Hello! This is the fifth installment of the twenty-one chapter novel In the Pines by Wells Thompson (that’s me). I’ll be publishing one chapter a week on Substack until it’s all up, so if this is the first one you’re seeing, you can find the previous chapters in the Newsletter backlog. I hope you enjoy the ride!
Queen E5, Sarah thought, resting her chin on her hands which draped over her propped up knee. Everytime she started to concentrate on finding an answer to Dr. Skinner’s questions, she lost focus and thought about board positions and strategy in the twenty four hour game she was playing on her phone. No, the bishop is protected twice and I’d be leaving my B pawn hanging, that attack would never work. She kept plugging away at possible positions, ways to break through her unseen opponent’s defense and soon all she could see was black and white pieces and an eight by eight grid.
“Sarah?” Dr. Skinner asked, pulling her back into reality. “You seem a bit distracted.”
“Sorry, it’s just, I don’t know, not the easiest question…”
“You don’t remember what I asked you, do you?”
Sarah laughed. “No, not at all.”
“That’s okay, what were you thinking about instead?” Sarah wondered if Dr. Skinner actually took any offense, whether it was her therapist training that hid her annoyance or if she was genuinely that sweet of a person.
“It’s nothing, just a game.”
“Like a video game, or…?”
“Chess.”
“Really? Are you any good?”
Sarah shrugged, “I’m okay.”
“We should play! Not right now, but maybe next time, if you’d be comfortable with that.” Sarah was annoyed, not because Dr. Skinner was making an effort, but because it was working. She’d hoped to be impervious to this sort of professional relationship building, that she could sort out her mental trash without growing attached to the garbage collector. But now she found herself warming up to the doctor, like they were becoming friends. The problem was, Sarah knew you weren’t really friends with someone you were paying.
“Maybe, we’ll see.” She pressed her mouth up against her knee and smiled despite herself.
“Anyway, to remind you of the original question, you and your roommate have a pretty intense relationship, or so you seem to indicate. Do you think it’s functional?”
“Oh. I thought that was the sort of thing you were supposed to tell me; let me talk and then say whether or not you think it works.”
“I mean, partly, but I can’t decide anything for you, and I’d like to know your thoughts on it directly, not just examples left and right.” Her notebook laid across her lap threateningly. Sarah could feel a subtle anxiousness whenever she wasn’t writing in it, a fear that she would hear something seemingly innocuous and scrawl it down.
“I’m… not sure. I’d probably say yes, normally, but we’ve been through a lot recently and I just don’t know anymore.” She started picking at her thumbnail. Internally she knew she shouldn’t, it was a dangerous tick and the nail polish was too expensive to be wasting, but she couldn’t help it.
“Okay, well do you want to explore some of that conflict so we can parse it out?”
“Maybe later. It just feels a little too fresh right now to discuss.” Dangerous is what she meant, what they’d been through, what Kayla did wasn’t something you could outright talk about without raising some serious alarms. If it was going to come up, she needed to know how to approach it. She needed to form a defense, know her opponent. She needed strategy.
“That’s understandable, why don’t we take a step back instead?”
“Okay.”
“How do you think your other friends see the two of you? Do you think that things make sense from their point of view?” Sarah dropped her feet to the floor and ran her finger tips down her jeans, absorbing all the bumps and texture and bringing them up to her core.
“Sense is a strong word,” she finally said.
***
The party started at eight, but only a few people showed up before nine thirty, which was basically tradition: if you worked in the restaurant industry, it usually meant you were perpetually late to everything. Also a borderline alcoholic. Beth was still annoyed considering the circumstances: she never invited people over and figured her coworkers might be curious about what her place looked like. At the very least, she expected some enthusiasm for the pot; it was, after all, the first day it was fully legal in the state of Illinois. Not that this changed anyone’s actual smoking habits, but if ever there was an excuse to celebrate, this seemed like it would be appropriate. Incidentally, it was New Year’s Day, not that anyone celebrated the day of.
The first ones there were Sydney and Jeff, two servers Beth couldn’t have felt more opposite about. Jeff was a laid back, genuine guy that Beth frequently found herself confiding in while Sydney was a controlling, overtly bitchy succubus with a sea monkey growing inside her. Neither would make good parents, but Jeff had supposedly resolved to get all his drinking out of the way before the baby came along. Beth believed him to the same extent that she believed Sydney had any maternal instinct at all, having once seen her offer a lighter to a toddler to get it to leave her alone. Regardless, she knew they’d be gone first, or at least that Sydney would get petty and leave Jeff there to get obliterated and hopefully forget that he’s throwing his life away.
