by Haley Elizabeth Tyson
The clock on the dashboard of her Toyota Camry is four minutes behind, and so is she, apparently. Nina has never been proud of the train tracks that loop and twist in her brain, working normally until the loud crash and smoking metal remind everyone around her that she would indeed be more like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland than she would care to admit. She always wanted to be more like Alice. Curious, with a cute outfit. But as she walks into The Cheesecake Factory, her pulse tries desperately to settle and be at one again with her breath. The checkered black-and-white floors smell faintly of lemon, a scent that lingers beneath the aromas of the food that passes Nina, carried by quick-moving waiters. Her throat tightens beneath Peter’s stare as she turns the corner to find the chair she knows is meant for her.
The lights are dim, and he’s already seated, 18th-century garb on full display, though he doesn’t seem to care that the velvet quilted house coat clinging to his broad shoulders clashes with the teal tablecloth he already spilled wine on. His hair is short, almost buzzed, and his cologne hits her nostrils before she’s even sat down, like he’s snuck into his dad’s stash and wanted to take enough to last the night. Nina is dressed like she’s about to go to a funeral, like she’s cosplaying a moth still trying to find the light. His handsome face glows in the candlelight, and the smile that spreads across his face is one of triumph. Yet, there is a youthful nature to him that comes across in each flicker of the flame. A carelessness not yet grown weary with the burden of age.
Nina is aware that all of this sounds stark raving mad, and the wine swirling in her newly poured glass would agree. It sloshes ruby while she pretends to waft its heady fragrance. Even though they’ve never met before, she is pondering how to begin speaking to yet another man who will most likely give her no choice but to guard her heart. She’s been half-tempted to hammer and nail it to a wall somewhere where she can keep a close eye on it. But a nail hole in a heart does more damage than good, she knew. They told her mother, the day she was born, that she was an angel, wrapped so tightly she could barely squirm as she slept. Angels aren’t supposed to talk about their bleeding and sticky hearts, dripping as they try to beat, unable to find that same rhythm they used to know like an old friend.
Their waiter approaches them with apprehension, trying to determine if they were two freaks four months late for Halloween. He orders chicken fingers in his thick Russian accent, laced with something she can’t quite place, speaking loud enough to bring the blood closer to the surface of her cheeks. They stare at each other for a frozen pond’s length of time before she clears her throat to break the silence. As she does this, she starts to notice the other patrons of this establishment doing what they can to keep their gawking glances from being too obvious. Her blood dances with the wine in her glass, whispering a comforting reminder that she can always order another if she needs extra courage. She glances at the menu and snarls inwardly at the prices. This place isn’t even that good!
“So, tell me about yourself,” Nina says, trying to keep her head from swimming to places where her feet can no longer touch. The quick nature of his response startles her, like it was stepping on her heel, drawing blood.
“Marvelous place, is it not?” Peter says quickly. They both pause for a second. So, he’s not the only person at this table who would rather not practice the monogamous ritual of being forced to sell yourself. They don’t have the luxury of finding love in a high school biology classroom. It’s taken her 29 years, but she finally learned the untold truth: that she must work for her love; let them see the goods she has to offer, laid out on a platter, so they know what they’re investing in. These two didn’t get the chance to fall in love from afar- heart racing in the hallway, passing notes in class. They matched on Hinge. Nina smiles politely, though it doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Once you’ve seen one of these monstrosities, you’ve seen them all, but who doesn’t love cheesecake?” she says to him like she’s in a job interview. His eyes are two vultures circling her. She wishes they could penetrate to the bone, place their gaze on her insides, and see what this heart is really made of. But he dabs his perfectly curled mustache with his napkin, then, and as he thinks, he seems to drift to another place. As he twirls the hair gently between his fingers, his eyes dance. It’s moments like these that could almost make someone believe in love. What’s going to come out of that delicate mouth of his? Will he pour from his lips the antidote to her sadness? Will he calm the roughest seas that toss her like a rag doll in her tiny boat? She is looking at him earnestly, but his eyes seem to sear through hers, like she’s a doll who is pretty to look at but even more fun to play with.
“You intrigue me,” he finally says, resting his ring-addled hands under his chin, eyes scanning until they land still as can be on her mouth. “I rather like the way your lips move when you talk, like the wings of angels have beaten a swan to death.” He’s rambling and doesn’t seem to notice or even care. “All that remains is the gleaming carcass, which would then be swiftly brought to my cook for the evening’s dinner,” he finally finishes. Her stomach churns. She laughs nervously as she clutches her locket between her fingers, opening and closing it absentmindedly as her heart takes a hit to the chest with no chainmail.
“I love swans,” she replies after the brief pause they took to laugh at his… was that supposed to be a joke? “I hear they mate for life.” He smiles at her as though she were his little pet who did a trick for the first time. Something gives her the idea he’s not good with pets, come to think of it. His eyes start trailing her again, this time with the phantom touch of his teeth. They graze her arms, her neck, the small buttons on her blouse that meet near the middle of her chest. Like the vultures in his eyes are hungry to see more. He licks his lips.
“A splendid centerpiece they do make! Huzzah!” He shouts. With a screeching crunch, he smashes his wine glass against the table and cheers loudly once more, “Huzzah!” Her heart is beating fast as she realizes that women are a hop, skip, and a jump away from swans and the breakable neck of a wine glass. She sinks back into her chair and tries not to picture the onlookers whose gasps and shrieks at the loud display crowd her with shame. She also tries not to imagine her neck bones littering the floor like shattered glass, unable to be put back together again.
