by Anna Roberts
Nobody pays attention to me, so I am shunted to the side, alone and helpless. I don’t know what to do.
Milagros is yelling about el gato gorda and Jesús is frowning. “Well, this is fucking weird,” he says.
“What is?” asks Miss Cappuccino.
“She says there’s a mutant cat living in your dumpster...”
“No es un gato...”
“Okay, not a cat. Like a cat. Cat ears.” His frown deepens. “But like a person...?”
Milagros nods frantically. “Yes, yes – cat person. No English.”
“A fat person with cat ears...?” Jesús translates, and Milagros interrupts again and points to her you-know-what.
“Okay – not fat all over,” says Jesús. “Like, kind of an inbetweeny. Someone who probably doesn’t look really fat until they take their clothes off? And it had a lot of fat kind of here – like belly fat...”
Milagros shakes her head and says something in Spanish.
“Oh, like a fupa?” says Jesús.
“Qué?” says Milagros. “How you say?”
“Fupa,” says Jesús. “It’s an acronymn. Fat Upper Pussy Area.”
“Ah, si. Yeah. Fupa.” Milagros looks way too pleased to have added this term to her vocabulary. I know immigrants should make an effort to learn the language but ew. Just ew.
The cashier comes back. “Sarah, you should come and check this out,” he says. “There’s like a kind of nest in the dumpster.”
“Can I just get my coffee?” I murmur, but nobody is listening. Jesús is talking to Milagros in Spanish and Miss Cappuccino follows her colleague out the door. I’m going to be late and Timothy Grope will be mad – he hates me enough as it is, just because I won’t sleep with him.
“English,” says Milagros. “Please. I need practise.”
“Okay,” says Jesús, taking out his phone. “Okay – you call my girlfriend, okay? She writes about stuff like this.”
“About the creature?”
“Yeah, she’s an expert. Sasquatches, skunk apes, yetis, Loch Ness monster.”
“Okay. Gracias. I call.”
“Seriously, do it.”
My phone beeps. Oh no. It’s Timothy Grope. A text message.
CATCH-22
Huh? What does that mean? I’m twenty two-next birthday. Is he saying I won’t even catch my twenty-second birthday? Oh my God – is he threatening me?
Chapter Three
Return of the Mind-Numbing E-Mails
When I get back to work there is no sign of Timothy Grope but my heart skips a beat when I find an e-mail from Crispian. Holy crap – how did he know my work e-mail address?
Who? My Little Stalker?
- He’s not a stalker. He was just...protective.
So protective he kidnapped your drunk ass from a parking lot, followed you to your mother’s place in Florida and planted a GPS tracker in your bra?
I open up the e-mail.
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: Pen Pals?
Hey Toots,
How are you doin’? ;)
xxx
C.
I blush. Did he just e-mail me a winky face?
My Inner Goddess pinches the bridge of her nose, sighs heavily and reaches for the Advil. Yes. Yes, he did. God, do we really have to do this again? Much as I’d love to be privy to your every banal e-mail exchange, I should warn you that I have several coats of paint I have to watch dry.
- Thanks for reminding me exactly why I didn’t miss you. I don’t need you. I have real life friends.
To: Kate Hannigan [email protected]
From: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
Subject: Winky faces and how to respond to them
Help! Crispian just e-mailed me a winky face. What do you think it means?
Hanna
I wait several minutes and duck down behind my monitor when I see Timothy Grope through the glass partition. Maybe I should have asked Kate about that weird text message he sent me? Oh shit – I know he’s on his way over. I can smell Old Spice and the Marlboro lites he smokes to be ‘ironic’. He’s from Portland.
There’s a new e-mail in my inbox.
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Kate Hannigan [email protected]
Subject: re: Winky faces and how to respond to them
Dude, how the pink shit should I know what it means when your jailbird boyfriend e-mails you a fucking winky face? Maybe it means he was winking? Have you considered that possibility? By the way, did you see anything weird at the coffee shop, only Jesús has told this tweaker chick to call me and she speaks fuck-all English and the only Spanish I know is dirty. The only word I can make out is ‘chocha’. Please tell me he’s not already drunk and trying to eat random pussy in parking lots – you know how he gets.
There is a tap on my shoulder and I scream. “Green tea?” queries Timothy Grope, one eyebrow raised.
“Huh?”
“Liz sent you out for coffee,” he says. “And a green tea for me. Goddamn it, Hanna – can’t you do anything right? And why you are you e-mailing friends about ‘random pussy’ on company time?”
I close down the window and blush. I want to ask him about that weird text message but he’s standing threateningly close, his jeans impossibly tight. He must have stuffed a pair of socks down there – that’s not a normal size for...that.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, staring down at my hands. “I forgot. There was an...incident in the coffee shop.”
