Chapter 12: Finally Phyla

12. Finally Phyla

I could still taste the Johnny Marzetti and the cheddar cheese they had draped all over it as I sat in the common room after lunch. The green beans had been pretthy much tasteless but somehow they still lingered on my my tongue. The tiny square of apple crisp hadn’t been enough to quell the taste of the other food in our Tuesday lunch.

I had felt conspicuous eating alone, dressed in a yellow sundress when the everyone else was in their regular t-shirts and jeans, as if I was expecting a date to drive up in a snazzy car to whisk me away from my imprisonment. Of course I was self-conscious of my unshaved legs, but I reminded myself that I was pretty, that I deserved to do myself up a bit once and a while, for as much as any of could there at Holshue House.

The after lunch free period was generally thought of as nap time. Almost all the other residents went to their respective room to sleep off lunch before it was time for afternoon classes, leaving the common room was quiet except for the distant sound of water spraying and dishes clattering as the kitchen crew cleaned up a few doors away.

Outside the late summer Southern sun burnt the grass to a dry brown. I could see it through a pair of French doors that led out to the side veranda. I remembered the sensation of hot sun on my face. Allison thought about the sprinkler and dancing naked with James again, which then of course shut her down once again. It was all just as far away as if I was looking at it on a television screen, since we were not allowed out of the building at all.

If only I could lie in the sun and if only it would cleanse me of the image, the taste and the smell of that man, a ghost-man lying in his own piss and blood. I knew that he would be there still – his suffering never-ending, while I dreamed of sunshine and gardens. Or at least tried to.

A large, chunky crew-cut guy in a Holshue House polo startled me as he came in through one of the doors, carrying a box of something or other that he then took out into the hall and down towards the kitchen. I could hear the squeak of his shoes on the tile. He shuffled when he walked, and smelled of the summer heat.

There was a leer in his look as he scanned my exposed hairy legs. It made me shift uncomfortably in my chair and to cross my legs in defense. Nearly all of staff was female, and now that I thought about it I realized that I had never seen Erika’s boyfriend anywhere else around the school, only that time in the basement. I wondered if he worked the grounds crew or something, but he wasn’t the old man whom I seen riding the lawn tractor when I had watched out these doors a couple of days before.

Then I realized something else. The door hadn’t locked. I could tell that it was slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of that outside brightness. After the man had disappeared into the kitchen I was alone again. No one would be there to see me slip out the door, away from the whispering walls and the coldness, away from Erika’s scheming and Michele’s condescension.

Looking around to verify that no one was watching I went up to the door and put my hand on the knob. I was only seconds from being outside, maybe only minutes from freedom, if I could find a way through the fence, perhaps even climbing it with the aid of the trees I had seen from my bedroom window.

But before I could tug the knob a slender russet-colored hand rested on top of mine. It was her hand, her beautiful perfect hand and the skin was just as soft as I had imagined it. “Don’t. It’s a trap, a test.” She whispered.

Fire rushed down my arms and through my body. My heart was pounding in my ears. Just the feel of her skin was the most sensuous caress I had ever felt, its warmth magical. Davie had touched parts considered more private in our make-out sessions, but I had never felt anything like this, all just from her hand resting on mine. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, but I could feel the heat of her body, only inches from me. I began to quiver with nervousness, and that made me feel foolish. Would she say something about my peeking at her last night? I couldn’t help but see her breasts in my mind, her panty-covered ass.

“The alarm will go off and they’ll be all over you like flies on dog poop. You’ll get in big trouble and maybe even given extra time for an escape attempt.”

“But, I saw him, that guy, just walk …”

“His tag deactivates the alarm long enough to let him do that. It also opens doors to restricted areas. They guard those tags like gold.”

I nodded quietly, still awash in the warmth of her skin, still staring at the long delicate digits of her hand, still not looking at her.

With her other hand she touched my cheek and turned my face to look into the deep brown of her eyes, so close that I could smell her breath. “Don’t,” was all she said at first and I didn’t know if she meant don’t try to leave, or if we were talking about something else entirely. “Don’t be like this.”

I still didn’t know what to say.

“If it matters, I didn’t mind you looking at me last night. It … I was doing that on purpose. I already knew about the window trick because I peeked at you … some.”

For the first time in a long time I smiled, and I realized that she was smiling at me.

Then she leaned in close, her cheek actually touching mine as she whispered into my ear, “We are the same, so don’t be ashamed.”

I finally had to say something, so I introduced myself, “I’m Allison.”

“I know. I’m Phyla. Come. Let’s talk. Away from the door. You’re going to make them nervous, because they also have a camera pointing at this door.” Her brown eyes flicked upwards, and then she shook her head, telling me not to look, as my own eyes looked to the ceiling to see the little plastic bubble housing the camera lens.

I pulled my eyes back down to her soft oval face, mesmerized, still unable to speak, but able to nod that I understood. Somehow it felt like we had done this before.

“Come,” she pulled me by the hand, leading me out of the common room, through a hallway where she grabbed a couple of sodas from a cart that was sitting there – I don’t know if that was legal or not, but she had a confidence in doing it that somehow insured me that we were not going to get in trouble over two plastic bottles of soda.

Still pulling me by the hand she led me up the stairs, but then right past the doors for the second and third floors and through a door that led to a narrower staircase which took us on up into a fourth floor hallway I had never known existed.

A musty smell mixed with the smell of cleaning products as we moved through a dim hallway with a ceiling that was not nearly as high as the ones of the lower levels. The doors we passed were all closed and quiet. At the far end of the hall, where one of the dormers looked out over the back lawn to the woods beyond, there was an alcove, tucked out of view of the hallway, with an old brown leather couch, its surface gently cracked in a map of its storied history.

