Page 75 of Play Nice

Is it so hard to look at a plate to see if it’s clean? This is your job. What else do you do all day? Is it too much to ask?

The sound of a plate smashing. Nothing is ever good enough for you!

I can’t breathe.

“I wish I could stay in bed with you,” Austin says, pulling on a pair of jeans. “Trust me.”

I fold over, the edges of everything going dim. I finally manage to inhale. Exhale.

“Clio? Hey.” He reaches out and touches my face. “You all right?”

“I’m perfect,” I say, brushing him off. I get up and grab my dress off the floor, slip it over my head.

“Okay…” I can tell he’s kind of annoyed, and I respect him more for it. It’s so boring when someone will just put up with me.

I’m struck with this sudden malignant strain of curiosity. How far can I push him? Will he ever speak to me the way my father spoke to my mother? How broken would I have to be to allow it? Am I close? Closer than I’ve ever been?

“Can you drop me at the train station?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll even buy you coffee first.”

“Won’t that make you late?”

He shrugs.

I kiss him and then whisper something in his ear that makes his knees buckle. “How’s that for dirty talk?”

23

When I get to the city, I buy weed from an ex-fling and smoke it on my rooftop. I’m back to self-medicating. I stare out at the skyline. I scroll through Instagram. I Google “Roy Johnston” and end up on the website for the New England Occultist Society, which is so janky and pathetic I immediately X out of it.

I call Daphne, and she picks up right away. “Clio.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Dude. What the hell? What happened?”

“I’m assuming you already know, since I have eight thousand missed calls from you.”

“I want to hear it from you. Your side.”

“Say, do you remember Mom and Dad fighting about dishes? A fight about a dirty plate?”

“What?”

“I had a dream last night, but I think it was one of those dreams that’s really a memory. The two of them were screaming at each other in the kitchen of our old house. He was mad because she didn’t clean a plate. He said it was her only job, or something along those lines. Then she broke the plate. Smashed it.”

“Alexandra broke a lot of plates. Glasses. Vases. She was dramatic like that,” Daphne says. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. Everything.”

“What’s with you? You sound…”

“I’m stoned,” I say. “And tired. I’m beyond tired, Daffy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

The clouds move so fast. “About what?”