I was smoking a cigarette ‘round back when Gigi came up dragging a duffel bag, asking if I had any visitors.
I haven’t seen her in a while; the new baby has been keeping her busy. She had dark circles around her eyes. It was hard to read her in the light.
It was one of those odd hot December nights. The kind of night that makes me pull the suitcase from under my bed and fish out the shorts I bought for my Halloween costume last October. I liked how they hugged my hips but were snipped at the sides so they didn’t choke my thighs. It felt nice to feel the warm breeze on my skin.
I’ve been spending the last few weeks minding my damn business. Work has been busy and it’s been hard to laugh. Everyone says that the days between Christmas and New Years don’t count–I’ve been trying to make them. Typed up a whole schedule to start my days off on the right foot, but instead I’ve been getting drunk, sleeping in the bathtub, waking up at noon, getting nothing done.
Last year I tried to give up smoking but had no luck. This year I wanted to be better; I am only what I’m perceived to be. I heard once that you should never admit to a mistake, even if you were caught red-handed; the truth is told by the one who is the best at telling stories. I’ve never been any good at spinning a tale, so I just keep my mouth shut.
Gigi wasn’t planning on having a baby. I’ve seen her laugh in people’s faces when reminded that her biological clock is ticking; she has even dumped some good men over it, but she had one of those false periods and ended up exiting her first trimester before even finding out a baby was on the way. She was a little lax about keeping up with that stuff. A few months later, the baby was here with no parties, no posts online. It’s not like she was ashamed; it’s just that Gigi approached motherhood with her brow furrowed. She said she didn’t want any help. We are letting her have her space.
My mom thinks that life is a miracle and I think that life is a chore. That’s not something I say to people, though. I have been thinking about not believing in God but believing in sin, being a volunteer to take sin upon your body like a sacrifice that can’t die. I don’t think of it that way for me, personally, but maybe it is just an unwritten rule to being born a woman. In Genesis, God punishes Eve by making childbirth painful. Women’s pain has to be explained somehow; there has to be some way to rationalize that our suffering is deserved.
Gigi gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
I was watching the moths swarm my porch light, thinking it’s odd that they were out this time of year. I looked down at my ankles, grateful that there weren’t any mosquitoes nipping at them. I already had too many scars to count, and that’s when Gigi came dragging the duffel bag.
“I need you to hide this for just one week. You can’t tell anyone where, especially not me.”
“What’s in it?”
“I can’t say, and don’t look. Trust me, it’s for the best.”
“Gi, what is all this? Are you mixed up in something?”
“Listen, I can’t talk about it. I just need you to promise me that you’ll do this.”
In the tepid light, I saw that her collar was caked with the white crust of baby spit up.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Alright, sure.”
She had this tick for as long as I could remember, where she would push her bangs back to her crown when she was stressed out, except she grew them out long ago in an effort to not have to wash her hair as much. The oils from her hands kept making her hair greasier than it needed to be.
Tonight her hair was in a bun. Loops of hair haloed her head like snagged sweater threads. She liked to bleach it, but found out that bleach could harm the baby, so now there was a good 3 inches of brown before the blonde started.
“Okay then.” She combs her fingers from her widow’s peak to her crown.
“Sure.” I try to hide my smirk as I turn to ash my cigarette.
“So what, is there a person in here or something?” I grunt while I bend down for the bag’s handles. Whatever it is, it’s heavy and dense. “Did you finally do someone in?”
“No, nothing like that.” Her eyes set glazed towards the headlights of a car driving by.
I don’t mind my apartment being on a main street; the noise helps me sleep.
“Okay, Crazy, it’s fine if you did. I’d help you hide the body.”
She keeps looking at the cars. I guess she’s not in a joking mood.
“Okay.”
I try to lift the bag, but I’m wearing the wrong shoes to get a good footing. Dragging it towards the door, I can’t help but notice that the bag stinks of some kind of chemical smell.
