by Halle Butler
Her cat who she had sex with and cooked dinner for and watched movies with.
She would have to be nicer.
As soon as he got mad and felt confident about being mad, he imagined what it would be like to say to her that she needed to be nicer. In that conversation there would have to be an “or else.” Or else I will have to break up with you. It was depressing to imagine breaking up with Megan, but she was such a fucking drag. He couldn’t believe this sloppy, ornery person was his girlfriend.
He stamped out his cigarette and stared at the project file. He had that feeling in his stomach he got when he knew he had to break up with someone. That hollow vacuum feeling. There were always two or three good opportunities to break up with someone in the course of a relationship, and he almost never acted on the first impulse, but once it was there it was never fully gone. He didn’t like the way it made him feel. The saying “second chance” came to his mind and he didn’t like how condescending it sounded. But it was, ugh, a second chance, in a way, because he understood that people had their phases. But to stay with someone who insulted his existence—acted like he didn’t have a full selfhood—was not possible. Impossible.
So she would have to snap out of it.
He thought about getting her a job. She could do pretty much anything, he thought. What he did wasn’t that hard, she could do that.
He imagined asking a friend to do her a favor. Then he imagined the friend remembering Megan giving them the stink-eye or something, then he imagined Megan becoming humiliated and infuriated. He dismissed the idea.
She would get out of this phase on her own, he knew it, but he didn’t know what role he’d play in all of it. He might not be what was best for her. If she really did hate all of his friends, he couldn’t imagine her ever being happy with him.
He got that vacuum feeling again, lit another cigarette, and told himself that it was okay to sit on it for a few weeks, then think it over again. Kelly’s website was his priority right now.
4
Adam noticed his mom laughing a lot and thought it was cool. She said she was going to get some cake after work for him to eat for being such a good boy. Elena came over and picked him up. She held his hand as they walked down the stairs and around the block to her car. She held his hand tightly and he kept his hand slack. It was sticky from syrup. He tried to do a dance walk on the sidewalk, but Elena said, “Come on,” so he stopped. He added a few spasmodic kicks before they got to the car, but no more full dance walk. Elena liked to listen to the same radio station as his mother did, and she liked to hum along to the songs, too. But her car was totally empty except for a map and a pot of medicated lip balm. Elena pulled into a parking spot, got out of the car, walked around to Adam’s door, and then led him into the day-care center.
“Hey, Barb,” said Elena. She let go of his hand and he ran off. Elena raised her eyebrows.
“Still no car?” asked Barb.
Elena smiled a sour smile and shook her head. “No, not yet.”
Both women shrugged. Adam took up his occupation of the playhouse in the corner. No one was in there yet. He got there earlier than a lot of the children. He crouched in the middle of the house and made a wild face. He held his hands out in front of his face and said “The jaws of life” and then he hissed. He bounced up and down on his legs saying “I am the jaws and the life.” He gasped, looked quickly to the side, then prostrated himself on the tight blue carpeting. His hands, the jaws of life, went out in front of him and reached for the plastic walls of the house. He imagined himself as a snake and slinked up to the window and observed all that he could see.
“I don’t know, but eventually I’m going to have to ask her to broaden her carpool, you know what I mean? My kids are in high school, I already went through the day-care thing. I’m not trying to do it again with somebody else’s baby,” said Elena.
“I hear you,” said Barb.
“She got brought home by the cops. I’m not trying to raise the child of someone who’s in trouble with the law in that way,” said Elena.
“Oh, I know. She called in here the other week and practically chewed my head off.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“The tuition is too high. And I said, ‘Listen, lady, maybe that’s something you should’ve thought about before you took a job that didn’t pay you enough for all that you need,’” said Barb.
“Oh, my word. I know I’m not trying to be a free car service.”
“You know it takes about a thousand dollars to get your car out of the impound.”
“It does not!”
“It does too. So, it looks like you got yourself into some charity work.”
Elena rolled her eyes. “Even a Christian woman has her limits.”
Barb laughed and put her hand on Elena’s arm. Adam observed this from his house. The fluorescent lights made the inside of the yellow plastic house glow. More children arrived. Elena nodded while she was talking and kept talking while she walked to the door. Barb laughed and waved, then crossed her arms.
Later, when most of the children had arrived, Adam became involved in a game of house. Julie and Tessa were the mom and the dad and Emma was the baby. Adam was the dog. He sat by the box of toys and watched them make dinner. He chewed on his paws and tried to chew on his haunches but couldn’t reach. Mommy and Daddy served Baby some dinner and they all ate the invisible food with their hands. Adam crawled over to them and said, “I love you,” and then pawed at the air. The girls giggled and said, “Bad doggie, go eat out of your bowl.”
“But I love you!” he said.
“Doggie!” said the dad, and the girls giggled.
Adam looked at Emma the baby. “I’m your sister and I love you!” he pleaded. “Rrruff, I’m your sister, I’m your sister!”
“What are you doing, Adam? Bad doggie, go eat your food,” said Tessa.
Adam pawed at the table and at Emma and said, again, but now in a dog voice, “Ri’m rour ristrer rand roi ruff roo!”
