Gregory Girls Gone Wild - Chapter 26: Chapter 26

Rainey sat on the couch in her living room, wrapped in a blanket and staring at a laptop screen.
"Tomorrow?" she grunted. The grunt was a question directed at her sister.
Mariah was frowning thoughtfully at the window, her back against the living room wall and her hand firmly gripping a cup of hot chocolate. She had offered Rainey a cup five minutes ago. Rainey had said no.
"Tomorrow works for me," Mariah said. "But shouldn't we call Mom before we get on a bus back to Wisconsin?"
Rainey mumbled something under her breath.
"What was that?" Mariah asked loudly.
"I said," Rainey raised her voice. "If you're so worried about Mom, why don't you call her?"
Mariah raised an eyebrow. "I forgot how much of a grouch you can be."
Scowling, Rainey returned her attention to the screen.
"And you look terrible," Mariah added unhelpfully. "Have you not taken a shower since Jessica's party?"
Rainey covered her ears with her hands.
After a pause, Mariah sighed and pulled out her phone. She stared at it for a lengthy minute, as if she'd rather do anything but contact their mother.
Rainey focused on the screen. Specks of dirt obscured the words on the website. She didn't bother cleaning it—no energy, no point. Nothing more to it than that.
It had been three days since Jessica's party. Three days of absolute ennui.
Mariah dialed the number.
Rainey listened to the faint phone rings echoing in the air and she wanted to kill herself.
"Hello?"
At the sound of her mother's raspy voice, small tears formed in Rainey's eyes.
"Mom." Mariah cleared her throat. "It's me. Rainey's here too. You're on speaker."
"Hey, girls!" Georgina said, sounding surprised. "I was just about to call you!"
Mariah rolled her eyes. "Sure, okay. Anyway no call, Mom? What's up with the free silence?"
There was a breathy pause. Then, "Free is the key word, Mariah honey," Georgina replied. "Didn't want to rack up minutes."
"Hmph," Mariah said. "It's okay to spend a couple dollars for your daughters, you know."
"Of course," Georgina laughed.
Mariah chewed her tongue. "Hello?"
"What?"
"Do you realize why we're calling you?"
Georgina blew a loud breath through the line. "Ah, I figured it would come to this."
Mariah leaned forward. "Come to what?"
"You girls need money or something?"
"How in the hell—" Mariah began, sounding furious. She turned to Rainey. "You take the phone. I literally cannot even handle this woman."
Rainey cradled the phone in her hands. "Hello?"
"Rainey, is that you? You sound sick, honey," Georgina answered, sounding worried. "Have you been eating?"
"No, Mom, I'm okay," Rainey said dully. "We're looking at bus tickets right now. Is tomorrow okay to come home?"
"Come home?" Georgina repeated nervously. "Why would you do that?"
"It's winter break!" Mariah interjected.
"Oh."
Rainey didn't like the pause in her mother's words, not one bit.
"Is something wrong?" Rainey asked, a color of urgency entering her voice. "Is it something to do with money? I know I haven't been paying your rent, but since you haven't been asking I..."
"Er, no, money's not a problem anymore, honey." Georgina sounded quiet. There was a clicking through the line. "Girls, I've got to tell you something."
"Don't tell me you've gone back to stealing—" Rainey began. She had sudden flashbacks to elementary school when her mother had stolen money from her best friend to pay rent. She couldn't handle another scene like that again.
"Oh no, nothing that dramatic," Georgina said wryly. "Well, I guess the truth has to come out sooner or later, doesn't it? As you've probably guessed, I've moved in with Chris. I've been living with him for the past month."
Rainey's jaw dropped.
"Remember, Chris?" Georgina said dreamily. "Tall handsome guy?"
"Mean ugly drunk?" Mariah said coldly. "Yeah. And you moved in with him? Real stellar, Mom."
"Hey," Georgina said sharply. "I didn't want to at first, you know."
"I know," Rainey said quietly, feeling dread rise up in her throat. "Why did you?"
"Because you girls told me to quit asking for rent. So, I moved in with Chris instead."
Rainey felt a flash of self-hatred as Mariah slammed her hand on the table.
"How about getting a job instead?" Mariah shouted. "Or a loan or something? Why move in with him?"
"You know my Etsy's business is about to take off..."
"How's it taking off?" Mariah demanded. "Do you have any buyers? Do you even have any products out there?"
Georgina shushed her through the phone. "Be quiet, Mariah. Don't talk to me that way!"
"But you—"
Rainey put her hand up. She leaned in, feeling bile in her throat. "Mom, I can't spend Christmas with Chris."
"Rainey," Georgina said, voice broken. "There's no other home to go to."
"I'm sorry then." Rainey felt a tear fall down her cheek. "I'm sorry for not paying your rent. Please. Just don't move in with him."
"I-I already did," Georgina said, sounding bewildered. "Mariah, what's wrong with your sister? Why does she sound like that? What are you two up to over there?"
Mariah looking worried, gently wrenched the phone from Rainey's grasp and stood up. She went to the kitchen, angrily whispering into the receiver.