Then Ally came, who was only there because she lived there. She came in for all of ten minutes before leaving again, claiming it was to see a movie, but Beth had a suspicion she just felt uncomfortable around crowds. Which suited Beth just fine, she wasn’t exactly built to get along with her roommate anyway. Next came Austin and Caitlyn, two bussers that were too young to drink but didn’t let that stop them. Logan, the cook and Usain, the sous chef showed up as well, and Manuel, who worked in the dish pit tagged along with his wife who spoke English fairly well and translated for him. When Hope came in, Beth didn’t bother greeting her and avoided eye contact as much as possible. She’d drunkenly made a pass at the young hostess a week or two ago and things had been awkward between them since. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would have bothered Beth normally, but it felt more personal than normal this time around and she felt judged every time she approached Hope in the restaurant.
Once people started rolling in, Beth assumed that she’d be able to chill out a little and enjoy the party the way she did at someone else’s place, but something about hosting put her on edge and made her grouchy. Well, grouchier than normal. She found herself throwing down coasters as people set down their drinks and when Logan spilled bong water on the carpet, she had to stop herself from biting his head off even though she’d done the same thing less than a month ago at his place. “You need to relax dude,” Jeff told her pretty early into the night, and even though she knew he was right, it didn’t stop her from telling him to go fuck himself.
It wasn’t for a good ways into the night that Sarah and Kayla, the new girls, came to the party, all done up and wide-eyed like they’d never been to a server hang before. By the time they did, Beth was hardly in the mood to deal with greeting them, but she took a quick shot and marched over to meet them. Sarah dressed like a person, a simple strapped yellow top and jeans, with the usual attention to detail on the makeup that she always employed. Kayla, normally proudly wearing the fact that she just got out of bed all over her face, went all out in a loud, bright red cocktail dress and an eyeshadow that tastefully rode the line between clown and fancy prostitute. Beth couldn’t tell who she was trying to impress, but she had people turning their heads, though that may have been from the curiosity of seeing her like this at all.
She decided to be nice, or try anyway since they were new to the restaurant, and offered them both a drink. That night, she was serving Death Punch, a fruity concoction with everclear, rum, vodka, and quite a bit of kool aid. Sarah immediately declined, “Thanks, but I don’t really drink. Besides, I’m probably going to have to drive Kayla home.”
“She’s not wrong,” Kayla said as she downed her drink, then took Sarah’s and started tossing back that one as well.
“Well, you’re gonna fit right in after all,” Beth said, smirking at Kayla.
“Thanks for inviting us,” Sarah said, “we might not stay long though, we don’t really know anybody, so—”
“What are you talking about?” Kayla demanded, “It’s a party, we’ll meet people!” She threw her arm around Sarah and Beth saw that there was a large, plastic bandage on her right arm. She’d gotten enough tattoos to know that Kayla had one recently done, maybe even earlier that day. Sarah shrunk a little, looking to the side and seeming like she would prefer to run than go any further into the house.
“Come on, there’s probably food!” Kayla grabbed Sarah’s arm and led her to the next room. “Good seeing you Beth!” She called back. Beth took a drink and toured the house to make sure that nothing was broken. For the most part, everything seemed fine, certainly less messy than some parties she’d been to. People gathered on the couch and built wizard staffs out of beer cans, there was gossip around the refrigerator about people in the other room, and the porch in the backyard was filled with people shivering their asses off while smoking what smelled like very potent weed. For a moment, she almost relaxed and had a drink, though she couldn’t quite get a nagging out of her head. It started with the realization that the drink was mixed wrong: you shouldn’t be able to taste any alcohol at all if you did it right, but this tasted like a hangover in reverse.
Then she walked into the other room and realized that someone she hadn’t invited was peeing in her fish bowl. “What the fuck are you doing?” She asked before he turned his full body, still urinating, and fell off the chair, breaking a cheap vase and laughing as he tried to zip his pants back up. “You’re cleaning that shit up!” She screamed at him and ran to the kitchen to get him a broom and a towel. While she was there, she grabbed a bottle out of Austin’s hand mid chug.
“What the Hell?” He yelled, a mouthful of liquid cascading between his teeth.
“That’s olive oil you moron.”
