Open Read Online Free Page B

could take a hair out of your head and make another you.
    The laundry is —
    Two of you. The real you and another you.
    I know I’m tired.
    One you is a roomful already.
    I can’t have sex with you tonight if that’s what you’re thinking, I say.
    Why would I be thinking a thing like that?
    I’m drifting to sleep while he talks. I dream I say I want my real husband, and I don’t know if I’ve spoken out loud or not. I believe that Des is in the chair beside me and things are as theywere five years ago, as if the past can do that. Lay itself down on the present. Cover it over. Become the present, even briefly. A pair of flip-flops, I’d stumbled and skinned my toe. Des had been hammering all day. The hammering had stopped, but the silent ringing of the hammer went on. It was late September and we went to the beach.

    In the morning I hear a car coming up the long driveway and I leap out of bed. A dark green minivan pulls up under the trees. The windshield is opaque with the shadows of the maple trees. The van parks and a man steps out. He’s wearing creamcoloured pants and a pastel plaid shirt. He stretches and puts his hands on his hips. He helps a little girl out of the driver’s side. She’s wearing a white cotton dress and the skirt bells with the breeze. Finally the passenger door opens and a woman gets out. I’m standing in the upstairs window, struggling to get my jeans on. There is a wave rising inside me. It’s full of light. It’s dull and smart and hurting my throat. Robert rolls over in bed.
    He says, Who would disturb us at this hour?
    The woman has her hand over her eyes to block the sun and she’s looking up into the bedroom window where I’m standing and I know it’s Melody without even recognizing her. I run down the stairs and out the back without my shoes. I have never initiated anything in my life. I forgot her completely and here she is. She’ll give me something.
    She’s exactly the same. The child is just like her. The guyholds out his hand. Melody says his name and I tell him I’m thrilled, but I forget his name. I forget the child’s name but it’s Jill.
    I tried to call, she says, holding out her arms.
    I say, I’m married. I start to cry. Melody kisses me.
    I whisper, I’ve messed up, Melody.
    She says, You’ll just have to do something about it.

Mouths, Open
    A woman climbs over me for the window seat — hair like vanilla ice cream, a purple mink. Beneath the fur, a sweatsuit and spanking new sneakers. She’s got a paper bag with twine handles. Lingerie. Her fingernails are false and black, an inch and a half.
    You raise your eyes from your book. She tears a hot pretzel — the bread inside porous and steaming — and dips it into the tiny container of honey mustard. The dexterity of a lobster. After each bite she touches her nails against a napkin, rubbing carefully under the concave side. A glistening gob of green gum on the side of her plate, the teeth marks. She’s a sex worker who flies to Halifax from St. John’s for the weekend. What costs as much as a blow job, a carton of red peppers? Sable earmuffs?
    We are in Cuba. The lawn sprinkler beside the pool whispering rounds of silver ammunition that pock the sand. Acockroach with an indigo shell. Banana leaves as sharp as switchblades. The plastic of my recliner sweating against my cheek. The pool looks as solid as a bowl of Jell-O, a jar of Dippity-Do. The Italian transsexuals lower their bodies until they are submerged to the neck, careful of their curls. They have the most beautiful nipples. I can’t take my eyes off their more-than-perfect breasts.
    At the kitchen table at home in St. John’s. The tablecloth is gone; the table is red, bright red enamel paint, and there is the creamer, full of milk. The kitchen is pumpkin, forest green cupboards. The kitchen screams. My hands are on the table in front of me. I want to throw the creamer. Milk fluttering over your head, a long ribbon of surrender. It is a huge