Leopoldine Core - When Watched - Stories

She remembers her mom saying, “Did he do anything else?” and she remembers saying “No” and wishing that he had, if only to affirm that he was a bad man.

She remembers that her mom called Joe and left several messages. She remembers how they began as hysterical speeches and evolved to briefer, even-toned threats.

Alice remembers going to the police station with her mom in the morning. She remembers that there was one male cop and one female cop in a large room full of white light. She remembers describing what had happened. She remembers that they seemed disappointed. She remembers her mom asking what they were going to do.

She remembers the man saying, “We’re gonna go to his house and talk to him.” The woman said, “We’re gonna give him a little scare.”

Alice turns off the burner and stares at her red kettle. It has a dent on one side. She remembers her embarrassment at the police station and feels it anew. She wishes that Joe’s kiss hadn’t been soft. She wishes he had bitten her. She glances at her forty-two-year-old forearm, dark-haired and pale. Her gaze freezes there a moment. She wonders what she would do now if someone kissed her softly, someone whose kiss she didn’t want. The police would laugh, she thinks. And maybe they had been laughing then. Maybe they hadn’t been to Joe’s house at all.

Alice pours herself a mug of tea and holds it with both hands, watching the steam rise and curl. She wonders if Joe has an Internet presence. She doesn’t know his last name so there’s no way of checking. Maybe he’s married, she thinks. Maybe he’s with his wife right now and she’s laughing at something he just said. Maybe they love each other more than they’ve ever loved anyone. Or maybe he lives alone but likes living alone. Or maybe he’s dead.

Joan and Dennis were lying in bed. It was late but the lamp on Joan’s side was still on. She wouldn’t turn it off. She had been talking about their daughter all evening.

“She said she hated me.”

“They all say that.”

“But do they really?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s not just me. Cindy hates everything .”

“Teenagers are mean. They need to be. It’s the first interpretation of seriousness.”

Neither spoke for a few seconds.

“What is it?” Dennis asked.

“I’m just thinking about what you said. I think you might be right.”

“Oh, I am.”

• • •

In the morning Joan made pancakes and Dennis made coffee. Then they sat together sipping from their mugs. Under the table a cat careened into Joan’s shin and slid away, purring wildly. They had two cats, one orange and one white, named Carrot and Sneaker respectively.

Cindy appeared in blue shorts and a white T-shirt. She was taller than both of her parents, with blonde hair and pale green eyes. Without a word she padded into the kitchen and withdrew a cereal box from the cupboard, then stuck half her arm in. After eating a few handfuls she walked off with the box.

“I made pancakes!” Joan called after her. Then she heard Cindy’s door slam shut. “Now what the hell was that?” She turned to Dennis, her nostrils hard.

But he had barely looked up from his food. The sight of Cindy’s new body made him cringe. There was something blurry about it, how she tipped moment by moment between woman and child. Cindy was so beautiful — almost too beautiful. And while Dennis looked away, the whole neighborhood was peeping. Now that she was fifteen it had only gotten worse. It seemed no glance in Cindy’s direction did not attach itself to her as she moved grumpily through a room or down a hall or across a street. As a result she stayed home a lot, playing the same pop songs over and over until she hated them. It was summer and she had no desire to go to camp or spend time with any of her friends. Generally she looked tired because she was. Tired of marshaling the world’s lust for her.

“I don’t think she’s eating enough,” Joan said. “She lives on diet soda… these teenage girls — they’re like automatons — they’ll eat anything that does nothing.” She caught his eye. “You think I’m controlling but I’m not.”

He made a neat cut in his pancakes. “You can’t conduct this conversation with yourself in front of me.”

Joan had to laugh at that. She tucked a slice of butter under her top pancake and licked the excess off her knife. “I had to eat at the table when I was a kid. If I had behaved like her my mom would’ve smacked me so hard.”

“Yes, well, my mother smacked me no matter how I behaved,” he said. “We don’t have to demonstrate the abuse we experienced.”

Joan softened. “You’re a lovely man,” she said.

• • •

When Dennis went to work, Joan washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Then she walked to Cindy’s door and knocked.

“What?” came the voice of the demon on the other side.

Joan strode right in with a cheery show of confidence that made her daughter tense. Cindy distrusted her mother’s smile. In fact the merriness of all middle-aged women felt fraudulent to her. They seemed dangerous with their tight grins and burning coal eyes. They were jealous of course and it made her lonely. It filled her with hate.

In her robe and slippers, Joan walked around freely. She picked a worn copy of Franny and Zooey off the bed and touched its fragile cover. “Are you reading this?” she asked.

“You can’t just come in here.” Cindy sat on the floor next to an open magazine.

“I loved to read when I was your age,” Joan said. “But my brother was always stealing my books.” She smiled reflectively. “He didn’t even read them. He just put them on his shelf. What he wanted was my enthusiasm .”

“Mom, get out.”

“I believe this is my book.”

“It was on the shelf.”

“You can have it.” Joan set the book back down on the bed. “It’s good, isn’t it?” she said, but there came no reply. Cindy sat with her arms crossed, a homicidal song in her eyes. Still Joan was too captivated to look away. It was a marvelous view of something utterly gone: her youth.

She left the room, leaving the door ajar. Then Cindy slammed it.

Joan walked to the bathroom and felt it too, the forbidden feeling: hate. Cindy had left the hair dryer on the floor and one by one the cats were examining it like a spaceship had landed. Joan shooed them away and the orange one jumped up onto the sink, then into the toilet with a splash.

“Carrot!” Joan cried.

The cat hopped out, shaking and appalled, then ran off.

Sighing, Joan wiped down the toilet seat and sat on it. Then a blast of music made her jerk, bracing the wall as she peed. It was a small apartment and the walls seemed porous, the way they spilled noise from one room into another. Many times she heard Cindy crying in there. Maybe, she thought, the shrill pop song was actually announcing such a moment.

Joan wiped herself roughly. She flew off the toilet, stomped to Cindy’s door and stood there. Just then the song ended. But an instant later it began again, the canned screams. Joan’s face tightened. Stepping away from the door, it occurred to her that she was a little bit afraid of her daughter.

It seemed there was only one thing to do so Joan did it — she left. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she was going. Maybe she would never come back. Maybe she would jump in front of a car and a certain grim little girl would get a cold, hard taste of reality. But no, she would go on living. She knew it. She was doomed to function.

Joan walked out into the sun, past an ice-cream truck and a pile of dog shit and an old man selling batteries. She walked on and on until she wasn’t in their neighborhood anymore. She imagined herself getting thin this way, speed-walking through the streets for days, bolstered by hate.