he chick I’m with is slightly crazy.

Her name is Sophie and she moves like a jungle cat through the crowded grocery store parking lot, a small paper bag full of limes in one hand, the other shielding her eyes as she looks up at the steaming summer sky.

“I guess the forecast was right for once,” she says and drops her hand to glance at me. “I sense a midnight picnic in our future.”

“You’re crazy,” I tell her, fighting like hell to contain my smile. I’ve repeated those same two words about half a dozen times in the single hour I’ve been in her company.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “But doesn’t it sound romantic?”

We both move closer to the parked cars on our right to avoid being run over by a passing minivan. “It does sound romantic,” I say. “And maybe it would be, right up until we got mugged.”

Sophie laughs and shakes her head. “You are such a chicken-shit.”

“I am not!” I playfully give her a little shove, bouncing her into the tailgate of a huge black pickup truck. “How can you say that? You barely know me.”

“I know your type,” she says, but she’s no longer smiling and for a split-second I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have pushed her. Some people can be touchy about that sort of thing…

But an instant later I see that she is merely studying a bumper sticker on the black pickup, one of those moronic ones that ask, “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, then why did He make them out of meat?”

Rolling my eyes, I don’t even bother to check out the other stickers on the truck’s bumper and just keep walking. It takes me a heartbeat to realize that I’ve left Sophie behind and I turn back just as a man opens the driver’s side door and climbs down out of the cab. He’s a big redneck-looking dude in a Deere cap and an old Alabama concert T-shirt and he’s eyeballing Sophie like she might be dinner.

“You know,” she tells him casually, “you’re made of meat too.”

The guy slams his truck door closed. “Huh?”

To clarify, Sophie points to the offending bumper sticker and repeats her statement.

Seconds tick by and I start to take a step towards her, intending to nudge her along, when the guy’s face suddenly changes. Understanding replaces befuddlement. Light dawns on Marblehead. Then he grins, grabs his crotch with a filthy hand and shakes it at her. “I got some meat for you right here, bitch.”

My first thought is uh-oh, thinking nothing good can come of this, but to my surprise, Sophie smiles at the redneck. She tilts her head coyly and in a saccharine-sweet voice she tells him, “No thanks, I’m strictly a vagitarian.”

I instantly crack up while Sophie blows him a goodbye kiss and we continue on our way to the car. As we arrive at my Honda, about eight spaces down from the pickup, we hear another shouted “Bitch!” and exchange looks over the car’s roof.

Sophie asks, “Do you think that’s half of his vocabulary or just a quarter of it?”

I don’t reply, too busy trying to unlock the door in hurry, uncertain what the redneck will do if his walnut-size brain ever actually comprehends the term vagitarian.

Once we’re both safely inside the car with the doors locked and the engine started, I breathe a little easier. “You are seriously fucking crazy,” I tell her for the millionth time.

But Sophie has already moved on in time, on to the next the thing, the next adventure, which is apparently searching for the sunglasses she stored in the center console an hour before. Once locating them, she places them on her face and looks around until she notices me staring at her. “What?”

This time my smile is uncontainable. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

She grins and waves the paper bag of limes at me. “Are you sure you have enough tequila at your place?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Then what are you waiting for, woman? Drive.”

Still smiling, I switch on the AC and obey, steering the car through the blazing blue day, bleached white at the edges.

It’s only our first date and already I’m in love.

The tequila might have been a mistake.

If I hadn’t been drinking, so embarrassingly, blindingly drunk, I wouldn’t have told Sophie the things that I told her, those things that I never tell anyone, those ugly shameful secrets. Secrets about childhood and lonely farmhouses in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. Boozy stepfather secrets, torn cotton nightgown, stained cotton panties, squeeze your eyes shut and bite your lower lip till it bleeds secrets.

But, sitting on my living room floor, after frighteningly few shots, I begin spilling my guts out to this strange young woman. Face to face we sit, our elbows resting on the coffee table, bottle, glasses, salt shaker and a plate of sliced limes between us.

Behind me, cinnamon and vanilla candles burn on a shelf, and whenever Sophie looks at me, cocking her head in a certain way, tiny flames erupt in her blue-green eyes. Twin planets called Earth, mere microcosms, become engulfed, swallowed by fire, certain to be destroyed. And then Sophie blinks or shifts her gaze slightly, the flames are extinguished and all is right with the world again, the twin planets are safe once more.

