rooms. I’m pretty sure of it. And no matter how fast I go, he keeps running away from me, just out of reach of my headlights.
I told my brother that I’d seen Henrietta Mazur on her front porch. It’s true, but it’s not the only time I’ve seen her. Sometimes I come to Matthew’s house when I’m not invited. I park a few blocks away and walk over. I know that Mira—uppity bitch that she is—doesn’t want to see me, but I like to see her sometimes, or see my brother with her, the way he helps her cook dinner and rubs her feet at the end of the day.
He’s pretending, I think.
And now I get to see Henrietta Mazur as well.
I’ve seen her through the sliding glass doors at the back of her house. Henrietta in the kitchen, bopping along to some music I can’t hear. Once I saw her there in just a short oxford button-up and a pair of black panties. She had to stand on her toes to reach anything, and the shirt would ride up, showing off two perfect ass cheeks, just barely contained by some shiny fabric.
She’s small, with dark hair that’s cut a little short for my taste, and moves like a dancer. I imagine she’s flexible, that if you got hold of her ankles you could push her legs all the way back to either side of her head. I’ve been to her website and seen her etchings—sick, twisted stuff—and I can only imagine what goes on in her head. Sometimes I picture her with thick black pubic hair like the women on the playing cards, and sometimes I imagine she’s completely shaved. That’s what the girls these days do, right? Keep themselves shaved down there all the time, because they never know when some man will come along and pull those little panties off.
There was a murder up in New Essex outside of some bar. The singer from the band got his skull caved in. I didn’t think much of it until I saw the name of the band. The C-Beams.
Wasn’t Matthew telling me about some band he checked out at the bar near his house, said he knew the girlfriend of the lead singer and how he was cheating on her and she had no idea? It rings a bell. I don’t get over to Matthew’s house very often these days even though Mira is always away (I sometimes wonder what she gets up to on all those business trips), and sometimes I drink too much and forget what we talk about. I always think that maybe Matthew will insist I sleep on the couch some night, after I’ve had too much, but he never does. Just sends me on my way.
Brotherly love.
Haley Petersen advertises a yoga class on her Instagram. She’s teaching it in her own apartment on a Saturday morning, and I almost think I’ll go. The thought of talking with her face-to-face when I already know so much about her gets me very excited. I’ve studied all her Instagram photos (she loves to show off her body any way she can, especially doing yoga poses in lacy underpants) and read all her Twitter posts (she was depressed over the winter; she went to Lisbon in the spring) and reviewed her website (she writes terrible poetry that makes me think she’s been abused).
Imagine being in her apartment—everything is white if her Instagram is telling the truth—and being able to smell the sweat on her body. What if I was the only one who showed up? The thought is too much, so I go to Craigslist and look at the Women Seeking Men section for Boston MetroWest, nearly writing an email to HuNgRy for BaD DaDDy in Billerica. I’ve seen her posts before (no pictures, of course), but I just can’t bring myself to write her. I don’t know if I trust myself.
My father found out about my mother and the man at the swimming pond. I know because he made her wear her bathing suit around the house for weeks. She’d wear that suit when she ate her meals on the kitchen floor. Matthew says she used to eat on all fours like a dog, but I don’t remember it that way. Matthew doesn’t remember the time she returned to her old seat at the kitchen table when Dad was out of the room on a long phone call. She didn’t hear him come back into the kitchen,