The Optimist

by Sophie Kipner

  Randall chimed in like a man and asked me if I was okay. His youth takes you by surprise. I reassured him it was only a little fall, nothing big. When I reached for my phone, I realized I must have accidentally sent the photo to Jimar on my fall. He now had not only a blurry photo of my ass, but because it was in movement, a stretched one.

  Feeling insecure for a brief, unusual moment, I did what the master politicians do when there’s too much heat under them: I switched topics. ‘So were you spying on me?’ I started at Milk. ‘You saw me fall and ran over?’

  ‘I was just checking you were okay.’

  ‘You really are a big creep,’ I said. ‘You know that? Big old creepy stalker.’

  Brows fluted. Mouths winced. ‘But you . . .’ Mary began before a beep on my phone silenced her.

  It was from Jimar. In slow motion, I opened his message. It read: ‘What am I looking at?’

  I was embarrassed that my nudie pic wasn’t strong enough for him to even know what it was. ‘Why can’t I just take a nice ass shot like every other women trying to flirt with a stranger via text message?’ I said out loud. ‘I want to have sext already.’ Milk, Mary and Randall started to laugh.

  ‘Never mind!’ I wrote back, air-fluffing it off as if the picture were never taken, never sent. As if it were a joke. I waved and laughed to myself as if Jimar were right in front of me and I was in on the laugh, too.

  ‘Did you just fart?’ Mary asked, Milk and Randall still ­giggling under their breath.

  ‘Why would you say that?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re pushing fart around the air,’ she accused me. How kind she was.

  ‘Okay, Milk,’ I said. ‘Thanks for coming over. I think we’re all good here now.’

  ‘Hey, can we speak for a minute?’ he asked me.

  ‘Well . . . I’m busy,’ I said. Mary gave me a frown. ‘Okay, quickly.’

  ‘I have Friday night off and wanted to see a movie at that new theatre with the reclining seats and cocktails,’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, confused. ‘Do you need me to take care of something for you?’

  ‘No, I wanted to see if you wanted to go with me.’

  I stared at him blankly.

  ‘A date?’ Mary asked. ‘Does that mean you send Milk pictures of your butt too?’

  ‘It’s not a date, Mary!’ I said.

  ‘They’re playing Some Like It Hot and I know you love that movie,’ he explained.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, confused, unsure why he’d want to go to the movies together. We never went to the movies together. ‘Well, thank you, Milk, but I’m in a long-distance relationship.’ It was sweet of him to ask, but I had to keep myself focused on going on dates with men who I’d actually be able to be with one day. A date with Milk would distract me, and I was already running out of time.

  And once more, I guess, for the road, he shot me the look again, the glassy-eyed deer, but this time his smile came through more visibly.

  ‘Okay, bye, little man,’ he said, turning to Randall and giving him a high five. ‘Mary,’ he said. ‘You know where to find me if,’ (nodding towards me), ‘she starts acting up, right?’

  Mary giggled like a little schoolgirl, like he was Prince Charming or something ridiculous. I guess that’s the beauty in being naïve. Just then, when I was feeling cold and old and lonely, Jimar picked me up and threw me into the next stratosphere. ‘Wait,’ Jimar wrote. ‘Is that wut I think it is?’

  Bingo. I had no idea the illusion of ass was going to be far more provocative than a clear ass itself. Without even knowing it, I was drawing him in, luring him close to the bacon in my pocket. Close enough to be able to smell it even though he couldn’t see it. Tapping into the allure of the mirage.

  This is how you seduce people. This is how you become happy. My mom’s mom was very religious, very, very Christian. She lived a calculated, slow life in fear of what would happen if she indulged, all of which made my mother more extreme in her reaction to prove she could instead be rewarded for her decadence. Now that my grandma’s memory wavered, she forgot to give me the bad advice she gave my mother. She used to tell her she’d never be happy until she became realistic about love, about life; that my mother’s dissatisfaction was the product of her inability to settle, as if dreaming big was a setback. I guess I’m trying to prove what she couldn’t prove to Grandma. I’m designing my own kind of happy.

