“DID IT HURT?”
The coffee shop is quiet. Muscles across her belly wound tight.
“Not much.”
Her fingers twitch, resisting the need to fondle, to press fingers deep into the ribbons of muscle, for the nails to dig in. A knife slice to remove the tension surgically. Just a thought.
“Did he shove you?”
Her arms, legs, head, a push puppet that can’t collapse, the thread pulled too tight the wood cracks under pressure.
“Force you?”
A head shake. The heat from the coffee cup throbbing in her cupped hands.
“Then why go to the police?”
Say something, she thinks.
She opens her mouth. Looks up.
The Friend’s face is compressed into a puckered look of skepticism. Excuses feel flimsy. Words slip off the tongue.
“He’s such a nice guy. Sorry. I can’t see it.”
A laugh. A sip of coffee. The room takes on the low murmur of a crowd hoping to overhear the good stuff. Her stuff. The Friend’s voice is loud. She remembers that.
“You seem like you’re doing okay, at least. Have you… fallen apart recently?”
“Not since the day before that night.”
“Wow. A week? Has that ever happened?”
“No.”
“How do you feel?”
A shrug. The coffee shop’s windows are fogged around the edges, a draft giving goosebumps on bare arms.
“I can go back to work.”
“Doubt he’ll be able to. Damn. Tricky shit.”
“Tricky?”
“Yeah. You know, his life is ruined.”
“What if you could get better?” He smiles, sweeping wine glass under straight nose.
More details this time. He’s there. Johnny. That Johnny from the second grade spelling bee. The Friend introduced them at a party.
“It’s not really a party. You, me, Cindy, and a friend of hers,” The Friend promises because she knows you don’t do parties. There she learns Cindy’s friend is … Johnny? What a surprise!
Stop.
That happened earlier. Now is later. Now is at her home. She is at her home. He is at her home. Him being Johnny. She invited him over. The alcohol is nice. Plus, he said he’d leave whenever she needed him to. Just in case she fell apart and needed to put herself back together. Sweet. She smiles because she just then caught a hold of his words.
“Make me better?”
“Fix you.”
“Do I need to be fixed?”
They laugh, because they both knew the answer.
Break. Old memory. It’s not like the new stuff. This one moves seamlessly. It plays in the background when she does dishes or lies down to sleep. She likes when the images roll while she does dishes. Doesn’t need to worry about sleeping. Not like now. She just wants to sleep.
Grade two spelling bee competition at her school. The stage, a smelly mess of sweat and flatulence, each child shuffling in wooden seats, ungluing sweaty crooks of knees. Before her is Johnny, the best speller in school. He stands center-stage and stares wide eyed at the audience (this is new to this memory’s presentation – Johnny’s part is usually an adjunct to the narrative, not an introduction). The word is spoken at him but he says nothing. The dark void of the audience responds with a laugh track. Johnny glances down. He’s urinated himself. The crotch of his pants becomes several shades darker. A teacher runs onstage and drapes his arm around Johnny’s shoulder, swooping him offstage.
Her turn next. She stands up, her heart racing, the stage in front of her heaving as though she’s walking atop a parachute game. She walks towards the front of the stage, towards the spotlight and stands on her mark facing the lumpy silhouettes. Then she crumbles to pieces. First it’s her left hand. It tumbles at her side when they give her word. Her right shoulder along with her arm flop next, slapping the stage like raw chicken breast. She asks for the word to be used in a sentence, and receives no response. She begins to spell the word. Her head and body break apart and roll about in different directions. As she’s falling to bits, she spells her word slowly and clearly, enunciating each letter carefully in order to prove that she isn’t a failure. But with her head rolling about on stage, nowhere near the microphone, and the gradual crescendo of screaming and sneakers squeaking while children and teachers run from the gymnasium, her correct spelling of the word ‘discombobulate’ was left unheard.
She went to a different school after that.
Now’s the “Party.” The Friend’s pet project to get her, the focus, to meet new people. Plus, opportunity for The Friend to get together with Cindy from work. Plus Plus Plus! The Friend winks over the telephone with her voice.
It works. She’s there. Cindy’s there. Cindy’s friend.
“Johnny?”
