by Anna Roberts
I stare down at my hands.
“Hanna, come on.”
I want to speak but the words that try to come out are all wrong – I want him back. My life has no meaning without him.
“Say something,” he whispers.
“Like what?” I daren’t look at him. If I look into his hot fudge sundae coloured eyes I will be lost.
“Anything. What are you thinking?”
My mind is a howling whirlwind of emptiness. My hands are clammy, my heart broken and my underpants are riding up the crack of my behind. “I have a wedgie,” I murmur, watching tears splash down over my wrists.
“Oh. Well, that’s...um...”
It takes all of my courage to look at him. I want him so much, but he hurt me. He said I was enough for him but I wasn’t – I never would be. The ponies would always come between us.
“Maybe you should e-mail me,” he says.
My heart stands still. “E-mail you?”
“Yeah. We can be e-mail buddies.”
I begin to cry. How can I be e-mail buddies with him when I want him so much?
Crispian leans forward. “What’s wrong? A lot of the guys have e-mail girlfriends.”
“G...girlfriends?”
“Yeah.” He lowers his voice to its softest registers, fluffy and melting, like cotton candy. “You’re not allowed to send...you know...pictures, but there are ways to...uh...satisfy a man via e-mail, if you know what I mean.”
“Like...if I was your girlfriend?”
“Yeah. If you like.”
“But...we broke up.”
“I know,” he sighs. “I’ve been having flashbacks to my awful childhood ever since.”
“Because I left you?”
He nods. “It’s nothing to worry about, Hanna. I can handle my complex PTSD all on my own. Behind bars. You go – you have your own life to lead.”
Tears sting my eyes. I picture him, a helpless, barefoot child, thin and ragged like a Dickensian orphan. What happened to him in those dark days before he was adopted? He’s hinted at emotional damage before. “I’ll e-mail you,” I murmur, and stand up. Wow, it’s like I’m wearing a thong – how did they ride up so far?
“E-mail me?” husks Crispian, peering seductively up at me. “Or ‘e-mail’ me?” He finger quotes in a way that he knows makes me weak at the knees.
“The second one,” I say, and when he raises an eyebrow back at me I can feel my Inner Goddess stir from her five-day sulk. She sits up, runs her hands through her hair, giggles briefly and begins to bark like a dog.
Weird. She never did that before. Still, I guess it’s better than her calling me an asshole, which she used to do. A lot.
As I drive home she’s doing backflips and dancing the merengue. This is definitely unusual.
- I thought you didn’t dance?
i'm a dancey goddess whee. dancey prancey la de dah.
- What?
mackerel whisper to me in the dead of night. they sing of biscuits and dance to the music of ham.
- I’m really not following you.
follow follow follow follow we represent the lollipop kids. have you any ketamine, deirdre?
Oh God. She’s malfunctioned.
I haven’t. I’m fine.
- Oh my God. There you are. Where have you been?
Barbados.
- What? How does that even work?
I told you. I’m freelance. I’m a figment of other imaginations besides yours. Last week I was in the head of a lady who was nice enough to send me to Barbados, which is more than you ever did, by the way.
- Never mind that. Why are you acting crazy?
Me? Who’s acting crazy?
...like a rolling bagel in the hamster cage i breathe and fondle systems of fancy, whimsical pants...
I am grateful for the red light. My hands, on the steering wheel, are shaking. What in the hell is going on?
- Why are you babbling about mackerel, ketamine and pants? Are you doing this to annoy me? Like that time you took up mime?
My Inner Goddess raises an eyebrow. Oh. That – no, that’s not me.
- It’s not?
Nope.
...fishsticks...
- Gah!
That’s your Subconscious.
- My what?
Your Subconscious. She’s been in here the whole time. Perhaps it would helpful if she talked in bold type from hereon in.
- No, no. No. You’re kidding, right? I never had a subconscious before.
no my only lonely single mind i know your tricks i know your treats i smell your feet and laugh
- This is not fucking funny. She can’t be my subconscious. She’s nuts.
