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Jenny shuts the door behind her and takes a deep breath. It’s been a long day. Not a good long day, either, like when she had to stay at Hooli for eighteen hours with most of the engineers on HooliNexus when she was managing that, and they were all tired and cranky but they managed to pull the project off at the last minute of crunch time. That day, running on barely any sleep and even less energy, basically held aloft by Americanos from the Hooli cafe and the miracle of creation she was witnessing in front of her, she had plodded back into her office filled with a weird glow. A pure feeling of accomplishment. And she’d collapsed into her desk chair and slept until it was 7 pm and someone knocked on her door to make sure she was still alive.
But this is a bad long day. Everything is weird and far away. She feels out of place. For some reason.
Well, she knows the reason. But there’s no use in crying over spilt milk. Especially when you’ve spilt the milk time and time again, over and over again, and you should know by now because everything has turned sour and rotten, but you still manage to fumble it and stain yourself to the core, Jenny, you promiscuous trollop.
But regardless, she can go through the routine on sore legs and a sore back and sore arms and a sore throat. Jenny shrugs her canvas messenger bag off her shoulder, resting it by the shoe rack like always. She turns around and locks the door and fastens the chain. Safety. Or the illusion thereof. Nothing bad has ever happened in the apartment, anyway.
“Not that you can remember.”
Oh, hush up, Jenny thinks, rolling her eyes. She unties her oxfords and places them in the shoe rack. She walks in her socked feet to the bedroom and hangs up her blazer, takes her slacks off and lines them up on the hanger so they don’t get wrinkled, then sees something on them and pauses. Takes them off the hanger and places them in the laundry instead with her cotton dress shirt. She thought the pants would have a couple more wears in them before washing. But not everything goes how she plans for it to go. Her panties go in the hamper, too. She closes her eyes as she takes them off and doesn’t look, still squeezing them shut as she blindly jams her hand as far down into the middle of the basket and all her other dirty clothes as she can, leaving them buried and unseen.
She slips on her robe, because the thought of soiling her nice clean pajamas with her unwashed skin is repulsive. It’s soft but polyester and far too hot. Shower time. She needs to be clean. Clean clean clean. Before it can go sour, if it hasn’t already.
In the bathroom, she looks at herself in the mirror. How ordinary she appears. Her hair looks fine. Her face looks like it always does, which is to say vaguely unattractive but not in a way that bothers her enough for cosmetic surgery. The robe has slipped down on one of her shoulders. Her collarbone, sharp and pale. Normal.
She sighs and gets one of the boxes out of the back of the sink where she hides it away. The date is still good, thankfully. Seems like they could fit more than one of these in the packet, but what does Jenny know? She pops the pill out. She takes it without a sip of water. It’s fine now. She will be fine.
At some point, probably while or shortly after she lived with one of the more religiously inclined families, Donna wondered if bad things happened to her because she was bad. Like attracts like.
It didn’t feel real sometimes to read a book and see the illustrated parents pat their illustrated child on the head, everyone smiling. In movies everyone was always happy by the end except for the bad guy who had done the worst things. She stared down at her hands folded in her lap when the school had Dads and Donuts, Muffins and Moms. Breakfast with Grandparents and everything in between. Some kids’ parents couldn’t come for those because they worked and couldn't afford to take time off or because they didn’t want to or because they only had the dad or mom or grandparent. Donna didn’t think about the reason no one came to school for her. Better to stare at her hands.
But Donna tried very, very hard to be a good girl. She always did. She brushed her hair and brushed her teeth, three times a day. She dressed herself and did her own laundry when she had to. Always ate her fruit and vegetables. Donna was friendly but quiet. When the teacher put her in a group because there was an odd number of students and she was always the remainder, she always got along well enough and did most of the work but not all of it. She did her homework and never cursed and always said please, thank you, I’m sorry, I’m very sorry, and when it was impolite to say anything she would stop talking.
“I’m worried that Donna doesn’t seem to play with anyone at recess,” she remembers her second-grade teacher saying at the parent-teacher conference. Which wasn’t really a parent-teacher conference. It was a Donna, foster mother, foster father, social worker, school counselor, and teacher conference. Donna was aware that no one else in her class was required to attend their own parent-teacher conference. She stared at the word chart on the wall which was laughably below her reading level. B is for bird.
“She’s a wonderful reader,” the teacher kept going. “She reads all day, including at lunch and recess. But she doesn’t seem to connect with other students her age very well. She doesn’t have a close friend in the class the way everyone else does.”
