Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Beanie Jones was standing on the front porch holding an angel food cake on a glass platter. She hadn’t knocked. Izzy and I had opened the door for our daily walk to Eddie’s market and there she was, a too-big smile smeared across her face like a cartoon drawing.

“Hey, Beanie!” Izzy said.

“Hello!” Beanie said.

“Hey.” I blushed. “I’m sorry about the other night. I’m sorry we were parked in front of your house.” It was Thursday and I hadn’t seen Beanie since Monday night, when Sheba and Jimmy had driven me home. Driving me home had become a ritual, one that began with Sheba taking off and Jimmy and me jumping into the moving car. We called it “Doing a Starsky and Hutch.” Sheba critiqued our performance each time. Mary Jane, you should have jumped in deeper! What if I had been going faster? You would have ended up under the back wheels! I took Sheba’s critiques seriously, and put real effort into being a better car-jumper.

We took a different street to avoid Beanie Jones. And we only parked in front of houses whose owners I knew were out of town. Jimmy always lit a joint, and then the three of us sang church songs, with Sheba on melody and Jimmy and me harmonizing—him low and me high. Turns out that Sheba and Jimmy had both been in their church choirs, Sheba because she liked it, Jimmy because his grandmother forced him to. (Of his grandmother, Jimmy had said, “She was a warty old hag who loved Marlboros and Old Crow bourbon almost as much as she loved Jesus.”)

“No need to apologize,” Beanie said. And then she lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “But tell me. That was Sheba and Jimmy, wasn’t it?”

Izzy looked up at Beanie with huge, blinking eyes. “NOPE!”

“Uh, it was just some people who looked like them. Old friends of the Cones. They’re gone now.” The words came out so smoothly that I almost wanted to laugh. The more I lied, the easier it was. And instead of feeling guilty about my lies, I was starting to feel guilty that I didn’t feel so guilty.

“Mary Jane.” Izzy tugged my hand. When I looked at her, she quietly said, “Secret.”

Beanie’s eyes ticked like a cat clock, back and forth. “Huh. Amazing resemblance. Why don’t I bring this cake in? Mr. Jones suddenly decided he was watching his ‘girlish figure,’ and I thought, with you here all summer, there were enough people in the house to need an angel food cake.”

“Oh, I’ll put it inside for you.” I took the cake and turned to go. Izzy followed me, and Beanie followed her. There was no one to see; Jimmy and Dr. Cone were in Dr. Cone’s office, and Sheba and Mrs. Cone had gone to the Eastern Shore for the day. They both wore wigs this time, long and blond, like Swedish sisters. Still, I felt a bolt of panic with Beanie in the house.

I put the cake on the kitchen table, then turned to Beanie. “Thank you so much.” I wasn’t sure what to do. How to be good, polite, and kind while still getting Beanie out of here?

“Is Bonnie home?”

“No, she’s gone.”

“And my dad’s in his office with a patience,” Izzy offered.

“A patient,” I said. “We’re on our way to Eddie’s.”

“Oh, I can drive you!” Beanie held up her car keys.

“Thank you so much,” I said. “But we need the walk.”

“We sing,” Izzy said. “And we talk about the witch. And we look at things. Sometimes we play with toys that kids leave out front. Oh, and we buy Popsicles.”

“How nice,” Beanie said, making no effort to leave.

“Thank you again for the cake.” My voice sounded airy and strange. I took Izzy’s hand and walked toward the hall, hoping Beanie would follow. Eventually she did.

“Maybe I’ll stop in again later. I’d really like to meet Bonnie,” Beanie said, once we were out the door and on the sidewalk. She took a few steps toward her car, which was white and shiny.

“She’ll be out all day,” I said. “But I’ll tell her you came by.” I smiled real big; my cheeks hurt and my palm started sweating against Izzy’s.

“Bye, Beanie!” Izzy waved with her free hand and tugged me down the sidewalk. My heart was still pounding as Beanie drove by us in the car.

“Let’s cut over,” I said, and we took the parallel street early to avoid Beanie Jones.

“That was scary,” Izzy said.

“Yup. A close call.”

“Can we have that cake for dessert tonight?”

“We sure can. We could add sliced strawberries and whipped cream.”

“Hurrah!” Izzy lifted a tiny fist.

We walked in silence for a minute until we came upon a skateboard sitting alone on a lawn.

“Can I try it?” Izzy asked.

I looked up at the house. No one on the porch. No one in the windows. “Okay, but I have to hold your hands.”

