Free Vicious Little Darlings by Katherine Easer Page B

and slams Agnes’s pancakes and my burger onto the table. The noise is jarring. Agnes glares at the waitress, who has orange hair and Tammy Faye eyelashes, but the woman is oblivious.
    â€œCountry bumpkins,” Agnes mutters with a sigh.
    I take a huge bite of my burger and watch Agnes pick at the edges of her pancakes.
    She puts down her fork. “Remember when Maddy ran out of the room and I went to look for her?”
    â€œYeah,” I say, my mouth full, “but I don’t remember anything after that.”
    â€œWell, I searched the whole dorm but couldn’t find her anywhere, so I decided to take the car and drive around campus. That’s when I realized my car key was missing and I just knew Maddy had taken it. When I got to the car, there she was, sitting in the driver’s seat, ready to drive off to God-knows-where. I was lucky to have found her in time. Who knows what she would’ve done?
    â€œSo we came back to the room. By that time you had passed out. I thought of leaving you a note, but we were in a hurry, and, besides, I wasn’t sure where we were going. Maddy was delirious and I was getting panicked myself, so I snatched the fawn and we got in the car and drove and drove until we ended up in Vermont. We stayed at an inn overlooking a small lake. The surroundings were good for Maddy. Almost immediately she went back to her normal self. Having the fawn there also seemed to help. Otherwise I would’ve let the poor thing go. I’m not fond of that animal at all—the mess and the awful smells—but at least it’s quiet. I’d go nuts if I had to listen to it yap all the time.”
    â€œMe too,” I say, nodding. I take a bite of my pickle and look at Agnes. “So then what happened?”
    â€œThings were fine until about the fourth day, when Maddy became hysterical again. She started coming up with all sorts of nutty ideas. She composed a list of all the things she wanted to do before she died.”
    â€œLike what?” I lick my fingers.
    â€œThere was something about skydiving and meeting the Dalai Lama.” Agnes pauses. “And losing her virginity,” she says, looking flustered.
    â€œTo Sebastian?”
    â€œTo anyone. She wanted to find a random Vermonter and take him back to our room.”
    I cringe and semi-lose my appetite. Sure, I could see myself doing something like that—but Maddy the virgin?
    â€œIt didn’t happen,” says Agnes. “I wasn’t going to let it happen. That’s why we left Vermont. You’re lucky you weren’t there. Maddy was such a wreck. She kept rambling about suicide and the afterlife. I couldn’t calm her down and I became quite edgy myself. At one point, she started screaming and pulling out her hair. I didn’t know what to do, so I started talking about the house—all the fun things we were going to do and how great it was going to be with the three of us living together. That seemed to work. She got very excited and stopped talking about death—it was a miracle—and then suddenly she wanted to go buy furniture and house stuff so we went to New York.”
    I put my burger down. “Why didn’t you call me?”
    â€œI know. I should have, but there was nothing you could’ve done.” Agnes picks up her fork and starts poking holes in her pancakes.
    I wipe my fingers on my napkin and take a sip of water. “Did you call Maddy’s aunt and uncle?”
    â€œAre you kidding? They don’t care about her. They only care about her parents’ money. If they had seen her in that manic state, they would’ve had her committed.”
    â€œDoes Maddy go to a shrink?”
    â€œNo,” she says, swallowing visibly.
    â€œThen how did she get all those prescription pills?”
    â€œFrom her stepdad. He’s a psychiatrist.”
    â€œHe treats her?”
    â€œNo, he just sends her whatever medication she