Don't Kiss Me: Stories(27)

When Leta and her family came home and saw the pile of ashes, saw all I had done to kill the mummy, it was clear I wasn’t welcome there no more.

I went home and poured Momma’s bottles down the drain, one by one. She carried on about it, but only for a little while. She stayed quiet after that, out on her porch, holding her empty cup, night after night. Like she was mostly dead. And I guess I could see why Leta’s family got so ticked at me. Wishing something dead was a whole lot different from actually seeing it dead. I tried to regret it, I still try.





DARREN’S BABY GIRL



Darren says I’m his baby girl. He says that cause I tell him every day, I’m your baby girl. I’m your baby girl ain’t I?

You’re my baby girl. We’re in the bed, me under the covers and him on top of the covers cause it’s a hotel and he thinks the sheets are blessed with the skin cells and gushings of a million other people, people we don’t know, gross people. I don’t tell him in my experience the blanket’s where the real action is at, pushing through the door tequila mouth on tequila mouth slam buttons popping off clothes bunched to the floor and ploom you land on the bed and no one takes the time to pull back the coverlet. At least the sheets get bleached. But I don’t tell him that cause I’m his baby girl and so how would I know? I wouldn’t.

If Darren was into it I’d wear a diaper and suck on my ba-ba, but he seems to want a baby girl that can talk, do her numbers, say her pleases and thank yous. If Darren was into it I’d call him Daddy, what do I care, I never called anyone Daddy in my whole life, but Darren ain’t my daddy, he has made that clear. I tried Uncle Darren once, but that didn’t go over neither.

Now I just try not to say his name.

Darren’s got the TV on, going from channel to channel, enamel-haired newspeople staring at us, not blinking, back to weather, over to weather, Ken, how’s the weather? Nobody’s got anything to say, Darren says. Not one real thing.

That’s a relief, I answer, and I feel guilty cause would a baby girl use the word relief? To distract him I get out of bed, walk slowly in front of the TV on my way to the bathroom so he can see the pink ruffles of my nightie, the pink scoops of my bare ass.

Sometimes Darren likes to listen to me go, but tonight don’t seem like one of those nights, he barely glanced at my nakedness when I walked past, and that is another relief, cause I don’t actually have to pee.

The bathroom is the color of jaundice, soaps in paper, a single vinyl shower curtain, towels bleached so many times the white had curdled, chipped toilet seat. In the trash can, a magazine insert advertising a discounted subscription to Bass Fishing International if you subscribe to Bass Fishing USA, the petals of a tissue dotted with blood. The tissue is Darren’s, the insert must be from the guest before us. I wish he’d left the whole magazine. Darren don’t let me read much, so I got to take it wherever I can get it.

I flush to keep up the ruse, walk slowly in front of the TV again. Now it’s the blips and roar of a game show. My body’s all warm, I know without looking Darren is watching me.

You forget something? Darren asks.

Um, I say. I twirl a finger in my hair. I feel lit up, like a glittering flashing game show sign.

You forgot your bottoms, baby girl, he says, but he is pleased, it’s clear.

Oh no, I say. I pretend to try to cover up without really covering anything up. Want me to put them on?

Too late, Darren says. Now you got to be punished.

I know what he means. I got to get to his belt before he can, so I let out a giggle, run at him. I work his belt off, push it under my pillow when he’s got his shirt over his head. Darren’s a quick man, so I don’t have to roll around on that coverlet for long, and he’s fast with the spanking this time, just a few claps before he flattens to sleep.

I used to watch Darren sleep, watch his every rising breath, but after a while that can get old, even what with his twitching feet and his shriveled penis, looking for all the world like a sea creature ripped from its shell.

I put the TV back on the news. A woman in a blue suit, backlit by flames. Strands of her blond hair whipping in the hot wind. The pink jewel of her mouth moving slowly, taking its time with the words. Nothing can stop Darren from sleeping. Hold a gun to his head, set his bed on fire, it don’t matter, Darren will sleep right through it.

I get up carefully, put on my jeans. The hall outside our room smells like the carpet, cigarettes and feet and chlorine from the pool they got on the third floor, which is where I’m going since I know there’s a soda machine. Darren don’t let me have soda, I got to sneak it.

A lady in a scooter is parked at the edge of the pool, watching her boy tread water with one arm and eat a naked hot dog with the other. A streamer of smoke from her hand. Funny how cigarette smoke smells so different from the smoke from a real fire. I could say what this lady had for dinner if I cared to stand in her blow space. A real fire ain’t so personal. They should call that kind of smoke something different.

I know he ain’t supposed to eat in the pool, the lady says. He knows it too, that’s how come he’s so careful.

He could eat a whole pizza in there for all I care, I tell her.

Whoever heard of a indoor pool? the boy asks. A wet nugget of hot dog tumbles down his chin and into the pool.

For all you care? his momma repeats. She drops her cigarette, backs over it with her scooter. She had a wayward eye, dull as an old button.