The Girl in the Flammable Skirt Read online

  Jill’s mother took a bite out of the bread and chewed for a moment. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and smiled.

  After he got the photo in the P.O. box, Renny painted the inside of his closet door with white paint. He painted slowly up, then down, until the numbers had vanished, and the paint would never flake away. He went into the bathroom and tried to throw up, but he couldn’t. Grabbing the leftover paint, he walked down to the train station. There was an empty cave where his older brother used to fuck girls, or smoke pot, or whatever he did before he left for the army. Renny painted seventeen swastikas, one for each year of his life, all over the cave and then curled up underneath them and went to sleep. The swastikas looked like spider boomerangs that he could fling out into the world. They would clear a path, and then come back, to guide him to safety.

  • • •

  Renny led Jill through the kitchen.

  “Counter’s on your left, fridge on your right,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She walked up the stairs and down the stairs and through the back door into the yard.

  “So do you like it here, Renny?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it’s okay,” he said. “Step up. Just walk straight here.” They reached the cliffs overlooking the beach, across the street from Ocean House. He could see the distant figures of the other residents, their tentative arms. He heard Trina laugh.

  “Are we going too far?” Jill asked.

  “We’ll switch soon.”

  He stopped her at the edge of a cliff. The ground beneath them crumbled down for thirty feet, and then led into the sand, and then the water.

  “We’re at the edge of a cliff, Jill,” Renny said, standing behind her, his hands cupping her shoulders.

  “I’m trying to trust you here, Renny,” she said. The wind blew her T-shirt to her skin. She watched the strange colors underneath her blindfold, and pictured Matthew’s back growing smaller and smaller and how the world seemed to close in on her then.

  “I hated what you did to my swastika,” Renny said.

  “Well I couldn’t just leave it there,” she said back. The palms of his hands were on her upper arms, warm. “I hate swastikas.”

  “See, Jill,” Renny said, “it’s eyes the color of sky, not of earth, that’s what it’s about, see, that’s what we say. Eyes the color of sky, not of earth.” He stared at her hair; it was dark and long and felt soft where it touched his hands.

  “But Renny,” she said, “your eyes are brown.”

  He gripped her shoulders. He wondered if by the time the two weeks were up, and he returned home, Jordan would be gone.

  Jill pictured the wedding again. Except now the priest was nowhere to be found, the groom was nowhere to be found, and it was just herself and the rabbi. His arm was tan and thick with black hair. See our skin, the rabbi was telling her, this skin was made for the desert.

  “It’s a long way down,” Renny said.

  She imagined scratching at the skin on the rabbi’s arm, scratching at her own arm, scratching them down, until underneath the thin layers of flesh she found out just what exactly they were made of.

  “Are you scared?” Renny held her shoulders tightly.

  “Should I be?”

  Renny didn’t answer. Jill shivered.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, “a little.”

  He put his arms around her chest, and brought her closer to him. One thumb very gently brushed against the side of her nipple, standing up from the chill. She was quiet.

  “Is that okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. She breathed out, and closed her eyes beneath the blindfold. Her skin was rising. I am made out of dirt, she thought.

  “Do you want to switch?” Renny asked quietly. His hand was light against her breast.

  I am made out of gold.

  “No,” she said, “do you?”

  “No.” He hugged her in closer and listened to the water rush at them from far away.

  FUGUE

  1. Dinnertime

  I sit across the table from my husband. It is dinnertime. I made steak and green beans and homestyle potatoes and even clipped two red roses from the bush in the backyard; they stand in a vase between us which is clear so I can watch the stems drift in the water as he speaks.

  He puts his elbows on the table. He opens his mouth while he chews. He gesticulates with his fork, prongs out.

