We Can Only Save Ourselves Read online

  “I’m not,” Apple said. “You don’t know.”

  “I do know,” Wesley said. What he didn’t say, but what Alice heard, was: I know everything.

  “We’re going,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the van.

  “I’m barefoot,” said Apple, looking down. The game had changed. Alice felt it, and knew that Apple must have too. In the yard, no matter how black the night, no matter how angry Wesley had been, no matter Apple’s attitude, they were in a neutral zone. Wesley ruled here, yes, but there was nothing he could do to her as long as she was here, as long as there were houses around them, windows, eyes.

  “Janie will get you shoes,” said Wesley. He looked at Janie, who went inside the house silently and emerged a moment later with a pair of sandals that she handed to Apple, who grabbed them and bent over to put them on. Wesley stood up straight and tall, nodded at Janie to return to the porch.

  “I’m sorry,” said Apple, standing back up. “I was only trying to help.” She didn’t sound like Apple anymore, not the one Alice had known. To see her this way, to watch this unfold, was awful and thrilling. Alice wondered if Janie and Kathryn felt the same way: both repulsed and enthralled.

  “Say good night to the girls,” said Wesley. He steered Apple around until she faced Alice and the others.

  “Good night,” she said, and then Wesley led her away, her yellow dress in the dark like a night-light in a child’s bedroom. He opened the door for her on the passenger side and then walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in. Alice watched them through the window as Wesley backed out onto the street, but Apple’s head was turned, so all she could see was her ponytail.

  The girls did not move until the van was out of sight. The night was quiet, except for a few sounds: the TV coming on at the single father’s house, the footsteps of a woman walking a dog, small and white as a bunny, by the stop sign at the corner.

  “Alice, do you know what happened?” Janie asked. “Why was Apple mad at you?”

  “I don’t know,” Alice told her. “A misunderstanding.”

  “That can’t be right,” said Janie.

  “She snuck out last night,” Alice said carefully.

  “So you tattled on her?”

  “This isn’t kindergarten, Janie,” Alice said, but she felt her stomach tighten and something inside it twist and sink.

  Janie sighed. “I’m going to go fill in Hannah Fay.”

  Then it was only Kathryn and Alice on the porch. “You were right to do what you did,” Kathryn said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Alice.

  “Stop,” said Kathryn. “Please.” She took her glasses out of her pocket and put them on, then blinked. “I know what you are,” Kathryn said. “You know what you are too.”

  “Fine,” said Alice. “Whatever.”

  The woman with the little dog was closer now, the dog at the end of its leash, sniffing the border of the single father’s yard. The woman waved at the girls and smiled, and the girls waved back.

  “Do you think she’ll be okay?” Alice asked.

  “If she isn’t, good riddance,” said Kathryn. “She isn’t like us.”

  “Like who?” said Alice.

  “Us,” said Kathryn. “All of us.”

  Headlights turned down the street. Wesley, thought Alice, and for a second, she was relieved that Apple was back so soon, that no damage could have been done, but then it turned out to be a small car, and it passed them by as they stood on the porch together, and Alice felt a smaller wave of relief rush at her, that Apple was not yet back, because truth be told, she wanted to sit with the pleasure that comes with not knowing for just a while longer.

  (She isn’t like us.)

  Alice did not wait up, but in the morning Wesley was there, sitting shirtless and barefoot in the backyard. Hannah Fay was stretched out in the chair beside him, shirt tucked under her breasts to expose her pale pink seashell of a belly to the sunlight. Janie, who was lying on a beach towel on her stomach, lifted her head as Alice approached. “Hey,” she said. “Are you going to join us?” But Janie didn’t move at all, didn’t sit up to make room for Alice to sit beside her. Alice felt stung. She tried to tell herself that Janie wasn’t mad. Janie, who never held a grudge, who right now lay prostrate at the feet of a man who hit her.

  “I’ll stand,” Alice said. “Where’s Apple?”

  Janie flipped over onto her side, elbow bent, hand supporting her head, as if she needed to get a good look at Alice. Alice looked at Wesley instead.

