Bitch Factor – Chapter 2
Eight Months Earlier, Sunday, May 3
Courtney Keyes looked at the room full of reeking flowers and darkly clad grown-ups standing around in hushed groups and thought a cuss word. She didn’t want to go into that room.
Courtney had never said a cuss word out loud, not even the D-word, because mama had about the best ears in the world. (“If I ever hear you girls talking filth, I’ll wash your mouth out with Tide.”) But Courtney thought cuss words plenty of times, especially the F-word because the she liked the sound of it.
This time, though, she wasn’t even specific. She tightened her lips and thought: Cuss word! Cuss word! Cuss word!
Ellie tugged at Courtney’s hand to get attention. “I want to see Betsy.”
“Okay, shhh. You can see Betsy in a minute.”
There were no other kids in the room, which meant she and Ellie would STAND OUT. Everyone would know who they were and whisper to each other as they walked by or cluck like their neighbor Mrs. Witherspoon (“I swear, those girls were so close, it must be awful for them, like cutting off an arm. Thank the good Lord of the little one still have each other.”)
“I want to see Betsy NOW.”
“Okay, Ellie. Just be quiet for another minute.”
One way Courtney was like Betsy was that neither liked to STAND OUT. Being the oldest, though, Betsy naturally took the lead, and sometimes she got to0 damn bossy, especially when Mama left her IN CHARGE. Courtney ignored her, which made Betsy really mad, but mostly Betsy had a magical way of making things happen without causing a fuss. Now Courtney was the oldest and wished she had paid more attention to her sister’s magic.
She slid her gaze toward the object she’d been avoiding, the long box on the table crowded with flowers at the back of the room. The COFFIN.
Having never seen a coffin before, except on TV, she expected it to be black. Instead, it was a pearly grayish-white, a puke color, but not as bad as black.
Betsy would hate being here today, being the center of attention, with everyone standing around whispering and walking by to look at her inside the box. Courtney wanted to yell, “Go away! She’s our sister. We want to be alone with her.” Of course, she would never do that.
“COURTNEY, I WANT TO SEE BETSY!”
Oh, fuck, Ellie, now you’ve done it.
But it wasn’t as bad as she expected. Only half the people in the room turned to look at them. Mama, surrounded by a knot of ladies, hadn’t even heard, and Daddy Travis was outside smoking with some men.
Courtney straightened her shoulders, clasped Ellie’s hand tighter, and started toward the coffin. Actually, Ellie had been pulling her toward the coffin all along; now Courtney stopped resisting. Too bad Ellie wasn’t the oldest. Ellie loved to STAND OUT.
Courtney avoided looking inside the box until she stood right beside it. She had never seen a dead person before, except on TV, of course, which didn’t count because everybody knew the actors weren’t really dead. She had a cat once that died. The cat didn’t look any different, except it got stiff. Then one time Mama ran over dog — Mama didn’t mean to, it darted right in front of her car — and the dog looked really gross, its head all mashed and bloody.
Mama said Betsy was run over by a car.
“Courtney, I can’t SEE!”
“Okay, Ellie, I’ll pick you up, but be quiet.”
First, she had to make sure it wasn’t too gross. She didn’t want Ellie having nightmares about her own sister. She peeked real quick —
and it wasn’t gross at all.
But it wasn’t really Betsy, either. More like a doll made to look like Betsy.
“COURTNEY…”
She picked Ellie up, and they stood looking at the Betsy doll in the coffin.
“Can Betsy come home now?”
“No, she can’t come home,” Courtney whispered. Now that she had finally made herself look, she couldn’t seem to stop looking. Was Betsy really in there? Or was this a big dumb doll someone had made to fake them out? And why the fuck had Mama made Betsy wear that pink dress?
Betsy hated that dress. She’d have wanted the purple shirt.
Hot tears crowded behind Courtney’s eyes, threatening to spill over. She blinked hard, willing them to BACK OFF. Betsy would hate knowing her sister was standing there blubbering over her.
“Betsy’s sleeping, Courtney. Wake her up.”
“I can’t wake her up, Ellie.”
“I can wake her!” Ellie lunged toward the doll in the box.
Courtney pulled away in time to keep Ellie from smacking the doll’ s face, but Ellie grabbed the side of the coffin and held on.
“BETSY, WAKE UP. LET’S GO HOME.”
A man appeared instantly beside them.
“Now, now, child. Elizabeth doesn’t want to wake up just now. Let’s let her rest a while longer.” His voice was low and friendly, but firm. The man loosened Ellie’s fingers and turned the girls toward a larger room with fewer people and more chairs.
Courtney had never seen the man before. He wore a black suit and looked like part of the furniture. She was glad he came along when he did. A few minutes later, she and Ellie were seated, each with a cinnamon sugar cookie and a plastic cup half filled with syrupy red punch.
“Will Betsy ever come home?” Ellie’s voice sounded smaller.
“No.” The doll in the box was not Betsy. Courtney didn’t know whether she believed in Heaven, but she knew Betsy was someplace good, because even when she was too damn bossy she was a good sister.
Courtney scooted her chair closer to Ellie’s. Ever since Betsy’s … accident … she hadn’t let Ellie get too far away. “Bad things always come in threes,” Mrs. Witherspoon had once said. Betsy getting killed was the first really bad thing that ever happened to them. A part of Courtney felt sure that what Mrs. Witherspoon said was only superstition, like “seven years bad luck,” when you broke a mirror, but another part of her had squeezed down around a terrible feeling that Mrs. Witherspoon might be right.
Daddy Jon, who was Ellie’s real daddy but not Courtney’s or Betsy’s, had said all three of his girls had special gifts. Betsy was a storyteller — a “philosopher,” Daddy Jon called her. Ellie was a performer. She loved to dress up in Mama’s high heels and put on a show when friends came over.
Daddy Jon called Courtney his “clairvoyant,” because she sometimes got these feelings that something would happen. Maybe if she had gone to school with Betsy that day, one of her feelings would have tapped her on the shoulder to warn, “Don’t let Betsy cross the street.”
“No,” she said again, smoothing Ellie’s dress. “Betsy won’t be coming home. Ever.” She felt a squeeze inside as she rubbed a tiny wrinkle. “But eat your cookie and drink your punch. When we get home, if you put on your pajamas without a fuss, I’ll read you a story.”
“A Betsy story?”
“Yeah.” Courtney blinked hard. “A Betsy story.”
Courtney had gotten one of her feelings when she looked at Betsy in the coffin — an awful feeling — that if she didn’t take special care of Ellie, another bad thing might happen.
Thanks for reading. Come back next week for Chapter 3.
Warm regards, Chris Rogers