  Me, I nod and nod. He tells me all about work. The memos are misspelled, he tells me. That new secretary can barely speak. I listen and chew with my mouth closed. The potato, no longer hot, breaks under my teeth, melts across my tongue, my upper lip seals to my bottom lip, and everything is private inside my mouth—loud and powerful and mine. A whole world of noise going on in there that he can’t even hear. Reaching forward, he spears a big piece of potato with his fork. He lifts it up, takes it in, bites down. I watch the food disappearing in his mouth and it’s my food and I bought it and I made it and I have to will my hands to keep still because I think I want to rescue it. I want to rescue my food, thrust an arm across the tablecloth, spill the drifting roses, dodge his molars, avoid his tongue, and seize it back, bring it all out, drag it down into the dish, until there is just a mush of alive potato between us, his stomach empty, my mouth still closed.

  2.

  Inside the pill factory, the muttering worker was switching things around.

  “I’ll put the yellow pills in here,” he said to himself, mutter mutter, “and the white ones in here.” He took the bottles to the child-sealing machine and went home.

  Two weeks later, outside in the world, people with prescriptions fell down dead. The muttering worker read about it in the paper, felt a surge of importance, and decided it was time to move on. He called the pill factory office and told them he quit. They asked why. He said allergies. They said: Allergies to what? And he said, Allergies to the telephone and hung up.

  This was the fourth job he’d grown tired of in a month. Two weeks before he’d gotten a gig teaching English to immigrants. He’d taught them the wrong things. He’d said: pussy means woman and asshole means friend. During the week, one female student got propositioned. Two men were beaten up. They stomped into their classroom, bruised and confused, but their misleading muttering teacher was long gone—already shaking the hand of the pill factory boss, in fact, his eyes flicking with interest on the vats of colored ovals and the power hidden beneath their shells.

  But now it was time to change again. The muttering man put on a tie and looked at himself in the mirror. This always made him spit. He projected it out, pleh, littering his face. The muttering man had been an ugly child. He had been an ugly teenager. Now he was an ugly adult. He found this pattern very annoying.

  This time, he applied for a secretarial job. Decided he needed to do something calm and quiet for a while, like memos. Here he met his match: loud man.

  Loud man wore a necklace, talked very loud and was very honest. He looked everyone square in the eye and said, Let me tell you what I honestly think and then did just that.

  Muttering man hated him for several reasons, one being that loud man was his boss, another being that loud man was loud and the third and final and most awful being that loud man was good-looking. Really good-looking.

  Muttering man went to loud man’s house with a gun.

  “Hello,” he muttered, “I’m here to steal from you.”

  Loud man didn’t quite hear him right. “You’re here to what? Speak up.”

  “Steal,” said muttering man as loud as he could which was not loud at all, “I want to steal things. Like some jewelry. Like your mirror. Like your wife.”

  Loud man was angry, flushed a becoming pink and said many things, including Let me tell you what I honestly think.

  “Please,” muttered muttering man, “tell away.”

  “I think you’re my employee!” said loud man in a huge voice, “and I Think You’re Fired!”

  Mutteri
ng man fired the gun and hit loud man in the knee. Loud man yelled and sat on the floor. Muttering man squared his shoulders and took what he asked for.

  First, he told the trembling wife to wait at the door. He tried to catch a glimpse of her face, to see what kind of woman such a good-looking fellow would nab, but he couldn’t see much underneath her overhanging hair.

  Next, he told loud man to remove his gold necklace which he happily slipped over his own ugly head.

  “I’ve never had a necklace,” he muttered, pleased.

  Finally, he walked up and down the halls looking for the perfect mirror to snatch. He passed several boring oval ones but when he turned the corner and walked into the master bedroom, he found exactly what he was looking for. Hanging on the wall, just opposite the large bed, was a huge rectangular mirror in a lavish silver frame. Mumbling under his breath in delight, muttering man gently lifted it off its hook. This mirror had been reflecting loud good-looking man for years and so had turned soft and complacent, and was likely to be kind to even muttering man’s harsh features. He took a quick peek at his necklaced self and fought down the blast of hope.

