An Anonymous Writer

I sit on my bed and lace my skates,

crisp white, four wheeled, and ankle-high,

thinking how familiar the motion is.

My father has just left the house,

knocked on my door to say goodbye on the way out.

 He had smiled at the sight of the skates,

appreciating as he does

my love for the sport he taught me.

But I still feel guilty there, on solid ground.

 It’s been how long since I’ve been on the ice?

I haven’t landed a double loop in six months

or a double flip in a year

and last July was the latest time

I practiced a routine to music in the rink.

 My dad doesn’t skate anymore,

not since his not-quite-injury,

the overuse pain in his can’t-quite-bend knee.

He was never one to live vicariously,

but I think it did him good to know

that I still skated, to stand on the rubber floor

of the iceplex and watch me glide around the rink.

 He hasn’t had the chance in a while.

 But the memory of his smile reassures with me,

the way he looked as he left, noticing the wheels,

his excitement when I’d brought the roller skates home.

 So I finish lacing my skates and I leave my room,

wondering if maybe there’s time,

before his car pulls off into the road,

for him to catch sight of me there,

    Above her nose, rather small and porcine, were two very round very pale blue eyes. Her face was round and pink, her hair a wavy golden blond that reached just past her shoulders to hang level with the cross dangling from her neck. She had a nice enough figure, I decided, but not the kind I would notice in a crowded room. Standing there, at about 5 feet tall, in her cream colored rayon dress and grey-pink mary janes, she looked singularly American and exceptionally harmless. And I knew that if there was anyone I had met in my years as a PI who was going to kill me, it was her. 

    “What can I do for you, Miss Boatwright?”

My voice was congenial but the angle of my lips remained unchanged. I gestured toward the chair across the desk from me, and she perched herself softly on the edge of its seat. 

“To get straight to the point, Mr. Abel, I’d like your help keeping a man away from me,” she answered, a studied sort of mid-atlantic approximant touching at the edges of her voice.

So she was going to be matter of fact about it. That was rare. It ought to make things nicer for me, but I wasn’t so sure I liked it.

“Well, why don’t you tell me a little more about this man?”

“Certainly. His name is Jonathon Briggs. He stands at about six feet tall, has brown hair and greyish eyes. He lives on the fourth floor of City View Apartment, on M street. I called things off with him a little more than a week ago. I guess I figured he wouldn’t take it too well, but he’s been worse than that. Showing up outside my apartment once or twice a day, that sort of business. I didn’t mind too bad and wasn’t going to do anything about it, I was already planning to move out soon, so it was just a matter of getting through the week.”

“So what made you change your mind?”

“Well, when he found my apartment empty after the move, he decided to bother me in public. At work, I mean. In front of people.” I couldn’t tell whether she was scared or angry, but the flame in her eye had to be one of the two. “He might have hurt someone,” she added, as an afterthought.

“And where exactly is work for you?” 

“I’m a singer at The Red Ropes Lounge, it’s a theater in Columbia Heights.” In response to my raised eyebrow, she added “Alright, fine. It’s a nightclub, more or less. But it has real, legitimate plays sometimes, during the day before they can open for the night crowd.” Without pausing, she added “Are you taking the job or not?” 

“Give me a second to think.”

She nodded and reached into her purse for a compact, retouching her face while I deliberated.

It would be easy. The sort of job I had done a million times before, and would probably do a million times again. Just show up at the guy’s doorstep and shake him up a little. But something told me it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Something about the girl made me uneasy, something beneath her soft appearance. I didn’t want her money, and I didn’t want her around. But who ever got what he wanted? It was what I needed that mattered, and the fact was that I needed both.

    “I’ll see what I can do about it for you,” I finally answered. 

    Her compact snapped shut.

    “Thank you, Mr. Abel,” she responded. “And whatever your rate is, I assure you I can afford it.”

    “In that case, I’ll let you know what it is once I’ve figured out how much trouble I’m getting myself into by helping you. Where else does this Mr. Briggs spend his time?”