“Oh. Well I may as well finish it.” Beth thumped him on the ear and sent him out of the kitchen. By the time she got back to the bedroom, the mystery pisser was gone, nothing picked up and stain already beginning to form on the floor. Just as Beth had finished sopping up the mess herself, she heard thundering from the living room. Can I just get five second without something going wrong? She thought, dragging her feet to see what was happening in the living room. As she got closer, she recognized that people were chanting and when she entered the room, she could hear the name clearly and suddenly it felt like she was at a hockey game.
“Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!” Chanted the crowd of drunk idiots and Beth worked her way toward the action.
“What’s going on?” Beth asked, elbowing Logan in the ribs.
“Sarah’s on fire!” he replied in amazement. When Beth could see in the circle that formed, she saw that a beer pong board had been fashioned from her dinner table. Caitlyn and Jeff were on one side with Sarah and Kayla on the other. Sarah and Kayla’s pyramid of cups was still completely intact, while Jeff and Caitlyn only had one cup left, the rest pushed to the side and the ball rolling back across the table for Sarah to throw again. “She hasn’t missed a shot yet!” He said after drinking from a cup that Beth was certain had a joint floating in it.
The chanting grew louder as Sarah dipped the ball in the water of one of her cups and when she readied her arm to take the shot, everyone stopped and no one wanted to break the silence. Sarah’s eyes were fixed with the focus of a Jedi Master of beer pong. It almost wasn’t surprising when she finally threw the ball and hit the water inside so decisively that it splashed up in Jeff’s face as he half attempted to poke it out before it could count as a victory. The crowd exploded and cheered Sarah’s name again, and her expression melted from intense focus to unbelievable glee, like she’d just had a box of kittens dumped on her. She turned around and hugged Kayla, who spun her around and then lifted Sarah’s hand up in victory. As Sarah reveled in the moment, Kayla’s eyes were glued to Sarah’s face with a smile Beth recognized was pride. Then the moment collapsed as everyone around them started nudging Sarah and asking her to play a game with them. Kayla slipped out and made her way to Beth, who couldn’t help but be endeared. “Do you have a smoke?” She said, and pointed Beth to the patio.
The shift of noise from inside to out was startling and, for a second, all Beth could hear was a piercing wail that she couldn’t identify. Was it noise pollution from spending too much time around her drunk, belligerent coworkers, or were the cicadas already out at this time of year? Either way, it faded and she could hear herself when she talked. She could hear Kayla too, more or less. Kayla didn’t waste any time lighting up the borrowed cigarette and leaned back in the wooden bench, eyes half closed and still smiling. “Hell of a game in there,” Beth said when she realized Kayla wasn’t going to start talking.
“Yeah, that was all Sarah, I didn’t hit a single cup,” Kayla chuckled.
“Do you guys play a lot?”
“Nope, first time. Beginner’s luck, I guess.”
“That’s impressive. You guys from here?”
“No, we just moved here like a week before we started working at the Brick House.”
“Dope, where from?”
“I’m originally from Jupiter and Sarah’s a mermaid who has to get back to the sea by midnight or she’ll fish out all over the place.” Kayla laughed at herself and drank a little more of the punch. “Or, you know, around St. Louis.”
“Why’d you move up north? The weather?” The more Beth talked to Kayla, the more she realized she didn’t hate her, which was more than she could say for most people.
“Just needed a new start, I guess. Another new start. I don’t know how many new starts you can get, but we’re on our second, so there you go.”
“Oh damn, spill! Crazy exes? Town overrun by a pack of wild dogs? Dickhead parents?”
Kayla’s smile dropped and she looked almost exhausted. “We don’t have parents. Sarah and I grew out of the ground like plants.”
“Heh. My folks were super helicoptery, asking me to clean up this or that, telling me I need to be responsible for blah, blah, blah. I always hated it. Now I’m looking at this party and I almost wish they were around to bail me out of it...” She took another drag and suddenly felt uncomfortable with the silence. Kayla started scratching at her bandage. “New tattoo?”
Kayla looked down at the plastic covering her arm. “I keep forgetting it's there, is that weird?” Before Beth could say yes, Sarah opened the sliding glass door to the patio and closed it behind her, swaying slightly like she was dancing and smiling like an idiot. Kayla sighed and smiled at Sarah as she sat down beside her.
“Hey girlie,” she said with a rasp.
“Hey you,” Sarah replied, “thanks for dragging me out tonight. I’m actually having a lot of fun.”