He began to pant frantically and flail on the floor.
“Doggie, no!” said the girls.
“I’m a good doggie,” he cried. “Woof!”
“Miss Barbara!” said Julie. Adam’s eyes widened.
“Woof,” he said. He returned to his dog bowl and growled.
Miss Barbara approached the scene. “Yes, Julie?”
“Miss Barbara, Adam is supposed to be the dog and eat his food from the bowl, but he keeps saying he’s Emma’s sister, but he’s still acting like a dog and he’s a boy anyway so even if he could be her sister he should be her brother,” said Julie.
“Ruh-roh,” whispered Adam.
“Adam,” said Miss Barbara. “Adam, come.”
Adam crawled to her and panted. He sat up on his haunches and put his paws out in front of his chest and cocked his head to the side. “Roi ruff roo,” he said.
“Eew!” said the girls.
“Adam, stand up,” said Miss Barbara.
Adam panted.
“Adam, stand up.”
He stood up.
“Come with me.”
The girls giggled.
As Miss Barbara walked him to the other side of the day-care center, she said, “Now, I don’t know what it’s like being an only child, but a dog is not the same thing as a sibling. Do you understand? You can’t play the doggie and say you’re someone’s sister, it makes you look disturbed. Do you understand? You might not ever understand if you never have a sibling, but that is a sacred bond and a bond that cannot be shared with an animal. It’s perverse.”
She sat him down at a table and put a coloring book in front of him. “Now I want you to color these pictures in and do a good job.”
When she left, he started to mumble “Roi ruff roo” under h
is breath. “Roi ruff roo.”
The image Adam was asked to color was an Easter bunny. The bunny was holding a basket out to him. The basket had eggs in it. The bunny had no background, but he was wearing a waistcoat. Adam picked up a crayon at random and started rubbing it against the paper. It was soothing.
“Roi ruff roo,” he whispered, not to the bunny, and not to his family. His family. He looked up at them across the day-care center. He had been abandoned by his family for asking for a higher position. Now they were eating their imaginary food and explaining the events of their imaginary days. Adam continued coloring while he looked at them.
Eventually, they noticed. His sister, Emma, widened her eyes at him and thrust her head forward a few times. A challenge to fight. He sighed and put his cheek in his hand. Sigh. He looked back down at his coloring job of the Easter bunny. “I don’t love you bunny, no offense,” he said.
Barb was walking around the room with her arms crossed, surveying all that was hers. All of these children learning about life and social systems and appropriate behavior. Pretty much learning about how things are, and learning it under her gentle guidance. A small boy, Louie, ran past her and she said, “Slow down, Louie.” She smiled. So simple. It was all so simple. Separate the ones who are fighting, give light reprimands, subtle suggestions, firm suggestions. So simple.
* * *
• • •
Meanwhile, Jillian kept getting calls on her cell phone from the same number. She didn’t recognize the number and it made her nervous. She reached for a Pop-Tart and waited for Megan to go to the bathroom, then she checked her voicemail. It was the government, wanting to know when she’d schedule her court date, pay her fine, and bail her car out of the impound.
Megan looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was a dick. Looking at herself there in the mirror, she knew she was a dick. Only a real dick would have such a lopsided face.
She had to pee soon or Jillian would think she was taking a dump.
After peeing, she looked at herself more. What an asshole, but what to do?
Jillian deleted the voicemails and took another two Tylenol T3s with codeine and decided that the courthouse must have had the wrong number, because she really didn’t have the money and wouldn’t have the money for another two weeks, at which time she would call the courthouse herself because she was a responsible person.
More dinner? She could make Randy another dinner? A very delicious dinner? She got the impression that something was on the horizon.
At five o’clock, Elena came to pick up Adam and stopped to talk to Barb a second. They talked about how weird Adam was while Adam crawled around on the ground, apparently pretending to be a dog. Barb told Elena about the sister dog thing.
“Ugh,” said Elena, throwing her hands up.
“Adam!” shouted Barb. He trotted up to the women.
“Time to go home, sweetie,” said Elena.
* * *
• • •
It was around five, so Megan would be home any second. What a nasty, burdensome feeling. Can you believe it, his hands were sweaty, even though he’d given himself an extension for thinking about this whole thing. “This whole thing.” He felt gross.
The downstairs door slammed and he saved his project. Megan walked in with groceries. “Hey, cutie,” she said.
* * *
• • •
Elena thought about how Jillian would probably fuck something up this weekend at the church eighties party. She thought about it in detail, watching Adam fidget in her peripheral vision. She pulled into a parking spot on the street outside of Jillian’s apartment building, pumping herself up for the possibility that Jillian would not be home yet. She and Adam would wait inside or maybe she and Adam would take the dog for a walk and she would leave Jillian a note. “You were not here when I got here, and your dog needed out so we took her out.” She would not call the dog by its name in the note, she decided. She walked up to the building with the weird, kicking, spasmodic child’s limp, damp hand in hers and she wanted to bear down on his pudgy little baby fingers to teach them how to firm up like a normal person’s hands.
