The Girl in the Flammable Skirt Read online

  That night, he sprinkled some sugar on our living room floor and we made love in it, dressed only in gloves and shoes; I lapped the sugar off his shoulder like a kitten. Sweet as it was, I had a hard time really being there with him that night because I kept stealing looks at that ring. It was so bright and so dark at the exact same time. After we were done, he went to take a shower and wash off the leftover sugar, and I pulled the ring off my glove and put it in Aunt Lula’s sugar jar. When I went later to peek again at its crimson glory, I was surprised to find that the sugar was red too.

  What? I said, Sweetie, did you pour fruit juice into the sugar jar?

  He stirred and said, No, come back to bed, and I said, Wait just a second and put the ring in the flour.

  Odd: in the morning, all the flour was red too. Red flour looks wrong.

  Sweetie, I said, this ring is leaking, and I put it out on the counter and the counter turned red and I covered it up with a paper towel and the paper towel turned red and yes, even the tip of my finger was red now; I ran it under the tap but the water did nothing at all but get me wet.

  My robber came out of the shower and I said: Sweetie, this ring has to go back or everything we own including ourselves will turn ruby and the robber picked it up with the gift towel from around his waist and the whole towel turned red and he said, Wow, you’re right, okay.

  That night the opera couple was out seeing The Magic Flute and we dropped the ring from a little paper bag that was of course red into their sugar jar again. Their sugar did not turn red and I couldn’t figure that out. It seemed like there was something special about their sugar and it made me feel a little bit bad, like my sugar wasn’t tough enough. Still, I kept lifting up the lid of the jar to see the ring nestled in there—it looked so beautiful glistening on the sugar crystals. The cat came to look with me and I wanted the cat badly but I knew that even if we took it home and gave it milk and renamed it, I still wouldn’t feel like it was mine.

  We jimmied the back door of the neighboring house; the couple was out of town somewhere cold. I’d watched them board the shuttle for the airport and he’d been wearing a ridiculous fur hat.

  What did I go for this time? I went for the huge container of salt they had on their kitchen counter, the grandpapa of all salt shakers, and sure enough in there was a ring with an emerald the color of grass seen by someone with green eyes.

  My sweetie hugged me and wanted to do it right there on the counter with the salt but I said I didn’t want to make love in salt because it made me feel like dinner, in a bad way, and he said he understood.

  We took the ring home and I put it in our salt and woke up in the middle of the night to see if our salt was green but it wasn’t.

  I climbed back into bed. It’s still there, I whispered, and the salt is still salt.

  He kissed my ear. Penny, he said, let’s go to Tahiti and call it quits until winter again. I’m tired for now, let’s get some sun. I said all right and he nestled his head into my shoulder. I looked at the diamond ring in the darkness, my little captured star, and I crept out of bed and went to the salt canister and retrieved the emerald ring and put it on my other hand. Climbing back into bed, I curled up to him again. The rings looked so beautiful together. I wanted three.

  I guess I miss the other ring, I said out loud, though he seemed to be asleep.

  When we got to Tahiti, in our pretty hotel room with the lavishly floral bedspreads and toilet paper folded into a point, he gave me a little wrapped gift in red wrapping paper and a beautiful red bow and I opened it up and I guess he’d not been asleep after all because what was it? It was that ruby ring.

  Oh darling, oh sweetie, I said and I wanted to slip it on and I saw he’d attached a little rubber strip around the interior so that my hand wouldn’t change. I noticed his fingertips were red from doing that, and I kissed him for his kindness. The ring caught the light like an open wound and I watched the sparkles all over my fingers dancing from red to green to white and back again and thought: I am the most stunning and loved baker’s wife to ever live in the world ever.

  We went swimming one hour after lunch. I was a little drunk from the second piña colada. The ruby ring slipped off my finger into the water. The ocean turned red.

  All the swimmers ran out screaming. They thought it was blood, a massive hemorrhage by some very large person. I groped for the ring but got only handfuls of water. As far as the eye could see the ocean glistened scarlet, and in some places, it was even an electric magenta.

  My robber paled and started to cry. This is the ocean, he said, what did you do, and I said, I forgot, and he said This is awful, throw in the green ring and I said But the salt stayed salt, and he said: Do it. So I did, I took the green ring off my finger and tossed it just under the arc of a little crimson wave. Nothing happened. The robber kept crying. I grew up by the sea, he said, I love blue, and he said Try the wedding ring and I said Our wedding ring? Our Wedding Ring? and he said You must and so I did, I tipped my hand down and just let it slide off my finger, cut past the surface of the waves and ring it, a full finger of water inside as it shimmied all the way down to the bottom of the sea. I heard him let out his breath when the ocean didn’t change back. My fingers were bare and I could hardly recognize my own hands.

  Now I started to cry. My marriage ring had been eaten by the huge red wet mouth of the ocean.