“Donna?” the counselor asked her, and she turned her eyes away from B is for bird, to C is for crow. “Do you have a best friend in the class? Someone who you like to play with?”
“Lauren G.,” Donna said, choosing a name at random. D is for duck.
“She doesn’t play with Lauren G.,” the teacher said. “Some children are shy, and it isn’t that she has conflicts with anyone. But I’m worried about her social development.”
It was always interesting to hear someone talk about you, and weird to hear someone talk about you like you’re not there when everyone knows you are. This was one of Jenny’s earliest memories of being Under Review. Evaluated. But obviously not the last.
Every day is sort of a review, really. And you can work really hard at the concrete skills, the hard skills. But she understands it today just as much as she did when she was seven hearing everyone discuss how there was something abnormal about her. The soft skills will give you away. The soft skills will prevent you from sitting flush with everyone else, with all the other bricks in the wall. You’ll always stick out. No matter how quiet and smart and friendly and small and just like all the other bricks you try to be.
And why wouldn’t the chisel go after the obvious target first?
Jenny takes a shower, and then that doesn’t feel good enough, so she takes a second one. Using the loofah that’s a little more sandpaper than sponge. A bath might be nice, but then she considers marinating in her own filth and it makes her nauseated. The second time, she gets the areas she avoided on the first.
There are things that are obviously bad, and there are things that are a gray area. Then there are things that would be bad if they happened to someone else, but because they happened to Jenny she has a hard time assigning a moral value to it. She doesn’t know which one this is.
She journals for twenty minutes, and it doesn’t make her feel better. She moves her furniture around a bit and makes her bed even though she’s going to be getting in it soon, and it doesn’t make her feel better.
She lays down on the cool floor of the kitchen, on her side with her cheek pressed up against the hardwood, and that does make her feel better. From here, she can see under the stove. There’s a chopped-up onion piece that’s covered in dust. When was the last time she cooked with onions? She stares at it for ten minutes.
Then laying on the floor isn’t helping anymore. And looking at the dusty onion isn’t helping. She was trying to escape this feeling even though she should know, by this point, it’s inevitable.
“What on earth did you seriously think would happen?”
I don’t know, Jenny thinks, suddenly feeling the urge to sit up.
“It’s the sort of thing that you invite in, by the way that you act.”
I wasn’t acting any sort of way.
She gets up, unsteady, and forces her legs to carry her over to the cabinet. Brain tells muscles to move arm, hand to open the door by the handle and grab a glass—no, plastic. Fill it up with sink water.
“Really, it’s amazing how hypocritical you can be. Acting nice and sweet. Being quiet and obedient. Deepthroating the boot and acting surprised when you realize it’s inside your mouth.”
That metaphor is very stupid, Jenny thinks. She sips her water. It doesn’t taste like anything and she doesn’t really want to drink it, but she does anyway. She probably should drink it. Better if she does. Open her throat. Swallow. It’s sore when she does.
She puts the cup down in the sink. She has a trick for when it’s hard to move her body and she’s getting scared. Imagine marionette strings tied to each limb. When she moves, it’s only a mechanical process. The string lifts and falls. She lifts and falls. The brain has nothing to do with it, so go sit on the couch, silly.
Jenny sits on the couch. She gets the remote and curls her body up, tucking her legs beside her, letting herself feel the softness of the cushions against her raw overscrubbed skin. The TV flips on and she goes through the menus of her streaming services mindlessly. She doesn’t feel good. Her legs don’t feel raw and they don’t feel soothed. Her fingers touch the keys on the remote and select Erin Brockovich. Because she knows it so well, she doesn’t need to use her brain, just stare.
Normal people, when something upsetting happens to them, flock to comforting things like a favorite movie or a tub of ice cream. She thinks if she eats it won’t go well for her stomach or the carpet, so she always opts for the movie, because she’s a normal person too.
“It’s something about you. It happens, but this many times means there’s something really, really wrong.”
That’s not true, Jenny thinks.
“It’s you,” she says again. “It’s you, it was you, it will always be you. Take some damn responsibility.”
Her phone vibrates. She takes it out and reads the initials on the screen. G for grackle. B for barred owl.
“See, if you really were hurt, shouldn’t you feel bad looking at his name?”
I don’t know, Jenny thinks. She just feels nothing. She should. She never feels anything when she thinks about it. Any of the times. Ever. Never ever. That says something, right?
“Of course it does.”
