When Watched

by Leopoldine Core

  “I’m not the devil,” Margo shot back. She was six.

  “You’re not,” the old man said. “But he designed you. Twice.” He chuckled to himself and Margo just stood there, staring up into the red holes of his nose.

  “Are you doing anything this summer?” she asked James. “I mean when class ends.”

  James nodded. “I’m going on a road trip with my friend Jack.”

  “You can drive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t,” she confided. “I don’t even wanna learn. I’m pretty sure I’d kill someone.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” he smiled. “Driving is great. You’re forced to be the person you’re not.” Streams of smoke issued from his nose. “What about you—any plans?”

  “I don’t know,” Margo said, staring through the lens. “Taking care of my sister I guess. She lives here.”

  He looked confused. She took a picture.

  “She gets really depressed,” Margo explained, lowering the camera from her eye. “Last summer it was much worse. She was talking about killing herself.”

  “Shit.” James took a drag. “So your parents are making you live with her?”

  “No. I like living with her. I mean, we argue but whenever she goes away I miss her. Last summer she stayed at this like, loony bin in New England. Only it sounded really great to me. Like summer camp or something.” She looked down at the camera in her hands. “I remember going to Kmart and thinking I saw her. I said, Baby!” Margo looked up at him. “But I was seeing myself in a mirror. It was me.”

  “Whoa.”

  “It was eerie,” she said. There was a pause. “Turn around,” she said and snapped a picture of his broad back, the violet bruise hovering on his shoulder blade. “Try to stand up straight,” she said softly and he did, seemingly without a care in the world. But when he faced her, Margo saw his vanity. Behind a wavering ribbon of smoke, James seemed to be watching her carefully.

  Margo walked up to him and moved her hand across his chest. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She couldn’t believe that she wanted something and was now getting it. Of course, he wasn’t the sort of person she could really have. He seemed to her like a wild thing and that was his beauty. I’m an animal too, she thought. My animal loves his animal.

  It was minutes before sundown. The air was cooler. Electric blue light spread throughout the room and over his skin. Margo set the camera down.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Seven.”

  “Crazy.”

  “I know,” she said and crawled onto her bed, highly aroused. “Come here.”

  He did and her heart pounded. They lay by the window, the weakening blue light on their faces. Margo leaned forward and kissed him, pressing her hands to his chest. It was a long, plunging kiss. He held her face. Then they rolled around, feeling each other up, her dress hiked halfway up her body.

  “You have like a porno look,” he said.

  “What?”

  “No it’s good. I like that your face can’t hide its excitement.”

  She got on her back and stared up at him. What he said felt funny, like it wasn’t his. She guessed someone had said this to him once. “I like that your face can’t hide its excitement.” She wondered who it was.

  Margo lifted her butt and James pulled off her underwear. He looked at the lower half of her body for a moment, then walked across the room, where his jeans were on the floor. Margo watched as he pulled a condom from his back pocket and tore it open. He rolled it onto his hard-on, then walked back to the bed and pushed into her.

  “Did you know this was gonna happen?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  • • •

  In the morning, Margo put on the White Album and made coffee.

  “It’s weird that everyone likes the Beatles,” James said, not unkindly, as he walked into the kitchen, his face marked by the folds of her sheets. He was dressed, his hair snarled on one side, flat and greasy on the other.

  She smiled. He could’ve said anything. “It is weird.” She handed him a mug of coffee and a carton of milk.

  “No milk,” he said, taking the mug. He sat at the table and lit a cigarette.

  “I didn’t think this was gonna happen,” she said, smiling, sipping her coffee. “I thought I was freaking you out when I was talking about water and the end of the world.”

  “No,” he said and dragged on the cigarette thoughtfully. “I mean, you weren’t freaking me out but the end of the world does. I have dreams about it.”

  “I wish I could visit you in your dreams,” she grinned. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” started playing and she switched off the stereo.

  “Mostly they’re nightmares.”

  “Well I could protect you. I’m very brave in dreams.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “Oh yeah. I’m a big hero.”

  The front door slammed and Baby walked in looking pale. She set her bag down and a white cat came running.

  “Hi,” James said.

  “Hi,” Baby said curtly, barely making eye contact. Her short black hair was combed sideward. She wore a ratty green dress and her chest was crowded with glinty charms on chains: a little jeweled guitar, a sneaker, an ax.

  James squatted to pet the cat, his cigarette raised. The animal accepted his hand with a full-body lean, purring continuously.

  “Has she been here the whole time?” James asked.

  “It’s a he,” Baby said.

  “That’s Chowder,” Margo said. “He was under the couch. He hates me.”

  “He’s my cat,” Baby clarified.

  “Beautiful,” James remarked, tickling under Chowder’s chin.

  “I know,” Baby said, grinning. “I’m like his homely keeper.”

  They all laughed and James stood up. “I’m gonna go.” He jabbed his cigarette out and smiled. Then he was gone.

  Baby slunk over to the couch. She lay on her back and closed her eyes.

