Women & Other Animals by Bonnie Jo. Campbell

week so twentytwo bucks has got to last me five days, and I got to get gas and cigarettes."
    "Well, give me half that SuzyQ and a cigarette, Brother. I promise I'll make it up to you. How was your hot date anyway?"
    Hal tore open the package with his teeth and unwrapped the pair of cakes. "Bess," he said, holding one out to her, "I've been meaning to tell you something." He rolled the cellophane into a ball and crunched it in his hand. Usually by now he would have turned on the television or stereo or both.
    "What?" asked Bess. "Just tell me."
    "My date wasn't with a girl."
    "What? You decided she was a real dog?"
    "Listen, Bess," Hal paused. "I just might be gay."
    "Huh?"
    "Gay, like, you know, queer. I don't know." Hall was going on in a normal voice, as though he was at the StopnGas giving directions to the highway doughnut shop, as though he wasn't talking about ruining his entire life. Bess felt the furniture and posters of Metal
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    lica and Def Leppard grow large, then small, and then far away. Hal cleared his throat. "I never said anything to you, but I've been wondering for a while. And there's this guy from my algebra class."
    "Stop!" said Bess. "Don't tell me any more."
    "Why not?"
    "Aw, shit, Hal, why do we all have to be so screwed up?"
    "See, that's why I didn't tell you before," said Hal. "This does not make me screwed up, Bess."
    "No, you're perfectly normal. And so was Mom. And Aunt Victoria. Damn it." Without realizing it, she had eaten the entire creamfilled cake. She looked down at her empty hand.
    During her eighthour shift the next night, Bess tried to ignore the smell of popcorn and melted butter from the Westland 4 Theater, but her stomach growled the whole time. Bess had felt hungry since she could remember, an endless, gnawing, empty feeling stretching in all directions. She leaned against the glass door, careful not to push the handle. A sign read: "Use other exits after 6:00 P.M." The north parking lot spread out before her, spaces for three hundred cars and nobody there. What about that succession of community college girls Hal had dragged around, one after another? Didn't they mean anything to him? Bess turned and walked back toward the theater. This used to be a popular shopping center, but now it was run down and half the stores had forrent signs in their windows. New malls on the south side of town had pulled away the business. She shone her flashlight through the window of the Navy recruiting office. On the way into work, she had introduced herself to the officer in charge, a small solid man in uniform. One poster inside featured a massive gray battleship plunging through the ocean, cutting a track through the waves. On another, a group of uniformed, whitegloved men and women stood in sharp rows on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Each time she passed the recruiting office she straightened her shoulders.
    When her mother died of lymphoid cancer almost seven years ago, Bess had somehow figured that a welldressed man with a beautiful house would show up and say he was their father and take them home, but there was only the big, quiet woman who'd lived Page 38
    with them and slept with their mother. Every weekday morning of that first year without Mom, Aunt Victoria had grimly watched Bess cross the tracks and cross M98 to get to the bus stop. Then Victoria stood there on the porch with her arms crossed until the bus came. Victoria's solemn expression had scared Bess, and Bess avoided looking back at her. Until that year, Hal had been a constant close presence, almost a twin, but he'd gone ahead of Bess to middle school.
    The last movie in the Westland 4 Theater let out at 10:47, and the scattering of patrons left the building through the proper exits, without incident. Hal was waiting for Bess outside, but they didn't speak until they were nearly home. "Have you done it with a guy?" Bess asked, as they climbed the little hill.
    "Not yet. No." The Omni rattled over the tracks.
    "So how do