Free Out of Order by Robin Stevenson Page B

Zelia says. “Not my mother’s.”
    The woman shrugs apologetically. “Like I said, it’s nothing personal.”
    â€œFuck it.” Zelia looks at me. “I’ll do it myself.”

Twelve
    ZELIA LIVES IN a condo down near the Gorge. You can see the waterway from her living room window. I slip my shoes off in the front hall and look around. Thick white carpets, glass coffee tables without a single smudged fingerprint, carefully arranged flowers and knickknacks. It looks like a show home, not a place where people actually live.
    I don’t know what Lee does exactly, other than that she works for a lawyer. Zelia says she makes plenty of money when she works, but she keeps having problems with her bosses and she changes jobs a lot. They live off credit cards half the time. It makes me uncomfortable when she talks about Lee like this, with a mixture of contempt and admiration.
    Tonight the white leather couch is occupied. A dark-haired man in beige cords and a heavy sweater is relaxing into the deep cushions, a mug resting on the coffee table beside him and a magazine open on his lap. He looks up when we walk in.
    â€œZelia,” he says, “how are you? How was school?”
    â€œHey, Michael. This is my friend Sophie.”
    Michael smiles. “Sophie, huh? One of my favorite names.It means wisdom, did you know that?”
    I shake my head. “I don’t know. I might have heard that before, maybe.” He’s pretty good-looking for someone that old, and he seems like a nice-enough guy, but I can’t help remem­bering that he was supposed to be Lee’s therapist. Not her boyfriend.
    â€œWhere’s Lee?” Zelia interrupts.
    Michael nods toward the door. “Just ran out to get some wine to have with dinner. Should be back any minute.” He picks up his magazine in a gesture that is clearly meant to dismiss us.
    Zelia ignores this. She drops down on the couch beside him and tucks her feet under her. Michael keeps his eyes on his magazine.
    I remain standing, feeling awkward. I have an odd feeling, like I’m not really here or this isn’t quite real. The whiteness of the couch, the lazy pose of the man and the beautiful sullen girl beside him—it all looks like a magazine ad or a scene from a movie.
    The door opens, and Lee’s clear voice breaks the spell.
    â€œMichael?”
    Zelia springs to her feet. “Come on. Let’s go to my room.”
    Zelia’s room has the same unreal show-home quality as the rest of the house. It looks like a designer’s idea of a teenage girl’s bedroom. It is entirely too pink and too frilly to belong to Zelia.
    Zelia throws herself onto the bed, rolls onto her back and lifts up her shirt. She pinches the skin above her belly button. “I could totally just do it myself.”
    â€œOuch,” I say, wincing as I imagine it. “So. I thought you said you hated Michael.”
    Zelia’s eyes are shards of blue glass. “I do hate Michael,” she says.
    I shrug. “Okay then.”
    â€œI’m serious.”
    â€œI said okay. So you hate Michael.”
    She sits up. “Not that, stupid. The belly button. I’m going to do it. Aren’t you?”
    I hesitate. I like the idea of both of us having pierced navels but...“No,” I say.
    She jumps up and heads for the door. “Well, you can help me then. Be right back,” she says.
    A couple of minutes later she returns, holding a glass of ice cubes in one hand and a sewing needle in the other. She places the ice on her bedside table, stretches out on the bed and folds her arms behind her head. Her sleeves ride up her arms slightly, and I glimpse a jagged red cut, partly healed but inflamed and sore-looking, marking the pale underside of her left forearm.
    I touch her wrist lightly. “What did you do to yourself?”
    She glares at me and yanks the sleeve back down. “Nothing.”
    I