Of course she is. She’s full time – no freelancing for her. She’s been stuck in your weird little noggin since the day you first figured out you existed. Twenty-one years, give or take – small wonder she’s as mad as a box of frogs.
boop.
Oh my God. I have a second voice in my head. Voices. Plural.
Oh shit.
Chapter Two
Sex Queens of Boobulon Twelve
While traditional wisdom would have it that the cream rises to the top, those of a more cynical frame of mind are prone to point out the buoyancy of other, more scatalogical substances deemed far less enjoyable when served with ripe summer strawberries.
When our dingbat heroine first blundered through the doors of RIP Publishing the word around the watercoolers was that the buoyancy of the brown stuff had once again won out. After all, she’d never heard of Kafka and thought that ‘petit bourgeoisie’ was a brand of very small yoghurt.
They were wrong – Hanna’s good luck was in fact simple nepotism. You see, before going a bit Etsy and shacking up with three different men in an anarcho-bisexual-polyamorous-collective, Hanna’s mother had been a big noise in feminist academia and publishing.
Luckily for Hanna she also still had a huge case of the guilts about calling the authorities on her daughter’s boyfriend, so she hung up her macramé and started pulling strings of a different sort. Consequently this small, up-and-coming publishing house found itself playing host to the most illiterate English Major ever to train for the fast food industry.
RIP Publishing is housed in a building almost large enough to be described as an edifice, except it doesn’t have as many sandstone desks and steel columns as the headquarters of Crispian’s former (and as it turns out, illegal) global enterprise.
Claire, the African-American receptionist, smiles at me as I walk in. I think she and I could become friends.
Why?
- Excuse me?
Your default setting when encountering another woman is ‘Catty and judgemental’. Why is Claire any different?
Holy shit – I think my Inner Goddess is a racist.
snookums my honey sweet bunny my toes feel like goats
- And you can shut the fuck up too.
i piss bees
I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those days. When I get upstairs my new boss, Timothy Grope, is twirling the ends of his waxed moustache and looking less than pleased to see me.
“Nice of you to join us, Hanna,” he sneers, checking his watch. “Only forty minutes late today.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something but I don’t think he needs to know that I have a possible racist and a lunatic who claims to piss bees living in my head. Also there is a disturbing doodle on the whiteboard behind him – of a stick figure labelled ‘Hanna’ tied to some train-tracks. I wonder what it means?
I stare down at my hands and say nothing. Liz comes in from the next room, says “Hello Hanna,” and then says “Tim, when are you going to shave off that fucking moustache?”
“I grew it for Movember,” says Timothy Grope.
“Very laudable. However, it’s June. Get rid of it – it makes you look like a child-molester. Hanna, where are we at with the slush pile? Anything good?”
I shake my head. I thought this was where the m
agic happened, where the unknown genuises were discovered and brought to light. So far all I’ve read is a bunch of heavily padded Twilight fanfiction and some uneven novels about zombies.
“There must be something, Hanna,” says Liz. “How many submissions have you read?”
“Five.”
Timothy Grope stares at me. “Five?”
“Is that too much? Should have I have gone slower?”
“No, no. That’s fine,” says Liz, shushing Timothy with a yank of his ponytail. “We’ll try to keep up with your breakneck work rate.”
“Totally,” says Timothy Grope. “And I won’t even even make ‘yo mamma’ jokes, because I’m a nice boss.”
Liz gives him a dirty look. “Hanna, I understand you’re something of an expert in the field of romance novels, is that right?”
I stare at her for a moment. I’ve never read a romance novel in my life. “I...read the Classics,” I murmur. “British classic novels.”
“Such as?”
I flush. Why are they all picking on me? Don’t they know I’m in the depths of despair? I come into work with red eyes every single day and all Timothy Grope can say is ‘Been hitting the bong, huh?’ I don’t think he’s very perceptive.
“Um...Shakespeare...?”
“Oh fuck me,” moans Timothy Grope, putting his head on the table.
