| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Kendall Walker is a fiction writer based in the New York City area. My work has appeared in Bound Off, Retort Magazine, and Aesthetica. |
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| © 2009 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| REPETITION |
| by Kendall Walker |
| Carenna, in Martin’s bathroom mirror, looked great, but she still, patiently, made herself up, because tonight was her big date with Andrew.
First, she dabbed the small, gray-pink scar on the side of one eye with a cream, then blended until her delicate tan disappeared in the brown of the heavy concealer. Next, she placed some rouge at the top of each cheek and spread it out into two bruise-like crescents. Finally, she closed her eyes, one at a time, and went to work with a brush, smudging each eyelid with dark bluish eyeshadow. She hadn’t told Martin that he was allowed to see any of this, but she hadn’t forbidden it, either, so he leaned, arms crossed, against one of the jambs of the door and nervously watched while she got herself ready. “I still think this is fucking stupid,” he said, as she started unscrewing her lipstick. “Yeah?” Carenna asked and ran the stick—a first, tentative stroke—across her top lip. “Do you think this shade works, or would you go with something lighter?” Carenna, once she’d put the lipstick on, smacked her lips a few times, then turned away from the mirror and pushed past Martin through the doorway. “My mascara’s in my room,” she explained, almost defiantly, easing past the impeding bulk of his body. She clicked across Martin’s wood floors to her “room,” or Martin’s sun porch, where he and his roommates had let her crash since the night, a few weeks back, that she’d called them from the hospital. She found her mascara, next to the couch that she used as a bed, on top of the milk crate she used as a night table. On her way back through the living room, mascara in hand, Carenna paused as she walked past the stereo. Martin had set it to play the same song, again and again, on repeat, at an almost subliminal volume. Carenna hated this song, a downer “indie rock” hit. An atonal voice kept on screaming the chorus: Love is suicide Love is suicide Love is suicide “Will you turn this shit off?” Carenna laughed, and then pressed “Power.” The speakers went dead, but the CD changer—a separate component, with its own separate power source—kept playing silently, its liquid crystal display counting off seconds in eerie blue digits. Carenna, once her mascara was on, pushed, smiling, past Martin again, and stomped to the front hallway closet. She took her weathered denim jacket down from its hanger, then donned it, her chainmail, her amulet. It was torn at the shoulder seam, from that last night with Andrew, and had a dark stain of Carenna’s own blood on the collar, barely visible after the dry cleaning. The jacket was on the trashy side for the place—Spiaggia, downtown—where Andrew was taking her, but torn clothing was still, barely, “in,” and the maitre d’, or whoever, would probably accept it on a trendy young female. Carenna, in any case, believed in the jacket, its magic: The tear, the stain, would work like talismans on Andrew. Remind him of his crimes, which Carenna could still, at any moment, let the state’s attorneys prosecute. Remind him of his promise, that this time would be different, and that he wouldn’t do that to her again. In the closet’s full-length mirror—while Martin, having followed her, watched—Carenna twisted, to the left and the right, making sure that the jacket still fit her. It did. It fit her well. It was still her favorite jacket. “Okay,” she said. “I think that’s it.” She took her handbag from the door knob, and then—she didn’t know why, she’d never done this before—rose up on her tip-toes and kissed Martin on the cheek. Just a little effort, she guessed, to salve his weird forlornness. “Any luck, and you’ll be getting your sun porch back soon,” she said. "You know,” Martin said, barely forcing a smile. “The truth is we didn’t really use it.” |
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| July 2009 |
| 121 |