Monkey Business

jamie snoozes and loses

Monday, October 27, 8:39 a.m.

The alarm on my clock radio sounds again. Eight thirty-nine. Only a moron like me would choose nine minutes for a snooze time. Why not ten?

October 27 floats somewhere above the time. The significance of that date weaves through my semiconscious state. Twenty-nine years ago today, my sister Dara died.

I hit the snooze again. And then again.

Shit. Three minutes to nine. I’m never going to make it on time. I might as well skip the class. I haven’t done the reading, anyway. I haven’t even bought the books. That’s what I’ll do. Sleep for another hour and then get my books and make it to Accounting. So tired…

Knock, knock.

“Go away.”

“Jamie, you slept through your first two classes, you jackass.” It’s Nick.

I slither deeper under the sheet. “Tired.”

“We’re all tired. Open up.”

Grumbling, I open the door, then flop back onto the bed.

Nick sits on my computer chair. “We got back our OB papers.”

“How’d we do? Another B-plus?” We’ve already gotten loads of B-pluses. The professors seemed to have made a communal decision that we’re good but not that good.

“Nope,” he says, smiling.

“Not a B-plus? Are you sure? How about a B?”

“Nope.” Still smiling.

“A-minus?”

“Nope. An A, dude. We got an A. We’re now the A team.

Mazel-tov! “An A? How is that possible?”

“We’re brilliant, what can I say? Who knew? We’re celebrating tonight at Kimmy’s. It’s her birthday, so now we have twice the reason to party.”

Kimmy’s room! I’m finally getting back inside Kimmy’s room! She’s been looking so hot lately. Low-cut shirts, pushup bras, tight leather pants-it’s fantastic. She even started bringing lollipops to class-bright, big red ones she licks and sucks, turning her lips bloodred.

“Pat yourself on the back, dude,” Nick says. “It was all your wacky ideas and stellar writing that got us the mark.”

“I’m the king of the world!”

And my queen awaits me.

After lunch, I stop back at my room to get the list of books I need to buy, and the phone rings.

“Good afternoon!” I say brightly.

“Jamie?”

“Marnie! How are you?”

“Fine thanks, how are you? How’s school?”

“So far so good. How’s the store?”

“Busy as usual. I wanted to let you know that I delivered the daisies this morning.”

“Did she answer the door?” I ask.

“Yup.”

“How’d she look?”

Pause. “She was in her bathrobe.”

Same as every year. I thank Marnie and hang up.

Twice a year, on October 27 and April 20, Dara’s birthday and the anniversary of her death, my mother locks herself in her room and I send her flowers. When I was a kid, I’d sit by her door and listen to my mother cry. The year I was six, I called ten florists until I found Marnie, who agreed to deliver thirteen dollars and twenty-five cents worth of daisies, my mother’s favorite flowers.

My mother has never thanked me for them, but she keeps them on her night table until they die. She never talks about Dara, either. Neither does my dad. There’s only one album of her, and my mother keeps it in her room, separate from the family albums overflowing with photos of me, Amanda, Erin and Erin’s four-year-old daughter, Jenny. There aren’t too many photos of Dara, anyway. She died when she was about six months old.

Amanda was only two when Dara died of SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, so she doesn’t remember anything, but Erin was five and remembers a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, and police and relatives swarming the house.

The flowers are my way of saying I’m sorry, even though I know I’m not responsible.

If Dara hadn’t died, my parents wouldn’t have had me. My mother had always wanted three kids.

I get dressed and head to the bookstore. Unfortunately, the books I need are nowhere in sight. I find a clerk counting LWBS T-shirts, and I ask for help. He checks his computer and says, “None left.”

“Can you look in the back?”

“None left,” he repeats. “Sorry.” He resumes counting.

Oy. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “We ran out a month ago. Sorry.”

“How am I supposed to do my reading?”

“Tell your professor you waited too long. Maybe he’ll order more.”

I’m sure that’ll earn me an A.