Shot Clock
“Who was that boy?” Grizzly asks.
Grizzly stumbles inside Emily’s room. Maybe it’s the way she is wired now after Eddie. And the beer she just drank relaxes her enough to get into things. “He’ll only leave you,” Grizzly says.
It is as if Grizzly hasn’t said anything about the boy and her comment seems to bead off Emily like the girl’s brain is coated with suntan oil. And Grizzly can still hear Eddie say, “One quarter Hopi, on my mother’s side,” and it’s like yesterday, the first conversation that started everything.
“What’s that smell?” Grizzly’s dad asked.
“Coconut oil, dad,” Grizzly said. “We sell sugared ice. We’re making money.”
But that had been before Emily, when life felt smooth, her hair had been thick and long, a black shiny mass that hadn’t needed anything, no coloring, no special conditioning. And it had seemed like the right decision at twenty-one to get married.
She was Grizelda then. When she and Eddie dreamed together and planned their future, she was still Grizelda.
“Can you see them too?” Emily asks.
Grizzly thinks about this for a second and crosses her arms as if this small movement will help her answer Emily’s question, and she wonders how much to tell about what she sees.
“Who do you mean?” Grizzly asks. “That boy that just left?”
Emily’s brows knit together. “No, the fairies. They’re real. They have wings. They whisper about boys.”
Grizzly flops down on Emily’s bed as if it’s her own. The sheets are white with small, delicate purple and blue flowers that coordinate with the lavender color on the walls.
“Stay in school,” Grizzly’s parents said. “Find direction.” It didn’t sound cool then, it doesn't now. She says the same words to Emily and remembers how the idea of striking out on her own, on their own still sounds better, even after Emily arrived and everything felt as fragile as ever with wiry and breakable hair and saggy breasts. But then the girls that Eddie hired to do her job wore the bikinis while she looked on and over an infant and then a toddler and then a girl.
And then one day he stopped calling her Grizelda altogether.
“Did Ally pick the paint color too?” Grizzly asks.
Emily tells her Thom did and Grizzly stares up at her daughter, at the nearly grown woman-child that stands in the space between the bedroom and the bath. And she looks into her daughter’s face and remembers the parties at her sister’s house back in California when someone she hadn’t seen in a while would slip up and call her by that long ago name, “Grizelda?” They’d ask. She never anticipated hearing her own name would cut like beach glass buried in the sand. She stares hard into Emily’s face now and says, “I don’t believe in that magical crap.”
Grizzly stumbles inside Emily’s room. Maybe it’s the way she is wired now after Eddie. And the beer she just drank relaxes her enough to get into things. “He’ll only leave you,” Grizzly says.
It is as if Grizzly hasn’t said anything about the boy and her comment seems to bead off Emily like the girl’s brain is coated with suntan oil. And Grizzly can still hear Eddie say, “One quarter Hopi, on my mother’s side,” and it’s like yesterday, the first conversation that started everything.
“What’s that smell?” Grizzly’s dad asked.
“Coconut oil, dad,” Grizzly said. “We sell sugared ice. We’re making money.”
But that had been before Emily, when life felt smooth, her hair had been thick and long, a black shiny mass that hadn’t needed anything, no coloring, no special conditioning. And it had seemed like the right decision at twenty-one to get married.
She was Grizelda then. When she and Eddie dreamed together and planned their future, she was still Grizelda.
“Can you see them too?” Emily asks.
Grizzly thinks about this for a second and crosses her arms as if this small movement will help her answer Emily’s question, and she wonders how much to tell about what she sees.
“Who do you mean?” Grizzly asks. “That boy that just left?”
Emily’s brows knit together. “No, the fairies. They’re real. They have wings. They whisper about boys.”
Grizzly flops down on Emily’s bed as if it’s her own. The sheets are white with small, delicate purple and blue flowers that coordinate with the lavender color on the walls.
“Stay in school,” Grizzly’s parents said. “Find direction.” It didn’t sound cool then, it doesn't now. She says the same words to Emily and remembers how the idea of striking out on her own, on their own still sounds better, even after Emily arrived and everything felt as fragile as ever with wiry and breakable hair and saggy breasts. But then the girls that Eddie hired to do her job wore the bikinis while she looked on and over an infant and then a toddler and then a girl.
And then one day he stopped calling her Grizelda altogether.
“Did Ally pick the paint color too?” Grizzly asks.
Emily tells her Thom did and Grizzly stares up at her daughter, at the nearly grown woman-child that stands in the space between the bedroom and the bath. And she looks into her daughter’s face and remembers the parties at her sister’s house back in California when someone she hadn’t seen in a while would slip up and call her by that long ago name, “Grizelda?” They’d ask. She never anticipated hearing her own name would cut like beach glass buried in the sand. She stares hard into Emily’s face now and says, “I don’t believe in that magical crap.”
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