Molly discovered her old, dilapidated bag of makeup this morning. It’s been untouched for the last couple years now, and she still doesn’t see much use for makeup in the conventional sense. Instead, she’s used an entire tube of “Mauve Madness” lipstick to paint both our faces to look like we’re going to war.
“Look, Tess,” she says when she’s finished her masterpiece and my face feels like it’s covered in half-dry paint, “We look like sisters.” I squeeze in next to her so our faces are side-by-side in the dirty mirror. Other than our lipstick covered faces, we don’t look alike at all. I have straight blond hair, Molly’s is long and dark brown and is a mess of knots that were once curls. I don’t remember the last time she brushed or washed it. My eyes are bright blue, and hers are a deep forest green. My skin is pale and clear, and hers is littered with freckles. I pretend to admire the scribbles of color on my face.
“Wow! You’re right. We could be twins,” I say. She grins, satisfied, and tosses the empty tube of lipstick on the floor. She leaves the bathroom, stepping over a pile of dirty clothes and candy wrappers, and disappears into the bedroom. A few seconds later she reappears, her hot pink rain boots on her feet.
“Come on!” she says. “I just thought of the funnest surprise.” And I followed her, because I always follow her. Where else would I go?
Of course, all of this happened before I started to disappear.
. . . . . . .
We leave the apartment in such a rush, Molly forgets to even shut the front door. I don’t bother telling her, because it probably won’t matter. Molly stares at the sidewalk, counting to make sure she steps exactly twice in each square.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask.
“I want to surprise you!” she squeals, her cheeks flushed pink with excitement. We pass a middle-aged man on a cell phone, who glares at us and walks out of his way to avoid being too near us. I shoot a deathly glare in his direction, but Molly doesn’t even notice. She reaches for my hand and finally I smile, too.
After a few more blocks, we arrive at the old ramshackle gas station where Molly insists on buying all her groceries. I’m constantly telling her that they charge nearly triple what things cost at the grocery store, but Molly doesn’t care. She likes the gas station because it’s always empty, and because she can get two candy bars for the price of one on Tuesdays. Besides, half the people who shop here are even weirder than us, and Molly likes that. She likes feeling almost normal, even if her normalcy is relative.
She pulls me inside and we walk through the dusty aisles filled with travel size ibuprofen bottles and three year old packs of gum. We reach a rickety shelf displaying three different kinds of crackers in mini boxes.
She spends a disproportionate amount of time contemplating her cracker choices. I can hear her mumbling under her breath about the price differences, the flavors, the shapes, even the colors of the boxes. Her left hand is buried in her coat pocket, and I can hear her fumbling with the small amount of change in there.
“Just pick one,” I say finally, my short temper getting the better of me. Molly flinches slightly, but ignores me. “Come on,” I say again. “This is not that hard. This isn’t life or death.” Molly continues to stare at the boxes, but ever so slightly turns her back on me. It is a snub, and I am furious.
“Seven cents per cracker,” she says to herself. The cashier is staring at us now, and I feel like an idiot. Not because of Molly’s hot pink rain boots, or the lipstick still covering our faces. But because Molly, literally the only person in the world who cares about me, is ignoring me. Over crackers.
“Molly,” I hiss in her ear. I feel her stiffen, every muscle in her body freezing in place. We both know where this is headed, but I can’t stop. “Just pick one so we can leave, and we will talk about this later.”
“This is important,” she says, and her voice sounds like a child’s voice.
“No, it isn’t. It’s crackers, and you are being an idiot. Now pick one or I will have to do it for you.”
“No, Tess, I want to choose. I want to pick them. Me.”
“Hey lady, do you need some help?” the cashier calls out, slowly making his way around the corner.
“We’re fine,” I shout back. “And mind your own business.” But he keeps staring. He’s new, I know he’s new because we come in here all the time and we’ve never seen him. I’m surprised no one warned him about Molly and I. Or maybe they did, and maybe that’s why he’s staring like that. Half pity, half fear. The pity is for Molly, and the fear is for me. And I’m fine with that.