  “I drove an hour north of here,” he said. “Then I found a good spot and let her out.”

  “Is she coming back?” Alice asked.

  “We’ll see,” said Wesley.

  Alice glanced at Hannah Fay, who had both her hands on her stomach, pressing down, something she had started doing often, to make the baby move. “It’s like a little game,” she had said once. “I think it helps us both to know the other is here.” Now she shrugged at Alice, still pressing her fingers into her belly. Then she widened her eyes suddenly, reached over and took Wesley’s hand and put it on her stomach. “There he is,” she said.

  Wesley got out of the chair and knelt beside Hannah Fay, and he spread his hands over her belly, his hands big, tan, and hairy against the blush of her skin. “There he is,” Wesley repeated. He put his face to her stomach, and Hannah Fay laughed. She put her hand on his head, ruffled her fingers through his hair. Alice watched and suddenly felt like crying.

  “Apple has to hitchhike home,” Janie said, and Alice turned toward her. Her voice was bright, but there was a coolness in her expression that wasn’t usually there.

  “Here home?” Alice asked. “Or home home?”

  “This is home,” Janie said.

  “I made it clear to her that she can do what she wants,” Wesley said. “She can join us if she’s ready.”

  “She is,” said Hannah Fay confidently. “It was a mistake, everyone makes them. She’s sorry.”

  “I think she is,” Wesley agreed. “She was scared in the van. It was actually kind of beautiful to see her like that. She was—I don’t know, soft. Anyway, if she wasn’t sorry then, she will be.”

  “If she doesn’t get murdered,” said Janie.

  Alice didn’t look at her. She took a step over to Hannah Fay, and when she let her hand hover over her friend’s belly, Hannah Fay took it, pressed it to her warm skin.

  “They still haven’t caught the driving man,” said Janie, “and the last girl wasn’t far from here.”

  “He could be anywhere,” said Hannah Fay.

  “Exactly,” said Wesley, standing up. “I’m going to shower.” He left the girls, who sat without speaking.

  But then under Alice’s hand, the baby kicked. “There he is,” she cried.

  “The driving man?” asked Janie.

  “No, silly,” said Hannah Fay. “The baby.”

  And now Janie rose from the towel, moving to Hannah Fay, and the baby did seem to be everywhere at once, kicking and moving and living, and Janie looked up in delight, smiled at Alice. Alice smiled back. “I love you,” said Hannah Fay, and Alice wasn’t sure if she was talking to them or to the baby, but all of them murmured back I love you too, I love you too.

  Apple showed up in the afternoon, when everyone’s cheeks were flushed from the sun and they had eaten a poor and lazy lunch of peanut butter sandwiches. She didn’t come inside, though, so they only discovered she was there when Alice went out to get the mail and found her sitting on the top step of the front porch. Ponytail, yellow dress, bare feet. She looked up when Alice opened the door. If it had been Alice out there, she knew, she would have cried. But Apple seemed harder than ever.

  “What happened to your shoes?” Alice asked.

  Apple stood up, flexed her toes. “They broke.”

  “From walking?”

  “I wasn’t allowed to walk,” Apple said. “Wesley said I had to get in a car. He said I had to ge
t in the fourth gray car I saw.” She leaned against the column beside her and crossed one foot in front of the other. “Then I had to get out after ten minutes and get in another car. This time it had to be a red car. Then I had to get out again after ten minutes. Find a truck, like an eighteen-wheeler.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t get murdered.”

  “Of course not,” Alice said.

  “The driving man didn’t get me,” Apple said, wiggling her fingers like she was casting a spell, but her voice sounded a bit thinner when she said it, and Alice thought of the Apple of last night, saying good night, worrying about being cast out barefoot, being driven away and left.

  “I’m glad,” said Alice. “Wesley knew you would be okay.”

  “Did he?” asked Apple. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  “Come on, let’s go in,” said Alice. “Everyone will be happy to see you.” She held the door open for Apple, but Apple paused in the doorway. “What?” Alice asked.