  “You look awful,” Margo said.

  “I threw up this morning,” Baby croaked. She put a round pillow on her stomach and laced her fingers over it. “I drank too much wine with Mom . . . wine and salad.”

  “Jesus, you can’t just eat salad if you’re gonna—”

  “I know,” Baby said, a weak rage gathering in her eyes. She moved the pillow and applied both hands directly to her abdomen. “I hate throwing up,” she said. “You’re surrendering utterly to your body and you don’t get like, a baby or a turd. You get a puddle of food.”

  Margo laughed.

  Chowder bounded up onto the couch as if it were a beach and Baby remained staring from the standpoint of a shovel. “My head is pounding,” she said.

  Margo sat on the edge of the sofa and patted her sister’s foot. Chowder turned and glared at her. “God,” she said. “He’s such a little meanie.”

  “No he’s not,” Baby said. She looked at the cat. “He’s melancholy. Because he’s so smart.” She extended one hand and the cat approached it, sniffing her fingertips. “He’s trapped in a life that doesn’t suit him.”

  Margo looked at the cat, then at Baby. “You’re talking about yourself.”

  Baby said nothing but gave a shy look of agreement.

  Margo moved an inch away, fully ignoring the demonic white shape between them. He had spread himself over Baby’s midsection.

  “So James is hot right?” Margo grinned.

  “Not really.”

  “Yes he is. You wouldn’t say he wasn’t unless he was.”

  “Whatever.” Baby moved the white mass onto the floor and rolled onto her side, clutching her gut.

  “He’s so hot,” Margo said. “He even makes smoking look hot.”

  “He makes it look like breathing its
elf.”

  Margo smiled. “That’s true.”

  • • •

  The next day Margo arrived to class late with a goofy smile. She sat noisily behind James, slapping a marble notebook onto her desktop. Everyone stared. When they had regrouped, she raised the eraser end of her pencil and jabbed him gently on the shoulder.

  James looked back with a flash of annoyance, then leaned forward in his chair.

  Margo gawked at the back of his head. Slowly, she retracted her pencil, setting it down on the desk, where it rolled to the floor. Margo didn’t reach down to get it. She hardly moved. A girl in a red skirt handed her the pencil and she took it mutely, still gawking at him, her eyes immense. Margo couldn’t hear anything, only the sounds of her insides: her stomach, her heart, the blood around her brain.

  When class ended, James stood quickly with averted eyes.

  “Hey,” she said loudly.

  “Hi,” he said and smiled. It was a sneaky, fearful smile. He walked into the hall.

  Margo shoved her notebook into her bag, walking swiftly after him. “Hey!”

  “What?”

  Margo looked stricken. “Why are you being weird?”

  “I’m not,” he said with another unpleasant smile. “I have somewhere to be.”

  Margo stopped walking. She watched him reach the end of the hallway and turn the corner without looking back. Then she leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, crowds of loud people passing obliviously. It had happened so fast, his retreat. And now everything will be slow, Margo thought. This feeling. It could last forever.

  She left the building and felt violent toward strolling people. Businessmen passed one by one, talking loudly into their headsets. She kept being caught off guard by an inviting face that wasn’t for her. It was confusing and humiliating. Every place is like an airport, she thought.

  Margo acquired a large bag of corn chips. When she got home the apartment was empty, save for Chowder, who sat meowing by the bathroom door. It was open a bit, white light pouring onto the floor. Margo approached the door and saw something else, the edge of a dark shape, rocking slightly. “Baby?” She gave the door a push and stood staring.

  A black dress on a wire hanger hung from the shower rod, blowing subtly in the breeze of an open window.

  Margo looked down at the cat and cried. They were the expressionless tears of someone who rarely wept—who hated to. She walked to the couch and threw herself down.

  The window screeched open and Baby stepped inside with a towel over her shoulders. She wore a green bikini and circular black frames with cola-colored lenses. Her skin glistened with oil.

  “What the shit?” Margo demanded.

  “I was sunning myself,” Baby said, removing her glasses.

  “Since when do you sun yourself?” Margo said, cutting her eyes.

  “Since now. What do you care?”

  “I was worried!”

  “Calm down. I was just on the fire escape.”

  “Well I didn’t know that. You’re always here!” Margo said, pointing to the spot she occupied. “And anyway, we burn.”

  “Not if exposure is gradual,” Baby said. “I’m being very careful.”

  “Your shoulders look red.”

  “They’re not.”

  Margo stormed off. She brought the corn chips to bed and ate them slowly, staring into space, weary with thought. She sensed in that moment that she would never be an adult, not in the manner she had envisioned for herself as a child. This is never going to end, she thought. All this wanting.

  Baby came in and sat at the foot of the bed. “Are you seriously mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you hungry? Do you want some real food?” A rare sweetness had entered Baby’s voice.

  Margo greeted the alien tone with a weak smile. “Hunger isn’t even the word,” she said. “I’m just really interested in food.” Then her face morphed back into a mask of pain and she punched the bed, startling her sister.