  I was thinking this could go on for days, weeks, years. I was thinking there’s a strong potential for longevity here but at some point, something’s got to move forward. My head was banging from the fall when Mary and Randall told me they were hungry. I hurried them downstairs to continue playing while I fixed them something to eat. Bent over the saucepan, I boiled some water to make macaroni and cheese because in times like these, I turn to the food Ernesto used to talk to me about when we’d play waitress. When I see it, it elicits a response in me. I can hear him saying it in his soothing and Mexican way and somehow, I feel invincible. Less alone. Less fragmented. Less embarrassed about things gone wrong in the past, like an unflattering ass photo sent into the ether. I looked out the kitchen window and imagined being my mother, having looked out at me in the garden with Ernesto from that same vantage point many years ago, and I wondered what I would have thought if I were her, back then.

  I was thinking that from now on, I was going to be more thoughtful. Being more thoughtful than I already was might seem impossible but there are always ways to improve. I gave Mary her favorite plastic cartoon spork when the mac ’n’ cheese was ready. ‘But I hate Ariel!’ she yelled as she threw it across the table.

  ‘Seriously?’ I said. ‘Last week you only ate with this spork!’

  My phone, resting face up on the table, beeped and a picture of Jimar’s penis flashed to the screen. I chuckled from the shock and grabbed it away as soon as I could, though looking at Randall’s contorted facial expression, I didn’t pick it up quickly enough. But who cares! ‘Nothing to be afraid of, Randall!’ I shouted, so pleased my wobbly, distorted ass didn’t end my relationship with the sultry Rastafarian.

  ‘Ariel believed in love, Mary,’ I said. ‘You should be lucky to use her figurine as a spoon!’

  Mary did that weird scrunched-up face again where she purses her lips into a line that’s oddly straight. One of her eyes bent down from the pull. ‘Why don’t you and Milk get married?’

  I couldn’t help but let out a hearty laugh, so deep it would have fit my body better to have a barrel gut. My shock and surprise quickly morphed into annoyance. Kids don’t understand anything. ‘Well,’ I began. ‘You know how Grandma Twilda has had so many romantic adventures? It’s because she knows what she wants and she goes for it. That’s where I get it from. Milk is nice, but he really just wouldn’t understand me. I’m attracted to men who know what they want.’

  ‘But he just said he wanted to take you out,’ Randall said.

  ‘Is Mom like Grandma, too?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Your mom may as well have been adopted,’ I told her. ‘She’s possibly a different species. I’m not even sure if she’s human.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s not interested in love.’ Just as I said it, Brenda opened the front door and collapsed inside, still in her nurse’s scrubs. I ran over to her, phone out, picture forward. ‘A beautiful Rastafarian in Jamaica sent me a picture of his dick today!’ I exclaimed.

  She wafted it away in a panicked reflex, worried Mary and Randall could see it. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ She looked over at Randall, who stood with his legs a little further apart than the width of his hips. She took another look at my photo and winced. ‘Ugh. Gross. Who does that?’

  ‘I think it’s great,’ I bristled back.

  ‘Hey, Mary, are you going to introduce me to your friend?’ Brenda asked as she walked towards them.

  ‘This is Randall,’ Mary said. ‘Aunt Tabby asked his dad and he said it was fine to come over.’

  Brenda looked over at me to co
nfirm its truth and I did with a quick nod.

  ‘He’s not my dad,’ Randall snuck in, but the comment slid under the mat as soon as it came out.

  ‘Who is sending you vulgar pictures anyway?’ Brenda asked me as I watched Randall’s eyes drop to the floor again where they seemed to find their home.

  ‘This guy in Jamaica named Jimar,’ I said proudly. Shoulders back.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ she said. ‘So my sister gets penis pictures from a stranger who’s probably working in a random customer-service call center in Mumbai pretending to have that big a cock in front of not only my daughter but her new friend and you think this is how adults behave?’ She said it all in one go without taking a breath.

  ‘I thought that too!’ I exclaimed, eager to find a thought between us in common. ‘But a lot of Indian men have big dongs, you know. I mean, they must be pretty good. They invented the Kama Sutra.’