Oh well. It happened. And I still don’t know what I did wrong. So what am I supposed to do? Mope and eat ice cream? I’m lactose intolerant and it’s too sugary anyway.
Jenny unlocks her phone screen. Grackle Barred-owl sent her a message, yes. Unfortunately, even if she wants to put her phone in between the couch cushions and stare blankly at Julia Roberts, he’s her boss and she has to answer him. Even if it is 8:30 in the evening and honestly she feels like common decency would dictate he should wait to text her until the morning, at the very least. After all that.
But it’s not about all that. Why would it be? As if he would put incriminating details in a written communication. If the details were incriminating. If the situation was one that someone could incriminate themselves in, merely by talking about it.
But no, it’s all business. Set up a meeting for me on Monday. Like nothing even happened at all.
…Did something even happen? The thought makes her stomach feel cold and icy. How would she even know? The experience, maybe, but she tried not to think about it and stay nice and quiet and numb. She took an emergency contraceptive. She took two or three showers. Well, there is evidence, she guesses, in her laundry basket. Somewhere in there.
“That just means you slept with your boss, idiot,” Jenny says to Erin Brockovich paused on the screen.
Which is true, Jenny can’t really argue. She doesn’t have the willpower right now. She would like to fall asleep on the couch with the TV on and wake up and let her brain do the process of wiping itself clean. An amazing organ, her brain. It always protects her.
But first she needs to respond to this text. Because she thinks maybe nothing really happened. That would make more sense. If she did something bad, well, she won’t do it again. Lesson learned. No more spilling.
Set up a meeting on Monday, like Grackle Barred-owl doesn’t have access to Outlook Calendar himself. Like Jenny Dunn is his personal assistant instead of a pretty well-respected project manager, gosh darn it. With someone named Racheel Hendricks? No, that’s a typo. Rachel Hendricks. Someone in the mobile division.
2 pm with Racheel Hendricks it is. Jenny sets the meeting with the typo as her ineffective little resistance and turns the movie back on. There’s a stain on the wall above the TV screen. She looks at it the whole time and doesn’t think about anything.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rachel asks.
“I just did,” Jenny says into her phone. She rolls over in bed, tangles her legs up in the blankets. It’s cold, so cold. Maybe it’s an issue that she gets depressed when Rachel isn’t nearby. She falls out of her bounds. She has to wrap herself up in the sheets like a sausage casing to keep herself in.
“I mean, why didn’t you tell me years ago.”
She’s mad at me, Jenny thinks. No, she’s confused. Don’t jump to conclusions, Donna.
Why would she have told? It wouldn’t make sense. The situation was one of miscommunication. He thought she was willing. She thought he knew she wasn’t.
And she knew the situation wouldn’t repeat itself with Rachel. Rachel stuck out of the wall, too, but in a way that made you appreciate its uniqueness, its contours, the way it provides texture and personality, how maybe even a small creature could use it as a perch.
“It didn’t really matter,” Jenny says.
She feels the words, solid and real, like the stone of a peach, settling in her throat. I knew it would upset you. I knew it would complicate what you were trying to accomplish. It already happened. It already happened before that, and before that still.
“You let me be around him,” Rachel says. Suddenly, her voice is flat and cold through the speaker. “You put me in danger. I was fucking alone with him, what the fuck?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I knew,” Jenny insists, clutching her phone with one hand and her arm with the other. “I knew he wouldn’t, he, he wouldn’t, to you.”
“You didn’t know that. Jesus. Jenny, you let me walk into his house all by myself. His office, where it fucking happened. What is wrong with you?”
Jenny doesn’t remember saying that about the office. It did happen at the office, right, in his office? Not in his bed, not at his house, not at her condo, why would he come into her condo? No, it’s. “I knew he wouldn’t,” she says again. “I would never, ever, ever put you in danger like that. I—”
“What?” Rachel snaps at her.
Tears well in her eyes, blurring the little vision she has of her surroundings anyway in the dark, and she curls up, a little bug or an armadillo.
“You think you’re so fucking special, is that it?”
Jenny shakes her head, knocking a tear loose so it rolls down her cheek.
“You think you’re so unique. So much worse than everybody else. God. So fucking self-centered. That’s—that’s, that’s why I always ditch you, by the way. Walk away from you when I don't need you anymore. I’m sure you noticed. But doesn’t fit in with your, your perfect little worldview, right?”
“No,” Jenny says. She sits up. “No. Please.”
“Everything’s about you. You—you pretend like it’s about someone else. But it’s not! Never, never ever. You fucking… attention whore.”
