In Between People

1998

Her dad keeps his penthouse magazines under her bed. Megan and Mary study them everyday after school before Megan’s mom brings home McDonalds for dinner. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the food we are about to eat. Megan and Mary are best friends. They remind each other often. Their friendship is one of loyalty, big promises and future plans. They need it for each other, the assurance of one day being free from childhood. They are going to be huge stars in New York City for some reason beyond their knowledge and own twenty dogs. Right now, they are in Catholic school, in the third grade. They trust no one, but each other.

When you’re dead, you’re dead forever. Megan tells Mary at recess. Even if there is a  heaven, then you’re there… forever. Mary listens, silently freaking out over the concept of “forever.”  Megan stares at Mary waiting for her to say something that would reveal some alternative truth. Mary always feels pressure to relieve Megan of her worries because her family is worse, but this was beyond her. Mary looks up, but the sky is white and empty offering nothing firmly. The stone statue of Jesus near the see saw is crying.  Megan shrugs and bites into her nutrigrain bar.

Megan’s cheeks are plump and her  brown eyes are permanently concerned. Her baby face is so perfectly intact, in fact, that she won many toddler beauty pageants her mother entered her in before puberty hit and her weight gain stalled out her potential. At ten years old, Megan lives with some feeling that her path is over. Her pageant days were abruptly taken and in its place the endless  bullying of her peers. Their classmates call Megan and Mary- spaghetti and meatball. This makes her avoid food at lunch time- she only eats nutrigrain bars at recess, when no one is looking besides Mary.

Mary still doesn’t know what to say to the notion of being dead forever. “Wanna spider?” Mary asks. Megan straddles Mary on the swing, sitting on her lap with her legs on either side of Mary. The kids call it “spider” when two people are on one swing facing each other and their legs swing together. Their faces are close as they kick. Their eyes blur into one eye as they jolt as high as they can before letting go. They fall to the ground in a tangled mess. Soft laughter. Forever is a scary concept.

Their classmates are curious about their loner intimacy. Everyone calls them gay and their bullies email them erotica based on them. “Megan puts her fat ass in Mary’s face.” Mary deletes it before showing Megan.

They’re at Megan’s empty house again- where they can do anything. The girls enter a chat room and tell everyone they are 18 and horny and living in Florida. Florida is the sexiest state they decide. Megan types “I want someone to suck my tits.” Mary doesn’t know that people do that. Mary doesn’t know how Megan knows all this filthy talk. Megan calls her vagina a cunt and still believes in Santa Claus.

They called themselves “in between people.” Thats how they feel when they are together, in between a person and something else. It is a wink, a quiet hand hold- this feeling of in betweenness that turns their schooldays into arms crossed,  eye rolls. Their freedom is in the in betweenness.

5:00 pm. No parent is home. Megan and Mary decide to take a bath in the jacuzzi bath tub. They stare at each other from opposite ends of the tub as the jets growl. They go over their vows as friends. “We’ll be together forever.” There is a sense of fear as much as love. If someone walks out,  they’re both dead. Neither can be alone in the in between or it no longer exists.

Megan stands up and demonstrates a picture she saw in one of her dad’s magazines where the woman has bubbles over breasts and vagina. She makes the same expression as her with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide, gasping. “Uh-oh” Mary is still laying in the bath looking up at her, laughing. She looks like Betty Boop.

They dry off using the ragged purple towels they find in Megan’s parent’s bedroom closet. Their damp bedroom is carpeted in forest green and the bed is pastel, floral with a huge mahogany cross hanging above it across from the TV. They find a Polaroid camera and decide to take pictures of each other as though they were dead.

Megan lays on the ground unconscious- dead from a heart attack. Mary clutches her throat and sticks out her tongue as though she is choking. They take ominous ones of each other face down, their bodies splayed in different shapes. Megan and Mary feel a creative momentum, they are making something original. Something morbid, and somehow important. Like all the great artists, they do not try to understand their work.

They lay out the photos on the counter as they develop. Slowly the photos grey and their silhouettes appear. The girls watch as orbs fill the photos, circular balls of light. Mary and Megan recognize them immediately.  “Oh my god!” They giddily freak out. They captured something. Ghosts! A spirit! They have evidence. They excitedly run around the house screaming, believing their powers. “We’re witches!” They quiet their excitement as they hear the front door open.

Megan’s mother comes home and sets bags of McDonalds on the counter next to the photos. “Just what the hell are these?!! THESE ARE FOR THE DEVIL! Megan! ” Megan and Mary try to explain, but Megan’s mother is fuming. “You brought evil into the house!!” She vibrates with fear looking at Mary who is taking the blame. The magic is over. Hot shame heats the back of their necks.

Megan and Mary eat their burgers quietly as Megan’s mother cuts up the photos and throws them into the trash, glaring at Mary as she takes the garbage outside.

Mary can no longer see Megan outside of school, but they still meet in the in between.