Suddenly, a ringing happens in Nina’s ears, and her eyes close fast to concentrate on the pain. When they open, she is horrified to see Peter’s body violently transform and stretch into a body whose feet barely hit the floor in his chair. An eleven-year-old boy is staring back at her, his hair long, dark, and curly. He’s looking at her in disgust.
“What the fuck?” she chokes out, as the world around her spins and spins until they are in the middle of a field of grass, Nina’s old elementary school looming in the background. They are both running together, the boy and her, wet grass clinging to Nina’s shins and sneakers. It becomes clear to her that they are racing each other, and her heart is pumping with the knowledge that she’s about to win. The boy is sneaking glances at her as they run, seeing the smug grin on her face as she relishes the power coming from within her.
“You’re so ugly,” the lanky boy spits out with the bit of breath he has left in him. Nina’s breath leaves her completely. She didn’t race any other boys after that day. Abruptly, the ground beneath them is shaking, and her stomach flips as she lands ass first in the passenger seat of a car that reeks of weed. The heater scorches her skin, and she’s just about to ask him to turn it down, as she notices the Peter-turned-boy is now shifting his body again, the clothes on his back ripping as the shreds of what once was turn into something new. There is now clearly a different boy, somewhere around 16. His eyes are dark, and he’s looking at Nina like he just asked her a question she didn’t hear. He swears he’ll take her home after she agrees to blow him. She told him “no” six times until it eventually became “fine”. She was sixteen and thought he was going to ask her to the dance. He didn’t. They both see a pair of headlights in the distance, blinding them as it inches closer. There is a loud BANG, and now Nina steps carefully into the crunching snow with her house shoes on, quietly carrying her cat to her car. Bags packed, treading lightly so she doesn’t wake the man sleeping inside beyond the walls. She thought he was going to kill her. She still checks every truck she passes on the road for the license plate with the chili peppers on it.
“Their necks break like twigs in my arms,” he says, and Nina is jerked back into this sham of a restaurant. He says it in a way that almost makes her believe he could be sad if he really wanted to be. But he means it like blood is red and suffering is justified. He doesn’t worry about the mother who grew the bones that he fractures and bends beneath his hands; he takes and takes until there’s nothing left. She is back to reality, but her world is still spinning. The wine has hit its mark, and she stands, wobbling to find her footing and her strength. She is clutching her locket like it’s a rosary.
“Sometimes I think my life would have turned out so much better if I hadn’t met you,” she says calmly, with the undercurrent of a buzz that she won’t be able to bite much longer.
He is aggressively forking his plate and shoving its captives into his mouth as she speaks, quietly at first, until it reaches glass-smashing level. He tries to order more bread for the table, but the waitress doesn’t hear him.
“You had me in your hand, and then you squeezed me too hard. Like you wanted to see my insides become outsides or something. Like I was water, and you could walk on me when you pleased.”
All he could do was stare as she kept going. She imagines that the restaurant-goers were pointing and laughing, but the truth is, they were pulling her out of class, telling her that the shorts she’s wearing aren’t lady-like and that she needs to go home and change. They were announcing to her that she’d be prettier if she smiled. The chatter in the restaurant fades, and it’s just the two of them in the middle of a black and bleak nothingness.
“When I’m walking on my way home from work, I turn on the wrong street so you won’t know where I actually live. When I turn my lock at night, I pray you won’t come into my room and force me into a tug of war for my life, snuffing out the little light I had to offer this world”. She’s focusing her words on the center of his forehead. “My eyes used to see colors that faded the day I learned of your true nature, when I learned that your kisses left bruises that never really heal.” She is crying, and she wishes it were pretty and delicate like a mouse, but it’s rat-like and pointy. Not worthy of a soft place to land, a safe place to rest your eyes.
The whites of Peter’s eyes are showing as they roll back. His body is savagely morphing again into the kid from the running field, and then to the boy from the car. Truck after truck drives by Nina on the highway. If she’s not careful, she might drown in her own tears. The train tracks in her brain turn to a dark red Jello, sticky and smearing everywhere.
Wet grass that itches on her shins, car heater, chili pepper license plate. Holes in a heart, and the landlord just paints over them.
A track of villains from Nina’s memories clicks by one after the other over Peter’s body, slowing to reveal her very own father. He stares at her and has no words to say. His jeans are stained with oil from his workday, and she can still smell it on him when he comes home after many hours apart. She’d hear that garage door open and run to the front of the house, embracing her protector, the one man who has always had her heart in mind. Her father is the best man she has ever known.
It’s then that she starts to get a creeping sense, a download plugging into her hard drive.
It’s her father gently changing forms now, from the man she saw come home through the garage, beer in his hand, to a gray-haired man with the same handsome smile. He is holding his grandson, Nina’s baby boy, in a deer-print onesie, curly hair adorning the creature like a golden, unruly crown. They both smile at her and wave. The tiny babe looks like an angel, and his smile makes her forget the pain that knocks loudly on her door and peeks through her blinds. The future is daunting, but it offers a promise that she vows to wear faithfully like her favorite necklace.
She will rewrite the prophecy of man. The bones she builds will be sturdy and kind; they will have no choice but to stand the test of time, the question of whether gentleness really can make a spirit clean once again.
Nina stands up and throws down two twenty-dollar bills.
“Huzzah,” she says dryly under her breath, as she grabs her coat. This date is over. She’ll keep her heart in its plastic jar and drop it off at the dry cleaners next Tuesday. No nail or rabbit holes needed. Her love will find her curious and hungry, yearning for a world that doesn’t yet exist but could. She’ll find peace in knowing that she gave love a fighting chance, with no sword in her hand. Only the very belief that it exists. It clings to her like a secret tattoo, like the smoke from a campfire. She takes a seat in her Toyota Camry and doesn’t forget to lock the doors.