Durable Goods_ A Novel - Elizabeth Berg [34]
I get out of bed, pull the sheet up over her. Everyone in her house is sleeping, and I feel the quiet over me like clothes. Outside, the clouds could be gauze pulled thin across the stars, and the moon is near-transparent, as though someone tried to erase it. Cherylanne’s window faces the parade ground just as mine does, but the angle, of course, is not the same. It can be so different to be only next door.
Once Cherylanne and I fell in a river together. We were walking at the edge of the bank, picking flowers. She slipped in some mud, and all of a sudden there was her surprised and scared face sticking out of the muddy water. “Get out of there!” I said.
And she yelled, drifting along in the current, “I can’t! I can’t!” I ran along beside her, reached out my hand, and when she grabbed hold of it, I fell in, too. We held on to each other and worked to keep our heads up. I yelled for help once, but it embarrassed me and, anyway, there was no one around. I don’t know what happened—the current shifted, maybe—but we were suddenly propelled straight toward the shore, and we were able to get out. I’d lost a shoe, and Cherylanne had ripped off some nails trying to grab on to things she passed. Otherwise, we were only wet. We laughed, but it was with our eyeballs wide around. When we got home, we went to my house first. My father asked what happened to us and I told him. I was a little bit proud. First he shook his head, disgusted. Then, “What were you doing by that river?” he asked. “What have I told you about that goddamn river? You had no business down there!” I stood wet and embarrassed and I felt more than heard Cherylanne leave. Later, I went to her house and threw up. Belle called my father, saying, “She’s sick. She’s in shock. These girls could have drowned! Don’t you know that?” He gave a long answer, and Belle said nothing and then she hung up. She turned around to look at me, her eyes soft and sorry, and I wanted more than anything for her just to be quiet, not to tell me things I already knew and could do nothing about. And she was quiet. She walked away, made us some peanut butter cookies. At school the next day, Cherylanne and I told everyone how close we came to dying, how we swam out of the clutches of death in the nick of time and if they thought that was easy they were crazy.
I sit down at Cherylanne’s dresser, barely make out the outline of my head in the mirror. I put my hand out, search for a bottle of her perfume, find one, put some on my wrist. It’s the one that smells like baby powder and has an exclamation after its name, it is so happy about itself. I find her brush, pull it through my hair, see the beautiful blue sparks of electricity fly out. Cherylanne has a pink plastic lipstick holder, swirled with white like marble. It is filled with six tubes of lipstick, all in order according to shade. Barely There is the first one. I feel for the middle one, put some on. I cross one leg over the other, swing it, rub my lips together good. Her jewelry box is on the far right, with her many necklaces and rings and bracelets and pins. I start to reach for the jewelry box, then stop. I am me and I live next door.
I want suddenly to be in my own room, with my faded blue sheets, with my cigar box full of dried flowers and horse chestnuts and the fragile bird’s nest I found at the base of a tree. A cat was hanging over that nest, evil coming out its eyes like headlights. I think about writing a note to Cherylanne, but it is too dark and, anyway, what would I say? She will forgive this; we were done with the best part of the sleep-over.
I tiptoe down the stairs, close the door quietly behind me. The key to our house is under the mat, and I slide it noiselessly into place, let myself in. I feel like a new person in my own