Mary Gets To Meet Sandy Pt 02

Mary couldn't get Jane's face out of her mind.

"Can't you go any faster?" Sandy called out.

Mary didn't think she could, but she tried. She was dragging Sandy's third and final pair of suitcases up the stairs. The third floor would have been no problem with the elevator; but Sandy wanted her to walk.

Of course, Mary walked. Sandy giggled.

Breathing heavily, Mary pulled the large brown suitcase through the door and into the bedroom. The green one was waiting outside. She looked around. Huge piles of dirty laundry covered the floor, the bed, and poured out of the cupboard. Mary had just chucked her own clothes into a mid-sized brown paper box for the time being, to make the space for her new roommate's stuff, but clearly it wasn't going to be enough. She took a deep breath - the whole room reeked of old unwashed socks - and opened the next suitcase, only to find yet another bunch of crumpled shirts, stained jeans, and filthy underwear. Sandy didn't seem to own a single clean piece of clothing. Mary had her work cut out for her.

She smelled Sandy's pineapple-gum breath before she felt it on her neck. The other girl was standing right behind her; shivers run down Mary's back. "You really need to catch up on the laundry," Sandy said. "In the end, Jane just couldn't keep up. She really ought to apologise to you."

Jane had apologised a lot, in fact, with that hollow, weak voice of hers. Sandy's previous roommate had had the suitcases ready when Mary arrived and insisted on helping her get them to the rental car, even though she had clearly been too exhausted to be any real help.

"That's okay," Mary said quietly, as she started sorting the new pile.

Sandy moved past her, shuffling through the heaps with her dirty sneakers. She kicked the paper box as she passed it, toppled a heap of green and blue shirts from the bed onto the floor, and heavily plunked down on the mattress to watch Mary work.

"Um, about Jane?" Mary began.

"Yeah?" Sandy's grin was back. "You liked her, right?"

"I guess. Sandy, may I ask how old Jane is?"

Sandy snapped her gum loudly. "Why, she's 22. Aren't you about that age?"

"Exactly 22, yes." Mary thought of Jane's tired, grey face, her straggly, pepper-and-salt hair, her frail frame and veiny hands. She looked at Sandy's knowing grin. Mary shook her head to clear her mind. She didn't want to finish her thought, but Sandy wasn't going to let it go yet.

"You look a lot like her, actually." And she snapped her gum again.

Mary knew that wasn't true. Yes, she and Jane were about the same height, about 5 foot 3, slim, lightly built, dark-haired. But Jane had looked at least 40 when she had opened the door for Mary. The idea was unreal, fantastic in a frightening way. Mary looked at Sandy and felt that heat rising again in her body.

"Right?" Sandy insisted. "The two of you are a lot alike."

"You're only 19 yourself, right, Sandy?"

"Uh-huh, that's me. Straight out of school, starting out in life." She sounded amused. "I really still need looking after, you know. Lucky me, I found you. And Jane, too."

Mary thought of another question, but it scared her. Instead, she asked, "Why did you move out from Jane's, anyway?"

Sandy shrugged. "Thought I could have more fun somewhere else. Say, is the Xbox set up?"

"Yes, it's all ready to play." Mary had intended the other bedroom to be her roommate's, but instead they had turned it into Sandy's playroom. The younger girl had brought no less than three game consoles with her, and they had taken the TV from the kitchen and set it up on a little table, so that Sandy could sit on the bed comfortably and play.

"Cool!" Sandy bounced off the crumpled bed sheets and pushed past Mary without another word. She slammed the other room's door behind her.

Mary kept sorting laundry, turning that other question around and around in her mind. When she had cleaned out this suitcase, she went into the hall and got the last one.

Sandy must have heard her.

"Hey, Mary?" she hollered through the closed door. Music and gunfire in the background. "The green one is all toys. You can leave that for now, it all goes in here."

"Ok, ok!" Mary called back. How many more toys could Sandy have? She went back to the bedroom, took another deep breath of the rancid air, and filled a new washing basket with jeans and blue shirts. She carried it down to the machine in the cellar. Sandy wasn't watching, but it felt right to take the stairs rather than the elevator anyway.

