She watched a cloud turn into a shape that she recognized. It was a ham—but not the ham she had seen in her head. No, this was an ugly ham, a deformed ham. She watched it float along the sky and she was repulsed. It had bumpy skin and big nostrils. It was so fat that it looked like it was going to burst. She stayed there and watched as it floated away and got eaten by the other clouds. And then she left.
Lauren didn’t go back to the park after that. She hadn’t wanted to. She wasn’t total y over Preston, but something in her shifted. Wanting him back was like wanting to cut off your arm or have your toes poked with needles. It didn’t make sense. Her friends never knew exactly what had happened, but they were just happy she was getting back to normal.
“Breakups are tough,” Isabel a said. “But you got through it!”
“I’m glad you’re over him,” Shannon said. “Now you need to go find another asshole to fuck with your head.”
But none of them knew that it was the ham that had done it. How could something that Lauren made up in her own head turn so ugly? How could her creation get so out of hand? It was that ugly ham that made her move on.
Lauren was stil standing at the man’s table. She couldn’t seem to make herself walk away.
“Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?” He smiled and sat back, like he was sure she would be flattered at this invitation.
“No,” she said. “I real y wouldn’t.”
“I’m very successful,” he said. He slurred a little.
“Why are you here alone?” Lauren asked.
“I’m celebrating. I’m celebrating a big deal.”
“Alone?”
“I’m very successful,” he said, sounding impatient. “I told you that already.”
“Wel , you’re not the type of guy I want to go to dinner with.”
“Oh no? Who is, then? That bartender over there?” He said the word “bartender” like he was saying “pimp” or “homeless person.”
“No,” Lauren said. “He’s not my type either.”
“Oh, wel , look at you, Miss High and Mighty! Are you going to meet someone in the park?”
“You’re a jackass,” Lauren said.
“And you are a rude waitress,” the man said. “A rude waitress who just lost herself a tip.”
“Good,” Lauren said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Why don’t you just sit down for a minute?” the man asked. “I feel like we got off to a bad start.”
Lauren rested her hands on the back of the chair across from him. Her knees felt wiggly. “I’m okay,” she said.
“I didn’t ask if you were okay,” the man said. “I asked if you would like to sit down. I would buy you a drink if you did. I just closed a huge deal.”
“I know,” Lauren said. “You told me. Why do you keep tel ing me that?”
“It’s the kind of thing people like to know,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing you want to tel someone about yourself.”
Lauren straightened herself up and looked him in the eye. She smiled widely, showing him al of her teeth. “Thank you, then,” she said. “Thanks for sharing.” She walked away from the table. The man sat there holding his drink.
“Carly, I need you to finish up that table for me,” Lauren said. “I can’t wait on that guy anymore.”
Carly nodded. “Sure. Is he rich?”
“He might be,” Lauren said. “You should ask him.”
“Hey, Lauren,” Preston said. “This guy at the bar just ordered a gril ed ham and cheese. You want to go tel him that he shouldn’t eat the precious ham animal?”
“You are a moron,” Lauren said. “You know that?”
“I’m just saying, there are a lot of hams getting slaughtered around here today,” Preston said and smiled.
Carly looked back and forth between them, like she was waiting for a fight to break out. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Lauren said.
At the other table, the little boy was standing on the seat of the booth wiggling his hips and singing, “Ooh, baby, baby. Ooh, baby!” His mother clapped and laughed until his knee knocked over the water, and then she told him to sit and motioned to Lauren that they needed help cleaning up.
This was not what Lauren went to col ege for. This was not where she was supposed to be. These were not the kind of people she was supposed to be around. She took a deep breath and whispered, “Cumulonimbus.” She closed her eyes and saw the Ham—the real Ham—basking in al of its glory. It looked nothing like the monster she’d seen at the park. This was a handsome Ham. It had whiskers that blew in the wind, and Lauren thought it was smiling at her. She opened her eyes, feeling better. “Did you say something?” Preston asked her, and she shook her head. She picked up a towel from the bar and went to go clean up her table. She had the Ham back. Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she would quit.
W hen Mary was nine, she stole a prayer. It happened by accident, but it happened just the same. She was kneeling in front of the prayer candles at church, blowing softly out of her mouth, and watching the flames flicker. She made a little circle with her lips and held her hands folded in front of her mouth, as though she were praying. Mrs. Sugar watched her closely, giving her warning looks with her thick eyebrows, while she tried to pay attention to the rest of the class, which was stil lined up to give confession. Mrs. Sugar had a nice-sounding name, but real y she was a witch. Every time she looked over, Mary pressed her lips together.
Mary had gone to confession first, and had already said her two Hail Marys and her three Our Fathers. Now there was nothing left for her to do except kneel quietly and blow at the candles. She sent the flame to the left, to the right, and then straight back. It leaned and bounced but always came back to the center, standing straight and tal . And then, it happened. She breathed a little too hard, and the candle sputtered out.
Mrs. Sugar was by her side before she even realized what had happened. She leaned down and grabbed the top part of Mary’s arm, whispering because they were stil in church, but whispering meanly. “Do you know what you did?” she said. “You stole someone’s prayer. Someone lit that very candle with a personal prayer, an intention. And now it’s gone. Vanished. And it’s al because of you.”
Mary cried and was sent to sit on the bench in the vestibule to wait. She sniffled as she sat, wondering what Mrs. Sugar was going to do to her.
But while she was back there, James Lemon farted loudly, making the rest of the class laugh and scream, and Mrs. Sugar got distracted as she ran around trying to calm everyone down. For the rest of the day, Mary waited for her punishment, but it seemed Mrs. Sugar had forgotten al about the candle and the stolen prayer.
Mary, on the other hand, never forgot. Anytime she lit a candle, she felt guilty. She kept thinking that this feeling would go away, that eventual y something bigger and more important would come and take the place of this memory. But it didn’t. For years, anytime that she went to church, she put a dol ar in the box to light a candle. “For the one that I stole,” she would whisper, and then she would light it. She lit a candle in Rome her junior year, and another in Ireland. When she moved to New York, she lit one in St. Patrick’s, and that was her last one. She stopped partly because she was rarely in church anymore, but also because she figured that however big the prayer was that had been attached to that candle, she’d more than made up for it by now.
Mary was quitting. That’s al there was to it. She’d always said that as soon as she passed the bar, she was done. No more cigarettes. She’d never been a real smoker anyway. It was just something she did when she studied late at night. And when she drank. But that was al over now, she told herself. She was a lawyer now. A lawyer who didn’t smoke.