“Not normal people.” I pick up the pink bear and hold it in front of L’il’s face. “Hello,” I say, in a funny voice. “My name is Peggy and I’d like to explain a few of my rules. But first I need to put on my rubber suit—”
“Carrie, stop,” L’il pleads, but it’s too late. We’re already in stitches.
“Aspirin,” I remind her. “If you were Peggy, where would you keep it?” My eye goes to the top drawer in Peggy’s bedside table. Like everything else in the apartment, it’s cheap, and when I tug on the knob, the whole drawer flies out, spilling the contents onto the floor.
“Now she’s going to kill us for sure,” L’il moans.
“We won’t tell her,” I say, scrambling to pick up the pieces. “Besides, it’s only a bunch of pictures.” I begin gathering the snapshots when I’m startled by what seems to be an image of a naked breast.
I take a closer look.
Then I scream and drop the picture like it’s on fire.
“What is it?” L’il shouts.
I sit down on the floor, shaking my head in disbelief. I pick up the photograph and examine it more closely, still not convinced. But it’s exactly what I thought it was. I shuffle through the other photographs, trying to suppress my laughter. They’re of Peggy, all right, but in each and every one of them she’s buck naked.
And not just any old naked. She’s arranged herself like a model in a porn magazine.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t exactly look like one. “L’il?” I ask, wanting to delve into this mystery of why Peggy would have posed for these photographs and who might have taken them, but L’il is gone. I hear a faint thud as the door to her room closes, followed by the louder bang of the front door. And before I have a chance to move, Peggy is standing over me.
We both freeze. Peggy’s eyes get bigger and bigger as her face turns from red to purple and I wonder if her head is going to explode. She opens her mouth and raises her arm.
The photograph falls from my fingers as I shrink back in fear.
“Get out! Get out!” she screams, swatting at my head. I drop to my hands and knees, and before she can figure out what’s happening, crawl between her legs to the hall. I stand up, run to my room, and shut the door.
She immediately yanks it open. “Listen, Peggy—” I begin, but really, what can I say? Besides, she’s shouting too much for me to get a word in.
“The minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you were trouble. Who do you think you are, coming into my home and going through my things? Where did you grow up? In a barn? What kind of animal are you?”
“A bear?” I want to say. But she’s right. I did violate her privacy. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway. It was worth it to see those naked photos, though.
“I want you, and your stuff, out of here now!”
“But—”
“You should have thought about your ‘buts’ before you went into my room,” she snaps, which doesn’t help much, because after seeing those photographs, all I can think about is her butt. Indeed, I’m so absorbed by the image, I hardly notice her segue into how good it will be for me to spend a night or two on the streets.
The next thing I know, she’s pulling my suitcase out from under the bed and heaving it onto the mattress. “Start packing,” she orders. “I’m going out for twenty minutes and when I get back, you’d better be gone. If you’re not, I’m calling the police.”
She grabs her purse and storms out.
I stand there in shock. The plywood door opens and L’il comes in, white as a sheet.
“Oh, Lord, Carrie,” she whispers. “What are you going to do?”
“Leave,” I say, picking up a pile of my clothes and dumping them into the suitcase.
“But where will you go? This is New York City. It’s night and it’s dangerous. You can’t be out there on your own. What if you’re attacked or end up dead? Maybe you could go to the YMCA—”
I’m suddenly angry. At Peggy and her irrationality. “I have plenty of places to go.”
“Like where?”
Good question.
I slip on the Chinese robe for good luck and snap my suitcase shut. L’il looks dazed, as if she can’t believe I’m going to carry through with my plan. I give her a wan smile and a brief hug. My stomach is clenched in fear, but I’m determined not to back down.