Izzy picked up the skateboard and placed it on the sidewalk. She put one flip-flopped foot on it. I took both of her hands and then she stepped her other foot on. I pushed her up the sidewalk to the edge of the property, then turned around, so she was backward and I was forward, and pushed her the other way.

We went back and forth like this several times, until my body, mind, and heart calmed. Beanie was gone. Everyone was safe. We’d eat the cake after dinner and then I’d return the glass plate on the way home. I’d have to run up to the porch and leave it so Sheba and Jimmy wouldn’t be spotted. But I could do that. And Sheba and Jimmy seemed to like the sneaking around, as if it made their lives in Baltimore just a little more thrilling.

Each time we shopped at Eddie’s, Izzy liked to find the ratio of employees to customers. She missed people, but I didn’t point them out. And she often lost count, so I’d make up a number and give it to her. It was as inexact as pulling random numbers from a sack. The ratio that Izzy liked to talk about the most, however, was that of the witch. With Sheba now on our team, that remained three to one.

That day, we did our usual shopping. Izzy knew what to grab: Screaming Yellow Zonkers, Popsicles, and Slim Jims, which Jimmy and Mrs. Cone were eating with equal fervor, alternating a salty bite of Slim Jim with a sweet bite of something else. Yesterday I had tried it with candy orange wedges. There was something explosively wonderful about tasting salty, grainy meat stuff followed by chewy, gelatinous sugar stuff.

For dinner, I had a list of ingredients copied from one of my mother’s index cards. Tonight was going to be the most complicated meal yet. Chicken breasts roasted in orange sauce. My mother went over it with me in the morning, giving me tips on how to know when the chicken was properly cooked, and how to spoon the sauce over every few minutes to keep the breasts moist. The more she told me, the more nervous I got. Mom must have seen this on my face, because she stopped her instructions and said, “Mary Jane, now is not the time to lose confidence. There is an ill mother in that house and a hardworking doctor who needs to be fed.” She had stared at me until I nodded, and then she gave me even more directions.

“How many breasts do you think Jimmy will eat?” I asked Izzy. We were standing at the butcher counter. The butcher, whose long rectangular head reminded me of a cow’s, waited patiently.

“Seven?” Izzy said.

“You think Jimmy alone would eat seven?”

“Jimmy a football player?” the butcher asked.

“Just a man.”

“Two,” the butcher said. “Prepare two breasts for each man, one for each woman, and maybe a half for half-pint there.” He winked at Izzy.

“Okay, seven breasts.” I figured Izzy and I would split one if the men really did have two each. And I wasn’t sure Sheba really would eat a whole breast anyway. I noticed that she sat down and ate at every meal, just like everyone else, but she left half of everything on her plate. It didn’t matter what it was, or how much she claimed to love it; only half went in her mouth. Usually, when everyone appeared to be finished, Jimmy—though once it was Dr. Cone—would reach over and take her uneaten portion.

Mrs. Cone had noticed how Sheba ate as well. The past couple of dinners, she had tried to leave half of her meal on her plate. But with little success, as just as someone—Dr. Cone, usually—made a play for her food, she would come back to it with a few quick stabs. And last night, when we were clearing the table, I found Mrs. Cone in the kitchen, using her hands to shove down the half piece of lasagna that she had left on her plate. I’d never really thought about food, or how much to eat or not to eat, until these meals with the Cones. In my own house, you ate everything you took. If you weren’t going to eat a whole chicken breast, then you sure as heck didn’t put a whole chicken breast on your plate.

In addition to eating, or trying to eat, like Sheba, Mrs. Cone had been dressing like Sheba too. They were about the same height, but Sheba was more of a curvy line while Mrs. Cone wasn’t a line at all. Her hips jutted out, her breasts jutted out, and lately they all had been jutting with greater enthusiasm as she wore tight pants, jumpsuits, and clingy maxi dresses. They were clothes that demanded you look at her, something that was virtually impossible when Sheba was nearby. Sheba sparkled. My eyes trailed her from room to room, as if she were a rocket sailing across a night sky. Mrs. Cone, in her snazzy outfits, was the contrail from that rocket, her breasts, behind, and flaming red hair streaking by in Sheba’s wake.

Sheba and Mrs. Cone came home a few minutes before the chicken was ready. They both oohed and aahed over the way the house smelled and I could see that this made Izzy proud. I prayed the chicken would taste as good as it smelled.

Sheba helped Izzy set the table while Mrs. Cone stood in the kitchen with me as I finished preparing the rice and the string beans I had steaming on the stovetop. She leaned over to see exactly what I was doing when I spooned sauce over the chicken, and when I sliced off a hunk of butter and melted it into the beans.

