Pretty Girls

by Mimi Strong

  “Sweetie, I told you to stay at your place some weekends. I'm fine. I'll be back to teaching in a few weeks and I'm really looking forward to having something to do. I've been so bored.”

  “Bored?”

  “I have an empty nest. Daughter gone, off living her own life, and I don't know if I'll ever have grandbabies, what with how you are.”

  “What do you mean how I am?”

  “Well, sweetie, you push men away. What about that Stevey? I looked at his bio and he's not married. Is he gay? And if not, what about him?”

  “I am so not having this conversation with you.”

  “Fine. I'll get my purse. Let's go get Chinese food. Your father didn't like spicy food, but you know what I've discovered? I love it. I know a place that has spicy spring rolls. You won't believe it until you try them.”

  Nora looked around the house while her mother fetched her purse. Their wedding photo had been taken off the mantle and replaced with a clock. She found the framed picture on a bookcase, but for a moment, she'd feared her father was being erased. Nora did want her mother to be happy and to move on, but she worried that it seemed to be happening a little too easily. People didn't just get over catastrophic loss with the snap of their fingers.

  The previous weekend, Nora and her mother had cleaned out the refrigerator together and had cried over the hand-written labels Nora's father had placed on some leftovers pushed to the back of the fridge. They'd debated peeling them off and keeping them in a scrapbook with some of his other personal papers, but in the end, they'd simply thrown them out. Then they'd sat on the kitchen floor and sobbed together.

  Now, with Nora's mother buzzing around the house, putting on earrings and fluffing up her curly hair, it seemed the fever of grief had broken.

  They had dinner at the Chinese food restaurant, where the staff all knew Nora's mother by name and seemed delighted to finally meet her famous daughter. “We miss you on the radio in the afternoons,” said the man who owned the restaurant. “The new woman, Raven, she's not as good. Too much talk. Talk, talk, talk. And I think there are more advertisements now.”

  Nora agreed that there were more ads, up to twenty minutes per hour. The owners had been trying to squeeze a little more profit out of the business, and while the station she was now at boasted more music and fun, eventually it would probably go the same way.

  “Such is life,” the man said. “I'd like to feed the whole city, for free, but you have to pay the bills.”

  Nora's mother nodded and stared off at unseen horizons. “Such is life,” she agreed.

  The food was excellent, or so Nora's mother said.

  When they got back to the house, Nora thought about what her mother had said about her pushing men away. She composed a text message to Bobby, trying to sound flirty, but she deleted it without sending.

  Instead, she sent an ambiguous text to Aaron Edward. I'm in town, she said.

  Come on over, he replied.

  Nora put down the phone and looked at her mother, who was humming and filling the kettle with water for tea.

  “I'm going to Aaron Edward's.”

  Nora's mother plugged in the kettle, and without turning around, said, “I suppose that'll be fine.”

  “It'll be fine?”

  Nora's mother turned around and faced her daughter. “Yes. It's not wonderful, and it's not terrible, but somewhere in the middle. It's fine. I'm fine, you're fine, everything's fine.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  She took two mugs out of the cupboard, then put one back. “You should get going, before it's too late.”

  It was barely seven-thirty. Nora grabbed her purse and ran out the door, not even stopping to check a mirror.

  CHAPTER 13

  Aaron Edward opened the door. “You're here.”

  “Did you think I was pulling your leg about being in town?”

  He leaned against the door frame. “No, but I thought you might be, uh, joking about coming over.”

  “I'm here.”

  “Do you want to go out for some dinner?”

  She leaned to the side to look around him. “Why, do you have someone over?”

  “I might,” he said, his mood difficult for her to read.

  Behind him, someone made some noises.

  Nora backed away two steps. He held his ground.

  From within the house, a vacuum cleaner turned on.

  “Your housekeeper is here,” Nora said.

  His grin started small, then spread to his whole face. “I can kick her out, if you want to come in.”

  “She can stay.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, I don't think so. She was done twenty minutes ago, but she's been cleaning the same spot since she heard you were coming over. I guess she finds my love life very interesting.”

  He turned sideways and waved her into the house.

  Nora stepped inside. “Is it? Is your love life interesting?”

  “Not as interesting as I'd like it to be.” He grabbed her gently by the shoulders, turned her to face him as the door swung shut, and kissed her.

  The vacuum cleaner turned off as they pulled apart.

  “Hi Nora!” the housekeeper said.

  “Hi… Helen, is it?”

  Helen giggled. “I guess I'll be on my way, unless you need anything else, Mr. Edward?”

  “I'm fine, Helen, thank you. Have a good night.”

  Helen quickly gathered up her things, gave them a knowing smile, and went out the front door.

  The door clicked shut, and Nora pulled her shirt off over her head. They were still standing in the front room, where Helen had been vacuuming.

  “The windows,” Aaron said.

  “So what. You live in the country. Let the trees watch.” She unlatched her bra and let it fall to the floor.

  He stepped up to her and wrapped his arms around her, swaying for a moment to music that wasn't there. He ran his fingers over her hair, then down the sides of her face.

  “Do I look different?” she asked.