Rainey wrapped the blanket tighter around her body and headed to her bedroom. She collapsed onto the bed, the springboard screaming under her weight.
She felt feverish, as if she was in a nightmare where she kept making bad decisions. The good decision, the golden one that was always within her grasp kept slipping away because of her own stupidity; and now she was stuck in a human-dug pit with no one to blame but herself. She should have continued paying her mother's rent. What a stupid, awful daughter she was. What a stupid, disgusting person.
She kissed her pillow as a searing headache flooded her mind.
Danika. Danika. Danika. DANIKA.
There was a tentative knock on her door.
"Hey." Mariah entered her room and sat besides her pillow. "You doing okay there?"
Rainey turned her head. "What did Mom say? Are you going back to Whittaker?"
"No. Leave you here? Hell, no."
"Go ahead, I'll be fine. Better to spend Christmas with Chris than me."
Mariah scoffed. "Yeah, Chris is great company. Except, whoops. He's not."
"Then what?" Rainey whispered. "I'm not in any mood to celebrate the joys of Christmas."
She felt a sudden pang of pain for her sister who didn't deserve to deal with a deadbeat mom or a cynical sister.
She raised her head, an idea forming. "Hey, go call Nakir. He'd gladly invite you over for Christmas. You don't have to spend the whole three week break with him. But at least Christmas Day."
Mariah blinked at her uncertainly.
"He'd love for you to meet his parents too, I bet," Rainey added. "Go on. I'll be fine. Please."
She grunted as Mariah scooted her over. Her sister tucked an arm under her neck and settled down besides her, stealing a part of her blanket.
"You stink." Mariah wrinkled her nose.
"Yeah, I haven't taken a shower."
"Danika text you yet?"
Rainey envisioned a picture of the sophomore on the ceiling. She imagined lighting a match and burning it to a cinder.
"I haven't texted her either."
"I see." Mariah looked up at the ceiling too as if she was watching her set a picture of Danika on fire. "I'm not leaving you here to die, Rainey. We've all had rejection—a lifetime of it. But you're not spending Christmas alone, not for three weeks, and not even for a day. I promise on everything you'll never have to experience that, as long as I'm alive."
Surprised, Rainey glanced at her. "What, you and Nakir get into a fight or something?"
Mariah smiled, exasperated. "Why do you always jump to the worst conclusion? No, we haven't." She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "But I'm not comfortable spending Christmas with him either."
"Why not?"
Mariah flicked her head. "Cause, I'm like you dummy. I got a useless streak of pride inside of me. I don't want to go crying to my boyfriend—who's parents are kind of loaded, did you know that?—I'd rather not break the news that our shitty mom isn't letting us come home because she's living with her shitty boyfriend." Her voice was bitter. "No, I'd rather not tell him that."
"It's easier to pretend everything's working," she continued. "How about we make it work, Rainey? Let's start our own Christmas traditions, without the boyfriends and girlfriends. Us two, like it's always been."
Rainey traced the carvings on the ceilings with her eyes, softly going over the meaningless wall scribbles.
"You'll be spending Christmas with a ghost," she said quietly. "I feel like a shadow of my old self. Like I can never be happy again."
Mariah rubbed her arm. "Can I make some dinner for you? Some chicken?"
Rainey turned her head. "If you want."
With a mournful sigh, Mariah put aside the blanket and got out of bed. Right before she left the room, Rainey muttered, "Thanks."
Without looking back, Mariah left the door open with a slight crack. "No problem."
Rainey scrolled through her phone, listening to the emptiness of the street creeping through her window. Barely anyone was on campus, which made each noise outside ever more creepy.
She reread Loralie's email from Friday night.
Bring a banana and a checkbook.
She should tell someone about the email. Danika would have usually been her first confidant in notes like this; she could talk things out with her, make a plan. But the way things were going now, the sophomore seemed to hate her, for just existing she guessed.
Tears flooded her eyes. What if Danika stopped talking to her completely? These last three days of silence had been utterly horrific. Why wasn't Danika contacting her?
Wiping her eyes, feeling desperate, she texted a quick hey.
A wave of self-hatred washed over her. She deleted the message off her phone instantly. She considered blocking Danika's number too.
Unhappy and restless, she reread the email again, memorizing Loralie's words obsessively. She wanted someone to fight with, bully into taking all of her shit. Mariah was refusing to rise to any of her baits, wisely side stepping all of Rainey's biting snarks.
She sat up. She slowly reread Loralie's P.S. note.
My phone number when you get lonely over the holidays: I AM LORALIE
I AM LORALIE
Hm.
Rainey pondered over the rhythm and familiarity of the sentence. There was a connection there, somewhere.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Ten numbers. One number. Loralie's number.
She googled a quick letter to number conversion.
I AM LORALIE = 426 567 2543
Thrilled, Rainey laid back down in bed. Loralie had given her a phone number. Why?
For when you get lonely of course.
Well, I am, Rainey thought savagely. I'm so fucking lonely I can barely breathe.
She punched in the numbers, a pit digging in her stomach. This was probably another impulsive action that required serious thought but she didn't care very much at the moment.
