The Girl in the Flammable Skirt_ Stories - Aimee Bender [22]
“I hated what you did to my swastika,” Renny said.
“Well I couldn’t just leave it there,” she said back. The palms of his hands were on her upper arms, warm. “I hate swastikas.”
“See, Jill,” Renny said, “it’s eyes the color of sky, not of earth, that’s what it’s about, see, that’s what we say. Eyes the color of sky, not of earth.” He stared at her hair; it was dark and long and felt soft where it touched his hands.
“But Renny,” she said, “your eyes are brown.”
He gripped her shoulders. He wondered if by the time the two weeks were up, and he returned home, Jordan would be gone.
Jill pictured the wedding again. Except now the priest was nowhere to be found, the groom was nowhere to be found, and it was just herself and the rabbi. His arm was tan and thick with black hair. See our skin, the rabbi was telling her, this skin was made for the desert.
“It’s a long way down,” Renny said.
She imagined scratching at the skin on the rabbi’s arm, scratching at her own arm, scratching them down, until underneath the thin layers of flesh she found out just what exactly they were made of.
“Are you scared?” Renny held her shoulders tightly.
“Should I be?”
Renny didn’t answer. Jill shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, “a little.”
He put his arms around her chest, and brought her closer to him. One thumb very gently brushed against the side of her nipple, standing up from the chill. She was quiet.
“Is that okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. She breathed out, and closed her eyes beneath the blindfold. Her skin was rising. I am made out of dirt, she thought.
“Do you want to switch?” Renny asked quietly. His hand was light against her breast.
I am made out of gold.
“No,” she said, “do you?”
“No.” He hugged her in closer and listened to the water rush at them from far away.
FUGUE
1. Dinnertime
I sit across the table from my husband. It is dinnertime. I made steak and green beans and homestyle potatoes and even clipped two red roses from the bush in the backyard; they stand in a vase between us which is clear so I can watch the stems drift in the water as he speaks.
He puts his elbows on the table. He opens his mouth while he chews. He gesticulates with his fork, prongs out.
Me, I nod and nod. He tells me all about work. The memos are misspelled, he tells me. That new secretary can barely speak. I listen and chew with my mouth closed. The potato, no longer hot, breaks under my teeth, melts across my tongue, my upper lip seals to my bottom lip, and everything is private inside my mouth—loud and powerful and mine. A whole world of noise going on in there that he can’t even hear. Reaching forward, he spears a big piece of potato with his fork. He lifts it up, takes it in, bites down. I watch the food disappearing in his mouth and it’s my food and I bought it and I made it and I have to will my hands to keep still because I think I want to rescue it. I want to rescue my food, thrust an arm across the tablecloth, spill the drifting roses, dodge his molars, avoid his tongue, and seize it back, bring it all out, drag it down into the dish, until there is just a mush of alive potato between us, his stomach empty, my mouth still closed.
2.
Inside the pill factory, the muttering worker was switching things around.
“I’ll put the yellow pills in here,” he said to himself, mutter mutter, “and the white ones in here.” He took the bottles to the child-sealing machine and went home.
Two weeks later, outside in the world, people with prescriptions fell down dead. The muttering worker read about it in the paper, felt a surge of importance, and decided it was time to move on. He called the pill factory office and told them he quit. They asked why. He said allergies. They said: Allergies to what? And he said, Allergies to the telephone and hung up.
This was the fourth job he’d grown tired of in a month. Two weeks before he’d gotten a gig teaching English to immigrants. He’d taught them the wrong things. He’d said: pussy means woman and asshole means friend. During the week, one female