Gigi told me once that her mom almost threw her into a mall fountain from a breezeway when she was a baby. Her mom said it was the devil that told her to, but it’s clear it must have been post-partum. I’ve never had kids myself, although I got close once. I hear that your mind isn’t quite right for the first year after having a baby. Gi told me once that she didn’t want to have kids because she didn’t want to be like her mom.
“Okay, well, do you want to come inside? I have some beers, looks like you might need one.”
This snapped her out of it.
“No, it’s ok. I really should be going. I have to check on Rich.”
She named the baby after her dad. Sweet and all, but I just can’t look at a tiny baby and think of it as a Richard.
“If you say so. Did you leave him alone? Who is watching him?”
“It’s fine, I have someone watching him. I gotta go.”
Gigi pulled me in for a weak hug, then turned back off my porch to the parking lot.
I pushed the bag inside and lit another cigarette. I wanted to watch her pull off into the night. I wait 10 minutes, but don’t see her car on the road I overlook, the one she usually takes to my apartment.
Making a pit stop at my fridge to grab a beer, I make my way to the parking lot. Her car is gone. She must have taken a different route.
My dog is sniffing the bag when I come inside. I heard that some beagles are bred to sniff out bombs and drugs at airports.
I stare at the bag.
Gigi knows that I would do anything for her; she’s spent years mopping up my vomit after a night out, picking me up in cities hours away at 4am, with me unable to remember how I got there. Gigi once brought a gun to my ex-boyfriend’s house after he broke into my car. She held it to his head and said she’d fucking kill him if he bothered me ever again. The gun was fake, but I still can’t believe that she’d take that risk for me. Gigi knew what she was doing when she picked me to babysit this bag.
I promised her I wouldn’t look inside it, but some part of me was worried, I mean, who wouldn’t be? She’d never hurt Rich, never, but I couldn’t help but wonder what she was capable of.
I patted the exterior of the bag. Nothing body-shaped, nothing baby-shaped, just the crackling of plastic. Something firm wrapped in bubble wrap, I think?
Gigi lives 45 minutes away, and it is getting late; my head is swimming lazily like murky pool water. I can’t drive to her. Surely she wouldn’t ask me to look after this bag if she was in trouble, or if it could get me in trouble.
I wrapped the bag in a bin liner and shoved it under my bed, then hopped in the shower. The hot water sobering, shifting the buzz from the beers into a mild headache. Crawling into bed, I set my alarm; the time on my phone reads 12:45.
Outside the gravely rumble of tires on the tarmac, a car passes by.
I give Gigi a call. She picks up on the third ring.
“Hey!”
“Hello?” she replies shortly. “What’s up?” Her voice groggy, she must have been sleeping.
“Listen, I’m happy to help out… I just… I’m sorry to do this, but I want to be sure that Rich is OK.”
Silence on the other line, then I hear the shifting of fabric as she pulls herself from bed.
“Yeah, I understand. Wait a sec.” She sighs, “He just fell asleep. I’ll FaceTime you.”
She hangs up, and after a minute, I get the call. On the fuzzy display, I see Rich in his crib. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen him. He’s got more hair than last time.
“Satisfied?” The camera flips to Gigi. Her phone is older, and the nursery is dark; I could barely make out her face in the dim light. Her eyes looked like grainy black pits.
“Yeah, thank you. Listen, I’m kinda worried about you. Do you want me to come over? Is everything OK? I-”
“Everything is fine, please trust me. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it were a big deal.” Gigi interrupts. “I have to go to bed. I have work tomorrow. “
“Okay, if you’re sure, if I can help in any way-”
“I’m fine, really. Goodnight.” She hangs up.
I lay in bed looking at my ceiling fan, my dog curled between my knees, burrowed under a blanket. Despite the bin liner covering the duffel bag, I could still detect the chemical smell coming from under my bed.
I don’t sleep.
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