So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,41

is singing and singing and singing, her dusty paper-flower voice echoing off the tiled walls. I haven’t eaten dinner and the bathwater is so hot I feel the wine almost immediately and say thank you, Dionysus aloud. I try to sing it along with Billie, but it doesn’t fit. One of my cats comes in the bathroom to join me, the top of her tail happily hooked. I light my cigarette and wait for my eyes to fully adjust. I take a drag and inhale, finish my glass of wine, careful not to wet the paper.

“Okay, Felix,” I say before I uncrumple it.

I read it. I read it again. There’s a goosebump party on my arms and my guts feel gnawed. I read it again and again and again before I take my lighter to it and watch most of it burn before dropping it in the steaming water.

[Rewind. Before I let the paper catch fire. Camera zooms in so the audience can read the black ink, the printing, the words.]

Felix it’s your baby and you know it and you don’t have to make this so difficult. A son has the right to know who his father is. Get your fucking shit together before I have this child. Tell your girlfriend or I will! GROW UP!

[The paper burns.]

I decide to smoke two cigarettes tonight because the piece of paper warrants two cigarettes and I’ll allow myself to get off too, although it’s technically cheating and not my usual home run celebration. I’ll think about Felix and this faceless, nameless woman he got pregnant. It’s official. Felix is a certified womanizer, so it’s okay for me to think about Felix getting me pregnant too. I’d let him do whatever he wanted, I’d do whatever he wanted. I’d keep the baby or I’d have an abortion or shut up and go away and raise them alone, let him come visit them in secret, secretly bring them to his baseball games and whisper that’s your daddy into their ear and point whenever Felix stepped up to the plate. Put them in a tiny Phoenix jersey. I would. I’d do whatever he wanted. Anything. Everything. And I knew burning the paper could hurt Felix, so I’d crossed the line. He would wonder what happened to it or who found it. It would worry him. But it was so careless of him to accidentally leave something like that lying around. That recklessness blew my hair back, made me love him more. He must be a mess. Maybe I can give him a signal. Maybe I can tell him I found a piece of paper on the floor outside his locker and I tossed it. Maybe I’ll even give him a little wink so he can wonder what it means. What will he do then? I’ll have to put on some of his Chapstick before I go online tonight to try and find out who this woman is. Who writes things on paper anymore? Whatever. I’ll reassure him I didn’t even look at it. No, I would never look at it. I would never go through his things. That would be weird and I’m not like that. Nope, not me. Ew. And Felix will soften his face and ask me why I’m crying, but I won’t know what to say.

Teenage Dream Time Machine

Today 8:35 p.m.

Ok, so where’s Shelly?

In Cancun with her boyfriend.

Wow, really?

Oh girl, she bought the tiniest bikini the day their divorce was final.

This is the young guy she works with?

Yep. He’s practically a fetus.

He’s not!

He’s 25.

Ok wow, he IS a fetus. I had no idea.

Both Keri and Hannah have a crush on him. Probably Claire too. I get it. He’s really cute.

I always thought Shelly and Alex were happy together, but I know that’s what everyone always thinks.

Do you think Mike and I are happy together?

Sure! You two seem like it.

We are! We are. I was just wondering if we seemed like it. Sometimes you can’t tell.

Do Dave and I seem happy together?

Are you kidding me? Dave thinks you’re the only woman God created. I know you two are happy together. You, what, met in elementary school or something?

Middle school.

Same thing. It’s pretty much law that you two have to stay together. If y’all break up, I’ll kill myself.

Stop it.

You think I’m kidding.

I was worried you and Shelly were mad at me after the girls snuck out.

Mad at you? For what?

For not keeping a close enough eye on them…like it was our fault.

Oh, please.