“How do you know how to do this?” The long locks of Mrs. Cone’s blond wig fell over her shoulder. She pushed them back with the side of her dangling hand, the same way Sheba pushed her long hair out of her face. It was a gesture I had tried to copy many times when I watched Sheba push her hair away during the opening monologue of her variety show. In person, she didn’t do it as often as I’d seen her do it on the show. I wondered if it was a nervous habit.

“I help my mother with dinner every night.” I wanted to ask how she didn’t know how to do this, but I felt that it might be rude.

“I’ve never cooked,” Mrs. Cone said.

“Your mother didn’t teach you?” I spooned the rice into a serving bowl, then melted a pat of butter on top and garnished it with parsley.

“Oh, she tried, but I just wasn’t interested. I was boy crazy, and I loved rock and roll. There wasn’t time to care about things like cooking.” She laughed. “Nothing’s changed!”

I blushed. It was odd to think of Mrs. Cone as boy crazy. She was married! “But you ended up with a doctor, not a rock star.”

“Richard was in a band in college—he was at Johns Hopkins and I was at Goucher. When he started medical school, he quit the band and I quit school to marry him.”

“Were you disappointed that he didn’t stay in the band?”

“Not as much as my parents.” Mrs. Cone pulled a string bean from the pan and bit off half.

“They wanted you to marry a rock star?”

“No, but they didn’t want me to marry Richard. Medical school or not.” She shrugged.

“Why not?” I needed to take out the chicken, but this news seemed important and I didn’t want to turn away.

“Because he’s a Jew!” Mrs. Cone laughed.

I tried to laugh with her, but I didn’t understand why that was funny. I busied myself by putting on the oven mitts. Then I opened the oven and took out the chicken. “So you’re not Jewish?”

“No way. We were Presbyterian. I grew up in Oklahoma.”

“Oh. Wow.” Oklahoma seemed exotic. I’d never met anyone from Oklahoma. And what about a Presbyterian marrying a Jewish person? Would my parents think a half-Jewish family was easier to take than a whole Jewish family? Did Mrs. Cone’s parents, like mine, think Jewish people had a different physiognomy? Dr. and Mrs. Cone seemed more like each other than my parents. If I really thought about it, it was my parents who appeared to be different breeds (my mother the talker, the doer; my father the silent newspaper reader). And the Cones seemed happy and in sync. They were different versions of the same model.

“Yup, wow.” Mrs. Cone smiled at me.

“We go to Roland Park Presbyterian. I’m Presbyterian.”

“I know. Sheba told me. She thinks we all should go to your service on Sunday.”

“That would be so fun!” I smiled, but Mrs. Cone just gritted her teeth. Like maybe it would be painful for her to go. “I mean, if you want.”

“I try to avoid church. But if Sheba really wants to go . . . we’ll see.” She shrugged again.

I tried to imagine Sheba and Mrs. Cone in their long blond wigs in my church. It seemed impossible. No one looked like that at Roland Park Presbyterian. I took down the serving platter Izzy and I had washed a few days ago when we cleaned out some kitchen cupboards, and then moved the chicken from the pan to the platter, placing each piece with the bronzed meaty side up. The orange slices were hot, but I could still lift them from the pan with the edges of my fingers so I could arrange them artfully. I thought it looked like something out of Sunset magazine, and Mrs. Cone might have agreed because she stared down at the platter and looked happy again.

“What are the herbs?” Mrs. Cone poked a piece of chicken with her finger and then stuck her finger in her mouth.

“Rosemary, garlic, thyme, and salt. Izzy sprinkled all of it on top.” Just like I did for my mother, though my mother premeasured the portions before handing them over.

“Mary Jane,” Mrs. Cone said, “you are a gift to us all.” She leaned in and kissed me. I was starting to get used to all the kisses around here.

I picked up the chicken platter and carried it out to the dining room table. Izzy was standing on a chair, with Sheba behind her. They were holding a match together, lighting candles in tall silver candlesticks.

“We’re doing candles tonight!” Izzy said.

“That’s beautiful.” I placed the platter on the table. Mrs. Cone followed behind with the bowl of rice in one hand and the green beans in the other.

Sheba looked down at the chicken. “No, that’s beautiful.”

“Izzy did the spices.”

“I put on the mary rose,” Izzy agreed.

“Rosemary.”

“ROSEMARY!”