“Red or green?” Molly asks me finally, and I feel myself instantly cool down at her acknowledgment.
“Red,” I say, touching her shoulder lightly. She relaxes, finally. “Remember, you like red better than green, right? You hate the color green.” She wipes tears from her eyes and blows her nose on her coat sleeve.
“Because red means stop and green means go, and people always go, go, go. And we need to stop. We should all just remember to stop and not just go.” She forces a weak smile and gives me a side hug. “Thanks, Tess. I forgot to just make it simple. Red or green. Red or green.” She jingles the change in her pocket again as she clutches the small box of crackers to her chest.
“Good girl,” I say. Then, my impatience getting the better of me again, “Now put it inside your coat, and let’s run.”
She turns to me with fear in her eyes. She can be such a child. “I can’t steal it!” she shouts. Idiot. The cashier perks up and starts making his way toward us. She freezes, but he is slow and uncertain, so I seize the opportunity.
“RUN!” I shout, and finally, she moves. We run all the way out the door, the crackers clutched to her chest like she is saving a puppy from a burning building. The cashier finally makes it to the door, shouting at us to stop, but we are already at the corner and he won’t leave the gas station to chase us down.
We run a few more blocks until we’re sure we are safe, and then collapse on the concrete in a fit of giggles. When Molly looks down and realizes she’s crushed the box and most of the crackers inside, we giggle even more. When she can finally catch her breath, she suddenly looks sad again.
“I wanted crackers to feed the pigeons. I know how much you love them, and I wanted to make today a happy day.” Her breath comes out in a fog in the cool morning air.
“You idiot!” I say, but not unkindly. “You feed pigeons bread, not crackers.”
“Oh,” she laughs. “Well, now we don’t have bread, and we’re not at the park.” Her eyes fill with tears again as she looks up and down the dirty sidewalk, at the wall of the broken down building we are leaning against, the patches of dirty snow that have managed to survive the warmer weather.
“You idiot,” I say again. “Pigeons don’t only go to the park. They go wherever the food is.” We rip open the box of crackers, tear open one of the sleeves, and crush the crackers on the ground in between us.
“Now do the pigeon call!” Molly shouts. “Coo! Coo!” She spins around in a circle, her long dress getting caught on her rain boots and nearly knocking her over.
“Coo!” I join in. We get louder and louder, our voices carrying over the buildings and through the clouds and out into space. The pigeons never come, but we are so distracted with our cooing we completely forget about them.
. . . . . . .
“Maybe we should go make friends today,” Molly says softly. Her forehead is resting against the window, her knees tucked into her chest. She loves watching people walk by on the sidewalk, but because her apartment is on the ground floor, when people catch her staring they give her dirty looks.
“Who would want to be friends with us?” I reply. “We’re weirdos.” I mean it as a joke, but Molly closes her eyes tightly, her face contorted as if I had slapped her. She goes silent again, staring out the window forlornly. I sigh. I’m not in the mood for her theatrics today.
“Remember Sara?” she asks finally. Of course I remember Sara.
“We hated Sara,” I am quick to remind her. But she shakes her head.
“I didn’t always hate Sara. She was my first friend in college.” Molly smiles, as if suddenly remembering that Sara was the epitome of perfection. “We shared that dorm on campus. She would stay up late to hear about the dates I went on, and she always shared her Poptarts with me.”
“But then you met me,” I remind her, crossing the room to sit next to her. “And have you ever had a friendship like ours?” Her eyes widen, but the smile is gone from her face now.
“Oh no,” she says sincerely. “No one has ever known me like you have.” I grin, satisfied. “But…” she goes on, quieter now. “Don’t people need more than one friend?”
“Do you need more than just me?” I ask, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.