He shrugs. “Oh well. I guess it’s good that we know your limits – apparently fetching a low fat caramel macchiato, a green tea and a blueberry muffin is beyond them.” He smiles and leans too close to maximise the e-mail window. There’s a weird heat coming off his body, which is skinny and kind of sinuous; I think I’m being sexually harassed. “Don’t let me keep you from your search for random parking-lot pussy,” he smirks. “Although there was me thinking you were strictly dickly.”
My face is burning hot. I am ‘strictly dickly’, I want to say. But I want Crispian, not you. I’m a one-man woman – he’s the only one for me. And I can’t have him. I can’t have all of him, not the way I want him.
Balls.
Great. Now my subconscious has woken up.
Ho ho beriberi!
What does that even mean? I watch Timothy Grope walk away – he disturbs me in a way I can’t explain. He disappears behind the opaque part of the partition and my phone beeps again. Another text message.
THE INVISIBLE MAN
Holy crap! My heart is in my mouth, my palms sweaty. Maybe I should call Kate. What is he trying to say? I save the text message, just in case.
Dammit – another e-mail.
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: I CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS
Hanna, reply already. I’m in anguish here. Please.
To: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
From: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
Subject: re: I CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS
Sorry – my boss was being a dick. I miss you.
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: Me too
I miss you so much. You have no idea. Ever since you left my life has been devoid of meaning. I have nightmares without you beside me, and Mommy issues out the wazoo. I told you about the crack whore, right? It’s left ineradicable scars on my psyche and I’m damaged in ways you couldn’t even begin to dream of. It’s probably because of my abandonment issues that I’m here behind bars – how could I possibly know right from wrong when the woman who gave birth to me left me? And then you left me. Why, Hanna? Why?
Because he masturbates to My Little Pony and it’s gross. That’s why.
- You shut your whore mouth
. He’s damaged. He’s in pain.
Yes, and he knows that gets you hotter and wetter than a sauna cabin in an equatorial rainforest. Wake up and smell the Starbucks, shitlord – he’s playing you like a Stradivarius.
- I can’t believe someone so dead inside could be a figment of my imagination. And stop sounding like Kate.
To: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
From: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
Subject: re: Me too
I hear you, Crispian. I want to make it work – more than anything else I want us to work out, but how?
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: Love will find a way
We’ll get married. That way we can have conjugal visits. They have a trailer for visiting wives. It’s not exactly the Pink Room of Ponies but hey, I’m sure we can work something out, right? ;)
I stare stunned at the screen for a moment. Even my Inner Goddess is silent – her mouth closed, her hands over her eyes. My Subconscious watches eagerly, drooling slightly, her eyes crossed.
To: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
From: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
Subject: Did I read you right?
Why, Mr Neigh – are you proposing to me?
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: re: Did I read you right?
Miss Squeal – will you do me the honor of consenting to be my wife?
I can’t look. Tell me when it’s over.
categorically gnats
I don’t know what to say. On the one hand I know we have issues, but on the other hand I’ve felt so lost without him. And I always dreamt of this day – I never imagined it would happen this way, never imagined that it would happen to me. I was always so mousy, so shy, so skinny, so scruffy – fairytales were for princesses, not for plain Hanna Squeal.
Has she done it?
Holy shit. Another text message.
I CAN SEE YOU. STOP E-MAILING YOUR BOYFRIEND AND DO SOME FUCKING WORK.
I glance up over my monitor and once again see Timothy Grope smiling sarcastically at me through the partition. Sorry, I mouth, and adjust the monitor so that the light shines across it. He’s so rude! And creepy! God, he’s completely ruined the moment – my moment.
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: No pressure
Hey toots,
Sorry to bug you but could I get an answer here? Computer time is nearly done.
Shit. I don’t know what to say.
How about ‘no’?
- That’s all very well for you to say. You’re a figment of my imagination. You don’t have to worry about turning into one of those crazy old catladies who have kibble down the backs of their couches and cat crap all over the stairs. And then one day they slip on the poop and they fall and break a hip but nobody comes and so they starve to death and by the time they do the cats are hungry.
Yes. Clearly there are only two options here – either marry the first dickbag who asks you or die alone and get eaten by cats.
I stare at the screen.
To: Hanna Squeal [email protected]
From: Crispian Neigh [email protected]
Subject: ???
Anything?
I fire off a reply just as Timothy Grope sticks his stupid pony tailed head around the partition. “So, still e-mailing your boyfriend, huh?” he sneers.
“No,” I say, sweetly. “I’m e-mailing my fiancé.”
My Inner Goddess climbs up on a chair and adjusts the noose. The words FUCK THIS SHIT I’M OUT are scrawled across a mirror in lipstick.
newt?
- Yep. Looks like it’s just you and me from now on, Subconscious.
NO MOTHER THE YAKS ARE COMING! HURRY HURRY! SAVE THE ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL!