  “You're not fourteen anymore.”

  She turned her face to profile and touched the bridge of her nose. It was still a little sensitive, but felt almost normal. “I had a little cosmetic work done. Remember I had a bump here, and now it's gone.”

  “Hmm,” he said, then he shrugged. “I'm a guy, we don't notice stuff like that. Honestly, I'd forgotten your hair was so curly until I saw you again at the radio station. Time is a strange filter.”

  She swallowed.

  He backed up a step and looked down at her breasts. He touched them, softly, and kissed her on the mouth, the chin, the neck.

  She unbuttoned his shirt, starting at the bottom, and running her hands along his stomach.

  He leaned back, grabbed her by the hand, then led her to the stairs, and up to the master bedroom.

  “I'll leave the curtains open for you,” he said. “I just didn't want to give you rug burn. And I would have. Terrible, terrible rug burn.”

  She sat on the bed, grabbed him by the belt, and pulled him toward her.

  He said, “I'm so glad you came over.”

  “Shh,” she said, and she undid the rest of his clothes. His jeans dropped to the floor, and then his shirt.

  She still had her slacks on, and he sat on the bed beside her and fumbled nervously with the button and then the zipper.

  “I'll get it,” she said, standing to take them off. She'd slipped off her shoes downstairs, and she wasn't wearing any sock or stockings. He kept his gaze on her face, not looking down. She slid down the jeans and then her underwear.

  Then, quickly, she sat on his lap facing him and kissed him.

  His hands went up to her head and his fingers slipped up between the curls, against her scalp. His touch felt so good. They rocked back and forth, and then they fell back on the bed.

  And then, it was just the two of them, and they didn't have names or identities, and she didn't care what had happened or might happen. He was strong, and he
moved her easily, but he didn't push.

  When she couldn't take his hesitation for another second, she climbed on top and showed him how much she wanted him.

  She felt herself letting go of everything.

  When they were finished, she lay alongside him, her left arm and left leg draped across him.

  She waited for the feeling, the uneasiness. Aaron did not belong to her, and within minutes, her body would remind her of this, urging her to leave.

  He playfully rubbed her arm and the side of her body. His touch didn't tickle, because it didn't feel like another person. It was Aaron. He was not a part of her, and he was not separate, but something in between.

  She relaxed and moved in closer to him, wondering when it would be too much, too intimate.

  She nodded off.

  When she awoke about an hour later, she knew exactly where she was.

  She kissed him on the ear, and he stirred in his sleep. After a few minutes, she got up and put on the long-sleeved shirt he'd been wearing, and went to the kitchen to get a drink.

  When she returned, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands.

  “Are you crying?” she asked.

  He rubbed his hands on his face and then on the sheets. “I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for what I did to you.”

  His gaze traveled down and stopped on her right leg, her prosthetic.

  “You can touch it,” she said.

  “I can't.”

  “You have to. If we're going to do this, you have to get over it. You have to grieve, and then you have to stop. Like I did, a long time ago. Or maybe just recently. I don't know. There's no guidebook for life.”

  He patted the bed next to him, and she sat down. He put his hands on her left leg, around her thighs, and ran them all the way down past her knee, her calf, and her foot. It tickled a little, but she didn't flinch.

  He took a breath and started again at the top of her right leg, over the top of her knee, where he paused, then touched the sides of the prosthetic, where the seam curved up along the sides of her knee. He seemed to stop breathing as he ran his hands down the prosthetic and over the foot, which was the match of her left foot, as it had been made from a reverse casting of the right.

  He slid off the bed and sat on his knees at her feet. “Where does your leg end?” he asked.

  She gestured with an open hand to the mid-point of the shin of the prosthetic. “It's mostly me, to here.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Sometimes.”

  He winced. “Bad?”

  “No, not bad. I can still do everything a person with two natural legs can do. You won't see me out jogging, but it's just because I hate jogging. I could, if I wanted to.”

  “Oh.” He bowed his head, looking for a moment like he was praying or proposing.

  “Do you want me to take it off? Do you want to see what's inside?”

  He looked up at her, his face showing that he understood this was an important moment for both of them. “Yes,” he said.

  She reached down and tugged off the prosthetic, setting it carefully off to the side. She rolled down the stocking that fit inside it, and kneaded the calf muscles on her residual limb. “Some people get cool tattoos on the scar, but I like how it looks just the way it is.”

  He nodded and stared at the scar, as though memorizing it.

  “Aaron, I don't blame you at all. I was the idiot kid who thought she could ride a motorbike. It was just a little bike, and I was a strong kid. I should have been able to control it, but I was stupid, and I thought I was invincible. You tried to talk me out of taking it around the block on my own, but I can be very convincing.”

  “You can be.”

  “The rest of me is still here. Aaron, I forgive you. I take full responsibility. You didn't do anything wrong. You were just a kid too.”

  He dropped forward, his head resting on her knees. She stroked his hair as he ran his hands over her legs, all the way from the top to the bottom.

  “I'm sorry,” he said.

  She leaned down and kissed him on the back of his head. “That's the last time you ever have to apologize about that.”