“I can barely remember what it was like before you,” Molly says. Her voice is so tiny and small, like she is trying to disappear. “It’s been three years since we met, and you’re the only person I talk to anymore. Plus…” she trails off, and I can tell she’s afraid to finish the thought.
“What?” I say. Then, “What, Molly?” more harshly.
“We never get out. Except to get groceries but… neither of us works, and since I quit school it’s just been-”
“Hey, don’t put that on me.” I stand up quickly, my face burning. “You were the one who didn’t want to wake up early for class anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Molly says, and there are tears in her eyes now. “You said if I used my tuition money to pay ahead on rent then we wouldn’t have to worry about the landlord kicking us out.”
“Oh yeah, cause we’re so lucky to be staying in this dump!” I say, kicking at an empty soda can.
“That’s not the point!” Molly’s voice is louder now, and there is something in her eyes that I haven’t seen in months. Some kind of clarity that is rarely there anymore. “If we just got jobs, we could both get out and-”
“I’m not getting a job!” I shout. I am lucky that I am a few inches taller than Molly, because situations like this help me appear more intimidating. But Molly isn’t backing down like she usually does.
“Why not?” she asks. “Three years and I’ve never seen you work. How do I know you’re not just here with me because you want the free rent?” I open my mouth, ready to yell, but my voice is gone. So I stare at my shoes, confused that we’ve somehow switched roles. Since when is Molly the one in charge?
“I am going out,” she announces suddenly, and I watch in amazement as she grabs her jacket and rain boots and hurries out the door. I mean to follow, but my feet feel cemented to the floor.
. . . . . . .
It’s two full days before Molly comes back to the apartment. When she returns, I can tell she’s been to her mom’s house because she has on new, fresh clothes.
She stares at me for a long time, unmoving. I stare right back, refusing to back down or look away.
“Did you even leave the apartment while I was gone?” she asks finally. Her voice is softer again. I can tell that she came back with some sense of resolve, but it is quickly fading. I choose not to answer her question.
“Did you even miss me?” I ask. We both know what I’m doing, but it doesn’t matter because it works.
“Tess,” she says, her voice breaking. “You’re all I thought about.” She is all I thought about too, but I don’t tell her that. I am nothing without her, but I can’t give her that kind of power.
“Don’t do it again,” I say softly. It sounds like a plea, but we both know it’s a demand. When I look her in the eye again, I know it’s going to be all right. The clarity from the other night is gone now, and is replaced with the light fog that leaves her needing me. She won’t do it again.
Later that night Molly begs for a bedtime story. I think it’s childish, but it helps her fall asleep so I do it anyway.
Tonight is a story I made up called The Lion and the Lamb. They live in a land far, far, away, of course. The lion is fearsome and powerful because he is the only lion around. It’s lonely being the lion. The lamb is just one lamb in a flock of many. The lamb finds it is lonely to be the lamb as well. One day, the lion finds the lamb studying too hard in the library, off in a corner by herself. (Here, Molly giggles. My metaphor is falling apart, but she always appreciates when she finds us in the story.) They talk for hours, and they both know it is kismet. Tonight, I add a new ending. When they find each other, they know it would be unwise to ever leave the other. Not just because they were so lost without one another, but because they are like two halves of a whole. Without the other, they are incomplete. Once you find the one who completes you, it’s rather silly to keep searching, expecting to find it somewhere else.
. . . . . . .
Today Molly’s mom showed up at her apartment unexpectedly. Molly and I are in one of our happy moods. We don’t have a CD player, so I am singing loudly into an old toilet paper roll turned makeshift microphone, and Molly is dancing around the room, completely naked. We both laugh like maniacs whenever Molly leaps over the couch and tumbles onto a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. She is in the middle of a drunken-looking pirouette when we hear a knock on the door, and she throws it open without thinking. I have a split second view of her mom’s face, smiling and happy, before it changes in an instant. She gasps at Molly’s nakedness, and pushes her way inside and shuts the door. She grabs a blanket off the bed and wraps Molly in it, and Molly just sits down on the bed and complies, still smiling and happy. I hide the fake microphone behind my back, trying to act nonchalant. It takes another second for Molly’s mom to take in the scene around her, and slowly her hand goes up to cover her mouth. She is in shock, and Molly doesn’t seem to notice or care.
