by Mona Awad
Leave it be. Leave her be. You don’t deserve her.
* * *
—
When I open my eyes, she’s here. Standing in the middle of my stupid room that she is too tall for. Bearing a basket of cold, bright cherries, where did she get them? A peach ginger smoothie from the yuppy juice bar.
“I’m sorry I kept deserting you,” I tell her. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Shhh, she says. She puts her cold hand on my freezing-burning forehead and though her hand is terribly cold, it feels wonderful. It is exactly the hand I have dreamed of, the hand I have longed for.
“I thought you were leaving,” I tell her.
Then she’s air.
She becomes air and I scream.
I wake up drenched in sweat. Nothing here but the stale empty air, the weak white light coming into my bedroom, the maniacal laughter of the perverted giant in the next room.
24.
Christmas Eve morning. Fever finally broken. I’m shopping at Cheapo’s, a store where the despair is auditory in the afterlife Muzak. Old people creaking through the grim endless aisles of canned crap, produce pyramids gleaming eerily under too-bright lights. The bananas here will never be edible—they will remain green before immediately turning black. Even the apples looked shined up in a way I do not trust, like overly rouged circus animals being trotted out into the ring. My cart is half full of the ramen I will have tonight and then tomorrow.
God this is depressing, Ava says. And boring. Aren’t you bored?
It’s what I can afford, I tell her. Because even if she’s not here, I might as well talk to her all the same.
Afford? Come on, Smackie. Spare me the violins, please.
I’m not like you, okay? I can’t be fucking interesting in every fucking aspect of my life. I can’t make something out of nothing.
But in my head, she only finds this amusing. Looks at me with a wry smile that is both pleased at my outburst but also pitying.
Fine, I’ll go to the expensive store, okay? I’ll go to Forestier’s. Is that what you want?
Only if you steal something wonderful for yourself.
* * *
—
At Forestier’s, the air smells richly of slaughtered pines and roasted fowl. I am greeted by an abundance of summer flowers when I walk in the door, though it is winter. Well? I say to Ava. Happy now? But she’s deserted me. And why would she be happy? She hates this place more than Cheapo’s, I remember. So why am I here again? I look at the forests of kale, the organic raspberries, the designer apples and pomegranates, the exotic trail mix selections in never-ending bulk, the aisles upon aisles of cold-pressed juice in every color of the rich-girl rainbow. Yes, why? it is all saying to me. Suddenly I am the weird, sad circus vegetable. And it’s the absurdly priced organic produce that is staring at me with something like horror.
I wander through the aisles for I don’t know how long. Maybe hours. Staring longingly at everything. Expensive cocoa. Fancy pasta sauce. A package of dried chanterelles. Pomegranate seeds. Not putting anything in my basket. Getting lost. Where is just fucking bread anyway? I have to get out of here. I have to buy something first. I go to grab something like ramen, and I hear pop music suddenly come on loud. A voice singing softly along behind. Roam if you want to.
I look up. He’s standing by the fancy mushrooms. Same weathered black trench coat. Same dark disheveled hair framing a sharp, wolfish face. Wild eyes that seem to smile. At me. The man from the bus.
There’s a chewed-off baguette sticking out of his pocket and a package of chanterelles in his all too human fist. Seeing me, he stops in midswipe. He waves. Hi.
I wave. Hi.
Then he continues to blatantly steal, while whistling the B-52s. Fancy pasta sauce. Cocoa, extra dark, extra pressed. A box of marrons glacés—the ones my father bought us when we spent a Christmas in France. Aren’t they heaven?
I watch him shove it all into the dark bowels of his coat, wink at me, and turn away. I follow him, though he’s walking quickly now, weaving his whistling way through the aisles. Stealing his way through the pickled fish. Scottish smoked salmon, don’t mind if I do. A selection of the finest goat cheeses, please. Circling the olive bar like a vulture. He gets the bright green ones only. These are the only ones worth eating, Samantha, my father told me. French. Lemony. Subtle.