    “He tends to hang around this bar on 14th and Vermont, The Fruited Plain.” She rolled her eyes as she said the name. “The place is a tourist trap, but I always liked the way the outside of it looked.”

    “And what about the address of this old apartment of yours, where he’s been showing up?”

    She hesitated. I assured her I wouldn’t tell anyone if it were on the wrong side of the tracks, and she informed me that she had been living in Thornbridge Towers. I told her I knew the place.

    “That should be about all,” I announced, rising from my chair.

    “You can reach me at this number.” She produced from her bag the gilded business card of one Antonio Alabaster, Esq, and handed it to me. The fine silver print told me he was based in Georgetown.

    Without another word, she rose from her chair, nodded a goodbye, and left. 

    I leaned back in my chair and watched the door that had just swung shut behind her. It was chipped and faded on the inside, but the side that faced outward, toward her retreating figure, had a shining, fresh coat of paint. After all, the best way to get business was to look like you didn’t need it.

I found it in the attic while packing my boxes, so I figured I’d try it out now. After all, it reminds me of you. It was the last thing you ever gave me. I wish you were here now.

Everything’s gone wrong, mom. I’m not the person you said I’d be. I never moved to New York, never wrote the next great American novel you always saw in my future. I’m sorry to disappoint you, I know you thought I would have done all that by now.

James moved out, so I’m selling the house. I don’t need it anymore; it’s too big for one. I guess I didn’t like my life, but at least I knew what it was. I was settled down, I had a career, a path. Now it’s all up in the air again.

Anyway, I miss you, mom. I know you’d know exactly what to say. People say I remind them of you, the way I look and sound, but they’re wrong. I’m not like you; you always knew what to do, and I don’t think I ever will.

Well, I guess it’s not too late. I can still move to the city. I’ve said that before, countless times before, but maybe this time it’ll be true. I can still sit down and write, just write, like I’ve always wanted to. Maybe this time I’ll go through with it. I can try to use this more, try to dictate. Maybe that’ll make a difference. I hope so.

I suppose that’s all. There isn’t much else to say.

Maybe if I play this back, I can hear it in your voice. Maybe it’ll be like it’s coming from you. Maybe that’ll be enough to make me listen.

I can try it, at least.

Thank you, mom. I love you.

What?

Oh that’s, that’s very kind of you to say, but no, you don’t.

You don’t...even know me. You just think I’m hot and fun and not like any girl you’ve met before - stop me when I get something wrong - and wouldn’t it be so cool if we were in love.

But I’m a human being, I don’t exist just for you, just to be loved. And you don’t know anything about me. You don’t know where I’m from or where I want to go or what I think about when I drift off to sleep each night. And, truth is, you don’t care to know.

Because this isn’t about me. It’s about you. It would be fun to date me, fun for you. You’d like to be seen with me, to introduce me to your friends. I’d make your life into one long string of quirky adventures.

Because it wasn’t about him.

I was feeling lonely - I was feeling lonely and small and afraid, and I would have done anything for someone to hold me - but it wasn’t about him.

For the first time in months, in years, in centuries perhaps, I was crying over the hands that weren’t in my hair and the arms that weren’t around my waist and the lips that weren’t against mine, and they weren’t his. They could have been anyone’s hands and arms and lips, it would have been the same to me.

It’s funny, right? It’s a little six letter word, but it’s caused such a fuss, hasn’t it. Because it’s got this sort of siren song to it, this desire for it that almost seems like a disease, a disease that everyone has and nobody can really seem to cure.

