Tigers, Not Daughters - Samantha Mabry Page 0,14
The two of them worked in silence, which Jessica thought was great, until Peter asked what he must’ve assumed was a simple enough question.
“So,” he said. “How are you doing?”
Jessica paused, her finger hovering over the trigger of her hand scanner.
“Fine. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Peter shrugged. “After yesterday. Because of yesterday.”
What, Jessica wondered, did Peter think the answer to his question could be? Did he want to know how Jessica went to sleep last night clutching one of Ana’s old shoes—one of her shoes—because the stink from the sole was still there, and so strong? Did he want to know how, earlier today during her shift, when a twelve-year-old girl wanted to buy the same cheap, linen-scented perfume that Ana always used to wear, Jessica sat in silent judgment of the girl’s thin, mouse-brown hair and chapped lips and too-wide eyes, as if some little girl was too weird and too unattractive for a four-dollar plastic bottle of perfume? Or did he want to know about how, while Jessica was having sex with John in the back seat of her car the other night, she started crying so loudly and violently that she’d tricked him? John had thought they’d been cries of passion, what he’d been able to pull from her depths, but they’d had nothing to do with him. Her cries were from grief and rage. She’d bitten John hard, on his shoulder, desperate to cause someone else pain.
Jessica resumed scanning. “I don’t feel anything. I’m sort of numb about it.”
“What about your dad? Is he doing any better?”
“He gets in these moods,” Jessica replied, echoing what her father had said earlier that morning. “I can’t really blame him for some of the things he does.”
“I remember when Ana died,” Peter said. “It was . . . it was awful. Your dad’s allowed to have a bad day about it. You’re allowed to have a bad day about it.”
Peter was just trying to be nice—Peter was nice—but that didn’t make his timing any less terrible or his words any less infuriating. Jessica wanted to wail like a fucking banshee because this exactly was the problem: Her entire neighborhood knew all the details of her miserable life. Peter knew. Peter’s friends knew. Peter’s friends’ grandparents knew. Mrs. Rivas from earlier today probably knew. Her fucking cat Hudspeth probably knew. They knew about Jessica’s dead mother, her dead sister, her alive but destroyed sisters, her total disaster of a dad.
Jessica’s phone chimed, and she pulled it from her back pocket to read a message from John.
hey babe! come get me and lets go somewhere! xxoo.
It was 1:06 a.m. Jessica’s shift had been over for six minutes.
“I’ll finish all this,” Peter said, gesturing to the shelves. “It’s no big deal. I’ve got all night.”
“Thanks,” Jessica murmured.
She turned and rushed down the aisle toward the break room, where she’d stored her keys and her wallet in her locker. She couldn’t wait to be alone in her car, to feel the sticky outside air and to drive with her windows rolled down.
Rosa
(early Tuesday, June 11th)
Nighttime was perfect for listening. There were birds. Mockingbirds. There were dogs. They all howled together even though they were in separate yards. Mostly, there were crickets. It was hard for Rosa to imagine a single cricket’s heart, what it looked like or how fast it beat. Dozens of crickets must fill a backyard on a summer night, all with hearts that thump or whoosh in different rhythms. All those hearts fuel all those legs that scrape together. They scrape together to create a song that will bring them a mate.
Rosa was outside, sitting in her chair and listening to the crickets. A new moon, a perfect white circle, was perched just above the telephone wires, and the air was thick. There were probably going to be storms again. Rosa’s hair was puffed around her head, and her bare feet sank a little into the still-damp ground. She felt buzzy and full of static.
Something landed on Rosa’s shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw a firefly. She watched it launch off her arm, disappear, glow, disappear, glow. She stood and