TAKE ME HOME

WRITTEN BY RYAN P. C. TRIMBLE

ILLUSTRATED BY JORDAN SCHMID

“You’re 1925!” Jordan, in an orange number as loud as her voice, crawled over a sofa to corner her, an empty champagne bottle dangling between her fingers. “I mean—it’s 1925, and you’re 27! Happy birthday, Edith!”

Edie winced. “You know I prefer Edie. You’ve known that for years.”

Jordan giggled and repeated the name even louder—which Edie hadn’t realized was possible.

“Can I help you, Jordan?”

“‘Can I ’elp you, Jor-duuuun?’” Jordan mocked, layering on a British accent for a reason that escaped Edie’s comprehension. “Why so dry, Edith?”

“Mostly because I haven’t had a drop to drink tonight.”

“You’re funny!” Jordan cackled. “Not as funny as your sister, but funny!”

Edie stiffened. “Don’t talk about my sister, please.”

“But think of what she’d be doing if she were here right now! Drinking backwards out the window, or seeing how high she could climb without using her arms, or—”

“She’s not here, though, is she?” Edie said coldly.

Jordan frowned, her eyes scanning the room as if to verify Edie’s statement. As her gaze completed its sweep of the room, the women’s eyes locked. “She’s my best friend, ya know,” Jordan slurred. “Yours too, I imagine.”

To emphasize the point, Jordan poked Edie hard in her left bosom. However, the young lush lunged more speedily than intentioned, and Edie found herself flinging open her arms to catch Jordan as she toppled, the young woman’s flailing limbs bent in the unnatural angles God only affords the overly ossified.

Then—thwack!—the bottle in Jordan’s hand collided with Edie’s forehead.

“Ah, jiminy shit, Edith, I’m sorry! On your birthday day, too—” She broke off. “Wait. Did I say ‘too’ twice?”

“It’s fine—” Edie grabbed a glass from a nearby table and tilted it to glimpse her reflection. A red egg grew on the forehead of the dejected young woman staring back at her. Edie, with a huff, dropped the cup back onto the end table, disrupting the detritus of cigarettes butts and empty bottles that threatened to abandon ship for the less crowded floor at any moment.

“And, no,” Edie added to Jordan, “you said ‘day’ twice.”

Jordan dissolved into a fit of giggles. “Bette would have loved this.”

For fear of lashing out at Jordan, Edie turned swiftly and made for the exit without bothering to reply.

“She woulda, ya know!” Jordan yelled as Edie closed the door behind her and leaned against it, massaging her forehead.

How was it she hadn’t managed to shake Jordan in all these years? It had been four years since Edie boarded a train in Peoria, Illinois to travel the nearly two hundred miles to join her sister in Chicago. Jordan was her sister’s college friend, graciously lent to Edie while she went about creating her own life in Chicago; the majority of the others currently destroying Edie’s first-floor studio apartment fit into the category, too.

Yet Edie still frequented them. How could she not? Leaving them would be like leaving Bette—and she could never abandon Bette, despite the fact that she had abandoned Edie.

She abandoned me. Edie hated herself for employing that phrase, but it’s what she felt happened. As though hoping to leave the thought behind her at her apartment, she shook her head and rushed down the hallway, throwing open the door to the courtyard with such force that a pane of glass fell to the ground with a crash.

Everything was about Bette. It always was—and not just then at the party. Every connection Edie had in the city was due to her. Every job she had gotten had been because of something Bette did. Every boy Edie had dated had been because of an introduction from Bette. And then she just leaves?

Edie shuddered in the crisp air of the fall evening, annoyed by how refreshing it felt, ignoring the warm streetlights of Montrose Avenue and the sound of the party continuing in her own apartment.

A ding! ding! signaled the approach of a streetcar. For lack of something to do, she flagged the car down.

The trundling machine ground to a halt. Edie mechanically boarded, dropping her fare into the box then collapsing into the first seat by the window, which she stared out of determinedly.

The car began to move. Edie tried hard not to focus on anything as she gazed out the window, but in vain. She found herself fighting her reflection once again.

Edie knew how pitiful she looked, and she knew what a sad figure she cut, the young woman moping around the city and wishing things could be different; but it had been so long since she hadn’t felt that way that she had no idea how to rearrange her thoughts to snap herself out of the melancholy.