You always thought you were immune to it. Something about your blood type or your special dna. You were always sure that it would never get you. And after all you never did show any of the symptoms, you never did seem to need a sick bed. You wore t shirts and boy’s shorts that hid your figure and hoodies and sneakers and you cut your hair and you never put on makeup in your life and you thought that made you immune or signified that you already were. But you were never immune, you were never immune to wanting to be beautiful, to wanting others to think you were beautiful, to wanting you to think it, you just pushed through, you just had the strength of mind to push down those desires, to pretend they weren’t there, to pay no heed to your appearance not because you didn’t desperately want to but because you would not allow yourself. And you went out in public every day and you held your head high and you just dared anyone to question your self expression or criticize the effort or lack thereof that you put into how you looked but secretly at home at night you cried over every time someone addressed you as “sir” not because you had a problem with men or because you didn’t feel seen for who you were (since after all you did consider yourself a tomboy and who could have argued that you weren’t) but because you knew that pretty girls didn’t look like boys because pretty girls looked like girls and if the stranger you passed in the mall referred to you by male pronouns then you must not be pretty.

And then, and here’s where it gets bad, you had the audacity to judge other women for caring about the very thing you cared about too. The only difference was that your caring was hidden, hidden from them and even hidden from you, and if they were going to focus on something that it wasn’t even their fault they cared about, if they were going to focus on something that the world had told them every day ought to matter to them, they should have at least had the decency to resent themselves about it the way you did. Or maybe there is another difference. Maybe the other difference is that you never needed to care, because you were white and naturally skinny but not so skinny as to be awkward and had decent facial structure and beautiful dark eyes, because when you corrected those strangers it only ever took them half a second of looking to realize their mistake and apologize a thousand times, because you were privileged, because at the end of the day despite all the little things that got to you you could look in the mirror, even with a bare face and baggy clothes, and know deep down that yes, you were beautiful. You didn’t try to be pretty because you didn’t have to try, and you sat on your high horse and looked down on those who did.

And you still do. That’s the thing about it, you still do. You’re a magician, despite your feminism and your introspection and your years of trying to fight it you’re a magician, and you have this little magic trick you do when you meet new people to bend the rules of logic with some simple magic words. It’s when these people you meet are gorgeous that you do it, that you admit to yourself that yeah she’s pretty enough but her forehead’s just a little too short and her nostrils are a little too wide and besides she wears too much make up, and that’s truly the magical part, because you’ve sat there and judged her for how she looks because of your own shallowness or else because society has taught you to do so or else some of both and then, like magic, you’ve made it her fault by turning around and judging her for trying to avoid that judgement in the first place. And you do it because you’re threatened most likely and you can only be beautiful if you are the most beautiful and you can only be the most beautiful if nobody else is, but you can’t put on lipstick or blush or use hair product or wear dresses and heels and jewelry because that would be admitting you care and you don’t care and above all else you need everyone to know that: you don’t care and you’ve never cared and you’re too good to start caring now.

But you do care, of course. Obviously you do. And maybe you’re starting to admit that to yourself, and maybe you’re starting to realize that that’s okay. That it’s only natural to care, that you can want something without being overcome by it, and that, most of all, there’s nothing wrong with you for wanting to like the way you look. And you still have a long way to go, because you can’t leave your room in jewelry without feeling a need to explain that you don’t usually dress like this to everyone you pass, because asking your best friends to please just this once remind you that you’re gorgeous feels like a sign of weakness, because your first instinct when you run into someone who might just be prettier than you is to desperately search for any flaw that you can use to tear her down in your mind and put yourself once again on top.

But you’re trying, my god how you’re trying. And you may never get there, not really, and you know that you’ll be probably trying for the rest of your life, but you also know that you can’t stop. After all, isn’t this hard? Isn’t it exhausting to go through life with a chip on your shoulder? Whatever you do, you have to keep going, you have to keep striving. And it won’t always be easy but each day it’ll come just that much easier. And maybe some day, when all is said and done, you’ll make peace with your appearance and your relationship with it. You’ll reconcile your firm belief that beauty is only skin deep with your need for that skin to be clear and shining and admired by all. You’ll be able to look in the eyes of the girl on the other side of the mirror and know that she is who she is, flaws and all, and she is kind and smart and funny and worthwhile, that she has friends and family and is filled with so much love to give to them and anyone else, and it doesn’t matter whether she looks back at you through eyelashes coated in mascara, because she has stories to tell and opinions to share and she, like the great poets, contains multitudes.

