Chapter 8: Beast

                                    

                                              
                  
                          
"Ms. Arden? Ms. Arden, please, I need to speak with you!" 
                          
The door judders in the frame as my fist pounds against the wood. I know she's in there, I saw the twitch of the drapes as I pulled up onto the driveway and yet she's left me standing here for a few minutes already as I suffocate on the scent of the honeysuckle and am stifled by the midday heat which stagnates the air, even under the shade of the porch. 

                          
I can't even begin to imagine how I must look, standing here hollering and hammering at the door, like some kind of wild banshee, but I'm past caring. I haven't slept a wink and this hunger, this awful, gut-churning hunger is eating me alive because I can't eat. Because I won't eat. Eating means something terrible, something unspeakable and I'm so consumed with panic that I have no idea what to do. 
                          
I need answers and the only person that can help me is Barbara Arden and if she doesn't open the door soon, I don't even want to think about what I might do. What I want to do. 
                          
Pressing my forehead against the wood, I whimper softly, as my stomach groans and churns almost like it's mocking me. When I hear the click of the bolt sliding back on the other side, I jump away, surprised, because I never heard her footsteps and certainly never expected her to answer the door. 
                          
It opens a small gap and Barbara peers out at me, all heavy mascara, wide eyes and pursed red lips and I instantly think that although she might look the same, she's not the person I met before, she's not the Barbara Arden with the Rita Hayworth appeal and confident air. This Barbara looks positively petrified, like one of those B-grade actresses about to get killed by the bad guy in those horror flicks that Rita and Connie used to go watch down at the Stony Crag movie theater on a Saturday night. 
                          
"What do you want?" she snaps. 
                          
"Please Ms. Arden, I need to speak with you, may I come in?" 
                          
She gives me a look like I just reached out and slapped her right across the cheek. "No you may certainly not. I'm not receiving visitors today, Mrs. Jones. Now, please go away." 
                          
She goes to close the door and I push at it hard, harder than I would have thought possible and she looks even more terrified as she gawps at my hand, but I won't budge.
                          
"I have to speak with you," I say, insistently through gritted teeth. "And I swear, I am not leaving until you do. Now you either let me in or I'll make sure my Mama runs your so-called business into the ground and has you run right out of town." 
                          
Her eyes narrow, but I see something else in her stare now, something that looks like she's seeing me for the first time, I mean really seeing me. She exhales long and deep and I smell something on her breath, the bitter tang of whiskey and too many menthol cigarettes. 
                          
"Gee, you really are your Mama's daughter, ain't you, Kathleen-Anne? I should have known that Patricia-May Brown wouldn't birth no little mouse. There's too much poison and steel in that woman to bear any child too meek and mild." She pauses, poking her head out a little more so she can scan the quiet street. "Okay, you get ten minutes of my time. Any more and I'll have to charge you and as it's technically my day off, I'll be charging triple time, do you hear?" 
                          
I nod. I can't afford triple time, of course, in fact I have no money with me at all, having left the house in a rush, barely saying goodbye to Rheemus and Brenda on my way out the door, but I have to speak with Barbara and I'll write her a darn I.O.U if need be. Right now, I'd sign my whole house away just to get the answers I need. 
                          
I follow her inside, grateful to be rid of the cloying odor of the honeysuckle which was starting to make me want to puke up right there on the porch, but the incense and the sage that lingers inside the house doesn't make me feel much better. I look down as she leads me through the black and white tiled hallway and see that she's wearing house slippers, soft pink fluffy things that remind me of the cotton candy that Rheemus likes to buy me at the county fair. I pass by all the strange framed pictures lining the walls and my eyes are drawn back to that glum little girl in all the photos.