Not Our House, first draft

Nighttime wanderings, and somehow we ended up in a house that wasn’t ours.

My eyes were on hers all night, this girl named Kat I met the other day. Kat for Katie or Kat for Katherine, I didn’t know. Didn’t care. She had short, dark hair and a piercing in her lip, a ring circling the lower left. Laughed a lot, and her lips curled in a slight, knowing way when she did. She had long, slender fingers that danced along flat surfaces when she thought. She wore a silver bracelet on her left wrist, and I’d heard her telling Eric that she’d been wearing it since she was a child.

It was Eric who suggested the house, suggested our going into it. We were in his neighborhood and I was stoned out of my mind. So were we all—that would be Eric and Kat and also Jamie, who was the girl with Eric. She knew Kat somehow from somewhere, I think from college, but I hadn’t been listening during introductions. A weekend home from school, back on the circuit in the hometown and roaming the streets just like the old days, common practice for Eric and me in our prime. He had the brilliant idea of the house, said he knew the owners were out of town. He cut their grass when he wasn’t telemarketing from his couch. That’s what Eric did, made phone calls from his couch. Dropped out of school to do it, because he made a lot and lived with his parents. Gotta find myself, Harrison, he’d told me. Maybe someone I talk to will tell me the secrets to life. Then he smiled. I’ll offer them a free stay in Bermuda in return, after they give me their email address and fill out an online survey.

Dead quiet, this house. Silent as mice, as a cricket with its wings cut off, we crept around to the back, quieter than the house. Jamie tripped and we all had to stop and breathe very hard and very deep to keep from laughing out loud, and we stood there for a good long while because we were laughing at everything, really, and Jamie nearly falling into a hydrangea bush was almost too much.

Eric shushed us, placed his finger to his lips in a grand gesture and shook his head, all the while trying to hold back a laugh from erupting.

“Okay, okay,” Kat said. “Shh, yes, okay. Stop making that face, Eric!”

Jamie kicked at the hydrangea bush. “Piece of shit bush,” she said.

“Don’t do that,” Eric said. He shifted the backpack slung over his shoulder, checked to make sure everything was still inside.

I kicked the bush. “Yeah, fuck Bush.” Kat snorted, held her delicate fingers to her mouth and stifled a laugh.

“Seriously, let’s go,” Eric said, motioning toward the gate. We followed, and I couldn’t get the Scooby-Doo theme song out of my head.

“What are you smiling about?” Kat said.

I paused, looked around. “Jinkies. Like, wow, Scoob!”

Jamie and Eric turned back to us. “Be quiet!” they said, and then we all stopped and laughed, hands over our mouths, stood again for a good long while because everything was just too goddamn funny.

Finally at the back door after creeping onto the deck and making a game of dodging birdfeeders in the yard. Eric grabbed the key, though I couldn’t see from where, and thanked the “security of suburbia,” which meant nothing at all.

Then we were in the door and in the house and standing silently because no one knew what to do. We were in the kitchen, and I noticed first that I could see everything well, and that puzzled me because it was night, wasn’t it? But then I saw the light coming from the microwave, a bright, insistent yellow, and that made sense, because those microwave lights were always on, and that light showed me how clean the place was, and I noticed the curtains and the placemats matched, or were of a similar style: little red apples and green stems along some artsy brown background with swirls and splotches of color. Very fall, very autumn, very appropriate. The kitchen had an island and tiled floor. I took my shoes off to feel the cold of the tile, and the others followed suit.

“Let’s find the TV,” Eric said. “Ed—that’d be Ed Roebeck, this is his house we’re in, how nice of him to let us stay (Eric motioned for us to say thank you, and we did: “Thanks, Ed,” sounding oddly somber)—Ed told me a couple weeks ago that they’d got a new TV, a plasma. Let’s check that baby out.” We followed to the family room, peering here and there along the way. I opened a door in the kitchen.

“The pantry!” Eric and Jamie and Kat turned and looked at me. “I found the fucking mother lode. This pantry is huge.”

Eric scratched his head, paused and ran his fingers through his curly hair a few times, savoring the feeling, I guess, like I was doing with my toes on the tile, scrunching them up and relaxing them, shifting my feet and finding new cold spots to stand on. “I’m not hungry yet,” he said.