  ‘Ugh,’ she sighed. ‘You’re disgusting and pathetic. If you’re not careful, you’re going to wind up like Mom.’

  My smile flatlined and I was just left there, in the hallway, feeling a half of myself.

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t send him a picture back?’ she added in afterthought.

  ‘Well . . .’ I began but it was too late. She could read it on my face.

  ‘We have to go,’ Brenda said as she grabbed Mary. ‘Mary, come on. We have to go home now.’

  ‘What about Randall?’ I asked.

  ‘You can take him home, right?’ She delivered me a look that gave me no other option but to take him home. ‘I would,’ Brenda explained. ‘It’s just I’m exhausted from a fourteen-hour shift.’

  ‘Of course I can take him,’ I said. I winked at Randall to let him know it was okay, that fun was still to be had.

  On the ride home, I asked Randall how his heart was.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

  ‘I want to know if your heart’s okay. Is it big? Is it alive? Is it sad?’

  ‘I guess,’ he started. ‘I guess it’s okay.’

  I let the lack of details go because I sensed his hesitation. I’ve realized a lot of men, despite their age, cannot connect with their hearts. I wanted to get Randall thinking of it now, rather than later before it was too late. Before high-school heartbreaks and adulthood mistakes closed it up and locked it down for good.

  ‘Where are the dads and husbands in your home?’ Randall asked me, as if it were a normal question.

  ‘Milk came,’ I said. ‘But I guess he doesn’t count. I’m not sure where the rest of them went. They left a long time ago.’

  He sat there quietly.

  ‘What’s your family like?’ I asked, unafraid of whether or not it was an appropriate question.

  He silently looked out the window as we traversed over cracks in pavements, past stoplights and yellow signs and missing-cat posters stuck to trees. I stuck my hand out behind me to reach him and it landed on his head. I brushed his hair as well as I could given I was driving with the other hand which meant that my affectionate strokes sometimes ended up in his eyes. When I walked him up to his house, a dreary brown one-story, he still didn’t answer me and, in turn, I didn’t push it. I just waited for him to say something to point me in a direction like those signposts I ran into earlier.

  Randall pushed the unlocked door open and I peered in to look around. The television light was glaring from the other room. Instead of the sounds of a family inside, I only heard a few beer bottles tap against each other. I was surprised to see his house was as dark as mine can get, given that he had both a mom and a dad, biological or not.

  ‘Bye, kid,’ I said as he went to walk upstairs. Before he got too far, though, he turned around to me.

  ‘I don’t like Jimar,’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ I replied. He climbed up the stairs quietly, as if not to wake up the house. I wondered where the cheer was. Where the family dinners were. I wondered why there was no one to greet him but a gloomy blue light.

  I got another text from Jimar just before I started the engine. I thought it was going to be something romantic this time. I imagined he’d describe my hair flowing beachside at sunset and how my lips would stay perpetually cherry-colored because they’d reflect the love he had for me in his heart. Instead, he told me he was jerking off, thinking of me with another man. I wanted to flick it off, the sadness that came over me, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to be shared. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to want to beat the shit out of any other man who’d try to touch me. The guy who is going to plan a flash mob for his proposal isn’t the same guy who wants to watch the woman with whom he’s in love be intimate with another man.

  When I pulled into my driveway, I saw somebody swaying around the house. It was obvious after watching a few dance moves that it was my mother. Tonight she wore a tweed coat she bought from an exclusive dealer in London some years ago. Her black hair was a few steps outside a tightly groomed bob, with just enough flare and personality to let a stranger know she had a story. A glass of red wine, half consumed, was balancing dangerously between her fingers. She was dancing to Sam Cooke’s ‘Sad Mood’ on vinyl, her knees giving out to the beats in rhythm, her hips swaying to the right and left, wine glass moving around her invisible dance partner.

  ‘Mom,’ I said. She never looked over but kept dancing. ‘I want to ask you something, about your time in Jamaica.’ I was starting to question whether or not these adventures had made her better, more adventurous, more wildly attractive, as I had hoped they were making me.