“No,” Jenny repeats. She’s crying now, her chest tight and painful with every breath she manages. It’s all closing in on her. Please stop. She curls in, rocking herself.
“You put me in danger. Every single girl you let walk into his office. All because you thought you were the only one special and important enough for him to—”
Someone bangs on the front door, hard, and Jenny gasps, head snapping up. It keeps going. Bang. Bang. Bang. Someone. Coming in. Even with the door locked. Even with the safety latch.
“Even if you had furniture in front of the door,” Rachel is saying into her ear. “God, I wish you could just—just get it, Donna. But you couldn’t take that. I get it. I do.”
“Get what?” Jenny whispers. The pounding is so loud she can barely hear Rachel’s dulcet, cruel voice. So loud it’s drowning out everything. Every muscle in her body except the ones that matter is aching to bolt out of bed and run to her bedroom door, slam it shut and pull the dresser over, like she had to when she, when she.
“You never even told me, anyway,” Rachel reminds her. “You got too scared. You knew I would tell you things you didn't want to hear. Right? ‘Cause I’m smart, and I don’t lie to you, usually. And I love you, so I would definitely, definitely tell you the truth.”
“I don’t want to tell you. I’m afraid.” The darkness is worse than it had been before. Didn’t she have a nightlight? Did it burn out? It’s choking her. Down her throat and over her corneas. Over her wrists and hands gripping her phone and herself. Around her back and down.
“You’re not special,” Rachel says, soft.
“The door is breaking. They’ll come in.”
“It didn’t mean anything.”
“I need to hang up,” Jenny says, clutching the phone tighter. “I need to call 911.” She doesn’t.
“It was just something that happened.”
The door is splintering. Maybe the windows, too. Jenny looks around, suddenly, trying to make sense out of the darkness. Is this her room? There’s a window that seems too big, like it’s taking up the entire space, wall to wall to floor to ceiling. The opposite side, the whole wall seems too small. There’s a mark on the wall that seems familiar. A little crayon doodle.
“Oh,” Jenny says. “I drew that. A long time ago.”
“It’s okay. I know.”
“I don’t want you to.” The door is gone. She can’t get the sound out of her head. Rhythmic and threatening. Someone touching her back, maybe. Something touching her back, against her, burning her through her pajamas. She puts her cellphone down, presses her palms over her face. “I don’t want to know.”
“I mean, you kind of have to,” Rachel says from beside her. Those hands, those beautiful hands to rival those of Glenn Gould, they’re on her shoulders. Burning her skin.
“No,” she says. “No thank you.”
Rachel rests her head against Jenny’s neck. Her hands are soft now. Around her shoulders. “It’s okay. It’s not real, right? It’s—I mean, you know I can help. Or I can’t. I don’t know.”
“Me neither,” Jenny says. “I just want to stop thinking. It already happened. I can’t do anything about it.”
“I mean, you can.”
The pounding is so loud. Jenny breathes, sharp, through her teeth. It keeps going, so she slams her fists into her temples. That helps, sometimes. It does. Ever since she was little. When it hurt inside and she needed it to hurt outside instead.
“It’s fine,” Rachel repeats. “But you know what happens, Donna? If you never tell me?”
“Yes. I know.”
Rachel nods, against her. “So, like. That’s what you want, then.”
The fists are underneath Jenny’s bed, now. They’re coming to hurt her and touch her and hold her. She knows it in her bones. Unless she pretends they aren’t there anymore. Unless she banishes them.
“Yes,” Jenny says.
And Rachel is gone. And the invaders are still there. Their hands crawl up the sides of the bed. The sheets don’t protect her. They crawl onto her and she closes her eyes and prays they go away, go away, go away—
Jenny shoots straight up, somehow both freezing cold and coated in sweat. Her heart is in her throat, and she grabs her chest, suddenly fearful she’s going into cardiac arrest. But she looks around, and it’s her regular, normal condo. Nightlight on in the corner. Normal-sized windows. Quiet, safe, ordinary.
“Mghfgh,” Rachel mumbles beside her, and turns over under the covers.
Thank goodness she’s a heavy sleeper, Jenny thinks, and forces herself to settle down. She slips back under the sheets and stares up at the ceiling.
Be normal, she tells herself. Nothing bad has happened here in the apartment. Nothing bad is happening right now, every time she thinks she should say something and doesn’t. Rachel’s here. She’s fine. She doesn’t think about it. She goes back to sleep and doesn’t dream at all this time.