stranger. She couldn’t believe she’d confessed such a thing. For cripe’s sake, she’d never even been able to say it to Saraub. But maybe that was why she was saying it now. Because she should have told him.
“Does OCD make you sleep around?” Jayne asked.
Audrey laughed in a quick burst, then sobered when she realized Jayne was serious. She walked into the apartment, and Jayne followed at her heels like an eager puppy, so she broke into a jog, and widened the distance between them. Jayne couldn’t keep up.
“Sorry. Was that stupid? I was thinking maybe it compelled you to go home with strangers. That’s a compulsion, right?” Jayne called down the long hall.
Audrey jogged. The doors to the empty rooms were open. Their white paint shone. “No. It’s just funny, because I was a virgin until two and a half years ago,” she called, so worried about hiding the door, that she was more honest with Jayne than she’d intended.
Behind her, the sound Jayne’s crutches made was a light clip-clop! followed by the slipping sound of her sock as she dragged it along the floor. “Oh. Not me. I lost my virginity when I was twelve.” Jayne twittered.
“Really?” Audrey asked, though she wasn’t paying attention. She was in the den now, looking at the door. It was smooth and strong, and charged in a way that spread pins and needles through her fingertips. The cardboard fibers were soft as sparse feathers. She’d planned to tear it apart and let the boxes tumble into a pile once the tape was gone, but now that seemed like a waste. All it needed was a handle and frame.
Clip-clop-Slip!
Jayne. The sound got closer, and Audrey shoved the closet closed just as Jayne limped through the hall and inside the den. She was talking, and Audrey realized she’d been talking for a while now.
“—are so mean. I have an act about it: ‘Men you dated who never called: pretend they died.’ Not so clever, but you have to admit it’s true. I’ve got, like, fifty dead boyfriends.”
Jayne’s crutches shrieked against the hardwood. It was strange having her here. Like her organs—her stomach and lungs and heart and even her brain, weren’t inside anymore. They were on display, her body an open autopsy. She wasn’t used to guests. She wanted to be alone.
I want to finish the door, she thought.
“Stuffy,” Jayne said, and headed with her crutches toward the turret. She tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Audrey watched, infuriated. What was this woman doing, touching her stuff?
The wormlike thing she’d swallowed when she first walked into this den unfurled, as if stretching awake. This thing, she knew it was her imagination. A fleeting obsession that in a day or week or month would disappear, only to be replaced by something just as outlandish. Such was the nature of her disease. Still, it felt real.
With a final shove, Jayne pushed open the turret window. Stained-glass blackbirds with red eyes lifted and doubled on themselves. A crisp fall breeze rushed the room. Fresh air replaced stagnant dust. The change was good. The thing in her stomach went still.
“There!” Jayne exclaimed. “So, can we eat here? I’ve been cooped up all day.”
“But I don’t have any furniture,” Audrey said.
“Got any food?”
Audrey shook her head. “I got lint. That’s about it. Maybe this was a bad idea.”
Jayne balanced on her crutches, then clicked open her cell phone. “No way! It’s a great idea! Chinese. Speed dial. It comes fastest. What do you want?”
Audrey sighed, and surrendered. “General Tsao’s Chicken?”
Jayne placed the order, and added steamed string beans with garlic for herself. “I’m on a diet, so I can only eat every fourth meal. You would not believe how hungry I am right now!” she mouthed while waiting for the guy on the other line to provide a dollar tally.
After she clicked the phone closed, Jayne surveyed the mattress and coat-turned-sleeping blanket, and the ten-year-old box television and piano bench on which it was perched. “You need stuff,” she said. “We should go shopping before my act at Laugh Factory this weekend. It’s kind of Zombie Apocalypse Meets the Olsen Twins in here, you know?”
Audrey pulled two folding chairs that she’d found in the kitchen closet and arranged them in front of the turret. “You think it’s creepy?”
Jayne eased herself into the chair and perched her injured foot up on the ledge. “Totally! You should wash the walls with bleach to clear the bad psychic residue.