Soon she was back up with a bunch of Sandy's underwear, all fresh from the dryer. She looked at her shaking hands as she folded the panties and bras and put them in the bottom drawer. It was hard to admit to herself how much she wanted to kiss every piece. But she had resisted. It seemed like a small kind of victory: She hadn't gone that far, at least. Even though she had lost control of her life to an unreal, fantastic change in every other way.

She finished the underwear and went to the kitchen, which was a complete mess. This was Mary's fault: Sandy had wanted lasagna, but Mary took too long to prepare it, and Sandy hadn't been in the mood anymore when it was finally ready. Mary looked at the broken baking dish and the greasy remains of the lasagna on the floor. The bottom of Sandy's sneakers had left clear imprints in the clumps of tomato sauce, minced meat and pasta. In a box on the table, there were the edges of the pizza Sandy had eventually ordered.

Mary looked over her shoulder to the playroom. The door was closed; Sandy had turned up the volume further. She wouldn't see nor hear what Mary did. Shaking a bit, Mary got down on the floor. She tried telling herself that she was doing this just because she was hungry, as she hadn't had a chance to eat anything herself before leaving for Jane's place. Shame flushing her face, she looked at the trod-in shoe print in the lasagna for a moment before she bent down and started eating.

She hadn't expected the intense mixture of disgust and delight that shook her body. This was all so fantastic, and clearly wrong, but right now, eating Sandy's mess from the floor, it felt right, a relief from a life that hadn't made sense.

"Hey, that's mine!"

Mary froze. Her head burned as she turned to see Sandy standing in the doorframe. Sandy giggled again. "You should really ask before you take something that isn't yours."

"Oh, I - I was really just..." Mary began.

"This is all dirty anyway." Sandy said, walked past Mary, and stomped her sneakers into the discarded food again, forcefully. Mary looked up and noticed that Sandy was looking a bit flustered herself. Her cheeks were even rosier than before. But the younger girl was confident in what she was doing. "Are you sure you want to eat this?" she asked, with a huge grin.

"Um, I." Mary's voice faltered. The shame choked her. She looked up at Sandy and simply nodded, slowly.

"This?" Sandy repeated. She lifted one sneaker to Mary's face. Trembling, Mary nodded again. She began licking the food from Sandy's sole. Jane's hollow face flashed before her eyes, and there was that other question again.

"You should say please." Sandy demanded.

Mary looked up at her. "Please, Sandy."

"Please what?" Sandy had a hand between her legs now, which somehow seemed completely natural to Mary.

"Please may I have some of your lasagna?"

To Mary's surprise, Sandy put her foot back on the floor, just out of Mary's reach. She considered crawling after it.

"Let me think about it." Sandy continued. Her green eyes were staring at Mary again, another test. "Are you sure you want it?"

Mary gulped. "Yes. Yes, please."

"What do you want?"

"I want to eat some of your lasagna, please."

"From here?" She lifted her foot ever so slightly.

"Yes." And since that didn't seem to satisfy Sandy, Mary continued: "Yes, please, let me eat some more of your lasagna from your shoe." Her voice stumbled as she said it, her mouth drying up as she heard her own words.

Sandy snapped her gum. "You must be really hungry, huh?"

"Yes, Sandy. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast."

Sandy's foot had begun playing with the food, squashing little pieces here and there, grinding it against the linoleum floor.

"No, I don't think so."

"No?"

"No, you can't have my lasagna. Don't sound so surprised. It's mine, isn't it? You'll get over it. Besides, losing a bit of weight will do you good."

Mary looked up at Sandy's broad shape, her ample behind, the little belly bulge in her t-shirt, those breasts. She asked her question after all.

"Sandy? How long had you been living with Jane?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think she lasted about half a year?"

Mary nodded. "I see."

She got a flannel and started cleaning up the mess. Six months, she thought. One hundred and eighty days; half a day is gone already. One hundred and seventy-nine and a half left.

Sandy wiped her shoes against Mary's blouse as she went back to her game.