—big fat deal. Think about something else. She opened her phone and checked the time. Nine-thirty-ish. She could go kill some time fixing her makeup in the restroom…

Nuh-uh. That wasn’t the actual reason she wanted to go to the restroom, so she forced herself to stay in the seat. Not tonight, Demon-Marianne. She asked for the check when the waiter walked by. She’d just sit here till he came, pay, and then leave. No problem. She handed the guy a twenty when he came back, and then she sat in her chair until he came back with her change.

No, she didn’t. She went to the restroom.

Marianne sat back down on the tile, bumping her head against the toilet paper container. She closed her eyes and listened to the voice of the announcer playing on the little TV hanging above her stall. Unbelievable. This was so totally unbelievable. What had she been thinking? She was a purging corpse! She didn’t deserve a second chance. When had she gotten it into her head that torturing Patrick with her presence was a good idea? She was fricking stalking him via text. Marianne hung her head down and opened her eyes.

She had puke on the bust of her dress and in her hair.

The sounds of her sobs echoed off the walls of the restroom, mixing with the cheers from the football game. She let herself slide down the wall and just lay in a heap on the tile. Maybe she’d get Hepatitis and die. That’d be nice. She lay there and cried for a couple more minutes, but then she started to feel the microbes crawling up onto her skin. She pushed herself up with some difficulty, flushed the toilet, and opened the door.

The mirror was directly across from her, and it was a sight. She looked like she’d been attacked.

Marianne stumbled over to the sink and turned on the hot water. She scrubbed her teeth with a paper towel, washed the makeup off her face with hand soap, and rinsed out the vomitous pieces of her hair. She dabbed her dress clean, and then just stood there. Staring.

Well?

Should she press on toward midnight, or just call it off now? Because this was Truth, right here. Right here in the mirror. This germy, dripping wet tragedy of a human being was all she had to offer. She considered trying to make herself look normal—slap her hair in a ponytail and buy a dress from one of the shops. But she hated that