Leopoldine Core - When Watched - Stories

“I wish I could visit you in your dreams,” she grinned. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” started playing and she switched off the stereo.

“Mostly they’re nightmares.”

“Well I could protect you. I’m very brave in dreams.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Oh yeah. I’m a big hero.”

The front door slammed and Baby walked in looking pale. She set her bag down and a white cat came running.

“Hi,” James said.

“Hi,” Baby said curtly, barely making eye contact. Her short black hair was combed sideward. She wore a ratty green dress and her chest was crowded with glinty charms on chains: a little jeweled guitar, a sneaker, an ax.

James squatted to pet the cat, his cigarette raised. The animal accepted his hand with a full-body lean, purring continuously.

“Has she been here the whole time?” James asked.

“It’s a he,” Baby said.

“That’s Chowder,” Margo said. “He was under the couch. He hates me.”

“He’s my cat,” Baby clarified.

“Beautiful,” James remarked, tickling under Chowder’s chin.

“I know,” Baby said, grinning. “I’m like his homely keeper.”

They all laughed and James stood up. “I’m gonna go.” He jabbed his cigarette out and smiled. Then he was gone.

Baby slunk over to the couch. She lay on her back and closed her eyes.

“You look awful,” Margo said.

“I threw up this morning,” Baby croaked. She put a round pillow on her stomach and laced her fingers over it. “I drank too much wine with Mom… wine and salad.”

“Jesus, you can’t just eat salad if you’re gonna—”

“I know ,” Baby said, a weak rage gathering in her eyes. She moved the pillow and applied both hands directly to her abdomen. “I hate throwing up,” she said. “You’re surrendering utterly to your body and you don’t get like, a baby or a turd. You get a puddle of food.”

Margo laughed.

Chowder bounded up onto the couch as if it were a beach and Baby remained staring from the standpoint of a shovel. “My head is pounding,” she said.

Margo sat on the edge of the sofa and patted her sister’s foot. Chowder turned and glared at her. “God,” she said. “He’s such a little meanie .”

“No he’s not,” Baby said. She looked at the cat. “He’s melancholy. Because he’s so smart.” She extended one hand and the cat approached it, sniffing her fingertips. “He’s trapped in a life that doesn’t suit him.”

Margo looked at the cat, then at Baby. “You’re talking about yourself.”

Baby said nothing but gave a shy look of agreement.

Margo moved an inch away, fully ignoring the demonic white shape between them. He had spread himself over Baby’s midsection.

“So James is hot right?” Margo grinned.

“Not really.”

“Yes he is. You wouldn’t say he wasn’t unless he was .”

“Whatever.” Baby moved the white mass onto the floor and rolled onto her side, clutching her gut.

“He’s so hot,” Margo said. “He even makes smoking look hot.”

“He makes it look like breathing itself.”

Margo smiled. “That’s true.”

• • •

The next day Margo arrived to class late with a goofy smile. She sat noisily behind James, slapping a marble notebook onto her desktop. Everyone stared. When they had regrouped, she raised the eraser end of her pencil and jabbed him gently on the shoulder.

James looked back with a flash of annoyance, then leaned forward in his chair.

Margo gawked at the back of his head. Slowly, she retracted her pencil, setting it down on the desk, where it rolled to the floor. Margo didn’t reach down to get it. She hardly moved. A girl in a red skirt handed her the pencil and she took it mutely, still gawking at him, her eyes immense. Margo couldn’t hear anything, only the sounds of her insides: her stomach, her heart, the blood around her brain.

When class ended, James stood quickly with averted eyes.

“Hey,” she said loudly.

“Hi,” he said and smiled. It was a sneaky, fearful smile. He walked into the hall.

Margo shoved her notebook into her bag, walking swiftly after him. “Hey!”

“What?”

Margo looked stricken. “Why are you being weird?”

“I’m not,” he said with another unpleasant smile. “I have somewhere to be.”

Margo stopped walking. She watched him reach the end of the hallway and turn the corner without looking back. Then she leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, crowds of loud people passing obliviously. It had happened so fast, his retreat. And now everything will be slow, Margo thought. This feeling. It could last forever.

She left the building and felt violent toward strolling people. Businessmen passed one by one, talking loudly into their headsets. She kept being caught off guard by an inviting face that wasn’t for her. It was confusing and humiliating. Every place is like an airport, she thought.

Margo acquired a large bag of corn chips. When she got home the apartment was empty, save for Chowder, who sat meowing by the bathroom door. It was open a bit, white light pouring onto the floor. Margo approached the door and saw something else, the edge of a dark shape, rocking slightly. “Baby?” She gave the door a push and stood staring.

A black dress on a wire hanger hung from the shower rod, blowing subtly in the breeze of an open window.

Margo looked down at the cat and cried. They were the expressionless tears of someone who rarely wept — who hated to. She walked to the couch and threw herself down.

The window screeched open and Baby stepped inside with a towel over her shoulders. She wore a green bikini and circular black frames with cola-colored lenses. Her skin glistened with oil.

“What the shit?” Margo demanded.

“I was sunning myself,” Baby said, removing her glasses.

“Since when do you sun yourself?” Margo said, cutting her eyes.

“Since now. What do you care?”

“I was worried!”

“Calm down. I was just on the fire escape.”

“Well I didn’t know that. You’re always here!” Margo said, pointing to the spot she occupied. “And anyway, we burn .”

“Not if exposure is gradual,” Baby said. “I’m being very careful.”

“Your shoulders look red.”

“They’re not.”

Margo stormed off. She brought the corn chips to bed and ate them slowly, staring into space, weary with thought. She sensed in that moment that she would never be an adult, not in the manner she had envisioned for herself as a child. This is never going to end, she thought. All this wanting.

Baby came in and sat at the foot of the bed. “Are you seriously mad at me?”

“No.”

“Are you hungry? Do you want some real food?” A rare sweetness had entered Baby’s voice.

Margo greeted the alien tone with a weak smile. “Hunger isn’t even the word,” she said. “I’m just really interested in food.” Then her face morphed back into a mask of pain and she punched the bed, startling her sister.

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Margo lay on her side. “I don’t know what happened. We had such a good time. I mean, I know he had a good time.”

“Maybe he met someone else.”

“In a day?”

“Guys are always weird after.”

“But we were just getting started.”

“Guys don’t wanna get started. They want to end it and move on to someone else.”

“Stop telling me what guys are like. I know what they’re like.” Margo sat up. “You have a sunburn.”

“I know.”

Margo wished in that moment that she were more like Baby, who’d never had much of an appetite for boys. Her sister just wanted a quiet room to watch television in. That or she wanted to die. Margo was never sure which it was.