“Me either,” Jamie said. She grabbed Eric’s hand. “Let’s go, I want to watch TV.”

I grabbed a granola bar of some kind and handed it to Kat. “Healthy munchies, I guess.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m—” She spread her arms wide and stretched, yawned, shook her head, smiled at me, “—so out of it right now,” and we joined the others.

Crowded on the couch, the four of us, watching infomercials in high definition and marveling at the glorious uselessness of the products they advertised. Eric was passing around a bottle of vodka, just a small one, enough to keep us buzzing along. There was more in his backpack, and some more weed in there somewhere. I was done with that stuff; I’d never been a big smoker. Then it was “Billy Mays, here!” and I didn’t know what he was advertising because all I could think about was how close Kat was and how warm her body felt.

I looked at her through the corner of my eye, saw her fingers twisting and turning the granola bar, not keeping still, expending nervous energy. She seemed engrossed in whatever Billy Mays was saying, but I thought I saw her turn her head ever so slightly to get a look at me. It could have been the light. I was getting tired of infomercials, although Eric seemed to love watching them, and Jamie loved anything he loved.

A few minutes later Kat elbowed me in the side, and my stomach dropped for just a second. I turned to her, saw her eyes were wide, her lips twisting to a grin. She put a finger to my lips, then moved her eyes toward Eric and Jamie. I followed her gaze, then closed my eyes in silent mirth.

Eric and Jamie were, of course, enjoying one another’s company a bit too much, too much for me, at least. I didn’t even hear them over the TV. They were oblivious to Kat and I. “What do we do?” I mouthed.

Kat mouthed something back, though all I caught was ‘fuck’ and ‘out.’ I stood up and grabbed Kat’s hand, pulled her to her feet as she grabbed the bottle of vodka, and we stumbled out of the room. Just in time: on the way into the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder and saw Jamie’s shirt come off.

I led Kat out of the kitchen, each of us shaking with laughter. I kept walking because the kitchen was too close and I wanted to get her alone, because the alcohol and general environment had me feeling far too confident.

I found the stairs and we walked to the second floor, quietly now and no longer laughing, though I noticed she hadn’t pulled her hand out of mine; if anything, she was holding it tighter. I stopped at the top of the stairs, unsure of where to go. She pulled me into a room and closed the door.

Kat threw herself on the bed and sighed, a heavy, exhilarated sigh, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. The room was dark, but not too dark. There was a nightlight plugged into the wall, casting shadows all around. Kat reached over and turned on the lamp next to the bed. I noticed apple wallpaper near the ceiling, a strip that ran around the room. This family had some sort of apple or autumnal fetish.

“God, I’m starving now,” Kat said. She opened up the granola bar as I sat on the edge of the bed, thinking very quietly in the back of my head that perhaps we shouldn’t be turning lights on in the house, because weren’t the owners supposed to be out of town? Of course, a lot of houses had those light timers, but who really used those anymore. A lot of houses? I shook my head, tried to clear my thoughts. Saw the vodka bottle and took a swig.

“Fuck my thoughts,” I said.

“What?” Kat said. She tossed the granola wrapper to the side. “Oops, I missed the trash can.” She leaned over, her chest and torso hanging off the bed. “Hey, Harrison, grab my legs.” She giggled. “I can’t reach it, it fell under the bed. No, wait, it’s under the side table. What was this thing, it was so good.”

I grabbed her legs at her calves. “Ow, don’t squeeze so hard.”

“Oh, sorry.” I loosened my grip. Her legs were strong, toned. I could tell even through her jeans.

“S’okay. Help me up, I can’t find it anyway.” I pulled her back onto the bed and toward me. She turned around onto her back, positioned so that she was looking directly at me. “You’re cute,” was all she said. My mind blanked, and I noticed that her eyes were blue like mine, and that her left ear had three piercings while her right ear only had one, just one silver stud.

Then her face froze up, and her eyes widened, and her breath came fast and labored. I backed off toward the edge of the bed, looking down and around. Had I been sitting on her? “Kat, are you—?”