There was a connected ringing in her phone. The call had gone through.
Suddenly, a click. Rainey almost hung up, sweating.
"Hello?"
It felt like sand sprinkled on her tongue, like the damned Sahara Desert.
"I-is this Loralie?"
"Oh-ho." The voice answered all high and lovely like. "Oh-ho."
Rainey swallowed the sand painfully.
"Who is this?" the voice asked softly.
"This is Rainey Dumar, ma'am."
"Don't call me, ma'am. That's terribly insulting." It was the secretary for sure. Rainey imagined her in the same white desk at the delivery office although that was impossible of course; it was after hours and winter break, at that.
"S-sorry," Rainey faltered. She was at a complete loss of what to say.
"Well," Loralie said, sounding amused. "Do you have a reason for calling me at such a late hour? Other than for a booty call?"
Rainey's heart leapt in her throat. "T-that's not it!" A rosy laughter filled her ears, making her cheeks blush.
A thought suddenly struck her. "Wait, I do have a reason for calling. I'm staying at Gregory College over winter break, I can deliver water."
There was a shuffling on the other end of the phone, like bed sheets. Rainey imagined Loralie sprawled on a luxurious red silk bed and suddenly sitting up.
"You poor thing," Loralie said sympathetically. "Gregory College is so lonely this time of the year. Gray and drab and cold. Even the flowers are wilted at having no one to talk to." She paused, her breath sending a shiver down Rainey's spine. "Are you like the flowers, Rainey? Do you have no one to talk to?"
"Not anymore," Rainey mumbled.
"And why is that?"
"Because I ruin all my friendships."
"Friendships?" Loralie scoffed. "What about family? What about lovers?"
Rainey shook her head, spiraling further into a bad mental space. "You know what, Loralie? You remind me a lot of my mother's boyfriend."
"What a terrible sentiment. Why is that?"
Rainey clawed at her bed sheets. "Because you've both called me dykes."
Silence on Loralie's end.
"And I am," Rainey said viciously. "I am a dyke. Thanks a lot for reminding me. It's ruined shit for me, you know that? Being me—it's destroyed my friendships and my life. Fuck you and fuck him! I'm a fucking dyke!"
She practically spat the words out, wickedly glad to shout at someone.
Seconds ticked by in heavy silence.
Then quietly, so that Rainey almost missed it, Loralie whispered, "Me too."
Rainey bolted up, her heart thumping. For the first time since Jessica's party, she was utterly shocked out of her own sadness.
"Are you drunk, Ms. Dumar?" Loralie continued, sounding amused. "Is that why you're confessing all your painful, beautiful secrets to me? I'm not a good secret keeper, you know. I report to the higher-ups."
"Are you drunk?" Rainey asked bravely. Onwards, she thought. "Hey, here's a thought. Are you in town too? I could come over."
Rainey heard a tinkle of laughter over the other end.
"Ms. Dumar, I'm flattered. Do you know that I'm nearly ten years older than you?"
"You don't look a day over twenty-two, ma'am."
Loralie let out a good belly laugh at that. "Oh, sweetheart, you're too much for me."
Rainey leaned forward eagerly, feeling impulsive and liking it. "C'mon, I've got no one here. Send me your address and I'll come over."
"Are you out of your mind, Ms. Dumar?"
"Yes. I'm horny and rejected. Practically the same thing."
There was a scratch on the other end, like Loralie had picked at the receiver with her pretty fingernail. "May I tell you a secret, Ms. Dumar?"
"Call me, Rainey."
"Are you feeling lonely tonight?"
"Yes."
"So am I," Loralie said sadly. "I'm terribly lonely. But I've been lonely since I was your age. Now, before you do something rash and I do something I regret, I want to partake a piece of wisdom to you."
There was a short pause.
"Are you still there, Rainey?"
"Yes."
"Go spend your night with someone who hasn't been lonely for ten years. Go spend it with someone whose figured out how to be happy. Because I'll only give you more loneliness tonight, Rainey, that I can promise."
"I'll make you happy," Rainey said desperately.
"I'm sure you have another sweet girl just waiting in your contact list. And she's not old nor sad and her loneliness is easily fixed. I suggest you call her, sweet thing."
Rainey caressed the phone. "I don't want to leave you lonely, Loralie."
"Oh, I won't be," the secretary said silkily. "I'll be imagining your naked body in my bed all night, writhing on my fingers."
Rainey swallowed hard, lowering her hand to her crotch.
"Oh, before I hang up," Loralie said quickly. "Water delivery operations are temporarily on hold over break. No need to come in. Work starts up the day school starts as well, okay sweet thing? Don't give up. Don't ever give up."
"Loralie—" Rainey began weakly.
There was dead silence on the other end. The secretary had hung up.
Rainey panted on her bed, her head spinning.
She rolled over. She scrolled through her messages and texted Fiona.
It was still empty and dark outside, but this lull in her life was temporary. She couldn't forget that.
Faint Christmas tunes floated from the kitchen. Mariah was busily cooking. Rainey wrenched her eyes away from the ceiling and headed to the bathroom to take a shower.