So that’s his problem; I never will.
“I’m sorry,” I equivocate. “But I have never read a romance novel – I read deep books, meaningful books, classic books like Jane Eyre and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I don’t read any of your modern trash, Mr. Grope. In fact, I consider it a point of pride that I’ve never read anything later than 1950, and if that’s a problem I suggest you fire me right away – it’s not like my life has any meaning anyway.”
Liz holds up a hand. “No, that’s fine, Hanna – I kind of promised your mom I’d keep you on. Besides, you offer a unique perspective...”
“...and it’s not like there were any good books written after 1950,” adds Timothy Grope.
“I am very different to other people,” I concede.
“Lolita,” says Timothy Grope, apropos of nothing. “Garbage.”
Liz gives him another look, but he just grins and gathers up his papers. “Work to your strengths, Hanna,” she says, opening her wallet and handing me a twenty. “I’ll have a low fat caramel macchiato and a blueberry muffin and Tim...?”
“Green tea. To Kill A Mockingbird – piece of shit.”
“Huh?”
“One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Color Purple, Portnoy’s Complaint, Catcher In The Rye...”
“Yeah, well - I’m with you on the last one,” says Liz. “Somehow the last five days have exhausted my appetite for listening to adolescent whining. Get yourself something to eat, Hanna.”
The thought of food makes me want to cry. I haven’t been able to eat since they came for him. “I can’t,” I whisper, my voice barely a catch in the back of my throat.
Liz is not sympathetic. She slaps me on the shoulder as she gets to her feet. “Sure you can,” she says. “Quit moping – plenty more fish in the sea, especially for a girl as pretty as you.”
No. That part of my life is over now. There is nobody else for me, and all of those other so-called fish aren’t him. I can’t just settle for an ordinary man. It’s all very well for Liz to say I could get anyone, but I’ve seen her husband – he wears Batman t-shirts and is obviously the kind of man who doesn’t care that his wife wears pencil skirts, even when she really doesn’t have the hips for them.
I take the money and take the stairs down to the lobby – elevators give me heartrending flashbacks to better times, of barely imperceptible poots and the subtle but evocative flavour of someone else’s toothbrush. Claire smiles again as I pass her – she’s so pretty, I love her earrings.
See what I mean?
- Go away, racist.
I’m not racist. You’re the one that’s weird about minorities.
- I am not weird about minorities.
You seriously don’t see it? You get strange and overcompensatory.
- I do not.
You so do.
- I don’t. What about Jesús? He’s a minority and I never even mention it.
your panties are burning a hole in my face
She has a point.
- No she doesn’t. She’s insane. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.
I enter the coffee shop and join the line. All around me are happy couples, smiling, holding hands, feeding one another baked goods. I think wistfully of that first day I had coffee with Crispian and how he ate my muffin but wouldn’t kiss me. I’m so lonely.
Someone taps me on the shoulder and I turn – it’s Jesús, grinning his all Hispanic-American smile, his teeth white in his olive face.
I wait. His smile turns to a puzzled frown. “Hanna? What’s wrong?”
“I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
For the voices in your head to point out that you’re weird about minorities. Let’s face it, Hanna – the cheese slid off your cracker a looong time ago.
“Coffee,” I murmur. “I’m waiting in line for coffee.”
and pink fish
“Yeah,” says Jesús. “I sort of figured that one out. Are you out to lunch?”
Oh honey, you have no idea.
I nod. “It’s busy. And my boss is really mean.”
“Whatever,” says Jesús. “Just as long as he doesn’t keep you late, because tonight is party time.”
Party? I stare blankly at him. How am I supposed to go to parties when I’m in mourning for the love of my life?
“We were going to get takeout,” he explains. “But then Kate made another hundred bucks on the Skunk Ape thing and I finished my novel, so we’re gonna get wasted.”
“I don’t think you understand,” I quibble. “I’m really heartbroken.”
“Yeah, dude – we know. That’s why we thought it would cheer you up. You like books – it’s literary. Like a book party.”
