Our homeroom got a hamster to replace Snowball. My teacher changed the system for taking the hamster home for weekends – it was random, now, pulled from a baseball cap. Somehow my name never came out of the hat. He became the principal, in the end, that homeroom teacher. It was years later, when I punched someone in the hall by my locker, that he found his chance. I can’t even remember who it was that I punched. Was it a punch, or a kick? But it was my third strike, that’s the point, and the school expelled me. I knew that teacher had been waiting for his chance to get me out, ever since the thing with the mouse.
I look at the cassette tapes. They sit in a neat row on the bookshelf. I think of the tape I hid in the hall closet. Maybe if I were braver I would listen. Her last words.
Thoughts are a door that the dead walk through. I feel her now, cold fingers walking up my neck. Mommy, please leave me alone.
I have to focus. I shake my hands loose and turn my palms upwards. I look at my hand – each finger, the pillowy base of the thumb, the palm as dry as leather. I take a deep breath for each part. This is something the bug man suggested I try, and surprisingly, it works.
I unlock the laptop cupboard and start the computer. The photograph of the man behind a desk comes up, grinning. It doesn’t look like a real picture at all. But if people are lonely enough, they don’t care about what’s real and what isn’t. Once again I feel bad for using a fake picture but no one would meet me if I used my own.
I look at the rows and rows of women. There are so many. The search hasn’t been going well but it’s important not to give up.
Maybe I’ve been doing this wrong. I’ve been focusing on butter-blonde hair and blue eyes and so on, whereas what I really need is someone with whom I have more in common. A single parent. I change my search and the faces disappear, replaced by new ones. These are older, mostly. I try a couple, but they seem more wary than women without children, less responsive.
Finally I find one. She’s willing to meet tonight. She answers quickly, within three seconds, which even I can tell is a mistake. It’s too eager. She will meet me at a coffee shop after work. She does look nice, actually. She has a soft face and her jawline is doughy. Her dye job is old, grey shows at the roots, interrupting the dull black. It’s late, but she’ll try to get her sister to babysit. She has a twelve-year-old daughter.
I have a daughter myself, I tell her. Lauren. What’s yours called?
She tells me and I type, That’s a pretty name. It’s so great to talk to another single parent. It can be lonely at times.
I know! she replies. Some days I could just cry.
If your sister can’t sit, you could bring your daughter along, I tell the woman. I’d love to meet her. I could bring Lauren, too. (I can’t bring Lauren, of course. But I can always say she is feeling sick.)
Wow, that is so understanding, she says. I can tell you’re a good person.
I’ll wear a blue shirt, I type. Maybe you could wear blue too, so I can recognise you.
Sure, that sounds fun.
Maybe not blue jeans, because everyone will be wearing those.
OK …
Do you have a blue dress?
I haven’t showered in a while so I do that, harmonising along with the beautiful melody the woman sings. I take a couple more pills, too. I don’t want to mess this one up.
I have a quick beer before I go. I drink it in one, standing in front of the open refrigerator. There are trails of black droppings on the kitchen counters. The mouse problem is getting worse. I don’t mind mice if the cats can deal with them, but not here. Sometimes, with problems you do nothing and they go away. Other times it is the opposite. I should get the diary out and note it. But there’s no time!
The street is dark and quiet as I leave the house, triple-locking the door behind me. The Chihuahua lady’s house is still empty. It pulls at me as I pass, that strange tug, like the house wants me to go in, like a god sending out tendrils of power.
Olivia
Ted is gone again. It has been a day and a night. I long for my nice dark crate but he has piled the weights on top of it. So thoughtless. I have licked my bowl so much my tongue tastes like metal. Oh, and of course, of course, that whining sound is here, filling my brain. It rises and falls but never goes away, these days. I can almost imagine I hear words in it, sometimes. Just now it’s bearable. The hunger is worse. It gnaws at my stomach.
The TV is on, some creepy thing about a murderer stalking a girl in a parking lot. It’s dark, raining. The actress playing the girl is pretty good. She looks scared. I don’t like stuff like that so I leave the room. But I can still hear it: the running, the screams. I hope she gets away. Honestly, who watches this trash? There are sick people in the world, let me tell you. I thank the LORD that my Ted is nothing like that.
So hungry.
I stalk around the house. The cord floats behind me. It is sagging and grey today, which seems appropriate. You can’t eat it. I’ve tried. I have eaten everything