He remembers her from the second grade and even remembers her name.
A right toe pops off. Still, things are easy. He suggests pizza. All visible limbs stay fixed. It’s all good.
Only three other toes fall off while they eat, one in the right sock, two in the left. She’s able to excuse herself and put all her toes into a plastic shopping bag to keep in her purse. She can stitch herself back together when she’s at home, alone.
She listens. Doesn’t need to talk much. When she does, Johnny listens, chips in something nice. The pizza’s good.
“Let’s watch a movie!” the Friend yells, the neighbour downstairs whapping the ceiling for silence.
The movie isn’t her thing. Johnny suggests cards? Go Fish? Cindy and The Friend huddle into the sofa to watch a B-movie. It plays in the background, the actors tuned in and out by Cindy and The Friend yelling out plot holes and consistency errors. Johnny and her sit at the table.
“I think you’re lying.” He hands her the Jack of Diamonds. “You totally remember me pissing myself.”
She puts down a pair of jacks in front of her.
“Maybe I remember a little.”
“Had to change schools. Everything. Just like you.”
“Oh?” Her pinky is coming loose. She can feel it.
It feels like one of her stress dreams. The one where her teeth fall out, wiggling loose in her mouth. It usually happens when she’s talking to someone. The suction suddenly giving way, a little pressure before the release. Then all her teeth fall out. They tumble in and around her mouth like marbles. She tries to keep them safe so she can put them back into place but they’re hollow and weak, breaking and crumbling into powder.
She puts her cards face down on the table and places her hands in her lap. She grabs her pinky and shoves. Sometimes that works.
“I didn’t see it happen with you. I was in the bathroom. Because, well, you know,” he laughs.
“Ah. Right.”
The Friend’s table needs refinishing. That’s what she notices and chooses to fixate on. The tabletop is poorly made. The planks of wood, uneven. The surface has scratch marks, the butt of a pot cattle-branded into the corner. A tablecloth should be used in these circumstances to conceal all blemishes from ruining a good game of cards.
“You okay?”
She’s not sure if the question was from a few minutes back, or if she’s hearing it now. She smiles partially at him, her eyes waffling from eye to ear and back again.
“M-hm.”
He smiles.
Is he going to ask? Everyone always asks.
“You want to keep playing?” He holds up his hand.
“It’s hereditary. From my mother’s side.”
“Oh!” His eyes change, widen like in her old memory of him at the spelling bee. She refrains from glancing under the table at his crotch.
“Just if you were wondering.”
He scratches the back of his head and laughs. “Probably was, but it’s not my place, you know? If you want to share it, cool, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
He’s powerful, she thinks then.
Pause the memory.
Was it then? Or was it later? Or is it now while she’s remembering everything?
No.
It was probably then.
She crawls back into the memory and resumes her role.
She wiggles her pinky and it seems to stay in place.
“Yeah, let’s keep playing.” She picks up her cards.
He’s powerful, she thinks again. She leans into the table, leans towards him, ready to open her mouth and tell him all that he wants to know. All that he wants to know but doesn’t ask because he’s nice. He’s a nice person.
She opens her mouth.
“Go fish.” She smiles, wiggling a pinky at him.
We’re back at her place. That night. Johnny’s there. She invited him over. You invited him over? Sort of. She invited The Friend, Cindy, and Johnny over. She didn’t want to be alone with Johnny.
Ten minutes earlier, her phone buzzed.
–Cindy and I can’t make it (- -;) Have fun!–
A knock on the door. Johnny, a bottle of wine, some cheese.
“Where’s everyone at?”
Um. Uh. Oh. She slaps the side of her head to catch her ear from potentially falling off.
“They bailed? Too bad. Want me to go?”
Oh. Um. Uh. “No?”
“Great!” He walks in with his shoes on.
She stares at his feet, at the frayed laces, the dried mud dangling off the left toe by a thread of grass.
“Where’s the kitchen?” he asks, making her look up.
She points. She is still holding the door open. The old lady from across the hall is staring at her through the peephole. She always does.
“You go relax. I’ll get glasses.”
You said he offered to leave.
Did I?
“You go relax. I’ll get glasses. And, don’t worry. If you want me to go, just say so.”