“Well, hello, Samantha.”
Fosco. In her drapey Decembral velvets. Her operatic head tilted to one side. Leaning against the glass case full of artfully arranged meat as though the world of it is hers to plunder.
“Ursula. Hello. Sorry, I was—”
“I thought I saw you wandering around here,” she says, smiling. “Looking lost.”
“No, I—yes, well, this store is a bit . . .” I scan the aisle but he’s gone, I’ve lost him.
“Disorienting?” she fills in. She gives me a sad smile that is the full-grown version of what the Duchess merely aspires to with her bitchy lip curl. “I suppose it can be. So. Still in town?” Concern furrowing her brows.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know you had family here. . . .”
“I don’t.”
Silence after this admission. A nod of the head. Ah yes, the one with the troubles. Disgraced father. Dead mother. Something like that. So sad. I feel her sizing me up with a gaze that I know she believes pierces right through to the throbbing core of things. She takes in the empty shopping basket. My worn coat. The tears in the pockets.
“So what are your plans for the holidays?”
Think of a lie, think of a lie. Lie lie lie.
“I—”
But she’s looking at me as if she already knows. Can see me twirling ramen with a warped fork in front of illegally downloaded television that keeps freezing due to a bad connection. Watering a sad rosemary bush I’ve strung with Christmas lights.
“I hope you’re not planning on spending it alone? Are you?”
The way she says alone makes it sound like a cave. Like some hideous, dark cave whose oozing walls are teeming with all the unpleasant things of this world, and I am crawling willingly, brazenly, into this awful space of my own free will. Shoveling the vermin I find scuttling across the floor into my mouth for sustenance.
I tell her, no, of course not. Not alone. But her smile says how easily she has punctured my sad girl lie.
And then I see him again. Behind her now. Standing by the tower of gleaming pomegranates. He locks eyes with me over Fosco’s shoulder, just as he is tucking a pomegranate into the inner pocket of his long black coat. Smiles at me. Waves again, wiggling his fingers.
“Samantha, you must come over. David and I are having a little Yuletide feast.”
Over her shoulder, I watch as he puts more pomegranates in his pocket. Two. Three. How is he fitting them in there?
Shhh, he gestures, index finger pressed against his lips. Then he starts stealing from the bulk. Shoveling crystalized ginger and dried mango and omega-3 chocolate cherry trail mix into his pockets by the fistfuls. Eyes on me the whole time. I smile in spite of myself.
“Samantha,” she takes me by the shoulders and stands directly in front of me, obscuring my view of him, “is that a yes?”
I tell her thank you so much but really I couldn’t possibly, I couldn’t impose. But she won’t take no for an answer, absolutely not, Samantha. Because it would be her pleasure, don’t I see that? Her finger pads are pressing themselves into my shoulder flesh. She’s completely eclipsed my view of him. An itch in my fingers to move her. To seize her by her own shoulders and physically shove her out of the way.
“Really and truly our pleasure,” she is saying. “And you won’t be alone. Some other students who are still in town will be there too.” And then she leans in and says in a pointed whisper, “You’re not the only one in this boat, Samantha.”
All over
her face is Aren’t you grateful I ran into you like this? Gratitude, please. Gratitude? She isn’t going to release me from her grip until I say yes.
“Thank you, Ursula. That’s a very kind offer. I’m grateful.”
“So you’ll be there?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Wonderful.” She releases me at last, but it’s too late. The produce aisle is empty of all but the usual thin people in black sportswear, dumping beautiful things into their brimming-over carts without a second look.
25.
World music swelling from unseen speakers. Celtic fused with Zimbabwean, or so she informs me when I inquire for the sole purpose of making conversation. It’s lovely, I say, and my lie echoes uncomfortably in her enormous living room. Larger than Cupcake’s or Creepy Doll’s, larger than even the Duchess’s. African masks scowl at me from her very white walls. The odd painting of a clitoris posing as a flower or a flame in the manner of O’Keeffe but probably her own masterpieces.
