Halle Butler: Jillian

Randy stared at her.

“What?” she said.

“I don’t see what Carrie does as hypocritical.”

“Oh, you used to agree with me. What, now that I’m applying the same idea to your precious darling Carrie, you don’t agree with me about how stupidly pretentious all of these graphic design assholes are, with their fucking letterpressed business cards with their Wordpress addresses on them? Playing around and being condescending about creative recycling and community-based whatever-the-fuck? Help me help you, Randy.”

Megan paused.

“I’m sure they all shampoo their pubes,” she said.

“I’m only talking about this one spread.”

“It’s hollow.”

“You know, that’s kind of what I do for a living.”

“It’s different.”

“Is it? I do web design for a living, and I like it. You’re talking about what I do. And, anyway, you buy organic produce.”

“Yeah, but I don’t kid myself that it’s a part of a movement I’m involved in. I know it’s just groceries. That self-important look in their eyes makes me puke.”

“Ok, so you don’t think I should work with her.”

“Do what you want, but I just think you or any fucking monkey with a reference image and a laptop could do what she does. I mean, all she really did was finish her homework. She’s not some kind of magic fairy genius.”

“Nobody thinks she’s a magic fairy genius,” said Randy.

“You say that now.”

“And why wouldn’t I want to work with someone who finished their homework? Or a magic fairy, for that matter?”

Not having a direct answer to this, Megan began the painful process of shutting the fuck up. The psychological resistance she felt was intense enough to have a physical counterpart, which was a grating feeling in the center of her chest.

“No, you’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I guess I just had a bad day. I don’t know why I’m ranting.”

She sat on the floor at Randy’s feet and put her head in his lap.

“How’s your butt?” he asked.

“Itchy.”

“How’s your head?”

“Horrible.”

“How was your day?”

“Uuuunnnnghghg. You know how when you drink a lot, the next morning you usually feel depressed? Just, like, chemically, because your body’s in withdrawal?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

“Or maybe it’s because your body gives off an excess of serotonin when you’re drunk, so in the morning you have depleted serotonin.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a body thing. There must be some chemical reason why I keep replaying the night.” She had a biting memory. “Over and over. Because I didn’t really do anything that bad. But, you know that feeling where you replay and then edit the conversations you had and then you feel really vulnerable and like everyone hates you, even though you didn’t do anything that out of the ordinary?”

“Yeah, I know that feeling. It’s a sugar crash or something.”

“I feel so stupid about that llama thing at the end of the night.”

“What? I’m sure Carrie doesn’t care, and I thought it was funny. It was funny.”

“She thinks I’m so disgusting.”

“No. She doesn’t think you’re disgusting, Megan. She doesn’t think like that.”

Megan started crying.

“Oh, come on, what? What?”

Megan kept crying, and Randy kept saying “What?”

“I wish you’d say something,” said Randy.

Megan’s throat squeezed shut every time she almost started saying something. She opened her mouth, which he couldn’t see with her head in his lap, then closed it, opened it, then closed it.

“Come on,” he said.

“What do you mean she doesn’t think like that?” Megan shouted. “I think like that. I think she’s disgusting and you know it, you know I think like that, so what do you mean she doesn’t think like that? What, do you think I should just go ahead and try to be more like Carrie? Should I get myself some abstract ambitions and start designing events calendars?”

“Oh, come on.”

Megan wailed.

She’s not always like this, thought Randy. “Why are you being like this?” he asked.

“Because I’m dying!” she said. Then she stopped crying.

“Here. Let me get you a Kleenex,” said Randy, scooting out from under her head.

She sat up straight and mucus ran down her face.

“Here,” said Randy. He handed her a tissue.

Megan felt like an idiot, but she also felt a little better. She was embarrassed and got up from the floor without making eye contact with Randy. She walked to the bathroom while blowing her nose. Randy sat back down.

“I look like a Harlequin Baby,” shouted Megan. Randy started laughing. Megan started laughing. Megan came out of the bathroom and looked at Randy.

“I’m still mad at you,” said Megan.

“Why?”

“Because you love Carrie the turd.”

Randy winced and said, “Come on.”

Later, he brought her juice and Tylenol in bed. He didn’t want to feel like they were arguing anymore.

“How’s Jillian?” he asked. A peace offering.

Megan sighed. “She continues to be a thick strand in the malevolent web of my daily routine.”

Jillian and her baby were sitting on the couch having dinner and Jillian felt hollow like she sometimes did. Just a body thing, really. They were watching America’s Funniest Home Videos, and Adam was very involved. Babies and dogs and dogs and cats and dogs and women at barbeques interacted with each other in hilarious combinations, and her son, who had no idea at all about Carla, laughed through his pasta at all the fun the people and animals were having. As she watched Adam watch, she was struck with a vague idea about the promise of life (as represented by the babies on screen) and about not giving up on passions. While she looked at Adam, she understood that he was a baby with passions.

Jillian reflected on some of her youthful passions, and she was taken by a feeling of total integration. Not just the integration of her body and mind, but also a synthesis of that integrated self with the room, the atmosphere, and with the general chronology and flow of time and events, universally speaking. This was a feeling she sometimes got from motivational phrases, and she knew it to be the feeling of God. Whatever thought was in her mind when she got this feeling, she knew she owed it to God to follow.

“I’m not going to give up on my dream,” she whispered. She had a flash as bright as reality—no, brighter—of walking the dog, and maybe the dog would be big enough for Adam to ride like a tiny pony, or maybe the dog would just be big enough to attach to the stroller and pull Adam, but either way the dog and boy were happy and her hands were empty and flapping at her sides.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” she whispered.

So what about Carla. Carla was in the past.

“Hey, Adam,” she said. “Which do you like better, doggies or kitties?”

“Doggies!” he said, but he said it like “d’ah-gaze,” and lifted his arms above his head and made fists of his hands, which resulted in the knocking over of his dinner onto the floor.

Mommy scooped it back into his bowl and set in on the coffee table, thinking one day she’d yell, “The dog, the dog!” when food got knocked on the floor.

Adam was put to bed. Jillian got into her own bed and rearranged the bras and other dirty clothes that were mixed in with the covers so there’d be room for her to sit and, later, sleep comfortably. She looked until she found a web page called “Pups of Love” which was a rescue center for dogs who had been sexually abused—dogs who had belonged to pet store breeders and had been pregnant their whole lives. Some of them were still puppies themselves. A one-year-old? Isn’t that still a puppy? Some of these one-year-olds had birthed dozens of babies. She watched half a video and started sobbing. This is definitely it, she thought. And the adoption fee was a fraction of what the Humane Society wanted, so she’d have extra money for other things.