Resume.
“Do I need to be fixed?”
They laugh, because they both knew the answer.
He fills her glass with more wine.
“This is nice. What is it?” She wiggles her toes. They are all still attached. Her ear hasn’t fallen off either.
“Home brew.”
“You make your own wine?”
“Yup.” Johnny drapes arms over couch back and armrest, claiming it like a king with his throne. “Nice place. You have speakers? Bluetooth?”
She lets him hook up his phone. They listen to music. It’s loud.
But this is all just extraneous information. They didn’t want to hear that. All they wanted was her to tell them what happened.
She just wants to sleep.
It’s okay. Just tell us what happened.
Johnny and her are talking about stuff.
Stuff?
Music? Favourite things? Movies? She is on one side of the couch. He is on the other, lounging.
Her cheeks are warm. The wine is warm. It feels good.
He was drinking the wine as well?
She tries remembering him sipping the wine. It looks right.
Yes.
He was drinking the wine, too.
Keep going.
What did she tell them? What did she tell The Friend?
Keep going.
The wine is making her warm and sleepy and relaxed. She remembers feeling fuzzy. She is laughing at her hand.
“What’s so funny?” he asks. He is suddenly beside her, on the couch, his weight tilting her towards him.
“I’m still in one piece.” She waves both hands at him.
He smiles. “And that’s weird?”
She nods, her head feeling bouncy. “Liquor and social settings usually set me off.” She lets the words slip out easily, and hits them with a finger to make her point.
“What about this?” He kisses her neck.
The photograph of white carnations is crooked. She only just notices lying on her side on the couch, away from Johnny.
His hands find their way under clothes, along skin.
“How does this feel?”
“No.”
Did you push him off? Did you resist?
No.
Did you yell?
No.
Not out loud. But she doesn’t say that.
Please stop.
In her head, she is saying.
Please stop.
The moment of, the memory, the remembering – all versions – they merge together saying in a round.
What if she falls to pieces? Will he notice? If she falls apart, he said he’d leave.
Her body is reacting to his fingertips. To the tip of his tongue.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
No.
Her clothes come off without her help.
The photograph above the TV is out of focus. The outline of the carnations is just a little hazy. The stem, a little too clear.
“You’re tight, just relax.”
Are you sure he said that?
She’s facing him now, his mouth moves, there is an audio delay.
“You’re tight, just relax.”
You were facing each other?
The photograph was taken by her mother. It’s crooked. She still hasn’t righted it.
“Just relax.”
He did something. Inside her. She’s sure. Her muscles are wound up, drawn tight like a fish line into a spinning reel. She wishes she could just let go, give some slack.
“I said I could fix you.”
She lies on her back in bed. She is flat, straight, like a board. Her hands by her sides. Her legs are closed tight.
She just wants to sleep.
Old memory.
There is a little girl on the swing and she is crying. One of her legs is half buried in the sand. The wind is twisting knots into her hair and throwing sand into her eyes. The schoolyard is full of children playing and teachers watching but no one stops to look at her. No one asks what’s wrong. No one stops to help. The bell rings and everyone goes inside.
The little girl is twenty minutes late for class. She can’t go up the stairs so she hops into the school office, clutching her leg to her chest. Her eyes are red. The receptionist looks at her, at the leg, and then returns to her work.
“What do you need?”
The little girl wants to sit down but there is no chair near her.
“I want to go home.” She starts to cry.
They call her mother.
The little girl gets to sit down and wait.
Her mother arrives.
They are now sitting in the principal’s office. There are hard plastic dinosaurs lining the principal’s desk. The clock is round and ticks down the seconds. The little girl hugs her leg like a teddy bear. She scrunches her face into the skin. It is cold.
“I’m sure she’s exaggerating,” the principal speaks to her mother. “No one would ever do that. I’m sure that’s not what happened.” The principal looks at the little girl. “Are you really sure that’s what happened? I know your friends wouldn’t do that to you. Neither would the teachers.”
She went back to class after that. ∞
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Grace Bowness received a BA in English with a focus on Creative Writing from the University of Winnipeg. Originally from Manitoba, she has lived in Kyoto and now finds herself living and writing in Toronto.