This end of the world mini-drama mesmerizes me as I speak. I become entranced by her eyes and the sound of my own voice and may have talked forever, foolish drunk that I am, but Sophie interrupts my pathetic monologue by reaching across the table and taking my hand. I stop mid-sentence, my mouth hanging open, and stare at her.

“Dee,” she says softly, but then she doesn’t continue, seemingly unsure of what to add.

I close my mouth and wait, realizing how idiotic I must have sounded. Such a whiner.

Finally, Sophie crawls around to my side of the table and takes both my hands in hers. Our eyes remain locked for a long time before I understand that she doesn’t intend to say anything more and she never did. She knows there is nothing she can say. There are no words and the instant I comprehend this, tears sting my eyes and I curse my low tolerance for alcohol.

Sophie does the only she can: she holds me.

 

he following morning when I trip out into the kitchen dressed in an old T-shirt and panties, eyes squinting against the absurdly bright sunshine, I find her seated at the table, also dressed in an old T-shirt and panties, quietly leafing through a photo album she must have dug out of a bookcase in the living room.

“Hey,” she looks up, her smile gentle. “There’s coffee.”

Sniffing the air, I stumble over to the counter and grab a mug out of the cupboard. “I think I’m gonna have to marry you,” I croak absently.

Behind me, Sophie chuckles. “Wow. That was easy.”

When I join her at the table, hands wrapped around my steaming mug, she taps a picture and asks, “Is this where you grew up?”

I peer over and see myself at 10 or so, standing on a brown front yard, unsmiling and stiff. Behind me is a small butter-yellow farmhouse with green shutters. “Yep, that’s the place,” I say, remembering the ass I made out of myself last night.

“I’ve always wanted to buy a house,” Sophie says, turning the page. “Even just a little one. I’ve lived in the same apartment my whole life.”

I nod. “With your mom, right?”

“Yeah, now it’s just me and my mom but I have two older brothers. They both left when you’re supposed to leave.” Her laugh seems to have a slight self-conscious undertone to it.

“Where are they?”

“Lou lives in California. He runs a construction company. But Joe, my oldest brother, is still around. He’s a big shot lawyer now.”

“No kidding?” I try not to seem too surprised.

“No kidding. He’s the only one my mom could afford to help with college.” She stares thoughtfully at a picture of a Christmas tree.

I take a long gulp of coffee, not caring that it scorches my tongue. I just need the caffeine in my system like, now. “So…did you want to go to college?”

Sophie shrugs and smiles. “Eventually I probably will. I take a few classes here and there. But right now my first priority is to buy a house, which is why I work two jobs.” As if this is a reminder to herself, she sneaks a glance at the clock over the stove then returns her attention to the photo album. “I have about half the money saved so far.”

“Cool.”

She looks up quickly, clearly struck by an idea. “You want to meet my mom?”

“Uh…” I blink at her. “Right now?”

“Uh…” Sophie mimics me and laughs. “No, not right now. But…you know…sometime.”

“Sure.” My first grin of the day is a doozey. “I’d love to meet your mom sometime.”

“Excellent.” She closes the album, drains her mug and rises, walking over to the sink. “Unfortunately, I have to go soon.”

“Oh.” I know my disappointment is palpable but I can’t help it. “And you never even took me on that midnight picnic you promised.”

Finished rinsing the mug, she comes to me, plunges her hands into my hair, leans over and tenderly kisses my lips. “I’m sorry. Rain check?”

How could I possibly refuse? “Of course. But only for another one of those kisses.”

It turns out Sophie doesn’t actually have to leave for another hour still, but she ends up being half an hour late just the same.

These things happen…

 

t’s not quite a week later when I’m knocking on Sophie’s apartment door. In my arms I’m carrying a small basket brimming with fresh vegetables, exactly what Sophie told me her mother would prefer when I asked what her mom’s favorite flower was.

So, instead of roses or tulips or even daisies, I’ve brought tomatoes and zucchini and every color of pepper imaginable. As I wait for the door to open, it occurs to me that perhaps Sophie was joking when she told me about the vegetable preference; I’ve learned that her sense of humor can be so wickedly black that it’s almost inspiring.

However, the panic I feel doesn’t have quite enough time to take root because before the paranoid notion has finished even a single lap around my brainpan, the door is opened and standing before me is an older, smaller version of my girlfriend.

“Dee!” She smiles broadly, swinging the door wide. “So nice to finally meet you. I’m Maria, Sophie’s mother. Come in, come in. She’s in the kitchen. Oh, you brought vegetables. Perfect. Here, let me show you where to put them.”