  “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Margo lay on her side. “I don’t know what happened. We had such a good time. I mean, I know he had a good time.”

  “Maybe he met someone else.”

  “In a day?”

  “Guys are always weird after.”

  “But we were just getting started.”

  “Guys don’t wanna get started. They want to end it and move on to someone else.”

  “Stop telling me what guys are like. I know what they’re like.” Margo sat up. “You have a sunburn.”

  “I know.”

  Margo wished in that moment that she were more like Baby, who’d never had much of an appetite for boys. Her sister just wanted a quiet room to watch television in. That or she wanted to die. Margo was never sure which it was.

  “Why don’t you ever go on dates?” Margo asked.

  “Because I need space.”

  “For the rest of your life?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “What if you’re gay?”

  “I am not gay.” Baby gaped in outrage. “If I was gay, wouldn’t you be too?”

  “Not necessarily.” Margo stared into space. “What about that guy Aaron who lives downstairs? Would you date him? He’s like, obsessed with you.”

  “I’m so much smarter than him,” Baby said. “And he doesn’t even know it. That’s part of his stupidity.”

  Margo repositioned her pillow and noticed it was covered in cat hair. “What the shit?” She began picking little white hairs off the faded blue fabric, one by one. “Chowder is not allowed in here!”

  “You have to close your door,” Baby said, the familiar shade of scorn resurfacing in her voice.

  Margo stopped grooming the pillow, the beginnings of a sob dimpling her chin. “Do you think anyone will ever love me?” she asked.

  “Yeah. But you’ll probably be too busy doing something stupid to notice.”

  “Be nice to me!” Margo said, her eyes welling with tears.

  “Okay.” Baby patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Margo seized the pillow and threw it onto the floor. “I don’t see how I can go back to class,” she said. “I might strangle him. There’s no kind of violence that doesn’t seem appropriate.”

  Baby laughed. “Men are just shifty,” she said uselessly. “I mean, their desires are.”

  Margo had entered a grim trance. “Desire is too grand a word for what men experience.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “I said hey and he said what?” Margo said with mock disgust, her face reanimating. “Like I had appeared on his doorstep with like, his name carved into my neck.” Margo sighed. She lay back down. “God. Why do we have consciousness?” she said.

  “It was probably just a mutation that kept evolving.” Baby moved the bag of chips onto the floor and lay next to her sister. “I don’t know.” She pulled the sheet up over them.

  “I thought you were dead,” Margo said.

  Baby stiffened. A small silence followed. “I’m not gonna do that,” she said finally, in her chilly way.

  Margo looked sideward at her sister. “It would be a mistake,” she said carefully.

  “I know.”

  “I mean a corpse can’t see itself lying there. It’s a show for everyone but you.”

  “Please shut up,” Baby said evenly. “I was never showing off. It wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like?”

  Baby softened. “It was like . . . I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. How I would do it. When I would do it. I feel like if I ever did do it, it would be to stop thinking about doing it.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t deal with someone finding me. I kept wishing there was some way to off m
yself and then dispose of the body.”

  “Well I certainly wouldn’t want to find you.”

  “Well I wouldn’t want you to look through my room and sell my stuff,” Baby snapped. “There’s actually a lot of preparation that goes into suicide if you care—and I do care. But I’m lazy so I kept putting it off.”

  “Maybe because you wanted to live.”

  “No. It was the laziness. Also the cat.”

  They both looked at Chowder, who sat at the foot of the bed, purring ominously. “He loves you,” Margo said.

  “Please. Cats don’t love anyone. He hates me the least.”

  “So how would you do it?”

  “I’m not discussing this with you.”

  “With a gun?”

  “No. People fuck that up all the time. Then you wind up with like, half a face.” Baby looked thoroughly at the ceiling. “I would jump off a building,” she said finally, almost serenely.

  “Why?” Margo said. She looked slapped.

  “Because it’s fast. You can’t change your mind.”

  “I would want to be able to change my mind.”

  “Because you don’t want to die.”

  “Yeah, I don’t. And I don’t think it’s cool to want to die. I don’t think you’re cool.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “Well good.”

  They were quiet then, blinking at the ceiling with their same eyes.

  “I was reading that the Aztecs took your heart out when you died and weighed it,” Baby said, finally. “To determine where you were going in the afterlife.”

  Margo made a face. “I wouldn’t want anyone to do that to me.”

  “I think it’s a little bit beautiful,” Baby said, touching the crowd of charms on her chest. “I wonder what it’s like to be gone.”

  “Probably not much of an experience.”

  “Yeah. It’s like the opposite of an experience.” Baby rubbed the little jeweled guitar, then the ax.

  “Do you think there’s enough time left on earth?” Margo asked. “I mean to have a whole life?”

  They made sideward eye contact.

  “I think so,” Baby said. “Maybe just enough.”

  “I want to be an artist.”

  “So be one.”