Alix Ohlin - Babylon and Other Stories

Luz put her shoe back on. “Is it from a store?”

“A store?”

“Like the models that wear the clothes in the windows.”

“What? Oh, a mannequin? No way, Luz, this is, like, a prosthetic.” She ran her fingers down the leg's shin, gently, as if it were a real leg and might be tender. She touched the foot, which had no individual toes or anything, just one big curve, more shoe than foot. There was a strap at the top of the leg, with a little buckle.

“What's that?”

“It's for people that are missing a leg. They can strap this one on.”

“And walk on it?”

“I guess so,” Marie-Claire said. “Maybe.” She stood up and rested one knee on top of the plastic leg, then tied the strap around the back of her knee and stretched her arms out, balancing. Her hands flashed in the sun. Marie-Claire wore a lot of rings.

“How do I look?” she said. Her hair was dyed black and stuck up above her head, and she was wearing three or four necklaces. She looked exotic and strange, like someone whose costume had tribal meanings, a picture on the front of National Geographic.

“It's backwards,” Luz said. The foot on the plastic leg was sticking out behind Marie-Claire, in a ballerina's pose.

“Shit.” She undid the leg and bent down to rearrange the strap, her face close to Luz's. She smelled like pot and sunblock. Marie-Claire was beautiful, a fact that seemed to horrify her, and she did everything she could to camouflage the situation. The rings around her eyes were thick and black, as if drawn with a Magic Marker, and her ears were pierced with safety pins. Her clothes were ragged and baggy and everything that wasn't black was olive green. She was regimented, like her own personal army. But whenever she got close Luz could see her smooth, light skin, the freckles on her small, upturned nose, the rosiness on her cheeks, her green eyes and her long eyelashes. All that was there, no matter what Marie-Claire put on top of it.

Marie-Claire stood up again. The foot was straight now, poking out next to her black running shoe like a faceless animal. She took a step with it and lost her balance right away, hopping around and coming back to face Luz, laughing.

“I want to try it,” Luz said.

“It's going to be way too big,” Marie-Claire said, but she took it off and buckled the strap around Luz's knee. Because she was too short to stand up straight with the leg on, she stuck it out in front of her, at an angle, like a tent pole. When that didn't work she picked up the leg and moved it to the back and started hopping along, dragging the leg behind her as if it were broken. Marie-Claire burst out laughing.

Luz tilted her head, raised her shoulders, and did a monster voice. “I am your servant, master,” she croaked, dragging a little circle around Marie-Claire. “I will follow your orders.”

“Oh my God, that's so funny,” said Marie-Claire. She was wheezing. Luz was laughing, too, and they both had tears in their eyes. The mom with the stroller was looking over in their direction.

“I am your monster,” Luz said. “I will live in your basement.”

Marie-Claire shrugged. “Too bad, I already live in the basement.”

“How come?” Luz asked in her regular voice. “Do your parents make you live there because you smoke pot?”

“Um, kind of. How do you know about pot?”

“From school,” said Luz, moving away from the water's edge. If she didn't keep hopping she'd lose her balance. “And from my dad. And from you.”

“God, your dad is such the aging hippie,” Marie-Claire muttered.

“No he's not, he's a teacher.”

“Right,” said Marie-Claire, motioning her back. “Come here, you better take that thing off. It's like time to go.” She bent down and undid the buckle.

“I want to take it home,” Luz said to the top of Marie-Claire's head.

“And do what?”

“Keep it. I found it, it's mine.”

“Okay, whatever. We'll see what your dad says. Let's go. Here, take my hand for when we cross the street.”

“I'm not a baby, Marie-Claire,” said Luz. She grasped the foot and held the leg out. “You can hold my leg, though.”

They crossed Lakeshore together, a leg's length between them.

At eleven-thirty, Manny gave Kelly the rest of the night off.

“Gee, thanks,” she said.

“Just don't say I never did anything for you.”

“You never did anything for me, Manny.”

“Oh, ouch. Okay, get out of here.”

She was turning the key in the ignition when Lone came out of the bar, walked over to the car — with a slight but definite limp— and knocked on her window. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I didn't think you were leaving so soon,” he said, leaning down, his hands on the car.

“Manny let me go home early.”

“Oh. Time off for good behavior.” He smiled, then shyly looked down at his legs.

Kelly looked there, too. “Something like that,” she said.

“I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go get a drink.”

“Where? Here?”

“Oh, that's right. You do work at a bar.” One hand came up and slapped Lone on the forehead, seemingly of its own volition. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and said, “Here. Someplace else. Whatever.”

Kelly sighed and shifted the car into reverse. “You know, I'm really tired, but thanks anyway.”

Lone put his hand on the side of the open window, inside the car, a gesture that aggravated her. If she backed away, at what point would he let go?

“Come on,” he said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I? And why do you care? Because Manny told you about me?”

“If you mean he told me about your vow thing, well, yes,” Lone said forthrightly. “I think it's interesting. I want to know why somebody would do something like that. Therefore I am interested in you. Therefore I am asking you to have a drink with me. Is that a good enough reason?”

“Maybe,” she said.

He insisted on driving, so they left her car at the Edge. His van was outfitted with equipment that met his special needs. This was what he called it, special needs, in a tone that sounded partly confessional and partly bragging. When he started the van, Metallica flared briefly from the tapedeck, disappearing suddenly when he switched it off.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

Kelly rolled down the window and felt the wind. She could smell the water, salty and close. It was nice, actually, not to be going home right away, to avoid the certainty of her apartment and her bed and a magazine to read until she fell asleep. If she missed anything about dating, she thought, it might be this: a moment of precarious silence in a stranger's car, nighttime air, hands in your lap, waiting for the night to settle into itself. This was the moment before things got defined, before you had to decide what would happen, who you'd be, what you'd do. She took a deep breath and watched the telephone poles flip by.

“This okay?” Lone said, pulling over.

They were out by the docks in Ste. Anne's, at a bar that was what Manny wanted the Edgewater to be. Upscale. Nicer decor, fancier people, waitresses in black skirts serving mixed drinks. A terrace was strung with colored lights, and voices rippled in waves of rhythm and laughter. Words stood out in small, quick bursts like names being called.

“Fine,” she said.

As they approached the entrance, Lone jumped ahead of her, awkwardly, and opened the door.

“Thanks,” she said.

He pulled out her chair for her, too. Once they'd settled their drinks, he said, “So why'd you quit school? You know that's no good.”

“Did you finish school?”

“No,” he said. “That's how I know.”

“What do you do, anyway?”