  With some difficulty, he angled the huge mirror under his arm and shoved the wife into the passenger seat of the car, leaving loud man howling in the house. Muttering man started the engine and took off down the street. He glanced sideways at the wife, examining her profile, searching for beauty. She was okay-looking. She didn’t look like a movie star or anything. She looked sort of like four different people he’d met before. She stared straight ahead. After fifteen minutes, he dumped her off at the side of the road because she didn’t talk and muttering man wasn’t good with silent people. Plus, he wanted to be alone with the mirror.

  “Bye,” he said to her, “sorry.”

  She watched him through the window with large eyes. “That necklace is giving you a rash,” she said. “It’s made of nickel.”

  He itched the back of his neck. Before he pulled away, he threw her a couple cigarettes and a pack of matches from the glove compartment. She gave a little wave. Muttering man ignored her and pushed down on the gas. Less than ten miles later, he slowed and pulled to the side of the road. He lifted the mirror onto his lap. Running his fingers in and over the silvery nubs, he fully explored the outside before he dared to look in. He could sense the blob of his face sitting inside the frame, unfocused and patient, waiting to be seen.

  3. Visitor at Haggie and Mona’s

  “Mona,” said Haggie, “I’m tired.”

  Mona was stretching her leg up to the edge of the living room couch. “You’re always tired,” she said. She put her chin on her knee.

  Haggie settled deeper into the green chair, the softest chair ever made. “Hand me that pillow, will you?”

  “No.” She reached forward and held her foot.

  Haggie sighed. He could feel the start of that warm feeling inside his mouth, the feeling that he could catch sleep if he was quiet enough. He felt hyperaware of his tongue, how awkwardly it fit.

  Leaning down, Mona spoke to her knee. “You’ll just doze off and you sleep way too much,” she said. “You practically just woke up.”

  “I know,” he said, dragging a hand down his face, “you’re absolutely right. Now hand me that pillow so I can take a nap and think about that.”

  “Haggie,” said Mona, switching legs, “come on.”

  Mona was Haggie’s one remaining friend. The rest had gone to other cities and lost his phone number. Haggie sat around all day, living off money in the bank from a car crash court settlement, while Mona trotted off each morning to work for a temp company. She typed something like a million words per minute. She was always offered the job at the place she temped, but she always said no. She liked the wanting far more than the getting, and, of course, was the same with men. She had this little box in her room containing already two disengaged engagement rings. She’d told the men: Sorry, I can’t keep this, but oddly enough, they each had wanted her to. She seemed to attract very generous men. As a memento of me, they said, little knowing there was another such souvenir residing in a box on her dresser.

  Haggie tugged on his tongue. It felt mushy and grainy and when he pinched it hard, he felt nothing.

  “Are you doing anything tonight?” she asked, chin on her other knee.

  “Me?” he garbled, still holding onto his tongue, “tonight?” Mona swung her leg down, and gripping the side of the couch like a barre, began a set of pliés.

  He released his fingers and swallowed. “Tonight?” he said, clearly this time, “nothing. Those bowling friends of yours are having a party but I said no. They asked if you wanted to go but I said you didn’t. Do you?” He paused. Mona didn’t answer. “They all want you, you know.”

  “Really?” Mona, in mid-plié, dimpled up, pleased. “Which ones? All? Really? What exactly did they say?”

  Haggie scratched his head. He didn’t even know if it was true, he just liked to see Mona leap for things.

  Mona bent down and touched her head to her knees. “I have a date anyway,” she said, voice muted.

  Haggie let his body slump into the chair. He hated it when Mona went out—the house felt dead without her. “Hey,” he said, “please. The pillow?” He pointed again to the couch, just a few feet out of his reach. His blood felt weighted, each corpuscle dragging its own tiny wheelbarrow of rocks.

  “Haggie.” Mona shook out her legs and looked at him. “Go outside.”

  “Blech,” he said to the ceiling, “I hate outside.”

  She walked over and stroked his hair. “Do something good,” she said, “Haggie. Do something.”

  He leaned briefly into her hand. She smelled like vanilla and laundry detergent. “I really would,” Haggie said, “you know, really. If I could only get out of this damn chair.”