I follow Sophie’s mom through a dim living room and into an exceptionally bright kitchen where Sophie stands over a counter weeping, tears streaming down her face.

Alarmed, I set the bag of vegetables on the table and start towards her, her smile confusing me momentarily until I notice the knife in her hand in the chopped onions on the cutting board in front of her.

“Jesus, that scared me,” I say.

Sophie looks confused but her mom bursts out into hearty laughter. She waves my fear away, saying, “Sophie hardly ever cries. Even as a little girl, she wouldn’t cry. Most stubborn thing you ever saw.”

Nodding, I say, “I’m not surprised.”

At last, Sophie gains understanding and wipes away her crocodile tears. She puts down the knife, looks at me and says, “C’mere you.”

I move into her arms, expecting nothing more than a quick embrace but she hugs me hard and long and then kisses me, short and sweet. I accept her greeting but toss a nervous glance over my shoulder at her mother. I’m relieved to see that Maria is paying exactly zero attention to us, busily perusing the bag of veggies.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sophie says, her hands moving down and giving my ass a squeeze.

“OK, lovebirds” Maria pipes in. “I don’t need to see that.” She walks over and tugs me out of Sophie’s arms while simultaneously pointing to the cutting board. “Sophie, you have salad to make. Dee, you come with me.”

“But…” I try to protest, to no avail. I’m already being led out of the kitchen and back into the living room.

“No, buts. I have things to show you.”

Behind us, I hear Sophie chuckle and the sound of resumed chopping.

Maria switches on lamps in the living room and the room fills with golden warmth. The apartment is small and the furniture threadbare, but the feeling of love radiating within this home is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. Maria has decorated every wall, every surface, with pictures of her three children.

“This is what I wanted you to see,” she says, leading me by the hand to a section of wall near the front door. “This is Sophie’s spot.”

Smiling, I study the pictures closely and see a young black-and-white Sophie, maybe seven, hanging upside down from a tree limb, probably eight feet off the ground. The grin she is wearing is simply immeasurable.

In another photo she is outside again but older, somewhere around eleven perhaps, and this time she is right-side-up, dressed in T-shirt and shorts, her face pinched in concentration as she aims a bow and arrow at an unseen target.

One picture shows her standing triumphantly on the back of an older boy, presumably one of her brothers, her skinny little girl arms flexed, showing off her nonexistent muscles.

There are so many photos of Sophie, I know I will have to come back to this spot again and again to absorb them all. A filthy Sophie caught mid-touchdown dance, a football raised high above her head. Sophie in pristine white karate attire with a purple belt, arms folded, chin raised defiantly. A teenage Sophie, straddling a motorcycle that looks far too big for her to operate safely. School portraits of Sophie, some with her sporting pigtails and missing front teeth, others where her hair is blue and standing up in pointy, hazardous-looking spikes, her teeth now present but hidden by silver braces.

“Wow,” I breathe, trying to take all the photographs in.

Beside me, Maria makes a clucking sound with her tongue. “My daughter is crazy. When she was small, I thought maybe she had some kind of death wish. These are just things we have pictures of. The things we don’t…well, you just can’t imagine the trouble she used to get into.” She pauses, peering at a photo of Sophie leaping from a diving board. “It was Andy who figured out it was more of a life wish.”

I look away from the wall of photos and glance at her. “Andy?”

“Sophie’s father.” Maria taps the glass of a photograph showing Sophie still in diapers, her face, hands and tiny bare chest covered in chocolate pudding, laughing as she’s lifted high above a man’s head. “She was only ten when he died, but it wasn’t long before that, just after he got so sick, that he said to me, ‘Sophie glows with life. Her love of it is so fierce that she doesn’t believe in death. But maybe now she will.’ Only I still don’t think she does. I think her father’s death only made her more fearless.” Maria made the clucking sound again before turning away from the wall. “You should just know what you’re getting into with that girl. Before you can say ‘boo’ she’ll have you jumping out of an airplane or something.”

Maria leaves the living room, goes back into the kitchen, but I linger for a moment, still staring at the photographs of the child who became the woman I love, her mother’s words echoing in my head, not as a warning as they may have been intended but as a possibility that just maybe some of Sophie’s “life wish” will rub off on me.

 

t turns out that Maria is also nosy as hell.

At first, the questions she asks me over dinner seem like nothing more than casual curiosity but eventually they branch out into downright intrusive. She wants to know not only where I grew up, but exactly where, as in, a street address. She asks about my parents and inquires about the nature of their divorce, where they each are now, why they didn’t have more children and how long my mom stayed with my stepfather. She seems especially interested in where my stepfather might be today.