A few blocks later, she wrenched her eyes from her own image. To her shock, there were no other passengers in the car. Edie sat up straighter in her chair, uneasiness washing over her as the vehicle sped through intersection after intersection. Night service would end soon, and she’d find herself abandoned somewhere along the dark banks of Lake Michigan. Edie remembered once Bette had been stranded in the Loop when car and train service ended. Bette had hitchhiked back to her apartment, then dated the man who picked her up for two and a half months.

“Sir!” Edie stood and approached the motorman cautiously. “Where does this line terminate?”

“Where would you like it to?” A soft, feminine voice answered, and the motorman turned around to reveal a motorwoman, with a heart-shaped face and slick black hair that looked like it had been bobbed a few weeks ago but had quickly continued its trek southward.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s the outfit,” the motorwoman replied, patting her ill-fitting slacks. “No worries. My question stands, by the way.”

Edie sighed. She noticed that, despite the wind rushing in through the open windows, she wasn’t in the least cold. In fact, she was warm. The motorwoman fixed her with a kind yet stern gaze. “So?”

Edie’s mind flashed to an image from her past: Bette baking, as Edie played in the yard of their farmhouse in Peoria. “Take me home,” she said dismissively.

The motorwoman winked at her, then returned to her controls.

Edie shook her head. “To actually answer, let me off at the next—”

But Edie’s instructions died in her throat as she also looked out the front of the car. The street had disappeared; the vehicle floated on nothing. On all four sides, the buildings and trees and automobiles had become grainy and colorless.

It’s as if I’m surrounded by motion picture screens, Edie thought.

“Oh, good!” the motorwoman said. “That was my intention.”

Edie frowned. “Did I—did I say that aloud?”

The motorwoman shot Edie a smile over her shoulder. “No.”

Edie didn’t know what to say, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she couldn’t believe what was happening, or because the motorwoman’s smile—playful yet loving, accentuated by the arch of her eyebrows—had paralyzed her.

“Don’t worry, I’m taking you home,” the motorwoman said. “By the way, happy birthday. I’m sorry your Bette couldn’t be there.”

“Thank you,” Edie replied automatically, before adding: “Wait, how did you know about Bette?”

“I’m trying to figure out what you really think of her. The words ‘miss’ and ‘leave’ are so close to each other in your mind they almost form one idea. But I don’t think they are one idea.”

“I want to get rid of her,” Edie spat. Something like disgust bubbled up inside her; it was quickly followed by the unmistakable feeling of shame.

The images around the car flickered, the familiar North Side sights dissolving into a forest. Then, the car slowed, and the black void under the car transformed into green grass. As the car stopped, a single-story home appeared. The white paint covering its walls was chipped and faded, and Edie was sure this was not due to any motion picture magic. She knew that house.

It was hers.

The car doors folded open, and the motorwoman swung around. Edie looked her up and down for the first time. The uniform wasn’t that bad, seen all together. It rather flattered her.

“Well thank you, I rather like it, to be honest,” the motorwoman said, and hopped out the door. Edie blushed and averted her eyes. “Anyway, was there something in particular you wanted to do here?”

Edie attempted to sort through the avalanche of thoughts pouring across her mind. “I’m not sure.”

“Did you come here to get rid of Bette?”

Edie tried to pen the truth far, far back in her mind, somewhere the motorwoman couldn’t reach. She laughed, though nothing happening seemed funny, then said, “Are we actually in Peoria, or is this some kind of Christmas Carol situation?”

The motorwoman put her hand slowly on Edie’s shoulder, and Edie realized she didn’t care what the answer was. “Why did you want to go home?”

“The farmhouse is sort of vibrating,” Edie said in wonder, squinting one eye, then the other. “I can’t seem to lock my eyes on it.” She walked, mesmerized, towards the house in which she and her sister had shared so many stories and tears and adventures.

Edie thought she saw a shadow move cross the kitchen window—at least, she wanted to think she did, as she realized whose form it resembled. She rushed forward, stopping halfway across the lawn.

“Oh!” the motorwoman said in a low voice. “Oh, my dear, I understand now…”

The figure in the kitchen window leaned forward, and the window slid upwards, the wind playing with the edges of the thin curtains. Bette, looking as smart and beautiful as Edie always wanted to remember her, placed a pie on the window to cool.

