Alabaster lived as though it was just her, her father’s ghost, and the lingering essence of some Catholic archetype of the Devil. In a trailer park. Stuck in the middle of somewhere in Washington, a town called It-Doesn’t-Matter-Ville.
You and me and the Devil makes three, Alabaster thought, as she scrubbed a cast iron pan with a little ball of stainless steel. She paused to look back at the dining table. It took up a good portion of her trailer, but she couldn’t part with it, even if she wanted to, because her father had salvaged that piece of junk from the scrap yard five summers ago. A pairing of three plates were left on top of that table: hers was empty; her father’s—stacked with fried chicken and mashed potatoes; on top of the Devil’s was only a fork, layed just so that it leaned off the edge perfectly. He never comes back for dinner, Alabaster thought, letting go of the cast iron pan just so it could fall and clatter against the sides of the sink.
Alabaster furrowed her brows then, and leaned against the sink, peering out of the window that sat above. She could only see darkness. Though, across the street was Ivory’s trailer, with those stupid light strings hanging from the awning. I hate Ivory and those stupid hanging light strings, Alabaster thought, hiking up her jeans and then pacing circles around her small kitchen.
I hate Ivory, I hate Ivory, I hate Ivory.
Alabaster turned her attention back to the cast iron pan sitting like a great hunk of something that had been carved from the ground and then placed in her earthly trailer. She felt the Devil get up from his place at the table and begin to creep up her back. But where is my father? There’s just the two of us. Alabaster wondered how hard she’d have to throw that pan to get it across the street and through Ivory’s front window. Probably pretty hard, she remembered, and then shuffled to her fridge to see how many eggs she had.
“A full dozen! Yes!” Alabaster smiled and pulled the egg carton from the fridge, only to be met with Snoopy’s greedy, droopy eyes. Alabaster sighed and then pulled an egg out of the carton, cracking it into Snoopy’s dog dish and over top of his kibble. “You are a fat beagle, Snoop.” Snoopy wagged his tail and ate his food, lapping up the egg whites first, and though he was a bit overweight, Alabaster couldn’t bring herself to make the little guy go on a diet. She bent down and patted his little head, though he didn’t show any signs of caring, since he was too busy licking up the yolk, then, from the sides of his dish.
Alabaster quickly grabbed the carton of eggs, and then slipped on the red slippers her mother had left behind, three summers ago. You were so sick of us you didn’t even grab your slippers on your way out? You were in that much of a rush? Homewrecker. Alabaster hopped down her wooden stairs, which swayed a bit with each step, and trotted down to the edge of her driveway, stopping at her mailbox.
Buck, Alabaster’s neighbor (also, on-and-off again guy-friend-person) opened his door just so he could stroll down his own driveway, across the lawn, and to Alabaster. “Whatcha doin’?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.
Alabaster looked straight ahead at Ivory’s trailer, without paying any mind to Buck.
Buck let out a puff of smoke and then focused his attention to the carton of eggs that Alabaster was holding against her chest. “Oh, c’mon Alabaster! Don’t do this again.” He tried to grab the carton from her hands, but she took a quick step backwards and scowled.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” Alabaster said, in between staccato breaths.
“Alabaster–”
“No!”
“C’mon, please don’t do this. You are nuts!”
Alabaster opened the carton and took two eggs out.
“Alabaster, don’t!”
Alabaster bolted across the quiet, dark street, slightly damp from the midnight dew, and threw both eggs directly at Ivory’s dark windows. The shells cracked upon impact, sending out a magnificent display of yellow and white, slimy, yolks.
“Alabaster!”
“Shut it, Buck!” One after another, Alabaster threw egg after egg against Ivory’s front window. When she was done with the dozen, she threw the cardboard carton down onto Ivory’s lawn, stomping on it just for good measure. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
Suddenly, the lights in Ivory’s trailer turned on and Ivory was tiptoeing down her wooden stairs, dressed in a pink robe, her blonde hair twisted around one of those heatless curler things. “Alabaster! Really?” Ivory asked, throwing her hands into the air.
“That’s what you get for being a terrible friend!”
Buck rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Alabaster, you really have to let that go.”
“No!”
“Alabaster!” Ivory shouted, gesturing to the broken egg shells that lay in a crumpled mess under her window. “You misunderstand everything. Always.”
“You never apologized!”
“Because there is nothing to apologize for.” Ivory crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, nodding quickly to Buck. “What do ya’ think, Buck? What do I have to apologize for?”
He parted his lips, but once Alabaster shot him a seething look of something that reminded him of the Devil, he shrugged and wiped his mouth.
“Thought so,” Ivory said smiling.