The fact of him being there, maybe - him or anyone. The warmth against her skin, warmth of another person. The weight against her chest, comforting in that it was the weight of another body. She would have preferred to have simply lain against him, to have simply run her fingers through his hair and rested her head in that place it fit so well on his shoulder - on any shoulder - but this worked well enough too, she supposed.

You gaze out the window at the trees outside. It’s a beautiful campus. It’s easy to forget that, to forget just how beautiful it is and how lucky you are to be there. But you are lucky, and you know that. It’s exactly where you want to be. Life has been so good there, you’ve been so happy. Nearly everything you’ve been wanting for so long, nearly everything you’ve been waiting for is coming true. It’s incredible, it’s wonderful, it’s more than you had ever let yourself believe. But there’s still that “nearly” that you just can’t seem to shake.

You catch the reflection of the couple at the table beside you in the window. You can’t really make them out; it’s a bright day outside and their visage is interlaced with leaves and blades of grass, blends coyly in with the green on the other side of the glass. But you can see that they’re smiling, that he’s laughing, that she’s resting her head on his shoulder. And you smile, because how can you not smile at something like that, but you can’t help but notice the coldness against your palm, the emptiness between your fingers where theirs are laced together.

Your friend is back, and you look away from the window. You make some joke, and she laughs, and now you’re laughing too. And it’s nice. And you’re happy. You’re really, truly happy.

The nearly is just a waiting game, really. You’ve waited this long for things to get better, and they have. You’re here, you have friends that you love, you have classes you’re interested in, you have extracurriculars you’re passionate about. All you have to do is keep waiting, probably not even for very long anymore, and your nearly will be gone.

The sky is golden, and they’re dancing.

The sky is golden, and their silhouettes are black.

They sing along to the music, they run in circles, they skip. They’re dancing.

They’re so close to me. They’re right there, twenty feet away, or ten, or five. I can feel the grass beneath me, I can feel it leaving impressions against the back of my legs and bare feet, and it’s the grass beneath their bare feet too. But I can’t see their faces. Just their silhouettes against the sunset. I can’t see their eyes or lips, parted in laughter. They could be miles away, or not here at all. They could be on a movie screen, their joyful figures originating in a cleverly hidden projector, their mirthful sounds in a speaker somewhere. Perhaps the film will end and the sky will be black and they won’t be dancing anymore, they will never have been dancing, they will never have been here at all.

But then they stop, just for a moment. Just for long enough for her to turn her head, just for long enough for her to smile at me. I can see the smile, though barely. The others are still dancing behind her, but she’s not. She walks to me, holds out a hand. And when I take it, it doesn’t feel like a movie screen but flesh and blood. It doesn’t feel like a projection, but skin.

So I take her hand.

She kept it in a jewelry box, a small wooden piece that she had painted herself. It was green, the color of her eyes, with rose vines snaking along its edges. The necklace and its box were her two most prized possessions, the two bits of color in her small grey tenement room.

When her husband died, she stopped wearing the necklace. She sealed it in its box, fearing too much its loss. But she didn’t need to wear it. She only needed to know it was there, to catch a glimpse of the box and remember what it held inside it. After her children had moved away, had installed her in a nursing home where everything was strange and nobody knew her, she only needed to know that it was there.

She wanted to be buried in it, but she wasn’t. She never bothered to tell anyone about this wish, and nobody thought of it on their own.

“You’ll be fine, Liz,” Elizabeth could hear the bed shift in the other room as Damon sat up “this sort of thing never used to bother you. You’ve screwed people over to get ahead before.”

Elizabeth sighed, and lifted her weight off the vanity. She plucked her hairbrush from where she had set it down a minute before, but instead of using it, all she could do was distractedly run her fingers around the handle.