Edie’s breathing quickened to rapid, sharp inhalations. She didn’t care that the motorwoman was watching as hot, fat tears pushed their way down her cheeks.

“I wish she would stop haunting me. She’s dead. She drowned and she’s gone but she’s still here!” Edie tapped her temple furiously, then, as the tears grew more insistent, threw her hands over her face and wept in earnest.

She crushed her palms into her eyes, taking them away only when her vision had turned to dark, bursting stars. When she looked out, she and Bette locked eyes, Bette’s round, green eyes looking as jovial as ever, as though the most hilarious thought in the world would spring to her mind at any moment.

“I’m sorry I said you abandoned me,” Edie said to her sister. “I’m sorry I feel angry when I think about your death, I’m sorry I feel like I’d be deserting you if I made new friends, I—”

“There is no incorrect way to remember me,” her sister said. “You deserve everything wonderful in the world, Edie.” A grin played across her face as she ran a hand through her long, wild hair, unable even to be restrained by the kerchief she wore while cooking. “You should go after it like I would.”

“I never want to stop looking at you,” Edie said.

“You’re always looking at me,” Bette replied. “Every time you see one of the friends we shared, or remember something we did together, or even think about the day I was a complete idiot at Foster Beach and dove into the water—you’re looking at me.”

Edie contemplated this while Bette carefully poked her finger into the pie.

“Cool enough now,” Bette said, collecting the pie carefully. “I better bring this inside. Enjoy your party, Edie. And live, silly girl!”

Panic rose through Edie’s body. She could feel it, hot in her throat, as she whispered: “Bette, no! Don’t leave me!”

Bette blew a kiss to her sister and, pulling the pie from the ledge, closed the window. Edie’s feet carried her to the side of the house, tripping and unsteady as tears blinded her. “Bette! Bette! Come back!”

And she was banging on the window fiercely, trying to push the stubborn pane up, looking for ways inside the house. Then, she was sliding down the wall, the uneven wooden slats digging into her back as she fell to the ground, shaking with sobs.

She felt vibrations in the ground as someone moved towards her. Through her fingers, she saw the motorwoman’s legs fold as she demurely joined Edie against the wall.

“May I hug you?”

“Oh, please, do!”

The women embraced, Edie’s head nestled against the motorwoman’s shoulder, the motorwoman’s arms tight around Edie’s. Edie didn’t want to speak anymore, but her mind kept racing, and she didn’t stop it, knowing the motorwoman could hear it all anyway.

Everything is about her and I love her and want her gone, and I want her to stay and—

I want to live, but I don’t ever want to forget her.

“You won’t,” the motorwoman whispered, caressing Edie’s hair. “You deserve to be happy, like your sister said.”

Edie didn’t know how long she sat there in the woman’s arms before she was struck by a thought she was shocked she hadn’t posed earlier.

“Who are you?”

Edie lifted her head, and a gasp escaped her mouth before she could stop it. The farm and the streetcar and the motorwoman and her dear Bette had vanished. Edie sat in front of her apartment building, the cold air whipping her thin dress around her legs.

“You’re always looking at me,” her sister had said. Edie glanced at the light from her living room window. The party raged still.

Edie nodded several times, that final phrase repeating in her mind as she stood and straightened her dress. She wiped off bits of grass and stone and wood and wondered if any of the splinters she brushed away were from the walls of her home or if she had imagined the whole experience.

Returning to the courtyard, she found, to her surprise, a shivering Jordan sitting in a shrub.

“Edie!” she cried, her bare feet slapping the sidewalk as she ran. “Edie, I’m sorry! I’m a little—a little fizzled right now, but we all miss Bette, we really do, and I was so insensitive, I—”

Edie grabbed Jordan’s hand and squeezed it, smiling as she and her friend turned to the entrance.

“We’re a mess, Edie,” Jordan giggled, catching sight of the pair of them in the glass of the door.

For the first time all night, Edie didn’t hate the woman reflected back. She was proud of her.

As she opened the door for Jordan, a streetcar sounded a ding-ding-ding! along the street, and Edie didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know who drove by. She heard the motorwoman’s voice clear in her head:

Go live, Edie, just like Bette did.