“I can’t. Breathe,” she said. Her face was red and her lips were curled in a grimace, and all I could think was that her smile curled like that, except no, not like that, not pulled back to show all her teeth, straight teeth, pretty teeth.

“Kat? Kat, look at me. Sit up, here, sit up.” I tried to pull her to a sitting position, lean her against the pillows on the bed. Her breaths came faster and shorter and her face was red, really red now, and I could have sworn that it was swollen and inflating like a balloon, a red balloon with short dark hair and a lip piercing, though for some reason it wasn’t popping even with a piece of curved metal puncturing its skin. Her fingers twitched and her hands opened and closed like she had no control of them, and then her arms started to shake, and I noticed the bracelet on her arm, shiny and silver, a flat metal rectangle engraved with words connecting the silver strands, and suddenly I realized what it was. I thrust her arm close to my eyes and read the metal tab, and of course I was correct: An allergen bracelet. Kat was allergic to peanuts, to fucking peanuts, and she was the worst kind of allergic that there was.

I wanted to laugh hysterically. I jumped onto the ground and looked frantically for the wrapper of the granola bar, because that must have been what set it off. I couldn’t find it and then Kat groaned from atop the bed and I gave up my search and looked at her again, saw her face was swollen and red and her neck was splotched with color and her eyes

(blue like mine)

were shaking in their sockets. “Hang on a sec, Kat, just hang on a sec.” I bolted for the door, threw it open and yelled for Eric.

No answer. I ran down the stairs. “Eric, sonofabitch, Eric, answer me!”

“What, Harrison, Jesus Christ keep your voice down, what?” He met me in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, wearing his boxers. He saw the light from the open room upstairs. “Why is there a light on? No one is here, man, we can’t have fucking lights on!”

“Eric, something’s wrong with Kat, I think she’s having an allergic reaction to something, to a granola bar, she’s got a bracelet on and it says she’s allergic to peanuts, to goddamn peanuts and now she’s red and her face is swollen and I don’t think she can’t breathe, Eric, she can’t fucking breathe.”

“Oh,” Eric whispered, then ran upstairs.

“Eric,” I called, running after him. “What do we do? We can’t call the police from here, this isn’t our house, we broke into this place and we’re fucking high and—”

“Harrison?” It was Jamie. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with Kat?” She was only wearing a shirt. The light from the TV played odd blue shadows on her across the hall.

I stopped halfway up the stairs. “She’s having a reaction to something, I think it’s peanuts. Look, just stay there for a sec, okay?”

“What? Harrison, she’s allergic to those, how did she eat peanuts?” Jamie ran toward the stairs. I ignored her and ran into the room.

Eric had Kat straddled and was pressing on her chest, putting his ear by her mouth, pressing on her chest, all the rotes of CPR. I used to know CPR, years ago in the eighth grade. Took a course because—there was no reason, someone was offering it for free and I took the course because I could. CPR, I don’t know how to do CPR. I froze at the door, watching Eric press and listen and breathe.

Jamie, crying. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Call 911,” Eric said. “I don’t think so. Call 911. I don’t have my phone. Harrison, where’s your fucking phone?”

“Eric, we can’t do that, we have to get her out of here.” Jamie tried to interrupt me but I yelled over her. “This isn’t our house. They can’t come here and find us here, Eric. It’s not our house, and I’m not going to jail!”

“Fuck you, Harrison,” Jamie said. She ran downstairs.

Eric was pushing harder and faster on Kat’s chest. Her arms were loose, her hands still, for once. “Eric,” I said. “Eric, we can’t, we have to get her back to my place, or your place, anywhere but here, Eric. Can’t you see that?” I shook my head and took a breath, closed my eyes and opened them. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Shut up, Harrison, I don’t know if she’s okay, okay?” He breathed into her mouth again. “I can’t tell.” He was talking to himself. “I can’t tell.”

Jamie, downstairs somewhere, crying into her phone. Did she even know our address? Eric, pushing and listening and breathing. Kat was still. God, she was still.

I sat down in the doorway and leaned the back of my head against the frame, quiet, my hands shaking and my heart pounding. The house was silent but for the sound of crying, the sound of breathing, the sound of stillness.