‘Try it on.’
‘Thought you didn’t want to end up anything like your mother?’ she grinned.
That gap in her teeth again. Try that new toothpaste, I reminded myself.
I wondered what the other me was doing all day in my house while I was working. I didn’t want to leave her, but she didn’t seem to be going anywhere fast. ‘Don’t you trust yourself?’ she laughed. I considered how to make her disappear. I texted almost everyone I knew just to ask how they were, like buying an insurance policy. I couldn’t be that woman if I had someone. Could I? I swirled my keys walking to my front door. I was sure I’d find myself knitting with an old lady smile. Maybe she’d be doing Pilates, or off somewhere on a Caribbean cruise, just wouldn’t be here at all.
She was crossed-legged on the floor holding the phone.
‘Get a proper job, you gobshite.’
Slam.
‘Who was that?’
‘Telemarketers,’ she said.
‘I got bread.’ I held up the bag.
‘That’s not bread, it’s shite,’ she said, squeezing the diet loaf out of my hands. ‘You never call things what they are.’
The phone trilled in the hall. Josh wanted me for the pub quiz. Why not? I wandered back into the lounge.
‘Do you want a baked potato?’ I asked.
I looked around the room. No sign of me, but a squished bit in the loaf, slowly expanding back into shape.
There was a cool moon outside. Crisp, not a cloud. There were shopping lists on the backs of my birthday cards; all that was left of the roses was a ribbon on a stick. Christian had told me he wanted to keep things casual. And I was sleeping with Josh again to kill time. I sprayed on perfume to meet him at the pub quiz. Then it came. Bored. Wanna come round? Christian. I read the message, unsure whether to cancel my plans. It could mean something, it could change everything. Out of the window, I caught a glimpse of the old woman wandering down the street. I raced out with the phone in my hand.
‘Tell me something, please,’ I said, waving the phone.
She glanced at me, walking on.
‘Tell me what to do, please.’
She stopped and leaned in as if she might kiss me. I waited, inhaling beer and something surprising, like soap.
‘Do you want to know something? I’ll tell you…’
Her voice was husky, a whisper. I leaned so close our noses touched like Eskimos.
‘Fuck off,’ she yelled, her breath punching me in the face.
Already, she was walking away, moving faster than it looked like she could, cuddling her sack.
‘I’ll go to the cash machine, I’ll give you whatever you like, just fucking tell me something.’
I was chasing her now in my stupid blue heels. I slipped on the path one step behind her and got up picking something out of my face, a bit of smashed glass from the street. I stared at my wet fingers, dark, blood like ink under the moon. The old woman rustled back, pulling something woolly from her sack. She knelt and held a sock to my face.
‘It’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘See? It could be worse.’
She pointed to a silvery scar on her cheek, a whisker of white under the streetlight. We sat on the kerb side by side, waiting for the bleeding to stop, just looking up at the sky. She stroked next door’s cat and got up.
‘See ya,’ she said.
I watched her get smaller walking down the street towards… who knew what? The phone trembled in my palm. Got plans, I typed. I still don’t know if it was the right reply or not, what those two small words could mean, the brush stroke they made, or didn’t, in the bigger picture of my life. I’d like to say the other me disappeared for ever as soon as I did it, but that’s a crock. Let’s just say I didn’t see her for a while, and when I did we just sat, silentish. Still.
Dog Years
Life as a Dog-Faced Girl
It’s not so bad being a dog-faced girl, even a stray. Scared I’d bite the superstitious hand of the village, my mother left me to the nuns. My birth certificate is a sideshow flyer. It says Momma saw a man eaten by a wolf when her belly was a full moon. Then I was born, hairy. I imagine she’s howling somewhere.
~
In the orphanage Sister Bernadette tells me stories about Saint Wilgefortis, who grew a beard to avoid marrying an unbeliever. Fur has its uses, though she dies at the end.
I squeeze the doll she made me — a little stuffed dog wearing a peach dress. It’s like me, has a smile stitched to its fur.
~
Someone travels to meet me. I’m talented, he says, my talent’s just being myself. And that’s rare. The nuns kiss me goodbye, lips light as moths’ wings. Mr Barthley clips a lock of fur off my cheek for Sister Bernadette to remember me by. For anyone else, he says, he’d charge a buck.
~
On stage, I wear lace. A spotlight shines through it to poke at the fur. I sing love songs. Everyone laughs, except one man.
‘Scam. She’s not real! She’s wearing a mask.’
Mr Barthley shouts back, ‘Defamation of character! I’ll sue.’
He pays the man later for getting us in the newspaper again.
I touch my cheek, trying to find the edges of my mask, peel the look off my face.
~
I share a trailer with a tattooed lady with an inkless face. She wears long sleeves to town, brings back perfume samples and cake. I don’t go myself. Once, at night, I went to the beach and made a mermaid of sand. If I sunbathe the circus will fold. I’m sacred as a cow. No one need buy my milk if I leak it for free.
There’s always circus boys.
~
Every day I don’t see the lobster boy is seven years. Archie has beautifully smooth arms. He does everything with stumps so gracefully; my hands are paws. I sniff around his trailer. Outside Archie rolls a cigarette, flips it to his lips.
‘Hi.’
I whimper. These days I feel more dog than girl. Even my imagination is loyal; I can’t imagine anyone else loving me.
~
I ask the mirror if I’m pretty. My fur is impressive, people say. I’m not sure it’s the same. The razor winks at the sun. I shave, dab my face and tie ribbons in my hair. Furless, I’m silver, a ghost. I don’t look like me. I walk to Archie’s with candy, ready for him to drop his tobacco, beg a kiss.
‘Dog girl?’ he says. Then he yells, ‘Check this out! She won’t be able to work for a month! Roll up, roll up. See the world’s dumbest girl!’
Lobster laughter scuttles back to my mirror behind me. It’s not so bad being a dog girl — it’ll be harder to be a dog-faced woman, I feel.
The Keeper of the Jackalopes
The best bit is the bit that used to scare her. Once the skin has been removed, the rabbit lies on the table without its bunny suit on. It can be anything it wants. Clary strokes the cool fur. The bench is covered in wire and wood wool. The pieces are all laid out. Her father stares at the clay skull with a finger on his chin, ready to put the rabbit back together again. Clary watches him, recalling when there weren’t any rabbits, only jackalopes popping up like magic. He’d cover each with a box until it was perfect. Then she’d lift the cardboard. There it was. The jackalope. Antlers, ears, rabbity whiskers almost twitching on her fingers. It looked like it was about to hop off, and got frozen with the horizon in its eyes.
The window lets in a strip of air thin as memory. Clary pours coffee. One for him. One for her: half milk, half coffee, one sugar per foot she has grown in the last few years. The footsteps on the walkway are curt. Each rap on the door is perfectly spaced, like someone learned at college how to knock right, what every knock means. Clary answers the door, nudging the dent on the frame with her hip. The man’s shirt is cornflower. He rolls up his sleeves without looking, just rolling, rolling his way through the day. He looks at Clary, adjusts his silky tie and fails to adjust what to say. Whether the girl is tall, wearing tight yellow shorts and has a fake tattoo of a chipmunk on her wrist, or not, he asks, ‘Is your mommy or daddy home?’ He frowns at the magic marker painting her toes black. She shows him in by simply stepping back. Her father doesn’t stand.