  The robber stood crying and I stood crying and the sand glowed a pale orange. The environmental committee was already arriving in big trucks, with equipment. They were almost crying, it seemed, but they used megaphones to cover up the shaking in their voices. Check the fish, they called, and they did and the fish seemed fine. They measured the red part. I’d been fearing that the whole world’s oceans were red now, but they said in their megaphone that the bleeding stopped one mile out. It was a one-mile ring. It was not all-powerful.

  The robber and I went back to the hotel room. I sat in the bathroom and folded the toilet paper into a point like I worked there. When I went into the bedroom, he said he wanted to make love on sheets. I said No. He said Are you still mine? I still love you, do you love me? and I said I don’t even know your first name, and for that matter, I don’t know your last name either and besides, you just let our love plop into the ocean and so how am I supposed to love you now? I put my hands on my hips.

  He said It wasn’t our love that plopped into the ocean, Penny, it was just the ring, and I said But this was the ring from the flour jar and I don’t know how to be yours without it.

  He held my face in his hands. I looked out past the window to the foam crashing. It was pink.

  Listen, I told him. I’m confused. I’m going home.

  I took a shuttle to the Tahiti airport by myself. I left the robber sitting on the made bed, staring at the wall. I sat in the back of the shuttle bus and didn’t talk except in curt one-word answers and the shuttle driver kept asking me questions that required more than one-word answers and he kept calling me Sugar and I was getting more and more annoyed and wanted to yank the steering wheel out of his hands and throw it out the window until out of the blue he gave me an idea. I barely remember paying him because I thought about this idea from the moment it came to me, and I thought about it the whole plane ride, through the snack and through the movie and through the dinner, and that’s where I went first. I didn’t even stop home to drop off my bags.

  The white cat was still there and purred the second I touched it but more important, the sugar jar was still there too. I took it in my lap, opened the lid and peeked inside. The grains glittered.

  Oh sugar, I said into it. You are the strongest of all.

  I picked up their phone—it was a tortoiseshell phone with gold buttons—and called direct to the hotel room in Tahiti. To my surprise, the clerk said we had checked out several hours ago and just then there was a rattle at the window and in stepped the robber.

  How did you know? I beamed, phone receiver in hand, and he shrugged, face tired and sunburned.
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br />   It was a good guess, he said. Madame Butterfly signs out and all.

  We leaned forward and had an awkward hug. I held on to his elbow. He nudged his chin into my neck.

  Pulling away, I held up the jar. So look at this, I said. Maybe this will help things.

  What is it? he asked.

  It’s that special sugar.

  Oh, he said. Well. I’ve always liked sugar.

  I felt a little nervous but he gave me a good supportive look, so I dipped a finger into the sugar and licked it off. Mmm, I said, mmm, you’ve gotta try this. The grains sparkled on my tongue. The robber sat down in one of the wicker kitchen chairs next to me.

  It’s really good, I said.

  He dipped in his own leathered finger and took a tentative lick off the glove. I watched his expression carefully. The house seemed very quiet except for the precise ticking of the clock above the kitchen table.

  Do you feel any different? I asked.

  Not yet, he said.

  He put his finger in it again and I did too and once we touched fingertips and he curled his knuckle around mine and squeezed.

  Hello there, I said softly, to our fingers.

  He put his hand on my leg. My leg leaned into his hand.

  I think we should eat it all, I stated. He moved closer to me. I’m full, he said. Keep eating, I said.

  But Penny, it tastes just like regular sugar, he whispered into my ear.

  Sshh, I murmured back, touching my shoulder to his, scooping up a new pile of grains into my hand. Don’t tell.

  THE GIRL IN THE

  FLAMMABLE SKIRT

  When I came home from school for lunch my father was wearing a backpack made of stone.

  Take that off, I told him, that’s far too heavy for you.

  So he gave it to me.

  It was solid rock. And dense, pushed out to its limit, gray and cold to the touch. Even the little zipper handle was made of stone and weighed a ton. I hunched over from the bulk and couldn’t sit down because it didn’t work with chairs very well so I stood, bent, in a corner, while my father whistled, wheeling about the house, relaxed and light and lovely now.

  What’s in this? I said, but he didn’t hear me, he was changing channels.

  I went into the TV room.

  What’s in this? I asked. This is so heavy. Why is it stone? Where did you get it?

  He looked up at me. It’s this thing I own, he said.

  Can’t we just put it down somewhere, I asked, can’t we just sit it in the corner?

  No, he said, this backpack must be worn. That’s the law.

  I squatted on the floor to even out the weight. What law? I asked. I never heard of this law before.

  Trust me, he said, I know what I’m talking about. He did a few shoulder rolls and turned to look at me. Aren’t you supposed to be in school? he asked.

  I slogged back to school with it on and smushed myself and the backpack into a desk and the teacher sat down beside me while the other kids were doing their math.

  It’s so heavy, I said, everything feels very heavy right now.

  She brought me a Kleenex.

  I’m not crying, I told her.

  I know, she said, touching my wrist. I just wanted to show you something light.

  Here’s something I picked up:

  Two rats are hanging out in a labyrinth.