If Ava were here, she would say Run. Break a window if you have to.
Or she would just look at me and the look would say all the thoughts of my whole soul back to me and I would feel comforted. I would be able to bear the pipes and steel drums with a smile.
She might even to say to Fosco, What a compelling music choice, with an absolutely straight face.
“Thank you, Samantha. I did think it would be more compelling than just your usual carols,” she confides.
“So much more compelling,” I agree and then I think: I said that out loud? I am drinking the wine she handed me at the door too fast, way too fast. Slow the fuck down, Samantha.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Zimbabwe,” I hear myself saying now. What is wrong with me?
“Have you, Samantha?” Fosco says, with something like newfound respect.
I nod. “Oh yes. So . . . ,” but I can’t finish my sentence. All possible adjectives with which I could describe this country about which I know little leave me. “Vast,” I say at last.
She shows me into the living room where “several students” turns out to be just Jonah, sitting on the center of her white suede couch in his half-zipped parka. I’ve never been so relieved to see him. There’s also a gaunt teenage girl in a black ball gown—my daughter, Persephone, have you met?—sitting with her legs thrown over the armrest of a lounge chair, frowning at a phone covered in manga stickers. Her face says that the poor graduate students her mother has insisted on sheltering like so many lame chicks have murdered her Yule.
“Hey, Samantha,” Jonah says when he sees me. “I didn’t know you were here for the holidays.” He holds a napkin with a skewered shrimp on it in the palm of one hand and waves happily at me with the other.
Why can’t you be happy? Why do you always assume the worst about every situation? my mother is asking me in my head, as she often used to. But I am happy to see Jonah. From his shaggy hair to his parka to his smell of cigarettes so comforting and potent that for a second I want to smoke him.
“Hey Jonah, I didn’t know you were here either.”
“Serendipitous,” Fosco offers, smiling.
Now I’m sitting on her couch, staring at jars upon jars of vagina-pink roses arranged to look like balls. Because I must have my roses around me always, I imagine her saying to the florist, her peers, her students, but then I feel guilty for this thought. She invited you, you ungrateful cunt. This is her Yule after all. She didn’t have to have you over for canapés and catered Indian. I smile at her and her husband, Silky, who has just joined us. He is a lanky man with Eraserhead hair who has garnered a million grants and residencies in crumbling castles and villas all over Europe, to write cryptic little poems in a language he calls Tree.
The poets, of course, worship him. I haven’t had much to do with him apart from small talk once or twice at receptions. Hello, Sasha. And how are you coming along, Sarah? I never correct him.
They sit on the other side of the coffee table laden with the flower balls and several canapé trays that they keep holding out, offering, canapé? Canapé? Have you tried a canapé, Samantha?
“Yes. it was wonderful, thank you.” Wonderful? Really?
“Have another?”
“I’m good for now, thanks.”
I take another large sip of wine under the naked glare of Persephone.
“I’ll take a couple,” Jonah says.
“Take two, by all means, Jonah. Take three, before the other students arrive and they’re all gone!”
Nod from Silky. Scoff from Persephone. The audible rearrangement of her limbs meant to signal her profound irritation. Jonah is oblivious.
“Thanks. They’re pretty awesome. I could probably eat a hundred of them, I guess.”
“I’m so glad.”
We all watch him chew contentedly. Then swallow. Then chew again. If we could watch him digest, we would. She keeps repeating that she is so glad we came. That we’re all here. Together. Quite a few more students should be joining us too, any minute now. No one joins us. Instead, Persephone leaves with the muttered promise that she’ll be back down later for dinner. I look out the window at the storybook street. The Duchess lives across the way, with her golden-haired dogs. None of the other Bunnies can afford to live here, though the street is called Friendship. That’s because this is a street full of assholes, Ava would say whenever we passed the sign. I was hoping she’d call me today. But when the phone rang it was my father. At first, I let it ring and ring. Braced myself for the sound of his faraway, broken-up voice, for what we might talk about. Other, happier Christmases. The weather here versus the weather there. The appalling price of everything. Not my mother, never my mother. If he was drunk, he might describe to me his Black Sea spa that never was or will be. The splendor of the saltwater baths. The healing caves of steam. The suites themselves like actual dreams, you would think you were dreaming, Samantha. And yet it would feel like home, he’d add. Very important for a place to feel that way.