“He still lives in the same place, does he?”

I poke a tomato with my fork. “No, he sold it a long time ago.”

“Is that right? And who owns it now?”

“I have no idea.” What I have even less idea about is this line of questioning. I sneak a glance at Sophie who is munching merrily away on a piece of garlic bread, completely unconcerned, as if her mother’s inquisition of me is the most natural thing in the world.

“When was the last time you were there?” Maria asks.

Struggling to repress a sigh, I say, “Maybe a year ago, I guess. I go there sometimes to…think.”

Sophie’s mom looks at me as if an elephant’s trunk has just sprouted from the middle of my face and I know immediately that Sophie has shared my history of abuse with her. The fork I’m holding drops to my plate with a loud clatter and I glare at Sophie, whose expression tells me not that she’s concerned with my newfound knowledge, but that she, like her mother, is shocked that I sometimes return to the place where I was abused as a child.

I remain speechless for several long seconds, debating on whether or not to make a scene but then I finally decide to refill my wine glass instead. No sense in blowing up before I talk to Sophie, which I fully intend to do at the first opportunity.

The two of them exchange meaningful looks over the table but I ignore it, killing my wine in a couple swallows, proud of myself for holding my tongue and behaving in a respectable manner.

But Sophie is in trouble. Big trouble.

 

r so I think, until I’m being put to bed in Sophie’s room, her mom in her own bedroom across the hall.

“I’m wasted,” I tell Sophie, who is pulling a sheet up over my mostly naked body.

“You drank too much wine, sweetie,” she says.

Rolling over, I bury my face in a pillow, feeling queasy. “It’s late,” I say, my voice sounding muffled, even to myself. “I should go home.”

Sophie laughs. “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

I think she may have said more after that, something about resting, but I can’t be sure. I pass out before I can ask her to repeat herself.

 

ee! Come on, wake up, baby.”

I gasp, an intake of breath so sharp it hurts my lungs. Above me, Sophie’s blurry face looms, her forehead creased with worry lines, her eyes wide with concern. “You were moaning,” she says and touches my cheek. It’s only then that I realize I’m crying, hot tears streaming down my face, soaking the pillowcase. Breathing is hard and I struggle to sit up, my heart pounding violently, a tiny captured animal, crazy with fear. I wrap my arms around my knees, shuddering, looking around the room, trying to grasp my surroundings. It is the present, not the past and I am a grown woman, not a frightened child. Beside me, her warm hand moving in slow circles against my back, is my lover. My sweet lover Sophie.

Thankfully, her room isn’t dark. A long string of orange lights snakes its way around the windows on the opposite wall, bathing everything in a surreal Halloween glow for which I am grateful.

“Was it about your stepfather?”

Her voice startles me, the strength I hear in it and also the anger. I nod, my eyes fixed on the orange lights. “It always is,” I say quietly, still sniffling.

Sophie grabs a tissue from her nightstand table and hands it to me. I thank her and wipe my nose without ever dropping my gaze from the string of lights.

For a long time, we sit in silence and then unexpectedly, I laugh. The laugh is short and bitter and sounds foreign in my own ears. “Am I pathetic or what?” I say suddenly. “Jesus, you’d think I’d be over it by now. I haven’t seen that man since I was fifteen years old. And you know what’s even worse? Half the time he’s not even in the nightmares. I just dream about that place, that fucking house with its flowered fucking wallpaper and its goddamn cigar stench. Over and over, I dream that I’m trapped there, that I’m stuck inside and can’t get out so I just run around, trying doors and windows but everything is locked. I can never find my way out.”

I’m crying again, tears of rage now, and Sophie—bless her heart—just lets me. She patiently hands me tissue after tissue until I can’t cry anymore and then she lays down beside me, her body pressed against mine, warm and safe and strong and this time, she keeps the nightmares away.

 

don’t see the point of this,” I say.

Nearly a month has passed since my first dinner with Maria and now I’m standing beside Maria’s Buick, borrowed by Sophie, parked on the side of a deserted road. It’s going on 3 a.m.; the only sounds in the summer night are chirping crickets and an occasional breeze moving through the trees behind us.

“What exactly is the point?” I ask Sophie.

On the other side of the deserted road stands a deserted house. The house. The one I grew up in. The one I was raped in.

