for k.r.—
the following is a work
of pure imagination ♥
—
You can hear the dogs trumpeting from the time your car curves down into the drive. All four of them, singing for joy in the cold ocean night.
Welcome home! Welcome home!
“Hey, guys,” you murmur as you walk through the door, swimming in a whorl of soft, gold fur. Batting off their eager black noses, shushing their deep, triumphal woofs, breathing in their earthy smell. “Quiet, quiet. Sit. Sit. Good dogs. Good.”
The little girl, pale and glowing as the eyeshadow you had once brushed underneath your mother’s perfect arched brows, can’t resist lifting herself up to look you square in the eye. Hers are dark and wise, seeing you completely, forgiving all, yet understanding nothing. Her grinchy white paws tug at the midnight-blue loops of your cashmere sweater.
“Down, girl,” you chide, bopping her on her leathery wet nose, and she acquiesces, looking guilty, looking lovely. Like every golden retriever: a perfect, stupid angel.
You shrug off your suit jacket. It’s covered all over in pale, sticky hairs. Drool on your sleek black loafers.
“Guess what, guys?” you ask, brightly, sitting down to take off your shoes. You cradle each of their simple, doggy faces, and kiss them on the top of their heads in turn. “Daddy’s home! Yeah! Yeah! I get to play with you!”
—
“I mean, John Edwards spent, like, four thousand dollars on a haircut,” you continue, filling up another glass of cold white wine. You’re on a tear, spinning gold. Sometimes, words just come to you, and they fall out of your mouth one after the other with inevitable force, a magician’s knotted handkerchief. “People made fun of him for it, which they should, because he was being a little faggot, but it wasn’t a crime.”
Matt nods, and hums, and takes your foot in his hands, and starts massaging, making little circles with his thumbs.
“And like, literally, you have to look good if you’re going to be on TV! I’m sorry, but I cannot be out here representing myself, representing my District and the voters of New York, representing the Republican Party—” you count them on your fingers, one by one.
“They’re so stupid,” Matt agrees, digging his thumbs deep into the arch of your bare foot. “Fucking Boomers. They don’t even care if they win.”
“Right? God forbid someone actually be under sixty-five years old and wear clothes that fit.”
The two of you are out on the sectional, eating snacks. Takis, butter-toffee caramels, and a bag of gas-station brand peach gummy rings. The dogs have scattered themselves around, this way and that. The oldest one, white-faced and fat, smelling vaguely fishy, is lying beside you on the couch. In daylight, the wide, square windows of the sunroom look out onto the water and sky, perfectly bisected in dark and light blue like so many Rothkos. You’d rented the house as-is, completely furnished, back in the beginning when this was all still fun. You’d liked the look of it, all silver-blues and beige-on-cream and rich, bright navies. Plus what felt like about five miles of perfect, TV-white counters in the kitchen.
You took it all. The house and the ocean and the big white kitchen. All yours, at least for a while. Anyone with guts to go after it can have anything. At least for a while.
Mostly, you’ve been getting Postmates.
“No, it’s not even that,” you sigh. “The DOJ stuff. So stressful. Such bullshit.”
“I mean. Worse comes to worst, I’ll put money in your commissary. I’ll keep you eating good.”
“Matt, stop—“
“I’m serious,” he grins, “Nothing but the best for you. Top-shelf ramen noodles, name-brand, Maruchan. In the cups with the little corn and dried shrimp, because I know you’re bougie, babe…"
“Egh,” you cringe, pinching the bridge of your nose, sore from the weight of your glasses. You swat at Matt without force, fingers feather-light on the top of his thigh. “That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting. I am not eating shrimp out of a cup.”
“Yeah, without me around to stop you, you’d probably just try to live off Hot Cheetos…”
“Nooo, I’ve been eating a lot better lately,” you say, rolling your eyes. “I’ve been doing mostly Keto, and making these green smoothies…”
“Baby, baby, baby…”
“What? It’s true! At the Capitol, there was this place that sold juices, like carrot juices, celery juices. I’ve been cutting out carbs, and processed sugars…”
“No, no.” He’s laughing, shaking his head. “No, no, no, no, no.”
You roll your eyes and sigh. Matt’s are still crinkled up, one eyebrow higher than the other. He’s giving you nothing.
“Anyways.” You sigh again, scootching over to grab another Taki. You settle into the bend of the white linen sofa to rest your body against his. He smells good, grapefruit and pepper and musk. “I doubt if I’m even really going to prison.”
—
That night, he takes the dogs out, and sleep escapes you, and you turn the memories over and over in your mind.
Earlier today, after the vote. Numb with shock, your face like fire, stepping so carefully down the from the rotunda with that awful pack of ugly reporters screaming at you. One of them had narrow black sunglasses and a tiny, square jaw. You could see the flecks of spittle in his narrow, square teeth as he called out your name. Cameras flashing in the corner of your eye. Light and sound bouncing off the car, off of the marble all around you. All that clamor drowning out the satisfying click-clack click-clack of your loafers on the cold stone stairs. Just don’t fall on your ass and embarrass yourself, just don’t fall, justdontfall…
Years ago, at the very beginning, that first New York apartment, trying to dance like Christiana Aguilera with your little sister. Ancient history now, and so much realer than anything that’s happened since. Listening to your parents fight. Playing dolls. Making up stories. In your memories, it’s always raining, and under the smell of something good cooking in the kitchen, there’s more than a hint of mildew. When your sister yanked the Malibu Glam Girl Convertible right out of your hands, you screamed, and you jammed your fingers into the crown of glitter-butterfly clips at the top of her head, and you pulled. But sometimes, too, you nestled into the same bed to play “slumber party,” heads at each others feet. Listening to the rats scritch-scratching inside of the landlord-special, gloopy-painted, dishwater-beige walls.
“Ew. Ew, ew, ew. I don’t like their nasty feet,” she shuddered. “Ew.” And you reached out, and squeezed her hand tight.
That summer in Rio, tottering back to your little apartment in your highest heels, wig askew, so drunk you could barely stand. The sky so hot and heavy you couldn’t bear it, draped around you like a Burberry coat, sticky on your bare skin. You thought it had to break any second, that something had to give, and that when the clouds opened up, it would rain so hard and heavy it would wash you right away. But the rain never came— it just kept getting hotter.
Christmastime, 2016. You and your sister had decorated the room at the hospice with cartoon reindeer cut-outs and multi-colored lights. A little Santa bobblehead on your mother’s nightstand: Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, and a lei. She was lying in bed, so gray and so, so small. She had to have known she was going to die soon.
But she turned to you and grinned, like she used to do when she and your dad fought so much he just went ahead and fucked off for a few days, and she’d bring home a new Barbie or a pair of M&M McFlurries for you and your sister. She smiled just as brightly that day, like she could still do something to make it all okay, and asked, “Baby, will you do my makeup?”
All of the worst things happen in December.
—
Here and now, out on the ocean, the house is quiet.
Outside, the winter waves crash impassively against the shore, beating on and on without end. Just like life— it never fucking stops, until it all does.
You think you feel a headache coming on.
Maybe, you could have done with one less glass of wine.
Matt’s snoring away beside you, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Like you’re really not going to go to jail.
And who knows? Maybe you aren’t.
He left the door ajar when he came to bed.
One by one, the dogs stream in through the little crack of light. One by one, they find a place to settle their warm, animal weight against your human bodies on the king-size bed.
The little girl, alabaster as moonlight, tucks herself against your chest, and sighs, and falls asleep.
Is this about that one guy