“Told you!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t let it get to your head.” They laughed and suddenly Beth was on the outside of a private moment.
They sat in silence for a moment and Beth let her eyes unfocus. “You ever think about what you want to do with your lives?” Beth liked to ask these types of questions when she needed to make everyone as uncomfortable as she was, she liked to see people panic and scramble for an answer that sounded impressive.
Sarah didn’t scramble, instead scrunching her mouth up in thought before saying, “I used to want to be a teacher, but you need a degree for that, so I guess I’m happy with this.” She nudged Kayla with her shoulder. “What about you?”
Kayla chewed on her knuckle and stared out with a blank expression. “I don’t understand the question, and I won’t answer it.” Beth couldn’t help but laugh, it was a refreshingly honest response. Kayla leaned her head on Sarah’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “You’re soft.” She reached out to Sarah’s arm and, without looking, Sarah laced her fingers between Kayla’s in a way that seemed more instinct than an active decision.
“I think you’ve had a few too many.” It didn’t sound worried though, it was almost expected.
“It was just really strong. I’m fine—,” Kayla said, and immediately passed out. Beth finally felt her discomfort disappear as Sarah kept smiling even with her roommate collapsed on top of her. Suddenly, a sharp sting swept across Beth’s back as she realized she wasn’t inside and that her house was likely being destroyed. She swallowed and fought the urge to get up and leave Sarah in the cold.
“So, I hear you grew out of the ground?” Beth finally said after a long drag.
“Like a potato, yup. Why do you ask?”
“Just wanted to verify. She said you guys were orphans or something.”
Sarah sighed, “Oh, that. Can we not talk about that?”
“No one’s forcing you.”
“I don’t know. We don’t talk to them anymore. I guess we both have our own reasons for that.”
“And now you’re talking about it.” Beth was curious if Sarah was actually paying attention to what was being said by either party or if she was purely distracted by Kayla’s hair brushing against her nose.
Sarah laughed, it was a sweet kind of giggle that absolved her of blame. Beth couldn’t tell if it had been practiced or if it just came naturally. “Kayla always lies about it, even to me. I don’t know, maybe that’s her way of robbing them of their power over her, but if you have to change all of yourself to avoid even mentioning someone you don’t talk to, isn’t that worse?”
“Well, it seems to be working for her.”
“You think?”
“How would I know. We all have our fuck ups and e all deal with them in equally unhealthy ways.” Sarah smiled and wrapped her arm around Kayla, whose soft wheezing was turning into a full snore.
“What makes you say that?”
“I’m a waiter. Unhealthy coping mechanisms are the backbone of our lifestyle.”
Sarah chuckled. “Is it unhealthy to just want things to be normal?”
“Not necessarily, but who wants to be normal. Normal is so boring.”
“I could maybe use a little boring.” Sarah attempted to prop Kayla up, but she was out cold.
“Do you need help with her?”
“No thanks,” Sarah said, and in a smooth motion, picked Kayla up over her shoulder. She didn’t look big enough to do it, but she walked around with ease and didn’t seem to mind it at all.
“You headed out?” Beth said, still a little in her cup, “Are you sure you’re good?”
“Yeah, I can make it to the car. Thanks for offering.”
“Hey?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Kayla not to scratch her tattoo or it’ll get all messed up.”
“Oh, thanks, she has the worst impulse control. She wasn’t even planning on getting it, just walked in this morning on a whim and got it done.”
“What’d she get? A flaming skull with daggers and snakes?” Beth could think of nine people with that tattoo who all thought it was the most badass thing in the world.
“It’s a seal. A harp seal, I think. We were talking about them the other day.”
“Oh? Are they cute?”
“Yeah, but they’re terrible. Did you know they only raise their young for a couple of days and then they just bail?”
“Really? That’s shitty.”
“Yeah. Cute animals are usually the worst.”
Beth smiled, “You’re telling me.” Then she watched Sarah put Kayla in the back seat and drive away. When she looked back in the house she had a moment of panic that it might be on fire, but it soon subsided. Through the window, she could see the gremlins on the couch were on their ninth beer, each empty can duct taped to the next, a tall, unwieldy staff that leaked all over the floor every time they tipped it upside down to drink. She knew she’d have to clean all this up, either that night or in the morning, that Ally would complain loudly while refusing to help her at all. But, fuck it, she finally thought. Tonight was for celebrating, she could worry in the morning.
This story is considered a work in progress for legal reasons.
© 2024 Wells Thompson
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.