For a little bit I was frightened with the thought that I had no idea who this girl was, and remembering that none of us got into Holshue House without having committed some crime. But then, as she smiled and sat down at one end of the couch, I relaxed. Perhaps I was even more afraid of my own darkness than of hers, of not knowing myself beyond having been a spider under the microwave. And at the same time I was captivated by a reckless desire to touch her again, more.

I sat down, and without a word we screwed off the lids of our respective sodas. She held up her bottle to a toast and I did the same. “To getting away. For a little while,” she whispered.

I nodded, still finding my ability to speak, still unsure what to say.

She whispered at first, gradually letting her voice come up to a normal volume. “This is where Mad Maggie lives, so no one ever comes up here, except for the men who clean up the messes that she makes and bring her food regularly.”

“Oh,” was all that I could think of to say.

“I don’t know if she’s really mad, or just likes to keep to herself. She never comes out, and there are no cameras up here. I think they want to forget about her.”

It still sounded like something that should make me nervous. “So what kind of messes does she make?”

“You know, just the usual stuff. Vomit. Pee. Shit.”

I looked nervously over my shoulder.

“I think that she does it just so she can have a private space up here because she doesn’t like to interact with the rest of us. There must have been an incident which put her up here to begin with, but …” and she stopped. Her brown eyes seemed to be riveted on me, studying me.

“But what?” I asked, still a little concerned what Mad Maggie might do if she found us up here in her domain.

She smiled. “We’re not here to talk about her. I want to talk about you.”

“Okay,” I answered, nervous that she would find out too much too soon.

“Whom did you kill?” she asked quite seriously and then smiled again. I liked the way she had said the “whom” with force, showing off her grammar mastery.

“A boy. I mean it was kind of an accident …”

“Your boyfriend?”

“No. But my boyfriend was in the back seat making out with my best friend, and he had her shirt off, and I was shit-face drunk, and driving real fast. And I saw them back there, with him feeling her up, and I was driving fast, and then I kind of rolled the car. And I was the only one wearing a seat belt.” I couldn’t believe that I had just spouted all of that in one long breath. I took a deep breath and let it out in the ensuing silence.

“That was smart of you, wearing a seat belt.”

“But not the driving fast and drunk, particularly since I don’t even have a license. And …” I had to stop. The rest, about how they found us with me on top of Brianna, trying to make out with her even though she was only semi-conscious, was way too much to be sharing with anyone.

“Were you jealous about what your boyfriend was doing with your friend?” It was almost like she was aiming right for the truth with a laser.

“Yes, but not really. Not in the way you’re probably thinking. It was more that I wanted to be him, doing what he was doing with Brianna.” Then I started to cry because I realized that I had just revealed my interest in girls to this girl that I hardly knew. I looked down at the floor and felt the warm tears on my cheek, cooling and evaporating on their way down to my chin.

Then I felt Phyla’s hand on my face, her thumb brushing the tears across my cheeks. With her palm under my chin she pulled my face up to look at her again, biting her lip, a bit nervous about what she was about to say. “It’s okay. I’m that way too. And right now I want to do this.”

With that she eased her face to mine, and her lips found my lips, just lightly kissing them and then pulling back a little. Just that, the hand on the cheek and the feather touching of lips, sent a warm wave down through my whole body. I had done plenty of kissing with Davey and even a couple of other boys before that, but the feeling had been nothing like this.

I reached up with both hands and pulled her face back to mine, kissing her softly, trying to imitate what she had just done to me. But then I needed more and I pushed harder, my lips more hungry for hers, my tongue tracing the edges of her lips, her gradually reaching into my mouth. We fell back sideways into the back of the couch, and we just kept kissing. Time disappeared. I wanted it to never stop, and then I felt the warm melt wash through my body, all while not touching anything but face and lips.

Finally we paused and pulled back, her brown eyes gleaming as she looked right into mine. “I take it that’s a yes?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t at all sure what I was saying yes to, but I did know that I wanted it, whatever it was, wanted her in any way that she would have me.

From her pocket she pulled a men’s watch, one that that been a wrist watch, but which she now had attached to her belt loop with a short macramé cord. “Naptime is nearly over and we have to be in math in sixteen minutes, and actually, we’re not supposed to be up here at all, so we have to go. When we get to the bottom of the stairs you go out ahead of me, on my signal. I’ll follow two minutes later.”

I nodded to show I was listening to the instructions.

She continued, “Jeremy won’t come up for Maggie’s lunch tray until after we’re all in class. If we’re careful we can keep this as our secret little place as long as we don’t over-use it.

“Okay,” I said again. I felt like I had been saying it much too much, but I didn’t know if there was anything else to say. I stood up and straightened my dress. It was wrinkled in places, but only someone like my mother would have noticed. Girls here were very casual about how their clothes look.

“I really like the dress,” Phyla added as we started down the stairs. “You look really pretty today. And every day for that matter.”

I smiled, wanting to return the complement, but not knowing what to say. We descended the rest of the way in silence.

At the first floor I looked nervously down towards the basement. I wanted to tell her about the ghosts that had caused me to vomit the day before, but there was no time. And I didn’t want her to think that I was crazy. I had no idea if she would be able to see them, or to feel them, as Michele did.

At the door she pulled out her watch and held her finger up telling me to wait for her signal. She gave me a little peck on the cheek and then whispered, “I’m glad we’re us again, Gesama.”

I startled to hear it again, again wondering if it was some term of endearment. I realized that I hadn’t even told her my name. “You do know that my name is Allison, don’t you?”

She smiled again, still watching the second hand on her watch. “Gesama is your spider self.” And then shoving me towards the door. “Go now! We’ll talk later.”

And I was out into the hallway, heading to common room to retrieve the bookbag that I had left there, and then on to math class, so confused about so much.