  After a few delayed beats, she glanced at me through her coal-colored hair. Her lips wine-stained, as usual, and eye-makeup smeared.

  ‘Come dance with me, baby,’ she said, holding out her hand.

  I started to move my hips with her, to meet her wherever she was, tossing my hair around to ruff it up a bit.

  ‘But I . . .’ I started.

  ‘You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?’ she sighed, ignoring me. ‘Two brick legs. I guess it makes sense, why he never wanted to dance. I just wanted him to grab me though, you know, out of nowhere and start dancing. I didn’t even care that he was terrible at it. I wanted him to want to dance.’

  She gets sentimental when she drinks; which means she’s pretty much always emotional now. I went to turn on the lights but she yelled out to stop me. ‘Leave them off, I’ve lit candles,’ she said, waving for me to come join her again. To fill the gap. ‘It’s a full moon. We have to dance when it’s a full moon.’

  When her eyes were closed, I looked out the window. The moon was, indeed, full. It was swollen and shiny, storing secrets against a stark, ebony sky. A big, black sparkling spatial landscape freckled with stars of varying brightness. Some big, some beaming, but most were dull set against the moon. The small ones just as bright, but too far away to tell. Those faint stars were like us, I thought, dim from afar but bright up close. All kinds of stars were out there; and it was magical. Most often, the way I picture things in my head trumps what I actually see (therein lies my disappointment), but this time, I didn’t need to change a thing.

  I took a moment to think about what I’d learned from my time with Jimar. Some men, like him, wanted to share love with other partners. I wasn’t upset, though, because that’s just how he loved (how Rastafarian of him!). I was grateful for the experience because it made me realize I didn’t like that kind of sharing. But that moon, knowing others around the world were experiencing that view with me at that exact moment, well that was a different kind of love. A love, in fact, I couldn’t wait to share.

  The Breast Man

  My neighbor’s breasts are impossible. I used to think mine were pretty fantastic until my breasts caught sight of her confidently, magically, painfully buoyant breasts in the window. She dresses and undresses without pulling the curtains, on purpose, to gloat. I feel mine drop and sag, dejectedly, every time; I even hear them whimper. I knew I needed to give them back their swagger, especially after everything that ju
st happened with Jimar, so when I woke up I looked out to the street and saw her leaving the house for work. I couldn’t just sit back any longer and let my boobs get bullied like that so I ran outside, chest up, nips high, while she was walking to her car and I asked her if those bad boys were real.

  ‘Tubby Tabby, the puffer penguin!’ Margot said, ignoring my question.

  It was hard to run whilst sticking my breasts out like this, in self-defense, but I persevered.

  ‘Come on!’ I begged. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘You really are a Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar, you know that?’

  I hated it when she flaunted her Britishness. Even her insults were cool. We get it, you’re English! You have an ­adorable accent, men love it. You have great tits. We get it!

  ‘I think you owe my chest an apology,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because your breasts are insulting them! They’re insulting women everywhere and natural breasts just can’t look at themselves in the mirror anymore without wanting to commit suicide.’

  She looked down to consult her beautiful rack, appeared pleased with what she saw, lifted her head up again smugly and said, ‘If you really must know, ask my boyfriend.’ Her eyebrow slithered around her temples.

  This could have all been solved quite simply, quite quickly, but no, she wanted me to talk to her boyfriend and hear it from the man who knows breasts best: The Breast Man. Milk came out of his house as the two of us were tits up and forward.

  ‘Hi, Milk!’ Margot gurgled, annoyingly and flirtatiously waving to him for some reason, tossing and flipping her long hair over her shoulder as she got in her flashy red car and drove off, leaving me and my underdeveloped nips to recoil into their padded bra and cry. Milk waved at me, his eyes wide and hopeful, smiling as he held a bag of garbage.

  ‘Oh, so now you’re laughing at my breasts, too?’ I yelled out, still reeling from my altercation moments before.

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ he said, laughing, as he dumped the trash. His hair was messy and he was wearing sweatpants and heavy black-rimmed glasses.