Fuckin’ A, you should set a Raid bomb off in this place. That lady was like a roach, anyway.”
“You knew her?” Audrey asked.
Jayne nodded. Her foundation and blue eye shadow were cartoonishly thick, like a Mary Kay lady from 1986. Up close, Audrey could see chicken pox scars under her makeup, as if her cheeks and forehead had been scored by a putty knife.
“What was she like?”
Jayne sighed. “She was supposed to have this great voice. All the papers wrote about it, like since she had a talent that never got expressed because she turned into a murderer, it was tragic that she died. Like it’s less tragic when normal murderers die. My sister is a nuclear physicist. She invented those bacteria that eat oil spills in the Arctic. She’s got double my IQ. I’ve got a below-average IQ, but I’ll bet you guessed that. Anyway, nuclear physicist. You’d think that was a made-up job, wouldn’t you?”
Audrey shrugged. “Maybe she lied. She’s really a fry cook at Sizzler.”
Jayne beamed. “Exactly! You’re funny, too. I could tell the second we met, that you were funny and cool.”
“It’s true. Most popular girl in Hinton, Iowa,” Audrey said. She meant this to be a joke, but Jayne didn’t laugh.
“Obviously. I’d kill for those cheekbones. You don’t even dye your hair, do you? Natural brunette.”
Audrey winced. It took her a few seconds before she was sure Jayne wasn’t teasing. Then she laughed. “Thanks, Jayne.”
“Like a model! Anyway, for all that buildup, I never heard her sing. Just the kid. The girl. Clara’s daughter—”
The sound of the monster’s name dried the saliva from Audrey’s mouth.
“—The kid used to knock on the walls in the halls singing ‘Hard knock life.’ She was Annie in the school play. You know: ‘It’s the hard knock life, for us! Steada kisses, We! Get! Kicks! When you’re in an or! phan! age!’” Jayne sang-spoke the words Henry Higgins-style. Her high-pitched voice was surprisingly dulcet.
“—Cute thing. Really cute. If she was older, I’d have given her a free minibottle of champagne, but not the mom. She could drink Tidy Bowl toilet water for all I care. And then one day…” Jayne’s voice cracked. “And then I came home, and the hallway was wet, because the emergency workers’ boots were soaked in all that water.”
Audrey squeezed her hands into fists and looked out the window. The blackbirds, doubled on top of each other in the open window, looked like they’d been captured inside the glass. Those poor fucking kids.
“Did you have any idea?” Audrey asked.
Jayne pushed down her green sock and unwound the Ace bandage beneath it. Then she pressed her fingers against the wet wound, which was blotted with iodine and green wool sock threads. She pulled the wet threads, strand by strand, from the clot. Squeamish, Audrey averted her eyes.
“I’ve been through a lot, you know? So I should have guessed. But who imagines something like that? It’s unthinkable.” She pulled another thread, and looked at it as if fascinated. Then dropped it to her lap, and pulled another. The clot broke open and began to ooze.
“Is that why the rent is so cheap?” Audrey asked.
Jayne shrugged. “I moved in the same time she did. Before we came, it was only owners. We’re the first renters they’ve ever had. They might not know any better…Since she died, I get nightmares.”
Audrey was looking out the window. She could see the dark top floors of the Parkside Plaza. A lot of people had died when the bomb went off. When you considered all the tragedies that happened, it made the whole world seem haunted. “Do you ever see a man wearing a three-piece—” she started to ask, but Jayne interrupted her.
“I know what we need! Would you mind going to my place and getting some wine? I’ve got a bottle of red on the kitchen counter. Same layout as 14B, except not so Romero Meets Cronenberg: Smackdown!”
Audrey started from her chair. She decided that she liked having Jayne around. It was better than being alone. By a mile. “I’d be happy to. Do you mind my going in there without you?”
“Pffft!” Jayne said. “Hell, no!”
“Don’t I need your keys?”
Jayne shook her head. “I never lock it. What are they going to do? Steal my plastic Mardi Gras beads? The people in this building own Picassos, the salty dogs. Old money and bad surgery. You can dress a hag in Dior, but you can’t make her a Cover Girl.”
“Totally! The lady next door