“Go get your dad and Jimmy.” Mrs. Cone put Izzy on the ground and gave her a little pat on the bottom to help her get moving. Izzy ran out, and then Mrs. Cone moved in closer to Sheba. The two of them started talking about something that had happened earlier in the day, the town they had visited, the little inn they had seen, a restaurant they both liked. Their voices were low and humming, like they were talking during the opening credits of a movie. I pretended to be straightening the place settings on the table, but really I was just listening in.

Dr. Cone, Jimmy, and Izzy came in. Izzy and Jimmy were making screeching monkey sounds, as if they were in the jungle and could only communicate with long-held vowels: eeeeooooeeee! Dr. Cone’s brow was furrowed. He looked tired and maybe angry.

Jimmy lifted his hands in the air above the chicken, like a preacher, and said, “Lord have mercy! What hath Mary Jane and Izzy made for us tonight?!”

“Chicken with mary rose!!” Izzy shouted. She clapped her hands and jumped up and down.

“Chicken with mary rose! Well then, this needs a song of praise.” Jimmy left the room and Izzy ran behind him. The rest of us sat at our usual places at the table.

Dr. Cone reached for the chicken and Mrs. Cone said, “No, dear! Wait until everyone’s seated.”

Dr. Cone huffed out a breath but withdrew his hand. He leaned back in his seat, looking for Jimmy and Izzy to return.

“Do you like our hair?” Sheba asked.

“Isn’t it the same hair you two had on this morning?” Dr. Cone asked.

“Maybe.” Mrs. Cone threw her hair over her shoulder, Sheba style. She winked.

Dr. Cone didn’t seem in the mood to play games. “I’m hungry,” he said.

“Lighten up,” Mrs. Cone said.

“Or light up,” Sheba said, and she and Mrs. Cone laughed.

I didn’t get the joke, and Dr. Cone didn’t seem amused by it. “How long do we have to wait for this song?” He drummed his fingers on the table, and as if that movement were magic, Jimmy marched into the room with Izzy sitting on his shoulders. He had a guitar strapped across his chest, hanging on his back, and his hands on Izzy’s ankles.

“We’re going to sing for our supper!” Izzy said. Still, Dr. Cone seemed hungry, or angry. I worried I had done something wrong.

I stood and helped Izzy off Jimmy’s back. Then I pulled her into my lap.

Jimmy put one foot on his chair, laid the guitar across his knee, and started strumming and singing. It was a Cat Stevens song, I knew, because we had learned it in choir at school. “Morning has bro-ken. . . .”

Sheba jumped in and sang with him. Then she reached over and pinched my arm to get me to sing. I looked at Dr. Cone, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a half frown on his face.

“Come on, Mary Jane. We need you on harmony,” Sheba said, and I looked away from Dr. Cone and jumped in. “Praise for the singing . . .”

Mrs. Cone turned her head in my direction. Dr. Cone looked up. His face relaxed a little.

When the song was over, everyone clapped. Jimmy set the guitar against the wall and then sat down. “I just feel so grateful. I’m grateful for you, Richard.”

“I feel grateful for Mary Jane’s voice.” Sheba put her hand on my leg and said, “If I weren’t me, I’d be jealous of you.”

I smiled and worked through the puzzle of that compliment. Did Sheba mean she was so content with herself that the only way for her to be jealous of another person would be if she already were another person? Maybe being famous like Sheba gave you so many advantages that you knew there was no point in wishing you were someone else. I spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like to be someone else. At school, I watched the cool girls with tube-curled hair and Bonnie Bell glossed lips and thought it would be thrilling to be one of them, clumped together in the dining hall, laughing and tossing their hair around. But now that I knew Sheba, those girls seemed as human and normal as . . . well, as me.

Dr. Cone was talking. I tuned in just as he said, “Jimmy, you need to tell everyone what happened.”

“What happened?” Sheba’s voice was sharp.

“Wait. Richard, what happened?” Now Mrs. Cone’s voice was sharp too.

“Can we eat first?” Jimmy said. “We skipped lunch today.”

“Didn’t you have Screaming Yellow Zonkers?” Izzy asked.

Jimmy took a chicken breast and placed it on his plate. “No Zonkers today. Today was BONKERS, so we had no ZONKERS!”

Everyone was serving themselves, but suddenly nothing felt right. Dr. Cone seemed angry, Jimmy was overly cheerful to make up for it, and Sheba and Mrs. Cone both looked tentative and concerned. Izzy climbed off my lap and went to her seat across the table, beside her mother.