“What book?” I ask, snagging a couple of blueberry muffins as I pass the counter.
“My book. The one I just finished writing.”
I turn and stare at him. “You?”
“Yeah. Me. Well, Jessica Waters. That’s my pen name. They say these days it’s best to have a woman’s name in my genre – comes off less creepy, you know?”
I shake my head, horrified. This cannot be happening. Jesús is not a literary hero. He’s the guy who gets drunk at parties and makes indecent suggestions in parking lots. “You can’t have written a book,” I snap. He’s not even wearing a cravat, for God’s sake. He’s not the slightest bit Byronic, and more to the point he’s doing it with Kate, and she can’t be a writer’s girlfriend – she plays videogames all day and calls people shitlords. Some muse.
“Nuh uh,” says Jesús. “I totally did. I remember telling you about it – before finals, when I picked you up from working at the toy store.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, no offence, but you are kind of self-absorbed.”
Ugh. He’s always saying that. It’s sour grapes; I wasn’t into him and he had to settle for Kate, who is my best friend in the world but there’s no getting away from the fact that she’s kind of...well. I don’t want to say it but I’m pretty sure no lady should be encouraging a man to stick in there.
“You’re not even slightly literary,” I say, as we move down the line.
“Huh?” He frowns. “What do you mean? You want me to get a bunch of quill pens and lie around in a big poofy shirt and stuff?”
“Well, no.” I’m sure he’s being deliberately obtuse. “But you’re not a writer, Jesús – you’re not temperamentally and spiritually suited to it.”
“Spiritual bullshit, Hanna – I wrote a book.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.”
“I’m pretty sure it fucking does, dude.”
I sigh as I reach the counter. “Low fat caramel macchiato and a Green Tea, please. And an English Breakfast – bag out.”
“Figures you’d prefer the idea of tea to the actual taste of it,” sniffs Jesús.
God. Who peed in his cornflakes? “Okay, so what’s this opus of yours called?”
“Sex Queens of Boobulon Twelve.”
What? I stare at him for a moment, my mouth open.
“I was thinking Sex Queens of Boobulon Sixty-Nine but Kate said it was kind of too much and that maybe I should bust out Boobulon Sixty-Nine further down the line, as part of a series, you know?”
I can’t believe he’s talking about this in public. Worse, the cashier is nodding appreciatively along with every filthy word.
“We’re out of English Breakfast,” calls the blonde girl on the cappuccino machine. She looks over at me. “You want an Earl Grey instead?”
The cashier turns around. “Where’s the English Breakfast? I sent Milagros out back ten minutes ago for another box.”
“Oh shit,” says the cappuccino girl. “She probably went out to smoke. Wait here.”
As if on cue a fleshy Hispanic girl comes bursting out of a side door, screaming and making the sign of the cross. “What the fuck?” says Miss Cappuccino and hurries out from behind the counter. “Milagros – what happened?”
Milagros lets fly in Spanish. Her hands are shaking and her mascara is pouring down her cheeks in black Alice Cooper streaks. “Inglese,” pleads Miss Cappuccino. “No habla.”
Jesús says something in Spanish and Milagros looks at him for a second, holds up both hands and then covers her face with them. She shakes her head and begins to wail.
“Do you know what’s she’s saying?” asks Miss Cappucino, batting her eyelashes at Jesús. Ugh – what is it with blondes and him?
“She’s not making much sense,” says Jesús. “But I think she said she saw something freaky in the dumpster out back.”
Milagros takes several deep breaths. Her knees go out from under her and she collapses against the counter, clinging grimly to the rail.
“Can someone get her a paper bag?” asks Jesús. “She’s hyperventilating.”
“No, don’t get her a paper bag,” I say. I remember what happened the last time he tried the paper bag with me, when I had a panic attack before my graduation speech. He put a helium balloon in the bag and ruined everything. Also it was really insensitive of him – he knows my Dad died in a bizarre balloon huffing accident.