Buck sighed, and then slumped his shoulders forward, deciding that the only part he could play in this matter was ‘bystander.’ He stepped back, suddenly intent on watching the two women go back and forth over something that, in the great scheme of things, was rather insignificant. Hopefully, if with enough luck, Alabaster would invite him over if he played his cards right. “Alabaster,” Buck began, “maybe you and Ivory should—”
“You promised you’d meet me at Daddy’s grave at two o’clock on his death anniversary!” Alabaster shouted, wiping tears from her eyes. She puffed out her chest dramatically, as if to intimidate Ivory. “And did you show up, no!”
Ivory cocked her hip and dug her heel into the pavement. “I got the time wrong—”
“No you didn’t!”
“Yes I did.”
Buck ran his hand through his hair before taking a prolonged drag from his cigarette. “Alabaster, what if Ivory actually did get the time wrong? What would you say then?”
Alabaster scrunched her nose and bit her lip in response.
Buck rolled his eyes and then looked at Ivory. “Did you really get the time wrong, Ivory?”
Ivory swallowed, and Buck saw a flicker of regret in her eyes. Is she lying, Buck thought, glancing towards his pitiful, on-and-off again gal-person, who was still seething with grief, two years after her father’s death. Buck put a hand on Alabaster’s shoulder, heat rising from her skin and through her thin shirt, meeting his palm. Upon his touch, Alabaster flinched. Buck pulled back, and an instant swath of shame rose to his cheeks. “Can you forgive Ivory, Alabaster?”
“No!” she said quickly, squaring her shoulders and then taking a step away from both Ivory and Buck.
Buck scratched his chin, then, just as his brain flooded with a heaviness that made his eyes tired. He blinked against the dark, and was suddenly aware that all three of them had somehow migrated towards the middle of the street. Buck grabbed Alabaster’s hand—she thankfully let him—and said, “Maybe we should go back inside. We shouldn’t be standing out in the middle of the street this late at night.”
Ivory and Alabaster looked at Buck, both offering varying degrees of hostility.
“Look,” Buck said, shrugging his shoulders, “I feel like you both are overreacting.”
“How am I overreacting?” Ivory shouted, one of her heatless curlers coming loose.
Buck sighed. “I dunno . . . I just think—”
“Since when do you think?” Ivory asked.
“Hey! I think you, Ivory Rosaline, might not be telling the whole truth. That’s all.”
Ivory threw up her hands and scoffed. “Might not be telling the truth, huh? Prove it!”
“We can’t!” Alabaster cut in, tears streaming down her cheeks. “But I needed you, and you were nowhere to be found that day!”
“He’s been dead for two years,” Ivory said softly, bending forward to dramatically put her hands on her knees, just as an adult may do to a troubled toddler.
“And you don’t care,” Alabaster said, quietly, as if the words were stuck in the back of her throat. “You’ve never had anything bad happen in your own life! You don’t know how it is.”
Ivory rolled her eyes. “You're not the only one to have lost a father.” She looked at Buck and crossed her arms. “Did you sulk when my daddy died? Your uncle?”
Buck looked at the ground and frowned, simply saying, “Uncle Dan raised me.”
“Right.” Ivory looked at Alabaster and raised an eyebrow. “People have to move on, Alabaster. Life is for the living.” She bit her lip, then, and said, “And how dare you say nothing bad has ever happened to me—I’m twenty-seven and I live in a trailer park with my baby cousin!” Ivory pointed a finger at Buck and scowled.
Alabaster squeezed Buck’s hand, which was still holding hers, and sighed, wondering for a moment if she had been wrong. Am I too stuck in the past? Should I move on? she thought, shifting from foot to foot. She parted her lips to say something, anything, when she felt that familiar coldness creep up her back. The Devil, Alabaster realized, feeling her body shiver against the close proximity of that entity. “He won’t forget me,” Alabaster said, under her breath and almost only to herself.
“Who won’t forget you?” Buck asked, looking intently at his former lover, wondering if they’d ever be able to rekindle what they once had.
Alabaster turned to look over her shoulder at her poorly lit, decaying trailer home. Its awning sagged, and weeds were overgrown on the sides of it. She let go of Buck’s hand and took a few steps forwards, so that when she stopped, the tips of her toes touched the very edge of her lawn. She noted how unruly it had become, and regretted the fact that her father would have been disappointed in her lack of care. “The Devil wants me to mow the lawn in the morning,” Alabaster said, swaying on her feet, sleep seemingly overtaking her as she stood upright.
“Excuse me?” Ivory asked, furrowing her brows and taking a few steps backwards.
Alabaster laughed and then sighed. “The grass keeps growing despite myself. Despite me wanting things to go back to how they once were. The Devil—it's been Him, Daddy and I these past two years.” She felt her eyes roll around in their sockets as she fought off enveloping sleep. “Buck?” she asked, not bothering to turn around to look at him.
“Yes?”
“I’ll need your help in the morning. I need to replace the belt on Daddy’s old mower so I can mow this grass.”
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