In the center of a field grown wild, the house has long been empty and abandoned, its windows either smashed or boarded up, its paint flaking off in huge blistered patches. Most of the shingles have torn free of the roof and spray painted in white letters across the front door are the words For Sale and a phone number, barely legible among all the other graffiti. It looks, in its own way, like victim of a Holocaust, recently escaped from its imprisonment but too weak and wounded to continue any further. Instead, it sits quietly and waits for death.

“The point,” Sophie says, “is that I didn’t know what else to do about your nightmares.”

“So you drive me out here in the middle of the night? What did you think this would accomplish?”

She shrugs and takes my hand. “I know it probably won’t do any good but…I thought maybe a symbolic act would be better than nothing.”

“Symbolic act? Are we going to have a séance or something? Did you bring a Ouija board?” I can’t decide if I’m amused or annoyed, so I ricochet between both, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

Sophie, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight peeking through the trees, looks pained. “I’m kind of scared to tell you this…” She hesitates, obviously nervous. “But I bought it.”

I stare at her blankly. “You bought…what? The house? This house?” When she nods, my stomach immediately begins churning and I pull my hand out of hers. “Are you fucking crazy? Why would you do that?”

Her face changes then, the nervousness evaporates and is replaced with defiance. “To burn it down.”

Without waiting for any kind of response from me, she moves to the back of the car, opens the truck and pulls out a can of gasoline. Stunned mute, I stand and watch as she crosses the road and begins splashing gas across the outer walls of the house. When she moves around the house, disappearing from sight, my paralysis breaks and I run towards her. “Sophie, stop! You can’t do this.”

She ignores me, spraying gasoline across what I know to be the kitchen window. All around us, the crickets continue their song.

“This is arson, Sophie. You’ll go to jail.”

“I didn’t buy insurance,” she says, calmly moving towards the backyard.

“That doesn’t fucking matter! It’s still illegal!”

“My brother is a hotshot defense attorney, remember? If I get busted, he’ll hook me up.” She stops tossing the gas around for a moment, assessing her work, then she reverses direction, heading back to the front of the house. “I have to spill some inside,” she says, by way of explanation, as if we’re discussing planting marigolds.

Trailing behind her, I say, “I can’t let you do this.”

But Sophie is determined. She marches right up the crumbling front steps, pushes aside the useless propped-up door and vanishes into the darkness.

I think I’m following her, but at the last instant, the second before I cross the threshold, I freeze. I grip the splintered doorjamb with one hand, afraid to go any further.

“Sophie!” I hiss into the black void. “Sophie, you have to stop.” But my words lack conviction now and I stand motionless and terrified. Inside, I can hear her moving around in there, her boots thudding across the wood-plank floors.

A lifetime later, she emerges with the empty gas can. From the back pocket of her jeans she produces a small box of matches. We stare at each other, two women in the night, and I hold out my hand and whisper, “Let me do it.”

Sophie’s face, half hidden in shadow, shows no surprise. She hands me the matches and says, “It’s your legacy.”

Trembling, I remove a single wooden match. “Maybe you should wait by the car,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “Just throw it and run.”

And then, without pause, that’s what I do. Strike the match, throw it into the black guts of the house, turn around and run. Beside me, Sophie runs too, through the darkness, our feet crunching across dead grass, our breath coming out in frantic rasps.

Only when we reach the car do we stop and turn back. Already, orange flames are licking up the inner walls. The house that haunts my dreams is dying before my eyes and for some unknown reason it suddenly feels like a mercy killing, like the house knew all along that it needed to be euthanized, that it wanted to be.

Sophie and I lean against the car and watch it burn and whether the feeling will last or not, I don’t know, but right now, in this moment, I feel cleansed. Lighter. New.

I slip my hand into Sophie’s, link my fingers through hers. “You and your mom planned this, didn’t you?”

For the second time since I’ve known her, firelight dances in her eyes and she smiles sheepishly. “Well, I wouldn’t say planned…”

“But the house you wanted to buy…your savings…” I’m only just beginning to comprehend the enormity of the sacrifice she’s made for me and tears sting my eyes.

“This shithole only took about half of what I had saved.” She gives my hand a hard squeeze. “I thought maybe I could shack up with you for a while instead. Maybe we could start saving for a house together. I mean, if you want…”

My hand squeezes back and I lean my body into hers. “I want.”

Before us, the sky is a yellow-orange glow while the rest of the world remains blue-black and sleeping. We stay and watch until the sound of distant sirens becomes loud enough to drown out the sound of burning wood.

 

[END]

© 2004 Gina Ranalli - Contributor's Bio

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