  “The mail,” said Apple.

  Alice looked out to the mailbox, the red flag on the side of the box flush against it. “I’ll meet you inside,” she said. Apple moved past her, and Alice lingered at the closed door for just a moment.

  “Wesley?” she heard Apple say. “Janie?” Then there was squealing; Janie, she thought.

  Alice stayed by the mailbox and put her hand on it, and it was warm to the touch, and she thought suddenly of her mother, standing and ironing in front of the TV. “If you touch this, it will burn your sweet little fingers,” she heard her mother say. Alice closed her eyes and let herself think of us. (She was so far away now. When she thought of us, we always tried to call her name, as if our voices could bring her back.)

  “Hey,” said a man. Alice opened her eyes. It was the single father next door. He was holding his son’s hand. The boy looked nothing like his father and was very solemn, the kind of boy, Alice thought, who would have a telescope, a rock collection. “Are you okay?” asked the father.

  What could she say? Leave us alone. Go away. Look what you made me do. But Wesley wanted the girls to be soft and lovely for the world, he wanted the girls to fool everyone, never to let on what they knew, never to reveal their strength. “Yes,” she said, smiling. “Of course. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”

  “Your friend,” the man began.

  “Hello,” said Alice to the little boy. “Shouldn’t you be in school today?”

  The boy looked up at his dad, who shrugged. Alice watched him squeeze his son’s hand. “It’s Saturday,” the boy said. “We went to the zoo.”

  “Oh,” said Alice. “I lost track of time. Who was your favorite animal?”

  “The tiger,” the boy said. “He yawned, and I saw all his teeth.” He raised his hand, the one his father wasn’t holding, and lifted it over his head as if showing how monstrous the mouth had been.

  “Wow,” Alice said. “Big teeth are very important. And claws. And very fast feet so you can run if someone is chasing you.” She looked up at the father, at the face Wesley didn’t like. She gave him a brilliant smile, the kind she used to give to boys when she caught them staring at her in the hall. A gift.

  “Come on,” the father said. “Let’s see what cartoons are on.”

  “Bye,” said Alice. When the man got to his front door, he looked back at Alice, who waved again. The door shut, and Alice nearly laughed out loud. She took the mail inside, and she didn’t think of us again that evening.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  APPLE CAME BACK changed, Alice thought, but only if you were looking closely. When she was around Wesley, she lit up, always touching him, but only teasingly, only with the tips of her fingers. She would slip them into his belt loops like hooks and pull him closer, or graze his shoulders while he sat on the couch playing his guitar, trace the back of his neck under his shirt collar until he shivered, and then she would be gone, and he would follow her only with his eyes.

  One night, as she slept beside Apple, Alice awoke to the feeling of heat beside her, and turned her head—there was Apple, and Wesley, too, his shirt already off. “Oh God,” said Alice. “I’m sorry.” Though she knew she had done nothing wrong, she was still flustered, embarrassed to have unwittingly intruded on someone else’s intimacy. Apple sat up, and Alice was grateful to see that she was wearing the same pajama shirt she had gone to bed in a few hours earlier. Wesley sat up, too, pushing his hair behind his ears. With Apple’s dark head next to his, they looked like they belonged together, like she had been formed from him or he from her, and the burn of embarrassment spread from Alice’s stomach up and out until even her fingertips began to sting. “I’ll go,” she said.

  “Not yet,” said Apple as Wesley moved farther down the bed, leaving the girls together. Then she was leaning forward and kissing Alice, her hair like a curtain secluding them, then she pushed it back so that they were exposed, and Alice could feel Wesley watching. She thought she could feel his pleasure even from where he sat a foot away.

  Unless it was her own pleasure she felt because it did feel so good to be kissing Apple, and so different than kissing Wesley, and she didn’t want to admit that it was nice to feel something foreign, to move against it. But it felt like a betrayal of Wesley, who she had sworn was enough for her, enough for all of them.