I tried to separate from whatever was going on. I reminded myself that it probably had nothing to do with me. Instead of watching the adults, I focused on Izzy. First, I cut a breast in two and put half on Izzy’s plate and half on mine. Then I put a spoonful of rice on her plate, on top of which I placed three string beans. We had negotiated the eating of the beans while preparing them. Dr. and Mrs. Cone never seemed to pay attention to what Izzy did or didn’t eat, but I wanted her to be as healthy as possible, so I made it a point to get something green inside her body every day.

There was tense, sporadic chatter once everyone started eating. It seemed to take a lot of effort to not talk about whatever Dr. Cone had been referencing earlier. And then there was a second of silence in which Dr. Cone made a long hum, like he was holding a note. I looked up at him. He was chewing the chicken and humming and moving his head as if it were the most spectacular thing he’d ever eaten. Jimmy took a bite and started humming too, but in a more exaggerated way so that we knew it was intentional. Then Sheba and Mrs. Cone took bites, and they, too, did moaning hums—chewing, humming, smiling. Izzy picked up her half breast with her hands and bit into it and she started humming, imitating the mmm, mmm, mmm sounds from the adults. I hadn’t even tasted the chicken yet, but the group stared at me for a reaction, smiling, humming.

“Is it really that good?” I asked, and they all broke apart laughing. It was like a bubble had popped and released something that created relief, lightness. Dr. Cone no longer appeared angry; Mrs. Cone no longer appeared worried; Sheba appeared to have forgotten there was something to worry about.

“Dang, Mary Jane,” Jimmy said. “It is that motherfuckin’ good.”

“Holy moly, Mary Jane.” Dr. Cone took another bite.

“Incredible,” Sheba said.

“Incredible!” Dr. Cone repeated.

Mrs. Cone nodded in agreement, her mouth full.

Izzy and I were serving the angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream when Sheba said, “So what happened today? Why was it so rough?”

Dr. Cone wiped his lips, put his napkin on his lap, and looked at Jimmy.

“You make this cake?” Jimmy asked Izzy.

“Beanie did,” Izzy said. “She brought it over today.”

“Beanie Jones?” Mrs. Cone’s brow knit into folds. She suddenly looked ten years older. “Is she that new woman who moved in down the street?”

“Yes,” I said. “She dropped it off. I tried to keep her out of the house, but she barged right in.”

“Beanie?” Jimmy said. “We met Beanie.”

“Oh yeah, Beanie,” Sheba said.

“When did you meet Beanie?” Dr. Cone looked unhappy again.

“We were dropping Mary Jane off one night and Beanie popped her head in the window. Nosy little thing,” Jimmy said. “But pretty as a picture.”

“Hush!” Sheba said. “Stop looking!”

“She’s not as pretty as you,” I whispered to Sheba, but I didn’t think she heard me.

“Christ, I hope she doesn’t start spreading the word,” Dr. Cone said. “It’s hard enough as it is.”

“Exactly what happened today?” Sheba asked.

Jimmy had a huge hunk of cake in his mouth. He spoke around it. “I relapsed.”

“What do you mean you relapsed?” Sheba turned in her chair so she was facing Jimmy.

“I used.”

“What do you mean you used? How did you use?”

“I got some junk.”

“WHAT THE FUCK, JIMMY!” Sheba slapped Jimmy’s upper arm with the back of her hand. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” She slapped him again. Harder.

I knew I should pick up Izzy and take her upstairs for her bath, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from this scene. Also, I was just as angry as Sheba. It felt like Jimmy had betrayed me by relapsing.

Mrs. Cone pushed her half-eaten cake away, and watched Jimmy and Sheba.

“Don has a friend who has a friend who has a friend.” Jimmy shrugged.

Dr. Cone said, “He met someone in the back alley when we were taking a break, got a bag of heroin, and snorted it.”

“Didn’t have a needle,” Jimmy said.

“What the fuck, Jimmy?!” Sheba’s eyes were flooded, though no tears fell. “I thought we were isolated! I thought you didn’t know a soul in Baltimore! How can you do this?! After all everyone’s done! Richard canceling all his other patients for the summer! Mary Jane making fucking dinner every night! Fucking chicken à l’orange, you ungrateful fuck!”

I looked at my lap and replayed Sheba’s words in my head. This was more yelling than even Dr. and Mrs. Cone had ever done. And Sheba had used the term chicken à l’orange, when all night long we’d been calling it orange chicken, as was written on my mother’s recipe card. Also, she called Jimmy a fuck. I couldn’t imagine ever calling another human, or even a dog, a fuck. I didn’t even know the word could be used that way. Yet it seemed effective. Jimmy appeared to be shrinking into his skin. He was too small for his casing, like a Ping-Pong ball in a bowling ball bag.