  One rat is holding his belly. Man, he says, I am in so much pain. I ate all those sweet little sugar piles they gave us and now I have a bump on my stomach the size of my head. He turns on his side and shows the other rat the bulge.

  The other rat nods sympathetically. Ow, she says.

  The first rat cocks his head and squints a little. Hey, he says, did you eat that sweet stuff too?

  The second rat nods.

  The first rat twitches his nose. I don’t get it, he says, look at you. You look robust and aglow, you don’t look sick at all, you look bump-free and gorgeous, you look swinging and sleek. You look plain great! And you say you ate it too?

  The second rat nods again.

  Then how did you stay so fine? asks the first rat, touching his distended belly with a tiny claw.

  I didn’t, says the second rat. I’m the dog.

  My hands were sweating. I wiped them flat on my thighs.

  Then, ahem, I cleared my throat in front of my father. He looked up from his salad. I love you more than salt, I said.

  He seemed touched, but he was a heart attack man and had given up salt two years before. It didn’t mean that much to him, this ranking of mine. In fact, “Bland is a state of mind” was a favorite motto of his these days. Maybe you should give it up too, he said. No more french fries.

  But I didn’t have the heart attack, I said. Remember? That was you.

  In addition to his weak heart my father also has weak legs so he uses a wheelchair to get around. He asked me to sit in a chair with him once, to try it out for a day.

  But my chair doesn’t have wheels, I told him. My chair just sits here.

  That’s true, he said, doing wheelies around the living room, that makes me feel really swift.

  I sat in the chair for an entire afternoon. I started to get jittery. I started to do that thing I do with my hands, that knocking-on-wood thing. I was knocking against the chair leg for at least an hour, protecting the world that way, superhero me, saving the world from all my horrible and dangerous thoughts when my dad glared at me.

  Stop that knocking! he said. That is really annoying.

  I have to go to the bathroom, I said, glued to my seat.

  Go right ahead, he said, what’s keeping you. He rolled forward and turned on the TV.

  I stood up. My knees felt shaky. The bathroom smelled very clean and the tile sparkled and I considered making it into my new bedroom. There is nothing soft in the bathroom. Everything in the bathroom is hard. It’s shiny and new; it’s scrubbed down and whited out; it’s a palace of bleach and all you need is one fierce sponge and you can rub all the dirt away.

  I washed my hands with a little duck soap and peered out the bathroom window. We live in a high-rise apartment building and often I wonder what would happen if there was a fire, no elevator allowed, and we had to evacuate. Who would carry him? Would I? Once I imagined taking him to the turning stairway and just dropping him down the middle chute, my mother at the bottom with her arms spread wide to catch his whistling body. Hey, I’d yell, catch Dad! Then I’d trip down the stairs like a little pony and find them both splayed out like car accident victims at the bottom and that’s where the fantasy ends and usually where my knocking-on-wood hand starts to act up.

  • • •

  Paul’s parents are alcoholics and drunk all the time so they don’t notice that he’s never home. Perhaps they conjure him up, visions of Paul, through their bleary whiskey eyes. But Paul is with me. I have locked Paul in my closet. Paul is my loverboy, sweet Paul is my olive.

  I open the closet door a crack and pass him food. He slips the dirty plates from the last meal back to me and I stack them on the floor next to my T-shirts. Crouched outside the closet, I listen to him crunch and swallow.

  How is it? I ask. What do you think of the salt-free meatball?

  Paul says he loves sitting in the dark. He says my house is so quiet and it smells sober. The reason it’s so quiet is because my father feels awful and is resting in his bedroom. Tiptoe, tiptoe round the sick papa. The reason it smells sober is because it is so sober. I haven’t made a joke in this house in ten years at least. Ten years ago, I tried a Helen Keller joke on my parents and they sent me to my room for my terrible insensitivity to suffering.

  I imagine in Paul’s house everyone is running around in their underwear, and the air is so thick with bourbon your skin tans from it. He says no; he says the truth is his house is quiet also. But it’s a more pointy silence, he says. A lighter one with sharper pricks. I nod and listen. He says too that in his house there are moisture rings making Olympian patterns on every possible wooden surfa
ce.

  Once instead of food I pass my hand through the crack. He holds it for at least a half hour, brushing his fingers over my fingers and tracing the lines in my palm.

  You have a long lifeline, he says.

  Shut up, I tell him, I do not.

  He doesn’t let go of my hand, even then. Any dessert?

  I produce a cookie out of my front shirt pocket.

  He pulls my hand in closer. My shoulder crashes against the closet frame.

  Come inside, he says, come join me.

  I can’t, I say, I need to stay out here.

  Why? He is kissing my hand now. His lips are very soft and a little bit crumby.

  I just do, I say, in case of an emergency. I think: because now I’ve learned my lesson and I’m terribly sensitive to suffering. Poor poor Helen K, blind-and-deaf-and-dumb. Because now I’m so sensitive I can hardly move.