  But then Apple was done with her. Wesley reached for Apple, and there went Apple’s fingertips, resting lightly on the button of his jeans. Alice sat up and waited for a moment longer than she should have before scooting off the bed, just as Wesley was laying Apple down, and exiting into the cool darkness of the hallway and the open cave of the living room.

  She slept on the couch and was already drinking a cup of coffee there when Wesley and Apple came out of the bedroom the next morning. “Morning,” Wesley said, still shirtless, and walked straight into the kitchen, though Apple, also still in the pajama shirt and underwear, lingered at the mouth of the living room. She smirked.

  “Apple,” Alice started, but Apple held up a hand.

  “For Wesley,” she said. “Nothing more. That’s why I didn’t let you stay any longer than that.”

  “Well,” said Alice. “Thanks?”

  “You’re welcome,” said Apple magnanimously. She looked down at the pajama shirt, touched a loose thread unraveling near a button.

  “Are you okay?” Alice asked. “I mean, are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” said Apple, looking up, and Alice saw something around her eyes tighten and then soften. “I have everything under control.”

  “What does that mean?” Alice asked. “What’s under control?”

  “Oh, Alice,” said Apple. “Like I’d ever tell you anything ever again.” Then she left, trailing after Wesley, leaving Alice alone.

  “What do you think Apple’s deal is?” Alice asked Kathryn. She had walked up to the school library to bring Kathryn her forgotten sack lunch after spotting it on the kitchen counter.

  Alice hadn’t felt right since Apple came home. Janie had warmed back up to her again, but Alice remembered the chill between them. Hannah Fay wasn’t her normal self either; achy and swollen, she spent the days walking around the block, praying, she said, for the baby to come out, or lying on the mattress in her little room with the window open, and when she did leave her room and visit with the others, she was often moody. “This could be the last Saturday, just us,” she might say mournfully. Then a minute later, she would turn dreamy and say, “I can’t stop thinking about who the baby will look like.”

  The library at the university was quiet, almost sacred, with its deep colors and heavy wooden tables, and Alice felt herself imagining a different life, the same life as before, the one where she was a girl sitting at one of these tables, reading poetry, frowning at a research paper. A girl who was well fed, well taken care of, well loved. You are well loved, she told herself. And well cared for. This is a trap. All of this an illusion. “Let’s eat outside,” Alice suggested to Kathryn.

  In the fresh air, she felt b
etter, and they found a stone bench under a tree near the library. “Apple is up to something,” Kathryn said between bites of her sandwich.

  “She—” Alice started, thinking of Apple leaning toward her last night, Wesley watching. “She seems kind of—slippery.” A bird landed near them and began to hop forward, head cocked. “I can’t put my finger on it. Just when I think I know, the feeling sort of slips away.”

  “She’s not really one of us,” Kathryn said. “I know, I know, she and I have never gotten along. But Apple is only thinking about one thing, and that’s herself.” She tore off a piece of crust and tossed it at the bird.

  “She loves Wesley,” Alice said. “I really believe she does.”

  “Maybe, but she’s not a good person,” Kathryn said.

  Alice was quiet. “We’re good people,” Kathryn said, angling her head so that she was looking into Alice’s downturned face. “We look out for each other. We look out for Wesley.”

  A burst of voices cut through the quiet courtyard outside the library, and Alice looked up to see two girls exiting the library, laughing with their heads together, as though they couldn’t wait to get out the door, into a world where they could be raucous. Alice felt a pang of something unpleasant, and she surprised herself when she identified the feeling as jealousy. You have that, she told herself, with Wesley, with the other girls. But when she imagined herself as the girl leaving the library, she pictured not Apple or Janie or Hannah Fay or Kathryn as the friend by her side, but Susannah. (Susannah, who at that moment was in class, still famished after lunch because Alice Lange’s departure had left an opening in the social hierarchy at school, and Susannah thought perhaps if she could lose a little weight, perhaps if she wore her hair differently, taught her voice to lift and lilt like a soprano, she could fill that void; she could be Alice Lange. Trevor, the boy who sat behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and passed her a note. When she unfolded it, it was a drawing of a penis. Susannah considered her options, and did not write back.)