Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [29]
Rocky always had the same reaction to Bob’s nature lessons; she balanced between arousal and revulsion. “If you bite me, Mr. Horse, I’m sending you out to be gelded.”
No, he was gone; the pillow had even given up his scent. The memory of him had slowed her heart again, numbed it back into sadness, and the dog, who had been in the room the entire time, began to pace as if even he had had enough of this reverie. It was Saturday and she was out of tampons, a realization that announced itself with a dark red splotch on the sheets. She walked the dog briefly and drove down to the small grocery store.
Rocky was in the aisle of feminine hygiene products deliberating over Playtex Multipack nondeodorant tampons or Playtex regular when Rocky spotted Melissa before the girl could duck around the corner.
“Hey!” said Rocky as she put the two boxes behind her back. “Do me a favor and pick left or right. I can’t make up my mind.” This was an effort to be more neighborly with the girl, perhaps redeem her poor behavior from last night.
Melissa looked mortified. “Go on, pick one, I can’t stand the indecision. Come on, left or right?” said Rocky, hoping that her voice was light, that this was perhaps funny, inviting.
Melissa froze, and Rocky knew she was once again going down the wrong path with the girl, but she was unable to stop. Melissa pointed a bluish hand to the right.
“Ah, the variety pack, a tampon for all occasions. Thanks, track star,” said Rocky.
Melissa remained in a state of frozen stupor, and Rocky stared hard at her, first at the blue tint of her hands, then at her face. Rocky pulled in her bottom lip and pressed down with her teeth. She saw the evil sneer of the child’s eating disorder peering at her behind Melissa’s thin shoulders.
“Oh. Your periods have stopped, haven’t they? How long?”
Melissa jolted out of her shocked state. Her eyes opened wide in savage exposure.
“You’re nuts! There’s something wrong with you. You don’t belong here,” said Melissa and she ran out of the store, abandoning what she had come for.
Rocky felt guilt descending on her for coming down so hard on the girl, for slamming her with the weapons that the food-deprived child was not prepared to deflect. She had a big, blossoming eating disorder and Rocky knew it. And the kid thought she was fooling everyone in the drunken state of restricting and hiding and measuring. But it was unfair of Rocky to take a swipe at her if the kid couldn’t fight back.
Still, Rocky was not her therapist, she did not, would not, be so god-awful careful and strategic and firm and fucking nurturing. She was an animal control warden. No one here expected her to be able to fix this kid. No concerned parent or high school teacher or kinesiology professor would call to say, “You’ve got to do something. She won’t eat.” She didn’t have to take the call.
But she did not have to persecute her. Rocky had to do something to even the score on her bad behavior in the store. She called Melissa when she got home and said, “Hey, I think I was kind of too blunt with you the other day. And I’m sorry about today at the store. I can be that way. People tell me that all the time. I was wondering if you could take care of a dog that I’m fostering for a few days when I’m on the mainland. Yeah? I’ll bring him over with his mountain of food. Could you stop by and bring in my mail? Oh, and put some cat food out for the cat, Peterson. How long? I’m leaving on Friday and I’ll be back on Sunday. Yeah, I’ll give you the key.”
Rocky felt slightly better, as if the cruel stab at the child had been partially erased. She wrote a couple of paragraphs in her journal about how she didn’t wish every day that she’d die in an accident, or in her sleep, or like Bob