But Jillian was in, sitting on the couch with that dog. Adam let go of her hand and took a few steps to the side. The house smelled like piss.
“Hey, I just got back from walking the dog, great timing,” Jillian said.
Yeah, right.
“You might crack a window in here, the weather’s fine,” said Elena.
“Oh, I know. I just felt a little chilly on the walk home.”
“It’s not chilly,” said Elena.
“Hmm,” said Jillian.
“So, any word on when you’re getting your car back? We could really use your help driving this weekend. We need a runner.”
“Well, I spoke with the court today and they said my court date is in two weeks, then I should be able to straighten all of this up and get my car back.”
“Oh, so you won’t have it for this weekend?”
“Nope, it’s going to be another two weeks. Hey, Elena, thank you so much for helping me with Adam. You really don’t know how much of a blessing you’ve been to me.”
Elena humphed. “It’s the least I can do to help.”
“It’s really a prayer answered.”
“Well, just try to get your car back as soon as possible, that’ll be thanks enough for me.”
“Will do, Miss Elena.”
* * *
• • •
Randy smiled about the groceries, and tried not to let on that he’d been thinking about breaking up with her all day.
* * *
• • •
Jillian made a shopping list of all the things she needed and then made herself a budget. She needed more toys and, eventually, a dog walker for Crispy and also a crate so she wouldn’t have to keep shutting her in the bathroom, and also a proper bed for her. The total for this was about four hundred dollars, which was twice as much as she owed for the fine. Would she have to pay to go to court? Not if she didn’t need a lawyer. So no lawyer. And getting the car out, she’d heard, would be about a hundred dollars. But Crispy was a priority. She rearranged her list in order of priorities, toys and the crate came first, then the car business, and then a dog walker.
Maybe she’d be able to get her car back in a month? Ugh. Maybe she could get an extension.
5
The weekend came and Randy thought, We should stay in, but wasn’t entirely comfortable alone with Megan since his understanding that things were not going well between them, so he invited their friend David over. This will make her comfortable, he thought. Just two people, where she lives, a low-pressure drinking thing.
David came over and Megan drank two beers quickly.
“How’ve you guys been?” David asked.
“Eh, fine, I guess,” said Megan.
“Pretty good,” said Randy. He explained his project for Kelly’s store and said he was getting paid for it, and he and David talked about formats for a while, while Megan smoked cigarettes. She tried to interject, but her comments were flaccid. When she spoke, David glanced at her and raised his eyebrows and nodded and then turned back to Randy.
“Where are you working now?” asked Randy.
“Oh, I’m working for Albert.”
“Cool, man, I know Albert.”
“Yeah, I took a class with him and we really hit it off. It was one of those weird experiences when you have a class and you and the prof both kind of look at each other one day and realize ‘We’re probably going to be friends.’”
“Ha ha,” said Randy. Randy picked up his beer.
“Yeah, that happened to me all the time,” said Megan.
“Really?” said David.
Megan shook her head and said she was just kidding.
“Well, Albert sent me an email a
few weeks ago and said ‘Man, I really liked your writing in class, and I’m looking for a new staff member.’ Apparently one of his staffers just got into school in California, so he offered me his job. It’s full time. I don’t have benefits yet, but he said he’s going to work on it.”
“That’s so cool,” said Randy.
“What does Albert do?” said Megan.
“He runs an online design magazine. It’s one of the only local design magazines that really matters on a national level.” He turned to Randy and said, “You know how stuff is around here.”
“So, are you writing about design or are you . . . designing for this design magazine?” asked Megan.
“Oh, Albert likes to do most of the design himself, so I’m writing.”
“Oh, right, you said he said he liked your writing from class.”
“Yeah,” said David. “Actually, the only person he lets help him out with the design is Carrie.”
The night plummeted on. Randy and David talked about books they’d been reading and design techniques they liked. They laughed together about mutual acquaintances. Megan drank and smoked and thought about Carrie a little. She thought, I read books and do things, too. But not the same things, and not the same books. Occasionally she interjected, but the things she said were answered with polite questions and did not fit well into the flow of the conversation, so she mostly sat back and tried to relax. She must have spaced out. When she came to, David was saying, “Toothpaste, hacksaw, People magazine, a bag of carrots, red gym socks, Jean-Luc Picard, tomato paste, cardboard cutout of Austin Powers, CD player, toothpicks.”
“Whoa, cool,” said Randy.
“What are you doing again?” asked Megan.
“A memory palace,” said Randy.
“It’s a medieval memory technique. If you need to remember a list of things, what you do is pick a place that you remember well, like your childhood home or your office or your apartment, and you make a narrative. Like, I walk up my front steps and I step on a tube of toothpaste and I get toothpaste all over my foot, so I pick up a hacksaw and I cut off my foot. Then I open my mailbox and see a copy of People magazine that has a photo of me cutting off my foot on the cover. My landlord is standing in my entryway and he offers me a carrot, and I notice he’s wearing red gym socks,” said David. He kept talking through his memory palace, but Megan was somewhere else.