Instead, when I picked up the phone at last, he told me how I used to be afraid of wind in the grass when I was three. I took you to a park and you were playing just fine, just fine, and then a wind came and made the grass ripple a little, you know? And when you saw that, you screamed like hell and ran. Just bolted right out of the park, crying the whole way. It scared the shit out of me, Sam, I’ll be honest. Seeing you run and scream like that at grass?
I didn’t say anything. Just listened to the static. The sound of him breathing. He’d told me this story many times before. He always ended it the same way.
I was worried for a bit, I’ll admit it now. About you. We both were. But you turned out okay. In the end? Didn’t you?
Meanwhile Jonah is telling them “I mean, if I didn’t end up coming to Warren, I’d probably be passed out in the snow somewhere on schnapps or horse tranquilizers right now. Probably both.” He smiles at our hosts.
How interesting, says Fosco. Hearing this admission from Jonah, she lightly presses her own heart area as though it were really swelling under there, behind her boob. The Duchess often does this too. She is currently in a place that looks like Costa Rica, posting pictures of herself in bell-sleeved tunics, doing just that gesture before bloody suns, volcanoes, in what looks like an enchanted forest. The last time I checked, she’d posted a closed-eyed picture of her face pressed fervently into the muzzle of a very white horse. In the throes of my fever, I had a terrible wish that all that beauty would kill her. That the horse would mistake her head for a small fruit. Or that when she was riding him, he’d shake her off like a bug.
“In fact, I might even be dead,” Jonah finishes.
A grave exchange of looks between Fosco and Silky.
“And where would you be, Samantha?” Silky asks, turning to me.
It’s all over his face. How he is hoping for a horror story. I suppose I could tell him one. That my fat
her works for a sideshow, a gang of freaks. How before I came to Warren, I was head freak because of my height. If I had gone home for Christmas, home being a tent beneath an underpass of a Utah highway, he’d force me to do the bit where I eat glass. Or the one where I eat crickets. You’d be surprised how much they taste like salad.
I would be dead too, I could tell them. Probably. Definitely. Or at least seriously, seriously maimed. Emotionally broken by loneliness. My lifeless body hanging from my broken light fixture until the smell of my rot alerts the pervert down the hall. But thanks to you, kind sir and madam, thanks to this invitation to sit here in this living room teeming with the scent of lavender on fire, in the cacophony of a music worse than silence, I am saved, reborn. I imagine falling to my knees. Clutching Silky by his mauve-toned slacks.
Instead I say, “I just wanted to focus on my writing.”
“Dedicated,” Silky offers.
“Yes, very,” Fosco says.
I take a big sip of the wine I am still drinking way too fast. An unseen man to my right keeps pouring it into my glass as though by magic.
“And how are you feeling about your semesters?”
It’s a throwaway question, a limp hand extended. But Jonah takes it seriously.
“My semester? Good. I mean pretty okay. I took all these classes I didn’t have to take because I figured, you know, I’m at Warren. I might as well learn as much as I can. Also, they all sounded so interesting I couldn’t decide so I just sat in on them all.”
“That was very ambitious, Jonah.”
“It was dumb too. They’re really hard classes like math and robot science. This school is intense. Everyone’s so smart. I sort of thought I was going to kill myself for a little while.”
“How lovely,” Fosco says, refilling everyone’s wineglass. “Of course, if it got in the way of your writing, that would be terrible. . . .”
“Oh, I’m still writing. Maybe too much.”
“Too much? Jonah, that’s wonderful.”
