the rings around its drying heart. Miss Lamp lets her face drop. It’s her mother’s fault.
§
Half-Pint.
Young Young Miss Lamp learned to wink at age eight.
Grandma drank vinegar. Grandma yelled at Abby for using Windex and paper towels for the windows instead of old newspapers and white vinegar. Grandma belched, ‘One part to two, Abby dear. One part to two. Don’t use malt either, white is best.’
Sliding her bum down the wooden steps one typically sunny morning when there was no school bus to catch, Young Young Miss Lamp saw Grandma chug half a pint of white vinegar, pouring the rest in the window bucket. Stuck for words, she climbed her bum back up the well-worn stairs. Abby was making the beds, folding hospital corners, sheets still warm.
‘Mom?’
‘Yes, dear?’ Abby pulled the sheet taut.
‘How do I talk to Grandma?’
‘Is she drinking vinegar again?’ Abby folded over the bed covers with ample room for the pillow.
‘Yes, Mom.’
‘Well, wait till she’s finished the windows, then wink at her.’ Abby replaced the pillow, fluffing it up in one, two, three. ‘She likes winks.’
Then, with one hand over the other, Abby’s finger rolled out in a tremor. Malpracticed nerves.
With a furrow in her brow, Young Young Miss Lamp helped Abby pat wrinkles out of the bed. ‘How?’
‘How what, dear?’
‘How do you do a wink?’
§
Dreaming of a White Christmas.
Abby and Grandma bitched about the wonderful Christmas snow falling beyond streaky hotel windows as Young Young Miss Lamp cut a dozen oranges with a plastic knife. She ground all twenty-four halves to and fro on a glass juicer. Happy juice. She didn’t bother filtering out the pulp and seeds and bits of peel. Grandma didn’t appreciate the juice.
‘This tastes like shit!’ Grandma slammed the glass down on the dining table so hard that a splash jumped out, hitting Young Young Miss Lamp in the left eye.
Irrepressible juice.
‘I’m doing a wink, Mom … Mom?’
‘Don’t listen to your grandmother, dear. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The juice is lovely, dear. Don’t listen to her.’ Abby feigned a sip.
Winking up at Abby, Young Young Miss Lamp coughed a little. ‘You haven’t tried it yet, Mom, and look! I’m winking. I think I’m winking.’
Abby’s stare fixed on Grandma. A deadbolt. Locked. ‘Why don’t you be nice to your granddaughter?’
Grandma sucked in a wheeze. ‘Why don’t you be nice to Grandma? Eh? Why the hell did you haul us to Florida for Christmas in the goddamn snow?’ She plodded to the sliding door and heaved it open. A blast of fresh air washed through the room, dancing tinsel on their plastic tree. Grandma scraped in some more air. ‘Sunshine State, my ass! Can you believe it? Three inches, and the pool’s got a cover on it.’
Tingling like a tin angel, Young Young Miss Lamp stepped close to the door, putting her toes on the mini-golf grass of the balcony. One, two snowflakes hit her forehead and rosy cheeks, three, melting in a drip down her nose. ‘Ahh,’ Young Young Miss Lamp sighed as the snow fell. ‘It’s nice.’ She stuck out her tongue to catch a flake.
Chilly Grandma spoke. ‘Get in here, young lady, and put that tongue back in your mouth. You’re not a dog!’
Young Young Miss Lamp held the door frame for leverage and stuck her tongue further out, confident the chocolate Lab back home did exactly the same for snowflakes. Mindful of Grandma’s words, she came back in for a second or two, fingers kept just so.
Abby flinched, squinting at Grandma. ‘Why don’t you turn that frown around, old lady? And shut the door!’
So Grandma did.
In a whoosh Young Young Miss Lamp’s heart rose to her throat as the heavy steel frame of the sliding glass door pinned one of her tiny fingers to the wall. Her face went white as a golf ball.
Snowflakes hurt to catch, she thought.
§
Rin-Tin-Tin.
Paper Boy picked a clump of peach lipstick from his hair, scraping it away on the corner of a brick wall. The bricks smelled like rain. His boots tapped down the street toward the river, the street slowly tenderized by raindrops as big as nickels. His boots creased his toes because he forgot to pick up his socks after breaking his good straight tooth. By the time he spotted the river, the snappy byline on his forehead read LO.
Under the grey arch of the bridge, Paper Boy picked up an empty tin beside a flat rock, big and round as a table. The water stung his wrists as he scooped up fresh ripples into his tin. He drank the water down to a familiar stomach ache, then searched for his Demerol to relax the cramped muscles around his brittle sternum. Pewter-tipped-walking-stick brittle.
Not in his jacket.
Not in his pants.
Upset by the smell of peach, he writhed and wrenched the zipper of his jacket to a snag. A magpie scoured the opposite bank, picking at the shiny stones. The zipper didn’t give. The bottle opener that had freed the floss from his hands and feet dug well into his thigh but opened his jacket better than a zipper.
Paper Boy managed to rip the jacket down to his waist. His cold skin weaved in the breeze.
Chicken skin.
Lying down on the rocks, he wiggled and flopped the jacket to his knees, past his boots and off. The rain stopped. The laces of his boots came undone in a slip.
One. Two.
Tired pants rested on the table while he traipsed into the river.
It was as warm as June.
Paper Boy seethed in the river. A squeak and a sigh and the arch of the bridge above undulated in sheets of gold leaf. The crown of the sun shed its pink. He soaked his skin without rolling over onto his dirty stomach.
The water pulled him clean.
With raisins for fingertips, Paper Boy dried himself in the early sun. His elbows protruded dangerously, struggling up to coat-hanger shoulders. A dentist could fix my broken tooth, he thought, opening his eyes to sunbeams and his drinking tin. The bottle opener he left beside his pants had disappeared. So had his shredded jacket.
A familiar stomach ache.
On