“Are you in trouble?” Izzy asked Jimmy.

Jimmy smiled at Izzy. It was a sad smile. “Yeah. I’m in trouble.”

Everyone was silent. Sheba dropped her head into her hands. Her back bumped up and down and I wasn’t sure if she was breathing heavily or silently crying. Mrs. Cone pulled her plate back toward herself and finished the half slice she had abandoned only a few minutes ago. Dr. Cone had that scowl again. And Izzy stared at me with giant circular eyes.

“Let’s clear,” I said.

Izzy clambered out of her chair and helped me clear the table as the adults sat in silence. Jimmy stared at Sheba like he was waiting for her to look up at him, but her head remained in her hands.

Izzy and I moved most of the dishes into the kitchen and stacked them on the counter. Then I picked her up and headed upstairs. That was when the shouting started. Sheba mostly, with Jimmy shouting back in short barking sentences of two or three words. Izzy pushed her head into my neck and clung to me like I might drop her.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I’m worried about Jimmy.”

“Jimmy will be okay.”

“But Sheba’s so mad.”

“Yeah, but your dad’s taking care of him. He’ll be okay again.”

“Was he doing his addict?”

“Yes. He was doing his addict.”

The shouting continued as I put Izzy in her pajamas. Dr. Cone’s voice appeared like parenthetical words inserted between Sheba’s and Jimmy’s bursts of yelling. He wasn’t shouting, but his voice carried up in a steady, stern grumbling. Mrs. Cone was either remaining silent or had left the dining room. After Izzy peed, when she was brushing her teeth, we heard the sound of something crashing: the thick clunking sound of ceramic breaking, rather than the tinkling shrill of glass.

Izzy held her toothbrush with her teeth. Foam dripped down her chin and into the sink. We stared at each other in the mirror, waiting for the next sound. There was absolute silence for ten seconds, and then Sheba began yelling again.

“Finish up. Let’s go to bed.” I stroked Izzy’s hair while she spit and rinsed, and then I picked her up and carried her to her room. Just as we were in the hallway, another sequence of crashes began. This time it did sound like glass. Or a series of glasses being thrown against a wall. My stomach clenched and I felt my heart beating in my throat. The crashing went on. And on. And on.

I carried Izzy into her room and kicked the door shut behind me. The yelling was more muted now, but we could still hear it, punctuated every now and then with another crash.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” Izzy asked.

I put Izzy in bed and got under the covers with her. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t spend the night. My mother expected me home.

“Please. I don’t want to be alone here. What if the witch comes?” Izzy blinked rapidly. She’d rarely cried since I’d started taking care of her, but the couple of times she had—when she fell on the sidewalk once, and when we couldn’t find her favorite stuffed animal—she’d blinked like this before bursting into tears.

“The witch won’t come.” I leaned over the edge of the bed and picked up Madeline.

“But the witch will know that the grown-ups are angry and that the grown-ups aren’t watching out for me, so she’ll come and—”

“I’ll stay.” Her panic fed my panic. I may have needed Izzy then just as much as she needed me. “Let me go call my mom. I’ll shut the door behind me so the witch doesn’t come in while I’m on the phone.”

“Hurry back.” Izzy blinked and tears painted her cheeks. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t make a noise.

When I opened the door, I heard a chuk-chuk-chuk sound of things being thrown but not breaking. The adults had moved to the living room; their voices were louder and closer.

“Stupid fucking fuck!” Sheba screamed. I rushed into Dr. and Mrs. Cone’s room and closed the door behind me, dulling the yelling sounds.

The bed was unmade and the Cones’ clothes were heaped on the quilted blue love seat at the end of it and on the armchair in the corner. The nightstands on either side of the bed were covered with books, drinking glasses, a small jade Buddha, and magazines. There was a red telephone sitting next to the Buddha and an issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry on what I assumed was Dr. Cone’s nightstand. I picked up the receiver and waited for more screaming. It seemed safer if I called in the silence right after a session. Jimmy was hollering now, so I dialed all the numbers but the last. Sheba picked up where Jimmy had left off. And then I could hear Dr. Cone’s voice chopping through.

