Kate Zambreno - Green Girl

Oh. She gasps.

What’s the matter.

I don’t recognize myself.

I think it looks brilliant. The woman lights another cigarette, the former abandoned to the heap of half-formed bodies. It really brings out your bone structure.

Everyone in the shop turns towards her. Who is that girl? You’ve got a wonderful head, the boy from the couch says. Thank you, she murmurs. She can feel others looking.

Walking home, she catches flashes of the unfamiliar girl in shop windows. She is unable to tear her eyes away. She poses for invisible cameras. She knows her angles. Her best sides. She keeps on patting her head, rubbing her hand back and forth. She likes the feel of it. Soft and fuzzy like a baby chick.

Agnes is smoking and watching TV when Ruth makes her entrance. Ruth hasn’t seen her in what seems like a month. She stands there waiting for her to notice that she is there.

Agnes finally looks up.

I got my hair cut.

I see. Agnes at a rare loss for words. Finally she springs up from the bed to touch Ruth’s blonde globe. She runs her fingers through it critically.

Mia Farrow, Rosemary’s Baby . Ruth Gordon feeding you tanas root.

I was going for Jean Seberg.

New York Herald Tribune !

Something like that.

Wow. Agnes marvels. Now you’re interesting. You were a bit dull before.

Thanks. I think.

No, really, you’ve just changed everything.

Agnes steps back, as if to appraise her from afar. You look like a charming little boy.

Thanks a lot, Agnes.

Gawd. That’s a compliment. Androgyny is very in fashion, you know.

Ruth locks herself in the bathroom. She wants to be alone with her new self. Entranced by this strange girl in the mirror. With her radical crop she has made a radical alteration. She has cut away her old self.

Everyone in her department has to do a double-take upon her return. Oh, you cut your hair! You cut your hair! You look like a little French gamine says The Italian.

What would HE say. The shock of the new.

You cut your hair.

I know.

Whenever she saw Olly’s approach she would stare him down with emboldened eyes, her Medusa mask, daring him to say anything, anything to her or anybody else for that matter on any subject concerning her. He would inevitably scurry away, scared off by her calm eyes, her unblinking fury.

At the café. A man stops in front of her table. He looks at her as if trying to decipher something. Finally he snaps his fingers and points at her:

Bonjour Tristesse ! He says.

Yes she says. Modestly, eyes lowered, surrendering herself to his insatiable gaze.

Ruth, Ruth, I need you. All of a sudden Noncy is in front of her and clasping Ruth’s wrist with her fingers. She had long cold fingers like Ruth imagined a Victorian heiress would have. Fragile and frazzled, like Vivien Leigh playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire .

Desire, would you care to try? Desire? Desire?

You need to work the till today. Right now? Noncy sighs loudly. There’s a queue forming and I need you to ring up customers with Elspeth. Ruth, are you listening?

Oh. Okay. She smiles.

Noncy sighs loudly, dramatically and even attempts a smile back, although it looks more like a grimace. Ta.

Ta! Ta! Ta! This was a word Ruth heard everywhere at Horrids. She assumed at first it was the English clearing their throat at the end of a sentence. But Agnes had informed her that it was actually shorthand for thanks. But, like cheers, it was an English mannerism Ruth could not bring herself to affect, knowing that it would cement her position as a foreigner even further.

Ta, Elspeth smiles weakly, as Ruth hurries over to help her, wrapping up boxes of perfume in paper, placing them in the shiny Horrids bag.

It’s alright she says although it is impossible to hear her over the din. itsalright.

She began to take smoke breaks with The Italian. The Italian, blowing out reams of grayish agitation. He was a dramatic smoker, could communicate emotions with that interplay of cigarette and smoke and mouth and flame that his sticky English could not, like Ava Gardner with her dark expressive eyes. It’s cold cold, she brr brred. The weather in London was The Italian’s favorite topic, she knew. Oh, his face snarled up. Tap tap went the cigarette furiously accompanying his frantic foot well embraced in designer leather. He waved his cigarette-holding hand as he talked, pausing at times to inhale with delight, pausing for the smoke to circulate around his lungs, and then breathing out again for emphasis. He was a famous tenor mourning over his fallen soprano. He was Othello mourning his Desdemona. He was Desdemona. He was Swan Lake . She watched enraptured at his performance.

I am miserable, Ruth. This weather — so bad. I hate it so much. Quick gulp of smoke and blow out of air. It’s so fucking dark and cold. This shit cold is killing me. I miss the beach I miss the sun I miss light and life, you know?

It hasn’t even snowed, Ruth sighs the chorus.

Snow? No, that would be beautiful. That would be white and it would settle somewhere and would be beautiful. No, this is just gray. His face twists elegantly digesting the smoke. This is death. I am going to die here, Ruth. A twist more of pathos. Ruth laughs. You are so melodramatic, she tells him.

He flutters his hand against his forehead. I miss Italy so much. Like a lover.

Do you miss the States? The Italian asks her.

What a question. No. Too quick an answer. Then she thinks about it, licking the tip of her browning filter. Not really. Not the country. Maybe some people inside the country. But the mass of land, no, I do not miss.

But your president you miss? He could just never forgive her for being an American. She would always be to him his American friend. Like an exotic pet.

Oh yes, desperately. She shoots him daggers punctuated by a sigh. He laughs. He continues to goad her. This was his favorite routine.

But you voted for him, no?

No, I told you, I didn’t vote. They had had this same conversation many times.

But that is unforgivable, no? That is the same as inviting him into your bed.

I’ve invited worse. She is playing tough-talker. A modern-day Veronica Lake.

Ugghh. That’s disgusting. I would not fuck your monkey of a president for one million pounds. Such a macho cowboy murderer. The Italian got as heated talking about politics as talking about the weather. Now your Bill Clinton, that’s another story.

How about Blair? The Italian thinks about it, shrugging, a reluctant, teasing smile. Maybe. For one million.

Ewww. Those ears. Ruth erupts into giggles.

The horrible head pops his head out, a tanned mask of disgust. He hated the smokers. Thought their need for breaks a weakness not fitting of the Horrids employ. As he turned his head around The Italian flicks his dead cigarette in his direction, an impotent gesture of revolt.

How about him? She nods at the back of the horrible head, while hurriedly finishing her cigarette, twisting her foot on its broken back.

The Italian groans. Not for all the money in the world. You?

Ruth mock-considers this. I don’t know. There’s something about a powerful man that’s very sexy.

You find him sexy? The Italian, incredulous.

I didn’t say that. But people are quite different when they’ve taken off their business suit.

You would have to be on top. The Italian mimes his large stomach.