  He looked up at her, his hair messy and tousled from her hands.

  And that was that.

  Apology given, and apology accepted, fully, completely.

  CHAPTER 14

  On Sunday, Nora had an early dinner with her mother. They had Chinese food again, at her mother's new favorite restaurant. The spicy spring rolls were incredible.

  After dinner, Nora drove back to her new home in Portland.

  She worked Monday through Friday, eager and nervous for the weekend.

  On Friday she drove back to Eugene, back to Aaron Edward.

  After a perfect weekend, she returned to Portland Sunday night. The drive seemed to be getting shorter, as she became more familiar with the landmarks.

  On Monday morning, Nora woke up to her light-radiating alarm clock, before the sound phase of the alarm started up, and slipped on the floral dress she'd bought but never worn. She looked at herself in the mirror. She had her mother's eyes and her father's chin. She was twenty-seven. She had her whole life ahead of her.

  She'd spent most of the weekend with Aaron, and he'd already been looking into moving, renting a recording studio in Portland. Until he had the business side of things taken care of and moved over, they would continue to see each other on the weekends, alternating between their two cities.

  Nora formally told her mother she was dating Aaron, and her mother simply said it was nice news, good, even, and better than fine.

  She said it was good for people to love each other, no matter the circumstances. “We're on this earth for one another,” she'd said.

  Indeed, pairing up did seem natural. Kylie had finally phoned and confessed to Nora that the guy she'd been dating was none other than Bobby, and she was so sorry to go after an ex of Nora's, but she really liked him. Nora then apologized for having slept with Kylie's boyfriend before he was her boyfriend, so they were basically even. They did not compare bedroom notes, though Nora had a difficult time refraining from asking about the possibility of spanking.

  Nora strode to her parking stall under the building, surprised by how wonderful it felt to wear a dress in the summer. The air played around her legs in a way it never did in even the loosest-fitting pants.

  She climbed into her new car, her father's restored Camaro, and started the engine. She didn't know much about cars, much less this one, but to her ear, the engine sounded perfect. He'd always meant for it to be hers someday. She felt his presence all around her.

  The sun wasn't up yet, but it would be in an hour or so. She waved at her billboard, and because she was running early, she stopped at a 24-hour doughnut shop to buy treats for everyone at the station.

  The woman at the counter said, “I know you, you're Nora!” She called for the people in the kitchen to come out and meet her. Nora shook everyone's hands, and one of the guys asked if he could take her photo with the group of them, with his cell phone camera. They squeezed in together for a shot.

  Nora noticed the man standing next to her was crying. She looked down and realized his left arm was a prosthetic, and he had a hook instead of a hand, which would be much more practical for working in a kitchen.

  “You're an inspiration,” he said to Nora.

  “No, I just talk on the radio. You make doughnuts with one hand.”

  He beamed. “That, I do.”

  The woman said, “Can you stay? Carlos is coming in soon, and he'd love to meet you. Is it true that you kissed that Stevey? Was that real? Oh, you must stay, have a coffee.”

  “I have to go, prepare for the show,” Nora said. “I'll come back again, though. Everybody loves your doughnuts.”

  The woman gave her a hug. The man with the prosthetic shook her hand, barely able to meet her gaze.

  They wouldn't let her pay for the dozen doughnuts, so she slipped a twenty in the ti
p jar when they weren't looking.

  Back in the Camaro, she started the engine and turned up the radio. The station was playing Liz Phair.

  Nora rolled down the window and sang along, as loud as she could.

  CHAPTER 15

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Nora rushed home from work on a Friday afternoon, excited about going to Eugene that night to see Aaron. They'd had an argument two days before, over schedules. He'd suggested skipping a visit that weekend, as he had business down in LA on Sunday, and wouldn't be able to see her much more than Saturday morning. As they talked on video over their laptops, both trying to stay calm despite being upset, their cross-city dating lost its charm.

  At least they'd finished on a hopeful note, and if Nora wasn't mistaken, Aaron had seemed on the verge of saying he loved her. Well, she could certain drive over to see him for just one night if it meant hearing such a thing.

  As she approached her loft apartment's door, the hand-scrawled note on the door made her heart lurch. Now what? There'd been a small leak in the roof that had drizzled into her apartment the day before, and she wasn't looking forward to having the landlord and repair people demanding access to the unit.

  The note didn't look official, though. It was scrawled in thick pen, and messy, as though written by a child or an elderly person.

  It read:

  Please see me at once. There is a horrible emergency. Something is coming through my wall from your side. Your neighbor in 4B.

  Nora groaned and stuck her key in her lock. She could just zip off for the weekend and deal with this craziness when she got back Sunday night.

  A high-pitched voice called through the crack of the neighbor's door: “Helloooo? Neighbor?”

  She tucked the note into her pocket. “Coming! Just a moment.”

  So, it was an old woman who bought the unit next door? That seemed like an unusual choice—an exposed-brick loft-style apartment for a senior, but the place was angled to get better light than Nora's, so more power to the old lady.

  Nora tapped on the door. “Hello?”

  The woman seemed to have disappeared, and the door pushed open at her touch.