“Look, I know it’s not… right, but at the same time, we’ll put her out of her misery. Like putting an animal down. It’s a mercy killing, not—”
“It’s murder, Dan.”
“Fine, if you want to see it that way, go ahead. She’s unhappy. Lonely, pathetic, hasn’t got kids—”
“She thinks of us as her kids. Remember all those adoption pamphlets we found in her closet? She never got to have her own. I feel badly, you guys. This has gone too far.”
Their footsteps paced into the room. Marijuana smoke billowed after them. I squeezed my eyes shut, feigning sleep. They were moving stuff around, no doubt searching through my things.
“Jen, Dan, you won’t believe this. Look! Her photo albums.” The sound of thick pages. Fingers thumbing through.
“Wow, she was kind of beautiful.”
“Still is. I mean, if you actually look at her, like now when she’s out of it. It’s the whole ‘I’m a nobody thing’ she’s got going that makes her the way she is, the way she fiddles with her fingers. But feature for feature? She’s pretty cool looking.”
“Look, guys, she looks like a model in this photo—must’ve been a while ago.”
“What is this? A modeling portfolio?”
“I don’t think so. Looks like a boyfriend did this or something. Maybe Juan Trujillo himself. The photos aren’t professional.”
“What’s with her then? Why’s she so insecure about herself?”
“Maybe she got beaten as a child. Who knows.”
“We got the shit kicked out of us nearly every day, and we’re okay.” A laugh. Dan’s laugh. Then they all got uncontrollable giggles. I could hear how high they were. Good. Maybe I’d get a chance to escape.
“Like she’s apologizing for herself when she doesn’t need to.”
“Some people are just born that way. Like when I went to the rescue center and picked out Beanie? He was part of a pack of unwanted puppies, all from the same litter. Cute little mutts. Some were friendly and came up to you, others cowered in a corner. Yet they were all in the same team, all with the same life experiences, same shit. Some of the puppies had taken the abandonment personally, others had obviously forgotten.”
Another wheezy laugh. “Is that, like, a reference to us?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like we’re the pack of puppies?”
“Some of us took the abandonment personally, is that what you’re saying?”
“This is so fucked up.”
“What is?”
“Us. Doing this. For what? A house? Since when did bricks and mortar mean—”
“Stone and glass, Jen.”
“It’s an expression, dummy.”
“It’s just a way of evening things out. Equilibrium, it’s called.”
“Well I don’t like it.”
I peeked through the slit of one eye. They were still crouched around my photo album, passing the joint around. Could I make a run for it? No. Too risky. I needed one of them to slip up. I flopped my head back and did the dribbling, tongue-lolling technique—anything to make them believe I was beyond hope. It wasn’t far from how I really felt as the withdrawals were so acute. Now I knew why. They’d given me medication prescribed for a stage four cancer victim: their poor mum. The triplets continued to turn the pages of the photo album. I remembered the day Juan took those pictures. I was so embarrassed and shy.
“Please,” I had protested, “I’m so unphotogenic.”
“I don’t believe it,” Juan said.
“I promise. I am, really, truly.”
He held the camera in my face and clicked over and over again. “You’re beautiful, actually. Quite beautiful. You have an unusual face.”
“Unusual is a code word for weird,” I said, and laughed.
Six fingers.
Sextasaurus. She’s a sextasaurus but she’ll never have any sex because she’s a freak.
The bullies. I’d catch the words floating down the school corridors in little hisses and shushes.
I never did let on to Juan about that sixth finger. I didn’t want to blot my copybook. Blot my copybook, where did I get that expression from? My dad? Blot. The blotting paper in my dream?
I still couldn’t get over it. Couldn’t get over the fact that a man like Juan, all sexy and cool, would want an outsider like me.
“You’re beautiful,” he told me, as the camera clicked, over and over. “And smart, too. And exotic.”
I laughed. “Me? Exotic? You must be joking.”
“And funny. You make me laugh, babe. My funny little valentine. Take your hand away from your face, let me see those fabulous eyes of yours. Look up. Look into the camera lens. You look gorgeous, babe.” Click. Click.
“‘Me?’” I said, tossing my hair and doing my best Rita Hayworth impersonation from