  Mona touched his cheek. She stood next to him for a moment, then gave a little sigh and disappeared into her bedroom. Haggie turned his head and watched her doorway for a while, eventually closing his eyes. After forty-five minutes, Mona emerged, shiny, in a brown dress. Haggie was drifting off.

  “Hag,” she said. “Wait, wake up, I have a question.” She twirled around. “High heels or not?” Haggie shook his head awake, looked at her and tried to focus.

  “No,” he said after a minute, voice gravelly, rubbing an eye, “you’re too peppy already. Wear boots,” he said. “Weigh yourself down a little.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him but vanished into her bedroom again and came out in two minutes wearing lace-up brown boots.

  “Lovely,” Haggie said.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “There he is,” said Haggie, “Monsieur Pronto.”

  Mona looked at her watch. “No,” she said, “I’m picking him up. Are you expecting anyone?”

  He laughed. “My illicit lover,” he said. He sank deeper into the chair. “Maybe we’re getting mugged. Didn’t I tell you? We should get bars on our windows.”

  The knock interrupted again: rap rap rap.

  Mona went to the door. She peeped in the peephole. “It’s a woman. Who is it?” she called.

  A muffled voice came through.

  Mona looked at Haggie. “Should I let her in?”

  “Is she cute?” he asked.

  Mona rolled her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, “her hair is covering her face.” She opened the door.

  “Hello,” said Mona, “how can I help you?”

  The woman tugged off her wedding ring. “Please,” she said, holding it forward, “please, will you take this in exchange for a place to stay?”

  Haggie burst out laughing.

  Mona shook her head. “Oh no,” she said, “I can’t keep that.” The woman’s hand was trembling as she held the ring forward, and the edge of her dress was charred black.

  “Haggie,” Mona said, “shut up. Stop laughing. She wants to stay here.”

  “Fine,” he called from the chair, eyes closing. “But tell this one to keep the ring.�
�

  Mona opened the door wider. “Please,” she said, “come on in, you look so tired.” She took the woman by the elbow and guided her into the living room. “Haggie,” she said, “get out of the chair, Hag, can’t you see this woman has been through something terrible and is about to collapse?”

  Haggie sat there for a second. “But the sofa,” he said, pointing ineffectually.

  Mona glared at him. “Haggie.” The woman’s legs started to curve beneath her. Haggie put one hand on each arm of the chair and hoisted himself up, wobbling a bit on his feet.

  “Where are you from?” Mona asked, leaning down to relace the top of her right boot.

  The woman closed her eyes. “Sinai,” she said. Haggie sat on the floor.

  “What did she say?” Mona whispered, relacing the left boot for the hell of it. “Did she say cyanide?”

  He looked up and noticed the woman was already asleep.

  “Faster than me, even,” he said with respect.

  “Do you think she’s a poisoner?” Mona hissed.

  Haggie laughed.

  “Sssh,” said Mona, “she’s sleeping.”

  “Her dress is burnt,” he said.

  “I know,” said Mona, “she smells like smoke, too. Camp-fire smoke or something.” She stood up. “Listen, Hag, I’ve got to go. Are you okay? Should I stay? What if she poisons you?”

  Haggie made an attempt at a scared face but he couldn’t get himself to do it. He felt too tired. “Go, Mona,” he said. He laid his head back on the arm of the sofa.

  Mona paused. “Do you think she’s sick?”

  “She’s just tired.” His voice was fading. “She just needs some sleep.” The sofa arm dug into his neck. “I can’t believe she wanted to give you her ring.”

  Mona smiled and checked herself one last time in the mirror. As soon as the front door closed and the clop-clop of her tightly laced boots faded away, Haggie tried to doze off, but the floor was hard beneath him and the air felt clotted and thick without Mona stirring it up, and he couldn’t find the familiar relief of that slow descending weight.

  Heaving himself up, he sat on the couch. He almost twitched, craving the comfort of his chair. The woman snored lightly now. She had flushed skin and her eyelashes made simple black arcs on her cheeks.