“This place is a mess. What is that smell?”
“Probably the mice,” she says calmly. “I can’t always find them right away when they die.” Her mother stares at her in horror.
“How long has it been since you’ve done laundry? Or taken out your garbage? You’re living like a homeless person!” I can’t help it, I laugh out loud. Molly joins along.
“That’s stupid, homeless people don’t have homes!” I say.
“That’s stupid!” Molly agrees. Her mother glares at her, but then her gaze softens. There isn’t enough anger in her to swallow up her fear.
“I thought you were just stressed with school,” she says softly. “Your senior year… I knew you were having some problems, but this…” Tears fill her eyes as she looks down at her smiling, happy daughter, wrapped up in a dirty comforter, her hair a matted mess against her head.
“What mom? What?” Molly is panicking at her mother’s tears. She hates seeing other people sad. Once we saw a baby crying, and Molly cried right along with it. The baby was soothed long before Molly was.
Her mom wraps her up in her arms and they hug for a long time while I sit in the corner feeling uncomfortable and out of place. Molly doesn’t even notice.
. . . . . . .
After that, Molly’s mom made her get dressed, and then dragged her back home, to the house she grew up in. I had only been there a few times before, usually on quick visits to pick up something or to borrow money for food. It was a small, bright yellow house with a garden in front. On the way inside, Molly cries the whole way up to the front door, because she is so excited to see the flowers starting to peek up from their underground winter prison. Molly and I love spring.
She goes to bed that night in her old room, and I wait until her mom is asleep before I sneak in there with her. When her mom comes to wake her up in the morning, she isn’t even mad that I’m there.
We all go downstairs to the kitchen where there are pancakes with chocolate chip faces smiling back at us.
“Molly, we’re going to see a doctor this afternoon,” her mom says, and her voice sounds strained and phony. Everything about this house looks phony, especially Molly. She’s wearing white and pink pajamas, and her mom made her take a bubble bath that makes her smell like lavender. The smell is making me nauseous, but Molly is just grinning as she eats her pancakes. She loves the extra attention.
“I don’t like doctors,” Molly says flatly.
“This is a different kind of doctor,” her mom replies. “No needles or anything. He’s just going to talk to you. Easy peasy.” She walks around the kitchen, cleaning up the breakfast mess and acting like Molly is eight years old again.
“You know,” I say slowly, “Molly is a grown woman. She doesn’t need you to treat her like a child.” I feel Molly stiffen, and I immediately feel bad for ruining her good mood.
“Shh!” Molly hisses, and though her mom looks at her strangely, she chooses to be the bigger person and not respond to my comment. I sigh as she leaves the room.
“Sorry,” I mutter when I realize Molly is ignoring me.
“I would really love it if you and my mom could get along,” she says softly. I sigh again but force a smile.
“Ok, I will try. That’s all I can do, ok? I promise to try.” Molly nods, and I force another fake smile. “Can I have some of your pancakes? I’m starving.”
. . . . . . .
The doctor’s office is huge and everything is white, white, white. The chairs in the waiting room are uncomfortable and the receptionist is an old lady who looks like she doesn’t want to be there. Molly looks worse. She was fine until we pulled into the parking lot, but now the paleness of her freckles gives her away.
I grab her by the elbow, her mom at her other side, and together we lead her to a chair. Molly is shaking, her skin pale and her eyes vacant. She looks so unlike herself, back in her old clothes. They were ordinary clothes for an ordinary person: slim cut jeans and a blue sweater, both of which hang on her body now because she has lost so much weight. She is wearing her mom's sneakers, because her mom refused to let her leave the house in her pink rain boots. Her mother had looked somewhat angry and deranged when she ripped them out of Molly’s hands and shouted, “You’re not a child anymore, Molly! You can’t wear things like this!”
