The Trouble with Women

The Gloaming

I HAVE WALKED a long time. So long that the vodka has worn off, and the crackling static in my brain is louder than ever.

I am itchy with irritation and vaguely aware that I am muttering to myself.

My belly's been buzzing again. Over and over, insistent. I look down at it. My womb wants something of me, I think. But what? What will appease it? It wants to be acknowledged. Always wanting like a greedy witch. But, no, it's just another voice message buzzing in my pocket. I don't listen to this one either.

Dolly, why aren't you answering? I've figured it out. I know how they're doing it. Simon's lab — digital kidneys, you said, but that's only where they started. They also own the patent for the MyAssistant implant. Simon is MYA. That's the trojan horse. I think Simon is part of this. Is Sasha part of this? Fuck, Dolly, I need to talk this through. Where are you?

WHEN I LOOK up, I am only vaguely surprised to find myself outside Charmaine's house. The immaculate, sandblasted stone home looms above me like a warning. Carefully tended planters stand like sentries beside the heavy oak door. I blink in the dark, convinced that Charmaine is out here with me. That she's on the run, afraid for her life. It's why I've come: to save the girl.

But where is she hiding? I sneak over to the walkway that runs between the close-built houses and peer down the deep, dark of it. An ugly feeling slithers in my stomach. The skinny pathway, the fence, reminds me of something I try never to remember.

Where have you been, Dolores? You're late today. I've been waiting a long time.

I shudder. Shake the memory off. Not mine.

At the back of the house, I can see a liquid blue reflection playing across the fence. The pool. I know it's too cold for swimming, but something urges me to check the backyard. Charmaine could be back there. She might be drowning. She might need me to pull her out.

As I'm feeling my way down the unlit path between the houses, I walk straight into a garden spade that's been left up against the fence, camouflaged by night. I yelp as my shin hits the sharp corner of its blade and it clatters to the ground. Stepping carefully around it, I creep another few feet down the skinny path, eyes partially closed, afraid to see, like a child afraid to look under her bed in case the bogeyman is waiting to grasp her.

Don't look. Don't look. He's not there.

Only suddenly he is. There is a man in the tight, dark space with me. I can smell cologne. It's her uncle.

"What are you doing out here? Who are you?" his rough, very real voice demands.

I'm frozen in place, frightened as a rabbit. The static under my skin reaches an unthinkable crescendo.

***

IT'S A DANGER day. You can feel it. You've known it since you woke up this morning. A knowing that's slithering under your skin. The man from the ravine hasn't been there all week, but you can feel him looming — like thunder in the distance tells when a storm is coming — he'll be waiting for you today.

The afternoon classroom smells of easy, innocent things: Elmer's glue, primary colour paint pots, the art teacher's hairspray. The class is working together on a big Halloween mural. A long piece of brown craft paper has been rolled out across the art room floor and your classmates are hunkered down over the top of it, bruised knees on the linoleum, smocks hanging from skinny necks, paint smooshing from fat, wood-handled brushes.

You watch their earnest work with complete detachment. It's impossible for you to care about something so childish as a Halloween mural. You pity them. But you also envy them. You're a smart girl. Precocious, report cards used to say. Now, those notes from the teachers reference your quietness, your disinclination to participate, your obsession with perfection and fairness.