My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh Page 0,35

counter. He looked like a lapdog, cute and small and squirrelly. “Forty-six fifty. Last night, you bought seven ice creams.”

“I did?” He could have been messing with me. I wouldn’t have known the difference.

“Seven ice creams,” he repeated, shaking his head and stretching to reach for a pack of menthols from the back wall for the customer behind me. I wasn’t going to argue. The Egyptians weren’t like the people at Rite Aid. So I got cash out of the ATM and paid what I owed.

At home, I found seven pints of old Häagen-Dazs on the kitchen counter. I must have exerted great effort in removing them from the depths of the bodega’s freezer: Coffee Toffee Crunch, Vanilla Fudge, Raspberry Fudge, Rum Raisin, Strawberry, Bourbon Pecan Praline, and Watermelon gelato. It had all melted. I wondered if I’d been expecting guests. The Chinese food spread out on the coffee table indicated a celebration perhaps, but it seemed as though I’d fallen asleep or gotten frustrated with the chopsticks and left it all there to stink up my apartment while I dreamt. The apartment still smelled strongly of a deep fryer. I opened a window in the living room a few inches, then sat on the sofa and started in on my second coffee. One by one, I lifted each greasy container of Chinese food, guessed its contents, then unfolded the top to see if I’d guessed correctly. What I guessed was pork fried rice was actually slippery lo mein jiggling around slivers of carrot and onion and dotted with tiny shrimp that made me think of pubic lice. My guess of broccoli in garlic sauce was wrong. That container was full of glimmering yellow curried chicken. My guess of white rice was a farty, cabbage-filled egg roll. White rice was a vegetable medley. White rice was spare ribs. When I found the rice, it was brown. I tasted it with my fingers. Nutty and smushy and cold. As I chewed, I could hear my phone ring. I knew it would be Reva calling to make sure I understood about the funeral, wanting me to promise that I’d be there for her, that I’d show up on time, and to confirm that I was so terribly sorry about her mother’s passing, that I cared, that I felt her pain, that I’d do anything to ease her suffering, so help me God.

I didn’t answer. I spat the rice out and carried all the containers of Chinese food to the garbage. Then I opened each pint of melted ice cream and poured the contents down the drain. I imagined Reva would gasp if she saw all the food I was throwing out, as if eating it all and vomiting it back up wasn’t just as wasteful.

I took the garbage out into the hallway and threw it down the trash chute. Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing. I was connecting.

I took a Xanax and an Infermiterol, pulled my soggy coat out of the tub, and ran a hot bath. Then I went to the bedroom to find clean pajamas so that I could put them on right away and fall asleep to Jumpin’ Jack Flash. The furniture in my bedroom had been reorganized. My bed had been turned around so the head of it faced the wall. I pictured myself, in a drugged blackout, assessing my home environs, and using my mind—what part of it, I’m not sure—to make decisions for how to strategically improve the spatial ambiance. Dr. Tuttle had predicted this kind of behavior. “Some activity in sleep is fine just as long as you don’t operate heavy machinery. You don’t have children, do you? Stupid question.” Sleepwalking, sleeptalking, sleep-online-chatting, sleepeating—that was to be expected, especially on Ambien. I’d already done a fair amount of sleepshopping on the computer and at the bodega. I’d sleepordered Chinese delivery. I’d sleepsmoked. I’d sleeptexted and sleeptelephoned. This was nothing new.

But my experience with the Infermiterol was different. I remember pulling out a pair of leggings and a thermal shirt from my dresser drawer. I remember listening to the rumble of the water filling the tub while I brushed my teeth. I remember spitting bloody suds into the crusty sink. I even remember testing the temperature