I stretched the phone cord and crawled down to the ground. The sound only seemed louder there; it was coming up straight through the floor. I stood again, and then looked at the Cones’ bed. Dr. and Mrs. Cone kissed often, on the lips, and sometimes I could see their tongues. And they touched each other in ways that made my brain think of sex even when it was only Dr. Cone’s fingertips on Mrs. Cone’s lower back. I didn’t want to get in their bed. I didn’t want my body to touch their sheets. I couldn’t stop myself imagining them having sex on and beneath those sheets. Still, I had to muffle the noise somehow. If my mother heard anything suspicious, she would get in the car and drag me home.

I picked up the body of the phone and held it against my belly. Then, as if I were about to go underwater, I took a deep breath and got in the Cones’ bed, under the quilted orange bedspread. I pulled the bedspread over my head. It smelled loamy and warm, like a wet towel that had been left in a closed-up car. There was quiet for a second, and then faint grumbling from Dr. Cone. I dialed the last number and said a prayer, Please, God, may no one yell while I’m on the phone.

My mother answered on the first ring.

“Mom,” I whispered.

“Is everything okay?” I imagined my mother standing up straight in the kitchen, the white floor mopped so clean you could see your reflection in the tile, the avocado-colored appliances gleaming from a spray-down with Windex.

I made myself speak in a regular voice. “Mrs. Cone is really sick and Dr. Cone asked if I could stay the night. Izzy seems scared and upset.” Lie four. The most complex and complete of the bunch.

“Is she vomiting?”

“Yes.”

“Chemo,” my mother said.

“I don’t know. They don’t tell me.”

“I’ll drive up and bring you an overnight bag with a nightgown and a toothbrush.”

“Dr. Cone gave me one of Mrs. Cone’s clean nightgowns. And he gave me a brand-new toothbrush and my own tube of toothpaste, too.” When my best friends slept over, my mother asked them to bring their own toothpaste, as she didn’t think it was sanitary for people to slide their brushes over the same spot on the tube.

“But what will you wear tomorrow?”

“I need to throw a load of wash in the laundry anyway.”

“Because of the vomit?”

“Yes.”

“Add just a couple of tablespoons of bleach to help sanitize everything.”

“Okay.”

“It won’t bleach your clothes if you use less than a quarter cup.”

“Okay.” I heard muffled yelling and covered the mouthpiece with my hand, shut my eyes, and prayed again. God must have heard, because my mother didn’t seem to.

“How was the chicken?”

“They loved it. They said it was the best meal they’d ever had.” Finally I could speak the truth.

“Very good, dear. I’m glad you succeeded with that.”

“Mom, I’ve got to go. I have to take care of Izzy.”

“I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow at the end of the day.”

“Okay. Good night, Mom.”

“Good night. And remember, just two tablespoons of bleach. And look closely at the labels on their clothes before you put anything in the dryer.”

“I will.”

“And you know to clean the lint filter before each dryer load, right?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Okay, Mary Jane. Good night.” My mother hung up before I could respond.

I pushed the quilt down and breathed in the cool, clean air. Then I rolled out of the bed and returned the phone to the nightstand.

I paused in the hallway. The voices were calmer now. Sheba and Jimmy weren’t yelling. And even Dr. Cone’s voice sounded less grumbly. I wanted to make sure that Dr. and Mrs. Cone were okay with me spending the night. And maybe I could borrow a nightgown from Mrs. Cone. I had laundered two of them earlier in the day.

Mrs. Cone’s voice floated for a second before Sheba started up again. I moved to the top of the stairs and slowly made my way down. My legs were watery and my heart felt like a Slinky flipping down an endless staircase inside my chest.

As I approached the living room, the four of them looked up at me. Sheba was on the couch. Her wig was off and her face was streaked with black mascara. Dr. Cone was sitting in the leather chair. He looked calm but still had that half-angry scowl. Jimmy sat on the floor, his head resting on the coffee table. And Mrs. Cone was beside Sheba on the couch. Her wig was still on. Surrounding them, on the floor, the table, the couch, everywhere I could see, were all the books from the shelves. Izzy and I had been discussing alphabetizing the bookshelves but hadn’t started yet. I had a moment of thinking that maybe this disshelving would make that task easier.

“Uh, Izzy wants me to stay with her tonight. She’s scared.”

“Excellent idea,” Dr. Cone said.

“May I borrow a nightgown?”

“Absolutely!” Mrs. Cone started to stand up, but Sheba took her hand and pulled her back down to the couch.

“Mary Jane,” Sheba said very seriously. “Go in my and Jimmy’s room, go in the closet, and find the prettiest nightgown you see. Whatever one you like, you can have. But you have to choose the prettiest one. Do you understand? It’s very important that you take the best nightgown there. Can you do that?”

