The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault Read Free Book Online Page B

college. Wendy, about whom I’d dreamt last night.
    Shut up, please.
    Wendy used to say that to me while I was sleeping sometimes—usually in a small and pleading tone. Probably she said it only two or three times, but my friend Kristin and I had such a great time making fun of it, it felt like more often.
    The first time or two that it happened, I thought I imagined it—an almost elfin voice in my dreams asking me to kindly shut up.
    The next time, I recognized Wendy’s voice through the haze and asked her about it the following morning.
    Well, Wendy had said, blushing bright beneath her half-grown-out bangs. You kind of snore.
    And telling me to shut up . . . does that help? Does it make me stop?
    Sometimes, yeah.
    Those bangs drove me crazy. I knew that Wendy showered pretty frequently, and yet her hair always seemed wilted with oil. Maybe it was because she always fingered her hair so much, knotting and unknotting it while she studied or talked on the phone.
    Do you want me to say something more polite? Wendy sat up in her bed and pulled her skinny knees to her chest.
    No, I mumbled. By all means, do what works.
    Wendy promptly stopped. She never spoke to me again in my sleep—to my knowledge, anyway.
    Still, my friend Kristin and I got a kick out of telling each other to shut up, please— and combining other polite turns of phrase with rude ones.
    Go to hell, ma’am.
    Pardon me, bitch.
    You’re so fucking welcome.
    Kristin and I were such idiots.
    But maybe that was what I was hearing in my head at night. The beginning of a shut up, please. Starting with the shhhhh, but never fully forming.
    I poured a cup of coffee and opened my laptop. Closing the site about baby bruises that I’d searched the previous night, I opened a new tab and typed Hoey.
    That had been Wendy’s last name.
    Hoey .
    I remembered it well because when I first saw Wendy’s name on my room assignment—all those years ago—I’d thought it looked like “hooey.” Wendy Hooey? That’s funny. Oh. No. Wendy Hoey.
    And her mother’s name? Wendy had sometimes used her mother’s first name when addressing her exasperatedly over the phone. It was something a bit unusual for her generation—Selena or Serena or something like that.
    I heard Chad shuffling down the stairs. When I looked up, he was standing in the kitchen doorway with Lucy in his arms. He looked like a zombie, but Lucy was bright-eyed and ready for action. She squealed at the sight of me—a habit of hers that I still found disconcerting. No one has ever thought I was all that great, ever, I thought sometimes. What’s wrong with Lucy, that she isn’t as discerning as the rest of the world?
    â€œHey, sweetie,” I said.
    As I got up and took out a box of baby oatmeal, I realized that I hadn’t greeted Chad at all. Maybe “sweetie” could cover him, if he wanted to read it that way.
    â€œHi, hon,” I added.
    â€œHey.” He yawned. “Here comes bruiser baby. Black eye and all.”
    â€œIt’s not a black eye,” I snapped.
    â€œI was just kidding. It really doesn’t look that bad. I mean, the yellowish part is a little gross, but I think it’s healing.”
    â€œYeah,” I stared at my computer screen. Selena? Serena? “You said you wanted to be more involved in Lucy’s meals once she started on solid food. Remember that?”
    â€œOh. Yeah.”
    â€œWell, here you are,” I said, sweeping my hand over the oatmeal box before settling back into my kitchen chair.
    â€œWhat do you usually mix it with?”
    I took a patient sip of my coffee. “A couple of ounces of Red Bull.”
    â€œPumped milk from the freezer?” Chad asked.
    â€œWater’s fine this time,” I said “She gets plenty of milk.”
    â€œAre you okay?” Chad asked, mixing the oatmeal.
    â€œYeah,” I murmured. “I just had a bad