- I can see this relationship is going to be something we’ll have to work on.
“You did what?” Kate stares at me across the punchbowl. The vodka continues to pour, unheeded, into the Mountain Dew and Red Bull cocktail already fizzing in the bowl. There seems to be a lot of booze for one small party. On the other side of the kitchen Jesús is busy measuring tequila into shot glasses.
“I said yes,” I murmur. “We’re back together and we’re getting married.”
She rights the vodka bottle, stares at me for a moment and then empties the remainder into her mouth. “Nope, nope, nope,” she says, shaking her head like a dog that has just had a bath. “Run that by me again?”
“I’m back with Crispian. We’re getting married.”
Kate blinks. “Yeah. That’s what I thought you said.”
“I know it’s sudden...”
“Sudden?”
“The last six days have been really hard for me, Kate...”
Jesús splutters tequila all over the kitchen wall.
“Dude,” says Kate. “Gnarly. Are you okay?”
Jesús shakes his head and hurries to the kitchen sink.
“Six fucking days,” says Kate, rubbing Jesús' back as he runs water and gulps. “Co-dependent much?” She hands Jesús a paper towel. “Still stings?”
“I think it shot out of my eyes,” he moans. “Ow, fuck. Fuck.”
He blows his nose and sways off to the bathroom. As he goes I catch a glimpse of his burning eyes and realise that the tequila he was drinking was the bottle his cousin brought back from Mexico City – the one with the chilli peppers floating in the bottom. Ow.
“I knew you’d be like this,” I mutter.
She shrugs. “Like what? You seriously want me to hang out banners and balloons celebrating your engagement to some douchebag you’ve known for like two months, max?”
“Oh, and I suppose your relationship with Jesús is so pure and perfect and holy?”
Kate blinks at me. “No. My relationship with Jesús is bad, dirty, wrong and probably forbidden by Papal Encyclical. And we like it that way.” She dips a cup into the evil looking brew before her. “Besides, Hanna – apples and oranges, you know? I know Jesús – I’ve known him since sophomore year. You don’t know Crispian.”
“I do,” I say. “From the very first moment it was like we’d known each other forever. He knew everything about me right away.”
Kate chews her lip. “Yeah. You don’t think that had anything to do with the fact that he not only checked out your bra size when you were out cold but also put a GPS tracker in your underwear?”
“So he’s possessive. It’s just his way of showing that he cares about me.”
She sighs. “You know what? You’re going to do whatever you want to do anyway, so fuck it. Have fun with it. Marry him. Just don’t come running to me when you find yourself sitting in the conjugal trailer dressed up as a fucking unicorn, trying to do the squeaky cartoon pony voices so that My Little Brony can pop a boner, okay?” She runs the tip of her tongue over her teeth and stares at me for a moment. “Actually – do. Of all your boring existential crises that one sounds like it has the potential to be fucking hilarious.”
Jesús comes out of the bathroom, red-eyed, phone in hand. “You realise you’re going to have to learn a few things if you’re gonna become Crispian’s lawfully wedded prison bitch?” he says. “Like pressing your titties up against the glass at visiting time.”
“There isn’t glass at the prison,” I murmur.
“Oh, of course,” says Jesús. “I forgot. They don’t need glass for pussy-ass white-collar criminals who steal money and intellectual property rights, no matter how many millions they stiffed out of ordinary people. Because hey, at least they’re not brown, right?”
I glare at him. He’s got such a chip on his shoulder about being Mexican. “Is that my phone?” I ask.
He nods and hands it to me. “Who’s ‘Tim’? You already stepping out?”
&nbs
p; “No. He’s my boss. I told you that.”
Jesús takes a drink. “Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not. Every time you came in from work and we asked you ‘How was work, Hanna?’ you sat down, turned on the TV, stared at the wall about a foot right of the screen and cried.”
“I did not!”
“She’s right,” says Kate. “She didn’t always do that. Sometimes she stared at her hands and cried. Incidentally, Hanna, can I just say how happy I am that you’ve stopped doing that? Because that was a total headfuck whenever I was baked. I was like ‘Why is she doing that? Has having thumbs somehow blown her weird little triangular mind?’ And then I was like – thumbs. Dude.” She touches her index finger to the tip of her thumb in a pincer motion. “Millions of years of evolution. Just that. Millions of years. It’s a fucking trip.”
Jesús hands me back my phone. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realise he was your boss.”
“Why?” I gasp. “What have you done?”
“I just invited him to the party. There was this text and I was there so I just replied.”
I feel my face turn numb with fear. “A text? What did it say?”
He burps and refills his punch cup. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
Holy crap! Is he saying that my being is unbearable? That I’d be better off not-being? Oh my God, how can they have invited him to the party? Not only will Timothy Grope find out where I live but he’ll also know where we keep the kitchen knives.