“I think so.” I wanted to ask which one was the best, but I knew I was inserting myself, interrupting, and if I didn’t leave the room soon, an emotional explosion might happen right before me.

“Good. Only the best one.”

“Okay. Good night.” I turned to walk away.

“Good night, Mary Jane,” Sheba said.

“Good night, Mary Jane,” Mrs. Cone said.

“Good night, Mary Jane,” Dr. Cone said.

And then Jimmy shouted, “Mary Jane, you are a saint and I fucked up! I’m a stupid fucking shit—”

Before he could say more, Sheba was outyelling him. I rushed up the stairs, my heart thumping, and hurried into Izzy’s room.

Izzy sat up. “Did your mom say yes?” Her eyes were like night-lights, catching the glow from the streetlamp outside her window.

“Yes. I’m going to grab a nightgown and brush my teeth.”

“You can use my toothbrush.”

“I’ll just use my finger.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be right back and then I’ll get in bed with you and we’ll shut the door and we can sing a song if you want. Or we can read Madeline. Or we can just go to sleep.”

“And the witch won’t come in. The ratio is two to one.”

“Right, the witch won’t come in. The ratio is too big for the witch to get in.”

Sheba and Jimmy’s room was tidy and organized. Dr. and Mrs. Cone hadn’t managed to empty it, but they had managed to stack all their stuff in boxes pushed against one wall. The bed was made with a bright pink batik bedspread. There were mismatched nightstands on either side. One held the books I’d seen Jimmy reading in the banquette in the morning: Play It as It Lays and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The other had hand cream and face cream. On the ceiling, over the bed, hung another pink batik bedspread. I wondered if Mrs. Cone had done that, or if Sheba had.

I took a few steps into the bathroom and looked around. There was a giant claw-foot tub and a separate walk-in shower. The tile was Tiddlywinks-size pink and black circles, like what I imagined might be in a diner in the 1950s. On the pink marble vanity a framed mirror lay flat, like a tray. Two perfume bottles and many face creams sat on the mirror tray. I picked up Chanel No. 5. I’d heard of it, but had never seen an actual bottle. I sprayed it on my wrists and sniffed. It didn’t smell like Sheba. The other bottle was cut glass with a stopper in it. I lifted the stopper and sniffed. That sort of smelled like Sheba, but not quite. I dipped the stopper and dabbed each of my wrists where I had sprayed the Chanel No. 5. I lifted my wrist to my nose. Now I smelled like Sheba. I sniffed again. Breathing in Sheba’s scent made the world momentarily fall away.

I left my Sheba-scented bubble and hurried to the walk-in closet. The bar on one side of the closet held Jimmy’s clothes. The bar on the other held Sheba’s. Her clothes were arranged by type: dresses, tops, jumpsuits, nightgowns, and robes. Within each group they were arranged by color, lightest to darkest, left to right. I ran my hand along everything, feeling the variegated textures—satin, silk, leather, cotton.

When I got to the nightgowns and robes, I pulled them out one by one. Some were so sexy—with see-through lace bra tops and thigh-high slits—that I was embarrassed looking at them. My sex addiction roared, tingling through my body, and I hushed it down sternly.

Even the not-as-sexy nightgowns were beautiful. I worried I’d disappoint Sheba and pick the wrong one. And then my hand stopped on a white nightgown with lace straps and lace on the hem. The cotton was so soft, it felt like thick water running between my fingertips. I took off my shorts, T-shirt, and bra right there in the closet, and slipped the nightgown over my head. The breast panels were baggy on me, but other than that it fit me well. The cotton was so smooth against my skin, I wanted to roll around on the ground just to feel it more.

I folded my clothes and carried them out of Sheba and Jimmy’s room and then down the stairs to the second floor. The shouting had stopped, and the conversational voices of the four grown-ups floated up like sound clouds. Also, the smell of marijuana wafted up. I wondered if Dr. and Mrs. Cone were smoking too. Or was it just Sheba and Jimmy?

I walked into Izzy’s room and shut the door behind me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust and see that Izzy was still awake, her glowing eyes flashing on me.

“Everyone’s calm,” I said. “They worked it all out.”

“Okay. Can we sleep now?”

“Yeah.” I climbed into bed. Izzy’s sheets were clean and stiff. We had washed and starch-ironed them only two days ago.

“I love you, Mary Jane.” Izzy scooted in closer to me and pushed her head between my breast and my armpit. She breathed deeply and slowly, as if she were releasing something from far inside her body.

“I love you too,” I whispered.