Personally, I like the rain boots. They suit her. I even picked them out for her.
But her mom is clearly bent on undoing all the work I have done, and wants her to be the same girl she was before she went off to college and met me and grew and changed.
I have tried, many times, to show her that change is good. That Molly is more herself than she ever has been. But she just ignores me, persistent in her efforts to reclaim her daughter.
We don’t have to wait long before the doctor appears and calls us back to his large, open office. There are at least six different places to sit, from couches to love seats to hard plastic chairs. The choices overwhelm Molly, and she buries her head in my shoulder. The doctor just watches patiently, unfazed, until Molly’s mom pulls her over to the big squishy couch. There is room for me there, but I feel uneasy here and figure I should keep my distance. I find an armchair and sit down, my hands in my lap. I stare down at my chipped nail polish and try to ignore Molly’s anxious glances in my direction. Neither of us know what to say.
“Well, where to start,” the doctor says, pulling a chair up right in front of Molly and her mother. The way he positions his chair, he has his back to me. I feel heat rush to my face. Her mother must have told him that I was the problem. She tells everyone that I am the problem. And here, without even letting me state my case, he is purposefully ostracizing me from the conversation.
I see Molly glance over his shoulder at me, clearly frightened. She shakes her head softly, and I can see the silent pleading in her eyes.
“It’s fine, Molly,” I say, a little too loudly. “I’m just a silent observer today.” I don’t mean for it to come out so sarcastic, but it does. Both the doctor and Molly’s mother ignore me.
“Why don’t you tell me why you think your mother wanted you to come and see me today?” Molly’s cheeks flush and she looks down at her hands.
“I don’t know,” she says softly, in her shy little girl voice.
“Don’t be scared of him, Molly!” I say without thinking. “Say whatever you want. Just like the lion. Just tell him-”
“Would it make you more comfortable to speak if we were alone?” the doctor asks, interrupting me.
“No!” Molly says quickly. She looks at me, panic etched across her face. I sigh and sit back in my chair, miming zipping my mouth shut. I toss the imaginary key across the room. Molly sighs in relief. “I guess it was the dancing,” she finally says.
“Dancing?” repeats the doctor.
“Naked dancing. And the mice.”
“What mice?”
“The dead mice.” The doctor sits silently, waiting for her to go on. She doesn’t. The silence drags on for so long I can hear the ticking clock on the wall and it makes my skin crawl.
“She’s talking about yesterday, her mom shows up out of the blue and the apartment was a little messy, and-”
“Stop,” Molly moans, burying her head in her hands. I sigh and throw my hands in the air.
“Well someone needs to explain it to him! You’re just clamming up over there like a scared little idiot!” Molly starts to cry, and I feel bad, but I can’t get to her, not without knocking over the doctor and pushing her mother aside, which I decide wouldn’t be ok.
“It’s this friend of hers, Tess” her mom finally says softly. “They met her Freshman year of college, and that’s when I started to notice Molly changing.”
“Mom, it isn’t Tess’s fault!” Molly exclaims. I bite my tongue. If Molly is willing to stand up for me for once, then I will let her.
“I’m just saying what I’ve observed. That’s all.” I notice then how quiet and shy her mom’s voice can be. This must be where Molly gets it from. Her dad died right before I met her, so I never knew him, but I can’t imagine a man being this timid and shy.
“What is it about Tess that’s changed you?” the doctor asks. A smile slowly spreads across Molly’s face. She looks at me and I smile back.
“Everything,” she says timidly. “We’re always together. She just… she understands me better than anyone. She always has. And she... she fixes me. It’s just… it’s great,” she finishes lamely. “She’s great.”
“Are you in love with Tess?” he asks. I raise my eyebrows at the back of his head. I glance at Molly and shake my head. You don’t have to answer I try to tell her telepathically. That can just be between us.
“It’s not like that,” she says quickly. “I love her, of course. But it’s not like what you’re thinking.”
“And why do you feel like Tess is a problem?” the doctor asks, turning to Molly’s mom. The entire room avoids my gaze.
“Maybe I should go wait out in the hall…” I offer awkwardly. But Molly’s mom goes on without hesitation.
“Just things Molly tells me. Things Tess has said or done. She’s not the same girl anymore, she has changed so much. The way she dresses, the way she talks…”
“Does she dress the way Tess dresses? Talk the way Tess talks?” the doctor asks.
“I don’t know,” Molly’s mom shrugs.
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve never met her.”
Molly looks up at me strangely. I open my mouth to speak, scream, something, but no sound comes out.
“Mom, what are you talking about?” Molly asks, confused.
The room is silent for a long time, Molly and her mom staring at each other strangely, recognition slowly dawning. Molly won’t even look at me.
Finally, the doctor speaks up. “Molly, is Tess here right now?”
I look down in wonder as all my edges grow fuzzy, and if you strain, you can almost see right through me.
. . . . . . .
Hours later, when we are finally alone, Molly finally acknowledges me again. But when she asks me the hard questions, like “Where did you come from?” and “Where is your family?” I can tell it confirms something for her when I can’t answer. And after that, she doesn’t bothering looking at me or talking to me again. Life is on fast-forward after that.
The days turn into weeks, then months and even years. She meets a man, and he sees her normal clothes and her normal shoes and he thinks she must be normal, because he doesn’t see me. But I am there. I am there when they meet on the bus on the way to Molly’s first day at work. I am there at her family Christmas party when he proposes. He doesn’t see, but as he puts that diamond on her finger I see her glance at me. It is quick, it is accidental, but it’s there. She wants to share this with me.
I’m there on their wedding day, and as they buy a home. I’m there when they get a dog, a car, new jobs. I’m there in the hospital when she has a little boy, but she doesn’t look at me once that whole day. Not once. It’s like I’m not there at all.
But after they bring the baby home, I’m really there. I’m getting stronger, fuller, more like myself. And Molly, Molly is coming back to me. She hasn’t spoken to me, but I can see it. She’s putting milk away in the oven and hanging Christmas lights in the kitchen in March, and she’s sad when her husband seems confused by these things. She’s looking at me more and more, and when I talk, she tenses. She hears me. I haven’t had a voice in so long.
. . . . . . .
Tonight is a good night. I feel amazing, like I’ve just eaten the best meal of my life, and I don’t know what it means. I follow Molly around all day, sometimes reaching over to grab her hand. Sometimes, she squeezes my hand quickly before letting it go. She is acknowledging me, for the first time in years, and it is amazing.
The baby is sitting in his high chair, and Molly is pacing the kitchen. She looks upset. She pulls a bottle of pills from the cabinet, and I feel my stomach clench. I know those little green pills. They are the ones that make me invisible again. She turns the bottle over in her hands, prolonging the moment until she has to take one.
“They make me so dizzy,” she says, and I jump in surprise. Her husband isn’t home, and the baby can’t talk yet. She doesn’t talk to herself anymore. Is she talking to me?
She twists the cap off the bottle and dumps a pill into her hand. I sigh and look away, knowing any minute now she will take away my real-ness again. But minutes go by, and I am still there.
I turn back to see her still staring at the pill in her hand, shaking slightly. She looks at the baby, then back at the pill. She is tapping her foot nervously.
“I don’t know how you take those day after day,” I say, hoping maybe this once she will hear me. “You hate the color green.” And just then, she looks at me. She looks me right in the eye, and I know she sees me. I feel different but familiar, like she lit that old candle inside me. I feel warm and alive and real. I watch in wonder as she dumps the whole bottle of pills into the trash.
“I hate the color green,” she says.
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